Can Inter go all the way and what will Glasner bring to Palace? – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Let's start with some Champions League.

Marko Ornotovich does it on a temperate evening in Milan, even if not at the first time of asking.

After missing a couple of sitters, he almost misses the winner, but they all count and it means in to take a slender lead into the away leg at Atleti.

Meanwhile, Dortmund get a draw in Eindhoven and are surely favourites to progress now.

Then some midweek Premier League for you.

Not that anyone in the UK could see it, but if you take my word for it, Manchester City overcome a stubborn Brentford at the Etihad as the title race gets even tighter.

On Monday, Everton and Palas played out at best a mildly interesting game.

We'll discuss Roy Hodgson's departure and the arrival of Oliver Glasner.

Then there's Dan Ashworth's gardening leave, Chris Wilder's expensive sandwich, and Mick Beale's burner Twitter account.

All that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Nikki Bandini, welcome.

Morning.

Hello, Archie Rintut.

Hello.

And hello, Barry Glendenning.

Hiya.

Let's start at the San Siro, then into one Athleti-nil.

This, Nikki, is the Marco Arnozovic story, isn't it?

I mean, the first half was sort of KG, teams cancelling each other out.

Arnojovic came on and then just kept missing chances until he eventually,

not accidentally scored, that's a bit unfair, but tried his best to miss the most guilt-edged of guilt-edged chances.

Yeah, I, you know, I sort of came full circle on Arno tol in one evening because I was with you on Stan Sports, obviously, Max.

So you've already heard some of my thoughts on this.

But since coming to Inter, it has been a story that I think, yes, is familiar to plenty of fans

from previous Ops and His journey, where he is someone who missed a lot of chances.

Of course, with Inter, it's his second time there.

And there's this great

overarching story with him almost, because when he was there in the first instance with Jose Mourinho as

a young player trying to make his breakthrough and they had Ibrahimovich there and Heran Crespo there and Adriano there, Mourinho tells this story about Ibrahim, about Anatovich walking up to him despite all those big names with this sort of total confidence about himself and saying, I'm better than all of them, which maybe he turned out not to be.

But actually, I sort of think if you listen to him after the game as well,

he has in the intervening more than a decade earned some humility.

And he was sort of talking about this game as thinking, God, it's just one of those moments where things won't turn my way.

But the one great triumph of Arnaltovich's career, actually,

might be persistence, which is funny because I think that's one of those qualities that when you're talking about elite football, you don't think of it as the one you want to name.

You want to name brilliance, you want to name technical skill you want to name um all these magical qualities but i think in lots of challenging careers to exist in persistence is probably the number one quality you should have it's certainly what you tell people if they want to tell you want to be journalists and you say well just keep bloody going because it's hard to get into and i i think you have to sort of give him at least some credit for in a game where he did miss a couple of chances that were really good.

I mean, the second one in particular is shocking miss,

for being the guy guy who didn't let his head drop and just kept going after it and was indeed going after it enough to be in a position to take that shot on the goal because

actually, frankly, it wasn't a great finish from La Taro before that, who should have probably scored himself.

Yeah, I think it's interesting, isn't it, when you talk about persistence.

When people say, don't take no for an answer, and you sort of go, yes, but if Radio 1 have said you can't have the breakfast show, don't turn up at 5 a.m.

to do the breakfast show.

They won't let you.

Self-poly is really interesting, Barry, isn't it?

Because obviously we remember Arnoldovich as this sort of gobby kid who wasn't quite as good as he thought he was.

But all players have to have self-belief.

We just don't like it when they say it out loud.

Like, none of these people can be racked.

I mean, it seems very unlikely that they're all racked with complete doubt as they're running around being professional footballers.

I think quite a lot of them can be.

I mean, if you read

Tony Cascarino's very highly regarded autobiography that he wrote with the help of Paul Kimmage, the Irish journalist.

He spent his entire career feeling that he wasn't worthy and always, you know, had this little voice in his head that always told him he wasn't good enough and he was going to miss.

And

Cass did have periods in his career where, you know, he couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo.

So I've no problem with anyone being...

full of self-regard if they've got the the game to back it up.

I quite admire it.

I think Aron Outovich he probably scored the most difficult of the three good chances he had last night.

And he had a bit of help.

I think it got a bit of a deflection, didn't it?

On its way in.

As Nikki alluded to there, I think Laturo Martinez, you know,

he should have scored a couple as well.

So overall, it's a good win for Inter, but they could end up regretting all those missed chances because they probably should have won by a lot more.

Was I the only one who saw the excessive amount of drool that came out of Arnaltovich after he missed one of his big chances?

Well, I didn't.

No, I think, yes, do you know what?

I didn't hate it.

I didn't focus on it.

Now you mention it, I feel like I should have spotted it.

What have you described as like a sort of a horse?

You know, we get close to a horse or a camel.

One of the criticisms I...

I've I've heard from non-footballing people before is, you know, footballers, the way that they writhe about and they spit and all this.

And seeing that from an outer vic, I was like,

you make a good argument for spitting because that does not look any better there.

I should probably say something about the football.

I found

that I found the intensity, speed, and fluidity with which Inter attacked really impressive.

And

to be able to,

particularly as somebody who's watched a lot of ploddy,

as you put it the other day, Max Max, football recently with Bayern Munich and Brussier Dortmund.

To see a team gel that together in such a way and have such a sense of purpose was so impressive.

