Is the Chelsea project finally working? – Football Weekly

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30Castle losing Marseille and both Manchester clubs have booed off in the space of two days. City last night at home to Leverkusen and on Monday United lose to 10-man Everton. David Moyes all in favour of the slapping your own team-mate tactic to lull the opposition. Also the shocking news that Ronaldo will be able to play in the opening game of the World Cup. And there's the Sky Sports box to review or whatever it's called. As always we'll answer your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

0:56In our own little box today Lars Sividsson welcome. Hi Max. Hello, Sam Dalling. Hello, Max. You're live from the south of France. That's Sam, not Barry. Barry, welcome. Barry Glendening. Hello. I'm live from the south of London. Excellent. Let's begin at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea 3, Barcelona 0. Ashwat says, can Chelsea do the quintuple? Of course, that now exists, given the Club World Cup. Three goals for Chelsea, three disallowed goals. And Barry, they dominated this game. And I just thought, well, absolutely brilliant. They were brilliant. Barcelona were, is it a surprise anymore that they were poor, but they were poor.

1:33I think, I guess he stands out, another Chelsea player who stands out for good or bad because of his conspicuous hair, but I think Marco Cucurello has been brilliant for them this season. He was superb again this last night. Esteval was superb. Obviously, I presume we'll get to him later. he'll have his own little subsection. I think Pedro Neto was brilliant. I think Enzo Maresca deserves credit for deciding to play Neto through the centre. That really worked with Garnaccio and Estevão either side. Defence was good. Robert Sanchez was good. And it was a really impressive performance from Chelsea who made Barcelona look very, very ordinary indeed.

2:24I'm not watching enough Spanish football, or indeed any Spanish football really, to know if this is how Barcelona are these days. But I was shocked by how ordinary they looked. You could look at that result and look at the red card and kind of discount the performance a little bit. But we shouldn't because apart from that fair-end chance that Barca have early, and maybe that changes the game, this was so dominant from Chelsea. Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. I'm not inclined to look away from what happened before, and I thought it was very impressive by Chelsea. I want to turn it on Barcelona a little bit as well, though, because Barcelona are in this sort of weird phase where they have been picking up wins domestically, and they're still in a good spot in the league.

3:11But they lost PSG in the Champions League. They lost the Clasico. They had that ridiculous 3-3 game against Club Brugge. And they've also been countered into bits by Sevilla a little while back as well. And in between those, there have been wins against Olympiacos. They beat Elche, they beat Celta Vigo. But they don't seem convincing. They've won enough games that they're not in crisis mode just yet, I don't think. I mean, maybe we'll have Sid to tell us at some point. But I feel like something is very close to going quite wrong there. And it is the Hansi Flick. And it's funny because the very high aggressive Hansi Flick press almost yielded them a first goal here with that Ferran Torres chance.

3:52early on and maybe the game would have been very different but I have seen so many Barcelona games so far this season already in which you keep thinking hang on these are really easy to get at you know obviously with Lamine Jamal and Pedri there's so much talent there that they can do things to you but they seem to concede chances so easily and I'm not convinced they've got it right still with this press and the defensive line and all that and Chelsea just had a surprisingly comfortable day. Now, some of that is Chelsea being very good. I'll accept that. But I was just thinking that I was slightly worried about what's going on with Barcelona at the moment.

4:26Sam, if we do the Esteval subsection, as Barry wanted to do, I mean, that goal, I had to watch it so many times to see, because the first time you see it, you think, OK, he gets a lucky deflection off someone. This isn't all him. And then the more you watch it, you're like, actually, this is all him. This balance, this is just incredible close control and the ability to finish it off. Yeah, and that's the beauty of things done at the very highest level, whatever it is, whether it's football, whether it's writing, academics. It's about making the really complicated, the really difficult things to do look so simple so you don't even notice them.

5:03And there are other top level footballers who sort of stand up and basically wave their arms around and go, yeah, look at me. Here's my stepovers. Here's my tricks. I'm going to be that individual, almost NBA basketball style. and Esteval doesn't seem to be like, there's room for it, but it's all about efficiency, right? And to do stuff that efficiently. I mean, it was wonderful. He's a joy. I do enjoy sometimes these narratives that the media create, like one player versus another. I mean, they have to find a narrative in a game. So it was Esteval versus Jamal. And I said, oh, well, he's only three months older than him.

