Introverted full-backs, radio commentary synchronicity & the Champions League of trees

0:00I'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! The cheese! 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. Watford's Wikipedia defying new manager. Commentators cursing and common sense. The inside story of the last 20 minutes of Liverpool 1, Manchester City 2.

0:53Steve Bruce on Pep Guardiola. An unlikely candidate to be the new David Attenborough. Would you buy a MacBook signed by Geoff Shreves? The UEFA Champions League of Trees. the curious phrase for shots that are heading towards the top corner on Match of the Day highlights, the VAR bunker for cruise ships, and a piece of Richard Keyes' heart that will be forever Qatar. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts, this is Football Clichés.

1:20Hello 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. And alongside you is David Walker. How are things? Things are good. Well, we'll see about that because Watford reports suggest we're about to hire Will Still's older brother, Edward Still. Now, we should remain open-minded about Edward Still's coaching abilities. All I'm saying is, in his managerial statistics section of his Wikipedia page, his first job at Charleroi, his 40 % win rate has citation needed next to it. Wow. Does this all end with Ed Still being sacked after being photographed eating a bacon sandwich, weirdly?

2:00I don't know how it ends I didn't even know he existed until an hour ago Me neither The worst thing, at least Red Ed was the younger brother For this guy to be the older brother Because then you struggle to do that He's actually better than The brother When it's the older brother, I think he struggled to make that argument I really wanted to do that joke It ruined it by him being the older brother There's a third Steele brother as well apparently Nicholas Steele He's a video analyst oh mate I don't know whether he comes with him or not but for fuck's sake honestly Watford fans will note the link between Charlois and Edward Steele and I'll leave it at that but yeah we go again well I'm sure his batteries have been recharged after that eight game stint at Courtrike but again you never know what can happen adjudication panel begins as we now regularly do Charlie with an update on the title race status I think we can just go with as you were this time can't we It's as straightforward as you were.

3:00Oh, no, I don't think it's an as you were. Yeah, I think in points terms it is. But I think there's been a lot of this was more than just three points. This was a kind of city are in the title race. They want this. They mean business. Whereas, you know, a week ago, having just dropped points to Spurs, it was very much like, you know, it's Arsenal. May as well give it to Arsenal already. But I think that all changed yesterday. I respect Charlie's opinion here, Dave, because I guess a textbook, as you were, would be if Arsenal and Manchester City had both gone about their business fairly quietly and done the job.

3:33And nothing narratively had changed as well as mathematically. But yeah, it is odd that we are now decreeing Man City, Dave, as having roared back into contention when really they absolutely scraped the barrel for that win on Sunday. Yeah, but the scenes and the goal that wasn't a goal in the last minute, it did have the air of like they've summoned something and this might be looked back on as a moment. If they do win it, this is the moment where people look back on and go, that game, they went to Anfield, they were 1-0 down with however many minutes to go. They turned it around and they never looked back.

4:11You wouldn't have all this kind of snowballing narrative, Charlie, if they'd just gone there and done a job and won 2-0. Yeah, but that's the weird thing, isn't it? Like Liverpool had this at the start of the season. It feels like a long time ago now. But do you remember when they were crap but kept winning games with last-minute winners? Right. It was basically, the worse they were, the more it's like, sign a champions. That's what champions do. And so, in a similar way here, it's like, you know, City, it was a real scraping of a win. But yeah, that's the thing. To people, therefore, it seems more kind of fated.

4:41And there's something quite compelling about the fact that they were like on the precipice. They were basically done. and that they've clambered back up and, you know, this is City we're talking about. Yeah, it was quite the game in the end, Dave. Just as I was beginning to berate myself with getting even remotely excited about the 4.30 kick-off on a Sunday, only for it to let me down once again with sort of a scrappy game of terrible, terrible attempts on goals, sort of shots flashing past post. I don't agree with this. I thought it was a good game. I really enjoyed it. Second half and the first half wasn't, was fine.

5:11But when the chances started coming, I felt, and maybe it's because I was watching it, we had a later game with Ribblesdale on Sunday so it was like 10 of us in the pub all watching it together and it was a bit I don't know it was maybe if I was watching it on my own at home I would feel it differently but I thought it was I thought it is given how much conversation has been around how boring and route one the Premier League's come I thought it was a bit of a throwback to a few years ago it was yeah it was a bit of a humdinger even the first half which there weren't many chances but it was very end-to-end like surprisingly end-to-end strikingly so it's like you rarely see just like a dead straight ball was just cutting out seemingly the whole midfield sort of both ways.

