Overage youth team mentors & the quickest repaying of a transfer fee ever

20:32Charlie Eccleshare:My eyes are just drawn to Viktor Lindelof in the heart of this defence. and I think he could literally play anywhere. He has, in the most mundane way, the world at his feet, Charlie.

20:48Yeah, you sort of want to be a squad player, a variety of mid-ranking clubs, if that's the world, yeah. More in the way that a retiree has the world at their feet. He can go anywhere he wants. He's got a cruise. You've got lots of time on your hands.

21:03Charlie Eccleshare:Right then, this episode is brought to you in association with NordVPN. For those who don't know, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It secures your connection, protecting your personal information and online activity, especially on public Wi-Fi. A VPN can also make your phone or laptop appear as if it's in another country, which is great for accessing content while travelling. Indeed, let's return to the Club World Cup. And here is DAZN, demonstrating why this season's big broadcasting innovation, the Halftime Interview, is facing an uphill task. But at the break here at the Met Live Stadium, Chelsea lead Fluminense by a goal to nil.

21:39Let's go down to the touchline now because Alex Aljo is getting the thoughts of Chelsea's Tosin. Tosin, what a start for Jao Pedro, what a goal that was defensively so good as well, yet to concede in the first half at this tournament. How satisfied can you be with those first 45 minutes? Yeah, fantastic. Great finish from Jao but we've still got 45 minutes to go. What about the penalty decision relief that was overturned? Yeah, of course. Trev had his hands by his side, so it was never a pain. What's key now if you want to get to the final in the second half? Just keep our focus, keep the intensity going and we'll get the win.

22:11How are you finding the conditions? Tough, tough. Good luck in the second half. Thank you. Thank you.

22:18Charlie Eccleshare:I mean, this is an easy dig, Dave, but I think this is a great showcase for why halftime is a terrible time for an interview. They're in the zone. They don't want to tempt fate for the rest of the game if they're winning. They're pushed for time and they literally still have a job to do. Don't ask them any questions. The shortest of shrift there. Incredible. And what you can't see, what we've just seen on the actual clip there, is he is out of shot before she's even finished saying the first word of her wrapping up, throwing back to the studio. He's out of there so quickly. The sign of a great interview.

22:51Charlie Eccleshare:It really bodes well for next season, doesn't it, Charlie? Yeah, he's probably worried about seizing up, or do I really want to just be standing talking? I'm a bit out of my routine. Yeah. Yeah, you just feel completely out of place. I need to get back to the lads. I need to get back to them. Anyway, if you want to try NordVPN for yourself, go to nordvpn.com slash cliches, and our link will also give you four extra months on the two-year plan. It's the best discount available. There's no risk with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee, and the link is also in the podcast description if you need it.

23:22Charlie Eccleshare:We'll be back very shortly.

23:37We'll be right back.

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26:07Charlie Eccleshare:podcast we love making it and we hope you enjoy episode three of dreamland which is dropping soon right this came from tim postens and this is a good example of something was a little bit too niche for listeners mesot harlan dicks but i really wanted to feature it anyway here it is one thing i absolutely love is when there's a substitution made and the player coming on really wants to burst onto the pitch with that with that high energy with a little sprint with a little jump with a little fake header when they first come on the problem is the position they're playing is actually right by that touchline so they can't run on at any distance whatsoever they have to basically just step onto the pitch and you always get the sense they're feeling like oh i really wish i could like oh i really want to have a burst and show some energy but they can't because they've got to get straight into position as a left back or left wing or whatever i love it charlie a classic example of something we were never going to get 10 minutes of chat out of but just an incredible observation nonetheless yeah that's that's superb yeah i'm Could you take a go really far back to give yourself some room, get into the tunnel, just leg it forward?

27:10That's the way.

27:11Charlie Eccleshare:Just come speeding past the fourth official. Where's he gone? Come onto the pitch sort of towards your own penalty area and run up the wing. That's the only place you could do it. But yeah, as soon as I heard this, Dave, I had this vivid image of it happening on a live TV game and just thinking, yeah, that totally must be quite frustrating for a player not to be able to sort of stretch his legs. You could foresee a situation where there's some analysis and Carragher saying, look, the sub, he's run on too fast. He's gone to the middle of the pitch and he's out of position immediately. Look there, the ball comes down this side and he's out of position because he's run on too quick.

