Klopp’s kids ride again and Manchester derby preview – Football Weekly Extra

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Speaker 31 Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly FA Cup fifth round special.

Speaker 31 And after we didn't praise Liverpool enough for fielding the youngsters on Monday, Klot fields even more of them in a 3-0 win over Southampton. Perhaps you can win everything with kids.

Speaker 31 One of Chelsea's own, Conor Gallagher, gives them a last-minute winner over Leeds in a topsy-turvy game at Stamford Bridge.

Speaker 31 Erling Harland is just one goal away from getting the Viddy printer treatment with five at Luton.

Speaker 31 Newcastle get another tough draw after winning on pens at Blackburn and Wolves, Leicester and Manchester United all make it through. We'll do a Premier League preview, including the Manchester Derby.

Speaker 31 After all the vasectomies, we have a brand new operation for pod convalescence. There's your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Speaker 31 On the panel today, Nada Manuho, welcome.

Speaker 1 Hello, sir.

Speaker 31 Hello, Barry Glendenning.

Speaker 1 Hi, Max.

Speaker 31 And hello, John Bruin.

Speaker 32 Hi, Max.

Speaker 31 Paul says, will Klopp rest his kids on Saturday to give the likes of Salah, McAllister, and Robertson a chance?

Speaker 31 Kendra says, what's worse, losing to Academy players in a final or losing to Academy players in a last 16 tie? Yeah, Liverpool 3, Southampton 0. The kids again, Lewis Kumas on his senior debut.

Speaker 31 Jaden Dan's got twice. Three games he's played.
Two goals, one trophy. James McConnell, Bobby Clark, Conor Bradley all started along with Gerald Quancher,

Speaker 31 Cade Gordon, and Trey Naone came off the bench. Naone's only 16 years old.

Speaker 31 It's quite interesting, after the Carabao Cup final, we received, I think, some quite fair criticism for our coverage of the final, saying that we didn't give enough credit to Liverpool and paid too much attention to the narrative of Chelsea being bottle jobs and whether they were also young as well.

Speaker 31 I'll just read one message from Dave, who is a friend of mine, who I used to work with at the homeless shelter.

Speaker 31 I don't like to talk about my charity work, of course, but he said, God, you guys missed the magic of that. That was a beautiful thing.
It's not about the money that Chelsea's players cost.

Speaker 31 It's the experience of Quancer, Clark, McConnell, Dan's.

Speaker 31 I believe Klopp when he says it's his greatest achievement. The level of inexperience of top-level football we had on that pitch was ridiculous.

Speaker 31 To have the better of extra time, McConnell had the most touches wild i'll leave you be say hi to jay uh who is mrs rushton um and i guess you know that is it if you're a liverpool fan this week has been magic seeing your own seeing kids from your academy deliver if you're a you know if you go week in week out it's almost nothing better in in football um nadam you were there so i i don't know and you you obviously are not guilty for monday's pod although we're a family so we're all we're all guilty if any of us are guilty but what do you i just wondered what you you know from your uh innocent standpoint, what do you make of it?

Speaker 1 Innocent standpoint. That's very generous of you, Max.

Speaker 1 I think,

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 Like, going into the final on the weekend, when I was hearing people, well, Liverpool, people of a Liverpool persuasion talk about the final, they didn't sound too excited by it because of the amount of injuries that they had.

Speaker 1 So I think the fact that they win it with the youngsters that go out there, you know, it does make them feel a huge sense of pride because for them, I guess they became the underdog within that piece.

Speaker 1 And the youngsters getting a chance to come on and play and play well. I think, not play well, but win the game.

Speaker 1 I think that's the bit that's key because otherwise, your sort of perception of the game itself would have been a frustrating one because you'd say, Oh, what an opportunity if only we had everyone available.

Speaker 1 So, it's worked out to be a great few days for them, barring the fact that Gravin Birch is injured.

Speaker 1 And then, I think for the game yesterday as well, I think Andy Robertson was ill before the game, and that's I think maybe another one, which is why, say, Joe Gomez was playing centre midfield.

Speaker 1 Things you never thought you'd see. Yeah, and even that game yesterday,

Speaker 1 there were spells where you you know, Southampton were playing pretty well. I think Southampton will feel disappointed that they didn't score.

Speaker 1 I think Kelleher was forced to make a couple of really big saves, but then they missed some opportunities as well. But again,

Speaker 1 it must be a great feeling to be a youngster at Liverpool, a great feeling to be a fan to watch youngsters winning at Liverpool. But, you know, at some point, when, say...

Speaker 1 say Liverpool play City in 10 days time, do you think anyone from that Liverpool sort of like fan base will be saying, I hope you play this guy. I hope you play McConnell.
I hope you play Dans again.

Speaker 1 You know, if you need them, great.

Speaker 1 But they want to see those senior players back. They know how important this stretch of the season is.
So

Speaker 1 it's a great achievement for them to have been involved in the big games that they've just been involved in. But I'm sure Klopp and everyone else would rather just have all their seniors back.

Speaker 31 Yeah.

Speaker 31 I mean, I don't disagree with that, but I just kind of think if you listen to, say, Jaden Dans after the game and you sort of think about why we all fell in love with football, that it is a magical, it is a magical thing.

Speaker 31 I'm aware we've got one, you know, two Manchester correspondents whoa whoa whoa whoa in front of us but you know i

Speaker 1 spent a year in sunderland i'll have you know but um okay yeah yeah no to be honest i like

Speaker 1 in the final what i saw was the same thing i saw i think in the semis and in an fa cup tie earlier and the thing i like the most about what happened with liverpool is the fact that klops saw his senior players be tired and he said right well who's available you're coming on And I would think to myself, as a young player, to be able to have that vote of confidence from a manager is massive and as you step out there obviously you could be nervous excited or whatever but one thing you have is the trust of the manager i think it was in the league cup semi against fulham away fulham were pushing pushing pushing and then next thing here comes o'connell here comes this younger player to try and deal with that moment got moments which they've not experienced before and i think that's where a ton of credit deserves to go because he's it's not to say that he's like brave enough to do it but he just knows that like this is the moment these are the players available this is this is when we have to do it and i think a lot of managers, a lot of fans, probably myself included, would probably have been in a place where, say, if you ask yourself, would the manager of a team that you support, would he play, would he take off a senior player when there's a long time left to go in a game, if somebody's tired?

Speaker 1 And if he did do that, would you champion the decision? Or would you say, what's he doing here? Has he lost his mind? But I think for Klopp himself, he's backed them. He's put them on.

Speaker 1 The players are rewarding him right now. And, you know, these are some of the best days of your life.

Speaker 1 When you come through an academy and you're playing, you know, you're touching the field and you're winning. You couldn't like Dan scoring two goals in top end yesterday.
Like,

Speaker 1 he's the king of wherever he lives right now. He's the king.
You can walk around and everyone knows exactly who he is.

Speaker 1 And then for me, I saw him in the tunnel yesterday and I was thinking, I played against your dad, but I'm still in my 30s. This is highly, highly confusing.
Yeah,

Speaker 32 his dad was playing for Macclesfield last season. So,

Speaker 32 yeah.

