Corner-kick chaos, a Premier League without a W & Joe Cole at the Ritz

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1:09Must be physically located in Illinois. TNCs apply. In-app only. I'm sorry. You can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like. Is Gascoigne going to have a crack? He is, you know. Oh, I say! Brilliant! He's ran the goalkeeper, he's done it! Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was without a shadow of a doubt giving him lip. Oh, I say, it's amazing. He does it time and time and time again. Crank up the music, charge a glass. this nation is going to dance all night the slightly overlooked aspects of the west ham

1:59Charlie Eccleshare:corner chaos predicting the title of the arsenal's story of the season book an alphabetical crisis for the premier league five-star co-commentary from joe cole how long is too long for a commentator to stay silent after a goal and footballers names in cheap office furniture and inexplicably Urdu Robert Palmer songs. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts, this is Football Clichés.

2:31Charlie Eccleshare:Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry, this is the Adjudication Panel and joining me is Charlie Eccleshare. How are you doing? Very well, thank you. Alongside you is David Walker. How are things? Things are good. Well, I'm glad your morale is relatively high because perhaps it doesn't even need boosting. But how about this? Came from an Everton fan. He says, just wanted to message you. I've got nothing useful to add to the pod. But four years ago, I cycled across Europe and listened to your entire back catalogue. The last few weeks, I've just done Korea and Japan on the bike and listened to the entire Dreamland back catalogue too.

3:02Charlie Eccleshare:Your three voices genuinely bring back amazing memories of some of the most beautiful parts of the world, even when I'm listening at home. Thanks so much. Oh, wow. Wouldn't usually do this sort of thing, Dave, but just the scene itself that it conjures up. Cycling across Korea and Japan to the sound of Dreamland. Yeah, I'd like to know a bit more. So, like, if he cycled past, I don't know, Mount Fuji, what specific moment was he listening to on the pod at that time? Well, he supplied a picture. So, yeah, Mount Fuji in the background and in the foreground a slightly blurred out. Last episode of Clichés, I think.

3:37Charlie Eccleshare:It's the Tom Hiddleston one. Okay. So, yeah. It also sounds a bit like something you might get sponsored for, listening to our entire back catalogue while cycling across Europe. That makes it sound like a punishment, though. It does sound quite arduous. Can one man get through listening to the whole back catalogue? I think we can all agree that that warrants a listen, fair play. Thanks for that guy. Adjudication panel time. Charlie, I must ask you once again, what is the status of the title race? And is it Arsenal having one hand on the trophy? Do they have a hand yet? Maybe. I also heard a lot of it's so close they can almost taste it.

4:15They can almost smell it. You know, we're at that kind of status. Because, I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because if this had been earlier on in the season, it was an as-you-were weekend. You know, both teams won. Obviously, this was like the least as-you-were case of two teams winning. And, I mean, the other way you could go down, I guess, is like a giant step taken, a big step, a crucial step. Again, even though, you know, I guess you're always taking steps.

4:39Charlie Eccleshare:I think, Dave, I think Charlie's got his senses in the right order here. Tasting and smelling would definitely come before touching, I would say. Are they in sight of the title now? They can see the finish line. They can see the finish line, yeah. I think it's mad though, isn't it? This crazy game that we have. Not even getting into the VAR thing, which we may touch on, but just how many people, probably more neutral observers, I would say, than fans of either team, were after everything that happened yesterday, they go, well, that's that then. Title sword, relegation's done. completely ignoring all the drama that just happened in a game that before we thought Arsenal would win easily.

5:13Yeah, exactly. And off the back of when City dropped points the other night, that was, well, that's done then. Arsenal just win these last three games. So, yeah, it's incredible. Yeah, you just instantly just forget everything you've just watched.

5:25Charlie Eccleshare:They did, of course, have to play on different days again. Manchester City kept up their side of the bargain by beating Brentford 3-0. after which Pep did this which was both funny and good banter but also weirdly Pep at the same time. You know that? And you need everyone. So as much as you are fit you can do it because we did it. And like we did it, we can do it. Thank you, everyone. Come on your eyes. Again, Charlie, it's the fast twitch muscle fibreness of Pep Guardiola. He could have carried that off really well. Just calm down, Pep. Do it slower. Yeah, it's weird the way he sort of scuttles off as well after doing it.

