# No goals for Spurs_ are Villa in crisis_ _ Fulham make changes_(M4A_128K)

An episode of [Footbal Beyond the Pitch](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6821032841), 20 Oct 2026, 1 h 20 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75863292/no_goals_for_spurs_are_villa_in_crisis_fulham_make_changes_m4a_128k.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:03] Speaker 1: Hello oh no i've been mocked i've been mercilessly mocked
[0:07] Speaker 1: in my own home hello and welcome to the tifo
[0:11] Speaker 1: football podcast all sponsored by ea sports fc 27 how
[0:16] Speaker 1: exciting is that now joining me today On the show.
[0:20] Speaker 1: You've already heard him do an impression of me. It's
[0:22] Speaker 1: not me again. It's him. It's John McKenzie.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Hello.
[0:26] Speaker 1: Oh, wow. My voice is still screwed. You sounded like
[0:29] Speaker 1: a sort of like a dog that was howling then. Yeah, sorry.
[0:32] Speaker 1: Like that dog Nana in Peter Pan. Remember that one?
[0:36] Speaker 2: I'll stick to a lower register. I think I sound
[0:38] Speaker 2: a bit more ASMR down here.
[0:39] Speaker 1: Very exciting down there. Pleasing all of the people listening
[0:42] Speaker 1: to you in the car radio on the morning. Now,
[0:45] Speaker 1: Ruben Pinder's here. Hello. Oh, wow. That's actually very good. Yeah.
[0:50] Speaker 1: That's your impression of an ill John. Yeah.
[0:52] Speaker 3: It's my impression of an hill John doing an impression
[0:54] Speaker 3: of you.
[0:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, very nice. Now, and he's the Athletics' intrepid reporter
[0:58] Speaker 1: for all things Aston Villa. Welcome, Jacob Tanswell.
[1:01] Speaker 4: Hello.
[1:02] Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. Also a lovely deep register. We're
[1:05] Speaker 1: all such deep boys today. Also, Steve Hankey's here. Oh, God.
[1:12] Speaker 1: it's gonna become a thing if you didn't if you
[1:15] Speaker 1: didn't like that don't listen to the episode there's two
[1:18] Speaker 1: more thrown in there at various places and i tell
[1:21] Speaker 1: you what steve mewing is even saying that is disgusting
[1:27] Speaker 1: isn't it it makes me so uncomfortable oh how grim
[1:33] Speaker 1: anyway there we go Now, what did we talk about
[1:36] Speaker 1: on today's show? Well, what's the longest walk you've ever done?
[1:40] Speaker 1: I started talking about walking the Camino again. Have I
[1:42] Speaker 1: already talked about that? Yep. Oh, wow. There you get. Well, listen,
[1:45] Speaker 1: I got to get out there and do more things.
[1:46] Speaker 1: So I have more stuff to talk about. You got
[1:48] Speaker 1: to remember, live a life. Now, what else? John has
[1:52] Speaker 1: his favorite sticker album with him and he tests us on.
[1:55] Speaker 1: Don't hold it up in my frame again. Oh, my God.
[1:58] Speaker 1: Hold it the other side of your body. Oh, there
[2:03] Speaker 1: it is. Now, John's favourite sticker album's here and he
[2:05] Speaker 1: tests us on the 99-2000 Premier League season. It is indeed,
[2:09] Speaker 1: writes Steve, a bunch of guys naming old footballers and
[2:12] Speaker 1: having the best time. In theory, naming them. Yeah, I mean,
[2:16] Speaker 1: I didn't have the best time because I couldn't name
[2:17] Speaker 1: any of them. Then we talk about Spurs. They haven't
[2:20] Speaker 1: scored a league goal yet, but are things actually that bad? Well,
[2:23] Speaker 1: we're not sure. We'll talk about that. We play Rondo.
[2:25] Speaker 1: Very exciting Rondo. And after that, we do a deep
[2:29] Speaker 1: dive into Aston Villa. Will their early season struggles work
[2:32] Speaker 1: themselves out once the new players have settled in? Well,
[2:35] Speaker 1: we discuss. How quickly can someone throw a football 60 metres?
[2:40] Speaker 1: I don't think we decide the answer to that, but
[2:42] Speaker 1: we do discuss it. My brave boys, Fulham held firm
[2:46] Speaker 1: at Anfield as Liverpool dropped yet more points in a
[2:48] Speaker 1: stuttering start to the season. We talk a little bit
[2:50] Speaker 1: about Fulham, but we're going to talk about Liverpool on
[2:52] Speaker 1: Thursday's episode. So if you're expecting that here, leave now.
[2:56] Speaker 1: Hull City, they just keep doing it, don't they? This
[2:59] Speaker 1: time they took a point off Chelsea and we talk
[3:01] Speaker 1: a little bit about why. And West Ham have hit
[3:03] Speaker 1: some fine form in the championship. So we touch very briefly, very,
[3:07] Speaker 1: I would say very briefly. I don't want anyone to
[3:10] Speaker 1: think that we're actually talking about West Ham, because whilst
[3:13] Speaker 1: we do for sort of three or four minutes, it's
[3:15] Speaker 1: not worth hanging around the whole episode for. you know
[3:18] Speaker 1: it's like a nice bonus at the end if you're
[3:20] Speaker 1: a West Ham fan who wants to listen to other
[3:21] Speaker 1: things it's like a nice Brucey bonus but it's not
[3:25] Speaker 1: it's not something to skip forward to or to hold
[3:27] Speaker 1: on for I wouldn't want to oversell it I don't
[3:30] Speaker 1: want you to be disappointed when you get there.
[3:32] Speaker 5: This might actually be longer than the West Ham section
[3:34] Speaker 5: yeah what I'm.
[3:35] Speaker 1: Doing now you're absolutely right killing your own retention right
[3:38] Speaker 1: here yes exactly I know I'm purposefully trying to do
[3:40] Speaker 1: it and yet the show keeps growing it's bizarre isn't
[3:42] Speaker 1: it And that's the whole show. And a very quick
[3:45] Speaker 1: one to say on Thursday, I'm joined by John, JJ
[3:47] Speaker 1: and Hamza from the Times of London. So that's where
[3:49] Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Liverpool. There's a ring for
[3:52] Speaker 1: analysis this week on Saturday. We haven't yet decided what
[3:54] Speaker 1: it's going to be, so we'll do that. And there's
[3:56] Speaker 1: no live stream on Sunday or for a few weeks
[3:58] Speaker 1: as we'll hit the international break after that. But three
[4:01] Speaker 1: shows a week should keep you going.
[4:02] Speaker 3: The international break.
[4:03] Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, you like it?
[4:05] Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
[4:05] Speaker 1: You're looking forward to it? Yeah. Because you want to
[4:07] Speaker 1: watch England? Yeah. Yeah.
[4:09] Speaker 3: Tommy Tuchel's boys back in action.
[4:10] Speaker 1: The Tuchester. That's it. Have I got everything, Steve? Yes.
[4:14] Speaker 5: All right.
[4:14] Speaker 1: Well, there we go. Enjoy the show. Now, before we
[4:26] Speaker 1: begin in earnest, we were just saying, John, what were
[4:28] Speaker 1: you saying? That a friend of yours in... california is
[4:31] Speaker 1: a villa fan and heard that jacob tanswell was coming
[4:33] Speaker 1: on the show what did he say.
[4:34] Speaker 2: He was very excited he said that jacob is much
[4:37] Speaker 2: loved in california.
[4:38] Speaker 1: That's nice well you said that you thought maybe there
[4:40] Speaker 1: was only one villa fan in california not not true
[4:43] Speaker 1: i'm looking at the website of the aston villa fc
[4:46] Speaker 1: california supporters club i.
[4:49] Speaker 3: Like that the logo has the golden gate bridge um
[4:52] Speaker 3: in light.
[4:52] Speaker 1: Blue it's got the little yellow lion on the golden
[4:55] Speaker 1: gate bridge here it is uh AVFC California. It's a
[5:00] Speaker 1: family of Aston Villa Football Club supporters based in the
[5:02] Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay Area. Have you ever been to the
[5:05] Speaker 1: Bay Area?
[5:06] Speaker 2: I haven't, but if they want to invite me out.
[5:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Well, hello to the Aston Villa
[5:10] Speaker 1: Supporters Club in California. John, if your friend doesn't know
[5:13] Speaker 1: they exist, hook up. That's what these things are for,
[5:16] Speaker 1: you know. I don't know if he lives in the
[5:17] Speaker 1: Bay Area, to be honest. California's a big place. Yeah,
[5:19] Speaker 1: just drive. I'm sure it's close nearby, isn't it? It's
[5:22] Speaker 1: like the same as going to Norwich from Ipswich or something.
[5:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[5:25] Speaker 1: It's no big deal.
[5:25] Speaker 2: Americans are like that though, aren't they? They're like, yeah,
[5:27] Speaker 2: you know, I did a 17-hour trip.
[5:29] Speaker 3: They will happily just drive 10 hours to go somewhere
[5:32] Speaker 3: or like, move 2,000 miles for a job.
[5:35] Speaker 1: This is true. We speak to some of our American
[5:37] Speaker 1: colleagues and say, well, what do you do at the weekend?
[5:39] Speaker 1: They say, I went home to visit my parents. I
[5:41] Speaker 1: was like, was that far? No, no, it was just
[5:43] Speaker 1: a 14-hour drive. You could literally do the entirety of
[5:46] Speaker 1: the UK. Up and down, I reckon, in 14 hours.
[5:48] Speaker 3: I grew up in New York and then they're just like, yeah,
[5:51] Speaker 3: I'm moving to Denver. Why?
[5:53] Speaker 1: They drive for 10 hours and they're still in New York.
[5:56] Speaker 1: Very exciting. Well, there we go. Okay, that was America.
[6:01] Speaker 1: We've done that. And now football. Where else to begin,
[6:04] Speaker 1: of course? Well, now seriously, where else to begin? Than
[6:07] Speaker 1: with Spurs nil. Nil Everton.
[6:10] Speaker 3: Well, maybe a game. A game with a goal in it.
[6:12] Speaker 1: We could have done that. Although the absence of a
[6:15] Speaker 1: goal is what makes this special, Ruben. Because Tottenham have
[6:17] Speaker 1: still now failed to score in all four of their
[6:19] Speaker 1: Premier League games so far this season, according to Opta
[6:23] Speaker 1: and according to Steve. According to Steve, according to Opta,
[6:26] Speaker 1: I should say. Only Crystal Palace in the 2017-18 season
[6:30] Speaker 1: have had a longer dry spell. According to me, that
[6:32] Speaker 1: is correct. Is that according to you that's correct as well? Yeah.
[6:35] Speaker 1: According to you, John? No, wrong. Really?
[6:37] Speaker 6: Wrong?
[6:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, wrong. Really? Wow. Where are you getting your information from? From.
[6:41] Speaker 3: California?
[6:42] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[6:42] Speaker 2: From the JJ Ball book of business.
[6:44] Speaker 1: Ah, yeah. I can see where you've gone wrong there.
[6:46] Speaker 3: That was seven games, is that record?
[6:49] Speaker 1: Right. So that was seven games, and then they scored. Yeah. Yeah,
[6:53] Speaker 1: after that.
[6:55] Speaker 3: That's how that run ended.
[6:56] Speaker 1: That's how that was.
[6:58] Speaker 2: They got kicked out of the league after seven games
[7:00] Speaker 2: for not scoring.
[7:01] Speaker 1: Right.
[7:01] Speaker 3: No, that was the Frank de Boer season. It was
[7:02] Speaker 3: four games, then Roy Hodgson for three, and then they
[7:05] Speaker 3: scored against Chelsea.
[7:06] Speaker 1: Got it. Yeah. Well, I'm keen to move on, but
[7:08] Speaker 1: I can see Steve is excitedly typing in the plan.
[7:11] Speaker 1: He hasn't finished typing yet. I'll read what he's written
[7:13] Speaker 1: so far. John O'Groats to Land's End would take 15... Oh,
[7:17] Speaker 1: such a shame. We'll never know what the end of
[7:19] Speaker 1: that sentence... Oh, he's finished. 15 to 16 hours... With
[7:22] Speaker 1: current traffic. Okay. John O'Groats, that's the place in the
[7:25] Speaker 1: most northern spot of Scotland, isn't it? Yeah.
[7:27] Speaker 2: I reckon you can make it, though, if you drove
[7:29] Speaker 2: through the night. I reckon you'd be able to do
[7:31] Speaker 2: it in less than 40. Was it 40 that you said? Yeah,
[7:33] Speaker 2: he said in current traffic.
[7:35] Speaker 1: Right now it's 11. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of people. Busy.
[7:38] Speaker 1: John O'Groats is absolutely chock-a-block right now. Not talking about
[7:42] Speaker 1: Land's End. Goodness me. Don't even get us started.
[7:44] Speaker 2: On Land's End at this time of the day.
[7:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. People do that walk though, don't they?
[7:48] Speaker 1: Or they cycle it, don't they? Cycling is the common one, yeah.
[7:51] Speaker 3: Have you ever done that?
[7:52] Speaker 1: No. What's the longest walk you've done? That's a good question. Yeah.
[7:56] Speaker 2: I think maybe a 15 mile. I don't think I've
[7:58] Speaker 2: done anything really big.
[7:59] Speaker 1: No, but I mean, you can chain days together. Like,
[8:03] Speaker 1: for example, I've done four days of walking a little
[8:06] Speaker 1: bit of the Camino. I did, I think, 35 miles
[8:11] Speaker 1: or something. That's my longest walk, but it took four days.
[8:14] Speaker 1: Longest walk, Jacob?
[8:16] Speaker 2: Probably somewhere on holiday. You just walk, don't you, a
[8:18] Speaker 2: little bit more?
[8:18] Speaker 1: You just walk. Two miles, what's that? Yeah, what is
[8:20] Speaker 1: that on holiday? From bar to bar. I think you
[8:22] Speaker 1: have to convert it to euros and then it's like
[8:24] Speaker 1: one mile or something. What about you?
[8:26] Speaker 3: I have no idea. I don't walk long distances.
[8:28] Speaker 1: He's never left London this far. I just use the tube, mate.
[8:32] Speaker 1: It's the train station. Walking to the football stadium. That
[8:34] Speaker 1: sounds northern to me, mate. Walking everywhere.
[8:37] Speaker 3: Genuinely, probably like... Well, what felt like the longest walk
[8:41] Speaker 3: is probably like doing camping at a music festival where
[8:43] Speaker 3: you're going from car park to campsite.
[8:46] Speaker 2: The longest walk was at Victoria Tube Station where it
[8:48] Speaker 2: took 15 minutes for a train to turn.
[8:50] Speaker 1: Changing lines of bank. Am I right? To be fair,
[8:53] Speaker 1: that is fine. Glastonbury was great, but you had to
[8:55] Speaker 1: keep walking.
[8:58] Speaker 3: I've never been to Glastonbury.
[8:59] Speaker 1: You've never been to Glastonbury? I think the tickets go
[9:00] Speaker 1: on sale soon, don't they? I think I'm ageing out of...
[9:04] Speaker 1: They're like good years to go. No, you age back in. Yeah,
[9:07] Speaker 1: but he's out for now. It's another 15 years before
[9:10] Speaker 1: he ages back in.
[9:11] Speaker 3: It's going to.
[9:12] Speaker 1: Take a long time for you to re-embrace life and
[9:14] Speaker 1: enjoy it properly. Right now you're in the cynical era.
[9:17] Speaker 1: You'll come out of it at some point. Where are you?
[9:18] Speaker 1: How old are you, Jacob? I'm 25. Oh, you're fine.
[9:21] Speaker 3: You're 25?
[9:22] Speaker 1: You should go to Glastonbury this year. Do you know what?
[9:24] Speaker 1: I've been the last two years. Have you? Yeah. That's
[9:27] Speaker 1: exactly my point, Ruben. That's exactly my point.
[9:29] Speaker 3: No, my shock at your age was how accomplished you
[9:32] Speaker 3: are at your job, and it just makes me feel
[9:34] Speaker 3: like a failure.