Speaker 32 So he outlasted you, I think.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he relaxed. Relax.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 32 so, but it's interesting that

Speaker 32 they are made up of these descendants of 90s and 2000s players. You know, Kumas scoring is excellent.

Speaker 32 You know, I'm waiting for the son of Phil Stamp or someone, or, you know, you name a random 90s player player.

Speaker 31 I mean, I've done that quite a lot, as a Sparry.

Speaker 32 Yes, yeah, coming on scoring. It's been, yeah, well, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.

Speaker 32 You know, antrabus on the mark for Liverpool. It would be absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 But I suppose

Speaker 32 one question you might ask is

Speaker 32 the next man that comes in, what does he do with all these players?

Speaker 32 And that's one question that, and it's one of those things, isn't it, that when new managers come into a club, what do they do with the young players?

Speaker 32 Because they'll want dependable professionals around them because they've got to establish themselves quite quickly.

Speaker 32 You can't,

Speaker 32 you could take the David O'Leary model of 25 years ago or so, which is, you know, they're just babies.

Speaker 32 But a club like Liverpool at the moment, you know, that's what pushing to be the best in Europe, pretty much,

Speaker 32 is that acceptable?

Speaker 32 I suppose

Speaker 32 you got the Ferguson model a few years ago where they're ready, you chuck them all in together.

Speaker 32 I'm not sure, having watched these last few games, they're all ready for that pitch battle that will be required of a season.

Speaker 32 They've been highly useful to Jung Klopp at a point when they well he just ran out of players.

Speaker 32 But the good thing is that

Speaker 32 in English football where we did used to moan about not producing enough footballers we do seem to produce enough footballers. The staff plan called EPPP is that what it's called?

Speaker 32 That was the Elite Performance Player Plan,

Speaker 32 which was set up about 15 years ago. There are issues with it in the fact that essentially the Premier League can poach the better players from younger, from smaller clubs.

Speaker 32 It is producing talent. I suppose one issue is, again,

Speaker 32 I don't want to be negative about these lads. As Nedhim says, they're having the times of their lives, but there is a point where, will this be the high point? Because

Speaker 32 what we have found is that there's an incredible churn of players these days. Players are

Speaker 1 built or

Speaker 32 hewn into Premier League League players. What happens when they drop down the leagues? That doesn't often go that well for players that drop from Premier League downwards.

Speaker 32 The only thing to say is, of course, is the championship is a different standard these days. But at the moment, if I was a Liverpool fan,

Speaker 32 you were right, Max, to say this thing about how young players coming through is just about one of the most exciting things in football.

Speaker 32 We should also remember that the best teams that have ever played

Speaker 32 in football, AC Milan, of the late 80s, early 90s, Real Madrid, late 50s, the Real Madrid of 20 years ago,

Speaker 32 let's say Manchester United, let's say Liverpool,

Speaker 32 Celtic, of course, Celtic, all had that basis where they were from that club. That they were the bedrock of that club.
It's something that's been lost a bit in recent years. It's good to have it back.

Speaker 32 It will be interesting to see whether those Liverpool players form the bedrock of the next Liverpool. Having a new manager coming in might mean that that might not be the case or it could be the case.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was very disappointed, Max, at your capitulation in the face of the slightest

Speaker 1 bit of protest from IRA Liverpool fans. I think you should have doubled down.

Speaker 31 I do think sometimes

Speaker 31 if you work in football, you're looking at it in a slightly different way. And I think...

Speaker 31 That there is a matter, like whatever happens to these players, it's a really good point John makes.

Speaker 31 But like at this moment, at this time, like yesterday, Dan scoring those goals, or with those players just being on the pitch and Liverpool winning an extra time,

Speaker 31 those are sort of pretty astonishing moments. You know, you're entitled as a fan to go, this is amazing.

Speaker 31 Whether it's Klopp's greatest moment, whether any of these players go on to greatness, whether that kind of one of your own thing is just a sort of made-up thing in our minds or it's a real thing are all kind of totally fair questions.

Speaker 31 But

Speaker 31 I think we were right to make the point that Chelsea are also kids, but they're more experienced kids. But I think maybe we should have said, hey, this was really great.
And I just think we

Speaker 31 missed that bit. But, you know, that's just.

Speaker 1 But we're not Liverpool cheerleaders. We're not a Liverpool podcast.
I mean, we were criticised for not talking about the game. We did talk about the game.

Speaker 1 We talked about how good it was, how close it was. We were criticised for not cooing over Liverpool's kids.
We did coo over them. Apparently, we just didn't coo over them enough.

Speaker 1 We were criticised for pointing out that Chelsea also have young players

Speaker 1 because apparently the fact they're more experienced young players nullifies the fact that they're young. That cancels that out.
They're all actually 30 and not 22, 20, 21, whatever.

Speaker 1 Jonathan Wilson has on numerous occasions on this podcast, and he made it this point again on Monday, because far be it from Wilson to repeat himself,

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 the environment Chelsea's young players have have been chucked into is detrimental to their development.

Speaker 1 Whereas Liverpool's youngsters have been nurtured, admittedly, less experienced youngsters, they've been nurtured in this wonderful environment with Jürgen Klopp at the top. It's very settled.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 they know exactly what they have to do if they are called upon. They're not really under any pressure to deliver because they're so young and inexperienced.

Speaker 1 And they also happen to be quite good at football they're not just random street urchins that

Speaker 1 you know stowed away on the liverpool team bus on its way down to wembley so um and then yeah we addressed the narrative around the game and i think that's fine because it was interesting the narrative around the game dary neville came out with this snappy sound bite and all the other journalists ran with it uh everyone else who was reporting on the game so yeah i thought that was interesting why shouldn't we talk about it but um you know if we weren't waving our pom-poms hard enough for liverpool that's grand it's that's not our job no

Speaker 1 but i but i i still think you can say all of those things and still appreciate how magical that would be we did appreciate it i'm just appreciating it a bit more currently right well grand fine i mean i i thought their performance last night was hugely impressive they probably should have been several goals behind before they scored but they weren't and

Speaker 1 looking at that team and their bench

Speaker 1 just just players I'd never heard of young kids they brought on a 16 year old that's that's brilliant it really is good but I'm not a Liverpool fan it doesn't warm the cockles of my heart as much as it would

Speaker 1 Liverpool's fans

Speaker 1 heart cockles and and why should it oh yeah I was gonna say I think Being at the stadium, the Liverpool fans were really happy when it's Kumas that scored, you know, when it's Dans that scored.

Speaker 1 You know, they would have been happy, obviously, if like a more senior player had done so, but they sort of have that connection because they think, you know, that youngster's living the dream.

Speaker 1 You can see the joy that they have. I think even after Dan scores his first goal, Harvey Elliott's pushing him to go and celebrate in front of the cop.

Speaker 1 And then you forget that, like, Harvey Elliott's about 12 years old as well.

Speaker 31 I think he's younger than Conor Bradley, isn't he?

Speaker 1 Exactly, yeah. But, you know,

Speaker 1 this is what you'd want in a best case scenario if everyone was unavailable. You want to see youngsters go out there, do well, and you know, celebrate them.

Speaker 1 It's, it's, and obviously it's through force, but it's kind of like, do you remember when Arsene Wenger always used to field his youngsters in the cups and stuff back in the day, give them a chance to develop?

