Ireland keep dream alive, Ronaldo’s histrionics and England beat Serbia – Football Weekly Extra

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30as the ref went to the monitor to upgrade Ronaldo's yellow to a red for a daft elbow. You'd love to see it. Now, they have to win in Hungary. Not easy, but possible. Meanwhile, most of our panel are at a very wet Wembley for England 2, Serbia 0. Strap yourselves in for another What Did We Learn session. Football finance expert Kieran Maguire joins us to talk crypto, World Cup, dynamic pricing and other interesting accountancy. We'll answer your questions. And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

0:56On the panel today, Sam Dalling, welcome. Hiya, Max. How are you? Yeah, good. Thank you. Hello, Jacob Steinberg. Hello. And welcome, Dan Bardell. Hello, Max Rushton. Johnny says, please spend the first 20 minutes on Ireland. There's nothing new or interesting to say about England. They're quite good. Move on. Alan, is Troy Parrott the greatest of all ornithological-based sportsmen? Larry Bird feels disappointed with that. Or maybe a Gavin Peacock. Anyway, let's start with Ireland's 2-0 win over Portugal. Toxley said, how about a voice note from Barry? He's got to be pleased. Yeah, astonishing that Barry took the day off.

1:29the first time he could probably ever talk about the Republic of Ireland being good. But we couldn't do this bit without a voice note from everyone's favourite Irishman. So here is David O'Doherty. It's just been so hard to get excited about it for so long. It seems like just 10 years of drawing with Moldova. And before this campaign, our Icelandic dentist manager told us, We're actually all right. And I don't know if we really believed it. But like, Cuevin Keller is a good goalie. Evan Ferguson plays for fricking Serie A, you know? And then we lost to Armenia. And so, I mean, there was, towards the end of this match, this is how long it's been.

2:22there was there was a need to sing and the song that people started singing was from the 1990 World Cup it's we're all part of Jackie's army we're all off to Italy and we'll really shake them up when we win the World Cup because Ireland are the greatest football team and you know what just for an instant I think it was probably when Ronaldo was sent off I started to think maybe we maybe we are the greatest football team yes look we have to beat hungary on sunday and then we'll be in a playoff with against italy or someone really good but just this moment just just i have this moment irish comedian excellent podcaster in his own right there david o'doherty walking home from the game and look we're not used to an upbeat joyous irish voice on this podcast but the thing is sam like it it gives you hope football that's what it's done to these irish fans it does i mean they were very excited i wonder if barry has pre-planned this it's the sort of extended version of you know when you're like right it's nil nil we need a goal i'm going to go and make a cup of tea or i'm going to go to the loo because they always score when i'm out of the room barry has taken it to another extreme it was like the archetypal stolen away win wasn't it 22 possession uh 234 passes of which 30 of them went astray but it didn't matter they scored two out of their three shots on target i was having a listen to some irish fans tv as you do in the early hours of the morning after an irish victory i just love the hyperbole i mean ogbenay who i love when he was at lute and he's now at sheffield united he hit the base of the post uh he was being compared to thierry henry by irish fans tv so like you've just got to love it But I feel delighted for Troy Parrott because if you go back, what, four or five years ago, he was sort of anointed more by the media as the successor to Harry Kane and to Son at Spurs.

4:26And it didn't really work out for him. Well, actually, Mourinho did it because he sort of handed him a match ball after his debut. But yeah, he gets a couple of goals. He's over in Holland playing now. Sometimes it just shows there's a different path to success. So delighted for Ireland. I wish I was there. It sounded loud. it definitely was very loud and well i'm sure someone else will come on to it but it's always fun to see cristiano ronaldo applauding the crowd as he leaves the pitch yeah i mean just on troy parrot he's got 13 and 14 for azeg altmar uh first goals for island since june 2024 he said this is probably the best night i've had in my entire life i have no words to describe it we all know how important this game was for us particularly after the other result tonight i am overwhelmed i don't know what words to use but i am over the moon so they do feel like that feels like the right time to bring out a cliche um sam alluded to it jacob is there anything better than seeing ronaldo get sent on and if that way you know just var is annoying but when the crowd just knew you know they they could see every single step of what was going to happen it was sort of heavenly yeah it was it was very strange as well the reaction from ronaldo the weird crying stuff that he did with the crowd after he got sent off it was just very very weird I don't really know what was going on there.

5:40I don't know if there's a logical explanation for what was going on. It looked like a man who was having a meltdown very publicly and then he has a row with the island manager when he went off. Yeah, it's just very strange and it would have added to the whole joyous nature of it for the island fans. But looking at the Portugal team, it looks kind of like half a good team. So if you think in your head that's a really, really good team that's going to go for the World Cup and be one of the favourites. And then you kind of look at the starting lineup last night and it's got the PSG guys from midfield and everything, Neves and Vitinha.

