Manchester is blue and Arsenal brush Postecoglou aside: Football Weekly

18:51Jonathan Wilson:really sorry to have added something that now has crossed your mind when it was before that was just beautifully, peacefully blank.

18:58Lars Sivertsen:I'm going to be thinking of that all week. I mean, I won't be able to function.

19:01Jonathan Wilson:No, no. I mean, it's sort of immediate. It's my first thought. That was my first thought of the whole game is this beautiful strike has been ruined by a tiny deflection.

19:07Barry Glendenning:It's like Figo's goal against England in the year 2000. Yeah. Which should have been a great goal,

19:13Jonathan Wilson:but isn't because it gets a little nicked. Yeah, agreed. And so do you only have to look at how we performed last year? They're very disappointed, obviously. I've got to understand that they're human beings and a week ago their world was very different to what it is now. Whenever a manager is looking tanned and well-rested, it means he's out of a job. so I'd rather not be looking so well and pale. Still, I mean, look, we discussed it last week, Barry. There's not a lot to add to this from Ange's perspective, is there?

19:33Max Rushden:No. He did stress that he was asked how long it would take for him to mould this Forest team in the way he wants them to play and he announced it will be Wednesday. So no fannied about from Ange. We'll see what they're made of on Wednesday. I'm not sure who they're playing, but yeah, looking forward to it.

19:57Jonathan Wilson:I think that is a Carabao Cup game or a European game. Swansea City away in the League Cup. So, yeah, we'll find out. Anyway, that'll be for part one. Part two will begin at Brentford.

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21:21Jonathan Wilson:Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. I just say thank you to everyone who came to the live show. Amazing that we filled that top tier. And we appreciate that you paid your hard-earned money. And, you know, on a day of a tube strike, managed to fill the whole place. So that is very kind. Or if you watched on the live stream, thank you as well. We had a lovely time. Brentford 2, Chelsea 2. We have mentioned long throws being back. Brentford are the best in the league at them. That is the seventh goal they've scored from long throws since the start of last season, five more than any other Premier League team.

21:51Jonathan Wilson:Keith Andrews said, I feel there's a little bit of snobbery in the game around scenarios like that. If the big boys do it, then it seemed to be accepted. And they had previously said that part of the reason for signing Coyote from Fiorentina was he had a long throw. Did they do that? You know, swing his arms back and forth on the medical? I think it might,

22:10Max Rushden:the snobbery he speaks of might be more to do with the fact that Stoke kind of cornered the market in long throws under Tony Pulis with Rory DeLapp. And there was a snobbery about Stoke. So I don't think it was about the long throws specifically, more Stoke and the way Arsene Wenger used to very publicly look down his nose at them and sniff about their robustness.

22:38Jonathan Wilson:No, I think there is a snobbery. I think, you know, being a Cambridge fan, right, it's all part of long ball football, right? I mean, I know it's a separate thing, but like the sort of get the ball in the mixer. There is definitely a snobbery about that within the game. And it seems, you know, it's score a goal however way you can. But, you know, there are the sort of purists who are like this, you know, we want to play the beautiful game.

23:00Lars Sivertsen:I think there's snobbery about hoofball in open play. That I'll get along with. If teams just whack it forward all the time to get it in the mixer, people probably don't love that. But I get the sense that the set piece, the analysts, the set piece guy at Arsenal is on mural now. I mean, it doesn't get trendier than that. If you get an Arsenal mural, you've cracked it culturally. And I get the Tony Pulis Stoke thing, but I would take issue then with the word at the moment because Tony Pulis left Stoke in 2013. This is not at the moment. This is a very long time ago. I think Keith Andrews is wrong.

23:33Lars Sivertsen:I think set pieces and long throws are phenomenally trendy right now. They're all the rage. They'll be doing them in the clubs all over Dalston.

23:41Jonathan Wilson:The BBC. Long throws that led to goals have increased from 0.03 % in 2020-21 to 0.38 % in 2024-25, which is a bit of a leap, isn't it? Are they harder to defend than corners, Wilson?