Speaker 1 You know, you travel around. You knew that's the team it was going to be.
If they won, it felt great. Obviously, you knew like the first, first team could do it.
But it's

Speaker 1 nice. And also, just to, I don't think I'm having a go here, but

Speaker 1 has this podcast ever had a discussion so big that... Reporters then ask journalists questions about what was said on the podcast?

Speaker 1 Or is that only reserved for Karager and Neville based on whatever they they say it's generally just them

Speaker 32 what happens is they say something contentious and then rather than the reporter saying something contentious and getting grief from the manager he says oh well Gary Neville said these things have always happened but it's happened happens more regularly and as Barry says it's a it's an easy way to ask a question that's a little bit uncomfortable but I do think we're following a bit of that US model you know with it it's like

Speaker 32 famous pundits said this about a player or manager, and they hit back.

Speaker 31 You won't believe what Roy Keene said. Annie Samways said.

Speaker 32 Yeah, the sort of skip Bayless, you know, that becomes Roy Keen and all that type of thing. And I do, I, I'm not sure this is a positive development as a journalist with zero profile.

Speaker 32 Let's put it that way. But, you know,

Speaker 31 what does then happen is that journalists who don't have a profile can get a profile more quickly by just saying stupid shit, right?

Speaker 1 And so, like, you absolutely

Speaker 31 are, you know, do you have a soul?

Speaker 31 You know, do you have self-awareness and a conscience? Or do you just want to say stupid shit and get a million followers? Sorry, do you?

Speaker 1 Anyone in particularly mind there, Max? No, no, absolutely not, Barry.

Speaker 31 Train Only, born on the 30th of June, 2007. Umbrella by Rihanna was number one.

Speaker 31 I was so worried it was going to get to a stage where it was a song I hadn't heard of because I'm now too old to have heard of the songs.

Speaker 31 Well, I haven't heard of that, but he was born four days before Liverpool signed Fernando Torres.

Speaker 1 Sorry, just one last thing as well, because I was

Speaker 1 sort of like building a foundation of disrespect almost, of disrespect just a little bit. Do our opinions not matter? Because on the website, it doesn't call us experts.

Speaker 1 What does it say to be an expert?

Speaker 31 I mean, whose opinion matters about anything? I mean, really, that's sort of...

Speaker 1 Without going through the story. Well, that's really noistic.

Speaker 31 I mean, nothing matters.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 that's nothing. Nothing should matter, but for some reason, what they say matters more than everyone else.

Speaker 1 And as a consequence, we must either agree or discuss it, even though some of it is absolute nonsense.

Speaker 31 I brought this up on talksport when the show before me and Barry is Henry Winter and Sean Custis. And Henry says something, and then the news leads with it.
Henry Winter says this.

Speaker 31 And I said, well, I've just said something else, but it's never Max says this, man, because

Speaker 1 let me

Speaker 1 my final point on this for today.

Speaker 1 I was on a show probably a couple of months ago, and we were talking about, this is before Hoyland started scoring his goals. And he said, this pundit, Pundit X, guys can work out for themselves.

Speaker 1 They say this guy is not receiving enough service, they're not enough crosses into the box, he's not getting any chances, blah, blah, blah. I was like, That's interesting.
Let me look into that.

Speaker 1 So, United had put in the third most amount of crosses in the league, and the player and Hoyland had missed the third most amount of big chances in the season. Like, it's weird.

Speaker 1 How can there not be enough crosses, but they're doing the third most? Yeah, and how's he not getting service, but he's missed the third most chances. But I was like, oh, that's fair enough.

Speaker 1 As long as this guy says it, he's an expert, so I guess that means it makes sense. Yeah, let's just go fives.

Speaker 32 There is this idea, isn't there, that certain

Speaker 32 pundits' opinions are respected.

Speaker 32 What's the level that

Speaker 32 the pundits in the chair were like Arsen Wenger and Alex Ferguson, yeah, and they criticised you, would that hurt?

Speaker 32 Because you're like, they're the absolute grandmasters of football, or Jose, or, you know, you name all of these Carlo or whoever. Or is there a certain level where, say,

Speaker 32 can we name it a a lower division David Pratt Pratt's about mine

Speaker 1 protz or um

Speaker 32 what's the guy that used to be at Leighton Orient uh oh Joey McMackino

Speaker 1 he's really good but but like because Joey Mackinoff didn't have like you know the most started career would would would players respond to that would they just say yeah but you're Joey Mackinoff or I think it would ultimately depend on what they say and how they say it I think sometimes people can go very big on things like you mentioned as far as football goes the only time people really come together to take to consume something football-wise is when there's a game on so that puts you in the saturday sort of sunday realm so whatever gets discussed there is something that everyone has to sort of digest whether you like it or not and if uh say for if um if ferguson uh vengo whoever were criticizing you firstly that would be a bit weird because as managers they didn't really criticize their players outside anyway So they'd carry themselves differently.

Speaker 1 But the fact is, you'd probably believe in it more because they've actually done the job of coaching individuals and have been successful with it.

Speaker 1 So, some people that maybe tried to coach that didn't coach, like, there's a reason why I'm a pundit and not a manager because I'd probably be a crap manager.

Speaker 1 So, if there's a history of being a crap manager and all of a sudden you know exactly how to set a team up to win any game of football anywhere, maybe, just maybe,

Speaker 1 you're not actually a football expert, you're just really opinionated and have got the biggest microphone in football. Yeah, but maybe I'm wrong.
I'm not sure. Maybe.
Are you saying, Nadum, that if

Speaker 1 Wenger and or say Sir Alex Ferguson was punditing a performance of yours, he would talk you up on TV and then afterwards call around to your house and give you the hairdryer and stroke teacups at you for being when you see managers and players come on.

Speaker 1 The reason they try and say nothing is because they don't want to be disrespectful to anyone in a moment because they understand you did the best that you could in that time.

Speaker 1 When you can analyze it afterwards, you can discuss it in a more reasoned manner.

Speaker 1 But, you know, when all of a sudden you can be a lead co-com or you can be a co-comms guy and you say, this guy's no good, that guy's no good, what's he doing, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, this is obviously very helpful for the world of football and those taking part in it. Yeah, thank you very much.

Speaker 31 I do love the idea. I love the idea of the doorbell ringing and you know, you answer the door and it's Sir Alex Berkeley says, would you mind

Speaker 31 if I come in? and then get one of your teacups and then hurl it at you.

Speaker 1 And you say, yes, by all means, come in.

Speaker 31 Anyway, look,

Speaker 31 we've got quite a few FA Cup games to go. That was a very interesting conversation.

Speaker 12 At least I thought it was.

Speaker 31 You're welcome, obviously, to criticise us on that conversation.

Speaker 1 Meekly, I'll meekly with the conversation. Have you criticised us enough? No, we're not yet anyway.
Can I just state for the record that what we say doesn't matter?

Speaker 1 Liverpool still won the Caribou Cups title with some young players.

Speaker 1 Nothing we say will take that trouble. This is free.

Speaker 31 We'll be back in a second.

Speaker 4 Hi Pod fans of America. Max here.
Barry's here too.

