Arsenal’s perfect start and so many Champions League goals – Football Weekly

27:00Because the formation has changed slightly. You can't really play with two wingers and De Bruyne and also a centre-forward. They did have a training match where they tried to play De Bruyne as a false nine, but then decided against that. the one who did play up front, Luka, got sent off for dissent. He was rowing over the award of a goal kick in the corner. Was he going your thick, ref, or something like that? I'm not sure. I think it must have been your thick. Did you see after that, when the referee pulled out the red card, he went, no, I was saying I was hit on the head. I was like... But they've got injuries.

27:39They've got injuries at the moment, Napoli. Lubocco makes a big difference to them in midfield. He's out, Hoyland and also Lukaku are out, which is why Luke was playing in the first place. But they were destroyed in that sort of last 30 minutes by PSV. And I did not know that they had that in them. And Peter Bosch probably would have been expecting to be. He's been on the wrong end of some 6-2s and various other chaotic scores in his sort of managerial career. So it would be quite sweet for him to get one over, you know, one of what's seen as the world's best coaches. You didn't mention the goal of the night, I don't think, amidst all that, which was Druash.

28:14Kuwab, Druash. Yeah, Druash, sorry. Oh, that was the last one, wasn't it? Yeah. That's at number two in my countdown. It was a brilliant move and a brilliant finish. And I have that at two, Barry. Yeah, absolute rocket. It was glorious. Is that two for you as well? I'll be honest. I got to the stage where I just started writing down goals. I don't have them in any particular order. Fair enough. Scott McTominay, obviously. I don't think we mentioned that. He got two in this game, two good headers. But I gave Copenhagen player one. It wasn't a particularly good goal, but he's only 17 and his team were being well beaten.

28:53But it made him the third youngest goal scorer in Champions League history. Yeah, well, when we get to Copenhagen, I'll look at my chart. Barcelona 6, Olympiacos 1. Jim says it's been a bad couple of weeks for Maranakis, hasn't it, Barry? So, yeah, again, it's lots of great goals. Firmin Lopez scored a really good hat-trick. Marcus Rashford's, both of his goals were brilliantly taken. I mean, Olympiacos had a man set off, and it is actually an absolute outrage, isn't it? And the fact that VAR can't intervene on a bullshit second yellow is a ridiculous law. You've said it. You've said it. I cannot fathom how it's the sort of decision which makes you think, no, the player who's gone down like that, There needs to be an ability for retrospective action from the referee to analyse how bad their fall is.

29:45And yeah, Mark Casado, let's shame him, the Oscar goes to, because that is outrageous. I feel so sorry for Heze, the Olympiacos player who gets sent off there. And I mean, look, it was 2-1 at the time. Would Olympiacos have gone on to do anything? Who knows? but still that's one moment in time that they're not getting back and I enjoy shithousery but there's a line and it goes the other way of it for me I think it's just cheating isn't it so you're right where is the line from shithousery to cheating and maybe it's who does it and your unconscious biases or whatever but I totally agree with you it was bullshit that wasn't the only contentious decision in this game though because before that Barcelona went 2-0 up.

30:35Olympiacos scored to make it 2-1, but their goal was ruled out and they were given a penalty instead, much to their bewilderment. We have a lot to cover, so I'm not going to dig into the nitty gritty of it, but it looks like it was actually the right decision. Okay. But they eventually scored the penalty, so it didn't matter. But if they had missed that penalty, they've had a goal ruled out, been given a penalty, which they might have missed, but they didn't. They scored it. And as far as I can tell, it was actually the right decision and a brilliant bit of varying. Okay, well done, VAR. To Copenhagen.

31:12Copenhagen 2, Dortmund 4. And it's from this game that we have number one. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Felix Metcher. He dummies the ball. It's a sort of drag back, but he doesn't really touch it and then just absolutely poised this thing into the roof of the net, Archie. I loved it. Sometimes I just, I miss home because someone will say a word that I've not heard anyone say in a long time. And hoy in that context is precisely that. I think it's just seeing the force with which the ball comes back off the net. There is such a, aesthetically, the way that, God, I sound like such a nerd. The way that goal nets are done is so important to how good a goal can look.

