Resurgent corner flags, Eddie Howe's onslaught threshold & "the Pound Shop Potter”

23:03to the max. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app.

23:11Oh, look at that! That is wonderful!

23:19Welcome back to Football Clichés. It's 2026 time to sign up for Dreamland if that tickles your fancy. 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, plus other bits as well, go to dreamland.footballcliches.com. Eddie Howe next, Nick, was being grilled about Newcastle's performance against Burnley, specifically their response to when they went 2-0 up and then Burnley started to fight back a bit. And I really enjoyed this exchange because it got into sort of slightly football cliches territory. What would you say to any fan who said there's no plan B at the minute, especially that hour at Burnley where there was an onslaught at Turfmoor?

24:02An onslaught on? Against us. When it was 2-0, after that, Burnley were just on top for nearly an hour. Have you seen the stats of the game? Well, I'm just seeing what I saw in my eyes. You must have been watching a different game then. There was no onslaught. Yes, we had moments, of course. We had moments the other way. I mean, I would never describe it as that. and I always try to be, if it was an onslaught, I'd give you my opinion and say, yeah, I thought it was. I would genuinely love to sit down with Eddie Howe and figure out the threshold for an onslaught. I feel like this could be the next chapter of cliches.

24:42You know the coach's voice do their little masterclasses, Nick, with the little counters that they push around. I want to do this with Eddie Howe. As he suggested there by saying, did you see, he would have a number threshold. There should be one. Is it possession? What are we judging this on? I think it's attempts, isn't it? It's surely attempts on goal. It's mostly attempts on goals. Onslaughts are characterised by peppering the goal, Dave, but it's also sort of attacking pressure. But if we go by shots alone, Burnley had 11 shots in that hour period that the reporter was mentioning. Four of them on target, one goal.

25:19They did hit the woodwork, actually, as well. That instantly raises, if you had a little XG sort of chart of the onslaughtness. That's a nice little sharp upward tick if you hit the woodwork. It has to be one way as well. Have you got how many shots Newcastle had in that period as well? Almost exactly the same number. Well, I'm not sure. No, I don't think that is an onslaught then. You can't have like end-to-end onslaught, can you? Actually, tell a lie. Newcastle had 15 shots to Burnley's 11 during the onslaught. There you go. No, definitely not. More shots on target as well. So yeah, I'm on Team Howe here, rarely, but would love to know the threshold.

25:53Essentially, that was a very Eddie Howe version of Big Ron. He must have played not bad then. Yes, it started off really well. Just a really polite version of Big Ron. Yeah, it reminded me a bit of Gordon Strachan, actually. That's the sort of thing that would have been put to him when he was Southampton manager back in the day. Onslaught. Yeah, he would have given it much shorter shrift than Eddie Howe, for sure. I did see Onslaught. Yeah, it's just really good to see these things being taken to task. Next up, Yes Sir I Can Boogie says, Darren Bent on punditry duties to describe Huang He Chan's goal as a well-worked penalty.

26:28Is this as ludicrous as it sounds? What type of penalty could be described as well-worked? I suppose you could have the Cruyff one, couldn't you? The one or two. Yeah, yeah. If Perez and Omri had got it right, that would have been very well-worked. If anything, it was too well-worked. Because it does, I mean, as flashy as those are, Nick, the one-two penalties, they do need to be well-worked to be executed and scored. The sort of difficulty level is actually surprisingly high for them. Messi and Suarez do it once as well. I think so. And they did the sort of possibly making this up. I'm sure they did like a one-two.

26:58It wasn't just like pass it to the other guy and score. Oh, right. Well, that would be well worked then because that's two passes. Yeah. Otherwise, you couldn't have a standard well-worked penalty, could you, Dave? Well, no, exactly. We're giving Darren Bent a bit more credit than he deserves here because unless I'm mistaken, Wang Yi Chan did not perform some sort of elaborate one-two with a Wolves teammate, right? Imagine doing that with two points on the board. they're in the mood lovely stuff fellow strugglers West Ham next I mean it's so easy to pigeonhole West Ham Dave but they have boosted their attacking options by signing Gil Vicente's Pablo Felipe and are poised to add Lazio's Tati Castellanos to their squad as well for a combined cost of up to 47 million they could be really good these players but I'm just assuming they're shit they're just so West Ham absolutely liquid West Ham yeah and I like just as an extra flourish going out the other way nick is luis guillem who's going off to portugal for 14 million just to balance the books a little bit you can just imagine sort of crossing each other's paths going any good in there the cautionary tale literally walking out of the door as you're but no this this one might work yeah definitely yeah now onto a topic you know quite a lot about nick which is nuno espirito santo a damning report from jacob steinberg in the guardian about how things are going for Nuno at West Ham at the moment.

