Thomas Tuchel’s England labour again and Levy out at Spurs – Football Weekly

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This is The Guardian.

Hello, and welcome to The Guardian Football Weekly.

Just imagine if Bill Murray had had to watch England struggle but eventually break down a smaller nation's low block on that day.

Not sure the film would be quite as successful.

It's hard to break down a low block, Andoran or otherwise.

It makes for bad football and bad football matches.

Someone in the Holt end spent the whole game choosing what kettle to buy, frankly a big life decision that will stay with you for years, unlike this one.

Tuchels England though are yet to be good.

Also today a stirring comeback from the Republic of Ireland.

Northern Ireland beat Luxembourg and scare the Germans.

Wales win in Kazakhstan and Scotland get a creditable draw in Denmark.

Elsewhere Daniel Levy is eased aside by Spurs.

Was he good or was he terrible?

Is this the best news for Tottenham or a huge case of be careful what you wish for?

There's some League One and League Two to get through as Cambridge lose to a couple of melons While Sergio Ramos has released a song, Does Barry Even Know?

All that plus your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hello, Max.

From Not the Top 20, Ali Maxwell.

Hello.

Hello.

And Dan Bardell.

Hello, Max.

I like Ali how you said hello, like you were just picking up the phone in the old days when you didn't know who it was.

Hello, 30360307.

Anyway, England 2 and Dora 0.

Rich says, I feel for the people who have to talk about this game like it matters.

Tom says, from what we've seen from England, can we be 100% sure that Barry didn't have something to do with the Tuchel appointment?

It wasn't good, but

it was never going to be good, Ali.

Or is that giving Thomas Tuchel an easy ride?

Like, we knew what would happen.

What happened is exactly what we thought would happen, and it happened, and it's over.

I'm pretty much on that side of the fence.

There are some people, and we've had some people replying to our review of the game on the England pod by saying, well, actually, if you look at the results under Southgate against Minnow Nations, we normally scored five, six, seven, even scored 10 once.

So the exact number of goals has been lower under Tuchel.

The way that the games look and the general lack of jeopardy on them is pretty similar.

England have won all four qualifiers to 0, and they've faced 12 shots in total so far.

So I think, you know, there is one of the aspects of it is that these aren't interesting football matches to watch on any level, really.

And I don't, yeah, kind of what you're alluding to, I don't think there's really anything that England could do to impress either neutrals or England fans in these games.

Having said that, they have still managed to get sort of, yeah, put out a pretty poor imitation of an England team dominating and beating minnow nations.

We'd like to see more goals.

We'd certainly like to see more than 11 shots if we have more than 80% of the ball.

And

it's all looking

not great at the moment.

And the Serbia game on Tuesday night is pretty pivotal, I would suggest.

I do believe that a really convincing win and a performance in which the players clearly step up and show off some Tuchel tactics and dominate a decent nation in a tricky environment and things will calm down a little bit.

Anything other than that, and yeah, Tuchel's going to have to manage a bit of a media storm and some

fan apathy, which is what most managers before him have had to handle in varying ways and with varying levels of success.

So Dan, what side of the fence are you on?

That, you know, this is what it is.

It will be nothing else.

And we just have to, you know, float with it or are Tuchels England bad?

Well, we do have to float with it because I don't think it's going to change.

I do think that people talk about how tough these games are for the players, breaking down the lower block, et cetera, team that's come there to defend.

Nobody talks about how hard these things are for podcasters afterwards.

But they're difficult to talk about isn't it every day you almost dread being booked after an england game you think oh no not england why couldn't i have been on the premier league preview the week before the premier league starts i i'm struggling a bit with england in general because of tukul nothing to do with the fact he's german i could i couldn't care less what nationality he was i think part of what's made england a little bit successful in terms of how they've done with with tournaments and the feel-good around them has been that southgate looked to the long term.

Now, I liked Southgate.

He had flaws.

I, you know, he did things I didn't like, but by and large, I was a Southgate fan.

I'm struggling with the fact that everything is so short term around Tuchel.

You know everything is geared around that World Cup.

His selections are geared around that World Cup with absolutely no look to the future whatsoever.

And I just think when we get there, I'm not convinced that we're going to do anything in that tournament because it's all so short term.

I think the pressure is going to be so big that it's all geared around that one tournament.

I actually think it's going to work against us.

And I think it's working against us now with what we're doing.

So I'm just really, really struggling to get behind this iteration of England because I think the way they were under Southgate and the way he was, I think that's why they were good, if that makes sense.

And don't you think that would make more sense as well if we actually had a really settled and established core group of players that understand how to play with each other?

Like you think it's all over the place.

The famous Spanish teams who look like they were telepathic, even Even Italian teams that have had success where you've got 37-year-old centre-backs who've been playing together for 15 years.

We don't have that at the moment.

We have Kane, who's going to play every single minute and maybe causing a bit of a tactical issue at the top of the pitch, or maybe our greatest ever goalscorer, and we shouldn't worry about that.

We don't have a particularly fixed back line.

We're still working out midfield balance.

And in the wide areas, well, Saka should be a lock, and Bellingham should be a lock.

But Saka has barely played for the last year or so for England outside of major tournaments so isn't having much time to to kind of create relationship with Brees James for example and on the left side of attack we're not really sure either so yeah it's uh it's not a great moment for the England team is it I'm trying to to keep perspective because we it doesn't really matter

until next summer I think and I think everyone kind of knows that but equally yeah as Barney wrote in his piece in his excellent piece we have to react to it we have to watch it and enjoy it and talk about it because whether it's for content and podcasts or whether it's just with your mates, that's what we all do.

