Premier League thrills while Dr Tottenham leaves it late: Football Weekly Extra

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:30on Instagram. It's all bleak at Spurs, but should they hold their nerve with Thomas Frank? Liam Rosenia is in the stands to see another Chelsea red card as Harry Wilson shines again for Fulham. Man City drop more points, three draws in a row now. Darren Fletcher's in the dugout and plays a back four, but it's not enough to beat Burnley. There's hair pulling at Everton, Wolves unbeaten in three and Brentford are up to fifth. We'll do all that plus your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

0:56On the panel today, Barry Glendenni, welcome. Hi Max. Hello Johnny Lou. Hi, how are you doing? I'm very good, thank you. And good morning, Lars Iverson. Hello, Max. How are you doing? Yeah, I'm all right. Let's start us at James' part then. Ashley says, Max, 4-3 Newcastle, the perfect score for the big man on such a bad news day. As much as I don't like the Newcastle regime, I'll be happy for them today for Keegan and that score. Yeah, Newcastle 4-3 Leeds 3. And at the 90th minute, Lars, this was going to be how much pressure is Eddie Howe under? And then it's not that question anymore. well does that in itself speak to uh the the ridiculousness that is uh inherent in some of those sort of narrative decisions that we make you know one goal suddenly the whole picture changes maybe that means the picture was wrong to begin with i don't know uh but it was it was one of those things where you the the pictures at full time with the celebrations and the limbs as the young people would call it it did look like an extraordinary place to be like it looked like incredible memory for the people who were there and it makes you one of those things that like there are cliches in football and i think the sort of the the atmosphere the life the feeling ofst james's park at a moment like that is one of the football cliches that i suspect does live up to uh to its uh to its name i mean it looked incredible and um i'm i i feel a little bad for leads especially because the nature of the 3-3 goal which is one of those penalties that that drive me insane unbearable don't want to don't want to take it straight to that territory max but I felt like it deserved a mention.

2:29But Newcastle, of course, deserved credit for the way they kept going, the way they kept at it and got the win in the end. Yeah, and a brilliant... The turn, Johnny, from Scotland's finest, Harvey Barnes, is brilliant. It is. Barnes had a great night. Barnes always seems to play well against Leeds. But there were great performances all over the pitch. Bruno Gimaraes, who scored the equaliser and set up the second. But yeah, Barnes is one of those players who I think he gets a bit of an unfair rap amongst a lot of Newcastle fans, certainly wider observers, but does seem to contribute. He does always seem to contribute in big moments.

3:07So yeah, that was a nice one for him. Burns actually does have seven goals now and eight in the league against Leeds, which is weird. I mean, I'm one of those people. I like stats. I like XG. I don't really believe in head-to-head records because they seem inherently ridiculous. But you look at something like that and you go, does he really hate Leeds? I mean, because he's from, I don't think he's from anywhere geographically that would suggest that he has a particular animus with Leeds. And he came through at Leicester. I don't think there's a big Leeds-Leicester rivalry. But Harvey Burns just really turns it on against Leeds.

3:38Maybe they get his goat. Yeah, a lovely cross from Guimaraes for the Joelinton goal. I mean, hard to analyze games like this, I think, Barry. Apart from, I think both teams really contributed. It feels harsh. It feels really harsh on Leeds, actually, who had been on a brilliant run. Yeah, I think both teams are to be commended on probably serving up the game of the night on a night where there was eight Premier League games and I think seven of them were good. The Villa Palace was the only one that didn't have any goals and wasn't very entertaining. Obviously, the players didn't know what was going on elsewhere, but a really entertaining game.

4:19Leeds must have been gutted to lose in that manner. I wouldn't necessarily say they deserve to lose. James Justin had a header against the bar that was unlucky because it didn't quite fall to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but a tremendously entertaining game for everyone present at St. James' Park. The home crowd got the result they wanted. They're obviously going to be sad because it's been announced, as you alluded to, the Kevin Keegan is ill with stomach cancer. Obviously, we wish him well. And I think Leeds can be kind of fed up insofar as the first and last goals they conceded, I think were completely avoidable.

