Manchester City enjoy Copenhagen cruise and Mansfield hit nine – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

The Champions League last 16 kicks off with wins for Manchester City and Real Madrid.

City had a little scare in Copenhagen, but in reality, completely dominated almost from start to finish.

Kevin De Bruyne scores one, sets up others.

Even his tackles put teammates through on goal.

Some finish from Bernardo, mind you.

In Leipzig, Real ride their luck.

The home side will be disappointed not to have got something from it.

Brian Diaz in for Dude Bellingham with a brilliant solo goal.

We'll discuss Chelsea's win at Selhurst Park on Monday night as the pressure mounts on Roy and Big Sir Jim gets the all-clear to own a decent chunk of Manchester United.

In the EFL, nine brackets, nine goals for Mansfield, more than 80 in leagues one and two last night, while Leicester crews on and there's a big win for Leeds that takes them above Southampton who lose for the first time in months.

All that plus how to differentiate West Ham keepers.

Your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Chortling away at that last bit.

Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Oh, hello, Max.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day to you, my love.

Mark Langdon from the Racing Post.

Hello.

Hi, Max.

And hello, Lars Ivertson.

Good morning, Max.

Let's start then in Copenhagen.

Copenhagen won Manchester City 3.

I mean, when the draw happened, Lars, Man City weren't in the best form, but, you know, that has changed since.

And Copenhagen hadn't played for two months before this fixture.

And it showed, I guess.

I mean, perhaps it would have been the same if Copenhagen had played through the winter.

But...

At least they had that moment, right, where the park just went wild and you just thought, oh, we've got a game here.

Yeah, incredible finish by Mattson because, you know, the ball coming across was actually bouncing a little bit.

So getting a clean strike on it wasn't an obvious thing, and it was an incredible hit.

But no, you're right, most of the rest of the game, it did unfortunately look like a team from Scandinavia that hadn't played for two months, played proper games for two months, coming up against the best team in the world.

I mean, which is kind of what it was.

I think in the end, and I'm obviously looking at this from a very Nordic perspective, it was a real showcase of what makes Manchester City so good.

Because FC Copenhagen does not not want the game to look like this.

They're not a team who want to sit back and defend in a low block for 90 minutes of the game.

It's not what they do.

They want to try to play.

They want to move the ball around.

They just weren't able to because City's press was so efficient, so aggressive.

And I was always, again,

I was watching FC Co.

much more closely than I was watching Man City here.

And so many times...

Immediately after they regained possession, they would lose it again within the first pass or the second pass because City were so good at swarming them never letting them settle and then

you spend so much of the game chasing when you then get the ball you don't have the energy and your your your your shoulders are like yeah you're all anxious and tight and you no one's gotten into any kind of rhythm with the ball and then you make a bad pass and then city have the ball again for five minutes you know it's it's it became that sort of game and it's what city can do to you when they're at their best and fore sadly we're not able to deal with it sadly from my perspective anyway yeah i suppose that's interesting isn't it mark in the sense that like you look at someone like Burnley, like a team that have the ball the whole time, they come up to the Premier League and don't have the ball, and you're suddenly like, oh.

And then when you get the ball, you want to say, oh, give us a minute, lads.

And City is so relentless.

Yeah, they are.

And I mean,

I think it maybe shows that actually just how good City are.

We maybe take it for granted

quite often.

And their games can feel quite boring in some respects because of the way that they dominate opponents.

But Copenhagen did not play like this against Bayern Munich, for instance, and were able, and Bayern Munich are one of probably the two teams closest to Manchester City in terms of winning the Champions League.

So it was just one of those games for Copenhagen where they're just up against a team that is so much better than them that you can't play your normal style.

And then when you're not used to playing in a different way,

it's harder.

If they played like that every week, maybe it would have

been easier for for them to kind of accept that they weren't going to have the ball.

And they sort of moved to a back five in second half to try to stem the tide.

But

it was

the sort of difference in class was pretty obvious from a very early stage.

I mean, a worrying position, Barry, of coming to you with a Kevin De Bruyne is good, Phil Fogen's good.

I mean, I thought those De Bruyne's finish was just so wonderful.

And Bernardo's as well.

I mean, I don't, I mean, you can pick out whoever you want from that city side, but

it seems hard to see, especially that third goal killed, feels like that kills this tie.

It's almost hard to see who is going to beat them over two legs.

I think the draw killed this tie.

FC Copenhagen earned their place in the last 16, came out with a difficult group with Manu, Bayern, Munich, Galatasarai.

And then, when they got drawn against City,

I don't think anyone gave them a hope in hell of laying a glove on them.

They scored, but they were comfortably beaten.

City had 79% possession, 27 shots to four.

Copenhagen's goalkeeper, Camille Grubera, was their man of the match.

He pulled off some excellent saves to keep the score down, and on paper, at least, give them a fighting chance going to Manchester.

But I don't think anyone gives them a hope in hell of...

turning this tie around and there's absolutely no disgrace.

I mean, even if they had been playing regular football and competitive football,

they might have put up a better showing.

But as Lars pointed out, or you did, they haven't played for two months.