But also,

I really liked some of Oblak's goalkeeping, where

I'm expecting because of the speed of the shot that you're used to goalkeepers pushing it out, but the way that he was actually able and confident enough to catch some of these balls, which I think

I sometimes find myself thinking that when I'm seeing goalkeepers go for shots, I'm like, surely

you look at the speed that they're doing these draws with the goalkeeping coaches, where they're catching all these balls from different angles, and yet in a game, they never seem to catch them at the same time, trust themselves to catch them at the same speed.

But yeah, I thought that was impressive from Oblak.

Overall,

on the way the game went, I think 1-0 was probably a fair enough result.

The whole complexion around Arnaltovich and

as Barry says, players, I think, who, or just building on what Barry was saying, players who

warrant a team being built around them because they have a special enough talent that they don't need to change and those who don't.

And Arnautovich, I think, has just been on

the border of that.

I think for a mid-table club, he probably had that.

But to go and play at this level, he needed to sacrifice certain elements of himself.

I think, I mean, Arnautovich came from Bologna, where actually he'd had one of the best chapters of his career, I felt like he'd scored 14 goals first season, the 10, the second, and only 20 odd games.

So he was scoring regularly at Bologna, and it's kind of

an interesting story in itself because Bologna didn't want to let him go.

But 10 million for a player who's already into his mid-30s is hard to turn down in Italian football.

And what's interesting is that Bologna have evolved in a completely new direction that's much better for them because now they've got Joshua Zerxe up front.

They're playing this completely different,

more fluid football of their own under Thiago Mater, and it's worked out great.

Whereas Arnautovich went to Inter, and it's worth saying that not long after arriving at Inter, he had this hamstring injury that kept him out for a solid stretch.

And you combine that with hamstring injury coming back and then, yes, he's missed some scandalous chances before last night for Inter.

He's sort of been compiling a bit of a highlight reel of missed chances.

So his sort of story to get to this point has

gone through some struggles.

And I think for him, it was definitely a big load-off moment.

But just to pick up on what Archie was saying about inter, I feel like this is the thing that I've almost been like trying to scream at people for the last few months: is

sure Lazio's went over Bayern the other night.

I think there was plenty that was impressive about it.

I can talk to you about things I think Lazio Maurizio Sari did really well.

And sometimes I watch Lazio and think, even though they're in mid-table, they do some smart things.

But Simoni and Zaghi's Inter are a different animal.

They're playing top-level,

fast European football.

And

I think maybe this is one of those nights when people started to see it.

They weren't perfect last night at all.

In fact, in the first half, they were more cautious than I think they always are.

But think about the fact that Atletica Madrid really didn't lay a glove on them for 90 minutes.

It's the first time since 2006 in the Champions League that Inter haven't given up a shot on target at all.

They are playing really, really different football to anyone else in Italy.

And I think a different level of football to all but a very small handful of the top clubs in Europe.

I hope when you want to yell, you are just walking the streets of Brighton

people in the street about actually

inter Milana better than you think they are casually at the bus stop.

Yeah.

And look, they're nine successive win.

They deserved it.

I thought Dumfries made quite a big difference when he came on.

Alvaro Murata did have that chance, which would change the whole complexion of this.

You could be saying that about any game that I've seen Alvaro Murata play.

You see, you couldn't because he's been on really great form Murata.

Like, this was a bit of Chelsea Murata that we're all used to, but actually, Atleti Murata this season has been a totally different animal.

He missed this one.

It's perfectly poised, isn't it?

There were tributes before the game to former interplayer Andreas Bremer, who's passed away at the age of 63, got 86 caps, including eight goals, some quite important goals.

World Cup final, shootout, Mexico 86.

played, you know, with, you know, those pictures of him, Klinsman and Lotomatteus in those inter shirts with Trappatoni are amazing.

How's the news been received in Germany?

I mean, 63 is no age at all, is it, Archie?

No, and particularly when he was seen at the Franz Beckenbauer Memorial Service just last month

in Munich.

Albeit he,

I think

it's fair to say he didn't look well.

Still,

it shocked a lot of people because

he was a great of the German game.

If there is a conversation to be had about a top German all-time 11, he's in that.

Renowned for being one of the best, if not the best, two-footed player that Germany had.

Even though he said that his left was for power and his right was for precision, there were other times where he just wasn't sure which was his better foot.

And the accidental hero of that 1990 World Cup final because Rudy Fuller was meant to take penalties, but because he was brought down for it, brought down is a German view.

He, as a result, he was like, well, this is not mine to take.

Lota Mateus changed his boots at half-time, so wasn't feeling as comfortable.

So it was left to Andy Bremer.

And

it was against a goalkeeper in Goikochea

who

was renowned in Germany at least, or had received the tag because of his performance from penalties already as the Elfmeter killer, the penalty killer.

If you save a few penalties in Germany, that's the tag you get.

And he stuck it away and did the business.

And whilst that, I think, is the overriding memory for people, at a club level,

he will be remembered very fondly as one of the greatest Kaisers Lauten players of all time.

The image that sticks in people's heads is actually when they went down

in 1996, I think it was, and he was crying in Rudy Fuller's arms.

And I think it was just this show of that he cared so much that really struck with people because fans these days don't think that that happens in quite the same way.

He did go on to be a manager, but I think the best way of putting it is he didn't have the rhetorical tools and was sometimes derided for how he sounded.

