Have Manchester United turned over a new leaf? – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly Marginal Games at Old Trafford.

A stirring second half comeback against title chasing Aston Villa.

Felt a bit like old Manchester United, the Stretford ends sucking Rasmus Hoyland's first Premier League goal into the net and all is rosy for now at least.

Credit to Rob Edwards for bringing on own goal with a quarter an hour left at Rammell Lane, helping Luton to all three points without a shot on target after going 2-1 down.

A win for Forrest as Chris Wood turned into R9 Ronaldo for a little bit, sitting defenders down on his way to a hat-trick at St.

James's Park.

As for Newcastle, if this is what happens when a team finally gets tired, cannot wait to see Croatia's capitulation at some point in the next 25 years.

Liverpool go top again with victory victory over spirited Burnley, while Sid is going to become unbearable if Bournemouth keep winning like this.

Chuck in Chelsea's Christmas Eve defeat to Wolves.

Your questions?

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Good morning.

Hello, Paul McInnes.

Good morning.

Hello, Lars Simmonson.

Good morning, Max.

Right, let's start Old Trafford then.

Manchester United 3, Aston Villa 2.

I mean, it is a huge win for Manchester United.

It's their first victory over anyone, anyone, I think, in the top half of the Premier League.

At halftime, Barry, did you see that coming?

Absolutely not.

I was doing the minute-by-minute report of this game, and

I

didn't see a way back for them.

And

the game was on Amazon Prime, and Patrice Everer was one of the pundits.

And he was actually talking them up and saying they were playing pretty well.

And he could see them coming back to win the game and I thought he was absolutely insane just Patrice Everest saying Patrice Everest things but he was actually right.

I wouldn't necessarily agree they played particularly well in the first half and they kept kept getting caught out by Aston Villa's famously high line.

They were caught offside six times in the first half alone.

Our friend Nick Harris

put out a nice tweet because David Brailsford obviously was at the game and the camera kept cutting to him in the stand.

For anyone who may not know, he's the former chief of Team Sky Cycling, and now known as Ineos,

owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

And Nick tweeted that Manchester United look in dire need of some asthma inhalers, skin creams, bespoke pillows, maybe even a

triamsilone shot or some TUE clear prednisillin, and obviously some marginal gains.

Where on earth are they going to find that?

But they did find them.

Well, at least they found the marginal gains

and came back to win.

And now that they've played one good 45-minute period of football in about three months, we're all obliged to say that they're back

and

move along.

There's no problems to see at all Trafford.

Everything is fine.

It was Lars, a a wonderful moment when Rasmus Hoyland.

The weird thing about it was, it's got to the stage now, I never thought this would happen, that I was actually supporting Manchester United as like the plucky underdogs.

I was desperate for them to do something for anyone who sort of formative years had Man United winning everything.

That felt so strange, but like I could sense it as I was watching it.

I was just going, God, I hope they do this.

I was not.

I mean, I think I'm just more committed to my childhood than you are.

I don't know.

Maybe you're more like you're more a live and let live kind of guy, Max.

I don't forget.

But

they deserve a lot of credit, obviously.

And they were.

I thought they were.

Like Barry was slightly puzzled by the positive diagnosis from Patrice Everett.

I thought they were more aggressive in the second half.

And I mean, the first goal certainly came from a high turnover of the manner they weren't quite creating in the first half.

You know, they seemed to be pressing a little bit more efficiently.

I think Garnacho was tremendous.

And as we've seen this season, Garnacho is not always flawless, but I think he has

there's an endeavor to him, there's a bravery to him.

He doesn't seem phased by the fact that he's playing his sort of,

you know, he's a very young man playing a lot of football for a crisis-stricken Man United.

And that doesn't seem to weigh on him at all in the way that it seems to weigh on quite a lot of other guys in that team.

So he's always full of invention and full of, you know,

full of things.

And no, it was was a much, much better performance.

And with the Highland thing,

you know,

the goals were always going to come for him because he's getting into the right areas.

He's doing so many of the right things.

And again, he's a guy who's 20 years old who's having to sort of find his way in a pretty dysfunctional Man United team.

But of course, just psychologically, just getting the first one.

And for that to be a winner in a comeback win, that was really, really important to them is obviously just a huge lift for him.

And

it's

very, very positive.

I find it hard to sort of go, well, Man United are fine now.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's clear that they needed some.

There was a lot of players, and particularly quite a lot of young players in that group who I think needed something positive to happen.

They needed to have that feeling of going off the pitch in a big, important game, feeling great about themselves.

And that's really valuable.

I think the psychology of this stuff really matters.

Yeah.

I mean, he did seem quite pleased,

Paul, didn't he, Holland?

In that moment.

Yeah,

that was a Ketzbayer-esque intensity, wasn't it?

Celebration.

Listening to what Lars is saying there about Garnacho, I think that's fair.

And, you know, watching Hoyland celebrate his goal gave me a similar sort of vibe.

He was celebrating the release of the tension, but he was also saying, I am the guy.

He kept on pointing at himself and going,

which I, interpreting Scandinavian beast, I understood to be, I am the guy who can do this for you.

I am the guy who will score more goals.

And, you know, if that's the sort of cathartic experience he has from that, then that's really good.

I mean, I personally think that as much as you know, United will be happy, I think you'll be really disappointed if you're Aston Villa, not just because you did appear to be in quite maybe sort of last five, ten minutes of the first half, United had a bit more in the game, but they did appear to be keeping them at arm's length

in charge and then

you know, just couldn't replicate that intensity second half.