You just wonder with this, like, in the UK anyway, this

these Champions League matches confined to TNT sport, which I think an awful lot of people don't have because they can't afford it

or don't want it or what for whatever reason.

You just wonder

who's watching watching this game, you know, apart from City fans, who's interested?

Because

well, Lars is.

Lars has a vested interest, but

sorry, Lars was waving his hand there.

The Scandinavians were hyped.

I'm talking about in the UK, you know, who's interested in watching this stroll in the park?

But that's the way it is now.

And an awful lot of these

around the 16 games do seem to have an air of predictability.

Obviously,

you're interested to see how will PSG go out this year, but otherwise

it's kind of hard to drum up much interest for this round of 16, I think.

Yeah, I don't know what you think, guys.

I think there is an interesting point that normally in the last 16, there is sort of one or two real standout ties between two heavyweights, and that just hasn't transpired, which makes you think, well, the quarterfinals, if everything goes to plan, like should be box office, if that's the right word.

Yeah, but this is still the most extreme case of this i mean the no matter who they were up against you know f say copenhagen would have been the bottom seed of this group of the tournament and the city would be the highest you know the bookies favorite to win the tournament so so when those two are drawn together yeah that you you get a game that can look like this I'm a little bit again with my with my Danish uh hat on uh I'm it's for it is a bit frustrating that they drew Manchester City because I think they are a team as we saw on the group stage that could do something more but but Man City are an awful team to play against.

It's what their coach said after the game.

That the first 20 minutes, they had a real shock by the tempo of the game.

They just couldn't cope with it.

And then they kind of grew into it a little bit.

But yeah,

they weren't really able to do anything.

And I think there are other ties in this round that will be much more even than this, even though you're right, we haven't had the two heavyweights against each other.

You know, the champions of Spain are playing the champions of Italy.

Just turns out that Barcelona and Napoli are not as good as they were last year.

And that's not really the Champions League's fault or UEFA's fault.

I mean, that would be a mouth-watering last 16 game.

But I think it is true that we are missing some of the best teams in Europe.

Liverpool, top of the Premier League at the moment, are in the Europa League.

Bayelevicu is in five points clear in the Bundesliga.

They're in the Europa League as well.

So I think, I mean, there is a slight quirk maybe to the last 16.

Even

the game that we've got this evening, PSG against Real Sociedad, when the draw was made, looked really exciting.

Sociedad's former has tailed off, unfortunately, in the last month or so.

So I think it is just one of those things.

Just getting back to the city point of view from their midfield and De Bruyne and Foden and Bernardo and Rodri and all of the quality they've got in there.

I do think that that midfield is better without Alvarez in it.

you know he's been fantastic and carried the goal threat um you know particularly when harland um was out but

yeah, this is the balance of the city team that I like best.

You can argue maybe about who plays on the left-hand side,

but

it did feel like you could counter-attack against City slightly easier with Alvarez in there.

And when they've got De Bruyne in that position, he gives you the goal threat almost that Alvarez has got.

And he can also do the other things as well.

Yeah, just a sensational footballer.

Great hair.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Wonderful hair, of course.

we have talked actually, Mark, about whether Foden and De Bruyne are like, how do you, you know, because Foden was sort of playing where De Bruyne plays, and it feels like Foden's just kind of stayed there and De Bruyne has come in and it's fine.

Clearly, it's fine because they're both brilliant.

Yeah, good footballers can just play, and I think that Foden is perfectly fine on the wing.

And it's nominally on the wing.

He's not being asked to do like what Doku does on the other side when he plays.

And quite often, him and De Bruyne can change anyway.

De Bruyne likes to go wide, plays in that sort of right channel for City

quite often anyway.

So

that just enables City to be fluid, doesn't it?

If you've got Fode and De Bruyne, Bernardo can play in a number of positions as well.

So,

yeah, that midfield, I think, just worked with all of those good players because they're just really talented.

It's a shame, Barry, Grealish to get a start and then to have to go off.

But it does feel like Doku is a much more sort of incisive player.

I think the future of when you're looking for interesting storylines to come out of City when they've won another game and all been great, I think that Doku Grealish thing is quite interesting.

Yeah, it is.

I mean, Doku is probably the player Grealish was when he was at Villa before he went to Manchester City and got reprogrammed.

There's no indication yet that Pep has the same plans for Doku, probably because he doesn't need to, because he has Grealish in reserve, and that seems to be where Grealish is now.

And yeah, I'd say he's mega-pissed off now.

It looks like I think a groin strain or something.

So presume he'll be out for three weeks or a month with that

minimum.

And

yeah, he had a chance to impress.

We know what he can do, but

yeah, he will be fed up over that.

Lars, you wrote a great piece about Copenhagen for ESPN.

Spoke to lots of people there.

And one of the interesting things I thought about was they have this amazing academy set up where they basically hoover up everyone in Denmark.

And I wonder, you know, are they hated in Denmark by everyone else?

They are a little bit, not necessarily for that reason, but because they're kind of the big,

showy team from the capital.

