Donaldson & Fang

0:00Listen, you might still get a slap even though you're a centre-back. Welcome to the Football Ramble. It's Tuesday, 25th of November. My name is Pete Donaldson. I'm Jim Campbell. And I'm Luke Moore.

0:24There was some football to be had on a Monday night, gentlemen. Incredible scenes. One of the best goals you'd like to see in the Prem this season. and Everton beat Manchester United away from home. We've got our game back, guys. There was slapping footballers. There was goals of the season. Jim, it was a hell of a night of football. It was. And it was also some further nonsense from Man United, wasn't it? Which I think we're all starting to worry a little bit. A little spasm. On the wane. A little spasm, wasn't it? The mind was empty. You know, the challenge is to come back after an international break after you've, as David Cartlidge pointed out the other day, have been unable to regroup because you are not in a group.

1:02I'm absolutely right to point out the complete fallacy of that. But that was the challenge, wasn't it? It was keep that momentum up. And I just do think you should be able to win at home when the opposition are slapping each other. I just think whatever situation you are in, you've got to be doing that. Can I have a moratorium on one of the goals of the season that Pete's bombastically opened the show with? I thought it was a good goal. It was a dictionary definition good goal. Jim? Yeah, I don't think it's going to bother in the end of the season. What's this I got at the end of my sleevies? Oh, you don't slap me.

1:36Do you want one of them to you, Lukey Mo? I'll slap that tax right off your chops, Sunshine. Don't you worry about that. It's the best guy I've ever seen. It's the best guy I've ever seen. I'm trying to detract from the violent scenes from Idrissa Gueye. He was sent off quite early in the game for slapping his own teammate, Michael Keane, in the first half. We, as I said, we've got our game back. A classic Barclays, loving it. but in the replay Luke I thought that it was just a bit of argy bargy a little bit of pushy shovey but I didn't see the most important camera angle he absolutely hoofed him in the mouth yeah I found it well there's a few things interesting about it right one is that when this happened a long time ago between you know say Dyer and or Baccia and Lesseau, whatever.

2:28I know that was Champions League, but whatever. I feel like there might have been a proper level of national outrage about it. I know we're only the morning after here now. Broken Britain. But I'd be really surprised if people even remember this in two weeks' time, right? And that probably does tell you quite a lot about how society's changed, which is kind of interesting. Will Smith did this, Luke. It's Will Smith's fault. Maybe Will Smith's normalised it. He's normalised it. I've not seen any conspiracy theories around this particular incident, though. I saw quite a lot of people pretending that it was all staged at the Oscars and Chris Rock had some kind of cushion on his cheek ready for it.

3:06People will conspiracy theory anything these days. I don't think there'll be a conspiracy theory about this. I did, however, feel like, I don't know, for some reason it feels like if it's your own teammate, the referee shouldn't automatically send you off. he should go over to Michael Keane and say, do you want to press charges? And if Michael Keane says, no, I'd like to get on with the game, we can get on with it. So I get why it's violent conduct. I get why the rules are the rules and I get why they're applied across the board. But to me, it feels like, I mean, it didn't matter anyway, but to me, it feels like Man United should not get an advantage because of that.

3:45Absolutely. Absolutely. And the rest of Everton's team should not be at a disadvantage by the same logic there. He should at least be able to slap one of the United players he was going to get sent off anyway. Well, there you go. Exactly. On the way off. You can't take that away. That's a free one. I'm having that. He lost his mind. He went mad as well. He went absolutely mad. There's something else going on there, right? Because that was strange. It was a loose pass that Keane, if he was on his toes a little bit, could probably have made look a little bit less perilous, one would suggest. What would have happened?

4:16Yeah, but like, I mean, by that token, Pete, what happens if he scores an own goal? Is that a full-on like kick in the face based on that like what is something just something has made him completely lose the plot there and it's really really interesting but yeah I think you know it's it's about the level of force isn't it and then it's at the referee's discretion and I completely agree that like even though it's a ludicrous thing for him to have done and he's he's hit him fairly hard he's not you know he's not endangered him in any actual way as he's rung his bell his head just went completely to the side he's out there so you've changed the tune on WhatsApp you were outraged at this So you said, there's nothing in this, there's nothing in it, what's going on?

4:55And then about five minutes later, you were like, oh yeah, I found another angle on Twitter. I said at one point, if they did that to an opposition player, he wouldn't have been sent off, which is a wild thing to say when I actually saw the footage of... I was making a cup of tea, I readily admit that. To be fair to you, Pete, I only saw the proper force of it when they did the kind of close-up, close-up of it. So that's the only time that I was like, oh, he's actually properly belted in there. But what's amazing about this, even though we've opened with it, is this is not the story, is it? No.

