Gab and Juls: Ruben Amorim sacked by Manchester United

22:04Julien Laurens:And for that, I would, in another, maybe another season, you think, okay, forget almost about the next six months. Get Carrick in or Fletcher in to see out the season. Do the best they can. Maybe reconnect with your own fans by bringing somebody who knows the club, who's been there before as a player, like a Carrick, Fletcher, Rooney type, whatever they want, and then get ready to appoint somebody on July 1st. It could be Carrick if he does well. It could be somebody else. Get your transfer lines up already and go again next year in a much better mood, blah, blah, blah, all of that. Not this year.

22:39Julien Laurens:This year, I think it's a really big chance that they have to finish in the top five to qualify for the Champions League. Don't miss it. so go and get somebody like xavi somebody with experience with pedigree with the big character with whom you know you're going to work because if it's again to have the same issue in 12 months 14 months 16 months because the guy said hang on you know i came here i wanted to do this and that but the club didn't let me there's no point so this time make sure that your sporting director actually chooses the coach and we said how important that is instead of the other around and get everybody on the same page and get a fresh start.

23:16Julien Laurens:But I, personally, I would not go for interim. I would not go for an experiment. I would go for somebody confirmed. So Xavi, but is Xavi enough of a confirmation? I think so. Because he's been at Barcelona and it's not, it's not many years managerial experience and it's one at a very specific club that he knows inside out. That's the flip side. True. Yeah, I personally, I would start, oh yeah, I would, Omar Barada has to be part of the process, but I would get Omar Barada to sit down and review everybody. Review Jason Wilcox. Okay, yeah. Find out how often did you talk to Amarim? What did you talk about?

23:55How did those conversations go? Because obviously he's in the loop to some degree, and I would decide, do I want to continue with Jason Wilcox? Because, you know, we can turn this around one way or the other, but the Bruno Fernandes-Saudi story, which Bruno Fernandes obviously took very seriously, If that's true, it means Jason Wilcox was talking to somebody, right? That's his job as sporting director. How much did he know? How much did Amarim know? What were those conversations like? And ask yourself, is this the right guy to have this? Or redefine the role. Because before, when John Murtaugh was there in charge of recruitment, as I understand, John Murtaugh wasn't really involved with the first team, right?

24:34The manager would say, we want, or the club would say, we want this kind of right back. And he would go off to negotiate. that is a different type of sporting director but if you want a sporting director who is at the training ground who is part of it who is a proper liaison to the ownership which i think is kind of what a good modern sporting director should be yeah ask yourself is it wilcox maybe it is maybe it isn't i don't know he's had experience with the first team but you have to have the reviewers will start at the top and like you said it has to be wilcox or whoever the sporting director is that picks yeah the next manager

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26:29Is he right? No, he's not right.

26:30Julien Laurens:But you can expect that kind of match. He does this because he doesn't want to throw. He doesn't want to say, hey, I finished the game with Nathan Ake and Kusunov as my centerbacks. And Nunes and O 'Reilly as your fullbacks. And also the Chelsea changes at halftime. And, you know, Callum McFarlane, who will never be on the Chelsea bench ever again, was certainly in the near future. Did well there, I thought. And so did the players because on the basic of the second half, I think Chelsea deserved their points. I think they were very good. I think that Enzo Fernandes change of position, which we said, it's difficult for him when he plays in the ball pivot.

27:06Julien Laurens:It's so much better when he plays higher up the pitch. That man moving Palmer on the right-hand side. But still, they were good. I think they were good in that second half, deserved that point. And Pep didn't want to admit, even said to the BBC match of the day, commentator who asked him the question, well, you know better than me. It's not that we know better than you, Pep. It's just that it's a fact that Chelsea were better in the second half. You were better in the first half. But in the second half, you didn't have as much control, as much of the ball, as much of the chances. And in the end, I think despite the injuries, which obviously Pep, it was nothing that Pep could do about Diaz and Gvardiol being injured.

27:42Julien Laurens:But City were not good enough in the second half. The numbers are very clear on this. And by the way, when we talk about City and sporting directors and team construction and so on, you're one of the richest clubs in the world. And your backup defenders are Kusanov, Ake and virtual John Stones. who started 10 Premier League games in the last 18 months. No, I'm just... Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. Sure, sure. And meanwhile, we expect Liam Rosinho to be appointed today as the Chelsea manager. What team does he inherit? Well, he inherits a team that's fifth in the league right now and qualified for the Champions League last year and won the Conference League and won the Club World Cup despite all the criticism.

