Liverpool win at Inter while Mo Salah lifts weights alone – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly Liverpool win in Milan against Inter. They needed a result.

Any result, and they got it thanks to Alessandro Bastoni pulling Florian Vertz's shirt for no reason. Shoppers Light rattled home the penalty and everyone was happy.

Apart from perhaps from Mo Sala sitting alone in Fitness First, is it worth it for a gazillion pounds a week from Al Ali or whoever? Chelsea losing Bergamo.

Since we asked if anyone should start taking them seriously, they've given us a categoric response. A second comfortable home win for Spurs in a few days.
Sounds odd to say it.

It was only Slavia Prague, but again, Javi Simmons ran the show. Elsewhere, wins for Bayern, Barcelona, Athletic, but none of them totally straightforward.

There's Manchester United's 4-1-Win at Wolves to discuss from Monday, an EFL roundup, and a non-league player up a ladder trying to fix the floodlights.

All that plus your questions, and that's the base Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glen Denning. Hello.
Hi, Max. Welcome, Nicki Bandini.
Morning. And good morning, Lars Sivertson.
Good morning, everyone. Let's start at San Ciro.

Internil, Liverpool won Dominic Savozlai's 88th minute penalty. Inter's first home defeat in the Champions League since September 2022.

But as I said in the intro, Baz, Liverpool just needed a win to go in off their backside. And that's kind of, I mean, they played okay, but that's kind of what happened.

Yeah, after the events of the weekend, Liverpool in general and Ernest Slott, I think, in particular, needed

at least to not lose this game and winning it sent out a bit of a statement, particularly as Mo Sala had been left at home, as he kind of had to be, really.

And it wasn't a particularly good game to watch, not that pleasant to the eye, but it was a very good win for Liverpool.

There's talk over whether the penalty was soft or not but stoney he he tugged uh florian versus shirt it's a foul some refs give it some don't this one did and i don't think they can have any complaints dominic spozlai stepped up put the penalty away it was i suppose slightly ironic that he was playing in most sales position on the night but i wasn't particularly impressed with inter i'd be interested to hear what nikki has to say about them i thought they struggled to deal with Liverpool's forward line.

They didn't show much imagination going forward and didn't really try to create much and probably deserve to lose in the end. You're interested to hear what Nikki has to say about Inter.
So am I.

So is everybody. Nikki.
It was not a great game of football.

There was a point in the evening where Lars was messaging the group in Sicilian about the goals show on TNT and I thought I'm here stuck here watching the no-goals show at San Cedar was

fairly dismal but but Inter have got for sure a

problem that's ongoing with just a total inability to show up in their games against big clubs the weekend they smashed four past Colmo which all right doesn't sound amazing but Colmo have played some good football this season under under Fabrigas they're they're playing well they've got one of the the best players in Serie A right now Nico Paz and and and Inter made really light work of them but whenever they play a big team lately they seem to not show up and they got 12 points in their first four games in this Champions League, then they lost to Atletico.

Now they've lost to Liverpool. Didn't deserve any more from this game.
Atletico game, maybe they deserved a draw. They've lost to Juventus back when they were still under Igor Tudor.

Not particularly good team in Syria. They lost to Napoli.
They've lost to Milan.

In fact, if you go back over the last two seasons and take their results against Napoli, Juventus, Roma, and Milan, they've won only two of those and they've lost six of them.

So they've been bad in big games over and over again.

Certainly domestically. Obviously, last season they did have some big international results because they got to the final of the Champions League and they did knock out Bayern and Barcelona.

But since then, Simone and Zaghi's gone. And I think the team hasn't really worked out who it is under Christian Kivu.
And they're better than they were last night. They're certainly capable of more.

I was watching it and thinking this feels...

This feels like a team that just has no confidence in itself to try to take on this occasion, a team that's lost its belief that it can play toe-to-toe with a team like this because they have got the talent.

But they also had some some circumstantial stuff that you could you could throw in there they had to use two of their three substitutions windows as it is really early in the game for for for players before half time

um and uh with a cheddar bin chanoglio going off they had they had some things go against them the penalty decision i'm with baz a lot of the time that won't get given but it is grabbing someone's shirt in the area and you can't really complain about it Inter

fans certainly were pretty annoyed about a a handball by Van Dijk right after the goal gets disallowed for Liverpool. Van Dijk does block a shot into the area from Bissak with his hand.

Again, I'd put it in the category of seeing them given. So perhaps on another day, if they hadn't just disallowed Liverpool's goal, the referee might have reviewed that one.

But overall, I think Inter have no complaints. I think they were second best to Liverpool.
And Liverpool weren't amazing, but they were better. And so I think they deserve the win.

Yeah, certainly in the category of I don't want to see them given.

And we'll get to that

other VAR. God, that agonising VAR.

That's just painstaking watching this ball roll up and down someone's arm for 25 minutes but i suppose the point is last liverpool where a team with not much confidence came up against a team with less confidence that worked for them did we see signs of a sort of post salah liverpool there a midfield diamond is that too far to look from this one game maybe but i do think it's maybe a little bit significant that they kept a clean sheet because that has kind of been erna slot's justification for for dropping salah which is very reasonable which is why he said straight out loud which is that

you need

playing Soboslai gives them more

solidity.

