Reds rout Blues, plus Afcon and Asian Cup stories – Football Weekly Extra

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Three games, three home wins for the sides in the top four.

Liverpool finally find an attacking right back with great distribution.

Connor Bradley's first goal and two assists makes you wonder when he'll he'll be pushed into midfield and if there's time for Gareth to get him on that plane.

Meanwhile, Darwin Nunes' stats are incredible and vary incredibly, whether you're Troy Townsend or the rest of us hitting the woodwork four times.

A new Premier League record.

In North London, Spurs turn it on for 10 minutes just after halftime.

And that's enough to beat a dogged and Mope-led S.

Housery masterclass from Brentford.

Just what the ownership rules on goal celebrations.

And then Man City swap Burnley.

aside.

Kevin De Bruyne's lovely free kick to set up Alvarez for the pick of the goals.

Then some AFCON, some Asia Cup, a Premier League League preview, the disrespect of eating a sandwich in front of someone, your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello, Max.

I suspect our Nor and Iron listeners may have something to say about you putting Conor Bradley on Paris Southgates plane.

I did wonder how early that would.

I wonder how long I could stretch that out before I said, I do know this.

Don't yell at us.

Yes, 13 caps for Northern Ireland.

It's okay.

Don't shout.

Paul Watson, hello.

Hi.

And in the Cote d'Ivoire, Jonathan Wilson, hello.

Morning.

How are you doing?

Very good.

Thank you.

Let's start Anfield then.

Liverpool 4.

Chelsea 1.

Just such a comprehensive victory, Barry.

I mean, it felt like a...

It is a cliche to say, a message to Manchester City and the rest of the league that they could be the second ever Invincibles if they get that replay at Spurs eventually.

Yeah, it was, I suppose, a statement win, wasn't it?

After seven consecutive draws with Chelsea.

I think they'd have beaten anyone with that performance.

Chelsea happened to be the Stooges on the night.

Petrovich was Chelsea's best player, the goalkeeper.

Liverpool scored four, hit the woodwork four times.

And like yourself,

all I could think about was Troy Townsend going,

oh, another shot on target.

Chelsea were out-pressed, out-fought, out-classed, smothered into submission

for 90 minutes, suffocated to death.

A couple of decisions went against them.

I think only the most churlish Chelsea fan, and there are quite a few of them about, would

lay the blame for this defeat at the door of the referee.

They probably could have had two penalties, definitely should have had one, but...

I don't think it would have made the slightest bit of difference.

They were second best by a distance, and and it was a brilliant performance by liverpool probably their best of the season although i can only remember the last two or three so it might not be yeah i i'm it'd be a fun documentary to find the most cheerless chelsea fan wouldn't it i mean

almost cheerless football fan from all clubs um adam says will trent ever get back in the team um connor bradley paul i mean a dream game for him he's 20 he does have 13 caps for northern ireland so uh the people tweeting gareth come on get him in it right back it is too too late.

His first goal, he got two assists.

That cross for Sober's Lai was brilliant.

And it's just, what an amazing, what amazing to have these guys from your academy.

Yeah, I mean, he has no right to be as good as he is.

That's absolutely astonishing performance for a 20-year-old.

But also a huge amount of credit to Klopp for putting him in.

I mean, a lot of managers wouldn't.

thrust him in the way that he has and and um yeah he's looked every bit good enough to do it and um yeah what what a game for him.

It was the kind of game you draw up as a kid in the playground as your kind of like your dream.

I've got to say, his goal was so brilliantly taken as well.

There are questions over how he got that much space, but it was, yeah, fantastic finish.

And his distribution, I mean, it just seems ridiculous, Wilson, to compare him to Trent.

But here you have another fullback who's great going forward, who actually looks really good defensively, but whose distribution is marvellous.

Well, we live in the golden age of right-backs, don't we?

For a long time, if you had a fullback who was good on the ball, it tended to be a left back.

If you think, you know, Faketti, I guess, is the or Marsolini or

Nilton Santos.

They're sort of the big three who pioneered that in the 60s.

I'm waiting for you to mention a footballer that I've actually heard of, but I'll carry on.

I thought he said Mussolini.

I heard Mussolini, and I was like, well, a known right-winger there, yeah.

Marsolini, Silvio Marsolini, the Argentinian.

Ah, I got you.

So I think it's Jan Lucaviali who had the theory that the right back was always the worst player in the team.

Because if you were

right foot, so left-footed players, because there's few of them, they tend to be left alone.

But if you were right-footed and were good at defending, you'd be moved into the middle of the defence.

If you were right-footed and actually good on the ball, you'd move them to midfield.

So the right back was just the bloke who was left.

But that's clearly not true anymore.

And it probably hasn't been true for 20, 25 years.

But yeah,

England particularly, or sort of the Premier League, has so many gifted right-backs.

And yeah, I mean,

I guess maybe this is the moment when Alexander Arnold makes that full leap into midfield.

And maybe he is the holding midfielder Liverpool appears to be slightly short of.

Yeah, I just like the idea that, you know, Trent gets moved into midfield for Conor Bradley, who then gets moved into midfield for Joe Gomez, who then gets moved into midfield.

It's eventually your midfield has got 25 people in all former right-backs.

Matthew says, is there a more box office footballer in the Premier League than Darwin Nunez?

He hit the woodwork four times in this game, Barry, which is a Premier League record.

I think he's hit it nine times in the Premier League.

I'm sure I saw 12 somewhere.

But anyway, he's hit the woodwork more than any other player by a country mile.

As far as I know, on Match of the Day, they said 12 times.

I presume that's Premier League only.

And then there were a number of players beneath them all on four.

To be fair to him, a couple of those shots yesterday were helped onto the woodwork by Petrovich in goal for Chelsea.

So they were on target.

And yeah, he's massively entertaining.

He

set up one, if not two, goals.

And

the goals will come for him.

You know, he's scored quite a few.

They will come.