[9:35] Speaker 1: That's all. I'm 30. Anyway. Moving on. Let's not get
[9:40] Speaker 1: on to ages. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Now, listen,
[9:45] Speaker 1: we're going to come to talk about whether or not
[9:47] Speaker 1: Spurs have the opportunity to break that terrific Crystal Palace record.
[9:51] Speaker 1: now here's a question would you like that or not
[9:53] Speaker 1: do you like that Crystal Palace have a record or
[9:56] Speaker 1: is it one that you'd prefer I enjoyed bringing it
[9:59] Speaker 1: to an end No, I would like Spurs to break
[10:02] Speaker 1: that record. I want somebody else to have it. There's
[10:04] Speaker 1: the possibility that it could happen, although I think maybe not.
[10:07] Speaker 1: We'll come back and talk about that in a second.
[10:08] Speaker 1: But to start with, we did a live stream yesterday
[10:12] Speaker 1: after the Manchester Derby and producer Nathan Clarke, who's also
[10:15] Speaker 1: a host of the Extra Inch Spurs podcast, He was here.
[10:19] Speaker 1: So after we finished live streaming, we spoke to Nathan
[10:23] Speaker 1: and we asked him why Spurs still haven't scored after
[10:26] Speaker 1: four games. Here's what he had to say.
[10:27] Speaker 7: I think there's the sort of the convenient answer for
[10:30] Speaker 7: Spurs fans, which is that like it's the start of
[10:33] Speaker 7: a a new coach almost, if you exclude a handful
[10:37] Speaker 7: of games at the end of last season when we
[10:38] Speaker 7: were playing the original way, and you can say that
[10:41] Speaker 7: the XI has been jumbled about, a lot of new transfers,
[10:44] Speaker 7: all these things take time to settle. We haven't really
[10:47] Speaker 7: put out an XI, which I think would be unanimously
[10:51] Speaker 7: approved by Spurs fans as a whole.
[10:53] Speaker 1: There's always a reason.
[10:55] Speaker 7: And what John has talked about in the past in
[10:59] Speaker 7: terms of a complex system, and that takes time. All
[11:02] Speaker 7: that stuff is definitely true. But I also think it's
[11:07] Speaker 7: not as simple as the ball arrives in the final
[11:09] Speaker 7: third and then what happens afterwards isn't good enough. I
[11:12] Speaker 7: think that if you look at the recruitment that Spurs
[11:15] Speaker 7: did in the summer, towards their front players especially, it's
[11:21] Speaker 7: a lot of large distance players, long distance ball carriers.
[11:26] Speaker 7: And that for me is like, that's the kind of
[11:28] Speaker 7: the classic Deserby thing. You know what Deserby wants to do.
[11:30] Speaker 7: He wants to bait the opposition forward. play it round
[11:32] Speaker 7: through or over and then attack the space in behind
[11:34] Speaker 7: very fast Spurs haven't really done that and it's four
[11:39] Speaker 7: games so it's not a huge sample but Spurs haven't
[11:41] Speaker 7: really done any of that so far and so for
[11:45] Speaker 7: me it feels like there's there's been yeah a kind
[11:47] Speaker 7: of a quadrupling down on a play style that has
[11:50] Speaker 7: yet to emerge.
[11:51] Speaker 1: Okay there we go that was that was Nathan um
[11:54] Speaker 1: John are Spurs still bad or do you think as
[11:58] Speaker 1: maybe I think that the scoreless run is is Perhaps
[12:02] Speaker 1: a bit of an unfortunate distraction from a team that
[12:04] Speaker 1: actually seems to be improving.
[12:06] Speaker 2: Well, before we get to that, Joe, I've got a
[12:08] Speaker 2: little quiz for you.
[12:09] Speaker 1: You've got a quiz for me? Oh, my God.
[12:12] Speaker 2: This is the Premier League 99-2000 official Merlin sticker collection,
[12:18] Speaker 2: which I completed when I was younger. My dad was
[12:21] Speaker 2: going to throw it away. I was at home this
[12:22] Speaker 2: weekend and I was like, no. This is a cultural artifact.
[12:25] Speaker 1: That's the only reason you kept it, because your dad
[12:27] Speaker 1: was going to throw it away, right?
[12:28] Speaker 2: Yes, definitely not, because I have actually quite a deep
[12:30] Speaker 2: bond to this stickbook.
[12:32] Speaker 1: It's completed. Right.
[12:32] Speaker 2: But I thought what we could do is I could
[12:34] Speaker 2: do a quiz every time we cover a team.
[12:36] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
[12:37] Speaker 2: You've got to name a player who is on the
[12:39] Speaker 2: stickers for that team.
[12:40] Speaker 1: Oh, God. I think Spurs were in this. So Spurs,
[12:43] Speaker 1: they must have been, because they've never been relegated, have they?
[12:45] Speaker 1: Never been relegated. 99-2000. 99-2000.
[12:46] Speaker 3: We remember it well, of course.
[12:47] Speaker 1: I wasn't even born, but yeah. Stop bragging about your age.
[12:53] Speaker 1: No need to show off. Goodness me, this is the
[12:56] Speaker 1: last time he's coming on the podcast. Right, okay, I
[12:59] Speaker 1: can just pick any player. Any player on this page.
[13:02] Speaker 1: Jurgen Klinsmann.
[13:05] Speaker 2: Is not on this page.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Is it?
[13:08] Speaker 3: Oh, I felt like it.
[13:08] Speaker 2: You definitely know someone on this page. There's a centre-back
[13:13] Speaker 2: you know.
[13:13] Speaker 1: Saul Campbell? Yes. Oh my God, so I got one. Yeah,
[13:16] Speaker 1: a French midfielder. Oh, do you know what? Jürgen Klinsmann
[13:19] Speaker 1: was at Spurs until 1995, but only from 1994. So
[13:22] Speaker 1: it was an error. A French midfielder. Is it Chorlan Vedruka?
[13:30] Speaker 1: Vorlan Cedruka? Chorlan Hedruka? Hedruka Chorlan. Chorlan Vedruka. It's David Ginola.
[13:35] Speaker 1: Who am I thinking of?
[13:36] Speaker 3: Vedran Chorluka, the Croatian writer.
[13:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chorlan Vedruka. Cedran Veruca. Cedran Veruca. It was,
[13:44] Speaker 1: who was it, sorry? David Ginola. It was David Ginola.
[13:47] Speaker 1: Was David Bentley there? He wasn't, no.
[13:49] Speaker 2: He could have had Chris Armstrong. He could have had
[13:52] Speaker 2: Les Ferdinand.
[13:52] Speaker 1: Right, of course. He could have had Ian Walker, the goalkeeper.
[13:55] Speaker 1: Of course, of course I could have. How about that?
[13:57] Speaker 5: Darren Anderson?
[13:58] Speaker 1: Darren Anderson was there. Yeah, I like it though. Bring
[14:00] Speaker 1: it back when we do, when we get to another club, yeah? Sorry,
[14:03] Speaker 1: what was the question? The question was just, do you
[14:05] Speaker 1: think that Spurs' scoreless run is simply an unfortunate distraction
[14:11] Speaker 1: from a team that is actually improving? Because it looks bad.
[14:14] Speaker 1: I mean, it is bad. And it looks bad, but
[14:17] Speaker 1: actually it's not that bad.
[14:19] Speaker 2: I think people focus on things in catastrophizing ways these days, right?
[14:25] Speaker 2: Which is, oh, this hasn't happened so far. Therefore, it
[14:27] Speaker 2: will always be bad forever for all eternity. And I
[14:31] Speaker 2: think what's so interesting about Deserby is that we've talked
[14:34] Speaker 2: about this a lot. I've made videos about this. The
[14:37] Speaker 2: tactical landscape has shifted. Teams are better at stopping his
[14:40] Speaker 2: teams from doing what they want to do. That doesn't
[14:43] Speaker 2: mean to say that it's now no longer a functional
[14:46] Speaker 2: way of playing football. The question is more, where's it
[14:48] Speaker 2: going to plateau out at? If it plateaus out at
[14:51] Speaker 2: mid table, that's probably not good enough for Spurs, but
[14:54] Speaker 2: there's still the possibility. And you know, that's for me,
[14:56] Speaker 2: that would be the worst case scenario. I expect them
[14:58] Speaker 2: to be around mid table. If the worst comes to the.
[15:00] Speaker 1: Worst this season. Yeah.
[15:02] Speaker 2: There's still a possibility that once they get going, as
[15:05] Speaker 2: Nathan mentioned, I talk about complex systems and you know, the,
[15:09] Speaker 2: the way that Deserby wants to play is more complex
[15:11] Speaker 2: than a lot of coaches are playing in the Premier
[15:13] Speaker 2: League right now. And there's an argument to be made
[15:16] Speaker 2: that actually complexity is much less functional than it once was.
[15:19] Speaker 2: It used to be the case that if you had
[15:20] Speaker 2: a complex system that could sustainably and consistently arrive in
[15:25] Speaker 2: the final third and generate chances, then you were, you're
[15:27] Speaker 2: probably going to be in the Champions League conversation.
[15:29] Speaker 1: You were king. Yeah.
[15:31] Speaker 2: Whether or not that's true is up for debate right now.
[15:34] Speaker 2: Because I think there's a lot of teams now who
[15:36] Speaker 2: are playing quite simple approaches where you don't need to
[15:39] Speaker 2: spend ages getting the ball from one end of the
[15:41] Speaker 2: pitch to the other. You can be direct. You can
[15:43] Speaker 2: just sit in blocks and absorb pressure. Oliver Glasner has
[15:46] Speaker 2: been doing it. He did it again against Villa the weekend,
[15:50] Speaker 2: where for most of that game, especially in the first half,
[15:53] Speaker 2: they didn't really seem to be doing a huge amount
[15:54] Speaker 2: of football in terms of the in-possession side of things.
[15:58] Speaker 2: So the big question is, where has the needle swung
[16:01] Speaker 2: to for me? It's still going to be a functional
[16:03] Speaker 2: way of playing football, I think, but he's going to
[16:05] Speaker 2: have to find solutions to what his instinct is to do.
[16:09] Speaker 2: And he's also going to have to deal with the
[16:10] Speaker 2: fact that teams are much, much better at stopping him
[16:12] Speaker 2: from doing the things he wants to do anyway.
[16:14] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, I was reading The Athletic yesterday
[16:17] Speaker 1: and Ahmed Walid said something I thought was interesting. He said,
[16:20] Speaker 1: Tottenham's inability to break down deep defences remains the biggest
[16:23] Speaker 1: question for Deserby and his players this season, which to
[16:25] Speaker 1: be honest, you know, is a problem that's been presented
[16:28] Speaker 1: to lots of teams. It's a problem that's always presented
[16:31] Speaker 1: itself to Deserby's teams. And I think that kind of
[16:34] Speaker 1: hits the heart of what you're saying, right? All the
[16:35] Speaker 1: while teams, play against him in the way that would
[16:38] Speaker 1: suit his football, it works very well. But when they don't,
[16:40] Speaker 1: then you're expecting, I don't want to pick on Matthias Tell,
[16:43] Speaker 1: although Deserby seemed to at the weekend, but Matthias Tell
[16:47] Speaker 1: and other forwards to break down compact blocks. That's tricky.
[16:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a big narrative of the chapter on
[16:53] Speaker 2: Deserby in my book, right?
[16:54] Speaker 1: Oh, here he goes. Always mentioning the book.
[16:57] Speaker 2: The problem with Deserby's approach is that it collapses under
[17:00] Speaker 2: its own success, right? Which is, if you are willing
[17:03] Speaker 2: to be baited up and not defend it in the
[17:05] Speaker 2: correct way, then they'll take your part. And so what
[17:08] Speaker 2: teams do is they start refusing to take the bait
[17:11] Speaker 2: or they make it harder for those central progressions to occur.
[17:14] Speaker 2: And then suddenly Spurs will be in a situation, Nathan
[17:17] Speaker 2: mentioned it, where you've got a lot of players to
[17:18] Speaker 2: play one system and your opponent are forcing you to
[17:21] Speaker 2: play another system where you are breaking down a low block.
[17:23] Speaker 2: And then there's questions about the overall functionality of it.
[17:26] Speaker 2: And again, that swings the needle one way or another.
[17:28] Speaker 2: If more teams are willing to just sit in against
[17:31] Speaker 2: them then it's going to be harder for them to
[17:32] Speaker 2: to get the benefits of the.
[17:33] Speaker 1: System yeah deserve he did he joked after the game
[17:36] Speaker 1: Ruben that in Italy he would be the best coach
[17:39] Speaker 1: I think the joke was intended because uh Spurs have
[17:42] Speaker 1: had two clean sheets now they've had two clean sheets
[17:44] Speaker 1: but um how do you think he's doing so far
[17:47] Speaker 1: as in terms of his media management because it's it's
[17:50] Speaker 1: a you know it's rough to not score any goals
[17:52] Speaker 1: or win any games in the first four after spending
[17:54] Speaker 1: 400 million.
[17:55] Speaker 3: Pounds yeah well it would Everybody knew what kind of
[17:58] Speaker 3: character he was, right? And he's quite passionate. He speaks
[18:02] Speaker 3: his mind. Spurs have had managers like that in the
[18:06] Speaker 3: last few years and it can sometimes be quite unhelpful.
[18:09] Speaker 1: Is he this season's Ruben Amorim, do you think? In
[18:12] Speaker 1: terms of like a coach who will answer a question
[18:15] Speaker 1: in actually quite a clever and fun way, but also
[18:17] Speaker 1: in a way that will later come back to bite him.
[18:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, he has kind of not quite to the same
[18:22] Speaker 3: extent been like downplaying... his own team. We speak about
[18:26] Speaker 3: this recently where Amrim was always saying it's the worst
[18:29] Speaker 3: Man United team of all time.
[18:31] Speaker 1: He was always lowering expectations.
[18:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe to preserve his own status as well.
[18:36] Speaker 3: So Deserby's doing a bit of that. He's not quite
[18:39] Speaker 3: gone full Conte yet, which you should never go full Conte.
[18:43] Speaker 3: um i found it interesting a quote in jack pitbrook
[18:47] Speaker 3: jack pitbrook's piece um of deserving saying the last decision
[18:50] Speaker 3: the last pass we have to shoot more times especially
[18:53] Speaker 3: when we have space and time to do so we
[18:55] Speaker 3: have to do it with the right spirit and jack
[18:57] Speaker 3: kind of speaking a lot about how they get into
[19:00] Speaker 3: the final third and then There's a bit of a
[19:03] Speaker 3: psychological block with bravery to take a risk in the
[19:06] Speaker 3: final third. Having played really well in the first half
[19:09] Speaker 3: an hour, Jack was kind of hypothesizing that maybe the
[19:12] Speaker 3: fact that they didn't score in that spell is what
[19:15] Speaker 3: then let them down for the rest of the game
[19:16] Speaker 3: and kind of affected their decision making.
[19:19] Speaker 1: Because they were great in the first sort of 20 minutes,
[19:21] Speaker 1: the 30 minutes.
[19:22] Speaker 3: And obviously they didn't concede in this game, but they
[19:24] Speaker 3: do have a habit of like heads dropping when they
[19:26] Speaker 3: go a goal down. So this was like a different
[19:28] Speaker 3: kind of version of that where, oh, we've played so
[19:30] Speaker 3: well and we still haven't scored. And then everything starts
[19:33] Speaker 3: to kind of get worse from there. But I suppose
[19:36] Speaker 3: if they want to cling on to positives, Madison came on,
[19:38] Speaker 3: Kudus came on, you'd hope that like with the tactical
[19:42] Speaker 3: problems that they now face in breaking down deep defenses
[19:46] Speaker 3: then players like that might help yeah compared to the
[19:49] Speaker 3: kind of lineups that they've had to put out with
[19:51] Speaker 3: say like Gallagher didn't play yesterday but he's played as
[19:54] Speaker 3: a 10 quite often under Deserby which is probably not
[19:57] Speaker 3: the sort of profile that he wants there so it's
[20:00] Speaker 3: not it's not gone full disaster crisis mode in the
[20:03] Speaker 3: media room yet but I'm sure he won't shy away
[20:07] Speaker 3: from making it so should these bad results continue.