5:22It's just a hilarious little bit of context. But the reason we've opened with it and the reason we're talking about it, I think, so much is because undeniably it does feel weird. It feels weird. Yeah. Like you'll get other podcasts, other people covering this, talking about how, you know, this is the letter of the law and this is what has to happen and this is why this is important, whatever. But to a football fan, it feels weird. If you're an Everton fan, you feel cheated, complete self-immolation, but then obviously it doesn't really matter because they won the game. And if you're just an observer watching the game as a fan generally, it just feels like something's not right about the universe.

6:02It's just a very strange thing to do. But anyway, man, I couldn't take advantage of it anyway. David Moyes' quote was really funny. He said something along the lines of he wants his players to fight each other. and I know that managers say that Pete but I don't I didn't know he meant literally yeah well he said he went on to say if you want that toughness and resilience to get a result you want someone to act on it I mean it's the first time a player has been sent off a violent conduct against a teammate since 2008 so there is a precedent that had been set earlier on but do you think Moyes played a bit of a blind giving it a bit of levity giving it a bit of like well I like him fighting actually I think I think he should be annoyed to be brought off should it hit him harder the 30th minute yeah I mean I think it just puts a lid on the whole thing immediately doesn't it?

6:44It's a silly thing that they'll deal with internally. Obviously I thought Kieran Kinn and Dewsbury Hall was really kind of good in the post-match and just doing exactly that and deflecting from it. You know, it's really silly. You said, did you see my goal of the season? Yeah, exactly, yeah. Put on plate for me by quite unfortunate Lenny Yoro. That was strange. Yeah, it was just, I think Lenny Yoro is one of the players in this little run they've had prior to this game, this five-game unbeaten run, who's actually quietly been pretty good. And I think he's a very calm, assured presence who I think is going to, you know, keep improving and be a good player for them.

7:19Or, you know, potentially for someone he moves on to as seems to be the way for Man United players at the moment, sadly for them. And I think it's, yeah, a little bit uncharacteristic, but it did, the touch Euro gets on that ball does make it sit up absolutely perfectly for Dewsbury Hall, which is kind of a little bit unlucky really. Oh, Phil Foden had done that. Fucking hell. Yeah. And then he goes on to put the ball where the spiders get slapped in the top right. I mean, it could not have been any better placed. The reason I'm stepping back from the quite exuberant coverage elsewhere on this podcast of this goal is just because I do feel like it was, you know, part of the reason that he scored a good goal and it was a good goal is because Man United helped him, not just with Jorreau, but with Le Mendes as well.

8:06Yeah, he gets a hand to it, doesn't he? Yeah, I wonder whether, I don't want to go down that Gary Neville road of, you know, every shot should be saved. That was basically peak Gary Neville, where we just were overloaded with Gary Neville. And then even the people at Sky Sports had to say, come on, let's just take him off some stuff. Well, it's essentially, that's what happens if no one else chimes in. He just sort of ends up in a sort of culver-sac. It's like an endless Gary Neville, Uro Burros of commentary. And I thought maybe, I mean, the type of form Pickford was in, he saved everything, didn't he?

8:38I don't think it was, you know, Liverton weren't really overwhelmed at any point because of the way Man Utd are, but he did save everything. I think maybe Pickford saves that. Maybe. Yeah. Well, it's all the headlines about Cristiano Ronaldo's basal kick at the weekend. He's like, mate, any keeper should be saving that. He got a big old hand to it. Yeah. Palmed it and it was on there. Going back to the, Pete, you mentioned it's the first time a player has been sent off for violent conduct against a teammate since 2008. I was surprised to hear that. not least because when I looked up what that was, that was Ricardo Fuller at Stoke.

9:17Yeah, and Andy Griffin was it? Hitting Andy Griffin. Had a good old jab at him after Stoke conceded the goal because Andy Griffin was defended quite poorly against, I think, Marlon Harewood, which is unforgivable. And when they're taking the centre circle, when they go back to the centre circle to take the kickoff, there's a player in between. And Gardner has a little feint, drops a shoulder. Love a little jab in the chin. It's great to see. So maybe I'm talking shit because that didn't really transcend the culture, did it? No. No one would remember that. So maybe it's just probably... Yeah, because that was a proper fistfight, wasn't it?

