Liverpool win at Inter while Mo Salah lifts weights alone – Football Weekly

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30week from Al Ali or whoever. Chelsea lose in Bergamo since we asked if anyone should start taking them seriously. They've given us a categoric response. A second comfortable home win for Spurs in a few days. Sounds odd to say it. It was only Slavia Prague but again Javi Simmonds ran the show. Elsewhere wins for Bayern, Barcelona, Atleti but none of them totally straightforward. There's Manchester United's 4-1 win at Wolves to discuss from Monday an EFL roundup and a non-league player up a ladder trying to fix the floodlights. All that plus your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

1:01on the panel today barry glendening hello hi max welcome nikki bandini morning and good morning lars iverton good morning everyone let's start at sancero inter nil liverpool one dominic savoslai's 88th minute penalty inter's first home defeat in the champions league since september 2022 but as i said in the intro bas liverpool just needed a win to go in off their backside and that's kind i mean they played okay but that's kind of what happened yeah after the events of the weekend, Liverpool in general and Arna Slott I think in particular needed at least to not lose this game and winning it sent out a bit of a statement particularly as Mo Salah had been left at home, as he kind of had to be really and it wasn't a particularly good game to watch not that pleasant of the eye but it was a very good win for Liverpool.

1:54There's talk over whether the penalty was soft or not Bastoni, he tugged Florian Vert's shirt. It's a foul. Some refs give it, some don't. This one did. And I don't think they can have any complaints. Dominic Sboslai stepped up, put the penalty away. It was, I suppose, slightly ironic that he was playing in Mo Salah's position on the night. But I wasn't particularly impressed with Inter. I'd be interested to hear what Nicky has to say about them. I thought they struggled to deal with Liverpool's forward line. They didn't show much imagination going forward and didn't really try to create much and probably deserve to lose in the end.

2:41You're interested to hear what Nicky has to say about Inter. So am I. So is everybody. Nicky. It was not a great game of football. There was a point in the evening where Lars was messaging the group and said something about the goals show on TNT. I thought I'm here stuck here watching the no-goals show at San Siro. It was fairly dismal. But Inter have got, for sure, a problem that's ongoing with just a total inability to show up in their games against big clubs. The weekend, they smashed four past Colmour, which, all right, doesn't sound amazing. Colmour have played some good football this season under Fabregas.

3:12They're playing well. They've got one of the best players in Serie A right now, Nicol Paz, and Inter made really light work for them. But whenever they play a big team lately, they seem to not show up. and they got 12 points in their first four games in this Champions League and they lost to Atletico. Now they've lost to Liverpool. Didn't deserve any more from this game. Atletico game, maybe they deserved a draw. They've lost to Juventus back when they were still under Igo Tudor. Not a particularly good team in Serie A. They lost to Napoli. They've lost to Milan. In fact, if you go back over the last two seasons and take their results against Napoli, Juventus, Roma and Milan, they've won only two of those and they've lost six of them.

3:46So they've been bad in big games over and over again. certainly domestically. Obviously, last season, they did have some big international results because they got to the final of the Champions League and they did knock out Bayern and Barcelona. But since then, Simone and Zagy's gone. And I think the team hasn't really worked out who it is under Christian Kivu. And they're better than they were last night. They're certainly capable of more. I was watching it and thinking this feels, this feels like a team that just has no confidence in itself to try to take on this occasion. a team that's lost its belief that it can play toe-to-toe with a team like this because they have got the talent.

4:24But they also had some circumstantial stuff that you could throw in there. They had to use two of their three substitutions. Sure. Windows, as it is, really early in the game for players before half-time. And with Acerpin Celanoglu going off, they had some things go against them. The penalty decision, I'm with Baz. A lot of the time that won't get given, but it is grabbing someone's shirt in the area and you can't really complain about it. Inter fans certainly were pretty annoyed about a handball by Van Dijk right after the goal gets disallowed for Liverpool. Van Dijk does block a shot into the area from Bissek with his hand.