I think with Salah, without opening that kind of worms again, the trade-off has been, certainly in the last year and for a little while before that, is that, okay, he doesn't have to do any defensive work, but he will score nearly a goal a game, like what he was doing last year.

And the second he isn't scoring or producing that much, then suddenly the fact that you're carrying a passenger becomes a problem.

And so having basically 10 outfield players who work off the ball is an advantage. And we saw in this game that it is an advantage.
And so I think the clean sheet is kind of notable.

I was not on the penalty. I read that slot had to field question from irate local reporters who suggested that Wirtz had gone down like a fish.

And I have to say, I don't agree with that because his shirt was pulled and fish, of course, don't wear shirts. They don't.
And even trying to pull...

like because the skin is quite slippery and slimy with the fish so you can't really do the tug of the skin either.

So I would not agree with the analysis that he fell down like a fish. I think that's not what happened.

No, I mean, although I suppose a wriggling fish that you're trying to put back in is sort of the move that Wurtz made because his shirt is pulled and he falls the wrong way, actually.

But I suspect he's not. It's also not something that happens with a fish.
If you pull the third thumbs up,

you try to pull the thumb.

I'm sad I even gave you the opportunity to carry on with this. Slot afterwards actually said, Baz, look, in the Premier League, that penalty is probably not given, but the goal is probably given.

And, you know, it was just another moment where VAR was just interminable, that wait for that disallowed goal. And you're sort of watching it going, does anybody want this?

Yeah, I think it took four minutes or more.

We constantly talk about these handballs. It's not going to go away.
So I'm bored talking about them. Yeah, that's fair.

To get into it briefly without getting into it in a big way, but like that to me, my first reaction watching it and said yeah that's a handball all day long and then you know i did the uh the thorough thing of going and and and double checking the rules and yes you know ifab has got a line in their opinion on handballs saying if it is sent on to you by a teammate basically and that's exactly that situation it shouldn't be given as a handball so

a bit of a a shrug from me i certainly understand why all the interdefenders were were immediately on it because i do think in italy that that gets given and i think that it doesn't get given in the premier league and that's exactly why um you have these situations where you have all of, I suppose, the English commentary team on UK broadcasts saying that that's definitely not a handball.

But I think a lot of Italy goes, yeah, that's a handball. To me, I don't know, like instinctively, it's a goal that doesn't get scored without the hand going in.
So it feels like maybe it should be.

But

I think like you, in the end, at a certain point, you're like,

I just don't want to be sat here stopping the game for. however long it is.

And that's the bit which I think most football fans relate to.

Although, of course, also all football fans almost universally, if it's their team that can benefit from the decision, would rather it waits five minutes and goes their way.

I mean, I did wonder, I did posit on Twitter that maybe we could have VAR goal check of the month, you know, play the lightning seeds and then just have, you know, just have the ref running over to the screen and just see which one our favourite was.

Should we talk about Mo Salah then? Because he posted Lars a sort of moderately pathetic picture of him all by himself in the gym with no comment. I don't know.
It's interesting.

Like, I actually was far too sympathetic to him, I think, when it first happened.

And the days have gone on, I just thought this is, it's just sort of, it's ridiculous to, you know, and, and I'm, I'm sort of, I'm team Carragher.

I mean, it's been great for Jamie Carragher's career, if nothing else. Like, like, you know, everyone is hanging on Carr.
I like Carrot, but I've never hung on his every word.

And now you're just waiting to see what Jamie Carragher says on Monday Night Pooh. Oh, he's on CBS next.
What's going to happen? Slot sort of said, I guess he could be in for the Brighton game.

I imagine he would need to apologize. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen.
But it's it's all just a bit sort of pathetic, I think. Yeah, I tend to think it has made me

see how I can connect these two things.

Watching the World Cup draw and this thing kind of made me think about how being the center of attention for too many years, being the focal point of everything,

being in a position where people are like praising you and being nice to you constantly maybe warps your ego and your perception of the world around you a little bit.

Because I do think it is slightly wild that benching a guy for two and a half games, which is what's happened. Like, he's been dropped for two, three games, but he came on at halftime for one of them.

So he's been benched for two and a half games, and that has led him to go public saying someone's trying to get me out of the club.

And I'm being, I mean, it is a completely disproportionate reaction from him to what's actually happened.

If he'd been out for 10 games and the club was like actively briefing against him or something, then sure. But that isn't what's happened.
What's happened is that a guy in

his 30s who wasn't playing particularly well during a period where the team was really struggling has been sat down for the coach to try something else and for him to push the nuclear button on the off the bones of that is wild and and there's the thing about he mentioned that he's not getting support from the club if i was part of the you know upstairs guys who were debating whether or not to hand him a massive new contract or not in the spring and who had to probably go to the owners and say hey this guy is old but he's been really good for us and he's a club icon so we're going to push the boat out and hand out a much bigger contract than we're actually comfortable with because we think that's the right thing to do.

For him to turn around a few months later and say they're not supporting him, I was like, hang on, excuse me? Have you checked your bank account recently?

So, so like the whole situation is very unedifying. I secretly, privately think.

Once you kind of talk yourself into handing him that massive contract and he starts this season not playing very well or not playing as well, then I think you immediately think, oh, okay, we've got 18 more months of this.