And also, they're quite a young team.

they were only founded uh this is in the in the 90s really they were an amalgamation of two teams in the capital and they've had you know finances behind them and the idea is to create the sort of a big uh danish capital club and they've always been very ambitious you know we're going to be the best team in the country and we're going to be playing in europe and all this other stuff and that sort of level of sort of naked ambition kind of annoys everyone else a little bit uh so so i mean

i think that because of that there'll be some amongst fans of other clubs in denmark in particular, there's not a huge amount of

affection and respect for FSICO, I guess.

But I think amongst

the general population,

maybe you can draw certain lines to what it was like in Norway again when we had Rosenberg playing well in Europe.

A lot of people in the country thought it was exciting to see a Norwegian team at a great stage.

But if you support their rivals, it's not amazing to see that Champions League money ticking into their bank account fairly regularly because it makes it even harder to compete against them domestically and then in this in this break i mean obviously there's nothing they can do about not playing football for two months right because it's it's really not a good place to play football in in november and december and they all sort of go off to portugal but like it it does seem

sort of faintly unfair i guess or or yeah so we have this discussion semi-regularly in the nordic countries about uh

denmark at least they have kind of changed their schedule so that they do follow the normal european European league structure a little bit.

They do autumn to spring in terms of their championship, but they do have to have this big break in the middle.

For Norway and Sweden, I mean, we have summer leagues, and we actually, I would argue, it's a double-edged sword.

You have an advantage in the qualifying stages.

When you're trying to qualify for the Champions League, your teams are in season, whereas the opponents are not.

So at that point, that can be an advantage for you.

There's no getting around the fact that you can't really,

it's like I'm in stavanger now in norway and there's a bunch of snow outside like you can't it doesn't work like get an orange ball what are you complaining about doesn't work like you have to you have to have the winter break and that's always going to be a problem one of the many problems the scandinavian teams are always going to have at this stage which is a sort of funny thing we talk about FC Copenhagen being underdogs in Europe because they are, but you've got to remember, like within Denmark and within Scandinavia, they are the behemoth.

They can afford to bring players straight,

Moel Yanusi straight in from the Premier League.

They can afford to hand some pretty reasonable contracts to players.

So it's a really sort of, yeah,

but they just can't, even them, they are the one Scandinavian team that has the budget to put together a team that could feasibly do okay in Europe, and they've been able to show some great stuff in the group stage, but you're always going to be at a disadvantage in the knockout stages.

Even more so when you have to play Man City after two months out.

I mean, that is not ideal.

No.

That first half, you could tell they were struggling so much to keep up with the tempo.

And yeah, first 20 minutes was pretty brutal.

Well, none of them were sick.

So, you know, it wasn't like a preseason game at Anatolo.

Anyway, that'll do for part one, part two.

We'll do Real Madrid's win in Leipzig.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

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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,

exactly.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So I'll be Lapsig Neil Real Madrid won.

No dude Bellingham Baz, but Brahim Diaz came in and scored a worldie.

Yeah,

brilliant goal.

Cutting in from the right with a lovely turn.

Beat one man, then another.

My old pal Zavi Simmons,

who's playing for Leipzig, and rifled home and came close to making it a bit more comfortable for Real Madrid towards the end with a counter-attack.

He sort of galloped up field,

played the ball wide to Vinnie Jr.

and and he sorry a lovely little side side foot with the outside of his right but boot trying to place in the corner but he he hit the foot of the post

so yeah he he didn't look out of place at all despite the big boots he was asked to fill but Real Madrid didn't have it all their own way in this game and I think RB Life's going to be very disappointed they didn't get at least a draw if not beat them because they they had I wouldn't say they had a series of very good chances but they certainly had

you know eight or nine

scorable chances you would expect them to get a couple uh i thought they were on fairly done out of a gold that uh sesco header was ruled out for offside that would have put them one night yeah i thought it was really harsh yeah i thought that was incredibly harsh i spent all of the first half going That shouldn't have been because I was watching the other game and I was like, can someone show me a replay?

The guy is miles on side.

What's happened?

No, he was on side, but someone else was offside and deemed to be

interfering with the goalkeeper.

And I don't think he was.

I think it was a very, very harsh decision,

which would have made the game far more interesting.

But, yeah, it was a decent game.

And that Sesco guy, Benjamin Sesco, he had five or six chances.

None of them brilliant chances, but...

You would have expected him to get one or two at least.

Just on a technical point, Barry, when you said Vinnie Jr.

side-footed it with the outside of his boot to hit the post, it was a lovely effort.

I appreciate that as the side of your foot, but I would never refer to that as a side.

Am I the only one?

Like the side foot for me has to be the inside of the foot.

The outside of the foot is just the outside of the foot.

Yeah, that's fair enough.

I'm still traumatised from getting my West Ham goalkeepers mixed up on

one day.

Well, I'm going to come to your defense on that later on.

Yes, Lars?

Well, on that finish as well, I'd be inclined to describe that as a poke, even though it technically wasn't with the toe, because he did the sort of poking motion with the leg.

So it's an outside side-footed poke.

Crikey, I'm going to have to be very careful about what I say in future.

My every utterance is being forensically picked apart.

I'm just going to crumble and become a bag of nerves.

Well, it's a good thing that never happens on this podcast with the very sort of tolerant and forgiving listenership that we

over the years.

I just say this was quite a fun game, I thought, in the second half.