31:59because if it's kind of tightly wound like that and the way that it bounces back it is that little bit more satisfying well this is a good point you make but obviously it can be too tight see that yeah of course the dell the old dell where the nets were too tight and you can have a glorious kind of ruffling sort of mexico 86 usa 94 goal that they're not tight at all and it just sort of it gets lost somewhere in the netting you know sort of like a a turtle caught in a net in the ocean you know that kind of which is for the record not a beautiful thing but that's the image that I would that first came to mind but yeah it's some here how who is tell us for people who don't know who is this guy and he's been about a while and does he do that a lot so he's been doing it more and he had a difficult start to to his time at Dortmund some some issues He's off the pitch regarding things that he'd posted on his Instagram.

32:56He has shown with his footballing ability that he can go far, which wasn't always, I think, the case. When you are the player who follows Jude Bellingham in that kind of position, it's not going to be easy to mark yourself out as a great player. And I think slowly he's doing that more and more. the thing for Dortmund is they were beaten 2-1 at the weekend at Bayern Munich Nemecha missed a big chance in that actually with the game at 1-0 so look, this team is moving surprisingly in the right direction under Niko Kovac, that wasn't to be taken for granted, Joe Bellingham or sorry, Mark Bellingham might not necessarily say that that is the case for Joe Bellingham right now, particularly because at the weekend, Joe Bellingham it felt like an own goal that was scored, such was the way that Michael Elise slid in to block his clearance on the line.

33:54But yeah, Felix Mecher, he's the player in the Dortmund midfield who has the ability to get the ball and drive with it and conjure a little bit of magic as we saw in Copenhagen last night. Barry, was this the night when you found out Fabio Silva was playing for Borussia Dortmund? It was indeed, Max, yes. Yes, yes, me too. Inter 1-4-0 at Union Saint-Gilouard. It wasn't, it was one of those games where it was quite tight, Mark. and actually USG had quite a lot of pressure until Inter ran away with it. Yeah, and they did run away with it in the end. I think obviously for USG, playing games not in the home stadium is a handicap for them and they've had two difficult home matches and if it was unfair might be the wrong word because obviously if the stadium is not fit for European matches you can't play there, but it definitely doesn't help their calls that they're not able to play in their own stadium.

34:47lost their manager as well recently to Monaco. So they are finding it quite tough in their home matches. I mean, once Inter got in front through Dumfries, they really sort of kicked on and won the game well. Lautaro Martinez was on target. Shalhanoglu and Esposito as well, who did miss. Oh, yeah. Such a good miss, that isn't it? Did miss an unbelievable chance. Yeah, so a convincing win for Inter, who were 1-0 winners at Roma at the weekend. they got Napoli this weekend there was a lot of murmurings in the summer they had a poor club World Cup they were humiliated in the Champions League final they lost their manager just seemed to be stabilising now and that was an impressive win and performance just going very quickly back to British Dortmund there was an incredible stat I found from that game in that they only had 7 shots in the entire match Dortmund and scored 4 goals usually a team would you kind of score every 9 or 10 shots So for Dortmund to score four from seven is remarkable, really.

35:51Not something you see too often. There was another good miss from Lautaro where he was put clean through and he basically just forgot how to be a footballer for a short amount of time and just sort of ran straight into the keeper and fell over. I enjoyed that one tremendously. And then, Barry, we've done all 43 goals. We go to Kairat Pafos. How this ended in 0-0, I have absolutely no idea. This was a terrific game. As 0-0's goal, it was quite outstanding. Paphos from Cyprus their striker Horst Correa was sent off after three minutes going in for a challenge for a high ball with a ferociously high boot which he kicked Lewis Matta in the face with your reminder of course that David Luiz plays for Paphos, he missed a couple of good chances, both keepers pulled off some sensational saves, Paphos thought they'd gone ahead 10 man Paphos through a drag-a-boer shot that came off the bar, off the keeper's back and trickled over the line.

36:48But there was an offside in the build-up, so that was ruled out. Then Kaira Talmaty almost won it with Arad, I think his name was, a brilliant dribble upfield and curl shot, which came off the post, dribbled across the face of goal and somehow didn't go in. So, nil-nil, if you were just looking at the scores, as you think, oh, that was a real dud, but it was a very good game. Nine games tonight, their challenge is to score more than this lot did last night, and that'll do for part two. Part three, we've alluded to already, we'll begin with West Ham's absolutely diabolical performance, and look, a good one from Brentford too.