5:00Again, I'd put it in the category of seen them given, so perhaps on another day if they hadn't just disallowed Liverpool's goal, the referee might have reviewed that one but overall I think Inter have no complaints and they were second best to Liverpool and Liverpool weren't amazing but they were better and so I think they deserve the win. Yes, certainly in the category of I don't want to see them given. And we'll get to that other VAR. God, that agonising VAR. That's just painstaking watching this ball roll up and down someone's arm for 25 minutes. But I suppose the point is, Lars, Liverpool were a team with not much confidence, came up against a team with less confidence that worked for them.

5:35Did we see signs of a sort of post-Sala Liverpool there, a midfield diamond? Is that too far to look from this one game? Maybe, but I do think it's maybe a little bit significant that they kept a clean sheet because that has kind of been Arnest Lott's justification for dropping Salah, which is very reasonable, which is why he said straight out loud, which is that you need to play so much like gives them more solidity. I think with Salah, without opening that kind of worms again, the trade-off has been, certainly in the last year and for a little while before that, is that, okay, he doesn't have to do any defensive work, but he will score nearly a goal a game, like is what he was doing last year.

6:12and the second he isn't scoring or producing that much then suddenly the fact that you're carrying a passenger becomes a problem and so having basically 10 outfield players who work off the ball is an advantage and we saw in this game that it is an advantage and so I think the clean sheet is kind of notable I was thought on the penalty I read that Slott had to field question from irate local reporters who suggested that Wirtz had gone down like a fish and I have to say I don't agree with that because his shirt was pulled and fish of course don't wear shirts they don't and and even trying to pull like because the skin is quite slippery and and slimy with the fish so you can't really do the tug of the skin either sure so I would not agree with the analysis that he fell down like a fish I think that's not what happened no I mean although I suppose a wriggling fish that you're trying to put back in is sort of the move that Wurt's made because he his shirt is pulled and he falls the wrong way actually but i i suspect also not something that happens with a fish if you pull well i try to pull the thumb i'm sad i even gave you the opportunity to carry on with this slot afterwards actually said baz look in the premier league that penalty is probably not given but the goal is probably given and you know it was just another moment where var was just interminable that wait for that disallowed goal and you're sort of watching it going does does anybody want this um yeah i think it took four minutes or more we we constantly talk about these handballs it's not going to go away so i'm bored talking about yeah that's fair to get into do it briefly without getting into it in a big way but like that to me my first reaction watching it is instead yeah that's a handball all day long and then you know i did the uh the thorough thing of going and and double checking the rules and And yes, you know, IFAB has got a line in their opinion on handball saying if it is sent on to you by a teammate, basically, in exactly that situation, it shouldn't be given as a handball.

8:12So a bit of a shrug from me. I certainly understand why all the Inter defenders were immediately on it, because I do think in Italy that that gets given. And I think that it doesn't get given in the Premier League. And that's exactly why you have these situations where you have all of, I suppose, the English commentary team on UK broadcasts saying that that's definitely not a handball. but I think a lot of Italy goes yeah it's a handball to me I don't know like instinctively it's a goal that doesn't get scored without the hand going in so it feels like maybe it should be but I think like you in the end at a certain point like I just I just don't want to be sat here stopping the game for however long it is and that's the bit which I think most football fans relate to although of course also all football fans almost universally if it's their team that can benefit from the decision would rather it waits five minutes and goes their way I mean I I did wonder, I did posit on Twitter that maybe we could have VAR goal check of the month, you know, play the lightning scenes and then just have, you know, just have the ref running over to the screen and just see which one our favourite was.

9:14Should we talk about Mo Salah then? Because he posted Lars a sort of moderately pathetic picture of him all by himself in the gym with no comment. I don't know. It's interesting. I actually was far too sympathetic to him, I think, when it first happened. And the days have gone on. I just thought this is, it's just sort of, it's ridiculous to, you know, and I'm sort of, I'm team Carragher. I mean, it's been great for Jamie Carragher's career, if nothing else. Like, you know, everyone is hanging on Carragher. I like Carragher, but I've never hung on his every word. And now you're just waiting to see what Jamie Carragher says on Monday Night Football.

