Arsenal’s perfect start and so many Champions League goals – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. So many goals.
43 in one night in the Champions League. Is that good? Goals are good, right? Or is that too many?

Some of the games are pretty tight for a while, but some real floodgates energy across Europe once the first went in.

See Arsenal, the better side against Athleti, could have been behind when another wicked Declan Rice free kick begged to be headed home and Gabrielle obliged.

After that, good for Jokarez to score two terrible but confidence-building goals. Long throws might be back, but no one's hurling it as far as Nick Pope to set up Harvey Barnes.

A good win for Newcastle over Jose Spenfica, while Man City win comfortably at Villarreal.

Then PSG score seven, bracket seven, Barca six, bracket six, perhaps PSV, bracket six, bracket six, close brackets, close brackets. Hammering Napoli is the only vaguely surprising result of the night.

And then for Varinsa and Dortmund, I've ranked all the goals like a top 40 countdown. It's something to do.

Kyra and Paphos let us down with a goalless draw, but how there were no goals in that game, nobody knows. Also, how bad are West Ham? Comfortably beaten by Brentford.
Dice is confirmed at Forest.

Roll finally rolls into Rangers. All that plus your questions.
And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning. Hello.
Hello, Max. Welcome, Archie Win Tut.
Hello, Max. And from The Racing Post, Mark Langdon.
Hello. Hi, Max.

So up to Joe saying the 43 goals scored across the nine UEFA Champions League games last night was the second highest average, 4.8, on a single day in the competition, brackets, minimum of four games, after this exact day nine years ago, when there were 40 goals in eight games on the 21st of October, 2014.

Spooky, they say. I have to take my hat off to you, Max.
There was 43 goals last night. Even the score of the straw was good.
And you've managed to make it sound boring.

Thank you. Well, it's not me.
I'm just, I'm really the messenger here, Barry. If anything, I thought my intro was quite entertaining.
But, you know. Oh, no, the intro was great.
That stat was dire.

Mark, is that too many? Should we just revel in the fact there were so many? I think had

PSV not funked Napoli, then I think we could have said it was too many because a lot of the favourites

won convincingly and

we'd have had Barry saying that none of it matters and

there's this

massive difference in quality and you do get that quite often in the Champions League but I think actually you know with the Italian champions getting beat and stuffed the way that they did in Hindoven that just made it that we we're not only just talking about maybe the golfing quality and can just talk about the quality of which there was a lot on the show.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it. I think it's going to be very difficult for us to remember all of the goals.
I'm glad you've ranked them from 40 down because I can only remember about 10 of them.

It was a chaotic night. The thing is, there were some goals of extraordinary quality as well among those 43,

and then you'd red cards, penalties, shocking misses. It was a

slapstick night. I didn't see the TNT goals show, but it must have been quite the event.
I hope everyone involved had a nice drink afterwards.

Imagine being the guy responsible for the nine-goal one, Barry.

Yeah, well, we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, they must need just a real cool down after that.
You know, after that goal show, they're all doing the sprints, aren't they? The shuttles up and down.

Let's begin at the Emirates. Then Arsenal for Athleti-nil.
And before the game, Mark, you said in the WhatsApp group, there's no need to watch Arsenal's 1-0 win over Athletic.

Gabrielle scores the winner from a rice corner. It wasn't a corner.
It was a free kick. How sad were you that they went and scored three more?

Yeah, it did ruin the prediction slightly, but it was a devastating 20 minutes, really, from Arsenal. They kept going forward.
And I've, you know, there have been times maybe earlier on when

they have been criticised for not doing that. And

it is such a weapon that they've got with the set pieces. I was trying to work out just why they are so much better than everyone else.
And

Rice's quality of delivery is just exceptional. I can't believe that they practice any more than other teams.

It is just, I think, down to Rice's ability to deliver exactly what they need sort of on such a frequent basis. The two centre-backs attack every ball so well.
And Gabrielle, a big threat from them.

I do feel like they play on the edge of the laws in terms of the blocking and holding, but they seem to stay just on the right side of it.

And I also feel that opposition teams now are just scared every time that Arsenal get a set piece in one of those areas and just feel like the inevitable goal is coming. But I felt even before the

Gabrielle opener, they were comfortably the better team. They nearly made a mess of it with the Raya sort of clearance.
That was fun, wasn't it?

It was really fun, but thankfully for Raya, it went the wrong side of the post when when the quick free kick came in. But they were on top before that, deserved to win.

4-0 was maybe on the harsh side, but everything seemed to go just about spot on for them in that second half. I like how Raya is sort of apologising as the ball's travelling towards the guys.

Sorry, God, I don't know what's going to happen. Sorry, everybody.
And look, good for Yokarez, Barry. Arteta made the point that, you know, like the side are better with him in the team.

It's not just about scoring goals and centre-forwards don't just have to score goals, but it's good when they do. Well, that tends to be what managers say when centre-forwards aren't scoring goals.

And I think Joker has gone into this game without a goal in nine for club and country.

I think the goals he got were scrappy enough, but they're the kind of goals Arsenal weren't scoring before his arrival and the kind of goals Arsenal, I guess, needed. I think he's a good player.

He looks quite ungainly in... that lineup or maybe he just is ungainly.
I don't know. But he played well well last night.
The fans love him, so there's no issue there.

I was quite pleased for him, I have to say. I thought Martinelli was good as well.
His goal was taken brilliantly, and he helped set up Guy Okeris'

first, I think it was. Yeah, a really good performance from Arsenal.
They could have gone behind. Julian Alvarez banked one off the crossbar, and there was the Raya Rick, but they got away with those.