Speaker 1 Hello.

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Speaker 31 Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Chelsea 3 Leeds 2.

Speaker 31 NHS manager says, are the pod breathing a sigh of relief that they don't have to go into bat again for a second time in four days as to why Chelsea aren't as bad as their league position and performances might suggest.

Speaker 31 It was a strong Chelsea 11, and they were probably lucky to beat at Leeds, who did play really well. Archie Gray was great, and Mateo Joseph getting those goals.

Speaker 31 Conor Gallagher took his goal brilliantly, John. And it's so interesting that these rumours keep on about him leaving because Chelsea have to balance the books, and he might go to Spurs of all places.

Speaker 31 And, like, we're talking about all these Liverpool youngsters, we're not going to talk about them anymore, but there is the one player at Chelsea who sort of you feel embodies Chelsea-ness,

Speaker 31 whether that matters or not. And you feel it's almost like the most important person at the club at the moment or player, right?

Speaker 32 He sort of sort of oozes that south-west London swagger, doesn't he?

Speaker 32 You know, the, yeah, the, yeah, you could see a gold bracelet on a black polo neck and off his corner, swaggers into the night because,

Speaker 32 and that's he's he's like a Chelsea player of the last five, six decades, isn't he? And he's done really well for them, started scoring goals for them. But yes, you're absolutely correct.

Speaker 32 There is this rumor that because of Chelsea's continuing

Speaker 32 financial issues, profits and sustainability, the type of thing that we've discussed with Everton and Nottingham Forest, that he, as a pure profit player, might have to be cashed out.

Speaker 32 And I think that is

Speaker 32 rather sad because you would expect that Conor Gallagher

Speaker 32 in a previous era would have been given a new contract and been anointed the new

Speaker 32 son of Dennis Wise or whatever it might be.

Speaker 32 But the models of which certain people decide to build football clubs means that a player like that might have to be cashed out.

Speaker 32 It will be very unpopular with Chelsea fans who aren't particularly well disposed towards the owners.

Speaker 32 But players having to sell clubs having to sell players because of finances, not a new thing in football.

Speaker 32 And you mentioned Archie Gray, who was fantastic, who you know, took apart a Chelsea midfield, which cost an awful lot of money.

Speaker 32 There may come a time, sorry, Leeds fans, when Archie Gray has to be cashed in. And this is the reality of football.
It's just that we didn't expect it to come to Chelsea. And that's the problem.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it's a very, very good point. And

Speaker 1 are we 100% sure that he will go? Is this what we're thinking? No, not at all. Not at all.
Given, I think he's had a good season.

Speaker 1 And even though Chelsea have been very, very up and down, I think I've enjoyed watching him play to the point where he's not, he didn't prove me wrong as such, but I thought he was a good player.

Speaker 1 But I understand his full value now.

Speaker 1 I see the aggression that he has in there, and I think he offers a sort of slight difference in that midfield because they've obviously got really good footballers.

Speaker 1 But the bite that he has, it's something which gets the crowd up. And I think you need players like that.

Speaker 1 Obviously, you'll be disappointed to have not, say, scored in the final, but this is someone, as we say, it's like a young player that gives everything that's got quality.

Speaker 1 And it's what you want to build teams around. So I hope for his sake, if he wants to stay there and the fans want him to stay there, I hope he can stay there because that is a big bonus.

Speaker 1 But if these owners are being questioned now, the next thing Conor Gallagher walks out of the building, I'm pretty sure that might end up being one of the most toxic situations known to mankind.

Speaker 1 Well, not to football kind anyway. But yeah, I hope he stays because I think he's a really good player.

Speaker 31 I mean, if it wasn't one of the most toxic

Speaker 31 things to happen to mankind, perhaps you

Speaker 31 didn't realize Conor Gallagher was that.

Speaker 1 I know he's important, but

Speaker 1 what did you make of the game, Baz?

Speaker 1 I thought it was a good game. I thought it kind of embodied or encapsulated Chelsea's season in the course of 90 minutes.
They were decent in spots. They were dreadful in spots.

Speaker 1 Ends of Fernandez, their World Cup winner, drifted in and out of the game.

Speaker 1 You know, his pass for Gallagher's winner was sublime, but he doesn't contribute enough for me, Clive, given his status and

Speaker 1 cost.

Speaker 1 And I thought Leeds were probably unlucky not to take it extra time or not to to win, really.

Speaker 1 They didn't feel the full-strength team. They rested their front four.
Nanto, Bamford, Somerville were all on the bench.

Speaker 1 Matthiel Joseph, who I must confess I'd never heard of, I believe this was his full debut. He scored two good goals.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Leeds,

Speaker 1 I don't think they'll be disappointed.

Speaker 1 Promotion is their main focus, but they gave a very good account of themselves and probably would have gone home thinking, thinking oh we could have won that so kennelworth red loot and two manchester city six have five goals for earlier harland i mean we all know he's good nadam i tell you the one moment that i thought the most interesting of all the goals was the second goal i think it was he just sprinted off without even looking the broyno got the ball but he didn't look for where the pass was going he wasn't he had just gone just running towards the goal and then the ball just appears at his feet and i don't i don't see that too often even at that level of football yeah it's clearly you've not watched my highlights Max you know when I had the ball at the bank the forwards they'd go it's like well here he comes the big channel ball get yourself down there my friend yeah I know exactly what you're talking about and that's a sort of the connection that he has I think uh Harlan mentioned that after the game he's they've just got something whereby he knows if he makes the right run there's a very good chance that the ball will come and he's very De Bruyne's obviously part of that city system but the way that he looks to play those ball those balls in behind is very different to say some of the other city players they They all have the quality to potentially try and look for it, but Bruin has the sort of character and mentality to do it often.

Speaker 1 If he sees the run, he'll play the pass. In fact, he'll play the pass and then someone will start the run because they've seen the pass.
That's how good he is.

Speaker 1 But the sort of little things make such a big difference. And I think the timing of the past, the weight of the pass, and it's just like, well, there you go.
Erling, there you go. You do your thing.

Speaker 1 I've done mine. It's a very special connection.
And yeah, for him to walk off with five goals.

Speaker 1 I've actually, somehow, I was at the game where he scored five against Leipzig last year, and to see this one again, it was just

Speaker 1 weird because it almost felt normal, which should never be the case for any player ever, in my opinion.

Speaker 31 Yeah, and it felt normal, even though he hasn't actually sort of been hitting the, I mean, he's probably scored 100 goals this season, but you know, he and City have been have sort of been

Speaker 31 stuttering

Speaker 31 in their terms, John, a little bit recently. And you sort of sense this victory because Luton pushed them a couple of times, you're like, oh, this could be exciting.

Speaker 31 And then they, you know, maybe this was the moment.

Speaker 32 Yeah, well, Luton are the team that we and I, especially, see, as that's an old fighting team, and they got back into it with Jordan Clark. This first goal was very, very good.
The second one was

Speaker 1 good, it was really good as well.

Speaker 32 But, uh, well, what did this remind me of? Um, yeah, I uh, I live in fashionable East London, as you know, Max, and uh,

Speaker 32 there's a lot of gentrification going on, and watching Haaland just reminds me of the steamrollers and trucks that arrive every morning at about 7.45 and just roll.