6:14And then you sort of look up front, they've got a 40-year-old who's playing in Saudi Arabia, playing with João Felix. And it's sort of, right, OK, you know, would this be better with Pauleta up front? I don't know. Are we just in that place where they still don't have a striker? I don't know. Just with Portugal, we feel like it should be much better and they shouldn't be in that position of losing to Ireland. but it just feels like they've just got those little personnel issues still going on in that team that means they're less than the sum of their parts yeah ringing up uh you know Portuguese sports radio to demand where is the next Helder Postiga the thing is Dan that red card if it's upgraded to violent conduct I presume it was violent conduct but if it is if they win their group he misses the opening two games of the world cup perhaps like it's as that is that is extraordinary for doing that like it was such a sort of street fighter two elbow wasn't it yeah i mean it's 100 % violent conduct so i can't say how it how it doesn't get upgraded didn't wayne rooney miss a couple of games because of doing something similar didn't he get done and he missed a missed a few games for yeah euro euro 2012 but i can see how it i can see how wouldn't get upgraded in that it's Ronaldo and it's FIFA.

7:31Yeah, that might help. Of course. The first two games of the World Cup, I don't know. Yeah, that does help in his last World Cup as well as he's announced this week. He's an angry man, wasn't he? But then I guess I'd be angry if I'd been giving football-based interviews to Piers Morgan. I think that would annoy me as well, in fairness. The game was great, though. Obviously, I was watching the England game, but I've watched back the Ireland highlights and a tale of two number sevens really and the whole dialogue around the game will be about the two number sevens but some great finishes from Troy Parrott and in fairness I would say that's probably what Ireland haven't done enough of maybe even over the last ten years they always used to have that in them where they could take on a big nation at home and they'd bloody their nose and maybe be capable of a victory that hasn't happened for a long long time now maybe even since Martin O 'Neill was in charge which was a long time ago so it's a great night for Ireland and they've given themselves a chance.

8:26But now Jacob said it, I can't imagine that red card getting upgraded considering who Ronaldo's friends are. Do you think what they'll do is that when Donald Trump accepts the FIFA Peace Prize, he will be given, as Gianni will say, as part of the Peace Prize, you get to pardon, because he likes pardoning people, Trump, doesn't he? You'll get to pardon someone and he will pardon Cristiano Ronaldo for that loose elbow and then all will be right with football or all will be wrong with football. Actually, Sam, Jacob alluded to it actually about Portugal but they had a bit of a high line but you could see Ireland you know the way they got in the way old Benet got in the way I think Parra got in for his second goal was just stick it over the top and and turn them it's so 1980s Ireland that 1990s Ireland I guess it was beautiful I think what Jacob's basically saying is Portugal are QPR under Harry Redknapp when they've got a team that would have won the Premier League 10 years prior but they passed their sell-by date yeah and they did that they kept getting in behind them full of running and we should say the finish from parrot for that second goal because most of us and probably the goalkeeper expect him to go far post right bend it around the defender and he goes inside the defender inside that near post so it was it was a moment of quality and the first goal was a set piece as well well worked set piece it's an easy finish from parrot um so yeah it was root what it just shows that uh you can go back to 90s football the halgrimson there was a bit of psychological stuff before the game when he was talking about and why I hope that the referee doesn't allow Ronaldo to ref the game and I think when he went off Ronaldo said to the Ireland manager well basically he complimented me for putting pressure on the referee is what Ronaldo said so like the old school mind games from Halghamson old school football from Ireland are just wonderful result.

10:11Ireland have moved with the times and Portugal haven't because that's the direction football's going in and Ireland have gone with it and Portugal haven't. Well I was just gonna say I I guess, you know, speaking to that, Ireland made this whole play, didn't they, of trying to play a more kind of pep style of football under previous managers. And this is the way that we've got to go. We've got to play possession football and build from the back. But they don't really have the players to do it. So why would you not play to your strengths? Like a lot of, I mean, the first goal, it looked like a Premier League goal.

10:36The well-worked set piece, call into the back post, head it in, and someone's there to finish it off. and that's clearly going to be very effective for a team probably with quite limited players relatively to Portugal but also not a lot of time to work on it and it's probably going to be quite effective at the World Cup as well for other teams of that kind of level. Set pieces, if you don't have a lot of time to work on it then to work on the general play then set pieces are going to be massive aren't they? And actually Barry did pipe up in the WhatsApp group because obviously Portugal have the same set piece coach as Aston Villa and he did he yelled Austin McPhee your lads took one hell of a beating there but I presume you didn't take that personally Dan you know when he's on international duty you don't mind what he does no no I said it said in the WhatsApp group he's a he's a lovely lovely man he's a he's a good coach as well I think he might do more than set pieces at Portugal I think he's I think he's an actual coach for uh for Portugal I could be wrong on that but don't take it personally I was just trying to enjoy the England game and then I was getting abuse from someone who's not even on the on the podcast today so I was I was surprised to receive that WhatsApp I like the way that you um you you categorize them as set piece coach and actual coach that is a different way of doing it different different different things like goalkeeping coach and coach different things yeah of course uh Ireland play Hungary on Sunday with a chance to make the playoffs if they win uh well they do make the players if they win uh amazing turnaround since they're lost to Armenia earlier in the campaign if Hungary win and Portugal lose to Armenia it seems unlikely Portugal would go into the playoff all still alive in that group before we go any further we are nominated we haven't mentioned it yet for best podcast at the fsa's we need your vote after the shame of last year and this is the last time you'll hear the plea because i think voting ends before the pod's out on monday so google fsa awards 2025 you can find links on our instagram blue sky x etc etc lots of the football weekly family nominated as well lucy wardson guardian women's football weekly sophie downing not the top 20 uh midday monday the 17th of november and then we'll shut up about it and if we don't win we won't mention it uh thank you very much that'll do for part one i will do england in part two welcome to part two of the guardian football weekly so england beat serbia 2-0 10 straight wins 10 consecutive clean sheets for jordan pickford sam and jacob you were both there and a wet Wembley.