But a really commanding performance against a very good team. Two things.
One,

I saw the other day on Twitter,

which is causing my mind to turn to mush more and more. So I can't remember who said this, that Victor Jokarez looks like Kia Starma trying to play football.
And that has stuck in my head ever since.

But also just from the point of view where I'm like, but

this guy was like, it's amazing how much you get lionised before you come to the club.

And then as soon as you come to the club, it's like you're terrible, which is madness that the guy hasn't been given really any time.

And the other thing, Max, I assume that you enjoyed the fact that Miles Lewis Skelly set up Martinelli for

the Arsenal second. A rhyming goal.

A rhyming assistant goal scorer right up your street. I'll add a third thing while I'm at it, which is

what Mark was saying there about Arsenal being able to stay within the laws of the game, just on the right side of it.

These are the very things you used to say about Atletico Madrid, albeit you might say that actually they weren't on the right side of it, but were managing to get away with it.

And I think that it's a real statement when Arsenal are making a Diego Simeone side submit to them

with goals which felt quite simple, and you wouldn't expect Atletico to be conceding them.

So for them to score, what was it, four in the space of about 13 minutes is also, I think, a real signal of Arsenal's intent. Yeah, and how good are Athletic?

You know, just for a bit of context, Mark, you know, they did hammer Rayal the other day. Is it a statement victory or not?

Well, I think it is still a statement victory because, you know, Atletico went to Anfield a few weeks ago, nearly got a draw.

I felt that they were outplayed for large parts of that game, but they were very close to getting a draw. And you don't want to downplay a 4-0 win over a Simeoni side.

But I would say that this Atletico team hasn't been performing that well this season and probably for much of last season as well.

They've had two outstanding results, one against Antrep Frankfurt in the Champions League when they won 5-1 and they beat Real Madrid 5-2.

But I think both of those teams are flawed defensively and they were home games. This was a way against a team that is definitely not flawed defensively.

And just on Yokarez, you used to have a go at strikers, didn't you, when you said that their second touch was a tackle?

But yokarez's first goal was a tackle so yeah it is proved that you know you can score like that but i i don't want to sort of take anything away from uh from arsenal because 4-0 is a fantastic result but be very surprised if atletico are kind of knocking around that sort of quarterfinal semi-final stage this this time around if you are interested uh yocares' first is at number 41 in my countdown

you can have all the others uh gabrielle's header i put at number 23 uh martinelli's was good. Number nine was Martinelli's.
What was the fourth goal? Joker's other one. Oh, that's at 38.

If it's in the top 10, Max, you've got to do a certain you've got to elevate your voice a bit. Oh, of course.
Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm not doing the full Bruno Brooks countdown. This is just where they are.

I know you're not, but I'm just saying going forward because otherwise, how are we going to really know what's in your top 10? Right, I understand. Newcastle 3-Ben Fecon-0.

Lots of changes for Newcastle. Jacob Ramsey, Lewis Miley into the starting line.
Always surprising how big Lewis Miley is. I just presume he's still 15 and like four foot eight, but he isn't.

Points out the coverage. You have to be like fully fit to play an Eddie Howside because they press all game.
Ryan says, an hour on Nick Pope's big launch, please. How pleasurable was this, Barry?

Yeah, it was very good. He got the ball.
I was having a scan around to see what to do next. And then launched this monster.
70-yard throw into the Benfica half.

I think Silva, the defender, went to trap it, missed it, misjudged the bounce, and Harvey Barnes was away. Lovely finish in off the post from him.

I thought it had taken a deflection off the defender actually, but it didn't. It was just a really good finish.
That was

Newcastle's second, put the game beyond Benfica. And I thought it was a really good Newcastle performance.
I thought Anthony Gordon was excellent. Dan Byrne had a rough night of it.

He was good going forward, good in the set pieces, knocking down crosses and whatnot. But Luca Bacchio gave him a very random ragged.

But I mean, Dan Burren is playing as a makeshift left back at the moment. He's not the quickest, and Luca Bacchio really did a number on him.
But Newcastle were very impressive.

I'd like to go back in on Nick Pope because Nick Pope's big launch, to be honest, I think this should be the name of a workout video. Yeah.

Given the size of that guy, also the save he makes in the first half. I need to know his core routine.

How that ball does not get through from Luca Bacchio, and he's still standing there and holding his position let alone what happened for the hurl for the uh for the second goal where you're thinking there are discus throwers who are thinking you know what he's got something if he decides to go down the olympic route we might be screwed if nick pope's going for this how fun if how fun if nick pope threw it like a discus thrower and did like a few like just thing and then just span span span and then woof there it went yeah it was so good and the the third goal as well mark was lovely it had a voltamata back heel heel in it.

And I presume pretty soon all Newcastle goals will at some point have a Voltamata back heel in them. He is one of the most fun players in the Premier League.
Yeah,

Archie would have seen more of him than any of us. But certainly since he's come to the Premier League, Linkup play really enjoyed it.
I think his uniqueness as a footballer is

in a world where it just feels like

everything is so,

I don't know, just mechanical and you're trying to build what a perfect football would look like. Probably not a centre-forward like this, really.

I think he reminds me of Berbatov in the grace and the way that he links up play and that touch and ability to play as a nine, but then sort of drop off as well.

A lot of that strength comes from the pace on the wings as well, because that is where I think Newcastle are so dangerous. And link up play between

whichever of the wingers play, I think, will be key. And we've seen all of them make an impact in recent weeks.

I'm disappointing to to lose at brighton last week but this was much more uh like it and agree with barry on just the quality of anthony gordon and when you're thinking about that kind of england team and who plays left wing uh it feels like it's sort of gordon's to to lose at the moment and uh another good performance from him i only spoke to nick voltemado once whilst he was in germany and once was enough because in that he said the sentence i like to be the entertainer he wasn't wrong yeah yeah And he's, I mean, I guess you miss him, right?