5:34Like, well, in fairness, it was always like, you almost feel like some people are writing Jamal off. And like, he's 18. He's won a couple of titles already. Like he's done a fair bit. like suddenly Esteban is brilliant right he's had a very good 90 minutes he's outshone him right but it's not like Jamal hasn't done much so yeah he's a wonderful player Chelsea I think will be a wonderful team it's that youthfulness and and getting the consistency at Barcelona I saw them earlier in the season right and they were missing like Rashford came off the bench didn't he because he hadn't been very well and they were missing Pedri and Rafinha so they were missing a lot of attacking talent and you you don't know like Chelsea had a comfortable night would it have been different different had they had that attacking talent on the pitch probably I mean this the red card is what when you've already been booked to fly in with that tackle I wonder if he looked handsy flicking the eyes during that half-time team talk that stare he would have got because I mean that killed it I mean they were probably losing that game anyway but that really didn't help when Rahu got sent off there the TNT commentator I'm not sure who it was said Cucurella made that happen and I'm thinking I think Rahu made that happen but Cucurella is very good I mean he's very good at lots of things right but he's very good at rolling around you know like he did another one earlier I think he got someone else booked but it was interesting he brought him up Baz and I think you're right too because he had a brilliant game and it is Barry it is a sign because if you think about how we talked about Cucurella when he signed for Chelsea for a lot of money 50 odd million and he didn't play well and then we sort of cast this player aside And I think of footballers who have signed this year, be it Florian Verts or Xavi Simmonds or whoever in any position.

7:14And we go, these are shite. And actually, look how brilliant Cucurella is. I mean, he's got a shout for being the best left back in the Premier League and therefore, you know, in the world, possibly, the way he's playing at the moment. I mean, if I've already sung his praises, I'll only be repeating myself. But he's a very good defender. He's very good going forward. he is a complete shithouse but he's their shithouse you know you want him in your team but you know he's a pantomime hate figure if he's playing against you and because of the big hair you do notice him he sticks out and when he's playing badly he's conspicuous and when he's playing well he's conspicuous at the moment he's playing very very well but it wasn't always a bed of roses for him at chelsea and it took him a while to hit his stride with them so a friend of mine recently found herself on the same golf course as marco career and was nearly hit by said career driving a golf buggy uh so i can tell you as a sort of special insight that actually he is quite chaotic off the pitch as well like this sort of the slightly unhinged s housing does not end uh at the white lines i was thinking about this thing you mentioned max about how he's like good at getting people in trouble and that feels correct because he's such a combative guy but i also just wonder is this because it's so noticeable when he falls over because the hair goes everywhere that we kind of remember oh there goes kukriya whereas when normal people get tackled it's just a person who gets tackled i like the way that you um you know you differentiate between the two types of people people with long hair and normal people is an important way even more so even more so now yeah um but also Lars to be to to credit you you have kind of not defended the Chelsea project that's the wrong way of phrasing it but you have said this could work right what they have done could work and we are starting to see and maybe a bit lazily from me I've kind of said there are so many players it's quite hard to work out what they are so I don't really have to study what they are but actually watching them last night you saw a real sense of a team that understood each part understood what the other part was trying to do Well, what I've been saying is I haven't disagreed with anyone who said there's so many players, we don't quite know what they are, because I think that's been quite clear.

9:34But what I have said is that some of those players are really good. The emergence of Estevão as like a genuine, super, super, a potential world superstar. like if you buy enough of the most talented sort of 19 to 23 year olds on the planet you throw enough hundreds of millions at it it's just law of averages sooner or later like you're employing some pretty good scouts and some pretty good analysts as well it just stands to reasons that you are going to hit gold at some point and i've also i'm going to repeat myself i feel like i say this every time chelsea comes up i think fernandez and caicedo is like the the beginning of one of the possibly the best meat field in the country i mean it's a little harsh on the sort of rice Subimendi and whoever plays with them is kind of good as well but I really think that's two-thirds of the best midfield in the country and it gives Maresca some flexibility with who he puts in as a third in there but they are they are extremely good and I guess to pull myself up from earlier I did reference Pedri who was not playing in this game just going to preface some of the angry tweets that will be heading my way from Barcelona fans and I just and also in fairness to Barcelona I guess they had Eric Garcia in midfield in this game which is one of those things that's not not ideal when you're coming up against a very very very good midfield so it was tricky from them for that point of view but my suspicion of the hansy flick project and the direction of travel um remains i think just on chelsea we need to try and i have this conversation with mates quite a lot we need to step back like we might be confused and think oh the number of players they sign but they maybe there is a real sense of like they're very deliberate and calculated internally but they treat football very differently to a lot of other clubs it is a stock exchange for them they're buying to sell and they've done it brilliantly for 15 years so they're not necessarily signing players to be in their first team and it's a weird concept to look at but it is like 6.30 the stock market's open right who can we buy who can we sell today it's a different way of watching football but they've done it for years and years and there's I think there's a lot of envy in the people that knock them actually for it is there a is there a room in Cobham are just sort of, you know, slicked back haired gentlemen in suits yelling at each other in this kind of completely incomprehensible world where everyone's furious and cheering and slamming old school telephones down at the same time because they've just signed another 15-year-old from, I don't know, Gremio or something like that.