Yeah, I mean, and the eternal

issue is, Barry, that you know, if Elliot Anderson has a really good game in the six, which he did against Andorra, that doesn't mean he'll win us the World Cup.

And if Ebericie Yese misses a couple of presentable chances against Andorra, that doesn't mean he won't win us the World Cup.

We're kind of obliged to try and read things into this game and games like it.

And I honestly don't think there is anything you can learn from it or that

you can overanalyse because as you say we knew what it was going to be like and they won so that's fine and it was a grim watch uh we spoke last week about this game being at villa park as cold play were at wembley

I would be interested to know which capacity crowd was treated to the more cloying performance.

There's no competition, Barry.

I reckon reckon if

you went to Cold Play, right, and I haven't been, I'm just, this is, this is from Osmosis, from just when Jamie comes home from a Cold Play concert, you'd be walking on air.

Like, you know, Chris Martin is like a born performer.

A cold player are very good at their particular thing.

It's not for me, but I do appreciate other people really like it.

My issue with this game was so they interviewed various players and Tuchel afterwards and they all sort of said as if reading from the script, we knew that Andorra were going to be difficult to break down.

And I'm thinking to myself, well, Andorra shouldn't be difficult to break down.

And I think these players seem to have it ingrained into their heads in training that

this team are going to be really difficult to play against.

And

Andorra's breakdown ability becomes this mythical sort of.

There's no, there's no, it's like, it's like the Dawn Wall.

It's like K2.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're there with their crampons and

their ice picks trying to break down Andorra.

And I don't think Andorra should be particularly difficult to break down, you know, when it comes to this team of fine players that are lining up against them.

But I think that the players might have had it ingrained in them so deeply that it becomes a sort of phobia.

But eventually they did break them down and they won too nil and that's fine.

I agree with you.

I mean, California Canary on that note just says, I don't want to hear that there are no easy games at international level.

It's tripe.

Andorra has the same population as Wigan and maybe 10% able to play football.

I see no plan or direction from Thomas Tuchel.

This should be clear by now.

Andorra is a ski resort.

A tax haven and a ski resort.

You could fit the entire population of Andorra in Wembley.

They probably were all watching Coldplay, having a great time.

I think you make a really good point, Dan, Dan, about that short-termism, because I just, do you think there's anybody apart from, and it's not, I mean, I'd say this is nothing against Dan Byrne, but it sounds like it's against Dan Byrne.

Nobody thinks he's a starting centre-back to win the World Cup, do they?

I mean, maybe they do.

Am I, am I, is that, is that, is that wrong of me to just instantly go, well, that isn't, that's not who I'd go for.

You know, is that, am I being really brutally unfair and he's, he deserves to have that role?

I think there's a difference between being good in Newcastle setup and being good in England setup and players fitting to different setups.

Obviously, all players, that's exactly the same.

He strikes me as being like a Connor Coder.

He might go to the World Cup if it's 26-man squads again.

He might be in that squad, but he probably shouldn't be.

Yeah, he probably shouldn't be playing.

But he's played every game, hasn't he?

Obviously, I've got a little bit of bias because I watch Concern every week, but surely out of those centre-backs there, it's Concern and Gay here.

They're both a bit more progressive on the ball.

They've both got recovery pace.

That would be the more logical pairing for me, especially even for that game against Andorra.

I'm not even convinced Dan Byrne's the right pick against Andorra because when it came to him, Andorra were quite happy for Dan Byrne to have the ball, and he didn't really do much with it.

Not very progressive.

That's not his game.

That's why I think there's probably a time and a place for Dan Byrne.

I'm not sure it's Andorra, but I'm not sure it's the World Cup either, like you've just said.

Yeah, maybe Thomas Tuchel knows that we'll play Germany and then he'll mark Voltenrader, his now teammate and fellow giant, out of the game.

And that's, and it's all, you know, world-class planning.

Lisa says she's Tukal put up the creativity bat signal for Jack Grealish.

Oh, I'd quite like a 2026 clamour for Grealish.

I can't remember.

Was it 2022?

Was the last one?

I forget.

21 was when he got sang at his name, got sung every game, didn't it?

When they wanted him to come on.

Well,

he was very good in the Euros in summer of 21, wasn't he?

He did genuinely have the impact that had been sort of much discussed for a long period of time.

And then from that high high point has had a horror two years back at his club level, lost out on his England squad.

It feels like Tuchel is quite a big fan of his, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's in the next squad.

But on that left side, at the moment, Tuchel clearly loves Rashford and really wants to use these camps to get Rashford confident again.

I don't think we're really seeing it in his performances

either at international level or so far at Barcelona.

Eze played in the 10 role, which is Jude Bellingham's, so it kind of seems like moot for anyone else to play there.

I mean, someone should probably play there just in case, shouldn't they?

Yeah,

that's a fair point.

But I guess my point is Eze's, if he's going to start for England, it'll likely be on the left wing, so I'd quite like to actually see him play there, maybe against Serbia.

And Morgan Gibbswite can,

who looked like he was the one player that actually really enjoyed himself, him and Elliot Anderson against Andorra, Gibbswite pulling out a lot of back heels and quick flicks and quick passing in tight spaces, which I think is what we want to see more of.