And

that meant that he couldn't sell himself

the legacy that I think other players, when they go into the media after their career,

they can give themselves that kind of picture.

And Andy Bremer wasn't afforded that opportunity as a result.

But

one of the greatest German players of all time, not on

that very, very high pedestal with the likes of Franz Beckenbauer and George Müller, but also not far away either.

I was watching an interview

he did when he was reflecting on that penalty he took in 1990

this morning on YouTube.

And he was saying that when he was placing the ball, Rudy Voller came up to him and said, you know, if you score this, we're the world champions.

He was thinking to himself, all right, thanks for that, Rudy.

No pressure.

But he also said that he didn't think it was a penalty.

Censini's foul on Voller.

He thought it was a clean tackle.

It shouldn't have been a penalty, but it made up for all the other penalties they didn't get during this game against an Argentina side who were just a team of thugs.

And, you know, he did the world a favour scoring that penalty, because if Argentina had won that World Cup, it would have been awful.

They were a horrible team.

I mean, that is, you know, that two-footedness, the fact that he took a penalty in 86 and a shootout in Mexico with his left foot and then took one in the final with his right foot is sort of unbelievable.

I wonder, Nikki,

like that photo, you know, is so iconic of those three German players at Inter.

And maybe it's just me, but in my mind, they are kind of eclipsed by the Dutch three at AC Milan, but like, perhaps not.

Like, what an amazing trio to have.

Yeah, I think, I think, your sort of feeling of being eclipsed in the general consciousness, I think that's fair.

I think that there was more done on

on a European stage, perhaps, by

that group.

But look, Bremer is absolutely an icon at Inter.

Juan Seria

and

Bepe Bergomi, who's gone from being part of that Inter team with him to being one of the firmest fixtures on Sky Sport in Italy.

He was in tears yesterday and saying, we have a group chat from that Inter team and

I was in touch with him every couple of weeks.

Like, this is someone I was speaking to all the the time i think it's really like shocked a lot of people like you say no age at all just one question on on sari before we move on napoli are playing bars to tonight in in the champions league you know having just sacked waltz waltz mazzari uh which has not been a a great appointment and bringing in francesco calzona who was a coach under Spoletti and Sari, right?

Yeah, exactly that.

So he has experience of Napoli.

It's kind of

mad to look at still.

You think that Luciano Spoletti left Napoli and has gone and become the Italy manager and now you've got a different international team manager doing double duty with Slovakia to be in charge of you.

Nobody thought Napoli were wrong to part ways with Rudy Garcia earlier this season, including myself.

It didn't feel like a happy appointment.

I really did arrange it at the time, oh, I should have sacked him on the day I heard in his first press conference.

He said he didn't watch Napoli last season.

But Rudy Garcia left Napoli in fourth.

Under Walt Mount Sari, they've slipped to ninth.

They've scored, I think, nine goals in the last 12 games.

So the ship is...

Initially, they talk about caretaker managers.

They use this word traque tattore, which means a ferryman.

That's someone who's supposed to just get your ferry from here to the other side and then we'll work it out afterwards.

But the boat is taking on water rapidly under Matzari.

So a change makes some sense.

Does a change to a manager who's never managed a club side on his own before and who has another job and

has, what, two days to prepare for a Champions League game against Barcelona?

Does that make sense?

I'm not so sure.

But it'll be another fascinating chapter in this always colourful Napoli story, I suppose.

All right, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll begin with the other game, Dortmund's Draw at PSV.

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Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So PSV1, Dortmund, won.

What did you make of that, Archie?

I thought that Dortmund were fortunate in the end.

If you looked at the balance of play to come away with a 1-1 draw, and it fits into how they've been playing this season, which is largely disappointing.

And

that's put a lot of pressure on Edin Terzich as the coach.

The fact that in the winter break,

it was a big thing of whether he would or wouldn't keep his job.

He did, but had to take on two new assistants

in the new year in club legends, Nuri Shaheen and Sven Bender.

And it is kind of forced upon him.

Yeah.

And that

it's kind of seen that Nuri Shaheen might well take over in the summer should Terzich not make it past then, which I can see right now because

Dortmund fans

bemoan the lack of

a coherent plan under Terzic and being able to see

some sort of fluid football under him

and the way that, for example, other teams in the leagues like Leverkusen and Stuttgart are able to work it forward in

a much smoother fashion, whereas Dortmund don't really seem to know what they're doing and be relying on individual prowess up front to get them out of of trouble.

And I think that having been held up in previous years by great individual talents such as Jude Bellingham, Erling Harland, Jaden Sancho back in his first time at the club, it's been

Dortmund have been shown for not having a real kind of greater overall plan.

And last night, I think, against a PSV side who are very much punching above their weight, and had Johan Bakayoko been, I think, not as surprised as he was when he got two of these chances that, oh, I'm in here,

they might have got a better result.

There's a big noise about the penalty that was given away by Matt Summels, and Matt Summels raced onto German TV to talk about it.

I'm sure he does get a touch on the ball, but

if you're going in in as wild a fashion and with such risk as he is, then

under the current circumstances which he's playing, I can understand why the referee gives it, even if Hummel says that Malek Tillman

was laughing at him on the pitch after having won that penalty off him.

So, yeah,

I thought that PSV very much under draw, could have got more as well, but this Dortmund team, the pieces of the puzzle do not fit together.

