The 'Title Race' is back! Man Utd make it four, and Newcastle struggle

The Athletic FC. Hello and welcome to the TFO Football Podcast. I'm Joe Devine and today I'm delighted to be joined by JJ Ball. Good evening, Joe Devine. Mark Carey. Good day to you all. And Ruben Pender. You go. Also Steve's here. Hello. Please back. Welcome back Steve, do you feel better? Lost better, thank you. Well, we had just a terrible time without you. It was really, it was a shame. I've heard the show, Joe. Yeah, it was a good show. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well anyway, what did we talk about on today's show? Well, does man-cities last gap winner, right Steve? Against Liverpool, mean the title is alive. We have a sort of broad agreement, slash disagreement about that near the beginning of the podcast. Do any animals have four or more lungs? We discuss that. We don't really get to the bottom of it, but we talk about what it would be like. Reestablish that, so what slide does? We establish that he does, and we establish that cows have four stomachs. We didn't talk about-- Thanks, Lee referenced in the office, of course. That's right, that's right. We didn't talk about who, certain arachnids, like scorpions and some spiders, possess multiple pairs of book lungs. Book, book lungs. Scorpions specifically have four pairs. These specialised respiratory cavities function like lungs. Wow, they're called book lungs. Yes, that's pretty. Is that because they open and close like a book? I'm reading what Steve put in the script earlier. Highlighted yellow. Got it. Oh, I didn't read that. And I can't believe I forgot about it. I understood. Scorpions are weird, aren't they? Have to say, if I had book lungs, then I'd probably just go to the shop by a lot of them, bring them behind me, never use them. You know? Book lungs. They still look good, don't they? They feel like it's very-- They do have great breathings for losers, that's why. That's right. It's JJ only ever three sentences away. From talking about lizards, we decide, yes, deliverable need to take stock and not overreact to this poor title defense by changing their manager. Now, this was the sensible bit that we spoke about, uh, pulling their pants. That was a-- that was a Steve did the pulling the pants bit and then that was the middle of the show. That was quite a lot of the show, wasn't it, about poo? More than usual, which is quite a high average anyway. More than usual. Well, that's me on a Saturday morning, guys. Uh. That's a fiber Saturday morning, that's a-- Yeah, I'm eating brand flakes on a Friday night in Madressing gown. Now, uh, they would play the rondo. That was-- oh, the rondo was fun. That was a such a bad performance. It was a bad performance. Well, no, I was saying that Karen was good. I really like playing the rondo. I enjoy you playing it as well. Mark Keri, and he could have gone on and on and on. One day I'll win, and I'll be very happy. One day you won't go out on the first guest, man. I'll go, I'll flone it. I've flown. There's a spoiler there. Better me, people probably saw that coming. It was unfortunate in your case. People will agree when they get there that it was something. They all think they'll see why I did what I did. They will, and they absolutely will. Newcastle United on a terrible run. Oh, wait, I've skipped one, haven't I? My bad. We spoke about Premier League in Formside. Manchester United, the in Formside. And the joy of dot, dot, dot, freedom. Yes, we enjoyed that. Newcastle United on a terrible run of home form, or just form generally. God, I've really f---ed this intro up. But how do they get out of it? Rights, Steve. How with an E. How with an E. And how late is too late to play the trumpet when you're rooming with someone? I say, after 10, but we'll discuss that a little bit later. I never actually fact-checked that. You should fact-check that. I'm going to check it. You're a journalist that works for the athletic man. At any point during the day, I would argue. Right, yeah. If you're sharing a hotel room with somebody as a footballer, don't bring your f--- trumpet. If I can actually carry on that story, is it too much than the other way around? No, please do. Nobis Lano formed his own South Japan name, the Jordi Latinos. Oh, that's lovely. I think you'd love to see. I wonder what other instruments they had. Other hole, other brass. Kick it. Passa a migor. It's a voice, that. Fanta, well, there you go. It was Nobis Lano that we were talking about at that stage of the podcast. Then we played points of bad. And then that was the whole show very quickly before the show begins. We'll be back this week, probably on Thursday. We've got John and Kairon on that show. We're halfway through the Premier League midweek, fixtures, I think. So we want to be able to pick up all of them, but some of them. And join the TFO Discord. We have a thriving bustling community of really annoying people in there already. So you can join and be one of those people. That I will say a couple of things. One, we feature a question from someone on the Discord in today's podcast. That was actually very useful. The second is that there is a channel in there called Suggesta TFO video, which is actually really good. And when Kairon and I had no ideas on Thursday last week, and we put a little question in there, 20 minutes later, I think we wrote down 15 things that we're going to turn into videos over the next four months. So give us your free labor. Exactly. And if you want to see a video that's a video, then tell us what that should be, and we'll do it. And or just join and hang out in the chat in there. I enjoyed the pets channel. Oh man, the pets channel was so good. Really awesome. Yeah, really awesome. Just a good phase discussion. And once we got some clear ground rules down about the castle's channel, everything's been fine since then. Everything's been only or it castle. Enjoy the show. (upbeat music) Where else to begin, of course? Then with Liverpool 1 or 2? Or 2, Manchester City, and as slightly, not perhaps unexpected to, but by the time it came around, an unexpected to, you know what I'm saying? It should be 3. You think it should be 3? Yes. We'll come on to talk about why we think it should be 3. Manchester City writes, Steve, kept the Premier League title race alive, according to Sky Sports, with an exceedingly rare win at Anfield. Liverpool, of course, as we know, took the lead on 74 minutes with a scintillating strike from Dominic's other slide. Wow, that was fantastic. And that's gonna come back later, a little theme for the podcast. That seemed to set the reigning champions on their way to a much needed win right, Steve. And, and so I'm just reading what Steve wrote. Oh yes. "F-man City, with the prospect of a 9-point gap behind deserved lead-leagers." (laughs) Lead-leagers. I did not, it is deserved, but I did not deserve that. Did he lead-leagers? Oh, that's sad, Libby. Obviously City equalised with a, with a, with a, with a, this is in advantage of all Steve. (laughs) Okay, City scored two minutes, two goals later in the game after Liverpool did, in a surprise comeback. It was very exciting. And then a third. And now there's six points in it. Sky would have us believe that's a title race. Maybe it is. It is. You think it is? Yeah, of course it is. Come on, six points. It's still a title race. You can have a heavy favour. You can have a goal. It falls within a race. But is it, is it technically a race until it's mathematically impossible for it to be a race? Is that what you're saying? Right. There's two wins and two losses. Does the fact that they have to play each other? They have to play each other as well, which may be feed into the race, that they have an opportunity to trick each other up. That does. That does definitely. And I've sort of like lost it in the end parts of seasons as well. It was the last season they were leading the whole time and they started losing it towards the end. So you're saying it's still a race? 100%. Why does this happen every year? I was like, oh, well, it's done now. That was the-- It's done now, it's the number of 12 points. Usually it's done. It's the number in the 90s. And you cast a 12 points ahead, everyone's like, well. I mean, I didn't want that. Yeah, I mean, 10,000 changes to the same game. When was the last time that we said, oh, it's done and it wasn't done? Didn't Man City come from behind or something? When's that, you know, the equatorial? All that. That was 2013. Yeah, but this still happens in 2012. 2012, yeah. No, I think the Arsenal thing is more-- That was 14 years ago. 22, 23, 24. Last season weren't Liverpool leading for most. Well, maybe a bit too season to go in, yeah. You know, I mean-- precedent history. Yeah, I'm not being a day out. Not you. I mean, I'm looking at the camera. Stop it. History and precedent does make people think that it's more likely that Arsenal will-- Trip up and City might catch them up. That had it been another team that have a history of getting over the line. So there is a tie-all race. I still think Arsenal are very likely to do it. I don't think City will catch them. JJ Bull, a huge fan of Sky Sports. He loves the title. Six points is a tie-all race. Do you know what I hate when people talk about tie-all races, though, is when halfway through a game week, because one team have played and one team haven't, it gets cut to three points. Yeah. And then they're like, oh, it's only three points. No, it isn't, because they haven't played yet. We've done that all season on this podcast. All season. We've said it's what it's not. In fact, we've been doing this. And it's like five years has been on this podcast. What are you saying we've been doing it? You do this and you especially do it all the time, where you say, oh, the league's done. No. And then it isn't. It's almost always done. It's almost, when I say it's done, it's almost always done. Except it's not. You think it's not done yet. I see this from the inside of the beast. All right, Mark, why did Liverpool write Steve Poo their pants after going ahead? That seems to be what happened, doesn't it? I mean, this kind of feeds into tie-all. And do you believe it's a tie-all race? I