Slot's embarrassment of riches, hyperliteral stadium noises & Zidane vs Dyche

24:08After countless rejections and hijack heartbreaks this summer, the two are finally getting their man. This is a disgraceful use of getting their man. Otherwise, they're probably, what, third choice? They didn't get Jorgen Strand-Larsen, did they? So, was he their man? How can you just suddenly become someone's man? Yeah, he's not their man. Because weirdly, I mean, unless I'm mistaken, I mean, maybe in the depths of Newcastle Twitter. But I didn't see any reports linking Newcastle to Volta Marder at all until it emerged last week when the Strand-Larsen deal looked like it was not going to happen.

24:45All of a sudden, they just went, oh, should we just keep going down the list? Yeah, let's get this fella. Exactly. Nick, we're focusing here on the idea that Voltamander wasn't high enough in their pecking order to be their man. But perhaps the motivation behind the tweet is that Newcastle have just got a man and therefore he is their man. But I'm not having that either. I'm definitely not having that. You can't just become the man, you know, in abstract. No, I mean, it's a disgrace from start to finish. Fair enough. On any number of levels, you can't justify any of it. Well, there could be more twists and turns.

25:18the way it's worded after countless rejections and hijack heartbreaks this summer the tuna finally getting their man like they're trying to play on the fact that it has been such a tumultuous summer for newcastle in this respect in terms of the isak and trying to get a replacement but it's it just all falls apart at the end there um just a frivolous use of transfer language where it shouldn't be allowed is this a kind of a real like ultimate extension of they love a number nine uh in newcastle kind of thing whereby whereby just now anyone who's could vaguely be a number nine is their man yes spiritually their man kind of thing yeah that's definitely fitting into this it's a mess perhaps suitably i think one thing we need to keep an eye on with with volta marda is who's going to be the first pundit on match the day that remarks upon his good feet for a big man because it's like it's his thing he's massive he's he's six foot five or something and but it plays like a sort of dainty number 10 at times but i feel like it's gone the way of game of two halves and stuff that sort of thing you can't really say it in its native formats can you you've got to kind of you've got to mix it up a bit with a bit of knowingness in there i think i think you're giving the pundits uh of this nation too much credit there but we'll see Yeah, maybe.

26:34I enjoyed this from rbarker82, Nick. He says, I was in the pub last night and match of the day was on. All five at our table agreed that it's really nice to see Jack Grealish enjoying his football again. We then realised that the group of eight next to us were having the same conversation. So 13 people in total, all agreeing that it's really nice to see Jack Grealish enjoying his football again. One guy on the other table wasn't really into football, but even he agreed that it was really nice to see Jack Grealish enjoying his football again. The supporter split was as follows. Two times Man United, one times Liverpool, three times Chelsea, one times Bolton, one times Oxford, two times Newcastle, one times Southampton, and one times I can't remember who he supported, one times not really into football.

27:13Is Jack Grealish the most unifying example of it's really nice to see him enjoying the football again of all time? Yeah, I think so. There are two scenarios here, Dave, for being happy to see someone enjoying their football. It's someone being released from their football prison, like Grealish allegedly was from Manchester City, or it's a player coming back from an injury hell. Are both valid? Yeah. And maybe also like David Brooks at Bournemouth who had cancer. If there's a particularly notable emotional off-field issue with illness or anything else like that, that obviously will come into this as well.