And it's not just about Tercic, it is about a wider transfer strategy of I think putting too much emphasis on bringing in and giving so much power to young players where actually what's left behind is a weakened overall structure.

Maybe when Bakuyoko had those chances, Rudy Vollett's voice just whispered in his ear.

He might score here.

That's what he's been doing ever since he hung up his boots.

Nikki, you wanted to come in?

Yeah, I was just curious to hear from Archie, like, how much the Peter Bosch story has has been a part of the build-up to this game obviously with his past at Dortmund.

Peter Bosch said in his press conference before that this PFC that this that this PSV side was the best team he's ever worked with and I thought well

is that because he only had 16 games at Dortmund where the first seven of which he won six and then

and then went winless for the final actually

final nine it was in the end.

So that that has certainly added a spicy element to it, particularly for Dortmund to come through that group of death.

And then the first person they face is Peter Bosch,

who has

an unbeaten team in the Netherlands and has really got people to buy into his strategy, even if he says that...

he's not changed at all, which I think has probably been his downfall since then,

since Dortmund as well, that how he compromises has been a problem.

But

it is impressive to see with a squad which,

sure, I mean, Chucky Lozano, for example,

is a player who has played on the big stage before.

And

I think that

you see that there is the potential there at PSV, but they don't have the same.

They've got prover point players like Luke Deong, for example.

And

I think that that can be a very powerful mixture in football when you've got players like that who feel like they've been wronged and feel like they have something to show you.

And it's why, even ahead of the second leg, Max, I know you think the Dortmund should go through here, but

maybe I'm too close to the situation and having seen so much of Dortmund this season and so many 90 minutes where I'm just thinking,

what is going on here?

That then, when they have turned up in the Champions League, I've come away being like, what?

And I just don't get it.

And I still don't really understand this team.

Well, PSV are running away at the top of their division.

And Lozano's a fascinating case for me as well, I think, because he's still only 28 years old.

He's one of those players who you feel like has lived a whole career and should be sort of in that.

He's a PSV, you sort of emotionally.

I feel like he played at USA 94.

So there's, yeah, I don't know.

I think people may be a little bit too dismissive of PSV at the moment as well.

There was one element, Nikki, just to finish on the Peter Bosch narrative, where I think Matt Hummels was striking back at Peter Bosch,

even though he wasn't there actually when he was at the club,

where he described after the game as PSV being very beatable opposition.

Tonight, Arsenal go to Porto.

Napoli-Bars, we've mentioned already.

You've said previously, Barry, you think Arsenal have got quite a good tilt at this competition i think you might be right i don't know if i said they have a good chance of winning it i

just from what i've seen so far they're probably the team that's best equipped to stop manchester city and i think if if you want to win this competition you will have to beat manchester city so yeah i'd give them a decent shout not not a great one but on the evidence of what i've seen so far in this competition they're you know, I would probably say Liverpool are the best equipped team to win the competition, except they're not in it.

I know.

Feel the same about Labour Coos.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, but a lot of people are saying that Europa League final could be, I mean, obviously, we don't want to draw, could be Liverpool Labour Coos and could be the two best teams.

Yeah.

And actually that the Champions League this year is slightly sort of watered down

because of, you know, the form of Napoli and Barca and Bayern as well.

I'm not definitively saying Arsenal will win the Champions League, but I'd give them a chance.

I know quite a few Arsenal fans, and none of them, they're all very preoccupied with the league, and none of them seem to be even entertaining the league.

I'd settle for the Champions League.

I'd settle for it.

If that's all we can have this season, that's okay.

Wow.

How gracious of you.

Let's do a bit of Bruno's League of stuff.

I mean,

is Thomas Ducal now on borrowed time, Archie?

What's, you know, there's some amazing rumours.

Jose Fun, Solskjaer, I mean, that's great.

And obviously, Xiabbi Alonzo, who's now going, I'm a legend at Liverpool.

I could go there.

I'm a legend at Bayern.

I could go there.

I was pretty good at Real Madrid.

Nanchelotti won't stay there forever.

Like, he's really like,

he is adding naught on the end of his, whatever salary he'll get, presuming he leaves Lever Cousin at the end of this season.

So was your question about Bayern or Lever Cousin?

I don't know.

There were a lot of things in there, weren't there?

You know, and you know, one of the first lessons is just ask simple questions.

So my many apologies, and you're right to pick me up on it.

Let's start with Bayern.

tuchel how is he on borrowed time it feels like that even if the message from

that that comes out of the club is that they want to stick with him for now

i struggle to see how if they were to lose against rb leipzig at home this weekend which thomas tuchel's already done twice in his time in charge how he would make it past that particularly because

It doesn't seem like the team is really behind him.

The biggest headlines after the defeat away at Bawkham on the weekend were

a fallout, was a fallout even between Josua Kimmish,

who has found himself degraded under Thomas Tuchel

on quite a few occasions,

and between him and Schultz Love, Thomas Tuchel's assistant coach.

The details of that conversation

have been reported by Sportbuild here about Kimmish saying, How can you take me off?

But also that Schultlov is the person that he gets on best with out of Tuchel's backroom team and they often exchange ideas.

So

there's a lot to take out of it in terms of how

I think there is

just a disconnect in the the players taking on his ideas and you can see them thinking so often on the pitch when you're so used to seeing a fluent Bayern Munich team going forward.

And I think there's just too many fires that have been needed to put out.

