Who replaces Southgate and early pre-season predictions – Football Weekly podcast

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

We've returned after two long weeks off because we love each other and we love you so much that we couldn't wait any longer.

Things to talk about: the New England manager.

Should Gareth just give Graham Potter his old handbreak?

Thief Pro versus football, is there too much of it?

And what's anyone going to do about it?

Preseason, Manchester City lose two in a row.

Crisis.

Manchester United lose to Arsenal and get a couple of injuries.

Crisis Chelsea.

Too many reasons to list.

Crisis.

Premier League games played abroad inevitable or not bad or really bad.

And then there's Fishcake Stopping Football.

Barry's influence on the English language.

Your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello.

Hello, Jonathan Wilson.

Morning.

How are you, Dan?

Tremendous.

Thank you very much.

Lars Sivardson, good morning.

Hello, Max.

Our mate, Johnny Nicholson from Football 365.

When I tweeted out for questions, he said, summer is over.

This is how summer is now defined, whether we are on or off.

So hope you enjoyed your two weeks of summer.

We'll begin with this question from Shane, who says, does Kieran Trippier give England enough going forward down the left?

Seems to me he's more naturally inclined to come inside on his favoured right foot.

So look, Gareth Southgate announced he was stepping down while we were off.

As a proud Englishman, it's been the honor of my life to play for England and manage England.

It's meant everything to me.

I've given it my all.

It's time for a change, for a new chapter.

Sunday's final in Berlin against Spain was my final game as England manager.

Now, we do not need to dedicate any more time to whether he was good or not.

If you want that conversation, please go to the last four or five pods from this Euros or the previous World Cup or the Euros before that or the World Cup before that.

But the question is, who replaces him?

Jonathan Wilson, who comes in to be the next England manager?

I don't know, and I'm slightly surprised that there hasn't been slightly more movement on that in the

what is it, was it now 13 days

since he resigned?

Feels like months, doesn't it?

It feels that long ago.

I mean, Ireland took over well over 100 days to appoint a replacement for Stephen Kenney.

No rush.

My suspicion, and

this is based on some information, but I wouldn't say absolutely conclusive, definitive information,

is that there is a body within the FA who quite like the idea of Guadiola and they think he might be available next summer.

Although he has slightly sort of retreated on it,

he had said last year that he thought this season would be his last.

In the last couple of days, he's backtracked on that.

I think there are two advantages to that if they appoint Lee Carsley, the current under 21 coach as an interim manager so one is if they just appoint lee karsley you know and that's it i think a lot of people will be who what why has he been appointed because people don't realize that he led the the under 21's success they don't realize what a good job he's done with the under 21s um i think there's there's generally although often we see as with lucid lafuente we see that technocrats from within the fa being appointed actually can be a very good thing because they understand how the system works they've often worked with the players at youth level.

So, I mean, personally, I think Lee Carcy would actually be probably a pretty good appointment.

But I can see why there'd be a general reluctance to that.

And it's, say, Salem would lose to the Republic of Ireland in September, there'd be an outcry against that.

Whereas, if he's only interim, you remove some of that pressure.

If he then starts well, if Guadilla doesn't want the job next summer, then, you know, as with Southgate, who's initially appointed on an interim basis, he's got a bit of credit in the bank, and people might think, oh, you know, keep going.

It may be that Lee Carcy's not cut out for the job, and then you have a year of trying that out, and you can bin him off without anybody being too embarrassed.

So

Lee Carcy is an interim, I think, makes a lot of sense at the moment.

But how likely that is, I don't know.

Yeah.

Who are the body within the FA who aren't keen on Guardiola?

That's the

point.

I think there is a legitimate feeling that England should have an English manager.

And I don't say that from some sort of position of jingoism.

I think international football should be the best of our country against the best of your country.

I can absolutely see reasons why for developing nations, there are reasons to seek expertise from elsewhere.

I can see why some managers

may have an affinity to a country that's not their own if they've worked there for a long time or whatever.

I think there are exceptions to that, but as a general principle, I think the England team should have an English manager.

And not to have that is a bit of an ambition of failure.

Well, the thing that I think about then, I'm excited to hear that there is a body of thought within the FA that we could go, well, they could go somewhere more exciting than

the obvious choices, because if you look at like the bookies' favorites,

the three favoured ones are Grand Potter, Eddie Howe, and Lee Casley.

And they're all, we can all see the logic there.

But if they want to take a big swing at a big name from the club game, which we know doesn't always work, but I'm kind of surprised that it's Guardiola and not Jurgen Klopp, which is the name that they're keen on, because you mentioned having an affinity with the country.

I get the sense that, like,

I'm not saying Guardiolette doesn't like it in England, but I don't feel like with Klopp, there was much more, okay, maybe more totemercy side than to England, but there was much more of a sense that he's sort of got it.

He's come straight in and understand the thinking, understand the ways.

You can absolutely imagine Klopp being talked into doing the England job for a while because he's a little bit, he's been saying he's been a little bit tired from the club game.

Maybe this sort of low-intensity international gig would suit him for a couple of years at least, and taking England to the next World Cup in the US.

And he would,

you know what that would look like if Klopp was opponent and he was sat there in the press conferences and he'd be saying charming Jürgen Klopp things and you can imagine him jumping up and down on the sideline and just going you know you know

come on Calvin Phillips or something who he's back into it and

you can completely imagine that with Guardiola I feel like it's so much tougher.