think this kind of feeds into the title race. And maybe I'm a little bit too much the other way, where it doesn't have to be that they put their pants. It doesn't have to be that Arsenal threw away a title. If you know, Citi Dewe come back, it's just that sport happens and the game happens. Two teams played pretty well overall. Thank you, JJ. Thank you. Audible, audible clapping. Plenty of talking points don't get me wrong. But I don't think it's as kind of as simple as Liverpool. Poo to their pants to use Steve's. I agree. I think Steve's wrong as well. Reductive. So in- And child business. Isn't it childish? Grow-ups, Steve. Do you know we had a producer Grayson on Wednesday's show? I enjoyed that. It was really relaxing. And it was very adult in here. Is that the right description? What's that wrong? I don't know when he was Grayson. No, it's there. Anyway, Mark Kerry, short, OK, two teams played absolutely fine one-one in this game. Totally god it. What one of them won? Not one-one. It was 2-0, wasn't it? It was 2-0. It was 2-1. - It was five, six I think. - Yes, it was very clear, it was three-one. - Liverpool won a bit of a patchy run still though, aren't they? I mean, I know it's been a tricky season for them, but in terms of the themes of their season, did you see any of the manifests in this game? - Well, conceding in the final 10 minutes. Isn't it that it's four times now? They've conceded, I think, to lose a game. - Is it in the final 10 minutes, which is up there among the red ones? - They were the top, I think. - Yeah, which is bad. I don't know whether that is a mentality thing. Obviously, I like to look at it from the tactical perspective as well. I do think it was, as I said before, they've maybe gassed out a little bit. So I was looking at it in the final 10 minutes. Again, it wasn't just that the defensive line was retreating a lot and then they were attracting pressure. Hugo Ekateke, for example, I remember seeing him going to press and just not having enough energy to get even closer, kind of, threatened the man on the ball. Therefore, they can just take an extra step, make an extra pass, and then use easily in the middle third into Liverpool's defensive third without having to do much in those final 15 minutes. So Liverpool just didn't necessarily have the energy to keep up and protect, I suppose, the lead. Sorry. If you then look at their substitute bench, I can see why on a slot said that, because they only made two substitutions in the whole game and the second one was Kieze after they'd gone to one down. The first to bring Kieze to his Jones on who arguably should have come on a little bit earlier. But you look at their bench and they didn't have too many options and I think it's been said kind of in the median narrative that you shouldn't really feel sorry for Liverpool considering how much money they'd spent. - Yeah. - You think that they are, maybe if you injure issues across the squad, which is obviously keeping some players out, but they didn't have too much in the way of options to bring on fresh legs and kind of keep that energy. But it doesn't have to be light for light, I think. The option was to maybe bring on Rio Angamoa for Cody Gack, who had, I think, an awful game. I don't think he played very well at all on the left wing, but it doesn't have to be a light for light replacement. So you think of someone like Dominic Soboslye, who was eventually sent off, who was obviously deputizing it right back. Could you brought him into the middle and just had a bit more of a transitional threat? He is so energetic. They don't have any options at right back, but could you put with Tarot Endo on at right back and just maybe try to shore things up, have a bit of aggression on that side and have Soboslye just to make Manchester City think, if we do lose the ball here, we've got someone who's just so relentless in running forwards. Soboslye's just got the, they say that he's got four loans, then it just puts a bit of doubt in the mind to them, but in those final 10 minutes, because Liverpool weren't changing things, Manchester City had the need to get back into the game. You could start to see the pattern emerging again. I guess to answer your question, is this a pattern from previous weeks? I think it, well, it definitely is from Liverpool's perspective, but I think it probably comes down to energy or laughter. Nothing has got four loans, has it? Cows have four stomachs. Yeah, I don't think it has, I don't think four loans. And would they use them like how you do memory cards on a video camera so they would double up the oxygen or would they just point the next one? Yeah, I think there would be like bagpipes that you squeeze a different one and it makes a different noise. There would be good, if there was an animal, where you squeeze it and made that noise. Yeah, that would be good. But then it would be, would it be good for? Closes would be toad. Toad, I think that's what would happen if we did squeeze a toad, do not squeeze toads. No. But if you did, that's how you let my mum has frogs in the garden. And there's no, they don't know how she, how they got there. She built like a little pond. They probably just put it in the garden. Yeah, they hopped. Well, no, no, this is, how does this happen, right? Because the garden, it doesn't matter, that's a no weird slope. But it's, you know, fenced in either side. Frogs love slope. Huge tall wall. Honestly, the wall must be like eight foot tall, right? So there's no frogs going about it. There's no water anywhere near. No one near this house. And then she built a little pond in amongst all the flowers and plants she has. Frogs. Where did she get the pond material from? Because often there's little bits of tap holes in the thing. You dig a wall in the soil and then you put like the tap holes where it is inside. You put a water. When she get the water from. Well, the house. Well, everyone is famously known that there's a frog spawn in the, in the water, the mains of water supply. Alternatively, perhaps she carried a froggy in on her hair. It happens. I've seen it happen. Frogger, frogger was a good game, wasn't it? Frogger was a good game, that. It was a good game. I liked that as well. Yeah, spending money, something about the toads and it's something about it being an evolutionary thing. Yeah. Well, I mean, I kind of want to talk about that goal now. I don't understand. Can someone explain to me why it wasn't a goal? Because it couldn't, it couldn't stand legally because I'll allow it. Nerds of ruined football. No. Wouldn't it be, so what I'm describing, of course, is in the final moments of the game, Liverpool are all out attacking to try and get an equalizer. And then Alison goes up. Alison goes up and then Rayan Cherokee. He sort of does this kind of very accurate, but quite limp shots. You know what I mean from a half hour? That shot reminded me of like a challenge that you might see at half time where somebody would try and kick the ball from the goal line and get it nailed on into central Atlantic. Try to weight it perfectly. And it was very accurate. The problem is it eventually did roll in, but it rolled in after Holland and Zobbersline would shut Tugging. So the reason is that Holland, so Holland's running through, Zobbersline pulls him back, but they play on because they play on. And then Holland pulls Zobbersline back. Then that becomes a file because you've played on. There's no advantage. Yeah, but you can't go back to the original one. It's a bit of a stupid thing. So if Holland had just left him, then they did go back. They did go back to the original file. Yes. Yeah. It's a lot spiritually, really like, like deep in here. It felt like the correct decision, which I feel like in a world with no VAR and it feels like what the referee actually did do was kind of go, well, I for a night, no one's hurt, go went in, everyone's happy. No, I just thought we'd give the goal. That's how often do you get to watch a goal dribble in in the Premier League? Not often do you get to see a dribble at the end of the day? If Cherokee had hit that ball properly, we wouldn't have had any of this, but they wouldn't have been China. Yes. So is that Cherokee's fault for dribbling it, but making the shot dribble to the net, or just not passing to Holland, which did you see after the game, right? Why is it just passing? Because he was off the ice. Because it was straight, I mean, just a tap in inside six yards from Holland. It was a perfect pass. Speaking of, there is a moment in the game also, where a Catee Gay has the opportunity to pass to Salah on a quite fast break in Salah's in quite a lot of-- It's fierce. Right. He should have passed the vets on the right. Oh, was it fierce? It wasn't Salah. I don't think he should. He's doing this shooting in that game, but I think it was right not a pass to him. Because he was just trying to-- Right, passing. Because his vets just sort of stopped playing, like he just stood still as a result. He reminds me of when you're playing fives, and then there's someone who never ever passes. So he just stopped going up. Because he was not going to get it. But if those two-- I completely get what you're saying in terms of who he had available to pass to. If they'd swapped positions, and it was Salah, and the position of vets was in, and you've got to pass in that direction. But yeah, and then he passed behind Salah. And then Salah managed to recover that bad pass, and cross it with the outside of his foot. But then the spin on that cross, I think, made XTK to go wide. But yes, that was a very frustrating thing to watch, just as a neutral. Did you like the game? I loved the game. I thought it was-- Well, it felt there was tension. There was a good movie. It was hooked right to the very end. I wondered what genre of movie was it. Action thriller. Right. 100%. Twists and turns at every corner. You'd never know who the real band guy is. Like Jumanji. It's exactly like Jumanji, especially when all the lizards start coming out from the dress. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You only have a three sentences away from this. [LAUGHS] All I have to do is say, like Jumanji, and then within seconds, you'll either like-- But there's a Jumanji, isn't there? There must be-- It's jungle setting. It's jungle setting. It's jungle setting. I don't think-- is there a snake? I don't think the giant lizards-- I'm not sure there's lizards in Jumanji. I don't think there is. I mean, we could be talking-- there's obviously the remakes of Jumanji that have Dwayne, the rock, Johnson, Jack, Black, and others. I can't remember the others. Others in. Are you calling them lizards? Yeah, yeah. That's right. And others, there are others in that film as well. I can't remember exactly who they are. But-- OK, it's Kevin Hart. Karen Gillian's in it. Karen Gillian? Karen Gillian? Kevin, sorry. It's Kevin Hart in it. She's from your own home from-- Yeah. Kevin Hart, the other one in the Jumanji remakes there. Yeah, that's absolutely fine, by the way. Yeah, that was good. One of the things that is not really the way to any of this, but is a topic I think we need to discuss. Is that-- about around about nine minutes 40, Sober's Life has been chased down the wing and just waiting for someone to touch him and then went down to the ground and the referee bought it and gave a free kick. And this has to stop. You mean diving? Yes. But specifically, the fullbacks. They just turn their back-- They get in the way. --sacred as all the time as well. It's like, you know, he's not fullback. We just wait for someone to come near him. These players are massive and tall. They're really strong, really well balanced. And you can tell, like, to try and win the ball thing. You've got to get really tight and close and try and do it. And I always see people say, oh, there's just a stupid commitment to foul there. By nothing they are. They're trying to win the ball back. And then the defender, the player who's got the ball, just decides that I'm probably in a bad situation here. I'm just going to follow. You just let your weight go and you fall to the ground. And the referee buys it. You've got to stop doing it. Because-- Yeah, I agree. The referee buys it because it's like the safer decision to make in terms of avoiding-- Absolutely. --controversial moments. And-- But it's a great example of why we can't both-- you know my fans are like, all we want is consistency. So that would suggest why they keep getting given. And then they also say, we just want common sense. Because you can't have-- Well, I get it. Because it does seem like a foul. Because you're harassing the player on the ball to try and win it back. So it's kind of stopping them from playing. But I don't think it's a foul. It's gone to the point now where, like, if a palace attacker is kind of chasing a defender who's trying to shape the ball out of play, the automatic shout is like, no foul, no foul. Like, don't touch him. Just let him make a mistake. Yeah. It's the whole thing about where it is on the pitch as well. Because if that person-- if that was an striker in their own-- or in the attacking box-- Yeah. --and they went down. You'd see the referee wave them up and you'd be like, come on, don't put-- or maybe you'd give them a yellow card. They're fouling. Often in the middle of the park, it's not given as well. But if you move middle of the park-- And I remember it's a good example recently of Kieran Trippie doing that where he had two men on it and realized that he couldn't get out of it. it in his own defensive third. And was just like, okay, I need to just go down, got the foul. And it's exactly the same action to your point is what an attacker would try and do to win a penalty. And he got the foul. And you always say, well, that's a real experience there, that's what they learn. So what happens to players as they play the game for a while and then they learn that the best way to get over bad situation is just fall over. So if you're in like, you're having your annual view, it's not going very well. Just fall to the floor. And you can leave. How do you retrain this though? Like, what rule do you need to change? Or do you rest it? And let them go through and score. And then players will stop doing it. Yeah. Do you think is there any argument for saying, okay, attackers like we're in a period where this is happening a lot right now, but in two years time, maybe attackers will do what Mark said and do a lot more waiting, like come up with clever pressing, wait for the test. I don't know if it's been happening for years and years. I remember especially for some reason, I remember like Italian center backs in European football doing it a lot. So they, you know, the ball runs through, striker chasing on, they block them. They're big enough clever enough to smart enough to like block them and try and lead the ball out. But then as soon as the striker gets near to them, like hands on the back, they go down, play stops. And if they didn't do that, they've been a bit of a bad situation. And like the way you're trying to press and push up on them to try and get an advantage, you don't get it. So it's in favor of the defensive team rather than the attacking one. But it makes more sense because then nothing bad happens. And usually the, to this a good point because usually PGO MOL say that they institute rules in order to try to give the benefit of the attack to the attacker so that we have a quote more exciting game. Yeah. And this is an example of one that isn't the case, right? There's so much contact as well, though, especially all these like set pieces and everyone's like, like all the aerial battles are on the way back. You know, there's long bought everyone's in the air and all battling for everything. So you can contact some places, but it's certain times really clever elite footballers just decide, this time I'm not going to be the strongest guy in the picture. I'm going to drop to the floor. Winner, if we can go from there and I get it. But there's gaming that they're controlling the game by, that's not cheating. It's weird. Well, let me put it to you. How can those incidents be fouls? But when Mick Elmerino lifts up a goalkeeper and moves him out of the way, it's not a foul. Well, exactly. I don't know. How is that because you didn't use his fingers? Do you know what I've decided at almost top of the refereeing because it's going to be annoying? But I see Diaz kind of moved Gapo out the way of Sommasla's free kick. And if he hadn't moved him as far, it might have hit Gapo. Is that right? Like, if he only did that half the distance that he moved in, then it might have blocked him. Waffle. We haven't even talked about that goal. I was going to say a free kick aside from the technical quality. Where'd you stand on the whole? They should have had more in the wall. Manchester City. I think this is a fantastic free kick goal from quite far out and relatively central as well. Very similar to the one he scored against Arsenal at the start of season, but kind of with a slight different trajectory of rather than it curling a bit and dipping, it kind of swerved and rose in the other direction. I mean, a lot of the time, I've seen theories that like, it would be more difficult for the attacking team to score from free kicks if there was just no wall. Yeah. And they rush us kind of scattered around because they use it as like a way to measure where they want the ball to go and a keeper therefore stands on the light. It's very deception to say the height of the wall. I mean, it's easy to say the height, isn't it? I feel like a wall is good. There is a player I'd like to talk about from the scheme I thought was outstanding throughout in Bernardo Silver. And I like the way that he plays from Ansity because he's thinking of him as being this kind of technical, creative, right-winger, like number 10 sort of player, but he is absolutely everywhere. All over the pitch, he's at all times like the deepest player, kind of receiving the ball to help progress it. Then he turns up to, he's like the free man. So if you're always trying to create a free man in your system, Bernardo Silver is basically that all times from Ansity. He just turns up in places where suddenly he is free and he drags players out to try and mark him to then create space for others. He was pulling out the right wing to overlap with new netters, but then seconds later he was deepest, like left back to pick up the ball and go with it. Yeah. So he's a manist, like he goes in, he's really nasty. It's funny. So what's the next boy? The word in my head is tenacious. Tenacious? Tenacious. Tenacious. Yeah. It's nicely had a good game also because he's had a bit of a tricky season. He's been getting criticism this season for being slightly too old to be able to do what he used to do. Is it 31 or something, you think? I think so. He's got so many minutes in his life, isn't he? I'm hearing the word washed as it relates to him in some games this season. It feels like we're seeing sort of the end of the season. He's 31. Oh, no, I know, but remember what happened to Wayne Rooney? Yeah, but I don't know. I'm not having it. I think playing him and Roderie who both have too many minutes in their legs and Roderie obviously recovering from an ACL injury may be, yeah, fuels that narrative of Benardo being a little bit washed in some games in my lifetime. Right. But in this game, right? Because he doesn't have the support. Yeah, and maybe like the kind of sprint speed that he had once, you know, but he still clearly has stamina, even if he's coming towards the end of his peak. Yeah, I agree with J.J., but again, like on that physicality point, I think maybe that's probably part of the reason why Nico Riley keeps playing in this field, right? Because he's young, big and strong to make up for. He's fantastic, or really, like in a small space as well. He's such a good player. I wish I was young, big and strong. Oh, yeah. He'll just definitely big. Um, are you strong? I think I'm stronger than you, like Rick, just because I'm big. He could punch a hole through that wire. That's it. No, no, danger. I break my hand. No, I think you could fully go through it. No, I don't think so. That's the external wall. Maybe that one. That's just, that's just made of not the cement one. Yeah. Not the treatment. I think I could punch through Steve's. I mean, it's a slow. It's just a bad one. This glass is pretty thick. What, what, what are you lifting? What are my generally, uh, tins of baked beans into the saucepan? I'm often lifting chocolate to my mouth. Um, I've got to lift myself out of chairs. Yeah. Most of the time I'm in a chair. Very nice. So I got it. And I'll do a lot of this. Yeah. That's just lifting myself up in the chair and back down again. Kind of sannics, yeah. Yeah, sort of, you know, my body is my gym because lugging it around is quite a lot of work, you know. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. Um, so maybe strong. Liverpool's well. So the first half, I think I think they came out and they were really aggressive and they tried to take the game to city and then it just, it sort of faded away and they seemed really, I don't know, they weren't very good for the final 20 minutes, something that but second half, um, so, are there slots that they didn't really change anything tactically during half time? I'm not sure. That's true. I didn't see any differences really. But this is the, the thing's quite funny. Like, they might be trying to look for a tactical thing that would change the game and it's not. It's just like, they go for them in the second half. Like, like, come out and really go at them and they actually make it work and this can happen. And that seems to have got them into it. The only thing I thought was different from Liverpool in the second half was, well, in first, I've Ryan Gravenberg was pulling to the right hand side, kind of being an option for when Dominic Sobius, I got it right back. He was just going to be the ball up the line and there was no one in the middle. I was trying to take some photos of it at the time to kind of prove my point. And it was Alexis McAllister really flore and veerts sometimes would drop in, but Manchester City would always kind of outnumber them in the middle. And it made sense that Liverpool was trying to go around the side of Manchester City. It kind of worked very well for Spirits. I think they're like a diamond frazzle, just like into it too. So I can see why they were trying to do it exactly for that reason. But Gravenberg was just not, he's so pressurised as well, you could put him a bit more in the middle and actually try and kind of go a little bit more toe to toe. And then if he comes out on the other side, then you're bearing down on Manchester City back for. And that happened a little bit more. I thought in the second half, he was positioned a bit more centrally. I think that's probably a lot to do is, I think the balance in the shape of Liverpool play now, I don't like it. They basically have two, like it's like a four to four or almost half the time. And so I don't think you have the right players in right position to be able to receive the ball. I was taking loads of screenshots and then I was just doing loads of tactics forward stuff to try and work out what they was actually doing. And it often ends up with like a four to four. But the Macalisters often out position, pushing all the way up to be the middle presser. And so I think say we're doing things to pull them out of the way, but you still only have two in the middle. And there's not a lot of coverage either side of them. So you can get into the spaces either side. Then that's obviously a problem. But when you're trying to build, it means your, your wide players are further up the pitch. And they've got no real bounce pass either because they're all forward. Yeah, I think you need more angles. Yeah, I think the angles are the way I'm looking for it. It's where I like the old, the quadruiler classic four three because there's lots of triangles and diamonds. And then it feels like slots going, he's getting rid of those shapes. He wants a box. He likes different kinds of things. Well, let me ask you, Mark. I've sort of offered this option, not option. That sounds like I'm in charge. I've offered this opinion previously on the, on the bog car. So I'm looking around at teams in the Premier League who have managers who aren't completely unsafe, but aren't totally safe and thinking, with those clubs, look at this summer window, where it's clear that a lot of managers are going to be moving between different clubs. Lots of, you know, a couple of elite teams are looking, are looking as well. Managers in the international game whose contracts might be coming to an end as well. Do you think that Liverpool will look at that manager market in the summer and think, maybe we should replace slot because we've stopped talking about it a bit, but it's been a bad season, right? It's not going well. No, I agree. I do think we can't detach from everything that happened in the summer, which is not something to dwell upon here. It's been spoken about so much, but there's, all of the squad are still going through. Troy, I suppose, so I think that anything performance level wise is to be included within that sort of factor as well. So all of the above, notwithstanding, I do believe that, yeah, performance levels have dropped. All typically as a club in recruitment side of things, but as a club in general, they don't kind of go gung ho by sacking manager mid season. There's been very few occasions where that happened. So I don't think it will happen anytime soon in the summer would, I mean, they'd be foolish not to at least look around a shabby on so being the obvious one. He's someone who would add a lot of angles to this sort of the passing and the buildup. So with the tools that he potentially have at his disposal, you'd think that he would do well with the players in Liverpool's squad by kind of creating a bit more of a possession-based side, but sort of work is magic to similar to the way that you did with Bialavikusan. But I do think slot is still someone who does have the tactical acumen to be able to kind of get out of this issue. It's been really quite bad, I think, isn't it? They're last, is it one win in seven? It's not great. It's not great. But I do think that the wider factors that occurred mean that Liverpool is the age old, this is a transition year. But when they've had so much change, some of it through their own volition, some of it not, it is going to often then sort of spill into the form of sure. And when you're dealing with like, you know, Salar on a new deal as his performance levels are dipping, like that is a difficult thing to deal with politically as we've seen with that whole fall out a few weeks ago. They're going to have to spend some money on defenders. They obviously have done that a little bit already and get Jeremy Jackay lined up for the summer. I think an important factor here is that slot doesn't burn his bridges with the fan base, not, I'm not saying that has happened, but like I have seen criticism of the way he's spoken about their season because he's kind of said words to the effect of, well, they don't want it once in 30 years, I want it again. And I'm the bad guy. It's like, fans are not going to enjoy that. He shouldn't use that voice either, that "Volve the Bird" girl. That's not that. It's just, can you sound consenting, isn't it? Sounds consenting, right? When he shakes his head like that. In his actual voice. No. But you were right, Mark. That's what? No. It's one in seven and slightly more demingly as well. That means that it is only one Premier League victory in 2026. That's right. That's why I was trying to graph it. But it's the other two go ahead and have to do it. That was the coolest team of any one one. That was the four, one demolition of Newcastle United. But apart from that, it's not been pretty. I do think it's important to detach the performance from the results that was one. They will have had granted not full games. Newcastle, even the Newcastle game, actually, they struggled for the first half and now. But they haven't played well. They have played like a top four side at the very least. But they just obviously not have the results that go with it. For maybe the reasons that we said about, including energy levels, injuries, etc. But so many teams have injuries as well. It's not really an excuse. The performance levels have still been good. The fatigue is obviously a factor in that comes down to injuries and then the domino effect of having to use Sober Slide at right back. And then there's that kind of, you know, that question of like, if you could clone a player 11 times and make him the whole team, which player would you do that with Sober Slide got to be up there as the best option there? Yeah, I broadly agree. I do think you can be quite frustrating at times in possession. Liverpool around the early winter weeks were just because they were so fearful of being caught on a counterattack. They would just get into a certain position. This is more when Sober Slide was in the middle, get into a certain position, get into a good rest of fence so that they would be solid. But therefore the team would be in a lower block and it was a lot of been complaining about the low block for weeks and months now. But Sober Slide would often be the one to be the one to slow it down. You can see him sometimes visibly just saying to his team, it's calm it down. But at times, Liverpool's kind of built in recent years on making the most of those transitional moments, making the most of the counterattack. He's got that ability because he got four lungs, of course. But he sometimes just slows it down and then they just wait before they can try and then break down the low block. And sometimes you just think, go for it, play that pass that you maybe is a 50/50 pass, but if it comes off, then you're better than the one. Do a man United, that's what you're saying, really, isn't it? Let me do something with you now. Okay. Okay. We've got a nice little graphic here. I don't know who made this. Is it a sky graphic? Which could have come? Yeah. Yeah, it's a sky sports graphic. Okay. What they've done is they've put both teams fixtures all the way up until the Derby. Man City have fewer. Which Derby? Sorry, the Man City Arsenal Derby. I'll explain why. So Arsenal have, because they're both in the lead cup final, they have to rearrange a fixture. So that wolves fixture that Arsenal