So, yeah,

it's quite a big game on Tuesday night.

And I gather that in Serbia,

they are framing this as one of their biggest ever games, which might surprise people who don't think World Cup qualifiers could ever get to that level.

But although we played them in the Euros summer 2024,

we've never played them in Serbia while they have been Serbia.

And I think they're going to be going all out in this game.

So it will be a massive test.

And of course, the only real test we've had so far was Senegal, albeit in a friendly, in June.

And we looked miles worse than them, miles second best.

And so, yeah, this is probably our toughest fixture between now and the World Cup.

And they've moved that game, haven't they, to a bigger stadium, to their national stadium.

I think it's their national stadium.

Yes.

Although they have...

They have got a sanction for racist chanting.

So I think that it's quite a strange sanction, or at least I thought it was.

They're only allowed, but they have to have a 15% reduced capacity behind the goals, which doesn't strike me as a hugely significant sanction.

But

you can't be racist if you're in the mainstand.

Is that what they're saying?

Yeah.

If 15% of you aren't behind the goal,

much harder to be to be racist, apparently.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, there is a real danger that they...

We would just have to see, Barry.

No, I'm really struggling for the right question because you're right, it is a big test.

There's nothing to say, there's nothing that we've seen so far that means England should be confident.

But I suspect most fans are going into this game thinking well, we'll probably win.

I'd imagine so.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this game because

it will give us a better idea of how good, if good at all, England are.

And I think if they play badly,

it would get a few people's spidey senses tingling, like ooh, this isn't going according to plan but uh i i would fully expect england to win this game probably quite comfortably but we we shall see we shall see anyway look that's enough england uh we'll do them after the serbia game and that'll do for part one uh part two we'll do the other internationals

HiPod fans of America, Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Although not like you.

A proper football journalist, man.

Exactly.

Too much technology draws us in and shuts the world out.

This paper tablet doesn't.

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And the battery performance is amazing.

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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 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.

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Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly, your chance to be a hero, dear listener.

This Thursday, we are playing the Troxy in London.

We may have mentioned it.

We have an upper tier to fill.

Thanks to everyone who's bought a ticket since my charming Instagram offensive or my

offensive Instagram

offensive,

whatever you want to call it.

Jonathan Wilson, Mickey Mandini, Johnny Lou, Barry Glendenning, secret cameos from John Bruin, Jordan Jarrett Bryan, Paul Watson, maybe Philippe,

if we can get the Wi-Fi working for him.

Tickets can be purchased by going to theguardian.com slash football weekly live.

Just imagine when we do fill that top tier, Barry.

It will be the greatest triumph.

It'll be a wonder of the world.

It will be.

It will be.

And look,

I guarantee it will be better than England Andorra.

And if it isn't, so help us, dear God.

We're live streaming it around the world.

No excuse for any of you.

We do all of this just for you out of the kindness of our hearts.

So just get a ticket.

Thanks.

Theguardian.com/slash weekly live.

So then, the Republic of Ireland, Barry, an exciting game.

Limbs at the Aviva when Adam Eda equalised an injury time against Hungary.

Yeah, this was a bit of a crazy game.

I think if you'd offered me a draw before it started, I'd have happily taken it because I thought Ireland would lose.

If you'd offered me a draw when they were 2-0 down, I would have bitten your arm off at the shoulder because it seemed so implausible.

So desperately bad were Ireland in the opening 15, 20 minutes.

And then by the end of it, after getting a draw, I was kind of disappointed Ireland didn't win because I think on the balance of play, they probably should have.

Now, we can't ignore the opening 20 minutes because going in the build-up to the game, Heimer Halbelson had stressed and his players in their press conferences had stressed the importance of avoiding sloppy errors, and there were sloppy errors that led to Hungary's two goals.

And annoyingly, it was sloppy errors from experienced players, Nathan Collins and

Doherty.

I keep going to call him Ken Doherty.

That's the snooker player.

Matt Doherty.

Sloppy errors from them that led to Hungary scoring the two goals.

Hungary could have gone 3-0 up,

apart from a good Queveen Kelleher save.

Then, shortly after half-time, Evan Ferguson bundled one over the line

after Hungary failed to clear a Ryan Manning free kick.

Hungary lost a man to a daft red card, daft in that it was a silly foul, an act of petulance after he didn't get a free kick rather than he shouldn't have got the red card.

Once Hungary were down to 10 men, Ireland just threw the kitchen sink at them.

It reminded me very much of Graham Taylor's England or Jack Charlton's Ireland, just getting long balls, crosses in from the left and right.

I read somewhere that Ireland sent over 40 crosses into the Hungary box in the course of the game.

Eventually, Adam Eda scored in, I think it was the first or second minute of added time to

get a draw no one thought was possible.

And Ireland had had three or four good chances before that.

Yeah, Darrow Shea had a chance to win it right at the death, but headed all the time.

It's such a shame that didn't go in, didn't it?

Because that would have just been

because the you know the scene was so great where adam had scored but that would have been brilliant yeah and actually that scene

when isaac price scored for northern ireland in germany the northern ireland fans were just you just saw the that was such a moment and germany had lost to slovakia right now so you just thought for a second northern ireland can hang on to this for a while and they did for a while i i thought northern ireland played very well i have to say um yeah i agree even though they lost

And I'm not going to say Germany were there for the taking, you know, playing at home, but they'd gone into this game on the back of three defeats.