The idea of transitioning his sort of mega-intense approach to things and these super technical, tactical thing to international football, it seems like a tougher sell to me.

i don't disagree with any of that the the difference i think is that klop remains a proud german whereas guariolo's relationship with spain is i think a bit different i think it's much harder to see guardielo to be manager of spain given his support for catalonian nationalism than it is to see klop's manager of germany so guariolo is almost you know without state in this you know in in when it comes to international football i do like the idea of pep as england manager you know there are what a million teams at the next world cup you know so we're playing since kitts and nevis and he Pep before the game is, they are so, so, so, so good.

So, so, so, so good.

Barry, any strong thoughts on all of this?

Well, I presume if Pep was given the job, he would have to take a massive, massive, or indeed Jürgen Klopp, take massive pay cuts.

Garrett Southgate, I believe, was on about three and a half millions, certainly less than five.

So, uh, Pep or Jürgen Klopp would have to take a massive pay cut compared to what they're used to.

I presume they don't need the money.

It will be less work.

But

people in football seem to be obsessed with money.

I suspect the FA will probably go for an Englishman.

I don't think Lee Carsley would be a terrible appointment, certainly on an interim basis, see how he gets on.

I suspect Eddie Howe is probably interested in this gig because I think he would look at this, the squad available and think, I could win a World Cup with this,

with these players.

Newcastle have had a summer of upheaval, I would say, not turmoil, but certainly upheaval.

Amanda Staveley is gone.

She's a big Howe ally.

They've had to sell a couple of players to make ends meet, to meet FSP.

They might have to sell another couple if they want to bring up new players in.

There's talk Bruno Gimaraes may leave.

I think City are after him, among others.

But the problem with Eddie Howe is if he became England manager, he would no longer be able to peddle this, I am just a humble football coach, if, you know, political issues came up, stuff he, you know, that are part of the England job, stuff you have to deal with, that Gareth Southgate was very good at dealing with for a while.

So yeah, Eddie Howe would need to

up his game on that front because the manner in which he fielded questions about this public investment fund and human rights abuses often left a lot to be desired, I think.

Moving on, Treasure Count says, With Erling Harlan stating that 70 games a season is too many, will the pod limit their episodes in solidarity?

I'm sure Barry would be in favour.

Yeah, the top European leagues, including the Premier League and Global Players Union, FIF Pro, will launch legal action against FIFA over its, quote, abusive dominance in the game.

FIFPRO's statement said the international calendar is now beyond saturation, unsustainable for national leagues and a risk for the health of players.

It added, FIFA's decisions over the last years have repeatedly favoured its own competitions and commercial interests, neglected its responsibilities as a governing body and harmed the economic interests of national leagues and the welfare of players.

FIFA said the current calendar was unanimously approved by the FIFA Council, which is composed of representatives from all continents, including Europe, following a comprehensive and inclusive consultation, which included FIFPRO and league bodies.

FIFA must protect the overall interests of world football, including the protection of players everywhere and at all levels of the game.

I mean, there is too much football, Lars, is it?

I don't know if it is entirely FIFA's fault, is it?

It just seems to me that

this push towards putting more and more things in the calendar, it's kind of driven.

It's a case of everyone acting to some extent in their own interest.

Everyone involved in football seems to want to make more money.

And the players are clearly not exempt from that.

And it's something that's worth bearing in mind.

You know, whenever

a new sort of a new batch of cash comes into football, be that from a big new television deal or from a revamp champions league or anything like that, what we see is that like

in in completely in line with the extra money that comes into the clubs, the wage bills go up by just about as much as the new money that just came in.

I mean that's where it all goes.

And so the clubs are always pushing to try to make more money.

They put pressure on the FAs and the organizing bodies to make more money for them.

And in the end, most of it goes to the players.

Now, that's not me suggesting for a second that the players are at fault.

I'm not saying that

you deserve to play 70 games a season, but it's maybe something they should be aware of.

They're all asking for pay rises constantly, and that money has to come from somewhere.

And one of the things people keep doing is adding more things to the calendar.

And I know that's not universally true.

The Club World Cup is a bit of a power play from FIFA as well, I believe.

But what I'm curious about is...

You know, FIFA don't seem interested or capable in putting their foot down and saying we need to stop all these games.

The Premier League, all the organizing bodies want more and more, and the clubs seem completely fine with this.

And when when the clubs do have a break, they all go to Singapore or wherever it is they go.

So they're not exactly doing much to look after the players themselves.

It does seem to me that if anyone's actually going to stop this development, it is going to have to be the players, which is kind of unfair.

Now, going on strike, which has been mooted, I'm not

sure that'll happen.

But what I would like to see, and what would be interesting to see, would be a player, a top player, a huge name player, actually

not ask for a raise the next time he asks for a contract, actually even takes a wage cut next time in his contract, but actually stipulates, I am playing playing so-and-so many minutes of football next season.

I'm not playing anything more.

Like, this is how much I'm playing.

This is how much I'm going to be available for the club.

I'm happy to take a slightly smaller deal or a more sort of bonus driven or something, but I'm actually not going to play more minutes because that doesn't work for me.

If you pay me a minute, if you pay me a minute more than that, you have to give me like obscene bonuses or something.

I honestly think, because everything is so profit-driven and

driven by those sorts of forces within football, I increasingly think that's the only way you can actually get somewhere with this fixture congestion list stuff.

I think Scott Carson has that in his contract already.

North minutes.

I do like the idea of coaching staff and managers having to cross the picket line if the players are on strike and we get to see how good they are.

I mean, I understand what you're saying, Larson.

You might be right that that's

the only way of stopping

increasing amounts of football.

But I also think there's just no chance of that happening on a practical level.

Wilson, I don't know what you think.