28:18And quite central to this story, and I've heard this about lots of managers, but specifically Nuno before, is that apparently he doesn't talk to anyone, doesn't talk to the players. He's really unapproachable, really distant figure, just because that's his style. Now, obviously, we live in a catch-up, no-catch-up era, so no one's really sure what a good football manager should look like and do. But this specifically, why do football managers think that not talking to anyone is a good way of doing things? Like, this never ends well. You never hear that in a good way about manager. Yeah, he kept his distance, didn't talk to anyone, and it worked, to be honest.

28:51He really kept us on our toes. Well, it's the whole, and without wishing to be a kind of cartoon Forrest fan and going back to Brian Clough, but it's the old thing about Brian Clough, all the old players say, well, you wouldn't see him at the training ground until Thursday afternoon. The theory being that if he was there all the time, then his words would lose impact. Right. And so if he comes in at the end of the week and tells you what to do, then you go, oh, okay, well, you know, So this was a bit more of a novelty. I think the managers, Poster Coglu was famously quite similar to this as well.

29:19And he used to, I think his theory was that it makes it easier to make the tough decisions if you don't have the kind of emotional connection with the players. Historically, I mean, cluff aside, Dave, historically, this has never been deemed to be a good way of man managing, just not managing. Well, if you do this, when you do speak, you have to really fucking nail it. I mean, it's obviously not going to end well for him. And I fear for Nuno a bit because he's now been steadfastly cast as a miserable bloke who is really difficult to work for. And it was just such a shame because his stock was so high.

29:52He's a really strange figure because he had really good at Wolves, disastrous at Spurs, then did a really good job at Forest, now disastrous at West Ham. He is ketchup, no ketchup, but personified himself. Admittedly, I feel like everybody would be a disaster at West Ham because they are a disaster class of a club. I speculated, Nick, about the prospect of West Ham getting relegated and therefore having the ignominy of being commentated on by Gary Weaver in the Championship on a Friday night next season. Ian Woodcock produced one of the most inch-perfect depictions, hypothetical fantasy depictions of Gary Weaver ever seen.

30:26It involves Lincoln City being promoted to the Championship and then going to play West Ham. Lincoln City the little team from the Cathedral City have come down to East London and they've planted their flag and said we belong in this championship it's word perfect that's super little team from the Cathedral City Friday night at the London Stadium can't you picture a bleaker football game yeah my god there we go right this from James Gray this is fascinating actually Matt Jarvis was on co-commentary duty for QPR versus Norwich, Dave, and presumably posted a picture of his setup in the gantry on social media.

31:08And James Gray saw that next to his screen, Matt Jarvis had pinned up some synonyms for his commentary. So there are positive words for skill or whatever. So superb, sublime, exquisite, outstanding, exceptional, magnificent, and so on. Things that were just exciting. So sensational, stunning. There are also synonyms for intelligence, which is astute, shrewd, perceptive for sort of physical stuff like powerful, thunderous. So that's for shots. There's two pages of this stuff. Colour-coded. I've never seen anything like this before. And there's been no shortage of commentators posting pictures of their notes.

31:45And it's obviously usually stats and facts about the players involved. Synonyms. And they're handwritten in different coloured felt-tip pens. Different sections, yeah. Red, blue and green. And we think that this is Matt Jarvis' own work here. It's not been given to him. It doesn't look like it's been given to him because it's handwritten. You wouldn't delegate this to somebody else, would you? Well, or if it was a producer or something, I think it would be typed. So, I mean, you know, fair play. He's leaving absolutely nothing to chance here. If he's a bit worried about his vocabulary, you know, he's come prepared.

32:17But if anything, he's got too many words to choose from. This is the headline problem here, Nick. I love the concept of this. I love the fact that he's engaged with the language of football here. But there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 sections of synonyms based on various aspects of play. I mean, the first synonym he's got for a good finish is delicious. Then he'll go for sumptuous next if he thinks it's... I mean, but my problem is when it gets to the crunch moment, Nick, he's going to have to consult his list and go for, oh, which one do I think it is? And which, to be fair, is actually kind of cool.