37:35Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly, West Ham nil, Brentford two, and often you are meant to start with the winning side at least for a bit but you alluded to already mark west ham were so bad in this game it was um it was kids for a quid um night and i still think they were short changed it was um yeah it felt like the end of a managerial reign um you know the the players look fed up the manager look fed up if nuno if it had happened to nuno last week he'd be back in at Forest, wouldn't he, anyway? It was incredible to think this is supposed to be the new managerial bounce because it's not there.

38:16There are problems off the pitch and there was not a massive boycott, but there was a boycott by a section of supporters who are unhappy with the way the club is being run and the direction it's heading. But on the pitch, it could and probably should have been four or five at half time and West Ham didn't get any better in the second half so many gaps just all over the pitch the defense seemed to be about 30 yards away from the midfield and there was one stage in the second half when Jordan Henderson got one of those really sort of dodgy passes from the goalkeeper which is straight into into you and he was just able to just flick it over whichever West Ham player was just lumbering around and there was another bit I don't know if you remember it Max but three players went to take a throw in when they were supposed to chase in the game the last 10 minutes somebody picked it up they passed it someone else it was like they were running down the clock no idea how to attack you're right the fans so much that isn't it it was it was an abysmal performance i thought nuno picked the wrong team as well it was very odd to play sort of fullbacks on the opposite side um to counteract what what brentford were doing um just a really odd and terrible performance and very quick turnaround because they've got leads on on friday and um yeah if they don't wake up then then west ham uh um you know will be relegated on on that type of show i saw a stat from opta which says west ham they've spent more time winning against nuno espirito santo 16 minutes 21 seconds versus forest in august than they have in three games with him as manager in the premier league this season i saw character did you see carrigan barry talking about how slow they are i mean there does have to be a slowest team right like statistic like there's like a fittest team and a whatever but that is something that i've heard before about that you know there are no somebody yelled at me was it nadam saying when i said there are no legs in this team but it really feels like there's no legs in this team apart from bowen no they it's like they're all running in treacle bereft of ideas incredibly slow.

40:25Interesting, I heard Adrian Durham, I think it was Adrian on TalkSport, say Callum Wilson is at West Ham. He hasn't come off the bench in any of their last three games, and Durham seemed to suggest that that might be because he's on a pay-per-play contract, so if he comes off the bench, it's going to cost him money. If that's the case, that is diabolical. Well, it's odd to have him. It's odd to make that deal, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, it didn't look like a great move anyway, but if you're going to bring him in, you might as well, and you're chasing a game, you might as well chuck him on. But a lot of problems there.

41:01Brentford had, I think, 22 shots. The scoreline of 2-0 massively flatters West Ham. I mean, Brentford pulverized them. And I'm delighted to see Keith Andrews doing pretty well at Brentford. Yeah. And do you have any thoughts on Brentford? because a lot of us sort of decided well they would struggle they lost a lot of players they lost their manager but you know they're going along okay yeah i was more worried about the manager than the players um because i feel like brentford you know they know where they are i think and they had a long time to prepare for the departures of those players and tiago was coming back and i think sharder is somebody that's really sort of grown into becoming a premier league threat on the other side just like you know they had um with um on um the right yarmuluk in midfield very good player so i was never it was more about the manager i wasn't sure that keith andrews was was up to it at all i think he so far um you know he has done a very good job coyote on the right back he's a he's a threat down there and he's also got the the long throw um and yeah they don't look like they'll be in any kind of relegation trouble which i think is where I sort of had them just about, I probably thought they'd finish about 17th and just have enough to survive.

42:21But they look sort of better than that and then provide a tricky test for Liverpool at the weekend. Producer Joel Wright, in the TV coverage of a West Ham game, increasingly just focuses on the number of fans leaving the stadium and not the actual match. It's just stick a live stream of the turnstiles on the red button. And I mean, Monday was a really manky night in London. It was wet and cold and horrible. and if you're a West Ham fan trudging out to that Grimmauldome to watch that, oh God. Is there any other way to get to the Olympic Stadium than to trudge? It's a long old walk and the traffic in East London and Essex was horrendous due to a vehicle fire on Monday as well.