And

if, as Troy says, he's hitting the target, then

I don't think it's a source of cause for concern, especially if Liverpool have players who

will get the goals he isn't getting.

There is an extraordinary stat about Nunez that if you look at

non-penalty goals minus XG, so that's sort of a measure of how efficient a striker is.

Of 528 players who've had a shot in the Premier League this season, he ranks 525th.

So the only three below him are Nicholas Jackson, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and that Ukrainian midfielder, the 19-year-old kid at Brentford, whose name I'm afraid I have forgotten.

Hang on.

Yeho Yamolyuk.

He's only ever started four games in his career and has never scored a goal.

But he clearly, you know, which makes him sound like some kind of joke figure who just can never score.

But he's got, what, seven goals, I think, this season in the league and

you know, clearly caused enormous amounts of damage.

So despite that's really a measure of how many chances he creates rather than how many he sort of wastes.

Yeah, I mean, that's the point, Paul, isn't it?

He is a, he's actually really crucial to this team.

And Klopp afterwards was saying, you know, look, the goals will come.

This happens to great centre-forwards.

You know, it takes time sometimes.

But, like, he is incredibly effective, but also like humorously entertaining.

Like, every time he kept hitting the post, and like, a couple of the penalty and the header were just so, like, really hammering the woodwork.

Like, he was saying, like, I'm really going to hit the post here.

Like, I'm going to make it clang and judder.

And you just think, this is like, if you're a Liverpool fan, how brilliant?

Because you're still in five points up up in the league and you've got this guy that will give you so much entertainment.

Yeah, it's not a bad position to be in if you're a Liverpool fan.

I love watching him play.

Like, I think he's brilliant entertainment.

The penalty made me laugh out loud.

It was just the precision with which he hit the post.

It would be so much harder.

to hit the post as regularly as he does than to just score.

So I have a huge amount of time for him as a player.

And I think there is this thing of like, well, what if it suddenly does start to fall for him?

I think I'll enjoy watching him a lot less when it does, to be honest.

He had more shots in the opening 15 minutes than Chelsea had in the entire game.

But also, like,

he's just like measurably more entertaining, Barry, than Jotter is.

Even though Jotter is like ruthlessly efficient and like and utterly brilliant.

And like, since Salah's been away, has scored six, has been involved in 15 goals in the last eight.

Like, such a brilliant footballer.

But, like, if you had a choice, you know, you would just, you'd get rid of Jotter straight away if it was between the two.

Well, I don't know.

It depends what you're after.

Well, if you're after entertainment, if you're a neutral, yes,

oh, yeah, yeah,

definitely.

I mean, um,

the goal Jotter got last night was, I mean, the defending was just appalling from, I think it was Bally Schilly, who was

had a bit of a nightmare, and Thiago Silva, who

I'm afraid, he's not looking up to it anymore, is he?

And there was a bit of controversy about that.

Was it a handball?

I don't think so.

And I mean, it hit his hand, but I'm not sure the goal should have been disallowed, and it wasn't.

Interestingly, actually, if

we'd had no var in that game last night,

it would have panned out much the same.

All the on-field decisions that were given stood.

But

yeah, for efficiency, Jota every time

for entertainment.

And

that's why we watch football, isn't it?

We want Darwin.

We do.

Jonathan says, has anyone asked if Chelsea should strengthen the January transfer window yet?

Still such a

fascinating setup, Wilson.

Kieran Maguire tweeting, they have 14 players whose contracts do not expire until the next decade.

You know, they had moments in this game.

And Kunku does look good.

You think it'll come good for him.

He should have had a penalty.

I mean,

it was a terrible night for the Liverpool Paul Tierney conspiracy theorists, but still.

And look, Liverpool were great, as Barry said, they would have beaten anyone yesterday.

But it is still, it's still such a messed up work in progress, this Chelsea team.

Yeah, I mean, they've taken a squad that, I mean, they won the Champions League, what,

three seasons ago.

So it was not like it was a nonsense squad.

They've ripped it apart.

They brought in loads of kids where

there's always going to be uncertainty.

And by essentially having loads of kids and then Thiago Silver,

their granddad,

they haven't really got anybody there to learn from, to give them stability.

And you've seen Nicholas Jackson's confidence, Michalan Budrick's confidence, I fear after last night, Baddishil's confidence, have really gone.

And in a normal world,

an 18-year-old, 19-year-old's confidence goes.

Well, you leave him out of the team for a month, you bring him back in, you give them a couple of sub-appearances.

But you can't do that because all they've got is those young players.

So, I think there is slowly signs of a team coalescing, that Pochesino is getting something together.

I think they're still desperately short of a proper centre-forward.

I think they need a centre-back.

It's an astonishing thing to have done, to have spent a billion pounds and still have what is essentially a mess.

And the problem now is that these young players who should be, you know, you think of a young player as an asset that's appreciating in value that you can then potentially sell on, they're now potentially a drain on resources because they're all on contracts till the next millennium.

Yes.

And when you put it like that, it is...

I guess the question is, like, how long...

Chelsea aren't notoriously patient.

And it feels like the only way to test if this works is to give it two, three, four years, to let these players mature and work together.

And then suddenly you have this all-conquering football team.

But that presupposes that no other team does anything.

You know, that doesn't do any sort of planning either, and just lets this team evolve.

I think you're quite right.

I think what they need is time and what they need stability.

And they've never tested those two things out for God knows how long at Chelsea.

It reminds me a little bit of like, you know how with the underground system in London, they always say like the problem is making changes is almost impossible.

Like it's so rotten.

It's so sort of melted together and everyone's patched it together over years that it's actually easier to start from scratch.

And they've kind of got that at Chelsea.

Like you kind of have to let this thing evolve because

it's a series of bad decisions and a series of sort of sort of individual decisions that have been made without any clear strategy for so long that it's going to take a really long time to then work this through to something that makes any kind of sense.

And I think you're right.

I think it just needs time and it needs the same manager and it needs some sort of thought behind the transfers in relation to each other.

And whether they can do that,

I'm not sure.