[20:10] Speaker 1: We had a conversation yesterday on the live stream about
[20:13] Speaker 1: the notion of the crisis club, that we think there's
[20:15] Speaker 1: always a crisis club going into the international break.
[20:18] Speaker 3: It's us at the moment.
[20:19] Speaker 1: So it could be Crystal Palace. There's a shout for that.
[20:21] Speaker 1: And of course, I think there's been more games at
[20:24] Speaker 1: the beginning of this Premier League season than normal. The
[20:25] Speaker 1: international break is going to be longer. So they've put
[20:27] Speaker 1: those swish two together. Usually, I think it's three games
[20:30] Speaker 1: and then you're in. So there's not much to choose from.
[20:33] Speaker 1: Now it'll be five before the international break. Palace are
[20:35] Speaker 1: a good shout. Spurs are a good shout. I mean,
[20:38] Speaker 1: they come up against Villa, another good shout, who we're
[20:41] Speaker 1: going to talk about a lot later. They come up
[20:43] Speaker 1: against Villa on Saturday in the biggest nil-nil game of
[20:47] Speaker 1: all time. All the clubs are in crisis. Man United
[20:50] Speaker 1: off the back of yesterday, we agreed, probably not quite crisis.
[20:53] Speaker 1: Are there any other teams?
[20:55] Speaker 3: Coventry, but that's like default.
[20:56] Speaker 1: It doesn't count, does it? It's like neutral. If you
[20:58] Speaker 1: expect them to be relegated and then they're in the
[21:00] Speaker 1: relegation zone, I don't know if that's a crisis. Well,
[21:02] Speaker 1: it's always a crisis, isn't it?
[21:03] Speaker 2: I mean, I guess it feels very much like they're
[21:06] Speaker 2: relegation has been confirmed in their first four games.
[21:08] Speaker 1: Well, they also haven't scored a goal, I believe.
[21:11] Speaker 3: Minus 10 goal difference.
[21:13] Speaker 1: That's not great. Good start. Not good. It's really not good. Yeah.
[21:17] Speaker 1: Aston Villa have scored one. That's nuts. You know, better
[21:20] Speaker 1: but one point fewer than Spurs. What would you rather
[21:23] Speaker 1: have right now? A point More or to a goal?
[21:29] Speaker 1: I think Emery probably a point more. But from my perspective,
[21:32] Speaker 1: more goals are better. Yeah, just one goal is good.
[21:34] Speaker 1: One goal is better than nine goals. Can I just
[21:36] Speaker 1: say one more thing on Spurs? Yeah.
[21:37] Speaker 2: Nathan did touch on it. I do think that the
[21:39] Speaker 2: personnel stuff as well. He talked about having big space attackers.
[21:43] Speaker 2: But I also think that so much of what Deserby's
[21:45] Speaker 2: system is about is about being able to have those
[21:47] Speaker 2: moments of acceleration where you're doing. And we'll see this
[21:50] Speaker 2: from when we talk.
[21:50] Speaker 1: About Villa as well.
[21:52] Speaker 2: Because actually, the overlaps between Emery and De Zerbi are
[21:55] Speaker 2: very interesting, I think, from a tactical point of view.
[21:58] Speaker 2: And you can make the argument that Villa and Spurs
[22:01] Speaker 2: both struggled at the beginning of the season is kind
[22:02] Speaker 2: of interesting from the same perspective of the tactical systems
[22:06] Speaker 2: require certain things. But they need players who can receive
[22:10] Speaker 2: the ball in deep build-up, often in tight spaces, and
[22:13] Speaker 2: then accelerate the play, find those passes through the press.
[22:17] Speaker 2: And I don't, in Bentoncourt and Sonali, I don't think
[22:19] Speaker 2: they necessarily have the right combination of players for that.
[22:23] Speaker 2: And there's lots of times when I watch them and
[22:25] Speaker 2: I think, with a slightly different profile of player in
[22:27] Speaker 2: that situation, I could see, well, I mean, maybe Spurs
[22:31] Speaker 2: don't really have that kind of player.
[22:32] Speaker 3: That was what McAllister did so well for him at Brighton.
[22:34] Speaker 1: Yeah. And Caicedo as well.
[22:36] Speaker 2: Like, both of them were really fantastic at finding those
[22:39] Speaker 2: little bounces through the lines, quick turn, and then you're
[22:42] Speaker 2: into the space and then you attack. And there's, I
[22:43] Speaker 2: watched Spurs play I've watched all of Spurs games this
[22:46] Speaker 2: season and there's so many times when I see it
[22:48] Speaker 2: and I think a different player would have actually accessed
[22:50] Speaker 2: the space here. They would have got through and that's
[22:53] Speaker 2: what I think is missing because the problem is they
[22:56] Speaker 2: are getting to the final third but they're having to
[22:57] Speaker 2: do it so much slower that you're losing all of
[22:59] Speaker 2: the advantages that you get from having those players and
[23:01] Speaker 2: I think if If you had just one of the...
[23:03] Speaker 2: Like Mateus Fernandes has barely played in the pivot spots,
[23:06] Speaker 2: for example.
[23:06] Speaker 1: Could he be the one? Potentially, yeah.
[23:08] Speaker 2: I think he would get towards solving those kind of problems.
[23:11] Speaker 2: But I'm surprised they didn't go for just a guy
[23:14] Speaker 2: like that who is just a really good small space guy.
[23:18] Speaker 2: Just unlocks the potential then to accelerate the play. Given
[23:21] Speaker 2: how much money they did spend.
[23:23] Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Well, as we said, they are at home
[23:26] Speaker 1: to Aston Villa on Saturday before the international break. Tuesday, tomorrow...
[23:30] Speaker 1: they are away to Liverpool. So there are two big
[23:32] Speaker 1: opportunities for them to be a crisis club.
[23:34] Speaker 3: And they've got Coventry coming up, which I think would
[23:37] Speaker 3: be their seventh game in this run.
[23:39] Speaker 1: Yes. So they will score against Coventry. Well, they're playing
[23:42] Speaker 1: Man United in their sixth game, so they'll score.
[23:44] Speaker 3: In that one. No records being broken.
[23:46] Speaker 1: How about that? There we go. Well, that's a little
[23:48] Speaker 1: bit of Spurs. Before we move on, do you want
[23:51] Speaker 1: to quiz me on Everton? Or quiz the room, John?
[23:53] Speaker 1: You don't have to quiz me. You can quiz the room.
[23:55] Speaker 1: Anyone want to... Let's just check that. Everton have always been... Jagielka! 99-2000.
[23:58] Speaker 1: A while ago. Way back.
[23:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, you're hitting the 2000s rather than... Your radar's.
[24:00] Speaker 1: Quite 2008-2009 at the moment. That's just my radar.
[24:02] Speaker 3: Okay, it's 1997.
[24:03] Speaker 1: 1999-2000. But I think it's a very clear 90s period
[24:05] Speaker 1: rather than 2000s. Yeah, I agree. Duncan Ferguson. Duncan Ferguson.
[24:23] Speaker 1: Duncan Ferguson, you didn't say it. No, I said it first.
[24:26] Speaker 1: You got one? I was going to say Duncan Ferguson.
[24:29] Speaker 1: Are we all imagining him in that one-to-one kit? Let me.
[24:34] Speaker 1: The reanimated corpse of Stephen Pienaar. Stephen Pienaar is not here.
[24:40] Speaker 1: This is before Tony Hibbert. This is... Oh, Hibbert's good. Yeah,
[24:44] Speaker 1: Tony Hibbert doesn't seem to be here. Oh, what a shame.
[24:47] Speaker 5: Alessandro Pistoni.
[24:48] Speaker 1: What?
[24:49] Speaker 5: Alessandro Pistoni.
[24:50] Speaker 1: Alessandro.
[24:52] Speaker 3: He plays for Inter now. No, Pistoni, he said.
[24:55] Speaker 5: Italian fullback.
[24:56] Speaker 1: I think he said Pistoni. Pistoni. No, can't have him.
[25:00] Speaker 3: There's no way to speak about Hibbert.
[25:01] Speaker 1: Plastic fan, Steve. All right, let me think. I'll say
[25:04] Speaker 1: a player's name. All right. Zinedine Zidane is your clue.
[25:08] Speaker 3: Kevin Kilban.
[25:09] Speaker 5: Matarazzi.
[25:11] Speaker 1: Matarazzi was there. Former West Ham manager.
[25:16] Speaker 3: Slavin Village.
[25:17] Speaker 1: Yep, Slavin Village is there. Paolo Di Canio. I don't
[25:21] Speaker 1: think he ever played that. Well, my knowledge of 99-2000
[25:25] Speaker 1: Everton is very poor, I would say. I would say
[25:28] Speaker 1: so too. Can you read some more to us just
[25:29] Speaker 1: so that we can remember who they are? You won't
[25:31] Speaker 1: know them. No, just say them anyway because people at
[25:33] Speaker 1: home might know them.
[25:33] Speaker 2: Okay, for the people who actually know about football.
[25:35] Speaker 1: No, John, people in the comments are going to go, oh,
[25:37] Speaker 1: I knew all the players. I can't believe you didn't
[25:39] Speaker 1: know them. That's why I'm not doing it. I googled
[25:40] Speaker 1: them while you were talking and then I looked at
[25:42] Speaker 1: them and knew all of them. Thomas Maira was the goalkeeper. Oh,
[25:45] Speaker 1: of course. Michael Ball, do you remember him? Oh, Michael Ball.
[25:48] Speaker 1: Craig Short. Michael Ball. Craig Short wasn't short.
[25:52] Speaker 3: Andy Hinchcliffe.
[25:54] Speaker 1: No. David Unsworth. Isn't Michael Ball a singer? He is, yeah.
[25:58] Speaker 1: Olivier Decor, the Leeds legend. Don Hutchinson. Nick Barnby, another
[26:03] Speaker 1: Leeds legend.
[26:06] Speaker 3: Nick Barnby played for Liverpool as well as Everton, didn't he?
[26:09] Speaker 1: Danny Kadamatri's on the bench. Oh, Michael Ball became famous
[26:12] Speaker 1: as a singer and actor primarily through his breakout West
[26:14] Speaker 1: End role in Les Mis. I didn't know that. His
[26:17] Speaker 1: breakout Merseyside role as an Everton player. His breakout West
[26:21] Speaker 1: End role in Les Mis. How about that?
[26:23] Speaker 2: Not many famous... Former footballers who become singers, isn't it?
[26:28] Speaker 1: Not the same person. There isn't any here in this
[26:30] Speaker 1: conversation either, just to be clear. All right. Should we
[26:33] Speaker 1: play the rondo quickly? Yes. And then after that, we'll
[26:35] Speaker 1: have a break. And then after that, we'll talk about
[26:37] Speaker 1: Aston Villa. Okay. Right. Here we go. Now, it's your
[26:40] Speaker 1: first rondo, isn't it, James? Yes. Yeah. This means that
[26:43] Speaker 1: you get what's known as the debutante's grace. You're getting
[26:45] Speaker 1: this in early, right?
[26:46] Speaker 2: Because I'm going to forget otherwise.
[26:49] Speaker 1: If you make a mistake, you get a second go.
[26:51] Speaker 1: Whereas these old hands, yeah, it's the pity grace, really. Yeah.
[26:55] Speaker 1: These old hands, they don't get a second go. Now,
[26:56] Speaker 1: here's how the rondo works. I ask a question. It
[26:59] Speaker 1: has multiple correct answers. We go around in a circle.
[27:02] Speaker 1: We give correct answers. If we give incorrect answers, we're
[27:04] Speaker 1: rejected from the rondo. If we give answers that have
[27:06] Speaker 1: already been given, active listening.
[27:09] Speaker 3: Active coughing.
[27:11] Speaker 1: When you cough also, it's nice that you're doing it
[27:12] Speaker 1: off the microphone, but you are leaning right into my shot.
[27:15] Speaker 1: Why don't you go the other way? Yeah, cough on Jacob.
[27:19] Speaker 1: Good job, good job. Now, don't give an answer that's
[27:23] Speaker 1: already been given, essentially, okay? And don't dilly. So don't
[27:25] Speaker 1: dilly and dally. And yeah, try not to take any time. Okay,
[27:28] Speaker 1: now don't look at my computer though, Ruben.
[27:29] Speaker 5: I won't.
[27:30] Speaker 1: He's cheating again. We know that you've got a bit of...
[27:33] Speaker 1: I can't believe it.
[27:34] Speaker 2: This guy's a cheater.
[27:35] Speaker 1: He's always close his laptop. Yeah, we make him do
[27:37] Speaker 1: it now. Right, now I've got a fun one here.
[27:41] Speaker 1: I've got a fun one here, okay? I was thinking
[27:42] Speaker 1: this morning... about all the 92 clubs in the top
[27:46] Speaker 1: four professional leagues. We're not going to ask you to
[27:49] Speaker 1: name them all because that's crazy. But there's quite a
[27:52] Speaker 1: few when you break it down by the letter that
[27:55] Speaker 1: the team starts with. Wow. So... That's fun. There are
[27:58] Speaker 1: 15 teams in the 92 that start with B. And
[28:04] Speaker 1: I would like us to name all of them. If
[28:05] Speaker 1: we get through, we'll move on to another letter as
[28:08] Speaker 1: a tiebreaker.
[28:08] Speaker 3: Question before we begin.
[28:10] Speaker 1: Yes, of course, Ruben.
[28:11] Speaker 3: A prefix... that contains FC does that exclude the club
[28:16] Speaker 3: or not as.
[28:18] Speaker 1: In well all of the teams I've all the teams
[28:21] Speaker 1: I see here all the B teams I'm looking at
[28:23] Speaker 1: they all begin with B but they all look like
[28:25] Speaker 1: normal they would normally begin with B so he's basically
[28:27] Speaker 1: asking if we could say AFC Bournemouth that is oh
[28:30] Speaker 1: right no they they they appear in A Worth asking.
[28:34] Speaker 1: It is worth it. No, it's worth asking that. AFC
[28:36] Speaker 1: Bournemouth appear in A because I believe that the AFC,
[28:39] Speaker 1: a crucial bit of the history of Bournemouth. You take
[28:41] Speaker 1: the AFC out and what are they? What is the
[28:43] Speaker 1: A stand for? Athletic. Association. Association. Yeah.
[28:48] Speaker 3: Sometimes it's alternative, isn't it? In the case of Wimbledon,
[28:51] Speaker 3: it might be. I might have got that wrong.
[28:53] Speaker 2: That's an alternative ballgame tennis, I believe.
[28:56] Speaker 1: Anyway, here we go. Here we go. Jacob, we're going
[28:57] Speaker 1: to start with you. Please name a B team. One
[29:00] Speaker 1: of 15. Burnley. Burnley is a correct answer, of course. Right, John?
[29:04] Speaker 1: Bristol Rovers. Bristol Rovers. You can have Bristol Rovers.
[29:09] Speaker 3: Bristol City.
[29:10] Speaker 1: Yes, of course. Bristol City was obviously going to be
[29:11] Speaker 1: the next one. Back over to you, Jacob. Blackburn. Blackburn.
[29:14] Speaker 1: Blackburn Rovers, you can have them. John? Bolton Wanderers. Bolton Wanderers, yes,
[29:19] Speaker 1: you can have. Ruben?
[29:20] Speaker 3: Brighton and Hove Albion.
[29:22] Speaker 1: Brighton are there. Of course they are, yes. Blackpool. Blackpool.
[29:27] Speaker 1: Very good answer. John? Barrow. Barrow? You mean... AFC Barrow. No,
[29:34] Speaker 1: Barrow are not here. But Barrow, I think Barrow must
[29:36] Speaker 1: have been relegated out of the league. So I think
[29:39] Speaker 1: let's just double check. check where Barrow are right now
[29:41] Speaker 1: it's going to be AFC Barrow Barrow AFC are in
[29:44] Speaker 1: the National League and also they're 21st in the National
[29:47] Speaker 1: League right now not great after 7 games 10 points
[29:50] Speaker 1: so you.
[29:50] Speaker 3: Didn't get prefixed do.
[29:52] Speaker 2: You remember the years of Barrow Salona I do that's
[29:55] Speaker 2: what I was thinking that's why I went from Bolton.