9:52That was the exact sort of playground handbag you want to see. Yeah. I think one of the other things to take away from this game, though, is how interesting it is that when Man United handed the initiative like that, they don't really seem to know what to do. They kept their kind of defensive players on despite having that numerical advantage and being unable to kind of get through Everton's defence in the first half. I thought he'd change it up quicker than he did. Stayed very conservative. And it feels to me that like under no circumstances whatsoever is he going to change that system significantly.

10:26It's really strange. I suppose after the run they've had, there's an argument that it's been working for them. So why change it when you're still trying to sort of drill everybody into it? But as Luke touched on earlier, they weren't really troubling Everton, were they? It took them a long time to even have a shot on target. Obviously, you've got players like Bruno Fernandes on there and Brian Mbuma, and you think, you know, they're going to have the quality at some point that will tell. And those moments just never came. Yeah, I think the way that Everton set up after they lost a man was good.

10:57And weirdly enough, I mean, obviously, Spurs fans listening to this will be thinking, oh, I'll get a bit of a holiday from them talking about Spurs today. Like, if you look at the amount of ball carriers Everton have got compared to Spurs, right? The big problem for Spurs, I mean, there were several problems for them against Arsenal, but one of the big problems was that they don't have a ball carrier, right? Yeah, all those players are injured for them, really. Yeah, and Everton's set up with basically three of them and maybe a half, if you count James Garner, who obviously assisted the goal. So, I mean, and they were able to relieve the pressure off themselves quite regularly.

11:29But you're right, Jim. I think the problem with this May United side under Amrim is they are way too one-dimensional. And Neville, you could hear in the commentary, was getting really frustrated, not least because probably he's used to a Man United side who would have been absolutely laying siege to the Everton goal whether Everton were down to 10 minutes or not in his era. And the lack of tempo and the lack of, I guess, just bravery was really stark. I mean, Neville was focusing a lot of his ire on Luke Shaw, saying that he's an experienced player, he can deliver a ball, he should be forward, he shouldn't be worried about it.

12:10I kind of agree with that. I think, you know, there's no reason why he couldn't... I mean, he did start to move much further off the field towards the end of the game. If you look at his heat map, I mean, the majority of it is now over the halfway line across the game itself. But they showed no impetus whatsoever. It was what Roberto Martinez was saying was quite interesting, which was this idea that if you want to really make it count against 10 men, you need sustained possession, sustained attack. You need to drag them around. You need to get them tired, et cetera, et cetera. And it's all very well for Pickford to have a man of the match game and make the saves he made.

12:41But really, I mean, it should be taken out of his hands. There's no real reason for it. So I think a lack of tempo, a lack of flexibility, as you said, Jim, and perhaps a lack of bravery, coupled with players like Bruno Fernandes, who has got a temptation to just try far too hard. I thought Ahmed Diallo was a bit like that as well. And so, yeah, it became a really difficult night for them. Bruno Fernandes in these situations, and we're seeing more and more of this over the years, he looks like he's arguing with a person that no one else can see. Yeah. It's just sort of screaming into his own hands, staring into the middle distance.

13:16Like a sock puppet. Yeah, a little bit like that. It's a lot. And at one point, I quite enjoyed this from Gary Neville, when he'd fully just sort of lost his rag and had just kind of stopped hiding that and stopped bothering to, which, you know, we're all here for, I suppose. At one point, he was just correctly predicting the shit decisions that Man United players would make. He's basically roasting them. He's not a commentary, it's a roast. Yeah, but like a pre-roast. It's like, yeah, I said he was going to do that and he adds cowardly. I also like that Chiano Barry is a striker who's not had a shot on target this season, I believe, and yet was absolutely tailor-made for this.

13:57Just like lump it up to him, he'll win it. Might not even get the second ball, but apparently that's enough. That'll do. I mean, like you say, Jim, Bruno's sort of arguing with himself. There's nothing to say on skill level, he's top 15 players in the world, but in his temperament, it's a real problem for Manchester United in matches like this because he just falls in on himself and this has been a common denominator throughout the whole of the Man United dip over the last few years and it's starting to get less of a dip more of a massive chasm now. Well no, people would, it depends really how you want to flip the coin with Fernandes.

14:37A lot of people say he's the only real outfield player that's carried himself at any credit whatsoever. He's basically been, the argument would be I suppose for the defence of Bruno Fernandes would be he's Michael Caine in the Muppet Christmas carrot, right? Yeah. He's the only like actual serious actor, right? And he's playing it straight and he's going to do the best performance he can surrounded by a bunch of actual Muppets, right? Or you say he's not that well suited to it because it becomes the Bruno Fernandes show. I would say, I think it's probably unfair to criticise him when there's so much other stuff going on.