First half, not a lot happened, but after Real Madrid got that goal, it kind of opened up a little bit.

And

Leipzig were going forward.

Lunin had to make some really smart saves, and then that opened up for Real Madrid on the counter.

So we had a few, you know, quite thrilling Vinicius Jr.

runs.

I was kind of second screening this, and I found my eyes drawn towards the second screen quite a lot.

And

it really is.

Real Madrid, given that they had to play Nacho and Tromeni at center half, given that there is no Bellingham, I think they'll be very, very happy to get out of this with the result that they did.

But I thought take

no,

they could have really used Tromeni in midfield

to stop Leipzig a little bit more, but he did

maybe not a surprisingly, that's maybe a little bit condescending, but he did quite a good job as a defender, I thought, and bailed him out a few times.

And

Abi Leipzig,

a couple of bad decisions and key moments, like Barry said, a couple of chances that were almost big chances, but one bad touch, one bad decision, this sort of thing all the time.

So very, very frustrating from their perspective.

A decent game all around.

While we're being pedantic, are we second screening now?

Is that a verb?

I'm not sure I like that.

Oh, I'm turning it into it.

Well, I was thinking, I was third screening it really, because I may have, although please don't tell anyone, been main

screening Portsmouth's very lucky defeat of Cambridge United.

But, you know, I was fully focused for some parts of this game.

It was quite feisty, Mark, wasn't it?

Like, Danny Carvajal kicked someone, and then, as far as I could see, every time I looked up, someone else was kicking or pushing Danny Carvajal.

Yeah, I mean, I was first screening

this game.

So

I was watching it very closely.

And I mean, even if I wasn't, I would have known that Danny Carvajal would have been involved in anything that was kicking off.

And he was determined to get a yellow card, it felt like, and was the main instigator throughout the game.

Really, I think

in terms of the match, I was surprised by how good Leipzig were.

Nine shots to three, they won the shot on target count, and Sheshko was a big threat, even though he didn't get his goal.

And did Daniolmo and Simon, Apenda, all kind of lived up to their reputation, I suppose, as being players that are going to go on from Leipzig at some stage, just like Nkunku has, Shaboshlai,

Garvidal as well.

So it is just

the way it is for

Leipzig.

And I've forgotten what your question was, Max.

Oh, it was a bit of feisty game.

It was.

Yeah, it really was.

It doesn't matter, right?

And Vinicius loves to wind up that the crowd obviously has had some horrendous racial abuse in Spain.

This wasn't racial abuse, but he at one stage just refused to move back the 10 yards from to allow Leipzig to take a corner and that that riled the locals and he seemed to do that for a good 30, 40 seconds, I think.

So it was a feisty game and I think Real Madrid was slightly fortunate to get the 1-0 win.

I agree with Barry that that Leipzig disallow goal was really unlucky, but I don't know if Lars or Mark, if you think, well, the guy is sort of pushing, very gently pushing pushing the goalkeeper.

The goalkeeper's never going to get it.

It's a bit like those line of sight goals where you think, well, if the player is in the line of sight of the keeper, but there's no way the keeper's saving it, that is different, right?

There's no way the keeper's going to save this.

So I've got, you'll be surprised to note I've got the laws of the game open on my web browser here.

I mean, I think the relevant bit in the law is that he's interfering with an opponent by making an obvious action, which clearly impacts the ability of the opponent to play the ball.

I think that's the one he gets done on because he's kind of stood right next to the goalkeeper, and at one point pushes him and is kind of in his space.

You could argue the toss.

Well, you can't actually argue the toss whether the goalkeeper would have been able to get to it because he clearly wouldn't have been.

But I think when you're stood right next to him, you give him a little push, all this sort of stuff, you're clearly impacting his ability to do something.

I think that's how they can't argue.

But

I've heard someone suggest that the linesman gave it because he probably thought Chesco was offside, and then they checked the bar and thought, oh, he's not.

But then, oh, look, this guy's offside.

So it turns out it's okay.

Like,

that's probably.

Yeah, I'd be inclined to believe that that's possibly what happened.

But I think the final call is close enough to the scope of the rules of the game for it to not be a massive scandal.

Everyone in Spain will be just nodding their heads because the whole season has been dominated by Real Madrid supposedly getting the rubber the green and every 50-50 call

in terms of referees this season.

And I think Javi said even a blind man can see

what's going on earlier on in the campaign.

So there'll be no shock outside of Madrid in Spain that maybe a 50-50 call went their way.

Who am I to disagree with the man who is continually second screening the laws of football?

Yeah, not outright wrong, but quite jammy, I think is how I would describe that call.

Mark, while we're on Real Madrid, they beat Girona 4-0 at the weekend now five points kill at the top of the league is that is that is that it for girona now is that dream multi-club ownership dream uh dead in the water i think so yeah uh you know five points is a lot to make up on the rail madrid team it's only lost once i think in all competitions this season growing very much into the the campaign and we'll soon have militow back Courtois, Rudigal is out of the game against Leipzig, Bellingham's got a couple of weeks on the the sideline.

So that might impact them because he is very important to them, despite the fact that Braheen Diaz got that wonderful goal in Germany.

But I would have thought that five points is too much for Girona to pull back.