Some vintage Duncan Alexander.

Mikhail Mudrick's two Premier League appearances at Anfield have seen him marked by a player who made his first Premier League start in 2003, James Milner, and a player who was born in 2003, Connor Bradley.

Let's go to the Tottenham Hot Spurs Stadium.

Spurs 3, Brentford 2.

Barry, not so much a game of two halves as a game of three bits, I thought.

I like Brentford so much better in the first half.

Counter-attacking, winding Spurs up.

Spurs had 10 minutes where they just blew Brentford away and then Brentford kind of had the best of the rest of it.

But But that 10 minutes was enough for Tottenham.

So not quite a game of three-thirds either.

No.

No.

Two-fifths, one-fifths of the two-fifths.

Something like that.

Yeah, I think you pretty much summed it up well there.

Spurs

were very poor in the first half, trying to do everything through the middle.

and weren't having much luck trying to thread the ball through little narrow gaps.

And then they were also, yeah, I mean, Neil Mopay was in full wind-up merchant mode.

Brentford were trying to waste time.

Spurs were bickering with each other, the Brentford players and the referee, and I guess that's what Brentford wanted them to do.

After Mopay scored the opener for Brentford, he and Tony

decided to rip the piss out of James Madison, which I think wasn't probably their greatest idea to go

that soon with that particular particular wind-up.

My close personal friend Ethan Pinnock nearly scored with an incredibly audacious back heel effort, which, you know, who knows what might have happened if that had gone in.

And then, yeah, Spurs just blew them away in a nine-minute period, not long after the second half.

It was a really good game, actually.

Real good game of football.

And I think Spurs deserved to win in the end.

Although Shoshanda Baptiste missed a great opportunity to rescue a point for Brentford in injury time.

Paul, what an odd game for Destiny Adogi.

Scored one, key role in Tottenham's two of Spurs, really key role in Brentford's opener, and set up Brentman second.

So, like, he really,

he had massive goal, his goal involvement numbers are huge for this game.

Yeah, it was absolutely incredible.

And I think the goal, the Ivan Tony goal, it...

defies belief.

It really reminded me of like Sunday League sort of football where he obviously I mean, I don't know why he was there in the first place, but Udogi obviously didn't know that he was there, but but played this pass that it was just it defies belief.

Yeah, obviously I imagine most people have seen it, but it's a moment of football that I don't think I've ever seen at that level a goal conceded in that way.

Yeah, I think Tony had got a knock and was so sort of wasn't was slow in coming back.

And so then Odogi just sort of like passes it back to Vicario.

And this is a really funny moment where Vicario has stood stood right next to Tony and he's like pointing away from him going, no thanks.

I don't need this.

You wonder actually if Vicario had been better off just flying into the ball.

But yeah,

it was hilarious.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, it was, I think it was Baz.

Anch did make two changes at halftime.

He bought on Hoiberg, which I thought was really smart because Tottenham needed to bring a shithouse on to just to just like counteract what Brentford had been doing so brilliantly in the first half.

yeah he brought on Huiberg and Johnson for skip and Benjamin Koor Kulasevsky went to the centre of the pitch and

it reaped immediate rewards and

I

I watched the first half of this game live then I watched Chelsea Liverpool and then I watched the second half on match of the day and I'm pretty sure Brennan Johnson seems to think he scored Tottenham's first goal

I'm I'm not sure if he knows they won.

I'm pretty sure in his post-match interview, he said it was great to come on and score our opener.

I'm going, no, you didn't.

Yeah, I'd need to rewind that.

Just, did I imagine it?

Or

does

Brendan Johnson think Spurs drew that game to all?

I'm not sure.

On Neil Mope,

who was just absolutely, he's such, because like we've seen off the pitch, right?

He does wonderful things.

He did this wonderful thing where he met

a kid with

learning difficulties and spent all day with him.

And he said, I'll do this celebration.

And then he celebrated, did the celebration that the kid wanted.

I hope that wasn't when he was at Everton because the kids probably weren't grown up.

Kids married with five kids, man.

Yeah,

but he's such an, he's just, he's so annoying, especially when he's playing against your team.

But, you know, that celebration,

I mean, it's kind of funny, isn't it?

As seemingly, teams are copying goal celebrations, says Ian.

Should each club have a quota of registered celebrations only they can use?

But during two nominated windows per season, they can be traded.

Sebo says, Neil Mopay scores an average of 0.03 goals a game this season.

Whilst I'm sure we're all very happy to see him scoring, can he really afford to be wasting his precious goals this season on someone else's celebration?

James Madison said to him, You haven't scored enough goals to have your own celebrations.

Neil Bompay just went a bit two-footed.

When

I did go too early with that celebration, but I've scored more goals and had fewer relegations than you, James Madison.

Okay.

Very, very funny.

On the back heel, Sam says, How excited did Barry get when Ethan Pinnock tried that back heel?

Sal, how close was Ethan Pinnock to the uncontested goal of the season in late January, Charlie?

Ethan's Pinnock's back heel made me think about Barry Glendon and his jet black hair.

People are influenced by but just by you and your non-greying locks as soon as Ethan Pinnock does something.

I mean, I did think I thought of you, obviously, when he tried that.

I guess from a from a Tottenham point of view, Wilson, they're now into the top four.

You sort of sense that that is their aim, right?

Top four.

Andre was quite bullish.

I think the Moose from Talksport said, look, you're not going to win a trophy this year.

And Ange went, oh, we're not going to win the title, are we, mate?

And, you know, Moose got a bit flustered, but he's probably right.

They've got quite a nice fixture list for a month or two now.

They're in fourth.

So, what, three points behind Arsenal and City?

A city of Payde have got a game in hand.

They are eight points behind Liverpool.

What's the limit for them this season, do you think?

I mean, they're not going to win the title, so get in the Champions League.

That's, I mean, you know, at the start of the season, if you'd said Champions League, they'd have been quite happy with that, surely.

