Eastenders' Euro 2025 joy, #AccidentalCantona & "the most 2011 transfer of all time”

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25:47Oh, look at that. That is wonderful.

25:54Welcome back to Football Clichés. This is the Adjudication Panel. A reminder that for just£5.99 a month, you can sign up for Dreamland. For that, you get your ad-free listening. Two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive new show, and lots of other things as well. Episode 5 of Dreamland is in the works for the start of the new season. Look out for that. Footballers' names and things, a great pair for you now. First one comes from Wild Jabir, who was watching an episode of Mastermind. And our next contender, please.

26:31Your name. Graham Donaldson. Your occupation. Company secretary. And your specialist subject. Star Trek Deep Space Nine. The 1990 Star Trek series in which the Federation officer, Benjamin Sisko, commands a space station near the planet Bajor. Wow. Benjamin Sisko. Good. How has this one never come up before? Is he a bit of a deep space nine, Sisko? Oh, hello. There you go. Lovely. Yeah, I mean, very much in demand, Sisko, at the moment, Nick, or at least for clubs who can't get the actual striker they want from elsewhere. but the United Federation of Planets, they're not going to let him go cheap, are they?

27:09Yeah, exactly. Yeah, got to figure out the structure of the deal and the additional payments. As an aside, it is the mastermind format of introducing the subject and then a brief description of the subject is very second mentions. It's really good. Of course, the 29-year-old Wales midfielder. It's good for people who just don't know what mad speciality the contestant has gone for. Secondly, this came from DLQNC on Reddit. This is footballers' names in American high school TikTok drama. My name is Melina McGonch. My name is Savannah Jacobs. And we are here to speak about the truth of our first-hand experience with the creator.

27:47And we were silenced and isolated for a long time, and we couldn't speak about it because we were genuinely scared of what this creator would do. I'm not allowed to say names for legal reasons, but we are here to talk about... I can. Ashley Barnes but this is great because Ashley Barnes is a great name to pop up in this segment day but it's also a perfectly feasible name for an American high school TikTok bully yeah Ashley Barnes prom queen you can see it Nick quite easily 100 % yeah in a sort of minor character in 10 Things I Hate About You or something like that yeah love it love it right finally for part one this came from Ben Brindle he says I watched Bend It Like Beckham with my girlfriend I was engrossed until Keira Knightley started playing a DVD of WUSA soccer, and I heard the unmistakable sound of Portsmouth versus Carlisle, 1985.

28:38You've got to see this. It's wicked.

28:44WUSA soccer! Wow. Yeah, WUSA. Incredible. We don't have anything like that over here. Slushing on freedom on the attack. The cross comes in. Goal! We have world footballer of the year! Wilbert makes a run. She's got over back to beat. She shoots! Goal! Tiffany Milbred scores again for the New York Power! Now where were they getting it from? Where were the producers of this film getting it from? Did they go over to the BBC Sound Effects database as well? What's happening? Why use this sound effect? Why do I have to keep asking this question, Dave? They were real goals. So they're watching actual goals from American women's football in the late 90s, I guess.

29:22But they must have just thought, well, you know, we just need to give it something extra. The sound effect's not quite good enough. Let's just give it, just get that sound. You know the sound. You know the one I mean, don't you? Twice. It was used twice in that as well. Correct. I mean, just a huge commitment to the cause. Someone else was watching the best goals of Mexico 86 and randomly out of nowhere, Bulgaria's going against South Korea. They put the sound effect in there as well. Madness. What's happening? That's just a year after Portsmouth versus Carlisle. So hot off the press. Maybe the first ever usage of it.

29:49Who knows? My phone, you know, it gives you, photo apps give you like the on this day stuff now. And the other day I was looking through it and it gave me an on this day, took me back to 2021, I think it was, when I was at the British Podcast Awards and I met Ellis James at the after party. And there's a video of me and him doing the Ellis James crowd noise together and sending it to you. Let's have that clip, please.