And I wonder if he's almost solved that problem for them. I don't think we're quite in sort of Ronaldo United territory when he sort of actively made the team worse.
Imagine that as a team.

Ronaldo United is not a team I'd necessarily want to do. But I don't think we're in a point where he's that big a problem.

But I do think one of the things we've talked about in the, and this is going on a bit, in the Great Liverpool

Forum Collapse discussion is that it seems like they've tried to replace Mo Salah when Mo Salah's already there and the team seems unbalanced.

And maybe him moving on to Saudi Arabia in January is a thing that makes sense for everyone, including him, by the way, because then he can play the AFCON and then he can just kind of muck about and play football at a quite low intensity going into the World Cup and he'll be like super ready physically and mentally for that, maybe.

So maybe that's a good outcome for everyone. I think it feels like it's maybe the

right way out for everyone. I sort of enjoyed, actually, it was another Norwegian Lars,

Janaga Fjotoft on

ESPM, was

slightly lampooning this idea of Salah that he's earned the right to be in the team all the time. He said, Does that mean Kenny Dalgleys can just get himself in the team whenever he feels like it?

And yeah, you know, it's the reality of football.

You can be the best player ever, but when you're no longer producing at that level, there comes the point where you don't get to be in the team every week.

And it feels like it feels like the beginning of the end, doesn't it? But you never know in football sometimes these stories you come back around. I think it is the end.

There was quite an interesting exchange on Amazon Primes coverage last night after the game. Ernest Slott came out to talk to the pundits, one of whom was Clarence Seidorf.

And he didn't particularly, he knows he has to talk about Salah, and he knows that's all anyone wants to talk about.

But he was very much trying to keep the focus on the players who were in Milan and who had won the game and performed well.

And Seidorf was like a dog with a bone, wouldn't let him go. And Slott said,

you know, so you're a journalist now clarence

and uh but sidor said look as the leader is it not up to you to give the option or extend the olive branch slot very much sort of said well should the initiative come from me or from him does he admit he made a mistake so i think slot

is

not interested in any kind of reconciliation with with sla and if if there is to be forgiveness then salah will have to to come to him and grovel. And I can't see that happening.

You asked me about Inter, and I just wanted to say on the Liverpool side, I thought Curtis Jones was really good last night.

We haven't talked that much about some of the things that were good in their team because it wasn't like an exceptional performance as a team. They did what they needed to.

I think they were very solid. But I did think Curtis Jones was a standout player of the game.
He didn't seem to put a pass wrong all night.

He was taking on his man, was getting to some quite adventurous positions and also giving space to teammates.

I thought was he was really really good so just wanted to say that no and you uh i'm glad you did because i'd written that down in my notes but i'd moved on uh and also connor bradley when he came on worth mentioning i thought he made a bit of a difference and in that slightly narrower diamond you need your fullbacks to attack so that might be good for frimpong when he's back as well anyway to bergamot uh atalanta 2 chelsea 1 and has not been a good week for chelsea last since we started talking about them you know in earnest as winning everything after the bars of win and and then the Arsenal draw.

They've lost at Leeds, drawn at Bournemouth, which I guess there's no disgrace in that, and now lost to Atalanta. So Chelsea go back to, I don't know how to work this team out, Lars.

No, but that feels like it has been the main constant with Chelsea this season, hasn't it? Like, I don't know how to work out Chelsea has become one of those conversations we've had too many times.

They didn't rotate that much for this game. You had the sort of Enzo Caicedo, Rhys James, midfield triumvirant in action.
You had Gio Pedro Front Neto started. So

I definitely think they dropped points against leads. A lot of that was to do with the squad rotation.

And

at Bournemouth, I thought

that was just kind of a slightly oof, sort of underwhelming performance overall. I was about to say, oh, they're too young.
They don't have a lot of depth. But also, they spent like a gazillion pounds

in the last sort of three, four years. So I feel like that shouldn't be the case.
I suppose you can still be young and expensive. That's true.

It's true.

You can be young and expensive as i'm sure many listeners uh are aware but no i i i think it's a case of maresca keeps saying this we don't have enough experience we're not title challengers and i guess that's fine

but it's what four defeats in the last five away from home in the champions league or something like that now i mean that that seems to be an area that's that's just troubling them and i'm just expecting a little bit more from from this this group

i mean i at 1-0 rhys james has a half decent chance and maybe that changes the game um but as a as part of the Nikki the two-pronged Charles de Quetalera fan club with Philippe it was nice to see him heavily involved in both goals yeah yeah it was it was definitely with with I suppose a helping hand from Chelsea the the first one that the cross for Scamaka's goal lovely lovely cross really really stood that ball up well for Scamaka his goal that he scored you could see Cucarella's backing off him and it's because Cucarella can see Zapa Costas coming outside and he's desperately trying to get Badioshila to come across and

give him some support. And De Quettelera even talked about that after the game.

Basically, he wasn't really planning to shoot, but because Cagrett just kept backing off him, he's like, At some point, I'm not going to give this ball, I'm not going to take it on.

But I really, really enjoy watching De Catalara.

I think he's a very, I don't know, unique is the wrong word, because there have been others like him, if you look broadly enough, but he's a rare kind of footballer. He's got this lanky, slightly,

slightly different way of dribbling, but works so well in tight spaces and has a surprising physicality to him as well. But yeah, I really enjoy him when he's on song, and he was on song last night.