23:56Barry Glendenning:I think they're different because the trajectory is slower and loopier. So I think the problem with them is that your corners tend to be whipped in. So if you get a head on it, it's going to clear the box. Even if it glances off your head, it's going to clear the box on the far side. Whereas a loopy throw, it's quite hard to get the power to clear the box, or can be. I'm sure that people can adapt to it. It's just trendy though it may be. It has not been trendy for long enough for defending against it to become of the level it is for defending corners. So yeah, I think that ball just sort of floating down in the six-yard area in a crowded box when grappling is now, although they're supposed to be cracking down on it, is way more pronounced than it was even 10 years ago.

24:41Barry Glendenning:In the old days, keepers could just clear people out of the way and claim that. They can't really do that now because people are much more prepared to battle and fight for it. So yeah, I think it's the fact that the lack of pace on the ball makes it hard to get it out of the box.

24:55Jonathan Wilson:Although the lap had a very flat trajectory. That was hard to defend. And I guess it's hard to train. you know it's harder to practice defending them unless you have someone who has one unless you have to bring in steve backley or someone into training you could presumably i mean it's it's

25:14Barry Glendenning:less complicated than a bowling machine right you've got merlin which replicates various spin bowlers you can surely replicate coyote or shard i mean it seemed to me they had quite different trajectories i think so coyote's was oh hang on i can't remember which one round it was one of them was flatter than the other.

25:31Jonathan Wilson:Yeah. This was a sharder one, wasn't it? It was a sharder one they scored with.

25:34Barry Glendenning:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sharder one that led to the goal, yeah. And it led to that very good chance. It almost went straight in 10, 15 minutes before that, which obviously wouldn't be a goal. I mean, it wasn't entirely clear whether somebody at the near post had just got a slight touch and then Sanchez has to sort of bat it away.

25:49Jonathan Wilson:Yeah, Wilson, I wonder if you knew the history of, I mean, sort of pre-Andy Legg, who is a decade older than Dave Chaloner. So for me, Andy Legg is the originator. but I just wonder if there was a Hungarian.

26:00Barry Glendenning:Well, even better than that, there was a Sutherland player.

26:02Jonathan Wilson:Okay, of course.

26:03Barry Glendenning:So in the 1890s, Sutherland's captain, I think probably the greatest British footballer of all time, although he never gets the credit, a bloke called Huey Wilson. And he pioneered long throws. But in those days, he was so good at taking long throws, they changed the law on how you had to take them. He would just lob it one-handed. Oh, okay. So he would lob it one-handed from inside his own half into the opposition box. And they said, all right, maybe we're going to make you have to have two hands on the ball. So until... Did that end his career?

26:35Jonathan Wilson:Did that end his career?

26:36Barry Glendenning:No, because he was an excellent centre-half. He was a really, really good player. Until Coyote forces a law change, I don't think you can say Coyote is fit to lace Hewitt Wilson's boots.

26:46Max Rushden:Well, interestingly, Rory DeLapp used to throw one-handed. So he would hold the ball with one hand and just rest the other on it. but all the power was generated by one hand. So it was ostensibly a one-handed throw.

27:03Jonathan Wilson:In the Soccer Home Glory years, we made some special towels for Roy de Lapp to dry the ball and they were banned. They were banned by the Premier League. I mean, there was a football match as well as this long throw, which was quite an interesting game, I thought, Lars. I don't know if it... Do you think a draw was a fair result?

27:19Lars Sivertsen:Chelsea had more possession and kind of had a number of shots, but I didn't feel like they had massive chances in this game. I thought this was really positive for Brentford, who I haven't always been super impressed with in every game they've played so far this season. I thought they looked more like the Brentford of old hair. They were solid. I guess Chelsea had to rotate a little bit with their squad and make some selection choices that we maybe weren't expecting with people having travelled from international duty and this sort of thing, and they looked like they were not quite at it. but yeah it's a bit of a sorry that was a bit of a crap answer but I didn't I didn't have a very strong take on this game if you want to go Wilson

28:02Jonathan Wilson:maybe it hadn't crossed your mind I don't know but one of many things that haven't crossed my mind I mean it is worth saying Jordan Henderson that's one of those passes he played that he can't do so could never play for England but it was a lovely ball for Shada and actually both the Chelsea finishes like the finish from Parma is so beautiful and Caicedo's was a great strike and it didn't take a lick of anyone So it does qualify for goal of the month. West Ham nil, Spurs three. This is very one-sided. I mean, Thomas Rank, we've sort of talked about his set-piece legacy already. But suddenly, Wilson, Spurs are very dangerous from corners.