13:00Jacob, what did you make of it? A wet Wembley with an empty, pretty much empty away end as well. So it was quite an odd occasion. The Serbia fans were not there. Apart from Brown, we were trying to count. You could actually count them, the fans that were in the away end. We weren't sure how they were the ones who had got in, but it looked like between 30 and 35. That was what I spent the first 10, 15 minutes of the game. Could you actually see how many Serbia fans were there? I got to about 35. and then there was a game that was going on which was quite low energy because of just the fact that England have qualified with two games to go they're playing against a pretty poor side Wembley wasn't full these nights at Wembley can be a bit like that as Tuchel talked about after the Wales game the thrower of truth bombs that he is and made no apologies for it earlier this week criticising the England fans for the atmosphere and it was a bit like that again But there are a lot of things going on with the team.

13:59Obviously, the biggest thing being that Morgan Rodgers started over Jude Bellingham. Jude Bellingham back in the squad after, was he dropped? Was it just a shoulder injury? I would go towards the former, given I think some of the coded messages I think that Tuchel has been sending out. And I think it was absolutely the right decision to start Morgan Rodgers because not doing so would have just gone against everything that Tuchel's been building, everything that he's been saying about rewarding those who have done well for him in the last few camps. Collective ethos, the lack of egos that he's building towards as well, which obviously in the past has been a problem for England.

14:35Rodgers has done really, really well. He's the kind of number 10 that Tuchel likes, the counter-pressing ability to link play, how physical he is. I almost sort of look at him and think he's almost like an updated Mason Mount for Tuchel. He's obviously probably not the most talented number 10 that England have because there's so much in that area, but he's been so effective for England, and he is obviously, I'm saying he's not the most talented, but he's obviously a very, very good player as well. And in the way that he played in the game in Belgrade, I think that if Tuchel had started Bellingham, I think you almost lose a little bit of respect amongst the players, probably, if you do that.

15:13If you just sort of, thanks, but now the big guy's back, you can step out. So Rodgers got his chance. He did well. You could see that he was really determined to make the impression he was eager to get on the ball won it back just couldn't quite find that that killer moment i think and it sort of slightly fizzled out the longer it went on and when jude did come on with the with the other two number 10s as well it was a real statement of intent from england really showing the strength in depth the crowd did wake up a little bit uh there was a huge jude and everything when when he came on and then he was very very good when when he was in the in there for those last 25 minutes, obviously played a part in the goal.

15:55And there were lots of other nice driving moments. So he kind of left it feeling like Jude, if he continues like that, will probably be the number 10, assuming that he continues to follow Tuchel's instructions and remains disciplined within the tactical structure. But I don't think that it necessarily absolutely was a definitive night one way or another. I think it's just a really good night for England because of the competition for places that you can see coming up because there's so many that are in there then there were other elements to it as well which it was it was it's an interesting evening in the end despite being against low quality opposition and albania on sunday will be again that kind of that kind of feeling because i think they've they're through now because of that their result but obviously we'll have to see whether or not jude's now done enough to start and if if he does that might be a little pointer to what's coming in the summer it is fascinating down this 10 position isn't it i you know, obviously you have a Villa bias and it's really hard to put your club loyalties aside when you look at an international team.

16:55But you sort of see, you know, Bellingham did have that impact. They did stick with Morgan Rodgers. But you can imagine this situation where Cole Palmer has a great season and then you're just sort of thinking, well, who is? Rodgers could start at the World Cup or he could not make it. Yeah, and I thought Foden did well in the position when he came on there as well. He obviously got the assist for Eze's goal, who again is a number 10, but plays more from the left for England he scored a scored a lovely finish I think it will very much depend on on what's happening at the time you know football isn't linear we know at some point there'll be injury so the next international break Rodgers could not be playing for Villa he could be injured and someone else plays and they do well and then by Tuchel's method and the consistency of selection that guy will stay in and get the shirt I think if Maduecki hadn't been injured Saka maybe wouldn't be playing now because Maduecki had done well previously so it will very much depend on on what's going on at the time.

17:48I think maybe Rodgers is quietest game for England for a while, but he certainly plays that number 10 position a little bit differently for England than what he does for Villa. He does tend to link the play better for England, I would say, but then for Villa, there's more driving runs. So if you can mesh the two together, I think you have got a very, very good number 10. He strikes me as someone who, when we play up against the bigger teams in transition, he's going to be a really, really dangerous weapon for England. I'd just like to see us, and it's nobody's fault I'd just like to see us play somebody good to see how this all comes together it's a bit the same with the central midfield area I think Elliot Anderson's a brilliant, brilliant player I remember watching him in a pre-season tournament for Newcastle in 2023 in America and I thought, wow, he's a really good player but so far we haven't seen him play against anyone really, really good and when that happens, is that going to be straight away in a World Cup quarter-final?