United opt theirs and the tide of the game just moved away from them and when you are producing a sort of a cinderella style title challenge it's these sorts of results i think that will make you might make you ask questions of yourself as to whether you are cut out for it or not and i think you saw the limits of the villa squad a little bit in that game too but not to put too much of a dampener on it it was an exciting last half an hour of the game for sure There were just a few moments, yeah, with Villa that you just, they were keeping this high line, but they weren't able to keep the intensity and pressing on the players in possession.

And when you do,

you know, you want to keep the high line, but then you also have to not leave opponents alone to pick passes.

If you do one and not the other, then you're going to be in trouble.

And I thought the sort of turnovers they gave away for the two goals, if I recall correctly, and there were a couple of other ones as well, where they were much sloppier in possession than we're used to seeing them.

And they kind of gave United chances to

get back in.

And I'm not taking anything away from Manny Night, but that second half I thought was a little bit uncharacteristic for for Villa.

I guess it's a sort of boring go-to catch-all excuse for teams at this time of the year.

Maybe they're tired.

I mean, he hasn't rotated a lot to an eye-ready.

It could be the energy levels have dropped a little bit, but that was very uncharacteristic.

I'd be interested to know what prompted the turnaround.

Ericton Hag in his very, very long interview after the game.

It was quite interesting, actually.

All the Manchester United

everyone connected with Manchester United was more than willing to spend as long as was necessary, you know, doing their post-match interviews.

Bruno Fernandez spoke to Amazon for must have been near 15 minutes.

You know, he's not usually that quick to front up, despite being the captain, and

his answers tend to be a little more monosyllabic when they haven't won.

But I would be curious to know what prompted this

pretty remarkable turnaround because was it just shame or a rallying

address from or slash bollocking from Eric Chin Hag.

He did say after the game that he had told them, you know, that despite conceding that the two sloppy goals from set pieces, they were doing okay.

And I suppose they were, apart from the fact that they kept getting caught offside

and just to keep plugging away.

And if they got the first goal in the second half, that they'd be all right.

You know, we'd see what happens after that.

And they did get the first goal.

Unfortunately, Unfortunately, it was disallowed for another offside.

And when they got the one that counted, pulled one back, Garnacho's first.

Villa went very close to scoring almost immediately.

And I think if that Villa goal had gone in from Leon Bailey, who got, yeah, Alex Moreno came on.

The disallowed Manchester United goal, Luca Dean, pulled a hamstring or...

tore something while stretching to try and keep it out and he was replaced by alex moreno who was really good for Villa in that second half.

I mean, you're right.

I think at 2-1, Inanna made a pretty good save, and we should probably reference a good save from Inanna because we reference everything else that he does.

And Johnny Evans at 2-2 makes a brilliant gold line clearance.

And, you know, those things do change how we discuss the game.

But look, Manchester United won.

The tweets at halftime were quite different.

Schwitzy said, Do you think Jim Ratcliffe will be pouring his own cleaning products into his eyes after that shit show?

Tom says, too early for any of us out.

Burton, villain, when will Villa be taken seriously for once?

Don't really need answering, do they?

After that second half.

You always get this with teams who are surprising people by doing really well.

That there's a load of Villa have got nothing but praise like across the board from everyone this season.

But I have noticed there are quite a few Villa fans on social media and that

message is a case in point of that, oh we're we're not getting enough praise it doesn't suit the narrative to praise villa and uh god it's it's quite funny but yeah that football clubs are funny things to take seriously aren't they i mean football's such a ridiculous thing and the way the the way that you can't take manchester united seriously can you like but you don't but they're not it's not a joke of a thing it is a real thing with people who are employed it's just a funny turn of praise that you know people are desperate for but they also want to go under the radar so you you actually can't win and paul what what do you make of big so jim's 25

takeover we had an interesting question saying you know from alan saying in simple terms is sir jim ratcliffe basically paying to become the outsourced football department of manchester united plc um yeah i think that's an interesting point i just saw on the internet just now was that and it's 29

okay that um ineos have got so that it's getting it's getting bigger every day i think i think the interesting thing is how this

i'm pretty confident there will ultimately be a clash between the Inios team and the Glazer team as to on something, presumably around strategy, but maybe on spending in certain areas within the club.

I don't know.

But there will at some point be some tension.

I am confident of this.

And what intrigues me is how both parties...

who are very successful in the world of business, you can't take that away from them, even if you don't like them, how they kind of are going to play that.

Who's going to be more devious ruthless in this little scrap because at the end of it you know there will be a new outright owner of the potentially a new outright owner of the club and i think glazers see this as being some you know first step towards kind of moving away but there's obviously something they haven't got from it yet that they want before they'll go so i think it's all intriguing i just feel like there's clearly been some log jam in the process for united in terms of recruitment They haven't got the right system.

They haven't got something that allows people to concentrate on developing the squad without interference from financial side, ownership side.

So if ENEOS can deliver that, then it will be helpful for Manchester United and obviously a very good PR boost for that side of things.

And I imagine that's what they'll kind of concentrate on in the short to medium term.

Yeah, actually, Barney made a similar point to the the one you're making in the paper saying, you know, these are sort of ruthless billionaires.

There's not a sort of after you claude sort of vibe.

There aren't that many billionaires who are like that going, actually, I think your idea is really good.

But I guess what we don't know is

what will that moment be?

And will it be a, you know, like a sanctioning for a player or some bigger strategic thing?

It'll be interesting to see.

Anyway, to Bramal Lane, Chevy United 2, Luton three.

Chris, his own goal is pretty good, isn't he, Barry?

Chef United came back from 1-0 down to go, 2-1 up before Luton came back with two own goals in the last 13 minutes of the game.

Lars, what, I mean, what a way to lose a football match.

Just like, especially that second own goal, the way it's sort of looped in.