And Barcelona not even in the picture, really.

So that led to Go Madrid even further behind.

So that was a huge win in terms of them sort of claiming.

the Spanish title, I would have thought.

And for Girona, it's more about if they qualify, well, they will qualify for for the Champions League and that

despite the multi-club ownership is still I think an absolute remarkable tale really.

Barry you've already established how excited you are about the last 16.

Are you frothing at the mouth at PSG Sociedad?

I am looking forward to it actually

because it's PSG and there's always a chance to mess it up and I think everyone will be rooting for Real Sociedad.

Sadly, Kieran Tierney won't be playing.

He's on loan there.

There's a brilliant interview with him by Sid in in the guardian on the website i would recommend uh seeking it out he's having the time of his life over there absolutely having a ball loves it and it's always quite nice to see when a

player goes abroad you know he's obviously scottish but when a player goes abroad uh from the premier league and just

has a wonderful wonderful time he he's played i think 16 games to them but his season's been

curtailed by two hamstring injuries, so he won't be playing tonight.

But

I will be cautiously optimistic that Ray F.

Sosi dad can beat PSG because it is PSG and

on their day they're capable of losing against anyone.

And it's very much

this multi-million dollar or multi-billion pound or Euro state-owned behemoths against

the plucky little little homegrown underdogs that's full of academy graduates.

I think there's 14 or 15

academy graduates in the Real Associated first team squad.

So you love to see it.

Do you think when Kierantini eventually goes back to the Premier League, he'll be like, when I got back from my gap year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll tell you, it's what it sounds like, actually.

He's on his gap year.

He was describing like the food he eats there, clams and rice, and how if he, you know, when he tells the lads at home in glasgow that he's been eating clams and rice they all just mock him

there a very specific reason why i'm looking forward to this game and why i if you want to make a case for an upset is that real sociedad are like the most aggressive high pressing team in in la liga they're most pressed tastic uh team in the in in the spanish league and We know with Luis Enriquez PSGs that they are probably going to play out from the back, and they're not the best team in Europe at it.

So I think there's a real sort of possibility.

Listen, what could happen is Mbappe could just run away from everyone and score.

I mean, that does seem to happen quite often, but I can completely envisage PSG

getting caught and ending up on that sort of Twitter account when playing out from the back goes wrong.

Proper football men will love that account, won't they?

Lazio Bayer.

How do you see this one, Mark?

Still thinking about the clams and riots, actually, Max.

We're really making the belly ruffle.

i i think over the two legs buying will win um they they should do their they're considerably better than lazio and not having a a great season in sierra

obviously they need to recover from the the shock of just getting a real hiding by uh leverkuzen on saturday because the 3-0 score wasn't one of those games where um you know you can get caught and and you know dominate the game and you just end up losing it 3-0.

I think that the team is not functioning properly at the moment.

That's on the coach, Thomas Tuchor.

He's under pressure, getting a lot of flat.

He

doesn't believe he's got the right balance to the team and has been moaning about that throughout the season.

They are easy to counter-attack on, but I just don't see sort of Lazio.

Last season, when they had Milenkovich Savic, he was somebody that could make those runs from deep and was a huge player for them.

They're just not the same team this year.

And maybe one of those reasons why the Champions League isn't as strong as what it sort of traditionally is, is because, you know, Lazio are not one of the best four teams in Italy this season.

So it should be comfortable enough over the two legs for Bayern briefly gone back to the clams and race.

Is he talking about Paella?

You'd normally have more than just clams in sort of a

paella.

Yeah, Calamari

wasn't there in a Paella.

I think.

Now I'm hungry.

Who was it?

Was it somebody somebody famous or just a friend of mine who thought that calamari

swam in the sea with like little circles that swam around in the sea and that's what they were i don't remember

i know uh

kieran trippier referred to he didn't realize that he thought that uh tapas meant spanish food rather than little dishes and referred and referred to well yeah when he went to to spain he didn't realize that um you know you can have little dishes of of anything really and that's what happens according to delicious.com uh there is a recipe for spanish clams and rice so a separate dish from paella uh anyway that'll do for part two part three the more prosaic sellhurst park defeat for crystal palace against chelsea

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Michael says, should Conor Gallagher have apologised for scoring against his old club?

I do seem to recall that he scored a last-minute winner for Chelsea at Palace and he didn't celebrate celebrate the last time, but maybe he's been away from Palace for long enough, or he'd forgotten he spent a while at Palace on loan, and he did celebrate.

He really celebrated what was basically the winner,

the second goal.

And boy, Barry, did they need that second half, Chelsea?

Oh, yeah, I was watching this game, and I was laughing at how inept Chelsea were in the first half.

It was staggering.

Just passes under hit over hit.

Pointing and laughing,

like a

bond baddie laughing.

Just the levels of ineptitude they plumbed after that excellent performance against Villa.

And they were playing a Palace team who'd just been humiliated by Brighton.

No Michael Elise, no Aberich,

and no Mark Ahy for Palace in this game.

So you think they're going to get hammered here.

They have no chance.

And, you know, Chelsea did have all the ball in the first half, but just couldn't do anything with it.

And then they went behind to this

superb goal from Jefferson Lerma, and you're thinking, oh, hold on.