18:40It's not something he's done previously So I'd like to see Tuchel's England play against a good team. But as I say, that's nobody's fault. And the last kind of three international breaks, I've started to see what Tuchel's doing. And I really like it. What did you make of Foden then, Sam, in the false nine? Did we like that idea? Because you imagine Tuchel does need a Kane replacement on the plane in case Kane gets injured, but probably one that won't really do any, won't come on at all if he uses Foden in this way. Yeah, and Tuchel really likes him. I mean, I love Phil Foden as a player. And I was having a look back through the stats for the qualifying period.

19:15So Solanke and Tony have both been in squads, not played a single minute. And Ollie Watkins has only played 15 minutes off the bench in the entire World Cup qualifying campaign. So it is very much a, well, what happens if Harry Kane isn't available or needs a rest? He needs a solution. Foden did look to provide it. He put the pass on Frezzi. I mean, a lot was made of, as well, of me just sort of made him think about Bellingham's role in the goal. like he pays a 10 yard pass down the other end of the pitch it's all all about esay that i finish was almost like the old school there's a version of fifa where you could press r2 and curl it in the top corner in the mids or 2000s and it became too easy to score those goals but it was straight out of that so yeah i liked foden and it was it was as jacob said it was just a strange night like i go every time i get lulled into this sense of oh yeah watching england at wember that'll be great that'll be really good fun and i get there in 10 minutes in i'm thinking oh i'm not really not really sure why i'm here it was very flat uh very fat the stadium announcer did his best he tried to do a bit of call and response for the like european style so when saka score is and it didn't really work in reply oh no yeah it was a bit cringy and then also the poor man i have a bit of sympathy for him because there was a there was a referee's whistle style streak but it wasn't the referee and he thought it was half time so he is announcing yeah and he's obviously got a script because he's not looking up he goes full in on the full half-time script and then i just can't imagine how he felt when he looked up in front of 80 000 people and they're still playing and in fairness to the ref i think he had a bit of sympathy for him but he blew up straight away after he finished you do think you know like you only got one job you sort of think okay you know you don't even need to tell someone oh by the way you wait until it's half time you just sort of think okay maybe he's just it's funny you talk about that wembley thing my first two england games were a nil nil draw against norway and a nil nil draw against colombia that was the arena higuita fraudulent scorpion kick and um even though i was so young i was like wow wembley's so big but it did it was like oh these aren't these aren't the same as as cambridge get there's something about them anyway jacob back to sort of selection things you've got on the you're on the right then you have saka whose finish was brilliant a presumed starts and then madame is your number two right that sort of seems quite sorted i guess what jared bohem is is the third maybe but on the left it's quite interesting because you've got rashford Eze Kaman did so well and you got Anthony Gordon as well who who was sort of the last few months would be the guy who starts yeah just on just on Foden and the and the strikers I get I feel like could it be with Tuchel that he's thinking is there more upside just to getting good players at some point on the pitch is my team ultimately better with Foden and Bellingham in it if Kane's not there then it would be with Kane Watkins Solanke those kind of players maybe that's part of the thinking.

22:04On the left, I was kind of a bit disappointed with Rashford. I feel like I've seen that performance from him with England a million times now, where you're hoping this is going to be the night, and then he sort of runs at the defender, he stands the defender up, and then he seems to just not quite execute the skill or quite have the belief to get past the guy, where he sort of leaves the ball behind, and you think it was going to be exciting, and then it just sort of fizzles out into nothing. And when he went off for Eze, when Eze comes on, I think the level actually went up a little bit. And Eze is obviously a very different kind of player to Rashford.

22:43It's interesting because obviously Tuchel's laid out this structure. He's been very clear on what he wants from the team. He keeps saying over and over again, we play with a six, we play with a 10, and then we play with two specialist wingers. So he's talking about having speed around Harry Kane in the wingers, which is obviously something that England just didn't have during the Euros under Southgate, where he got too fixated on trying to get in all the best players. Eze's obviously a different kind of player to Rashford in that he's going to come inside, try to link, and he's not going to drive down the outside in the way you'd hope with Rashford.

23:16He's not going to hang on the last defender and try to get onto through balls from Harry Kane. So that's an interesting element. But on the left, I still feel that we probably do need that directness, directness because we struggle with it in the Euros and Kane is probably at his best when he has those targets to hit. I just feel like you need more from Rashford and although Gordon has not been playing well for Newcastle, I think it's January since he scored his last Premier League goal, which is kind of amazing. He obviously had done really well in the three England games, so I wonder if when he's fit, does he come back in?

23:49The other one that I would probably just shout out for is um is nonny that potentially if he comes back he is someone who can play on the left he's he did that for chelsea at the end of last season under mareska and was quite effective quite surprisingly because you think with nonny he's so one-footed and he wants to come inside but actually he's equally effective going out uh onto on the outside on his left foot and there was this one little glimpse that you have with arsenal at the start of the season in the leeds game where arteta had nonny on the left and he had saka on the right and then it's the game where Saka gets injured and ends up, Nonny goes over to the right and has that good little run, but we've not actually seen that happen.

24:25But they really like him, so I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the fix. Finally, on selection stuff, full-backs, Sam. I'm sorry, Nuka O 'Reilly made his debut. He could quite easily play himself into a starting position if he continued his club form this season. Yeah, I'm glad we didn't miss him out because he just had a quietly, really, really good debut. and we forget this is a guy who was, is still a midfielder really, who's being converted by Pep and he did do a bit of that dropping into midfield. But he got forward a couple of times really well. He ends up hitting the post and actually Serbia had, I know it's not the biggest test, right?