Not all of, I mean, definitely not all of Thomas Tuchel's making, but still, I think your challenge as a top coach is to make

a unit where you've got lots of good players work.

And Thomas Tuchel's argument seems to be that he doesn't have those.

He doesn't believe in Josua Kimmish

being

a good enough holding midfielder for him.

He wants somebody else.

He wanted Jao Palinirin to do that.

So in this case, you're left with a Bayan team which has had Harry Kane scoring lots of goals, who then at the weekend had his worst game for Bayern so far, missing two chances, which just prompted the German TV commentator to go, wow, both times.

And

a team where the noises from the players post-games are very different from the noises that Tuchel's making.

And that suggests that everybody is not on the same wavelength, to say the least.

So who comes in?

No idea, but the problem for Bayern is they set the precedent by making that wild choice of getting Tuchel in for Nagasman when it didn't seem that dramatic, when it was more about, when it wasn't really a football decision, it was more about a personal decision to sack Julian Nagsman and that they didn't like him.

And they set themselves a precedent that they are struggling to get out of.

How's Eric Dyer getting up?

Okay.

Okay, but in itself, this presented a problem to me as well, where it was, there was an article which said one of the positives from the Labour Kuzen game where he played in the back three

as part of three central defenders was that he was there to help conduct Deo Upamakano and Minja Kim.

And I'm thinking,

these two, these two players who, I'm sorry, are on a different level to Eric Dyer as defenders, they need somebody to tell them what to do.

That is a problem.

They need somebody to communicate for them.

And that's just showing you how

with Bayern, this team does not really fit together.

And there promises to be big changes in the summer.

When Bayern Munich are called boring by their CEO, Jan Kristian Dreason,

after their defeat to Verde Bremen, it was, that tells you that Thomas Duckel has not got things going in the right direction.

And do you think Alonso would go there over Liverpool?

Have I asked you that before?

I feel like I've asked you that before.

You haven't, but I don't think he would.

I think he can see the

fire that is burning very bright at Bayern.

And Xiabe Alonso strikes me as somebody who would be smart enough to avoid that.

The football, by the way, that they're playing.

I've been fortunate enough to be sent to watch a lot of labour coups in so far in 2024.

And it's this

pep-like

confidence in their own style that no matter what happens, we will keep playing our way.

I say pep-like, I mean, he's known to change things himself a lot, but early pep, maybe.

It's really impressive, and

everybody knows their role.

Granite Shaka is brilliant both as a leader and what he gives to the team in terms of structure.

Florian Vietz

is the star of this team.

The way that he's able to pick the right tool to get past almost any opponent, whether it's dribbling, whether it's passing, just sensing the right moment and the right decision.

And that they've had lots of injuries, players away at the African Cup of Nations, and still managed to plow through and still be unbeaten and win so many games late on and smash Bayern with the control that they did in that game, it's so impressive.

And yeah, I think Chabi Alonso's got the pick of whatever job he wants after Labakus.

And the question is when he will leave.

Finally, Robin says, There are more anecdotes about the German Sean Deich,

Heidenheim's gaffer Frank Schmidt, from Archie, please.

So, this was a lot of fun.

I went down to Heidenheim at the weekend, right?

And for context, I had to check exactly where Heidenheim was.

I like knowing or going to these places as much as anyone, but I wasn't 100% sure.

I knew it was somewhere between Stuttgart and Munich.

And when I got on the motorway from Stuttgart to

Heidenheim, it tails off very quickly into the countryside.

And when you go to Heidenheim, unlike any other Bundesliga ground, you feel like you are going very much into the sticks.

And yet there, Frank Schmidt has a magical story where he was born and raised in the area.

He's been the coach there since 2007 and has got four promotions with them in that time, the final one being into the Bundesliga last summer.

And

he is

quite an avuncular figure.

It's not many clubs where I turn up.

Press officer comes and introduces himself to me, and the press officer

brings over the coach to say, oh, Frank wants to say hello.

I was like, okay,

this is a bit strange.

This doesn't happen at buying munich no and then during the game like hidnheim it should be said are going to stay up which is incredible because on their budget they should get nowhere near it during the game there's this woman who's next to me who is loudly banging on the table whistling the referee every time

you know she's uh of a slightly greater vintage shall we say and uh i turned to her i was like could you i'm just trying to oh sorry sorry all good no no worries oh where are you from i'm i'm from england Oh, okay.

Oh, you know Frank Schmidt?

Well, yeah, he's the coach.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, I used to be his music teacher.

I was like, you're kidding me.

It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, he wasn't very good.

He was much better at football.

But once upon a time, when he was 11, there was a football tournament that we were trying to, that...

that we were thinking about entering and we decided against it.

And Frank said, no, no, no, no, leave it to me.

I'll organize it.

And they were like, are you sure?

You're 11.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine.

He organized it.

They won the tournament.

And you're like, how can you be showing that you're a good coach even at the age of 11?

Yeah, incredible story.

Incredible place.

Just everybody was so friendly.

And yeah,

one of the great stories in German football right now that even though they lost at the weekend, that was their first lost in eight.

eight games, which was the second longest unbeaten run in the Bundesliga aside from Leverkusen.

They're going to stay up and it is,

overshadowed because of what Leverkusen and Stuttgart are doing in the league right now.

But yeah, tremendous story.

Lovely story.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll do the Premier League and cities win over Brentford.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So the Premier League table looks like this.

Liverpool 57 points from 25.