But

their superiority showed in the end, I suppose.

But they left it late.

Petrocek on Monday Night Football said that

Petrovich should have stopped the Jefferson Lerma goal.

I mean, I don't, it's sort of just suddenly thinking, I mean, that just seems very, very harsh, doesn't it?

And maybe Petercek was just like, I could save everything.

You know, but

I thought that was quite funny pressure there is pressure on roy hodgson isn't there mark and

you know that by all accounts you know um ed aaron's writing in the guardian that they've been trying to get kieran mckenna from ip switch i mean that can't help he obviously has been in the game long enough to know that he is under serious pressure and it was stephen grant brighton comedian was on the radio with me and charlie saying you know that the palace Palace is you know their their banners their angry banners are so long they're like we're really disappointed with everything that is happening you know there's not been enough enough funding, we haven't really thought this through.

Roy Hodgson was okay, just it was a stopgap, and now we really should be thinking about this.

This is just absolutely enormous.

But um, he's under real pressure, Roy, and it's interesting to see what Palace will do.

I mean, I don't think he should have ever been appointed or reappointed when he was, it worked up and to a point because he managed to keep them in the Premier League.

I don't think they were going to get relegated anyway, but he did make sure of survival.

But it was always likely to be a short-term solution.

And you mentioned Brighton there.

I think the fact that their kind of rivals play

such daring football, have got a clear policy on what they want to be and in terms of transfer market and style of play.

That definitely doesn't help when you're sort of looking, I think they say up the road.

It's quite a long way up the road, isn't it, from Palace to Brighton?

But you know what I mean from that point of view.

And there doesn't appear to be a plan at Crystal Palace for kind of like what kind of coach they want and the type of team they want to be.

I think some of their transfers in terms of who they're brought in from the EFL have been very good, but it's about having a bigger picture and a bigger plan.

And, you know, they were always likely to struggle without the players that you'd already mentioned in that game against Chelsea, but style of play is difficult.

really difficult to watch.

And I was main screening this game and then I just got so bored in that first half as Barry was talking about I sort of felt like I was nodding off and the commentator woke me up when he screamed

for the Jefferson Lerman goal but I don't think Palace were going to score in any other way really and once Chelsea took the game seriously and started to think about scoring goals rather than just keeping the ball that they were able to win the game I mean Palace go to Everton on Monday now which is a real treat for those of us who saw their two games in the third round of the Cup and went, yes, more fees.

I thought Adam Wharton looked good, though.

You know, mentioned signing from the EFL.

He looks like a tidy player.

And they have all their players fit, you know, next season, presumably in the Premier League, and they have a new manager.

It could all change pretty quickly, I guess.

The referees' comms went down at half-time, caused quite a bit of a delay.

I don't think there's a conspiracy theory, but I do.

I feel I spend a lot of time watching an official unstrapping something on his bicep and re-strap.

It just feels like it feels like I spend a lot of time doing that.

There's no question or no point to this, but it's just something we just think, oh, just get on with it.

It's a bit like standing behind someone at a cash point.

It's not that you do that anymore.

That ages me, you know, going, fucks, it's taking forever.

Anyway, British billionaire, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, his deal to buy a quarter of Manchester United has been approved by the Premier League.

Well done, Jim.

It's worth £1.03 billion.

It's still subject to FA approval.

The Glazers will retain a majority stake in the club, but Ineos Group, Ratcliffe's Ineos Group, will take control of football operations.

And so, yeah, we will see what happens with all of that and the gains, however marginal or not that they are.

In the EFL,

Mansfield beat Harrogate 9-2,

and we celebrate that because scoring nine goals is quite something.

I've ranked the goals in order of quality: the eighth, the third, the second, the sixth, the fifth, the fourth, the seventh, the ninth, then the first, because that was a penalty.

But I did watch all of them.

The absolute highlight of this game was the Harrogut player grabbing the ball out of the net to rush back to the centre circle at 6-2.

Are we still in?

They scored two

quite quickly.

It's a dangerous lead, 6-2.

It really is, isn't it?

But the Harrogate fans were really going for it yesterday.

Do you see Nigel Clough's comments afterwards where he claimed that Mansfield would have beaten most teams in the world on the night, which

given Manchester City were dominating a Champions League game at the same time?

And he also referenced the celebrating.

Do you remember earlier on this season, Nigel Clough

was ordering his players not to celebrate too wildly after scoring goals because they would tire themselves out and he wanted them to to save their energy.

So

he kind of could see this coming and

he just didn't want the players to go

too wild.

Otherwise they might have only won six or five.

Yeah.

Was it just Pat A News handshakes all around and jog back to the centre circle?

Yeah.

Maybe they could have beaten Man City if Man City were also playing Copenhagen at the same time.

I I mean, that is possible.

Yeah, Hiram Boateng got a hatchery.

He's a holding midfielder.

He was great for us when we went up from League Two.

In the championship, Leeds won 4-0 at Swansea.

Couple for Woody Nonto.

Matt says, Leeds since New Year's Day have scored 25, conceded two maximum points.

In any other season, they'd be top by a mile.

Danny says, how do you think the leads squad will cope in two years when we qualify for the Champions League?