24:59But they had a lot to play for and when they went for it in the second half, they did have a couple of chances and at 1-0, they probably could and should have equalised, right? Vlaovic has that cheeky little flick where Stankovic is probably in a better position behind him and there's one that Samadzic puts wide. They both come down the right. They come down Rhys James' side. like Nick O 'Reilly was really impressive Luke Shaw's nowhere to be seen in terms of England at the moment and Livramento has played there but he's currently injured I know Tuchel likes him Lewis Hall has played a little bit there but hasn't he isn't fit so yeah it's very much a case of and this is what I like about Tuchel actually in the inverted commas modern game there seems to be this idea that you have to pander to players a little bit more as managers and you know coaches say it's very different and basically there's a fear factor of egos and of of players kicking off basically and tucol isn't like that he's a bit more disciplinary and maybe it's his own ego but it's very much like it's still my way and you no one is guaranteed their place in the team and it's the man in possession and right now nico o'reilly nico o'reilly is the man in possession of that left back shirt so it feels in the way that tucol works it's it's his shirt to lose now which is amazing after one game but he was just solidly very very good yeah jed spence played quite well in the last couple but you're right i mean uh i really have played really well can we can we get to the important stuff which is england's mind-altering shoes jacob they're bright red and they look like a big piece of sort of duplo thomas tuckel said they told me they can focus better in meetings if they wear these shoes and i hope they believe it it's large outsole nodes pushed against your foot as you step this is not tuchel now this is nike talking uh engaging sensory areas of the brain to help you stay present and connect with your surroundings in your you know chats with uh the england squad jacob in this week have you noticed sort of better focus you almost got your hands on a pair did you from esri concert is that right no no no so esri on tuesday we we saw esri concert at training for a chat and he wandered in wearing these shoes and yeah we were looking at them going wow what what on earth have you got on your feet and he sat down and someone said so what are those and he pretty much said yeah i was you know i was waiting but i thought it'd be longer until someone until someone brought that up they're they're really they're really quite eye-catching they're they're um i don't know if you want to have them on your feet i don't know what i don't know if they really do work i i've not worn them so i i cons right he claimed they did but yeah he he at the end of it as he walked out he did offer he said you know i'll get you all some but i'm not sure i believe him i feel like that's the kind of thing that the footballer says to you know a bit of banter to it's not the first time i think i've been promised something by an england footballer and it didn't actually happen so it'd be great there was a knock at your door and you can you can just buy them giant red shoes oh okay that is yeah they're just on the website we were looking them up but you can't sorry they're not actually available yet so it's possible that he was wearing like a prototype and they're only 80 pounds which makes me worried that the fa are not investing enough in their in their nodules we can make your own with corks and sand some crocs but the crocs are probably more expensive aren't they they weren't wearing them last night though as they as they left the as they left the stadium they were wearing standard issue trainers right god wow we really got to the bottom of this thank you jacob tonight then oh this weekend rather uh northern ireland go to slovakia scotland uh but two huge games for them greece away democ at home on tuesday um northern ireland can still make it can't they uh wales have games against lichtenstein and north macedonia need to win both to finish second in their group we'll cover everything on monday and wednesday next week rob edwards elsewhere has been confirmed as the new head coach at wolves this has been one of the toughest decisions of my career he wrote on instagram in truth i wouldn't have considered leaving Middlesbrough for any other club.

28:49Wolves is a special club for me. It's where I grew as both a player and a coach. It's still where my family calls home. It's always been my dream to come back. These opportunities do not come around too often. Do they come around quite often at Wolves? I'm just trying to think. You couldn't say that about Watford, could you? You couldn't ever. You hope sometimes. Someone gets the Watford job and says, this doesn't come around too often. Eight points from safety down without a win all season. His first games are Palace at home, Villa away Forest at home Man United at home Arsenal away but he has got a three and a half year deal so presumably he said we're probably going to go down so I'd like to stay please yeah it was a huge ask to stay up isn't it Wolves have been rotten so far this season I will say the three and a half year deal means nothing because the manager that's just been sacked signed a new contract not that long ago and the manager that was sacked before him signed a new contract just before he was sacked so Wolves have got a trend of sacking managers who've signed fairly big contracts he says he wouldn't have left for anyone else but I'm pretty sure if Real Madrid had come in for him he may have left Middlesbrough to go to go to Real Madrid but he's got an attachment to Wolves he's done a lot of different jobs there I think it's probably as good an appointment as Wolves could make at this current time I think it's probably the kind of direction they needed to go in it's one that could keep them up if he's capable of miracles but it's one that knows enough about the championship and has got teams promoted from the championship previously if they do go down and the worst happens happens for them but I don't know if I just, I can't see them staying up.

30:17Even that run of fixtures that you've just said, it's not a great run of fixtures, is it? They've got two points, I think it is, so far this season. It would be the greatest escape of all time, I think, if Wolves managed to stay up. Jacob, could we just get some West Ham thoughts from you? I mean, do you have more faith in Nuno than two weeks ago? And how do you view the protests against the board? Two weeks ago, no one could really understand what he was doing. The team selections against Leeds and Brentford were just very, very odd with the inverted fullback thing and Suchek and Andy Irving in midfield over some more energetic, younger players.

