Mailbag: What's one rule we'd change for next season?

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0:45Luke: Hi, pod fans. Max here. Barry's here too. Hello. And now the Premier League is back, Barry, meaning we'll be providing incredibly astute analysis three times a week wherever you get your podcasts. Barry, with the remaining 10 seconds of this advert, can you provide some astute analysis? I think Arsenal are going to win the Premier League. And there you are. For more hot takes like that, watch or listen to Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

1:27Done and done well. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at Angie.com. There are moments that reveal who we are and who we're meant to become. For those born to lead, such moments call for a vehicle of equal distinction. Dynamic by design, uncompromising in execution, the Range Rover Sport was engineered for those rare individuals who demand the world and possess the conviction to claim it. When your time to lead arrives, you need a vehicle that rises to meet it. The Range Rover Sport. Exclusive offers available now. Explore further at RangeRover.com.

2:04Hi, this is Kim and Penn Holderness from the Laugh Lines Podcast. This episode is sponsored by Oli, your wellness partner for back to school and beyond. Back to school season is here. Packed backpacks, packed lunches, and packed schedules are officially back. Ollie Kids Sleep helps little dreamers wind down with a gentle blend of melatonin, L-theanine, and botanicals for restful sleep. Translation, an easy way to put those school night negotiations to bed. And for the grown-ups, Ollie Sleep helps you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling refreshed. Because as you know, the morning mayhem comes early.

2:39Visit Ollie.com and stock up on back-to-school must-haves today. That's O-L-L-Y.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

3:15energetic. Big ship on the ocean like a big Titanic. Woman, you're nice. Sweet, fantastic. Big ship on the ocean like a big Titanic. Woman, you're nice. Sweet, energetic. Big ship on the ocean like a big Titanic. Woman!

3:29Oh, yes. Big ship on the ocean. All aboard the Mailbag Express. Next up, our Gmail account. Welcome to the Football Ramble Mailbag. It's Tuesday, the 22nd of July. I'm Pete Donaldson. I'm Luke Moore. And I'm Jim Campbell.

3:57I'm a bit tired after reciting all the lyrics from reel to reels. I like to move it, move it, whatever it's called. Featuring the mad stuntman. Think it's the mad stuntman doing the rap, isn't it? All stuntmen are mad, aren't they? It's not a normal job, is it? Yes, it is the mailbag. We do it every single week, and we basically read out questions, what you've asked, and try and answer them or just explore them. You don't normally do the mailbag. I don't normally do the mailbag, no. You can't be trusted with the exterior comms, that's why. I've never been, they've never told me why, I'm not allowed, but it's happened.

4:25Luke: It's to do with external comms. Yeah, okay. If you want to get involved with the mailbag, you can tweet us on external comms at FootballRamble, messages on Instagram and BlueSky at FootballRamble or you can email us short at FootballRamble.com. Oh, the producer just messaged saying, no, it's because you kept sending him fake questions using Grok. Correct. That's right. And associated images as well. A lot of them are about tits. Right, okay. That's a rude and awful way to start any kind of show. But Friends of the Rambles, a friend of the Rambles can get involved on Discord. You can also leave a comment over on YouTube, so please do.

4:56Luke: It's important to know that if you are a friend of the Rambles and you're paying your$5 a month, you will get your questions prioritised. You get your pound of flesh. Through Discord. Correct. We'll do yours first. So that's worth doing. You can also get involved over on YouTube as well. YouTube, the commenters do come up with some absolute pearls sometimes. You get a lot of interaction for better or worse. I love you sometimes. Some of the questions are really, really good, though. Yeah. All right. So, Peter, give us the first question, please. From Ruckus Patrick on the Discord. If you could add slash remove slash change one rule for the upcoming season, what would it be?

5:30Jim, should we start with you? Yeah, I think... Yeah. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Fred Durst. Fred Durst. Come on. He looks funny now, doesn't he? He does. He looks like a little grandpa now. I like him. Yeah, he does. But he's still got his red hat. I like it. What a portent of doom that red hat was. so yeah answer it like Fred Durst

5:47Luke: do one sentence like Fred Durst would do it come on come on people

5:55Luke: would you listen to a Fred Durst fronted soccer podcast for a bit I'd have to I'd absolutely have to has he ever been spotted at a I'm going to find out I'd love I'd love a football podcast presented by Fred Durst the co-host is Wes Borland yeah he's just got a different mask on every show and he doesn't say anything yeah good point Just sitting there in the cuck chair in the corner. Painted face. Sorry, Jim, carry on. Right. So this question comes up fairly regularly, doesn't it? About rule changes and stuff. And so it's sort of hard not to cover old ground. But generally, a suggestion I've seen quite a lot, which I think would be great for football in general, it's a minor, minor tweak that I think actually has legs, would be that the post and the crossbar count essentially as a defender.