You're like, there's just so little chance of that ball ending up in the back of the net.

And yet it does.

I did admire Chris Wilder's dedication to the tell-it-like it is, proper hardman bit by not really acknowledging that they'd had any poor fortune here he was this is all our own fault uh which is the kind of attitude we do want to see from managers you know nobody likes managers who makes excuses but i do think in this case it's okay to acknowledge that there was some poor fortune involved i mean he he wasn't wrong they maybe got sucked in and were a bit too deep for the first own goal but the second own goal is a completely ludicrous fluke i mean that's clearly not this is not their fault whatsoever i mean that that that's um a shot that hits a defender and spins off in a truly absurd direction and and goes in I mean, it's the kind of thing that can happen.

But I also think Luton will kind of do something like this because all season, Luton have been very, very competitive in games.

They've very rarely gotten tonked.

I mean, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they have a lot of one-goal defeats.

There's so many games in which they've managed to hang with...

you know, far more expensively assembled squads and been competitive and been right there, but things have just kind of just about broken against them.

And I do think after a certain period of time you you do something breaking for you for once and i i think what luton are doing in in terms of being competitive in this league is is incredibly impressive yeah rob edwards said maybe we've had a bit of luck chris waller said it ain't unlucky and we've chucked it um

it's a great it's a great quote and you're right with reference to the first one when they did drop drop deeper

but baz you know it is it's a it's such an enormous i mean it feels like the first real six-pointer of this season doesn't it and chef united you've sensed if they'd held on to that 2-1 well it gets really tight at the bottom but now they're sort of cut adrift

yeah i think there are the seven points adrift of safety six or seven and

i can't see them getting out of the pickle because i just don't think their players are good enough unless they spend a load of money in january even that might not work and it seems quite unlikely given their owners didn't show any interest in signing players in the summer, and in fact, got rid of a couple of their best ones.

I was very impressed with Luton in this, but they're a very impressive team because you know, they're obviously not that great, probably punching above their weight, but they really do play for their manager.

And

I don't know if it was through accident or design, probably accident.

Issa Kabura was out injured, so Alfie Doughty moved to the right wing, Ryan Giles is on the left, and Doughty just wreaked havoc throughout the first half in particular, and got a goal as well.

Wes Fotheringham and goal for Sheffield United.

He's had a few good performances, but he does look like a very weak link in that team.

Yeah, no, I just, I was lucky enough to see Luton just before Christmas and the Newcastle win.

And I just think that I don't know what the secret source is, and it's the the sort of thing that I, you know, I do wish it could be in the dressing room now and again to understand, you know, a general approach of a club like Luton.

But I think I understand some of what they're trying to do.

And I do think they've made a,

in terms of their recruitment and the way they play, seasons ago made this decision that, you know, athleticism, high physical capability is something that's going to be a top priority for their players.

And then, you know, the trade-off when you're doing that is that you're not necessarily always going to get the the same amount of technical level on the players.

And so how do you create a team which gets the most of their strengths and minimizes the weaknesses?

You know, what they've done with Luton, what Edwards has done with Luton is just so impressive because these players, they play fast, slick football that you need to be able to use your control, use your body well, distribute well, very quickly in order to keep the show on the road.

particularly when I'm watching against the Newcastle, they did that.

And just by doing that, they kept their opponents under pressure.

They always had to be thinking about what Luton were going to do.

And that sort of changes the way in which you can go about the game, which is why I think you can end up in a situation where WARDA is right in that just sort of mentally, you end up taking half a step backwards.

You end up trying to be a little bit more cohesive because you don't want to give up that.

that space you don't want to give up those chances and then you know after all you're at the end of that you're at a situation where looting can take pot shots from the edge of the box and see what they might get from deflections.

I think they're really well organized, but also kind of know how to get the best out of all their players.

And I think that's really important.

Yeah, just to add to that, they do have, I believe, the lowest amount of possession in the league and something like the second lowest pass completion.

Because they, again, they haven't, if they haven't any advantage, it's in physicality and in the effort that they put in.

So they play quite direct.

But it's rarely, whenever I see them, there's not a lot of mindless hoofing.

It's more mindful hoofing.

You know, they're quite good at playing it direct, but getting it into areas where they have players who can compete for the second ball

and do something like that.

And I just want to flag up, like,

Ross Barkley is playing really well for them.

And

I've always been a Ross Barkley skeptic.

I've never really seen the hype with him and thought when they'd spent some of their precious budget bringing him in thinking, really?

But no, he's been terrific in terms of adding what you mentioned, Paul, just a little bit of skill to that midfield.

I think he's made a big difference for them.

And actually, it's quite an interesting comparison with Burnley, who had Andros Townsend on trial and decided, actually, we won't offer you a contract.

It's not what our strategy is.

We want to buy young.

And, you know, Luton, who have brought in these two sort of old stages, you know, who obviously have physicality as well, but have experience and talent, which could be the difference between Luton staying up and Burnley going down.

We'll come on to that.

I love Sheffield United's second goal because it was proper league two.

It was like so many.

I mean, I don't know how many times you thought, well, that is in.

No, it's not.

Yeah, it is just bodies on the floor.

It was tremendous.

Paul, you wanted to jump in?

No, I just a little addenda to what you're saying there because they've also got Nathan Redman, but they never bring him off the bench at Burnley.

Now, he's not in there using that experience on the field very often.

So, Wade, you can, like you say, you can see that with Buckingham.

Yeah, I think he came on for two minutes against Liverpool, didn't he?

Luton have confirmed South Yorkshire Police are investigating an alleged racist comment towards Carlton Morris during the game.

We can confirm Carlton Morris reported an alleged racist comment from the crowd during this afternoon's Premier League fixture at Bramall Lane.

