Glad Hatters, Arsenal saved by Jesus and steak chat – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Looting Smash Brighton to climb out of the relegation zone.

Two up after three minutes.

A hat-trick hat-trick for Elijah Adebayo and just a brilliantly comprehensive victory over new Barcelona Liverpool manager Roberto Dezerbi.

Three wins in 16 for them.

Arsenal dominate Forest at the city ground, but take their time in getting through Nuno's stubborn defence.

Jesus and Saka, the difference makers.

Aston Villa lose at home for the first time in almost a year.

Newcastle didn't look that tired.

There's Eze and Elise being brilliant for Palace and a fun goalless draw at Craven Cottage.

There are more upsets at AFCON and South Korea squeezing through at the Asia Cup as Roberto Mancini wanders off before the penalty shootout is over.

All that plus more steak, more nightclubs, your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, Max.

Nikki Bandini, hello.

Morning.

And Mark Langdon from the Racing Post, hello.

Hi, Max.

Let's start at Kenilworth Road.

Luton 4, Brighton 0.

Kevin says, can anyone stop?

Luton's run to the Europa League.

They're out of the relegation zone.

A few good stats on this game.

They were 2-0 up after two minutes and 17 seconds.

Only one Premier League side has been 2-0 up earlier in a game.

Leicester at Derby in 1998.

Muzzy Isit and Emil Heskey, the scorers.

They also went on to win 4-0.

Arsenal took two minutes and 44 seconds to go 2-0 up at St.

James's Park in that Czech Teote game.

And Elijah Adebayo, the 19th fastest goal in Premier League history, and the first Luton Town player to score a hat-trick in the top flight since Lars Elstrup against Norwich in 1990, and the first at Kenilworth Road since Mark Steen against Oxford United in 1988.

Barry afterwards, Rob Edwards said in an obvious question to Barry style, it was a good night, wasn't it?

What a stunning performance that was.

Yeah, Luton were absolutely outstanding.

They started incredibly aggressively, got to super early goals, and just blew Brighton away and Brighton

tend to, you know, when things go badly for them,

often away from home,

they really just go very badly indeed.

But

they never laid a glove on Luton.

I think Tom Lockyer came out and sort of did a lap of the ground or, you know, wave to the fans and, you know, here I am, good to be back.

And I think that energized the fans and energised his teammates.

And, you know, he looked quite emotional, the incredible reception he got from the Kenilworth Road Faithful.

And, yeah, that was the beginning of a perfect night for Luton.

They just won so comfortably against a very good team.

Elijah Adebayo and Ross Barkley were both brilliant.

Albert Samuel Congo, I thought, was excellent.

He's on loan from Arsenal, isn't he?

And just a perfect night for Luton.

A stunning performance.

And

Roberto DeSerbi said afterwards, we played badly.

Not one player played well.

We must remember this day.

And I imagine Luton fans will remember the day too for a very long time.

Yeah, I mean, Adebayo, Mark, is exactly the centre forward they need, isn't it?

And I think we...

When they came up, and not a lot of us had watched a lot of Luton, but when we watched the playoff games and we thought, hang on, Adebayo and Morris could really

hurt teams.

and maybe it's taken them a bit of time but it really felt like they just did not let up all game yeah and Adebayo didn't start fantastically well and I remember there was one chance he missed it was on the TV game I think it might have even been against Tottenham where the ball came across yes he sat on it yeah um when he when he he really should have scored and I think at that sort of moment um there was some mocking and kind of, you know, just not good enough at this level and you know a fair amount of patronizing kind of um

i suppose comments towards luton about how they try hard but they're just never going to have the quality um to compete in the division but it in more recent weeks they have actually

you know looked a far more complete premier league team and you've got adebio and morris that provide a

a test that you don't get from a lot of other premier league sides you know but brighton don't face that

physical nature every single week.

But I also agree with Barry about

Barkley has been mentioned a few times on the Football Weekly about how much he's improved the team.

But also LeConga alongside him has definitely made a difference.

And they've now got two players in central midfield that can dictate play to a certain extent and then provide more quality opportunities for Morris and Adubayo.

And then out wide, Doty and Ogbeni, you know, in different ways, Doty with the crossing, Ogbeni just at that pace and trickery is difficult to counter.

And they've given themselves a real opportunity of staying up.

I'm sort of having to look at their fixture list because

I'm sure they hadn't played many of the big teams away from home and they've only,

in terms of the top seven as it stands, they've only been to one of those.

but the the counterpart of that is that at home they still got to play brentford nottingham forest everton sheffield united fulham and bournemouth and

there is an opportunity now for rob edwards aside to stay up um you know there really is Yeah, and actually, so much Nikki was made at the start of the season about Kenilworth Road.

Some of it quite patronising, some of it quite sort of loving, and it's sometimes hard to get the balance between the two.

And actually, their home and away from is pretty similar but there is something about that place when it's rocking i i guess because most premier league grounds just don't look like that that i don't know it gives me enormous pleasure i know there's something isn't there i think in in like the english football psyche about stadiums that feel close that are on top of you and have that sort of a slightly older vibe to them i was the line about patronizing is such a fine one isn't it because i was thinking this um actually with the i think it was just the last podcast you guys did um when you're talking about mason united and about players who maybe sort of

a player still telling themselves I've got the opportunity to go somewhere else.

And of course, my Adubay is only 26, I think.

But when you think

this sort of earlier chapter of his career and then being at Warsaw, even not that long ago, and

now here he is and playing like this in the Premier League, it's a real sort of reminder of how quickly your fortunes can change.

I mean, nothing quicker than Luton's form in this season with what?

Two wins on the verge of Christmas and then 10 points now in the last five games.

Extraordinary.

And they have also run quite a few of the big teams close, but without getting any, you know, so

it would give them a half-decent chance of staying up.

And I would imagine

that

Rob Edwards would get manager of the season for keeping them up.

And would that be patronising?

Probably not.