6:41Nice. So if the ball goes out from a shot that comes off of the bar, then you get a corner.

6:47Luke: Yeah, it's a nice little consolation. Just a little bit more attacking in there. I think it's the football community as a whole saying, we respect that strike off the bar. It's not an on-target chance. We can't give you a goal. We can't even give you an on-target opportunity with that. But what we can do is a little help from us. Get this in your back pocket. Have a lovely little corner on us. But you can only take a shot. Yeah, nice. No, no, no. I don't think you can do that. Nah, you can only take it short. complicated. No, I'll tell you what, how about this then? Indirect free kick in the box?

7:16Luke: Because this goes straight into my one. The person who has the shot has to take the corner. Right. Oh, I like it. Am I right in thinking you like that for penalties? I do like that for penalties. The person who wins the penalty has to. I think to get rid of, there's loads of reasons for this. Is that the end of yours, by the way? Because I don't want to hijack it. Yeah, nothing else to say of you. You're still thinking about Fred Durst. I think that to get rid of all the inane, this is a bit, you know a bit rich coming from me inane football commentary online about Penaldo this and this player scored this amount of goals but how many of them are penalties I think if you and also not only that but then if you say you you know what it's really hard to die for a penalty now because of VAR but you know what you're doing so you kind of exaggerate a contact you get a penalty or whatever and the referee the VAR's not going to overturn it I think it's a big equaliser if the person who is fouled has to take it yeah I don't really like the idea of being allowed to have designated penalty takers.

8:12Luke: I think it's much more interesting. Yeah. Because sometimes, because there are penalties and then there are penalties, right? If you're a player who's broken the offside track, you're a striker, you're going for your 30th goal of the season, you go around the keeper, he takes you down, you get to that penalty, that's fine. You probably would have scored, right? If you're Harry Maguire going away from goal towards the corner flag and exaggerating... Yeah, true. But you know what I mean? A defensive player from a corner going away from the penalty area and you get nudge in the back in the last minute and it's already 4-0.

8:40Luke: Like, yeah, you're taking that. Yeah. Because I think that's the right thing to do. How about the person who gives away the foul has to go in bins? Do you remember? Another added dimension to it. Another added dimension to it. There was a season where Chelsea won their final game of the season 8-0. I forget who it was against. But Cloud McAlealy took a penalty in that game. The goalkeeper saved it but it sort of landed very kind of close in front of the goalkeeper. And McAlealy sort of tackled it into the net in a perfect expression of what his game actually is. So maybe we'd see a bit more of that sort of stuff, which I'm all for.

9:14Luke: There's a lot of potential. I agree. I forgot about that one, the penalty one, because didn't Arsenal back in the day, didn't they have a tradition where the player who was fouled couldn't take it? I'm sure that was doing it. Someone had a superstition about it. It might even have been Henri. The Wenger years, I'm sure I read. You can't be doing that, can you? They had another one where you had to wear the same length of shirt sleeve as the captain as well. Right. Yeah, I don't remember that one. I might have made that one up. That's a weird one. When you're in the dressing room, you've got to take a look around.

9:40Luke: Yeah. Keep doing the Durst ones. You did the Oasis ones yesterday. Okay. It's Dursty Tuesday, isn't it? It is. It is. Like a flirty Thursday. My one was actually going to be, I mean, you reminded me of the penalty one, which I am passionate about, as you've heard. The other one I quite like the idea of is in basketball, they have a backcourt rule. Have you seen that? What's that? So once you go over the halfway line, you can't go back. Oh, nice. Okay. It's called a backcourt violation to go back over. in football the same way the back pass rule kind of helped teams to not be totally out the game because the other team who was ahead would just dominate possession the keeper would pick it up again I think the back the back I guess you can call it back court but whatever you want to call it rule would mean that if you went over the halfway line you have to keep going until there's either a stoppage or a shot or whatever you want to do and it means that you can't be super defensive with your play I think it would be really interesting development on the possession-based style we see a lot of the top teams doing.

10:38It would shift tactics a lot. That would actually be a really major change.

10:41Luke: It might affect the press quite a lot as well. Yeah, definitely. So I think that'd be quite interesting. Yeah. It'd probably be, I mean, I want to get a load of people now telling me why it's a ridiculous idea and I accept that it probably is. But I would like to see that, to see what it'd be like. The other one I had was just, before I moved on to you, Pete, the other one I had was just, when there's fixture congestion because of all the games people are playing, just do three teams at a time. So you turn the pitch into like a three-pronged pitch. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just three goals, three teams.