Yeah, I mean, the problem with that is that you can see players are going to that with the best of intentions, and you can have, you know, whether a formal or informal arrangement, all players say, right, we're going to play

X hundred numbers of minutes this season.

And then it gets to,

you know, I don't know, the Champions League quarterfinal.

And you're like,

sorry, mate, you're a bit low on minutes.

So what we're going to do, we're going to drop you for this game, but you can play against Bournemouth next week in the league.

And also, or, you know, kind of, oh, look, really sorry, mate.

I I know you've played the last six games, but there's three centre-forwards injured.

You're the only centre forward we've got.

Do you want us to get to the Champions League semi-final?

So the problem is that

it's very easy for clubs to put pressure on players to play.

And the players would themselves want to play in big games.

I mean, whether the players could do something but stipulate, you know, similar to what Last saying, but stipulate, I will only play X number of minutes in the group stage of the Champions League.

I will only play

X number of minutes in domestic cup competitions.

That might be a way of doing it.

But I guess then the danger is that managers just don't really fancy him he can be sold.

But also, there's a guess, Barry, there's a question about appetite, right?

And, you know, we often talk about how much football there is.

And, you know, at some point you get to a stage where I can't watch the championship game on a Friday night.

I'm just like, I'm full up this week.

I've had Champions League, Europa League.

But,

and I think BLS, I mean, maybe on a slightly different was talking about, you know, like, the love of football and how it made change, right?

And how, you know, we're, you know, sort of abusing this thing that we love.

But it does seem like there is an appetite, right?

You know, there's an appetite from like fans abroad when teams go there.

There's, you know, when the FIFA Club World Cup happens, and I'm not sure which is what's happening in what summer, fans will go to those things, you know, players will want to play in them, or they will play in them whether they want to or not, and they will celebrate them.

So it's sort of, I wonder if like the bubble, it doesn't, people have said the bubble will burst.

I just don't see how it will burst.

Yeah, I mean, it does.

I'm often left baffled when I see these massive crowds at pre-season friendlies in the States and whatever.

But then these clubs have fans in the States.

It's the only opportunity they get many of them get to go and see these teams or these sort of pale facsimiles of the teams they support playing, going through the motions in a pre-season friendly.

AFCON, I believe the next one's already had to be rescheduled to facilitate the Club World Cup, which is being held next June and July.

I'll be interested to see how much interest there is in that competition, because I just have this feeling it's something nobody really wants.

I don't think clubs want it.

I don't think players want it.

I don't think fans are even particularly interested in it.

But it may well prove to be very popular.

I think we all thought the Nations League was going to be a complete farce when that was

brought in, and it's actually turned out to be quite a decent competition.

Ditto'd the Europa Conference League.

We all thought, oh, we don't need this.

And that's turned out to be okay.

One of UEFA's better ideas.

So I suppose we just have to wait for the outcome of this court case.

The clubs make our FIFPRO make a very good case, but...

FIFA's rebuttal is quite interesting as well, because they say some leagues in Europe, themselves competition organisers and regulators, because that was an accusation that's been leveled at FIFA.

They organize the competitions and they regulate the competitions.

That's a conflict of interest.

Some leagues in Europe are acting with commercial self-interest, hypocrisy, and without consideration to everyone else in the world.

Those leagues apparently prefer a calendar filled with friendlies and summer tours, often involving extensive global travel.

That's a fair point.

So you can kind of see both sides' point of view, and they are both...

very much looking out for their own financial interests.

Just a brief note on the Club World Cup.

I think there's an absolute ton of money in it, so I think it might be quite popular with the clubs who are ever trying to make more money, most of which will end up going to the players.

And this is just going to, this is what's driving everything.

Like, everyone wants to play more games so they can make more money.

And again, the players get most of it.

So

ideally, this is where FIFA is failing, I guess, because FIFA seems to be the organization in here that doesn't...

Like, FIFA is more meant to be managing the game, like growing commercial income for the clubs that are already big doesn't seem like something that should be part of FIFA's charter.

Logically, they should be the one that can step in, say, and say this is actually bad for the game, what's happening now, but that doesn't look like something that's going to happen in Gianni Fontino's FIFA anytime soon.

I'm not sure there is much money in the Club World Cup, there's potentially huge amounts of money in it, but at the moment, they haven't, they've only just put out the tenders of marketing contracts.

I mean, the whole thing seems incredibly rushed.

As far as I'm aware, they haven't even booked any stadiums to play the games in.

There's no one big park, jumpers for goalposts.

This could be good, couldn't it?

Like soccer six, it'll be be chelsea versus baby shambles suddenly i'm in

those comments by anchilotti towards the end of last season where he sort of said oh look

me

interested in this and he was forced to attract them but i think that was reflecting the conversations that are going on within real madrid because they've realized hang on unless for instance saudi arabia suddenly step in to fund this thing which they may well do in which case there would be huge amounts of money Why on earth do we want to play in this tournament, which has no prestige, no history?

I can see why Chelsea want to play in it because it's a chance for them to actually win something.

And they can say, oh, look, we've, you know, this new era, the Todd Bowley era, the Clear Lake era now has its first trophy.

Or, you know, maybe their second, third, fourth, or fifth trophy by then.

But

I think, I don't know, the whole thing seems a bit of a shambles at the minute.

I'm not convinced it'll happen at all.

But what I think is interesting about this court case, there have been rumblings for, I would say, three or four years, serious rumblings from the big Western European nations, to a lesser extent, Common Ball, but I think Argentina and Brazil would very quickly jump on board that they're not happy with the modern FIFA.

And I wonder if this is, well, I don't know if this definitely is part of that power play.

