A bruising game at Stamford Bridge and Manchester City leave it late – Football Weekly

This is The Guardian.

Hi, folks. It's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner, with show-stopping centerpiece means like bone-in spiral cut ham or bone-in rib roast or even king crab.

And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking after all, try the heat-neat sides from the prepared foods department.

Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. You know, one of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north.

And this year, he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now you don't even need to wrap it.

Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required.
New customer offer for first three months only.

Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if networks busy. Taxes and fees extra.
See mintmobile.com.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. All square in the title decider at the bridge.
Chelsea impressive with 11 and Knuckled Down with 10 after Kaisedo's red card.

Perhaps another sign that they're serious contenders. Man City sitting between those two in second after an injury time winner for Phil Foden.
Heartbreak for Leeds United.

Elsewhere, Liverpool stopped the rot at West Ham. No salah and a goal for Isaac.
More home agony for Spurs, giving Fulham their first away win of the season. Two down before the game even started.

Thomas Frank criticizes the fans. What a mess.
There's a great comeback for Sunderland, a decent comeback for Man United against a tired palace. An emphatic Newcastle win at Everton.

Brentford beat Bernie late on. Brighton win at Forest and Villa squeeze past Wolves and into the top four.
We'll pay tribute to Billy Bonds. Answer your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenny, welcome. Hi, Max.
Hello, Barney Ronnay. Hi, Max.
And good morning to Dan Bardell. Morning, Max Rushton.
Let's begin at Stamford Bridge then. Chelsea won Arsenal 1.

Not a bad game, Barry. Not a classic.
Just a bit hectic. Did I build it up too much on Thursday and on Monday and on Tuesday or whenever it was?

I would say it was quite a bad game, and it certainly didn't live up to the billing you were giving it on Thursday and Wednesday.

If it hadn't been Chelsea Arsenal, it would very much have been last on match of the day, even worse than Villef Wolves,

with apologies to Dan. Apology accepted.
Scrappy.

It was bad-tempered and and entertaining for being bad bad-tempered. I liked a bad-tempered game, but I I certainly wouldn't say it was a good game of football.

And I think

a draw was probably fair. Arsenal,

some Arsenal fans will see it as two points drop because they played against 10 men for so long. But seeing as they did go a goal behind and managed to turn it around,

and it was a draw against the team that seemed most likely to be their biggest title rivals, it's a good point, I think, for both teams. Would you go along with that, Barney?

Or do you think you sort of wonder a point at chelsea is not bad but since they played ten men for so long that this is is this an opportunity lost for arson in a way no i mean i actually don't agree with any of that i think um it was a good game i think it was really

it's what you want in a in a league where you you want it to feel as tight as this i mean chelsea are really

You know, I was very skeptical about the Chelsea project for ages, but they're a really good, clever team. Ruska's so good at these one-off occasions.

Manchester City now have to play Chelsea twice in the remainder of the season so obviously you're never major effect either as chief challengers or kind of kingmakers in the league and I thought it was a really good point for Arsenal.

I don't think having a player sent off is such a big deal these days. The players are so fit and so good at keeping the ball mainly.

You don't then fall back and spend 80 minutes defending. They train for it.

In many ways it's just another game state and sometimes it puts more pressure on the opponent because we now have to do something we weren't planning for.

So I don't think it made a massive difference in that sense. It was definitely a red card.
I really love the intensity of this game. I think it's, I saw five points clear at the top.

They just had a really good week. They were missing both their best defenders.

And if we assume Gyoka's wasn't quite fit to start both their best attackers as well, I don't forget, I think Havertz would probably be starting in this team if he was fit.

So, I think, even though, yes, you could have won,

they will see it as a really good.

Maybe it's just a good league where you have games like this where you're not going to win all the time. When Man United, for example, won the triple, that was more of a standard league type season.

They lost loads of games, even towards the end. It was just a question of staying ahead of other people.
And it feels like this. I think the league's really strong this year.

I think teams have kind of rebounded back a bit. It's one of the reasons it's interesting to see a champion team in such, you know, obvious state of decline, although they won.

And I think it was a good game and a good point. And I kind of enjoyed it.
It felt visceral. I thought Rhys James played brilliantly.
People forget how good he is.

And I also be glad to have got out of it. He's like Cornflakes.
He's the Kellogg's Cornflakes of the Premier League, Dan. People have forgotten how good Rhys James is.

He was against Rice as well, against that midfield. He was brilliant, wasn't he? Yeah, he's having a great season so far.

I think because of the injury problems, and you've been away from the England squad because of said injury problems, you actually had for a period forgotten how good he is.

And the fact that he's playing in midfield for a top club like Chelsea at the moment is testament to his ability, how good he is on the ball, what an intelligent and clever footballer he is.

He's the leader as well. He's the captain.
I think he actually kind of came through. I think he went on loan to Wigan and I think he played midfield for a season for them in the EFL.

So he's played there in his career. But to be playing at that level for Chelsea, I actually, when Caicedo's not getting sent off, I quite like that midfield three.

I think Rhys James and Caicedo together gives Enzo the license to go forward a little bit. And he's been in dangerous form this season.
Always looks like he might pop up with a goal.

So, yeah, credit to Chelsea. I mean, they are very well versed at playing with 10 men at the moment.

So from an Arsenal perspective, they're probably the hardest team to play against with 10 men because they're the most experienced of playing with a man down because it's happened to them so much recently.

I'm with Barney. I thought it was a, obviously it wasn't a great game, but I thought it was

an interesting game. And Chelsea, you know, Jonathan Wilson called them to to be, you know, total favourites at the start of the season.

They're not total favourites, but they're within touching distance. And there's no reason why they can't keep the pace and keep the challenge up.
Can I add a supplementary point, please?

On what Dan was saying. I think there's certain players who were really good in the COVID period, like Mason Mount.
Like, people forget how good Mason Mount was. He scored yesterday.
He was amazing.

He was in sort of ballon d'oeuvre rankings and played really well, set up the winner in the channel. But he's like something from COVID you want to forget.
He's like Uber Eats and banging for the NHS.

Like, he's just some guy who, like, what happened there? I don't know, I don't remember. It's all a bit of a blur.
We should have an inquiry into the Covid footballers. Like, where have they gone?

And Reese James is one of them.

People who were good then when there was no crowd and you could hear them shouting. Yeah.

All my entire Covid was watching Paul Mullin score like three for Cambridge every week as we got promoted. And he wasn't forgotten because he then ended up in Deadpool.

