The 9.75 role, Tom Hiddleston's Champions League mindset & the Faroese Andy Gray

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, he fell! Brilliant! For G! He's round the goalkeeper, he's done it! Absolutely incredible! He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was eyewhip without a shadow of a doubt giving him lip. Oh, I say! It's amazing! He does it tame and tame and tame again. Crank up the music! Charge a glass! This nation is going to dance all night!

0:43Charlie Eccleshare:The universal European hand gesture for turning up the TV volume to hear the commentary. Daniel Sturridge on 9.75s. Did Arsenal roar or edge past Atletico Madrid? Beckham and his very accommodating friends. The celebration policing gets way ahead of itself. The Faroese Andy Gray, children's TV puppets in third-tier women's playoffs, an evening with Eden Hazard and Ricky Lambert, and Richard Keyes' latest typo. Brought to your ears by Goalhanger Podcasts, this is Football Clichés.

1:17Charlie Eccleshare:Hello everyone and welcome to Football Clichés. I'm Adam Hurry, this is the midweek adjudication panel. Joining me on that panel first of all, all the way from Rome, it's Charlie Eccleshire. How are you doing? Very well, thank you. Alongside you, David Walker. How are things? Things are good. Excellent. Charlie, you watched the Arsenal Atletico game in a bar in Rome. You told us that you experienced the rare joy of having to ask for the volume to be turned up and the bar owner obliged. And what's the hand signal for turn up the volume, please, barman? Sort of like the sort of raise it, the lift it gesture.

1:54I didn't use that. I did use sort of like, I use sort of muddled English. I mean, it was totally pointless. The commentary was in Italian anyway. It's not like I could understand it. You still need it. But it was just like, it's a vibe. You know, you want it. You need it. You feel like that's what you're there for, right? There was music playing. I was like, come on. You need to hear the fans, you know, as well as the commentary. Just the general ambience. But I think I would have gone with the dial. I think I might have. Oh, okay. You might want to change the channel, though. I was thinking like one of those sort of sliders that you get on like a...

2:28music production board. Yeah. Moving it up and down. Yeah, maybe. Okay, well.

2:32Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah. They all apply. Might have changed it to some dreadful Saudi league or something. Okay, let's start at the Emirates then with Arsenal versus Atletico Madrid. Pre-match, Amazon Prime's Daniel Sturridge on Julian Alvarez. His positioning is so good. Such a calm player. I look at him as a nine and a half, not a traditional number nine. I think he's a nine and a half slash ten. The areas which he drifts into is Linkoppe is very good, seamless in fact. Love this level of granularity now, Dave. Jamie from the Discord asked, Daniel Sturridge has called Julian Alvarez a 9.5 slash 10. Does that make him a 9.75?

3:06Charlie Eccleshare:Well, this actually quite suits Julian Alvarez because he's not, I wouldn't call him a 9.5 necessarily. I think he's got a striker's build and a striker's technique, but the sort of increasingly seems to have the instincts of a 10, but not quite enough. So a 9.75 would quite like for this. Yeah. Yeah, I don't mind a 9.75. I guess it is the next logical step because nine and a half is, you've heard quite a lot of nine and a half, haven't we, in the last however many years. It's an accepted thing, I suppose, almost. Like coaches will talk about it as well as pundits. So yeah, the day that Pep or Tukul or someone talks about a 9.7 fame.

3:44Charlie Eccleshare:Charlie, this is just another piece of evidence of sort of tactical saturation point, isn't it? We're finding the little cracks, aren't we? Yeah, I mean, because nine and a half has been around for a little while and has, I think, reached overuse. So, yeah, I guess this is the natural frontier. Was there, I mean, they'll then, obviously, by extension, there'll be a 9.25. Who's a 9.25? Someone who's, so that's not quite a 9, but closer to a 9 than a 10. So someone who does a bit more than just number 9 stuff. Well, dropping back to defend every now and then. Dominic Calvert-Lewin? Yeah, maybe. Maybe as he gets a bit older, he starts drifting slightly back.

4:23He's a 9.25. Listeners, get in touch with your 9.25s that are really interested in this and other fractional places, even though we've done those already.

4:31Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, the method of Arsenal's progression. Fractional? Decimal? Is it the same thing? Yeah, no, no, it's not the same thing and you're right to pick up on it. A bit early for this, but yeah, still. Dave, the method of Arsenal's progression, please, because there's some subtle disagreement amongst the media discourse. The iNews says Arsenal roar into first Champions League final in 20 years. most other people went with Arsenal edge both edging into the final and edging out Atletico Madrid it was more of an edging wasn't it definitely on the pitch and edging you know that in contrast to the to the fireworks that we saw in the game last week between Bayern and PSG it was there was a pleasing level of tension in this game I think in terms of are that you know they got the goal and they held on and it was you could sort of feel the nerves in the stadium but without it being too much of a nervy game, if that makes sense.