5:59I did also slightly despair because we've talked before about how low the bar is for a manager doing or saying anything remotely funny or out of the ordinary. And obviously him doing that, everyone was just like in raptures for hours after just like, have you seen what Pep's done? He said, come on, you irons. It was like people were like melting down at sort of how extraordinary a moment. It was like quite funny. That's sort of like if a normal person had done it, obviously the bar is there. so it's like oh my god you've got to see what Pat's just quite useful for him that it was West Ham they're the only team with an identifiable gesture that you can do that's true especially if you flapped his wings like the eagles of Crystal Palace or the seagulls made a seagull noise

6:45Charlie Eccleshare:what I quite liked about it Davis is that it essentially existed outside of the kind of realm of mind games or kidology it was just it was its thing in its own right there was nothing to read into it in the title race Arteta didn't need to respond or anything like that. So it was a light touch in the realm of what is a very serious moment for the title race. Yeah, yeah. And that's, I think, welcome, I guess. Yeah, I suppose so. That's a good point, though, Adam. Had this been done at his pre-match thing, it then would have been put to Arteta. And could you imagine how painful... But it would have been, wouldn't it?

7:14Like, Pep said earlier in his press conference, come on, you are. Just wondered if you had any response to him. And obviously, he'd just be like, no, I don't really...

7:22Charlie Eccleshare:Cotterill on the case. But yeah, let's focus on West Hamil. Dressed as an iron. Arsenal won. the game that spawned the most number of Twitter essays from Henry Winter. Charlie, can the Times just take him back? Can someone give him like a byline now, just permanently? Because I'm really bored of reading his own self-published stuff. Does anyone else do it? It's pretty unique, isn't it? Very unique on my timeline. Yeah, not on Twitter. Obviously, people have. I mean, he had a sub stack or whatever, but to do the long form post on Twitter is his thing really now, isn't it? Yeah. But Dave, like a superbly tense game.

7:54Charlie Eccleshare:one of the most perfectly tense games i've seen for a really long time i found it riveting right up until arsenal scored yeah well i mean even even after that it was obviously all kicked off but i i was watching it in so i watched the second half i was i was out for lunch with um with my girlfriend's family and her seven-year-old nephew bang into football and he was like bugging me to get it up on my phone so i relented and like got it on the phone propped it up against the glass of tap water. I'll stop you there. I'll stop you there. What a precarious situation that so often is. That moment when modern phones will start to slide back down to the ground.

8:32Also, I hope that you put your phone on do not disturb or something because if that suddenly vibrates and shakes, the water could topple, your phone could be in bits. You've got to be careful then. I never have my phone on vibrate. That thing never vibrates, mate. It's silent 24-7. What's a vibration setting you've got your phone on, by the way, Charlie. Earth-chattering. But it was, yeah, the glass was was of a particular fashion that meant it was a it was good well suited to to to be exactly yeah yeah it was it was nice um so yeah it was sort of i was kind of watching it vicariously through him celebrated with him when art when odegaard scored but it was very interesting watching it with a with someone that young who doesn't know the pre-var world and his sort of his vocabulary is like are they gonna have a look are they gonna check We're going to have a look.

9:15We're going to have a look. But then when the goal was initially given to West Ham, he burst into tears, like proper floods of tears. And I was trying to reassure him throughout the whole check and all the replays. I was really going, no, I think it's fine. I think it's a foul. Mate, come on. It's all right. It's all right. You're like, Neville, oh, he's in trouble here. Oh, that's a difficult position for you to be in, though, because you don't want to build up his hopes. I know. What if it then hadn't? Because that's, I think, what every Arsenal fan was thinking was like, is this going to be the one time a ref goes to the monitor and doesn't and actually just sticks with his thing?

9:55That's going to happen. I think it's happened like once or twice, hasn't it?

9:59Charlie Eccleshare:He's seven years old, right, Dave? Yeah. So, you know, an interesting case study. So presumably he's only grown up in an era where it's not the instinct to celebrate a goal and then VAR comes in. He must be programmed now to assume that VAR might be an issue before you can properly celebrate. He doesn't seem to be thinking about it in that depth yet. He sees the goal. He sees the ball go in. He's still got that innocence to him just about. Yeah, you'd hope a seven-year-old wouldn't have that level of paranoia. Give him a couple of years, he'll be cycling across Russia listening to the whole podcast.

10:32Charlie Eccleshare:Let's talk about the key incident though, Charlie, which was the disallowed West Ham goal after a right kerfuffle in the Arsenal box. obviously shit loads of chat about arsenal set piece tendencies in the lead up to this game how many fouls were going on at the same time the order of precedence for which foul should be awarded first lots of stuff an incredible vacuum an absolute void of feedback for west ham striker pablo i've noticed here what are you doing what are you doing why would you do that madness well the reason he does it is because it might lead to a flat punch which is exactly what happens like If he doesn't do it, then Raya can just punch it away.