So, yeah, finish top four, guarantee yourself Champions League and see what you can do in the sub and then move on.

Meanwhile, Brentford, five away, Davits in a Robaz.

Um, Thomas Frank said he's not worried.

They did play quite well in this game, they've got a pretty tough run of games.

I think they've got City

at home, Wolves away, Liverpool at home, City away again.

And then, so that is that's not a nice run, and then West Ham away, Chelsea, home, and Arsenal away after that.

West Ham away, Chelsea, home are

tough, I'm going to say.

Other opinions are available and I wouldn't worry about Brentford I'd say there'll comfortably be three teams worse than them with or without points deductions and you know they did play well last night well for a while anyway

so I wouldn't have any fears for them at all yeah I suppose the interesting thing about Luton's resurgence is

actually you can now look up you know we we consider Chef United and Bernie are gone and we'll get on to Bernie in just a second but you know Everton on 18 points in 18th place, Fulham in 12th on 25, but there's only seven points difference.

So anyone from Fulham down is still,

you know, a bad runaway from getting sucked in to that maelstrom.

Anyway,

just one thing about Spurs.

Richardson now, he scored seven goals, seven games.

Does he keep his place?

Does Sun get back in?

What happens when Sonny gets back from the Asian Cup?

Good question.

Because actually, we haven't mentioned Tim O'Verner, who was really key in this game.

Yeah, and I thought he was quite key in the city game as well.

If his teammates had actually picked out any of his runs, or well, he could have been key.

He was making lots of good runs, and they were either not spotted or ignored.

And

I thought he was good again last night, too.

Yeah, good question.

Don't know the answer.

That'll do for part one.

We'll do City Burnley in a Premier League preview in part two.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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But there's something new and exciting.

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Remarkable, a brand name and an adjective, man.

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

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A proper football journalist mate.

Exactly.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

10th winning 11 for City.

They beat Burnley 3-1.

Pretty predictable.

Julian Alvarez scored 2.

The second pull, that free kick from De Bruyne.

I don't know if anyone perfectly waits passes like Kevin De Bruyne does.

No, it was something to watch, isn't it?

You're right.

There's a De Bruyne thing that he does, which it's really hard to think of someone else who can match that.

Absolutely beautiful to watch.

The rest of the game, sort of an inevitability about it, really, but nice to see Burnley scored.

I saw a few Burnley fans saying, you know, that's the win there.

We got a goal away to Man City.

But yeah, one of those games that you kind of have to have.

But

on the other hand, when there's other games on, it's fair to say that I may not have watched a huge amount of it.

Yeah.

I think, I guess City fans might get frustrated, Wilson, that that happens when a regulation home win for City doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people.

A more interesting question is:

who would you put as favourites for the title now between them and Liverpool?

I'd still say City, but I mean,

the thing in Liverpool's favour, I mean, they've obviously got the five-point lead with having played a game more, so two-point lead, let's call it.

But they do have to play City at Anfield, I think it's it the 9th of March that game, or that weekend, anyway, that second weekend in March.

So that game now looks key.

If Liverpool would win that, then I think you'd probably say they're favourites.

But you just assume that City, now that De Bruno's back, Holland's coming back, when John Stones gets back to full fitness,

you assume they'll put together one of those runs in spring, like they always do.

So they've got a really tough march.

City's march is hard, but up until March, the next month, February, is quite easy for them.

But March, I think, will determine whether they run away with it, whether it is still tight at the end of the season.

Yeah, that march is the Manchester Derby game in the Champions League against Copenhagen, Liverpool away, Brighton away, Arsenal at home.

So you're right,

that is a fascinating month for Manchester City, isn't it?

Nicholas says, is company doing the worst management job in the Premier League?

Spent 100 million, absolutely hopeless defensively, not competing in games at all.

Most fans don't want him sacked, and I agree, but his decisions and transfers have been baffling.

It has been abysmal this season.

Barry, is he doing the worst job in the Premier League?

I suspect Chris Wilder might give him a run for his money, but it's unfair to judge him after

comparatively few games.

I would say

company maybe or Roy Hodgson, but I did expect more from Burnley.

I thought they would finish sort of mid to,

you know, between

10th and 15th or 16th.

And

it's just so easy to beat them.

And

look, obviously, no one expected them to do anything against city but

uh and this very little of this is vincent company's fault but in their last 13 meetings city have won by an aggregate score of 46-2.

So

look

if Burley fans are happy enough to have him around fine, but they're just too easy to beat.

Wouldn't it have been great if it had been 12 0-0 draws and then

46-2?

While we're on Chris Wilder, Barry, Ian says, have you or anyone on the podcast ever disrespected someone by eating a sandwich?

What kind of etiquette could the official have displayed?

Stand to attention

and hold the sandwich to his chest as though saluting a funeral procession.

This is off the back of Chris Wilder, who Barry rightly called out on Monday for criticizing referees.

He was very upset after the palace game midweek.

And he said, this is a quote.

Apparently, this is a direct quote.

I can't believe this isn't parody, but it is.

I'm not just going to go under the radar and not say anything.

I've been to see the referee and I've told him that.

One of the assistants was eating a sandwich at the time, which I thought was a complete lack of respect.

Hopefully he enjoyed his sandwich while he was talking to a Premier League manager.

This incredibly inflated sense of the position of a Premier League manager that no one can eat.

in front of him and the idea that maybe the referees assistant didn't know that Chris Wilder was going to chance upon them while he opened his sandwich should he have put his sandwich away should have dashed it to the floor he should have chucked it on the floor and stamped on it sure

straight away what do you it's amazing quote isn't it baz i'm like you i i don't particularly want to comment on it because i can't believe

it's real

and it can't be real it it it's come from some parody account um

i mean i

i wouldn't be chris wilder's biggest fan but

I'd have him down as kind of a man of the people who wouldn't have such enormous self-regard.

And, you know, I don't think he's going to be a Premier League manager for much longer.

So I suppose maybe he wants to maximise the reverence that is paid his way

while he's still a Premier League manager.