No one expected them to get beaten by Slovakia in their opening game.

Northern Ireland went into this game on the back of a good win against Luxembourg.

And when Northern Ireland equalised, I was sort of thinking, oh, hold on here.

This could be interesting.

But Germany were ultimately a bit too good for them.

But I did think they played well.

And Shea Charles in that Northern Ireland midfield, he is

a different class.

He's a really good player.

I know he used to play for City.

I'm not sure where he is right now.

Yeah, yeah, he plays for Saints.

He had an amazing loan at Sheffield Wednesday last season and has gone straight into the Southampton starting 11 and will be sold for 60 million quid within the next two years, I imagine.

All right.

And he's a 10 Ali, is that right?

No, more of a kind of six or eight.

He is one of those midfielders that genuinely doesn't have many obvious weaknesses.

He's strong in the tackle, gets around the pitch well, pretty good on the ball.

He's not a massive sort of goals and assists guy, but yeah, brilliant all-rounder.

Did played in the midfield too with Barry Bannon for most of last season and did the running of two men and a hell of a lot else as well.

Yeah, really, really good player.

Oh, well, Barry Bannon deserves having someone do his running for him.

You know, yeah, Wales won in Kazakhstan, one nil.

Kiefer Moore doing the business baz.

This was a good, I think, Wales got away with this one.

It's a long way to go.

It's a tricky assignment.

They did just about enough to take the three points, but I think they were a little bit lucky to escape with all three points.

Obviously, that's a big positive from the game.

Dylan Lawler came in instead of Joe Rodin.

He was very good.

Very impressive debut from him.

But Kazakhstan had this fella called Kenjaba,

who

came this close to scoring three really, really good goals, but didn't score any of them.

And then weirdly, he was taken off with about 20 minutes to go.

And I don't know if it was a fitness thing or not, but I thought I was a bit, why are you taking him off?

Because he looks a real goal threat.

Mujikov hit the bar with the last kick of the game.

So Wales, good win, but I'd say used up a fair bit of luck in that one.

I was on air at the time, and the game was on in the in the studio.

Every time I looked up, Kajakstan looked like they were going to score.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

But yeah, Wales, the result.

Can I say the results are the most important thing after what we've just said about England?

But I think probably away at Kazakhstan more so.

Yeah, probably.

I mean, full perspective, Belgium beat them 6-0 last night.

So, you know, Wales hosting Belgium in October, and it's a different game, of course, is a really big one.

To have a realistic chance of qualifying automatically, they need to win their three remaining games and hope the Belgians slip up more than once, I think.

So

otherwise they'll enter the playoffs in March, which I guess being in the group with Belgium is probably what you aim for.

And then Scotland, Barry, Fitbar.

They went to Denmark and drew 0-0.

Oh, you've got to take that, haven't you?

You've got to take that.

And it is undeniably a good result.

But there was an interesting discussion in the BBC studio afterwards over whether or not Scotland could have been, it was a bit like that the discussion about Arsenal after they lost against Liverpool.

Now, obviously, Scotland didn't lose so it's a different scenario but could they have been more positive?

Because Denmark weren't very good and the Denmark manager Brian Reimer left out Christian Eriksson.

Didn't pick him for the squad because Eriksson doesn't have a club at the minute.

I think he's been training with some team in Sweden, Malmo maybe.

He's scored in each of Denmark's previous three games and he he's the kind I know he's played recently like he's pulling a caravan, but he is the kind of player Denmark were noticeably missing as they tried to break down Scotland.

This wasn't a particularly good game.

There's not many chances.

Lyndon Dykes, John McGinn, Ryan Christie all missed fairly presentable chances.

I would say tip of the hat to Angus Gunn, who we've been critical of in the past on this pod.

He played very well for Scotland.

And then there was the incident with Max Johnson, who just come on as a sub,

literally seconds previously.

Kaspar Schmeichel booted one long to a striker

Max Johnson the ball came down it hit his he was wearing a short sleeve and the ball hit his sleeve so it it's not a handball in as far as I know but he was booked for the handball and it was a denial of a clear goal scoring opportunity the ref was sent to the monitor everyone thought Johnston was going to get sent off but the ref stuck by his original decision and and left him on the pitch.

So Scotland dodged a bullet there.

But

yeah, a good win for Scotland, and only time will tell if they should have been maybe a little bit more gung-ho and gone for the three points against the Denmark team.

I thought were poor.

Yeah, you said a good win, but we know what you mean.

A good draw.

But I mean, as for

any referee just...

going to the monitor and sticking with what he decided.

I almost don't care what the decision is.

I just nice to see a referee just do that, isn't it?

um elsewhere michael morino scored a hat-trick for spain uh against dark horses turkey in a 6-0 win uh netherlands 1-3-2 in lithuania cristiano ronaldo scored twice as portugal beat armenia 5-0 he's now scored 58 000 goals for portugal um let's talk about daniel levy left his role as the chairman of tottenham uh eased aside after almost 25 years says david hytner writing in the paper in charge leaving a legacy that is best described as mix the lewis family who own the club have put put a new leadership team in place with Peter Charrington, who was brought onto the board in March, stepping into a newly created non-executive chair.

Some news out right now is the board of Spurs say it's say its owner has unequivocally rejected two expressions of interest in the North London Club.

It's not for sale.

The board of the club and Enoch confirmed that Spurs is not for sale.