11:56Anyway, worth saying. It works actually about it. This sets up Sunday. I mean, who knows what happens tonight with Arsenal and Bayern, but this sets up Chelsea-Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. Perfect. um yeah I mean it was already set up perfectly I'm not sure how this makes any difference

12:24I don't know why it felt like a sensible question it was just look it wasn't a Paxman question it was just trying to you know it's a good game to look forward to just something like that but It's when you get a pass, when a player just drills it into you, and the only thing you can do is just kind of send a straight back with your first touch. No, no, no. I don't think that was a hospital. That wasn't a hospital pass. I basically put him clean through just then. All he had to do was tap it in. I mean, we've been talking about this game for 50 minutes. I literally have nothing more to say about it.

12:56Fine, fine. You've nothing more to say. We've done all the subsections. All that needed to be done is done. I'm sorry. That's okay. Don't apologize. you're absolutely right it's nice it keeps me on my toes barry um they've got frankfurt salvia prague and covenhagen barcelona in the next three so even though they've only got seven points they should be all right to get through certainly to the the playoffs um to the etihad manchester city lost two nil only to buy a leverkusen they made 10 changes um pep agreeing with barry's assessment that these games do not matter i mean it still lasts it's a very good 11 and you know 400 million pounds of players on the bench they called on a lot of them foden doku turkey and Haaland all came on and I guess any defeat for Man City is still a big story I think.

13:38Yeah so yeah I want to namesake Archie here who tweeted something along the lines of you know Pep Pep is suggesting he can't make 11 changes but I mean the squad he had out there the 11 he had out was bought for over 400 million euros which is more than twice what Leverkusen spent on their starting 11 and Leverkusen have spent a lot by a German standard partially because they brought in a lot of money from big sales. I have to say, this XI, they're very good players, but they're not the players who have been the regulars this year. It's clearly, it had big Carabao energy, this lineup, when it put out.

14:15It immediately thought, this is going to happen. Which I think is what Carabao want you to get, isn't it? Exactly right. It's a tremendous branding by them. It should have had big Carabao energy. Maybe that would have been the key, yeah. And I just, I think it's an example of the fact that these, with this group stage being the way it is, you can afford to take a game off, essentially. You can afford to take a game where you're just, we want to rest our regular guys. We're just going to rotate everyone and throw them in there. And if we lose a game, it really doesn't matter. You're still fine in the group.

14:46And I think that's maybe a little bit of a weakness of the new system, which I think, broadly speaking, has not been as terrible as I maybe thought it should be. but I think it's a weakness that you have a game like that and you come away feeling like it doesn't really matter. If you're going to try to apply any kind of serious football attempts at analysis to this, it is another example, I think, of kind of how reliant they are on Erling Haaland up front because Mamouche is not a bad player, but he's such a different player. So I feel like the team is kind of set up. Players are used to playing to Erling now and it's resulting in this incredible season by him so far.

15:23But when you put a Mamouche up there, who needs a completely different kind of service, who's a completely different kind of presence. It's like it doesn't quite work in the same way. Also, it is also odd seeing... Nuri, he's still completely forgotten that they brought him in from Wolves. He's there. It's a bit of an odd one in that sense. But yeah, I hasten to read too much into it. I think this was Pep just wanting to rest some guys and accepting that a loss is not the worst thing in the world. Yeah. I mean, Nuri got injured in the early in the season. Yes, I'm looking forward to Thomas Frank saying, we just wanted to let a game go last night, tomorrow on tomorrow's pod, after PSG away.