9:45Oh, he's on CBS next. What's going to happen? Slott sort of said, I guess he could be in for the Brighton game. I imagine he would need to apologise. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen. but it's all just a bit sort of pathetic i think yeah i tend to think it has made me um let's see how i can connect these two things watching the world cup draw and this thing kind of made me think about how being the center of attention for too many years being the focal point of everything being in a position where people are like praising you and being nice to you constantly maybe warps your ego and your perception of the world around you a little bit because i do think it is slightly wild that benching a guy for two and a half games which is what's happened like he's been dropped for two three games became on at halftime for one of them so he's been benched for two and a half games and that has led him to go public saying someone's trying to get me out of the club and i'm being i mean it is a completely disproportionate reaction from him to what's actually happened if he'd been out for 10 games and the club was like actively briefing against him or something then sure but that isn't what's happened what's happened is that a guy in his in his 30s who wasn't playing particularly well during a period where the team was really struggling has been sat down for the coach to try something else and for him to push the nuclear button on the off the bones of that is wild and there's the thing about he mentioned that he's not getting support from the club if I was part of the you know upstairs guys who were debating whether or not to hand him a massive new contract or not in the spring and you had to probably go to the owners and say hey this guy is old but he's been really good for us and he's a club icon so we're going to push the boat out and hand out a much bigger contract than we're actually comfortable with because we think that's the right thing to do for him to turn around a few months later and say they're not supporting him i was like hang on excuse me have you checked your bank account recently uh so so like the whole situation is very unedifying i secretly privately think once you kind of talk yourself into handing him that massive contract and he starts this season not playing very well or not playing as well then i think you immediately think oh okay we've got 18 more months of this and and i wonder if he's almost solved that problem for them i don't think we're quite in sort of ronaldo united territory when he sort of actively made the team worse imagine that as a team ronaldo ronaldo united is not a team i necessarily want i don't think we're at a point where he's that big a problem but i do think yeah one of the things we've talked about and this is going on a bit, in the great Liverpool forum collapse discussion is that it seems like they've tried to replace Mo Salah when Mo Salah's already there and the team seems unbalanced.

12:25And maybe him moving on to Saudi Arabia in January is the thing that makes sense for everyone, including him, by the way, because then he can play the AFCON and then he can just kind of muck about and play football at a quite low intensity going into the World Cup and he'll be like super ready physically and mentally for that maybe. So maybe that's a good outcome for everyone. I think it feels like it's maybe the right way out for everyone. I sort of enjoyed, actually, it was another Norwegian, Lars Jan-Ali Fjortoft on ESPN, was slightly lampooning this idea of Salahs that he's earned the right to be in the team all the time.

13:01He said, does that mean Kenny Dalglish can just get himself in the team whenever he feels like it? And yeah, you know, it's the reality of football. you can be the best player ever but when you're no longer producing at that level there comes the point where you don't get to be in the team every week and it feels like the beginning of the end doesn't it? But you never know in football sometimes these stories since you come back around. I think it is the end. There was quite an interesting exchange on Amazon Prime's coverage last night after the game. Arnaz Slott came out to talk to the pundits one of whom was Clarence Seedorf and he didn't particularly, he knows he has to talk about Salah and he knows that's all anyone wants to talk about, but he was very much trying to keep the focus on the players who were in Milan and who had won the game and performed well.

13:49And Seedorf was like a dog with a bone, wouldn't let him go. And Slott said, so you're a journalist now, Clarence. But Seedorf said, look, as the leader, is it not up to you to give the option or extend the olive branch. Slott very much sort of said, well, should the initiative come from me or from him? Does he admit he made a mistake? So I think Slott is not interested in any kind of reconciliation with Salah. And if there is to be forgiveness, then Salah will have to come to him and grovel. And I can't see that happening. You asked me about Inter, and I just wanted to say on the Liverpool side I thought Curtis Jones was really good last night and we haven't really talked that much about some of the things that were good in their team because it wasn't like an exceptional performance as a team they did what they needed to I think they were very solid but I did think Curtis Jones was standout player of the game didn't seem to put a passer on all night was taking on his man was getting to some quite adventurous positions and also giving space to teammates I thought he was he was really really good so just wanted to say that No and you I'm glad you did because I'd written that down in my notes but I'd moved on uh and also Connor Bradley when he came on worth mentioning I thought he made a bit of a difference and in that slightly narrower diamond you need your fullbacks to attack so that might be good for Frimpong when he's back as well anyway to Bergamo Atalanta 2 Chelsea 1 and it's not been a good week for Chelsea since we started talking about them you know in earnest as winning everything after the Barca win and then the Arsenal draw they've lost at Leeds, drawn at Bournemouth, which I guess there's no disgrace in that, and now lost to Atalanta.