28:24I don't think Maneska's gone because of results despite the two and nine and whatever. I think there was obviously some level of internal stuff. I have to laugh a little bit because you know the whole story about like, oh, but Maresca wouldn't go and he wouldn't listen to the, when the club, when they wanted to have the load management and the injured players and taking care of Rhys James. Rhys James has started seven of Chelsea's last eight games and he's played 90 minutes in all of them except for one. And guess what? He started again today. Yeah. And by the way, we should mention no Moises Caicedo.

28:57Suspended. Yeah. For Chelsea to win without Moises Quasedo and without Robert Sanchez, because I know you don't like Jorgensen and whatever, without Cucurea, I think this is a feat. So he's inherits a team where there's talent there. I don't think the pieces fit together well. I think he's going to recognize that. Hopefully, since he knows the owners and he knows, I don't know, does Strasburg have their own sporting director? Do they borrow one of Chelsea's five? I mean, the former Brighton guy, obviously. Oh, David Weir. Really, really good guy. Great guy. Top, top guy. They know him well. So, yeah.

29:27So that's what he needs to do. I think if he just steers his team through to the Champions League next season, then he can get to work in the summer. Arsenal come from a goal down after Gabriel's brain fart to turn things around against Bournemouth. In fact, Gabriel personally turns it around after his brain fart. And Declan Rice scores twice. Jewels, whatever else one may think about this team, they have what John Gregory calls bounce-back ability, which is not a word, but should be.

29:54Julien Laurens:Should be, we use it as well. I thought they showed a lot of character. and they were ruthless because they didn't create that much actually and they were under pressure for most of, well not most of the game, for parts in that game against a good Bournemouth team that I know haven't won for 11 games in the Premier League now in a row but are still a good team you could see that they've got threat, they run a lot, they put you under pressure, they press well. It's not easy to play against them, home or away for sure and the way Arsenal responded for being a goal done after that gift from Gabriel as you said Gabby to Bournemouth, the way Arsenal came back I thought was really impressive with Saka on the bench with Trossard on the bench.

30:29Julien Laurens:I think they've got a lot going for themselves. And I think what bodes really well for you is that, we said this before, at 3-1 up, you're only beaten by this ridiculous goal from Kruppi, which has now been overshadowed by Harrison Reid, but that was a ridiculous goal. Very good, yeah. But then after that, I don't think Bournemouth had a shot on goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They defended well after that. Barcelona with the derby. We are Espanyol with late goals from Dani Olmo and Robert Lewandowski. But Gab, it's all about Joan Garcia. year you can give him the save of the year um award right now uh the guy was absolutely huge and for those who don't know this is former club obviously that's exactly he spent nine seasons there he goes there he's insulted he spat on um there's like pictures of him looking like a rat look i can understand all this if i were an espagnol fan i would be doing this too barcelona fans should understand this too because they're the same people who threw the pig's head at luis suigo right you can't swear uh everlasting loyalty and then go to your cross down to go to your big rivals, right?

31:26But what I love about John Garcia is he doesn't care. He's totally unfazed. He takes this anger and he channels it and he makes it better. Hansi Flick should review this. Not only did their whole defending absolutely stink, but we're used to that. And it's not just because of the high line. It was the attack, too. Apart from Laminya Ma making the same move and taking the same shot, I think they had two shots, both off target in the first half, plus that weirdo Eric Garcia with a stupid mask in your post. Other than that, they produced nothing. So he needs to address that. He changed the halftime to be fair, and the second half was much better.

32:00It was better. He still took Daniomo's magic. True, true, true. I mean, Daniomo can produce that occasionally. That's what saved him. He should build a little statue to Juan Garcia. Yeah. And by the way, my favorite bit was when I think it was Pere who was bearing down on goal. Gerard Martin is in front of him doing what Gerard Martin does, which is like, you know, there's like inflatable dummies outside of gas stations and john garcia just takes him and throws him in the path of the shot absolutely awesome from john garcia i may have a new barcelona player just after chavi of course quick time out some breakfast intel you want to know about kodiak frozen power waffles and flapjacks are built for busy mornings heat it eat it and you're out the door no long prep no complicated game plan they're packed with 12 to 14 grams of protein per serving a good source of fiber and crafted with 100 % whole grains, not refined white flour.

