MNC: Dowman’s Delight, Man Utd’s Climb & Chelsea Charges

24:15He's on for 10 minutes and you're chasing the game. So I think it's never to be led by it, but to be informed enough to be able to make decisions. And also certain players, like, I would have a feeling about someone being more effective on the left side, but actually they're better on the right side than they are on the left. But they're a bit more exciting playing. We had a winger, a right-footed winger at one of my clubs where I thought on the left he looked so dangerous, on the right it was less effective. And then we looked at the data, it was way more productive on the right side. He just doesn't go past people as much because he wants to cross early.

24:43So it's interesting. So I think that to inform you, and also you need to know what you're looking for. Maybe Ruben would judge Fernandes' performance way different to Michael would. What's important to one manager is very different to another. So I think you have to be really clear on what you're measuring performance as well.

25:00Dale Johnson:From a small village on the banks of the River Nile... Everybody call me Mohamed, but, you know, short name or nickname, they call me Mo. ...to the biggest stages of world football. Goes for the corner! Mo Salah! Salah is more than just a player. He's an icon, a symbol, a king. It's 6-0! And Salah rips off his shirt! Mohamed Salah represents a dream for Egyptians, for Muslims, for Africans. More than just a football player, he gave us hope. I'm Kelly Cates. This is Sporting Giant's Mo Salah. Listen on BBC Sounds. This is the Monday Night Club with Mark Chapman. On the Football Daily Podcast.

25:47Russell Martin, Chris Sutton, Rory Smith on the Monday Night Club. Who's going to win the Scottish Premiership title, Chris? Well, I don't know. Not a clue.

25:55Chris Sutton:I said, no, I'm going to stick with Hearts. I'm going to stick with Hearts. They had their blip against Kilmarnock at the weekend. I mean, you can lose to Kilmarnock. Hearts didn't start the game particularly well. The reason I'm going to stick with Hearts is my sources are telling me Shankland's not far away, Lauren Shankland and Cammie Devlin, and they've missed Shankland, especially at the top end of the pitch. and I think everybody will beat everybody else from now until the end of the season, especially after the split. I just think that's going to happen. If you look at the goal difference with the, I mean, I think Motherwell are out of it now.

26:34Chris Sutton:Celtic beat them at the weekend and then they lost to Dundee the previous week, but the goal difference is all pretty tight. So I'm going to say, yeah, still Hearts. Let me give you the table. Hearts 63, Celtic 61, Rangers 60, Motherwell now on 53. there is virtually nothing in the goal difference either. Hearts and Rangers have the same goal difference. Celtic, three worse off. They're 24. Hearts and Rangers are 27. I genuinely don't know how you're going to answer this. How do you view it? I don't know. Whatever I say now will get sensationalised tomorrow morning in the Scottish papers. So I'm going to sit on the fence.

27:09What I would say is, I think Derek McKinnis and Hearts have had an amazing season. I think that Celtic fans and Rangers fans will consider themselves very lucky that they're still in with a title chance, considering they both feel they've had really poor seasons. One of them's all my fault, obviously. But apart from that, I generally think it's such an interesting season. I think the heart's shaking it up a little bit. It's been really good. I don't know if you agree, Chris, but I think it's good for Scottish football as a whole. When people are talking about it way more, mother well, the way that they've played and approached it differently under Jens, it's brought a bit of interest and the level of excitement about it.

27:45I don't think it's been there for a while. And yeah, people would say it's because the old firm haven't quite been at the level they've used to been at, especially Celtic over the last few years. But the emergence of Motherwell and Hearts this season, I think it's been really good for the game up there.

27:57Chris Sutton:Yeah, absolutely. Motherwell, we've spoken about many times. Their style of play, I mean, even at the weekend against Celtic, the way the game panned out, I mean, Motherwell go to Celtic Park. They edged the possession as one all, and then Celtic, it was a penalty and a red card. I do think that when Dazer Maeda would have headed the ball in. And Celtic, I mean, the remarkable thing about Celtic under Martin O 'Neill is they just keep finding a way to win Russell. And they're not playing good football at all. It's not like a Celtic team of previous seasons where they play teams off the park, dominate possession, dominate every area.