5:22But I think the final whistle scenes, there certainly was a lot of roaring post-match. Yeah, that's true. They were literally roaring, the players, at the end. But I think in terms of the football, more of an edging. Could there be something else, though? Is edging quite do it?

5:37Charlie Eccleshare:Well, that's what I was going to ask Charlie, because I feel like, Charlie, edging doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. I don't think it means that they got through by the skin of their teeth or anything. like that. Edging, if anything, is good semi-final behaviour, isn't it? Especially against the likes of Atletico Madrid. Yeah, it's kind of classic Champions League two-leg fair. I mean, battle passed because, you know, it was kind of there was kind of tension in it. Yeah, I don't mind edge in this situation. Have they marched on? No, I'm not having a march. I mean, they have progressed, so it can so easily, Dave, be called a march.

6:13Charlie Eccleshare:But I think if they won 2-0, I wouldn't have mind a march, would you? Yeah, yeah. It's probably not quite right, is it? Richard Keyes got involved in the celebrations. Charlie. Offering his congratulations to brilliant Arsenal. Well done. But accompanied it on all platforms with an AI-generated photo of some generic Arsenal players celebrating in their dressing room with some confetti falling from the ceiling. Really proud of this image and posted it everywhere. Why? It's so baffling, yeah. I mean, it's terrible. it's like the sort of thing yeah we would laugh at in a kind of generic you know football imagery section very strange i mean just on that topic as well fabrizio romano does these ai generated things with his stories as well and he did one day with arteta it was this thing about did you see this it was arteta might be signing a new deal so he's generated an image of arteta kind of signing it but there's like he's in a boardroom and there's flames all around him it's really weird in a way that suggests he's like set the club on fire like it's the sort of thing you'd normally see with like you know that that meme of like everything's fine and there's flames all around it's really odd i don't know i mean i guess he's suggesting that like the team are on fire it's like you've burnt the boardroom down when you're signing your new deal this this doesn't look great i guess it's some sort of twisted reference to the the on fire thing from a few weeks ago or whatever but yeah they're they are crap but going back to kesey i mean i'm quite interested he's discovered i assume it's his chat gbt or whatever but um you know what else we're going to see from him.

7:42This is just the first. This is just the first case. How far is it going to go? But also, I'm quite interested to think of what his prompt would be and how he would interact with an AI bot. Do you think he'll be polite? Do you think he'll talk to it like it's a person? I think... Great question. I think maybe he typed in, I'd like to see what all the fuss is about, please. Hello.

8:09Charlie Eccleshare:An inevitable byproduct of the celebrations after this game, Dave, was the Celebration Police discourse. As Jack Pitbrook neatly summed it up, who polices the Celebration Police police police? And inevitably, this sort of stuff does tend to kind of turn on itself a little bit. But what I think here, because this must be what the sixth or seventh iteration of the Arsenal Celebration Police situation, and it's got very knowing. I feel like everybody already was equipped for their side of the discourse, even before it had begun. And I don't like it when discourse gets to that stage, when everyone is basically ready to say what they want to say, regardless of the specifics.

8:44Charlie Eccleshare:So it got really knowing really quickly. So I think we've definitely exhausted this by now and perhaps at the right time to. Yeah, it's boring, really. I was a bit disappointed in Wayne Rooney for sort of leading the charge on this on Amazon Prime. Didn't need to. Because he's better than that, actually, Rooney. You know, I did have a mind. I was thinking back to myself. I wonder what the celebrations looked like when Man United got to the 2011 Champions League final, whatever it might be. Probably not quite as joyous as Tuesday for various reasons. One, just because maybe things have moved on a bit.

9:22Two, it's 20 years since Arsenal. This obviously is a significant achievement in Arsenal's history in a way that it wouldn't be for a team that's used to getting to these sorts of finals.

9:31Charlie Eccleshare:Big test of Charlie's memory here. Charlie, did Manchester United's path to the 2011 Champions League final feature a second leg away or second leg at home? Because this is crucial. I'm pretty sure a second leg at home, but it was a complete non-event. I think they battered Schalke, someone like that. I think Schalke were like a surprise semi-finalist and it was very comfortable. But yeah, I guess a more similar situation would be them getting to the final in 99. Obviously, that was a way at Juve, but that was like they'd been trying so hard. This was like the holy grail and they'd finally got there.

10:01That's interesting, though. You mentioned that Rooney did that, Dave, because I sort of missed that and was kind of like, who is policing this? Because it didn't seem to me like anyone other than Rooney really was saying that they shouldn't be. Like, as you say, people are so keen to kind of jump and have this reaction. But I don't feel like many were saying that they were. Most people, I think, just didn't say anything or were just like, yeah, fair enough. They're pretty happy. Talk sport got into it a lot. I think Agbon Lahore did the whole thing. So they're doing it in a different way. It's low-hanging fruit for them.