32:50Maybe some finishes do sort of lend themselves to other words. Great. There's poor, there's sloppy, there's wild, there's dreadful, dire and awful. yeah i mean if you have to kind of spend too much time consulting the list it negates the point of the list yeah you know as a is a you know memory jogger you can have a heart not from a list i do quite like it though is it because you know who among us hasn't sort of frozen a you had a mind block at some point i've got a big list of uh of suggested cliches on my wall here yeah you should sell these to kids you could do a tour on the street you could do a tour around the primary schools of the land oh it's i mean good to be prepared but yeah incredible so the sections are positions excitement speed intelligence power composure finishing movement poor quality lack of control defending and sort of technical positional kind of issues as well exposed isolated overwhelmed chaotic i wonder what his process was for collating all these he just sat down and thought of as many as he could has he like gone back through old games and any time you heard a new word, he's noted it down?

33:55Has he just purely Googled it? I would suggest that he's probably done it with some football intellect behind it because he hasn't sort of consulted the thesaurus here because these are all good footballing terms. So he's thought about it. These are all footballing synonyms rather than just, you know, completely random words that you might throw in. But wow, I mean, of all the notes to have, and then two A4 pages of paper. I've never seen this before in my life. And I just want to emphasise that I broadly love it. And I think it's great. It's always going to appeal to this podcast. So Matt Jarvis, fantastic.

34:26Right, Osh Jones gets in touch next. Here is Seb Hutchinson and Andy Hinchcliffe on comms duty for Aston Villa versus Forrest as Amadou Anana is spotted in the stands in a massive coat. He's able to get back. Fantastic jacket.

34:44Another Christmas present perhaps. Enjoying the weather.

34:52She's working better than Shawn Leitch's watch

35:01Somebody's just told me it's Louis Vuitton I wouldn't know about these things Other jackets are available I'm wearing one You haven't got the style or the money, Seth, have you?

35:16You haven't got the style is concert now much of that dave was absolutely textbook basically one commentator taking the piss out the other's clobber sense of style all that sort of stuff uh what has completely exceeded the industry threshold is the number of background laughs four sets four distinct sets of laughter off mic that's too many for one exchange do we think that's definitely hinchcliffe is that's him just putting the mic down and laughing you think but I think that is probably it and there could be a producer up there but I doubt it and Hutchinson would never be unprofessional enough to distance himself from his microphone to do a laugh so it wasn't him he referenced being told it was Louis Vuitton but I assume that's just in his ear from the gallery that would be Hinchcliffe laughing four times which is excessive isn't it Nick two at the most who does he think he is back to the champo the situation not helped by it being a particularly grim period of play there it was just one goalkeeper hoofing it up to the other one so there was there was dead air to fill and they, you know, filled it with some off-mic laughter.

36:17Good to know that producers are on hand, Dave, with this sort of information. Fair play. They've found that. They've obviously got a keen eye for fashion. I mean, how could you Google that? It's pretty quick. It's like when we did the quiz over Christmas. We only gave people 30 to 45 seconds to answer the question so they couldn't Google it. Maybe did a Google lens search from the screenshot or something like that. Famously reliable. Yeah, just tremendous all round. But yeah, Hinchcliffe, rain it in, mate. Four in one, not having that. Next up, an old favourite. Here's Paul Merson on Arsenal's title hopes.

36:46But six points clear of Villa, seven points clear of City. They couldn't have hoped for much better at the start of January, could they, Mers? No, 100%. I think come what last August, if you had said they're going to be seven points clear of Man City and Man City's game in hand is at home to Chelsea, you take that every day of the week. Every day of the week, yeah. I'm annoyed we're not cataloguing this day, but I think that might be the most distant slash inappropriate use of come what. I don't think we've had a come what one in the past for so long ago. Harking back, come what last August. Come what last August.

37:19This is mad. We've said this before, but with Merce, you just can't tell, but I don't think he is in on it. I think it's just a thing that he says, but no one's ever picked him up on it. Internalise the evolution of language. It's like a kind of slightly misspeak piled upon another and then another until in his head. That is the right kind of way to use that phrase. I think the real charming thing about it isn't just the innocent mistake, Dave. I've been saying this since come what forever. I don't think even he knows that it's his catchphrase. I think he just thinks that everybody says it. But yeah, come what last August is just wonderful.