I don't think it's at all inconceivable that in, say, five years, FIFA is split and you have the European powers, and they would take Argentina, Brazil, other big South American powers, and then probably the US and Mexico, and then I guess Japan and South Korea with them, and the rest are left scrambling.

This has been the problem

since Avalanche became president of FIFA 50 years ago.

That,

yes, expansion of the World Cup on the face of it, certainly 1974, looked like a good thing.

It looked like the World Cup was too small for the size of the number of countries you wanted to play football.

You look at all the things like the gold project, which I think began in

25 years, I think it was 99, the first gold project, which is how FIFA distributes cash to other associations.

All of them look like good things on the surface, but then you realize it's clientelism.

It's a way of paying your backers.

Why is the World Cup expanded from 32 to 48 teams?

Partly, it's to make more money for FIFA.

Partly, it's so they've got more baubles to hand out to people who might vote for Imperino at the next election.

I don't see how it ever gets brought into line.

It just gets bigger and bigger and bigger until it explodes.

And I wonder, maybe we're getting close to that point now that the big Western European powers might think, actually, the vote of smaller African nations, Caribbean nations, smaller Asian nations, we don't care anymore.

We're going to go our own way.

All right.

Well, we'll just wait and see, I guess.

That'll do for part one, part two: the

fascination of preseason.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

A lot of attention paid to friendlies this summer.

Producer Joel

even saw a compilation of Romeo Lavia's performance for Chelsea V.

Rex.

Who is it for?

I'd be surprised if Romeo Lavia's immediate family was watching that.

Joel says, is there a more obvious sign of Man City winning a fifth league title in the row than them losing their two opening preseason games?

They lost 4-3 to Celtic and 3-2 to AC Milan.

They haven't made anything like their strongest 11.

What do we think, Barry?

Well, my main takeout from Manchester City losing against Celtic was that Casper Smeichel plays for Celtic.

When did that happen?

That one completely passed me by.

I think it's early enough for it to not have passed you by.

To know before August.

I would say you're ITK, Barry.

I'm ITK.

So I wasn't even remotely

bothered by the result or intrigued by the result.

That was my only takeout from that friendly was, oh, Casper Smikel plays for celtic uh i i missed that uh transfer so um yeah look these games are not important the results are not important maybe the performances are slightly important but you know they're not playing anywhere near full strength teams lots of players are still on holidays since after the euros so to read anything into the results uh i would say

would be very daft but obviously i suppose winning a friendly is better than losing one yeah i mean i i i suppose for the in the interest of the premier league this season wilson barry and i in a very rare off-air conversation about football we're talking about how actually like it's it's really interestingly said there are so many clubs in the premier league this season we just have no idea how they're gonna go and for that to be really interesting we need city to sort of go a bit badly because you sense they might have to be not quite as good as last season to win it this season yes and the thing with city is we know they get better as the season goes on so you almost feel that whoever whoever's going gonna challenge him needs to be you know six points clear at Christmas to have a chance of clinging on they're like Liz McColgan aren't they like Steve Cram no like they are Steve Cram of football you know coming from behind I know what are they what what are

well cram would always or cram would always have a long kick wouldn't he he'd pretty much he yeah he kicked sort of last 400 meters whereas Co would go the last hundred

right but cram was a much you know co was a much smoother runner than cram cram you could really see the effort whereas co just sort of yeah glided, yeah, like Burbat.

Yeah, I was just, I was about to say that, but I was like, is it glid or is it gliders?

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think the fact that City have lost a couple of games in preseason matters at all.

You know, and certainly the Celtic games, Celtic are far deeper into their preseason.

I think City will be fine.

Controversial stuff on the Granny Fibre weekly this week.

You're probably right.

40 ML does that

coverage.

Man City will probably be fine.

Not relegation candidates this season.

Well, I was sorry to doing my swatting up ahead of this pod over a couple of days last week.

And there's something interesting about nearly every single team in the Premier League, apart from Fulham.

I just look at Fulham and it's like,

shoulder shrug.

Yeah, you say that, Barry, but it is quite close to my fucking.

So

I'm all in favour of Fulham.

I'm happy to cover Fulham.

There's every chance Fulham will now, you know, absolutely implode and get relegated or win the title because they're the only I look at the Premier League and they're the only team where I'm kind of like meh whatever but you know how well

I watched

Glenn Murray and Paul Hayward do do a get-to-know you interview with the new Brighton manager Fabian Herzler he looks just seems a very impressive and interesting young man he speaks very well so I'm looking forward to seeing how he gets on at Brighton how will Crystal Palace get on you know they did they were really good under Glasnar at the back end of last season, but they've no Michael Elise now.

How will they kick on?

Newcastle, you know, as I say, a lot of change there over the summer and

they've had to sell players to balance the books.

They're not sure if they've balanced the books.

They could.

There was a big fear they might get a points deduction.

There's still concerns they might get a points deduction.

Will Eddie Howby still be there?

How will Liverpool get on under Arnest slot?

Will United improve?

I did did notice with interest actually, Innias Grenadiers had a very, very bang-average tour to France.

Was Aaron Wambasaka lead cyclist?

Will Chelsea still be a shit show?

Nobody knows what to expect from Leicester and what kind of financial state are they in?

Ipswich under Kieran McKenna.

Will Everton still be a basket case club?

So it's loads and loads of interesting stuff.

And if, if, you know, doing your predicted Premier League table, it's going to be pretty tricky.

Yeah, this is the most exciting thing is that, you know, we're two weeks away from the season and Barry is still enthused by 19 of the 20 clubs.

We do that in November and then again in March.