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33:49Try MaintainX for free. Control the daily operations of your business and transform your maintenance program. Go to maintainx.com slash sports. That's maintain and the letter x dot com slash sports. Jules, we're not done. We have more quick hits. Yes. Who needs Kylian Mbappe? Gonzalo Garcia makes his second La Liga start of the season and gets a hat trick as Real Madrid destroys Betis 5-1. Jules, two of the goals were in Bapesque as well. Yeah, absolutely.

34:18Julien Laurens:A perfect hat-trick too. Header, right foot, left foot. The header is a free kick by Rodrigo. It's actually well. The marking is terrible from Betis. Fine. The next two goals are something pretty special. Chest of the ball down. Volley from the edge of the box into the bottom corner. Incredible. Then a back heel with his left foot on a square ball from the left. Incredible as well. I mean, I know we saw him in the Club World Cup, and he looked great when Kylian was injured. The top goal scorer in the Club World Cup. Yeah. He's only 21. Obviously, he hasn't played much. I don't think him and Kylian can play together.

34:50Julien Laurens:So he's one or the other. So he will stay a backup certainly for now. But what a good backup it is if every time he steps onto the bench, he scores a hard trick when he starts. You don't think Kylian would be happy cutting in from the left-hand side, having Gonzalo Garcia open space room? No, I guess you can. But then there's no Vini. Yeah, exactly. Which is a problem. All goal scorer for Real Madrid, by the way, from the Cantera. yeah yeah but big sales by Courtois too as well you know and also I don't think Real Madrid played particularly we're not there yet no watch the far Craven Cottage gab Liverpool thought they had won it when Cody Gakpo scored deep in injury time only for Harrison Reed to pull off the highly improbable and make it 2-2 in the 7th minute of stoppage time yeah this is an absolutely wild ending I want to go before that because both goals the one Harry Wilson scored for Fulham and the one Florian Wirtz scored for Liverpool.

35:45Both were flagged as offside on the pitch. By the same linesman. By the same linesman and both were overturned by VAR. That was wrong. Now, the Harry Wilson one, clearly I don't know, some kind of brain fart. I don't see how you as a linesman can get that one wrong and I'm glad there was one to fix it. The Wirtz one, we just put our faith into technology semi-automatic offside, which is long explanation about how they use a thicker line. There's 5-7 in this place. I don't know why you have to be different from everybody else giving the 5-7. I don't really care about it. I don't think it impacted the flow of the game in the sense that I saw both teams were pretty evenly matched.

36:28Liverpool, Cody Gakbo's first game back, and he has to play center forward. Definitely suboptimal for him. Defensively, Liverpool still not good. No Aiketike. Yeah, of course. No Aiketike, no Salah, and no Isak. the only thing that really worked was the midfield. And it was just because they had a million midfielders in there. So I feel a little bit for Arnaz Long. Paris Saint-Germain and Paris FC faced each other. They faced off against each other in a top-flight derby for the first time since before you were born, Joel. 1978-79. Good thing Ousmane Dembélé was there to score the winner. His first league goal in four months.

37:06Julien Laurens:Yeah, it was a great night for Parisian football for so long. duo we haven't had we hadn't had a proper Paris derby like this as you said Gabby since 1978 we'd had one with Matra Racing but they were just outside of Paris so pure Parisian teams it's the first time it was beautiful the Paris was full PSG got a win like without sweating too much it was not perfect by far but they won a game that was very important coming back behind Lens one point before the French community shielded midweek against Marseille. So that was good and good to see Desiree Dwayne in that kind of form as well. I was really disappointed by Paris FC.

37:45I really felt... Yeah, they missed their two best players. Yeah, well, I've gone. But still, like, I just kind of... Don't let the scoreline on the XG fool you because that was a penalty, of course. But I don't know. They got a long way to go. And fun fact, I'm sure you know this and everybody else, Paris FC are splitters, aren't they? What splitters? Well, Paris FC were founded in 1969. In 1970, according to Wikipedia anyway, then they merged with, and become Paris Saint-Germain. Yeah,

38:16Julien Laurens:kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a weird story because obviously the Paris FC owners used to be a PSG Ultra, you know, and still, I think they still have season ticket at the Paris des Princes for PSG. So can you imagine like Liverpool owners being Manchester United? I know, it was an Ultra. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was when he was 12. he was in the in one of the the two cups not anymore now but they still have the season ticket yeah they still have the season ticket so yeah Inter demolished Bologna 3-1 on Sunday night to stay second one point no they're actually top of the table the Panclet of Milan Gab Lautaro Martinez was pretty good again it's Ballon d 'Or Lautaro to you of course yeah when they win it because phenomenal phenomenal and look he also had a terrible miss big miss yeah terrible miss I know But everything else he does, he's up to double figures for seven straight years now.