16:01Yes, I mean, Lars can't see too much over-analysis of this game. Can you, Barry? I think with a very busy time of the season looming, Pep took a bit of a gamble. It didn't pay off. It obviously was a very expensive city reserve team full of very good players. They weren't terrible. I mean, they had chances. Mark Flecken, the former Brentford keeper, he was in goal for Bayer Leverkusen. He made some very important saves. He denied Erling Haaland in a one-on-one as well. Jarrell Kwanza was playing for Bayer Leverkusen as well. He was very impressive, I thought. And I think there's probably a few Liverpool fans that wish they had him back or hadn't sold him during the summer.

16:51yeah it's just pep taking a gamble it didn't pay off so city have now lost what two in a row it's not a great look but ultimately and mark langdon may well be angry with me for saying this but i don't think this matters a huge amount and it's probably good that some of those city players got a run out but you know james trafford got us a rare start but uh i don't think any of them particularly covered themselves in glory lovely header from patrick schick uh i thought in the sort of lovely movement lovely glancing header and uh yeah pep uh before the game did apologize for yelling in a cameraman's ear but in a sort of i am what i am you know there's sort of that kind of at the press conference it was good fun you know uh anyway that'll do for part one part two will begin in marseille

17:48welcome to part two of the guardian football weekly uh so sam you are there in marseille to watch newcastle take the lead and then lose to uh pierre-emirica bamayang how was it oh where do i start do i mean do i start with football or do i start with non-footballing stuff wherever you so much going on the goal was gloriously celebrated i have never been in the ground before i filmed it it looked up huge screens in the velodrome and it said time until kickoff and i watched it tick from three hours to two hours 59 minutes and 59 seconds that's many hours that's many hours so by the time harvey barnes scored in the sixth minute i'd been in the ground for 196 minutes or something like that look Marseille fans have a terrible reputation and we had this guidance from Newcastle United that basically said um tell us you don't want us here without actually saying you don't want us here don't come here don't wear colors don't wear anything that identifies you as a Newcastle fan you must meet at 4 30 in this square miles away from the ground and it's a nine o 'clock kickoff by the way out here um and apparently those were the conditions that's the only way you could get tickets and look there's an argument with the gracious of respect i think newcastle fans whatever they're wearing will always look like newcastle fans and i don't mean that in a disrespectful way they have a quite distinct appearance yeah i think i think that is is fair is it's a very fair point but look that that was the only way we these strict arrangements because of the way marseille fans are is the only way you can get tickets and And I sort of, I say I sort of feel, I feel very strongly if your support base is that idiotic, that that is the only way away fans can visit your ground, then I'm not sure you should have the privilege of being in UEFA competitions.

19:40But that's just my view. Look, as early as we were, that was boredom, right? I was bored, but I was safe. We got in early and actually it was quite efficient. We got onto these tubes, they didn't stop, bang into the ground. Brilliant. And we were told we would have to wait in the ground afterwards. would we probably held in for an hour or so or at least an hour and that is one of the unfortunate accompaniments it comes with traveling away it's sad um i don't think it's right but you know that but we were expecting a little bit of social mingling and actually what happened was we were sort of herded into on the steps huge concrete steps and after about the people were very patient and we knew it was going to happen and after about 90 minutes it started to get a little bit heated and people went all right can we actually go now and then there's a little bit of pushy most fans are really patient a couple were losing their rag a little bit and it turned into what what could have been or should have been a really safe situation turned into one that's potentially pretty dangerous right and to be clear that this was no full-blown riot right there was some pepper spray out there was the police had the batons out a little bit and i'm not trying to like over sensationalize it what i am saying is that those scenarios are tinder boxes right and once i'm six foot two and i can see over the top and there's about 85 kilos of me so i could hold my weight just about but once it starts moving you've got no option but to move with the crowd and you lose control of your body very quickly and if it and it didn't get to that tipping point but if it gets to that tipping point there isn't anything you can do about it and on my social media the frustrating thing was i took photos there was masses of space behind the french police and they just weren't moving at all and then we got down the first layer we got downstairs and you go into this vast chasm is i think it's the coach park for away fans under the ground and you could probably get 40 50 coach coaches parked in there and this is why they didn't hold newcastle fans there um it's beyond me and so I think luckily there were a few people pepper sprayed there was some tears and anything like that it shouldn't happen at football grounds but it's just another example of actually Marseille fans didn't see them all night brilliant atmosphere the ground's amazing and it tinged it because even though we lost I'd have said that was a worthwhile trip because that stadium is wonderful the atmosphere is brilliant that was European football at its best but it just took away from it everyone just wanted to get home and then we i was lucky in that i booked a hotel right next to the square we were taken but actually we were talking about safety they took everyone five or six kilometers out of town there's no metros there's no you're trying to get a cab people then having to walk back to where they booked at two in the morning in marseille so it just it became a bit of an unsavory experience one i love going to watch my football the french police as i said turned something that should have been pleasant and easy to deal with there was no sign of trouble everyone was in decent spirits and I saw I'm sorry I'm wittering on here a little bit um I feel quite strongly about it that it's just so unnecessary and it and it took away from you remember we go for joy right you go away with your mates to go and watch football you go and follow your team it's meant to be brilliant it's meant to be moments like Harvey Barnes scoring that goal and you're going to absolute delirium it's meant to be moments like Nick Pope having an absolute shocker and just unable to believe what you've just seen that's fine I can live with that I didn't enjoy the rest of it no I mean I must say I love football but why anybody would go through that knowing that you have to get there three hours early I don't know what you do for those three hours you know and then knowing that you're gonna you know you might be kettled afterwards but even held for that long afterwards I mean credit to those fans who want to do that i guess um to the game itself yes you kind of alluded to it simon says what on god's green earth was nick pope doing all the way out there it was an amazing actually barry it was a brilliant finish i was i was looking at it thinking is that like a putt or is it more like one of those really good 10 pin bowlers in that you know when you're awake too late and you're watching usa v europe 10 pin bowling and they put real curl on it right at the end that's what it reminded me of i don't think I've ever been awake that late.