15:31So Chelsea go back to, I don't know how to work this team out, Lars. No, but that feels like it has been the main constant with Chelsea this season, hasn't it? Like, I don't know how to work out Chelsea has become one of those conversations we've had too many times. They didn't rotate that much for this game. You had the sort of Enzo, Caicedo, Rhys James, midfield triumvirate in action. You had Joe Pedro front, Neto started. so I definitely think like they dropped points against Leeds a lot of that was to do with the squad rotation and at Bournemouth I thought that was just kind of a slightly oof sort of underwhelming performance overall I was about to say oh they're too young they don't have a lot of depth but also they spent like a gazillion pounds in the last in the last sort of three four years I feel like that shouldn't be the case I suppose you can still be young and expensive that's true you can be young and expensive as i'm sure many listeners uh are aware but no i i i think it's a case of mareska keeps saying this we don't have enough experience we're not title challengers and i guess that's fine but it's what four defeats in the last five away from home in the champions league or something like that now i mean that that seems to be an area that's that's just troubling them and i'm just expecting a little bit more from from this this group I mean, at 1-0, Rhys James has a half-decent chance.

16:51Maybe that changes the game. But as part of the, Nicky, the two-pronged Charles de Quetelera fan club with Philippe, it was nice to see him heavily involved in both goals. Yeah, yeah. It was definitely with, I suppose, a helping hand from Chelsea. The first one, the cross for Scamacca's goal, lovely, lovely cross. Really, really stood that ball up well for Scamacca. his goal that he scored you could see Cucurella's backing off him and it's because Cucurella can see Zappacosta's coming outside and he's desperately trying to get Badia Shiloh to come across and give him some support and De Quetelara even talked about that after the game basically he wasn't really planning to shoot but because Cucurella just kept backing off him it's like at some point I'm not going to give this ball I'm not going to take it on but I really really enjoy watching De Quetelara I think he's a very I don't know unique is the wrong word because there have been others like him if you look broadly enough but he's a rare kind of footballer he's got this lanky slightly um slightly different uh way of dribbling but works so well in tight spaces and has a surprising physicality to him as well but yeah i really enjoy him when he's on song and he was on song last night he was best player on the pitch i thought so nikki this seems very typical for what atalanta do very well in that you have Quetalera and Schumacher scoring, they seem to have a knack for looking at guys who showed promise, had a big move, big move doesn't really work out, and then they pick them up again as a fixer-upper type of situation?

18:22Because there's a lot of guys like that that's gone through Atalanta in the last few years. I suppose exactly who Atalanta is now is somewhat in flux, because Gasperini has moved on, he's gone to Roma, and you have this unhappy little chapter under Ivan Juric and now Palladino's come in as manager and this was only I think his fifth game in charge lost the first one against Napoli but then got a couple of wins then lost to Verona again at the weekend and so you're sort of not sure exactly where they're where they are in their progress but Palladino is a manager who absolutely deserved this chance you know I think has has potential to go on and be one of the rising names in Italian football and and look even with this not fantastic start they've made to the season they are doing well in the Champions League I think they're on 13 points now.

19:07And so they have got the results there. And I think Palladino perhaps is going to be more able to continue that trend of what you've been saying, Lars. I think it has been Atalanta's identity. Absolutely. They bring in these players and polish them up and get them back to their best. But of course, the biggest part of that is they had a manager, Gaspedini, who was very, very good at doing it. And in Di Catolaro's case, absolutely. You can listen to the player talk about it. huge amount of credit to Gasperini for that resurgence. It's like the homes under the hammer approach to football. You've got sort of Dion Dublin running around Europe looking at this player's got stairs going all the way up to the bedroom.

