Is the narrative of Klopp's kids v Chelsea’s billions unfair? – Football Weekly podcast

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Liverpool's children win the Carabao Cup marshalled by the old man Virgil Van Dyke.

Were Chelsea the billion-pound blue bottle jobs that Gary Neville said they were?

But for Keevin Kelleher, they could have easily won this game.

And they had lots of kids playing too, just kids who happen to have cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

And is there any part of Jürgen Klopp thinking, I might just hang around and see how this all goes?

In the Premier League, another one of those defeats for Manchester United.

Another chance for Barry to work out if Fulham are good or not.

At the top Arsenal, blow Newcastle away and Manchester City win.

again just.

Also today we reflect on Danny Elves' four and a half year prison sentence for sexual assault.

We'll pay tribute to Stan Bowles, make no mention of the Cambridge Aderby, answer your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Jonathan Wilson, welcome.

Morning.

How are you doing?

I'm very well.

Thank you.

Hello, Ed Aarons.

Hello, Max.

How are you?

As well as when Wilson asked quite recently, Gary Glendenning, hello.

Hello, Max.

How are you?

Thanks for asking.

Really well.

Daniel says, is anyone going to stand up, be bold and call out the Liverpool players for over-celebrating?

John says, out of you and Barry, who's the young kid and who's the £60 million bottle job?

And we'll get to the bottle jobbing bit in a second.

I thought this was a really good game, actually, Wilson.

I don't know if I'm alone in thinking that.

Of all the Chelsea, Liverpool, nil, almost nil-nils forever, this was one I quite enjoyed.

Yeah, it was entirely engaging.

I thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of those games where, largely because I wasn't working directly on it, I was quite glad when I went to extra time because I was quite glad of the extra half-hour of entertainment.

So, yeah, I thought it was a very good game.

Slightly freakish that there weren't goals earlier.

I mean, the woodwork was hit three times.

Both keepers made good saves.

I mean, Kevin Callagher particularly.

And yeah, the oddity was that before the game, you sort of looked at the squads, you looked at the benches, and you sort of thought the longer this goes on, the better the chance Chelsea have.

And that seemed to be playing out in the 90 minutes.

And in an extra time,

Liverpool were by far the better.

So I think Chelsea offered some threat on the break, but Liverpool picked up again, and the flow of the game was in their direction.

Which I mean, I guess an extra time

it's hard to know, Ed, isn't it?

But I mean, the whole narrative has been about

this being a bunch of kids beating a sort of gnarled old Chelsea team, but it's sort of not quite.

I feel that's slightly misleading.

Like, there were just loads of young players on the pitch.

It's just what did,

can I give you a stat about that?

Yeah.

At the end of the game, the total age of the the Liverpool 11 was 266, and the total age of the Chelsea 11 was 250.

So Liverpool's 11, despite picking their crash, were still 16 years older than Chelsea's.

Yeah.

But I don't know if the case is that if a player has been bought for lots of money, even if they're 22 or 20 or whatever, then we don't consider them like a young player.

Like we treat Academy product...

products in a different way to players who've moved on from somewhere.

Yeah, I think it was the nature of the substitutions, wasn't it?

i think how many minutes before the end was six minutes or something

less than that no sorry three minutes before the end um he bought on dans uh jaden dans and james mcconnell and simicas as well who was obviously much more experienced and and that just you know there's such a bold move in in that position with the game you know obviously heading towards extra time and and looking ahead to that he was obviously thinking well i've kind of got nothing to lose here my other my experienced players are you know really knackered.

But it's just the significance of it.

It was such a, it's just so striking at the time.

Maybe the team that did even them up in terms of age, but, you know, obviously Liverpool still had Virgil Van Dijk on the pitch who was who was, you know, absolutely superb in that game and marshalled those young players throughout.

And they absolutely rose to the occasion, didn't they?

It was really good to see.

And I think

they rightly took the headlines because, you know, they won Liverpool the game in the end.

But I I think there is a point about the age of the players that the 11 that finished for Chelsea,

they were all aged between 20 and 26.

So they were all young.

Liverpool put on three teenagers, but they still had a 32-year-old, a 31-year-old, a 27-year-old, a 26-year-old, sorry, two 27-year-olds and a 26-year-old on the pitch.

And I think that that's exactly the problem with what Chelsea are doing.

If you bring in a massive kids, there's no structure there, there's no sort of emotional stability there.

Whereas those three teenagers coming on,

that Liverpool model has been refined over a decade, say.

They know what they're doing.

They know who to look up to.

They know that they've got Van Dijk, Andy Robertson.

They know they've got experienced players there.

They've got Endo there.

Actually, Endo probably had gone off by then, hadn't he?

But they've got players to learn from, players to stabilise them.

And it's a very different thing chucking in three or four kids into an established structure rather than having a team full of okay, kids you may not be quite as young as them, but still there's no experience, there's no established structure there.

And actually, Barry,

what's the more difficult thing

as a youngster?

Is it harder to be a 21-year-old who's like being moved from another side of the world and has the pressure of the transfer fee, or being a youngster who's sort of come up through an academy system and is familiar, you know, just knows where the toilets are at the training ground?

Oh, it's definitely harder if you're a youngster who's moved to a country where you may not speak the language, been yanked out of your comfort zone and have a big transfer fee to justify it without question.

I mean it's probably easy enough to find out where the toilets at the training ground are.

I think if you hadn't watched this game and your knowledge of what happened was based entirely on some of the chin-stroking comment pieces and sidebars that are being fired out of the the press box at the end of the game, you could be forgiven for thinking that these plucky underdogs of Liverpool had put out a team of under-14s that was

facing a Chelsea team full of gnarled season trophy winners and absolutely battered them.

And that's really not what happened.

This game could have gone either way.

Liverpool weren't any better or worse than Chelsea.

And

I think some of the criticism of Chelsea has been very unfair, while simultaneously agreeing with what Jonathan and Ed say, that, you know, we all know they've spaffed a load of money on on these youngsters and don't appear to have any sort of plan.