Yeah.

Adebayo said, look, throughout my whole career, you dream of nights like this, playing non-league, for many of us who've been on such a journey, be thriving, wish for nights like this.

Ogbene is one of your own baz, isn't it?

I was reading about him.

Played Gaelic football till he was 18.

Moved from Nigeria when he was eight, and his dad got a job in Ireland and one in Florida and went, oh, I'll move to Ireland.

And so, and I think he's, I think he's a really tremendous footballer, actually.

And as Mark said, like, just great pace, but...

but tricky as well.

And with him and Doughty, they've just got a lovely shape about them.

Yeah, why his decision to move Diog Bene's moving to Ireland.

I didn't know he played Gaelic football, but he's certainly fast enough and strong enough to be a good Gaelic footballer.

He played for Nemo Rangers.

Yeah, if they're good, I don't know.

Yeah, well, I've heard of them.

Yeah, and they signed him from Rotherham, and I think people were a bit sceptical if he'd be good enough to play in the Premier League.

He was hugely popular, rather.

I mean, it's indicative of Luton's transfer policy.

You know, people raised eyebrows when they brought in Barclay and Ross Townsend, but they've proved inspired signings.

And

the rest of the team, you know, there's no glam big money signings there, are there?

Interesting on Deserby, Nikki.

I mean, at the same time that he's being,

you know, linked with Liverpool and Barcelona.

And we get questions like, is Deserby being seduced by the bright lights of Merseyside?

We also get questions like from Suddy saying, should he be under pressure?

Three wins in the league in the last 16.

Yeah,

I was thinking on this because it's almost like Brighton and Luton have mirrored each other in some way, of course, because Brighton did beat Luton for one at the beginning of the season, but also because Brighton had this collection of wins at the start of the season, five and the last six, and then have stopped winning while Luton have not won for a long time and then started winning.

This is sort of these odd mirroring going on.

But

Deserdeby, and I should say with Brighton, by the way, that's just the Premier League games.

If you look at things in the bigger picture, actually, with all the cup results they've had, it's a lot of games.

And I think that's a big part of the picture here: they've put energies into playing across multiple competitions, and they have got a lot of wins in the cups.

But

I do think this is

for those of us who've been following Deserde since he was in Italy, since Sassoholo,

it's familiar.

His teams always had this sort of potential for brilliance about them, but also

a a lack of a change up, a lack of a different way of playing.

And so when it doesn't work and it unravels and you're still trying to play out from the back and you're still trying to play this aggressive risk-taking football and it's not working, it can it can really come apart in very dramatic ways.

And I think if you wanted to take that a step further, you could say that maybe he's too predictable.

And I think that's criticism to be kept within its context because I still think overall he does a brilliant job but I think that these being the flaws that you find these being the notes that you pick is kind of the story of his career when it unravels does it

has he got the skill to re-ravel it or not

I think to some extent he's he's always tended to move on I mean he hasn't stayed anywhere so so long in his career and and he's moved upwards most of the time and he's done very well and I sort of want to keep my criticisms within sensible boundaries for that reason.

But I do think it's valid when you're talking about a job like the Liverpool job to look at these things and go, has he actually got the

nuance?

Or at least has he demonstrated the nuance?

Because everyone can change and develop through their career that that sort of job might require.

That's interesting, actually, Mark, isn't it, with the kind of timing of jobs that, you know, he could go on a terrible run now and just suddenly that would automatically, or not automatically, but

it would be much harder for either Liverpool or Barsnana to make that call even though obviously you do you do your due diligence it shouldn't be based on the last eight games shouldn't but I've and you know a well-run club won't base it on um you know a a period of matches they'll base on what they think that manager can do um you know with the resources that they'll have at the sort of the club they're potentially going to i think with supporters it seems to count more that um you know jabby Alonso, for instance, when he's in the sort of being spoken about for the Liverpool job, seems to be timing his run to absolute perfection.

If Levikusen were kind of fifth in the Bundesliga, it might not be, you know, such a hot topic of debate.

But just getting back to deserving Brighton, I mean, they are still eighth in the Premier League.

They're above Manchester United, they're above Chelsea, and they are Brighton.

So

I find the criticism, you know, I wouldn't go overboard with it.

What I would say is that if you do go on to manage in Liverpool, you know, you can, when he's Brighton manager, you can gloss over a 4-0 defeat and just, oh, you know, it's one of them things, they'll be okay.

At Liverpool, you know, we would be talking about that for a week, that they've been stuffed 4-0 somewhere.

And that then becomes a very different job, I think.

But overall, Brighton have had a lot of injuries this season.

They're still going strong in two cups.

They're ahead of more illustrious names in the Premier League as well.

So,

over the season, they're doing okay.

I think his points per game are more or less the same this season as last season is the other thing.

Like it's not like we're sort of, if you take a step back from it, looking at two different things.

It's just that the recent trend, because the season started so well, feels worse.

But again, even in recent times, you can point to beating Marseille, beating Ajax, beating Tottenham.

They're not awful all of a sudden.

But I think what I would say is definitely Deserde, as long as I've been observing him, has had this capacity for an awful game.

And this was an awful game.

Yeah, as we discussed, I think before, your best way to do a season is to have all your results laid out and lose all of the games, then draw, and then just win your last however many.

And everyone just thinks you're a miracle worker.

Let's go to the city ground.

Nothing for us one, Arsenal two.

But Arsenal dominated this game totally, didn't they?

And yet...

Around the hour, I mean, just before Jay-Z scored, you started thinking, oh, this could be another one where they just can't score.

Yeah, they dominated.

I didn't think they played particularly well in the first half and

it did look like one of those games where they might arsenal things up just trying to be a bit too clever and too intricate with their passing and whatnot a little like city against spurs actually at the weekend I thought you know they were kind of

while they dominated they didn't actually give Vicario and the Spurs goal a huge amount to do but they won the game and it was squeaky bum time a bit towards towards the end after Iwani scored the goal.