He's just so much fun. And you're right.
It just, the thing is that you, I agree with the Berbatov comparison. There's a touch of Sherringham, but because he's so big, it's slightly ungay.

Like they've had to find some new shorts from him out of the bottom of the kit bag and it's all a bit like quite work.

You're looking at it going, this guy shouldn't be like, he shouldn't really be able to run. And yet he's absolutely brilliant.
So yeah, I'm a big fan. Man City 1, 200 Villarreal.

Terrible camera angle on this game. Villarreal had not lost at home since since March, and it's the first Champions League away win for City since October last year.

It was not a fascinating game, Barry. It was pretty simple.
They took a lead. Didn't really let Villarreal do anything until very late on.

And I wonder if the more interesting question is about whether Man City, you know,

have they clicked? Are they starting to click? We all wrote them off after a

very early, poor start, but now it's unbeaten in nine, seven wins out of those nine. I think Savinho was brilliant for a City last night.

Haaland got his goal, but again, missed several chances, was foiled on a number of occasions by

Lewis Jr., the Villarreal goalkeeper. It was City were 2-0 up and had the game won.
My only concern would be

they let Villarreal back in the game. They had quite a few good chances.
Nicola Pepe missed a few.

Juan Feuce, formerly Spurs, I think, is he?

He had a shot that fizzed narrowly wide. So, Pep would probably not happy with that, but otherwise, a pretty straightforward day.
The offers for City, but I did Savino.

He's never made a huge impression on me in his time at City so far, but I was really impressed with him last night.

Yeah, I was watching lots of highlights when it looked like he might be going to Spurs for absolute buckets of money and trying to, you know, convince myself from YouTube that he was, you know, the next Ronald Dinio.

But yeah, he had a very good game. Archie, just on Haaland's latest goal, Juan Foyth gave him a little push in his face just as he's about to make his run into the box.

And I'm thinking, don't anger him. That's the worst thing you could be doing.
And you see it when Haaland scores, he spins around and screams at Foyth on the floor. And

it just kind of gets you thinking, I mean, there is, of course, no right way. to mark Erling Haaland.

But I'm just wondering what the mind games that you would play, Max, with him were you to be in such a situation? What marking Haaland? I mean,

generally be quite disappointed.

It feels, it feels, if we're being honest, Archie, despite the fact that I'm still lacing up the Puma Kings, it feels a hypothetical question.

I think the answer, Max, is to point at your centre-back partner and pass him on. I mean, that's the thing.

Also, very disappointed to be played out of position and then to find out you're up against Haaland. That would be upsetting, wouldn't it?

On the subject of Villarreal on the Spanish sides, La Liga have announced that their game against Barcelona that was due to be played in Miami has been called off.

There were protests across the league at the weekend. Players refused to move for the first 15 seconds of matches.

Interestingly, the TV cameras focused away from that, so you didn't see the protests unless you were at the game. Xiabi Alonso said, we're against the Miami match.

We believe it distorts the competition. Barcelona coach Hansie Flick said his players are not happy.
He was not happy.

A statement from La Liga said in a context of growing global competitiveness, where leagues such as the Premier League or competitions such as the Champions League continue to increase their reach and ability to generate resources, initiatives such as this are essential to ensure the sustainability and growth of Spanish football.

Giving up this type of opportunity makes it difficult to generate new income, limits the ability of clubs to invest and compete and reduces the international projection of the entire national football ecosystem.

It's interesting that they have climbed down so quickly, Mark.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, fair play to West Ham, who joined in the not doing anything for 15 seconds and then carried on for another 90 minutes.

Yeah, I think I'm surprised that they have stood down. I think Real Madrid, the pressure and power that Real Madrid have got would have helped

in that way. I think had it been a Barcelona-Real Madrid game, I'm not sure how much La Liga would have backed down and cared.
But, you know,

Real Madrid were dead against it.

And Laporta, Barcelona president, has been made to look very foolish because it was only yesterday afternoon he was saying this game will happen and then sort of about six hours later it wasn't happening i think it's the right thing not to happen i am against that i do believe it distorts the competition when you've got sort of two teams just doing that i would much prefer and i'll say that and i'd rather it didn't happen but actually a whole round somewhere else i think is a fairer um sort of way of doing it because everybody gets the opportunity to make the money and you know you do get a game where it's all neutral venue I don't believe it should happen at all but you know what one of the sort of arguments against it was the distorting the competition I mean you'd need to have two wouldn't you might so you had a home and an away game right you'd have that and that's really hard to you could just have one lot of neutral and you you did a draw um and so there was a sort of fairness to it but again I don't I don't want that to be my stance don't give them ideas yeah exactly there was also a some reports in Spain that actually

that they were struggling to get the money to make this worthwhile and that there maybe wasn't the interest in it that initially that they believed. Yeah, I mean, I think it's wrong.
I am a hypocrite.

I've been to watch the NFL in sort of London previously, fully admit to that, but I don't believe it should happen in football. Do NFL fans kick off over their home games being moved?

Because they have far less or far fewer home games, don't they, in a season? There definitely was initially. I think there are now so many overseas matches.

Brazil, there's one at the Bernabello, and had them in Germany and London and Dublin. I think most have just kind of accepted.
It's now just part of

the weekend or the season, and it means they get a breakfast game in the US on TV. So, you know, that goes down well with TV audiences.

But, I mean, I think there are definitely some that would be against it. As you say, they don't get anywhere near as many home matches.