But yeah, I think some of the people reporting at it on T V, on the radio and in papers

came with this preconceived idea of what they were going to write in the event of a Chelsea defeat and Chelsea did go on to lose the game, but there was nothing in it.

It was a it was a coin toss at the end really.

Yeah.

I mean I guess that's the that's sort of the nature of the nature of reporting is yes.

the narrative.

I'm not criticising them, but I think that's what's happened.

Chelsea were not any worse than Liverpool in this game.

They just happened to lose.

I think there's a slightly odd feeling of kickoff.

I was really surprised by how many people I heard saying, oh, because of Liverpool's injuries, Chelsea are probably favourites.

They'd started the game 10 positions behind the Middle League, 25 points behind.

There's a reason for that.

And it's as if people sort of still think this is the Chelsea of a decade ago, that they haven't worked out, that this is a this is a Chelsea that's been completely ripped apart, they've started again.

Chelsea of 11th in the league, 25 points per Liverpool, because they're nowhere near as good as Liverpool.

And you sort of think, okay, if that was,

I don't know, who normally finished 11th in the league, sort of a

12th, aren't they?

Yeah, it's sort of Fulham, Fulham, I'd say sorry,

sort of a Fulham-y, Palacey, West Ham-y-type side against Liverpool.

Would we have said the same thing that they were favoured?

We'd said they had a great chance, but we wouldn't have said they were favourites.

And I think there's a I mean, it's a ludicrous thing to say because Chelsea Alf spent a billion quid on a team that won the Champions League three years ago.

Yeah,

they are a team who are left in the league.

They did go in this game underdogs, despite Liverpool having, what, 10 players out and then lost another.

Well, Gravenberg and Endo left the stadium on crutches as well.

I think that's that about Trevor Chaliba being the only, isn't he the only player left from when they won the Champions League?

And that was their last trophy three years ago against Man City.

He was the only player left.

Well, I think he was the only, he was certainly the only player left from the final two years ago.

From the final two years ago, sorry.

Both of those maybe two, I don't know.

Yeah, I think that's right.

He was the only player left from the final two years ago, which is even more incredible, isn't it?

The turnover of players and such a young player as well.

So there's nobody there like, you know, John Terry or Frank Lampard or Didier Drogbo or so many of those players who won multiple titles and had that experience.

And

it was really Conor Gallagher's bad day, wasn't it, that cost Chelsea in the end?

Because he missed so many chances, especially in that last few minutes of normal time.

And you kind of feel a bit sorry for him in a way because all the pressure falls on him.

And he, you know, he's expected to leave that team.

And he's still a young, very young player.

And yeah,

he's got the ability.

But yeah, I think it's a really tough arse for him.

And

a lot of people are probably blaming him for them not winning yesterday.

Oh, I thought he played really well, actually.

Yeah, me too.

I know he missed the chances, but none of them were easy chances.

That say from Kelleher when he was on him immediately as the balls played him in the box.

That's just a really good save.

I think with that one, he should have took it first.

It's easy to say this, but I think he should have just taken it first time.

Well, possibly, but

did he would have been expecting Kelleher to be so quickly?

I'd be inclined to give Keller credit there.

But yeah, on another day, it could have been, you know, he could have been the hero.

And he has scored some crucial goals for them this season, even though they're having a poor season and doing generally well, even though he's kind of on his head's on the block and supposedly could be sold still.

So,

yeah, I do feel for him in particular.

But yeah, Chelsea, I think you really missed Thiago Silver, but obviously Tiago Silva has not been the player that he used to be this season either.

So they just haven't got anybody in that age bracket, have they?

Like Van Dyke's like early 30.

Yeah, you know, they've got rid of it, all of them, haven't they?

So it's really telling, I think.

If Connor Gallagher had scored one of those late chances in normal time,

what would the post-match narrative be then?

Would we be reading about what a wonderful job Maurizio Pocciatino had done to mold this dysfunctioning, disparate group of mercenaries and overpriced youngsters together to get the to grind out this result?

You know, I, i i

i we probably would but that's not what happens so we

we're now you know they're they're being called i think gary neville's comment seems to have landed with a lot of people and they they took it and ran with it about the billion pound blue bottle job i i think that's completely true that had had they scored you know win in the last 10 minutes, we'd have been saying, okay, it's the start of Chelsea pulling together.

But the point is, not not only didn't they, but they were then terrible in extra time.

When the momentum seemed to be with them, they were unable to step up.

And what was really weird to me was that Klopp used all six substitutions.

Potato only used four.

They spent a billion quid on the squad, and yet he still doesn't trust half his bench to bring them on.

So, I mean, whether

I wouldn't have said they bottled out, I'd have said they just ran out of energy and Pottery looked to his bench and thought, I don't trust any of these.

Whereas Klopp did have players he could trust, which is a slightly different thing.

I think that goes back to the spending and the

far deeper structures of a club.

But I think the point that they had a great opportunity towards the end of 90 minutes and then were unable to take that, I think that is entirely valid.

Yeah, and that's why, I think that's why the bottle job thing's come through, isn't it?

Because it felt like everyone just expected them to blow Liverpool away with all their young players in extra time.

And they

went quite passive.

They seemed to stand off them, didn't they?

They were saying it on on the commentary.

They really did.

And

that allowed Liverpool's young players to get a bit of confidence.

And they started stroking it around.

But it is striking if you look at the subs that weren't used, it is all Chelsea's young players.

It's where they had two keepers on the bench for a start, and then Alfie Gill, Chris, Billy G, and Yimi Taranian.

So obviously, not the same sort of trust in the young players as Liverpool had.

It's interesting you say that, Jonathan, about Parchnot trusting his bench because

you would think that replacing a more experienced but absolutely knackered player with a callow, whey-faced teenager who is also very good at football should be a no-brainer in a final, but clearly it isn't.

Yeah, I suppose we just don't, we just don't know.

I think it sort of says an interesting thing, like you were saying, Barry, of what would we say if Chelsea's won?

And like, I guess the nature is they didn't, right?

So Liverpool did win, so we should praise Klopp and plays the changes that he made, etc.