And I maintain that he would still be in Deadpool if he'd stayed at Cambridge and not gone down two divisions to wrexham but i may be wrong about that very as well but like chelsea defensively like arsenal set pieces looked a bit flat in this and they they sort of got those bits those bits that you sort of don't study that much but actually they defended those really well as well yeah they did and i i guess they were probably helped by the fact that saliba and gabrielle were both absent they did

seem to have this plan where it was pointed out a match of the day I didn't spot it myself until someone else pointed it out that whenever Arsenal had a corner, Jao Pedro just stood in the box, not looking at the corner taker, not looking at the ball, just waiting to see who's going to make a run and to block that run.

That seems quite a clever plan, quite a simple plan, but not one that anyone seems to have thought of before. I feel I'm going to get maligned now for saying

I thought this was a bad game because Barley couldn't disagree with me more.

I knew that you would strike class

on this point. Yes, yes.

I thought it was an absorbing spectacle. It was reasonably interesting because of the two teams involved and their positions in the league.
But I still maintain it was not a good game of football.

And I think it is quite telling that.

And I know we place far too much credence on what comes first in the match of the day. It wasn't first in the match of the day.

Although the sad death of Billy Bonds may have had an influence in that factor or in that decision. Yeah.

Do I sound Barney like a rugby fan trying to say why football is shit by saying I'm so fed? Thank you. I'm so fed.
I don't ask the question yet. I've so fed up

players writhing in pain. Like, okay, Mourino, maybe, he did get caught, but Kaisedo, when he, when he two-footed Marino, Chaliba, okay, gets an elbow in the face.
Sanchez at the end.

I'm not saying they're not hurt, but anyone who's been hurt you stay still and I can't like this this sort of mad sort of like writhing like you've sort of been shot in a in an Oliver Stone movie sort of thing

just stay still it is a performance I mean

you have to you wouldn't do any of the things that footballers are doing if nobody if you weren't involved in a game or people weren't watching like you wouldn't throw a ball back onto a pitch after it's come off you wouldn't kick a ball to your teammate.

I mean, it's a performance, and being in pain is part of the performance. But yeah, Kaiseda was clearly trying to deceive the referee into thinking it was just a clash, a coming together.

I think it's a bit unfair on Charlabar. I think he really had been clanged in the face.
Yeah, but if you're clanged in the face, you just hold your face and you just go, ow, that really hurt.

Like, you don't, I don't start body popping is what is the point. Yeah, they were clearly trying to get to level up the score.

I mean, Arteta noted afterwards that the Chelsea players were sort of targeting Arsenal players who'd already been booked and seeking contact and then sort of thought, oh my God, I'm in agony.

And that's, I guess, a tactic. And it's a professional game.
But it's an increasingly... performative sport, isn't it?

Because the players are under this, the way you observe something changes the way it behaves. And we now observe it in tiny little microscopic close-up slices.

And the players know that every every single bit is going to be clipped.

So Shalabar's pointing at his cheekbone saying look at this because he knows the world will zoom in on the he's saying to the director look at he's not talking to the other player talking to the TV director.

You have a player player to director. You know, I have a bump on my that's really new.
Lots of things have changed because of this principle of being observed.

For example, goalkeepers and defenders celebrating tackles, which is something that I really enjoy. Did you see that Dean Henderson celebrated his safe with the crowd?

I've I've noticed defenders doing this and there's like five or six minutes of the game still to go and they're celebrating because if I do that it means the game is nearly over and it means that we're winning and even really kind of minor interventions they're turning around and really they're sort of perform co-splaying defense because a lot of these people aren't really, you know, they're sort of modern defenders who your Martin Keown wouldn't be celebrating a tackle.

He'd be looking sad and somber and like, this is just my life. I'm tied together with a rope on the pitch by on the training pitch by George Graham because I'm essentially a defensive beaten down man.

But they're celebrating and it's very confusing because I'm confused about what the game state is. I'm confused about what does that mean.
Why is this man celebrating?

But I think that the same with injury. So I'm going on about this a bit, but the same with injury.
It's because the sport has become such a microscopic performance.

Dan, if I can drag you back to the game just before we move on, as to not to whether it was good or bad or not, but

any other strong thoughts coming out of that? Certainly in terms of how seriously you're taking Chelsea?

I still think it would be a stretch for them to win the league, but there's no doubt that they're in the conversation. I thought it was a decent point for Arsenal as well.

I know, as Barney said, they're playing against 10 men, but I agree with Barney that it's harder to play against 10 men than people perhaps think.

They could have won it at the end if Timber hadn't have cleared the ball away from Jocha Rez. Unbelievable clearance, probably the best bit of defending that there was all day.

And there was quite a lot of defending in the game. But I think Arsenal have stumbled a little bit away from home recently, but they're still doing enough to set the pace.

And I still expect them to win the league. Yeah, and actually, Arteta's.

Barry, we've spoken in previous seasons about Arteta being too emotional. He seems very measured at the moment.
Like, when I hear him, I feel like, oh, they've got this.

I can't say I've noticed particularly. But yeah, he seemed in quite...
good mood yesterday. I thought he might be a bit chippy over the

fact that Chelsea were trying to get his players sent off.

They seem to target Muscaro in particular and the number of yellows that Arsen players got compared to Chelsea. But no you seem quite relaxed about the result and the game itself.
So I suppose yeah

Narteta of old might have been fuming and very angry about that. Do you think that's the difference when you're setting the pace rather than being the chaser, so to speak?

Like you can afford to be a bit more measured and a bit more relaxed when you're actually actually the team at the top, whereas you tend to probably be a bit more antsy when you're the chaser and you need things to go your way because you're trying to claw back a points difference.

Yeah, I think he knows his team is incredibly efficient this year, strong.

He knows that if they just keep doing what they're doing, it's going to be incredibly hard for them to lose enough games not to finish very, very close. He's really happy with what he's got.

Do you know who I feel sorry for in all this? It's Callum Chambers. Because whenever Arsenal have a defensive injury now, they're like, well, you look at how strong the squad is.

You know, a few years back, it was Callum Chambers coming in. And his name is like hoist the whole time as an example of bad.
Is it just Rob Holding not? Does it Rob Holding and Callum Chambers?

Is it Mayley Chambers gets it? Yeah, Rob Holding, too. But I mean, Callum Chambers, I mentioned him because he was a sub for Cardiff against Mansfield.

And actually, my son was at the game, and he sent me a message saying, you know, we need to study the downfall of Callum Chambers. What's happened here?