28:39Chris Sutton:it's been a real struggle for them so which is why it's fascinating and Rangers have sort of they're not a particularly good watch either but they've found a way to get over the line especially recently and even the game at the weekend against St Mirren a poor St Mirren team Rangers 1-0 up at half time and then it's a heavy weather of it and that's the story of the season which is why it will go down to the wire The easy thing for someone down south to say Russell is that the pressure has to be on Hart because they've led for so long. But that doesn't take into account that the pressure is always on the old firm, presumably.

29:17Oh, yeah, because it's so close. And then there's pressure on the old firm always. Chris knows this, no matter what the situation, no matter what the game. But I know it sounds crazy, but I do think Hart's have less pressure than the other two right now. I think maybe because of the season they've had and they've been up there for so long, people say, oh, no, the pressure's all on them. but I think they can probably play on the underdog thing from now to the end of the season. I don't know, maybe Derek's playing it the other way and no, we've been here for a long time, we deserve to be here so we need to stay here.

29:45Also, maybe there's a bit of the psychology of, well, no one expected this apart from us so we'll keep surprising everyone. And that's what I meant. The old firm both have a chance to win the league and the fans have been so frustrated and disappointed with their seasons. So it's a really interesting and unique season and I really don't know which way it's going to go. as well as I don't want to be all over the papers in the morning up there. But I just don't know which way it's going to go. I really don't because each week it sort of changes. And like Chris said, no one's really in flow. There doesn't seem to be a team that's really playing at the peak of their powers.

30:19So it's an eight-game season and it's going to be really, really exciting. I think there's a lot of twists and turns and you could easily see it going to either one of those teams. Rory, are you looking quizzical? Yeah, that's my natural resting face. Yeah, I think it's, my instinct is the same as Russell is alluding to, which is that you do think basically Harts will be under pressure because they've got less experience of being there. It's, you know, 40 years since anyone not Celtic and Rangers won the title. It's even longer for Harts. There'll be nervousness at Tynecastle. They know this is an opportunity.

30:54But then the pressure that both Celtic and Rangers operate under all of the time is probably just as oppressive in the wrong moments because both of those clubs now will think, well, we could win this because the other one's not very good. And I still don't know to what extent either of them are really thinking about, well, hearts are the favourites, especially now that the gap has closed because they regard themselves as favourites. I think, to be slightly careful, I don't want to say anything offensive to Russell about Rangers in any way, but I wonder whether that kind of applies to Rangers.

31:23I've heard it all, mate. You crack on. You're fine. I'm literally can't offend me anymore about this, so it's fine. but Rangers, I wonder whether they've not really done it. Don't take that as a challenge, Chris, by the way. By the way, I lost one league game. We didn't win in that, but we lost one. But how many of that Rangers squad have been in this position? I was going to say that. In Scotland? Martin O 'Neill and Sean Maloney have been there, won it between them so many times and Callum McGregor and the Celtic guys having had the experience of winning it, I think it could be really, really important.

31:57I think that in the Championship as well, I still think, part of me thinks Ipswich will do it because of the experience of Kieran doing it and the players that have. What, overhaul Coventry? No, I think that's a second. Or just get into it, yeah. I think Middlesbrough are fantastic and I've enjoyed watching them probably more than anyone in the Championship this year. Look at my sidetrack to the Championship away from the SBI. But no, it was unintentional. But genuinely, I think the experience, and Chris will know because he's won more than all of us put together, but the importance of when we were in the Championship with Norwich the second time after we got relegated, because we had so many players who had done it before, we almost felt like, we'll do it.

32:31We know what it takes. When it comes, the other teams, they'll start feeling it a bit more. And we've been there, we've done it, we know what it takes. And I think if you have that in your building, which Celtic do in an abundance, maybe it gives you a little bit of edge. Maybe it does. Maybe, Chris, there's actually less pressure on Martin O 'Neill in all of this.