11:08Luke: Yeah. And then they just decide who they want to play against and attack against. They only have one ball, though. So you think that like a team that is kind of languishing at the bottom of the table that nobody cares about are just going to be standing there? No, they could. So Sunderland next season, they could team up with Leeds to take on, to humble Man United. Right. Okay. Both attack the goal. Granit, who's going to go and stamp on? Everyone. Everyone. More victims. Yeah. It's a good point. Yeah. What do you think, Peter? I think there's a, to take it rather seriously, which I always never do, I think there's a real appetite for losing the professional foul stuff, personally.

11:41What do you mean? I think given serious admonishment, serious kind of, you know, red cards for professional fouls. Pulling people back. Needlessly. Oh, so you mean

11:54Luke: the moment on the breakaway when it's a yellow? Yeah. You think that should be a red? I think there's an appetite for that being a red, personally. So I get that. and Jim I'm interested in your thoughts but my take is just it's a really weird situation because a yellow doesn't feel like enough but I think a red feels like too much a sin bin maybe yeah maybe because I think I think a red should be a really extreme thing I think it's a huge thing for a team to lose a player and I think sometimes they are maybe dished out a bit too easily for a lot of things I think it's that foul exists purely because it's sort of taking one through the yellow card system isn't it so I think it would be a lot to lose a player for it could you have self I don't know just kind of like post match you get banned for if you do a professional foul it's yellow but you lose the next game for the player it's complicated isn't it I think the only thing you can settle on is that thing they've trialled in non-league and I've seen it a couple times at Peckham Town actually for dissent normally if you sin bin for an amount of minutes for exactly what you're talking about, that to me feels like a middle ground that would work because you're essentially saying the players sacrifice themselves for, say, 10 minutes for a pretty important reason.

13:11Luke: I mean, because I think otherwise a yellow doesn't really do much. But I think Jim's right. I think the red is too much. I mean, because ideally you're trying to... The reason it's so frustrating is because it's so obviously cynical and it stops an exciting moment for the other team. so I think maybe as well with the sin bin prospect you might find players thinking twice about doing it which again would help the problem so I think a red is too much I would Atari and feathering yeah maybe some kind of shaming yeah a public shaming yeah for the rest of the game getting the stocks you have to you have to march out of the stadium onto the bus with a tiny pair of speedos on you've got to have an instant interview with Cottrell You ask too much.

13:58Instant pitch side interview. Give me the record. He's punched Cottrell. All right, Jim, let's have the next message slash request slash thing. The next message slash request. We've got a related question from Kent Wagonshots on Instagram.

14:11Luke: Yeah, he messaged me on the Luke and Pete show quite a lot, Kent. Great name. Great name. And we've had a few listeners asking the same thing. And Kent asks, to combat yo-yo clubs, what if promoted clubs had a one-season immunity to adjust? I like that. I do like that a bit. It would make it stodgy. No, it'd mix it up, though. It really would. It would massively mix it up. Because if you did, I mean, we've kind of fantasised, and that is the right word, about this a bit because of what happened last season. So if you gave Leicester... It's a gap year, isn't it? If you gave Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton a gap year, grew out some dreadlocks, they went...

14:43Luke: Poi, find poi. Did some fire poi. Yeah. Took an acoustic guitar to a barbecue, right? If you gave Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton that, you're effectively saying that Man United, Wolves and Spurs will be relegated last season. which is I mean enjoyable I mean presumably Levy would have pushed the button a lot earlier in the season if he had known that was happening though but you are looking at essentially Maynard Wolves and Spurs going down I mean and let's make this absolutely clear 42 42 and 38 points respectively there have been teams in the Premier League who have gone down with those points titles in the past so it wouldn't be necessary they wouldn't deserve it necessarily but it would entirely I mean I suspect the reason you like it Pete is because it would entirely change the fabric of the game.

15:27Yes, I would like that. The baby would be on the floor wondering where all the bathwater went.

15:33Luke: You'd then have a Premier League, just to indulge this fancy for a moment, you'd then have a Premier League next season where you'd have Southampton, Ipswich, Leicester, Sunderland, Leeds and Burnley in the Premier League. Yeah. Three of them not being able to be relegated. You're right. Southampton's not going down, I'm sorry. what that might mean would just be the extremity between the top and the bottom would get to the point where there was also an extremity between the middle and the bottom and that would probably actually be really unhealthy so just so you know Liverpool got exactly seven times the amounts of points that Southampton did last season so you think it'd be worse than that I thought you said I mean potentially genuinely yeah it's an enjoyable little think piece what I find interesting about this is that as you mentioned Jim in the question is that we are getting an unprecedented amount of questions for our mailbag show about what we need to do to address this issue, which I think tells its own problem.