I was talking about this the other day with an LFL expert, and I can't remember who it was. It might have been Will Gavin at Talksport, who's saying they added another game into the calendar.

So you don't lose, because you don't get that many home games, so you don't lose a home game. There is just an they've found a way to create an extra fixture.

And we got a good text from a Spurs fan who said, I've been to almost every Spurs game, and I've seen more wins in the last year and a half for the Minnesota Vikings at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

than I have Tottenham. Anyway, that'll be for part one.
Part two will begin in Labour Labourcuzen.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. If you're interested, fourth was the Nick Pope throw to Harvey Barnes in the top 40 of all the goals of last night.

Wasn't even in my top 13. I only made the top 13.
Did you? All right. No, well, it was for the throw.
Labor Kusen 2, PSG 7.

John says, was this the worst time to nip to the concourse early for a halftime point? One all in the 41st minute, 4-1 at halftime.

Archie, you had the, I suppose, the fortune to cover this game, but you can't really, all you do is go, there's been a goal, right? It's, it's quite an easy one to cover in that way.

They came to me at 2-1,

and I was trying to make some point about, you know, well, PSG really showing their class.

And the thing is, because the speed at which the goals started to go in, then, all I could say when the ball went in was, and another one. And I was like, oh, I've gone full partridge.
Oh, no.

This is not good.

PSG,

I could have three stabs at starting this, and I'll still get it wrong. It was mad.
It was beautifully mad. The fact that in the first half alone, we had

five goals, two penalties. two red cards,

both stupid in their own way. Robert Andrish, the Leverkusen captain, getting sent off for the second time this season is a stunning achievement.

Sure, I've mentioned before that he has a missed time sly tackle tattooed on his calf. It bears mentioning again.
And maybe

someone should say, you know what, probably time to tone it down. I mean, his was a VAR checked elbow on Desiree Douay.
And actually, Leverkusen looked at their most dangerous when

they were down a man. But as soon as PSG got back level in terms of being down to 10 as well, then actually that was the time when Lever Cousin got absolutely monstered.

The fact that the first 15 minutes, Lever Cousin had like 11 men behind the ball, and I thought, this is quite cautious. And then by the end of the half, I was thinking, you know what?

This was probably quite a good approach, actually.

So yeah, Usman Dembele, triumphant return, seven games out injured. First time he's played since winning the Ballon d'Or, scoring three minutes after coming off the bench.
In your top 40 goals,

I would expect that the goal of the night by Alish Garcia of Leverkusen, one bit of solace, that's got to be in the top three at least. It's number three.

And it's a number three. It's a great goal.
It had a real, oh, sod it. I'll see what to do.
You know, I'll just, you know, nothing, it doesn't matter. I'll just absolutely whack it.

But yeah, it was, there were three standout goals, and I put it at three. I don't know where, Barry, you have it.
Well, there were three outstanding strikes in this game.

Kfarris Keelia's shot to make it 3-1 was a bit special. I think it went in off two posts.
Yeah, I suppose Sambar. Garcias, as Archie has mentioned, was probably the pick of them.

Well, it was the pick of them. And Vitinas to make it 7-2 was a good strike of a ball into the bottom corner as well.
And adding the red cards, missed penalty. What a game.

Yeah. I mean, actually, I have Douai's second at number eight in my thing, and Kavarak Shelley is only at number 15.
Perhaps I wasn't concentrating as much as I should have been.

I mean, I suppose I have a Labour Cousin question who's interesting. We talk about PSG a lot.
We don't talk about Labour Cousins that much.

And their sort of dissent from Alonso to Ten Hag to now, sort of

how are things? Descent

is only really correct after last night because despite the fact they shipped seven, they had been unbeaten in seven under Casper Huell. Yeah, no, that's true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Since he came in,

he's pitched himself as not being too shouty and somebody who has their own way of doing things. And look, he does have a lot of young players.
They made 17 new signings in the summer, which is a lot.

They had to have a big turnover, such was the exodus of players after Chavi Alonso left the club. They faced Bayern Munich away from home in 10 days or so.

That, I think, is going to be a really interesting test of how they analyze this psg game and go right what's the best approach but look they do have some absolutely stunning young young signings that they've made uh christian cafana 19 uh looks looks an excellent prospect claudio echeveri as well also a teenager who started last night uh was was very lively um but yeah uh as caspi huhlmann said uh following last night's result he said that there's certain naivety that they showed and they're going to need to mop that up.

Mark PSV, the saviours of football last night. Remarkable game.
First time Conte team has conceded six. He's got a poor record in the Champions League and clearly

not got any better after last night. I think the...

There was a moment sort of early in the second half when it was 2-1 when I felt like Napoli were getting back into it. And like, oh, you know, they'll score and then probably go on to win.

But they lost complete control of the game.

You don't expect that of a antonio conte team some of the goals were brilliant sabari's one and then i don't know where you've got the the dennis man double as well in there there were there was quite a few um outstanding finishes and so that kind of you know from conte's point of view you might look at that and think that some of them goals are just brilliant finishes but there was also some really um poor performances from napoli i will focus on on napoli rather than psv's brilliance because there's some questions now as to, we spoke a couple of weeks ago about De Bruyne and how good he'd been and he was setting up goals.

When it goes badly, there are people saying, well, can we afford to have De Bruyne in this team? Because the formation has changed slightly. You can't replay with two wingers and De Bruyne

and also a centre-forward. They did have a training match where they tried to play De Bruyne as a force nine, but then decided against that.

The one who did play up front, Luca, got sent off for dissent. He's like, he's rowing over

the award of a goal kick in 10th corner. Was he going your thick ref or something like that? I'm not sure.
I think it must have, yeah, it must have been a your thick.