He was warned that every 50-50 decision would go against them.

He said he confronted...

Sorry, warned by whom?

well i don't know i'll get to that he can he confronted tony harrington the referee after the game to discuss his performance and revealed how one of the assistant referees was eating a sandwich during the conversation doesn't seem too it doesn't seem too big a crime paul to me i don't know it's not even the most disrespectful thing for him to be eating what if he was like slurping down a soup or like um cracking open oysters or like it feels like a sandwich is quite innocuous um but i would definitely test this out if i'm dealing with wilder now every time he comes into the restroom i'm going to be eating a tiramisu or i'm going to be like flambaying something over i'm going to have a little um

a chocolate fountain of chocolate

i suppose it's very hard to look dignified when you're well i certainly find it hard to look dignified if i'm eating say spaghetti bolognese in public so you know it's all dripping down my chin and i can't twirl the spaghetti properly so yeah i'd i'd go with spag ball.

Um, what Chris Wilder said, I was told by a Premier League referee who I've known for a long time and who's as honest as the day is long.

He said, Get ready because every tight decision will go against you.

He said, Every 50-50 will go against you.

We had two bookings in the first half of the game, but they weren't bookings, they were just a coming together.

Their boy absolutely takes our goalkeeper out.

We have to change goalkeepers, and the boy doesn't get booked.

He said it was an accident, he clashed.

It makes no odds if it's an accident or it's not an accident, it's a yellow card.

We've talked with Howard Webb about speeding the game up and making sure that referees have got a grip on that and he could hear the frustration for the supporters.

He could see our frustration from our players anyway.

I mean, what happens when Chris Wilder walks into the canteen at the training ground?

Does everyone just down their cottonery and

stand to attention?

I don't know.

I remember at school, like if you had packed lunch, you're still meant to go to the dining hall to eat it, but obviously nobody could be bothered.

So you'd eat it in the classroom.

But like, so if a teacher then came into the classroom at lunchtime everybody'd be like desperately hiding sandwiches under the desk so is that what assistant referee is going to be like now sort of pretending that you know they're not actually sort of you know chewing in a subtle way they can't they can't see the mouthful is finishing off while clutching a baguette under the desk I mean, I would say it's disrespectful of the referee's assistant to be eating a sandwich while the game is taking place.

I don't think he should, you know, just open his like his prep.

You know, he's got an early prep Christmas sandwich and he's just going for that.

I think that is disrespectful.

but if he's just in the room and Chris Wilder has burst in, do you think opposing coaches should start eating sandwiches on the phone shelf tonight?

Like Jason Tyndall eating a you know, a subway kind of meatball marinara.

Yeah, you know, that's what Mope would do right now, wouldn't it?

Mopei in the situation.

Oh, that's funny.

Um, West Ham played Bournemouth and Wolves played Manchester United tonight.

One thing, um,

I, I,

I'm not sure we've discussed Marcus Rashford enough because

Ted Hag says

my thing with the Marcus Rashford night out or two nights out is just how bleak

his fun is.

You know, it's seems to surrounded by hangers on, horsing back tequilas, which I mean, oh God, that's foul.

I mean, I do we know do we know he was horsing back tequila's?

I didn't know that was part.

I think between them the the son and the athletic have given an account of

what he was wearing,

who he was with, what jewelry he had on,

the fact that he was paying for everything with cash out of a duffel bag.

And

hang on, Barry, hang on.

The last time I came to your pub, not for your birthday, but just for a night out, A, your pub, you have to pay with cash.

And B, we definitely horse back to Keelers at about 3 a.m because i was a terrible terrible mess the next day

oh i think you might have horsed back tequila i'm physically incapable of horsing back tequila but it's it's just this rich young athlete goes out surrounded by

maybe they're his friends i don't know uh it doesn't sound like they are and then he's he's hiring a section of a restaurant and and no one else is allowed in and then any invited guests have to hand over their phones.

Like, who does he think he is?

Again, this is exactly the same as your pub.

Exactly the same protocols.

Do you know what?

I would say, I would say that...

It just sounds really grim.

Well, it does sound grim, but I think it is impossible to...

I can understand why elite footballers as famous as Rashford say, look, can you all put your phones away?

Because if this gets out, it's got out, right?

And it's terrible.

and he just wants to have fun.

I agree with you, he shouldn't be going to nightclubs the day before a game or two days before a game, it just seems mad.

I think another thing that's interesting with Rashford is because he was like so amazing in the pandemic, and because he did so much for so many,

I think that I think suddenly you develop this really binary view of footballer.

So, you think, oh, here is someone who is super mature, who is really like, has no flaws,

he can do everything off the pitch, he can help help these people and he can be a brilliant footballer and just life isn't as simple as that right so you can be totally flawed and be really a really talented footballer and also help people other people in society all these things are possible but we sort of built rashford up to be this sort of sort of almost like a messiah right and so when he makes a mistake it is a bigger deal than so are you saying he's not the messiah he's a very naughty boy yes i basically am now i i to be clear Max, I don't really care what he does in his leisure time.

It's not a good luck to be going out on the piss

the day before training, the day before, or a couple of days before a game.

But I just hope he's all right because he seems to be surrounded by bad people.

And

that blow-by-blow account, it wasn't a fun night out.

It sounded awful.

But also, it's a real insight into

how grim it would be to actually be famous, right?

That's what I think.

It just just would be just so terrible if you couldn't go and get a coffee without people bothering you or go and I mean obviously I am completely like I can't go anywhere but I managed to keep my feet on the ground.

But actually that that existence would be just terrible as what I think like and no money in the world would make it worth it.

In terms of a Premier League preview I guess Brighton Palace both sides struggling is interesting given their rivalry and Arsenal Liverpool Paul is an absolute standout fixture in in what's one of those Premier League fixture lists where you look at it and go, I thought the Premier League was great and none of these fixtures seem really interesting at all.

I wondered how much of that

just comes from working in football.

I often look at the fixture list and I'm like, oh, okay.