27:46Charlie Eccleshare:Just complete muscle memory, just ran into the middle of the pitch, abandoned his station. Lovely stuff from Tim. Next up, this came from Stuart Mack, who was reading an old Rangers matriple from 1887. it was a game between some rangers old boys and their current team at the time it's from the glasgow herald and here's a little passage for you charlie the play on the whole was more amusing than scintillating and although the ancients notably dunlop and valance showed some of their old dash they had to retire at the close of the first half a goal to the bad a goal to the bad surely we're not having that says stewart mack albeit nearly 150 years too late well who are we to say what was had and what wasn't 150 years ago i mean i wonder when that was phased out and why because it's no different i mean gold to the goods there's no reason why gold to the good sounds anymore it sounds natural maybe a gold to the bad was the dominant form in the 1880s dave who knows exactly maybe are you a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of guy i'm gonna start using gold to the bad oh we're gold to the bad again toson you're a gold to the bad here at How do you feel about that?

28:56Charlie Eccleshare:You what, mate? What is this? 87? I wonder what it would have taken to engage Tosin there. Like, given how autopilot he was. Like, he would not have flinched if you'd said a goal to the bad. No. No, no chance. You would have had to say, I think you could have said pretty much anything and he wouldn't have picked up on it. It'd be interesting if anyone's listening now and they've skipped the NordVPN section. This is why you shouldn't. You won't get the callbacks. Exactly. Listen to everything. You'll never know what you're going to miss. Next up, I'm starting to enjoy this recurring item, which was born from football's autopilot habit of adding up the ages of veteran centre-back partnerships.

29:31Charlie Eccleshare:Anyway, this week's ludicrous combined stat comes from James Keaton, who Charlie was reading a BBC article about why the world's super yachts are getting bigger and bigger. Lots of data in there about sort of, you know, the increasing length of super yachts. And then suddenly, half of all super yachts continue to be built in Italy, with its yards currently working on a combined length of 22 ,195 metres or approximately 22 kilometres, 13 miles of boats. Do you know what it is as well? It's sometimes like, sometimes all you then want to do is work out kind of what the average is, what one is. Like it serves the opposite purpose.

30:08It makes it harder to conceptualise how big something is. Like that's just 13 miles of loads and loads of boats to me means kind of nothing. I want to know, well, what's one? What does one of these boats sort of look like? I can imagine one boat. I can't imagine 13 miles worth of that. You know, it could be 30 and it wouldn't really mean anything to me.

30:26Charlie Eccleshare:It's quite an impactful stat, just, you know, on its own. You could run half a marathon across all the super yachts that are built in Italy. I could try. I'd have gone with tonnage myself. I'd have gone with the weight of the boats rather than the length. Good for the BBC to clarify that 22 ,195 metres is approximately 22 kilometres. Appreciate that, BBC. You learn something every day. Next up, Charlie, I know you're a fan of the established post-match interview opening gambit of Achievement X. How does that sound? Well, I don't know if you caught this at Wimbledon the other day. Here's Mira Andreva.

31:01Charlie Eccleshare:Mira, congratulations. You are now the youngest player to make it through to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 18 years. How does that sound?

31:15she had to take ages to think about it so i don't know really uh good the 18 years really wraps it off doesn't it dave yeah it does it's very nice there's there's something so quintessentially wimbledon about those on-court post-match interviews it's such a strange thing because in theory they shouldn't really be much different from your standard sort of post-match interview in any sport but because the because they take place on the court and you've got that little moment where the interview is just waiting for them to sort of put all their rackets and their gears in their in their bag and then they come down they put the bags down all the most of the people have stayed in there's people cheering like you've heard there it's amazing how all those little bits just make it so different to a football post-match interview when essentially the questions are pretty much the same sort of stuff isn't it really yeah i'm working on a story on this topic Also, tennis has the weird thing where the loser after a final has to stay on court and talk, which is kind of, you know, you don't get that.

32:16Imagine if in football, the losing team had to stay on the pitch and like applaud as the team went up and hoisted the trophy and then all do interviews. You know, it would be like Tosin.

32:27Charlie Eccleshare:Yannick Sinner, you've lost Wimbledon. How does that sound? But also the thing with that, how does that sound construction? it works if it's like something you're going to be known for forever like you know FA Cup winner or you've just been given an OBE or something you know how does that sound it's like a in it's core meaning it should be something that it's like you've now got something that no one can ever take away from you and you'll always have it like whereas something that tenuous is I don't imagine Miriam Draver is always going to you know think I remember when I became the youngest court's finalist in 18 years at Wimbledon in 2035 it's not even close to the threshold for me not even close it's childhood dream stuff is how does that sound it's you know Charlie Eccleshire most read writer on the New York Times 2024 how does that sound at the very least it needs to be a new personal status for your career rather than just achieving a tenuous record really important stuff good to get it right now this came from Coop17 this is great to see the hypothetical consecutive hat tricks debate spread across the globe and indeed across sports.