28:36Barry Glendenning:Yes. And this is something Jack Bittbrook pointed out. He was out the game. He was obviously in the press conference when it happened. But Graham Potter saying, I thought we defended the first nine corners quite well. He's very much in 1976. Nobody died.

28:53Jonathan Wilson:That is funny. Yeah, I mean, I thought they were very... You talked about grappling, actually. You know, that disallowed Goldwilson from Romero, which obviously I'm biased, but you're just going, oh, this is... This law and this sort of clampdown on fouls in the box is so ridiculous because there are just so many of them. I don't think it's easy. I don't know what it is, but it feels like it's got worse since the clampdown at the start of the season.

29:13Barry Glendenning:Well, yeah, it's... The problem is that its application is always going to be arbitrary. So you had in the Southern Brentford game before the international break. Brentford were given a penalty for what I think probably was a foul from a corner. But then it was almost like Anthony Taylor felt, I'd better even that up because there's loads of grappling going on. So, suddenly got a slightly softer one, which again was probably a foul, but you get away with that nine times out of 10. And here, the Romero one was by no means the worst example of it. I mean, Spurs should have had a penalty for something and was way worse than that a few minutes later.

29:48Barry Glendenning:So, I guess to an extent, all laws are applied slightly arbitrarily and you don't say just because we don't catch all murderers doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a law against killing. But this feels particularly arbitrary and there is going to be an example where it really has a huge impact on a big game and everybody's going to get very upset and worked up about it.

30:06Jonathan Wilson:But I'm not really sure what the answer is. No, but also, you know, pushing in the box is more important than murder, so we should take it more seriously.

30:12Max Rushden:The shove in question was originally by a West Ham player, Fernandez, and it sort of caused this domino effect, which led to Kyle Walker-Peters falling over. So, yeah, it shouldn't have been ruled out. I mean, it was a very easy win for Spurs. West Ham were comically bad. The opening goal, the Papisar header, he was completely unmarked, didn't have to jump. Didn't have to move, just stood there. Yeah, just stood there. It hit his head. It was a bit like the Leeds, the own goal. That lead scored. He just stood there. The ball hit his head and went in. Thomas Suchek then getting sent off for that foul on Polino.

30:56Max Rushden:Totally deserved red, I thought. And there was no way back for West Ham after that. They've now conceded 11 in four games. And they're a mess. Jared Bones, the only bright spark you can see there. We all thought Lucas Paquetta would be a man reborn after having that gambling charge, having been acquitted or found not proven. He's not playing well at all. And I was reading Jacob Steinberg's match report and you could just feel the rage.

31:35Max Rushden:You could tell it was written by a West Ham fan. He's so angry.

31:41Lars Sivertsen:And the thing about West Ham and Potter that kind of would worry me for them is the nature of the goals they're conceding, right? So for the season, opening game, they lost 3-0 to Sunderland, two goals from crosses into the box. The 5-1 defeat to Chelsea, there were three corners and one cross. And here you've got one corner and one ball over the top. So in those three defeats, they've conceded 11 goals. Eight of them have been either just from set pieces or crosses put into the box. Now, the Premier League is a really difficult league now. The level is super high. everyone's bought like super good and expensive players i get that you can have a talent deficit in some games and you can just get beat but if you're west ham you cannot be conceding like eight goals from just balls flung into the box in three games like that should be possible to avoid like that that feels like something you should be doing and i'm kind of fascinated on the counter to that how thomas frank have just immediately turned spurs into the anti-ange like it's completely opposite like we talked about how Amarim seems to be taking ages to to put any kind of imprint on the United team like Spurs are not this was not an amazing Spurs performance I didn't think like they're not passing the ball especially well they're kind of relying on Lucas Bergwald to get them up the field by by running past people and the midfield isn't moving the ball forwards I think in a very impressive way at all but they're really solid defensively and they're really dangerous from these set pieces and that will get you a lot of points in the Premier League and it's just funny how that is just a complete reversal of what they were under and yeah and it's happened

33:09Jonathan Wilson:so quickly of managers with more than 150 premier league games graham potter has the sixth lowest win percentage um which isn't very good is it uh bernie nil liverpool one then liverpool top of the league four wins from four uh ac spinner has anyone ever looked sadder and as mournful as hannibal did after conceding that last minute penalty staring into the abyss vibes i mean I don't like the law right and people know that and I think a penalty is too big a crime that even I was like because I heard about it before I saw it I was like I bet I'm going to hate it and I was like oh actually I think that probably that probably is guys it probably is and it feels like what do you think it is Wilson just lack of concentration I mean it's just they've defended so well and so stoically for so long and it would be such a massive point for Burnley And it wasn't just his face, it was everybody.