He was best player on the pitch, I thought. So Nikki, this seems very typical for what Atalanta do very well in that you have Ketalera and Scamaka scoring.

They seem to have a knack for like looking at guys who showed promise, had a big move, big move doesn't really work out, and then they pick them up again as a sort of a as a fixer-upper type of situation, because there's a lot of guys like that that's gone through Atalanta in the last few years.

I I suppose exactly who Atalanta is are now is somewhat in flux because Gasfarini has moved on.

He's on de Roma and you have this unhappy little chapter under Ivan Jurich and now Palladino's come in as manager and this was only I think his fifth game in charge lost the first one against Napoli but then got a couple of wins then lost to Verona again at the weekend and so you're sort of not sure exactly where they're um where they are in their progress but but Palladino is a manager who who absolutely deserved this chance and who I think has has potential to go on and be one of the rising names in Italian football.

And look, even with this not fantastic start they've made to the season, they are doing well in the Champions League. I think they're on 13 points now.
And so they have got the results there.

And I think Palladino perhaps is

going to be more able to continue that trend of what you've been saying, Lars, which I...

I think it has been Atalanta's identity, absolutely, that they bring in these players and polish them up and get them back to their best.

But of course, the biggest part of that is they had a manager, Gasfellini, who was very, very good at doing it. And in De Catalara's case, absolutely.
You can listen to the player talk about it.

Huge amount of credit to Casparini for that resurgence. It's like the homes under the hammer approach to football.

You've got sort of Dion Dublin running around Europe looking at, oh, this player's got stairs going all the way up to the bedroom. You know, we've got to bring him to Bergamo straight away.

But from a Chelsea point of view, they are 11th in the table at the moment. They've got Paphos home, Napoli away.
So, you know, that looks like one win and one don't know.

And that one more win wouldn't be enough to get them into the top eight, I guess. No, probably not.
I wouldn't say Paphos will be as straightforward as you're suggesting.

They're this tournament's surprise package, and there's a very good chance they'll be fighting for their lives to stay in or to make it through to the knockout stages.

And of course, David Luis coming back to the bridge, right? Well, I was about to say that. A reunion with David Louise.
So it looks like it'll be difficult for them to finish in the top eight.

And realistically, at least

four of the five Premier Leagues, they should all be finishing top eight, I think, but it's not going to happen.

I actually watched Paphos Monaco in its entirety last week, which is one of those moments when I realized that my recent efforts at having a better work-life balance may not have gone as well as I thought.

But I watched it almost entirely because I was thinking, David Louis is roaming around in Cyprus. I mean, that's something I'll spend 90 minutes watching.
And he did not disappoint.

He's got a great header off a corner. So, you know, the man, the man's, he's still got it.
Something. All right.
That'll do for part one, part two. We'll begin at the Telemets Bear Stadium.

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

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Barry, not this Barry, on X rides.
Our Spurs better than 1970 Brazil. Here we go.
Tottenham 3, Slavia Prague, 0. Another home win for Thomas Frank.

Barry, it was only Slavia Prague, whose record in the Champions League is pretty rotten, but it's sort of cut and paste from Monday. Spurs were good.
Xavi Simmons is good. Yeah, absolutely.

Kyung Min's son had his official farewell last night. He was invited to the game and got a good reception from the crowd.

It was a very straightforward win for them, I think, and they probably should have won by a lot more. An own goal was it, and two penalties.

Xavi Simmons, impressed, as you say, he almost spat the dummy when it looked like he won the second penalty to make that they went 3-0 ahead from.

Almost didn't get to take it, but Christian Romero allowed him to, and all was well in the world again. Slavi Prague are very poor, and they're way down the bottom of the table,

31st, I think, going into this game.

But as I say, you can only beat what's in front of you. Their goalkeeper played very well.
Stanek, he kept the score down.

But another good home win for Spurs against very limited opposition. And

there was an awful lot of empty seats at the stadium. I think 15,000 was mentioned in the report.
And I could totally understand why fans might not bother to go and see this game.

You know, Slavia Prague aren't a big draw.

Spurs have Brussy Dortmund at home now and Einstrecht Frankfurt away in their last game they're ninth on 11 points they should be aiming for for top eight i guess they'd probably have to win both to be guaranteed of it i think about simmons lars i think is

he remark he feels like watching verts as well they move in a similar way him and vertz and there have been the same criticisms about sort of physicality he has that ability to take the ball someone on the half term and take another touch before the opposition player has noticed that he's he's done it so if he can get to the gym as much as salah then you know he really could be huge for Tottenham.

Chali Siemens has gotten a lot of criticism

for being part of Spurs' poor run for not providing the sort of creativity and the chance creation they were hoping he would do, having been brought in for a big transfer fee. Yada, yada, yada.

In the games I've seen, it looks a lot to me like he's not getting the ball in good positions a lot of the time. Like he often starts drifting out wide.

I think a lot of what's been going wrong with Spurs this season is related to the fact that their central midfielders don't pass the ball forwards a lot.

There's a lot of sideways and backwards with the midfielders and the ball going out to the fullback.