This doesn't excite me in the way that I expect.

But yeah,

it's going to be an absolutely huge.

game Arsenal Liverpool, obviously.

Massive game.

Yeah, it's not a particularly inspiring set of fixtures.

There are some fixtures that I swear come up more often than others.

And I know this is factually untrue.

I don't need people necessarily writing in to prove that every team plays each other twice.

But for example, Burnley Man City, I think they play that four or five times a season.

I do always get this certain fixtures.

I look at them and go, no, I don't.

And not just because they've played in the cup or something.

I'm aware of that also.

But yeah, every now and again, you look at the fixtures and think, again?

Trash says, with the January transfer window being hilariously quiet amid some serious belt timing, should we worry that Fabrizio Romano might soon be out of a job?

Will he be reduced to doing cameo videos for a tenor, a pop, or bingo night shouting, here we go, as the tombola spins?

What have you made of this window, Wilson?

Wasn't Fabrizio Romano doing some live gig at Hammersmith Apollo?

I think I saw that advertised on the tube just before Christmas.

I think so.

So I think he's doing all right for himself.

I wouldn't worry about it.

I think he's okay.

Well, it is interesting that everybody's belt tightening.

And I think it suggests that people are taking the profit sustainability regulations very seriously.

And that's sort of the background factor here, isn't it?

That, I mean, it's obviously easy for them to say now, but I think people at Leicester blame their relegation on the fact that they suddenly were sort of, oh, hang on, are we in trouble here?

We better not buy anybody, we'd better sell a couple.

And as a result, had a weaker squad, and as a result, went down.

I think Wolves...

went through a similar process and that was one of the reasons Lopotegi left in the summer.

And I think other teams now are sort of seeing what's happened to Everton, the fact that Everton Forest have charges, the fact that there's ongoing investigations in the city and Chelsea and sort of thinking, God, we actually do have to be careful.

And that, I guess, is the problem

when it's retrospective, that in Spain, you have your budget for the season and everybody knows what that is in advance.

Whereas this is something that can sneak up.

Because I guess you don't exactly know what your income is going to be because you don't know where you're going to get to in the cup.

You don't know how big your crowds are going to be.

You don't know which game's going to be on TV, where you're going to get extra revenue.

So I think everybody suddenly now thinks these are serious.

We've got to be very careful.

Anyway, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll do AFCON and the Asia Cup.

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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NMLS 696891.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Jonathan, let's start with the AFCON.

You are in Abidjan.

How is it?

It's humid, isn't it?

It is astonishingly humid.

I mean, maybe I'm just older, but I think this is the most humid combinations I've done.

The Nigeria Cameroon game was, yeah, I was absolutely dripping.

And yesterday was, I mean, there were no games yesterday, but just walking about was astonishingly humid.

And does that affect?

I know it's mainly about you and how much you're sweating, but in terms of playing, I mean, there's been an interesting mix, hasn't there?

There's an interesting talk about, you know, North African sides struggling in sub-Saharan climate.

But do you think it's impacted the football?

Possibly.

What struck me in that Nigeria Cameroon game was they watered the pitch really heavily, probably, I don't know, 25 to 30.

Did they just take you over the top and just really,

yeah, there's just a patch of dead grass where a sweat has kind of

the salt has sort of destroyed the earth.

But then there seemed to be a very heavy dew came down, which made the pitch very slippy.

And if you think of the two goal, oh, sorry, not the two goals, the goal that was ruled out and then the first goal,

both seemed to be because of the slipperiness of the surface.

And there's a few players fell over.

So

I was then sort of, because I'd just come out, that was the first game I saw.

And I was sort of saying, is this issue of the dew coming down a big issue?

And people were saying, oh, I think it's actually just because they've watered it for so much.

So I think it affects it in that sense i think the point you make about north african teams is is probably true i mean north african teams historically do not do well in in sub-saharan africa um there's only egypt have ever from north africa ever won it uh in sub-saharan africa although they had they did do it twice in 2008 2010 without that great side of won three in a row um so i i guess that that that that makes a difference They do have cooling breaks after half an hour of each half, which I think are very necessary.

But it must make a difference because you see the players after sort of two minutes, their shirts are absolutely dripping.

And you sort of think about that,

was it Villa had the problem earlier in the season with the Castore shirts that

they felt they didn't wick away the sweat?

Well, there's no prizes for not wicking here.

You've got to have wicking shirts.

And we're in this astonishing situation where the quarterfinalists in this tournament are entirely different from the quarterfinalists in the last tournament, which is absolutely brilliant.

Yeah, it is.

And I think

it probably does suggest or does confirm what I've sort of felt for a while, which is

I'm not sure the top-level African teams is necessarily getting much better, but I think what is happening is the pyramid is getting a lot wider.

So, I mean, I remember, you know, the first couple of nations I did was 2002, and you had that great Cameroon side

with Patrick and Bomber fun, things.

Samuel Letto was just coming through, and you had Jeremy.

And yeah, that was a

rigorous song in that team.

That was a really good team.

The Senegal team that went on to do very well at the World Cup later that year with Elad Shuff and Salif Jao and Pat Bubajop and Khalifa Diga.

You had the great Nigeria with JJ Kocher and Canu and Sunday Lise and Toibo West.

JJ Kocha incidentally, I bumped into a couple of days ago.

He did that really weird thing of kind of, I was like, oh, hi, I'm Jonathan.

Thinking he probably doesn't remember me from when I interviewed him in 2002, which of course he didn't.

Then he introduced me, oh, hi, I'm JJ.

So, yeah, that's kind of obvious, but yeah, thank you for doing that.

And I don't think there's any teams here remotely near the level of those teams.

But the fact that, that, yeah, it seemed like Angola, who hasn't done particularly well before, Cap Verde,

they are playing good football and they're there remote.

They haven't done it sort of freakishly.

I mean, I guess you can say maybe

DR Congo have done it slightly freakishly and they haven't won a game yet.