30:52And then people go into the Newcastle game just expecting the worst. And then obviously that goal after four minutes where Bowen had just hit the post. But they responded very, very well. They played very well against Newcastle. I was at the Burnley game on Saturday. They were not very good, but you kind of always felt like watching it that the more experienced team with just a bit of extra nous and quality were going to win but Burnley probably played the better football in in the game and obviously went went one and up but there seems to just be a little bit more grit and resilience that that Nuno's got in there which didn't look remotely in evidence after the defeated lead so so yeah it's looking better but it's still quite limited an injury to someone like Bowen or Paqueta would again leave them in quite a lot of trouble because the squad is so weak.

31:46The protests, yeah, fully justified. The club's been run terribly over the last, particularly the last two years, 18 months since David Moyes left. It's been, yeah, it's just been a shambles really in terms of the way that the decisions that have been, the decisions that have been made. And that's partly on the player side, the recruitment side, the decisions that have been made the likes of hiring the likes of um tim stite and to be the the technical director and the money that was wasted by him despite a lot of social media hype around the quality of of recruitment that he was able to provide and the player that he was the players that he was able to bring in and then it's just stupid things like the the attempt at the start of last season to do away with concession tickets in certain fixtures which was just really stupid it's just wasted wasted energy just ruining you're just getting rid of goodwill for no particular gain because you weren't really going to make a lot of money out of it and it's inevitably a um a battle that they ended up losing but just harms the trust that um the supporters that don't really have a lot in them already because there's historically such bad blood over over the stadium move so yeah keep protesting and it probably has more power to protest after you've won um to keep doing it after you've won sam before we end part two you wanted to mention a piece on the arsenal disability services tell us about this yeah i think it's going to be published actually around about christmas so it's not out yet but it's just one of these things i noticed there's a there was an advert out for a company called alan march sport who and they provide basically specialist commentary in grounds for those who are visually impaired so i the idea is that the base isn't as much waffle it's commentary it's pure it's telling you exactly it's very descriptive um and it just got me sort of like old school old school you know the borders in in part one when commentary began exactly yeah and so you have two commentators rather than a co-commentator summarizer you end up with two commentators and they take it in turns because that can be quite tiring um right but it just got me thinking i saw that advert and it's done there's various clubs around the country that do it i know arsenal full of newcastle forest and premier league but a lot more in the football league so alan march sport do that um but i just sort of got in touch i'd seen they'd gone to our stall and and i ended up inviting me in because it's the kind of thing that a lot of us just take for granted right we turn up to a game we know we can meet we get we know we can get there of our own accord we meet our mates for a couple of pints we go into the ground we leave again and actually it's a very privileged position to be able to do that for a lot of people that is actually much more difficult and i hadn't appreciated how good a lot of the clubs have been and these voluntary services as well at making games more accessible so there's this amazing company called game day vision and i met the founder a guy called andrew birch big arsenal fan but he'd been to a gig at spurs his new ground and he said actually a lot of the newer grounds they're brilliant inside it but actually it's the bit outside it's getting to the ground that people don't think about uh so much we set up this service where um like volunteers sign up and basically it pairs people um with others who might need a little bit of help and they go out and they'll meet people off the train so there's an arsenal fan that comes up from southwest and so he's met off the train at Paddington or they meet them at the tube at their house off buses and it just takes that pressure away the stuff that we don't have to think about the stuff that can prove really challenging and I think they've just they've West Ham are using their services as well they've just signed up with Ipswich so I just wanted to give a shout out to them really to Arsenal because they have this disabled supporters hub but I love the chap called Aaron Heskins who is the supporter and liaison officer they're offered for disability services and he said something to me he's like I said like how much do you as teams talk about it he said well we go by this sort of mantra that we're competitors on the field not off it so there's a lot of knowledge sharing going on um all the clubs are working together you know there's sort of designated pathways around grab there's so much stuff that perhaps we wouldn't a lot of us wouldn't notice but it is going on and it's really good work and i know they're trying to expand like game day vision nationwide so if it's the kind of thing that people might be interested in maybe they could sign up yeah i just wanted to give a shout out because it's a i'm a sort of football writer that hates writing about football uh on stuff on the pitch i like the stuff that's the wholesome like people stories going on around it and this was one i really wanted to give a shout out to because there's a lot of people doing some brilliant work and there's there's much more that can be done but to keep going everyone is doing that work and get involved if you can good stuff and uh sorry to make you talk about football sometimes okay it's okay uh uh that'll do for part two kieran mcguire from the price of football podcast joins in just a second and he will make accountancy interesting as he always does