16:31Luke: It tells its own story, doesn't it? Because if we get into the situation next season where the three promoted teams are relegated again, it's as we suspected, which is the start of a pattern. I mean, Dave Cartridge was on a week or so ago talking about how he thought Sunderland could do X and Y and they could stay in the Premier League. I think he was kind of talking through his pocket a little bit there because he's a Sunderland fan and he wants to do well and I get it I think it's very difficult to make the argument that any of those teams next season will do anything next season I think Sunderland are going to be a very very I don't know where they're going to get points even Grant Jaka well again Grant Jaka in the middle of a load of 19 year olds and you've got that's a whole different story you've got you've got you've got the Burnley thing where they've essentially not ripped up their back five but there's going to be changes to say the least.

17:19It looks like James Trafford might well go to Man City because they have an option on him, don't they? So, I mean, that's a sort of little microcosmic example of where football is really, isn't it? That even good players in the championship can be earmarked, essentially, by other players. I know it's probably a rare example.

17:34Luke: You also have another thing which feeds into this whole thing where you have such an overuse of the loan system in the EFL as well. Like, speaking as someone who supports an EFL team, there's been seasons in the past where it felt like my team's like key parts of my team. Entire spine. They're just gone again because they're only there for a little bit. They're there for them, not for the club. They're there for them because they want to... They're on their gap year. Exactly. They are on their gap year. Portsmouth gap year. But I think I would go as far as to say that if Scott Parker can go any way towards replicating defensively what he did in the Championship last season in the Premier League, it'll be one of the best manager performances for years.

18:13Luke: I mean, it'll be amazing. So what we have understood here clearly is that something does probably need to happen. It's obviously not going to be that from Kent, but it's an interesting thought experiment. A little boost, a little 10-point boost coming up. Yeah, there'd be legal challenges for that, won't there? There probably would be, yeah. Good point, actually. But those take ages. We wouldn't find out for 10 years. Well, coming up after this, a delicious Slim Biscuit fact. And is it make or break this season for Mikel Arteta at Arsenal?

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19:25Back to school season is here. Packed backpacks, packed lunches and packed schedules are officially back. Oli Kids Sleep helps little dreamers wind down with a gentle blend of melatonin, L-theanine and botanicals for restful sleep. Translation, an easy way to put those school night negotiations to bed. And for the grownups, Ollie's sleep helps you fall asleep, stay asleep, and wake up feeling refreshed. Because as you know, the morning mayhem comes early. Visit Ollie.com and stock up on back-to-school must-haves today. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

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20:36Luke: Hi, Podfans. Max here. Barry's here too. Hello. And now the Premier League is back, Barry, meaning we'll be providing incredibly astute analysis three times a week wherever you get your podcasts. Barry, with the remaining 10 seconds of this advert, can you provide some astute analysis? I think Arsenal are going to win the Premier League. And there you are. For more hot takes like that, watch or listen to Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

21:01Welcome back to the Football Ramble Mailbag. Luke, Jim, do you want your Fred Durst fact? Yes, please. Fred Durst had a line in his contract that stated any video game that used a Limp Bizkit song in its soundtrack also had to feature him, Fred Durst, as a playable character. Brilliant. Did that happen? Yeah, so that's why a lot of weird fighting games in the...

21:20Luke: He's in some wrestling games. In the noughties. I don't actually know. He's certainly in... He might be. My first port of call in my mind was Tony Hawk. That may have sort of gone through before Limp Bizkit were absolutely massive. I seem to recall if Breakstop was on one of the soundtracks, maybe. I'm annoyed that the new Tony Hawk Prosecutor 4 doesn't have Flogging Molly on. Fred Durst doesn't come across very well in that Trainwreck with Stock 99 documentary no he doesn't although people do there's a point in it where people go they come out and they're playing a song called Break Stuff I mean come on guys it's one of their songs at one point one of the promoters says something along the lines of I mean he's Fred Durst if you hire Fred Durst don't be surprised if you get Fred Durst was it Bush was the end of that the only artist didn't really come out of it with any credit like Rostow seems to have had a pretty good understanding of that this was bad and he needs to do something about it.

22:11I'll get my shirt off and do a slow one. He looked great. He did very much

22:14Luke: the Fabian share of Woodson. He was in Chelsea's academy as a young man. Was he? Was he really? Yeah. Is he Arsenal? I feel like it was Arsenal. I don't know. He got caught being unfaithful to his wife on the baby monitor, didn't he? Exactly. There's actually a video of him and Gwen Stefani doing a cover of Glycerine. Great song. Doing a durette. It is, it's like watching love die. There is no chemistry left between them. It's horrendous. Like when Macy Gray and ODB are doing Don't Go Break Him on her. Yeah, on crack. Anyway, we've got Don't Go Break Him on her. We've got another question here from Fred Durst.