[29:57] Speaker 1: To Barrow Sadly, you're out. Steve, you're slacking me. I
[30:01] Speaker 1: can't look at it, Steve, because I'm on Slack doing the...
[30:04] Speaker 1: What are you saying?
[30:04] Speaker 5: Oh, just that it's Athletic Football Club Bournemouth is what
[30:07] Speaker 5: AFC means.
[30:07] Speaker 1: Right, right, right. It is athletic. Yeah.
[30:10] Speaker 3: Wow.
[30:10] Speaker 1: It is athletic. So I was right. You were right
[30:12] Speaker 1: and I was wrong. How about that? And you're also
[30:13] Speaker 1: out of the game. I'm wrong many times. Ruben? I'm struggling.
[30:17] Speaker 3: I'm struggling now as well.
[30:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough, isn't it? Can I give you a clue?
[30:20] Speaker 3: I know all of them.
[30:22] Speaker 1: You know all the teams. Okay.
[30:26] Speaker 3: Blythe Spartans.
[30:30] Speaker 1: Aren't they a Scottish team? North East are they North East?
[30:35] Speaker 1: I didn't know that no they're not here they're not
[30:37] Speaker 1: here okay well you may not even need your David
[30:39] Speaker 1: Dunsgrace although you have it you struggling? yeah I'm wondering
[30:42] Speaker 1: if you've got two match points here yeah you've got
[30:44] Speaker 1: two match points it's okay to get one wrong if
[30:47] Speaker 1: you've got a B in that bonnet and you want
[30:49] Speaker 1: to get out feel free or just say one of
[30:51] Speaker 1: these ten teams one of these eight remaining teams there's
[30:53] Speaker 1: eight left there's eight left And you know all of them.
[30:56] Speaker 1: You know all of them. Oh, do you know what?
[30:58] Speaker 1: Bournemouth are here. I'll just take them out. I'll hide them.
[31:00] Speaker 2: Can I say Bournemouth?
[31:01] Speaker 1: No, you can't. Can I say Bournemouth? No, you can't
[31:04] Speaker 1: say Bournemouth.
[31:04] Speaker 8: No, no.
[31:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, there's loads. There's seven. There's seven. But I look
[31:09] Speaker 1: at that one. I go, yeah, you know that one. Oh,
[31:11] Speaker 1: you definitely know that one. That one's a big one
[31:13] Speaker 1: as well. That's a big one. I'll give you a clue.
[31:15] Speaker 1: There is a Premier League team here. Yeah. I mean,
[31:21] Speaker 1: the most forgettable Premier League team. evidenced by the fact
[31:25] Speaker 1: that you've all forgotten them.
[31:26] Speaker 2: Are they in the Premier League now?
[31:27] Speaker 1: Yeah, now, yeah, now. They're actually pretty good as well.
[31:31] Speaker 1: Very good, yeah.
[31:33] Speaker 3: I don't get clues like this. I get a clue
[31:35] Speaker 3: for cheating.
[31:36] Speaker 4: I was going to say, forget the Premier League clues.
[31:39] Speaker 4: I was going to say Bill and Ricky, just in case.
[31:43] Speaker 4: Bill and Ricky are not there. There's your debutant's grace.
[31:45] Speaker 4: Now I'm going to push you on this, okay?
[31:47] Speaker 1: Because I know you can do it, Jacob Tanswell. I
[31:49] Speaker 1: know because you're a smart guy. And if you were
[31:53] Speaker 1: a Premier League football team, you know, you have human characteristics.
[31:56] Speaker 1: If I transformed you into a Premier League football team,
[31:58] Speaker 1: I think you'd spend money very wisely, almost in a
[32:02] Speaker 1: savvy sense, as though you had a history with data.
[32:06] Speaker 1: And betting.
[32:06] Speaker 3: This is disgraceful.
[32:09] Speaker 1: And you lived in love with B. And it... Oh,
[32:14] Speaker 1: we've already done. We've already done Tony Blues. Yeah. Brentford.
[32:19] Speaker 1: There we go. Brentford. Okay. A little round of applause.
[32:22] Speaker 3: I think the reason.
[32:23] Speaker 1: For Jacob Tamswell who had to have it.
[32:25] Speaker 3: I think the reason we all forgot that is because
[32:29] Speaker 3: as soon as you go into the championship and the
[32:32] Speaker 3: lower leagues, you don't trust yourself. to have remembered all
[32:37] Speaker 3: the names that you said and you assume it's been said.
[32:38] Speaker 3: I agree with that. We didn't just forget that.
[32:40] Speaker 2: I just ticked off Premier League. I was looking lower.
[32:42] Speaker 2: We just leaked two.
[32:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, and yet you didn't need to. Here's other teams
[32:46] Speaker 1: you could have had, of course. You could have had Barnet, Barnsley.
[32:50] Speaker 1: Bradford City.
[32:51] Speaker 5: Oh, dear.
[32:51] Speaker 1: Bromley.
[32:52] Speaker 3: You're missing Bradford.
[32:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's poor. Burton Albion, you could have had. Birmingham City.
[32:57] Speaker 3: Birmingham City.
[32:58] Speaker 1: I live there.
[33:01] Speaker 3: He's so committed to the villa.
[33:03] Speaker 2: Villa journalist forgets the existence of Birmingham City.
[33:07] Speaker 1: Blue nose, no nose. There we go. All right, well, anyway,
[33:10] Speaker 1: I've got all of the teams listed by letters, so
[33:14] Speaker 1: maybe we'll do it again in the future. That should
[33:16] Speaker 1: be a good bit of fun, wouldn't it? Anyway, for now,
[33:18] Speaker 1: let's have a break, and when we come back, we
[33:20] Speaker 1: shall talk about Birmingham City. No, we'll talk about Aston Villa. OK,
[33:26] Speaker 1: there we go. What a delightful break that was. Aston
[33:29] Speaker 1: Villa 1, 2, Nottingham Forest. Shall I get Villa? Oh, yeah,
[33:34] Speaker 1: get Villa, John, yeah. Yeah, here we go, right at
[33:36] Speaker 1: the beginning. Pity for the people who don't like this bit.
[33:38] Speaker 1: Anyone want to throw... Yeah, I mean, you're under pressure here.
[33:41] Speaker 1: Dwight York. No, he was at Man United by then,
[33:43] Speaker 1: wasn't he? He is not on my list.
[33:45] Speaker 3: He moved in 98.
[33:45] Speaker 1: He moved in 98. Okay.
[33:47] Speaker 5: Juan Pablo Anagel.
[33:49] Speaker 1: Gus Poirier.
[33:52] Speaker 2: Did he ever play for Villa?
[33:53] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[33:54] Speaker 3: Benito Carboni.
[33:56] Speaker 1: No. No, no, no, no, no. Got an England striker here.
[34:01] Speaker 1: A couple of England strikers.
[34:02] Speaker 3: Darius Vassell.
[34:03] Speaker 1: Darius Vassell. Ronnie Janssen. Yeah, he did, didn't he? I
[34:08] Speaker 1: feel like he did. He's not here. Former England manager
[34:10] Speaker 1: on my list here.
[34:11] Speaker 3: Steve?
[34:12] Speaker 1: What, Gareth Southgate? Gareth Southgate. Oh, wow, Gareth Southgate. Former
[34:16] Speaker 1: Leeds manager as well. Ronnie Johnson played at Villa in 2002.
[34:21] Speaker 1: Is it Don Reavy? There's a guy who went on
[34:25] Speaker 1: to be a pundit. Agbon Lahore Agbon Lahore no there's
[34:31] Speaker 1: also a famous there's almost a also a famous Arsenal
[34:34] Speaker 1: player Emil Heskey Emil Heskey no Emil Heskey again 10
[34:37] Speaker 1: years ago no come on Emil Heskey was playing in
[34:39] Speaker 1: goalkeeper who played for Manchester United also Mark Bosnich.
[34:42] Speaker 5: Mark Bosnich Paul Merson the Arsenal player.
[34:44] Speaker 1: Paul Merson is the Arsenal player Paul Merson was Lee
[34:47] Speaker 1: Hendry is the guy who went on to become a
[34:48] Speaker 1: pundit Hendry Simon Grayson former former ex-league manager.
[34:53] Speaker 3: Right um Paul Merson was doing NFL punditry last night. Really?
[34:57] Speaker 1: Yeah. Was he good?
[34:58] Speaker 3: I was flicking through the channels. I saw the Green
[35:00] Speaker 3: Bay were playing Minnesota. I was like, oh, all right, Merson.
[35:02] Speaker 3: He was doing, I mean, you know, they've got to
[35:05] Speaker 3: have a game plan. It was like listening to him
[35:06] Speaker 3: do Soccer Saturday, like exactly the same.
[35:08] Speaker 1: Good for him. On the bench, Gareth Barry. Gareth Barry
[35:11] Speaker 1: on the bench.
[35:12] Speaker 2: Barry is a superb defensive talent. Still in his teens,
[35:15] Speaker 2: he looks comfortable and assured in the Premier League. and
[35:19] Speaker 2: has a great future.
[35:20] Speaker 1: They got that right, didn't they? They did, because he's
[35:22] Speaker 1: now eclipsed by James Bond. They have gone down as
[35:24] Speaker 1: a defender, though. He played a left-back quite a lot
[35:28] Speaker 1: back then. Good for Gareth Barry and Aston Villa. Now,
[35:30] Speaker 1: not so good this season, because Villa were on their
[35:33] Speaker 1: first win of the season against Club Brugge away in
[35:35] Speaker 1: the Champions League midweek, but Unai Emery's side lost late
[35:38] Speaker 1: again against Nottingham Forest over the weekend to find themselves
[35:42] Speaker 1: in the relegation zone four games into the season. One
[35:45] Speaker 1: point with four games. Just one goal scored. Still better
[35:49] Speaker 1: than Spurs, though. You got yourself a goal. But now,
[35:52] Speaker 1: with so many of their significant summer signings yet to
[35:54] Speaker 1: bed in, is this just a slightly bruising beginning, writes Steve,
[35:58] Speaker 1: to Emery's second age at the Villa? Or is there
[36:01] Speaker 1: a deeper problem? Well, let's find out. Jacob, I'll come
[36:04] Speaker 1: to you first. Broad question, but what's going wrong just currently?
[36:09] Speaker 2: Well, it's an improvement on last season because they hadn't
[36:11] Speaker 2: scored for the first four games. So, yeah, Alisson's header
[36:14] Speaker 2: was a welcome.
[36:16] Speaker 1: What a nice way of looking at it.
[36:17] Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think the way that Villa look at it,
[36:18] Speaker 4: if you want to be positive, is they don't start
[36:20] Speaker 4: playing until post-first international break because the transfer window is
[36:24] Speaker 4: so chaotic, it actually just permits onto the pitch and
[36:27] Speaker 4: they don't look like a settled team until after September,
[36:31] Speaker 4: October time. They haven't really introduced too many new signings yet.
[36:34] Speaker 4: Emery wants to keep the same structure, which you mentioned
[36:37] Speaker 4: about Zerbi. but it just feels like they are undercut,
[36:40] Speaker 4: they aren't prepared because everything happened in the transfer window,
[36:44] Speaker 4: not the final week.
[36:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. Okay, John, you've made the point that
[36:47] Speaker 1: this Villa team actually kind of correlate quite well with
[36:50] Speaker 1: the Spurs that we were just talking about. Why is that?
[36:54] Speaker 2: Just in terms of, as we were saying before, the
[36:56] Speaker 2: tactical intentions that Emery has are similar to Zerbi in
[37:01] Speaker 2: so far as overloading in deep build-up, attempting to bait
[37:04] Speaker 2: the opponent forward and then having these escape routes where
[37:07] Speaker 2: they can if they can get through those higher pressures,
[37:10] Speaker 2: they can hit the spacing behind and attack quickly.
[37:12] Speaker 1: So in the same sense, maybe after the international break,
[37:14] Speaker 1: we'll see a more settled Spurs. Yeah, maybe.
[37:17] Speaker 2: Or maybe, you know, the question is whether or not
[37:19] Speaker 2: that approach is as effective as it used to be. Again,
[37:23] Speaker 2: hard to know. It is worth saying that Villa last season,
[37:26] Speaker 2: their numbers were kind of mid-table, the underlying numbers. They
[37:30] Speaker 2: went on a really nice run where they got, you know,
[37:32] Speaker 2: a lot of results that got them into the Champions
[37:34] Speaker 2: League spots and they managed to stay there. so yeah
[37:37] Speaker 2: interesting to see how it how it plays out again
[37:39] Speaker 2: this time around but yeah if you watch Villa setting
[37:42] Speaker 2: up they set up with like with quite a deep
[37:45] Speaker 2: back line with full backs close to the centre backs
[37:47] Speaker 2: and then a double pivot and they have these triangles
[37:50] Speaker 2: on either side of the pitch with the idea that
[37:52] Speaker 2: you can almost use them sort of like rondos play
[37:54] Speaker 2: the ball around and and then you'll have forwards dropping
[37:57] Speaker 2: to help them find those escape routes out if they're
[37:59] Speaker 2: under too much pressure they can work it back to
[38:01] Speaker 2: the other side through the goalkeeper and then try and
[38:03] Speaker 2: do the same thing again so um some very similar
[38:06] Speaker 2: ideas i think to to what you see from deserby
[38:09] Speaker 2: i guess from from the from the top down like
[38:12] Speaker 2: the big picture stuff slightly different in terms of the
[38:14] Speaker 2: structures they use and the ways that they want to
[38:16] Speaker 2: achieve that but very similar in terms of the actual
[38:19] Speaker 2: strategic intention do.
[38:20] Speaker 1: You think fans are kind of used to this then
[38:22] Speaker 1: like is no one freaking out despite you know.
[38:25] Speaker 4: Emory's just like a god so essentially i think it'll
[38:28] Speaker 4: be fine because emory's there i think the question that
[38:31] Speaker 4: Villa had last year was they were very stale they
[38:33] Speaker 4: basically had the same team and that was one of
[38:34] Speaker 4: the issues in the transfer market where this is the
[38:36] Speaker 4: complete opposite and the question I think for fans are
[38:39] Speaker 4: asking is are Villa going to evolve because of the
[38:42] Speaker 4: personnel or do the personnel have to adapt to Emery
[38:45] Speaker 4: and one of the reasons why Mbaye and Manzambi haven't
[38:47] Speaker 4: played on Manzambi's been injured but they've been integrated slowly
[38:50] Speaker 4: is because Emery wants to keep the same structure so
[38:53] Speaker 4: you look at the front three behind Jackson who had
[38:55] Speaker 4: to come in because Wally Watkins decided he didn't want
[38:57] Speaker 4: to be there anymore John McGinn George Hemmings, Emi Buendia,
[39:01] Speaker 4: they've all been drilled in this Emery philosophy of ball carrying,
[39:04] Speaker 4: knowing where to be in two, three years, really. So
[39:09] Speaker 4: the question of, oh, now we've got Mbaye, we've got
[39:10] Speaker 4: these new shiny toys, are we just going to become
[39:12] Speaker 4: this real direct, free-flowing team, you know, two wide wingers
[39:16] Speaker 4: going natural and by either side? They're not going to be.
[39:18] Speaker 4: They might tweak a few things, but Emery wants the
[39:21] Speaker 4: structure to basically be the same and be like the
[39:24] Speaker 4: comfort blanket in a squad that's basically had 10 new
[39:26] Speaker 4: signings and ripped up the spine.
[39:29] Speaker 1: Based on what you heard John saying about maybe about
[39:32] Speaker 1: Deserby and Spurs using them as an example as well
[39:34] Speaker 1: given that Emery's been at Villa for quite a long
[39:36] Speaker 1: time has he evolved the way he plays do you
[39:39] Speaker 1: think or is there any worry from you or fans
[39:43] Speaker 1: that people sort of know how to play against him now.
[39:47] Speaker 4: I was more worried last season because they've had the
[39:49] Speaker 4: same players, but I think with new players coming in,
[39:51] Speaker 4: they've got different characteristics which should tweak things.
[39:53] Speaker 2: So like Suzuki, right? Emery, I think you saw against Forrest,
[39:57] Speaker 2: he is becoming, or he's falling in love with his kicking.