Enoch has no intention to accept any such offer to acquire interest in the club.

I think a lot of people thought this might preempt to take over.

Enoch's got an 87% stake in in Spurs.

The question, Dan, is Daniel Levy, good, not good?

The cynic in me thought that when he did that Gary Neville podcast, he must have known this was coming, but it sounds like he didn't know it was coming at all and is very upset by this.

I think because I'm not a Tottenham fan, I can look at it and say, I think he did quite a good job if you look at all the off-the-pitch stuff.

I know football is played on the pitch and they've not been successful in terms of trophies and probably other than the Pochitino years, they've not really been where they'd like to be as a club.

I think the fan base would say that.

But I think, in an age where we spend a lot of time talking about PSR, SCR, football, finance, I think you can't just completely overlook what he's done to Tottenham with the off-the-pitch stuff in terms of the infrastructure.

They've got no debt to speak of whatsoever.

They're always heavily in-profit Tottenham hotspur.

So I get that it's almost come at a cost and an expense for Spurs fans, and they'll probably be largely pleased to see him go.

But I think he has done a good job because Tottenham seemed quite unique in the way that they are off the pitch compared to everyone else.

And, you know, I look at my team struggling off the pitch at the moment, and other teams that have had struggles.

Tottenham are nowhere near that, and they've got some of the best facilities in the world.

I think they're primed for a takeover.

I was surprised to see that ruled out when Levy departed as well.

The thing is, Ali, there's a sort of culture war that

if you are a Tottenham fan and you dare to suggest he did anything good you are dismissed instantly as not a real Tottenham fan and I guess I speak as someone who doesn't go week in week out for whom they are my second club which is another conversation which annoys a lot of people but I think that makes some good points about the quite often and when we talk about the EFL we talk about clubs that you know have terrible owners that go out of business and okay Tottenham are of a size you sort of think maybe that could never happen but

Being sensibly run is not a disaster, right?

There are disasters in football, and that is Sheffield Wednesday or Morecambe or Berry or whatever.

This is a different kind of thing where you go.

I think what Mark Langdon, who is a sensible Tottenham fan, but match going, would say, look, they just needed to spend a bit more in wages in the last six, seven years, build on what Pochitino did, and perhaps his legacy would be even better, or actually would be seen as positive.

Well, this is it: is that

the stuff about not spending a larger portion of your revenue on wages is only now really considered unambitious or

the wrong approach because of the out-of-control spending of every club that they're trying to compete with.

So that's that I find it very difficult to criticise not just spending more money because it's an unbelievably expensive game.

But clearly, that is the obvious thing that has held Spurs back not winning more trophies, which is the ultimate goal.

Because when it comes to league finishes, they've had some down seasons.

Obviously, last season,

the extreme example of that.

But they have finished in the top six in 15 of the last 20 seasons.

And Levy was obviously at the club for a bit longer than 20 seasons, but if you chop it up as 20 completed seasons, 15 out of 20, for Spurs to be in the top six as a base level has to be seen as a consistent level of kind of strong league finishes.

They had that little dart under Pochatino where they got closer than before or since to actually winning it and built a magnificent team in that time, got to a Champions League final and lost, won the Europa League finally.

It's yeah, it's it's just tough for fans not to have more to to celebrate while being quite close a lot of the time and seeing basically the other teams that are considered part of the big six winning things much more regularly.

And ultimately that has fallen at the door of Levy because he's been the constant, right?

Like, the managers come and go, he's made some good appointments and some bad ones, the players come and go, and they've had some fantastic players and a lot of bad ones relative to their level.

Levy's been the constant, and so you know, he's kind of the bellwether, and now he's gone.

It'll be really interesting, you know, that be careful what you wish for expression gets used a lot in football.

We won't be able to judge straight away, but maybe in five years' time you come back to it, and there'll be an interesting discussion to be had.

Yeah, I mean,

I'm buoyed by Spurs saying they're not for sale, although, Barry, you know, things can obviously change because I had heard rumors about nation states getting involved and then having to, you know, go, oh, God, this now, now, now my morals are tested, right?

Because, you know, now it's on me, and it could happen, right?

And you, you know, success is not the be-all and end-all for me as a football fan.

Absolutely not.

I'm like, I guess the question is, you know, how many things would Tottenham have had to have won?

Like, a couple of FA Cups?

Like, winning the league league is really hard.

Like to win the league when you're, you know, that is a difficult thing to do.

Tottenham, when did they last do it?

61?

70?

Did they do it?

71?

I can't remember.

But call yourself a proper fan, etc.

But like it's hard.

And so I wonder what would he have needed to have done the last 25 years to

sort of be frog marched, not frog marched off, or to be sent with a beautiful Swiss carriage clock with Harry Kane's face on it.

It's difficult to know.

Tottenham are unquestionably the best run, or under Levy, were unquestionably the best run club in English football.

If your idea of running a football club means what actually happens on the pitch is the least of your concerns.

So he's built this wonderful stadium, he's built the wonderful training ground.

And then the Lewis family, who were the majority shareholders, got in this team of American management consultants to canvass staff.

So they've obviously arrived at the conclusion that Levy has been holding the team back.

And I don't think any of us can disagree with that.

But they've made a lot of semi-finals.

They got to, you know, if they'd won the Champions League final, would this still have happened?

Probably.

And I'm interested to see where they go now, but or in which direction.

But I find the timing of this a bit odd.