33:32Charlie Eccleshare:From Australia, this is the Fox Footy Podcast. That is something that is a perennial conversation across great cricket circles and I think we may have even played this game before Ben. How many hundreds do you have to make from fourth grade consecutively to then play test cricket? There you go. It encapsulates sports fans of any denomination Dave. Yeah, I would like to have heard their conclusion actually. Is it comparable to our chat about hat-tricks or not? I mean, 100 is probably quite approximate to scoring a hat-trick, Charlie. Yeah. But cricket's so stat-driven, I feel like it might be slightly easier to quantify than R1.

34:13Charlie Eccleshare:Here's an ultra modern transfer phenomenon for you. Andy Naylor of The Athletic reported that Ben Barkley has rejoined Brighton as an over-age player and mentor for the under-21s. A 28-year-old former academy defender at the club had spells in the lower divisions with Accrington, Stockport, Yeovil and Carlisle after leaving in 2019. This is definitely an established phenomenon, isn't it, Charlie? This kind of signing of a player to kind of guide the under-21s. It feels like the new, conveniently British 38-year-old third-choice goalkeeper. Perhaps even more wholesome than that. I was going to say, yeah, because that's where you used to think, you'd have your Richard Wrights and Scott Carsons and people like that popping up.

34:56Yeah, I mean, there are definite players you can imagine. I mean, Connor Cody feels perfect for this at some point. Is this for Wolves, I'd assume? Yeah, I guess it would be, yeah. Maybe not quite ready now, but yeah, like an earnest clubman. Sort of perfect.

35:10Charlie Eccleshare:The Jean-Marc Bosman of all of this, I think, was Paul McShane, Dave, who signed for Man United in July 2021. He was formerly a youth player. They never played for them. That feels quite tenuous to be the returning legend. I can't have that anymore. It sort of works because there is a connection. And I think Manchester United as well. They're kind of the youth, the youth player thing is such a big thing for Manchester United, even though Paul McShane didn't make any proper first team impact at Manchester United. It's still sort of he's still kind of they're all welcome back, aren't they? All those former players are kind of welcomed back into the fold because they understand the United, you know, club DNA and all that stuff.

35:50But I think this thing, I really do think it has to be a centre back, maybe a defender if you want to ride in it a bit. But I think because if you think about it, it's like an experienced centre-back is the best position to guide young, inexperienced players through a game. If you've ever found yourself playing in a game with like an ex-pro or someone, they can be old, they can't really run anymore, but they can just sit at centre-back, tell everyone else what to do. Everyone else can cover their lack of pace and they can see the game. Whereas if you had like a centre-forward in this role. You can't have a striker doing this.

36:26they're not looking after everyone else they're just focusing on scoring goals Jermaine Defoe just trying to puff up his goal scoring shatting back to the centre backs

36:33Charlie Eccleshare:yeah it wouldn't work it doesn't work for strikers at all I've got a sort of list of suggestions for the big six clubs go-to man for this Tottenham feel quite well stocked for this Charlie I think Eric Dier could go back and do it Ben Davis could eventually go back and do it Harry Winks could very conceivably become the overage player in their under 23s I don't know why Spurs are so good for this Yeah, I mean, Winks, I think Davis is perfect as well because Winks, not that it really mattered, but he left and kind of, you know, he stopped getting game time and all of that. And it maybe got a bit sour, whereas Davis has just been the ultimate stalwart character.

37:10And like, you know, he's really friendly with everyone. You know, he wouldn't even have to go for long and then he could, you know, he'd have barely been gone and then he just pops back and it's like he's never left. You know, you just, you want him in the building.

37:21Charlie Eccleshare:Man City, conversely, Dave, don't feel like they've got a lot of candidates for this. I mean, because they just keep signing£50 million sort of Continentals. No one sort of puts down the roots that I feel you need for this. So the only player I could think of was Oleksandr Zinchenko. I feel like he's got the character for it. That's quite a good shout. And also, he's a technical leader. And that's the currency at Man City, isn't it? He was always like, oh, you know, for all the stars, the best player technically is actually Zinchenko. And he's schooled in the Guardiola way as well. Yeah. I did notice that, I think anyway, it wasn't quite clear according to his Wikipedia page, but there was some suggestion that Fernandinho might still be playing at the age of 40 in Brazil.