And Simon seems to be drifting out wide often and just isn't getting the ball in those sort of half spaces, as they call them,

in between midfield and attack and in those areas where he can do damage. But it is also a factor that he has been knocked off the ball a little bit too often as well.

So a combination, I think, of maybe toughening up a little bit, being a little quicker, getting it out of his feet, but also really his teammates finding him in better areas more often.

I think I think selecting Archie Gray, and we said that on Monday, is quite big for a defensive midfielder who can pass the ball forwards. No, I just completely agree.

I think that's why that's happening.

I think both the Poligno and the Bentankar in the midfield at the same time is an issue because the ball will just never move forwards in the middle of the pitch, and that is not good.

John says: if you invite guests over, but they warn you they'll fly into a violent rage if they see a rainbow at your place should you invite them over in the first place?

Yeah so Tottenham are forced to move the Proud Lily Whites pride flag at the request of Slavia Prague. It's usually displayed in the northeast corner of the stadium which is close to the away fans.

It was moved to the southwest corner.

Proud Lilywhites said Slavia Prague have raised concerns that some of their supporters may damage the flag and cause disorder if it remains in its usual location.

Once an away club raises a potential safety issue, UEFA and the home club is required to assess the risk and act accordingly. The outcome for tonight is the flag will be relocated.

Let's be honest about what this means. The risk here isn't the flag, it's the reaction of a small number of opposition supporters.

That's disappointing and it's another reminder of the hostility LGBTQI plus fans still face across European football.

We want to be clear, the clubs handled this appropriately, they've been transparent with us throughout, pushed back where they could, and made sure this sits firmly as a request from the visiting club rather than a decision rooted in Spurs own values.

For tonight, the flag will still fly. It will still be seen.
Our message remains the same. This is our home.

Our community belongs here no visiting team gets to change that tonight let's get behind the team and show the opposition that at our stadium we play with pride um sort of pretty depressing bearing isn't it yeah um i think slavi prague said they wanted the flag moved because

it had the totnum crest on it and not because it was a rainbow flag i suspect that is not entirely the case Lara said all fair that they should have just replaced the flag with a rainbow that didn't have the uh spurs crest on it see what would have happened but yeah it's it's depressing that this happens if they hadn't moved the flag something worse might have happened some act of violence or it might have been torn down or something so

i don't really know what else to say if you know slavi prague fans don't have a great reputation when playing in europe and the fact that they're being pandered to in this way is quite irritating i think it's that I think I don't love this idea of like if it hadn't been removed, something bad might have happened.

We're just like, all right. If they can't behave themselves, let those choices and those decisions be on them and let them face the consequences for that.

I think the minimum requirement of going away to a football match is being able to stand next to a flag and not behave like a lunatic. I don't know if you were planning to bring this in later.

Obviously, there's been this conversation about the pride match at the World Cup and Egypt saying that they're not happy now about that happening.

And

I mean

this really feels like the reverse side of the coin.

If you can say that when everyone goes to Qatar for the World Cup, that they have to respect the culture, then why the hell don't clubs coming to Tottenham Stadium have to respect the culture?

Why don't clubs going to the World Cup in America have to respect the culture of having a pride event in Seattle? And it feels like a very uneven discourse that is being allowed to play out.

You're right. And as Lal said, if you're incapable of looking at a flag that has a rainbow on it and not losing your mind, then you need to really question your life choices don't you

anyway elsewhere Barca Beak Frankfurt 2-1 back at the new camp Barca two for Jules Kunde a young squadron five years in the Champions League you watched you watched this one I did it was another I mean they are entertaining at the moment watching Barca

because they are still playing with this sort of high line which very occasionally goes completely wrong so that's how Frankfurt took the lead through Anskaknauf.

And they nearly doubled that lead ahead of halftime with another counter-attack from Kraknauf, who ended up leaving it for a teammate who couldn't quite find the finish.

But it was this case of the first half, Barcelona were dominating, but not able to open Frankfurt up. And

there were wide open spaces. So when they were able to break, which weren't that many times, but when they were, there was immediate danger.

In the second half, the big difference was that Barcelona found the goals. And I have to credit Marcus Ratchford there, who's, you know, came on at halftime.

And his cross for the first goal is a brilliant cross. Like, it's really, really good.
And it's the occasional reminder of why,

you know, all the all the issues with Rashford, there's still reasons to persist with him. There's still reasons for coaches, why coaches at a very, very high level really want to work with him.

Because when you can get him right, he does have this sort of game-breaking capacities to unlock things.

And I think that cross to Kunde for the first goal was a really good example of that.

Second Kunde goal was more Lamin Yamal scouting a cross, sending it like into orbit and Kunde somehow winning it when it came back down again.

Not amazing defending by Frankfurt, which Frankfurt enjoyers will be familiar with. Not amazing defensively.
They were.

What really caught my eye though was with Barcelona 2-on-up at home, you would expect them to settle down a little bit with this high line and maybe just try to control the game.

But they were still just pushing everyone forward. And towards the end, again, they were almost caught on the break a couple of times.

And you're just watching this going, why are you behaving like this? You're two on up in extra time at home. And they were still just taking massive risks.
And it was really odd to watch.

But they got away with it. So I guess it's fine.
Is two goals disappointing for Barcelona against a team who shipped six at the weekend and who conceded 29 in 13 league games? I don't know, maybe.