27:50But yeah, I think Grealish is a textbook example for this because he also just occupies that sort of place in modern English football. He's kind of the closest thing we've got to Gaza, really, in terms of sort of being a bit of a character off the field. People like him, people liking him to Gaza in that sense as well. I love the fact that this, you know, snowballed so much and so many people got involved. It's amazing. it's the sort of thing that if football cliches was a you know is still going in 10 years time and we hadn't heard about this we could have got this as a message you go do you remember that time when Jack Grealish signed for Everton and you know he was really enjoying his football well one night in the pub we all got talking about it and then every year since we've all met up on the same night and we've all become best friends one of them's a godfather to my to my child who's called jack someone should let greelish know nick that you know a small section of a pub were unified in their love for seeing him enjoying his football again and is he enjoying his football again has he has he played enough football for everton to be demonstrably enjoying his football again now this is the beauty of this is that there is this i think there's a window of probably a month to maybe two months where this is a football opinion is equally valid for any for any level of football knowledge at all as as this kind of yes this scenario suggests if you don't know if you vaguely heard of jack oh he's enjoying his football that's nice and then even people who will say well three games is far too small a sample size will work and just say well it looks like he's enjoying his football so that's fine but once you get beyond that people will start to like analyze his role in the Everton team and you know talk about his x a or what you know whatever it is so but but for for this limited period of time this is valid and perfect for anyone any kind of level of knowledge.

29:44Grilish is quite a candid fellow as well Dave so um that probably accelerates the looking like he's enjoying his football again because he quite openly said after his debut that he's really happy to be playing football again so I guess that kind of seals it. It does seal it yeah But there was a moment where the other day in the Wolves game, I don't know if it was maybe after the game or was it a celebration? But I think probably afterwards when he was over by the fans and some of them sort of called him over and were taking selfies with him. And it just did look for a second there where I wondered, maybe he wasn't enjoying that moment quite as much as we think.

30:20Because it was taking a little bit too long. There were a few too many arms around the shoulders. and he did it with good humour, but it did look quite annoying. I wondered about this as well because I think it must have been Everton or someone put it as a social clip of saying, the fans just don't want to let him go. And I was thinking, is that good? I mean, I'm sure they mean well, but it's... This just feeds into my overall impression of this. It's from the people in the pub, even the people who didn't like football, all the way to the Everton fans sort of gripping him at the Hill Dicko. We all own a piece of Jack Grealish, don't we?

30:54He is Gata all over again. We own him. He's ours, isn't he? So, yeah, maybe that kind of almost parental kind of aspect to it comes in. Can I make a sort of slightly supplementary point here? Yeah, sure. Watching Match of the Day in the pub. Yes. That feels weird. I don't know. If I am in the pub on a Saturday night, I sort of – and I don't know if this is like an age thing or whatever, but I sort of write that off as, well, I'm missing Match of the Day tonight. But if it's there, you're watching it, aren't you? You're glued to it. But if you go to the pub to watch a game on a Sunday or something like that, that feels right.

31:32That feels like I'm going to the pub to watch the game. But watching match... You don't go, I'm going to the pub to watch match of the day. No, I don't think they were all sat around watching it on the projector. They've got it on the blackboard outside. All the games listed in order. This could be a Weatherspoon situation where, you know, you're just all in the pub and because it's on BBC, someone stuck it on on one of the TVs with the sound off and it catches their eye and they remark upon it. I'd be really surprised if they're all sat round, you know, chairs pointed at the big screen. Oh, God.

32:05Can we get the sound on, please? Could you put on BBC One? Oh, no, you've gone too early. No, turn it off. Turn it off. They're doing the news. What a tangent that was, by the way. Right, let's move on. I had a quick check of listenfairplay.com about this. And to my surprise, I don't think we've covered this before. So man Johnster writes in Dave and says there was a double no right to X in the BBC commentary of Everton versus Brighton the other day. And indeed, I noticed that this was used for Dominic Shabozlai's free kick against Arsenal, which he had no right to score from there. So the question is, how many things do players have no right to do during a football match?

32:43So what's the number one thing that players have no right to do? Let's do it family fortune style. Score from there. Score from there. So specifically, score from a certain location. This might be a couple of places down the list, but if like a... I can't remember who the striker was, but when Ledley King chased the striker down. Oh, it was Arjen Robben, I think. It was Arjen Robben, yeah. He's got no right to get to him from there or no right to make that tackle. Absolutely spot on. So yeah, if you're looking at something like a 70-30 challenge or a challenge where someone's got to make up ground a la Ledley King just there, having no right to win that ball is definitely in there.