22:51Luke: He says, this is from Jimmy Mackham, he says on X, Arsenal have spent a lot of money and it looks like they'll get their striker as well. If they finish second slash third slash fourth but win nothing again, is Arteta still in charge next season. Jim? Yeah, so I think interestingly, and I found this on the tour as well, speaking to our wonderful listeners who came to the show, that there is a big difference in the opinion of Arteta outside the Arsenal fan base from what there is inside. Explain what that difference is. A lot of people were saying to me, surely if he doesn't win something next season, he has to go, right?

23:27And a lot of people seem to think and I think this is probably quite reflective of what people at large think that he's kind of on thin ice and that he'll be under a bit of pressure this season. I don't really know anyone who is an Arsenal fan who I'd speak to regularly who feels that way. You're quite normal though. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't have any Arsenal internet friends, for example. But I think because obviously last season was disappointing, but they still finished second, albeit 10 points off. They got the Champions League semi-final, so it's not like it was a disastrous a season. I think he might have one season that is like an unmitigated disappointment.

24:08I think they might give him the grace of that. If they finished outside the Champions League, I think he'd be toast and didn't win anything. But I do think, because they've spent a lot of money on his vision and his project, and it's all kind of in his image. And if you look around at the market for managers, you think, well, who is going to come in and do a better job? I think there is a lot to be said for sticking with project managers when things are going well enough that they're not going badly, if that makes sense. Because obviously a trophy is an absolute, it's a necessity sooner rather than later at this point.

24:41So I think there will be some pressure if they finish in that sort of position, which I think is very likely and very possible, by the way, given how good Liverpool look and the resurgence of City potentially. And I think Chelsea are interesting and Newcastle are interesting this season as well. So I think it's going to be very, very competitive up there. I think, I think as long as he got them the Champions League again he'd get another season but then that season might be the one where people might think he's never going to get this over the line.

25:09Luke: So I quite like the idea I don't know if this is the case but I quite like the idea of Arsenal being one of the few clubs in modern football where they like no look this is how we do things here. We've had not just Arsene Wenger but we've had George Graham we've had Bertie Mee we've had Herbert Chapman our tradition is to is to have people stick around for a long time and back them and let them build a club in their image and all the rest of it. I quite like that on the romantic side of things. And it will be interesting to see how long, if it comes to pass, how long the hierarchy at Arsenal can fight for that against the reality of what modern football is, right?

25:46My take is that, you know,

25:49Luke: Arsenal had a difficult time of it towards the end of Vega. We know that. Then they go to Emery and Emery's there for, he's there for 18 months or something. It wasn't like he was there for like 10 minutes. like it was a disaster and then obviously if you put aside Ljungberg being there as interim Arteta's been there for what six or maybe six years this year I think it's his sixth season with one trophy compare it with Wenger's first six years it's quite stark but the context is so different Pete the context is that Wenger takes two years to win the league comes in 96 wins it in 96 Riojock had a team though didn't he it was a solid team it was an okay team but they finished something like seventh or eighth he did sign Dennis Bergkamp though.

26:28Well done Bruce.

26:29Luke: I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's really interesting to hear you say that the Arsenal fans that you know or the overall view is that Arteta's your guy and that's good. Unless there are people defacing murals because Arsenal signed another player from Chelsea which is obviously mad and I suppose that has to be acknowledged. Yeah but you shouldn't have done that. At least draw some orange chips on them. I've told you I don't remember doing it. Tyler Campbell. I'll be interested this season to see how the fan base breaks because I think that is the most likely outcome, second, third or fourth or whatever, I think there's a chance they could win something around.

27:03Luke: But then I guess you're at the point now where a League Cup or an FA Cup is probably not going to cut the must anyway. Well, this is something I find very interesting because a lot of people use the example of Jurgen Klopp in terms of the benefits of sticking with a manager when you're up against very, very difficult opposition. But Klopp was winning trophies along the way. And I think there are legitimate questions about Arteta's ability to manage knockout games. There have been so many silly cup exits, It's like really, really silly ones and too many for them all to be anomalous. And I think that is something he needs to really, really get right.

27:33And I think that is possibly part of the reason that they're throwing so much money at the wall this summer to try and get the squad to the point where even the bench looks absolutely stacked.