But there is that nature of quite a lot of football matches could quite easily go the other way

but you know you have to make something you have to sit there and go what am I going to write about or talk about or say you can't just go well both sides could have won good night like that's just sort of like you're making a post but I think it is worth not just getting sucked in by this means that the Chelsea model is I mean we all think it's ridiculous how much money they've spent but it doesn't mean that Potatino won't be a success and this doesn't mean that Jurgen Klopp will win four trophies this season but I guess we you know, having said that, you know, Klot was clearly emotional after his Ed, and he would say, you know, this is my finest moment or my favorite trophy.

I just wonder if there's any part of him thinking, actually, these kids are quite good and I could change my mind.

And he doesn't seem like the guy who would, you know, but.

Yeah, I think he's pretty set on it.

But that makes his legacy kind of perfect, doesn't it?

If he leaves like as a winner, however many trophies they can win this season and also with the next generation, if whoever steps in,

having, you know, all these young players who are ready to to go uh but yeah i mean i i you imagine that he he may have a bit of

a few moments this season where he thinks about it because you know alex for alex ferguson did it obviously changed his mind and came back but i don't know i think he's the sort of guy he once he said once he decides something he's he sticks to it but yeah it'll be interesting to see how many trophies they can win this season but maybe that could that could be a get go against them in the end all the the amount of games they've had to play and the injuries though yeah another couple of injuries as well um the look the goal was a great header from van dijke he does that run a lot doesn't he um the disallowed goal was in many ways more interesting i think wilson because a lot of people utterly furious that that endo is and they're wrong they're wrong to be fair so this decision is just correct it's not it's i thought the referee was absolutely exceptional and in some ways i'm glad liverpool won just to stop the whining about the referee

That decision was just correct.

And people on, you know, the television boards seem unable to grasp that.

It wasn't the fact that Endo blocked Cobble.

It was the fact he was offside while doing so.

And he was offside.

So

the goal should be ruled out.

In the same way, the Liverpool City game, Ruben Diaz had a goal ruled out because of Akanji blocking Allison while in an offside position.

You know,

that's just what the law is.

So

I just don't...

I don't know what the solution is when a referee has got the decision, a difficult decision.

In some senses, a counter-intuitive decision.

He's got it absolutely right.

And yet we're still pretending it's a controversial decision.

It's only controversial because people don't understand the law.

We all nod in agreement.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, wouldn't it be a foul if he was if he was on side?

I mean, like, if you're not allowed to block a player like NFL, you're not allowed to like stand

you don't have to, you don't have to give your ground away.

If a player runs into you, that's yeah, exactly.

He didn't stick his arms out, but if they run into you when you're offside, then it's a problem because you're interfering with play.

Thank you.

Just a final word on, well, it might not be a final word, but my final word on Liverpool's youngsters.

I don't know what

maybe this allot has been made, but three of Liverpool's bench were the sons of Lee Clark, Jason Kumas, and Neil Danz.

So, you know, the genes are strong around that neck of the woods.

Although Rob Lee isn't from Liverpool, I'm prepared to concede.

Are you thinking of sort of footballing stud farms?

Yeah, well, maybe.

God, would you have, sorry, you wouldn't have like a great footballer in a, you know, like

locked away.

And then you sort of, oh, this is terrible.

I don't want to

know.

There do seem to be a lot of that

former players' sons coming through at the moment, don't they?

There's like there's

cadamachery, yeah, or is it just we're getting old and it's more noticeable?

Yeah, maybe.

But I suppose there's a very high chance, isn't there?

You're genetically,

you know, quite likely to have ability and you're you're probably exposed to quite a lot of football.

You know, that

there's a high chance of that if your dad happens to be a professional footballer.

And finally, Simon says, looking at the advertising holdings, Carabao now make beer.

Is it time for Barry to return to Guardian Towers and see if there's a new Carabao box?

Perhaps they've sent us loads, Barry, in the last five years and we have absolutely no way of finding out.

Yeah, I just had a look.

It's a pale ale apparently

introduced in Thailand because Carabao is a Thai company, obviously, to compete with what is an almost total monopoly or duopoly of Singa and Chang beers.

Interesting.

There you go.

A live tour.

A live show in a full moon in Kopan Yang.

We could close the full moon party with a live show.

God, that sounds awful.

I don't think I'm ready to go back to Thailand so quickly.

It's very humid there.

I spent a lot of a full moon party.

chatting up a girl who said she was in the video to the Beatles free as a bird.

I mean, if she'd said she was in a video to like yesterday, I probably thought she was a bit old for me.

But anyway, I never verified it.

Just in case you're listening, I fell asleep and everybody was, they'd disappeared by the time I woke up many hours later.

That'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do the Premier League.

Hi Pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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We already know that Remarkable's the leader in the paper tablet tablet category, digital notebooks that give you everything you love about paper, but with the power of modern technology.

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable Paper Pro move.

Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

Yeah, it's their most portable paper tablet yet.

It holds all your notes, to-dos, and documents, but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin, so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket.

Perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office, like maybe a football journalist, Barry.

Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, Matt.

Exactly.

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This paper tablet doesn't.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Let's see the Premier League.

What's that?

Old Trafford?

Michael says, Should Jim Rackliff focus on knocking Fulham off their perch before he thinks about any other perches?

Jonathan says, Has Barry worked out of Fulham or any good yet, or were Man United just horrendously poor?

I mean, Barry, it was, if you're not a Manchester United fan, very humorous to see everyone going, Ah, we've still got time to win this.

And then, and then, in a real shock turn of events, a Dhamma end product from Adama Triore.

Yeah, um fulham fully deserved to win this game and probably should have won it by more but it did look like they might throw away the points which would be i suppose a quite fulham thing to do because when united equalized in the last couple of minutes normal time they they threw the kitchen sink at fulham and that's probably what was their undoing in the end i mean fulham's winner was

criminal goal to give away when you see where the move started at the other end of the pitch near the corner flag uh and I think it was a mistake by Viktor Lindelof that allowed them to break up field from a throw-in

and score.

And yeah, hats off to Adama Treore, haired up field, beat two players and picked out Iwobi when you would have probably bet good money on him, you know, sending the ball over the stand or out for a throw in.

Yeah, Fulham deserved this win.