[40:00] Speaker 2: Like he can kick it.
[40:01] Speaker 1: He's really good.
[40:02] Speaker 2: He can kick it like miles.
[40:03] Speaker 1: He's a new goalkeeper they bought from Parma.
[40:05] Speaker 4: Yeah, very different character to Emery Martinez. He's very affable,
[40:08] Speaker 4: very polite man. Everyone says, you know, he's lovely. He
[40:11] Speaker 4: tucks his chair in at the training ground, says thank
[40:13] Speaker 4: you to kitchen staff.
[40:14] Speaker 1: Really?
[40:15] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[40:15] Speaker 1: He tucks his chair in. Yeah, I know.
[40:18] Speaker 4: But his kicking is something that I think Emery will
[40:22] Speaker 4: certainly use because he hasn't got Uri Tillemans anymore. The
[40:25] Speaker 4: guy that's key to bypassing the press. He's got Gilles Gomez,
[40:28] Speaker 4: different type of midfield profile. So you saw against Forrest,
[40:31] Speaker 4: they were struggling to pass up from the back. Paul
[40:33] Speaker 4: Torres is injured, who's a key exponent of that. So
[40:36] Speaker 4: they said, Zeon, just smash it as far as you
[40:38] Speaker 4: can and try and get Nicholas Jackson in essentially. So,
[40:42] Speaker 4: There are a few tweaks, but the overarching style remains
[40:44] Speaker 4: the same.
[40:44] Speaker 1: Is it Zion? I've been saying Zion.
[40:47] Speaker 2: It could be Zion.
[40:48] Speaker 1: I've been saying Zion because that's the name of the
[40:50] Speaker 1: city in The Matrix, in the third film, in the
[40:53] Speaker 1: middle of the earth, where they're near the core and
[40:56] Speaker 1: it's still warm. That's definitely where that word comes from, yeah. Zion. Yeah. Okay.
[40:59] Speaker 1: Fair enough. Well, anyway, as mentioned, Villa have signed loads
[41:04] Speaker 1: of new players. We just mentioned one of them. Zion
[41:06] Speaker 1: or Zeon Suzuki. Came from Palmer. A quote here, he
[41:10] Speaker 1: can throw the ball almost 60 metres. Good Lord. That's
[41:14] Speaker 1: a long old way, isn't it? Nicholas Jackson.
[41:16] Speaker 3: Suzuki goes from nought to 60 metres. It was something like,
[41:19] Speaker 3: you know. There's a joke there.
[41:21] Speaker 1: How many seconds does it take him to do it?
[41:23] Speaker 1: Does he tuck his chair in though?
[41:24] Speaker 3: How long would it take to travel 60 metres?
[41:27] Speaker 1: If he threw it. Four seconds? no no less than
[41:30] Speaker 1: that two two and a half if that yeah you
[41:32] Speaker 1: judge it from the point of release or the run-up
[41:34] Speaker 1: as well release good that's a good question and how
[41:36] Speaker 1: fast are you throwing it because that will make a
[41:38] Speaker 1: difference what if you shot it out of a cannon.
[41:41] Speaker 3: It would go quicker then yeah it would yeah it
[41:43] Speaker 3: would go not allowed to do that though in the
[41:45] Speaker 3: in the game of football or just in real life
[41:47] Speaker 3: uh probably both are you the kind of person that
[41:48] Speaker 3: tucks your chair in yeah i don't know I think
[41:52] Speaker 3: if you were to break the world into two groups
[41:54] Speaker 3: of people, people that always.
[41:56] Speaker 1: Tuck their chair in and people that don't always tuck
[41:58] Speaker 1: their chair in, I don't know that you'd make the
[42:00] Speaker 1: first group. I think you might be in the second
[42:03] Speaker 1: through carelessness.
[42:05] Speaker 3: Carelessness?
[42:05] Speaker 1: I think sometimes you would simply neglect. Not intentional rudeness. No, no, no.
[42:09] Speaker 1: Of course not. Of course not. But I think sometimes
[42:11] Speaker 1: you would neglect to push your chair in.
[42:12] Speaker 3: Well, it really depends on the context, doesn't it?
[42:14] Speaker 2: We could go and look at his desk right now
[42:16] Speaker 2: and see where his chair is.
[42:17] Speaker 1: Steve? Steve?
[42:18] Speaker 3: Well, Joe left a massive television on my desk.
[42:19] Speaker 5: Yeah, one second.
[42:21] Speaker 3: Thanks, Steve. You left a massive TV on my desk.
[42:23] Speaker 1: Well, that doesn't mean you can't tuck your chair in there.
[42:25] Speaker 3: No, but it does.
[42:26] Speaker 1: Listen, we're waiting with bated breath. Steve's got it. He's
[42:29] Speaker 1: coming back in. He's got his answer for us, Steve.
[42:32] Speaker 5: It's bad news for Ruben Pindell.
[42:37] Speaker 1: He's not a tucker. He's a liar. He's a cheater.
[42:41] Speaker 1: He cheats at the games. He does it. He says
[42:44] Speaker 1: he tucks his chair in, but he doesn't.
[42:46] Speaker 3: I'll stop interrupting with three out of ten car puns.
[42:50] Speaker 1: Unbelievable. Now, I'm very tempted to know about the other
[42:52] Speaker 1: people's chairs, but we won't waste any more time. John's
[42:55] Speaker 1: got four or five T-shirts on his office chair.
[42:56] Speaker 2: There's no way you can squeeze mine under the table.
[42:59] Speaker 1: I would say that you're not a chair tucker either,
[43:01] Speaker 1: to be honest. Probably not. No.
[43:02] Speaker 2: I do at the end of the day, though. When
[43:03] Speaker 2: I leave, the last thing I do is... Because we
[43:06] Speaker 2: have chairs that have different heights.
[43:08] Speaker 1: Right.
[43:08] Speaker 2: You have to push the chair down to slide it under.
[43:11] Speaker 2: Because I lift it up when I get in and
[43:12] Speaker 2: then I push it down.
[43:14] Speaker 1: Right.
[43:15] Speaker 2: But it's not the end of the day, so it's probably...
[43:16] Speaker 2: Got it. Probably flamboyant.
[43:18] Speaker 1: It's all willy-nilly. How about that? Anyway, there. Now, Nicholas Jackson,
[43:22] Speaker 1: do you think he tucks his chair in? Is he
[43:23] Speaker 1: the kind of player to tuck his chair in? I
[43:25] Speaker 1: don't think so. It's kind of a good thing in
[43:26] Speaker 1: a striker though. You don't want strikers tucking their chairs. No.
[43:29] Speaker 1: You want them scoring. Yeah.
[43:30] Speaker 2: And he scored in the Champions League.
[43:32] Speaker 1: Yes.
[43:33] Speaker 2: Great goal. But obviously Villa haven't scored many goals in
[43:34] Speaker 2: Premier League. It's difficult to expect him to score.
[43:36] Speaker 1: Yeah. But.
[43:38] Speaker 2: Jackson's not the perfect striker for Emery.
[43:40] Speaker 1: Yeah, you wrote a column saying this, right? Why do
[43:42] Speaker 1: you think that?
[43:43] Speaker 4: Because they worked with each other at Villarreal and Jackson
[43:45] Speaker 4: credits Emery essentially for saying, I'm sticking with you as
[43:48] Speaker 4: my number nine rather than signing Edison Cavani, which he
[43:50] Speaker 4: could have done a few years back. He does everything
[43:53] Speaker 4: that you want in that Emery striker, hangs in the channels,
[43:56] Speaker 4: can come to feet, can hold the ball up, very athletic,
[43:59] Speaker 4: very mobile. But I think we saw against Forrest that
[44:03] Speaker 4: his lack of discipline is something that Emery's wary of.
[44:06] Speaker 4: He took him off at halftime of the game because
[44:09] Speaker 4: he'd just got a yellow card he was getting roughed
[44:11] Speaker 4: up by Murillo and Emery fundamentally doesn't trust him to
[44:14] Speaker 4: basically keep his calm for the second half so he
[44:17] Speaker 4: bought on Tammy Abraham and if you remember Tammy Abraham
[44:20] Speaker 4: was told there's a door you can go about three
[44:23] Speaker 4: weeks ago and because Tammy Abraham can't run behind calling
[44:27] Speaker 4: to Emery they had to bring another sub on so
[44:30] Speaker 4: that's one of the reasons why they used up all
[44:31] Speaker 4: their five subs by the 60th minute and they were
[44:33] Speaker 4: down to 10 in the final 10.
[44:35] Speaker 1: And did Tammy Abraham have, like, reasonable chances to move?
[44:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, Ipswich were there for him on a straight loan.
[44:41] Speaker 1: But he didn't want to go?
[44:42] Speaker 2: No, he didn't want to go. He didn't sign in
[44:44] Speaker 2: January as well.
[44:45] Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, of course. Why did Emery sign him if
[44:47] Speaker 1: he can't run in behind?
[44:48] Speaker 2: And they sold Donyell Marlin.
[44:50] Speaker 1: Right. Who can run in behind. Who's now tearing up. Yes.
[44:55] Speaker 1: Where's Donyell Marlin gone? He's Roma.
[44:56] Speaker 4: But that almost typifies Emery's manager-led recruitment, which is a
[45:00] Speaker 4: little bit patchy. So you're now relying on Emery to
[45:03] Speaker 4: get a hit rate of, what, 7 out of 10?
[45:05] Speaker 4: of the players that are signed.
[45:07] Speaker 8: Right.
[45:07] Speaker 2: That's pretty important.
[45:09] Speaker 3: Why did they end the game with 10 men?
[45:11] Speaker 4: Because Ian Mattson got ankle injury in 82nd minute and
[45:14] Speaker 4: obviously they had no subs. And against the Oliver Glasner team,
[45:17] Speaker 4: which rips Villa apart at wide, it's pretty crucial when
[45:20] Speaker 4: John McGinn's having to play left back.
[45:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to bring that up actually when
[45:23] Speaker 2: we were talking about predictability because every time I talk
[45:26] Speaker 2: to Villa fans, they say, Oliver Glasner every time has
[45:29] Speaker 2: Emery's number, right?
[45:31] Speaker 3: That was great fun for a couple of years.
[45:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, Daniel Munoz just absolutely and you think it's because
[45:37] Speaker 2: they're just able to use width yeah because Emery essentially
[45:40] Speaker 2: tells his full backs don't go outside the width of
[45:42] Speaker 2: the 18 yard box when you're defending so what Palace
[45:45] Speaker 2: did Forest do they will regain possession if Villa are
[45:48] Speaker 2: pretty poor in midfield because they didn't have Gomez no
[45:51] Speaker 2: Timmons they were quite ragged on Saturday and they'll simply
[45:54] Speaker 2: just switch the ball Muniz will hang out and then
[45:56] Speaker 2: Villa have got to shuffle over and they just can't
[45:58] Speaker 2: do it and they create two of the ones that
[45:59] Speaker 2: are wide and out of possession Forest Palace as you
[46:03] Speaker 2: saw at Wembley that semi-final They just block the midfield
[46:07] Speaker 2: and they can't play through. I watched the game last
[46:09] Speaker 2: night and actually felt like it was obviously a very
[46:12] Speaker 2: even game until the Liam de Lappe goal goes in.
[46:15] Speaker 2: It felt almost like the Villa players gave up a bit.
[46:19] Speaker 2: I don't know if you got this impression watching as well,
[46:21] Speaker 2: but it felt... So for the second... Was it the second?
[46:25] Speaker 1: No.
[46:25] Speaker 2: There was a situation where they generated a really good
[46:27] Speaker 2: chance by just going long. The ball bounced out and
[46:30] Speaker 2: you could see Kamara and Barkley were just sort of
[46:33] Speaker 2: jogging back they didn't seem that interested in like chasing
[46:36] Speaker 2: the ball back I wondered whether or not that was
[46:37] Speaker 2: something that it was just something I picked up on
[46:39] Speaker 2: after the goal went in it was almost like they
[46:40] Speaker 2: were like oh here we go again and and they
[46:42] Speaker 2: weren't there wasn't really that desire to to really track
[46:45] Speaker 2: back I.
[46:46] Speaker 4: Think there's a lack of confidence in that team but
[46:47] Speaker 4: also Emery was saying afterwards he wasn't sure like the
[46:50] Speaker 4: structure we talk about how he wants control of possession
[46:53] Speaker 4: they are being affected when they go one nil down
[46:55] Speaker 4: they don't have that same poise like they do and
[46:57] Speaker 4: they kind of skew away from their game plan but
[46:59] Speaker 4: You talk about that midfield. Barkley is not a starter, really.
[47:03] Speaker 4: He'll come in. Kamara's just come back from a big
[47:06] Speaker 4: ACL injury. So that spine, which this new look spine,
[47:09] Speaker 4: we'll see what it looks like in a few weeks.
[47:10] Speaker 4: You have Tammy Abraham up front. They didn't want him. Buendia,
[47:13] Speaker 4: who Emery was trying to get rid of 18 months ago. Barkley, Kamara, Lindelof, Mings.
[47:19] Speaker 4: It's a much change, but also probably a bit diminished.
[47:23] Speaker 4: What do you expect that pivot to be?
[47:25] Speaker 1: Gomez and Kamara. You think it'll be those two, yeah.
[47:28] Speaker 4: In your opinion, who do you think is the better
[47:29] Speaker 4: passer who can pass through the linesman under pressure? Because
[47:32] Speaker 4: Emery's going to try and bait the press all the time,
[47:34] Speaker 4: isn't he?
[47:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I guess Gomes is a bit more of a,
[47:36] Speaker 2: he's just a bit more of a nippy calorie player,
[47:38] Speaker 2: isn't he?
[47:40] Speaker 1: Sorry. Back to you in the studio, Joe. It was lovely.
[47:43] Speaker 1: People listening won't know, but the way that that resolved
[47:45] Speaker 1: was you guys went, and then both just looked, you
[47:48] Speaker 1: both just looked back at me. That's good. Now, Steve
[47:50] Speaker 1: has included in the plan, I'm just going back to
[47:52] Speaker 1: Zion Suzuki momentarily here. This is from, this is, we
[47:55] Speaker 1: should say this is from Google's AI overview of, The
[47:58] Speaker 1: official Guinness World Record for the farthest soccer throw in
[48:01] Speaker 1: a competitive match is 61.26 metres, which was achieved by
[48:06] Speaker 1: Iranian goalkeeper Ali Reza Beranvan using an overhand goalkeeper launch.
[48:12] Speaker 1: For the standard field player throw-in, the record... Does anyone
[48:16] Speaker 1: want to guess what the record is for the standard
[48:18] Speaker 1: two-hands overhand throw?
[48:19] Speaker 2: I reckon it might be 59.817 metres. How did you
[48:22] Speaker 2: know that?
[48:23] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[48:24] Speaker 3: It is.
[48:24] Speaker 1: It's exactly that. Set by American... Roughly what?
[48:27] Speaker 3: 196 feet?
[48:27] Speaker 1: It was set by American Michael Lewis, the guy who
[48:33] Speaker 1: presumably wrote the book Moneyball. I didn't know he had
[48:37] Speaker 1: such strong arms. Incredible. Thanks, Steve. Now, a couple more
[48:41] Speaker 1: Villa players before we move on. You mentioned Johan Manzambi,
[48:44] Speaker 1: who had, of course, been injured, although he came on
[48:46] Speaker 1: for his debut in the game. So did Ibrahim Mbani,
[48:48] Speaker 1: who came from PSG, I think. exciting players. I mean,
[48:52] Speaker 1: these are the kinds of players we think maybe are
[48:53] Speaker 1: going to make all the difference after the international break, right? Yeah,
[48:56] Speaker 1: I think so.