11:12But it's like a player being offside, and that offside gives them the exact advantage they needed to go and score that goal. Yes, he could maybe do it in a cuter way, but the mistake Raya makes is a direct consequence of it, so there might not be the goal without it. I did find that argument, though, very funny of the, but Arsenal score loads of set pieces, as if that should mean you can foul them at set pieces.

11:36Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's not go too far into that because my entire timeline was basically two hours of people going back like months, perhaps even seasons, to find screenshots of similar-ish incidents. And it was getting more and more tenuous as time went on. But Dave, I only sort of realised a few hours later that there was at least one more foul on David Rea at the time, which wasn't just the arm across his sort of collarbone, which was so obviously a foul. And Pablo was pulling down his arm, so obviously a foul. But there was one of the most sneakiest shirt balls I've ever seen. someone whose arm I still don't identify was pulling the bottom of his shirt as he was jumping so if you took out the Pablo foul and that didn't happen and it was just that tiny shirt pull do you reckon it was still living given plus what the hell would the discourse be if that was the only foul that was going on I think it was Tadibo wasn't it yeah and it was it was like almost like a I don't know like a where's Wally sort of picture you know you look at it a million times then you just spot the little hand at the bottom corner who's just pulling the shirt No one said it was like a Renaissance painting, which I thought was quite refreshing.

12:40Charlie Eccleshare:Guess it never happened. Also in this melee, slightly overlooked, Charlie, in the grand scheme of West Ham needing to score a goal. This wasn't all about Arsenal. This was West Ham rather needing a goal to stay in the survival hunt. It was another superb example of a goalkeeper. In this case, six foot two inch Mads Hermansen deciding that they must be the number one goal scoring option from a corner. Like he was going for the corner. Why? Why are you the option? You've got three massive centre-backs, plus Thomas quite good at set-pieces, Suchik. Yeah, a goalkeeper, as you say, isn't massive. Those guys are all bigger than him, and he has no idea how to head a ball properly, presumably, unless he has an exceptional skill that he works at in his spare time.

13:23But Dave, this is weird learned behaviour.

13:27Charlie Eccleshare:It's just a goalkeeper who says, well, I've committed to being up here. I might as well do something. Why do all 11 players go for it then? It's absolute madness. yeah you see it all the time and they and they seldom do they even make contact with the ball but they're always you know they can read the flight of it and they're always just they're nearly there but not quite doing it doing it right because like he was behind him was Mavropanos who scored quite a few goals recently and you do wonder with with it with all of the set piece um you know stuff we see these days with the coaches and the routines and how important it is like, would a team practice?

14:02Like, you know, their Hail Mary goalkeeper comes up routine? Surely he was worth doing. Yeah, maybe it was in the laminated folder.

14:08Charlie Eccleshare:Look, Mads, if we find ourselves in this situation, you've got to do this, all right? And Pablo, don't fail the keeper. That is a really good point. And I genuinely wonder whether that will be the next frontier in set pieces, not even in the last minute, but Arsenal sending David Raya up in the 65th. Complete, I mean, I guess you can only do that once for the full element of surprise, but just back yourself that, yeah, if we leave someone back, I mean, Raya's not a great example, maybe because he's quite small, but... Donnarumma. Chug Donnarumma in there and then just, you know, leave one of the smaller guys, leave Bernardo Silva back.

14:37Just do the normal thing of having, you know, two people back to their one attacker.