Why do it just after the transfer windows closed when you've very publicly failed in your efforts to get Ebericies and Morgan Gibbs White,

if Levy had been

shown the door just after they won in the Europa League final, then they'd have had all summer with his replacements, and maybe they would have got Morgan Gibbs White or Ebericies

because

his replacement would be prepared to shell out the extra money required.

But

I personally think he can leave Spurs with his head held high, safe in the knowledge that he's done a good job.

But I know Spurs fans don't share that.

And I don't think we can overestimate.

Like, we all harumphed over the European Super League and said, oh, this is terrible.

This is terrible.

But if that had gone ahead, he got Spurs into that.

How?

Like, how?

For that alone.

He deserves all the plaudits.

Because they had no business being in a European Super League.

No, no, right at all.

It'll be absolutely fascinating to see what happens.

And I suspect that conversation, which I think was quite reasonable, will have a lot of Tottenham fans yelling that we weren't.

They can yell all they want.

Our conversation is going to change anyway.

No, I guess what is galling is, you know, the amount of success that Arsenal and Chelsea, you know, have had in that pit in the levy years must have made it

even more difficult.

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

we'll begin with the EFL.

Hi, Pod fans of America.

Max here.

Barry's here, too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Ali in league one then, Billy Sharp.

He'll be 40 in February.

It was great.

I think some they beat Bradford and some Bradford fan tweeted a picture of Billy Sharp with a Zimmer frame going, he won't score today.

He's got one of these.

And he, you know, very much enjoyed, quote, tweeting that going, well, I did actually score.

One of the stupidest things a football fan has ever done on social media, and that's a pretty high bar.

And the bar is high, right?

Yeah.

Because Sharp is and has

more consistently than anyone else in English football, certainly in the EFL, someone who absolutely loves having that sort of interactions with fans and genuinely does seem to lift his performance level as a result of things like that.

He is, you know, a Yorkshireman and proud from Sheffield and has scored a lot of goals for Sheffield United, but also for Donnie.

And there are loads of Yorkshire derbies in League One this season, so we should expect him to do the same against Rotherham, against Barnsley as well, because he has scored in nine straight league games against Bradford City.

And I would actually maybe messy Pete Messi at Barca or Ronaldo at Real Madrid.

I'd be pretty surprised if that's happened very often elsewhere.

Nine straight games where you've scored against the same thing.

I can categorically say that Leo Messi has not scored in nine consecutive games against Bradford.

Not against Bradford, but potentially against Osasuna.

Osasuna.

But yeah, I mean, he's amazing, really.

And, you know, Donny

have

tried, I think, to sign other strikers and are trying to be in a position where they aren't relying on a 39-year-old.

I think he's the oldest outfield player in the EFL.

We did have a 44-year-old goalkeeper playing in League Two this weekend.

But he keeps doing it, and it was a really, really lovely finish.

That was a big game between two teams that have come up from League Two and been brilliant to start the season.

Donnie are now joint top of League One.

Bradford were, I think, third or fourth before the weekend.

So both going really well.

And for Donny and Grant McCann,

the classic sort of promotion momentum is carrying through this first month or two really nicely.

They've won five in a row in all competitions.

And they lost a lot of their defenders in the summer.

They replaced them very early in the window.

That looks like a really smart move.

They look solid at the back, and they play a really exciting, quick attacking style, which is working very well for them.

So, yeah, Doncaster, absolutely one of the most impressive teams so far in this early EFL season.

Cardiff top of the league.

They didn't play, but worth a mention, Ali, for how they're getting on.

Yeah, yeah, because Cardiff are one of those teams that came down from the championship after kind of circling the drain a little bit for the last few years.

And teams don't always find it that easy to go, you know, straight back to dominating League One and being challengers.

They were the one of the three that came down that people thought, Mah, they might struggle to kind of right the ship.

And then they hired Brian Barry Murphy.

It's not his first senior head coach role because he managed Rochdale for a couple of years,

sort of COVID era.

And then, having been relegated with Rochdale playing a high-possession game, got hired by Man City to coach their kids or their under-21s to play a high-possession game and learned at the altar of Guardiola and Maresca there.

He's got the Cardiff job, and it could not have gone any better in that the results have been incredible.

They barely signed any players, and Barry Murphy has managed to get four or five academy products, including Dylan Lawler, who you mentioned, who sparkled for Wales on international duty, straight into the first team, all looking great at League One level, despite very little prior experience, and also getting a bit more out of you know, well-paid, expensive, sort of championship-level players like Chris Willock, who'd massively flattered to the sieve in a Cardiff shirt, and now is kind of turning things around and coming up with some big, uh, some big goals.

So, it basically couldn't have gone any better.

And Barry Murphy, given that people don't really rate the owners of Cardiff, they don't particularly rate the kind of those who make the decisions, it's all being placed at Barry Murphy's murphy's door and um yeah i i think i'm right in saying barry that he's the son of a uh a very well-known uh irish sportsman yeah his father he's from cork and his father jimmy barry murphy is a gaa legend uh brilliant hurler i think he played gaelic football as well for cork so a jewel star which would be quite unusual but uh i remember him foremost as a hurler and he was top drawer i remember interviewing uh this barry murphy and I think when he had the Rochdale job, he speaks incredibly well.

Like he's a really interesting guy.

I thought you were going to say he speaks incredibly quickly, which he also

does speak incredibly quickly, yes, but he does.