We see how it's gone.

We do have to talk about Chelsea.

I've had some poor results, but the Enzo Fernandez story broke after we finished our little break.

He posted a video in social media after Argentina's Copper America win that the French Football Federation says included an alleged racist and discriminatory chant.

Enzo's Chelsea teammate Wesley Fafana posted a response to the video on Instagram, labelled it as uninhibited racism.

Fernandez has posted an apology message on his social media channels.

Chelsea said in a statement, Chelsea Football Club finds all forms of discriminatory behavior completely unacceptable.

We're proud to be a diverse, inclusive club where people from all cultures, communities, and identities feel welcome.

We acknowledge and appreciate our players' public apology.

We'll use this as an opportunity to educate.

The club has instigated an internal disciplinary procedure.

I mean, the song really questioned the heritage of French players.

It was after the Qatar World Cup.

You know, it was pretty grim.

You know, Chelsea have an opportunity now to make a statement.

And it obviously wasn't just Fernandez.

Lars, you know, the other people, other players singing in that video.

But there always appears to be a sliding scale of sort of morality and ethics, depending on how good and important a player is.

Yeah, there's an element of that.

I thought it was, I mean, interesting feels like a bad word to use, but it was something that the reaction was quite so strong from his teammates quite so quickly.

That kind of suggests to me that this might be a bit of an issue because

we have seen incidents in the past of players maybe saying or doing slightly disagreeable things, to put it very, very mildly, unacceptable things.

when they go back to their clubs, it all just kind of, we've had an internal process and we move on.

And it just seems to me that that's a little bit harder when his actual teammates have made it clear how awful awful and rightly so they felt that this was and i think the sort of pr speak coming out of chelsea has been a little bit sort of yeah we're going to speak about this internally i was like okay good luck with that because it's it's kind of hard to make the case that like i don't actually have these thoughts in my head i just say them when i'm very happy like this is not very logical to me like i don't

it's a it's a tough apology uh for for him to make and and and maybe it'll be fine maybe they'll just go back in training and move on but this seems to me that like it's one of those that might not be.

It says here on a completely different note, Barry, you've been keeping an eye on Ben Godfrey.

I mean, I hope in a sort of U.S.

cop style way, you're, you know, you're in a Buick, sort of lying in the front seat, like with coffee and donuts, just taking photos wherever you see Ben.

But like, to what extent have you been keeping an eye on Ben Godfrey?

Where is he now?

He's at Atalanta.

So

he's gone to Atalanta.

It was just another one that took me by surprise in the same vein as Cash Fris Michael being at Celtic.

I had no idea Ben Godfrey was off to Atalanta, and I wish them all the very best in his Syria adventure.

Yeah, we all do.

Silky says that, what are you making of the Spurs clear out and signing of good young players such as Archie Gray, Bergval and Yang Wilson?

What do you reckon?

What's year two under Ange going to look like?

The end of year one was pretty poor, and he, I don't want to say he got away with it because the start of year one was so so good.

But there's definitely more questions to answer.

If you said to Totland fans, beginning of last year, you will finish on this many points in whatever what position did they finish?

Fifth?

Fifth, I think.

Yeah, fifth.

Most people would have been very, very happy.

But the fact that those points were so front-loaded and there were some issues towards the end of the season,

I think there are some doubts there, which maybe you wouldn't have anticipated given that scenario.

I think it makes complete sense that the overhaul of a squad goes on.

I think all clubs now are very focused on youth.

I mean, players have got younger, right?

That's not just me getting older.

Players are getting younger.

And I guess their careers are going on longer, but I saw something Miguel Delaney wrote saying the

average age of players of the year was 24 or something, whereas previous ones have been 27 or 28.

So are they getting, so, so, so, you know, star players are coming out, you know, there are more 16-year-olds, more 17-year-olds sort of

getting to first-team football more quickly.

But are like, are there more 28-year-olds disappearing?

Or are they just increasing?

As a squads are getting big, I don't know.

I I think it's something to do with the intensity of football that even by the late twenties people are beginning to struggle with that.

Now careers clearly can go on longer because we're you know we're far better conditioning and and everything but uh

there is more of a focus on on young players.

I mean uh I can I wish I could remember the stat exactly so they don't you know if I i i if if that stat is not correct it's me, it's not Miguel.

I'm his I'm sure his stat was right.

But I I think even from a uh PSR point of view, signing young players is even even even a team like Tottenham, that's what they've got to do because they they can't afford to lose huge amounts of money on them.

I I I think you should just throw Maguela under the bus.

Don't worry about covering his oh no, there's loads of things I could throw under the bus for, just not that.

He's a total fraud.

Gav says, are you for or against Premier League games being played abroad?

This comes up again because Sadiq Khan was on the Sports Agents podcast and he said I think that's the way it's going.

We've seen some other leagues across Europe have some of their competitive games held elsewhere.

All thirty-two NFL teams have now played in London.

All of them have had a great experience.

We have some top baseball teams now playing in London.

Lil's like, does he have to say that because of what, you know, London is basically stealing games from other sports?

Or is football different?

Yeah,

maybe.

I don't know why, but this for me feels like one of those

once you do that, you've taken a very...

I mean, the sport is always kind of perennially sliding from a state of being a sport into just kind of being content creation.

There seems to be the constant sort of sliding scale that football moves from being a proper sport into being just about creating content.

And for some reason, for me, to my mind, actually just taking your games abroad feels like a big step on that sliding scale.

There's no reason to do it.

Like I have nothing but respect and admiration for people who are fans of a club in a different country to what they grew up in.