Yeah, and routinely letting five in the Champions League, don't they? Also, I was just going to interject as well. Don't love the new goal music at the camp now.

I mean, maybe this is part of the Spotify team up that they now have big speakers and have to be slightly even more flamboyant with the music.

But the goal music makes kind of makes you sound like you're in a slightly naff Swedish nightclub or something. Like it's not the vibe anyone's going for, I don't think.
Not a fan of it.

Please tell me Bartho are using da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, like every EFL League One team. That would really go down well there, I think.
Biomex sporting 3-1.

I guess the chat Nikki is mainly about, or the interesting thing is this German Wunderkind, or maybe they say Wunderkid in Germany, to Leonard Carl, who scored another brilliant goal.

He looks great, doesn't he?

Yeah, I mean, I have to go to the goal music if we're going to talk about Biomunic, because they always have their like canoes,

which

I feel like in this sort of game where, like, where you were, where you were losing and then you get in top, like, as the opponent must really get under your skin.

Like, you've not just let the lead slip, but now they're doing this. It's so ingrained, isn't it?

But it's also if they're scoring goal number seven against Darmstadt at home or something, you just go, come on, is this really necessary?

It's a good point.

But yes, I mean, Carl looks pretty special, doesn't he? He looks like the next big teenage thing was

very much more than just his goal last night as well, from what I've seen.

Obviously, I didn't see the full 90 minutes of it, but he's come into that team and is immediately looking like he has changed the dynamic of it behind the attack and really, really

exciting talent for them and perhaps again already for the national team this summer. Yeah, he had a goal ruled out for a fractional offside.

He was denied by a brilliant save from Rui Silva, the sporting keeper, and then scored and became the youngest player in Champions League history to score in three consecutive games, I think.

We mentioned him how good he was when Byron were beaten by Arsenal, but he's something else on the evidence of last night anyway. I don't know if he's played for Germany yet.

I do know there's there's a clamour for him to go to the World Cup. That's exactly.
I messaged Archie saying, Is there a clamour? To which he said, In Munich, there is always a clamour.

He didn't get called up to the last, he didn't get called up to the last squad, and someone called Saeed El Mala from Coln did. He said, Carl will probably get a call-up, but got a long way to go.

Decent player, said Archie, in an understated manner. Atleti won 3-2 at PSV.
Good win for Adletti this last.

It was a good game for my compatriot, Alexander Solot, the Viking King, with one assist and one goal.

It was an unathleti-performance, if you can say that, because they did sort of let PSV back into the game a little bit, and

they're not as defensively rugged as you'd expect, Diego Simeone team, but that Julian Alvarez, Alex Serlot, link up up front is a really kind of balanced strike partnership that I think will be unpleasant to defend against for many, many teams.

What has he done to become the Viking King? Or is that just a hereditary? I think that's something in my

honorary position bestowed upon him by the Trabson Spore fans back in the day. I think they also, that was mid sort of

when

the Game of Thrones hype was at its peaks. I think there also were a lot of online graphics of him sort of

made to look like Jon Snow or something, and he was the king in the north as well.

But he does look like, I would argue more than Erling Holland. He looks like an extra from a Viking show, Alex Holos.
Right. Yes, and Erling is Norse god.

I guess, you know, if you are a Norwegian player who goo who plays plays somewhere else in the world and you get neither Norse god nor Viking king, then you are doing something wrong, aren't you?

You know, unless you're a very slow-moving centre-back and they call you the longboat. I think TSV were very unlucky not to get something from this game.

They missed two absolute sitters, one right at the end, a fellow called Armando Obispo,

who will have had a long, sleepless night, I suspect.

Barry, any strong thoughts from Uni Al Sanders Laws, two Marseille, three, Monaco one, Galatas Ranil, or Kyrat Nil Olympiakos one? Kyrat Nil Olympiakos won was terrific.

It was a sensational game of football, despite the scoreline suggesting probably otherwise. I would say Olympiakos missed enough chances in this game to win the Champions League five times over.

Tamirian Anurbekov, who I do remember being, I think it was him, was in goal for their play-off win against Celtic and was really good.

Young keeper, he pulled off some absolutely sensational saves. Olympiakis,

he finally let one in. Gelson Martins snuck one past him at his near post.
And this was not,

I think maybe about 20 minutes ago. Then Olympiakis hit the woodwork twice.
Meditarimi missed an open goal from about four yards out.

Then El Kabi missed an open goal then he hit the foot of the post and then there was another astonishing anerbekov save so olympiakas should have won this game 15 0 but they scraped through by one but it was it was hugely entertaining it was on very early it was on it even before the early kickoffs here really no yeah wow an appetizer because because almaty is really far east right so time difference wise you really need to get going then union saint julois narrowly beaten by Marseille.

Mason Greenwood was the star turn

for

Marseille in that one. And Union Saint-Geralois will be disappointed not to have taken a point because Promise David had a header right at the end that was brilliantly saved by Geronimo Ruli.

And they also, I mean, they also had two goals ruled out, Union Salien Gilois, when they were chasing it.

And Roberto DeZerbi, not the calmest of characters under normal circumstances, was even more like close to spontaneous combustion on the bench. You know, I was one of those.