It was a really good performance for them.

And they were missing Raul Jimenez, who is having a pretty decent season by his own very poor recent standards, caveat, that injury he's never really fully recovered from.

Missing Paulina and missing Willian, who are key players for them.

It was genuinely amusing coming on the back of that

interview Jim Rathcliffe gave

last week, which

you know, he said all the things Manchester United wanted to hear, Obviously,

quite a lot of what he said was

from some quarters, not all quarters, some quarters reported ludicrously, uncritically.

But I guess maybe that's why certain journalists were invited along to act as stenographers for Sir Jim.

But Manchester United were not at the races, really, and

good win for Fulham.

I was looking through Fulham's results actually earlier this morning just to see.

they're not as bad as I thought they were, but I have seen some of their games and they've been really poor, but they were very, very good in this one.

Yeah, and pleased for Alex Awobien, who's actually been really impressive for this team this season.

He had a couple of chances in the first half, didn't he?

So, like, great for him to get the winner.

Well, and also, you know, he got a lot of stick, didn't he, after Nigeria's defeat in the AFCON final?

And he had it, he didn't have the greatest tournament out there, but yeah, he was the butt of a lot of social media abuse from from Nigeria fans who are upset.

So, yeah, good to see him getting a winner.

And Calvin Bassey also scored the first, so double Nigeria for Fulham, who,

you know, they always try to play the right way, I think.

And

the problem's been going away from home.

They're not that great.

Normally, their record's not very good.

But Munis has given them an extra dimension, hasn't he, in the last few weeks?

He's going to get called up by Brazil, I think.

Apparently, Doraval came to the training ground to see him him last week.

And yeah, he's going to get a call-up.

So it's really exciting for them.

And yeah, I think they're obviously going to push up the table, hopefully, a little bit more this scene if they get

a few more players back.

Tenhart said after the game, after one defeat, you have to see the bigger picture.

And the bigger picture looks very good.

What is the bigger picture, Wilson?

How far do you have to zoom out

for it to look good?

Yeah, Rackliff now being in situ.

I think that

suggests a new era is about to begin.

And

you hope a a new chapter begins with hope.

I think the front three that they have been able to play when Hoiland's been there,

they've won every game in the league when that three have played together with uh Rashford and Hoyland and Gonacho.

So that's something to build from.

I think that three gives you goals, but I think it doesn't necessarily give you much defensive cover.

So that's why the league results recently have started to look a bit more like the Champions League results, but rather mean quite quite drab

uh tight games, they're quite topsy-turvy,

drab games.

But no, Hoyland, they're lacking a bit of attacking thrust.

And there's still other problems in the squad.

And Fulham were much the better side for much of that game.

So the big picture, I would say, is still complicated rather than necessarily good.

Adam Crafton from the Athletic tweeting, another 17 shots against Manchester United for Fulham today to go with 22 for Luton, 23 for Villa, 22 for West Ham, 16 for Wolf, 17 for Newport, 16 for Spurs.

Simple stats tell you the coach is not setting the team up well enough.

I guess it's interesting, Barry, if the big picture features Eric Ten Hag next season.

I'd say there's a very good chance it might not because

Jim Ratcliffe didn't exactly sing his praises in that media briefing.

They reminded me of the Manchester United from earlier this season that were just very easy to play against.

There was one stage where Andres Pereira ran at the United defence and it just parted like the Red Sea.

And he shot and his shot fizzed narrowly wide.

But yeah,

it was back to the old man, United.

I thought.

Just their midfield was very easy to play through.

Yeah, it was the same last week against Fulham.

Sorry, against Luton last week.

You know, they had an amazing start and obviously two ninety and two goals of seven minutes.

And then just Luton started playing and United looked so scared.

There was what, you know, do you remember when Maguire got booked for fouling Morris?

He just he looked so scared of Morris.

Morris just took him on on the edge of the box and then Maguire got substituted.

I think he's kind of regressing a little bit, isn't he, in the last few weeks?

God, the Euros don't seem that hopeful with Maguire regressing and Calvin Phillips not having a great time.

No.

But I mean, yeah, he always plays well for England.

That is true.

In, yes, in our losing quarterfinal or whatever happens.

Bruno Fernandez is

pretending to be injured when he just, you know, hit a shot with his F foot.

I know he does it a a lot but it was absolute sort of vintage fernandez has really upset seems to have upset everybody including some men united fans going this is our captain you'd never see brian robson etc doing this well brian robson didn't have to pretend to be injured because he genuinely or generally was injured my entire playing with a memory shouldy brian robson as a player is just him looking sad with a holding his collarbone

after ranks go 86 that game where he just i just can see that image of him he's just there's so much sweat on the poor guy, yeah, and he's just holding his shoulder.

So look,

disappointing result for Manchester United.

A nicer one for Arsenal, who hammered Newcastle 4-1, Simon.

Should Arsenal have signed a striker in the transfer window?

Feels like that's the next should Chelsea have strengthened type question that we'll get a million times.

They've scored 25 goals conceded just three times in six matches.

Sixth win in a row in the Premier League.

Very much in the title race, Wilson.

And again, made another Premier League team look hopeless.

I mean, i i i do we just keep saying it well you know west ham were hopeless uh burnie were hopeless this newcastle team were hopeless it's just a very lucky run of fixtures for arsenal until the end of the season when they've won every game i mean it is it is to an extent the fixture list but they have also played well and they're certainly capable of not beating uh slightly weaker sides i think what's what's interesting with arsenal is that every full season a tattoo's had there they've had around about christmas and it's difficult to to know exactly when it is because the World Cup and Covert have sort of shifted the calendar about a bit.

But mid-season, every season, they've had a run of five or six games without a win.

And that was ended this season by that warm weather trip to Dubai.

And they came back and they had the game against Palace where they didn't actually play that well, but they got the goals from set plays, and that got the confidence back.

And maybe there's a bit more freshness in the legs after the break.

But it is an intriguing, recurring pattern.

So why they have that fall-off every season, just for sort of four or five weeks.

And that could end up costing them because if they didn't have that, they'd be miles clear at the minute.