I kind of went through that myself.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to see your team play closer to where where you are and play a game that's not like a completely meaningless friendly where half the players are kids and I understand why people want that, but I don't understand why the Premier League needs it.

It's enormously popular.

It's doing very well.

There hasn't been a, I mean, if there's a concern over TV rights deals and stuff, that's more to do with consumer patterns and cord cuttings and how all that's happening anyway.

I don't see what they need to go anywhere to grow the sport.

The sport is pretty big at the moment.

And you are making a complete sort of, it's always been you play each other home and away in your own stadium.

This is what the league is.

And the second you sort of start moving that, it's and comparing it to American sports, I think, is kind of daft because that's always you've had franchises who's moved around and have just moved cities and like you don't have the same connection with the local community.

You just don't.

You can argue the Premier League clubs don't anymore anyway, because they're just massive sort of entertainment industry complexes now.

But it feels like a big one to me.

I think this is one of those where fans will object quite a lot.

I'd like to think at least because it's just it's a bit of an abomination.

I think this links into what we talked about in the first part: about the fact that there's too many games, the fact that there's a club World Cup.

And the problem is

that in an ideal world,

English fans want to watch English clubs, US fans want to watch US clubs,

Indian fans want to watch Indian clubs, Japanese fans want to watch Japanese clubs, Australian fans want to watch Australian clubs, and there'll be some kind of parity.

Obviously,

some leagues will be better than others, but

your local domestic product will be worth watching.

But the problem is now, because the Premier League has become this sort of great, great force just sucking in talent from everywhere, the Premier League has almost become like the NBA or the NFL or something, where

it is obviously the peak of the game.

Now, that makes sense in US sports because US sports are US sports.

Basketball may be slightly different, but they're not really played to the same level by the rest of the world.

So, if you want to watch the best club football, well, the best football, you kind of have to watch the Premier League.

So, that I understand why there's an appetite abroad abroad to get those games in your country so it's easier for fans in that country to watch.

In the same way, I understand why English fans of American football want to watch games in London.

But it it seems to me an admission by the countries that be staging those games, it seems an absolute admission of failure on their part that they can't produce a domestic product that's going to get domestic eyeballs.

And it's

to an extent it's not their fault.

It's to do with the way that revenues have flowed and FIFA's complete inability to to try and regulate that um but it's also from an english point of view from proponent of view what do we get in return you know if we lose you know a weekend of football although presumably every team would have to sacrifice a home game so you'd lose two weekends of football 20 games what do we get back for exporting 20 games we get some money going to some players who aren't english anyway to owners who aren't English anyway.

We just exported this thing.

We got nothing back.

Does it just mean people watch the championship?

Or does it mean that we get, I don't know, can we have sort of some third-tier US soccer come over to kind of fill the gap?

The Kalamazoo Outrage could play the Wisconsin Bobcats and it could be just tremendous.

I might get to see my beloved Woodland Chimberland.

Finally, yeah,

playing in Brixton.

Champion Hill.

Yeah.

All right, that'll do for part two.

I'll do any other business in part three.

coach the energy out there felt different what changed for the team today it was the new game day scratchers from the california lottery play is everything those games sent the team's energy through the roof are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field hey a little play makes your day and today it made the game that's all for now coach one more question play the new los angeles chargers san francisco 49ers and los angeles rams scratchers from the california lottery a little play can make your day please play responsibly must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Look, there's obviously a lot of transfer gossip doing the rounds.

If I could ask each of you for one possible transfer that you think is interesting, I'd be happy to hear it.

If you have none, also fine.

I will begin with you.

Lars, as in the WhatsApp group, you are most enthusiastic about this idea.

Well, I just thought it'd be a good way to

fill some time, I guess.

That's what we're here for.

It's not a lot going on.

But listen, we've talked about it a little bit already.

Let's talk about transfers.

That would be fun.

That would be interesting.

Maybe this is a bit obvious because the obvious one, it's been

in the thing, in the news all summer, and it might end up happening.

The obvious one is like Eza to Tottenham because he's young, he's technical, he's fun.

Spurs would maybe be a better sort of platform for him to do his stuff than Palace can be.

It would be maybe nicer for him to go to Spurs than maybe go to one of the very, very biggest clubs because they, you know, the sort of flare players can be a bit restricted there.

But I want to, just to make this more interesting, I want to bring up a slightly less rational thing,

which is,

I have this vision in my head, and I'm sure it's been linked somewhere.

This is a great thing about transfer rumors.

Someone will have talked about this.

I would like to see Jack Wheelish leave Manchester City and go to Tottenham.

I think this would be tremendous.

I would like to see this happen.

It's been so sad to see Jack Wheelish be reduced to just a man who sits on the bench a lot, and when he comes on, he looks like he's afraid to do any of the Jack Wheelish things.

This feels like the joy has been kind of drummed out of him at Manchester City.

Now, Wilson mentioned it earlier: like everyone's signing younger and younger players, and for PSR reasons, this would make no sense.

You'd have to pay up a pretty big transfer fee, you have to put up massive wages.

It makes more sense for Tottenham to just try to get the next sort of sexy ball-playing guy who's not 28 years old, which would be Abraham.

But I just kind of think culturally, there's something about Tottenham that's always been a haven for like technically gifted, slightly goofy players

who can go there and do fun things at the well, not at the lane anymore, but at the Tottenham Osprey Stadium.

And I just think at the age of 28, Jack Willis should not be at a club where he's like not allowed to be Jack Realish.

It should get out of there and go somewhere where he's a club that's still big enough that it makes fan sense for him to be there, but a club that's a little bit smaller so he can have fun.