But when he talks, it's sort of sense as well.

It's very, very quick sense.

So I'm pleased for him.

And how does Phil going well under Lee Grant?

Yeah, yeah, they are another, well, not as discussed, Barry Murphy, not a first-time manager, but kind of feels new and a new version of him.

Lee Grant is someone who, you know, people will remember being a goalkeeper, particularly at championship level for a long time, had that stint as Manchester United's third choice.

And I think, you know, people sort of laugh at the old dudes who are never going to play becoming third choice and being good for the dressing room and good for training young keepers and whatnot.

But for Grant, I think it's very clear that he used that time to learn as much as he possibly could from elite coaches, including Kieran McKenna, who is now the Ipswich manager and for whom Grant's been working for the last few years.

And,

you know, I'd heard murmurs that he was a very, very smart guy that was likely to be a very, very smart manager once he decided to take that leap and getting the Huddersfield job.

Again, they've been a team that's underperformed for two, three, four seasons.

So although they're a big name at the level and they've got a big budget, as seen by their summer recruitment, you know, there's a challenge there.

And he seems to have started brilliantly as well.

The team's playing really nice football.

Grant's handling himself very, very nicely.

Classic sort of modern manager mold.

doesn't give any fireworks in press conferences, does the old sort of never too high, never too low type stuff, which is very popular and a bit boring, to be honest, in the current crop of managers.

But the team is looking excellent, and he deserves a lot of credit for that, so they're going very, very well.

I should mention Connor Harrahan,

another Irishman in his first managerial role at Barnsley.

They're playing really, really well, and again, sort of outperforming preseason expectations and doing so in a really exciting attacking style.

So, yeah, some interesting young managers in League One for sure.

That's what I was going to ask because I know you know Connor and I know him pretty well as well.

The way he's got into management, like he's just retired early pretty much and thrown everything he could into coaching has now become a manager probably sooner than he thought he would at a club where he's obviously a legend at.

But in League One, obviously the teams that are doing well, they all kind of have that rookie first-time manager or a manager with not a lot of experience.

But why do you think that that is that the League One teams are doing that and why they're doing so well well i'm i'm not sure yet if there's a if there is a correlation between that i mean the the managerial pool has been getting younger and younger and younger in the efl um for pretty consistently over the last few years so it it seems to be that older types more experienced types uh are really not in vogue and you know we should point out that graham alexander is doing an amazing job at bradford he's pretty long in the tooth uh grant mccann wouldn't be considered as an old manager, but has certainly been around the block and has a lot of promotions and a few less successful jobs on his CV.

So I think it's probably just a case that the pool of managers skews pretty young.

And clubs, and I haven't quite worked out why clubs are much keener and happier to give someone untried, untested, their first job and get what I guess what they perceive to be the upside, which is you could feasibly hire someone that is the next Kieran McKenna, the next Chris Davies.

I think as I talk, I realize that's probably the answer, Dan.

Is that the last two standout managers in League One who've got a lot of points were first-time managers, Kieran McKenna, Chris Davis?

And I think maybe it's just a trend type thing where that's kind of in vogue at the moment.

Peter Rabotton, just one point from seven.

Hooray!

And

Paul Bell, just a point ahead of them.

League two, tell us about this 44-year-old keeper then, Ellie.

Yeah, Joe Murphy is the

sort of Tranmere veteran keeper.

He's not meant to play at any point, really, but unsurprisingly, he does have to sometimes because of injury or suspension.

He first played for Tranmere in 1998, and he's still playing for Tranmere in 2025, which I absolutely love.

He had a pretty tough time coming in on the weekend.

They played against Salford, and Salford had 27 shots in their 3-1 win.

So Murphy was

a busy man.

He'll be sore.

He'll be sore yesterday morning.

Yes, 21st of August 1981, Green Door by Shaken Stevens was number one when he was born.

So the top of League Two then, you've got Gillingham, Swindon, and Walsall all level on points.

Grimsby just behind them, who a lot of people have seen beat Manchester United.

Bromley, Crewe and Chesterfield making up the playoff spots.

Is that sort of alley?

Is that totally unexpected?

Because everyone says League Two is the most unpredictable division.

How does that look to you?

Really exciting.

It's been a really strong start.

I mean, seven games in.

There's two points between the top eight clubs.

So, yeah, lots of strong starters and all sort of different shapes and sizes and styles.

You've got Gareth Ainsworth Chillingham at the top, and he's getting sort of full buy-in.

And when he had that with Wickham, obviously, he took them all the way to the championship.

They got a very fortunate point at Bromley on Saturday, a penalty right at the end of the game, where the goalkeeper was basically penalised for being kneaded in the face,

spent about five minutes on the ground going through concussion protocol and then had to save the penalty with a massive egg on his forehead because he'd been kneaded in the face and the referee had decided that was that was his fault.

So a bit fortunate to still be unbeaten, Gilles, but great start.

And Ainsworth is such a character, still, as is Ian Holloway, who's Swindon Townside are

joint top with them, playing really good attacking football.

The impact that he's had since joining that club has been absolutely amazing, to be honest, and probably shows that you can get the benefit from hiring someone who really does

know the game and has been in it for 30, 40 years because

he's adding sort of the character and personality that he's always had,

old school values, all that sort of stuff, and he's really got a firm grip on things.

And then just a word for Wolseall and Grimsby.