36:31welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly very pleased to say kieran maguire a football finance expert from the excellent uh price of football podcast that he does with kevin days here hey kieran how are you all is good max all is good i'm in sunny seville at present except it's not sunny but it's still seville okay uh well welcome thanks for joining us if you're on holiday taking your time actually we've been talking about world cup qualifiers so we might as well talk about dynamic pricing we had uh the mayor of new york zora mamdani on before he won the election so we obviously claiming that election for ourselves talking about how he was protesting about dynamic pricing but it is sort of mad the prices the most expensive ticket for the final is now seven thousand eight hundred and seventy five dollars cheapest is just over two thousand dollars and and then i mean compared to other world cups and correct me if i'm wrong these prices are sort of off the scale aren't they that's right there's been a substantial increase i think fifa have seen what's happened in other markets especially the the us market for ticket prices there's there's a significantly different culture as far as tickets for nfl nba and so on and therefore i think fifa have decided to replicate that uh i think the distance between the FIFA hierarchy and the the regular fans that go I've been to quite a few World Cups is is ever growing and also there's pressure on FIFA to continue to to raise revenues to distribute them to the individual members who seem more than happy to benefit from dynamic pricing themselves so can fans do anything nothing I mean you sort of I mean quite a lot of the time there's so much so many issues with the game you just say well I've just got to accept the football that I'm given right and this is part of it but is there is there any is there any groundswell of upset here there's moaning on social media and there's some people saying that they won't go but as we've seen with what happened with oasis a few months ago there's always somebody willing to take the ticket from you and there is a culture of scalping as far as the united states is concerned it looks as if fifa have decided to be their own ticket touts as well that if you now buy a ticket even at these enhance prices you can then try to to sell it on the fifa platform and fifa will take their commission so it just seems more indicative of football now being seen as part of the broader sphere where ticket pricing is an opportunity to make money and there are organized people involved there are bots there are scalpers it's now a profession being a ticket tout and it looks like fifa have decided to join the party jani on webley way go buy or sell tickets buy or sell anyone okay so that's one thing sort of disappointing there's just some other numbers for you yeah prices for the u.s uh team range from 560 to 2735 dollars canada's opening game uh will be 1930 oh that's interesting is the pricing across canada and mexico as well kieran this is the whole this is fifa doing this right that's right uh fifa have in in the second batch of tickets i think the first batch of tickets were are available to uh people who had the official fifa partner credit card now for the remainder of us they've they've decided to to up the prices by up to 25 percent uh and that there does appear to be demand i mean i would say to any i think to any sensible fan if you want to enjoy the world cup experience go along to some of the fan parks rather than the match itself and it will cost you next to nothing to go in you can still enjoy seeing all the goals go in you i remember being in germany in 2006 and the fan parks were far more fun than actually attending the matches because you you were with like-minded people you're all together it was it was a bit like having a sing-song and uh it cost you a fraction of the cost so i mean that's that's one alternative yeah mexico and canada initially they weren't keen or as far as joining in with the the secondary ticket market is concerned but i suspect they're going to fall in line because fifa tends to call the shots on these things car parking prices on fifa's website uh says car parking is reaching as much as 175 dollars per parking pass so we'll get ben fisher down to investigate that immediately um kieran let's talk about crypto crypto sponsors flooding european football you posted about an investigate europe report into an influx of crypto sponsors that's right crypto is gambling with a small g what we have seen uh is that because the the premier league for example is banning front of shirt adverts from formal gambling companies starting in season 26 27 somebody's got to fill that vacuum that the crypto companies they're seeking legitimacy they're seeking the normalization of those products uh i've spoken to an all-party parliamentary committee about the pros and cons of crypto and i've got to say that in my opinion that there's more cons provided you accept it as a form of gambling then then how you choose to spend your money is down to individuals but they have tend to have the biggest wallets in town because gambling if you think about it from the perspective of the demographics of people who go to football they tend to have disposable money They tend to be slightly more risk friendly.

41:56And the crypto companies have seen that. The downside is that quite a few of these crypto companies during the course of a season have gone bust. And that has meant that the football clubs themselves have ended up losing money because they've been banking on receiving the full amount for the full term of the sponsorship deal. And I think Chelsea have had something. Roma have had similar. and that's the risk that the football clubs take as well as those people that decide to i won't use the word invest because it's not an investment these people that choose to speculate on these products so i mean philippe's done some stuff on this are premier league clubs doing their due diligence or is this just the nature of crypto it sounds to me like because i'm always thinking should i sell everything i own and buy you know some kind of urethra coin that's the wrong choice of wherever you you take you take you take it's close enough isn't it

42:56ethereum says producer joel but i'm sticking with it i'm gonna launch it but um but you know our premier club's doing their doing their due diligence we tend to use the phrase blinded by the check if somebody comes to you and you're a commercial director and offers you an extra 20 over the the original price you were hoping to get from your front of shirt deal or sleeve shirt deal then the chances are you're going to take it because you're under pressure from the board of directors the board of directors are under the pressure from the owner the owner's under pressure because the fans are screaming because they've not not invested enough in a new center forward and so on some clubs are cautious and other clubs are should we say more laissez-faire when it comes to anybody that walks through the door with a large amount of money yes yes we'll take it and we'll ask questions afterwards uh we have seen some clubs to be fair to them backtrack after sort of doing the due diligence having made the initial announcement for the products i think norwich went through this i think manchester city have had their their fingers burned as well clubs are on they're under pressure to deliver as far as commercial income is concerned because if you take a look at the the three strands of revenue that come into football ticket prices are difficult to increase substantially because there will be resistance from fans.