5:51It definitely hummed. I'm just not sure if it dinged for about 70 minutes. Then it burst into life with Sir Bosley's incredible free kick. And then a superb double reverse commentator's curse from Gary Neville for Man City's equaliser. Man City need something here. They need Harlan. They need Emmanuel. They need Bernardo Silva. They need them to step up. Silver placed it in. Holland with a header. and they have their equaliser, Bernardo Silva. You'd be really proud of that, wouldn't you, Dave? 3.23 seconds between him appealing for them to intervene and then combining for the equaliser, Bernardo Silva and Erling Haaland.

6:29Although he did name a few others as well, didn't he? There's some menu in there as well. He was distracting. He was making himself laugh. Decoy, right? Yeah. It's a weird one to pause, isn't it, in the like, what's eating Erling Haaland, what's going on with Erling Haaland, because I guess the assist is really great. And scoring a penalty, that takes some nerve. But he did also miss a guilt-edged chance in the first half that suggests something maybe... Has that thing stopped eating him? Does a penalty dispel all of the eating? Or is something still gnawing away a little bit? I think it does to an extent because penalties are still very much firmly in the...

7:03He'll take confidence from that category, which I feel very uncomfortable about generally when it comes to goal scorers' barren run narratives. we must talk about City's disallowed third goal, Dave. It provoked yet another barrage of withering VAR handwomen. But it wasn't really a VAR story, was it? Well, obviously VAR got involved because referees are now inclined to let VAR sort it out because that's what it's there for. But what it really was was a bizarre situation that nobody has seen before, so everybody just lost their heads. And I think that was the crux of what we saw. People have never seen this happen before, and it was a race to get to the core logic of it all.

7:41Yeah. And the reaction of everyone I was watching it with, like the whole, like there was, I don't know, sort of 20 odd people on this bit of the pub that we were watching it and everyone was making noises and sort of like looking around and like, oh my God, oh, we couldn't believe what's happening because it was such a unique situation. You know, we're used to seeing goalkeepers getting caught upfield and someone having an attempt from distance, but it was such a terrible initial attempt that just led to everything else that followed. That was really what made it happen. And it was just the drama of it was great.

8:10Watching them run towards it, the fouls trickles in. And I think because everyone got so understandably excited by what they were seeing, because it is quite rare that you see a scenario in football that you haven't really come across before, to have it just undercut by, ah, no, we do actually have to go to the screen and look at it all in detail. And yes, the right decision was made, but it just it was really stark contrast between dull reality and really fun happenings in football. Amid all the chaos, Charlie, what emerged very quickly, or at least within an hour of the incident, was a beautiful 50-50 split in opinion.

8:44I can't remember a talking point in a Premier League game that has provoked such a nicely balanced form of opinions. You could do a little tombola of chief football correspondents and you wouldn't know what you're picking out. You wouldn't know which way they're going to go. I was watching a stream of them on my timeline. Which way is he going to go as I read it? And I thought, wow, he went definitely to how I expected it. So as always, a clash between the supposed clean shirts who want things done by the rules and these football romanticists who just want to see goals go in. They want to see the nets being rippled.

9:14And that's apparently what it boiled down to. Where do you stand on it? Well, I mean, people know from listening to this and other podcasts how much I don't like VAR and how. And incidentally, Dave, this is absolutely a goal like I was describing where you're not celebrating that because you know there's absolute fucking carnage to come. They've got so much to sort out. Well, a flagrant shirt pull on the defender trying to stop the ball going in perhaps might be part of it. Yeah, you know that there's all sorts to sort out there. I'm surprised in a way that this is what's sort of prompted people to get all upset about VAR.

9:46If you want VAR, you want it because you think there is the possibility of greater accuracy and that there's a kind of truth that can be reached. And so if you want it, you can't then turn around and say, oh, but don't do your job when it's sort of fun and vibes. Just let that go. Like, obviously, that's not going to work. Like, you know, it's like sort of saying to a speed camera, like, oh, I know I was over the limit. I was having fun. There was no one around and I was late. Like, just sort of let me do it. Like, obviously, this is VR's modus operandi. Like, if you want it, you have to accept that's what it's there for.