14:41Charlie Eccleshare:I don't know, I'm just trying to think of a kind of natural position for a goalkeeper to assume that would have the best impact, Dave. And I'm thinking, hang back on the edge of the box. And if the ball rolls back to you, you can treat it like a back pass and like welly it. So, you know, that's what you're trained for. You've probably got a good chance. Or just near post flick on maybe. but even that requires you know it's a bit of a learned sort of skill that's quite difficult to pull off if you're not used to it that's more deft I think maybe just stay on the stand on the back post like occupy a big centre back and stand on the back post and if it drops bang you knock it in go somewhere weird where it distracts them not just oh I'm in the middle I might get my head on this but I do wonder Adam if there is a logic in the sense that defenders just are naturally more distracted by a goalkeeper so put them in like the position of like most potential impact because without a doubt like that must slightly get in your head just that thing of being like yeah i'm not used to this yeah he can't score he's he's gonna be big you know most most of the time like i can imagine it is a bit like a bit frazzling i was um it was our last game of the season on sunday it was a complete dead rubber we were safely in third couldn't can't go up the team we were playing we're actually bottom of the league but because of two teams that folded so they weren't going to be automatically relegated anyway so nothing riding on it we were at this stage four two down i think and we got corner quite late on and i was off by this point and i told our goalkeeper to go up nice i said brad go on mate if you fancy it why not and he he was like no there's too much time left so we're four two down it's the last game of the season and there's about five minutes left four minutes left it's all right just get up there so that's some mentality good good safety first the so the discourse on set pieces ran and ran throughout the evening Charlie and then on match of the day they invited Darren Kan the now number one referee authority in the media to offer his take on it and he's he's he's got a very level-headed sort of mentality towards this sort of thing but he was forced to come up with a solution to this ongoing kind of set piece Wrestlemania as Henry and his proposed solution got a lot of heads nodding let's hear it yes I feel that the time has come now for a law change whereby no attackers are allowed in the six yard box before the corner is taken so at goal kicks forwards are not allowed in the penalty area but corners they shouldn't be allowed in the six yard box until the ball is in play now charlie i am not a former pgmol official but you might look like one there fine don't say which one um but as with all kind of proposed solutions to situations in which var has entangled itself the spirit of it is quite good keep the area free and bring kind of set pieces back to a footballing state not not a kind of physical encounter however if this rule was brought in this law change was brought in you weren't allowed in the six yard box until a corner was taken you would have toenail decisions about whether someone was in the six yard box it would be utterly shit yeah that's what i was thinking it would just be a were people in were they not and it would be so hard to enforce yeah which feels like that just feels like the natural kind of unintended consequence of it not up for that at all dave no i was quite surprised to see him do this and i was wondering to myself has he just gone rogue there is he just is he just going out on a limb trying to sort of get this thing into the into the sort of discourse or is this perhaps the rep do the referees themselves or pgmol sort of want to try and seed this out and sort of test the water but as you say it kind of on surface level you think oh maybe that works but actually if you think about it in any detail it would be a fucking nightmare just think of the next step beyond your solution just think of the next just think of it in your head in your footballing head figure out what might happen as teams try and adapt to it jesus christ are you suggesting he's a stooge of showbiz showbiz showbiz i mean far be it from me obviously we'll let other people draw that conclusion but um yeah when is kese's blog dropping yeah yeah not yet sadly Charlie final point if Arsenal do indeed have one hand on the trophy I am starting to wonder then who of the 417 strong Arsenal Correspondence Union will get first crack at writing the book of the story of their season or whether do you think there'll be multiple I think there might be allowed to be more than one oh there will be but and I think with good reason because the appetite for that book I mean in the waterstones is of North London I mean that is just gonna they all will fly off the shelves.

19:05I don't think there are enough I don't think there are enough correspondents out there to satisfy the demand for inside stories of this season.

19:11Charlie Eccleshare:There's a lot of them both for official outlets and for themselves Dave. I'm thinking about some possible titles for this book. Sort of a late entrance to the possible title options. The line from Mikel Arteta recently No Fear, Pure Fire the story of Arsenal's historic 2025-26 season. Yeah, maybe. Although it doesn't feel it feels a little bit too it's not arsenally enough it's a little bit too trying maybe trust the process that feels more likely yes i think it feels a bit knackered now charlie trust the process it's a couple of years old yeah that was sort of the that early that early period but at least at least the narrative would have been complete then so the process will have been trusted and been proven to work well done for trusting the process someone else suggested dave um taking one of the secondary lyrics from north london forever which is whatever the weather but i don't know that just feels a bit oh we make life hard for ourselves don't we yeah what's the kind of they kind of do i i would go for is it these streets are our own our own yeah i think like the photo book will be you know of the day somebody will take a load of nice photos of the celebration of the parade or whatever call it these streets are our own yeah i mean it could just be north london forever i mean that would be sort of the route one option but i i imagine you know that will be strongly considered forward by martin kione maybe oh that's a good shout yeah really intense forward yeah an intense forward about how like you know achieving immortality never came easy that sort of thing enjoy it because you know there's nothing quite like it finally for part one at the other end of the table the same end of the table if you are west ham huge concerns expressed by impossible sound 608 on reddit dave that if west ham go down next season will be the first premier league season in history where there isn't a team beginning with the letter W.