[48:57] Speaker 4: Compared to how Villa have been, they've been quite stodgy,
[49:00] Speaker 4: quite one-dimensional, quite one-paced. Manzani's supreme ball carrier, he basically
[49:05] Speaker 4: came in to replace Morgan Rodgers. And Mbaye's this 1v1
[49:08] Speaker 4: artist who Villa didn't have last year. They had Jadon
[49:11] Speaker 4: Sancho and Leon Bailey as their wide options, which, no,
[49:14] Speaker 4: not great. With in by they wanted a player could
[49:17] Speaker 4: run in behind 1v1 and when they're facing low blocks
[49:19] Speaker 4: it seems like whenever we talk about low blocks it's
[49:21] Speaker 4: never a team set you never say oh the team's
[49:23] Speaker 4: really good at breaking down a low block it's always
[49:24] Speaker 4: they struggle and villa struggled last year as well yeah
[49:27] Speaker 4: so they want someone that can break the game up
[49:28] Speaker 4: by running past players and then by is the guy
[49:31] Speaker 4: they they wanted initially they had that dalliance and they
[49:34] Speaker 4: end up signing Alejandro Garnaccio in the meantime. But in
[49:37] Speaker 4: the end, they circle back to Ibrahim Mbah, who I
[49:40] Speaker 4: think will be a good player, but he needs to
[49:42] Speaker 4: learn defensively. And that's why he's not coming into the
[49:44] Speaker 4: team as quickly as fans want him to.
[49:47] Speaker 3: What position has Manzambi been brought to play in?
[49:50] Speaker 2: The number 10 or the left 10.
[49:52] Speaker 1: It depends on the fit.
[49:53] Speaker 4: You know, with Morgan Rodgers, teams that would just get
[49:56] Speaker 4: tight to him, he'd come off the left so he
[49:57] Speaker 4: can receive on the half-turn.
[49:59] Speaker 3: Because I saw him score a brace for Switzerland in
[50:00] Speaker 3: the World Cup. He was wearing a number nine shirt.
[50:03] Speaker 1: Were you in the stadium? Yeah.
[50:05] Speaker 2: Harvey Elliott wore number nine last year as well.
[50:07] Speaker 1: It was quite charming.
[50:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, it was disgraceful. Yeah, they beat Bosnia 4-1 when
[50:12] Speaker 3: I watched it. He was very impressive.
[50:14] Speaker 1: Marcus Rashford wearing number nine as well for Man United.
[50:17] Speaker 1: Because I guess they gave 10 to Kunja, didn't they,
[50:20] Speaker 1: when he left? That feels strange as well, doesn't it? But,
[50:24] Speaker 1: you know, it makes at least some sense. He scored
[50:25] Speaker 1: many Manchester United goals. Just to hover on Alejandro Garnaccio
[50:29] Speaker 1: for a moment as well. I do recall, and maybe
[50:31] Speaker 1: this is an old hat opinion now, but I do
[50:34] Speaker 1: recall when Manchester United sold him, there were some fans
[50:38] Speaker 1: somewhat confused as to why that happened. There was discussion about,
[50:42] Speaker 1: how can we sell our good young player?
[50:44] Speaker 3: And now it's very obvious.
[50:45] Speaker 1: I feel like that's like, retrospectively, that's like pretty good
[50:49] Speaker 1: £ 40 million, isn't it? Because he suddenly, I mean, not suddenly,
[50:53] Speaker 1: maybe not, but like, He doesn't look like a player
[50:55] Speaker 1: that's ever going to do anything ever again. Yeah. That's
[50:59] Speaker 1: really rude. But like, he just seems like, I feel
[51:02] Speaker 1: like he, you know, he's so young still, maybe he's
[51:04] Speaker 1: got the opportunity to turn it around, but he just
[51:05] Speaker 1: seems like he's failed as a player. Yeah.
[51:08] Speaker 2: I think Emery loves these rehabilitation projects, doesn't he?
[51:10] Speaker 1: Right.
[51:10] Speaker 4: And he's not lost hope in Ghana. It's just been
[51:12] Speaker 4: a few weeks, but if Villa do obviously trigger the,
[51:15] Speaker 4: obligation they'll have to probably pay 42.5 which is right
[51:19] Speaker 4: they might make a profit chelsea in the end yeah
[51:21] Speaker 4: um but the early sign keep getting away with it
[51:25] Speaker 4: the early signs are he's not exactly positive at the
[51:28] Speaker 4: moment he's more of a longer term because at the
[51:31] Speaker 4: moment he's behind george hemmings who's his 19 year old
[51:34] Speaker 4: academy graduate right allison and by man zambi so he's
[51:38] Speaker 4: gonna have by this time and and convince emory in
[51:41] Speaker 4: training that he's worth a performance.
[51:43] Speaker 1: But Does it feel likely?
[51:45] Speaker 2: I think Emery will like him because I think he
[51:47] Speaker 2: is very much a system player. I think when he
[51:50] Speaker 2: was at Chelsea, he's a guy who's not going to
[51:52] Speaker 2: give you moments where he goes both ways around.
[51:56] Speaker 3: He's going to say that he consistently gets into the box.
[51:59] Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe.
[52:00] Speaker 2: But I think what you saw from his time at Chelsea,
[52:03] Speaker 2: when he was playing under Maresca, it was very much
[52:05] Speaker 2: like he does the right things.
[52:07] Speaker 1: He receives the ball, he plays the pass.
[52:09] Speaker 2: He's not got the ability to do something that means
[52:12] Speaker 2: that in a 1v1 moment, he sort of improves the
[52:14] Speaker 2: situation from when he receives the ball to when he
[52:16] Speaker 2: releases it.
[52:17] Speaker 1: Although he does have it in goal scoring moments, I guess.
[52:19] Speaker 1: I think so.
[52:19] Speaker 2: I mean, in Manchester United in that first season, he
[52:22] Speaker 2: was very good. And I guess a lot of that
[52:24] Speaker 2: was because he was playing in very transitional moments. His
[52:27] Speaker 2: shooting can be a little bit wild, obviously, which I
[52:30] Speaker 2: guess that's productivity is a big part of it. But
[52:33] Speaker 2: I think If you can isolate him in certain moments
[52:35] Speaker 2: and get him hitting bylines and playing balls back, I
[52:38] Speaker 2: think he's just decent. He's like a solid, kind of
[52:40] Speaker 2: consistent player. And I think fans don't like consistency necessarily.
[52:45] Speaker 2: They want the guys who are the moments guys who
[52:47] Speaker 2: do something and you think no one else could have
[52:49] Speaker 2: done that in that moment. I don't think you're going
[52:51] Speaker 2: to get that from Garnaccio, but I think he will
[52:52] Speaker 2: offer some value in games where you just want someone
[52:55] Speaker 2: solid in a wide area who's going to either get
[52:57] Speaker 2: in behind and play a cutback or if they don't
[53:00] Speaker 2: have that on, find a way of recycling it so
[53:02] Speaker 2: firstly Garnaccio's got to convince Emery that he's worth adjusting
[53:06] Speaker 2: his tactical structure for once he does that then you'd
[53:09] Speaker 2: like to think that he'll become more confident he'll get
[53:11] Speaker 2: his first goal but the issue is Villa don't play
[53:13] Speaker 2: with a wide left winger they traditionally haven't they play
[53:16] Speaker 2: with a left inside 10 so can Garnaccio receive the
[53:19] Speaker 2: ball in the pocket or does he need it out
[53:21] Speaker 2: wide I guess with Mattson being injured now for a
[53:23] Speaker 2: while potentially that would change things because who will they
[53:26] Speaker 2: play now Ruggieri and he's.
[53:27] Speaker 1: Less of a He's had a medicine's injury for eight
[53:30] Speaker 1: weeks or something. Yeah.
[53:31] Speaker 2: It looked like a horrible injury, by the way. I
[53:34] Speaker 2: was watching it, just like the challenge was.
[53:37] Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they're actually quite fortunate it's only six
[53:39] Speaker 4: to eight weeks, actually, but with Garnaccio, he's got to
[53:42] Speaker 4: prove to Emery that it's worth adjusting this whole structure for,
[53:44] Speaker 4: like Rashford did in a way, because Rashford came in
[53:47] Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, Mattson or Luka Dean were inverting.
[53:49] Speaker 4: And that's just, they never did that under Emery. So
[53:53] Speaker 4: let's not write Garnaccio off yet, but it's going to
[53:55] Speaker 4: be a longer term project.
[53:56] Speaker 1: Okay, fine. And one last player, you mentioned already one
[54:00] Speaker 1: player ahead of Garnaccio in the pecking order right now
[54:02] Speaker 1: is George Hemmings, who's 19.
[54:05] Speaker 3: As a youth player.
[54:05] Speaker 1: How promising is he, do you think?
[54:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been all in. I've been buying in Hemmings
[54:09] Speaker 2: for a few years.
[54:10] Speaker 1: You're full in Hemmings. Do you know your Hemmings way?
[54:14] Speaker 4: Apart of this longevity, because Villa's owners want Emery to
[54:16] Speaker 4: be like the Saracens, Ferguson, Wenger. He kind of needed
[54:20] Speaker 4: to bring through an academy player, and he hasn't done that.
[54:22] Speaker 4: Hemmings is the guy. They signed him from Nottingham Forest
[54:24] Speaker 4: a few years ago. So do you class him as
[54:26] Speaker 4: an academy player?
[54:28] Speaker 1: Depends on the age, really.
[54:31] Speaker 2: 16, 17, just about.
[54:32] Speaker 4: But he's like this Jacob Ramsey mould, like a ball
[54:34] Speaker 4: carrier player. He was a centre midfielder as a number six,
[54:37] Speaker 4: but he got repackaged in the summer as a left
[54:39] Speaker 4: ten because he made his debut as a six. And
[54:43] Speaker 4: he got substituted at half-time in the Europa League and
[54:46] Speaker 4: it was probably a bit too much for him. But
[54:47] Speaker 4: as a left ten, they love his ball carrying.
[54:49] Speaker 3: He was really impressive against PSG in the Super Cup.
[54:53] Speaker 4: One thing Emery said is that he covers the distance
[54:54] Speaker 4: as we want. He covers like 10, 11k a game.
[54:58] Speaker 4: At the moment, other players that are on the bench
[54:59] Speaker 4: probably aren't covering that at the moment. They're not climatised
[55:02] Speaker 4: fit enough where Hemmings has been built for two years
[55:04] Speaker 4: to be that.
[55:05] Speaker 1: Emery would hate me I think I'm covering 0.5 Ruben's
[55:08] Speaker 1: never been for a walk in his life he would
[55:10] Speaker 1: hate Ruben for sure yeah also like Emery really likes
[55:13] Speaker 1: players that tuck their chairs in anyway there we go
[55:17] Speaker 1: that's Aston Villa so I think on the basic Jacob's
[55:21] Speaker 1: convinced me without actually saying it out loud not a
[55:23] Speaker 1: crisis club despite only having one point and one goal
[55:27] Speaker 1: After four games, I somehow feel like everything is going
[55:30] Speaker 1: perfectly to plan. Yeah, it's like Mikel Arteta's wet brain plan. Now, okay,
[55:37] Speaker 1: just before we have a break, let's go quickly to
[55:39] Speaker 1: Liverpool 0-0 Fulham. Now, of course, my beloved Liverpool. Oh, no, no,
[55:44] Speaker 1: I support Fulham.
[55:46] Speaker 5: Did a David Cameron.
[55:48] Speaker 1: I forgot which team I was. I did a David Cameron.
[55:50] Speaker 1: You're absolutely right. It's because I'm panicking because I can
[55:52] Speaker 1: see John flicking through the... There's no Fulham. There's no Fulham.
[55:56] Speaker 3: Of all the possible meanings.
[55:58] Speaker 1: I would have got them all.
[55:59] Speaker 3: Of all the possible meanings of I've accidentally done a
[56:01] Speaker 3: David Cameron, that's the best one.
[56:02] Speaker 1: I could do your Liverpool though.
[56:04] Speaker 3: Michael Owen.
[56:05] Speaker 1: Michael Owen is here, yes.
[56:06] Speaker 3: Jamie Redknapp.
[56:07] Speaker 1: Jamie Redknapp is here. Emil Heskey. Emil Heskey is not here.
[56:10] Speaker 3: Robbie Fowler.
[56:10] Speaker 1: Who did someone say? Fowler is here. Carragher is here.
[56:14] Speaker 1: John Alarisa is not here. What? McManaman. McManaman is here.
[56:18] Speaker 3: Call in.
[56:18] Speaker 1: It's the Spice Boys, isn't it?
[56:19] Speaker 3: Ince is here.
[56:21] Speaker 1: BBC pundit.
[56:22] Speaker 3: The big round badge. It was that kid.
[56:25] Speaker 1: Fowler, Robbie Fowler. I said him. Oh. Who's a goalkeeper?
[56:29] Speaker 1: You'll get this one. David James.
[56:30] Speaker 2: A guy who's named after fast food. David James is
[56:32] Speaker 2: actually on the bench, I believe.
[56:34] Speaker 1: Brad Friedel. Why will I get this one? Because he's
[56:36] Speaker 1: Brad Friedel. Brad Friedel on there? Brad Friedel is the goalkeeper, yep. Yeah.
[56:40] Speaker 3: Good knowledge.
[56:40] Speaker 1: Fast food. What, McDonald's? John McDonald's? Think of an item
[56:44] Speaker 1: of fast food. Pizza. John Pizza. That's it. John Pizza.
[56:49] Speaker 1: I knew, I knew. Little known man. I always knew
[56:51] Speaker 1: it was John Pizza. French fry. Stephen Kebab. I don't know.
[56:57] Speaker 2: He's got the same name as a Fulham player. Oh,
[57:01] Speaker 2: Craven Cottage.
[57:02] Speaker 1: Phil Babb. Jack. Phil Babb is there, yeah. Phil Babb.
[57:05] Speaker 1: You guys are doing really well. Patrick Perker. I thought
[57:08] Speaker 1: he was an Arsenal player. Danny Murphy. Did anyone say
[57:10] Speaker 1: Danny Murphy?
[57:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, I said that.
[57:11] Speaker 1: Karl-Heinz Riedler. Now, listen, listen, listen. Jason McAteer. My beloved Fulham.
[57:16] Speaker 1: That's my team, Fulham. They kept Liverpool's expensively assembled attack
[57:20] Speaker 1: at bay at Anfield over the weekend. Yes, they did. Now,
[57:23] Speaker 1: last night, after the live stream, for whom we had
[57:27] Speaker 1: Jack Collins joining us, I asked Jack if Alvaro Alvaloa
[57:31] Speaker 1: had made changes to the approach that had led to
[57:34] Speaker 1: three straight defeats prior to this game. Here's what Jack
[57:37] Speaker 1: had to say. He did.
[57:38] Speaker 6: He did make a plenty of changes and really did
[57:42] Speaker 6: shift the structure. We talked last week about the idea
[57:44] Speaker 6: that Fulham needed to do something pretty drastic from a
[57:48] Speaker 6: systemic perspective almost to be able to make this team
[57:52] Speaker 6: competitive and kind of close the gaps. They were so
[57:54] Speaker 6: prevalent against Palace the week before. There was a significant change,
[57:58] Speaker 6: not just in terms of personnel, but in terms of
[58:00] Speaker 6: how Fulham went about their business. We saw a double
[58:03] Speaker 6: pivot in midfield of Sander Berger and Shea Charles, who
[58:06] Speaker 6: looks like a Rolls Royce, by the way, like a
[58:07] Speaker 6: really good player. David Affengruber came in for Joachim Andersen
[58:12] Speaker 6: and looked phenomenal. Now, let's not all jump to conclusions
[58:15] Speaker 6: of the one game, but the ability to cover ground,
[58:18] Speaker 6: cover spaces and pick up really, really nice parts as
[58:21] Speaker 6: well was very impressive. A very good debut from him.
[58:24] Speaker 6: I saw my friend Sammy James, who runs the Fulhamish podcast,
[58:27] Speaker 6: discussed it as potentially the best Fulham defensive debut since
[58:31] Speaker 6: Breda Hangerland came in. So, That's pretty intense praise from him.