23:51But I'll take your word for it. Just me. Is it the Moscone Cup or is that Poole? That's Poole. But anyway. It was, I think, because of the heat Nick Pope was getting, probably deserving heat for charging out of his area like that, I think the quality of the finish has been overlooked and Pope's heart must have just sank into his boots because he probably thought he'd got away with it. but the finish it sort of double swerved as you alluded to there max on its way in and i think it's a brilliant brilliant goal you know a bit of a gift but he had so much work to do to get it into the goal from that angle and uh yeah you saw him take the little look up and then boom uh brilliant finish sam you wanted to talk about nick pope and whether it's you know because Aaron Ramsdale is there too and he is also good how you feel about Nick Pope's position as your number one he is good he does love a relegation though doesn't he Aaron Ramsdale Nick Pope has been has been brilliant for Newcastle this is this is where the questions over Eddie Howe and look I'm not again not trying to over sensationalize things and I understand why like if you lose games as a football manager there has been some criticism and his loyalty to certain players is something that's potentially got him into trouble like the man city game as brilliant as when it was i you can't get over excited about it as a newcastle fan because actually we're used to beating sides of that ilk at home with those kind of performances it's the games that follow it's away games it's these sort of games where we really struggle and yesterday it was a real like mismatch it was a really poor game actually there were a lot it was open and there were a lot of to use a tennis term unforced errors like there was one point actually and i'm sorry i've gone off Pope where Tino Livramento over towards their right back late in the first half takes a terrible touch and the ball goes out for a throw in like he's just he's looked elsewhere and just failed to trap a very easy ball and then the French the Marseille right back has done exactly the same thing to give the ball back to us like literally five seconds later like that's a sign of the quality of that game but like Pope Pope is a brilliant old school goalkeeper he is a shot stopper he has saved Newcastle United many many points in the years he's been here he's also not a good kicker and he is a subutio keeper in the sense do you remember you have them on the sticks and you can't push them any further out the net like he doesn't go beyond this six yard box ever so yeah to look up he did last night to look up and see him no one can believe it and if you look back at the video you can see malik chow in screen going no get back like what on earth are you doing and as much as I love Nick Pope there's a question about evolution and what does what do Newcastle need and I know this might sound a little bit arrogant but that Newcastle are trying to improve and so what do you need as a goalkeeper to take you to another level and you need someone who's able to to play football to come out and and command that area outside of his area and look it was no secret Newcastle agreed a fee for James Trafford and they pursued him for two years and the fee was a really big one in the summer man city came in and presumpt them as was their right they had a right to match and they brought in Ramsdale who's he had he came off the bench at Brentford he's played a couple of Carabao Cup games but that's three away games in a row Newcastle have been leading and then suboptimal goalkeeping has led to an equaliser and that was the biggest howler of them all and how should have a question about who plays at Everton on Saturday I don't think he will change it but they really should be question marks over Nick Pope can I put a question to sam as a as a newcastle united enjoyer and someone who watches them very closely it i i was multi-screening but i also got the sense that this was very end-to-end and like you say no one could really control the game it was just and and that is i feel like a lot of newcastle games go that way and and and oftentimes it suits them when they're at their best you you have a lot of guys who can run in that team and you have a lot of energy and but but for a team that is aspiring to be near the top do they need to try to evolve into a team that can control things a little bit more they can put their foot on the ball and just take the tempo out of things and just like do the thing that city usually does very well and just pass the ball around for five minutes and just control things more because it seems to be like i always feel like watching a rugby highlight sometimes it's like loads of people running forwards and then oh no now everyone has to run back and this sort of chaos if you're going to do 50 60 games a year it's not good like you can't do that all the time absolutely and that they've been trying to do it for a couple of years that season we first qualified for the champions league no one knew the Newcastle United approach so it came as a bit of a surprise so we could do that playing on the counter-attack but then suddenly if you want to be a consistent top four sides teams come to you and they shut up shop and you have to learn to be Man City to be that and I'm not nowhere near that level but you have to have those almost boring two goal wins at home to teams in the middle of the table that you don't even register you just go you've got a champions league game midweek you've got the side in 12th on a saturday sunday and you just have to go and win the game and as fun as new castle are to watch at times there is that real lack of control and they've got there's some limited players there right and you can't knock the limited players they they're playing slightly out of position they can only do what they can do the problem newcastle have is when their top level players don't perform which anthony gordon had another anonymous game last night and there's been an argument for a while he probably shouldn't play through the middle but Nick Voltemada is so tired that he couldn't couldn't start another game and Bruno Gimardes was really poor with the ball last night he was trying to control it but he was giving away passes so yeah that's absolutely what Newcastle need to do they've been they spent two years trying to do it and that's where and I know people say oh Eddie Howe's done a pretty good job and he has he will always be a legend and I am not saying I really am not saying Eddie Howe's time is up at all but he needs to like find solutions there has to be a way of getting control in games and we go one nil up and we don't know what to do like the number of leads we've lost we then sit we go dan burn said afterwards basically it went to plan so the plan was go get a goal and then just sit back on it um but it was so chaotic that like sit back on what i don't know it was fun it was really fun but i don't think how who's a bit of a control freak would have enjoyed it at all i like the way you talk about evolution of goal keepers the idea of the the seven ages of man the seven ages of goalkeeper with fatty folk there and Nick Pope somewhere just far too down the left before you get to your Edisons on the right-hand side of that picture.