And I think he's not helped by Arsenal's squad depth,

the narrative. He's in the media, all he's mentioned far more than he should be.
It was just like a good footballer who tried his best to be good for Arsenal. It didn't quite work out.

And he's now all that is bad or was bad. Yeah, yeah.
Mentioned more than Premier League players who are actually playing games. But yeah, down in League One now.
I don't know how they got on.

I should check. Let's talk about Man City while we're doing the top of the table.
They beat Leeds 3-2.

A vital moment for them in injury time, Barry, to keep pace. Great finish from Foden.
Perhaps an even better jump out of the way from Joseph Guardiol. This is why people jump on boxes for that moment.

Yeah, this game looked to be over very early when City went 2-0 up. Foden put them ahead.
Guardiol scored from a mistake at a corner from

Perry, who came to punch the ball and didn't connect with it properly. Daniel Fark made some changes at half-time.
I think he just decided, look, we might as well lose 5-0 as 2-0.

Let's have a go. And it really worked.
The second half was

just a total transformation from Leeds. I think Man City thought the game was over by half-time.
They just were, yeah, we'll see this out, no problem. Leeds got it back to 2-2.

And then Leeds thought, right, we'll take the point. And they sat back.
I think if Leeds had kept going, they might have won this game, but they didn't.

And when the board went up with 10 minutes, it's classic. You fear for Leeds, you really do.
And City City Judy scored. Curtis Vid, excellent shot by Foden.

And as you say, Varleyol spotting what he was about to do and making sure to jump out of the way.

I think the main talking point from this game was when leads were on top in the second half and they were on top very much so.

Ruben Diaz instructed Chanligi Donnarumma to start feeling his hamstring and go down injured.

This allowed Pep to have a tactical timeout with his players and that's when they turned the game around back in their favor.

So it's not against the rules. It

is probably very much against the spirit of fair play but this is the Premier League of fair play isn't something that too many people are concerned about.

So Pep had a laugh about it yesterday or after the game. Daniel Fark wasn't particularly happy but

these things happen, I guess. I'm not sure what you can do to stop it happening.

Well, DRT says if things start going wrong in the pod and Barry needs a timeout, maybe Barney can do a Donner Rummer and fake an injury, he says. And Daniel Farker was very upset about it.

It's not the elephant in the room. Everyone knows why he went down.
Why he went down. It was obvious.
It is within the rules. It's smart.

If I like it, if it's within a sense of fair play, if it should be like this, I will keep it to myself. It's up to the authorities to find a solution.

And the solution has been mentioned, Barney, is you have to take a player off.

Like, you'd have to pick, you know, a poor, you're sort of Callum Chambers, I guess, to say you have to go off because the keeper's injured.

Yeah, I mean, either that or you could insist that if the goalkeeper is found not to be injured, you must forcefully injure him. He must be injured.
Maybe using a sort of cuttle prod.

No, I've seen this happen three times in games this season.

I've seen a manager call his goalkeeper across while his team has an attacking corner, say explain the goalkeeper's sort of going, what you want, okay, and then

on 40 minutes, the goalkeeper just goes down holding his hamstring and the coaching staff are out calling everyone over. It's a pre-planned thing.
It happens all the time.

And it, yeah, it's really annoying. It shouldn't happen.
It's someone pretending

the goalkeeper should be booked. I mean, but how do you establish someone isn't injured? That's impossible, isn't it? You can't prove a negative.

So Donner Roma has to be taken to hospital, given an MRI, a full medical officer. You have to strain his hamstring, like overextend his leg.

I can see a fourth, fifth, and sixth official bending his leg back on the pitch until his hamstring, until he screams. And then it's okay, fine.
You wave on the manager, the players.

And if you're legitimately... But I think what we're saying is you then have to take an outfall player off in the way you...

Because goalkeepers don't come off because it would be weird to restart the game with nobody in the goal. So that's why they always have the goalkeeper feigning injury.

Sometimes Spurs just don't have the keeper in the goal anyway during the match. But we'll get to that.

Now, I do like the idea of Donaruma having to have a full medical assessment, you know, because men don't talk about these things.

And I've had a PSA test, a stool sample, all those things to his blood pressure. And then three days later, he gets texted the results, and then the game can carry on.

It is worth, Dan, whenever Phil Foden does something good, you know, it's worth having that. Where is he on the plane? Is he on the plane? Is he off the plane? Is he near the plane?

You know, how many number 10s have to be injured before? Because he's playing so much better than last year. Yeah, a real off-season last time around after the season of his life, the season before.

Foden's just one of those players that when he is on song, I absolutely love watching him he's one of my favorite players in the league he's so unique there's not there's certainly not any any English players that that play the game in the same way as him and he's had a had a difficult 12 months lots of questions asked about him but he's answering them with the plum so far so far this season you know turned into a really really important player for Manchester City.

Again, I love it when he drifts into those central areas. He must be so hard for defenders to pick up.

And, you know, on a day when Haaland has not really done the business, it's Foden that's come up trumps and shown how how important he is for Manchester City and, you know, have great season.

So, so far, that was a good game. That was a good game.
I thought Manchester City against Leeds.

Daniel Farker, his substitutions have been questioned, but actually taking the pace off at halftime and making the substitutions he made made that a really entertaining and interesting second half.

And they were run looking not to take something. Can I just add one thing on that game? The thing at the end where we're now going to have regularly have 10 minutes of stoppage time

for some reason.

That thing where they hold up the board and the crowd goes, Yeah,

it's really affected how the game goes when these trying to see how to backs to the wall point at a nominally more powerful team. It happened with Bayern Munich as well this weekend.
They were at 1-1.

The board went up and it's like, look, there's massive time left.

And they also scored twice, I think, in stoppage time almost immediately as well, because there's this sudden emotional sapping of these players who are tired and have been fighting.

and oh my god we've got to play for 10 minutes 10 minutes more that that's a lifetime and uh city scored almost i mean not to take in the away it was brilliant goal and foden is brilliant but that rule quite clearly favors stronger teams who have everyone has five subs but your five subs are going to be better when you're man city it's clearly designed to take to give an advantage to to larger clubs bigger clubs clubs who if you just keep playing we will win in the end and it i i think it's a bit of a shame um but then i don't support a team like like that, so I'd probably disagree if I did.

It's like those SAS, those terrible SAS shows where you run a marathon, the sickener, and then you get to the truck. And just as you get to the truck, it drives away.

And they say, now do another marathon.

But if you could bring on Phil Foden to do that marathon for you, whereas you can't, you know, you can't. Willie Nonso's like, I can't do another.
I just couldn't do another one.

Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two will begin at the London Stadium.

Take control of the numbers and supercharge your small business with Zero. That's X E R O

With our easy-to-use accounting software with automation and reporting features. You'll spend less time on manual tasks and more time understanding how your business is doing.
87% of surveyed U.S.

customers agree Xero helps improve financial visibility. Search Xero with an X or visit zero.com slash ACAST to start your 30-day free trial.
Conditions apply.

Hi, folks. It's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner with show-stopping centerpiece means like bone-in spiral cut ham or bone-in rib roast or even king crab.

And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking after all, try the heat-neat sides from the prepared foods department.

Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Liverpool stopped the rot.
They deserved this one, Barry. And I suppose everything came right for slot.
Isaac scored.

He dropped Salah, and it worked. I thought West Ham might do better in this game, to be honest.
I thought...

with Liverpool in their current state of being very much on the ropes and West Ham being a bit resurgent, I thought

they might beat Liverpool here, but they provided very little in the way of strong opposition and ultimately it was easy for Liverpool,

made all the more easy by Lucas Paquetta's extraordinary sending off for

two yellow cards in quick succession for dissent. And it was remarkable that it was quite obvious it was going to happen.
Jared Bowen and

Matthias Fernandez were standing nearby, but didn't do anything to try and shut him up or usher him away from the referee. And it was actually Allison who tried to manhandle him away.

They're obviously both Brazilian. They played together for Brazil.
Allison was the only one who tried to stop him talking his way off the pitch in vain, as it happened.

And then Paqueta... published this

howl and perhaps a little justified howl of self-pity on social media media afterwards complaining about the lack of support he got from the FA when he was had those betting charges hanging over him but I'm not sure that is justification for the stupid sending off that cost his team pretty straightforward win for for Liverpool although Jared Bowen missed a reasonably good chance to equalize when the West Ham were only one nil down and obviously Alexander Isak's scoring is is good for him and good for Liverpool.

Yeah, and that Bowen chance was very much, it was like, it wasn't an easy chance, but it was a Jared Bowen chance, wasn't it? It was like you've seen him score that goal.

Yeah, Paqueta said afterwards, it's ridiculous to have your life and career affected for two years without any psychological support from the Federation.

Perhaps this ridiculous behaviour, which is a quote back to what the commentary said, is just a reflection of everything I've had to endure, and it seems to have to continue enduring.

I'm sorry if I'm not perfect. And I guess the thing is, Barney, Darren England can't take into account the last two years of Lucas Paqueta's life.

And I felt like, you know, refs can be quite quick to book players, but actually, I thought he sort of tried not to and then just eventually it was the right decision probably I don't know who who should be giving Paqueta the support there.

Is he talking about the FA or the PFA or you know

the Federation? The Federation. I mean the Brazilian FA or his I mean I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean he obviously feels he's still very raw about it.

I mean it's a weird one because you're obviously you're you're accused of and cleared entirely clear entirely an innocent man, Lucas Paqueta.

But you are also accused of doing weird things in games to affect, and this just looks so strange.

It's one of those things like you're booked twice for the same.

When does something stop happening? When does an emotion stop?

Because it's really infuriating to be booked for being infuriated. You know, we've all had those kind of weird arguments where you're like, I'm not angry.

I can't stop being angry with this person who's pranged my car or whatever, or, you you know or cut in front of me in the supermarket line and of course i'm angry because now you're telling me i'm angry but he's then seemed to be sort of fine once he'd been sent off as though he needed that resolution um it's a different it's a difficult one obviously didn't help his team i thought the most interesting thing about this game may be for liverpool fans or for neutrals like me uh i'm a i'm a big vertz guy i just really like him it's slightly to do with just how good he looks in the flesh how well he moves i think it's deceptive sometimes you think he's played better than he has just because the little things he does with the ball are so nice.

He had a good game and for Liverpool, he's clearly not the problem. He's the best player at the club and he's young and he's really committed to making it work.

And so anything where he has a good game is involved in making a goal with a really nice little pass is good for them because he's clearly the future.

And I think there was quite a good model here for Arnas Slott, who rested his superstar and saw his other superstar, the younger superstar, have probably his best game for them so far.

Yeah, it feels premature to say this is what Liverpool looked like without Salah, Dan. But like he's gone away to AFCON before.
He will do this time.

And

it's a slot said afterwards, look, whoever I don't pick, it's a big call. If I don't pick Eza, you ask me about that.
If I don't pick, you know, Ekatike when he's playing well, et cetera.

But it is clearly a big call not to play Salah. And it kind of worked with Soberslai.
ostensibly in that role but drifting in. Yeah, it was a more interchangeable system, wasn't it?

Vertz was buzzing around, Schrobers Live, kind of a little bit of a free role from the right-hand side. He's right, whoever he doesn't pick,

there's going to be questions asked. Salah at the moment, he's not on form.
He's struggling. He's nowhere near the levels that he's been previously.

And obviously, he's been a legend of the Premier League. He'll almost get away with it slot in terms because the way he spoke about it and he'll play in the mid-week round of games.

I would have thought he mentioned the schedule. He listed how many games they've got in the next week.
He's not going to keep Salah out that team.

I would have thought he'll come in and someone else will

sit out the next game. But the system did just look a little bit more flexible.
I thought Joe Gomez coming in at right back as well helped. I've been saying Liverpool should do that for weeks.

Played the game actually in a different way than I expected. I thought he'd make them more solid, maybe tucking in and making a back through.

But I thought he actually added a different dimension coming forward. I think Joe Gomez is actually a really good footballer.
People forget that.

He's probably the fourth or fifth person that Liverpool have tried in that role, but I thought he looked the most comfortable out of anyone that's that's played there this season.

And then, you know, they changed things around and Isak's got off the mark in the Premier League. I believe this will probably be classed as an unpopular opinion.

I think his barren run has been overstated a little bit because he's barely played 90 minutes, he's barely played consecutive games, and Liverpool as a team just haven't been functioning.

But it'll do him good to get off the mark. And it was a smart finish reminiscent of the Isak of the last few years in the Premier League.
Yeah.

Paolo says, have West Ham looked into the possibility they were only sold half a crook?

I think that's a bit harsh because Fulkroog, actually, they look quite good when they went long to Fulkroog, which is how Liverpool have suffered. But anyway, they didn't play well.

We should talk about Billy Bonds. You mentioned it, Barry.
He's passed away at the age of 79. His family released a statement through the club.

Dad loved West Ham United and its wonderful supporters with all his heart. Treasured every moment of his time at the club.
We take comfort knowing that his legacy will live on forever.