Did you see after that when the referee pulled out the red card, he went, No, I was saying I was hit on the head. I was like, Yeah,

but they've got injuries, they've got injuries at the moment, Napoli. Labotka makes a big difference to them in midfield.

He's out, Hoyland, and also Lukaka are out, which is why Luca was playing in the first place. But they were destroyed in that sort of last 30 minutes by PSV.

And I did not know that they had that in them. And Peter Bosch probably would have been expecting to be.

He's been on the wrong end of some 6-2s and various other chaotic scores in his sort of managerial career.

So it would be quite sweet for him to get one over, you know, one of what's seen as the world's best coaches.

You didn't mention the goal of the night, I don't think, amidst all that, which was Drew Ash. Drew Ash, yeah, Drew Ash, sorry.
Oh, that was the last one, wasn't it?

Yeah, that's at number two in my countdown.

It was a brilliant move and a brilliant finish. And I have that at two, Barry.
Yeah, absolute rocket. It was glorious.

Is that two for you as well? Or did it... I'll be honest.
I got to the stage where I just started writing down goals. I don't have them in any particular order.
Fair enough.

Scott McTominay, obviously, I don't think we mentioned he got two in this game, two good headers.

But I did, like, I gave Copenhagen player one. It wasn't a particularly good goal, but he's only 17 and his team were being well beaten.

But it made him the third youngest goal scorer in Champions League history. Yeah, well,

when we get to Copenhagen, I'll look at my chart.

Barcelona six, Olympiakos one. Jim says it's been a bad couple of weeks for Maranakis, hasn't it, Mary?

Yeah, again, it's lots of great goals. Fermin Lopez scored a really good hat-trick.
Marcus Rashford's both of his goals were brilliantly taken. I mean, Olympiakos had a man sent off, and

it is Archie an absolute outrage, isn't it? And the fact that VAR can't intervene on a bullshit second yellow is a ridiculous law. You've said it.
You've said it.

I cannot

fathom how it's the sort of decision which makes you think: no, the player who's gone down like that, there needs to be an ability for retrospective action from the referee

to analyze how bad their fall is.

And yeah, Mark Casado, let's shame him. The Oscar goes to, because because that is outrageous.
I feel so sorry for Jesse,

the Olympiarcos player who gets sent off there. And I mean, look, it was 2-1 at the time.
Would Olympiarcos have gone on to do anything? Who knows? But still,

that's one moment in time that they're not getting back. And I enjoy shithousery, but there's a line.
And it goes the other way of it for me. I think it's just, it's cheating, isn't it?

So you're right. Where is the line from shithows we to cheating? And maybe it's who does it and your unconscious biases or whatever.
But I totally agree with you. It was bullshit.

That wasn't the only contentious decision in this game, though, because before that, Barcelona went 2-0 up.

Olympiako scored to make it 2-1, but their goal was ruled out and they were given a penalty instead, much to their bewilderment.

We've a lot to cover, so I'm not going to dig into the nitty-gritty of it, but it looks like it was actually the right decision. Okay, but they eventually scored the penalty, so it didn't matter.

But if they had missed that penalty, they've had a goal ruled out, been given a penalty, which they might have missed, but they didn't, they scored it.

And as far as I can tell, it was actually the right decision and a brilliant bit of varing. Okay, well done, VAR.
To Copenhagen, Copenhagen to Dortmund 4.

And it's from this game that we have number one: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Felix Mecha.

um that he dummies the ball it's a sort of drag back but he doesn't really touch it and then just absolutely hoys this thing into the roof of the net archie i loved it sometimes i just i i miss home because

someone will say a word that i've not heard anyone say in a long time and hoi in that context

is is precisely that i think it's just seeing the force with which the ball comes back off the net there is such a, aesthetically, the way that, God, I sound like such a nerd, the way that goal nets are done is so important to how good a goal can look.

Because if it's kind of tightly wound like that and the way that it bounces back, it is that little bit more satisfying. Well, it's a good point you make, but obviously it can be too tight.

See, that's the Dell, the old Dell, where the nets were too tight.

And you can have a glorious kind of ruffling sort of Mexico 86 USA 94 goal that they're not tight at all, and it just sort of gets lost somewhere in the netting, you know, sort of like a turtle caught in a net in the ocean, you know, that kind of which is for the record not a beautiful thing, but that's the image that I would that first came to mind.

But yeah, it's some here. How who is tell us for people who don't know who is this guy? And he's been about a while, and does he do that a lot?

So he's been doing it more, and he had a difficult start to

his time at Dortmund, some issues off the pitch regarding things that he'd posted

on his Instagram. He has shown with his footballing ability that he can go far, which wasn't always, I think, the case.

When you are the player who follows Jude Bellingham in that kind of position,

it's not going to be easy to mark yourself out as a great player. And I think slowly he's doing that more and more.

The thing for Dortmund is they were beaten 2-1 at the weekend at Bayern Munich. Nemecha missed a big chance in that actually with the game at 1-0.

So look, this team is moving surprisingly in the right direction under Nico Kovac. That wasn't to be taken for granted.

Joe Bellingham, or sorry, Mark Bellingham might not necessarily say that that is the case for Joe Bellingham right now, particularly because at the weekend, Joe Bellingham, it felt like an own goal that was scored.

Such was the way that Michael Elise slid in to block his clearance on the line.

But yeah, Felix Mecha, he's the player in the Dortmund midfield who has the ability to get the ball and drive with it and conjure a little bit of magic as we saw in Copenhagen last night.