27:43Luke: Yeah. I think it was a wee while before Klopp won something. Not this long, though. No, he took over in 2015. They obviously won the league in 2020. And they picked up the... It took them ages to pick up the League Cup and the FA Cup, didn't it? I don't think they did win that much before 2019 when they won the Champions League. So it was years. It was years. But I feel that there was... I personally, like Carlsen on the table, I think Klopp's a better manager than Arteta. But put that to one side, to me it looked like it was constant... It feels like in retrospect it was constant improvement.

28:17Luke: Whereas with Arteta, rightly or wrongly the feeling is it's batting up against a ceiling that is a limitation rather than a step on the road to success and him and the club are proving themselves to be quite frustrating in the transfer market as well so I don't know I think the other thing I would just say for Liverpool is that off the back of that rivalry of Man City across that many years they were very very unlucky not to win more than one title so the comparison trousers maybe aren't that helpful. It'll be interesting to see how it transpires. You're not going to get an Henri Vieira kind of an Elke coming into the side.

28:55Those players don't exist anymore who have such a massive high ceiling but are already coming in at reasonable prices.

29:00Luke: I think also Jim's right to point out the idea who's going to come in, who is it going to be? People are very, very keen to call for the head of someone. The market's still a market, isn't it? Especially when it's like, okay, you've finished second three seasons in a row. you've gone late in the Champions League in the previous season so the MO of that manager coming in is you've got to win one of those two and there are very very few managers unless you can try and prize Luis Enrique away or somebody like that which is obviously extremely difficult there's an element of starting again every time as well and you look at the seasons before the three second places in a row got working back it was 5th, 8th, 8th, 5th, 6th, 5th so there's improvement there it's just frustrating isn't it at the moment anyway Jim, email Yes, this is from Peter on email.

29:45I presume it's not you. Hello, Peter. Because I know you're locked out of your email. Following up on a recent mailbag where Luke took... Luke? Luke. That's me, I'm Luke. Following up on a recent mailbag where Luke talked about some of the weirdest names to come out of US sport, I am of the opinion that Luke chose the wrong sport in suggested names from the NFL.

30:01Luke: You're like an old-fashioned New York newspaper man. Indeed. I like it. I'm going to stop it now, though. I don't believe there is a name in all of sports that beats this one from baseball. I spent 20 years living in New York from the early 80s and that first year I watched a lot of sport. Most weekday evenings would have me in front of the TV with chips, fruit and beer watching the sport of the season. Love that you've got some fruit in there. Chips, fruit and beer. Chips, fruit and beer. Wow. Yeah. Renaissance man. I would chuckle when the game would feature one rusty cunt who played for major league teams in the early 80s.

30:30I assume that's coot, but I would assume you'd all not want me to pronounce it that way. Other great names from baseball that I didn't see play include, and all of these are fantastic, Johnny Dickshot Budweiser Urban Shocker Urban Shocker That's brilliant

30:46Luke: That sounds like a Pete Darnson practical joke Yeah, like a Spider-Man villain He's giving me an Urban Shocker John Malarkey Classic Jack Glasscock Pete LeCock Antonio Bastardo Tony Bastard Yeah, Tony Bastard That's what we'd be calling him if he's planned apparently Orville Overall Nice Oil Can Boyd Oil Can is obviously some sort of nickname. There's Coco Crisp, Richard Dickie, Lovelady and Dick Pohl. I mean, they're all very solid. Dick Pohl's great. They have huge squads in baseball, don't they? So I guess there's a wider pool of brilliant names. Rusty Kunz's real name is Russell. Right. Russell Kunz.

31:28Luke: He's leading into that. Yeah. It reminds me of that meme from that Japanese baseball game from the 90s where they guessed a load of American names. they had names like Brian Rorchegall and things like that. Yeah, utterly charming. Yeah, that was... There were some really weird ones. There's a meme, wasn't there? Fake American names. Yeah. In a video game. In a video game, yeah. A Japanese video game, yeah. Well, coming up after this, speaking of Japan, one listener gets inspired by a Japanese... Do you want to hear some? I finally found it.

32:05Luke: Sleeve Mukdikel. McDycle Daryl Archerdeld Right Nice Willie Dustis Willie Dustis And that's spelt like justice with a D Ray McScriff Dwight Rorschigel Dwight Rorschigel Todd Gonzalez So good A lot of fun Every one Better than the last Very enjoyable Well as you said Speak to me I'll just do the last one Right Jim Bob's and Dugnut Love it Alright Dugnut So we'll be back after this As one listener gets inspired by A Japanese university team

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34:09Luke: Hi Pod fans, Max here, Barry's here too Hello And now the Premier League is back, Barry meaning we'll be providing incredibly astute analysis three times a week wherever you get your podcasts Barry, with the remaining 10 seconds of this advert can you provide some astute analysis? I think Arsenal are going to win the Premier League And there you are, for more hot takes like that watch or listen to Football Weekly wherever you get your podcasts