30:17Now, Nick, I don't think you need any persuading about this. AI is the pits, clearly. And I've got two very footballing pieces of evidence to back that up. Number one, this came from Podcast Secrets of the Pharaohs. It's a TikTok of AI-generated scenes of football fans chanting. And they just haven't got it right. They haven't got it right. We lose every week. We lose every week. You're nothing special. We lose every week. His teeth are offside. His teeth are offside. Luis Suarez, his teeth are offside. oh god visually a fascinating scene nick a big bald bloke with a soiled football shirt holding a can of what seems to be fosters uh that's never going to happen that's never going to be allowed for a start but yeah uh just like no is the tune obviously completely incorrect and the rhythm barely hanging on either the whole thing is just as usual with ai really unnerving as a result yeah it's i mean the first one was sort of bad but was a sort of vague corruption of you know you tweak a few things and you get that just about right the second one was just a oh my god it's an absolute mess yeah just no semblance of anything close to real the only thing it's got right is the big bald fat bloke at the front does look quite realistic but like you say the shirt in the second of those chants he's wearing an england shirt and it's it's like covered in mud it looks like he's been on the pitch you know really muddy pitch yeah and just the whole thing is crap isn't Example number two, this came from Craig.

31:48He says, I stumbled across a frankly surreal account last night that seems to take genuine sports reports and repost them with a load of attempted and usually botched synonyms. This is.news TV on Blue Sky. And they've taken a story about Manchester United's new stadium plans hitting the buffers. And the intro reads, Manchester United plans to construct a 100 ,000-seat stadium subsequent to previous Trafford. A dealing with delays resulting from a standoff over the value of land wanted to start work. Previous Trafford. Previous Trafford? Ah, lovely. You can see what's happened there, but there are more subtle situations.

32:21How do they turn Previous Trafford around for football from cricket so quickly? It gets more subtle, though. Here is Russell Martin slamming his Rangers players after their opening day draw with Motherwell. Russell Martin accused his gamers of getting the flawed mentality after watching his Rangers aspect being held to a draw when Emmanuel Longiello drove residents an 87th minute equaliser for Motherwell. Drove residents! that's class aspects what was that side I think side yeah wow see there you go drove residents next up here is a quote from Russell Martin about his players and it says Rangers didn't run sufficient didn't battle sufficient weren't courageous sufficient and Craig says this sounds like Trevor Bricking on Match of the Day November 1993 weren't courageous sufficient we weren't courageous sufficient An AI version of Three Lions would definitely have this.

33:15Wow. What would Hanson say? What's the synonym for game? Bad news for the English puzzle.

33:25Oh, dear. AI. Work to do, I would say. Now, my attention was drawn last week to a news story on The Guardian, Nick. Headlined, how a high-speed ocean chase led to an£18 million cocaine seizure in Cornwall. And a very dramatic story. halfway down this quote from barry vinyl of the national crime agency it's not a real person he says these ships come through and dump a load and then multiple organized crime groups come out a bit like the seagulls following the fishing trawlers to collect the drugs so now this is the final nail in the coffin nick for people who think that eric cantonal's seagulls following the trawlers is some sort of mythical unfathomable cryptic message it's actually quite straightforward and it's not yeah now entered the sort of lexicon so much that people think this is actual this is a thing that just happens all the time yeah wow so yeah the logic was there the whole time dave right in front of our eyes just like when the drug dealers come out right um here's a question for you came from alex everson dave he says how long is the time to gel period at the start of the season for new squads after they're put together i'd argue it's five to six games but does it start at the start of the season or the end of the window it feels like an end of the window situation but why can't squads gel after the january window if transfers happen then so So how long does gelling take, really?

34:42Yeah, it's a good question. I think it's longer than six games. Six games for a player to settle into a new league, maybe. But even then, that's pushing it. But gelling, that's a month's situation, surely. I think if it's longer than six games, it's you being used in a sort of excuse context, where it's like, well, no, results have been bad. But they made six, seven signings in the summer. You've got to give them time to gel. They are yet to gel. Yet to gel. This kind of six-game period is often thrown about, Dave, as a kind of useful benchmark for all sorts of things. But I don't think it's long enough for a team to gel.