10:34Charlie Eccleshare:As we know, Charlie, all roads lead to somebody interviewing a sports psychologist about something. The BBC spoke to Bradley Bush, a chartered sports psychologist, and he said that the collective celebration for Arsenal indicated a very healthy team and squad mindset. Thank you, Bradley Bush. But he says the technical phrase that is used in research for this is known as emotional contagion, which basically says behaviours and attitudes and unity can spread and ripple through the team. It's good to have this sort of scientifically rubber stamped as good, isn't it? Dan Abrams was unavailable, was he?

11:07So that's go for Bradley Bush. I thought Abrams was the only man on this topic. So that's good to know.

11:14Charlie Eccleshare:Dave, obviously inevitable accusations of smugness amongst the Arsenal fan base. And rightly so, they fully deserve their smug status. But I'm not sure it gets smugger at a DNA level than Tom Hiddleston, who was, of course, on Beckham and Friends for the occasion. I think I'm done with Tom Hiddleston. somewhere between Tom Hiddleston and Charlie's impression of Tom Hiddleston. My skin crawled off too far and that's it. Here is Tom Hiddleston on Beckham and Friends, asking David Beckham the most actor on Beckham and Friends question to David Beckham. It's possible to ask. Well, can I ask you a question?

11:48So I was thinking on the way here, Arsenal have got five games of football to play. And after those five games, they could be Premier League champions and Champions League champions. Just five. And when you're preparing yourself as a player, are you aware of that figure or are you like one game at a time? Don't get too excited by life you haven't lived yet. You don't think about what's going to happen. You think about whatever game you're going into. This is one of the recurring strands of this, Dave. I think I've got an interesting one for you, David. I don't think you've been asked this one before.

12:29Is it one game at a time, David, basically? Come on, Tom. You can dress it up, son, but this one's been asked before. Oh, God. It's so hard listening to him speak. Everything is just so deliberate. And if they get him on for the final, I certainly won't be watching CBS Sports Galato, I'll be telling you that right now. I really thought Bex was going to go with a bit of both as well. It would have been the perfect way to deal with that. We'll get back onto that in a second. Let's move over to Bayern versus PSG now. Yeah, Beckham and friends were back at it on Wednesday night,

12:58Charlie Eccleshare:nailing their remit of explaining things to American actors. I asked Cole if he'd managed to see the first leg. He didn't get to see the first leg. If you had to describe it to him, how would you describe it? One of the best footballing games in the history of the game.

13:16Now, Charlie, this isn't us going down the David Beckham doesn't speak very well route. This is David Beckham having to just sort of encapsulate football in terms that a Hollywood actor, in this case, Cole Hauser of Yellowstone, can sort of digest. And I think this is where the programme really falls down. That's so good. One of the best games in the history of the game. Footballing games. One of the best footballing games. The footballing is the bit that really tips it over the edge for me. Well, maybe it was, you know, just in terms of football style. Maybe that's what he means rather than the inherent drama of it.

13:49but oh god that whole thing is just torturous just the setting of it and everything is just so i mean we've said it before but utterly sycophantic like ludicrously so but i in having said all of that i want more of it now why is there fire on

14:07Charlie Eccleshare:right charlie the method of paris saint germain's progression here um i don't feel like they did anything to bayern over the two legs necessarily after the second i think the second leg takes precedents so I don't think they did anything to buy and I think they simply booked their place I think this was a classic booking of a place it's also a hard one because Kane's goal was so late so had they had they won 6-4 an aggregate like had they had that two goal cushion it wouldn't have been an eased but it would have been a sort of you might put it in that category of you know they did it with you know a word like that to get across the minimum of fuss because it kind of would have been obviously then there's the late goal and it's only a one goal aggregate win you can't do that but it's also it's not an edging you know it wasn't tense because there was never there was no chance that they were ever uh not going to go through um so yeah yeah but but yeah but their place is quite is it's quite good for it it got to the stage as it has happened with lots of games at the elite level charlie it got to the stage i was really really bored of watching michael elise cut in from the right and luis diaz cut in from the left as i please try something else like as a almost complete neutral in this circumstance i got so agonized by watching this happen and it not work was your is your frustration as well partly from that feeling of like the iron robin thing of like you know he's doing it you know just stop him it shouldn't be this hard a little bit but i think it was just a pure aesthetic level i just thought can you just please do something else i need to see a footballer do something else and in the end they fed it into Kane's feet, he turned and scored.