Man City 56 from 25.

Arsenal 55 from 25.

It's absolutely brilliant.

Richard says, our city's still in crisis.

Kevin, where's Ethan Pinnock?

Where you need him?

He wouldn't have slipped for that Harland goal.

They won, Barry.

I mean, it wasn't convincing, and Brentford were good, but they did what they needed to do.

Well, I suppose the first thing to say about this game is there was no way of watching it legally in the UK, which...

We could go to the Etahead.

You could, yeah.

Yes.

That is legal.

That is, it is illegal because it's a long way away on a Tuesday if I have to be up early the next night, next day.

But Brentford obviously did the double over Manchester City last season, the only team to do that.

Set up very defensively, had 10 men behind the ball, and

tried to, you know, were hoping to hit them on the break or do something with a set piece because we'd all know how good Brentford could be from set pieces.

And didn't really work out for them.

They had a couple of half chances,

but for a while they restricted City to long-range efforts from Folden, from Alvaraz, from Akanji.

Bernardo Silva missed a sitter with a header after Kyle Walker had headed across the face of goal.

Ruben Diaz brought a brilliant save out of Flecken with a header.

Oscar Bob beat Flecken only for Ben Meade to save Brentford with a clearance off the line.

And eventually, Manchester City scored with a

through ball through the centre for Haaland to chase.

Christopher Eyre looked like he would intercept it, but he slipped, and that meant Haaland had a clear run and goal and shot from inside the D and scored into the corner.

So, yeah, a hard one three points for City, but they were vastly superior.

I think it probably would have been easier for them if Kevin De Bruyne had been playing, but he sat this one out because he

sort of felt something in his hammy.

They didn't want to risk him.

I still think City will run away with it, which is clearly ridiculous.

Now we're getting quite close to the end of the season.

And maybe I'm wrong because then they, you know, at the moment, okay, in the last few weeks, but, you know, Arsenal are the team that look the most convincing and probably unarguably City the least out of the three.

Yeah, I think run away with it becomes less and less likely the closer we get to the end.

Do I still think City will win it?

Probably I'm with you on that, Max.

I think in the end I still expect City somehow to be on top of the pile.

But I mean, even this weekend, it's one thing to run up the scores against teams such as West Ham when they're falling into the street.

Not that West Ham were always a pushover, but they did really fall apart against Arsenal.

And it's a different thing even this weekend.

Arsenal have Newcastle, who probably going to not ship six goals.

I could be wrong, maybe, maybe they will, but I think

there's still quite a few big games left for all of these teams.

I think that's the thing.

And I think it's it's easy to

see the wins that look straightforward.

Obviously, I didn't get to watch all of the City's game last night with the Champions League on, but it sounds like it was a fairly straightforward win, even though the scoreline wasn't.

But there will be games that define this run, and

perhaps this just wasn't one of them.

There was that chance for Frank Onyeka early on at 0-0, where

you thought if he just took one more step before shooting,

then

he's in.

But this is the thing with Manchester City.

This is the paradox.

They kid you into thinking that they're fragile enough to be attacked.

And then the next day, the next game, they're going to go and beat you 6-0.

So

I don't think City will do it this season.

I don't know what it is, but I think...

The without Gundawan factor still plays heavy in my mind.

Yeah, I think that it's someone else's.

That's how far I'll stick my neck out the window.

I do think it's really interesting they're all really close on goal difference as well, because I think that's almost sometimes more untypical with a city Premier League.

You almost expect to see City's goal difference like 20 goals better than anyone else, and it isn't.

Liverpool's 35, City 32, Arsenal 36 at the moment.

I've had a good couple of weeks, Arsenal,

to be fair on that one.

It's interesting, Barry, you mentioned that it's not on TV in the UK, nor is Liverpool Luton, which is tonight.

It is different to the 3pm blackout, isn't it?

It seems mad that you can't watch these games.

I could live without seeing them.

There are ways to see them.

But certainly not the end of the world.

But I just think if you're paying, you know, grand plus a year for subscriptions to watch football, every game should be available to you.

Yeah.

Is it because it's a Champions League night?

I mean, is that why it is?

Presumably.

Yeah, they used to not allow them to schedule on Champions League nights at all.

Even that's relatively recent, isn't it?

That's the last um two or three years, I think that's even been allowed.

It was it was completely not allowed for a while.

I'm I'm certain that's why it's not on TV, because Champions League rights are expensive and and and firmly defended.

I mean, of course, not every game gets to be scheduled, and I'm I'm sort of to a great degree I agree with Bears, because I think that in twenty twenty four, if people really want to watch games, they'll find a way anyway, because every game can be found somewhere on the internet if you're willing to look for it.

Um, so why not just actually package these things properly and sell them?

But the reason it's not on British TV at the moment is because if you're going to play them on Tuesday and Wednesday night when there's a Champions League game on, Champions League rights are going to get that precedence, I think.

That was a very under-the-radar advert for VPNs there, Nikki.

Dodgy sticks.

I know a guy, if anyone wants one.

Everyone did get the chance, though, Barry, legally, to watch Everton Palace.

How lucky they were.

Yes, this is a game that lived entirely up to my expectations.

It's probably the kindest thing I can say about it.

A draw, I suppose, a point.

Any point's a good point if you're in these position of these teams.

Poor game.

Jordan Ayu

put Palace ahead with a shot from out of nowhere, really.