And they overtake Southampton, whose unbeaten run is over.

They hadn't lost since September.

They lost 3-1 at Bristol City.

Leicester are 12 points clear at at the top.

Beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-0.

Stately Home Kieran Dewsbury Hall with a delightful assist for Jamie Vardy.

Who wants to talk about the ridiculous Rabona?

What's his name?

Is it Philogene?

How do I pronounce this man?

Philogene.

Yeah, so Philogene is cribbling

to the byline, cuts back in.

He's then at a very difficult angle.

And rather than do the traditional thing at that point and just cross the ball normally with his left foot he goes for the Robona which floats in over the goalkeeper at least at first view and sort of finds the top corner and you're thinking we found the Puskas

sort of goal of the year winner

scandalously though there is a deflection and it's been given as an own goal because it maybe wasn't on target.

I mean, who are we to know whether there was enough curl on the Robona for it to have bent in anyway?

But yeah,

as good an own goal in a different type of way.

I mean, we love the Lee Dixon sort of lobbying, the goalkeeper from the halfway line sort of style of own goal.

But yeah, one of the best owned goals in a different kind of way.

And credit to Charlie Baker for saying fans should sing Philogene is not my lover.

It really does scan, doesn't it?

Yes, Lars.

I feel like this is where we need an appeals

system to the dubious goals panel.

There should be the dubious goals panels, when they get involved, it should be possible to appeal on aesthetical grounds, I think, for this sort of thing.

There should be a second circuit, like the dubious goals panels, it has ruled, but you can appeal on grounds of aesthetics, and then there should be a separate panel, which could involve, I guess, some fans and minor celebrities and talking heads from these sort of things who can decide.

Surely, scores of great goals.

It should be Latisse and Gianfranco Zola.

I'm just not inclined to give

and Serge from Casabian.

I'm just not.

I'm just really worried about what the panel would come up to if you sort of bring Latisse in.

I mean, they're going to be all kinds of

weird shit could come out of that panel.

We will do another EFL pod soon.

Producer Joel won't sanction it until Charlton win, and they haven't won in 14.

So it might be a long time.

He's terrified of Charlton in League Two, which they haven't been in the fourth tier since the 30s, apparently.

You can't rattle around in a 30,000 capacity in League Two, but you're never too big or too good to go down.

Barry, you wanted to do a little bit about Sunday until I die?

Series three.

Yeah, Series three, the third and final series of this great documentary is out.

And it's probably the weakest of the three.

I'd say it's only three episodes long.

It begins halfway through the season when they get promoted from League One back to the championship after four years in League One, and I think that kind of takes away from it a bit because, you know, who wants to see success?

Abject failure is always more interesting to watch.

And I think it also loses out a bit, not really through any fault of the makers.

They've still done a fine job.

But

in previous series, we've had, you know, Stuart Bain, who was the David Brent of chief executives, and then we had Charlie Methen,

this

public schoolboy idiot in his burgundy trousers, telling everyone that the piss take party stops now, and telling all the staff at the stadium light how incompetent they all are when it turns out he's more him and Stuart Donald are more incompetent than any of them.

But yeah, I enjoyed this.

But

Kira Louis Dreyfus is in charge now, the twenty-something billionaire, and he's quite dull and far too competent to be the star of this show, you know.

So we're relying on the old faces, the fans who've made it so good over the years.

Peter Farrar, the cabby,

Michelle Barakloff and Ian Wake.

Yeah, there's there's there's no jeopardy in this because you know obviously they're going to get promoted.

But I did enjoy it.

Uh, and even though they do get promoted and it's only three episodes long, it still manages to have an ending that will reduce you to tears, an absolute gut punch.

Uh, so anyone who's seen the first two series, you've got to watch this one, just see it out.

Yeah, I mean, it feels to me nothing is going to continue a piss take party more than someone announcing to you that the piss take party stops here.

It feels incredibly counterintuitive.

I want a man in red trousers spunking millions on Will Grigg, frankly.

But you're right, Pete the Cabby.

I feel like I've given it a bad review, and it's not bad, but it's just not as good as the previous two

for the reasons I've kind of outlined.

And I think

Welcome to Wrexham has really taken over in the football documentary Stakes, hasn't it?

Yeah, I haven't got to that yet, I must confess.

I really, once I saw

you know, the Tottenham team talks, I just thought this can't be, this can't be all there is.

Come on, lads, let's fucking smash them.

I mean, I've heard that.

I've delivered that.

I want more from these guys.

So much footage of men in trainers sort of arriving at the training ground, high-fiving people.

There's just hours and hours of this.

I kind of struggle with these documentaries.

I'm sure.

I don't know.

Maybe it's because so much of my time is spent watching actual football.

When I sit down and watch something like that.

I want it to be not football related, but they're just so many of them are just inane and not a lot of fun.

I do want from their success.

I'm sure the Rex Mon is different, just based on the sheer number of people watching it, there has to be something good there.

Sorry, but the absolute highlight of the third series of Sunderland Till I Die

is when Jack Clark and Patrick Roberts go to visit the East Durham Veterans Association

and help out in the kitchen and chat to these guys, you know, many of whom are suffered or have suffered from PTSD.