30:25Anyway, a heartbreak last for Bodo Glimt, losing in the last minute to Juve. They were on the attack in injury time, weren't they? It was one of those last-minute winners they conceded. Yeah, so when they equalised for the 2-2 right near the end on a penalty, the penalty taker immediately ran into the net to get the ball and sprint back to the centre circle because they were like, we're going for it, we want to get the win. And I remember thinking that in one way, I love the attitude. I think that's great. If you're a team from Norway and you've equalized against Juventus, it's a side of me that also went, hang on here, lads.

30:59This is a point against Juventus, if you can take a couple of minutes off the clock here. And that's probably one more point than you were expecting against Juventus. So I think that kind of attitude and belief and optimism is part of the reason why Bordeaux-Gliemt have done surprisingly well in Europe often and why they sometimes do surprise these teams because they're not cowed and they're not afraid and they do their own thing. But the reality is also they were second best in the second half here. They were very good in the first half. In the second half, Ken Anjildiz came on for Juventus and really changed things.

31:31He was very, very, very good. As you can tell, I started watching Chelsea-Barcelona, but then with the red card and Chelsea being in the lead, interesting things were happening in Norway. So I kind of pivoted to Buda Glimt. And unfortunately, I pivoted just in time for Juventus to completely take over and be much the better team. Yildiz, like I said, is a very, very good player. And Bouda struggled to deal with him. And they were maybe a little fortunate, actually, to get to 2-2. But then they were attacking, like you said. They had a chance and they felt they could have had a penalty in the box right towards the end.

32:07But instead, Juventus countered and made it 3-2. You can never really say for a Norwegian team to not win against Juventus is disappointing. But it is one of those late in the year, it's cold, it's an unfamiliar surface. You've got all these little circumstances going your way, and you have the recipe there for a very special evening, and they weren't too far off it. But couldn't quite get there in the end. And in hindsight, it is possible that at 2-2, someone should have just sat on the ball and just kind of, yeah, we'll take those points. But there we are. That was a very important win for Juventus.