43:04So you would have had to work hard to get to the game and then to turn up and watch that. yeah it's funny if you don't support West Ham I suppose. Sure I spoke to Stan Delaney on the radio broadcaster and West Ham fan about you know the protests and all the issues there are that the fans have with the current ownership and there is a really there is a really long list of quite serious things and it all does go back to what they were promised when they left Upton Park and how none of them wanted to leave Upton Park really but they said look we will make this a real football stadium and it will make so much money and the money it makes will translate into a really good football team and what they have is a stadium that is really not good to watch football in and certainly not a good football team on that pitch that they're watching the game from and so i you know they do have uh some legitimate concerns but i i think there are fan groups that say we want to build a new stadium and you sort of think well this is you know the amount of money that costs you can understand why they did take the london stadium why not right getting a stadium for next to nothing but it just hasn't worked no no um yeah it's never going to be a football stadium location isn't perfect you just said you've got to trudge through the the shopping center if you go via the most popular um route like i did if you look at the center backs though they spent enough on to to debo and kilman to not be embarrassed um like that um i would have said but the money has been spent terribly and now it feels like they've run out and you know it would be I think in the interests really of Sullivan and the rest of those in charge at West Ham to try to look for somebody that that wants to take the club on and try to get them further up the league because it feels to me like they're just looking if we finish 17th that's fine we'll take the Premier league sort of handouts and and you know no ambition but um i think most teams would expect more and as you say max they were there were a lot of empty promises um about moving to the new stadium just haven't been delivered yeah just on new stadiums mark this is tom season season ticket holder there's a lot of chat this week about how it's just too nice for teams to come and play football and it is a nice it is a definitely a football ground right and i you know and i've been a few times and it's like amazing but i don't know if you get that sense i don't think it's too nice I think it's too expensive for um a lot of kind of I suppose supporters um the hardcore supporters to go and the stadium is just full of tourists um and I again I'm going to be a hypocrite I'm a football tourist I go and watch sort of you know Barcelona Real Madrid PSG Dortmund you know all the kind of big teams um but the stadium is there with a lot of people that are just watching a Premier League game rather than supporting Tottenham.

45:54You know, they're just there for the occasion. I remember one match last season, Tottenham were getting beat by Ipswich, crowd in the South Sound going absolutely bonkers around me. And then a couple just turned to me and said, can you take a picture of us? There was about 10 minutes left. And I did and I didn't want to moan at them. But that really is the type of supporter that is at the stadium at the moment and the atmosphere against Villa was dead and non-existent. And I think there are a lot of teams in London. I don't know if it's the same outside of London, but certainly at West Ham, you do get a lot of supporters that are just there and supporters in sort of loose term because they're just there to watch a game of football.

46:37And that doesn't really help the atmosphere. I don't know if it's the same at Fulham, but it certainly is in a few of the London stadiums. And people are coming to London and they're doing maybe two or three games in like a week period, but it doesn't help the actual overall atmosphere. Well, hopefully, for their sake, hope they didn't pick West Ham on Monday night. Anyway, Barry. No, just Nicholas Fulcrook didn't play in that West Ham-Brentford game, but if he had, I'd say the scramble to interview him after the game would have been something else after his existential angst. I can't remember what game it was last season where he basically just threw everyone at West Ham under the bus in this plaintive howl of what am I doing here at this bin fire of a club.

47:29Sean Dyche, Nottingham South Forest, third manager of this season, been appointed yesterday, signed a deal until the summer of 2027. They're 18th in the league, one win in eight. First game will be at home to Porto on Thursday. Then they've got Bournemouth away, Man Utd at home, Sturm, Grazoway, Leeds at home, Liverpool away. So lots of Thursday, Sunday, not a lot of time on the training ground. Although, presumably, Barry, Sean Dyche can go, just do what you're doing before Ange got here. That would be the first thing to say. Probably. I'd be interested to see how he gets on. He'd probably do what Sean Dyche does and keep them up.

48:09But this is the first club he's managed at where he has, I think it is anyway, where he is, if he does quite well, he will be given loads of money to spend. And I think he probably has a better class of player available to him here than he had at Everton or at Burnley. So it just, it sort of smacks as he's just a holding manager to stabilize things. Sort of polyfilla is what you're saying. Yeah, until someone more exotic comes along and cat twerks in front of Evangelist Maranakis. Well, actually, interestingly, Archie, you know, a lot of people say Marco Silva. And Sean Dyche said, I want another year.

48:54And I don't know whether Maranakis has factored in, you know, Dyche does okay, but not brilliantly. And they pay him off and they get Silva, who's out of contract at the end of this season, is a lot of people are suggesting. If I'm Marco Silva, as much as I would want more money to work with than I've been given at Fulham, I would also be thinking, wait, I'm going to go work for that guy? But he has before for Olympiacos, hasn't he? That's the point. He's done it before. Yeah, I'd still be looking at it like that. Just generally, I cannot. There are so many. What's the right word? Wild Flags. Yeah, exactly.