are playing has been rearranged for that day. City versus Palaces yet to be rearranged. So it might go in. So when we play this game, we'll add Palaces in then. Right. Here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through these games with you. I'm going to ask you how Man City and how Arsenal will fare. We'll add up the points and that way we'll decide in JJ Bulls mind what the point gap is going to be when they play each other on April 18th. Okay. I like the game. And we're going to leave out the cup ties. Okay. Let's start with Arsenal. Now, Steve, you're writing down the maths. I'll do it in my head as well. Yep. They are a way to Brentford on Thursday. Oh, it's a tough one. I want to hear what's in there. I'll try with that. Yeah. Okay. Fine. So that's three. Then they are a way to wolves on February 18th. That would be the game they lose, wouldn't it? Because that's how leagues work. Maybe. I'm going to go randomly with wolves. You think wolves are going to win that game? I don't, but it's kind of like could happen. Okay. You were just saying that so that the title race will be. No, because they'll be everyone apart from like that game on that. Wolves have lost three in a row, drawn the previous two. I don't think they're going to be Arsenal. But okay, we'll go with you on it. That's wolves. It's still three points. Okay. A way to spurs. Win. Six points. Home to Chelsea. Draw. Okay. That's seven points. A way to Brighton. I mean, they're terrible. Let me write it down there. That's ten points. Home to Everton. Draw. Okay. Eleven points. Then of course, there's the EFL Cup Final. But after that, there's a home to Bournemouth. And how close the end of the season are we here? Is this. Well, we're about five, four games away. It's a pressure starting to build here. I think it'd draw with Bournemouth. So you think they're only going to get twelve points from those games. So at the time that they play Manchester City, we believe that Arsenal will have sixty eight points. Okay. Now let's do Manchester City. So man city, home to fullham. Draw. Home to Newcastle. Win. That's four. A way to leads. Win. That's seven. Home to forest. Win. That's eleven. Okay. A way to West Ham. Win. This is rigged. This is so rigged. It's not, I don't know. Fourteen points. Okay. Then they're a way to Chelsea. Draw. Maybe a loss there. Do you think a loss? Yeah. Okay, that's fourteen points. And then is it home or away to Palis? Ruben. We've played them ourselves. So it's in Manchester. So home to Palis. Something always lose to Palis. Well, there'd be as three new ideas. Yeah, I'm going to go lose. You're going to think they lose to Palis as well. Round them as well. We are good again to be fair. A random thing happens in these games. So that's fourteen points. So we think that we think that Manchester will be on sixty four points at that point. So there'll be four points in it when they meet each other. So if man city win that game, then there's only one point in it. Wow. Well, that's the future. Well, that's your future. Yeah. Your future for a side somewhere that we're not that scary. Wolves aren't beating Arsenal though. They've won one game. I don't think so. I don't think Wolves will be asked. I have to say, I'm not with you on that one. And I also think man city will be crystal tax. Just give me a clean edit here. Can we? To see what the result is on that. To be fair. I was at the reverse fixture of that. And Wolves for straighted Arsenal for a really long period. Yeah. And they're really compact. Five, three, two. Yeah. And it took it until like the last kick of the game for our goal for us to go ahead. So it could be a draw if nothing else. Who's gonna score their goals now though? Next question. OK. Right. Let's play another game. Are you guys ready for another game now? Yeah. You know what game it is? It's Rondo. Do you know what the Rondo is? My game. I'm going to tell the audience what the Rondo is anyway. The Rondo is as follows. I give a category to these fine gentlemen here that has a number of different answers. And we go round in a circle until somebody can't give me an answer. If you can't give me an answer or you give me an incorrect answer, you are out of the game. And the winner is the final person standing. It's the Rondo. How exciting. Yeah. Can we try it after a break? We can play it after a break. You have to listen to advertisements before you can listen to our game. Unless you're on YouTube because it's not how it works though. Although we could put an ad break in there. We can try. Unless you've got a YouTube premium account in which case you're still with us, the whole time. Yeah. Yeah. We can actually put an ad in there. I've tried it before. You've tried it before. Steve doesn't really know how to do it. I'll teach you Steve. It's fine. You've not done it before. I've tried it. I've tried it and never achieved. I love when a guest knows the games that we play already. It's good. A guest who listens. One time listening, of course. I'm just more nervous that I'm just going to fall at the first hurdle. I think you're going to do well on this game. Now that's not just to put more pressure on you. That's because I think you have a memory for these kinds of statistics. Now here we go. This is definitely a Rubin and Mark game. I'm not going to use it. I think you might be okay. You might be okay. This is all history. We don't know where it is. It's all history. We don't know what it is. Right. It's in the Premier League era. Good. No, players who have scored seven or more free kick goals in their career. So obviously at the top end, there's someone who scored many more than seven. At the bottom end, there are several people who have scored seven. There are 25 possible answers in this game. And as soon as you can't mention one or as soon as you get one wrong, you're out of the game. Okay. Mark Kerry, we are starting with you. So we'll go obvious early, so James Ward-Pras. James Ward-Pras? Yes. As you might have. Might go. Yes. David Beckham. David Beckham. Yes, he's number one with 18. Kevin Debrainnet. Unfortunately no. Oh. Kevin Debrau, he scored eight. I mean, they were all, but not all of them were in the premier. But I want to play. Well, unfortunately, you can't, anyway, you're out of the game. I guess that's very unfortunate because that is a good guy. Can we start again? So, are we giving one more try? No. What about if we give him one more try? Let me pick out an obscure one. Let me see if it works. And he's on a rarer. He can't win the game. But he can, no, Ruben doesn't like it. No. No, you're out. I want to play on my team. Is that a no team's allowed? Okay, right? You're next you are you'll do better next week. I believe in you. Okay. Why what? Now we're over to you Mark. Harry James Madison. James Madison. No, yeah, he scored nine. He's a hero in the Premier League. He scored nine. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna say Yaya Tore. Yaya Tore is not in there. Good on board. It's so quick. Okay, Mark, you have to get one in order to win the game. Terry Henry. Terry Henry is in there with. It was also on my list. Just I want to be big names. I was gonna go more niche. Like show our work. Layton Baines. Layton Baines. Stephen Gerard Frank Lampard, Alan Chira. Baines isn't in there. Okay, I'm sorry. Lampard is in there. He's got nine. Lampard. Yeah. Chira was my shirrism there. He's got seven goals. Yeah. We're not for nine days. Here's all the names you could have because I can't it's too hard for me to see them when you're saying them. You could have had with 12 goals from free kicks. You could have had Gemfranco Zola or Christiana Ronaldo though. You could have those both. Wow. With 11 you could have had Lauren Rabair or Sebastian Larson. I would have thought he was Lauren Rabair. I was on my list. With 10 you could have had Ian Hart or Morton Gamp's Pederson. Oh, I don't think either of any of us would have. Yes. With nine you could have had Nobby Solano. Oh, he was on my Frank Lampard. He's gonna be my other friend. Jamie Rednut. With eight you could have had Christiana or Juan Mattoff. There's never been in the room. And with seven goals. This is a big long list. You could have had Matt Latissier, Stephen Gerard, Alan Chira, Micka Latetta, Gary McAllister, Gilfee Sickets and Wayne Rune Ryan gigs, D.A. Dropper, Ashley Young. There you go. I was going to write. I was seeing a lot of those were floating in my mind. I think the reason for my mistake there was that Yoyotori has scored free kicks against Palace. Right. So they lived stronger in my mind than the other ones. That's right. You're sort of biased a little bit. A bit, yeah. Not bit indeed. Well, there you go. I thought it would be a longer game. But congratulations Mark. I don't know how I did that. It turns out you just walked it with ease. He said James Ward Prouse and Tieri Henry and one. And James Madison. I knew that. I'm not professional. I'm into doing this. I think I'm sympathy for a KDB pick. I don't surprise that he's not in that list. Yoyotori I think was riskier. Maybe unnecessarily risky. But KDB I understand why you would have picked him. For listeners, we took a three minute break to just double check that he wasn't actually in the list and by accident, I'd left him out. But no, amazing. How about that? I hate myself. I hate you too. So don't worry about it. That's something we share in common. Now Manchester United two, Neil Tottenham Hotspur. Now, of course, Man United secured their place at the top of the Temi- the Temi- the Temi- the top of the Temi- the form table. Formed table. With their fourth win in a row over the weekend. Goulson, Brian and Burma and Bruno Fernandez came after a relatively tight affair, turned United's way when Tottenham Captain Christian Romero received a straight red card for a challenge on Casamero. It's four in a row, JJ, for Manchester United. Pretty impressive stuff. Yeah. I think, wait, Steve, could you fetch me some water? Sure. When it's okay for JJ, just keep talking while you're away. We don't be Steve. Do we? For here what you're saying? Yeah. Keep it recording, Steve. It's rock and roll in here. Feel