32:40They only have six points after five games. once tonight's game's finished, there's a very good chance they'll be outside of the qualification places. So if they hadn't snaffled those extra two points at the death, they'd be in big trouble, I think. Barry, what about Napoli 2, Carabag 0? Another good night for Scott McTominay or as the Tano man says, Scotto! And then waits for McTominay from the crowd. Yeah, he scored one. He had a big, big hand in Napoli's second, which ended up, I think, I would imagine being an own goal. And it was a kind of scissors kick from McTominay, which led to that own goal.

33:23He's getting a taste for those kind of acrobatics now. Napoli were totally dominant in this game, and the Carabao goalkeeper, a fella called Kachalski, really helped keep the score down. He played very well. but another good performance from McTominay. Yeah, Lars, Borussia Dortmund, the highest scorers in the Champions League this season. Which is weird because Dortmund are kind of, they're doing reasonably well in the Bundesliga, but they're doing reasonably well in the sort of, they've gone back to basics a little bit. Like they're not playing the sort of high octane, high pressing thing that we obviously remember from the Jürgen Klopp or even Thomas Tuchel days.

34:07niko kovacs is kind of a little bit more of a sort of what's the phrase for that sort of yeah he's he's he's a coach who likes to get like the basics right first and foremost and uh you want to say dachian and maybe not that this is what i almost said and then i realized that's taking it a little far but yeah but they've gone to three at the back and they've it's a proper three at the back as well with attacking fullbacks rather than wingers out wide and they've tried to let's be more solid there's been too much chaos at Dortmund the last few years and they're quite solid and they've got Adeyemi and Gerasi who are getting them goals up front but it's not always looked good in the Bundesliga and there's the sense that they probably need to evolve if they're going to turn into a team that can challenge Bayern anytime soon but then like you say the flip side of that is that they're absolutely banging them in in the Champions league which is a little weird here they were considerably better than than than vrl i would say but vrl of course had a had a had a red card as well with one fourth who who handled a goal bound uh shot and had to go off and it made it fairly straightforward for for dortmund but i'm just here to say i guess that they are maybe not quite as good as the results uh suggest but they're quite solid and have a couple of forwards who are doing well benvico won two niller ajax uh jose's first win of the group stage.

35:28Just two brilliant goals, actually, and another defeat, Barry, for Ajax. Yeah, this is how the mighty have fallen Derby, I suppose, both of them going into this game with no points. Johnny Hettinger was sacked by Ajax a few weeks ago. One of their former goalkeepers, a Champions League winner with them, I think, a fellow called Fred Grimm is in temporary charge. he learnt at the knee of Johan Cruyff and Louis van Gaal but things aren't going well for him at Ajax they're 6th in the Dutch league 14 points behind leaders PSV they're closer to the bottom than they are at the top and they won't qualify now they weren't going to qualify anyway but it's remarkable how bad they are they have I suppose their only plus point for them is they have a fella called Rayan Boonida a 19 year old he looked pretty impressive from what I saw of this game which was most of it it was one of the early kickoffs and Benfica now have three points on the board but they're probably going to need 12 to qualify that's what you needed to guarantee qualification for the knockouts last season.

36:4911 did it for one or two teams, but 12 will probably definitely get you through. And their final three games are against Napoli, Juventus and Real Madrid. So good luck with that, Jose. Good luck, Jose. Union San Jose Walsh won one at Galatasaray, their first home defeat in 34 games. And Slavia Prague 0, Athletic Club 0. And the games tonight, Arsenal-Bayern, PSG-Spurs, first Liverpool PSV, amongst others. We'll cover them on tomorrow's pod. And that'll do for part two. Back in a second, where we'll talk about Man United Everton.

37:29Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. I saw on Monday night, Manchester United nil Everton one, which doesn't tell the entire story. I mean, we have to start, Sam, with Idrissa Gueye being sent off for slapping Michael Keane in the face and David Moyes saying, do you know something? I quite like it when my players have a fight. I mean, obviously, I suspect he would have said something slightly different if United romped to victory. But there we are. It's happened before, obviously famously for Newcastle, a bit more fisticuffs than that. But it is always funny. I remember Paul Rayner being sent off for headbutting Mick Heathcote in a 6-0 defeat in Griffin Park for the Hughes.