32:47Chris Sutton:Well, I think that's the biggest point. Celtic fans, their direction of anger, that will not be in Martin O 'Neill's. Whatever happens. They won't be pointing to Martin O 'Neill as the reason. And from Hearts, I think Hearts are really difficult to measure because I know it's so easy to just say, well, they haven't been there for 40 years, whatever it is. So the pressure's off. I don't necessarily think it is amongst the Hearts fan base. You see the manager, Derek McInnes, in recent weeks, he seems to be getting a bit uptight. So I think that maybe he's feeling the pressure a little bit. But I still think that Hearts, all season, they've found a way to win games.

33:41Chris Sutton:They're not a beautiful football team. Derek McInnes' teams have never been essentially beautiful, but they are well-structured. he knows what he's doing Derek McInnes does in the way that he sets his team up he knows the Scottish League inside out Danny Roll at Rangers I think he's had too much to say for himself in recent times I think the defeat against Celtic in the Cup was I know you're shaking your head I'm just telling you Danny Roll opened his mouth and was telling Celtic how they should have played in Europe and this is coming from a guy whose record in Europe was pretty down And I think Rangers fans, actually, that's sort of ramped up the pressure on Danny Roll, because I think Rangers fans are thinking, why don't you just keep your mouth shut, Danny?

34:26Chris Sutton:Why are you getting involved in telling Martin O 'Neill how he should play? And it's OK. It's OK if you're seeing games through at Ibrox against Celtic and 2-0 up and they win that. It's OK if you knock Celtic out of the cup. But he didn't. And in many respects, people are thinking, well, Danny Roll's eye has been taken off the ball. So, you know, the pressure sort of ranked up on Rangers as well now. Is there a risk that if Celtic do win it, it kind of papers over some fairly glaring cracks? Yeah, I mean, if Celtic win the league this season, they'd have done it without a centre forward. Think about that.

35:03Chris Sutton:You know, I think Celtic have used five different centre forwards. And, I mean, in recent times, Martin O 'Neill's making a substitution at half time, changing, you know, changing that position. I mean, that's pretty incredible in itself. if you look at the number of goals, I think Celtic were 112 goals last season, something like that. I don't know if they've got this, 58, whatever it is, this season. Numbers-wise, they are massively down to what they were last season. And it's staggering. And there will be, I think, a thought process if Celtic do get over the line this season. I mean, I think they'll be laughing at the opposition, really, because it's been a poor Celtic side, in truth.

35:49How do you reflect on your time there, now, sitting here? I don't regret anything. I think I've learned a lot. I'll definitely be better for it. I love Glasgow as a city. I love living there. The people face-to-face were fantastic. And I think it was character building. It was really, do you know what? it was really difficult for the people around me. So family, friends, genuinely, like when my kids came up, they couldn't come to the game because of the level of abuse I was receiving at that point, and it was quite early on. But like when you look back at it, you learn from everything, right? So there's stuff that you would do differently.

36:36There's stuff that you would insist on maybe doing the same and maybe even going even more, being even stronger with that. but I think it's probably, there was so much change. So I walked into the club at a time of new owners, literally been in there I think two weeks when I came in, new director of football, chief exec, new head of performance, new head coach, 14 new players. So I think I, and I tried to stress a lot that it probably would take some time. So that's my fault because I was in a place where historically and traditionally you don't really have time. So I don't like, I don't feel bitter about it at all.

37:14Do you feel hurt? I'd have loved the time to have built something and I felt that was what the club needed was a bit of that. But the owners decided differently and they made a decision. And also, I was frustrated. I think the biggest thing I am from that is probably frustration. There was so many small things that we could have probably done a little bit better and just taken more... I should have been a bit more rigid with formation and certain principles, really. And I sort of tried to bend and flex to fit the newness of the group. And we had so many young players that we brought into the club.

37:54And it's not excuses. We should have done a better job than we did. And we should have won more games. But we felt like we were going to get somewhere with it. But we had so many young players that had just come in. And Chris will tell you, it's such a unique environment playing for Rangers or Celtic. The level of expectation. So take people like Manny Fernandes from Peterborough, going from Peterborough in League One to Rangers and playing in front of that crowd all of a sudden. It's a completely different experience. And he's flying now. Yeah, and he's been brilliant. And Kevin Fell, Dan Purdy, and myself, and we sat down and we wanted to sign.