I also just, you'll like this, Max. You know, he came on for San Juan Lois? Sophia Bufal.
Oh, yes, yes. And I just thought, all right, he must be about 100 years old, but he's actually just 32.

He's been drinking from the fountain of youth, this guy. Yeah.
Oh, what a guy. Anyway, that'll do for part two.
Part three, we'll begin with Magic Nights' full-on win at Wolves on Monday night.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So on Monday, Manchester United went to Molyneux.
They won 4-1.

The first goal, Bruno Fernandez's goal,

is Barry one of the greatest goals in Premier League history. I've watched it again and again and again and again.
I think by the time I'd stopped rewinding it and playing it again, it was half time.

I was just,

I just, so many parts of it made me so happy. Yeah.

I remember saying earlier in the season that I thought Wolves had far too much about them to get relegated and that they were playing well and results were just going against them.

But this match certainly disabused me of that notion. And this goal in particular was just

comical. Casemiro kind of half-heartedly presses Andre

halfway inside the Wolves half, sticks out a toe and prods the ball forward to Matthias Kuna. He passed to Bruno Fernandez, but the pass was terrible.
It was too short and was slightly behind Bruno.

So he fell over. He got back to his feet.
I can't remember who the defender was, but he tried to dispossess Bruno. Then he fell over.

Bruno gets back to his feet and scuffs the ball past Sam Johnson, who gets a big hand on it, but still can't keep it out.

It was like Wolves had recruited just five or six drunks from the nearby weather spoons

and handed them shirts and said, right, go out and play. And these guys have never actually seen anyone play football before.
It was so comical. Oh, it was so great.

Yeah, I felt for Wolves fans had a protest, pre-match protest, so they didn't take their seats for the 10 minutes, the first 10 minutes. And in an almost cruel act of

irony, the ref didn't blow the final whistle until the clock had ticked over into 10 minutes of added time. So you're watching 90 minutes, whether you liked it or not.

They did score their first goal for 540 minutes. Bellegarde

599. Oh, was it? Oh, my apologies.
Yeah. John Rickner Bellegarde getting that one.
And Man United were quite good after that, Lars.

I mean, nice to see Mason Mount scoring i wonder how long we we have to say nice to see mason mount scoring because it's all quite patronizing you know man united are now sick they're level on points with chelsea they are one point off fourth place i daren't ask have they turned a corner i just don't i don't i don't want to ask that question but i what are they that is almost an interesting subject in on its own though max how there are some clubs because of their stature and because of all the drama and soap opera around them they can never just be okay

they're like either they're back or it's doom and disaster everywhere. And I feel like United are one of those where, like,

what they are this year is a team that might be good enough to qualify for the Champions League. Like, they've got a real shot at making fourth or fifth.

And I think that's really good progress for them. And it doesn't have to be either.
Man United are back or everyone needs to get fired immediately. Like, the truth will be somewhere in between those.

And the truth is that they're kind of ticking along all right. And it's not, um, it's not flukish.
I mean, I've been very good so far this episode.

I haven't done it a lot, but I am going to default to the XG and point out that they are fourth in the XG table now, which kind of backs up the fact that actually they've been playing reasonably well.

That's what it's looked like as well.

I am a Mason Mount enjoyer. I do think him

getting fit is helpful. I think

we spent so much time talking about the players who don't fit into Amarim's system.

I think he really does fit into Amarim's system, Mason Mount, even if he's not the most spectacular player in the world.

It does seem like their opponents could have fielded a team of actual wolves and had more organization defensively than they did on the day. So maybe we shouldn't read too much into this.

But, you know, United, kind of fine. Wolves have two points, still not enough points from 15 games.
And they go to the United States. They get two more than actual wolves would have had at this point.

Yeah, true. They go to the Emirates.
I guess that gives us a chance, Nikki, while you're here, to ask your current Arsenal thoughts. I don't know that I want to tempt fate.

Because if something went wrong in this game against Wolves. Not specifically the Wolves game, of course, but sort of I'm thinking more more holistically than that.
Yeah,

I have to admit, I didn't get to catch the bitter game at all because I was working on hosting an event this weekend. So I was fully unable to follow it.

So it was one of those results I saw and I was like, oh, that's not great. But I do feel like I said

weeks ago when everyone was going, oh, the title, there were literally articles saying, is the title race over? And we were 11 games into the season.

I said, this is a bit silly because at some point you lose a game and suddenly that five-point gap isn't actually as huge as everyone pretends it is. So

I think it's still a team having a great season that I'm not worried about. But obviously I didn't see the game against Villa.
Maybe they were much worse than I imagine they were. I don't know.

So I didn't see that game. But just jotting, there were podcasts saying that Arsenal won the league too.
I don't know if you're pointing at us, Joel, but

we're allowed to float. I still think they will, for what it's worth.

I agree. I actually watched this game in a barn, as you do, with some Arsenal fans, and I thought Villa were really good,

just to put it out. I've been very anti-Villa and I've not understood their run of results because I don't think their performances have been great.
But Villa actually very good. In a barn where?

In Norway. In a barn in Norway.
Norwegian barn. Okay, that sounds fun.
It was a little cold, but perfectly pleasant. I can imagine.

There isn't a Norwegian football called the Barn that you know, you know, that's an old clodding centre-back, isn't it? In the championship, Frank Lampard's Coventry drew 1-0 at Preston.