39:09I don't think there's many center forwards who can say that. And certainly not center forwards who operate in a front two, the way he does. He's such a creative force. I don't think he needs his goal scoring because he does so many other things. And he's just a joy to watch. And I thought they looked really good in what was a trap game. Bologna scored late. And that was in garbage time, so I wouldn't put too much into that. if you really want to be critical, it was only 1-0 at halftime. Inter should have scored more. Boom. More points dropped for the man with two first names, Jules, as Spurs are pegged back by Sunderland and have to settle for a 1-1 draw.

39:45Julien Laurens:Yeah, after the first half, despite losing Kudus halfway through, it wasn't too bad. But the second half, they collapsed again. There's no consistency in this team. And to be fair, I thought Sunderland were very good in that second half too. Producer Tom, who's producing the show today, who's perfect, but also a Spurs fan, also sent me some stats that I found very interesting because at the heart of the problem here with Thomas Frank and this team and the lack of progress that we see collectively with the ball in this team comes from the lack of creativity. We said that probably a bit of lack of talent in that squad, but also the fact that there's not much progressive passes from that midfield, whether it's Benton Kuhn and Gray, whether it's Palinja there, whether you put Bergwald, Saar, when he comes back from AFCON, we'll see when Kuluzewski and Madison come back.

40:35Julien Laurens:But in the game against Crystal Palace and Brentford and Sunderland, so the last three games that Spurs have played, the Tottenham midfield in itself had less progressive passes than at least one of the opposition midfields. So Wharton for Palace, Henderson for Brentford and Xhaka. All those individual players had more progressive passes than the whole of the Spurs midfield. If you don't pass the ball forwards in football, it's going to be very difficult for you to score goals. You mentioned Jordan Henderson. There's not exactly Niesta. Even him. But it was nice to see Matisse Tell and Wilson Odebeir actually start.

41:08Julien Laurens:At least he went for it a little bit more. Yeah, but this is what he's doing. He's just like, oh, look, we played super defensive this game. It didn't work. Oh, this time, let me chuck on all these other guys. Oh, that Matisse Tell. I don't know who he is. He's been hanging around the training ground. Let me see if he gets a go. No, yeah. Come on, man. What is this? Shout out, by the way, to the eternal Ben Davies. Yeah, of course. Great number nine finish that. Jordan Davies takes and misses. the ugliest penalty in the history of mankind. And Juve had 1-1 at home by Lecce. My middle son Maximilian was very happy with that as a Lecce fan gap.

41:37Julien Laurens:More points dropped by Juve. Yeah, two big points dropped, I would say. Look, Spalletti said, if we play like this all the time, we're going to win games. And he's right, because they took 25 shots on goal. Their XG was near three. They played well. But, of course, this is Italy, and this is Juve world, where the result is all that matters. So Jonathan David is getting slaughtered. Obviously, Spalletti said, hey, take the penalty, because you've only scored one goal this season. Yeah, he needs a bit of confidence. And I thought he actually, apart from that, I thought he played reasonably well in this game.

42:06He was very active, had a lot of touches, very involved. And then he takes this horrendous penalty. It looked to me like he wanted to take a Panenka and he somehow scuffed it. Yes, in between a bit. He is getting slaughtered by everybody. Oh, he's so arrogant. Oh, he's not good enough. Freaking Alessio Taquinardi on television, making fun of him. I'm like, sorry, how about a little bit of respect? But whatever. Anyway, enough of that. I'm not a Juve fan. What do I care? I do have to say though, Jules, the issue with this, every time somebody misses a penalty who's not the usual penalty taker, by the way, Spaletti said, you know, we have four or five guys who can take it.

42:40This always becomes an issue. Yeah, of course. But I think if you're Juve, take away the fact that you actually played reasonably well and you let you park the bus. Yeah, that's true. It's a great point for Lecce though. I like things my way, my coffee, my schedule, and my treatment. So I talked to my doctor about self-injecting with the Vivgard Hytrulo Pre-Filled Syringe, which contains F-Gartigamide Alpha and Hyaluronidase QVFC. It's injected under your skin subcutaneously. It means I can inject in my space on my time. It's my treatment, my way. Visit VivgardMyWay.com. That's V-Y-V-G-A-R-T MyWay.com.