10:24And imagine then the conspiracy theories of, yeah, they sort of let this one go because vibes. Then everyone would be completely up in arms about that as well. Obviously, they are there to be complete sticklers for the laws. And yeah, I guess people need to decide, do they want this or do they not? Because that's what VAR will do. The race to be that decisive voice on this incident, Dave, was obviously driven by the fact that it was a really novel situation. We've never seen this specific passage of football happen in the Premier League before. So it was superb for that reason. It was very, you are the ref.

11:00Yeah, it was incredibly, you are the ref, albeit not that grey area really. But Stan Collymore waded in. Back in the day, Sir Bosley fouls Haaland, who stays on his feet long enough to foul back. Goal stands, referee says six of one, half a dozen of the other, and common sense prevails. It's not six of one, half a dozen of the other. I saw this so many times on Sunday evening. It wasn't that. It was things in succession. That's not what six of one, half a dozen of the other is. Six of one, half a dozen of the other is when it happens at the same time and you can't pass the offences to declare who was responsible for it.

11:31Those were two distinct incidents. Yeah, it's two wrongs don't make a right, isn't it? That's what it is. Which is never going to be enshrined in football law, is it, Dave? I've got a mate of mine who was messaging me afterwards, a big Arsenal fan, very anti-City, and gets into all that stuff. and he just couldn't understand why Haaland didn't get sent off for getting booked for the second foul. Yeah, exactly, because he took his shirt off for the goal. And I was sort of saying that, well, yes, but the first foul just means everything afterwards doesn't count, basically. But then you sort of think about it.

12:03Well, what if Haaland just punched Sir Bosley? Would he get a red for that assault anywhere else? I mean, it's really unhelpful, Charlie, to kind of fight romantic fire with extreme logic, like absurdly extreme kind of situations like that so i won't but i really want to latch on to the common sense brigade here common sense was rolled out for this and again i don't think it's just a suitable scenario for common sense to be brought into the equation common sense versus consistency is the is the age-old refereeing battle but in this common sense scenario where it was decreed that the referee should have just let the goal happen because you know the ball was in the net ultimately and that's what the outcome was right but in this common sense scenario if this If this exact incident happens next week in some mundane game and defender A pulls back striker B as they're chasing the ball towards an open goal, does striker B, according to this common sense decree, now have it enshrined in common sense law to just do whatever they want to stop the defender doing it?

13:01Because once this precedent has been set, everything must then follow it, surely. I mean, even the romanticists would agree you'd then have to apply it every single time. Yeah, I think so. I think what they mean with common sense is that both teams would have been happy with a different outcome. I don't give a shit! So just let that be the outcome. That's the argument, I think, isn't it? It's almost like a utilitarian argument. It's like more people, certainly on the pitch, would have been happy. Soboslai would have been happy. Cherky would have been happy. Haaland would have been happy. Everyone's happy, so just do it.

13:31But obviously that's not really how it works. And Soboslai's getting sent off for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity and the goal was scored, which I've seen some people comment on as well. And obviously, yeah, you can unpick it and take it back. And I think we can all agree that no mistakes were made in terms of applying the law to the situation. But I sympathise with those who, I mean, I'm with Charlie. Like, I'll get rid of VAR tomorrow. 100%. You know, I'm with Jack Pitbrook. Abolition all the way. What an absolute field day for him it was. He was loving it. He was loving it. And, you know, I fully sympathise with the VAR abolitionists.

14:04But there's absolutely no way that you can fudge these situations. You either have it or you don't. And I do agree that we either get rid of it, but you can't solve these situations. And also, finally on this, the reason I don't think it was a VAR situation, Charlie, was because a lot of people were saying, you know, without VAR, the referee's given that. How do you know? How do you know? The referees are obviously going to wait for VAR to pick through it. I reckon if the referee sees it, or his assistant, he is going to say, Sir Bosley has been fouled. You can't just construct this reality. I'll tell you what it is, what you touched on there with the weirdness of it.