15:15And as Jim's already said, and it is worth saying, you can't overstate how good the run's been because it's not been amazing by Man United standards because of a couple of draws in there against some teams. But they have been better. They have definitely been better. They'll definitely be better than they were last season, right? Yeah. But this is a big setback for them. A big setback. Because Everton do their best work at home. I know they're beaten heavily by Spurs at home. But generally speaking, they're going to do their best work at home this season. And the stat around David Moyes and Old Trafford really does speak for itself.

15:49and yet they've been undone by 10 men in a game where there's no real excuse for it. And I do think Fernandes was trying too hard. No one had more shots than him, for example. He's trying to get it done. But at the same time, if you're Bruno Fernandes, it's that age-old kind of paradox, isn't it? Because Bruno Fernandes looks up when he's got the ball at his feet and he sees Joshua Zerkes in front of him who is unquestionably shit. So what's he going to do? I know he looks rusty because Amram doesn't fancy him and he rarely plays. So a fantastic save from Pickers at the end. It would have been really interesting to see if that one had gone in.

16:25It was such a good header and such a fine save. But Pete, the stat around Xerxi, while we're chucking stats around about Tiano Barry, is that Sky Sports flashed one up, which said that Xerxi hasn't registered a goal or an assist as a striker for a year. Right. At all. That's not great, is it? I feel for Fernandes in that he just has to do everything. If I were a player of his standing in that team, I'm sure I'd be trying to do the same sort of thing. He strikes me as someone who's basically got three jobs to try and support his ungrateful family.

17:02Fantastic. Well, yeah, I mean, the game took place exactly one year after Ruben Amran's first game in charge of Man United. That feels like a long time ago. And Amran did say they were the better team with 11 players and 10. And we have training tomorrow. I will deal with all of this tomorrow. Maybe start slapping his players. It worked for Everton. Well, yeah, it sounds to me. I should be fully transparent and honest here and say that, of course, I predicted a couple of months ago that Amerim would go in the international break that we just had, right? Right. Because of the conversation situation, because of how poor they've been.

17:37To his credit, there's no talk about that now, is there? The talk's kind of died down. There's no rumours going around. I've gone over the top about it and been proven wrong. Fair enough. So in a way, despite the difficulty they had last night, the narrative has kind of been changed. And I don't know if this one-off game will really change that again too much. I mean, Crystal Palace away next time seems tricky. And then they've got West Ham at home. They also are massively going to benefit from not having any other competition to really worry about. right so I think we may see despite what we saw last night we probably will see an upper mid-table Man United this season yeah I think so I also think it's interesting that you know Ratcliffe recently said didn't he that you know that they're going to give him three years they believe in him being a really good manager and I think actually that is that was smart because they're not great at PR as we've seen many many times but credit where it's due that has quieted this sort of talk because part of the problem Man United have had is it's you know when they go on a good run They don't then just lose a game.

18:39They lose a game in silly circumstances where everyone's laughing at them a bit. And that's exactly what's happened here again. And yet, as you say, it doesn't feel like actually he's in any particular danger or he's under any more pressure than he was recently. And, you know, we've seen it with many clubs before. The only way round is through, right? And I think actually at this point, it is the smart thing for Man United to have invested so much in Amarim and players for his system and to just stick with it and just weather this sort of stuff. I do think the real test of him will be of how wedded he is to this system because I think in a situation last night where if you still really rigidly stick with something that isn't benefiting you because of the opponent, then that is a real blind spot because it's a game of variables, right?

19:27You have to be flexible within games just multiple times in every single game and that seems to be a weakness for them at the moment. Yeah, it's insane, Jim, to have three at the back still for such a large part of the game when they've got no real attacking threat. Three at the back and Casemiro screening. To be fair, he did take Casemiro off. Yeah, but that was after like an hour, wasn't it? Yeah. He wanted to look at how the screening was working out for about 47 minutes after the sending off. Just make sure. No harm in making sure. and then he replaced him with, I think, Kobe Mainu and Doolittle came off for Dallow, didn't he?

20:08Again, I know Kobe Mainu is very young, but when he came on and had the sort of game that he had, do you remember you're playing in the Premier League? It almost looks like he's playing fives somewhere. Did you hear the crowd though? The crowd was so happy to hear him come on. Which I think is a strange one as well because he's gone from someone who, you know, England team, really highly rated, really excited, a great tradition of young players, young midfielders coming through at Man United, to essentially want to leave, which is really sad. And then the crowd have made their feelings known about how much they love him.