20:57Charlie Eccleshare:Does anyone else think that the Premier League normally needs a KPI of minimum two W teams? I think I do. I think I do want that when I'm looking at alphabetical lists of various themes. Surprised actually, but I suppose, yeah, West Ham, Wolves and Watford. Touch of Wigan. West Brom. And Wigan, Wigan, West Brom. So they've all sort of, a lot of them have been in and out, but we've all dovetailed sufficiently to ensure that there's always been a W representative in the league so far. Do you think, Charlie, this might be a sort of cumulative psychological effect of starting the table at the bottom?

21:30Starting the season at the bottom club.

21:32Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, the siege mentality doesn't kick in. Yeah, well, look at Arsenal. You know, what a boost they had. They were front runners from the start. Unless you include AFC Bournemouth, of course. But yeah, I remember the old sticker books. That's like my main memory of alphabetical. And back then you also had Wimbledon. You know, they were an absolute mainstay. so what would have been so Tottenham assuming they stay up they would be they would be last that does feel weird yeah can't have stuff cutting off at T that's bad so yeah existential crisis for the Premier League anyway this episode of Football Clichés is brought to you in association with Saley a new eSIM service app from the creators of NordVPN listeners I will admit to a frisson of excitement when I land in a foreign country my phone slowly finds a signal and the unfamiliar name of the local network operator finally appears at the top of my screen and after that excitement usually comes fear about the charges I'll rack up if I use my data abroad.

22:21Charlie Eccleshare:But these days, I don't have that fear because I can download Saley. Before I leave the UK, I open up my Saley app, buy some data for my destination, so when I land, I'm connected to a safe and secure internet connection that doesn't cost the earth. They offer different data packages depending on how long I'm going for, and they can be up to 10 times cheaper than roaming fees. Saley offers data plans for over 200 destinations, along with 24-7 support, so they've got me covered. But it's not just saving me money salie enables me to switch my device's virtual location to access apps and content from back home to try it out for yourself you can download salie that's s-a-i-l-y in your app store and use our code cliches at checkout to get an exclusive 15 off your first purchase full details are in our episode description or simply visit salie.com slash cliches we'll be back very shortly

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23:46Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

23:53Charlie Eccleshare:Welcome back to Football Clichés. A reminder that you can sign up for Dreamland for just$5.99 a month. You'll get ad-free listening of all of our episodes plus two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show. and other things as well on that dreamland subscribers dave can also get a premium access to the happy hunting grounds quiz and we got a message from someone saying i've just got to level 10 for the first time on the infinite ladder my daughter's been in the bath for 30 minutes the water's freezing she's fine this is important yeah you can see how the brain would work there charlie i'm on level nine i'll be one minute oh i i genuinely i've thought this before like i'm sure those quizzes contribute to a lot of negligent parenting yeah i'm sure we've all been guilty of it ourselves the the level 10 in question was reading atst andrews yeah wow which is pog rebniak are you going yeah maybe too late for reading i always i actually the thing with reading is right it's like they're like a there's a few clubs like this where you just have a name in your head and it obscures a probably better option so i always just go for dave bloody kitson they didn't score as many as like Kevin Doyle or Doyle had that good season even a Shane Long or the Hunt brothers yeah exactly meanwhile Dreamland episode 23 is being recorded this week for all those clamouring for reprises of the lockdown cliches classic that was Charlie and I doing the watch along of Premier League years 98-99 this might be right up your street and others too don't worry what an episode to edit that was by the way Yes, you've got that coming to you again.

25:31Charlie Eccleshare:Just go to dreamland.footballcliches.com to sign up and enjoy all the goodness. Chris Rogers writes in next. He was watching Match of the Day, Bournemouth versus Fulham. Ryan Christie's yellow card being upgraded to a red and the PA system for the referee's decision not cutting out before he had the chance to explain it to Ryan Christie. So we got a little glimpse into what they say to the players. And here comes the verdict. After review, the yellow card performer number 10 has been upgraded to a red card for serious side player fine decision is red card so right christie is sent from the field in front of the watching scotland boss steve clark and boomer for down to 10 i quite like that as a as a line of reasoning i'm i'm big into good lines of reasoning from referees to players you see it a lot on the ref cam as well and I always feel reassured Dave when I hear a referee issue some really good logic to a player because it kind of appeases them straight away yeah yeah it's really good we actually had a really old school ref on Sunday just a really good solid communicator who explained succinctly every decision he made um which I that's my favorite kind of amateur ref didn't do too much but was firm and and gave some reasoning but that's good and I like to hear that and although So I do, do you think someone got a bollocking for that?