35:18But you'd be well on your way to gelling after six games if results back you up. Particularly if it was followed by an international break, which might give you a bit of time to gel when the players are back with some training or whatever. But I think it can sort of be used to say whatever you want it to say in a way, can't it? Yeah, I was going to say the same, Nick, because claiming that a team are yet to gel just feels such a flimsy observation. It's a bit like saying that they look a bit leggy out there when there's no basis for the observation. It's just something you want to be true. When could you possibly detect that a team have gelled?

35:51I'm sure a bit of interplay will help, like a clean sheet maybe. Does that mean the defence has gelled? None of this is back-up-able, is it really? It is very kind of talk sport presenter who hasn't really been paying attention to Bournemouth, you know, six, seven games into the season. It's kind of vaguely aware of who the manager is and they have lost a couple of players. So they are going to need time to gel, aren't they? Which Premier League club, Dave, are in most danger of not gelling quickly enough? I mean, new look Brentford, potentially. I mean, they've lost players. That can't help the gelling process if you've lost things that need to gel.

36:23Yeah, I think it's all about new players coming in, isn't it? And a new manager, presume. Yeah. That's new gel. Yeah. I mean, I think Man Utd, maybe, in that they've signed a few new players and they're all sort of designed to fit Amarim's system. And I was watching a bit of the summer series last night and they were playing Everton and there was sort of a lot of, at any time any player did a 1-2 or they counter-attacked, there was sort of this sort of excited kind of, oh, look, they're gelling. They're gelling before our very eyes. Oh, they're gelling. I can sense it. Starting to gel. Speaking of this game, Nick, when Everton equalised through Illimanin Jai, the Sky Sports Premier League tweeted, Illuminati is on the end of Idrissa Garnagay's cross and the scores are level once more in Atlanta.

37:09You can't say level once more at 1-1, can you? That's a 2-2 situation at the very least. So, sorry, the exact words were he's leveled once more, or it's level. And the scores are level once more. Well, I mean, that's technically true. Not denying that, not denying that, but, I mean, you'd never use the word level for nil-nil. You wouldn't say it's still level here. Level is for goals have to have been scored for level to be a valid term. Nil-nil is, everybody knows that's level. That almost goes without saying. You just don't say it. So I don't want level once more at 1-1. We start the game here, the score's level.

37:41Yeah. Can't do that. Good computer game commentary that would be. Dave, if I said to you, if I randomly gave you an update from the game and said that, and the score's at level once more here in Atlanta, you're going to imagine it's 2-2, right? You're not thinking 1-1. Definitely. And that's what matters. That's instinct. Footballing instinct there. Solving the problem. Right, we'll take a break. We'll be back in a moment.

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39:42next up here's a mini phenomenon i've been meaning to discuss for a little while here is emil heskey telling adobeo akinfenwa on his podcast about england brawling in the tunnel in turkey in 2003 and it's a good example of what i want to call the under the cosh cadence of a 90s 2000s footballer telling a story. All right, so give me a moment where you was like, rah. So, look, I'll give you one. Everyone talks about it now is when we played Greece. Not Greece, Turkey. Yeah. We played Turkey in qualifying. Bex missed the penalty away. Oh, yeah, yeah. We had a fight in the tunnel at halftime. Ah, talk to me.

40:21So, Bex obviously missed the penalty. We were walking through the tunnel. Alpay? Alpay? Yeah, so he's coming through and he's obviously loud and I'm just doing me. I'm just walking through. I'm quiet. I'm doing a thing. And you know when you walk through a tunnel, you have the old pull-out ones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're walking through that, and then when you get to the end, it's like a breakout, isn't it? It's a big open thingy. So I've walked to theirs, come towards that breakout, and then Ashley Cole and... Hassan Sass. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And I'm thinking nothing of it. I'm just walking. He goes...

40:53Oh. In his face. Oh. Oh, yeah. So I slapped him. Oh. Sorry. And then everyone just jumped in. It's currently gone. We're literally fighting. And this is half time. And then what we're hearing after is Rooney's having a fight with Alpine and has just hit him and dropped him in the tunnel. It's a very specific rhythm to a footballer telling a story from 20 years ago, Dave. One of the really subtle bits of it that crops up every time is that sort of mid-story clarification of something that used to be the case but isn't now. Do you remember when you used to have those tunnels? Do you remember those tunnels?