So that issue that people keep bringing up of, oh, yeah, everybody said he should have signed the striker.

But the point is, there are times when you're not playing well when having a top-class striker will nick you a point or nick you a win.

When they're playing well, they don't need that because they've got loads of goals from the wide players, they've got goals from midfield.

And I still feel this Arsenal are very much a mood team that they struggle to get results when

they're in adversity.

But once they're on the front foot, once they're playing well, they can be devastating, they can hammer sides.

And I think you saw that last season as well.

You think of the game at Anfield, you think of a game at West Ham towards the end of the season when they began

to be reeled in by City.

Those games started really well.

They came under pressure and they couldn't respond to it.

And I still think that is there with them, that they're very, very good when things are good, but can they be good when things are bad?

And I still don't think we know that.

And that's where a striker would help.

The youth of the team is that's that's a you you know because of because of that you know there's there's not many experienced players in there and they're learning on the job aren't they and and really you know when so for instance saka obviously he ran out of form didn't he and i think that was at the the time when arsenal were really struggling and then since the they went to dubai he scored in five premier league games and matched the record of ian right from 1994 and he's got 16 goals now which is more than he's ever scored in a season so I think he's an absolute key to their success.

But, you know, they're going to learn this season.

They're going to learn from the experience of last season.

And they already look like a much better team, I think, this year.

We obviously the addition of Declan Rice.

It's just how long they can keep this going.

And a striker would help them win the games when they're not playing, as well as that, you know, when they're not free-flowing and scoring loads of goals.

So.

Just what happened in Dubai?

Yeah, I know.

What happened?

It's this amazing thing.

I know we all sort of mocked, we all mocked like, um, you know, Salt Bay, but maybe there was something in it.

Maybe all of some like cocoon.

I went to the press conference after that when Arteta was talking about what they'd done and he was talking about how it, you know, it was all a big holistic approach and there'd been all these sessions of just chats and chilling out and all that kind of thing.

Yeah, got a couple more set play plans in the bag.

There's 19 goals now this season with set plays, which is incredible.

Yeah, and actually, Barry, I mean, this game showed one of the, when they are good, they can score goals in so many different ways: set pieces, saka being brilliant, or like really lovely, flowing moves.

Because, like, that the Havertz goal was lovely, and they had a couple of other moves that were just like, This is sort of brilliant, passing, incisive football at its best.

There was one move, uh, I think it was a Martinelli header.

No, was it a Martinelli or Havertz header?

Kind of, he couldn't quite keep it down, but that would have been a yeah, Martinelli, yeah, that would have been just a fantastic goal.

It was beautiful moves that led to it.

Newcastle Newcastle made it very easy for them though they or maybe Arsenal just made Newcastle make it look very easy for them uh they were pitiful it was a very

botman and shar were were awful uh Tino Liveramento got chucked in out of position to cover for Dan Byrne as you know many suggested he should do um

and he didn't play particularly well and interestingly enough when Dan Byrne came on he he was quite good.

He cleared one off the line, he's set up Newcastle's goal.

Alexander Isak was totally isolated.

Yeah, Eddie Howe was

he didn't really offer any excuses after the game.

They were terrible, Newcastle.

So the vitality, Bournemouth-Nill City one, so the top of the league now.

Liverpool 60 from 26, Man City 59 from 26, Arsenal 58 from 26, which is absolutely brilliant, isn't it?

And you mentioned Saka scoring 16 this season and phil foden has that as well it feels like he's scoring every week at the moment oh yeah he was absolutely brilliant in that game it was it was a really good game actually i watched um most of it on the saturday bournemouth had a good go at city they really did they really did and then and they just didn't quite have the finish but foden just was superb he glides across the pitch and

yeah i mean if

England can get him and Bellingham in the same team, it's really mouth-watering.

It's a good question.

So

how do they do that?

I mean, could you put Foden in the three in midfield or do you have to play him?

I think so.

I think you could, but I don't think Gareth Southgate is

going to take that kind of risk.

But I think you could play him, Rice and Bellingham in a three.

But yeah, it's taking the handbrake off.

I wouldn't.

I mean, I might do that if I was chasing the game 20 minutes ago, but I'd have Foden on the left and Sacco on the right and Bellingham at the front of midfield with Rice and one other and that one other is is a difficult question at the minute.

There was a really nice moment in this game when Erling Haaland,

I'm not sure which Bournemouth centre back it was, but he sort of barged him over as he does and then he's shot but because he'd barged a Bournemouth player over that Bournemouth player was sliding along the ground and the ball hit him.

It was like he was just too strong for that moment.

What do we make of City's recent form Wilson?

They keep winning, but not, okay, they do against Chelsea, but they're generally winning.

It's not convincing, but I still think most of us deep down think, but this is an example of what we're talking about with Arsenal, right?

They're winning when they're not playing brilliantly.

Yeah, so they've won, is it 13 over the last 14 without playing well?

I mean,

when you put it like that, yeah.

But you're right.

I mean, particularly the last four games, I think.

If you think of the Everton game at home, they weren't all convincing.

I mean,

Everton didn't ever look like winning that game, but you wouldn't say it was a sort of fluent, dominant city display.

Struggled a bit against Brentford, struggled a bit

against Bournemouth, and drew against Chelsea.

But if you've taken 10 points from four games where you haven't really played well, when you still feel you've got players coming back to fitness and form, I mean, Stones was exceptional against Bournemouth, and he's obviously just coming back.

So, if you've got him, you've got De Berner.

Holland, I think, is still not quite back to his best after his injury.

But, you know, we've said all along that March is key because they've got a load of hard games in March.

And if they're still producing this sort of level of results by the end of March, they'll be top of the table and they'll be clear.

And

yeah, it's

but you know, if they keep playing like this, maybe they won't get those results at home to Arsenal away at Liverpool.

I've read an interesting stat somewhere, I can't remember where, but City have just ended a run of 11 games where each of the 11 teams they played were ninth or lower in the table on the day they played City.

So if they're not playing well in those games and winning, if the same level of performance, you'd imagine they'll start losing when they play better teams.

I mean, Borma should have got something out of this game.

They should have at least got a draw.