20:48And Amorim, I guess, is his own man and wants to do what he wants to do, and he's not going to play him. And I just thought, I think regularly, I don't want to get too far off topic, I know we've got a break, But I regularly am surprised by how little attention managers pay to how much fans love homegrown players. It's really strange. The amount of space and forgiveness and excitement that homegrown players get at every level, at every club, is something that is hugely underutilised by managers, I think. Have we given Everton enough credit? I mean, they stuck in there, didn't they? They stuck in there.

21:24They were intense. They worked hard. They protected that lead really well. It's important to state they went ahead after they went down to 10 men as well, which is easier said than done. And I think they were exactly what you'd expect from a David Moyes side, right? If you put David Moyes at the front of an army and say, we have got to hold this fort till reinforcements arrive in two days' time, the fucking team will do it. yeah right that's exactly what they'll do and he says that himself you know he's obviously alluded to it in that quote that pete read earlier if you if you've got a lead to protect old trafford its backs against the wall you know who better i enjoy just the sheer amount of tackles all over the place it reminded me of essentially the level of football that i can play where i've got three moves which are pass shoot and tackle and tackle is really just block just get yourself in the way there was so so much of that absolutely absolutely and there was so much of that on the edge of their box just wherever it was needed and like more often than not the player making the quite simple tackle won out which was just really enjoyable Michael Keane was really energised by this stuff apparently he had a brilliant game he had some smelling salts that's why it was like a boxer who gets a real fucking gets his bell rung after about three rounds he's like fucking hell I'm in a fight here it was like that can I before we go can I just also I say very quickly, not just the tackles, but I looked at the Optus stats for this game and given that the ball tends to be in play for about an hour, right, Everton were able to deliver 46 clearances.

23:04Just under one a minute. Brilliant. Well, speaking of bells getting run and let's face it, clearances, former Man United man Anthony was sent off while trying an overhead kick at the weekend. Did you see this footage? It was absolutely David Batty in a World Cup 98 kicking that Tunisian player in the face. It was amazing. For those who haven't seen it, it was in the 90th minute against Girona. For those who haven't seen it, do you remember the contact that Scott McTominay got with that overhead kick for Scotland and the photo of it? It was exactly the same contact from Anthony but just on another man's face.

23:39Yeah, also an angle from which he's just never going to score even had he connected with the ball rather than a man's head. It's not there for him at any point. It was really, really speculative as well. I mean, at least for like, At least the one that I, you know, I remember watching the David Batty one at Wellcome Night here in Churchill's pub in Hartlepool and everyone going, oh. And it was one of my sort of like, you know, formative sort of football watching moments. But like even for that, at least the footballer jumped into the shot. Like Anthony just went for it and just cleared him out.

24:11It was absolutely brilliant. I think from memory, the Batty one, he doesn't necessarily know the players there, right? And he's trying to clear it. He's on the ball at all times, but it was an absolute in the kisser. All right, well, coming up, we get an update from the Rambo listener who played against Emil Heskey on Papi Cece's team.

24:37Remember throwing a dart on somebody's leg before, thinking they're just going to move out the way, just joking around. I was about 20 metres away and thought, yeah, I'll just lob this one towards said person. And they just seemed to watch it and watch it and watch it. And it went just plonk right in their leg. And I was like, you're supposed to move. I didn't do it too hard. I wasn't going to announce that to the world, but as you've asked. Just a consistently underrated weird bloke. Oh, yeah. So odd. If you do that out of a moving car, like Jamie Carragher, you're going to prison. That's all I'm saying.

25:09That was a dart, though, was it? It wasn't a dart. It was a dart of spit for crying out loud. It was. Speaking of darts, did you see Luke Littler? That shot of him just sort of doing this and waiting to take a shot or something. He's sort of going, like with his eyes closed. Like he was in his mind to palace. I think we should see more of that from Dark Souls. He's an amazing talent. Yeah. And we probably haven't got time for this and the producer's going to edit it out anyway. But the only reason that Luke Litter isn't an absolute superstar is because of essentially class snobbery in this country.

25:41He's pretty close to being a household name if he's not already, is he not? He's a household name, but you're not going to be calling it in like Roger Federer, are you? I bet Tim Henman made more money in a year than Luke Littler. Even though he's only 18, and he's already won the World Championship. Yeah. That's wild. It's amazing. It's absolutely wild. It's amazing. Yeah, amazing. Right, we've got some correspondence. Do you want to read this one, Luke? Because I've done too much talking and my voice is not up to scratch. I'm not sure the listeners would agree, but I'm up for it. This is from Alex White.