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39:10yeah we are now come what january now and the transfer window has opened um talking bollocks got in touch um the the only comedy metal podcast out there by the way nick and uh drew my attention to the bbc gossip column the other day lots of things like everton are considering a low move for kobie maynew wolves are interested in heidic splits 22 year old canada defensive midfielder Nico Segur but it also says Manchester United are dreaming of bringing Scotland midfielder Scott McTominay 29 back to Old Trafford from Napoli you can't have that in the BBC gossip column no is this some kind of collective dream I mean if it hasn't so what's the threshold it needs to have been vocalised rather than just in someone's head I would say the flimsiest sentiment the flimsiest mentality that could be used in the BBC gossip column Dave would be considering or mulling over some actual official wheels have to be thought about being turned hoping hoping Hoping's a good halfway house.

40:01Certainly better than dreaming. You can't have dreaming. What are they doing up there at Old Trafford? Where's the planning? But yeah, it doesn't belong there. You can see that there could be a desire to bring him back within certain quarters in the club. There's certainly internal appreciation and admiration. Dreaming is just not the right word, is it? Yeah, yeah. BBC unravelling, isn't it? Let's face it. More reassuring transfer news. Nick, Matteo Guendouzi is nearing a move to Fenerbahce. Report Gazeta, deal expected to cost 27 million euros. That's a dream move, isn't it? Guendouzi to Fenerbahce, welcome.

40:35And he's kind of just the right, from an English football perspective anyway, he's just the right amount of time out of sight, out of mind, for him to then go to Fenerbahce. I think if he'd gone straight from Arsenal to Fenerbahce, that would have felt a little bit. Spot on. Do you know what I think makes it even nicer? Is that his sort of tough tackling, annoying, and ultimately failed central midfielder from that Arsenal vintage, Lucas Torreira. I always think of those two as really summing up that sort of little... Were they sort of Emery era? Yeah, late Wenger. Late Wenger, yeah. Anyway, Lucas Torreira now playing for Galatasaray.

41:10Yes. Get over there with you, mate. Come on. Yeah. We'll have a little chat before kickoff or in the tunnel, but then it'll be frowned upon by... What's a business. ...warring Turkish fans. Big weekend, Nick, for hyper-local derbies. Dundee took the short trip to Tannerdice to win 1-0 at Dundee United, a fixture blessed by the presence of Gary Weaver.

42:07pretty mid-range weaver to be honest nick although i don't know why he should shoehorned in the nickname for dundee in there the sort of the city of discovery and then didn't expand on it and didn't use it as an extension of any metaphor. Yeah, the city of discovery and they've discovered that blah blah blah. They've unearthed the point. Do you think that somebody at Sky thought, right we've got the Dundee derby coming up. I mean obviously there's going to be a fair bit of interest in and around Dundee but you know, how can we sort of get this, just give this something a little extra. I know Weaver.

42:42He's down to do Bristol City against Preston. Get him up. we'll get someone else for that one get him up weaver responding by email just saying just it is officially a city isn't it it's not just a town because if it's just a town i'm not doing it because it needs to be a city if you know for all my armory it needs to be a city meanwhile dave at paris fc made the 15 meter journey across to paris saint germain over the weekend to play the first top flight derby in the french capital since 1978 psg121 but that's immaterial really because I'm interested in the distance used here. So it's 15 metres from the one side of Paris' stadium to PSG's stadium.

43:21So it's essentially crossing the road and the pavements. That's 15 metres. You're going turnstile to turnstile? Well, this is it. I mean, obviously, they're making it as small as possible. So they're going from structure to structure, the smallest possible distance. But I mean, the most obvious point is whenever you hear about Team X making the short trip to Team Y, well, they're not going from the stadium, are they? If anything, they're probably going from the training ground. that's where they sort of spiritually belong they're not going from stadium to stadium that's by the by they could meet at the stadium for their pre-match business they often do but then I think you'd have to go with which exit do they leave the stadium and which entrance do they enter PSG's stadium get it on Strava let's have a count you can't be doing it like that I mean yes you could go hyper literal Nick and do it from exit to entrance but do it from the centre circle to centre circle this thing needs to be standardised Yeah, exactly.

44:12So we're looking at more like, it's more like 100 metres, 120 metres. Which is still really short. It's still really short. It's fine. You don't have to exaggerate these things. But it would look confusing, though. If you posted the tweet, as they have done, with the overhead image of the two stadiums, and you said 120 metre journey, it looks too close. They're nearly touching. So close. Completely ridiculous to have two football stadiums. Shouldn't be allowed, actually. I don't think it should be allowed. Yeah. It's a complete waste of real estate. How has this happened? Yeah. Playing one stadium, it's clowns.