This is a club statement.

Carlton reported it to match officials in line with Premier League protocols.

The matter was dealt with immediately by both Sheffield United and South Yorkshire Police, who are currently investigating.

Luton Town will offer Carlton and any other player suffering abuse, our full support.

Would like to reiterate we take a zero-tolerance stance against all forms of discrimination, whether in person or online.

We'd like to thank both Sheffield United officials and the police for their swift actions in dealing with today's incidents.

We mentioned the other day, this game was refed by Sam Allison, who became the first black referee to officiate a Premier League match in 15 years, which is a staggering amount of time since Uriah Rennie

took charge of a game in 2008, I think it was.

It was only one moment.

I mean, it's not a huge moment, but I think Luton's equalizer came from a corner that wasn't a corner.

And it's one of those weird things with the AR where you can see it so quickly.

And so you think, well, we spend hours, you know watching hand balls back and forth should we should we not just get someone doesn't even need to just need someone to say to the fourth official hey that's actually not a corner no

this is where it starts oh no you have VAR

follow me hope but it's already started it's already a VAR check on every corner are you insane no I mean it's obvious you could just tell the fourth official actually that's wrong and you know that's fine wouldn't you know it wouldn't take that long would it it'll all be done in six seconds it won't take five hours

basically run off

cluster

yeah i was just asking the question it was not a view that i hold and we have answered the question sounded like an endorsement to me thank you so much uh for answering that question so quickly um all right that'll do for part one part two we'll start at st james's park

Hi pod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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A proper football journalist, man.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Chris says, At what point in the process of scoring a hat-trick against your former club do you start to celebrate?

Luke, is it time to put some respect on Chris Wood?

Yeah, hat-trick for the former Newcastle player.

Three well-taken goals.

The first was quite easy, the second were excellent.

Chris Wood said it was, quote, a bit harsh when the interviewer after the game described the second goal as not a trademark Chris would finish.

Feels entirely accurate to me, Baz.

I mean, such quick feet.

Maybe because it was against Dan Burns.

So, like, even Chris Wood's feet look quick when he's up against someone who's six foot seven.

But I was, when he got the ball, I thought, well,

that isn't going to be a goal.

And it was brilliant.

And the third as well.

Well, I mean, if someone

had told me before this game that Chris Wood would score a hat-trick and none of them would be headers,

I'd have been calling the men in white coats.

No chance.

But I mean, yeah, the first one was pretty straightforward, although, you know, the way he went one way and then another to create the space to get in the cross.

Should have had four actually,

because Anti Ilanga

failed to cross the ball or square the ball for him when he was in acres of space with a gaping goal in front of him.

But the second goal and the third, I mean, the second in particular, unbelievable.

If anyone

scored that, you would say, yeah, that is a fantastic finish.

But for

this man, many have dismissed as a kind of lumbering oaf who's only good for holding the ball up and scoring with his head.

That dragon finish, just sensational.

And

yeah, the performative non-performance of refusing to celebrate was slightly ridiculous considering I think he's played about 30 odd games for Newcastle and they couldn't get rid of him quick enough

once he'd served his function.

Um, what was quite amusing, but he must have been absolutely thrilled to bits.

Uh, it was an incredible performance by him and by Forrest, and Newcastle really are having a tough time of it at the moment.

And they've they've got some

I think it's Liverpool next, Sunderland, then Man City, then Villa.

So not easy.

Just on Chris Wood, Lars.

I suppose it is a sign that all these players that we occasionally dismiss or we laugh at, they're all really quite good at this game, aren't they?

Yeah, no, if you're contracted to a Premier League club, odds are you're pretty good at this stuff.

I just thought it was baffling to see,

again,

no disrespect to Wood,

but just Newcastle being countered on repeatedly by a team that has, you know, 30-something-year-old Chris Wood leading the line.

I thought that was a confusing thing to see.

And you're right about his, I mean, I think, you know, yeah, again, he should have celebrated.

I mean, I've looked at this.

He made 37 appearances for Newcastle, of which 9,

19 were starts.

But he only actually scored four goals and just won at St.

James's Park.

So, I mean, he trebled his entire total at St.

James's Park in this game, which I guess given that he used to play for the home team is sort of not ideal

for a forward.

It's not really what you want.

But no, it's tremendous.

And

are we getting to, I mean, I guess maybe I'm stealing your next question, Max, but are we getting to the point where we're a little bit worried about Newcastle?

Because I've been doing this slightly complacent thing of just thinking, well, they've got a bunch of injuries, they're a bit tired, it'll probably be fine.

But this result is something that makes me think, what if they're actually a bit bad?

Like, this is this, this is kind of like, I'm not as keen to write this off as some of the other Newcastle reversals we've had in recent weeks.

Paul, you could answer that question.

It's six defeats in seven in all competitions.

And

yes, I mean, we've talked about their injuries for a long time and how tired they are.

There were a few booze actually at full-time

at St James's Park yesterday.

Well, that doesn't go with the narrative.

Yeah, I feel that no other club would be able to get away with saying, oh, we're tired.

I doubt Eddie Howe is not saying that.

Eddie Howe is saying no excuses.

But the narrative around the club is that they're tired.

They've made such a heroic effort to play a few Champions League group games and not do particularly well.

So there's an unusual amount of sympathy for this club, which I don't quite get at the minute.

I think looking at them, they're a bit ordinary.

I think that would be my concern, that the tiredness, the fatigue has sort of revealed the kind of the average level of the squad, which is not that good.

And I think particularly in midfield, they're lacking creativity, they're lacking an ability to join things up.

Bruno Kimaresh is obviously the guy for that, but I don't think he's in great form right now.