38:26We saw the match boots, but we also knew he might not play in the first couple of months. It maybe takes some time to get to that point. Mike, him all the same. Outrageous talent, amazing kid. We signed him because he really wanted to be part of that and experience something big. and then you get on the pitch the first few games because we just spoke about Max Downman at Spurs. He was the guy that'd come off the bench, maybe make something happen, and then he was coming to Rangers and now you need to be the guy that makes something happen. And for us, I'm trying to work out the best way to do that in that team.

38:53And it's no surprise to me that he's gone on and done brilliantly. So yeah, there's loads of frustration for me as a coach and a manager and a leader, but ultimately it's always your fault, the manager. So it's my fault. It's my fault I didn't do well enough and you learn from it and I'll be better for it for sure. How crucial is your choice of next job? You will have, I'm guessing, quite a lot of different criteria to throw into the mix in choosing your next job. I think so, yeah. I've turned a few things down since I left Rangers. And partly because I have to... Football's so quick to move on.

39:30So your stock can go from so high to so low so quickly. So I think for me, and also probably I'm pretty much a yes or a no straight away for a club owner or a director of football because of the way I play. Or I want the team to play. So some will go, it doesn't fit us. We don't want that. And then the ones that maybe do, you really need to check if they really want it. Does that make sense if you really want this? Because it might not be instant, but if you give us a little bit of time, the audience suggests we might do okay. So I think for me, yeah, it has to be. and also I went to MK Dons because of Pete the Gem and gave me the opportunity he was an incredible guy and was brave to appoint me I left to go to Swansea when I was so happy at MK because Swansea is one of the clubs I thought do we get an opportunity to go somewhere that is like aligned with us in terms of their ideal football and how they've been successful the way they got to the Premier League playing a certain way and then left Swansea when I was so happy there with the staff the players what we were building but for Jason Wilcox because he believed so much he was the director of football at Southampton who's now at Manchester United.

40:31He believes so much in a certain way. And when we spoke about football, I was like, OK, this is the guy I want to work with and now I'll go again. And then when he left to go to Manchester United, it changed a lot for me at Southampton. So the next one has to be about the people, I think, and what they really want and if we really see the same things and agree on what's important for their football club. And not just on the pitch, how they want the people to behave off the pitch, how they want it to feel. The way you want to play, I'm not... However you want to play is how you want to play, right?

41:00Do you think when you've seen what has happened to say Amarim's a prime example, and I'm only going to do it this way, I'm only going to do it this way, do you think you see that and become more flexible in your approach? Maybe you'll tell me there are flexibilities within your system. Yeah, so I think Ruben was wed to a formation, not particularly away, because I looked at the team and it looked very different a lot. So I've played lots of different formations. I'm not wed to a formation at all. I think that fits the players that you're in the building with. At MK, we played a three at the back because it fitted the players we had.

41:33At Swansea, the same the first year. Then we changed to a four because we recruited differently. At Southampton, they insisted on playing a 4-3-3. It was fine, but then to win the playoffs, we went to a back five. In the Premier League, we probably changed a bit too much, trying to be adaptable. But no, I think there's certain principles and concepts. Do you wish you'd left after you'd got promoted? Well, you look at it in hindsight, but I think, again, so we had a director of football in Jason that was fantastic and watched training every day. So if there was a question, he understood the process.

42:03We'd show him the team meetings. So he was all involved, all encompassed in the football. And then also he felt the culture, how he treated people. He was massive on that, behaviours, because he'd been at Man City for a long time in the academy and built certain things that were really important. So then when he left, I tried to stress to the club, we had this guy that you deemed really important as the director of football. He's now gone and we're going into the Premier League weaker without him. So we haven't replaced him. And when I was at the club, they hadn't replaced that role. So that was a frustration of mine.