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43:24Julien Laurens:Rich Eisen here. You know that feeling of handing off your taxes and then hearing nothing? Total radio silence. Well, not anymore. Now your taxes are done for you by a TurboTax full-service expert who checks for every deduction and keeps you in the loop with real-time updates on your phone. Just match with your dedicated expert, upload your docs, and go live your life. Confident you're getting every dollar you deserve. This is how taxes should be. Visit TurboTax.com today to learn more. Real-time updates only in iOS mobile app. Only available with TurboTax full-service experts. Aston Villa bounced back from the heavy defeat at the Emirates with a 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest.

44:05Jewels don't look now, but they're joint second on the table for those of us who don't believe in goal difference.

44:10Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, they are, Gabby, they are. Their run, even if they finished at the Emirates and they went back to winning ways, it's still quite impressive. Yeah, still 20 wins in the last 24 games, which is really remarkable. Or 23 games even. It was good because I think Forest were not very good, but Watkins with a great goal, Rodgers again, McGinn twice. When Kamara is back in the team, you see the difference. When Cash is back in the team, you see the difference even without Onana. So it's good to see that the Arsenal defeat hurt. obviously he did, especially the scoreline, but they can go back and do their own thing again.

44:54Julien Laurens:And that was probably, I would say, one of the most convincing performances of the season because we said before sometimes they were winning but not playing that great. I thought they played great in this game and fully deserved to win. Probably should have scored more goals even. The lead is 11 points. I go back to this. I know they're under a settlement agreement from UEFA. I know that if they don't hit certain targets that they will get an automatic one-year ban. They've been banned and it's been suspended. However, there's got to be a way wheeling and dealing. This is one you wish Monchi were still there.

45:24Even without spending money, bring bodies in. Send Ali back and bring another guy in. Yeah, they'll try.

45:29Julien Laurens:Napoli roll pass Lazio away. 2-0 thanks to two early goals. Gab, they stayed two points back. Yeah, this was so easy for Napoli. They scored early. Leo Spinazzola marked in the box. And then Rachmani makes it 2-0. The red cards came late. Nosland, who has serious anger management issues, and then at the end, it was Matsuki and Maricic squaring off, totally irrelevant. They absolutely cruised this one. And well done to them, because they still have what, five starters out, and they're winning these games way too easily. It's their fourth 2-0 win in a row. Bruno Guimaraes and Malik Shaw strike late for Newcastle as they beat Crystal Palace 2-0.

46:10Jules?

46:11Julien Laurens:Yeah, Bruno coming back big again with that first goal, very important. Wiesa starting ahead of Votermade was on the bench again and I thought Wiesa looked really, really good the way he combines with his midfielders, the runs that he makes. He's a very different profile to Votermade. He's a setter forward. Votermade is it. And if you're going to pump in all those crosses. Absolutely. Exactly. So I thought that worked really well. I'm not sure when Votermade is going to come back into the team because I think when Wiesa is in that kind of form, for me, he suits better the way this team is playing.

46:40He's going to come back, I guess, when you stop playing 4-3-3 in that way. Yeah, maybe.

46:44Julien Laurens:Atletico Madrid are held to a 1-1 draw where La Real Sociedad has your boy, Rino Matarazzo, sorry, even, makes his debut for La Real. Gab, Atletico could easily have come home empty-ended as well. Yeah, Jan Oblak coming up with a big save at the end off of Takekubo, I think. Yeah, yeah. Earlier, we have Saba, Alexander, Bryce Mendes, chances. It was a great game, I thought. He was very open. He was. I thought Real Sociedad deserved to win. I'm very happy for Rino Matarazzo. he is the first American to coach in La Liga. Is that right? Only the third American, because I don't count David Wagner, who was born and raised in Germany.

47:24Yeah, yeah. Only the third American to coach in one of Europe's big five leagues. Can you name the other two, Jules?

47:30Julien Laurens:Jesse Marsh. Yes. And, oh yeah, no, I know, I know, I know. Former Egypt coach, Swansea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but his name is... Bob Radley. Bob Radley, of course. Bob Radley. And fun fact, all three of them are Ivy League educated. And because Matarazzo's cool, he went to Colombia and has a degree in applied mathematics. Because the other two went to that yucky school we call Princeton. I don't like that. Few teams have the ability to self-destruct the way Marseille do. And they did it again against Nantes. Hey, two red cards. Let's make this more difficult for ourselves. The Velodrome, they got lucky first because Nantes scored a goal that was disallowed in very weird circumstances by Villa after a long, long, long, long, long, long check.