Speaker 32 And they've been laying the Columbia Road the other day. It just reminds me of that.
I've just like rolling over and just flattening everything in sight and just everyone having to get out of the way.

Speaker 32 There's not been a player like him that I can remember. I'm trying to think of it.

Speaker 32 There must be, you know, footage somewhere of some Swedish team in the 50s where, I don't know, Niels Liedholm, he's probably a bit more skillful player than that, sorry, Jonathan,

Speaker 32 might just, you know, just run through and destroy people. Even, you know, the original Ronaldo was a bit more

Speaker 32 sylph-like, wasn't he, when he destroyed.

Speaker 32 But Haaland is such a phenomenon, and you just wonder

Speaker 32 where it ends.

Speaker 32 Presumably, it ends with records, goals. Presumably, it ends at, I'm sorry to say this city, at Real Madrid or somewhere like that.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 32 when he goes into motion like that, you just think,

Speaker 1 wow,

Speaker 32 he's extraterrestrial. He's a guy from another sport.

Speaker 1 It's just unbelievable. He reminds me a bit, and I don't know if this is a ludicrous comparison because it was a very, very long time ago.
A bit like Alan McInally,

Speaker 1 Scottish striker, our old Pal Max from Talksworth Towers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when he used to seem seem to score the same goal over and over again for Aston Villa, where he was just

Speaker 1 played through, barrage the defender off the ball and then smacked it past the goalkeeper.

Speaker 31 Yeah, Les Ferdinand had it. Les had a bit of that, didn't he? You know, just powering through and putting it in the bottom corner.

Speaker 1 I think for this game as well, I think the way Luton tried to play in terms of going man-to-man around the back wasn't really that good.

Speaker 1 Obviously, it can work in other games and so on, but speaking with with some of the city people after the game, they were saying that they thought Lutin were going to do that.

Speaker 1 And they set up in a way to sort of take advantage of that. And that's why a lot of the time, I think it was Mengi, it was just 1v1 with Haaland on the halfway line.

Speaker 1 And he's doing, listen, he's doing his job. And I thought for the first maybe 10-15 minutes, I thought he was doing it pretty well.
I thought he was winning quite a lot of the duels.

Speaker 1 And I said, oh, this is all right. This is going to be a good battle.

Speaker 1 But I think where Mengi and I say a couple of the others sort of got it wrong is that that's the plan, but you can still make adjustments within the game itself.

Speaker 1 and Mengi wanted to show I believe like that he's strong that he can mix it with Haaland but then also the issue when you play against City with Haaland is not just Haaland it's the fact that now you've got De Bruyne here you've got Nunes here you've got Kovacic here you've got Grealish here you've got Doku here you've got balls from Kyle Walker here you can't just beat them by beating one and when you're standing on the halfway line with 10 15 yards of space either side of you and De Bruyne with the ball at his feet you know you can do as well as you can but

Speaker 1 it's probably going to end up being the same goal as John was saying there, just happening over and over again.

Speaker 31 Yeah, and they're bigger now, City.

Speaker 31 Johnny Lou was right, in 2018, 19, they were the shortest

Speaker 31 side in the Premier League, or the shortest side to ever win the league.

Speaker 22 I'm not sure which one it was.

Speaker 31 And now they're definitely not that, you know, because they've kind of replaced silky players with...

Speaker 31 I'm going to say big oaths, because that is... Just Roderick.

Speaker 1 Rodri, the big oaf. Look at the size of him.
It's disgraceful. It reminds me

Speaker 1 of...

Speaker 31 I don't know if I've used this comparison before, but on the Amiga, there was a a computer game called Speedball 2, where you were sort of like robots. And

Speaker 31 it was basically sort of handball, but robots, but it was a great game.

Speaker 31 But you could score a goal by being like slick passing, or you could just like literally beat the shit out of everyone and go in a straight line and knock everybody over and beat them up and beat them up and beat the goalkeeper up and just lob it in.

Speaker 31 And like City can do both. They're like brutal deluxe.
That's who they are.

Speaker 31 Man United won one. They're not in Forest.
Michael says, haven't Manchester United players had enough days off this season? Well, they still won, John. Alan Shearer hated having to watch this game.

Speaker 31 He must have used the word frustrating about 100 times in commentary.

Speaker 32 Dale Johnson, who we've quoted on

Speaker 32 this podcast over the year, he and I spent about 20 years doing Alan Shearer's frustrating voice because he said it a lot in his early punditry career, and it's made a comeback, it would appear, in that performance.

Speaker 32 Not a lot to say about this game, if that's okay.

Speaker 32 United played like United do under 10 Hag, which is actually quite predictable.

Speaker 32 They tried to score, didn't they, on some sort of free kick routine that Anthony smashed against?

Speaker 32 It was nice.

Speaker 32 But

Speaker 32 the expression on Anthony's face was just laughing, like, aha, that nearly came off. It's like, no, mate, you're supposed to put it in the net.
Like, it's not interminable wait for VAR.

Speaker 32 You know, a goal that was compared by a friend of mine to the one that

Speaker 32 Van Dijk was disallowed during the game that we're not allowed to mention anymore.

Speaker 31 Yeah, lots of people making that comparison.

Speaker 31 Varane was blocking a Nottingham Forest player. And your friend Dale Johnson made the point, actually.

Speaker 31 Look, just to cover off the inevitable comments on the Man United goal in comparison to the Liverpool offside, as explained on Sunday.

Speaker 31 Blocking is only an offside event if it stops a player who can challenge. Raphael Varan isn't blocking a player who could get involved.

Speaker 31 It's worth, I mean, like,

Speaker 31 if you want to watch social media at its worst, go to Dale Johnson's mentions.

Speaker 32 Yeah, it must be frustrating

Speaker 32 for Liverpool.

Speaker 32 But yes, obviously, comparisons made. You know,

Speaker 32 the thing is with Ten Hark,

Speaker 32 he'd come out, he'd done that Karrager

Speaker 32 kiss off. They win the game unconvincingly, and then they draw Liverpool in the next round.
He's not a lucky guy.

Speaker 32 He's not a lucky manager.

Speaker 32 Eric Tentost,

Speaker 32 as Richard Keys called him.

Speaker 31 I had not heard of that, but that is really good.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 31 Eric Tentoast. It's a bit like, it's a bit like that headline, you know, the name's Bond, Jamez Rodriguez, or whatever it was in that newspaper.

Speaker 32 So I wouldn't disagree with Keesy.

Speaker 32 It feels like

Speaker 32 we're getting towards the end now, don't we, really?

Speaker 31 Yeah. To be clear, you wouldn't disagree with Keesy on this or just just in general in just do you know what

Speaker 31 do you know what he really calls it every time doesn't he um jamie jackson had an exclusive in the guardian saying a number of magistrates united players complained to coaching staff that they wanted sunday off after the 2-1 defeat by fulham on saturday despite um eric ten hog's squad usually going in after a match day for warm don't warm downs and video analysis the request caused surprise given the insipid display and it being part of the managers normal routine it was rejected by staff who reminded the players of their commitments with Ten Hag thought to be unaware.