44:44Was there a rugby stadium, the Paris FC one before? So maybe that's where the discrepancy has emerged. Yeah. But yeah, the sweeper. You're to blame for this. Everyone's trying to get on the sweeper bandwagon now. You can't out-sweeper the sweeper. Anyway, speaking of big things being too close to each other, it's time for keys and grey corner. Ha ha! Pluck that one out the bag.

45:19Ford Super Sunday.

45:24Right. Yes, lovely stuff. Keyes hasn't reacted to Ruben Amarim's news on his blog just yet, but he has tweeted, nothing spectacular so far, but let's take you back. He went early with his own blog, didn't he? Yeah. Which is usually he posts it sort of mid-afternoon, but he dropped it in the morning and he's been made to look silly by Man United. There should be an evening edition, like the evening stand, Nick. The pinking. Hot off the press. So I want to take you back to his blog on December the 29th. He says, See you in 2026 when there's going to be some really exciting things happening. Stay tuned.

45:58Then he tweeted on New Year's Eve, Have a careful one tonight and make 2026 special. I've got a feeling it's going to be very exciting. A careful one. What's he got planned? That's interesting. I've heard a few things actually well I've heard a thing I've heard that the podcast might be coming back but that was a while ago and nothing's happened since so I don't know whether that actually is a thing or not and I'd heard Nick that he was sort of punting around an autobiography but this was a couple of years ago so maybe that's happening but that doesn't feel like something he would trail like that I mean I know he's got an ego but I feel like he wouldn't trail an autobiography in those terms it's going to be explosive isn't it he's going to be setting the record straight so I think given how keen he has been to do that over the years that's to get it all in you know one tome it's also not beyond him to just be talking about Beane's coverage ongoing coverage of football in the World Cup it's just a World Cup yeah I think he would have mentioned it because that's not an open it's like it's not a secret is it I think we all know it's not football's worst kept secret that there's a World Cup this year but of course he's got stuck into the various vacancies in the Premier League he tweeted the other day if I'm a Chelsea fan I want to see JT given a go he's a Chelsea man to the core he's served time elsewhere and there's no reason he can't do what Lampard is doing at Coventry with better tools why is there no reason he can't do it this idea that they are just interchangeable people Nick is brilliant to me if Lampard could do it so could Terry why?

47:21why could they do it? also has he served time elsewhere? he had about two seasons as assistant at Aston Villa that's Kesey's rationale isn't it? right okay he addressed this in his blog actually Dave he says well you know some people are saying well he's got no experience He's only done three years as assistant at Aston Villa. It was good enough for Arteta. And you can't blame, you can't fault that logic. Although I sense that Arteta's a little bit more committed to the whole art form of coaching than John Terry is. Arteta was learning at the heel of the greatest coach ever. And John Terry was with Dean Smith, was it?

47:55He's also in the baller league, by the way. So, yeah, look. Didn't see Arteta in the cauldron that was the baller league, did you? some intense 5v5 sessions. So, on to his latest blog, Nick. Todd Bowley is on to his sixth coach, and he's about to make another huge error. Leroy Rosinia? No. He's a Poundshop Potter. Wow. I mean, Poundshop Potter's superb. The fact that he's got his name wrong is even better. Come on, Keezy. And then just the overall certainty about it going wrong. I mean, obviously, it's a stopgap situation. It's the easiest person they could have hired. But, yeah, this is great.

48:28Just as a 1-2, Leroy Rosinia, Pound Shot Potter. The error in the name, is this because he knows Leroy or is just kind of can't be bothered to remember? More of his era I guess. Yeah, maybe. But nothing can really drag Keezy away Dave from his true passion, which is VAR. He got stuck right into the whole off-side line tolerance issue from Liverpool's fortunate goal against Fulham. And he says, the cartoon images they offer are ridiculous. How is it possible to judge a call unless you can look straight along a line and regulars will know i've been asking this same question since this disney-like system was introduced regulars why is it disney-like because it's cartoon is it cartoon yeah because it's animated so it's it's it's artificial and there's therefore cartoon and therefore it's like disney so how could he sign off his blog as one of pgmol's offside graphics might say that's all folks which is not a disney these warner brothers

49:30that's just brilliant when you wish upon a star you'll still get var i'm so glad you found i'm so glad you spotted that because it would never have dawned on me that is sumptuous thank you thank you so much whatever you've got planned for 2026 please announce it soon because it's good we need you in so many ways um thanks so much to you nick miller thank you thanks to you david walker thank you thanks everyone for listening I can't wait we'll be back on Thursday see you then