19:44We've got to bring him to Bergamo straight away. That's from a Chelsea point of view. They are 11th in the table at the moment. They've got Paphos home, Napoli away. That looks like one win and one don't know. One more win wouldn't be enough to get them into the top eight, I guess. No, probably not. I wouldn't say Paphos will be as straightforward as you're suggesting. They're this tournament's surprise package, and there's a very good chance they'll be fighting for their lives to stay in or to make it through to the knockout stages. And, of course, David Luiz coming back to the bridge, right?

20:19I was about to say that. A reunion with David Luiz. So it looks like it'll be difficult for them to finish in the top eight. and realistically at least four of the the five premier leagues they should all be finishing top i think but it's not going to happen i actually watched pathos monaco in its entirety last week which is one of those moments when i realized that my my recent efforts that having a better work-life balance may not have gone as well as i thought but i watched it almost entirely because i was thinking david louis roaming around in cyprus i mean that's something i'll spend 90 minutes watching and he did not disappoint he's got a great header off a corner so you know the man's he's still got it something all right that'll do for part one part two will begin at the tottenham hot spurs stadium

21:15welcome to part two of the guardian football weekly uh barry not this barry uh on x rides are spurs better than 1970 brazil here we go uh tottenham three slavia prague nil another home win for Thomas Frank. Barry, it was only Slavia Prague whose record in the Champions League is pretty rotten, but it's sort of cut and paste for Monday. Spurs were good. Xavi Simmonds is good. Yeah, absolutely. Jungmin's son had his official farewell last night. He was invited to the game and got a good reception from the crowd. It was a very straightforward win for them, I think, and they probably should have won by a lot more.

21:50An own goal, was it, and two penalties. Xavi Simmonds impressed, as you say. he almost spat the dummy when it looked like he won the second penalty to make that they went 3-0 ahead from almost didn't get to take it but Christian Romero allowed him to and all was well in the world again Slavia Prague are very poor and they're way down the bottom of the table 31st I think going into this game but as I say you can only beat what's in front of you their goalkeeper played very well Stanek he kept the score down but another good home win for Spurs against very limited opposition and there was an awful lot of empty seats at the stadium I think 15 ,000 was mentioned in the report and I could totally understand why fans might not bother to go and see this game you know Slavia Prague aren't a big draw Spurs have Borussia Dortmund at home now and Eintracht Frankfurt away in their last game they're ninth on 11 points they should be aiming for for top eight i guess they'd probably have to win both to be guaranteed i think about simmons last i think is he reminds he feels like watching verts as well they move in a similar way him and verts and they've been the same criticisms about sort of physicality he has that ability to take the ball so on the half term and take another touch before the opposition player has noticed that he's he's done it so if he can get to the gym as much as Salah then you know he really could be huge for Tottenham.

23:23Chavez Simons has gotten a lot of criticism uh from uh for being part to Spurs's poor run for not providing the sort of creativity and the chance creation they were hoping he would do having been brought in for a big transfer fee yada yada yada in the games I've seen it looks a lot to me like he's not getting the ball in good positions a lot of the time like he often starts drifting out wide I think a lot of what's been going wrong with Spurs this season is related to the fact that their central midfielders don't pass the ball forwards a lot. There's a lot of sideways and backwards with the midfielders and the ball going out to the fullback.

24:00And Simons seems to be drifting out wide often and just isn't getting the ball in those sort of half spaces, as they call them, in between midfield and attack and in those areas where he can do damage. But it is also a factor that he has been knocked off the ball a little bit too often as well. So a combination, I think, of maybe toughening up a little bit, being a little quicker getting it out of his feet, but also really his teammates finding him in better areas more often, I think. I think selecting Archie Gray, and we said that on Monday, is quite big for a defensive midfielder who can pass the ball forwards.

24:33No, I just completely agree. I think that's why that's happening. I think that both the Polina and the Bentancur in the midfield at the same time is an issue because the ball will just never move forwards in the middle of the pitch. And that is not good. John says, if you invite guests over, they warn you they'll fly into a violent rage. If they see a rainbow at your place, should you invite them over in the first place? Yeah, so Tottenham are forced to move the Proud Lilywhites' pride flag at the request of Slavia Prague. It's usually displayed in the northeast corner of the stadium, which is close to the away fans.