They lost 3-0 at the weekend. So a little bit of a blip.

Still 10 points clear of Millwall in third, who have a game in hand. Middlesbrough are five points behind.
They beat Charlton 2-1 at the Valley.

There were lots of tributes at the Valley to Norman Barker, 68-year-old who'd been going to Charlton since 1968, who was taken ill during the 13th minute of the game against Portsmouth on Saturday.

and passed away despite receiving medical treatment. He died in hospital later.
He was known as Headphones Norm. He wore big over-ear headphones for the games.

He'd been named Charlton's supporter of the year by manager Nathan Jones in July.

In a tribute posted online, the club said it was devastated by the loss of one of its most loyal and recognizable faces.

We had an email from Sam who said, I wanted to share the sad news of the passing of lifelong Charlton supporter Norman Barca.

He was a seasoned ticket holder for 35 years, a constant presence through every twist of the club's journey, from leaving the valley to the emotional return home, from the heights of Premier League football to the tougher years in League One.

Norman's loyalty never wavered. He represented the very best of what it means to be a football fan.
Devotion, resilience, and an unbreakable bond with his club.

His loss will be deeply felt within the Charlton community. Thanks for taking a moment to acknowledge a supporter who truly lived and breathed the game.

And I suppose, Nikki, it's gone beyond Charlton because we all

he sort of represents.

what so much of going to football is that there's just some guy that's always there whenever you the first time you go he's there and it's not sort of ageless because we're all aging but like for sort of 25 years you could see the same person standing in the same place.

And he sort of represents that, I think. Yeah, I think as soon as you said that nickname, the headphones, Norm, that you just think certainly

when I was going to Arsenal every week is a season to go order, which I don't get to do nowadays. But when you go every week, you do see people over and over again.

And some of them you never speak to because maybe they're a few rows away. They're just people you see going past you on the way to the rows.
You recognize them in their seat. And you do

have these very,

i don't know this it feels like you know people who you don't know and you recognize people you don't know and sometimes you even see someone you give them a little nod you give them a hello even though you've never shared words with them and maybe once you'll end up in that scrum that happens after a goal you'll end up hugging these people because you don't um actually uh really even think about it when you're in those moments of joy at a football game do you so so i think there is this this very particular bond with football and football fans when you um you're all there for the same reason you're all there to cheer the team together and you do, you just you just recognise people and feel a connection to people even without actually knowing them.

And

I think those, yeah, the little details like the headphones become part of who that person is and

how people relate not just to not to them specifically, but to the experience of going to the the ground and and being at the game and and and I think that all fans who go to the games every um every week like that become part of the tapestry and yeah, it's I suppose he's just become this embodiment for lots of people of of what that feeling is of connection to uh to people who support your club with you yeah I couldn't have said it better myself yeah the bottom of the championship looks very sort of 90s early 2000s Premier League Portsmouth 22nd Norwich 23rd Sheffield Wednesday obviously bottom minus nine points I was complaining on X about Cambridge letting in an equalizer at home to Chesterfield in the 92nd minute after dominating the game and just in fury and Matt replied saying it could have been worse having not won in weeks Wednesday conceded on 90 plus seven with seven seconds left.

Having had possession of the ball with 14 seconds to go. It never rains, but it pours.
They drew one all with Watford.

And we'll finish with this from Rosthall FC in step five, the Southern Counties East Football League in Kent.

They tweeted slight delay here to the restart due to a floodlight issue. And they sent a photo.
This was from the weekend, but we didn't have time on Monday.

And there's, you know, a few people standing, you know, just on the grass, some advertising hoardings there's a ladder going up to the sort of fuse box or whatever it is and at the top of the ladder is a guy wearing a number nine shirt in full kit and his boots on it's clearly the center forward is a guy called char clover who did uh who tweeted later uh i did my best apparently 14 out of the 16 lights on wasn't enough for the restart shame being too nalup but oh well we go again yeah they were two up i think against corinthians and he fixed most of the floodlights but not enough he is an elect he is a qualified electrician it is worth

14 out of 16 sounds pretty good. That seems harsh.
Good enough to me, doesn't it? But you know,

it's an absolute, it's sort of like it epitomizes non-league football this picture in such a beautiful way. I think if we had 14 out of 16 lights in the house working, we could still podcast.

That's what I'm saying.

They are different things, I guess. But yeah, we blame the ref.
I don't think I have 14 lights in my house.

There's a little part of me that wants everyone to count. How many have, you know, that's a, that's a different, that feels like a different podcast to me.
Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thank you everyone. An international break, Max.
Let's do it next international break. Everyone counts.

How many lights do they have in their house? I have on the radio made listeners count all the plastic bags you have in that cupboard. And many have obliged and then questions.

A bit like you watching a full Pathos game, question what they're doing with their life. But you need people like this to help fill the content.
Thank you, Barry.

I didn't say it at the time because I wanted him to stop. But if Lars wants to see fish wearing clothes, I suggest he watch an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

No time to react. Thank you, Lars.
Thank you, Max. Thanks, Nicky.
Thanks. Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove and Jesse Howard.
Our executive producer is Daniel Stevens. We'll be back tomorrow.

This is The Guardian.

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

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