Barry, was this the night when you found out Fabio Silva was playing for Brussia Dortmund? It was indeed, Max. Yes, yes, yes, me too.
Inter1 Fournels, Union Saint-Doulois.

It wasn't, I mean, it was one of those games where it was quite tight, Mark. And actually, USG had quite a lot of pressure pressure until Inter ran away with it.

Yeah, and they did run away with it in the end. I think, obviously, for USG, playing games not in the home stadium is a handicap for them.
And they've had two difficult home matches. And

it feels

unfair, might be the wrong word, because obviously if the stadium is not fit for European matches, you can't play there.

But it definitely doesn't help their calls that they're not able to play in their own stadium. Lost their manager as well recently to Monaco.

So they are finding it quite tough in their Invote Commons home matches. I mean, once Inter got in front through Dumfries, they really sort of kicked on and won the game well.

Lautaro Martinez was on target. Shalonolu and Esposito as well, who did miss.

They did miss an unbelievable chance. Yeah, so

a convincing win for Inter, who were won their winners at Roma at the weekend. They got Napoli this weekend.
There was a lot of, I suppose, murmurings in the summer that they're a poor club World Cup.

They were humiliated in the Champions League final. They lost their manager.
Just seem to be stabilising now. And that was an impressive win and performance.

Just going very quickly back to British Dortmund. There was an incredible stat I found from that game in that they only had seven shots in the entire match, Dortmund, and scored four goals.

I mean, usually a team would... you kind of score every nine or ten shots.
So for Dortmund to score four from seven is remarkable. Um, really, not something you see too often.

There was another good miss from Lautaro, where he was put clean through, and he basically just forgot how to be a footballer for a short amount of time and just sort of ran straight into the keeper and fell over.

I enjoyed that one tremendously. And then, Barry, we've done all 43 goals.
We go to Kyrap Paphos. How this ended in Nil-Nil, I have absolutely no idea.
This was a terrific game as Nil-Nil's goal.

It was quite outstanding. Paphos from Cyprus,

their striker, Horse Carrera, was sent off after three minutes, going in for a challenge for a high ball with a ferociously high boot, which he kicked Louis Matte in the face with.

Your reminder, of course, that David Louise plays for Paphos. He missed a couple of good chances.
Both keepers pulled off some sensational saves.

Paphos thought they'd gone ahead, 10-man Paphos, through a Dragomoir shot that came off the bar, off the keeper's back, and trickled over the line.

But there was an offside in the build-up, so that was ruled out. Then Kyrot Almaty almost won it with

Arad, I think his name was, a brilliant dribble upfield and curl shot, which came off the post, dribbled across the face of goal and somehow didn't go in.

So, nil-nil, if you were just looking at the scores, you think, oh, that was a real dud, but it was a very good game. Nine games tonight.
They're challenges to score more than this lot did last night.

And that'll do for part two. Part three,

we've alluded to already. We'll begin with West Ham's absolutely diabolical performance.
And look, a good one from Brentford too.

It's third down.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly, West Ham-Nil Brentford 2. And often you are meant to start with the winning side, at least for a bit, but you alluded to it already, Mark.

West Ham was bad in this game

it was um yeah it was kids for a quid um night and i still think they were shortchanged

it was um yeah it felt like the end of a managerial reign um you know the the players looked fed up the manager looked fed up if nuno if it had happened to nuno last week he'd be back in at borrowers wouldn't he anyway he wouldn't it was um incredible to think this is supposed to be the new managerial bounce because it's not there there are are problems off the pitch, and there was not a massive boycott, but there was a boycott by a section of supporters who are unhappy with the way the club is being run and the direction that it's heading.

But on the pitch, you know, it could and probably should have been four or five at half-time. And West Ham didn't get any better in the second half.
So many gaps just all over the pitch.

The defence seemed to be about 30 yards away from the midfield.

And there was one stage in the second half when Jordan Henson got one of those really sort of dodgy passes from the goalkeeper, which is straight into you.

And he was just able to just flick it over, whichever West Ham player was just lumbering around.

And there was another bit, I don't know if you remember it, Max, but three players went to take a throw in when they were supposedly chasing the game the last 10 minutes.

Somebody picked it up, they passed it, someone else. It was like they were running down the clock.

No idea how

you rate the fans so much, that isn't it.

It was an abysmal performance.

I thought Nuno picked the wrong team as well. It was very odd to play sort of fullbacks on the opposite side

to counteract what Brentford were doing.

Just a really odd and terrible performance. And very quick turnaround because they've got leads on Friday.
And if they don't wake up, then West Ham

will... be relegated on that type of show.

I saw a stat from Opta which says West West Ham has spent more time winning against Nuno Espirito Santo, 16 minutes, 21 seconds versus Forrest in August, than they have in three games with him as manager in the Fremen League this season.

I saw Carrick, did you see Jeremy Carrigan Barry talking about how slow they are? I mean, there does have to be a slowest team, right?

Like statistically, like there's like a fittest team and whatever. But that is something that I've heard before about the, you know, there are no, somebody yelled at me.

Was it Nadum saying when I said there are no legs in this team? But it really feels like there's no legs in this team apart from Bowen.

No, it's like they're all running in triacle, bereft of ID is incredibly slow. Interesting, I heard Adrian Durham on, I think it was Adrian on Talksport say, Callum Wilson is at West Ham.

He hasn't come off the bench in any of their last three games. And Durham seemed to suggest that that might be because he's on a pay-per-play contract.

So if he comes off the bench, it's going to cost them money. If that's the case, that is diabolical.
It's odd. It's odd to have him.
Yeah, it's odd to make that deal.

Yeah, I mean, it didn't look like a great move anyway, but if you're going to bring him in, you might as well, and you're chasing a game, you might as well chuck him on. But a lot of problems there.