26:09I mean, Pete promoted it before the break. The listener who was going up against Withenshaw, you know, the Sunday League team featuring, as Pete said, Emil Heskey, Papis Cisse, and many other ex-pros. Alex, we asked him to give us an update when he said he was going to be playing against them, and he has now come back, delivered the goods post-match. He says, hi lads, Papis Cisse was unfortunately notable by his absence this time, and so it fell to Jody and Lescott to lead the line for Withenshaw. He's living his best life, Jody, and up front. It's a little bit like when Dreamwein and Neville Southall played Sunday League, and he insisted on playing up top.

26:44Great stuff. At like 50. Well, presumably, like, they all start as strikers, right? Because they're the best players on any pitch they're on. And that's the most fun thing, right? Yeah. Alex says, my main concern, though, was going toe-to-toe with Stephen Ireland and Danny Drinky Drinkwater in midfield. I mean, that is a tough assignment on the Sunday. It really is. Drinkwater only just retired, didn't he? Yeah, maybe, yeah. He said, with an estimated 800 fans in attendance, which is a 10 ,000 % lift on the usual WDC FC Vets home crowd. and after a cagey 30 minutes, the deadlock was broken when our centre forward punished a defensive error and slotted home.

27:19Come on! Absolute scenes. Would we have enough to see this through and snatch the win? In a word, no. On the brink of half-time, Stephen Ireland swung in a cross which Les got dispatched very tidily by rising above the defence because he's absolutely fucking massive. His work now done, he then made way for George Boyd who had arrived at the ground after the game had kicked off. The arrogance of the XP Peter Bromant. He's not on the team sheet then. He can't be on the team sheet. That's not allowed. Surely that's going to scare you when you're playing this team as well. Like more and more ex-pros turning up.

27:51He's coming down the tunnel. It's like Ronaldinho going to pop up at some point. Like a Royal Rumble. Royal Rumble, yeah. He says, After his introduction, there was a fresh impetus for Withenshaw who proceeded to score four more in 20 minutes. The first for George Boyd, followed by a hat-trick by one of their still very capable non-Premier League alumni. Still time, though, for a cameo appearance from Emil Heskey. with time running out and with the crowd desperate for a Heskey goal. He bundled the ball over the goal line. Never change him yet. Only for the referee to blow for a foul on the keeper.

28:20Again, never change him yet. Brilliant. And by that same token, the referee saved West Dids Vets the ignominy of being deemed a disgrace by your very own Luke Moore. Man of the match for me with Stephen Ireland. Completely dictated the game, showcased some lovely touches and did an awful lot of running, which really is tantamount to cheating in Vets football. I fear it'll be another few weeks till my legs fully recover. Thank you for your support. I've returned it in kind by voting for the Ramble several times over in the FSAs. No comment on that from us. We can't stop you doing that. We'd rather win the honest way.

28:51The voting is now closed anyway. The announcement is going to be made on the 3rd of December. Thank you anyway, Alex. Great update. I mean, they've lost the game, but I think they've maintained some semblance of pride, I would say. Before we move on for that, it was announced to me yesterday, chaps, and particularly you, Jim, that in other Sunday league news, Our very own Pete Donaldson was awarded Man of the Match for his football team last week. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, announced to you, I just said that, I was telling you in context of, I've got the Man of the Match trophy, and I had it two weeks ago, and I've not been able to play for the last two weeks, so therefore I'm keeping the trophies, therefore they can't hand out any more Man of the Match trophies.

29:32So just a little tip, if you have won a cup competition, just keep hold of the cup and they can't give it to anyone else. You dropped it in there in a very faux humble way so that we would know that you won the match award. Talk us through it, Pete. Talk us through your performance. Yeah, come on, Pete. Don't hide your light under a bushel. We lost 5-3. Jim, the devil's in the detail here because Pete won the man of the match award and then announced to me also that he's playing in an over-50s league. Yeah. Look, if you're still performing. At the age of 44. How have you got in there? you're allowed some ringers under 40 you're allowed to be 45 you put someone that Halloween white face paint on his face and look older like fundamentally Jim I'm not good enough for anyone to complain about me being clearly too young that's all I'm saying if nothing else I'm ruining it for everyone else yeah so yeah just hide the trophy nobody's going to get it off you that's all I'm saying we've also got a message from Ethan on the Discord I'd like to inform the group that I saw Pete in O 'Neill in Leicester tonight.

30:36He left before I could say hello, but I hope he went to the fan club, Leicester's finest indie club. I'm delighted that Pete Watch has taken off among our listeners because we quite often don't know where you are, frankly, mate. So it's nice to have the eyes of the nation on you. So I don't want to take the impetus away from our listeners and the Pete Watch system, but we are aware of where you're going to be tonight. See it, see it sorted. There's going to be a great opportunity for more Pete Watch tonight. That's actually true, actually, because everybody is about to know where you're going because you're going to Marseille, aren't you?