Good, good strike from the edge of the penalty area.

And Everton equalised, to nobody's great surprise, through a corner.

Sam Johnson came for a ball.

At least I hope it was Sam Johnson after my West Ham goalkeeper tobacco.

I think it was Sam Johnson.

It was, it was, it was.

He came.

Yeah.

Did you remember seeing Dean Henderson on the bench?

And Sam Johnson, if it was Dean Henderson, I don't want to make a mistake either.

It was Gabo Kirali who

flapping in the breeze, came for a corner, didn't get it.

And Amadou Danana scored with an excellent header.

1-1, game over, and thank God for that.

We don't have to watch Everton play Crystal Palace again this season.

It's a bit of a shame that

every Crystal Palace keeper after Kirali

isn't forced to wear those grey tracksuit trousers and just be like, hand-me-downs.

This is your kit, Sam.

Roy Hodgson stepped down as palace manager on Monday.

He'd been taken ill on Thursday.

His statement on the club's website said, look, this club is very special, means so much to me.

I've fully enjoyed my time here across six seasons.

It's given given me the chance to work with top-class players and staff doing what i love every day i understand given recent circumstances it may be prudent at the time at this time for the club to plan ahead and therefore i've taken the decision to step aside so the club can bring forward their plans for a new manager as intended for this summer i'm confident this season will finish well and i wish the team every success in the weeks months and seasons to come um i mean you obviously love roy hodgson archie as a as a fulham fan um and it's a sort of sad i mean i i kind of feel for palace's owners in a way like they could have handled it better but but then, you know, if he's taken ill and go,

you can't plan for that, I guess, can you?

Do we appreciate how many English managers there are?

There aren't many who

are able to get to the level that

he has.

I think, though, that in a way he does represent what English football is, which is that we don't have with many of our coaches

enough of an imagination

in how we play.

Do enough go abroad like Roy Hodgson have?

Probably not.

But then again, Roy Hodgson went abroad and managed in all these places, and yet the football he's come back to play

is pretty disciplined.

I think what's changed mostly is just how we view it.

You look at the whole arguments around West Ham right now with,

you know, are they entertaining enough?

And I just don't think these were debates that were being had 15 years ago.

I remember when Fulham was so successful under Roy Hodgson, no one really cared that it was get the ball down the channels for Andy Johnson or up to Bobby Zamora.

It was we're getting results as an underdog here.

And the thing that's changed everything is the amount of money that the mid-table teams now have because and I do get where West Ham fans come from West Ham fans can see the amount of talent that someone like Mohamed Kudus has

and and they can see that David Moyes is is using him in a very

conservative manner and I think that Those expectations of the mid-table fans have gone up because they can see the quality that these players have.

They're more informed than ever before about how good these players are.

And yet i think they feel like their teams are playing with the handbrake on more often than not so i think that yeah roy hodgson is a little bit of victim of the times but should still should still and will be regarded as a very good coach even if his biggest jobs in england did not go to plan

and what will oliver glasner bring as a person he gets on well with the players but once he gets an idea into his head he's difficult to talk round.

You just want to ask the sporting directors, previous sporting directors at Wulfsburg, or partly of Liverpool, Jorg Schmatke and Frankfurt and Marcus Kirscher,

how that went when it came to having different ideas.

The fact that he left Wulfsburg after getting them into the Champions League tells you that

if he's against the general way of doing things, he'll go.

But when it comes to the football side of things, his teams at their best were very good at getting the ball forward quickly, being very aggressive without the ball and trying to take the game into their own hands.

He was a flexible coach when it came to finding the right method of beating opponents.

And to win the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt in the way he did was and is a stunning, unique achievement.

To go to Barcelona and win with that Frankfurt side as well is something that will never never be forgotten.

So, yeah, the question is now: how do you adapt to the Premier League mid-table merry-go-round?

Because it is

a completely different environment.

But I'm really looking forward to seeing how he gets on.

I think part of it's part of his success will be how he communicates with the fans.

Jeff says, Morning, Max, is the pod convinced Dan Ashworth is the new Messiah?

Um, Johnny Lou wrote a good piece, David Squires

has done a nice cartoon as well.

Newcastle wants 20 million, Barry.

And Dan Asworth is currently on everybody's dream, gardening leave.

Or is he on gardening leave?

I think he is.

He is, yes.

Tending to his rhododendrons and preparing his seed beds for the spring ahead.

I think Newcastle are well within the rights to ask for 20 million for him.

That's, you know, considering the amount of money, much larger sums United have spaffed on rubber signings.

Why shouldn't they ask for Newcastle demand that kind of compensation?

I don't really know what Dan Ashworth does.

I don't know if he's any good at it, but he's clearly held in very high regard.

So if United want him, why shouldn't they have to pay for him?

20 million isn't that much in the cosmic scheme of things, football-wise.

I think they should ask for more.

Always interested that managers don't cost more.

You know, why is it that managers, we spend so much time talking about managers, and they're clearly really quite important, but they don't cost as much as possible.

You can spend 50 million on a bang average fullback these days.

Why shouldn't you spend 20 million on somebody who is apparently the glue that's going to hold the club together?

That's how Tony Mowbray described Ashworth at West Brom.

Ashworth himself describes his role as being like the hub of this wheel with all the different spokes being the different departments, you know, youth, men's team, women's team,

medicine, and fitness, sports science, recruitment, all that stuff.