44:13The broadcasting deals are set in stone and set in advance all the way through to 2029. So therefore, commercial is the one area of potential growth that clubs are looking at at a time when wages are going up and transfer fees are going up. So they have to deliver. That's a question for the rest of the panel. Jacob, you cover Chelsea a lot, right? I just wonder when you started on your job as a football journalist, Do you feel a pressure to understand stuff that you never really thought you'd have to understand? Yeah, the attempts to understand PSR and try to, I'm not very numbers oriented, but trying to read accounts and understand accounts, that does make my head hurt sometimes.

44:54Yeah, absolutely. That's why we have people like Kieran, who's very useful on things like Chelsea. I'm interested to know what he makes of the latest stuff going on there the recent reports around the Abramovich the money that was kept back and all of that and whether that's going to end up hitting them at all. I think it's been played very well by Clear Lake Capital and Todd Bowley in the sense that they were in a hurry to get the deal through. They were also under pressure from the UK government. So therefore, they managed to negotiate a fairly substantial reduction in the price. I think it's in the region of about 150 million.

45:32They have effectively kept that. It's a bit like if you buy a house and you think that there's a bit of dry rot or something in it. you keep the money back until the full inspection has been done i think uh that has been a challenge for all of the parties trying to work out what the fa is going to do in terms of what was discovered by clear lake capital in what appears to be some form of offshore payments whether they should have gone through the books of the club whether they have gone through the bank accounts of third parties in order to attract players to come to the club that's something which is is taking a disproportionate amount of time but it's a classic case of lawyers using delaying tactics to try to ensure that their client isn't on the hook for this so I think that's that is the main issue delaying I think there's a separate issue in respect of Chelsea in the fact that Clear Lake have paid around about 2.3 2.4 billion across to the UK government and that money is still sitting in a bank account three four years after the deal went through because there are offshore parties again saying that well we need to steal we need to determine what is a victim of the conflict in ukraine and until that definition has been determined we're not going to make any further progress in distributing the money which is generating interest for the uk government or presumably for hopefully the beneficiaries of of the uh of the pot of money in you know three or four percent is of 2.5 billion is an awful lot of money at 75 to 100 million pounds a year what is the latest on psr watch kieran which clubs are going to be here and which aren't or it's all gone quiet at the moment yeah i think all of the clubs that have had their their fingers burnt over the course of the last two summers have learned their lessons i think what's of more intrigue is that there is a meeting of Premier League chief executives.

47:35I think it's next week. And what's going to happen in terms of the replacement for PSR going forwards, we'll have to wait for that. I think the consensus is that they'll probably adopt the system that we have operating under UEFA, which effectively will allow those clubs who are not in UEFA competitions to spend 85 % of their revenue on player wages, amortization, which is another thing which I can see Jacob shuddering at the very thought of that word, and agents fees. And for those clubs that are participating in UEFA competitions, it will be dropped to 70%. And I was out with a person from a Premier League club fairly recently, and they were quite candid.

48:22They say they would now actively try to avoid qualifying for the Europa Conference because if you qualify for the Europa Conference you make no money from it but you can only spend 70 % of your your revenue on wages if you finish one place below you can spend 85 % and therefore you can invest more in players and wages the following season so I think this is a classic example of unintended consequences the other issue that the Premier League chief execs are going to be chatting about is the introduction or the potential introduction of what we refer to as anchoring, which will mean that whoever finishes bottom of the Premier League, you take the amount of TV money that they receive, multiply it by a magic number, and we think that magic number is going to be five, and that's going to operate as a de facto wage cap for the remainder of the Premier League.

49:16So if we say that the club finishing bottom gets 110 million in TV money, you multiply that by five, that means you can spend 550 million on wages. We've seen a pushback on that, though, from the Professional Footballers Association because they don't like the idea of wage caps, especially those being imposed on their members. so you know that the the pfa i think are talking to i wouldn't say the shop stewards at individual clubs but their representatives with a view as to how they're going to respond to this and i could see some form of legal claim from the pfa they successfully achieved this when the efl tried to impose wage caps in both league one and league two three or four years ago and they employed nick who's probably known as the country's leading sports lawyer and and he successfully defended the the pfa position it was we were up in arms when they capped the uh wages for football weekly at 500 million a year it's a devastating blow for us kieran tell us about how you're doing an event with kevin day prize of football podcast which is excellent at the amex next week along with glenn murray all profits going to bryan hove district samaritans tell us about it that's right the the premier league uh comes in for a lot of stick at times but also does an awful lot of amazing work and the premier league this season is looking at the issue of uh suicide awareness and one of the the organizations it's partnered with is is samaritans so uh i i go to a match with a colleague every week who is who is a samaritan and got chatting to him and we said well we'd love to do a sort of a benefit gig so brighton were the first premier league club to sign up for this suicide awareness it's still the biggest killer of men under the age of 15 it's a subject that we don't talk about because even if we know that somebody or a family that's been affected by it you don't know how to bring it up in conversation it's the biggest killer of women in the uk under the age of 30 as well so that the work that the samaritans do is is absolutely amazing so yes next wednesday at the amex stadium uh we are doing a benefit gig glenn who's played for both brighton and palace has kindly agreed to come on stage along with rough wood the the brighton commercial director and we're just trying to you know first of all raise awareness and one of the things that brighton are doing this season is that they are they're training uh 1901 uh people to become suicide mentors in the sense of how good are we at listening here how to pick up the signals when And perhaps you're at a match with a friend or you're down the pub pre-match and something's not quite right.