31:06Presumably watch the game. I know you went to Dortmund and didn't watch Dortmund-Bayern. But you are actually going to the game tonight. Indie clubs, Jim. They don't drink themselves. I saw Harry Kane's brother. I had a good time in Dortmund. That's true, you did. It was a very good night out. It did, yeah. No, yeah, I am going to Marseille. Brassel hooked me up with a ticket and I've managed to get a little flight and I'm going to be staying in an Airbnb hosted by someone called Fang and I'm very excited to meet Fang. great in Marseille as well Marseille can be rough mate yeah thank you'd be like a serious gangster I think well I think everybody's kind of um oh a game recognizes game I was very excited about it then uh Newcastle uh the club um not the not the town uh sent uh an email around basically saying right these are the places you can't go this is the place where you need to be uh to get the fan boss to the actual ground and I'm like, oh come on guys the French police man This is red rag to a ball stuff for Donaldson I will not be contained in a town square You might well be kettled in a town square I've shared many a live tour itinerary with Pete Donaldson only for it to be roundly ignored so good luck with that Newcastle United football club He'll be in Milwaukee before you know it Milwaukee's nice but it's Milwaukee well elsewhere in the Champions League Cole Palmer is back in training after a brick and his door at home by just stubbing it while playing FIFA apparently they're going to be taking on Barcelona tonight you're emotional about it I'm very emotional about it they've not I don't think they've ruled out Cole Palmer appearing at the weekend but I don't think he's going to be fit for this one he is currently wearing a special modified boot to aid his recovery I don't know is it like a little extension have they just cut out a hole I think it's a Bottomans it's a Bottomans it's a Bottomans have they gone for a Bottomans they're very roomy there's probably be enough room for a broken toe or two I'll tell you what the Bottomans get stuck on Donaldson's Trotters and he gets a man in the match award Palmer could do worse than the Bottomans the effect the effect well Kukurea his teammates spoke about Palmer injuring his toe in the pre-match press conference he said it's true that these things happen happened to me a few times in the past but I'm stronger so I don't feel anything.

33:27That makes a lot of sense. He gets thrown around like a little rag doll all the time and it just bounces off the floor, doesn't it? It doesn't seem to bother him at all. So I'm not surprised he feels no pain. Would you like to sort of throw a man who looks like the bassist from Pearl Jam around? Yes, I would actually. I would like to smack. But he loves a giggle. He loves sort of taking the mick out of Cor Palmer. So maybe we've got this guy wrong. Maybe he's the life and soul of the party, Luke. Say sorry. No, I can't say sorry because I just don't like him. I can't bring myself... Look, this is the game I'll be watching tonight.

33:57And there's a few reasons for it. One is, of course, you've got old Marcus Rashford in there doing his thing. And I mean your mouth, the world superstar, great to watch. And the other reason is I think that I'm not going to betray confidence, but a certain European football expert was saying to me quite recently that they think that Chelsea might actually be a little bit shit and they're going to get found out sooner or later. And they've never been convinced by them under Maresca. You know, Maresca is a bit of a fraud. and all this kind of interesting stuff. And it made me really think, because I was like, okay, yeah, I get that it's a bit chaotic.

34:31I get that they're doing things in a certain way. But at the same time, they're second in the league and they've won five of the last six games in the Premier League and all the rest of it. But if they are going to get found out, maybe it's when Barcelona comes to town and it might be a really interesting game. So I'm definitely going to be watching it. I mean, this is a European classic as well, right? We've seen a lot of brilliant games between these two. This is Drogba chasing after Tom Hennig of Raybub, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. This is Ronaldinho doing that weird little wiggly shot that we've never seen the likes of before or since.

35:02So hopefully it will be some sort of kind of echo of those sort of games and we'll get some big moments. And there's some big players in there, you know. Nothing can prepare you for seeing, you know, Laminya Mao, Marcus Rashford, they were going to Stamford Bridge, you say, Jim, bit of a modern classic Champions League fixture. And then nothing will prepare you for the double take. Oh yeah, that is Wojciech, Szczesny and Galt. What? The man retired. like three years ago he did what's going on the man smokes heavily yeah and has never been apologetic about that yeah that is a funny one lads did you read this about a Polish author has alleged that Barcelona asked Robert Lewandowski to stop scoring goals yeah I did see this so the final two matches of the 22-23 season Barcelona obviously won the league but apparently according to this Polish author that Lewandowski had a clause in his contract to pay a bonus to Bayern Munich if he scored over a certain amount of goals.