it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Thanks, Steve. Yeah, leave all the doors open. We don't need to. We're not a professional outfit. Anybody wants to walk in, they can. What do you think, JJ? Well, now we can talk about Lizard's money. So, Man United, I feel like I am enjoying watching football a lot more. I don't know if it's specifically because of them, but there's a certain freedom that they seem to have. I just really like watching them at the moment. Yeah. It is fun. They are fun. Yeah. I think it's that it's, I think we've, everyone's so similar now. It's so homogenous. Everyone's like, plays the same. They all smash in the middle. They all press. They all do it. And it's like, I can't see differences between the teams. Any like tactical analysis, you see, like a lot of people do it. It's not meant to be a site on anyone, or a slighted anyone. That's a word on the site. Yeah. I'm not trying to slide anyone off, but like, there's so much over stuff like over done. It's not really there. You know, and I can't see it. And I'm feel like I'm struggling half the time to work out things I used to be able to easily see. And therefore, it's not there. What, no, it doesn't mean that at all. It means that I'm just stupid or I'm, I'm better worse at what I've been doing for a long time. But I think, Man United, you can see that there's differences that they're doing. And it's a lot to do with giving the freedom to the players. The players are the players now. So, like, it's not about the manager. He's just giving them a platform to do things. The little small examples that I mentioned a few times already since character being there, of them, bunching up a one place, doing little rondo to get you with difficult spots. Yeah. Amazing players together from like from Brazil, all together, close together, and you get Kuhnye and Kassamiro. Yeah. But like, Fernandez is like a Brazilian player. Sure. Really? You know? They all speak Portuguese. Oh, yeah. It's exactly the same thing. But they all have Samba Flare. And you put them together. And then, and then the, you know, they dance the ball about. And it's like watching, it's like watching fun. Yeah. And then they dance the ball about. And then they go forward and they create attacks. And it's harder to defend against because of doing things that are not completely scripted. Yeah. To that point, though, I think I grew with JJ, whereby it's Steve Holland, who's the coach who sits behind it. And he's the one who's very big on the fluidity that you're talking about as well. He's very big on saying about the 3-2-5, which has been the kind of the football metaphor a long time. But he said, I've watched videos with him, where he's not actually that first about where that five kind of comes about. Or rather, there are multiple ways for that five to come about. And I agree with you, JJ, that it actually sometimes, Burma was on hugging the touch on the left hand side. Sometimes he was on the right side. Sometimes he's in the middle. And you couldn't put any of the above configurations with Cunier, Bruno Fernandez, and Ahmed as well. As long as they had a five, sometimes Luke Shaw would be the one to kind of support on the left hand side, but as long as they had that structure of a 3-2, they were kind of fine. And it created that fluidity. So Carrot can be the kind of the ambassadorial figure if he so wishes, because he's got the coaching staff, Steve Hons, a very intelligent operator behind him. And that's the thing that can kind of be sustained over a longer period. It's freedom and added simplicity. And I think it's a really nice contrast compared to Amarim, where I think the players have said, I think, of red articles to say that the players have said that they would just a bit too confused and kind of mentally fatigued with what they were being asked to do. And they weren't then able to fulfill it, because they were probably thinking to your point, I'm supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be two or four yards further forward. And then by that point, the moment's gone. Whereas if you've got the simplicity and the freedom, and it sounds like you're sort of talking about more agricultural 1990s football. But if you do it in a nuanced way, as we're saying, that maybe still keeping those principles, having 3-2-5 in whichever way it ultimately comes about, that simple message means that you do have the freedom and the autonomy. And then with the quality that they then they then have, all of those together actually create those small sided little rondo in certain moments. And then goals can come from the back of it. My one trepidation about this Manchester United team, I'm curious to hear what you all think about this. And I was talking over the weekend to Case One Hemman, who's of the devils and the details, Manchester United, Pokkaz, they're very good listeners, people should listen to that. But we were chatting on WhatsApp. And I think his fear is that the trade-off for all of these direct passes through midfield is maybe not worth it overall. And that in these four games, I'm going to butcher what he said. So the general summary anyway is that in these four games, it's worked out for a number of different reasons. But doing this on a consistent basis in the long term, the argument is that maybe the trade-off of playing these direct passes just isn't worth it when you start to concede because you're doing it. You start to lose games because you're playing in this way. And inevitably the team will stop playing in that way. And the question is just whether doing that through the middle of the pitch, where it's maybe more unsafe instead of doing it in the wide areas, which is what other teams like Arsenal try to build up and move the ball forward and progress it, is not worth the trade-off. I think, yeah, I think there's a lot, I mean, I wrote down something on my notes about this as well. The safest way to play is probably around the defenders, around and not going through. The through is the best way to do it. And when you see direct, the highest risk, it implies that you're just going long to the top. But you should always look for the farthest forward pass really. Every coach always says that, find the farthest forward pass. You don't have to do that. I think it's fine to build up and go through his ways. What I think we've united is that it's almost like Karakhan Hollen have gone in and reminded them that you are elite level footballers. I can ping the ball at you from anywhere at very, very fat, like a cannons fire it and you can kill it dead and you can probably first touch move it on. You have Bruner Fernandez. You have Bruner Fernandez, you've got Kuhnja, you've got Bumal. All these lads can you can fireball them, they can ping it and you've seen it all these little small, I call them rondos, but it's just they're just close together and they're pinging the ball about and they can do that because they have the ability to do it. I've watched a lot of Scottish football and there's not a lot of players I think could do that. They don't have the same ability. There are levels to the game. And we get to that high level there, you can do it. If you can do it, it's a very risky but very it's maybe it's not effective as a wrong word, but you can get past defenses and suddenly they're caught out. High risk high reward. Yeah, exactly. And it won't work every single time and they will get caught and then they'll be like, you shouldn't be doing this. In the same way people have been saying you shouldn't be playing out from the back all the time, you should go long and so everyone's going long now. And so I think if you can find ways to play through the middle and you always can if you have decent midfielders who are moving into space, as long as you have space, you can do that sort of thing. I totally take the point just because this is exactly what I was thinking is that all it needs is for a couple of these riskier passes where you're trying to play it through two defenders who could easily block it and steal it and go, all they need is that to happen once and you might get one nil down, game state changes, as they can hold you back and you can't get into it and something character and idiot. But I think playing with that forward, thinking like we are in control of the game, we are the protagonists, we're taking the game to you. And playing as though you are superstars, suddenly everyone else has got to go, "Oh God, they're really good, we've got to go up to that." And they might try and press less against them, knowing they're gonna do that and drop in, which make you more options to do something different. - This is why they need to wait until the end of the season to make a decision, which I think they will. - Sure. - They can't be exactly what you've explained about why it won't necessarily work all the time. This is why they need to wait. See what character's long-term plan is, have him among the contenders. - Yeah. - What do you think Mark Carrey, then we'll move on. - No, I do agree. I think, like I said before, I suppose anything in terms of the performance in these recent weeks since character's come in, is in contrast to how poor they really were and confused they were and derammer him. So the manager balance has been a myth, that's been debunked over a longer period, but it did feel like there was always gonna be positivity much like there was with Oligona SoulShare back in, a few years ago as well. So this simplicity is still true. I think opposition analysts at the Premier League level now are so elite themselves that they'll very quickly work out the antidote to the way that they're currently playing as well. We've had, so we've won four games. Is it four Premier League games that he's managed? - Yeah. - And he started to, almost every game with the exception of Dorgu who was injured with the same 11. - Yeah, I was gonna say that as well. - It's slightly different positions for them. - Right. - But he has, I was looking, I've looked at a starting lineup change kind of mapped over time in its dramatically come down as JJ looks over my shoulder, that you can see that he's trying to just again, it adds to the simplicity, play your best players. Obviously