33:20How do you feel, Dave, about a goalkeeper having no right to make a save? He's got no right to make that save. Physical endeavour, sort of, or reflexes maybe. So it's a bit like scoring a goal, but for a goalkeeper. So I think the no right to threshold has been met. Yeah, I don't think it would be said for a dive. A reflex is like, it's too obviously a reflex and it's sort of too close. Maybe one where there was some distance to cover and they're sort of sliding across the goal low and sort of just blocking one of them. So the odds were against them, but they did the work to get there. I quite like that.

33:53Maybe a double save. What about that save? Remember that save that Jordan Pickford made against Colombia in the World Cup where he had to kind of, it was from so far out that he had to sort of run across the goal and then dive full length and tip it over the ball? Yeah, I mean, the Colombian player had no right to shoot from there in the first place. Oh my God, that was an amazing collision of rightless football. I mention saves because as soon as I was given this conundrum by Sir Man Johnster the words echoed in my head and I was desperately trying to remember where it was from and it was of course from one of my favourite football childhood VHS videos saves galore 1989-90 Worthington taking it on the run checking what's in the centre and David Hurst is arriving and Grobbler had no right to keep that out but he did that was just a point blank save Nick I think he had every right he was in the way that's his job yeah it's sort of i think he's got the wording right he's got no right to keep that out i think he's i think he's fit slightly better than no right to make that save but yeah okay in that situation he's if you would be annoyed that he hadn't made the save then that doesn't qualify as a kind of no right to make great logic great logic from you overall today nick you're having a good day you're having a good session thanks what is the threshold then for having no right to to shoot from there or score from there what's the distance we're talking about or angle do you know what yeah it's definitely an angle thing so i i think a diagram that i included in my latest book actually sums up the no right to score from their uh criteria which is essentially like a um angular gothic horseshoe around the penalty area it sort of it sort of gets its claws into the corner of the six yard box where it meets the meets the byline nick and then branches out all the way to about 30 yards 35 40 yards just just before the start the center circle and everything within the sort of enclosure of that gothic horseshoe is perfectly acceptable game you should be allowed to score from there you've got every right other than that it's no right in this graphic sort of ends around the center circle so there's a there's a point between this graphic and the halfway line so is that that's a completely different zone absolutely because if you think of you know the classic david beckham goal against wimbledon no one would ever say he's got no right to shoot from there no right to score from there because it's so far out um that it's actually quite outlandish because it's automatically audacious it's audacious like if anything it's sort of flipped around the other way where you know you take it take it on if you've got the balls basically there's no sort of nuanced reason why there's no right to score from there as if because also central to the no right to score from there or no right to shoot from their nick is teammates are in a better position it wasn't a great idea to shoot whereas with beckham it's kind of implied that you know obviously there are better options but he's gone for it anyway another thing i like about this graphic is the bits that are cutting into the into the penalty area on the side because that one of the ones that sprang to mind was that goal that carnew scored against chelsea from like a really tight angle yeah that that seems quite no right to score from there particularly as he kind of yeah he got it he get it got it like really really the corner flag didn't he and then draw past someone yeah that's the sort of attention to detail you get in uh extra time beckons penalties loom uh how to use and abuse the language of football which is out on paperback in mid-September.

37:06Right, we'll take another short break and we'll be back very soon.

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38:56welcome back to football cliches a reminder that you can sign up to our exclusive membership at dreamland.footballcliches.com. Episode six of Dreamland was out the other day. The glorious strength in depth of the language of football. Custodians, outfits, starlets, foot versus boot versus peg, want-away Swedes and the joy of football's elegant variation. We had great fun on this, Nick. I think it was very much our core mission of football cliches to get stuck into the language of football. And I think we nailed this very particular corner of it. Yeah, absolutely. It was my Dreamland debut and it was comprehensive as I hoped.