And then Alexander Zinchenko and Ben White had a bit of handbags at the final whistle,

having a frank exchange of views over who was at fault for the goal.

And I think David Arreya had to make a save after that.

But they got the three points.

It was a crucial three points ahead of their game against Liverpool on Sunday.

But I also

think

it

shows why they probably won't win the league.

and will sort of.

I think Villa will drop away, then Arsenal will drop away.

I think it'll end up being

Liverpool and Man City duking it out, if that, because

yeah, it was a good win, but not a hugely convincing one.

Nikki, it is tricky because I sort of want to fall in both camps on it sometimes.

I think whenever we talk about Arsenal's sort of defensive frailty, you sort of want to remind everyone there's one team in the league that's conceded fewer goals than Arsenal.

It's Liverpool and that's it.

So it's not like there's some incredibly fragile aside defensively, but it somehow does feel a little bit more like that.

And I certainly felt like it at the end of the game, a game which should never have really been allowed to get back in the balance, was hanging in the balance again.

I think that

agree sort of with Burrs broadly about the pattern of the game and the first half wasn't particularly sort of exciting or feeling like that there was some inevitable breakthrough coming.

But Forest were parking the bus in the most sort of insistent fashion.

It was eight players in the box most of the time.

And it is hard to unpick that.

And I think it speaks to the positives for Arsenal that actually they have been so good at using things like set pieces to break through situations like that.

And yes, Matt Turner makes...

an absolute clanger on Jesus' first goal, but it does come from a throw-in.

And it is that planning and sharp thinking at those opportunities that has allowed Arsenal to make breakthroughs in games like this.

So I think there's still more positive than negative in there because it feels like it's trending the other way.

But I do unfortunately tend to agree with Baz.

I'm not sure I think Arsenal quite have whatever the magic is that's going to get them past Liverpool and City this season.

Both those goals were defensively soft, Mark.

But as I was watching that game, I was just thinking, sometimes we...

We don't appreciate just how tiring it must be to concentrate if you have to defend for the whole game because both of them are just switching off.

That throw-in,

they just switch off, and then it's a goal before they can.

I mean, actually, we all had a time to blink quite a lot of times.

Switched off for a long time.

You have a short nap, and then Jesus was in.

Yeah, and Nottingham Forest, particularly in the first half, I mean, barely put a pass together.

I mean, there was one stat that came up

sort of, I think it's sort of midway through that first half, where they'd managed one pass in the final third and Arsenal

about a hundred of those and yeah eventually that will take its toll I think because you do have to stay switched on for 90 minutes and that is tiring but then when the defenders do switch off from that throwing I think you should be expecting a Premier League goalkeeper to save that first shot.

I mean, he shouldn't be that tired that the ball goes through his legs the way that it did.

And it's not the first mistake that Turner has made in recent weeks.

and i've seen today that forests are looking for a new goalkeeper to bring in um you know for the rest of the season and that makes sense i i think that the you know turner's made more than enough errors now that um somebody else needs to have a go uh overall though i will disagree with barry and nikki i i was watching that game and i i thought arsenal were completely fine and were going to easy to say now but i i was i was confident and comfortable they would make the breakthrough i thought that they played more aggressive than I've seen them maybe in some away games and

I didn't get that sort of sense of panic.

I thought this was a perfectly acceptable away performance from Arsenal and was easy enough despite

that late goal gave a different kind of feeling for the last couple of minutes.

But what Gabriel Jesus gives you in those wide areas,

if he wasn't playing and they did go for an Ivan Tony tight striker, then I think actually maybe some of their other football wouldn't work as well and the team might break down in other areas.

So I think once they've committed to playing this way, it is about just being patient and waiting for those moments to come and not shooting every time somebody in the crowd demands that you shoot and

just waiting for the right moments.

And

yeah,

like I said, I thought the Arsenal played well enough in that game, certainly better than sort of like the Fulham match as an example.

Yeah,

I was surprised they were at half-time on Twitter.

There was a fair bit of criticism for Arsenal and I was struggling to understand that at the time.

I mean, how could you not want Gabriel Jesus in the lineup knowing that when he scores, he's literally never lost a Premier League game?

I think it's 59 games now.

Wow.

Which is pretty bonkers.

Again, like...

This sort of thing about Arsenal slowing down, obviously he had a bad end to the year for sure.

But they did beat Palace 5-0 before this.

I think sometimes there's sort of some some hyperbole that

comes in with the

I don't know, with the criticism that that the performances aren't as sharp as because there's a memory of last season, how close they came to winning the title.

And I think perhaps it has felt like this season's performances have never quite sparkled like they did last season, but overall that the football's still been very, very good.

It's also worth saying that you're talking about a Nottingham Forest team that Andanuno Spirito Santo has already beaten Manchester United, has

earlier this season beat Villa here with a very similar percentage of possession, by the way.

I think they had about 25% of possession in the game.

They are at the wrong end of the table, but they sort of know how to play these games and have shown they can get results in them.

So the idea that it should have been easy somehow, I think, is a little bit

a little bit off.

You know how, is it Mario Goethe just scored the winning goal in the World Cup final too early in his career it was like you can't do that then it was goetz wasn't it in 2014 i wonder about about gonzalo montiel right like he did he scored the winning penalty in the world cup final right for argentina so obviously every kick he does is compared to that kick and like that sort of non-pass clearance to set up the second goal for arsenal do you just think if you do score the winning goal in the penalties you set in the World Cup Final, you should just go,

I can't really play again.

Because

everything I do, like the last time we talked about when he was coming on in the freezing cold in Blackpool, it's like nothing he can do can ever reach that moment.

How do you motivate yourself when

that is your pinnacle?

And now you're just mishitting a clearance.

I can't remember which Arsenal player got the ball, but you know.

Well, Julian Alvarez and Alexis McAllister seem to be, you know, motivating themselves pretty well.

But they, but, but they weren't the winning penalty.