you need to make sure that they're fit and stuff and they've not got any other competitions to compete in. So it's all of those things that affect it together that over a longer period maybe you will start to. - I saw very beautifully summed up in a meme on Twitter and it was a screenshot from a film and comparing Amarim and Karik and the dialogue was somebody asking a woman, does he make you laugh and she replies, he doesn't make me cry. - Right. - Sure. - That's it. (laughs) - It kind of makes people happy as well though. - I think so. - Yeah, but like, as in, it's not it might not be perfect but it's fucking better than what it was before. - I think it's pretty close to perfect. - Is that what, but we just discussed why it isn't necessary to compete in the team. - I know, I like you. I don't like the meme either. - I think is that from Bruce Almighty? - I don't know. - What was the half-bent on that? - What was it known? - In the 11. - Oh yeah, John, I watched oceans 11 two days ago. - Good film. - And I saw that quote in there. - Good film. - There you go. There you go. - They do move and herds. Not as good as everyone thinks it is though. - No, but it's nice. It's a fun watch. - It's fine. - Yeah. - Okay, let's talk before we finish about Newcastle 2. Three Brentford. - We're just gonna ignore the biggest game of the entire weekend. - Was that a palace? - Yeah, it was so boring. - I said, there was a couple of little mentions in there. I mean, Brian having a really, they're having a tough old time. Quite a poor record at the moment. I think we might talk about that on Wednesday. - I just fight to give a shout out to Evan Guesson, who Villa fans said with the worst player I'd ever seen. And he got on a six-day minute since his palace day beat. Come on. - There you go. - Okay, now whatever you want. - Well, right Steve, the bees, the bees and that's Brentford have stung the magpies. - Well, there's a terrible, is that a bit? Well, a horrible thing. Nature's a cruel beast. Stung the magpies on the tie inside of the weekend as Brentford's fine away from continued with a three-two win against outer form. Seriously, outer form, Newcastle United. Brentford sit third in the Premier League form table with four wins from the past six and seven in the table. Proper, how about that? Level on points and goal difference with raiding champions Liverpool, who we just spoke about. For Newcastle, of course, they only have one win in eight. So that's slightly worse than Liverpool's record. Although this is across all competitions and they're in 12 currently, 10 points of fifth place where they finished last season, maybe a champion's league run is seaming ever unlikely. Although I don't want to say that in front of you, JJ, because as we know, the season is never over. - Again, I don't know. - No, no, I'm not saying about, I'm just saying the seasons never finish until it's finished. Maybe they could make up the 10 point gap to finish fifth. - Sure. - Sure. - That what they could, I mean, it could happen. - One thing I mean, they've got, they've been playing so many games in the row. The problem Newcastle have, I've been saying for about three years now, is that it's very intense and constant relies on always being added. Super aggressive. Let's go. But you can't have that all the time. You can't do it. - You've got to chill out. - Not when they're in Europe. That's the thing. That's why their seasons go good, bad, good, bad. - But they're exactly the other - Corresponds with their league form getting into Europe. - Yeah. - Oh, that's interesting. It's fatigue, isn't it? - I've not looked at it, but I bet it coincides as well when they've got cup games during the week. So they're probably nips in. But that style of it, Paul Eddie, how has been playing with them? I think it's devoid of creativity. It's a lot of making sure that you win by taking the game to the opponents, but then there's no real, I don't know, there's no magic. - Yeah, overly reliant on Bruno Gamerage for creativity. Like if he doesn't play, they don't win, basically. And in the, they're joint top for goals considered in the last 10 minutes of Premier League games, with Burnley and another team once in 11. And I could see, I only, obviously, only watched the highlights of the Brentford game, but they were, they looked passive defensively towards the end. - They did. - What was interesting was they were chasing the game. I watched this one. They were chasing the game at the end, but it was Brentford that had all of the play in the last nine minutes. And you look at the score line and the team was playing, and you'd be like, "Wow, Newcastle will be chasing this hard." They shouldn't be behind in this game. And yet they would do anything. - Do you want to say something? - No, just to go with your point before, and they've lost, or they've dropped rather than most points from winning positions this season more than anyone else. - So they're okay at kind of going up. I think they've gone ahead, or rather they've scored the opening goal, I think in 15 of the 25 games, so they're good at kind of getting into the ascendancy. They did the same thing. It's Liverpool recently as well. And obviously Liverpool came back to it, so with that one, that they're not good at actually keeping up that intensity. It maybe does feed into the fixture schedule, as you say, but they're okay at kind of, yeah, getting a lead and started to work their way into the game, but they just can't help onto it in the final state. - It's like you've questioned some of their recent trends. I hate to hustle you on, but we've got two questions before we finish. You questioned some of their recent transfer decisions over the weekend, didn't you? - Oh, yeah, but I think everyone was questioned. I mean, they might have money this bent. I know they had to sign in the striker, 'cause they have to sell ESAC, but unfortunate situation where they wanted to get EKTK as well, and then Liverpool ended up with both. - Well, whichever one, whoever's doing it badly, or if that's maybe too harsh to see, they're not getting the players that they wanted. So you keep hearing who their targets are, from Bumo and EKTK and all these sorts of lad. They're not getting them in. The midfield, I love to Nally, Gimmer-I-S, a fantastic player as well, and the makeup of the midfield is okay, but then the players up front, Gordon is just, he's just constantly running, running, running, running, running, and I don't think he's had a goal or a system, well, he's maybe had one and all season or something like that. I know him exactly what he's had more, but it feels like that. And so you've got this, it was getting injured, it's not their fault, but the age they signed them at, doesn't make sense to me. Did I'm very well on the Premier League, so it's a mixed sense, but so much money, Volta Marder was never a 75 billion pound player, decent player, but never that much money. I know it cost kind of cool, though. Yeah, he seems good cool, dude, yeah. And he's lovely to watch, you know, but it's just not quite there, and they've never really signed that right-sided forward that's going to make them better. They tried to, right? They signed a Langer, and that hasn't worked either. Yeah, but they did make money. Yeah, I agree. It's not their. Steve Wright's Anthony Gordon has 10 goals and three assists in all competitions across 33 games. What do you think? The season? He's doing really well on the Champions League, isn't it? The Champions League. I suppose he's into the whole thing that's been the topic for the Premier League versus the Champions League of all the teams, that actually when teams go a little bit more toe-to-toe, there's a bit more space, and Gordon can do the whole thing about it, and the press conference is spoken about. Exactly, that, yeah, he said it's a bit more of a basketball game, where you can actually kind of get a bit more space and ended up playing quite well against PSG when he came on that week as well, but it does feel like he can do the things that he's really good at, which is to be relentless with space, but then actually in closer, in tighter spaces, he's ready to just get the ball, try and drive forward, and then come up against him. That's really interesting, because it might be how we'd be doing very well if it was the European Super League, because that would work against other teams, but in the Premier League, the way it is now, it's just, it's not like, how's obviously a great manager, great coach, but maybe the way he's doing it, it's so, you're just equalizing rather than getting an advantage. Well, I questioned on the TFO Discord, which you can join by the way, by clicking the link in the description, the podcast notes, or I don't think you can search yet, for it on Discord, who we have an operational life, to discover a bit of the element. But click the link in the description and come and join. It's really good fun. On the Discord, there was a good comment, such question, from Zaren Priemus. Zaren Priemus, I don't know if that's how it's about, without saying it anyway. So we were having a conversation in there. I kind of profiled the point I've made a couple of times here, which is similar to the one I was saying to you, Mark, about the Summer Transfer Window for Managers, questioning would Liverpool maybe consider that, even though things are going okay. Same with Newcastle, would Newcastle maybe consider that, even though House has been there for a long time and has been very impressive in his time. Here's the opinion of Zaren Priemus, who said that House been doing a great job. Upon does who realistically would replace him, this person, by the way, doesn't think how I should go in the summer. The question was more, if they were going to lose how, realistically, which better manager, or a more, quote, unquote, elite manager, would Newcastle actually be able to attract at this time, which I think is a very fair question, because on Wednesday's podcast last week, John and I went through a very long list of managers, talking about who could do the same replacing Michael Carrick, and it's hard to look at too many of those names and think, well, yeah, those