49:39Red Flags. Also, Max, to be honest, I'd forgotten that. And you make a good point that he had worked under him at Olympiacos. But the point is, I don't see Nottingham Forest as a club where I'm going like, okay, well, that's the good kind of modern leadership a la Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth. We add into that category now, I think, right, as well. Forest, who knows? I was already sceptical last season. I know for large parts of it, they had an amazing season, but it was screaming anomaly to me. And it feels like this season, they were always going to take a step back into mid-table. And the question is, how much was Marinakis going to accept that?

50:24And indeed the fans as well, because they've not had this level of success or felt this close to it for such a long time. and I think that that is always such a difficult thing to come to terms with emotionally. So yeah, I'm interested how they take to Sean Dyche and where the expectations will lie in the end of this season because they should, on the quality of the squad, go far in the Europa League. Danny Roll withdrew from the running to be Rangers manager a week ago and has now been appointed Rangers manager. Not the smoothest process, Barry, and only one of the previous seven Rangers managers lasted 100 games at Steven Gerrard.

51:02So it'll be interesting to see what happens. It will. I said at the start of the season that I thought Hearts might split Celtic and Rangers. And it looks like I might have got that wrong because it looks like Hearts might win the league because Celtic are having a very bad season by their standards, which has been completely overshadowed by the absolute car crash of a season Rangers have had so far. their recruitment of Russell Martin was a terrible idea that fans were against from the start their recruitment drive to replace him has been little short of embarrassing they've been turned down by Steven Gerrard then they were turned down by Danny Roll then they were turned down by Kevin Muscat and now Danny Roll has taken the job their recruitment of players during the summer was similarly terrible, paying quite large sums by Scottish premiership standards for very mediocre players who can't get in the team or have, in some cases, been shipped out on loan.

52:12So Danny, I suspect, will have his work cut out for him. But at least he will be a more popular appointment than Russell Martin. You do wonder, like, you do wonder what Danny... he's gone from Sheffield Wednesday to Rangers. I mean, he likes a challenge. You've got to give him that. Talking of Sheffield Wednesday, well, they didn't play in the championship last night, but Sheffield United down there had another win out of the bottom three now after losing, I don't know, the first six or something. They won 3-1 at Blackburn. Coventry, four points clear at the top after a 2-1 win at Portsmouth. Millwall up to third after a 2-0 win over Stoke City, who are down to six.

52:52Charlton into the playoffs. Producer Joel, very excited after winning 3-0 at Ipswich and a good win for Birmingham who haven't started the season brilliantly they're in 12th they won 1-0 at Preston well done to everyone else who played and I didn't mention them just Hull who beat Leicester 2-1 so yeah more disappointment for Leicester Chris says hi Max and Barry I'd like to thank Barry for inspiring me to run my first full marathon in Dublin next Sunday I said to myself that if Barry can run a half marathon then I can surely run a full one being a relatively fit hurdler your pod on Thursday the 16th will be the last one I listen to before next Sunday as I want to save two to three up to listen to.

53:28I'll also use your pod to estimate my times on my training runs. I also use your pod to estimate my times on my training runs as they're generally between 50 and 60 minutes. So I'm hoping three pods and a bit will do it. That's a quick marathon. Especially because you've been inspired to be inspired by Barry. He only said he was going to do it a couple of weeks ago. And you're running it next Sunday. Well, I kind of said... Oh, that's true. It was last April. I said I'd do it. It was only last week I decided to start training for it, which may be a mistake. Chris says, I'm hoping Liverpool have a good week also because I struggle to listen to a podcast when they've played shite or lost.

54:06It'll feel like a very long run if next Sunday I'm listening to you praising United for their display at Anfield. Oh, well, Chris. Sorry about that, mate. That was last pod. Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, so you were listening to this probably about two-thirds of the way in. Keep going. Hurler, not Hurdler. He's Irish. Oh, hurler. I see. Not many people are hurdlers, are they? Anyway, thanks, Chris. Good luck to you and that'll be for today. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Barry. Thank you. Thanks, Archie. Thanks, Max. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Max. More of that tomorrow. Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

54:40Our executive producer is Danielle Stephens.

54:47This is The Guardian.

54:54Thank you.