I would like to bring like that, just start some sort of movement of the people to bring Jack Realish to Tottenham to make next season a little bit more fun, both for him and for us.

All in favour?

Wilson, how about you?

A rumour that interests you.

New Semers Rowie going to Manchester United from Bayern.

So it seems they've agreed a fee of somewhere between 15 and 20 million.

Now, West Ham had earlier agreed a fee, including bonuses of, I think, around 15 million.

So that...

That figure makes sense because obviously Manchester United is going to pay more than they need to.

I think they need to sell Juan Bissaka to bring him in.

And I think it's interesting for two reasons.

The first is Juan Bissaka has been one of United's better players over the last couple of years, but he doesn't fit the Ten Hag model at all.

He's not a natural presser.

He's not by the standards of top Premier League football as great on the ball.

He's very good in one-on-one situations defending.

But I think one of their problems last season, and we saw it repeatedly, where the forward line would press.

the defence would sit slightly deep and you get this huge hole in the middle, which is why I seem to spend six months last season season just watching kobi mainu running about hopelessly uh which is not really his fault it's just a complete failure of structure but if you had masrawi and if you had two fit centre-backs who weren't in the mid-30s you could play a bit higher it would be a bit more compact it would make a bit more sense so all of that sounds good it all sounds like manchester united making a signing that makes sense

and yet

all this new investment all the talk about being a lot more rational over signings, about doing the scouting a lot better, about bringing the recruitment on a level and what have they done they've gone back to bloke used to play for 10 hydrate aj who he knows

the barry yeah i think i've touched on it already but i i am intrigued by what's going on at newcastle so they have the ceo now darren eels sporting director paul mitchell performance director james bunt and they're eddie how

giving off vibes that he's not entirely satisfied with this new leadership structure because it sort of dilutes his power.

They've had to sell two players to balance the books.

Elliot Anderson gone to Forest, Yankuba Minta, who's never made a first-time appearance for Newcastle, but he's apparently a very bright prospect.

He's gone to Brighton.

There is talk that

they probably should have sold Miguel Almiron and Kieran Trippier or Callum Wilson in January to

and that would leave them in a better financial position now.

But if Eddie Howe wants to bring in players and he said he needs players, he's going to have to sell someone.

Now there is talk Trippier might go to Saudi Arabia and Bruno Guimaraz will obviously be in big demand.

There's rumours linking him with City.

Newcastle are believed to want 100 million for him.

I would imagine Eddie Howe doesn't want to let him go, but they will probably need to sell him if they want to bring in any more players and they need players.

So

that's kind of interesting the other thing that's interesting me actually is Liverpool's almost total inactivity in the transfer market so far there's talk Trent Alexander Arnold might leave go to Real Madrid he's been linked with them possibly only on the spurious ground that he was pictured out on a night out with Jude Bellingham and so that that I suppose is interesting I can't really get excited about transfer gossip I just wait for to see what happens and then then get enthused and oh crystal palace yeah

they've lost to lease lars is saying they might lose eze and and they're also in the post james tonkins era because he's he's been released so all all change at sellhurst park where will their attacking threat come from without tompkins is the uh is the real question dylan says fish cakes protest in norway Who to go to on this?

It's a tricky one.

Our last.

Wilson would be.

Wilson seems like the first one.

What's happened with the fish cakes?

VAR has been introduced in the Norwegian league and it has not been very popular.

It's not been very successful.

They've introduced a sort of slightly,

it's kind of like they bought VAR from Wish.

You know, it's not, it's not got enough cameras.

It's all sort of like it's the slightly, it's not even the VAR, the top-notch VAR, which is proving so divisive.

It's a slightly rubbish version of VAR, which is proving, well, to say it's proving divisive would be probably not true.

It's probably a lot more hostile than that.

And the fans, because we have more, something more akin to an ultra culture in Norway.

The Norwegian ultras, they're quite gentle, I mean, by comparisons to some places on the continent, but we have these very concentrated, very intense fan environments, the fan clubs, and they've been very empty, VAR, pretty much from the start.

And they feel like the fans were not properly consulted, which is, of course, unsurprising for football.

We do technically have a sort of footballing democracy in Norway, but there's a sense that this was pushed through through the clubs and the fans were not properly heard.

So VAR was introduced to much skepticism.

It's not been very good.

So, increasingly, the fans are engaging a little bit of civil disobedience to show their disgruntlement with this.

And they've been throwing like tennis balls and things onto pitches and getting games halted.

And that kind of graduated into throwing fish cakes.

Frozen?

Frozen.

Quite a lot of fish cakes.

They may have thawed by the time the game began.

Yeah, Zach Stays did a fish cakes.

I'm sure they will have thawed.

I mean, even if you brought them to the stadium in a frozen state, you'd have to have them on you for a while.

So,

and actually, it there was a game that was, um,

that was that was basically uh called called off and had to be halted because too many things were thrown onto the pitch, which has caused more uh VAR debate.

And the whole thing is

it's a question of whether fans can actually do something because I think there's a lot of people who dislike VAR around the world who are like, What can we actually do about this?

And in Norway, that's very keenly felt because in Sweden, they don't have it.

In Sweden, the fans and the clubs were like, No, we don't want this.

Just showing us there is a way of no VAR.

You can can stop this and and in norway the fans have taken to throwing fish cakes and i'd like to see because that feeds into something we've been mentioning earlier about

the premier league becoming like the nba of football and not really being your community clubs and losing touch with this anymore i think for this doesn't just apply to norway i think smaller countries

They will struggle to compete with the big leagues.

They have been struggling to compete with the big leagues for a couple of decades.