Is it different?

I mean, they say in

you know stand-up comedians if if it's going well get off the stage if it's going badly get off the stage

uh

so yeah maybe montelle should have just retired after scoring that penalty

um arteta upset with the rumours suggesting he was going to leave uh arsenal and go to barcelona seems it does seem unlikely nikki doesn't it just the timing

A bit like Posta Cogli, it seems unlikely, even though he was a Liverpool fan, you could see he would fit there really well.

It feels like Arteta and also like Arsenal are a well-run club and Barcelona a complete basket case but it is still Barcelona yeah I'm not sure the comparison you you just made quite holds because I think at least in the Postcoluby case not there aren't reasons to to to to push against that as well but is I think you could look at that and reasonably say okay but I'm moving to a club with better resources that's giving me a chance to to win things perhaps sooner um

I'm not sure that Barcelona would feel like that now.

I mean, given all the endless financial levers we've been pulling summer after summer to try and keep the club from

going bankrupt, frankly, and

the distance between them and the teams at the top of La Liga right now, I don't see how that would be more appealing than the third year of this project that you've talked about.

Last November, he was talking about it being the state phase three of his five-phase plan that he discussed with ownership, which we never quite got to hear what all five of these phases are.

But it it would seem a very

odd choice for any reason other than obviously emotional attachment to Barcelona and his history there.

But I think that given that there's also emotional attachment to Arsenal and history there, and given that he's got, as far as you can see from the outside, it feels like the club is giving him everything that he wants.

It's giving him the resources he wants.

It's giving him the things that he asks for.

It's spending the money he wants in the transfer market, willing to put 100 million into a player like Declan Rice.

I think that it would feel like a counterintuitive move.

All right, that'll do for part one.

Part two will begin at Villa Park.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

Football Weekly is supported by the Remarkable Paper Pro.

Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, you'll have heard us talk before about the remarkable paper pro.

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

But there's something new and exciting.

The remarkable paper pro move remarkable a brand name and an adjective man yeah it's their most portable paper tablet yet it holds all your notes to-dos and documents but it's smaller than a paperback and an incredible 0.26 inches thin so it slips easily into a bag or jacket pocket perfect for working professionals whose jobs take them out of the office like maybe a football journalist barry although not like you

a proper football journalist mate exactly too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game, Day Scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Now the share show, get ready to turn back time, in this outrageous new musical, 35 Pop Hits, One Pop Goddess is no longer playing at the Birmingham Hippodrome, but it was the Cher Show at Villa Park last night, Barry.

That is tremendous work, Barry.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Max,

when he scored the second goal, I thought you could have gone for share again, though.

Yeah, yeah.

That's true.

I mean, I did.

I got to the stage when I was reading TripAdvisor reviews for Cher's last concert in Birmingham.

And I thought maybe this has gone too far now.

Anyway, tell me about what you thought about the game, Baz.

Yeah, it was a good game, actually.

So you had Villa, who got

thrashed by Newcastle on the opening day of the season, but were 14 points ahead of them going into this game.

And

Newcastle, who's, you know, and their home record, they haven't lost at home in the league for almost a year.

I think it's 346 days,

which is almost a year, give or take, 19 days, I think.

And

live maths.

I like how the live maths made you just switch off for a second.

You did a sum.

Well, I'm just so bad at arithmetic that

I presumed I was wrong.

So I was...

Anyway, sorry, I'm waffling.

So you've been a brilliant home record.

Newcastle, dreadful away record.

I think this is only their second away win in the league this season.

And Newcastle pretty much obliterated them, I think.

Scored two goals from corners.

Villa were playing a very high line that, you know, Newcastle were constantly getting in behind them.

And that the third goal was Anthony Gordon, who was outstanding again for Newcastle, slid the ball down.

in behind for Almiron, whose cross was converted by Jacob Murphy.

And

so it was more or less game over.

But Leon Bailey, who couldn't start because he had a back injury, I think he was sent on.

And he was excellent for Villa when he came on.

But it was

then Eddie Howe showed his mettle by bringing on Tino Levi Vermento to stop him getting crosses into the box.

I thought it was a very accomplished performance by Newcastle.

Villa kind of targeted Lewis Miley in midfield, tried to bully him a bit, and that didn't work.

And, yeah, it was not entirely unexpected result, even though Villa's home form is so good and Newcastle is so bad.

Yeah.

Sort of reminder, Nikki, that

there's quite a lot of the season left, and we make big judgments about, well, Villa are, you know, and they were in the title race.

I guess they still are, right?

They're still close.

But, like,

these two teams could easily finish.

Newcastle could finish above Villa with not an unlikely set of results.

And we're occasionally just sort of, I guess that's the nature of the beast, right?

You look at what's just happened and talk about it.

Yeah, I saw Edelen this morning asking if Arsenal were in the title race, and I was thinking, well, they're two points off top, so I think they're in the race.

Doesn't mean they're going to win the race, but like they're in the race.

And Villa, I suppose it's a little bit wider.

If Liverpool were to win the game in hand, it becomes an eight-point gap.

But I think you can still say, yeah, with

16 games left, that's in the race.

Again, it doesn't mean you think they're the favourites.

But

it was interesting listening to Unai Emri's comments after the game and sort of talking about

this is normal.

You win 17, well, you don't lose 17 games at home.

You're going to lose one eventually.

This is normal.

It's football.

It happens.

And trying to handle it in that way.

And I think it was certainly a game that

it's odd because it could have finished 4-1 quite easily.

But it didn't feel like they were getting hammered in quite the way that the scoreline suggested.

They did play some good football in this game.

It also could have got it back to 3-2,

narrowly disallowed goal.

But it felt like they perhaps, after conceding that first goal, just got

a little bit too loose and

too rushed trying to fix things, frankly, and allowing Newcastle to play that fast-breaking running style that suits them really well.

And as Baz said, Anthony Gordon was sensational in this game.