34:05Jonathan Wilson:It was every Burnley player was basically Sammy Kaffour at that moment.

34:09Barry Glendenning:Yeah, I mean, it's not just that he's stupidly sort of half turned his back and stuck his arm out. It's even where his feet are. You know, if you're in that kind of... I know there's an optimum distance you should be from a player about to cross the ball. But if he'd taken one larger step forward, he wouldn't have been in the box. And would that position have been so much worse I think it is just fatigue leading to a lapse of concentration. If you're looking at this from a Liverpool positive perspective the fact that their four games in the league so far have been won with goals in the 88th minute the 95th minute the 82nd minute and then the 94th minute maybe that is just they eventually wear opponents down rather than being incredibly lucky repeatedly and I think there's probably an element of both but yeah it can only be be fatigued Burnley played really well you know they that's pretty much as good as I think you can hope for from a promoted side against the champions they they might even have nicked it you know I mean they maybe were lucky to have 11 men on the pitch

35:18Lars Sivertsen:well they didn't that's something that hasn't passed Wilson's mind

35:23Barry Glendenning:yeah I saw it with the sound off at at City

35:27Jonathan Wilson:they were of course down to 10 men

35:32Jonathan Wilson:absolutely no i'd be very disappointed if that edit is made but but that that can look like if

35:39Lars Sivertsen:you're watching it without the sound it can look like the exact same thing because you're just sitting in the low block anyway like you can take away one of the dudes and it will look like the

35:45Jonathan Wilson:exact same game that is very thoughtful podcasting of you last to to come to wilson's defense just

35:50Max Rushden:then i'm a thoughtful podcaster if you're watching with the sound down you still see the ref produce this quite conspicuous red rectangle from his pocket and show it to Uga Chukwu.

36:04Jonathan Wilson:I was probably getting my roast beef dinner at the time. I'd say, Barry, that's less generous podcasting, but it's what we all wanted from you in that situation. Now, the question, Barry, is, you know, last season, the question for Solon was, have Liverpool played anyone good? Is this season's question, have Liverpool been any good? Does it matter? Like, I can't work out how good they've been. Salah doesn't look like he's at it quite yet. This was different. They defensively didn't have a whole lot to do, I guess. And there have been questions about their defence in the last few games. But here they did struggle to break Burnley down.

36:36Max Rushden:They did struggle and they got away with this one, I think. We're saying Salah isn't on it, but he still scored two goals, I think, hasn't he? And Liverpool are winning these games without playing particularly well. They beat Arsenal without playing particularly well, and Arsenal are a good side. So I wouldn't be overly concerned yet. But, I mean, yeah, they definitely got away with this one. They were lucky in the end. I loved in his post-match interview, Scott Parker said, we had to dig and go to places that not many human beings go. I was like, all right, Scott, why didn't you do it?

37:18Jonathan Wilson:he also said he also said you know praising the team he said they they put their body where it needed to go and i was thinking well for almost all the game they did that but for one specific moment they really didn't did they do you don't think that's scott parker really embracing life

37:32Lars Sivertsen:in the north like he's he's going he's just the legacy of the mining industry and stuff like this like he's really getting getting into that um i would say about liverpool that you know because of the way reporting around transfer works and the way things are now we just always say oh they spent loads of money they've had a great window like we always see this on social media like transfer journal is going great window for this club they bought so many players but the reality even if you bring in like a lot of players that does create a need for some time for things to bed in and some time for things to adjust right you've got you've got two new fullbacks and in the case of i mean today this game's obviously not a fullback playing at fullback you've got Virch who's going to find his feet in the league get used to his teammates you've got a new striker who had to had to come off in this game like there's a lot of things that are changed about this Liverpool team they are a very different team than they are last year and it's only logical that it'll take a little while in training and playing games for these guys to work each other out and to find the patterns and sort of get used to each other so the fact that they can have these slightly iffy performances while this is happening and still have four wins out of four I take that as a very positive thing and I'm expecting it to kind of gradually click better as the season goes

38:42Jonathan Wilson:All right, that'll do for part two. Part three, five games to go. We'll rattle through all of them.