Marcus Tavernier missed a couple of chances.

There was that header in injury time, wasn't there?

Ennis Unel, wasn't it?

Ennis Unel, yes.

He should have scored as well.

Very unlucky, I thought it was a good effort.

So, yeah, I think Bourmet were pretty unlucky here.

Man United, they play next, Man City.

Obviously, form goes out of the window for that one.

Then they go to Liverpool, go to Brighton, home to Arsenal, home to Villa.

And Villa did School City, didn't they?

So it'll look fascinating to see where they are after all of those.

They'll probably win all of them.

Anyway, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin with Oliver Glasner's debut at Selhurst Park.

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Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly, Palace 3, Burnley-Nil.

Um, Ed, the beginning of the Oliver Glasner era.

Are you bouncing off the walls?

Yeah, very pleased that I wasn't there.

I had another engagement to attend to on the on Saturday, but yeah, I was pleased to see that they won.

And he was very impressive actually.

In the went to the press conference before, and

he shook everyone's hand before, which was very, very nice because there was quite a lot lot of people in there.

So it took a while.

And yeah,

he seems like a,

you know, he knows what he wants from the players and

has got a real method of playing.

And

by all accounts, Jonathan was there on Saturday, read his match report and seen the highlights.

Looks like they're adapting quite well to him.

Obviously, quite a few injuries at the moment.

And it's been a tumultuous few months, really, under poor old Roy Hodgson who wish all the best to after you know what happened and his his illness but yeah it's uh it's good to see them getting back on on the winning and to winning ways and I think the game against Luton in a couple of weeks is going to be is going to be quite key but Palace looked like they should be okay now I think I guess Glassnoard was helped massively by the fact A he was playing Burnley and B he was playing Burnley with 10 men yeah I mean he he made the point and he was absolutely right that the fact they went down to 10 men was not sort of a random occurrence it was because Pallas's press won, forced a mistake from James Trafford playing it out, put Brownhill in an impossible position.

Brownhill panics, uh, pulls back Jefferson Lerma, and you know, one of those red cards where he was pretty much jogging off before the referees got to him.

Yes, doesn't send it to DRS, did he?

Yeah, well, he did, he did then weirdly linger by the touchline like a batsman.

So, I think, oh, maybe that was grounded.

I'll just have a wait.

But, I mean, you know, DRS couldn't.

Oh, sorry, VAR couldn't conjure something to keep keep him on.

It was an obvious red card.

And Glasner said afterwards, and I guess probably he's right because Palace were totally on top, that he always thought the goal would come.

But there was, I think, 33 minutes plus, I think, three or four minutes of interest time in the first half.

So there was well over half an hour when they were playing against 10 men and didn't score.

And it was still 0-0.

And you could just sense a little bit of frustration, a little bit of unease creeping in.

You wonder if that had gone on another five, 10 minutes.

Might Burnley have held on?

but they didn't.

And once the first goal went in, they scored the other two within 11 minutes.

Like the penalty was pretty soft, but you know,

that was the third goal.

And so what?

And I think Burnley were they had a goal ruled out for slightly mystifying offside later on.

But again, it was one of those where was a player interfering?

Sort of, probably, yes.

But they were 3-0 down by then.

Who cares?

And actually, the two players I thought were really good.

And I think that 3-4-2-1 system that the Glaston likes really suited them were Lerma, who I thought was really good getting forward, but also Jordan I, who I've been very critical of in the past.

But I think the last two or three years he has sort of settled down.

I think playing in a slightly more withdrawn role suits him.

That what he's really bad at is making decisions in the box.

So if you don't let him get in the box as much, he doesn't have to make those decisions.

And his work rate is incredible, which I never really sort of thought of for him.

Remember Lars saying he was the most a few weeks ago, the most

foul best foul player in the Premier League.

I've been pushing for him to get a trophy for that, to be honest.

I think he deserves it.

But it sort of says something, right?

It tells you something that

he is causing problems, right?

Yeah.

And I think as Lerma went forward, he was very good at dropping into his space.

There was one moment when he ended up playing at left back for a while because Mitchell got caught up field.

So, yeah, his work rate, his sort of game intelligence seems to have improved significantly over the last two or three years.

And

he scored one and he set one up.

And so, yeah, it's 3-0.

Palace's biggest home win in over two years.

That's a great start for Glassner.

But there was that sort of edgy half-hour against 10 men where they couldn't have scored, and it could possibly have not gone for him.

To Villa Park, Villa 4, Forrest 2.

And actually, it's quite a significant win this for bat for Villa Barry, I think, because they lost their last two at home.

And when Forrest got back to got it back to 3-2, I imagine there would have been a few nerves around Villa Park.

Yeah, there would have been 3-0 up and cruising, and then they let in a goal just before half-time, so that that puts kind of a spring in Forrest.

They they pull another one back, and yeah, definitely nerves are going to jangle.

Um, I said, predicted, confidently predicted, uh, I think a week or two ago on this very podcast that uh Villa would go off a cliff because Bubicar Camera was injured.

I thought they might draw or lose this game, and they in the end they won it pretty comfortably.

So, making me look like a Trump Leon Bailey was absolutely superb on the right wing for them.

Yeah, it was a very, very good performance.

John McGinn, good again, obviously.

And

Forrest, poor result for them.

They still got the possibility of a points deduction hovering over them.

So yeah, nervy time for them.

Yeah, they've only won once in the league this year, this year, and that was against West Ham, who feels like have lost every game recently.

But for Villa, right, in the race for fourth place, Wilson, it's really interesting between them and Spurs.

Given that, A, they both play these similar styles of football.

They've both got to play each other in a couple of weeks, and they've both got to play City Arsenal and Liverpool.

So

it's almost impossible to know which way that will go.

Yeah, I guess the good thing for both of them is you probably think United aren't in that race anymore.

Whereas last week you'd start saying, oh, United just putting the run together.

I'm not sure I'd necessarily trust Villa or Tottenham to

keep this level of form.

So, yeah, I think they're both.

I mean, like Barry, I thought Villa were going to go on the slide, not just because of Bubico Camera, but just I think they looked, particularly after that Arsenal game, I know that's back in December now, but they just look naked.