Jonathan Wilson wrote a piece about him.

He said, for those of us whose football consciousness was formed in the early 80s, he seemed not only an eternal feature of West Ham, but the archetype of a certain sort of English player, as comfortable in midfield as at the back, uncompromising, but also good on the ball, forever rolling his sleeves up and pointing.

And he said, Where Trevor Brooking could have strolled through the Somme without dirting his shorts, Bond seemed forever caked in mud, socks rolled down, teeth and eyes glinting through a fog of sweat and beard.

Barney, you saw him play. I'm just really glad to hear Wilson referring to the Somme finally.
We must always refer to the First World War.

Yeah, I saw him play in the sort of mid mid to late 80s, towards the end of his career. And

I remember him. He was a really striking figure.

He was one of these sort of hard men warrior kind of midfielders, but he was also really skillful. He moved really well.

He had this kind of really imposing sort of physicality, as you'd expect, almost 800 games for one team. Still playing at 41 in the top tier.
So he's better than Ronaldo and probably didn't eat.

I read this thing about Ronaldo the other day that he, someone went for dinner with him and he

for dessert he had another serving of plain chicken. He has plain chicken breasts for dessert.
Now Billy Bonds probably probably didn't have that.

But he is a club legend of a kind that doesn't really happen anymore. Someone who just, like Wilson said, seems completely connected to the club.
These sort of fixed points.

So you used to have players like this who were just really good, didn't leave, didn't necessarily have to play for England. West Ham had quite a lot of them.

I mean, Alan Devonshire used to get the tube to the games.

And they sort of still felt like a fixed point in the community he's also a type of man that i remember there being a lot of he's kind of from the place where i he's from i think woolwich and he was in eltam for a while southeast londoner there used to be a lot of blokes like that around like his his hair nominally kind of long pub rock sort of look but also neat and sort of quite not exactly roguish but also quite conservative and old school clean cut there used to be a lot of blokes like that around sort of mischievous but also total club servant eternal kind of geezer bloke he's a very reassuring figure you just liked him you respected him the fact that he played for so long obviously really there's some pictures of him doing weights uh going around on the internet

he had an incredible physique and uh was obviously in that sense a kind of perfect professional and that you could see the the link with him it's nice to see potts playing for west ham son of whose father would have played with billy bonds and fans really feel a connection to that.

I wondered if this might be a good moment for West Ham to start a kind of scheme in his memory where fans could possibly invest in the club, even acquire a kind of fan share by effectively loaning money to the club, buying into the club in his name, a kind of financial instrument.

And I had an idea of what you could call these financial instruments that fans buy. You could call them Billy Gilts.
Billy Gilts.

Yeah.

Sorry, it's too soon. It's not really good.

Yeah, okay.

He made 799 appearances for West Ham. Only played to captain them to two FA Cup victories, 75 and 80.
21 years there, and managed them as well from 1990 to 1994.

Our thoughts, of course, with his friends and family. To Tottenham, Spurs won Fulham two.
Fulham's first away win of the season. Hello, Dr.
Tottenham. An amazing down opening to this game.

Fulham tuned him up after six minutes. And before the Spurs inquest, it is worth talking about about how brilliant that Harry Wilson goal is.

Because as soon as he realizes the opportunity, he sort of moves. He creates the space for himself, gets a perfect pass, and the finish is such a delight.

Yeah, it's helped by Udogi falling over slightly. I mean, he had a disastrous first eight minutes, didn't he? Destiny Udogi.
But Harry Wilson strikes me as a player who probably had a difficult start.

to his career. And I think lots of players who come through the bigger academies and have a taste of it and then have to move down, they almost struggle to find themselves.

I think he must be 28, 29 now, Harry Wilson. He's turned into a really, really good wide player in the Premier League.
Lots of goals, obviously done it on the international stage for Wales as well.

But I think players that come through the academy often take longer to find themselves that come through those big academies. And now I just feel he's a player that's fully comfortable with himself.

He knows what he is. He's full of confidence.
He's not trying to try and prove anything. And that goal kind of just sums him up as a player for me.
And Fulham started that game like a house on fire.

And really, it could have been more at halftime. Oh, yeah.

Mike says on that goal, is the match of the day arrow to show where Vicario could have put the ball out for a throw against Fulham the funniest use of the graphic ever.

I think the arrow might have been better pointed sort of pointing at Pedro Porre or Kevin Danso, who neither of whom

saw fit to see this entirely vacated goal behind them. and get back to stand on the line and try and block any shot that Mike made.

But I think, and I could be wrong, but I think it didn't even cross their mind that Harry Wilson would try and score from there. Now, I did notice in the commentary that

the commentator said, King puts it on a plate for Wilson.

Wilson's, I mean, it was, he passed it to his feet, but he made it sound like Wilson couldn't possibly miss this sitter into a gaping goal from the touchline. It was a brilliant finish.

I think the brilliance of the finish has somewhat been somewhat overshadowed by the slapstick nature of what went before it. Yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, look, three times they've won at home in the league in 2025, Barney. So, and Tottenham, as Mark Langen said the other day, they spend so much money.

So, they're booing, and they booed Vicario after that moment. And Thomas Frank afterwards said, You know, it's okay, they're frustrated because we haven't won a game at home for a long time.

We all badly want to win. I'm fine with them booing after the game.
During the game, I hope it was one instant, it never happens again.

I agree with him, you know, and he said they can't be true Tottenham fans that do that. Fair enough, booing after the game, no problem.

But if you've only been at the club for as long as Thomas Frank has, and it's not going well,

I would just avoid criticising the fans, even if he's right.

Well, he has been a football manager for quite a long time, and I think at any level, booing your own goalkeeper during a game is not very helpful, is it?

He's made a mistake, he's not deliberately done that.

But I agree that the relationship is not good there.

Thomas Frank's a good manager, you know, but it just the way he plays is very,

you know, here is a lump of football. It's kind of very technocratic.

It's not, it's not necessary. It really worked.
Brentford, you got these amazing moments through the structure that he imposed. But it did take a while for it to work there as well.

And I just feel like there. It's one of those things that they've just had to look at him.
Quite a lot of Spurs fans and said, no, that's not for us, which I think is a shame.

But I do understand it as well. What I don't understand about Tottenham is, it's like, what do you want to happen? Like, they've got this amazing stadium.
That's a really good thing.

And it will really benefit the club, although there are obviously commercial pressures around that. But

I'm going to win the league. Thomas Frank's

not going to create a beautiful spectacle in the way that club sees itself. I just think everyone there should be thinking, this is great.