15:38Just do that! Should have done that before! Now, midway through this game, Dave, I thought the status was sealed for the most frequently shot messenger in football, and that is Dale Johnson of the BBC, the poor bloke. He got this tweet saying, go on then, Dale, explain that non-hand ball, especially in relation to the two shockers given last week in the reverse fixtures. It's like he's having to be the mouthpiece for the laws of the game. Well, yeah, a position which, to be fair, he's very much carved out for himself. So he is there to be shot at to a degree. But he, I mean, yeah, he's a curious figure in that he can sort of be used for whatever you want him to be used for.

16:22Depending on your position on VAR and your allegiance in the game, you can either use Dale Johnson as an annoying way to try and prove a really pernickety point or the other way and say, look, this bloke's banging on about it again. It's a load of nonsense. Charlie, it's funny that we've got to the point where knowing all the laws of the game is somehow uncool. Like it makes you part of the kind of robot refereeing force. Yeah. I mean, you become that sort of mouthpiece, don't you? Or just a kind of, you know, you're on their payroll. You're just sort of protecting them. And it is annoying that because, you know, it does just expose the fact that it does.

16:58there are times when the laws, such as they are, do seem to come into conflict with what we just sort of know should be the case, kind of thing. And even yesterday with this handball incident, when the PSG player has fired it against his own player, there were people screenshotting different pages of the laws back to him and saying, no, no, that isn't the right thing. And he's going back to going, I can assure you it is.

17:23Charlie Eccleshare:And it's just the whole thing is just like, what are we doing here? Fair play, though. I didn't know. I don't think I did know that that wasn't a penalty. That was an exemption like automatically. So it's like, it's mad that we all just don't know the full laws of the game. Obviously, they change a little bit every year. Of course. But just on those two. So on that penalty handball decision last night and the one last week that got given against Bayern. I was talking about this last night and just from a footballing point of view, I forget about the laws for a second. I actually, it felt like more people thought that last night's defender hitting it into his own teammate.

18:02People thought that should have been a penalty more so than the one last week where Alphonso Davies tries to block the cross, but it deflects into his arm. Now, I know the deflection is like the big thing, but just in terms of like the spirit of the game and like what's actually happening, I think last week was more worthy of a penalty because even if it's accidental, the defender has blocked a cross going into the box. was last night. It's more of a freak thing. And the guy's like, oh, he's trying to get out of the way.

18:26Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, yeah. No advantage has been gained either unwittingly or otherwise. So yeah, I do agree. I think the laws of the game broadly do fit the ethos like that, but we get so stuck in the tiny weeds of it. And I do understand why people get angry about it. But yeah, we do now have our lineup for the final, Charlie. Do you think this might be the ultimate clash of styles, build up coverage final? I think that's what we're going to be completely obsessed by for the next three weeks. Yeah, it is. It's really going to be the sort of attack versus defence to contrasting philosophies. You know, this will tell us whether it's better to be good at attacking or be good at defending.

19:03It will end that debate forever.

19:05Charlie Eccleshare:Also, Dave, some absolute things that are going to be ticked off here. We're going to have endless how will the final be won, which I don't mind, actually. It's a certain strand of preview content that I will abide. But how key matchups is this final, by the way? This is a very key matchups final. Big night for Ben Wyatt against Kravitz Gellier. I think that one's going to have a lot of focus on it. And on the other side, you know, Saka against Nuno Mendes. So there are, you know, genuinely, there are some good matchups. But I have heard already, like even before last night's game, when Arsenal went through, you had a lot of commentators and people saying, well, you know, I mean, if any team could stop PSG, it could be Arsenal.

19:42Like maybe Arsenal are the sort of team that can stop this sort of team.

19:44Charlie Eccleshare:Yeah, it's a very, very plausible scenario, Charlie, that we get the juggernaut is stopped and completely contained and all their danger men are completely stifled. We've seen this in football before and we already know that Arsenal are good at it anyway, but I feel like this is a narrative that I feel like should be the number one go-to for the moment. I think so. There was also quite a funny thing where Saka said in an interview something like, well, you all know who we want to face deep down. And it was kind of like, people weren't really sure. I mean, it's been interpreted as like, is that a kind of revenge against PSG from last season?

20:18But normally those are more obvious when they're said by players. Normally that's because it's like, you know, there's clear unfinished business. I guess you could argue there in this case or that they're obviously big rivals or something like that. But it's kind of like, not sure that is that obvious. He lost games of table tennis against Harry Kane at an England camp once and he wants to settle the score. But he doesn't realise that anybody's in love.

20:37Charlie Eccleshare:But the big narrative of this final, Dave, and this came from Bill Edgar of the Times, he says Arsenal versus PSG would be the first European Cup slash Champions League final between clubs from different capital cities since Ajax versus Panath and Icos in 1971. That's mad! That is mad! How on earth have we avoided this situation for so long? It is a bit mad. I guess, I think, what was it? There's a book by Simon Cooper that I read years and years ago. And there was a chapter in it about how a lot of the capital cities aren't that, generally speaking, are weirdly not as good as you should think they should be.