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39:27Jonathan Wilson:Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Bournemouth get another win. Three wins in a row for them. They beat Brighton 2-1. Their best ever start to a Premier League season. Alex Scott's got a beautiful goal in this. You've been a fan of his for a while, Barry.

39:40Max Rushden:am i making that up uh i think you are i think this is the second time you've said this and i'm i'm not i mean he's he's fine player but i'm i'm not i haven't been banging the drum for out of scott i'm more of uh who's the midfielder i'm such a fan of i've forgotten his name he's injured at the moment the he was playing right back for them last season most of the time oh yes cook Lewis Cook

40:06Jonathan Wilson:I know you're a big Lewis Cook fan well maybe I've transferred well maybe Valix Scott becomes you know the man who lifts the World Cup for England in 2030 you can say I've been talking about him for so so long this game I guess could have gone either way but you know this is a brilliant start for Bournemouth especially given you know they didn't have a great window in terms of losing lots of players

40:30Lars Sivertsen:was this the sort of battle between the two sort of foremost likable and inoffensive teams that we all think are very good and very nice and are run very well and it's hard to get like too emotional about them in in either direction i thought it was interesting to see bournemouth and they did in fairness as you said it did a really good analysis on this on match of the day how direct bournemouth were and how happy they were to play like quite long passes and it's an interesting thing about arola i remember i i checked this up the out the The piece Sid wrote about him when they hired him. There's a great quote from Irola where he says, I prefer too much chaos to too much organization.

41:08Lars Sivertsen:One of the ways that manifests, I think, is, of course, they set pressing traps and they're very good at catching teams, but they're also quite direct when they win the ball. And last season, actually, only Everton attempted more passes that were over 30 yards. Only Everton attempted more long passes in the league than Bournemouth, which might surprise some people because, like, no one would accuse them of being a hoofball team and they're not but they're happy to be quite direct to follow that up and i think you saw certainly from the highlights it looked like that was something that kind of did brighten a little bit in this game yeah and also any any

41:40Jonathan Wilson:ball over 30 yards from everton was probably not a pass last year was it let's face it was just a kick wasn't it well i don't know i was thinking about this wilson about the signing of donnarumma and maybe overthinking it which is a good thing to do with a man city signing about the fact that football, you know, it goes in cycles and perhaps it is getting more direct. You know, talk about Bournemouth being more direct, you know, Thomas Frank changing Tottenham, that actually now, maybe City won't play out from the back of the world, or you just need a keeper when we talk about Long Throws, who's a big oaf, who can just, you know, punch stuff and kick stuff.

42:16Jonathan Wilson:Actually, that might be more important in what football is becoming in this, you know, the return of the number nine as well, all these kind of things.

42:22Barry Glendenning:Yeah, I don't like the word cyclical for tactics because that implies that it's a predictable cycle yeah winter spring summer autumn is a cycle football repurposing old tactics i think is slightly different to that not least because every time you you get an old tactic reapplied you're reapplying it with the knowledge of everything that's gone since so it is shaped by that so i i don't think it is cyclical and i think it it leads to sort of a a sense of a of it being inevitable which is not quite true The fundamental point about football becoming more direct, I think, is true. Last makes the point about these being nice and offensive sides.

42:59Barry Glendenning:I think that is how most people view them. But then Antoine Semenya afterwards was saying, oh, Irelia said we've got to get stuck in a bit more at half time. There's eight bookings in that game. Just showing I do watch cards sometimes. Do you have any bookings to wear in the Manchester derby?

43:13Max Rushden:Well, there was none for Man U, as Roy Keane made a great show of pointing out. There's none for City.

43:20Barry Glendenning:Big derby with not a single booking. I mean, it's that sort of, I don't think bookings are a great thing. I'm not saying that the greatest game of all time was that Portugal-Nederlands game with 16 yellow cards. Wasn't far off being the greatest game of all time.