41:29Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another key element is either not quite remembering or pretending not to quite remember the name of someone involved in it. Alpi? Was it Alpi? Alpi? Was it which one? Yeah, there was it. I can understand the greeting turkey thing getting mixed up. That seemed legitimate to me. It's that kind of ebb and flow of the rhythm, Dave. I mean, there's that little aside where he says, I was just doing my thing, I was just doing my thing, I was just doing my thing, I was doing my thing back then. And then this happened. It's like, wow. It's a classic sort of thing. I mean, it's been quite well documented by former cliches, MH Demon, Josh Pugh.

42:02He does it very well on his videos. But like that rhythm, that talking about something that you were privy to. But I mean, sometimes they tell stories about themselves, but it's often the thing that they witnessed that they just happened to be in the room for, which gives you that level of distance, which is good sometimes. But yeah, you're right, Nick, like just dropping in a player who isn't a household name. It's funny. I always find that interesting to see the level of players that footballers remember. because we know all the players. We can remember everyone. It's just a job to them. Yeah.

42:32It's like remembering who your manager was at your old job in 2003. Exactly. But then the sort of proper household names, the famous players, they always get referred to by their nicknames. One element that really needed to be included in their nick was a little stop and sort of Wikipedia citation note style aside. If he'd mentioned Alpine, we both had to stop saying, remember him, big guy, big tough defender, You know, no nonsense yet. You know, all that sort of thing. I love those little sort of summaries of the player. He was a big lad. He was a big guy, big guy. He took no nonsense yet. But yeah, just there's something about it.

43:06But under the cost is basically corn at this industry. And this isn't the under cost of the podcast, but everybody, there is this kind of perceived hunger for these stories and they're going to run out one day. The after dinner circuit has been taken over by podcasts. We're not going to have any stories from the 90s that weren't televised soon. A couple of weeks ago, I found myself at a birthday party. i was found yourself there at the back post i was stood there or rather i rather i was at a party and at said party i found myself talking to perry groves oh god who was there and yeah i used to work with him a bit at talk sports we knew each other so we had a had a chat hadn't seen each other for years so i was having a chat with him and he was and he was we kind of got onto a bit of arsenal chat a bit of football chat and he was telling me some arsenal stuff and kind of i found myself slipping into the under the cosh kind of i was like the third guy on the under the cosh just kind of chipping in and going, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

43:57He must have been quite a character, wasn't he? Tell me about him. Is he really like everyone says he is? He asked me a question. I can't remember how we got onto this. We were talking about Arsenal, right? We were talking about some of the players that Arsenal had signed and he was saying, look, they're all big. They're all over six foot. They're going to be good at set pieces again. And then he went, do you remember the Invincibles? They're all big. It's only one of those players that was under six foot. And he was going, do you remember who it is? And I'm sort of going, and I found myself, Normally, I would have said Freddie Jungberg.

44:26That would have been my guess. Maybe first, if I'm going to go too far. But I said Freddie. I was Freddie? Ashley? I was almost like I was on first name terms with them because I was pretending to be an ex-footballer with him. It just happened naturally. Oh, my God. That's lovely. You absorbed yourself into the world. Yes. The world of the story. Nice. Sort of vending machine raconteur mode that these ex-pros must become. It's like, Jesus. It's what they expected me. They just want stories and they've got stories. Anyway, speaking of people who've probably got some colourful tales from the 90s and 2000s, it's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

45:12Ford Super Sunday.

45:18It has been an elite week or two for Richard Keyes on Twitter. Let me take you through it chronologically, Nick. First of all, claiming that the Alexander-Ezak to Liverpool story was already reported by B in Sports last March. Done, we said. It looks like it's getting done. He is desperate for this saga to finish, and it is a saga, let's face it. But if he doesn't go to Liverpool, egg on Keyes' face, and the B in Sports Network as a whole. A dig at PGMOL, Dave. Yeah, standard. Watching the Euros final down at the famous Three Kings in West Kensington. Klar. Yeah, wow. I mean, just imagine you turn up to the pub and you see Keezy just sitting there at the bar.