I think he's really becoming something quite special.

But I think it's possible to look at this result and go, that was a surprise.

Didn't expect them to be 3-0 down like they were in the game.

But I don't think it necessarily means that all the wheels have come off filler all at once.

On Anthony Gordon, Mark, Jamie says, with Rashford out of form, brackets also, you know, in nightclubs every single day of the week,

Greel is struggling with injuries and a few English left wing are shining this season.

Is Anthony Gordon on the plane?

Seems like a Gareth player with him excelling at under 21s, yet yet.

He's not had a chance.

Do you genuinely think he could be massive at the Euros?

He's not on the plane.

I think he's in the discussion for a ticket at the moment.

And actually, when he went up front, he looked a threat there as well as off of the left wing.

I think he's formed this season would warrant an England call-up.

There's only one sort of...

batch of matches left, isn't there, in March.

And we were talking about managers timing their run.

I think it's also an important aspect when sort of players

really time their run.

The counter-argument is that Garris Southgate

seems to have a very settled squad, and you need to

be special or in a position where they're really weak to kind of force your way in because he has trusted

some of them players that you've mentioned, you know, before and he hasn't been distracted by club form as we've seen with Maguire and Henderson moving to Saudi Arabia didn't impact his position in the squad so the fact he hasn't been in yet would I think

count against him just because of the way that Southgate sort of seems to select his squad but I'd like to see him have a go

because he is a threat and he was

unplayable is maybe a bit strong but certainly Matty Cash had a difficult evening against him on that left-hand side.

I do think though that it's about the first time in about four or five months that somebody's actually exploited that Aston Villa high line and it looks very easy when I'm watching it on TV just think just be patient with your run um start from deep and wide and then just as the balls passed you know start on the halfway line and you'll you'll beat the the villa defence and nobody seems to have been able to do it but Newcastle had done that back on the opening weekend of the season and even though the goals didn't sort of always come from that area it was a constant threat that they were able to sort of penetrate that high line better than most teams have done so far this season.

I think Anthony Gordon's a really interesting one for England because as Mark said, Southgate has a very settled squad and he has a lot of options in that area of the pitch, right?

England are not short of players who can fill those roles.

But there was a piece on

TNT sport in the UK the other day and

him being interviewed by Rio Ferdinand.

I just thought it was really striking with Gordon because you can see certain attributes about him.

He's very effective at being direct.

He's got that pace to him.

He's got, obviously, a shot on him.

And I think he's got all the sort of physical stuff.

But listening to him just came across as really sort of intelligent footballer as well.

And they were highlighting a goal he scored against Manchester United and noticing the fullback sort of dropping his arms the second Freud makes a run and saying, yeah, I saw that.

As soon as I saw his body language change, I thought, well, he's switched off for that second, and that's the moment to make that run.

I think he's really,

whether it's this

Euro cycle or not, I think he's really sort of got plenty of space to keep going on this upward trajectory he's on right now.

Nigel says, Where does Moreno's crash into the post rank on the Phil Babb scale?

Barry, I mean, it did look really sore.

And I just, every replay was just getting nearer and nearer.

And you were just like, oh, just spare the guy.

Yeah, I mean,

I'm not sure what to say, really.

I think Phil Bab

is elemented, his wasn't as painful as it looked.

But if you're sliding in either side of the pole, one leg either side of the post,

it's a scene we don't want to see, Max.

Yeah, you're right.

It's not one of those things.

Often when misfortune befalls someone, you think, oh, it's funny because it's happened to someone else, but nah,

I don't want to see that happen to you.

A football going in, fine.

A post, not fine.

That's where I would draw the line.

To Selhurst Park, Crystal Palace 3, Sheffield United 2, Eberizies and Michael Alise.

I I mean, we've spoken about how rarely Mark Roy has been able to start these two.

And clearly, when you get to start both of them, that's really quite useful.

That it's hard to pick which was the best goal out of this three.

I liked Eze's second goal, and Palace's second one, maybe the best of the lot.

But yeah, yeah,

they are

the two players that take Palace from being a dower watch to a really exciting one.

And

you wonder how much longer

Palace would be able to keep them

because their talents, I think, are deserving of playing in more adventurous teams than ones that are fighting maybe at the other end of the table.

But it's great

for Palace to have those two available.

Ezay's, the first goal,

Gurbich.

Gurmich is made to look quite silly because he sort of runs to the back post and Eze

gets to it before him.

But it's still a great ball in from Elise.

The commentary feed I watched maybe overplayed Elise's part in the second goal where he said he made it for Eze because Eze had a fair bit to do when he picked it up outside the area and sort of smashed it in.

But yeah, I mean, those two players are...

on a different level to everything else that the Palace have got.

And, you know, Roy Hodgson's under pressure and the Palace fans are wanting something different.

different

but actually when those two are playing they they can provide that that sort of difference for them don't they yeah it's fascinating to see where their careers go Nikki I mean you wonder if they look at Wilf Zaha and think he went too early and came back and then he didn't and then he stayed too long like when do you when do you time your jump and I and I'm guilty I think probably like a lot of people sort of clumping them together I can't work out if one is discernibly better than the other.

I don't know if I see enough of Crystal Palace to make a value judgment on which of these two stars is the star.

Yeah, just to say quickly, by the way, Ben Berrett and Diaz's goal for Sheffield United was also a cracker.

This game was just absolutely every goal was brilliant.

Yeah, I think it's not necessarily about when you go, but where you go, Max.

I think that so much of football, I think so, so much of football that

gets underestimated is finding yourself with the right coach in the right situation at the right time.

I think there's

obviously talent and application are the biggest defining factors in where you're going to go in your career.

But I do think there's plenty of careers that you see made or broken by being, again, in the right place at the right time.

And I don't know why this example has come to my mind, but Giroi Marbilaire goes to Germany, has a terrible time, goes to Spain, has a terrible time, comes back to Italy.

And you think, is this player's career drifting nowhere in his mid to late 20s?