Speaker 31 Similar reports in November that Managers United players felt they'd been overworked. It feels like, you know, there are limited things footballers can actually complain about.

Speaker 31 And wanting a day off and not getting it, I guess, is one of them. But it does seem a bit silly, Nadum.

Speaker 1 Right. Okay.
May I?

Speaker 1 You see, this is, United, I feel like they're the only club where like a story like this comes out and it's never got a name attached to it, but then it always has to get discussed.

Speaker 1 And the players are likely tired. Yeah, they're likely that.

Speaker 1 But if there's a leadership team that could potentially go and address that fact, there's also not going to be people in the leadership team that would also leak the story as well.

Speaker 1 Because who comes out in a good light in regards to this story and other stories that exist within the club? It's not the manager. It's not the staff.
It's not the players.

Speaker 1 Because the players get laughed at. The manager gets laughed out of the room.
It's like, oh, so much dysfunction at United because they're all tired. They're all overpaid and tired.

Speaker 1 Why would they be tired? I'm like, this is, this is,

Speaker 1 especially after a defeat. You know, one thing you cannot do is even say a word after a defeat, especially the one that happened the other day.

Speaker 1 Imagine going, oh, sorry, I know we were terrible today, but I'll tell you what, we'll fix it. Let's not work on it tomorrow.
Let's just chill.

Speaker 31 Well, maybe just someone just said, you know, I'd love a day off. Just like as you would, as people do, just sometimes say it, but they don't mean it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but who are they saying it to, though? But who are they saying to the manager or like the flipping a reporter somewhere? Oh, I just love a day off. You know, this is what's key.

Speaker 1 I feel like you sent a message to the wrong person there. But again, it's it frustrates me because they're such a big club that it gets real traction.
And then we're like, well, who would it be? Hmm.

Speaker 1 Oh, I bet you it was Fernandez, wasn't it? He's the one that's always tired. He's not a good leader.
And we sort of run with it. It's choose your own adventure.

Speaker 1 But United Overreactions get right on my nipples. Does Merden?

Speaker 32 I don't think we would question Jamie's story. It's obviously come from a good source within the club.

Speaker 32 I think Nadin makes a point that if Ten Hag doesn't know, then there obviously is some issue going on there.

Speaker 32 But yeah,

Speaker 32 and Jamie's not going to reveal his sources anyway, because that's not how it works. But I don't think we could ever say,

Speaker 32 and let's have a look at the performances on the pitch, let's have a look at the many stories coming out of Manchester United, that that's been a happy camp for like the last year.

Speaker 32 So it seems to be of a piece to me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but the my thing here, John, is in regards to it not being a happy camp, like if United were a happy camp and they were losing, it'd be one of the weirdest things things we'd be talking about.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 that's the side of things that I goes missing.

Speaker 31 And we're skipping around the pitch. Another lap of honor.

Speaker 1 We're just so happy together. Just waiting, biding our time for consistency, but we're just delighted to just have everything going on.

Speaker 1 Like a bunch of players, and you know, I'm not trying to say Jones doesn't know what we're talking about and whoever, but fine.

Speaker 1 If a bunch of players are driven to be successful, when they're not being successful, you'll find the worst versions of them, especially when it's for a prolonged period of time.

Speaker 1 Because realistically, you can't walk walk into a training ground on a Monday after losing on

Speaker 1 a Sunday for them.

Speaker 32 And then everyone will be like, oh, everything's with a hat on the side of your head. And, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, the vibes. Well, you turn the TV on, and who's being discussed at Sam? Like, you can't be bouncing around.
Like, you almost have to have a miserable face.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, it's like you're not taking it seriously. You want to talk about, like, fear?

Speaker 1 Fear is when you see something funny on social media, on your phone, on the bus back, on the way from a game which you've just lost.

Speaker 1 If you laugh or smile, I can almost guarantee you're out of the team for the next week. So, yeah, they can't be a happy camp because there's nothing to be happy about.

Speaker 31 To Ewood Park, Black Man won Newcastle one.

Speaker 31 Newcastle winning 4-3 on penalties. It's worth noting, Barry, the draws that Newcastle have had in Cups, considering they didn't bother with the Cups for years, and now they're actually bothering.

Speaker 31 And they get Dorman PSG Milan in the Champions League. In the Carabao, they had City at home, who they beat them, United Away, who they beat, and then they eventually lost on penalties to Chelsea.

Speaker 31 And then City again now in the FA Cup.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a brutal draw.

Speaker 1 That's The one they really didn't want, because they have all their hopes for this season pinned on the FA Cup.

Speaker 1 And I think Eddie Howe, or one of the players, said, you know, if we get a good draw, there's no reason why we shouldn't go to Wembley. Well, City away, good luck with that.

Speaker 1 You know, they've beaten them already this season.

Speaker 1 But I think Newcastle got away with one here. They did not play well at all.

Speaker 1 Blackburn with a bit more composure in front of goal or a less inspired performance from Martin Dubravka during the game and in the shootout.

Speaker 1 They'd have been out, and it'll be Blackburn who'd be going off to the Etihad.

Speaker 1 I think Newcastle just really seemed to be missing Joel Linton. They're struggling to string more than a couple of passes together.
They're ponderous. They

Speaker 1 cough up possession too easily. They don't seem to press like as anywhere near as ferociously as they used to.

Speaker 1 They look vulnerable on the break, they concede way too many goals. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't know what's to be done about it really.

Speaker 1 Eddie Howe,

Speaker 1 there is a good lot of goodwill there for him for what happened last season when many people think they overachieved.

Speaker 1 But one presumes that reservoir of goodwill is not bottomless. And this was not a good performance.
They scrape through. And if they play like that

Speaker 1 against City, they'll get destroyed.

Speaker 31 Well summed up. All right, that'll do for part two.
Part three, we'll do the other games in the FA Cup fifth round and a Premier League preview.

Speaker 4 Hi Pod fans of America, Max here. Barry's here, too.

Speaker 1 Hello.

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Speaker 1 A proper football journalist, man.

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Speaker 31 Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. Wolves into the quarterfinals as well.

Speaker 1 They beat Brighton at 1-0, where they'll play Coventry, uh which is a as a certainly a derby of sorts isn't it uh um wolves cove a friend of mine who's a west brom fan said that no one in the midlands cares about coventry so coventry think all their these games against say birmingham or west brom or villa or whoever are are needle matches but but none of the other teams they all just think coventry are complete irrelevant i have no idea if that's true i just thought it was interesting haven't coventry got something going on with Leicester?

Speaker 32 Did it really happen earlier this season?

Speaker 31 It feels like it could be. I mean, I'm not a Midlands expert.

Speaker 32 But it's sort of on the road, sort of around the M1, MC.

Speaker 31 So Coventry are just like, just somebody hate us, please.

Speaker 1 And nobody does.

Speaker 31 It's like the indifference we all have to Reading and Gillingham. It's like, just somebody, please.
We would like to be hated.

Speaker 31 Anyway, it was Lamina's goal in the second minute. The highlight of this game was Brightonkeeper Luke Steele having quite a good chance in injury time.

Speaker 32 It's Jason Steele. Sorry.

Speaker 1 Sorry, Jason Steele.