I think they need him back to sort of help knit that together.

Some of the injuries are coming back, and maybe that will

hit the level again.

And I'm sure when we're talking about concern for them, I don't, you know, they will be challenging for Europe come the end of the season.

But I don't think they are really at this moment in time frightening teams.

I think their most impressive performances over the past few months have been those defensive-minded performances like we saw in the Champions League.

Yeah, I suppose that they

this is different because it was a home defeat.

You know, Richard Jolly stat here, you know, it's still the case.

Newcastle's only home defeats under Eddie Howe have come to clubs who have played in the final of either the European Cup, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, AC Milan Brussels, Dortmund, Nottingham Forest, or the Cambridgeshire Invitation Cup, Cambridge United.

But, you know, their home form has been brilliant, Lars, and their away form has not been great.

And

this was at their place.

Yeah, that's the thing that again confuses me.

It wasn't home against a famously poor away team.

I mean, Forrest usually don't travel well at all.

And you can point to little things like they flagged up a match of the day last night that they had Dan Byrne up against Anthony Langa, which is like in terms of it's a bit of a mismatch.

Like you have fullbacks that are not named Dan Byrne and that you can put into there to maybe deal with the Langa speed a little bit.

But I was just thinking, we all have, we all know what a good Newcastle, Eddie Howe Newcastle performance looked like.

We've seen it.

It's 100 miles an hour, you know, a lot of pressing, attacking, counter-attacking with a lot of people, all this sort of stuff.

I think we can all understand, but they've got basically an entire 11 out injured and have had for weeks, that the ones who've not been able to rotate, who had to play every game, they maybe don't have the energy to play that kind of performance every three days now.

I think we can understand that.

But surely then, if you're aspiring to be one of the top clubs in the league, is it not fair to ask, well, can you play in a different way?

Can you actually put your foot on the ball can you take some of the sting out of the game can you keep possession a little bit better can you find other ways of getting past your opponents than than having to play this sort of transitional the counter-attacking energetic type of thing that maybe you don't have the energy to do all the time i think that they have they keep the ball less well than the other top teams they're aspiring to compete with newcastle and maybe that is a valid criticism i think i wouldn't worry about newcastle i mean they will be fine they're the richest football club on the planet.

And if Eddie Howe doesn't turn things around, he'll get sacked and they'll get someone else in.

And they'll buy a quicker full back than Dan Byrne.

You know, he got monstered yesterday.

And making the excuse that, oh, our players are tired and we only have 11 to play in every game.

I mean, what Tina Liveramento was on the bench yesterday.

Why wasn't he brought on at half time, at least, if you weren't going to start him?

When it it was quite obvious that Dan Byrne was

just, you know,

being absolutely torn apart by

Langa?

But yeah, I mean, I wouldn't worry about you.

Of course, they'll be fine.

It is only a matter of time before they start winning things.

I think

just the longer it goes without them winning something, that's kind of all we have to cling to, isn't it?

For Forrest, though, you know, Nuno has

shown signs.

He was unlucky in that first game when Willie Bolly was sent off so early, Paul.

and then look he it is one game of course but like you say to make a side that looked like an elite counter-attacking unit with Chris Wood doing the at the top of that albeit with some pace around him with a langer gibbs white and hudson adoy

it you know you you look at that and you say well this is this is a good manager bounce for however long it will last yeah i mean

You know, I think what this reminded, you know, you've got to remember that his Wolves teams were really good.

I mean, they may not have been through a minute

and they weren't possession-based, they were a counter-attacking team.

But when they countered,

boy, did they counter.

They were rapier-like and brought some, you know, really interesting talents into the vision.

So, I thought it was striking when you saw the line-ups yesterday that Hudson, Adoy, and the Langle were both playing away from home because off the ball, they're not, you know, there's ways you could hedge that,

you could pull,

you could play with three in the middle, you could pull Gebs White out into one of the wide places and sort of be a bit more conservative.

He didn't do that.

And what you ended up seeing was just those,

Langro in particular, but Hudson Adoy as well, just pouring into acres of space, particularly in that second half.

And

that was the right tactical setup for this situation.

He knows how to execute it well.

He's got those sorts of players who can help.

I think

Chris Wood is the sort of player who will actually benefit, i think

from having two inside forwards who want to go beyond him because it it's not simply he's got to stand up there and find a find a head for the for the cross you know there's there's a bit more uncertainty there and uh and he will probably benefit from that but you know i think Nuno's got something to restore in terms of his reputation because Spurs didn't do very well.

But I think his wolves were a good team.

They qualified for Europe through the league position.

They're a good side.

To turf more then, Bernie 0 Liverpool 2.

Pretty straightforward victory for Liverpool Lars.

Nice goal from Darwin Nunes.

His first goal at club level from outside the box since the 15th of December 2021 when he was playing for Ben Fica.

And a goal for Diogo Jotta later on.

Bernie had a little spell, didn't they?

When they could have got somewhere, but Liverpool go back to the top of the league all quite quietly.

Yeah, I mean,

I feel like Burnley have that spell in every game.

Like, they rarely go through 90 minutes without at one point looking like, oh, this team looks pretty good, but then

it's hard for them to actually get the results.

And I guess against Liverpool, it'd be harsh to blame them too much.

Young Trafford in goal.

He's quite young, isn't he?

James Trafford?

I believe he looks quite young.

He had a very good game.

And yeah,

with a different goalkeeper, I think the score could have been different here as well.

And it was just one of those where, yeah, good win for Liverpool, three points, and Burnley will get their points elsewhere.

So, not a ton of talking points here, I didn't think, Max.

I mean, I suppose that the talking point,

or one of the talking points, Barry, is the

disallowed goal from Harvey Elliott, where Mo Sala was pushed into an offside position.