35:56I think it was around 25. But they asked him, because of this guy, to stop scoring goals. Now, we have to say, for the record, there is no suggestion that this happened. But if you're going to stop, you know, believing the GB News website, I don't know where we are in the world, really, to be honest, yeah. What they should have done is signed Alexander Izak. Exactly, yeah, yeah. I mean, it sounds like a Polish-language Christmas cash-in book. The sort of stuff that you'd see at the works on sale for, like, three quid. what an incredible situation literary snob these days are you I certainly am I put my suit on complaining about complaining about cashing in books Jim would anyone stop you from podcasting for money are you suggesting someone might pay me to not do this show I just want I just want a price Jim the listeners just want a price Jim that's very rude it's like when Weezer did some Weezer set up a kind of GoFundMe for Weezer to just disband.

36:59And Rivers Cromo said, if you raise X amount of money, we'll promise you we'll never play any more shows. Didn't they get quite close to it as well, where everybody's donating as a joke? Yeah, it was in 2010, that's right. And apparently Rivers Cromo claims that they came very close to raising$10 million to convince Weezer to, quote, pack it in and stop disappointing fans. This is an abusive relationship and it needs to end. Nice. To be fair to them, the Weezer drummer said, if you make it$20 million, we'll do a deluxe breakup. Nice. I think actually, wasn't it long after that, that they did their own cruise, which is quite literally showboating.

37:41Fair enough to them. I am legally informed, legally required to inform you actually didn't come very close. they only raised£172 towards a£6.3 million goal. So I don't think it was that. I don't think it really took off. It's incredibly close, guys. It's incredibly close. Elsewhere tonight, Man City host Bayer Leverkusen at 8pm. They are looking to get back into some kind of form, Man City, after they're shooing at the weekend against Newcastle. They look very listless. Man City's Claudio Echeverri is currently on loan at Leverkusen but has only managed four league starts, which has led to speculation that he may be returning to Man City in January.

38:18I'm obviously still fuming that he's not Marco Echeverry's son, hero of Bolivia, obviously. But Pep was asked about this and he said, it's a question for his beautiful agent. Have you seen his agent? Yes, I have. He looks like a character from Miami Vice. He looks like George Michael with a big old stogie on the go. Yeah, big loud Hawaiian shirt. The first picture that comes up, he's sort of leaning back on a sofa at what looks like it's about two o 'clock in the morning. Big, big cigar. It's lovely stuff. If it's fast forward to tonight, that'll be Donaldson in Marseille. Surrounded by organised crime laws.

38:56Yeah, really, really hitting it off with Fang. Yeah, Donaldson and Fang. It's the team that you always wanted to see. But I mean, yeah, Man City, you can imagine that they would probably be favourites for this at home, Luke. They've been quite patchy in places. Yeah, to me it feels like in Man City's case, they've kind of dusted their way through the Champions League with very little problem. I mean, I know they kind of only drew against Monaco in Monaco, but they swatted aside Borussia Dortmund. Dortmund showed a bit. I remember watching that game. But they ultimately just did the business. Obviously, they beat Napoli fairly easily as well.

39:39And they went to Villarreal and didn't really have any problem. Sometimes it feels like the Premier League behemoth is really flexing in group stages of European competitions, right? So, yes, I would fancy them to win. Yeah, Bayer Leverkusen have picked up in the wake of the very short-lived Eric Ten Hag era. They're third in the Bundesliga at the moment. but again, Man City Away is... Jim, I don't think you can call it an era. I would call it an Eric Ten Hag experiment. Yeah, I think you're right. Like it's some kind of Dan Brown novel. Some sort of fever dream episode. Yeah. It was almost the German equivalent of the Ange Postacoglu experiment at Nottingham Forest.

40:18I completely agree. Well, it'll be interesting how those ones pan out but I will be presumably letting you know precisely what happened in Marseille. One night in Marseille with Donaldson very soon. You're not doing a porno, are you? Yeah. Marseille Vice. Came out wrong. Came out wrong. Came out wrong. Which will be the sequel to the porno. Right. Thank you to all of you for listening to the Football Rumble, part of the Aircast Creator Network. Jim will be back tomorrow with Marcus and David slapping cheeks and talking about football. So I'll speak. Remember to subscribe to the Football Rumble in your podcast app so you never miss an episode.

40:53Say goodbye, Luke, episode. Goodbye. Say goodbye, Jim, episode. Goodbye. And it's goodbye from me, Evan Seid.