34:34Welcome back to the Mailbag. Dan in Japan sent us his email, chaps. Japan's Emperor's Cup just played its third round and Toyo University, an actual university side, went away and knocked out a top J1 side in the previous round just defeated my team, Niigata Albirex, another albeit bad J1 team. The social media comments included, shameful, simply too weak, and my favourite, come ask Toyo University to play in the league instead of us. undoubtedly a magical cup run for Toyo University although a new low point for the Alberecks that brings me to my question what is the most embarrassing result you've seen your clubs suffer I mean I mean like Newcastle had like a third round FA Cup defeat nailed on every single year under Mike Ashley and lower than that I would say lower than kind of league competition I think it was a couple of non-leaguers in there as well terrible

35:26Luke: I can remember probably have probably been the COVID season. Right. Portsmouth, under Kenny Jacket, we're struggling really badly to get out of League One. We've been on that terrible thing where we got all the way down to League Two, almost going out of business and we're trying to get out of League One. Yeah. And then we got drawn against, Portsmouth got drawn against Southampton in the Carabao. Yeah. And we got whooped, absolutely whooped. To be fair, the first 10 minutes that we were okay, we got whooped 4-0 at home by Southampton. Southampton were quite good at the time. They were under Haas and Hood until they feel like a mid-table Premier League team basically.

36:01Luke: But Portsmouth's record, the reason it's so embarrassing of course because it's against the local rivals is a reminder that we're a lot shitter than them at the time. And obviously this season we'll see who's back and who isn't. But Portsmouth's record against Southampton at home was genuinely very good. Like they hadn't lost at home to Southampton since like the early 80s. So it was a really bad reminder. And then in terms of most embarrassing moment, there was all that stuff that went on where Portsmouth almost went out of business but before that before Mandrich came in so in the mid to late 90s I remember the Portsmouth evening news running a story about Portsmouth being in such terrible financial trouble that the players were having to wash and reuse their own jockstraps and it was a big back page story and I was like oh this is embarrassing this is really fucking embarrassing feels like a defeat and I remember going to sixth form college at the time and it was quite a much wider pool of people.

36:59Luke: And so quite a lot of people from the Southampton kind of area were there and they were just, yeah, relentless. Relentless. So that was probably mine. Mine is very obviously the 8-2 at Old Trafford. Oh yeah, that was great. That's one of my best moments in the Ramble. I imagine from a neutral perspective, I imagine it was amazing because it's always amazing to see a big, you did, to see a big team get thrashed, isn't it? But I watched it at the Edinburgh Festival in a pub. I think Jack Whitehall might have been in there very sadly. so there was a silver lining at least. 2011. And yeah, it was just ridiculous because obviously it heightened the gap between the two teams at the moment.

37:33I think he might have signed Mikel Arteta and a few other players as an immediate response to that because the window was still open. And it was, I think Carl Jenkins might have been making his debut. Someone was sent off, like everything that could have gone wrong went wrong and it created this perfect storm. Before the game, you said you scored twice at Old Trafford. I think, okay, all right. I'll take that. But it was just awful. It's just absolutely... That eighth one going in, eight. It's ridiculous.

38:01Luke: Silver Lion to the cloud, though, was, as you rightly alluded to, Jim, Wenger went out there and got his checkbook out straight after and signed future Hall of Famers Park Chu Yong, Andre Santos, Per Murtasaka, who you famously hated Per Murtasaka. No, no, Skodron Mustafi. I liked Murtasaka. Who was the one who was an absolute dick? Mustafi's a fucking idiot. And Yossi Benayoun, but they also did get Mikel Arteta as well. and he also essentially blamed Armand Traore by sending him to Queen's Park Rangers straight after as well. Yeah, fair enough. Someone has to take the blame. Sorry, Armand. That was a really interesting one on the neutral side because we talked about this thing on the mailbag maybe a few months ago about what you love to see in football, and one of the things I love to see as a neutral is a massive, you know, completely out of nowhere spanking.

38:49Luke: I mean, because what happens... I think that's the defining one of those, isn't it? It permeates the players. like the players can't stop it the goals won't stop going in like you said yourself eight goals it's mental but it does happen that for me to watch if you're putting the TV on to watch a game on a Sunday and you've got no dog in the fight particularly doing the Ramble on the Monday or whatever it's great to see that it's one of the most compelling things you can watch every time there was an FA Cup fixture involving Newcastle United against Law League opposition or the Ronnie Radford goal for Hereford Town yeah of course I think it was the lowest I think something like the lowest kind of ranked non-league side to be top flight opposition in the English footballing history, which includes a hell of a lot of football matches.