43:38Barry Glendenning:But it did suggest sort of the tepidness of Manchester Derby. And this was a game where the world challenge is flying in. It feels this sort of, we've had 15, 20 years of control of pep ball. and in this sort of post-petball world we appear to be moving into, football is becoming a little bit more direct, is becoming a bit more aggressive again, which is good in some ways and bad in others, but it does seem to be what's happening. And I think it's interesting that Iriola, who's come from that Spanish tradition, okay, not the Barcelona tradition, that he is such an early adopter and is so ready to go more direct and apparently quite happy to have his side be a lot more aggressive.

44:19Max Rushden:I do feel compelled to mention Fabian Herzler's sideline attire because he looked like something out of an autumn catalogue and should have had an attractive blonde woman and a couple of red setters by his side.

44:33Jonathan Wilson:And just leaves. Someone from the Brighton stuff has to come out and just lay some autumnal-coloured leaves just down there for him to waltz through. Newcastle won Wolves nil. David says, how much better does Newcastle look up front? Now they have seemingly have a sign, going by the sound of his name, a dark wizard. I'm not sure that much better but you know Nicholas Voltemada scored his first goal you've been saying he's not a really he's not really a score big headers at the back post kind of guy but he did quite a good impression of that or does he do that as well as being a very cute player?

45:03Lars Sivertsen:I mean he is very tall and if you have a very tall man who is a vaguely competent footballer and you put a bunch of crosses into the box he's going to stick his head on some of them I don't have the numbers to hand I can next time Wilson is talking I can look them up but he didn't score a lot of headers last season uh but i but it did occur to me earlier like i remember watching aston villa versus newcastle and i remember in that game newcastle just completely nullified villas midfield they couldn't open them up a lot but they got into a lot of good crossing positions but every time they wanted to put a cross into the box it was like gordon in there so it was completely pointless so whereas now you have you have a man who's about three meters high at all in there and that will immediately give you that option at least but I think it was also we just just saw a lot of nice touches from him in this box I think so my take on Vultimata as you'll have heard is that I just think the transfer fee is super high for a guy who hasn't done that much yet but he does have a lot of fun ingredients I think is one of my favorite favorite types of footballer in the world is to start a lanky player with a very good first touch it's just aesthetically very pleasing it's possibly because I'm not fully over my sort of footballing man crush on Dimitar Berbatov yet it's it's giving me some of that sort of sensations but I love seeing a tall man who can do these little nifty layoffs and things it's great and I just think also you can draw too many conclusions from this maybe but I think it's so important for a forward who comes to a new league with a big price tag to get the first goal early and to get a little bit of positive momentum I think that side of it really really matters

46:35Jonathan Wilson:High feet, you're saying he has a high ceiling and he needs a high ceiling of course doesn't he? 16 goals in all competitions last season one header, they're the statistics Wolves have 0 points which is not many points. They did dominate for the first 25 seconds of this game. And actually, they weren't terrible in this game. But on 0-point watch, it's just them and Sheffield United in the top seven divisions of English football, I checked. And we'll get to Sheffield United in a second. Wolves play all the promoted sides between now and the end of October, Barry. It feels important. Yeah, well, you need to get points on the board.

47:07Max Rushden:I still think they don't look as bad as, say, West Ham, even though West Ham have a win under the belt. but they do need to start getting results I think they've Leeds at home next that's a big big game this was a very straightforward win for Newcastle and I think Wolves maybe were lucky not to have a man sent off Muscara for clambering all over Harvey Barnes and he was the last man and was it in the penalty area or just outside I'm not sure but that could have been a penalty or a red card or both, so they got away with one there. And then after the game, the manager, Vitor Pereira, was complaining about the ref's haste in booking his players, saying they were all booked for their first fouls or their first challenges.

48:01Max Rushden:But I think they were lucky not to lose a man, so they were showing some leniency there. They haven't... Okay, they were slaughtered by Man City, but apart from that, I don't remember them being particularly bad. So it was quite interesting. On Match of the Day, Shea Givens said he decided they'd be fine and then second-guessed himself and said, have I gone too early there? What do you think? Chaper said, when you present this show, you're not allowed an opinion. Trust me.