And a lot of Liverpool PGMOLs, conspiracists,

saying this is another example of the fact that

somebody doesn't want them to win the league.

But it's quite an interesting,

you know, you're still offside if you're pushed offside, right?

Yeah.

And obviously,

so you don't, but you don't want the foul to be given.

Obviously, a penalty is fine, but you want the goal to be given.

But you can't give the goal because you're offside, even though someone's pushed you there.

It's also an eye-line disruption thing as well.

It's not like he's actually touched the ball, is it?

It's that he's breaking up the line of sight of the keeper.

He was in the eye line of James Trafford.

Yeah.

And actually, there's another thing with that, Paul, isn't that?

The keeper's not saving that.

Like, no goalkeeper's saving that shot.

So I wonder if that subjectiveness should come into an eye line call.

Like fine, he was slightly in the way of James Trafford, but James Trafford, you know, I don't know how many James Traffords you would need to have saved that because it was there's just no saving it.

You know, they've got that 3D rendering of the graphic as to where handball starts.

So they show you the Premier League badge.

And beneath that part of the armpit is handball.

They should maybe have a sort of similar graphic for obscuring of vision.

So like when you go into the opticians and they put certain things in front of your eyes, can you see that now?

Can you see the Harvey Elliott humdinger coming at you now?

Can you see it now?

Can you see it now?

And then, and then a frame of reference for future.

Yeah, but the problem with that, Paul, is that that's one of the things I hate doing most in life: going to the optician, and then they're switching the lenses around.

You go, is that better or worse?

And you go, I don't know.

I don't know.

And then you can see the optician getting visibly irritated.

So then you just make a decision whether, you know, yeah, that's better just to end this awkward experience.

Are you saying, Barry, you haven't been able to see for the last 20 years?

Then you end up with a pair of spectacles that aren't as helpful as they should be, purely because out of politeness, because you didn't want to upset the optician.

And I go, I I generally go to a well-known, you know, high street opticians who may or may not have sponsorship deal with Premier League referees.

And,

yeah, they're very much a get them in, get it over with, get them out, you know, volume,

high turnover of customers.

So they can get very impatient and cranky if you can't tell.

There's no love at spec savers.

Is that what you're telling me?

That's what I'm saying.

Well, Robin says, don't mention, all in capitals, don't mention Paul Tierney on your Liverpool hating pod, please.

There's no goal no doubt for a push in the first half.

I mean, this was a very straightforward win for Liverpool.

They did make heavy weather of it, you know, and

in the final minutes, Jakob Brun Larson could have, probably should have scored an equaliser for Burnley.

And bad decision-making in the final third is something that's been a problem for Liverpool in a few recent games.

And I think it was a problem last night as well.

But it was an incredibly one-sided game.

Yeah, having previously kind of dealt myself out of this game, I was going to deal myself back in and say that I do think it makes a difference.

You can rebuy, I think you can have a rebuy there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm going straight back in.

I do think it could make a difference for Liverpool going forward to have Diogo Jotta back because he has a kind of efficiency.

You know, he's less flashy in some ways than Diaz.

He doesn't go past people in the same way, but he is very good.

I just guess ghosting into the box and getting finding space in the box, and he's a good finisher.

So he is bit unconventional winger in that sense.

But I think the thing Barry just flagged up, they have been a little bit profligate in the area sometimes, Liverpool, this season.

That's definitely true.

And I think having him back would make a difference there.

Josh says, What would it take for Vince and Company to compromise their footballing identity?

When do they try their difficult second album?

I thought, actually, Paul,

they did go a little bit more direct in the second half.

I thought maybe we saw glimpses of

can we not knock it from Burnley?

Yeah, yeah, and and quite often to find that guy, that kid Odebert on the left, who looks like he can go either way, very intriguing player.

Yeah,

I just think when I hear him talking about that and thinking of Rob Edwards at the same time, and thinking

that

their style of play is established,

the way they're going about it, they're enacting it on the field.

Now, that is not necessarily getting them the results they always want, but they have a plan and they're enacting it.

And the fact that Burnley aren't currently able to do that halfway through the season makes me think this is not something that's about to go come around and click in a minute.

And that,

yeah, I mean, Daniel Farker said before, it's the teams that come up to the Premier League, who've blazed the trail through the championship, often find it harder because it's the keeping that back door closed is a lot more challenging in the top flight.

And that's what Burnley's still struggling with.

Maybe distributing quicker will change that, but I think it's like, what do you do when you don't have the ball?

That's the issue.

Oh, yeah.

First side in English top flight history to lose as many as nine of their opening 10 home games of a season.

Not a tough place to go.

An easy place to go, literally, currently, Burnley.

And that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll begin with Bournemouth's victory over Fulham.

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Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Simon says, just a reminder that seven games ago, Bournemouth were in the relegation zone.

They only had three points from their first nine games.

They've earned 22 from the following nine.

Justin Clivert scored against Fulham, just like his dad did on the 4th of May 2005 for Newcastle.

Brilliant run, Barry, from Alex Scott, who was injured, wasn't he, at the start of the season.

But I think that might be the first

sort of football I've seen him play, Alex Scott, because I know he was very highly rated at Bristol City.

I never really saw him play, and he looked tremendous there.

Yeah, he they bought him and was a Tyler Adams.

They bought both of them knowing they were injured.

I think I'm not sure if Tyler Adams has put in an appearance yet, but Scott, he's I think that was his sixth or seventh game for them.

And yeah, he looked hugely impressive for the first goal.

He went on a sort of of

run from midfield, took on and beat two or three Fulham players before playing the ball wide to Clivert.

And

he scored.