[58:35] Speaker 6: I thought also Timothy Castagna, who's been given that license
[58:38] Speaker 6: to kill in inverted commas throughout, was tucked back a
[58:41] Speaker 6: little bit more and asked to be more of a
[58:43] Speaker 6: kind of traditional right back, which helped. And then Alex
[58:46] Speaker 6: Iwobi was further forward in that front three. So it
[58:49] Speaker 6: wasn't that Fulham were getting overwhelmed in midfield areas and
[58:51] Speaker 6: Iwobi dropped back in there. It did leave Oscar Bob
[58:54] Speaker 6: slightly isolated on the right, and I thought he really
[58:56] Speaker 6: struggled to get into the game. It's not the first
[58:58] Speaker 6: time we've necessarily said that, but... It did feel like
[59:00] Speaker 6: Fulham were maybe less aggressive in terms of the way
[59:03] Speaker 6: that they created chances. But the best chance of this
[59:06] Speaker 6: game falls to Fulham. Gonzalo Garcia should score in the
[59:08] Speaker 6: first half when there's a mix-up. in the Liverpool defence.
[59:11] Speaker 6: It's taken off the line by Jeremy Jacquet, which is
[59:14] Speaker 6: a good piece of defending, but he shouldn't be given
[59:15] Speaker 6: the opportunity to knock that off the line. But overall,
[59:18] Speaker 6: one of those games you watch and it's like, OK,
[59:21] Speaker 6: and breathe, because it looked like Fulham had a structure again.
[59:24] Speaker 6: And Joe, while we're here, you should probably sing everyone
[59:27] Speaker 6: your new David Affengruber chant.
[59:29] Speaker 1: Do you want to hear my Davidoff and Gruber chant?
[59:31] Speaker 5: Yes.
[59:32] Speaker 1: Now listen, the context is I've never come up with
[59:35] Speaker 1: a football chant before. I think how you do it
[59:38] Speaker 1: is you just say the player's name over a popular song. Yeah.
[59:42] Speaker 1: So here's my, the first thing that came to my
[59:44] Speaker 1: head yesterday was, ready for this? Yeah. One F and
[59:47] Speaker 1: two F and three F and Gruber. Four F and
[59:49] Speaker 1: five F and six F and Gruber. Yeah. Seven F
[59:52] Speaker 1: and eight F and nine F and Gruber. Hey, F
[59:55] Speaker 1: and David F and Gruber. David. Yeah. Make it Dave.
[59:58] Speaker 1: Dave F and Gruber. Yeah. You like it? Mark's had
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: a 10? 10. 10. There you go. Now, Fulham. Cravoon Cottage,
[1:00:07] Speaker 1: take it on, boys. Make my dreams come true. Sing
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: my Affengruber chant, and I'll be there with you in spirit,
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: because Putney's a little far. It's a little far from
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: where I live.
[1:00:18] Speaker 3: You know they're not going to do that, but I
[1:00:20] Speaker 3: really appreciate the creativity. But they won't do it. We
[1:00:22] Speaker 3: know that the only chant they're capable of is, Come
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: on for love.
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: There it is. Now, I want to say also, on Thursday,
[1:00:31] Speaker 1: we're joined by Hamza Khaliq Luna of the Times of London.
[1:00:36] Speaker 1: And we're planning on diving much deeper into Liverpool and
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: Andoni Arreola. Then, of course, we mentioned already that they
[1:00:41] Speaker 1: play Spurs tomorrow night. So no Liverpool chat on today's podcast.
[1:00:45] Speaker 1: A bit of a disappointing result, obviously, against Fulham. But
[1:00:47] Speaker 1: we'll talk about them plenty on Thursday. So for Liverpool fans,
[1:00:50] Speaker 1: Liverpool Talk, please join us then. For now, let's have
[1:00:53] Speaker 1: a quick break. And when we come back, we will
[1:00:55] Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Sunderland Arsenal. We've got Chelsea
[1:00:58] Speaker 1: coming as well as a bit of Hull City. Oh,
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: the Hammers. We're going to talk about the Hammers. Well,
[1:01:02] Speaker 1: very briefly. And then there's a bunch more stuff at
[1:01:05] Speaker 1: the end of it. Here's a break. Well, we're back
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: from the break. There we go. How about that? Now,
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: Sunderland nil to Arsenal. We talked about this on the
[1:01:16] Speaker 1: live stream yesterday, actually. We made it a bit of
[1:01:18] Speaker 1: a title challenge, title race conversation. So if you want
[1:01:22] Speaker 1: to hear more Arsenal talk specifically, then you can check
[1:01:25] Speaker 1: that out with John and Jack Collins. Steve has very
[1:01:29] Speaker 1: kindly included how he would have written the blurb about
[1:01:33] Speaker 1: that game for you so I'll read that for you
[1:01:34] Speaker 1: Steve right Steve the black cats were rolled on their
[1:01:38] Speaker 1: belly and given a tummy rub by Arsenal on Wearside
[1:01:41] Speaker 1: on Saturday night right Steve there you go did you
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: like that Steve? Oh, that made me feel really horrible inside. Anyway, anyway, anyway.
[1:01:59] Speaker 1: We're checking back into this game today as part of
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: a new series that we'll be doing over the course
[1:02:04] Speaker 1: of the next seven or eight weeks or so, where
[1:02:07] Speaker 1: each Tuesday episode, we will be naming our EA Sports
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: FC27 Star... Of the week. Now, Ruben, I believe you're
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: star of the week. You're picking this week. I'm star
[1:02:17] Speaker 1: of the week. That is what I said technically, isn't it? Yeah.
[1:02:20] Speaker 1: If you push your chair in every day for the
[1:02:23] Speaker 1: rest of the time, and I'll be checking, then you
[1:02:25] Speaker 1: can earn a little star. But no, you're picking star
[1:02:28] Speaker 1: of the week this week. And I believe you've picked
[1:02:31] Speaker 1: someone from this game. Who have you picked and tell
[1:02:32] Speaker 1: me why?
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: Well, our EA Sports FC 27 star of the week
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: is Bukayo Saka this week.
[1:02:40] Speaker 1: Fair enough.
[1:02:41] Speaker 3: A good start to the season. Yeah, of course, he
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: scored a penalty against Sunderland late on to make it 2-0.
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: But it's the rest of the start to his season
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: that I want to focus on because after quite an
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: injury-plagued season last year, difficult World Cup where he didn't
[1:02:57] Speaker 3: play that much, as much as he would have wanted to,
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: he started the season with three goals in four games
[1:03:02] Speaker 3: from an XG of 2.87. So very much like on
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: course performing as he should be. And he probably could
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: have had more goals. There was a really good chance
[1:03:09] Speaker 3: in the first half against Sunderland where Declan Rice played
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: him in behind and he couldn't quite catch it right
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: on the volley in the air. Like, it was close
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: to goal. It was a good chance. But, you know,
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: not everyone would score that. And he's playing really well.
[1:03:25] Speaker 3: He's linking up really well with Ben White and Martin
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: Odegaard down the right side of the pitch, which is
[1:03:33] Speaker 3: a relationship that we've seen in previous seasons. But maybe
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: last year, We didn't get to see a lot of
[1:03:37] Speaker 3: due to injuries at kind of inconvenient times. So they
[1:03:40] Speaker 3: didn't all get to play together.
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: He also moved over to the left side of the
[1:03:44] Speaker 1: pitch recently. Mid-game, we've seen him somewhat unshackled.
[1:03:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a little bit more positional fluidity maybe at
[1:03:52] Speaker 3: the moment. But yeah, the combinations with those players, he
[1:03:57] Speaker 3: does look fit. That was a point that I think
[1:04:00] Speaker 3: a lot of Arsenal fans are really, really fine. He
[1:04:01] Speaker 3: played 90 minutes against Napoli and 90 minutes against Sunderland.
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: Whereas last season, The image of him kind of hobbling
[1:04:08] Speaker 3: off after 80 minutes every week was quite familiar. So, yeah,
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: he started the season really well. And, you know, as
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: Arsenal look to retain their title, that will be a
[1:04:18] Speaker 3: very key part.
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: Well, there we go. Bukayo Saka at EA Sports, FC27
[1:04:21] Speaker 1: Star of the Week. Star of every week, really, isn't it?
[1:04:25] Speaker 1: You could pick any of the Arsenal players. Stars of
[1:04:28] Speaker 1: all of their own weeks. Would you say that you're
[1:04:31] Speaker 1: a star of your week? jacob i'm not sure how
[1:04:33] Speaker 1: to answer that it's a difficult question isn't it but
[1:04:36] Speaker 1: try anyway am i a star of my.
[1:04:39] Speaker 8: Week yeah yeah every week there you go a confident
[1:04:43] Speaker 8: positive man whereas watch what happens when i ask john
[1:04:45] Speaker 8: john are you a star of your absolutely not exactly
[1:04:48] Speaker 8: exactly and that's what you don't want to become you're
[1:04:50] Speaker 8: a young man 25 you said yeah he's over 40
[1:04:53] Speaker 8: now just listen you 15 years.
[1:04:56] Speaker 1: Before you get there He can come back on. Yeah,
[1:05:00] Speaker 1: he looks good for it. Physical health, but... I'm tapping
[1:05:06] Speaker 1: my head for the listeners. Let's just, you know... Something
[1:05:13] Speaker 1: got cut. Something got cut. Now, Chelsea 2 to Hull City.
[1:05:18] Speaker 1: Here's the blurb for this. Hull... They just keep fucking
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: doing it, don't they? Goodness me. How do they do it? Now,
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: Chelsea's full throttle approach left the door back open. Yeah. Oh,
[1:05:28] Speaker 1: the back door open. They didn't leave the door back open.
[1:05:30] Speaker 1: They left the back door open as a result of
[1:05:33] Speaker 1: the full throttle approach. They did leave the door back open.
[1:05:37] Speaker 1: They did leave the door back open. And went through it.
[1:05:39] Speaker 1: They left the back door back open. Right, Steve. The
[1:05:42] Speaker 1: door back into the game. Allowing the Tigers to rampage.
[1:05:48] Speaker 1: We're going to have to ban that. We're going to
[1:05:54] Speaker 1: have to have a ban. Let me read this again.
[1:05:57] Speaker 1: Chelsea's full throttle approach left the back door open. Allowing
[1:06:02] Speaker 1: the Tigers to rampage. To rampage and overturn a 1-0 deficit. Now,
[1:06:07] Speaker 1: Gerard Pedro levelled things up in the second half with
[1:06:09] Speaker 1: a lovely, oh, a fine finish. Wasn't it just lovely?
[1:06:11] Speaker 1: But Hull sit third with eight points from four games.
[1:06:15] Speaker 1: Incredible stuff. How are Hull doing it? Who wants to
[1:06:18] Speaker 1: answer this? How are Hull, do you know how Hull
[1:06:19] Speaker 1: are doing it, Jacob Tanswell?
[1:06:20] Speaker 4: I think there's a freshness to them. I watched, I
[1:06:23] Speaker 4: went to Hull last weekend. It was a nil-nil, obviously
[1:06:26] Speaker 4: no shot there.
[1:06:26] Speaker 3: It'll come towards you down the motorway. Oh look, here
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: comes Hull.
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: And Villa were there. Villa were there.
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: And I was, in a way, I was quite disappointed.
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: I never saw the fans in full effect, you know.
[1:06:38] Speaker 1: You didn't get to see them? No, there was no goals. Right. Oh,
[1:06:41] Speaker 1: did they only do that at a goal?
[1:06:43] Speaker 3: I mean, shorties by the.
[1:06:44] Speaker 1: Tigers, you can't get mauled in a nil-nil draw. You
[1:06:47] Speaker 1: can't get mauled nil-nil.
[1:06:48] Speaker 2: I mean, 60% possession.
[1:06:51] Speaker 1: I think you can get mauled in a nil-nil draw.
[1:06:53] Speaker 1: I've seen it happen. As long as they XG the opponents,
[1:06:55] Speaker 1: that is. I watched the first half of Tottenham Everton.
[1:06:58] Speaker 1: I saw someone get mauled in a nil-nil draw. Theoretically
[1:07:00] Speaker 1: mauled by the Tigers. Theoretically mauled by the Tigers. Expected
[1:07:03] Speaker 1: mauling by the Tigers. Anyway, sorry, sorry, you were saying?
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not, in short, I'm not actually too sure,
[1:07:10] Speaker 2: but they are. I think, difficult to break down. They
[1:07:13] Speaker 2: haven't conceded until, I think, the Stamford Bridge.
[1:07:16] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:07:16] Speaker 4: So they had a good bedrock, I guess. And then
[1:07:19] Speaker 4: I think they've been quite basic, but quite effective in
[1:07:21] Speaker 4: going forward. They go quite direct early. They're blocking out
[1:07:24] Speaker 4: central areas, which was a success last week as well.
[1:07:28] Speaker 4: And I think like any good new team, like Leeds
[1:07:31] Speaker 4: last week as well, or last season, they'll try and
[1:07:34] Speaker 4: make the most of all set places as well.
[1:07:35] Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay, great. Well, do you know what's happened? I'm
[1:07:37] Speaker 1: excited because during During this podcast, I received a reply
[1:07:41] Speaker 1: to an email I sent a couple of days ago
[1:07:43] Speaker 1: from someone that people watching will know who likes Hull.
[1:07:46] Speaker 1: You can see I'm not saying it out loud. But
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: he said he'll come on the podcast and I can
[1:07:49] Speaker 1: talk about Hull with this person who people will know
[1:07:52] Speaker 1: that likes Hull. There you go. So that's very exciting,
[1:07:55] Speaker 1: isn't it? Well done to Hull. Now, is there more
[1:07:56] Speaker 1: to say about Hull? No. We'll save it. We'll save
[1:08:01] Speaker 1: it for when we... Maybe just one line on Hull. Oh,
[1:08:03] Speaker 1: you want another line on Hull? That would be a
[1:08:05] Speaker 1: second line on Hull. Well, it's my first. It's your
[1:08:07] Speaker 1: first line. No, go ahead. Yeah.
[1:08:09] Speaker 2: Um yeah i've started so i'll finish um but yeah
[1:08:12] Speaker 2: it does seem as though they're quite happy just absorbing
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: pressure which a lot of premier league teams don't and
[1:08:19] Speaker 2: it's almost as though that's creating like an outlier situation
[1:08:21] Speaker 2: where a lot of teams because they've lent into um
[1:08:25] Speaker 2: i guess a more physical transitional game they aren't suited
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: to breaking down a really sort of clunky like deep
[1:08:32] Speaker 2: back five uh four in front one one in front
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: that block and um yeah, it's making a, it's producing
[1:08:39] Speaker 2: kind of an interesting tactical situation because, because a lot
[1:08:42] Speaker 2: of teams are, like Manchester United struggled with it. Like we,
[1:08:45] Speaker 2: we know that they, they struggle with it, but like,
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: why shouldn't they just sit in those sort of low
[1:08:49] Speaker 2: blocks and see, just force teams to be like, create
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: against work?
[1:08:53] Speaker 3: And crucially, their wingbacks have like mad engines. You saw
[1:08:55] Speaker 3: against Chelsea how much they were like getting up and
[1:08:58] Speaker 3: down at top speed, which you need if you're going
[1:09:00] Speaker 3: to play that system.
[1:09:01] Speaker 1: Yeah. How about that? There you go. For Chelsea, this
[1:09:03] Speaker 1: represented a different sort of game, didn't it, John? That
[1:09:06] Speaker 1: was their first with a significant majority of possession. They
[1:09:09] Speaker 1: haven't done that. So we've talked a lot about them
[1:09:11] Speaker 1: so far enjoying games with limited possession. They had close
[1:09:14] Speaker 1: to 70% in this game. I do wonder, I mean,
[1:09:18] Speaker 1: Jacob already kind of said, whenever you mention a low block,
[1:09:21] Speaker 1: it's only ever in reference to struggling to break it down.
[1:09:24] Speaker 1: But this is something that Chelsea, this happened to Chelsea
[1:09:27] Speaker 1: in this game. I mean, it's happened to other teams
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: that have faced Hull, but.
[1:09:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't watch this game, so I can't comment
[1:09:33] Speaker 2: on the specifics of it. But this is the story
[1:09:36] Speaker 2: we've been telling about Chelsea over the last few seasons.
[1:09:38] Speaker 2: And it's, in many respects, sort of similar to what
[1:09:40] Speaker 2: we've been talking about with Manchester United over the post-Fergie era, right?