people would definitely go to Newcastle, or would definitely be interested in this project. I'm sure elite managers would be, but I do know, I put that question to the table, like, is there a better alternative right now realistically to Eddie Howe? It kind of depends who goes where, right? Cause like they're all gonna wanna go. Hugo, is he a manager? I don't know from Spain or. He decides who the managers are. Yeah, really is so dumb. I misunderstood. Because they're all gonna have to take a job. They can't all go for the favorite job. Sure. So somebody might end up at a loose end. Yeah, and then you can't sort of be like, well, we didn't expect to get managers that good. At a loose end? Come to Newcastle. Yeah, pretty much. I think the real trick is in their recruitment and getting that rate, getting the players in that they need and having other targets who are lower down their list who are gonna turn into superstars cause they haven't really been doing that either. So I think their PSR stuff might be okay now. I know what's changed as well, but seems better. They like to use it as an excuse, don't they? But as we've established, they've wasted a lot of money. Yeah, it sounds like Tinali's agents are trying to flock him in the summer. And they'll bring in a lot of money if he does go. But in terms of the manager, I think what you do now is you look at where the meta is going to go and also just make it fun. And so I think what you should do is get the Newcastle equivalent of Michael Carrick to be the manager. James Milner. James Milner. No, I think he's two. He's two. He's two. He's also two. He's not. The actual answer is no Bertel Solano. Okay, yes. No, go and explain why. Because he played at similar time to Carrick, I think. Right. No, not really. Not really. A bit earlier. And he'll be, he'll provide creativity. I think he did it for a while. I haven't researched this. So hopefully he's not done anything in the furious and then he'll just pick to random. No, no, he's there. So it's him or it's like not Rob Lee because he was before. Lauren Rebea. Lauren Rebea. I wouldn't play Santa Middl but I would have Lauren Rebea. I would have Papacese say. I know who Solano is managing. Who? The Pakistan national team. Really perfect. No, obviously, no. Obviously, good at the trumpet as well, doesn't he? So he could maybe like get them going in the changing room before having them. Yeah. John. John. John. John. Yeah. Who was it as soon as the teammate of his, and he used to room with him. And it'd just be like midnight and no, obviously, no, it's just Chinese trumpet. Keep, keep me up to you on up. That's just cool. You do not play the trumpet after 10pm. I have to say, especially not when rooming with somebody else. That's a perfect, my sleep paralysis demon is. Right. From you now, then we'll finish. Sorry, about the managers. I don't know. I do think there's realistically, Ma. I think there's an extent of which they just need to continue with what they do. I agree that the crew might probably needs to be better, but Eddie Howe is a really, really good manager. Sure. The idea that I feel that we live in a society where it is just an action bias to do something different to try and change it. Don't fix your TV. Get a new TV. I think, yeah. No, I think you should add it to the landfill. That's right. Isn't it? Yeah, get back a power statement. How I like that works. Sure. I reckon get a new one. Nogel. John Barrasford. Nogelzmann. Yeah, I think you're going to get you to get you to get a Nogelzmann. I completely agree. We have to play points a bad quickly. I mean, I'm embarrassed because I spent all morning joking with Mark Carrey that when he said he had a hard hour, two hours after we started. But that's fine. You don't need to say that. We're running up to it now. So let's very quickly play points a bad. Now, you'll remember, of course, that the games that we picked for last week was Liverpool, Man City and Man United, Tottenham. And I think, interestingly, I think almost everybody picked either a draw or a Liverpool victory for the Liverpool Man City game. So that was interesting. JJ. What did I say? You said three three for Liverpool Man City, which it wasn't. And you said four won for Man United Tottenham, which it also wasn't. So you added six points, but amusingly so did John, who was played by Seb. So there you go. The two of you are on bottom points. I added four overall with not that impressive performance. Kair and Ruben. Congratulations. You played on Cut for Kair. Was it you, Steve? Yeah. Oh, my God. I'm surprised I wasn't written that in the plan that it was Steve. You guys both added just two each. I'll tell you that Kair, oh, he did write his own name. Where it does, Steve. Kair predicted to one for Liverpool Man City. So there's the two and got a perfect prediction as two nil for Manchester United. Ruben, you said two, two on the first game. So you add one and you said one nil to many nights of the second game. So you just have one there as well. Well done. Congratulations. That means the total scores overall as it stands. JJ, you're in last place still on 115 points. I've just hit the century mark. So I'm in second last on 100. John's on 95, Kair's on 94, Ruben, you're on 92. You are currently ahead. So Mark, I will be asking you today to play as John. Okay. And Steve, if you could continue your tremendous form playing for Kair, that'd be fantastic. Sure. Okay. Right. So JJ, you had the worst week last week. That means that once again, I think this might be for 75, 80% of the weeks you're picking the fixtures. What have you got for us this week? Yeah, I'm not that far off winning really. So I think we should do the ones that we must go like the West Ham United versus Managed United. That lag crying could be able to cut his hair over there. That's on Tuesday, I think, isn't it? Midweeks. Yeah. Okay. We've got a full round of midweek. Do you want to pick one midweek and then one from the weekend? No, because it's epic ups. We're going to do primarily. Oh, great. I'm going to stick with him really. Great. So on the Thursday, I think Brentford Arsenal has discussed earlier. Yeah, that's interesting. Which way was it under that? JJ, is that Brentford's on Thursday? I have to go to the GTEC community stadium. That is tricky. Okay, fine. So JJ, you're first to pick. It's going to be 1, 4, 2, Managed United going to get 4 against West Ham. Yeah, West Ham 1. Okay. Right. And then for the second game, which is Brentford Arsenal. Mill. Mill. I think you know what? I think it could be. I think it could be Mill. So that was a draw earlier and like, "Mmm, look at him." No. No, I said that about when you said wolves were going to be. And then Mark reminded us, Mark idiots over here that wolves did actually hold Arsenal almost. But they didn't ask for a draw. No, no, no. They almost held them to a draw versus they're going to win. Those two things are very, very different. Yeah, far apart. Now Mark, you're playing as John. You're next up here. So first off, we have West Ham United versus Manchester United. I was trying to desperately run my prediction model, which we've done famously on this podcast before. Hang on John gets the pop to prediction. I know, but I've run into an error. I can't do this in time. Oh, it's 7-4. That's right. I think so myself. It must be 12-8. So are we going, sorry, West Ham. West Ham versus Manchester United. Manchester United first. What have we heard of you had? 4-1 United. Manchester United. Manchester United. Spare to stay low numbers, isn't it? 2-1, Manchester United. Okay, fair enough. So that's 1-2. And then the other game is Brentford Arsenal. 1-1. Yeah, you can't have that. I wonder of course, because of the 1-1. But I've had a long time listener of this. No, I should have known. It could be everyone turns off at points of time. I did that. Yeah. I'm trying to pick 1-1. It's 2-2. You just got much. I feel like Brentford got a lot of them. The way to win the game is lower than the 1-1. Because you've got 1-0 or 2-1. Mark's not in the game. John's in the game. I know. Well, that's how you win it. Say what you believe, John. No, no, say what you believe, Mark. 2-2. 2-2. All of this game requires us if you just say what you believe. And I'm well done. OK. I'm going to say for Brentford Arsenal 1-0 Arsenal. [LAUGHS] Because I believe that's going to happen. And for West Ham and United. I'd love to see Man United go 5 in a row. But I've got a lunch wager. I've got a lunch wager. And I've been watching West Ham. And they're at Mighty Fine team. I mean, they're not Mighty Fine. But they're OK. So I'm going to say actually, this is where Man United falter. We haven't seen them truly yet anyway against a low block. I think West Ham are going to win this game too. One. And my lunch is coming. It's coming for me. It's coming for me. OK. Next up, then it is Kaya. So Steve? OK. So West Ham United versus Man United. As you say, Joe, West Ham. Some of it was on the great run. Isn't he gold? Yeah, of course he did. Is it iron a rail or something? Yeah, he's really hot right now. Yeah. So I think that will be a score draw to the tune of 2-2. It's not about prediction. OK, what about Brentford Arsenal? I think this is going to be a pretty horrible game to watch. Not just for the New Jersey as well. That's not a prediction. No, no, no, no, enough of the score. So I think Arsenal will win 2-1. OK. OK, fair enough. Right, and then Ruben, it's down to you. What have I got left? Well, left you have-- Suffering from success. Let's start with West Ham Man United. West Ham versus Man United. So is 1-0 Man United gone? Yeah. Now it's available. I would like 1-0 Manchester United. OK, and then Brentford Arsenal. 1-0 to Arsenal? That's gone. OK. That's the most obvious one. Mark, do you think that? I think that. 2-0's available. Oh, absolutely. Brentford Niel, 2-0 Arsenal. Yeah. I think that is a 1-0 victory with an extra goal at the end when Brentford tried to attack. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. OK, fantastic. Well, there we go. That was points of bad. And thank you to you, JJ. Yes. Mark. Thank you. Ruben. Thank you. Steve was also here. Hello. See you later.