And it's just this group of hairy old men who gather once a week just to chat and exchange old war stories and support each other.

And at one point, Jack Clark is standing there having a conversation about kind of mental health with this big beardy middle-aged man who's wearing a gimp fist t-shirt.

And all you can see is just Gimp Fists.

So, I had to Google Gimp Fists.

So, it turns out they're a punk band from the Northeast.

So,

yeah, when you've watched Sunderland Till I Die, be sure to seek out Gimp Fist's

back catalogue and give it a listen.

If they enjoy the pod, you never know.

They might have re-recorded the outro for us.

I'd like to be played onto stage for a live show by Gimp Fist.

Joe says, regarding the last pod and Barry's comments on West Ham's Fabianski being the only player who came out of the Arsenal game with some credit, was this because he was on the bench for the full 90?

Mark, just listen to the pod.

Barry was bang on about Fabianski being the only player to come out of the Arsenal mauling with any credit as he didn't play.

Same also applies to Julian Dix and Billy Bond.

Steve, I love it when talking about the positives from West Ham.

Barry said Fabianski made some good saves.

He didn't play a minute.

Gold, he says.

I mean, it's on all of us.

I mean, I was listening to you and it got past me.

It got past producer Joel.

I'd like to come to your defense here, Barry.

Oh, thank you.

Even though Lucas Fabianski and Alphonse Ariolia look nothing alike,

there's about a decade between them and they're entirely different people.

There is something...

There is something quite similar about both of them.

And it feels like they've both been West Ham's first choice keeper for about five years.

And I feel that, you know, it's not like...

If you think about Vicario and Fraser Forster or Alison and Kelleher, right?

There should be a discernible, like a real noticeable difference.

But I think most people, unless they had a close-up, I think most people didn't notice.

And I think it's very, I think you can't be expected to differentiate between West Ham goalkeepers.

I give you full forgiveness.

I would argue, Max, that if you're podding at the highest elite level, you probably should be able to differentiate between West Ham goalkeepers.

Maybe.

Did I say I was slightly offended by the fact I didn't think Harry Oda had played that well either, really?

So, I mean,

I wasn't sure he deserved it.

I'm not sure he deserved Fabiancy's credit, really.

I thought he was as average as, well, as bad as the rest of them.

I mean, the real truth is, now I really will notice who is in gold for West Ham.

So, in fact, you've done everybody a favor because no one will get it wrong for the rest of the season, I'm sure.

Well, it's like that, that feature we did in our Football Weekly book.

Who's it?

Vestergaard and Bednarek.

Yeah, Yannick Vestergaard and Jan Bednarek.

How no one can tell them apart, even though they're completely different people who looked nothing alike.

Yeah, but their names are slightly similar, you know, and they're all, they're all, you know, I mean, they might be at different clubs now.

Who knows?

I'm going to Leicester and Southampton, but I couldn't tell you who's at which one.

Let's not go down that path again.

Heaven forbid we repeat a joke.

Ellis says, which of the panel is best qualified to be super sub for David Squires while he goes through the process of getting over his injury getting back to match fitness guardian sport cannot play with 10 men uh get well soon yeah our best wishes to david squires um uh who who tweeted look no cartoon this week i'm afraid on sunday morning on an otherwise uneventful dog walk i became a walking chew toy for a stray staffy who had taken umbrage the existence of one of my small dogs i got in between them and came off worse for where if it hadn't been for the help of three blokes who came to my aid I don't think I'd be typing this.

In time, I'll be able to take more enjoyment from the fact that the man who saved me is an Australian called Bluey which for parents of young children they will find very amusing I needed surgery on my upper arm my drawing hand is fine suck it haters he says I need a few days on the sideline my little dog is fine as well look I chat to him today sounded pretty fucking full on actually excuse my language

and yeah he's pretty shaken up but

like if if there is anything lucky about being attacked by a violent dog when you're a cartoonist it's that his writing hand is fine and his drawing hand rather is fine.

And that is a stroke of luck for all of us because the guy,

I wouldn't say to his face, it's an absolute genius.

And so thankfully, he is okay and he'll be doing cartoons again.

Jim says, finally, what did you have in your pancakes?

I imagine Mark's resembled an American breakfast stack.

Did you pancake, Mark?

Did you, you know, what was it?

Oh, pancaking's a verb now, too.

Pancake.

It was a second.

I think it's

something in the urban dictionary, Barry.

I'm almost certain.

Anyway,

I second plated

with pancakes after dinner.

It was, yeah, it was American, yeah, but maple syrup.

Well, Canadian, North American, maple syrup on the pancakes.

And I won't be giving up anything for Lent though, Max.

Although maybe gimp fist, I might give up gimp fist for Lent.

Market mind.

Gimp fisting, that could be a verb too.

That would definitely be in the your urban dictionary.

I'm sure it is.

Anyway, from

up to Joe, Darren Peacock is the only player whose name contains every letter in the word pancake to have made a Premier League appearance on Shrove Tuesday, doing so in 1995 for Newcastle United.

Thank you very much.

That is a statistic that I like, and that'll do for today.

Thank you, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Thanks, Mark.

Thanks, Max.

Cheers, Baz.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.

HiPod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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