42:32And then we got off on a new contract to say, look, if we go down, we're going to be, you know, we've got you, but we want to have the best, but you need to play some young players, but we need to try and stay up. So I felt like we did that. We played Mateusz Fernández, Tyler Diblin, some really talented young players, Taylor Harwood-Bellis. We signed Aaron Ramsdale, who's only available for a few games because he broke his finger and all that stuff. So my frustration then was like, well, I feel like we're doing okay. And actually we will pick up more points. And there's been a couple of games that are tough, But if we're going to say we're going to carry on doing it this way in the Premier League because it's going to be good for us, then there's certain games we will get beat and it might be quite heavy.

43:05But then we'll get back on the horse and we'll try and go again. We didn't pick up enough points. It was frustrating. But the narrative around it became in the building. The players were amazing. The staff were fantastic. They wanted to stay on path because they believed in it a lot. But the narrative became all about we're going down because of the style of play. Any other team in that position. So if you look at the teams right now that are in that position, the teams that when we were in the league, no one ever talks about style of play. They just go to the club, can't compete because they've just come up.

43:30The players aren't quite good enough. But with us, it was all about style of play because maybe they see sometimes the guys take a chance in the edge of the box early on in the season and make a mistake. But if you sit back and defend and try and fight and win that way and counter-attack, it's completely acceptable. So my job at that point was to try and protect the players as much as possible. Then I'm the one that gets sacked, which is fine because we didn't quite find a way. But I was frustrated with that. More hurt than I was at Rangers. Rangers was a bit more hurt. I didn't really have time to do anything.

43:58But with the Southampton one, I was hurt for quite a while. Liam Rossini had to end up talking today about Chelsea's£10 million fine and a suspended transfer ban after admitting making payments to unregistered agents and third parties. It's the largest fine ever handed out by the Premier League. BBC Sports Football Issues correspondent Dale Johnson is with us. And there is a sort of highlight, Liam Rossini, having to talk about it, is because these are historical. And actually, this is nothing to do with the current ownership or the current managerial regime.

44:29Dale Johnson:That's exactly it. And if it hadn't been a change of ownership to Blueco, we probably would never have found out that anything had been happened. And this was one of the things that was said in the ruling today that the new owners have been so open that there were a certain level of breaches whereby, if they'd launched an investigation, they would never have been able to uncover exactly what had gone on. So what's happened is that there's been two offences. On top of the one you mentioned, they also got found guilty of breaches in terms of making approaches, impermissible approaches to academy players between 2019 and 2022.

45:04Dale Johnson:They've got a nine-month ban for signing the academy players for that. But this is really the important one, the fact that they made£47.5 million worth of payments to those unlicensed agents over an eight-year period. And half of that was on a series of players who really were very important to them, like Eden Hazard, David Luiz, Ramirez, and Nemanja Matic. They played like multiple hundred games for them and helped Chelsea win trophies. But let's look at the Eden Hazard example. He was signed in 2012. Then from 2013 to 2016, Chelsea paid around£6.5 million to a company which was associated with the agents of the player.

45:45Dale Johnson:So you've got to ask, are Chelsea getting off really lightly whereby they're only getting a£10 million fine and they're only getting a suspended transfer ban when you've got one of the best players in the world or the most coveted players in the world in 2012. Then you find out that Chelsea are paying like£6.5 million over seven payments to this person. It's a difficult one, Rory, isn't it? because they've been... I'm not going to ask Russell about this. We've already asked Russell about it. Like Russell could take a break in, which is why I'm coming to you. Thanks. Yeah. People could ask if Chelsea have gone off lightly, but I go back to the point that it'd be unfair, wouldn't it, to punish the current...

46:31Would it be unfair to punish the current regime who highlighted it? I have a lot of sympathy for the Premier League here, actually. Well, yes and no on all of those things, Shackles. Right, OK. Yes, they self-reported, which is good. It's commendable sort of openness from Bluto. But no, because as Dale said, these signings made a material difference to Chelsea's performance for several years. I mean, Hazard, Ramirez, David Luiz, Willian, these are some of the biggest players in Chelsea's recent history. Who were also wanted by other clubs at the time. Willian, they famously took from Spurs, didn't they, at the last minute?