14:40That is the problem that VAR has run into, is that there is so much about football. The handball rule was basically just, for 100 years plus, it was basically like you kind of know one when you see one. If you were actually asked to explain the handball rule, anyone would really struggle. And then you remember they got tied up in knots because then they basically had to give everything where the ball struck a hand. And there were these mental penalties at the start of the 2021 season. And this is kind of another one. It's just it's so odd that football generally has just operated by being like, yeah, I don't really know.

15:13So let's just move on rather than pretending there's a truth to it. I mean, this is the one thing that the VAR just had no anticipation for, Dave, is weird things happening in football. And there are so many weird things happening in games that didn't happen before for some reason to completely undermine VL. It just cannot see between the cracks. There you go. Right. That's that one taken care of. Next item comes from David Malone and many others, actually. Here is Steve Bruce on TalkSport talking about Pep Guardiola's Premier League legacy. When we talk about the people who have influenced the Premier League, Pep's got to be up there.

15:47The number of young coaches and young people and people who work with him will get jobs. he's been quite unbelievable hasn't he you know he's the one who started the introverted full backs and who knew johnny that adding one syllable could change the meaning of words so sensationally who do you think is the most introverted fullback you've ever seen i think i don't know that's a good question no i don't think he's introverted he's not introverted yeah i think he's quite expressive man i don't think what about um he's a troublemaker yeah like jeff kenner someone jason dodd those kind of characters i just think of them they're sort of quite unassuming shy people i mean what's so funny as well is there probably there probably is a world that you know that you can imagine some study that's been done about introverts are more likely to play this position in football or something keep out of the way yeah there's there will be there'll be some kind of pseudoscience about this i can almost imagine getting sent an email being like you know hello with the title race hotting up new research shows that introverts are likely to be full-back.

16:46Leighton Baines is quite introverted, I think, wasn't he? Ashley Cole. Ashley Cole's quite an introvert. Yeah, he's the press. He is, isn't he? Yeah, you're right. He was always hiding behind the post at corners, wasn't he? I love introverted full-backs. Thank you, Steve Bruce. On a very similar, childish note, this came from Kampenbauer. Here is Stuart Pearce on TalkSport talking about Spurs. Yeah, and I think certainly both managers will be acutely aware of that. Thomas Frank trying to arouse his troops. Good opportunity here. There's nothing to say about this one. That's just perfection. It is perfection.

17:27Thank you to both legendary figures. Gareth Cummins writes in next. He says, I came across this clip today from the dry Bundesliga. It sounds like the commentator was about to swear, but just about remembers in time. It's their best away form in the league. And it's basically what's keeping them above relegation at the moment is now a shot sent in. Oh, what an unbelievable strike. That is absolutely stunning. Look, Charlie, if you really wanted to go, what a fucking great goal, you might as well do it in the dry Bundesliga in 1860 Munich score against Alemann-Jachen. Yeah, things are a shame you can't do that.

18:04What a moment that would have been. I wonder what he was going for, Dave. Fantastic. What a flipping... Yeah, lovely stuff. Now, Gareth Southgate's new book, Dear England, lessons in leadership. It was always going to ooze LinkedIn. Of course it was. There are some superb sections in there sort of detailing what it means to be a leader. Have you read it? No, I've just seen a couple of passages from it tweeted out by Jackie Oatley. Brushing up on your leadership skills. Absolutely not. You should take cliches into 2026. Yeah, yeah. Someone needs to steer this ship. There's a little sort of boxed off section in one chapter, Dave.

18:37Driving the team bus on learning lessons the hard way. If you want to assess your own or someone else's readiness to lead, consult the British Army Leader Competency Framework, and specifically the core characteristics of integrity, selflessness, humility, and emotional intelligence. Wow, this is tough going. It's dry, isn't it? Yeah, I was actually quite fearful that somebody would buy me this for Christmas this year, but thankfully I managed to get out unscathed. Got Jonathan Wilson's book on the World Cup instead, which I was much, much more pleased about. Different levels. But there is one passage that I saw, Charlie, that was almost slightly sort of cliches-esque in its delivery.

19:14It says, who will tell me what I don't want to hear? Before major decisions, I now assemble a small trusted brains trust, a term I think I first heard to describe a group of players having a discussion over a free kick in a dangerous position, which I now know was coined in 1932 for a group of US academics that President Franklin D. Roosevelt assembled to help inform policy. There's a little bit, we're talking about Dostoevsky a minute ago. As you'll know, this is the small matter of the Roosevelt administration. He's nailed Brainstrust, though, hasn't he? In a football commentary context, though, hasn't he?