48:32Jonathan Wilson:It was a very good line, wasn't it? Newcastle played Barcelona at St. James' Park on Thursday night, which will be a nice night for them, a bad night for the pod, but we'll reflect on it next Monday. Fulham beat Leeds 1-0, that own goal from Gabriel Goodmanson. I think you were a bit harsh on Papsar earlier in the pod, Barry, when he said he just stood there but Gabriel Goodmanson did just stand there. I thought maybe Joe Roden ducked out the way and that's me giving him a chance for this extraordinary header and injury time.

48:58Max Rushden:Yeah, well, it looked like two different Leeds players missed the header and Goodmanson just genuinely wasn't expecting the ball to come anywhere near him. It did and unfortunately, it cannoned off his head into the back of the net. And he looked very disconsolate after. It's, I suppose, a competition. Who looked most sad this weekend, him or Hannibal? I'm giving it to Hannibal. But, yeah, it was a freakish goal. But I think Fulham probably deserved to win on the balance of play. Leeds, we said before the season, they look very light up front and that is proven to be the case it's difficult to see where their

49:42Jonathan Wilson:goals are going to come from we have said that before about a team for which dominic calvert lewin is spearheading the attack doesn't he he had a couple of chances i thought kevin looked

49:50Lars Sivertsen:quite exciting for fulham and i'm thinking dominic calvert lewin is just maybe not the solution he's not a bad footballer but he has i looked this up now he has underperformed his xg in seven out of eight seasons as a first team forward player and the last two seasons have been particularly bad obviously being the striker for everton under sean dyche was not the easiest gig in showbiz but uh last season he scored three goals off an xg of 6.7 and the season before that he scored seven off an xg of 12.9 so you can simplify that into saying that over the last two seasons he scored about half the goals you'd expect from the chances that have fallen to him that he's worked and that seems like not very good and if you're leads and you're trying to stay up that that's not ideal.

50:33Jonathan Wilson:Everton nil, Villa nil. I mean, we should be talking about an Everton victory here. They had 20 attempts. The stats said two on target, which is weird because Martina has made at least three very good saves. Did some good badge patting, pointing at the ground. Doesn't really work if you're playing away from home. But Villa are very lucky he's there. Villa, the only side in the top six divisions to not have scored a goal. Worst start to a Premier League season since 97-98. I didn't see that coming, Wilson.

50:57Barry Glendenning:I didn't think they'd be great this season, but I didn't think it'd be anything like this bad at but they just seem to have got themselves in a funk in that defeated Old Trafford on the final day last season which cost them a Champions League place and then they're sort of the whole everything around the club which I don't know if it's fans and if it's coming from the club is oh PSR is not fair we're not allowed to spend all the money we've got look at look at the evil established clubs who generate far more revenue than us and can spend more money as a result they've got a um wages to turnover ratio 92 that's not sustainable they've got to reduce it and if that and you know i think half a dozen of their recent signings have not been particularly effective although philagene was very effective on uh whichever day it was he scored the hat-trick when was that saturday having moved to right uh ipswich friday night friday night yeah but they the squad's better than the way they're playing they just seem to have to talk themselves into a slump.

51:52Jonathan Wilson:Palace nil, Sunderland nil, first away point. Baz for Sunderland. Your keeper, Robin Roofs, was very good. Seven points from the first four games. You've got to be happy with that.

52:01Max Rushden:Absolutely delighted. I was hoping to go to this game, actually, but my ticket fell through. And then when I saw it was a nil-nil draw. And again on Match of the Day, Leeds-Fulham was third last. And the commentators spent most of it talking about how terrible the game was. I'm going, how bad, what's the other, Everton Villa and Sunderland Palace have been but the highlights at least were okay I think Sunderland were quite lucky their goalkeeper was man of the match but yeah, point away at Palace is a very good point

52:37Jonathan Wilson:Yeah, Klasner wanted a penalty, Uche got a shot away, there's a sort of unwritten law that if you get a shot away you don't get a free kick, because if he just touched that and then got kicked he would get a penalty

52:47Max Rushden:Yeah, I think I wouldn't have had any complaints if a penalty had been given for that but it wasn't

52:55Jonathan Wilson:Elsewhere, Russell Martin still no win in the league for Rangers, they lost 2-0 at home to Hearts lots and lots of boos this seems untenable Barry.