38:06That was a disappointing moment. But yeah, what a hilarious moment, I think, Sam. I mean yeah I'm sure David Moyes had the cameras panned to him or they probably did he wasn't laughing at that point but yeah to go to Old Trafford with his history there and win despite that I think it's the first time a team's won in the Premier League at Old Trafford with 10 men and they had 10 men for a long long time like a really long time like slapping like he has to get sent off under the laws of the game but if you're gonna go right if you're gonna get sent off for slapping your own teammate at least leave a mark right you just want to see michael keene with a big old red you want the camera to pan in on one of those like red slap marks because it was just a little tickle it's just madness and yeah of course the the natural ways a newcastle fan and to most premier league fans goes back to kieran dyer and lee bowyer properly scrapping back in i think it's 04 um people forget that game it was also the game stephen taylor went down he rolled around like an actor pretending he'd been yes yeah he it was a handball um he pretended he'd been shot in the face by the football it's just hilarious but it's weird to the date that was a really unfortunate fortnight for newcastle shearing was meant to retire at the end of that season and the day before he's announced a new contract and newcastle have an fa cup semi-final coming up and a european uefa cup quarterfinal against lisbon and then so everyone's buzzing on that Friday Saturday those two idiots do that Stephen Taylor gets suspended I think we lose the next three league games we did beat Lisbon at home uh 1-0 then Laurent Robert falls out with Graeme Souness on the coach about 10 days later so he doesn't play in the second leg we get battered I think 4-1 and then we get when the FA Cup was at Cardiff and we basically lost to Manchester United 4-1 and Nicky Butt was at Newcastle at that point and he spent about 20 minutes afterwards just going around applauding the Manchester United fans which went down like an absolute sandwich as you can imagine I think he was on loan at Birmingham the following season quite swiftly but yeah so there's a warning for Everton fans right when your players have a fight with each other within the space of two weeks things can really unravel so I've got to say I hope I don't that doesn't happen to them but actually I do because Newcastle go to Everton on Saturday but yeah that could be the start the sign of things to come yeah I mean it was felt of different lines didn't it to that and to batty and lasso which really felt like these are two that absolutely hate you so this has been boiling up for years and years whereas you imagine michael keaton and just a guy to get probably you know in fact what was really funny was david moise saying that gay's teammates applauded when he stood in front of the group and apologized like a standing ovation yeah again again probably not something that would have happened if they lost four nil So, I mean, there's an element of that in there.

40:53But, you know, I followed some of a discourse following this. And I understand, like, in terms of the laws of the game, they're completely unequivocal. Like, if you strike someone on the face off the ball, like, it doesn't matter if it's a teammate. It doesn't matter. Like, once you do that, you're off. Like, there's no room for maneuver there at all. But I'm somewhat sympathetic to the voices, and many of them were ex-pros who I don't often agree with, who were saying this is kind of like do you need to take a guy off for this like this is like almost like an internal squabble it's not an egregious violent act of horror that's occurred is it really that much worse than someone just pushing him like as michael keen just go because they were having a bit of an argument and keen just kind of pushed him to just naff off like go back into where you're supposed to stand and he had a reaction and gave him a bit of a slap like there's a big side of me that thinks maybe that you don't need to completely change the flow of the game for that.

41:49But then there is a more rational side of it that thinks, okay, one of the rules of this sport is that you have to go 90 minutes without slapping a co-worker. It feels like a bar you should be in. In most jobs, that's something you have to be able to do to function.

42:07It's not completely unreasonable to ask them to be able to do that. I mean I've seen boxers go several rounds without even laying a glove on their opponent and that's what they're supposed to be doing in the workplace Do you think we'd manage it? Because we're remote now I mean if we were in the same studio clearly there would have been a lot of slapping in this pod I don't know I feel like I've done a lot of shows in studios certainly with Barry and at no point have we come close to coming to blows there is a famous moment I think it's a guy called Patrick Kinghorn and Tony Cascarino on TalkSport where they have a row and I think Cass punches him.

42:41It all went out on air. It's like an amazing moment in the history of that radio station. But yeah, as yet, I've never felt the need to punch Barry in the face during a broadcast.

42:55That moment, Barry, has kind of taken away from the fact that Manchester United lost this game. And it kind of, of all the balloons that are punctured, the Man United are back. To be beaten at home by Everton, a 10-man Everton, is just classic puncture balloon yeah they were hopeless i think the only man you player who emerges from that game with any sort of credit is amad diallo the rest of them just didn't seem to know what to do when everything went down to 10 men ruben amaran so they're playing a team reduced to 10 men with a striker who couldn't score in a knocking shop with a blank check.