38:03And I could sort of see him doing it. Yeah, Fernandinho's a good shout. I also thought that in an alternate universe, if his career hadn't fallen away in the way that it did and he hadn't burst onto the scene as a pundit, Micah Richards could have had this sewn up.

38:16Charlie Eccleshare:That would have been absolutely perfect. Chris Smalling at Manchester United. Adam Lallana at Liverpool that doesn't work does it he's retired hasn't he yeah that's yeah but if you could bring him out of retirement to just do this job just do this yeah because I feel like at that stage of your career if you're of that personality Charlie you've got two options go back and be the overage player in the under 23s or go and become the loan manager which sounds like a great job just ringing up low needs and saying how you doing mate you alright that's what Johnny Evans has just done at Man United yeah the loans manager role it's definitely I mean he's been long since retired but one of the guys who's what dave was describing about playing like a with a legend game i mean per mertesacker basically did that in an fa cup final yeah he barely he hadn't played pretty much all season came in played center back in the middle of a three age looked about 40 and didn't move but like did a job on costa and just talked everyone through it and obviously he's actually like the academy manager at arsenal but he would have been so the guy you know that everyone looks up to and respects great talker great sort of manager of young people.

39:21Charlie Eccleshare:I think this is quite a wholesome development actually because it means you can do your badges at the same time, earn yourself a reputation for being good at nurturing young talent. I think it's positive development, this. Is there an element to it of... Because I think when Man United signed Johnny Evans, he wasn't signed as the under-21s mentor player like Paul McShane was, but there was an element of like, we need a backup player and we know him, he used to play for us, will sign him back again. And then he obviously ended up playing way more than they probably anticipated. So I think some of these players, you kind of want that, just that little 2 % chance that they could end up in extremis of playing in a game if we really needed them to, in a proper first team game.

40:08And I wondered for Arsenal, whether Carl Jenkinson could be this, who's still playing at Bromley. He's 33. Oh, wow. Okay. yeah bit too competition winner I don't know how much I mean like because Arsenal used to do it they would bring

40:23Charlie Eccleshare:doesn't have a heft about him does he yeah like Perez would pop back or they'd have like or Lehmann do you remember Lehmann came back and actually played a game against Blackpool yeah goalkeepers could do this I think I don't mind a goalkeeper doing this I have to say what a lovely discussion this was okay finally here's Rob Dowie with some football mentality creeping into general life his story is as follows I was in Asda doing a small shop I picked up a basket on entry, but the items I needed were at the far end of the store. Passing the fruit and veg first, I decided to go off list and put some peppers in my basket, ultimately to avoid walking several aisles with an empty basket.

41:00Charlie Eccleshare:I instantly felt more at home in the shop, and in my head, I likened it to an under-pressure goalkeeper getting an early touch or routine save, eating myself into the game and settling the nerves. I mean, there are two things here. First of all, the football analogy here, Charlie, I'm not massively on board with, but I appreciate the fact that he sent it in. And if that's how he felt, then my heart is warmed. But the more pertinent thing for me here is walking around a supermarket with an empty basket is a crap feeling. You want to get something in there, don't you? So you do want an early touch.

41:31You do want that first tackle, just something.

41:34Charlie Eccleshare:But, Dave, if you go for something that's going to rattle around in the basket, that makes it even worse. If you go for a single pepper, that's just going to bounce around inside the basket while you walk around. Don't like it. yeah I think I would liken it more to yeah because the feeling of having an empty basket wouldn't be a good one I think it's like for me it would be like playing in a proper 11 a side match without shin pads I would feel exposed I need something in there just to weigh me down a little bit you just feel like a weird kind of fraud walking around the supermarket with an empty basket what have I got this for and then you realise you didn't need one after all you could have carried it yourself oh dear bag of pasta I reckon is a good first item good ballast It's not going to roll around and make it awkward.

42:17But as Rob points out, the fruit and veg is the first thing you go past. You can't go straight to the pasta section. Bananas would do the job. Just get some grapes. You're always going to want grapes.

42:27Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah. Punnett. Punnett of strawberries. Weird discussion, and that's how we're going to end things. Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare. Thank you. Thanks to you, Dave Walker. Thank you. And that's it for the Midweek Adjudication Panel. We'll be back on Tuesday. See you then.

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