47:11And Hazard, do you remember the tweet? The Eden Hazard tweet? I'll tell you tomorrow or something, wasn't it? I'm signing for the Champions of Europe. It was one of the great early Twitter moments. And no one was quite sure. I'm not even sure his account was verified, and no one was sure if it was him or not. But lots of other teams were in for Hazard. I think Manchester United were. I suspect Tottenham word is whenever Chelsea sign a player. It tends to be sort of out of Tottenham's hands. That then impacts what Chelsea achieve. It affects how attractive the asset is that Bluto then buys. My instinct is that the fine is, I know it's the biggest in Premier League history, but it's pretty paltry, to be honest, for the scale of the offences.

47:51In terms of sympathy for the Premier League, yes, because you're having to unpick very complicated financial machinations of a now sanctioned individual. So, you know, it's a really complicated bit of sort of financial forensic work, I guess. But at the same time, I mean, if this is the bit that Chelsea have self-reported, and again, credit to Bluto and to the club for doing that, what other stuff is going on there, not just at Chelsea, but elsewhere? Like, who else is doing what? And should the Premier League not maybe have more of a grip on that? And I do wonder if there's a little bit of a missed opportunity in terms of kind of the sanction that if you don't play...

48:32This whole thing, and it's the same with PSR and SCR and City and all that other stuff, none of this really means anything if people aren't playing by the same rules. It's quite a worrying sign more broadly. Is there a sense that the Premier League draw a line under this then, Dale? Or are they looking elsewhere at things? And I suppose that maybe, having said, you know, it's got nothing to do with the current ownership, there may be owners of other clubs up and down the league who might say, well, hang on a minute, we've been punished for things that have gone on under previous, owners as well.

49:03Dale Johnson:I think as far as it's concerned it's a closed book now in terms of the two cases but I think Rory makes a really good point I mean if we're going to think that it's really just Chelsea that have been engaging in this type of payments to make sure they get star players I mean I'd be very surprised if there wasn't other clubs that do that type of thing because at the end of the day these clubs want to get these players ahead of everybody else and they clearly find a way to make sure that they choose their club. Dale thank you very much Dale Johnson with us BBC Sports Football Issues correspondent such is the nature of what managers have to talk about then nowadays Liam Rossini had to talk about that then had to talk about huddles I think in terms of the huddle I think it's been blown out of proportion to be honest this is small it's a small small thing amongst many many serious things that we need to address such as the massive game against PSG tomorrow in terms of the huddle the lads have always wanted to show unity and togetherness.

50:00Dale Johnson:I think they'll continue to do that. But what we don't want to do is antagonise or bring more noise on ourselves and we'll make the decision on where we do that on the pitch tomorrow. This is one of the weirdest things I can remember. I can't think of a story as ridiculous as this, to be honest. I keep a kind of semi-list of moments where I think football has got beyond itself with stupidity and on that list is, do you remember the bit where Gary Linick cancelled match of the day? But there's just bits where you sort of think, hang on, I can't really believe this thing is happening because it makes no sense and this is a really good nice pure example of it the whole thing is completely absurd I don't understand what Chelsea were trying to do I don't really understand why Paul Tierney stayed in the huddle could he not have engineered his way out of it I don't get the thing about respecting the ball I feel a bit like there's some deeper meaning to it that I'm too stupid to understand I'm with you Rory I think Paul Tierney should just get out of the way and then it's just not even, would anyone be speaking about it?

51:01If he'd, like, it was the maddest, when I was watching it and I saw Cole Palmer hug him, I thought, he's definitely going to get out now and he just stayed there. It was like, what is going on? But yeah, I just don't see it as a problem. If you were the opposition, because I know they first said they did it away in Napoli, didn't they? When they won. Then it seemed to become a thing when they were at Villa Park. That was the one that I remember, and they did it out of time on the centre circle. It's just the location that seems to have become a thing. Would you be bothered if you were the opposition?