Wolseall had that horrendous enter last season where they were top of the league by miles, dropped off all the way to the playoffs, and then lost in the the playoff final.

They didn't sack Matt Sadler when many clubs would have, and that looks justified because not only have they won five of seven, but I think six of their games have been against other teams in the top ten already, so they've had a really tough picture this.

And then Grimsby, it wasn't just a one-off random cup set beating Manchester United.

That's the you know, it was the latest in the story of them under Dave Artel just doing an absolutely fabulous job and beating MK, absolutely smashing MK in the first half, who were heavy preseason favourites in Milton Keynes on Saturday and winning 3-2,

just shows basically what a brilliant side they are and absolutely an automatic promotion contender.

Yeah, I'm pleased to see Holloway doing well at Swindon because I think his appointment was not greeted with a huge amount of enthusiasm.

It seemed that he got the job just because he was knocking around and happened to live nearby.

And

some people, he rubs some people up the wrong way.

I'm a big fan of his.

I like him.

So I'm glad he's doing well.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not fair on, you know, if that's the top three, Matt Sadler's got to pull out something if he's up with Ainsworth and Ian Holloway and, you know, the personality stakes.

Two sons gave their dads wins, including sadly Michael Mellon, giving Mickey Mellon a win for Oldham, their first win in the season at Cambridge.

I watched the second half of this game and it was incredibly bad.

It was a, you know, it was just, we were bad.

They were wondered up.

They didn't do anything.

We didn't do anything.

anything.

It was one of those games where, if you were there, you'd stand there going, Why do I actually do this?

Yes, yeah.

So let's focus on the

wonderful performances of two sons, Nepotism Alive and Well.

Yeah, Michael Mellon, the young striker, has been excellent at this level before when he was still a teenager at Morecambe.

Hasn't had a great time with Dundee, Bradford, Stockport, and his parent club Burnley, and is now with his dad, who probably, well, does know know him better than anyone I'm pretty confident of that and scored a nice goal and would expect that to be aside from anything a very very good signing for them because he's a really really good player and a good young player so

that's very nice and then Charlie Wellens is one where if I'm honest this one seemed a bit more

you're only signing him because he's your son it and and that looks really wrong and harsh now because wellens he is a former Manchester United youth team player so he's you know he's no fool he's he's had two years at Reading where he just hasn't really been in the first-team picture at all.

So, in that sense, it was a surprise that another, you know, another League One club were probably unlikely to sign him.

But Wellands obviously thinks he's a pretty good player, and in midweek, he scored a 25-yard free kick into the top corner in the EFL trophy and then came off the bench to win the game at Port Vale with a very calm finish into the corner.

So,

yeah, just a really fun wrinkle of the weekend, those two scoring big winners for their dads.

And, yeah, the sort of stuff that we, you know, pops up all the time in the EFL and we enjoy covering.

In Ryan Loft news, Crawley did win on his first appearance for Crawley, not Bromley, away at Harrogate.

But he got two yellow cards in a substitute appearance and will be suspended for the next game.

We'll keep you posted in the WSL, Chelsea beat Man City on the opening night on Friday night.

Arsenal beat London City Linus is 4-1.

Everton won the Merseyside Derby 4-1 as well.

Full debrief, of course, on the Women's Football Weekly tomorrow, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Fiona says, says, are you team Ramos or Ryanair?

Sergio Ramos has released a song called Cibeles, named after the statue where Real Madrid celebrate their trophies.

Ostensibly, Barry, it's about him being sad about leaving Real Madrid and going to PSG.

Imagine if he knew that you hadn't even realized he could do a follow-up song.

And some people didn't even know.

It's a love song, says Sergio Ramos.

What relationship doesn't involve pain and suffering?

When I went to Paris, I wrote 60% of the song because I felt that way.

It hurts.

Nobody likes leaving the biggest club in the world.

Songs are about moments.

It's coming out four years after I started composing it, but there's no relationship with that pain and suffering that's reflected here.

It's a love song.

Everything has a beginning and an end.

When you leave Madrid, it hurts.

You become part of the past.

Have you listened, Barry?

I did, yes.

Again, not really for me.

I do find it interesting.

I think Paul McCartney was knocked out.

Hey, Jude, or something in about three minutes.

Elton John, famous for knocking out you know hit singles in in five minutes flat and it took Sergio like he's since left PSG and gone to Mexico

and and it's taken him all that time to write this song so

he's nothing if not diligent

felt quite felt quite a lot of auto tuning yeah

I don't see it's the Ryanair aspect I can't really why are Ryanair getting involved what's their oh yeah why do they why do they need to get involved specs spec savers get involved in quite a lot on social media nowadays, but it does their stuff does seem to be relevant to being able to see.

Whereas I'm not sure why Ryanair going for Sergio Ramos is a thing.

Yeah, it's not like they don't pump out songs on their aeroplanes anyway.

So like they say, tweeted, you know, can we not play this, please?

So, you know, when the last one was...

Was it Ryanair or I just got that wrong?

Was it Jet 2?

No, it was Ryanair.

It was Ryanair.

Yeah, because Jet2 do play have that song, don't they?

Do they?

They play Sergio Ramos.

They play a very annoying song that everyone seems to be into at the moment.

Yeah, well, if you're aware of that.

O'Leary will be looking for royalties in the heat, that's for sure.

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks, everybody.

Thanks, Dan.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ali.

Thank you.

Cheers, Barry.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.