Burnt Leno,

who I suspect we'll also be talking about later, should have done better there.

And

yeah, he was good in defence, good in attack, and

looks like he'll be a real asset to them.

The third goal, Lars, was quite something from Sinistera because he's not even running...

he's running totally perpendicular to sort of get the power to kick it in that direction is really impressive.

Yeah, and it's so easy for it to just kind of slide off your foot a couple of millimeters and then you'll shank it way into the stand.

So, you know, Brilliant.

He's a good player, Sinister.

I've been a little bit surprised that he hasn't played more because I always thought he looked sharp when he was at leads.

But I mean,

there are good players in this Bournemouth theme.

And I think we should take a moment to credit the chairman, Bill Foley, the American gentleman, for not firing Irola earlier.

I think there's a lot of club owners in this division who would have freaked out and gotten rid of Irola after the start he had.

But he's kind of kept faith with them.

And the players seem to have.

I mean, Irola said after the game that there's not one big thing that's changed, it's just a lot of little things, and they've gotten to know each other a bit better and stuff.

And that seems to make sense.

It's working very well now.

And now that they made it through that sort of very difficult first spell when it just wasn't happening for them, the future looks kind of exciting for this team because a lot of the players they brought in are on the young side.

I mean, you mentioned Alex Scott, who's like 20.

Diyaz Zabarny in midfield

in defense, the Ukrainian defender, he's 21.

And, you know, Oatra is 21 as well.

I think a lot of the guys they brought in are on the young side.

So now that the system is kind of clicking a little bit and they're feeling confident, you know,

I'm kind of excited about the future for this team.

Yeah, and Semenya looks great as well.

Is the sky the limit paul what's the limit ninth what's the limit for bournemouth could they could they win the everton cup asked ricky could they get seventh before every time i do a pod i'm going today is the day i'm not going to be suckered into making any predictions which i always am

they never come off and i'm a fool absolute fool um no i don't think they well let's say i don't think they will i i think their their results of late have been incredibly impressive and yeah that the the the way in which they've got a number of players behind solanky who just want to go at you i think it's very exciting exciting to watch.

But I don't think the caliber of opposition has been that great in this run of matches either.

And they've got some tougher fixtures coming up.

So we'll see after that.

I mean, but, you know,

I think that top half, top half is very strong, very strong.

I think finishing 11th or 12th would be good showing for Bournemouth.

Bernd Leno could face retrospective action from the Football Association after shoving a ball boy in the defeat at Bournemouth.

He'd already been booked, but he avoided a red card.

Marco Silver believed the ball boys were purposefully delaying the game.

Well, isn't that what ball boys do?

They delay the game when their team is winning and they speed it up when their team is losing.

It's hardly the revelation of the century that Bournemouth have come up with this amazing tactic of

using ball boys to slow the game down.

Tim Robinson, the referee, asked for the ball boys to stand down from duty, resulting in the absence of the multi-ball system for the final stages of the game, which presumably doesn't help Fulham at all.

They want as many balls close to the pitch as possible.

The Premier League confirmed that the multi-ball system was withdrawn on the 79th minute.

Jose has used ball boys to deliver notes and hold balls on a number of occasions with the reward of inviting them to dinner with the players.

Marco Silva on this Burnt Leno moment says he touched the bull boy.

He didn't push the ball bullboy.

They are different things.

I'm not English, but I know the difference between one word and the other.

We have to say the truth.

On the Eden Hazard scale, Lars,

where would you put this assault, this vicious assault?

I mean, very low.

I read about this on sort of social media before I actually saw the incident.

So I was expecting...

Well, I was expecting a push, because that's what people said, but it didn't really push him.

There was a sort of a bit of a goalkeeping glove to chest movement there that was sort of maybe ideally shouldn't happen, but I mean, honestly, I can't believe this has become a thing of any sort of thing.

I mean, this is where the ball boy, I think, showed a bit of, you know, lack of experience.

Because if he was a player, he would have gone down there.

I mean, I think most Premier League forwards, feeling the hand to the chest there, would have flipped over and rolled around quite a lot.

Holding his face.

Yeah, yeah, called for their mummies as they're prone to do.

But the ball boy in question, you know, he wasn't, he was quick enough to withhold the ball, but he didn't quite, you know, this is where the next step for the ball boys, if they're going to antagonize the opponents, they also have to be ready to milk it if there's any contact.

Yeah, I mean, he's just, you know, he looks like a, you know, a sweet young chap.

He's got an excellent head of hair.

Leno hugged him shortly afterwards, so, you know.

I presume in about 10 years, he'll be playing for Bournemouth, and then there'll be clips harking back to that time he was viciously assaulted by

Leno.

Anyway, we do hope hope he and everyone is okay you can imagine the fans you know not one of our own getting absolutely furious about it going how dare you do this but you know i guess adults shouldn't go around pushing children at any level should they uh we're probably obliged to say that what if they're on a swing and it's your child

loophole loophole that is a loophole i mean this ball boy was not on a swing and it was not the son of burnt leno so well not that i know of it would be good if all the ball boys had swings just to help them pass the time.

It's all around the pitch.

They couldn't have a swing.

But you see, this is why VAR is the mess.

It is, Max, because you've just gone, you know, oh, well, adults shouldn't push children.

And I've immediately, without, you know, I didn't even have to think about come up with a flaw in your plan.

No, it's a good point.

It's a good point.

I mean, if all ball boys were on swings, it'd be hard if you sat in the first two or three rows, of course.

But they could, if they got it right, catch the ball and on the way up and then on the way back, throw it back onto the pitch.

You know, that could speed things up even more.

Or if young Ian Rushton is in his go-kart and wants to be taken for a walk to the park,

you say to

the current Mrs.