I can just have a breath here and enjoy this. And I think it was a weird, a weird appointment because that's not where everyone is in their life.

It's like Tottenham are kind of close to the fans just want a bit of fun, really. And that's really not happening.
And maybe you're hardwired into wanting managers to go and wanting more.

It's very hard to finish in the top four this year, even the top five, because there are some good teams there. It just feels like

there needs to be a narrative and something to talk about there.

And that is going to be the ill-fitting nature of frank and his football yeah and it isn't fun dan i mean look they had an xg just before half time of 0.01 you know at recent games they've been at 0.03 and 0.02 as producer joel says they're on a crusade to push xg to places it's never been before like an art installation i agree barney i think he is a good manager and like it's mad to talk of him going but already you know the the the the there are the noise is there yeah it feels like the masses have decided they don't like him they don't want him this isn't going to be a good fit for Tottenham.

What I would say is this is largely a squad that finished 17th last year and played some god-awful football last year.

Although I will say in the first half, it did look like Ange had returned the way they were defending. It did feel like Posta Koglu had gone back in and nobody had informed me about it.

In some ways, it was never going to be turned overnight.

I think the fact they won the Europa League and are actually playing Champions League football has maybe skewed Tottenham fans' own perspective on their club because they're playing in the elite competition.

It maybe makes them feel that they should be better than they are, but they finished 17th and it feels a little bit delusional at the moment to think that it wasn't going to be hard.

I think because Thomas Frank's losing his home games and the bulk of their points have been picked up away. If it was the other way around, they'd maybe be a little bit more forgiving.

I guess Frank's maybe paying for the almost the price of football at the moment that people are paying a lot of money to go to Tottenham every single week in that lovely new stadium and and they expect better but I think it was it was always going to be tough he was never going to be able to turn around what happened last season overnight yeah he's he's missing a lot of creativity and acolytes will say and quite often had no Romero or Van der Wen and sort of he's had he didn't have Romero on on on the Saturday but he's had you know sort of a fit defence and they were

sort of good at the start of the season but now they're shipping a lot of goals anyway terrible news for Spurs they go to Newcastle on Tuesday where they're often 8-0 down after five minutes so absolutely terrifying that newcastle 1-4-1 at everton um newcastle fancy how bad must you be we're winning away their first away win of the season their first in seven months i was fed up of it says eddie how that's why i'm so pleased the players gave me the opportunity to come here and not talk about it as much and there may be more important things barry but another glorious goal from the voltamada vault of beautiful goals a naught miles an hour dink i absolutely loved it yeah uh it was a lovely finish to capitalise on some awful defensive play.

I think Everton got away with Idris Age

getting sent off against Manchester United, but they really missed him here because Tim Orugbunum came in and had an absolute shocker.

He allowed Anthony Langa to beat him far too easily down the right.

Elanga plays the ball inside for Voltameda, who just, yeah, lifts just this beautifully delicate lift over the oncoming pick for his head really lovely finish everton were really bad in the first half here like shockingly bad so newcastle brought in lewis hall tino livermento uh dan burn was back in his rightful place at the heart of defence and a much needed away win for newcastle and uh

everton really did miss skate uh in this game i think yeah and ramsdale poke was injured but ramsdale came in we're talking about that last week about whether he might come in anyway and actually barny it's true Liv Ramento and Hall makes such a difference at fullback.

Yeah, the uplift from having those two fullbacks one week and Dan Byrne playing fullback another week. And Dan Byrne, a very honest player, but he is 14 foot tall and 34 years old.

He cannot be chasing these tiny little, extremely quick, jinky wingers around.

It's not fair. It's beneath his dignity.
But I think Liv Ramento is such a good player.

He's such a good fullback on both sides. And it's actually really important for England that he's back because England do like the

O'Reilly is good. He's a really good player.

And no one knows if he's ready to be a defender at an international tournament, yet he doesn't. I think Lev Romento is a brilliant fullback.

Possibly frees up Rhys James to play in midfield if Tuchel wanted to do that or to play in the centre. Because I think Rhys James is...

one of England's best players and Lev Ramento is a brilliant fullback.

Really one of those fullbacks where they go into strange positions, they move inside, and it always feels like a problem for the other team, not for them, because they're just so confident and so good on the ball and so mobile that there's never a sense, oh, there might be space behind this guy.

It's always the other way-like, oh dear, this is an overlaid wherever this player is because he's so good on the ball. So, I'm really glad to see him back and fit, and I hope he can stay fit.

All right, that'll do for part two. Part three will begin at Selhurst Park.

Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. Palace one, Man United two.
What did you make of this one, Dan? Yeah, half-time didn't see Manchester United come back on the cards at all.

They've got the bulk of their attacking talent that they bought in the summer missing. Selhurst Park is a really, really difficult place to go.

It's an even more difficult place to go when you're 1-0 down.

And for them to come back, I think that they deserve huge credit to unusual goals, but to very, very well-taken goals in a weekend when actually there was lots of interesting things happen and there was lots of good goals.

But the Xerxe one in particular was one of the strangest goals I think I've ever seen. And first goal for a year

as well for him. So it's a credit to him because it's a great finish.
I think Dean Henderson might be a little bit disappointed, but it's

still a great finish. And I thought Manchester United were, you know, they obviously had that period where they won a few games in a row and then it had been a few games without winning.

That's a huge result at Selhurst Park because Crystal Palace's home record is phenomenal. Everyone, Barry, made a point of how tired Palace were in the second half.
Am Rim said it.

Glasner mentioned it. Obviously, Palace played on Thursday, lost in Strasbourg in the conference league.

And Man United have no European football, which, you know, should help them. And Oliver Glasner basically had another pop, and it's not the first time, ownership.

He said, if you play European football for the first time in history, you should invest and not save. We're doing well.
We're still in a good position in the league and in all four competitions.

I think January is too late. We'll have played more than 50% of our games.
I don't know. Is he saying I'm leaving? Or

is he keeping his options open? What's Glausener

doing here? Or maybe he's just very honest saying we haven't spent enough and we lost some players in the summer. Well, I would imagine his options are always open.
I didn't hear that interview, but

it's a matter of fact that Palace's record after

Conference League games is poor. They've played six Sundays.
After Conference league game they've lost three drawn two and only one one

uh and that was early in the season he did one amazing zipping his mouth gesture i don't know if you saw that but it was incredibly

i know it was brilliant he did like as though he was zipping up his mouth like uh someone on sesame street or the muppets but he did it or rainbow or rainbow if you zippy yeah possibly rainbow zippy you know you can take your choice on that but it was incredibly well done it was as though he'd done it hundreds of times as well he's someone who is used to doing that gesture, and it was a very aggressive interview as well.