51:38It depends. Also, it depends on the context of the teams. If you're a team that's really in a good place, I don't think it bothers you too much. If you're not, maybe it gets used by the manager as something to antagonise and use against the opposition. But I don't know. You've seen it in rugby for years. is I'm always interested in the response to the hacker. And I was going to start getting interested in the team's responses to Chelsea's huddle over the hook, but it seems the referees responded before any teams can. It's become an issue. So I think it's just... I'm with Liam, really. It's not really a massive thing.

52:12But it's been turned into it because, yeah, there'll be memes for years of Paul Tierney just standing in the middle of their huddle, won't they? I suppose there's a point where, like, if you're caught in a really weird situation, you do kind of freeze, don't you? You kind of like, I don't know what's happening here. Why are all these people doing there? He must have been warned about it pre-match to be in there, to say, this is what Chelsea do. Can we make sure that this? I don't know. Otherwise, I don't know why that's become a... It would be interesting to see if he'd been warned about it or to do something about it to try and make them move.

52:42I don't know.

52:43Chris Sutton:Yeah, I thought it was really, really weird, the whole thing. I mean, we used to do a huddle at Celtic. Where? Well, on the pitch, Mark. Yes, I know. Yes, I know. but what in your own half in the penalty area in the sense yeah just in her own half um and uh and it was just something which we did uh in truth as a player i i can't actually remember what anybody ever said in the huddle i wasn't i i wasn't i wasn't sort of focusing on it i i find the whole thing just truly remarkable i i don't i think liam rosinia i like him a lot i think he's a he's a really smart bloke uh i do but i think he then when he gets involved in sort of having to explain things like this and talking about uh you know the the players respecting the ball and uh and you know that the that brings unity and leadership and that's that's all important i don't i don't really understand you know it's it's sort of i wondered whether he was on the keynote speaking course i was on when you hear stuff like that it's just it's it's absolute nonsense it you know it really is i think huddles are are for show that that's that's what they are and if you're a player you know show it by by a recovery run show it by you know bailing your team out with a with a brilliant block or a brilliant bit of skill i don't i don't understand what it what it's really sort of uh all for the referee getting involved in that well he you know he he loves it and he does but i don't i don't necessarily blame him and when you you know you think about Liam Rossini, he was really angry, wasn't he, about Arsenal?

54:21Chris Sutton:In their warming up in their own half. Yeah, in their half. In their half. Why is he getting involved in stuff like that? If I was him, I would have just swatted that off, batted that off and said, you know, I'm not really that fussed. It just, it's not a great look for him. Do you think, Rory, from whatever reason why they decided to do it at the start, and maybe they won't care about this really, it has actually gone the other way and made it a bit of a laughingstock. I think people, do you know what happens? I just think people are really baffled by the entire thing. The one bit where I think the senior might be being slightly disingenuous is that I'm guessing the players didn't do it spontaneously.

55:06It sounds like it's a thing that he wants them to do, and he wants them to do it around the ball. No, he said it was their decision to do it, and he would go along with what the leaders of the group wanted. Well, I mean, yeah, I'm not sure. I suppose that means it's on the players, but I'm not sure it's a great look if you're swarming the referee. I mean, I don't think it was intimidating. Did they swarm the referee, though?

55:33Chris Sutton:He was just a Burke standing there, wasn't he? I mean, you know, what was he doing as well? but if you're going to respect everything, I mean, are they going to do it around a corner flag next time? Respect the corner flag, respect the goal. I mean, you can respect a lot of things, can't you? Well, yeah. No, I just, I think it's, surely at some point, someone's going to have, it is mad that someone's going to have to legislate for this now. No, they're not. Come on. They will. They'll have to be like, rule seven, subsection D, you're not allowed to huddle around any of the match officials. That's the natural outcome of it.

56:08Okay, I'll end it there. Chris runs a sort of former Norwich clay pigeon shooting club with him and Rule Fox. So maybe after tonight... I'm in. Yeah, you're in? Yeah, come in. Come along. There you go. Lovely to see you. Thank you very much, Russell. Thank you, Rory. Thank you, Chris. Well behaved, Christopher. Excellent. That's it for this episode. Next on the Football Daily Feed will be reaction to all the teams in Tuesday night's Champions League, including Manchester City against Real Madrid.

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