53:05Max Rushden:It does, yeah I said before the season started I thought Hearts might split Rangers and Celtic this season because of the Tony Bloom involvement but I hadn't factored in how terrible Rangers would be and Russell Martin wasn't a popular appointment it's not going well for him and he doesn't do himself any favours with his post-match interviews and it's difficult to see how long more he can last he is not the only problem there let's just say sure yeah I mean it would

53:39Jonathan Wilson:cost a lot as well I mean to sack someone this early into a contract. Sheffield United have sacked Ruben Sellers they've lost all six of their opening games of the season. Producer Joel says, put your sandwiches away as Chris Wilder could come back. Could he? I don't know. Because, you know, George and Ali from Not The Top 20 talk very highly of Sellers-Wilson and what he did, especially at Reading, in very difficult circumstances. But this has not worked.

54:01Barry Glendenning:Yeah, I mean, it did. He kept his dignity taking Southampton down in an impossible situation. Did well at Reading in a very, very difficult situation. Kept Hull up in not easy conditions. So you sort of thought, yeah, he deserves a crack get a more positive job. And it's just been a disaster. You could see that opening game when they lost 4-1 at Bristol City. And they played all right for 20 minutes in that game. And a lot of the talk afterwards, oh, you know, that first 20 minutes, they pressed really well. Yeah, but this is massively open. Bristol City picked them off over and over again. And then the thing that was baffling in that game was he did the sort of Phil Brown style lecture on the pitch at the end of that game.

54:38Barry Glendenning:And you think, I don't think that's a good idea at any point. You know, you shouldn't be slagging your players off in public, you do it in the dressing room, you're really risking the bond you need with the players, the sense that you've got their back if you're criticising them very publicly. To do that in your very first game just seemed extraordinary. And it's got worse since. And the game against Ipswich, it was not dissimilar. The first 15, 20 minutes, they were all right. And then as soon as they concede, they buckle, they get done on the break over and over again. I mean, Chris Wilder leaving after taking Sheffield United to third in the league and losing a playoff final by their head to the 70-whatever minute, 78th minute.

55:21Barry Glendenning:Was that purely for football reasons? I don't know. But if it were just for football reasons, that would seem extraordinarily harsh. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. But haven't Sheffield United embraced this new recruitment strategy that involves AI?

55:37Max Rushden:and I heard it being discussed on some BBC show and it didn't sound particularly Chris Wilder friendly. I mean, he has a reputation as a bit of a dinosaur that I don't think he deserves. But I think they were very much wanted to go in a new direction in terms of recruitment and it clearly hasn't worked out.

56:01Jonathan Wilson:No, because they've just signed robots, AI robots. Yeah. It just does not compute. Alex writes, dear Football Weekly, I was delighted to hear your interview with the excellent Zoran Mamdani this week. I know we all suspected Barry to be Infantino's sleeper agent. Good to have our suspicions validated. He says, me and my dad have been listening to Football Weekly right from the start since 06, when my dad used to download the episodes onto my iPod shuffle. I've been listening to Barry for more than half my life. I've decided to embark on a political career simply with the aim of becoming sports minister, so you'll invite me on to Football Weekly.

56:32Jonathan Wilson:As a local councillor, I've sat through many, many meetings in pursuit of this goal for me to now only realise that all I needed to do was run to be the Mayor of New York. That's why I'm delighted to announce my campaign to be the next Independent Mayor of New York. I look forward to the invitation to discuss the critical issues to New Yorkians. All the best. See you when I'm Sports Minister. Councillor Alex Burnett, Penistone East Councillor, weary Sheffield Wednesday fan. Yeah, well, listen, we extend the invite, of course, to all those who are actually running for Mayor of New York. But yeah, people seem to like that slightly unexpected chat we had.

57:03Jonathan Wilson:and by all accounts, Barry, quite a lot of people at The Guardian have been trying to interview this man and you didn't have a clue who he was. They're still tipped up on this. Anyway, that'll do for today. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, Lars. Thank you, Max. Thank you, Barry. Thank you. Thank you, Wilson. Cheers. Thank you. Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove. Our executive producer is Danielle Stephens. Champions League is back, so we'll see you all next time.

57:31Max Rushden:This is The Guardian.

57:38Transcription by CastingWords