45:56I don't know what I'd do. I don't know what I'd do. I mean, we've pondered this scenario before. I still don't know what I would do. I'd definitely say hello, because I feel like I know him now. The danger of it surely would be that you would sort of slip in something that you've used on the podcast as a sort of, you know, forgetting that you take the piss out of it routinely for years. Hi, Richard. You were born on St. George's Day, weren't you? And Andy famously was born on St. Andrew's Day, yes. He was down at the Lionesses' victory parade on the Mall, Dave. That's class as well. Good to see him supporting the Lionesses.

46:27Into some real kesey mode now, Nick. He was congratulating Pedro Porro for pushing Mikel Arteta back into his technical area during the Spurs Arsenal preseason friendly the other day. Stay in your box, man. Still thumping that drum. I've been talking about this for years. complete with trademark screen grab from the daily mail website on his tablet has to be from the tablet um a dig at sir dave brailsford and then finally rather unexpectedly on his way to wembley to see oasis so before the gig he tweeted this had better be good like city i've spent a fortune but legitimately thumbs up which jesus this better be good is needlessly threatening isn't it yeah this two plus two banter continued afterwards when he says in case you're interested the guys noel gallagher liam gallagher were sensational no charges to follow guys thumbs up emoji laughing emoji stop saying guys kesey guys it's very good that he felt when he said that the guys and he felt the need to clarify which members of oasis he was talking about yeah bonehead was terrific um the overall vibe i've seen from people i know who've gone to the oasis gigs dave has just been just wall-to-wall bliss everyone just having the best time of their lives.

47:38So sheer happiness all around. Not just nostalgic happiness, but just a release for some people to finally see this happen. Imagine being in that state of euphoria, at any level of it, turning around and seeing Richard Keyes. Your mind would explode. Especially if he was wearing a bucket hat.

47:59What a sight. But imagine how much it would be enhanced if you know, Don't Look Back in Anguish starts and you throw your arm around Keezy's shoulder and you're belting out the chorus together. Incredible. Oh, my God. She knows it's too late, Andy. Told him. Told him already. We knew it months ago. Anyway, too much, Keezy. Let's focus on the other side of things. This came from preeminent Keezy and Grey archivist Nozza. Here is Andy Grey talking directly to players and refs during commentary. I mean, just, David, you've been brilliant, but don't even dive mate, just turn round and pick it out of the net because that's as close as you're going to get to it.

48:41Oops, keep your eye on that ball Pavel, come on, you'll have to work on your control mate. It's a brilliant finish Joe. But at the moment you've just got to keep going Robbie, that's all I would suggest because when they start they'll be like questions mate. Nice touch David. Suddenly he's wondering where has he gone and it's too late Javier, the ball's in the back of your net. but John I'm afraid when you're that much of a threat they do pay you particular attention I'm sorry Howard I don't get that one I really don't get that one well if you're not sure lad only one's acting over that just smash it Sean Dyche he smashed it all right it works for British and Irish players it even works for referee Howard Webb but I didn't like it for Javier Maserano for some reason Javier An underappreciated and not as oft-remembered aspect of Andy's commentary.

49:36But such an effective way of co-commentating, Nick. Only the co-commentator could do that, obviously. And he's been a player and it's only a been a player kind of thing that you can do. And it's taking you into that world. So in that sense, whether it's deliberate or not, it's brilliant co-commentary in a way. Like it's not that indulgent, I don't think. And it's kind of loosely plausible that he could know these people, like he could actually know these people in real life. truths so the first name thing isn't just a sort of you know over familiar aspect of it it is a bit over familiar isn't it i mean he probably does know them he probably he's definitely were met most of them but does he know them i don't know maybe probably doesn't know javier masherano no that's true reassuring liverpool's robbie keen that as soon as he scores the goals will start flowing i thought was class because that's that's arms around the shoulder stuff yeah so maybe not his remit as a co-commentator stay stay partial perhaps but good to know he felt his pain as a fellow striker.

50:29Brilliant stuff today. Thank you to Nick Miller. Thank you. Thanks to you, Dave Walker. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back on Thursday. See you then.

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