48:17Julien Laurens:Even that didn't serve as a warning because after that, Marseille were horrendous, really, really bad, the two red cards that you mentioned. But even outside of that, they were just not good enough. The Zerbi, not finding the solutions, getting very frustrated, and rightly so. What solutions do you have when you have nine men? No, no, but even at 11 against 11, they were not good anyway. So that is also on him. Now on Thursday, as we said earlier, is the French Community Shield against PSG in Kuwait. Let's see if they can bounce back from that and get that trophy away from Paris. But it's not a good start at all to the year.

48:54Julien Laurens:So it's way back on Friday night, but Raphael Leao returns after four weeks out and scores the only goal in Milan's 1-0 win away at Caliari. Got minimalist Max does it again. Exactly. Maximum result. Minimum effort. Minimum performance. Safety first. Let's just let the talented players do their thing. Good for Laos. Obviously, he steps up and Pulisic is not. I mean, come on. It's working. I don't know if this is sustainable long-term, but it may well work this season because they don't have European football. Also on Friday, Lons win 3-0 away to nominative determinants to lose. See what I did there?

49:30To stay top of La Liga. Stone-wise again. Eight wins in a row.

49:35Julien Laurens:Yeah, top of Liga even. But Stone-wise really well. Yeah. I mean, the red card for Toulouse after 20 minutes from Emerson obviously changed the whole dynamic. They took advantage of it. Lens, who are, as we've been saying before, a great team. They play great football. It's really refreshing to see them top of the table. And for now, they don't have Europe either to worry about. Next weekend is the French Cup, so it'd be cool for them. And then after that, they're back and trying to stay ahead of PSG. Right now, they're one point clear. Gianpiero Gasperini returns to face his former club Atalanta in Bergamo as Roma coach and comes home empty-ended.

50:12Julien Laurens:Gab, he was beaten by a bizarre goal as well. If you haven't seen the highlight of this, I don't think I've seen anything like this. So I'm going to try to describe it. A cross comes in. The goalkeeper, Miles Villar, who's very good. He's been very good, yeah. He comes out. He's got both arms up to get it. His own defender, Divine Wrench, former Ajax star. Yeah. typical school of Dutch defending. He somehow, he appears to jump into him with his arm up and his own arm gets tangled in Svilar's arms, which means the ball kind of goes past them. And Giorgio Scalvini, who's a phenomenal player, happy that he's fit again after his long injuries, comes in, jumps with his eyes closed, and the ball somehow hits him on the chest and goes into the goal.

50:58Svilar afterwards complained there was a foul. I'm like, bro, it was great. on television they did it two way with the studio the legendary the doyen of all keepers was there well I got fouled when I came out people should call that and Zenga's like look bro I'm a goalkeeper I love it when people call fouls on goalkeepers but you were fouled by your own teammate that's the reality of it Joking inside Atalanta coming back up the table desperately very angry Atalanta doing a good job Absolutely. Jules, you were a little dismissive of Sudan based on the fact that their only goal in the group stage was an own goal.

51:38But they certainly gave Senegal a scare on Saturday.

51:41Julien Laurens:I mean, not for long. They scored very early, which was a surprise, to be fair, to all of us. Very, very strong and competitive Senegal team on the pitch. And after a bit of pressure, a bit of luck as well, they could have scored far earlier Senegal. But they scored one. They scored first. Yeah. Yeah, well done for Gay, who I think has turned into a wonderful player since he moved to Villarreal too. I think the Senegal team is going to be very, very good. And Mali will have to be very strong to beat them in the quarterfinals because they will face Mali, who overcame Tunisia on penalty, despite playing more than 100 minutes with 10 men and needing an injury time equalizer.

52:19Julien Laurens:What an incredible end of that game it was. I purposely, since obviously people know all African teams have nicknames, and I purposely wrote the Tunisian nickname, which is the same as... Yeah, but you got it wrong. No? Because the Eagles is Tunisia, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I meant it right. They overcame. Anyway, they're the Eagles, but they're the Eagles in French. I wanted you to say that. Yeah, sorry, sorry. What is it? Les Aigles? Les Aigles. There you go. By the way, the Eagles are like half a dozen other African countries. But there's only one Super Eagles, and that's Nigeria. Exactly.