39:33Yeah, you enjoyed it. The look on your little face was a joy to behold. Dave, episode seven is going to be hot on the heels of episode six. We're going to take a comprehensive sideways look at this summer's transfer window. And unlike many other UK media powerhouses, we will respect the Turkish Super League transfer deadline before we publish. Of course. I mean, how could we not? Yeah, can't go too early with that sort of thing because you might get stuff wrong. anyway if you want to enjoy that and add free listening of all of our episodes plus other bits and bobs go to dreamland.footballcliches.com and sign up for just£5.99 a month now Nick if I said nicknames such as CR7 or R9 to you what sort of function are you going to say that they serve?

40:15pure social media possibly in the usernames of those weirdo accounts but less glamorously Dave it's more about sort of efficient expression of a player's identity right That's what they exist for, just being a bit snappier. For the attention deficit generation, basically. And also, it's a status thing as well. It's like you've earned your abbreviated initials and number status. Yes, absolutely. But obviously, as with many things like this, it started to kind of bleed into sort of semi-ironic mainstream usage. But here's one for you. Spurs youngster Will Lancashire has made a promising start on loan at Oxford.

40:52Two goals in his first four championship appearances. And Oxford tweeted out their mini tribute to him the other day, Nick, with WL27, which is 167 % more syllables than his actual name. I mean, I'm not against it because obviously they're just being fun. They're playing with it. But can you think of a possible abbreviation of a player's name and number that more exceeds the number of syllables in their name? Probably. That just sounds like a postcode. I suppose CR7 does as well. Yeah, CR7 must be a Croydon postcode, mustn't it? Yeah, it's probably one quite near my house. Yeah, there you go, CR7.

41:32Dave, in the prep for this segment, I got myself into a right mental dilemma about how many syllables there actually are in Will Lankshire's name. Is it Will Lankshire or Will Lankshire? Oh, yeah, is that sheer? Is that an extra syllable? I think it's just sheer. Will Lankshire. One, two, three. If it's Martin Tyler pronouncing it then. Will Lankshire! Lankshire! Harry Davis. Right, here's a conundrum of Derek Mahoud that I'd never considered before. I'm not sure either of you two have either. He says, I was at the Kilmarnock-Dundee match the other day. Quite early on, a Dundee defender had to go down the tunnel to get bandaged up and was off the pitch for about 10 minutes.

42:07A few minutes into this, the Dundee goalkeeper went down with, in my opinion, the fakest injury I've ever seen in an effort to minimise the time spent playing with 10 men. I think goalkeepers faking injury is quite a well-known phenomenon. However, I've always wondered whether they maintain the pretense to the physio or whether they tell them that they're faking and then the physio then knowingly pretends to treat their fake injury. I can't decide which scenario would be weirder. I wonder what you think. Nick, I mean, is there an ethical situation here for the physio? What would you have to do in that scenario?

42:37Yeah, some kind of Hippocratic oath problem. The physio's obliged to treat whatever he's told. So if the player says, oh, I think I've done some knee ligament injuries here, then they say well surgery it is you've got to come off but does it does it betray does it betray the hippocratic oath to pretend to treat an injury that doesn't exist i mean as long as you're qualified that's all right isn't it yeah i suppose you you yeah you you you issue the kind of the treatment you think is appropriate at the time yes and if if you think that this is not perhaps as serious an injury as uh as it might appear then you give the appropriate treatment and you you're clear yeah i think you can plausibly say that you just had to take full precautions Yeah, exactly.

43:21It's a prognosis situation, right? A diagnosis situation. You've got to do your best to ascertain whether they really are injured or not. Yeah. And there's so many injuries that are very easy to fake in this scenario as well. It's not like we need to see blood or twisted ankle. You know, cramp. Cramp will get you out of a lot of trouble in a lot of situations in this one. But obviously, you know, physios have seen a lot of football, Nick. They're sports literate. And of course, let's be honest, they're probably privy to some of these strategies anyway. so they probably know it's they know full well it goes on so when they arrive at this at the incident they're probably they are having to act out being a physio which is really funny this is a kind of uh i'm sorry to bring rugby into this but the the um bloodgate scandal part of the problem with that is that the the physios were all kind of in on it and they were complicit in the whole thing so i don't know maybe as a physio do you do you have to kind of go look whatever you're doing, don't get me involved in it.