25:04it was moved to the southwest corner. Proud Lily White said Starby Prague have raised concerns that some of their supporters may damage the flag and cause disorder if it remains in its usual location. Once an away club raises a potential safety issue, UEFA and the home club is required to assess the risk and act accordingly. The outcome for tonight is the flag will be relocated. Let's be honest about what this means. The risk here isn't the flag it's the reaction of a small number of opposition supporters. That's disappointing and it's another reminder of the hostility LGBTQI plus fans still face across European football.

25:36We want to be clear the clubs handled this appropriately. They've been transparent with us throughout, pushed back where they could and made sure this sits firmly as a request from the visiting club rather than a decision rooted in Spurs' own values. For tonight, the flag will still fly. It will still be seen. Our message remains the same. This is our home. Our community belongs here. No visiting team gets to change that. Tonight, let's get behind the team and show the opposition that at our stadium we play with pride. Sort of pretty depressing, Barry, isn't it? Yeah. I think Slavy Prague said they wanted the flag moved because it had the Tottenham crest on it and not because it was a rainbow flag.

26:11I suspect that is not entirely the case. Lars said it's all fair that they should have just replaced the flag with a rainbow that didn't have the Spurs crest on it. See what would have happened. But yeah, it's depressing that this happens. if they hadn't moved the flag something worse might have happened some act of violence or it might have been torn down or something so i don't really know what else to say if you know slavvy prague fans don't have a great reputation when playing in europe and the fact that they're being pandered to in this way is quite irritating i think it's that i think i don't love this idea of like if it hadn't been removed something bad might have happened which is like all right if they can't behave themselves let those choices and those decisions be on them and let them face the consequences for that i think the minimum requirement of going away to a football match is being able to stand next to a flag and not behave like a lunatic i don't know if you were planning to bring this in later obviously there's been this conversation about the pride match of the world cup and in egypt saying that they're not happy now about about that happening and i mean this really feels like the reverse side of the coin.

27:26If you can say that when everyone goes to Qatar for the World Cup that they have to respect the culture, then why the hell don't clubs coming to Tottenham Stadium have to respect the culture? Why don't clubs going to the World Cup in America have to respect the culture of having a pride event in Seattle? And it feels like a very uneven discourse that is being allowed to play out. You're right. And as Lyle said, if you're incapable of looking at a flag that has a rainbow on it and not losing your mind, that you need to really question your life choices don't you um uh anyway elsewhere barca beat frankfurt 2-1 back at the new camp barca uh two for jules kunde he hadn't scored in five years in the champions league uh you watched you watched this one i did um it was another i mean they are entertaining at the moment watching barca because they are still playing with this sort of high line which very occasionally goes completely wrong so that's how uh frankfurt took the lead through Ansgar Knauf, and they nearly doubled that lead ahead of halftime with another counterattack from Knauf, who ended up leaving it for a teammate who couldn't quite find the finish.

28:30But it was this case of the first half, Barcelona were dominating, but not able to open Frankfurt up, and they were such a... There were wide open spaces, so when they were able to break, which weren't that many times, but when they were, there was immediate danger. In the second half, the big difference was that Barcelona found the goals, and I have to credit Marcus Rashford there, who's you know came on at halftime and his cross for the first goal is a brilliant cross like it's really really good and it's the occasional reminder of why you know all the all the issues with Rashford there's still reasons to to persist with him there's still reasons to for coaches why coaches at a very very high level really want to work with him because when you can get him right he does have this sort of game breaking capacities to unlock things and and I think that cross to the Koundé for the first goal was a really good example of that.

29:18Second Koundé goal was more La Minna Mal skying across, sending it into orbit, and Koundé somehow winning it when it came back down again. Not amazing defending by Frankfurt, which Frankfurt enjoyers will be familiar with. Not amazing defensively they were. What really caught my eye, though, was with Barcelona 2-1 up at home, you would expect them to settle down a little bit with this high line and maybe just try to control the game, that they were still just pushing everyone forward. And towards the end, again, they were almost caught on the break a couple of times. And you're just watching this going, why are you behaving like this?