And he finds Simone Nzagi, who has the key to unlock it all, and suddenly he's winning the Capo Canoner.

He said he has top scorer.

I think so much of

football comes down to these small decisions.

Well, I suppose big decisions, but pivotal decisions in a player's career about where they go.

And I don't think that's necessarily about your age.

I think it's just about finding the right fit.

I'm sure Palace fans don't want to hear the discussion of their brilliant game being about just where their two best players are going to head off to next.

No, I mean, I'm just Palace fans are realistic enough.

Well, Roy Hodson said afterwards that, you know, it is up to us to

build

a better team so that we can try to keep them.

But, you know, they will inevitably move on at some stage.

One imagines.

But Palace have brought in Daniel Moon as

Colombian right back and

are on the verge of signing Blackburn's Adam Wharton, who is a player I know nothing about, but I people seem to rate him very highly.

I think he's somebody that will set the tempo for them in midfield, kind of get on the ball and

look to dictate play once he gets sort of adjusted into the team, which is feels like something maybe that Crystal Palace haven't got at the moment.

But just looking at the stats, Elise and Eze have started four Premier League games together this season.

And in that period, they've scored all eight of Crystal Palace's goals when they've been sort of

starting in those games.

And

they've beaten Brentford and Sheffield United in those home games.

And they lost at Luton, but as we know now, there's no disgrace in getting turned over at Kenilworth Road.

And even the Chelsea game was relatively competitive.

So yeah, I think it is clearly important.

But what Palace have shown is actually they're very good at shopping in the EFL and able to develop those players.

And

maybe they just need to stick to that plan because it has worked for them.

Gay would be another one as well.

So they are good recruiters in finding players from the EFL and giving them a platform.

But I do think when you do that,

you kind of have to accept that you maybe are a stepping stone club and that one of the reasons maybe you get the best EFL players is because eventually you'll kind of sell them on when that player feels like they've outgrown Crystal Palace.

You were right to mention the Barrett and Diaz goal, Nikki, not just because of the finish, which was great, but the pass to him.

I think it was McAtee.

I'm not sure.

I may be doing someone else a disservice.

Gustavo Hemer, I think.

Oh, is it Gustavo Hemer?

Yeah, I mean, the way he that sort of cutting across the ball, it's just the most beautiful professional footballer kick I think you can have.

It was just so, so delightful, wasn't it?

Um, I wonder if you think what you said, you were totally right, Barry, on the last pod to criticize Chris Wilder for what he said about the referee.

But I did think

they have got slightly better under him compared to Paul Haggingbottom.

I'm not sure the result.

Maybe they have, but the results don't speak to that improvement.

I mean, they went away from home,

they scored two good goals, and they still lost.

Obviously,

it was the Eze and Elise show, and there's not much you can do about that.

But

looking at them, James McAtee is a class act, and he's pretty much the only class act they have.

And

that's the kind of game that sort of need to...

They were arguably unlucky not to get a point because Ahmed Hodzich

pumped a header off the bar late doors.

And if that had gone in, they'd have got a point and they probably deserved a point.

But

they weren't dreadful in this, but Eze and Elise were pretty much unplayable.

Michael says, now that Everton are in the relegation zone again, do they need to look at hiring Sean Dysch to replace Sean Dice?

This was a good 0-0, I thought, Mark.

So many chances.

By the end,

it seemed to me the last footage I saw of this game was just Ben Godfrey repeatedly shooting from a yard and it just hitting his own player, the opposition player, everything and not going in.

But there were so many chances in this game.

Yeah, there were 46 shots, 10 on target.

It felt like the woodwork was being rattled every few minutes as well.

And yet it finished 0-0, which maybe

points to a problem for both teams in terms of their forward line, particularly Everton.

There was that moment, wasn't there, at the end, where Betto, I think, could have nicked it and it would have been a massive win.

I mean, Fulham dominated the ball and sort of eventually the shot count.

But it felt like a really chaotic game and a difficult one to weigh up kind of

whether it was a fair result.

And I suppose if you're not sure if it was a fair result, maybe the draw is the fair result.

I only saw a highlights package of this game

and it looked mad.

Just like the ball pinballing around the place constantly.

That goal that didn't quite cross the line where I think it was Anthony Robinson hooked it out.

Robinson hand well was accused by the Everton players of hand-balling it.

He was the one that handballed it when it came out.

It came off the bar, hit his hand.

It was going over the line and then someone else hooked it clear.

I don't know if that I don't think it didn't feel like a penalty to me.

It did to Sean.

No, it didn't, but that was kind of indicative of the game as a whole.

Just that chaos.

Yeah, both teams could have won it.

Fulham probably better.

And that chance by Betto at the end was

got to score that.

But Jordan Pickford had a very good game as well.

He was super shouty.

Yeah, I mean, that's, I think the commentator I saw, yes, I think it was Tony Gale.

And I don't know, it just sort of made this comment.

We went, oh, there's Pickford just yelling at someone after he's made a save, just sort of like classic Pickford.

He just, that's what he has to do.

A bit like, you know, a great moment in football when a keeper saves a penalty and it goes out for a corner, and everyone's trying to celebrate with him.

And all he wants to do is just beat the shit out of all of them.

The one thing I'd say, obviously, so many chances neither team score, but Everton are deep in the mire.

And Dominic Calvert-Loon now hasn't scored in his past 16 appearances, which is a worrying goal drought.

We'll be back in a second.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Ollie says, has there been a more enjoyable tournament ever than AFCON 2023?

Dramatic comeback and win for the host, the Ivory Coast over Senegal on Monday.

They came back from a goal down thanks to a Frank Kesie penalty.

Then they went to win in a shootout.

Morocco fell short against South Africa.

Daniel Story, amongst others, tweeting that the 2023 quarterfinalists are all completely different to the 2021 quarterfinalists.

Totally every single nation replaced by another unprecedented in major tournament history.