52:56Julien Laurens:We represented it. Anyway, this was a wild game. In the 88th minute, Tunisia takes a lead for your shower. And then this weird handball, 96 minutes, six minutes of injury time. Yasin Marriott handles it. if you look at the video, it looks to me like it's so obvious. It's not even an excuse. It's not like he's pushed or he's jumping. He's just thinking, it's a six-minute injury time. Yeah. No way is this referee going to call a handball when there's nobody near me. Like, seriously, a major bonehead play. Sina Yoko converts, and then they win on penalties with the Mali keeper making two saves as well.

53:39Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, great penalty shootout. South Africa looked pretty grim in their group state, Jules, but they did put up a good fight for a while against Cameroon before falling 2-1. Yeah, I thought it was good, although South Africa can rue some of the chances, that's for sure. I like this Cameroon team. We mentioned their head coach, Paul Negu, who came out of nowhere with the assistant. Remember, it was the Samuel Eto 'o fight between him and the former national team head coach. Eto 'o didn't want in there, but it was a bit messy pre-tournament, certainly back in September. And now, I think this Cameroon side, who are not amongst the favorites because I don't think they are as good as Morocco or Senegal, for example, or even Nigeria.

54:18Julien Laurens:But I think it would be very, very dangerous for whoever plays against them. And their quarterfinal opponent, Gabi, would be Morocco. It took them a while, but they eventually broke down Tanzania's defense to advance to the quarterfinals. Brahim Diaz scored the only goal of the game. Brahim Diaz has scored in every single game thus far. I'm very happy for him. I really like Brahim Diaz. I've long been a Brian Diaz fan. Look, Morocco are stacked. Tanzania did what you expect a smaller country to do. They do not have this great footballing tradition. They have invested, they have spent money in recent years in trying to build up the program and stuff.

54:53So they said they went out there and they said, okay, you guys break us down. And you kind of felt as the game went on, Morocco had chances, but it's not like they had like a bazillion chances. You just had a lot of the ball. No matter who you are, if you defend well and you're organized and you sit, it's hard to break you down. And eventually Brian Diaz did that. Morocco. I would say something like this, probably better for them than like a three-nil win.

55:18Julien Laurens:Yeah, I agree. I agree. Hakimi starting for the first time as well. Good to see. And captaining the team. Yeah, of course. Celtic lose the old firm to Rangers 3-1 and Wilfried Nonsi is increasingly under fire. Jules, what's going on? And how will it end? Because those guys are really, really, really angry. Yeah, a lot of protests from the fans. towards the board, towards Wilfried Nancy as well. Obviously, I thought it was a really good first half from Celtic. They were 1-0 up and looked like cruising. And then he all collapsed in the space of a few minutes in the second half when Rangers scored two goals to go 2-1 up.

55:53And then after that, you sense the toxicity within the ground too.

55:58Julien Laurens:I like Wilfried Nancy a lot. And I think he's got great ideas, great principles. And he's right when he said, he said before the game in his press conference, like, you know, I didn't have any time. I had two training sessions. We've had so far, he played nine games, nine games, lost seven of them, won two. He had 12 training sessions over those nine games. So I understand what you want to do in 13 training sessions at this kind of level. I know it's difficult when usually he says, usually I've got pre-season, five weeks, I can do what I want. I get that. But he's not helping himself by the mistakes that he made in his own in-game management.

56:34Julien Laurens:Some of the substitutions in this game were terrible. even us watching on television said like why are you doing this this doesn't make any sense like changing your wing bags all of that was weird and rangers took advantage and they were on a roll and and i don't know what's going to happen he says the ball are still with him i would want to believe so what's the point of having somebody for nine games but 70 59 is obviously not acceptable i want to make another point here about the training sessions um look you're absolutely right especially if you're going to change your system change your way of playing you need to work on it i mean we gave amarin so much the benefit of the doubt for so long because of that however let's not over complicate the game excessively you're the coach of celtic that means not in this game against rangers who presumably have a wage bill that's at least in the same ballpark as celtics everybody else is going to be one-fifth one-tenth one-twentieth your wage bill and your resources these are the teams you're playing yeah and you're losing against those teams too.

57:34Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. That's true. So even in that, if you just go out and send your guys out, by inertia, they should be winning these games.