Everyone will be struggling to compete with the Premier League now.

But if you're running and administrating smaller clubs and smaller smaller leagues and small other countries, one thing you have to then guard, I think, with your life is the connection you have to your fans, because that's the thing you can never really have.

Like the English clubs can become global franchises, but they're no longer really representing their local communities, whereas the clubs in Norway are representing their local communities.

The Norwegians will look at our football and say, this is a bit crap compared to the English stuff, but it's at least it's ours.

And when that is the one thing you have that they can never take away from you, you can't break that by doing things like like introducing VAR against everyone's will.

You have to actually listen.

You have to listen to people.

Actually, if your league is a point of difference, I imagine Swedish fans go, oh, look, we don't have VAR.

This is great.

Like, we can watch the big thing and now we can have our own one that doesn't have this.

Actually, finding a point of difference, which is quite difficult in football, is not a bad idea.

I wondered if it just, you know, fish cakes are easier to transport than fish, aren't they?

Because it seems strange to, you know,

use the fish cake rather than just going route one.

An entire fish.

I think you can sneak in some fish cakes into a stadium in your pockets in your trousers wherever like an entire salmon of the sort of size that they tend to sell in the in the shops it'd be very tricky like you put it down on the on on the inside of your leg on your trouser maybe because when they pat you down they're not very good one one imagines a fish cake is a lot cheaper than an

like a whole tuna although i i reckon if you got hit on the head with a frozen fish cake it would be quite painful do you remember who did somebody throw a cabbage at steve bruce somebody threw a cabbage at steve bruce and i think it was post post-soccer M.

I think I can't remember what TV I was doing.

It's clearly high level.

I finished the piece with someone throwing a cabbage at me and

cabbages are hard, right?

That is like getting hit with a cabbage is brutal.

Let me point out even when you know it's coming.

So you don't know it's coming.

Ross says, Olympics theme, who would beat gold, silver and bronze in an all-time 100-meter sprint for footballers?

Didier Gatt was the fastest player I've ever seen.

The Celtic right wing back under Martin O'Neill.

We obviously know John Williams

was the Knotts County player who was the flying postman, wasn't he?

Franz Carr, the Nottingham Forest winger.

Yeah, he was quick.

Back in the day, he ran close to an Olympic level 100 meters, I think, time in his football boots on a pitch rather than in spikes on a track.

Wow, that's good.

Dennis Romadal, yeah, producer Joel Rights.

I remember Romadall being, I mean, they're all good over 40 metres.

Michael Cheatham, no one could touch him over 30 meters.

But yeah, anyone, any advances?

well i would i would flag up a fully fit and firing alling hole on as someone who is pretty strong

but not over over 10 meters no but you're right he's a he sort of gets going and then maybe over 100 meters you might be right and bappé and walker will be about again could they do it i mean walker i reckon could and bappé maybe couldn't do it over 100 meters i'd really like to see i mean he probably couldn't be asked he'd be stopping to negotiate a new contract before the end

lanes four and five walker and mbappe would be good wouldn't it um rich says Can we have an introduction of uh Barry's Chef's Kiss moment of the week?

Uh, Ipswich John says, Barry's view, please, on his undoubted influence in Chef's Kiss making it into the Cambridge English Dictionary must be revealed.

Yes, uh, chef's kiss, along with uh words such as the ick and boop

and other informal modern terms, are among the 3,200 new words and phrases that have been added to the Cambridge Dictionary.

Uh, chef's kiss official definition, a movement in which you put your fingers and thumb together, kiss them, then pull your hand away from your lips as a way of showing that you think something or someone is perfect or excellent, which does sound quite like, Marian, I have to say,

what I witnessed.

I have explained, Max, and there is video evidence to prove it.

I was biting my nail and then I put my hand back to look at the ender drums.

As you do after biting a nail.

Literally within two weeks of the chef's kiss, it's now in the English dictionary.

that is the power that we have what what i know what the ick is what what's boop what is boop great question to which i don't know the answer and i fear that we are going to we're not going to impress gen z or or whoever this bit will be clipped up for the tick tock

i think so i've i've been approached by three different people in the past week who recognized me from tick tock so it's clearly working really good were you you were you weren't standing standing on your own, like in a in a skate park doing a synchronized dance to uh to your mobile phone?

I have a skate park like within 100 meters of my house, so I can do that if you if you would like me to.

Yeah, I'd just quite liked seeing you just, you know, slither about just in front of a phone and then check it.

Uh, producer Joel, who is younger than us, suggests a boop is something to do with giving an animal a little boop on the nose.

Yeah, okay.

I'm just excited that the ick has been mentioned in Football Weekly.

I think that's the first.

I hate that, it's a horrible word, isn't it?

Well, my mate's 22-year-old daughter explained to me what the ick is.

Yes, yeah, no, it does.

The word itself does do to me what it suggests it should do.

I don't know if that's that narrative determinism or whatever it is.

Anyway, uh, finally, Joaquim, friend of the pod, says, Me and my partner got engaged last year.

Barry blessed us with his nice words.

Yes, they really were.

He says, Last weekend, we got married and are the happiest people in the world.

Would love a greeting in in Jersk from my fellow Norwegian Lars.

Here's a photo.

They look well.

So it's Joachim and somebody else.

Mrs.

Joachim.

Hello, Joachim.

Hi, Joachim.

Meli Dutch.

Barry, do not do your Swedish shit.

I know it's not, but that's all I could think was about to happen.

Was someone was going to pile in with the

anyway?

That'll do for today.

Thank you, Wilson.

Thank you.

Thanks, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Barry.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.