The top five FIFA ranked sides are all out,

which means we have Nigeria, Angola, DR Congo, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, and Cape Verde, South Africa in the quarterfinals.

We're going to do another AFCON pod next week, I think.

John says, after sacking their manager halfway through the championship, does Barry think Ivory Coast are going to go full Offale 98 and win AFCON?

Sheep in a heap.

Aries Sejouri playing injured up front, scoring the winner.

Allah, Brian Wheeler.

And this is quite a niche question, John,

for you, Barry.

It would be fun if they did.

Yes, he's referencing the Offley hurling team who

were heavily criticised by their manager halfway through the season.

He described them as sheep in a heap.

And he ended up getting the bullet.

This is a fellow from Galway was drafted in as his replacement.

Offley went on to win the All-Ireland in pretty dramatic circumstances.

And

their mid, quite charismatic midfielder, Johnny Pilkington, a fellow from Burr who I know well,

said afterwards, but we're not such a bad flock after all.

He has a bit of a barb towards the

Babs Keating, the former manager.

But

I have no problem with the AFCON being on while the regular season is being played, but it's really annoying that you can't really give it your full attention and you're kind of dipping in and out and catching up with highlights and whatnot.

I've seen a few full games, some of them excellent.

I'm fully behind Cape Verde because they have a Dubliner playing for them.

I'm guessing he's probably the first Irishman to play in Afcon.

I'll happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.

But he was born and reared in Crumlin in Dublin to a

dad who's from Cape Verde and moved to Ireland for love.

So,

yeah, it's been marvellous.

Mark, I don't know.

I sometimes feel guilty that I'm watching from a sort of Tottenham hotspur perspective.

So then, you know, Senegal go out, so Pap Saar is back.

And then Mali go through, so Basuma isn't.

And then I see that South Korea won on penalties.

And you think, oh, Hyung Min son will be useful.

And you think, God, what a terrible human because, you know, they're playing for their country.

You could see what it meant to son when that penalty shootout, when they won the penalty shootout.

I'm exactly the same, Max.

I mean, I was watching, I wanted Saar to score his penalty and then wanted every other Senegal player to miss so that he could come back.

And then I felt so guilty when I saw his face at the end and the kind of

despair.

And Max, as England fans, we've sort of felt that despair.

And it's no different if it's a AFCON or European championship.

And how, you know, whether he's even able to lift himself to want to play again so soon afterwards.

I saw a story this morning that Nicholas Jackson has flown straight to Merseyside to be part of the Chelsea squad for the game on Wednesday night, which I don't know, it doesn't feel like you would do that for European players.

As soon as you go out of the Euros, you don't want to be playing the next day or whatever.

But I received, I mean, I'm not sure how many people are watching the Asian Cup in the UK, but I received three messages within about five seconds of South Korea equalising in the 99th minute yesterday saying how gutted they

were that

there there was a chance that son um would miss the everton game but again you see how much it means to him um to sort of lead south korea into the next stage and all that he's given um you know i'm speaking here from a spurs fan point of view but all that he's given to tottenh over the years you know a couple of games so that he can experience this i mean you know it's the least we really should be doing is is cheering him on um i don't know if that's just and sort of positivity rubbing off on me there is still a part of me that that wishes they would have gone out but I was pleased that, you know, that it went wrong for Mancini with Saudi Arabia.

I just, that whole move just made, you know, it made me feel uncomfortable, really, that he gave up that opportunity with Italy to take on this job.

And, you know, the players have...

apparently hated him and it's not worked out for him at all.

And then he storms off before the shootout's even finished.

Yeah, it's

a cautionary tale, maybe um for anyone else

what did you make of mancini storming off sort of thing if you're mid-shootout it's already late like you're not gonna you know this you know you might have missed the last bus already roberto

yeah

he says he thought it was already over um is is the official line that he's given afterwards surely surely he's seen a penalty shootout surely he's wondering what why are no players like all running towards the keeper and like jumping on them as happens in every single penalty shootout.

I mean,

when you ask how what I think, seeing Roberto Mancini storm out early, I think, well,

it's Roberto Mancini, and I love him because

he did win a Euros Literally, but he's also, throughout his managerial career and perhaps his playing career as well, had it in him to flounce sometimes.

And

at Inter, I remember sort of his last season, the first time around,

Maratti having to sort of talk him down from quitting after a Champions League game

that didn't go his way.

It's been a pretty consistent theme of his, I would say, to respond in not the best way to set back sometimes.

Paul Watson's on the pod tomorrow, so he's been obviously watching the Asia Cup ahead of everything else.

So we will get his hot takes on that.

And we'll do a full review of both tournaments next Tuesday ahead of the semi-finals of AFCON and the semis of the Asia Cup.

Matt says, Gigi Riva died recently, who was Italy's all-time leading scorer with 35 goals.

Seems an oddly low tally compared to top scorers for other major footballing nations.

Can Nikki explain this particular quirk of the Italian game?

I'm not sure I can, to be honest.

I haven't got

all the numbers in front of me for different nations.

I mean, Gary Lineke was England's all-time top scorer for a long time, and he was in the 40s, wasn't he?

I'm not sure the numbers are so far out of step with other nations.

I think some of our expectations are skewed by the odd individuals who come along and score absolutely prolifically.

I was going to see such as Ronaldo, and I was thinking to myself, how many has Cristiano Ronaldo scored for Portugal?

I don't know off the top of my head because I haven't researched this question before I got it.

I will tell you, I reckon it's around 100.

128.

There you go.

Okay.

So, yes, there are some individuals.

And perhaps Italy hasn't had such

a singular figure as that.

I mean, I suppose, suppose, if anything, when I was growing up, I would say Italy perhaps had the opposite situation where you had a lot of players in quick succession who perhaps ended up restricting how many opportunities each got.

Because when you've got Totti and Del Piero and Roberto Baggio's careers all overlapping, then they can't all be on the pitch at the same time with Christian Vieri, with Luca Toni coming in after that.