Speaker 31 Sorry.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he took the chance much like you would expect somebody who never finds himself in that position, you know, just rushed, no composure, but it was a wonderful opportunity to equalize. Isn't this

Speaker 1 where the goalie is sort of like trade-off depending on what the game is? Like they have different perceptions. I wonder if Deserby's thinking now, well, Vebrugan's going to be the better finisher.

Speaker 1 So should they be in the time of need? You know, you get Jason Steele off, maybe a couple of minutes to go, and Vebrugan's the one that goes forward when you need a goal.

Speaker 1 Because Khalil Steele can't deal with the moment, can he? You know what I mean?

Speaker 32 I was at Brighton over the weekend and asked someone who would know

Speaker 32 what's the deal with the goalkeepers. You know, why does he play this one in that game? And they just said, no one knows.
So that was a week.

Speaker 32 I'd just like to pinpoint

Speaker 32 Gary O'Neill's celebration post-match.

Speaker 32 Son of Jürgen Klopp.

Speaker 32 Gary O'Neill, who's done a fantastic job, by the way, we have to say that by the law. He's got a swagger about him now, hasn't he? Gary O'Neill.

Speaker 31 Do you think that's a risk? Do you think it's a risk? Do you know, like, now he's now he's fist pumping, much like Neil Harris

Speaker 31 did in those in those Cambridge United victories.

Speaker 31 Yeah, it was quite fist pumpy, wasn't he? Yeah, one, two, three. But do you think that's a risk? You know, fist pumps come before a fall, I think.

Speaker 31 Fournemouth Nil Lester one. Abdul Fatabu's winner.
Baz, you said you hadn't seen a kick of this game. The only kick you needed to see was the winner from Abdul Fator.

Speaker 31 It was a bit, so I'm going to say a bit Andros Townsend, a bit Ayan Robbin, you know, just cut inside. You can see it now.
Everyone can see the goal, right?

Speaker 31 Cut inside from the right, curled it in the top left-hand corner with his left foot. But a good win for Leicester.
Obviously going well

Speaker 31 as well in the championship. Could get the double, couldn't they?

Speaker 32 I was going to say, actually, Max, it's been interesting that the championship, which has been so good this season, has been measured against the Premier League this week, really.

Speaker 32 And I think has acquitted itself pretty well.

Speaker 32 You know, Southampton had the chances against Liverpool.

Speaker 32 Leeds did very well at Chelsea.

Speaker 32 And then obviously Leicester, you know, took apart a Bournemouth team, which, you know, if Leicester go into the Premier League, you'd expect them to be fighting over a similar part of the league.

Speaker 32 So, yeah, I mean, it speaks to the better teams in the championship, I think.

Speaker 32 Hopefully,

Speaker 32 not all of them are going to struggle when they come up next season.

Speaker 31 So, Wolves Wolves will play Kov

Speaker 31 in that hate-filled, passionate one-way derby.

Speaker 31 Man United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Leicester, Manchester City, Newcastle. Ties to be played March the 16th and 17th.

Speaker 31 So look, a little bit of time for a Premier League preview, of which the Manchester Derby is the biggest game.

Speaker 31 And I guess for City,

Speaker 31 I was going to say, you know, Arsenal are away at Sheffield United. That looks straightforward.
Liverpool go to Forest. Not as straightforward, but still should win it.

Speaker 31 So then the pressure is on City. but really,

Speaker 31 this also seems like quite a straightforward game, Nadam.

Speaker 1 I think

Speaker 1 form stays in the window.

Speaker 31 Form stays in the room.

Speaker 1 Say that again.

Speaker 1 Ask the question. Ask the question differently.
Massive game

Speaker 1 feels better.

Speaker 31 Form goes out the window, doesn't it, Nadam?

Speaker 1 Biggest game of the season. What is it? 12 cup finals.
Let's throw the cliches out there. No, I understand what you're trying to go for, but it's a...

Speaker 1 These Manchester Derbies, I've seen for years United be pretty good coming to the Etihad for some reason and it's not necessarily them playing well then playing badly just find a way to sort of get a result and it's a big um it's obviously a big game for for United it's a big game for city most city fans even though they've been successful like this derby will always matter I think from United if they can get to a point where city were irrelevant like they were in the late 90s probably early 90s as well then great but this is a significant game and you said form goes out the window or the form should matter well form wise last five games city have only had one more point than united that's interesting so how about that you know so even though united city have probably played better in that spell

Speaker 1 the results are still very very similar so i think it's going to be a game where ten hag will try and have a plan i'm kind of selfishly delighted that they don't have a left back they've got loads of doubts all that stuff so we can find a more chaotic version of united i think if that's the case yes city should be able to win but they're also at the stage of the season where whether they're playing united playing shefford united or whoever they have to win this game because the next week as well, going to Anfield, which historically for City is not a great place to go when they want to try and get points.

Speaker 31 Everton West Ham. We saw, Barry, that

Speaker 31 when Everton got the points deduction, they were galvanised briefly. Do you believe getting some points back will be

Speaker 1 galvanizing?

Speaker 31 No, no, I wonder if it will be galvanising in a different way or yeah, un-galvanizing. I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's a tough one to call because West Ham are so unpredictable.

Speaker 1 If they

Speaker 1 play like they did against Brentford, they should comfortably beat Everton, but there's no absolutely no guarantee whatsoever they will play like that.

Speaker 1 You know, Nadium's talking about wheeling out the clichés. We don't know what kind of West Ham will turn up, and

Speaker 1 you generally have a fair idea what kind of Everton are going to turn up. So will that Everton be good enough to like scrape a 1-0

Speaker 1 or a 2-1? Don't know. So

Speaker 1 I'll sit in the fence, draw.

Speaker 32 What's funny? You say draw. I saw Everson last week at Brighton

Speaker 32 and

Speaker 32 Sean Deish.

Speaker 32 It had been a while since I'd seen him in the wild. And I do mean the wild because I was sat not far behind him.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 32 his voice,

Speaker 32 when he's shouting at his players, manages to underpin the lowness of this voice, this sort of

Speaker 32 guerrilla's mating call, or like, or like, you know, those sort of death metal records where they're sort of, it's just

Speaker 32 it's just all I could hear throughout the game was just him

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 through all isn't there an Attenborough documentary on BBC One at the moment about this very subject, sorry, the ascent of the watch.

Speaker 32 I've never, and the thing is, I've been to loads of games in which Dyke, but for some reason, it may be that the resonance of the Amex is very quiet Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 32 But even when it got loud, you could still hear this.

Speaker 32 And then he came in. And to be fair to John Daish, he was a bit...

Speaker 32 His voice had gone a bit. But his

Speaker 32 team are very, very frustrating to watch. And because,

Speaker 32 okay, it was against Brightney or a good team. He was trying to slow down the play the whole time.

Speaker 32 Him and Ian Wone and Steve Stone are doing this sort of revolving pantomime app with the fourth official and the referee.

Speaker 32 And I wonder,

Speaker 32 okay, they've got four points back.

Speaker 32 I wonder if Everton played positive enough football to get themselves out of trouble because their approach to that game, a game they could have won because Brighton weren't really at it,

Speaker 32 raised a few questions for me. But yeah,

Speaker 32 if you ever uh have the chance to see the Sean Dice gorilla mating call,

Speaker 32 don't pass up the opportunity.