But maybe the winter break has rejuvenated them.

I still don't think they're playing as well as they were in sort of late autumn, early winter.

But they're probably playing well enough to be in that battle for fourth of it.

So yeah, I think that's

two teams i wouldn't entirely trust but um that's what that's what makes a one-in good yeah and two teams you wouldn't trust they'd but who who both i think villa i i tend to agree with wilson they haven't been quite as convincing but they're still as exciting right their games are great to watch yeah douglas luis had a great game didn't he and he's he's yeah really catching the eye in the last few weeks and watkins has found refound his form he had a bit of a sticky patch but back on the goals now and he's key i think at the back they're a little bit shaky at the moment.

They've had quite a few injuries, haven't they?

But yeah,

if they can get their home form back going again, like they had such an amazing record, didn't they?

Then, you know, I think they've got a good chance.

But obviously, they've got Europe to deal with as well.

I think it's how much they put into that.

I think he might, just because it's, you know, they're obviously going places as a club.

They're probably at least going to get in the Europa League next year.

So I think he might just think that that's a chance to put in some younger players.

It's tricky, though, isn't it?

I mean, they should still do well in the Conference League, Rabbit.

It is the Conference League, like they should win it right and and if you're aston villa when was the last trophy for villa was whereas west ham it's kind of i think that was all i know west ham have done well this season got in the europa league quarterfinal and this is great achievement as well but i think villa maybe you know could get in the champions league this year and are really sort of pushing forward whereas you know west ham fans are quite frustrated they've not made that progress but yeah i

it might once they get to the sort of later stage it's going to be difficult to play a younger team isn't it but you you know saw what Klopp did with his young players.

So maybe there'll be a bit of that available.

They've got very good young players, haven't they, that have come through in the last few years.

So it could be a good platform for them.

Brighton Everton one.

Oliver says, are Everton 13th on 31 points or 17th on 21 points or anywhere in between?

How can the league have any credibility when clubs in the bottom half don't know their current position?

And this uncertainty...

must affect players too.

How can it be justified?

I don't know what you think, Barry.

I mean, obviously, appeals have to be heard.

They have to have due process, et cetera.

But it is for Everton and Forrest and for Everton again it must be a quite weird situation I don't know why

this decision can't be made more quickly and obviously uncertainty is not good you would rather just know

how many points you have definitively

in the meantime all you can do is you're best on the pitch and what Everton are doing now is not good enough because

they've gone nine without a Premier League win, five draws, four defeats and

that rate of progress you're probably going to go down whether you get

another couple of points back, courtesy of your appeal.

But yeah, I totally understand their frustration.

I'm not sure if it's affecting their performances on the pitch because the performances on the pitch were pretty bad before they got a points deduction anyway.

Everton will probably end up doing what they usually do and it's just relying on three teams being worse than them and there's a very good chance that could happen.

Do you think they're just waiting for the points deductions or the results of the appeals, etc., to do it on the last day of the season during the game?

So the as-it-stand table.

So there are fans at Forest on their transistor radios that hear that Everton have been deducting another two points and those fans go totally wild.

And then they say that Forrest have actually deducted three points and then Forrest hastily put an appeal and then suddenly they get a point back.

Oh, it could be absolutely marvellous television.

You joke about this, but what this does do is it means that even for Shevardne Knight and Burnley, there's a chance because

they can get three or four wins and if Everton and Forrest both lose points, yeah, maybe they do stay up.

True.

So it's a brilliant way of sort of maintaining the tension for the end of the season.

I'm all for it.

I think Everton's last game of the season is away at Arsenal.

So that could be quite the game.

Arsenal, you know, Manchester City suddenly gets docked 75 points halfway through the second half because of the 115 charges.

Everton gets five back.

Oh.

Oh, it's funny because we don't support these teams, right?

Anyway, yes.

It becomes a bit like deal or no deal, right?

You can have managers that say, I don't know, after 70 minutes, look, you can accept a seven-point deduction.

It might be 10, it might be none.

We'll give you seven.

You can have that now.

What's in Nuno Espirito Santo's box?

Yeah, exactly.

Rips it off.

Anyway, the other game was Wolves beating Sheffield United 1-0.

Gary O'Neill, we have said many times, doing an excellent job.

I mean, this wasn't

a scintillating victory.

And actually, Sheffield United played pretty well in the second half.

Vinicius Souza and Jack Robinson had a sort of, I wouldn't say a punch-up, but they were pushing.

It went to VAR

to see if they should send off a Sheffield United player for attacking his own play, which does remind me of when Cambridge United's Paul Raynor was sent off for head-butting Cambridge United's Mick Heathcote during a 6-0 defeat at Brentford,

which was thoroughly entertaining.

West Ham played Brentford tonight.

More on that on tomorrow's pod, if we remember, of course.

Changing tack quite significantly, but no easy way to do it.

Matthew says, hi, Max.

Please, could you give Jonathan a few minutes to talk about his powerful article in The Guardian on the Danny Alves case and wider concerns regarding sexual abuse in football?

Danny Alves has been sentenced to four years and six months for the rape of a 23-year-old woman in a Barcelona nightclub in December of 2022.

A written statement from the Audencia Nacional in Barcelona asserts that the victim did not consent to sex with Alves and the evidence presented to the court in addition to the victim's statement proved that she'd been raped.

Alves denied wrongdoing and his lawyer has said they will appeal.

Yeah, I thought your piece was excellent, Wilson, which is essentially saying we don't know

who our heroes are, basically.

We just don't know.

Yeah, I mean,

it's so difficult to talk about without sounding trite.

So, obviously, the most important person here is the victim, and that's where our sympathy should be.

But there is also

a much lesser, far more trivial, obviously, it goes without saying, impact on fans, journalists, people who've watched football for years.

And

Daniel Alves

was part of the greatest team I've ever seen of that Barcelona team.

And

of course,

it defiles that team.

It makes it very hard to watch replays of that team, the highlights of that team playing.

And every time he gets the ball, you think, oh,

and so it's sort of this sense of

a betrayal of

something that was quite beautiful and now can't be.