44:20I just have to have plausible deniability here because it all kicks off. Dave, if I had to choose one physio-y thing to act out if I was coming on to treat a pretend injury, it would be to lay them down and then kneel down behind their head and then sort of feel their neck, you know, sort of get them into a kind of, well, we've got to take every precaution here, get them, make sure they don't move. We've got to check everything here. Why are you feeling my neck, mate? I've got cramp. Stick with it, all right? This is the longest delay we can get. I just went down holding my hammy. Surely the go-to is the bending of the leg, the knee.

44:56How does that feel? Is it all right? Maybe you can run it off then. Maybe you can run it off. You'll be fine. Do you think they have to also, depending on how, if they are on it, do they have to do that thing now where they speak to the bench on the mic? So they kind of, they look over to the bench and sort of press their ear like they're in the Secret Service and give a little update on it. And it's like, yeah, nothing to worry about. He's doing the faking thing. Yeah, it's fine. It's fine. Can one of you just sort of make some commotion with the fourth official, please? Just give us an extra 30 seconds.

45:25Well, you know, given the horror injuries that physios must have to face every now and then, this is probably the fun part of the job, pretending to do your job. So, yeah, Derek Mahoud, thank you for this one. Right, finally, this came from Tommy Rose. He says, there was a discussion on the latest Totally Football show about West Ham's team changes for the League Cup game against Wolves and whether they could be considered wholesale. My question is how many changes qualifies for that term? A minimum of five, maybe even six for me. First up, Nick, I put it to you that wholesale changes can't be thrust upon you.

45:58Wholesale changes are a manager's discretion. It's a rotational thing. You don't make wholesale changes because of injuries. Wholesale changes are because you want to make them. That's true. So do you then have to then factor that in? Let's say you make seven changes, let's say, but three of those are because of injury does that then dip the wholesale thing below a threshold five or six i'm not sure quite qualifies as the threshold i'm going i'm going like seven eight for for wholesale changes well to answer nick's first question dave i think as long as the majority of the changes are not enforced then you can lump the others in but you will have to say that they are have those two or three have been enforced and as for the threshold i think as long as it's more than half the team i.e six then that's wholesale right that's the majority of your team being changed now that you can make five substitutes in a game i think that feels a bit too few then to be you know even six feels a bit too few to be wholesale like you six changes is a lot it is yeah no it is but is it wholesale i think i think you need to i think wholesale needs to be would have to be all play every single player change wouldn't it yeah i want edging towards to 10 okay wow wow fucking hell i think there's also a situational kind of element to this as well because if if if it's like uh early rounds of the league cup kind of thing i don't think you can you can't say that like six or seven or maybe like six changes is wholesale because we're so used to premier league teams just playing a whole different team for those things but if it's like a manager is panicking you know you've lost a few games they're panicking they've changed of formation they've dropped the goalkeeper they're you know they're trying a new system or whatever it is then the threshold dips a little bit from that in that scenario i think you could say that like five would qualify as wholesale okay wow what to and fro this debate has been but i have enjoyed it thanks to tommy rose but anyway speaking of uh curmudgeonly resistance to things changing it's time for keys and gray corner

48:14Ford Super Sunday. Just one item for Keys and Grey Corner this week. Here are the gruesome twosome reacting to the resurgence of the long throw-in at top-level football, enabled in part by renowned throw-in coach Thomas Gronnemark, who you will not be surprised to know they do not take seriously whatsoever. But in summary, I think this might be the most muddled keys and grey reaction to a modern football development there has ever been. Talk about the game moving on. There's been a rash this year in the Premier League of long throws. I like that. You were very sceptical when I mentioned to you a couple of years ago that Liverpool were employing a throw-in coach.

48:55Yes, yes. I'll give you the facts and figures in a minute. Let's hear from him. Hi, it's Omoscona Mark, the throw-in coach. In this video I'll give you a four-step drill that will improve your own or your players' long throw-in.