19:44This is exactly what he's for, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. I'm trying to think out. I mean, you might see nowadays a few coaches talking with their iPads before a set piece or something like that, and that could be described as a Brainstrust. Well, it's a bit Keezy as well, isn't it? Keezy hates Brainstrust. No, but I'm sure he's called... Is he not called the INEOS lot at United? Yeah. Yeah, there is current Brains Trust. Sonny Jim and Browsford, the Brains Trust and all that stuff. When there was the Liverpool Transfer Committee, do you remember the much maligned Transfer Committee? I think that was, he probably dismissed as a Brains Trust.

20:16Think about Southgate. He's doing all this stuff and he's really, really leaning into Gareth Southgate, the leader, and doing all these conferences and the book and LinkedIn posts and all this stuff. Podcast production company. Yeah, and there's clearly a demand, or there's clearly an audience for it in that sort of sphere. Definitely. I really want him to manage a club. I just want to see what happens. I feel like we, whether you liked him or not as England manager, I just, and I liked him, but I'm just curious to see how he would get on at a big club. and do you know what Charlie I think that curiosity can be mapped directly to Gareth Southad going I know I won't be able to do it and I'm going to secretly not do it for the reasons that everyone's curious about I wouldn't be able to hack it I just don't think he could do it why?

21:05why? because he looks completely different I do think the level I just I can't I can't imagine him being a success like almost any Premier League club like I'd be curious I don't know what his level would be I would be curious but I do think it's just it's so different And you definitely couldn't do it, Dave, after you've done this book. You definitely, I mean, you'd get laughed out of town after your first five games, wouldn't you? People would be waving his book at him. Throwing it on the pitch. I think, I mean, yeah, you could go through it and probably pick out a lot of examples. You could probably pick things apart based on his previous teachings and learnings.

21:38But yeah, I just hope it happens. I just hope he pops up somewhere. I just want to see how it all pans out. Yeah, I want to see him on a, can he deal with a day-to-day buzz? Has he got day-to-day buzz in his little books? Exactly. I don't know. The weekly press conferences, there's only so much kind of statesmanship you can bring to them. Oh, you'd be good on the Friday ones when they get asked about sort of the bigger picture stuff, you know, like social media and kids and stuff. Even VAR, I'm sure he'd have interesting thoughts on that. Yeah, but he wouldn't be able to be on the fence as much as he is.

22:05Anyway, next one comes from Artu Otvan. Here is football radio commentaries in glorious synchronisation for Derby's equaliser from the spot against Ipswich. Bobby Clark was tripped on the edge of the penalty area just inside the 18-yard box. So Derby had the chance to equalise. Rian Brewster steps up right-footed and scores down the middle. How good is that? That's great. Pure radio commentary, Dave. I mean, they've done what they had to do. Specify the foot he's taking with it. You know, signpost the fact that he had stepped up and started his run and confirmed the result of the penalty. It's the holy trinity of radio commentary for a penalty, I guess.

22:44yeah very well done i i'm interested in the setup and why that's bleeding bleeding through so normally you would use and i might be getting this completely wrong but this is sort of roughly what i think is the standard sort of setup with radio commentators who use the uh the lip mic with the one where you hold it right up to your mouth that isn't going to pick up much sound around you it's only going to you know that's why you're holding it so close whereas is one of them like on a headset mic that's picking up very the ambient sound as well as the voice of the commentator Maybe it's a bit more makeshift.

23:15Sound nerds get in touch. Yeah. But yeah, you do hear this quite a lot, Charlie, sort of, you know, rival commentators on the outside. I hear it on sort of YouTube highlights for club channels and things like that. They should have little booths these days, shouldn't they? Yeah, I'm glad it doesn't, because sometimes you watch it, you think, I suppose, it doesn't happen more, especially when you'll see a commentator really in full, like, declamatory mode and sort of shouting out into their mic. Yeah, but it's good. You'd think that could be like, can you shut up? Can you just keep it down a bit, Peter?

23:42that clip is great just the way that the stars slowly align for the penalty um finally for part one this came from southern cracker and it is quite simply jeff stelling's voice in a nature documentary the islands that lie between australia and asia are the biologically richest on earth