39:28Luke: Absolute cabbage patch of a pitch as well. It really was. That's in the montage for every FA Cup match of the day. Radford, I think he died a couple of years ago, but he was a midfielder and it was an equalising goal. So it wasn't as if that was the winner, but it was such an absolute howitzer from quite deep. That was way before your time, though. Way before my time. But I used to see it every single time we played an FA Cup match against like Hednesford Town or something. Arsenal lost the game to Wrexham in the FA Cup. a long, long time ago. Mickey Thomas. Exactly, yeah. You know the goal scorer.

39:57I think that Ronnie Radford goal.

39:59Luke: He got sent down for counterfeiting money, didn't he? Is that right? He did, yeah. Yeah. Give it a Google just in case. What are you going to say about Ronnie Radford? Future generations will think that that game is the day that was played in the trenches on Christmas Day because of how that pitch looks. How that pitch looks, yeah. I got a... I got... Someone told me, an academic, when I was studying, told me that the Christmas Day football match between English allied forces or whatever it is, British forces and Germans, probably didn't happen. There's no direct evidence for it. Yeah, that feels like a bit of propaganda.

40:34Luke: There's a truce, definitely a truce happened, but the actual football match, I think, may not have existed. I've just checked while I was saying that, and he was convicted of laundering money and a counterfeit currency scam and served 18 months in January 1993. Good process. Thank you very much. I was then partly hoping that I wouldn't have to worry about it, but I don't have to worry because he's still alive what's the last question Peter? the last question comes from Ruckus Patrick he's got one more question just to round us off now he's at a safe distance which of Andy's extreme opinions was the most objectionable?

41:05well I haven't got one I heard a good thing but I couldn't think of it he's not here to defend himself his love of Takiyah around a major tournament because I'm a magpie when it comes to footballing opinions so I basically copied everything Andy said so when he's wrong he's double wrong what are you going to do now then? I don't know I'll have to find a bigger boy to copy

41:21Luke: here he is Jim Campbell I mean, we should definitely pie on this because Andy's no longer here to be able to defend himself, so it's much easier. The most perturbed I've been from one of Andy's viewpoints has been that he will not acknowledge, observe, or patronise Pret or McDonald's. He will go out of his way to avoid Pret or McDonald's. For example, I've been on a European trip with him and you go to the Eurostar terminal. Is he a Delicia de France? The only thing in there to eat from is Pret. They must have paid extra to get a Monopoly or something. Or some really janky local place. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

42:04Luke: And he'll go to that one every time. He won't eat. I don't know why, but he will not go to Pret and he will not eat McDonald's. There's a W.H. Smith in there as well. Could you not pop for a meal deal? Maybe. I think you could tell a lot about someone by their McDonald's order. If someone's pompous about McDonald's, I don't trust it. There's a double fillet fish kicking a ball at the moment I'm very much enjoying. Right. Jim you got any bad experiences with Andy you want to share with us? I used to find it quite uncomfortable when a plane would go past with obviously a little trail coming past it and then he'd roll his eyes and go there's another one.

42:34Yeah.

42:35Luke: Didn't you see as many of these did you? Yeah. I can't believe I forgot that one. Big chemtrails man isn't he yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. He's got a few opinions and that's why he's gone it's like when that guitarist had to leave mumble for the love and sometimes yeah. Andy will next be seen in the Oval Office doing interviews for his alt-right newspaper. Right, that's too far now. Is that too far? Gary Cotterell. I'm getting in the Marcus seat. It always goes too far. Do listen to Andy's new podcast with Gary Cotterell though. On the continent, not spelt with an O. Thank you for listening to the Football Ramble.

43:06Mailbag, part of the Aircash Creator Network. We are going to be back tomorrow doing more Ramble stuff. It's the silly season and we're going to be sillier than ever tomorrow, so do join us. Please do send us your responses, opinions and questions for next week from Mailbag and subscribe. on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Say goodbye, Lukey Moor. Goodbye. And let's have a goodbye from you, Jim Gamble. Goodbye. And it's goodbye from me and all of Limp Bizkit's oeuvre.

43:35The Football Ramble is a Stack Production and part of the Acast Creator Network.

43:46Luke: Hi, Pod fans. Max Rushton here from the chart-topping Guardian Football Weekly podcast. Don't like to crow. If you enjoyed the World Cup with us, you'll be glad to know we're back for the new Premier League season. Expect three episodes a week, questionable predictions, and the biggest stories in soccer from the Premier League to the Champions League and beyond. Watch now on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. In private markets investing, better judgment starts with better insight. CFA Institute helps finance professionals navigate complexity through rigorous research, a new private markets pathway in the CFA program and professional certificates.

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