So, you know, if you know they want them badly enough, why shouldn't they?

Yeah, I mean, I was just laughing at Vaz saying 20 million isn't very much.

I think it's a very Premier League view of the world.

I think Archie's probably with me that

I'm talking in Premier League terms.

But yes, you're right.

That the top of the Premier League

money doesn't really mean a lot, does it?

It's all just coming out of some

billionaire or nation states pocketbook anyway, who cares what the number is.

And I suppose,

as I always say with transfers players are worth as much as they are to you in the end if if you've got the money and you're willing to spend it if you think dan ashworth is this important you're willing to spend it um i uh i i i couldn't possibly comment 20 million pounds to me is uh a bonkers amount of money but um of course i'm not someone running uh premier league football club yeah um chelsea have uh

taken Brighton's head of recruitment, which is basically shithouse, isn't it?

The highest order, you know.

uh sam jewell uh the 13th brighton employee uh leaving for chelsea in the last 19 months you know there should be a direct train line shouldn't they yes maybe the smartest thing brighton could do would be to appoint a red herring of a figure of being the head of their scouting department now

just just next time so like yes this is the guy you want to take

Just some out-of-work actor.

You know, just keep feeling

terrible players.

You know, just some extra from Death in Paradise.

Yeah.

So John does say, wouldn't it have been cheaper if Boley had just bought the Albion instead?

It's quite a good point.

Anthony says, has Chris Wilder just paid for the world's most expensive sandwich?

He's been fined £11,500 by the FA for his remark about a sandwich-eating assistant referee, which is...

I think they're more than that at W.H.

Smithson train stations.

Impossible.

Possible.

The meal deal, though.

The meal deal.

Possible.

I think a service station, a service station Costa.

That panini that's that's burning your mouth is upwards of that.

Henry says,

have any of you ever had any football burner accounts in which you'll post to defend yourselves against mistakes you've made on the pod?

This, Barry, is related to Sunderland's former manager, Mick Beale, who appears to have been defending himself on Twitter, but not with his own Twitter handle.

Yeah, it's a weird one.

Some guys in an EFL podcast have of

done some investigating and discovered, as you say, that McBee appears to have been defending himself against detractors on Twitter with an account that was not in his name but seems to have been traced back to him or some company he owns.

I suppose it's fair enough.

It seems slightly odd behaviour, but

he's entitled to stick up for himself either personally or anonymously.

I'm just glad he's gone from Sunderland, to be honest.

It was a terrible appointment.

He was very much second choice behind Will Still at Stad de Rem.

He came in, he

I think he only won four matches out of twelve.

His first game was a hammer in at the hands of Coventry City.

Then there was that FA Cup third round game at Stadium Alight against Newcastle, in which

Sunderland just were pathetic.

It was a feeble effort against their most bitter rivals.

He had a habit of play throwing players under under the bus.

He referred to the fans as outside noise, which

they were against him from the get-go.

Surely they're inside noise.

I mean, literally, they're quite literally noise.

Very much inside noise.

So he just doesn't seem to be a very good communicator.

And he doesn't do himself any favours at press conferences.

He's very good.

And that was the same at Rangers.

And

yeah, bad appointment.

He's gone.

Sunderland have an interim manager now for the foreseeable future, probably till the end of the season.

In his Michael Dodds, and

I mean, I wonder, watching the most recent series of Sunderland Till I Die, they were interviewing Jack Clark, who's you know, their standout player, really.

And he was saying that when he signed for them, or no, when he went there on loan, he from Spurs, he

was quite sceptical because he said, I've seen the previous two series of Sunderland Till I Die, and it basically came across as a really dysfunctional club.

But I brocked up here, and no sooner had it arrived than Lee Johnson got sacked, and he was thinking, oh, here we go.

So a penny for Jack Clark's thoughts now, but I presume he'll be sold on in the summer and probably can't wait to get out of there.

Some breaking news from Florian Plettenberg, who I presume you know, Archie, exclusive news.

After good and fair discussions, FC Bayern and Thomas Tuchel have decided to part ways at the end of the season.

So that's the news, which we don't have time to react to, Archie, but we basically said that sort of thing would happen about half an hour ago.

So I don't know if you have any very strong thoughts, Archie, before we end the pod?

The fact that Bayern seemed to be saying that, no, no, no, we're we're not letting the players get away with it this time.

You've got to sit in the boat with him till the end of the season seems like a way of trying to punish the players as well and finally trying to hold them to account.

But I think it still reeks of the club not thrashing about in the dark.

The big thing for Bayer on the horizon is the fact that the Champions League final is in Munich.

next season and there is still a lot of pain felt.

Even if they won it the next season at Wembley in 2013, there's still a lot of pain felt about 2012.

And they are desperate to get that right.

That also suggests that they think that if they want to get a candidate that they want,

i.e., a Shabby Alonso, who I still don't think will be that guy,

then

they have to wait till the summer.

And the Fulham ticket prices are still very high.

Thanks, Cheers.

Not a problem.

All right, that'll do for today.

Thanks, Baz.

Thanks.

Thanks, Archie.

Thanks.

Thanks, Nikki.

Thanks, Max.

I'll see you in about 10 hours.

Absolutely right.

Yeah, I was just about to do a big advert for Stan Spoor, but probably not Guardian policy.

Anyway, if you're in Australia, you know where to come for the Champions League tonight, tomorrow morning, whatever it is.

For weekly, it's produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.