Rushton, sorry, I can't do it.

I'm not allowed to

push small children.

It's frowned upon.

You've made a very good point.

It's a yellow card in football.

I'll be a hypocrite.

I've already told Burnt Lenov, I can no longer push young Ian on his tricycle to the Merry Creek.

Wolves 2, Chelsea 1, which is on Christmas Eve.

So obviously it feels like months ago.

I mean, Chelsea had a lot of chances, didn't they?

Raheem Stone's got a cross square that one.

That's even worse than a Langer to Wood.

Was it Cole Palmer who was next to him?

I mean, I don't know.

It wasn't.

Who was it?

I'll be honest, Max.

I watched this match.

It was two days ago.

I literally cannot remember a single thing about it

I'm I don't think I was drunk

but it was Christmas Eve so there's a good chance I'd had a few but I've seen so much football on boxing days slash Stevens Day that

yeah everything that happened before it has just vanished from my mind you make a good point I mean I had actually forgotten Wolves won yeah

I can't remember.

I can remember Nkunku's goal.

I can't recall.

I can remember Matt Doherty's goal, actually.

It came back to me, Denise.

I put it in.

I can't remember Lamina's last or Paul.

One of you, can you help furnish the listeners?

They do come here for some insight.

Not two middle-aged men.

We're talking about ball boys on swings.

I just had this, I saw this, and again, very much like Barry, it went in one ear and out the other, but I just kind of mentally pegged this as yet another game in which Chelsea have good moments.

You know, occasionally they move the ball well and get into good positions, and then they make terrible decisions in those positions, and they don't score goals from the situations they should score goals from, and then they're not super reliable down the other end, and so they didn't win the game.

I mean, this seems to be what happens with Chelsea so often this season.

And maybe for them, the sort of ray of hope here is that Nkunku came on.

He

got his goal, and maybe he's the one who will transform that attack.

But it just seems to be more of the same for Chelsea.

And just so Gary O'Neill and Wolves don't get annoyed with us.

We should give them credit for continuing to do better than the haters and the losers such as myself thought that they would this season.

Well done to Wolves.

Yeah, and that's true, Paul.

I mean, they've beaten Tottenham at home, they've beaten Man City at home, and now beaten Chelsea at home.

I mean, I don't know if Chelsea are good enough to be counted in the kind of they've beaten good teams at home, but it still feels you're sort of duty bound to say they are.

So that is, you know, that is credit worthy for Gary O'Neill, especially after a disappointing previous game, I think, against West Ham.

Yeah, I think

there is a thing about them that

kind of

because they're not a bunch of exhibitionists,

the Wolves can blur into the background a little bit, I think.

But no two ways about it, they're doing very well.

I think the

Wolves haven't spent a lot of money in the transfer market over the past few seasons, but I do kind of think they're, for all the

way in which this has killed what was good about football and that every club was independent and allowed to make its own dreadful transfers decisions, but Wolves have subsequently hired out of Jorge Mendes.

People bemoan that and mourn the loss of the innocent days of yore, but I think he's done a reasonable job of bringing in players for them at the same time.

Certainly, most of the 75 to 80% of the Portuguese who are called Mario or João done well for them, I think.

And still got players like Sarabia in and around the team who are proper, you know, elite level players and can find those little moments that can help to decide games against teams who, you know,

is the Chelsea first 11 much stronger than the Wolves first 11?

Probably, but certainly not enacting it on the pitch.

So, you know, the Wolves have got enough about them that they can make, they make it a game of tight margins and they can sometimes flip them in

their direction.

So, yeah, more power to them.

Thank you, Paul and Lars, for rescuing us.

Did we, though?

That particular football

chat.

Yeah, I enjoyed Mark saying...

Yeah, when Mark says, when do the pundits eventually admit they collectively fell for the Pochitino Emperor's New Clothes fallacy?

I enjoyed the typo.

Yes, I just presumed he would, you know, there's still time.

They might not have Europe next year.

Then suddenly, not that they don't have it this year, do they?

But anyway,

I feel like this pod is meandering to an end in the very much feeling like it's between Christmas and New Year.

It's the seasonal effect.

It really is.

Our mate, Sanny Rodravadula, says honourable mention for the first Boxing Day game at Gig Lane since 2017 would be grand.

And a win to a local derby with Prest, which is in Bury, is a long way down from Derby Days of Old, but we'll take it a 2-0 win.

Pete says, says, I thought you might like to know that in the Cathedral Classico between Salisbury and Winchester today, we had two outfield players in goal.

An injury in the warm-up and a red card after 55 minutes meant that for 90 and 35 minutes, respectively, there was no real keepers involved.

That is great, isn't it?

Yeah, and Simon says the mother-in-law is taking the whole family on a cruise to the Norwegian fjords for Christmas.

Has Lars got any recommendations on things to do?

Just, I mean, enjoy yourself, watch the nature, all that sort of stuff.

I mean, I don't know exactly where you'll be stopping.

Can you DM me instead?

Because it's a very long stretch of country.

Are you going to bergen?

Are you going to, like, what's happening here?

But just generally.

Just give us, come on.

All we want is the classic, what do we do if we're at a fjord?

Just wrap up well and eat some herring.

Yeah, you look at the fjord and eat some fish.

Okay, there you go.

Look at the fjord and eat some fish.

I would watch a travel show with you, Larson.

Eating fish and looking at fjords, yeah.

We appreciate that to someone.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thank you, Paul.

No, thank you, Max.

Pleasure.

Happy Christmas.

Thanks, Baz.

Thank you.

Thanks, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

And Fubble Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Max Sanders, and we'll be back on Friday.

This is The Guardian.