29:52You're two on up in extra time at home. And they were still just taking massive risks. And it was really odd to watch. But they got away with it. So I guess it's fine. Is two goals disappointing for Barcelona against a team who shipped six at the weekend and who have conceded 29 in 13 league games? I don't know, maybe. Yeah, and routinely let in five in the Champions League, don't they? Also, I was just going to interject as well. Don't love the new goal music at the camp now. I mean, maybe this is part of the Spotify team up that they now have big speakers and have to be slightly even more flamboyant with the music.

30:24But the goal music kind of makes you sound like you're in a slightly naff Swedish nightclub or something. It's not the vibe anyone's going for, I don't think. Not a fan of it. Please tell me, boss, we're using da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da, like every EFL League One team. That would really go down well there, I think. uh by me sporting 3-1 i guess the chat nikki is mainly about or the interesting thing is this german wunderkind or maybe they say wonder kid in germany to uh leonard carl who scored another brilliant goal he looks great doesn't he yeah i mean i have to go to the the gold music if we're going to talk about by munich because they always have their like can can which i feel like in this sort of game where like where you were where you were losing and then you get in top like as the as the opponent must really get under your skin like you've not just let the lead slip but now they're doing this it's so ingrained isn't it but it's also if they're scoring goal number seven against Darmstadt at home or something you just go come on is this really necessary it's a good point um but yes I mean Carl Carl looks pretty special doesn't he it looks like the next big teenage thing was was uh very much more than just his goal last night as well from from what I've obviously didn't see the full 90 minutes of it, but he's come into that team and is immediately looking like he has changed the dynamic of it behind the attack and really, really exciting talent for them and perhaps, again, already for the national team this summer.

31:50Yeah, he had a goal ruled out for a fractional offside. He was denied by a brilliant save from Rui Silva, the sporting keeper, and then scored and became the youngest player in Champions League history to score in three consecutive games, I think. We mentioned him, how good he was when Bayern were beaten by Arsenal, but he's something else on the evidence of last night anyway. I don't know if he's played for Germany yet. I do know there's a clamour for him to go to the World Cup. That's exactly. I messaged Archie saying, is there a clamour? To which he said, in Munich, there is always a clamour.

32:29He didn't get called up to the last. he didn't get called up to the last squad and someone called Saeed Elmala from Colne did he said Carl will probably get a call up but got a long way to go decent player said Archie in an understated manner Atleti won 3-2 at PSV uh good win for Atleti this Lars it was a good game for for my compatriot Alexander Serlott the Viking king with one assist and one goal it wasn't it It was an un-Atleti-y performance, if you can say that, because they did sort of let PSV back into the game a little bit, and they're not as defensively rugged as you'd expect a Diego Simeone team, but that Julian Alvarez, Alex Sollot link up up front is a really kind of balanced strike partnership that I think will be unpleasant to defend against for many, many teams.

33:14What has he done to become the Viking King? Or is that just a Heredtree position? I think that was an honorary position bestowed upon him by the Trabzonspor fans back in the day. I think they also, that was mid sort of when the Game of Thrones hype was at its peaks. I think there also were a lot of online graphics of him sort of made to look like Jon Snow or something. And he was the king in the North as well. But he does look like, I would argue more than Erling Haaland. He looks like an extra from a Viking show, Alex. Right, yes. And Erling is Norse god. I guess, you know, if you are a Norwegian player who plays somewhere else in the world and you get neither Norse god or Viking king, then you're doing something wrong, aren't you?

33:59Unless you're a very slow-moving centre-back and they call you the longboat. I think PSV were very unlucky not to get something from this game. They missed two absolute scissors. One right at the end, a fellow called Armando Obispo, who will have had a long, sleepless night, by suspect. um barry any strong thoughts from uh uh unil sange was two marseille three monaco one galatas or kairat nil olympiacos one kairat nil olympiacos one was terrific it was sensational game of football despite uh the scoreline suggesting probably otherwise i would say olympiacos missed enough chances in this game to win the champions league five times over to mirian Anerbekov, who I do remember being, I think it was him who was in goal for their playoff win against Celtic, and was really good.