It was really like, I don't care what you say here or what you do. I'm going to say what I think.
It was a manager looking after his legacy a bit, which I thought was, hmm, that's interesting.

Feisty, feisty from Glasnar. I mean, there was a suggestion during the summer that he'd threatened to leave if they sold Gay to Liverpool, so Gay wasn't sold.

I'd be honest, I wouldn't give United a huge amount of credit for this game. I think Palace threw it away.
They missed loads of chances in the first half.

There should have been more than one nil up at the break. And the winner, they conceded, was shocking, like a free, well, not the free kick.

The ball was rolled to mount, and he just fired it through the defensive wall. That was terrible defending.
While United, they did win. I think Palace

really gifted them the three points. Mateta's brilliant, but he has missed a lot of big chances so far.

This, and every time I've watched Palace, he could have had three or four goals, and he is putting the ball in the back of the net in general. But he is missing a host of big chances.

I wouldn't know what his XG is, but I imagine it's higher than the amount he scored. But who was it who scored a hat-trick? Bournemouth.
Did Bournemouth? Six or seven. Yeah.

Yeah, he missed a banker in that game as well, didn't he? Yeah, I'd like the idea. He did score a double hit penalty, our first ever.
We see how exciting to see that.

And the idea that, you know, at Crystal Palace training ground, people go up to Oliver Glasner to ask him questions. And he just goes, zip it, zip, zip.

he's just constantly he's just he's so good at it can I also just say when people say Selhurst Park is a difficult place to go

it is a difficult place to go because of it is because of that there's an old advice don't go to crystal palace go to sellhurst crystal palace is not where it is I think that advice is out of date and you should go to crystal palace because it's now on the windrush line and you simply walk 15 minutes from there so do go to crystal palace don't try and go to sellhurst there's a lot more trains on the windrush i think that's the kind of advice that a football iconoclast, like a new thinker, like maybe a Thomas Frank,

would just sweep that advice away. Go, do go to Crystal Palace.
It becomes a much easier place to go to.

A lot of people who don't live in South London won't have a clue what you're talking about, Baronie. I would just say that.

Well, they will if they travel to watch their team and they have followed that advice and found it's still hard to go there.

But it's interesting, people don't really haven't really viewed those overground lines well enough. I understand this because young Ian is obsessed with

the tube. They've remodeled them, you know, the Windrush and the Weaver line and the Mile Bay to make them feel like tube stops and tube stations.

And now everyone goes to them because before they were like, oh, I couldn't possibly get a train. Got to get the tube.
It's very interesting stuff.

I'm glad the voting for the FSA awards has already closed.

Sunderland 3, Bournemouth 2. Perhaps harsh on Sunderland to be this far down the running order.
Perhaps harsh, Barry, for this Sunderland win to be below public transport London TfL chat as well.

But what a brilliant. I mean, look, both teams are really good, and it was a really good game.
Tyler Adams' goal is brilliant, and you know, it

could have been any result, I guess. But what a comeback from your lot.
Yeah, it was a really good win.

The second game in a row that Sunderland's players have had to play in absolute, oh, and Bournemouth's indeed, torrential rain from start to finish. A really

entertaining spectacle. Sunderland gave away two cheap cheap goals by gifting possession to Bournemouth.

Tyler Adams was the pick of the game, obviously, spotting Robin Ruffs off his line and channelling his inner Kenny McLean to score just a brilliant, brilliant goal to put

Bournemouth two up. I didn't think, I didn't give Sunderland much of a chance of coming back, to be honest.
But Granite Jacka was excellent.

Enzo LeFay is a brilliant player, a brilliant young player in Sunderland's midfield. Sunderland got back into it, went ahead, and then it got very, very bad-tempered towards the end.

Bournemouth's players were getting very narcissist, having been pegged back and overtaken. And after the game,

I like Andy Ariola. I have to say, I'm a big fan of his.
But he accused the ref afterwards of having lost control of the game.

I would very much argue that Bournemouth's players lost control of the game and indeed themselves, and that may have contributed to their defeat.

But yeah, I am reminded of my constantly bleak prognosis last season where I kept saying I didn't want Sunderland to get promoted because I didn't want them to have a Southampton or a Leicester of a season and just get beaten week in and week out.

But what a great addition to the Premier League they have been with those players they've brought in who have all hit the ground running. Yeah, they were great.
Xhaka was so once once we were 3-2-up.

he was excellent as well, wasn't he?

I think on Irayola, Dan, that is, it's a bit like EFL managers who just, when they lose, say, well, look, the opposition, they knock it long and they're very direct and there's nothing you can do to that.

That sort of classic patronising.

I feel sorry for the ref because it's really hard to ref in this atmosphere. You know, let's just, once you say you've lost control, it is just, come on.

I mean, Lewis Cook did elbow a guy in the face. That is.
probably a red card, isn't it? Yeah, I would say elbowing someone in the face is stereotypically a red card offence.

I think Bournemouth got swept up in the kind of atmosphere in the raucousness, if that's a word, of the stadium of lot really. And in the end, they got chewed up and spat out.

As soon as Sunderland got a goal back,

they were just on it, weren't they? You just felt they were going to go on and get something out of this game.

And Bournemouth have been kind of battered a few times recently or lost games quite comfortably recently.

So Iriola is a brilliant manager, and they got off to a brilliant start, but they're certainly struggling at the moment.

Bournemouth, it's not a lot of the the feel-good of the start of the season, and Iriola does seem a bit touchy right now.

Only five promised sides have ever had more points than Sunderland after 13 games. The best promised side since Wigan, 05-06.
And look what happened to them.

Yeah, exactly. Were they won the

go to Anfield midweek,

then City at home, I think, and then Newcastle at home. So that's three big games coming up.
And then the entire squad goes to Afcon.

Yeah, they're actually, Sunderland are actually in Afcon. They've got a good chance of winning Afcon, haven't they? Sunderland.
A couple more games to get through.

Three more games, in fact, to get through. Brentford three, Burnley one.
A game, Barney, which came alive after 18 minutes. I mean, Brentford are really, they're a fascinating story, aren't they?

I kind of

really enjoyed watching them this season.