Brentford had, I think, 22 shots. The scoreline of 2-0 massively flatters West Ham.
I mean, Brentford pulverized them.

And I'm delighted to see Keith Andrews doing pretty well with Brentford. Yeah.
And do you have any thoughts on Brentford, Mark? Because a lot of us sort of decided, well, they would struggle.

They lost a lot of players. They lost their manager.
But, you know, they're going along okay.

Yeah, I was more worried about the manager than the players because I feel like Brentford, you know, they know where they are.

I think and they had a long time to prepare for the departures of those players. And Thiago was coming back.

And I think Shada is somebody that's really sort of grown into becoming a Premier League threat on the other side, just like

they had with Mbuemo on the right. Yamaluk in midfield, very good player.
So I was never, it was more about the manager. I wasn't sure that Keith Andrews was up to it at all.
I think he

so far

has done a very good job. Coyote on the right back,

he's a threat down there. And he's also got the long throw.

And yeah, they don't look like they'll be in any kind of relegation trouble, which I think is where I sort of had them just about.

I probably thought they'd finish about 17th and just have enough to survive. But they look

better than that and then provide a tricky test for Liverpool at the weekend.

Producer Joel writing: the TV coverage of a West Ham game increasingly just focuses on the number of fans leaving the stadium and not the actual match.

Let's just stick a live stream of the turnstiles on the red button. And I mean, Monday was a really mankey night in London.
It was wet and cold and horrible. And

if you're a West Ham fan, trudging out to that grim grim old dome to watch that, it's oh God. Is there any other way to get to the Olympic Stadium than to trudge?

It's a long old walk and the traffic in East London and sort of Essex was horrendous due to a vehicle fire on Monday as well. So like

you would have had to work hard to get to the game and then to turn up and watch that.

Yeah, is well it's funny if you don't support West Ham, I suppose. Sure.
I mean I spoke to Stan Delaney on the radio broadcaster and west ham fan about

you know the protest and all the issues there are that the fans have with the current ownership and there is a really there is a really long list of quite serious things and it all does go back to what they were promised when they left upon park and how none of them wanted to leave upon park really but they said look we will make this a real football stadium and it will make so much money and the money it makes will translate into a really good football team and what they have is a stadium that is really not good to watch football in, and certainly not a good football team on that pitch that they're watching the game from.

And so, I, you know, they do have some legitimate concerns, but I think there are fan groups that say we want to build a new stadium, and you sort of think, well, this is you know, the amount of money that costs.

You can understand why they did take the London stadium, why not, right? Getting a stadium for next to nothing, but it just hasn't worked.

No, no, um, yeah, it's never going to be a football stadium. Its location isn't isn't perfect.
You just said you've got to trudge through the shopping centre if you go via the most popular route.

If you look at the centre-backs, though, they spent enough on to Tadibo and Kilman to not be embarrassed like that.

I would have said, but the money has been spent terribly, and now it feels like they've run out. And

it would be, I think, in the interests really of Sullivan and the rest of those in charge at West Ham to try to look for somebody that wants to take the club on and try to get them further up the league.

It feels to me like they're just looking. If we finish 17th, that's fine.
We'll take the Premier League sort of handouts and

no ambition. But I think most teams would expect more.
And as you say, Max, there were a lot of empty promises about moving to the new stadium that just haven't been delivered.

Yeah, just on new stadiums, Mark, that's a total season ticket holder. There's a lot of chat this week about how it's just too nice for teams to come and play football.

And it is a nice, it is definitely a football ground, right? And I, you know, and I've been a few times and it's like amazing, but I don't know if you do you get that sense?

I don't think it's too nice. I think it's too expensive for a lot of kind of, I suppose, supporters,

hardcore supporters to go. And the stadium is just full of tourists.
And I, again, I'm going to be a hypocrite. I'm a football tourist.

I go and watch sort of, you know, Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG, Dortmund, you know, all the kind of big teams.

Um, but the stadium is there with a lot of people that are just watching a Premier League game rather than um supporting Tottenham. You know, they're just there for the um occasion.

I remember one match last season, Tottenham were getting beat by Ips, which crowd in the south sound are going absolutely bonkers around me.

And then a couple just turned to me and I said, Can you take a picture of us?

Um, there was about ten minutes left, and that is, and I did, and I, you know, I didn't want to moan at them, but that really is the type of supporter that is at the stadium at the moment and the atmosphere against Villa was was dared non-existent and I think there are a lot of teams in London I don't know if it's the same outside of London but certainly at West Ham you do get a lot of supporters that are just there and you know supporters in sort of loose term because they're just there to watch a game of football and that doesn't really help the atmosphere I don't know if it's the same at Fulham but it certainly is in a few of the London stadiums and you know people are coming to London and they're doing maybe two or three games in like a week period, but it doesn't help the actual overall atmosphere.

Well, hopefully,

for their sake, they didn't pick West Ham on Monday nights. Anyway, Barry.

No, just Nicholas Fulkroop didn't play in that West Ham-Brentford game, but if he had, I'd say the scramble to interview after the game would have been

something else after his

existential angst. I can't remember what game it was last season where he basically just threw everyone at West Ham under the bus in

this plaintiff howl of what am I doing here at this bin fire of a club.

Sean Dyche, Nottingham Sock Forest's third manager this season, been appointed yesterday, signed a deal until the summer of 2027. They're 18th in the league, one winning eight.

First game will be at home to Porto on Thursday. Then they've got Bournemouth away, Man United at home, Sturm Gratz away, Leeds at home, Liverpool away.