49:14This season 2.4 long throw-ins per game as opposed to 1.7 last. These are the teams down here that have been utilizing it. It won't come as a surprise to see Manchester City haven't thrown the ball long once. Now Thomas Grunemark there, let me tell you. When he was at Liverpool, they won seven trophies. and he's quick to point that out. Seven trophies, including one title. He did. What he didn't say was, he wasn't there when Liverpool won 19 others. No. But he was... I mean, honestly, Keezy, I'm sorry. He was harsh. I'm sorry. Is this how you're supposed to do it? Yeah. Honestly, I'm flabbergasted, honestly.

49:54You should have told me you were putting this on. You really should. I mean... What would Tony Pulis... Dave Chaloner, who did it. I mentioned last week, Dave Chaloner was doing this for Tranmere when John Aldridge was the manager. Rory DeLapp. We were doing it 50 years ago. I mean, well, not quite 50, but 40 years ago. You were. We were. Right. I mean, there's so much going on here, Nick. I'll get onto the main crux of this in a moment. But first of all, can I just clarify that one of my favourite noises in the world is Keezy chuckling over the Doha air conditioning. it's got real asmr qualities for me

50:40because of rages as well that bloody air conditioning absolutely mad how is that a professional broadcaster still doing that but what blows my mind about this nick is obviously they're programmed to say okay they said we couldn't broadcast in summer but nick um they are programmed to to suggest that every new development football is is part of a cyclical thing in football and we've seen it all before but the thing about long throwings is they're coming back like there's been no insinuation from anybody that long thrones have been invented not least by thomas gronemaque himself he's not claiming to have invented the long fro he's just he's just channeled his expertise into one element which is a modern football development to granularise coaching.

51:25That's no problem. But the bit where this really gathers pace is towards the end where it says, what would Tony Pulis make of this? Tony Pulis would think that's a brilliant idea. Yes. And bringing up De Lapp is one of the worst examples you could because as someone who relatively recently wrote a piece about Rory De Lapp's long throws, they thought about it a lot and they were really careful about where they position players in the penalty area to kind of maximise the whole thing. and they were obviously such a huge thing was made of the trajectory of the throw and all that kind of thing. Presumably in Andy Gray's worldview the throw in you shouldn't just think about it just throw it in and not really think about it but that's exactly what Tony Pulis and Stoke did they thought about it a lot and they very carefully planned this all out and they were incredibly successful with it.

52:12I just I don't know what to make of this Dave I think it's it's sensational kind of autopilot kind of reaction to something but they just haven't thought it through at all. It's such a strange thing for them to be annoyed about because, you know, they should love long throws. Yeah. Like it fits in with their worldview. And what would Tony Pulis do, Kesey? If Thomas Gronomar was active back then, I'm sure he would have probably brought him in. Like, and there's a, there's a, they, they laugh. The bit where Kesey starts laughing is when Gronomar is, is sort of on the screen, sort of side, side on.

52:47And someone's filming him showing you the technique, his four step process to getting your throw-ins better. And it's like, what's wrong with that? It is the basics, but also, as we've discussed many times before, taking a throw-in, even if you're a professional, taking throw-ins is hard. Yeah, it hurts. Just learning some simple techniques to make yourself better at throw-ins is a good thing. This isn't kind of pro-licence alchemy. It's just teaching someone to throw a ball further. I can't believe it. The derision that they've had for this, and the bit, Nick, where they say, well, he won one title with Liverpool, but he conveniently forgets they won another 19.

53:27Don't pin it on him. What is this all about? Oh, dear. The other thing I liked is the graphic on the screen was a feature from the Daily Mail, which I like to think Keyes just took a screenshot of that from his iPad and just sent it to the graphics department. Just throw that up. Just throw that up. They'll be fine. I don't know what their standpoint is on this, actually, after all this. I'm completely confused, but it's just a magical slice of Keyes and Grey. Thanks to you, Nick Miller. Thank you very much. Thanks to you, Dave Walker. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for listening. We're going to be back on Thursday with the latest Football Clichés quiz.

54:02Join us then.