And then, you know,

the wider point I went on to make is that

we sort of think we know footballers and and we sort of

assume that somehow their personality is related to how they play or how they behave on the pitch.

And I think often that's just not really the case.

I think we just don't know them at all.

And,

you know, football is this great soap opera.

It's an enormous entertainment, it's an enormous distraction.

It's a great thing.

But actually, the people involved in it.

We're sort of imposing these sort of almost caricatures on them, sort of lightly sketching them in.

We don't have a clue.

And even in interviews and things, Tony Alvis seemed so sort of happy-girl-lucky, so cheerful, so joyful.

You sort of assumed he was one of the good guys, and yeah, he obviously wasn't.

And we have talked about this before, and you have to be careful what you say and what you don't say.

But there's a sort of deafening silence on this issue.

And

there is a problem within the game.

There's obviously a problem in society of conviction rates are absolutely terrible.

You know, it's 1%, I think, in the UK.

There are issues with the amount of sexual and domestic violence that happens

that fans commit

after disappointing results, which just seems so unbelievable.

And of course, there is a problem with

young footballers certainly being accused of these things.

Well, that's a very difficult thing to talk about for legal reasons because.

And that almost sort of shows what a problem is.

Every time you come to try and write about it, you realise that there are live cases ongoing and therefore you can't actually talk about it.

So, I mean, that's one of the reasons there's a silence for very, very good legal reasons.

There is evidence from the US in the universities that the high levels of testosterone you find in athletes seem to equate to a higher level of sexual abuse/slash/domestic violence.

I'm not sure

how robust those studies are, but those studies certainly exist.

I'm sort of slightly reluctant to call it a football problem because

the cases are always all very different, and they're so hard to analyse because when live cases are ongoing, you can't do it publicly.

So

I think the best thing we can do as journalists is to analyse each case individually when it happens and when it's been through the court system.

And as you say, Daniel Alves is still appealing.

So it may be that the...

the verdict turns out to be different to what we currently think it is.

But you read that verdict and it's really, really unpleasant.

And I would urge people to read the verdict and see exactly what he's been convicted of.

Yeah.

And what you said at the top is the most important thing of our thoughts being with the victim.

I wrote a piece

about it, and I could only write it if I didn't include any

names of any players.

That was the only way it could get through the lawyers, was to write about this subject.

Well, I wrote a big piece, Not for the Guardian, a couple of years ago, and I didn't name a single player, and that got kid-boshed by lawyers because

players who had live investigations ongoing or were had been charged, it could have been taken to be a bit.

Well, it clearly was indirectly about them.

So it's huge.

That's the reason journalists don't talk about it, because for legal reasons, we really can't in general terms.

Let's talk about Stan Bowles.

So Rick says, Dear Football Weekly, as a fan of a certain age, I thought you might like this

tale of Stan Bowles.

It was the late 70s.

I was with my grandparents at a Norwich City QPR match.

Our seats were in the old main stand, level with the 18-yard line above the tunnel.

At the end of the half-time interval, Stan trotted out onto the pitch and spied the unattended match ball.

Quick as a flash, he tucked it under his shirt at the the back and then stood facing the center circle with his arms crossed.

Of course, when the ref wanted to start the second half, there was no ball.

Officials and players were all mystified.

It's like a reverse Paddington.

Officials and players were all mystified, but those of us behind Stan in the stand knew exactly where it was.

It was just like Panto season as Bowles stood there innocently while those around me pointed at him and roared, it's behind him.

Eventually, Stan produced the ball and the game could get underway.

Of course, there was no booking and no cascade of abuse from the stands.

I've seen thousands of footy matches, and yet this incident from nearly 50 years ago sticks with me.

Thanks for being yourself, Stan, and rest in peace.

That is from Rick McEwen.

So, the former England and QPR forward Stan Bowles died at the age of 75.

He'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, played more than 560 games in English football, was capped five times by England, made 315 appearances for QPR, scored 97 goals.

Barry, just sort of a classic throwback,

old-school entertainer footballer.

I mean, I'm too young to have watched him play, but everything you hear about Stan Bowles is that.

that.

Yeah, I'm also too young to have seen him play, but

he had the long hair.

He was a big boozer, woman-eyes, or gambler.

And

it seems remarkable, actually, given his lifestyle, that he

played so many games over 500.

But Paul Hayward wrote a nice piece about him in The Guardian.

kind of wistful

regret that some of these guys who clearly had massive drink and gambling problems were eulogized for drinking and gambling.

But

he seems to have been a terrific player and a nice guy.

And he obviously had demons, which he kind of played up to.

But yeah, may he rest in peace.

Yeah, and we should also send our thoughts to the family and friends of Chris Nickel.

East Street Shop says, Not a question is a statement of fact.

Chris Nicol gave both Alan Shearer and Matt Letitier their debuts.

Clearly, had a good eye as well as other great attributes.

Yeah, former Villa skipper has died at the age of 77.

He played for managed Southampton before taking charge of Walsall.

He'd been living with dementia, which he attributed to brain damage caused by repeatedly heading footballs over a lengthy career.

You might have seen that Alan Shearer documentary.

It's a really moving interview with Chris Nicol where he said, I am brain damaged from heading footballs.

My memory is in trouble.

Everyone forgets regular things, where are your keys, but when you forget where you live, that's different.

I've had that for the last four or five years.

It's definitely getting worse.

It bothers me.

He paid 51 times for Northern Ireland.

And yeah, our thoughts with everybody who

knew him.

Changing tack again.

Steve says, what colour is?

Cambridgeshire, Emerald Posh.

The posh are still pretty good, aren't they, Barry?

This obviously comes from PW United

very fortunately beating Cambridge United 1-0

and probably having 90% possession and basically dominating the football match.

But there's an EFL pod tomorrow, so we will talk about that.

Of Of course, from nowhere, Millwall won at Southampton.

Damn you, Neil Harris.

But that's how it goes.

But that'll do for today.

Thanks, Baz.

Thank you.

Cheers, Ed.

Cheers, Max.

Thanks, Wilson.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Daniel Stevens.

This is The Guardian.