But fundamentally, you know, there is a South Africa coming back after really being hopeless for sort of 20 years.

This is sort of generally a good sign, I think.

I think the level of football at this tournament has been much better than the previous couple nations, which is possibly to do with the pitches.

I don't think the pitch at the big stadium where the final is going to be the Alison Watana, the Obimpe.

I don't think that pitch is particularly good, but the other pitches are much better.

So I think sort of the signs generally are encouraging, but maybe there's not a concentration of talent at any one team in the way there was 20 years ago.

Yeah, so is there a stand-out favor?

We've got Nigeria, Angola, Diar, Congo, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Cape Verde, South Africa.

Well, I think just because of at home, Ivory Coast.

And

yeah, I don't think Jean-Louis Gasset, the 70-year-old Frenchman who's in charge, I don't think he was a good appointment.

But I have some sympathy with him in that Ivory Coast looked much better once Sebastian Alev had come on with 20 minutes to go, 18 minutes to go against Senegal.

And I think the injury that kept him out of the grief stage was a big problem for them.

And you now sort of think, well, they're at home.

There's this sort of momentum behind them.

The local press are calling them Les Revenants, so the, I don't know, the zombies, the returners from the dead, because

they were out.

And then because Zambia couldn't score,

they get this reprieve.

And then to be 1-0 down in your last 16-game with four minutes to go, nick it with a penalty, and then win on penalties, there's this sort of sense of, oh, it's predestined, it's meant to be.

I think the other interesting thing about that is because they didn't finish top of the group, they're not staying at the Alice and Watava, the big stadium in Abidjan, but they played the last 16 game in Yamasukro and then the quarter-finals in Buake.

And Buake was the rebel capital during the civil war.

So I don't know if you remember when Didier Drogba won his African Player of the Year award.

One of the things he did was to take the award to Buake as a sort of gesture of reconciliation.

Then he arranged for Ivory Coast to play Madagascar in a couple of nations qualifier there.

So they have played there fairly regularly since, I think, 10 or a dozen games since.

But still, the fact that they're playing in the north, it is this sort of symbolic of the whole country coming together.

So I think they probably are the favourites.

Then on the other side of the draw, Nigeria just looked really solid.

And Osamen has been so good.

And Awobi in midfield has been so good.

You sort of think they will eventually wear teams down.

So

it should be a Nigeria-Avri Coast final, but nothing that should have been has been so far in this tournament.

Meanwhile, the Asia Cup.

Paul, you've, of course, been focusing on this with all the football that is happening.

So we have the quarterfinals of Tajikistan versus Jordan, Australia, Australia, South Korea, Qatar, Uzbekistan, and Iran, Japan.

I mean, first off, how has the tournament been so far, do you think?

So this is time for my shameless plug again.

So I run a podcast called The Sweeper with Lee Wingate, and we focus on the football that people don't talk about as much.

So I've been watching the Asian Cup because there were quite a few minnows in there that we wanted to keep an eye on.

I've actually watched almost every minute of the tournament at probably great personal cost in terms of my relationships.

And it's been one of the most entertaining tournaments I've ever seen, to be honest.

It's been brilliant.

There were four penalty shootouts in the last 16.

But beyond that, there were moments of just almost pantomime sort of drama, melodrama.

So the game that really stood out was Iraq versus Jordan.

And I don't know how many people have seen this, but Jordan, obviously, going into that with the underdogs.

Iraq were looking really good.

They were warming up.

And it just looked like maybe this was the time for a sort of dark horse like Iraq to go all the way.

And then Jordan got in front.

The whole team celebrated this goal by sort of miming, eating their national dish, which is called Mansaf.

And there's a way that you eat it ceremonially.

Iraq struck back and get back to go 2-1 up.

And Ayman Hussein, who scores the goal, does this huge celebration, goes into stands, he's yelling.

Then he has a second celebration where he comes out on the field, sits down and does a mockery of this mime that the players have done of eating the dish, this Mansaf dish.

He's the Neil Mopei.

He's the one.

It's pure Mopei.

It's pure Mope.

But it's really interesting because

like people in the region have said he mocks them because of the way he eats the dish.

He has his hand on his pelvic bone.

I think it's fair to a pubic bone.

So it's clearly, it's meant as a mockery.

But the crazy, the thing that caused the controversy is the referee then sent him off.

It's a second yellow card, sends him off for the celebration being unsporting.

Now, some people are saying it's actually the length of time of the celebration that meant he was always going to get a red.

Some say it's because culturally it was a really inflammatory gesture.

But whichever way, Iraq then go down to 10 men and Jordan hit back, a lot like Spurs against Brentford, hit back and go on to win the game 3-2.

And Iraq out unexpectedly, leaving an even bigger controversy because the referee is an Iranian-Australian referee.

He's actually pretty famous in Australia.

He does a lot of A-League games, Ali Reza Fagani.

And so there was enormous controversy about this, this celebration gate.

And yeah, just it's caused absolute chaos in that game.

The next great point of controversy was Roberto Mancini, who is coaching Saudi Arabia and doing a fairly okay job of it, but looking a bit half-assed as he does it.

They played South Korea and took it all the way to penalties, which is a pretty decent achievement, really.

South Korea, definitely one of the favourites.

The penalty shootout goes on.

South Korea are ahead.

It comes to the final spot kick, which South Korea just need to score to win, and Manchini turns and leaves before the spot kick.

And this caused absolute outpouring of rage and people calling for him to be sacked.

It's seen as disrespectful, almost as disrespectful as eating a sandwich, I think, really, to leave before the final spot kick.

So there were these great moments of absolute chaos.

And then also into the mix, you have Tajikistan, who are the only deputants at the competition.

They won a penalty shootout against the UAE.

And it's a fairy tale story, really, for them to have got this far.

They now play Jordan, who no one expected to be there, really, and have this chance to get even to semi-finals for competition.

And they have a coach called Peter Segert, who is Croatian, a sort of larger-than-life character.