[1:09:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: This idea that if you have a team who can
[1:09:49] Speaker 2: play in transition, they're going to thrive. As soon as
[1:09:51] Speaker 2: you stop giving that kind of space up, then it
[1:09:54] Speaker 2: becomes a lot more difficult. Now with Chelsea, you'd think that,
[1:09:57] Speaker 2: I mean, obviously they have, all professional players will just
[1:10:01] Speaker 2: thrive in bigger spaces, right? That's the reality is, is that,
[1:10:04] Speaker 2: I mean, I guess if they have to run a lot,
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: then there'll be some players who won't. But in general,
[1:10:09] Speaker 2: if you're attacking big spaces, it's going to suit Premier
[1:10:11] Speaker 2: League teams better. So, The reason why it's harder to
[1:10:14] Speaker 2: play against the low block is because you're denying those spaces.
[1:10:16] Speaker 2: But I guess the question then is how you find
[1:10:19] Speaker 2: ways of being able to break those low blocks down
[1:10:23] Speaker 2: from a more tactical perspective, whether or not you're just
[1:10:26] Speaker 2: relying on the players solving those problems as well. I
[1:10:29] Speaker 2: think I might do a video this week on the
[1:10:32] Speaker 2: way that some teams are starting to change their approach
[1:10:36] Speaker 2: to low blocks and it's it seems to be quite
[1:10:38] Speaker 2: beneficial so it's your approach to attacking them yeah so
[1:10:41] Speaker 2: i'm i've noticed this with arsenal i don't want to
[1:10:42] Speaker 2: give too much away but um the way that arsenal
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: playing against low blocks i think is kind of interesting
[1:10:46] Speaker 2: right now um so yeah that that'll be a fun
[1:10:49] Speaker 2: thing to look forward.
[1:10:49] Speaker 1: To that's like a quite a nice thing to put
[1:10:51] Speaker 1: on your tinder profile isn't it you know when they
[1:10:53] Speaker 1: ask you for facts about yourself think opinions you have
[1:10:55] Speaker 1: you know i think the way that arsenal playing against
[1:10:56] Speaker 1: low blocks is pretty interesting right now yeah yeah you
[1:10:58] Speaker 1: know But you should record it with this sexy sort
[1:11:02] Speaker 1: of lower register. Hello there. I think the way that
[1:11:05] Speaker 1: Arsenal are playing... Try it on.
[1:11:06] Speaker 2: I think the way that Arsenal are playing right now
[1:11:09] Speaker 2: against low blocks in particular, I've started to sound like Wow.
[1:11:13] Speaker 2: Lord Williams of Oystermouth.
[1:11:15] Speaker 1: You sound like a 90-year-old Hugh Grant or something. Oh, sorry.
[1:11:25] Speaker 3: Chelsea changed their formation. On that note, Chelsea basically, they
[1:11:28] Speaker 3: dropped Lacroix, didn't they? And they put an extra forward
[1:11:32] Speaker 3: player in.
[1:11:32] Speaker 1: Right, yeah.
[1:11:33] Speaker 2: Which makes sense, right, because they know they're going to
[1:11:36] Speaker 2: be playing up against a low block, so there's no
[1:11:37] Speaker 2: point playing with a.
[1:11:38] Speaker 3: Well, on paper, I assumed it would be the same
[1:11:40] Speaker 3: shape with Gusteau and Neto at wing-back, and Colwell would
[1:11:44] Speaker 3: have been able to play middle centre-back as he wanted to,
[1:11:46] Speaker 3: but it was actually more of just like a traditional 4-2-3-1.
[1:11:49] Speaker 1: I like the idea that you take Max Hans-Lacroix out
[1:11:51] Speaker 1: and then you say to Colwell, no, you still can't
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: play in the middle. Well, yeah, right.
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: I think that's why Alonso likes Neto, right? Because he's
[1:11:59] Speaker 2: quite a flexible player, right? You can play him as
[1:12:01] Speaker 2: a wingback or if you feel the need not to
[1:12:04] Speaker 2: have him dropping in so deep, you can just use
[1:12:06] Speaker 2: him as an outwinger.
[1:12:07] Speaker 3: You see him talking to Connor Cody on TV about that.
[1:12:10] Speaker 3: I think it might have been on MNF. Connor Cody
[1:12:11] Speaker 3: was like, speaking to Neto, who was in his post-match
[1:12:16] Speaker 3: thing with the headphones on. And he was like, all right,
[1:12:18] Speaker 3: my mate, since when did you like defending? Neto was like,
[1:12:21] Speaker 3: since I am a wing-back lad.
[1:12:26] Speaker 1: OK, well, listen, a couple more things before we finish.
[1:12:29] Speaker 1: The Hammers hammer Wrexham. This happened in the Championship on
[1:12:32] Speaker 1: Friday night, West Ham. Hammered Wrexham 6-0 on Friday night.
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: The top table with 14 points from seven games. They've
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: won four on the bounce. They scored 20 goals in
[1:12:42] Speaker 1: those games, which is kind of crazy. I watched the
[1:12:44] Speaker 1: highlights of this game, and you have to say, watching
[1:12:46] Speaker 1: Jared Bowen in the championship is like a hot knife
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: through butter, goodness me.
[1:12:50] Speaker 3: One of the goals as well, Kyle Walker-Peters, just ran
[1:12:53] Speaker 3: through their entire team.
[1:12:54] Speaker 1: I'm like, no one challenged him.
[1:12:56] Speaker 3: When you watch a big team go down when maybe
[1:13:00] Speaker 3: they shouldn't have, and they seem on paper to have
[1:13:02] Speaker 3: a squad that's too good for that division, and then
[1:13:04] Speaker 3: you watch them in that division, it does remind you
[1:13:06] Speaker 3: that there aren't really any bad, professional footballers they're just
[1:13:09] Speaker 3: like in the wrong context.
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: At the wrong time in the wrong year yeah also
[1:13:12] Speaker 1: it made me happy for West Ham fans because I
[1:13:15] Speaker 1: assume obviously they would not want to be relegated but
[1:13:17] Speaker 1: scoring 20 goals in the first seven games being on
[1:13:19] Speaker 1: top of the league and winning all it's like that's
[1:13:21] Speaker 1: just great isn't it when do they ever get to
[1:13:23] Speaker 1: do that get them relegated win all the games and
[1:13:25] Speaker 1: come back up.
[1:13:26] Speaker 3: It's quite often the copium that fans use to kind
[1:13:29] Speaker 3: of come to terms with the fact that their team
[1:13:31] Speaker 3: might go down it's like well at least the championship
[1:13:33] Speaker 3: will be fun there's no VAR and we'll win more
[1:13:36] Speaker 3: but it's actually kind of true.
[1:13:37] Speaker 1: And they won't get mauled by the Tigers who went
[1:13:39] Speaker 1: in the other direction you've always got to stay in
[1:13:41] Speaker 1: the opposite league to Tigers.
[1:13:43] Speaker 3: Worth saying there are two other teams at the top
[1:13:45] Speaker 3: of the championship also on 14 points who are they
[1:13:48] Speaker 3: Swansea and West Bromwich Albion right there you.
[1:13:51] Speaker 1: Go how about that now also not so great for
[1:13:54] Speaker 1: Wrexham tougher starts of the season seven points from seven
[1:13:56] Speaker 1: games only scoring seven goals they like to do things
[1:14:00] Speaker 1: in sevens.
[1:14:00] Speaker 3: Yeah we'll make for a really good narrative arc for
[1:14:03] Speaker 3: their are they still doing that documentary.
[1:14:06] Speaker 1: Yes I think so well there you go I think
[1:14:08] Speaker 1: so yeah it's good you're right it's good to have
[1:14:10] Speaker 1: like a and then a good medal you need conflict
[1:14:13] Speaker 1: to be resolved that's true yeah football now also storm
[1:14:17] Speaker 1: clouds for the sky blues right Steve whilst things have
[1:14:19] Speaker 1: been great for Hull and okay for Ipswich Coventry as
[1:14:21] Speaker 1: mentioned mmm suffering since returning to the top flight will
[1:14:25] Speaker 1: draw the show to a close with this statistic gathered
[1:14:28] Speaker 1: from Opta er Zero. This is a nice tweet from OptoJoe.
[1:14:32] Speaker 1: Zero is the starting number. Coventry are the fifth side
[1:14:35] Speaker 1: in top flight history to lose each of their opening
[1:14:38] Speaker 1: four matches of a campaign without scoring. After Derby in 1899.
[1:14:42] Speaker 3: 900.
[1:14:42] Speaker 1: 1900. Good Lord. We're back in the Middle Ages, aren't we?
[1:14:46] Speaker 1: Christ alive. Didn't realise football was that old. 900.
[1:14:48] Speaker 5: Wow, really?
[1:14:49] Speaker 1: 900. Stoke in 1906. 07. The 06-07 season. Do you
[1:15:01] Speaker 1: not remember that? Yeah, I remember that one. I think
[1:15:03] Speaker 1: that's Emil Heskey playing in that one. And 1924-25. Well,
[1:15:07] Speaker 1: Crystal Palace, of course, in 2017-18.
[1:15:08] Speaker 2: That's Preston in 1924-25.
[1:15:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, I said Preston, didn't I? Did you? Yeah, pretty sure.
[1:15:14] Speaker 2: If only there was some way we could confirm this.
[1:15:15] Speaker 1: We'll check later. Yeah, and then you'll push your chair
[1:15:18] Speaker 1: in when you're done. Now, there we go. Bad news
[1:15:21] Speaker 1: for Coventry, but great news for.
[1:15:25] Speaker 2: Derby in 1899 1900.
[1:15:27] Speaker 1: Season who hates Coventry who are Coventry's big rivals.
[1:15:31] Speaker 4: I don't know but I've been told that Coventry hate
[1:15:33] Speaker 4: Villa This is a big thing.
[1:15:34] Speaker 1: Really?
[1:15:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're almost trying to fashion a rivalry.
[1:15:38] Speaker 3: Who are Coventry City's rivals? Reddit, five years ago.
[1:15:41] Speaker 1: Reddit. They hate Reddit.
[1:15:45] Speaker 3: Wasps, Sisu and the council. That's a good reference to
[1:15:49] Speaker 3: their many tumultuous recent history. Leicester, Villa, rest of the Midlands.
[1:15:55] Speaker 1: Midlands in general. Midlands, yeah. Anyone can get it. Anyone
[1:15:59] Speaker 1: in the Midlands can get it. How about that? You're
[1:16:01] Speaker 1: not from Birmingham, are you? No. But you live there now.
[1:16:03] Speaker 1: I live there now. Do you like it? Yes, lovely.
[1:16:05] Speaker 1: Do you ever go to the Bullring?
[1:16:06] Speaker 2: I do.
[1:16:07] Speaker 1: I was there this morning. You were in the Bullring
[1:16:09] Speaker 1: this morning? Yes. What were you doing there? It was
[1:16:11] Speaker 1: actually close, but I hovered outside it. You hovered around it.
[1:16:13] Speaker 1: Just to get a bit of a taste of the Bullring? Yeah,
[1:16:14] Speaker 1: I just love it.
[1:16:15] Speaker 2: Do you tell people about there being more canals in
[1:16:19] Speaker 2: Birmingham than in Venice?
[1:16:20] Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a classic, isn't it? I like that one.
[1:16:23] Speaker 1: I went to one of the museums they have there.
[1:16:26] Speaker 1: In Venice? The Birmingham Museum? No, not in Venice. I
[1:16:29] Speaker 1: think it might just be the main one in Birmingham.
[1:16:32] Speaker 1: Let me just check. Is that what it's called? The
[1:16:34] Speaker 1: main one. You've been to the Birmingham Museum? Let me
[1:16:37] Speaker 1: just check. It's called Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. It's
[1:16:40] Speaker 1: really worth going to. I think it's free to get in.
[1:16:43] Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure. Anyway, when you go in, there's the main,
[1:16:47] Speaker 1: I'm tempted to call it a vestibule, but it's not.
[1:16:49] Speaker 1: Like a big circular foyer. Lobby. And there's some terrific
[1:16:55] Speaker 1: art in there, some local art. But also I remember
[1:16:58] Speaker 1: seeing in there, there was a Joan Eardley, who's I
[1:17:01] Speaker 1: think she's a Scottish painter. Anyway, I bought one. I
[1:17:04] Speaker 1: bought a print of hers after I came home. But
[1:17:06] Speaker 1: it's a beautiful cafe in there as well. There was
[1:17:10] Speaker 1: an Ozzy Osbourne exhibition on at the time because I
[1:17:11] Speaker 1: think he just passed away when I went there. But
[1:17:14] Speaker 1: it took Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery a great place,
[1:17:17] Speaker 1: a great day out in Birmingham. If you're up there,
[1:17:19] Speaker 1: get out there. Or go to the Bullring, like everyone else,
[1:17:22] Speaker 1: like this guy. The Bullring. All the time. What else
[1:17:25] Speaker 1: is there? What else are you doing in Birmingham? Like
[1:17:26] Speaker 1: you say, canals.
[1:17:27] Speaker 2: But also, people think Birmingham's just a motorway, just full
[1:17:30] Speaker 2: of roads.
[1:17:32] Speaker 1: It's not.
[1:17:32] Speaker 4: It's countryside. You've got Stratford-upon-Avon on your doorstep as well.
[1:17:36] Speaker 4: Lots of lovely things.
[1:17:38] Speaker 1: Stratford-upon-Avon, good for the theatre. You hear that?
[1:17:41] Speaker 3: The best thing about Birmingham, a town outside of Birmingham.
[1:17:44] Speaker 1: The proximity. Let me just throw some shade on Stratford-upon-Avon, though,
[1:17:49] Speaker 1: for a second. Terrific for the theatre. Head there for
[1:17:51] Speaker 1: the theatre. Often American tourists will travel because Shakespeare lived
[1:17:56] Speaker 1: in Stratford-upon-Avon and did his theatre there, didn't he? Everything else,
[1:17:59] Speaker 1: it's boring, rubbish. Everything else in Stratford-upon-Avon is rubbish and boring.
[1:18:03] Speaker 1: I've got family there. Have you? Tell them. Tell them.
[1:18:07] Speaker 1: You tell them. You tell them it's rubbish there.
[1:18:10] Speaker 3: No, it's fine.
[1:18:10] Speaker 1: It's absolutely fine.
[1:18:11] Speaker 2: The theatre is amazing though, isn't it?
[1:18:13] Speaker 1: The Swan Theatre. It's amazing. Amazing. It's amazing.
[1:18:17] Speaker 3: What an achievement.
[1:18:18] Speaker 1: I saw some stuff there. And it was just fucking amazing.
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: The Royal Shakespeare. So good. You're a man of culture,
[1:18:23] Speaker 1: aren't you? Big time. I am culture. That's surely the
[1:18:28] Speaker 1: end of the show. Please.
[1:18:30] Speaker 5: Apart from, I mean, technically speaking, in terms of Coventry,
[1:18:33] Speaker 5: in Warwickshire, Coventry.
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: In Warwickshire?
[1:18:36] Speaker 5: Coventry is in Warwickshire. Is it really?
[1:18:38] Speaker 1: Ish.
[1:18:39] Speaker 5: Is this wrong now?
[1:18:40] Speaker 1: Not sure.
[1:18:40] Speaker 3: No, I mean, that sounds about right.
[1:18:42] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think this is right.
[1:18:43] Speaker 3: But what's your point? One of the football.
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: Clubs that could be quite close to Coventry. City.
[1:18:47] Speaker 2: Coventry's nearly in Warwick, isn't it? Everyone at Warwick University
[1:18:50] Speaker 2: lives in Coventry. Or half of them live in Warwick,
[1:18:52] Speaker 2: half of them live in Coventry.
[1:18:53] Speaker 1: Warwick's nice.
[1:18:56] Speaker 5: We should end the show there.
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: Something got cut but for now we'll say goodbye to
[1:19:01] Speaker 1: Ruben goodbye to John bye a clap for Jacob on
[1:19:04] Speaker 1: his debut well done Jacob goodbye and also Steve was
[1:19:07] Speaker 1: here hello we'll be back on Thursday with Hamza and
[1:19:11] Speaker 1: I don't know who else is going to be there
[1:19:13] Speaker 1: other people John JJ John JJ there we go alright
[1:19:15] Speaker 1: see you then bye
[1:19:28] Speaker 6: Thank you.

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