There's perhaps competition, but I don't have a good answer for this.

Maybe someone else has a much better answer than I do.

Well, I vaguely recall.

I think for the first 35 years of my life, Italy resolutely refused to score more than one goal in all games they played.

And that might have something to do with it.

It seemed to be better at number tens than number nines for a while.

So that might, you know,

more creative than sort of that kind of out and out goal scorer.

Mark, you wanted to talk about the books that Ben Davis is reading?

Well, only because, you know, Rashford's done some great stuff off the pitch previously, but he's he's obviously been in the media for the wrong reasons, you know, in more recent days, getting private jets back from double nightclub evenings in Belfast.

And yeah, Ben Davis was just on Instagram earlier on this week, just saying, I've read all these books and it was a list of books.

And DM me and I'll send it on to you.

I hope they find a good home.

And that just felt like quite a nice

thing to do, really.

Did you DM him?

Have you asked for Rory Smith's expected goals from ben as read by ben davis i've already i've already read that one so i'd um no i'd um i i was just a bit disappointed that the the guardian football weekly book wasn't on the um wasn't on the pile maybe he hasn't finished it yet um and it can be in the next batch i was just pleased that none of wilson's were in the pile

Michael says, is it any coincidence that Mark is on this pod, given the talk of big meat on the last episode, Rob, on a scale of one to ten?

Just how much does Mark Langdon like steakhouses?

Jay, as the only person's opinion that matters when it comes to food.

Please ask Langdon where the best steak he ever had was.

I bet it's not the Angus Steakhouse.

Mark, I don't know if you heard that we got offered a free Aberdeen Angus steak.

I was, yeah, I did hear that.

There is no coincidence that I demanded to be on the next show and forego any appearance fee.

I'm not in the Angus steakhouses.

I'm not eating in the Angus steakhouses.

it all stemmed from my observation that while they always seem to be busy I don't know a single person who's ever eaten in one or admitted to eating in one they seem to be quite touristy

yeah on a scale of one to ten it's a ten max you probably won't be surprised that yeah steak features very heavily yeah um I don't know are we in the do you are we in the business of giving shout-outs to to restaurants I mean I have got a favourite um well of course course well i mean like most people know but you know you yes i mean if it's your favorite meat establishment okay um believe me would be remiss of me not to ask what it is in uh in london's trendy solo uh sophie's does a uh right tremendous statement Okay.

Jenny says, listening to Max and Barry on Football Weekly talking about Rashford clubbing at Thompson's garage in Belfast.

And I thought, I went there when it opened.

And then they said it's been a Belfast institution for 29 years, and I'm officially dead.

Sorry to make you feel old.

Trevor says, hi, folks.

He's a native of Belfast.

I never thought I'd hear Max and Barry discussing Thompson's garage and Laveries.

To put Max out of his misery, I can confirm Thompson's is not one of Belfast's most happening night spots, and we were all stunned Marcus Rashford was there.

Gerard says, Hey, Max, I think I speak on behalf of practically all of Belfast where I inform you that Thompson's nightclub is shite.

And lots of people messaged us to say they were in nightclubs

with footballers.

Brian says, my first year at Glasgow Uni in 2004, Wednesday night, student night, one pound a drink at Jumpin' Jacks.

One week, there were two guys sat in the VIP area surveying John Hartson and Craig Bellamy.

Nick says, hi all, I thought I'd share a couple of nightclub spots when I was a young lad going out in the Southampton area.

First, I used to go to an indie club called Rhino with all my college friends.

One night, former Southampton midfielder Chris Marsden came in seemingly by himself.

I'm not sure if it was system of a down blasting from the speakers or the fact we excitedly told the DJ he was there, who then announced it to the club over the PA.

But Marsden quickly left in a manner similar to

the Grandpa Simpsons gif.

Another time we were out, another, he did, although Chris Marsden to be there, did score an identical goal to John Barnes at the Marrickan Are once for Southampton.

You should go and check it out.

Another time he says we were out in Winchester and spotted Wayne Bridge not not long after his move to Chelsea.

We asked him how it was, and he replied, Fucking shit.

I'm not sure if it got any better for him, to be honest.

Thanks for keeping me entertained and informed all the way out in California.

Didn't you go to China Whites with Liam Lawrence?

I did, yes.

I did China Whites once.

It was terribly noisy.

One of the Keos was there, but I couldn't tell you which one.

Liam Lawrence and Robert Huth.

And me and Robert Hooth were both doing Movember, so it looked very much like the village people.

When we're in there, I got the night bus home.

Rowan says, hi Max, as you frequented Fez in your early 20s, I did too.

Not for many a year, but I did meet Ian Dowie and Freddie Flintoff on the Fez Club dance floor.

Those were the days.

And Hugo says, I am shocked on the last pod to hear Barry's claim he does not have one single grey hair.

I'm calling cow excrement on this.

Please can have someone investigate this in person, as I can't, because like Max, I live in Melbourne, Australia.

I mean, the last time I saw you, Barry, it was, what, late November?

And you didn't have a grey hair on you there.

It's quite extraordinary.

but it's quite weird because when I get my hair cut and it drops down onto the you know the poncho they put around you, it all looks grey.

But before on my head, it's it's brown, it's dark, chestnut.

So, there's so much life in you.

Yeah, your hair is attached to you, it is jet black.

But as soon, the minute it is cut off, it just

goes grey like that.

It's like if I'm not, if I'm not connected to Barry, it's not what it's not worth living anymore.

Wow.

How extraordinary.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thank you, Mark.

Max, I've just finished by saying I was once in a nightclub with Patrick Cliver.

But yeah, thank you, Max.

Okay,

Nikki, thank you.

I have no celebrity nightclub speedings to share with you.

Sorry.

So I think in many ways, I respect you more.

Barry, thank you.

Thanks, Max.

Poor Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Max Suns.

This is The Guardian.