57:40Julien Laurens:Yeah. So he's got a real hole to climb out of. Look, maybe if you're Celtic, this is one of the differences in Scotland. You can write off the season and say, all right, we're not going to win the league this year. We'll just build for next year and we'll win the league next year because you can't make that job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. True. But still. Gabby said we're hoping to bring back Joel Cancelo to the club, but now apparently He wants to go to Barcelona instead. Does that make sense to you? Judas, he left Inter once before. Now, like... What would they want him back, though? It was not... When you play the high line defensively, I'm not sure you want Cancelo as your right back or full back.

58:15Julien Laurens:Can I say something about this? Nothing. Nothing about this makes sense. If there is a situation where they're obviously negotiating with Inter and stuff, and then... Look, I don't know if I want to blame his agent. His agent actually knows better than you pull nonsense like this. maybe it's Al-Halal and Al-Halal's like oh Inter by the way Barcelona want him too and he would rather go there because they have a beach whereas you don't and Inter like oh but you can go skiing but whatever just tag this it makes no sense for Barcelona I don't think Barcelona can afford him or would choose to spend money on it it makes no sense with a high line it makes no sense because one of Barcelona's defenders who doesn't suck is the right back and one of Barcelona's defenders who doesn't suck is the left back.

59:01So what are you going to do? Remove Cancelo there? Or play him center back? I mean, why an idea that would be? Well, Jalen Martin can play center back. If John Garcia's just going to pick up Cancelo and use him as a bowling ball or shield, sure, why not? No, this makes no sense. I think this is a pure negotiation. I think he wants out of El Halal. I'm not saying that it's necessarily the most attractive place in the world, but hey, if you want to come on a team where you don't have to play every game, but you can kind of fill in on either flank because you've done that before where you've got three center backs not two center backs behind you so when you know you have your little glitches when you forget where you are on the page it's okay there's people to help um again i think it would be tremendous signing for inter presumably can still strike a ball and i i think this is a no-brainer just about money i could be wrong byron starlet leonard carl has annoyed some of his fans jules yeah he gave an

59:52Julien Laurens:interview to i think sky germany uh during the winter break that's the winter break in germany There's no football for now. By saying that, he obviously loves playing for Bayern, but the club of his dream is Real Madrid, and one day he's guaranteed that he will play. He will play for them. So a lot of Bayern fans he doesn't like, obviously. He's only 17, so maybe he's a bit, it's a youth mistake. Is that what you say? Like a schoolboy era kind of thing. But I think there's nothing wrong by saying, you know, I love Bayern. He had a trial there when he was 10 years old and they didn't keep him. You can love Bayern, play for Bayern for the next 10 years and still then be 27 like Tony Cruz did, who's not as obviously a Bayern pure product when he was a kid anyway.

1:00:35Julien Laurens:And then go to Real Madrid or even to another club that you like. Or you can be Kylian Mbappe and have posters of Cristiano Ronaldo up on your room. Exactly. And from the beginning, say that one day I pray for them. I think the Bayern fans have been mean with him. I think Bayern have a very... You can do that. What you're saying is very reasonable and applies to most clubs, but I don't think Bayern see themselves that way. The Times report that police fabricated evidence to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from traveling to face Aston Villa and the Europa League last November. Gab, this is a serious story.

1:01:07It is. It's a very serious story because it involves the police and sort of, you know, at the time when there were concerns about backlash, Gaza was going on. There was obviously the Maccabi Tel Aviv trip to Amsterdam and there was a lot of violence there from both sides. when they had to decide whether to ban the away supporters, I think you and I, I think we both agreed on this. We said, look, in the end, the police get to decide. The police assess the risk and they decide. Right. And I think that's the way it should be because ultimately the ones responsible for keeping people safe, not just the fans, but also the public who don't care about who happen to live in the area.

1:01:44Right. You have to take all this into account. However, if I give you the responsibility, you have to be honest about it. And according to the report in the times, they misrepresented what happens when Maccabi went to Ajax, they misrepresented what was likely to happen if this is true, this is very very serious, if they were doing it under political pressure, it's very very serious if they were doing it of their own accord because they didn't want to deal with traveling fans, it's very very serious, we have to have faith in our institutions and when they let us down it is far more serious than when other people politicians or whatever, lie or misrepresent the truth.

1:02:23So let's hope there's a full investigation here. It should be. Jules, that brings us to an end. Sorry to end on this sour note, but at least the story was exposed. And thank you, by the way, that we have a media that aggressively pursues these stories. Yeah, yeah, very close. But we've got to come back on Thursday because there's so much midweek people going on. Yeah, midweek people in Italy, in England, everywhere. Until then, love the game, love your neighbor, love yourself.

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