Speaker 31 It's unique. Is it the pyramid stage, or is it you know, is it one of the other ones?

Speaker 32 You know, it's no, it's Mitch Moore Tusk Festival, Newcastle Saturday afternoon

Speaker 32 in quadraphonic sound, you know, big can of energy drink at two in the afternoon.

Speaker 1 Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 31 Chef United Arsenal. Um, I mean, presumably, it feels like, you know, Arsenal scores so many goals and they keep playing teams who are bad.

Speaker 31 And then we come on and say, was that Arsenal good or was that Sheffield United bad? So maybe Chef United would surprise all of us.

Speaker 31 Forrest Liverpool, Simon says, if both Forrest and Everton were given a 12-point deduction as of today with the other FFP charges, Sheffield United would find themselves sandwiched between the two.

Speaker 31 I'm unsure whether this would please Chris Wilder or send him into apoplectic fury, keep up the good fight. Thank you.

Speaker 31 A mention for Sutton United, who missed that penalty against Colchester, which led to Steve Morrison being quite rude to the BBC London reporter.

Speaker 31 They scored a late penalty last night to beat Knotts County away. A massive win for them.
And I watched his post-match interview with the club channel. It was markedly different, I will say.

Speaker 31 So Steve was very happy.

Speaker 31 All our credit goes to Ali Maxwell of Not the Top 20 podcast, who sent this tweet saying, I just caught a high-slice defensive clearance with a massive meaty header on the full in the away end of Orient.

Speaker 31 And I can't remember the last time I felt this level of adrenaline.

Speaker 31 my whole body is fizzing every fan's dream to head one out of the crowd and barry i mean i you've seen it he he catches this header brilliantly doesn't he yeah uh thumping header back into play

Speaker 1 and uh it took i had to watch it several times i didn't actually realize it was him

Speaker 1 just because i wasn't reading his tweet properly but um

Speaker 31 yes hats off to him well done ali uh dara says hi max barry producer joel and all um dara here long long-time listener, first time emailer, myself, and my good friend Wes.

Speaker 31 I've been listening to your podcast religiously for many years now, having attended the live shows in Dublin. Wes turns the ripe old age of 30 on March the 2nd.

Speaker 31 And I know one of his main wishes would be to still have a terrific head of hair like Barry as he heads into his 30s.

Speaker 31 In all seriousness, I know Wes would love nothing more than one of Barry's classic birthday wishes. All the best, Dara.
So do your finest for Wes, please, Barry.

Speaker 1 I wish Wes a happy birthday.

Speaker 1 30 is when it all started to go downhill for me.

Speaker 1 So I presume I'm not alone in that. Start piling on weight where before you didn't.

Speaker 1 You

Speaker 1 start getting hangovers where before you didn't.

Speaker 1 You're just tired all the time.

Speaker 23 And

Speaker 1 but, you know, you still you're not fifty, which I am, uh, whereas things are considerably worse. And uh, I don't know how Wales is fixed folically, but

Speaker 1 you know, I don't think having a full head of hair is that important. It is important to me, obviously, because I have one.

Speaker 31 Laura, finally, says, Dear Max and Barry, I thought I'd email you after hearing a few of your male listeners telling you about how you'd got them through their various vasectomies.

Speaker 31 And by the sound of it, almost made the operations quite a laugh.

Speaker 31 As you can imagine, I was intrigued when I first heard about this phenomenon, then realised you'd not actually become doctors, but had in fact provided a soothing distraction while the chaps were getting their tubes tied.

Speaker 31 I didn't think any more about it other than to think you really are providing a pretty good service all around until last week. I'm one of your female listeners.
I never miss an episode.

Speaker 31 I must admit, my favourites are always when Barry's not off having a midlife crisis involving elephants and temples. And I'm hoping to call upon your services if you don't mind.

Speaker 31 On the 1st of March, I'm going into hospital to have a hysterectomy. And apparently, I've got a six to eight week recovery period.

Speaker 31 It's necessary because of quite bad problems I've been having for years. So it's a good thing, although I'm not looking forward to the time after.
I live on my own.

Speaker 31 I won't be able to drive or even lift stuff or bend for a few weeks, which will be interesting. Luckily, I've got some really good friends who will help me out with things.
So I think I'll be fine.

Speaker 31 And my lovely stepmum, Vanessa, is coming down from Anglesey to where I live in Somerset to stay with me for a bit and help out.

Speaker 31 As well as having all the time I could ever need to watch telly and do minimal amounts of everything, I am, of course, looking forward to listening to you all on the pod.

Speaker 31 And I'm totally relying on you to keep my recovery going. I can't listen during the operation as it's general anesthetic and no pressure.

Speaker 31 But Barry, this is not the time to go on holiday, get sick, or suddenly get poached by a rival.

Speaker 31 There's very little danger of that. but anyway, um, I need you to keep me sane.
Uh, please don't let me down.

Speaker 31 Thank you so much to all of you for producing such an entertaining and genuinely lovely pod three times a week.

Speaker 31 You all seem to be really lovely people, and from the sound of the other listeners who've written in before, you're truly appreciated for what you do.

Speaker 31 I think entertaining people is often underestimated as a service.

Speaker 31 And I just wanted you to know that in a funny way, I think of you as friends, and I really look forward to hearing your chat every week. Thanks a lot for reading this.

Speaker 31 And could Barry please possibly wish me good luck in his inimitable style just to send me on my way to recovery, not not to heaven.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, love and best wishes to all of you, Laura.

Speaker 31 So, Barry, off you go. One more.
This is all, this is all, this is the only other performing monkey bit, and then you can go home.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, unfortunately, Laura, I will be on my annual

Speaker 1 doing my annual week of penance at the Cheltenham Festival the week after next, so I won't be around for that. I do apologize, but if you could, um,

Speaker 1 uh, yeah, I mean, I can't really mockingly wish or sarcastically wish that her operation goes well, can I? So I

Speaker 1 can.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I wish you all the very best, Laura, and speedy recovery.

Speaker 31 You could do, you know, you could say, you know, I hope you have a seven out of 10 hysterectomy. I think you want a 10 out of 10.

Speaker 31 I think, yeah, you think you've got to play it straight, Baz, to be fair.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 jolly good.

Speaker 33 Well, yeah, well, thank you for your email, Laura.

Speaker 31 We appreciate it. Wish you all the best best with the up and with your recovery.
And that'll do for today. Thank you, Nadam.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much.

Speaker 31 Thanks, John.

Speaker 32 Cheers, Max.

Speaker 31 Thanks, Baz. Thank you.
Before we go, just want to mention a brilliant new Guardian podcast that starts this week. It's called Black Box.
It's about artificial intelligence.

Speaker 31 So actually, it's about our relationship with AI, the ways in which it might help us, and the ways in which it's going to be very bad.

Speaker 31 Each episode follows a different story from deep fakes to facial recognition. We think it's the guide to AI you've been waiting for.
New episodes out every Monday and Thursday.

Speaker 31 Subscribe to Black Box, wherever you get your podcasts. Football Weekly was produced by Joel Grove.
Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

Speaker 1 This is The Guardian.