I love watching, I mean, Igor Thiago, who basically spent, I think, best part of a year injured and is now just showing how many sort of brilliant footballers there are out there

waiting for a chance in this league. He's a really,

he's always made me think of Ivan Tony. He kind of is, if you put the words Ivan Tony through like a Slavic Portuguese translator app, you would get the words Igor Thiago.
It's like, is it?

It's like they've made a new Ivan Tony. He's kind of a similar player as well.
He's strong. He's really quick.
He's a really good finisher. And

I think he's going to end up with almost, at this rate, almost 20 goals in the premier league which is an amazing story for him um and he always says does that celebration which says it's not me it's god which i hope he will bear in mind when the massive money transfer deal to move to spurs or and or similar comes in at the end of the season it's not you it's god uh 11 goals in 13 uh second behind earlier harland you know he's sort of one of a lot of brazilian number nines who all want to be number nine at the world cup but i heard tim vickery saying you know brazil Brazil, the Brazil, you know, there's a snobbishness about if you're playing for Brentford, that's not good enough for us.

He hasn't actually played for Brazil yet, actually. Not yet.
Not yet. But he's keen to.
He wants to be in the running. Well, he needs to get ahead of Rocharlison.

That's your task, should you choose to accept it, is to appear at least as good as Rocharlison.

The snobs are happy with Rocharlison, surprisingly.

Villa 1 Wolves 0. You were there, Dan.
Talk us through it. Yeah, it was a harder game than I thought it was going to be at the start of the day.

I think Wolves deserve some credit, and Rob Edwards deserves some credit for the way they set up. Probably some points.
Probably some points. I mean, they need some points.

Although I thought Wolf set up well and made it difficult for Villa and were perhaps unlucky not to score and go ahead. I did always feel that Villa would have enough to win the game.

Villa seemed to be having their own mini goal of the season competition going on at the moment.

I think 57% of their goals have come from outside the box, which people keep saying isn't sustainable, but it keeps happening every single single week.

It's a bit like Gvardiol from us to jump that high from a standing start. There's no way to get that much power on that strike.

I mean, it's only second Premier League goal for the club as well, Berber Carcamaro. They've both come on his wrong foot.
I suggest he should shoot on his wrong foot a little bit more.

Villa are just so good. at home.
I think we've lost about two games in 60 at Villa Park in the league or something ridiculous.

Going to Villa Park is, you know, I said Salhurst Park was a tough place to go. Villa Park's an even tougher place to go.

And Una Emre deserves a huge amount of credit because at the end of August, we couldn't even

get a shot on target. And since the transfer window shut, I think we've only lost one Premier League game.

So the fact that he's turned this round and got Villa to fourth on the 1st of December, I would never, ever have seen that coming at the end of August. He's just a tremendous football manager.

We're so lucky to have him. Long may it continue.
And yeah, brilliant. You know, always nice to beat Wolverhampton Wondrous.
Just on Villa Park being a difficult place to go,

I would say don't go to Witton. That's a mistake.
Get the number 17 bus, which goes directly from one of the new street exits, and that would take you straight there around the back.

Okay, is that good advice, Dan? I have to take my dad, so getting on public transport is a complete no-go for us at the moment. We have to park in a disabled bar, which is still quite a walk

away from the ground, actually. But Barney is the Premier League travel man.
Who am I to argue with his advice? How would you get to the city grounds, Barney? I would walk down over the river.

It's lovely. Nottingsome.
Nottingham's a lovely city.

Just enjoy it. Enjoy being there.
It's beautiful. That's what Brighton did, and they won 2-0.
20 seconds of thoughts on this, Barry, with apologies to Brighton and Forest fans.

Well, I think it moves Brighton up to fifth, fourth, fifth, which is...

I had very high hopes from the start of the season. It looked like they were going to let me down, but they seemed to found their mojo.

carlos baliba was dropped for this game he had his head turned during the summer and it really hasn't been playing well this season so herzler finally took the decision to drop him two good goals maxim de kuyper and

uh

that young greek chap uh stefan stefanus simas

i think he scored his first goal for brighton it was a bit of a gift uh that was one that was on a plate for him he just had to roll the ball into an empty goal i think brighton probably would have got a penalty if he hadn't scored it anyway.

And a good win for them, and a very poor performance from Forest. And Sean Dyche wasn't particularly impressed with his side afterwards, I think.
Some excellent advantage from the referee.

It reminds me of, I can't remember who it was.

Who was the ref who did a great advantage and then ran off celebrating with his arms that

he was against my team as well. Mike Dean in Tottenham Ville.

It's one of the best things you'll ever see. He runs off.
He's running off like Tardelli, isn't he? It's absolutely sensational.

Ed finally says, how many additions does Barney think Millwall will need in time for their opening day in the Premier League next season?

Third in the championship and injury time winner over Southampton, Barney. Yeah, it's confusing.
It's confusing because they're winning. Normally, it's a struggle.
It's ugly. It

involves pumping the ball forward towards Jake Cooper, but they're actually good, which is confusing and know how to control games and have good players. Aziz is on a brilliant run at the moment.

I mean, they're really good, and

the Den is

a powerful force.

I think it would be really fun to see them in the Premier League. I don't know what happened with the club.

I've always felt it's on the verge of being sold to the most evil oligarch that can be found. Somewhere they'll find him.
They're scouring the planet.

Who have we got here? Is there anyone who's involved in arms and oil?

Because you can now redevelop that site and it's kind of a bit of London that someone could throw loads of money into and do stuff to which I don't want them to do.

There's a part of me that fears promotion from that respect. I quite like how things are but yeah they're really the goals were great as well really good goals.

When Vida in the championship the Dem was my favourite away ground due to the fact that it was the the dragon's lair right under

Dorchester United used to love going there for that reason alone. You mean London Bridge and then sort of pretty straightforward from there I would suggest Barney.
But anyway that'll do for today.

Thanks everybody. Thank you, Dan.
Thank you very much. Loved it.
Thank you, Barney. Cheers, everyone.
Did you love it like Dan said he did?

I mean,

we can talk about this after the, you know, I don't, you know, it's complex feelings, Max. They're complex.

Save it for the debrief. Thank you, Barry.
Thank you. Formal weekly is produced by Joel Grove.
Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens. We'll be back on Wednesday.

This is The Guardian.

Hi folks, it's Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman.

Whole Foods Market is your holiday headquarters with everything you need, whether you're a guest or hosting the big dinner with show-stopping centerpiece means like bone-in spiral cut ham or bone-in rib roast or even king crab.

And if you want to take a few shortcuts, no one is looking after all, try the heat-neat sides from the prepared foods department.

Shop for everything you need at Whole Foods Market, your holiday headquarters.