And his big thing is he looks just like Einstein, he looks like Albert Einstein, and that's his nickname.

And he's just, he's just, he's become a national hero.

So, this tournament has gone, yeah, absolutely above and beyond anything I could hope to have watched.

Uh, and we're, yeah, we're feet, we're doing a lot of this on the sweeper, so yeah, at sweeper pod, you'll hear my ramblings as I watch these games.

The winners of Tajikistan, Jordan play the winners of Australia, South Korea.

The winners of Iran-Japan play the winners of Qatar, Uzbekistan.

So, to the untrained eye, I'm expecting a Japan, Australia, or South Korea final.

Am I wrong or am I right?

No, I think you're right.

And for all the

craziness of this competition, you know,

the underdog stories from Vietnam and Indonesia and all the craziness of the early stages with Japan looking weirdly disjointed.

I'd say Japan are the favourites here.

South Korea and Australia probably tracking as sort of second favourites outside shot of Iran.

But the heart says Tajikistan.

Joa has a question saying, question for Paul.

After reading the Football Weekly book, I was wondering many things, but most of all, is there any place on the internet where we can see Paul's Mongolian TV show?

Or can this be please, or can this please be part of a live show either online or in Norway?

Tell me a little bit more.

Tell us more about your Mongolian TV show.

Yeah, so I briefly fronted a Mongolian reality TV show to find the best footballers in Mongolia for a new club team.

But the crazy thing was the production crew didn't speak any English and I didn't speak any Mongolian.

So it was the worst TV show in the history of time.

Wow.

That's a big don't show.

Hey, don't say anything, Barry.

We've all made bad TV shows.

Honestly,

it must have been appalling.

I don't even know because I never saw the final cut.

It will be out there somewhere, and it's waiting, lingering, ready to get me.

What I will say is the intro had a picture of,

it had a sort of picture of me under some sort of stage lights, and it was saying, like, you know, in the background, some narrators saying, this is going to be the greatest team in Mongolian history in Mongolian.

And then...

They must have Google imaged Paul Watson.

And there's five or six pictures of Paul Watson that appear, which are not me.

They are other Paul Watsons, like the one who played for Brighton.

There was one in Scotland.

None of them were the sea captain, luckily, but they obviously just Google image Paul Watson and then got these random images.

So what did they, what, what, what, what were you, you were the host?

Did they, like, did they say you were sort of a, what were you sold as?

What was your kind of...

They called me, well, they told me to be like Simon Cowell, except not be mean to anyone.

They said, you must be like Simon Cowell, English gentleman, like Simon Cowell.

But yeah, don't be mean to anyone.

That really won't go over culturally here.

That was the only advice I was given.

But the idea was I was the coach of a football team and we were recruiting all our players from this reality TV show, which was amazing because we had kids there who'd never played before barely, all the way through to like people who are in the national setup who would still come to these tryouts.

So it was mayhem.

It's total mayhem.

But it was a lot of fun.

Did you have like a gold buzzer?

Did you have like a, you know, you know.

What song are you singing for us?

Was there an Amanda Holden next to you?

No, there was a really, really loud and fierce Mongolian MC who was supposed to translate everything I said, but just said clearly completely different things.

And then also the producers had this insistence that they do loads of tasks that meant absolutely nothing.

So they'd have them dribble around 45 cones or something, and I'd just sit there and check out.

And then all I'd pick it on was the end game that they played against each other, because that was the only time you actually saw if they could play football.

And so the whole thing was complete padding.

But amazing, we'd have kids come in from the Gobi Desert.

They travel from semi-nomadic lifestyles in the Gobi Desert to play.

And one of them is a goalkeeper.

And I thought he wouldn't speak any English.

So I was like trying to kind of communicate to him without words.

And he's just like, oh, I'm a Chelsea fan.

And I was like, what?

How do you speak like that?

And he's like, I watch Chelsea things all the time.

So he's like, learned this English accent that's like a Chelsea accent.

I thought I'd gone literally out of my mind.

I maybe did.

Yeah.

So I find it funny how you found all the time to do all the things that you have done.

It seems ludicrous.

Let's finish on this email from Tom in California, who says, in the time-honoured tradition of listening to the pod while simultaneously ruining any chance of bearing further offspring, I was caught out by an extraordinary occurrence of bad timing, being from Reading and living in the States.

Now, the vasectomy started extremely well when the intro mentioned the episode focusing on my hometown club, Reading, which Max has previously admitted feeling literally nothing about.

The excitement rapidly turned to no small amount of physical and emotional disemotional discomfort at about 40 minutes into both operation and podcast, when the panel began to discuss the plight of my beloved club, hearing about how Dai Young is leading the club to ruin, but having my tubes snipped and soldered at the ends before being stuffed back into my body and having stitches applied gave the event something of an IMAX-esque 3D cinema-like vibe.

As the smoke from aforementioned soldering rose from my undercarriage and Max wrapped up the podcast, I was left with an oddly reassuring feeling that the pod does indeed mirror real life.

Thank you, Tom.

I hope you're recovering well.

Best of luck to you.

Best of luck, of course, to Reading.

A story which we're keeping our eye on.

In Reading News, the Ivory Coast coach now who came in after the creepers age is the former Reading midfielder MS Phi.

All right.

So

is that good for Reading?

I don't know, but it's about Reading.

It is about Reading.

And let's face it, none of us really know anything about Reading.

Hence, Reading and Gillingham are the top of the list of football clubs.

The rest of us are completely indifferent.

I think when you come out of Reading train station, there's a weather spoons on your right and the hexagon theatre is on the left, which is where they used to have a snooker tournament but don't anymore.

And then you get on a bus and it takes you to the stadium.

And when they were sponsored by Waitrose,

you would get an ice cream at half-time if you were covering the game.

But I think those days are long, long gone for Reading.

Well, hopefully more insight like this when we return on Monday, but that'll do for today.

Thank you, Wilson.

Cheers to you.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you.

Thank you, Barry.

Thanks, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Max Sardison.

This is The Guardian.