So lots of Thursday, Sunday, not a lot of time on the training ground. Although, presumably, Barry Sean Dice can go, just do what you're doing before Angels got here.

That would be the first thing to say. Probably.
I'd be interested to see how he gets on.

He'd probably do what Sean Dice does and keep them up.

But this is the first club he's managed at where he has, I think it is anyway, where he is, if he does quite well, he will be given loads of money to spend.

And I think he probably has a better class of player available to him here than he had at Everton or at Burnley.

So it just

sort of smacks as he's just a holding manager to

stabilise things. Sort of polyphylla, is what you're saying.
Yeah.

Until someone more exotic comes along and twerks in front of evangelist Maranakis.

Well, actually, interestingly, Archie, you know, a lot of people say Marco Silver, and Sean Dice said, I want another year, and I don't know whether Maranakis is factored in, you know, Dice does okay, but not brilliantly, and they pay him off, and they get Silver, who's out of contract at the end of this season, is

a lot of people are suggesting. If I'm Marco Silver, as much as I would want more money to work with than I've been given at Fulham, I would also be thinking, wait, I'm going to go work for that guy?

But he has before for Olympiarcos, hasn't it? That's the point. He's done it before.
Yeah.

I'd still be looking at it like that.

Just generally, I cannot, yeah, there are so many,

yeah,

what's the right word?

Wild flags. Yeah, exactly.
Red flags. Also, also, Max, to be honest, I'd forgotten that.
And you make a good point that he had worked under him at Olympia Cos. But the point is,

I don't see Nottingham Forest as a club where I'm going, like, okay, well, that's the kind of, that's the good kind of modern leadership.

Allah, Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, we add into that category now, I think, right, as well. Forest, who knows? I was already sceptical last season.
I know.

like for large parts of it they had an amazing season but it was screaming anomaly to me and it feels like this season they were always going going to take a step back into mid-table.

And the question is, how much was Maranakis going to accept that?

And indeed, the fans as well, because they'd not had this level of success or felt this close to it for such a long time.

And I think that that is always such a difficult thing to come to terms with emotionally.

So, yeah, I'm interested how they take to Sean Deish and where the expectations will lie in the end this season, because they should on the quality of the squad go far in the Europa League.

Danny Roll withdrew from the running to be Rangers manager a week ago and has now been appointed Rangers manager.

Not the smoothest process Barry and only one of the previous seven Rangers managers lasted 100 games. That's Stephen Gerrard.
So

it'll be interesting to see what happens. It will.
I said at the start of the season that I thought Harts might split Celtic and Rangers.

And it looks like I might have got that wrong because it looks like Harts might win the league because Celtic are having a very bad season by their standards, which has been completely overshadowed by the absolute car crash of a season Rangers have had so far.

Their

recruitment of Russell Martin was a terrible idea that fans were against from the start. Their recruitment drive to replace him has been little short of embarrassing.

They've been turned down by Stephen Gerard, Gerrard, then they were turned down by Danny Roll, then they were turned down by Kevin Muscat, and now Danny Roll has taken the job.

Their recruitment of players during the summer was similarly terrible, paying quite large sums by Scottish Premiership standards for very mediocre players who can't get in the team or have, in some cases, been shipped out on loan.

So

Danny, I suspect, will have his work cut out for him. But at least he will be a more popular appointment than Russell Martin.
You do wonder, like, you do wonder

what Danny

has gone from Sheffield Wednesday to Rangers. I mean, he likes a challenge.
You've got to give him that. Talking of Sheffield Wednesday, well, look, they didn't play in the championship last night.

Sheffield United down there had another win out of the bottom three now after losing, I don't know, the first six or something. They won 3-1 at Blackburn.
Coventry,

four points clear at the top after a 2-1 win at Portsmouth. Millwall up to third after a 2-0 win over Stoke City, who had downed a sixth.
Charlton into the playoffs.

Producer Joel, very excited after winning 3-0 at Ipswich. And a good win for Birmingham, who haven't started the season brilliantly.
They're in 12th. They won 1-0 at Preston.

Well done to everyone else who played. And I didn't mention them.
Just Hull, who beat Leicester 2-1. So yeah, more disappointment for Leicester.
Chris says, hi, Max and Barry.

I'd like to thank Barry for inspiring me to run my first full marathon in Dublin next Sunday.

I said to myself that if Barry can run a half marathon, then I can surely run a full one being a relatively fit hurdler.

Your pod on Thursday the 16th will be the last one I listen to before next Sunday as I want to save two to three up to listen to. I'll also use your pod to estimate my times on my training runs.

I also use your pod to estimate my times on my training runs as they're generally between 50 and 60 minutes. So I'm hoping three pods and a bit will do it.

That's a quick marathon.

Especially because you've inspired to be inspired by Barry. You only said he was going to do it a couple of weeks ago, and you're running it next Sunday.
Well, I kind of said. Oh, that's true.

It was last April I said I'd do it. It was only last week I decided to start training for it,

which may be a mistake.

Chris says, I'm hoping Liverpool will have a good week also, because I struggle to listen to a podcast when they played shite or lost.

It'll feel like a very long run if next Sunday I'm listening to you praising United for their display at hand field. Oh, well, Chris.
Sorry about that, mate. That was last pod.
Yeah, sorry about that.

Anyway, hope. So you were listening to this probably about two-thirds of the way in.
Keep going. Hurler, not hurdler.
He's Irish. Oh, hurler.
I see.

Not many people are hurdlers, are they? Anyway, thanks, Chris.

Good luck to you. And that'll be for today.
Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Barry.
Thank you. Thanks, Archie.
Thanks, Max. Thanks, Mark.
Thanks, Max. More of that tomorrow.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove. Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian

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