5:05It stemmed from them just failing repeatedly to clear the ball when it was there to be cleared and Newcastle took full advantage. Bob says no question, just a get well for King Kev. uh there was a really nice uh show of support for kevin keegan before kickoff on the big screen at st james's his family said in a statement kevin was recently admitted to hospital for further evaluation of ongoing abdominal symptoms these investigations have revealed the diagnosis of cancer for which kevin will undergo treatment kevin is grateful to the medical team for their intervention and ongoing care during this difficult time the family are requesting privacy will be making no further comment and breaking this morning uh which news that the three of you probably don't know and you'd have seen gabby logan left match of the day sort of mid-episode father terry yorath former leeds and wales midfielder has died at the age of 75 following a short illness incredibly sad he had a nine-year spell at leeds from 1967 he won the first division title in 74 and a runners-up medal in the fa cup european cup and cup winners cup as well his children all said in a statement to most he was a revered footballing hero but to us he was dad a quiet kind and gentleman our hearts are broken but we take comfort knowing that he will be reunited with our brother uh daniel so we obviously send our deepest sympathies to them um but back to the football and to the vitality uh connor says what what can robbie keen achieve this season as interim manager at tottenham hotspur i mean i before we do tottenham johnny we should say this is a this is one of those you couldn't script it you could script it you would scripted like this moment for Antoine Semenya to score in the winter injury time to get you know substituted and get that ovation have a lap of honor as well and like credit to him for sort of doing the reverse Alexander-Izac and playing and right up until his medical basically yeah I honestly you have to love him for that and he has always been that sort of player who some somehow senses the occasion and can can perform for it and can gild it uh there are certain players who who you know they're all about about process and doing the things uh you know doing the things every week that that um you know that need to be done and there are some players who could do that but then when the moment requires them to to make a show of themselves basically he could do it and and i think there is there is something that i think only fans of of smaller clubs will will really grasp which is this that when you get a player who is as good as as he is the clock is already ticking in a way and you know that your time with this player is going to be so fleeting and short and you're not going to get them at their peak but you're you and you might not see someone like that player again for you know think Birmingham and and how fondly they think of Jude Bellingham or or Reading and Michael Alise these players make make memories that last for decades and generations even and you know they're going to go at some point to have that moment and not have it you know to have it perfect last minute winner like 96th minute winner against against spurs and then he gets his substitution and then he takes the ovation of the crowd there is something really poignant about and and i think you know it's a real real tribute to semenio that his professionalism and and the regard in which he holds the club and his fans um that he he did want to keep going right until that that last minute and he wanted to keep playing should it be that remarkable i don't think it should well i think i think it's fine you know we've seen lots of players who have played until you know they've they've played until their transfer and they obviously don't want to get injured they don't want to you know they're a little bit sort of 75 25 in challenges and they're sort of running around the pitch which ironically will almost certainly give you greater chances of being injured but i know exactly well ironically yeah there's a thing to be said for release clauses though speaking about that because it takes away a lot of the sort of players don't have to go on strike to force a move to get this sort of if you have a release clause that's a value that both you and the club kind of agreed on then that kind of smooths out the process and you don't have that problem but I think you make a really good point Johnny about being a lower league fan and I mean maybe it might be slightly different for Bournemouth because they're in the same division as Man City but of course they are sort of eons apart in size but the pride you feel of that player going on.

9:30So, for example, when Dion went to Manchester United for a million pounds from Cambridge United, like we couldn't believe it, a million pounds. And like whenever he scored for United or even when he went on for Coventry and Villa or if you saw Cambridge players in the Premier League like Claridge or, you know, even players that didn't have amazing careers, there's like, you do feel like real pride, especially if they have come through, you know, as a young player at your club. I think it's a really, really good point. I feel for Thomas Frank here, Lars, you know, because Petrovic makes a brilliant save from you talk about you know if those moments don't happen the narrative changes at St James's Park I know the narrative already exists here with Frank but like Petrovic makes a great save for van der Ven Spurs actually were okay in this game they weren't brilliant and I know Bournemouth had been out without a win in 10 or 11 or whatever it was but that Semenyo strike is also brilliant like you don't expect him to score from that and then it is it is different to a defeat here I do agree with that and that this wasn't I've been jumping up on down on Frank in Tottenham's head quite enthusiastically recently because I think they're very bad and I don't think they're going to get better.

10:32But this was not a terrible performance. Bournemouth gave a good account of themselves against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. They were decent against Arsenal. There have been signs that they've been improving and I concur in terms of the chances that were created. It could have gone either way. But it still ends up being a game where the expected vibes were in the negative for Spurs because they lose, because you have this silly business with the coffee mug, which I really don't think matters, but I think it's going to annoy a lot of people either way. You have confrontations between... Sorry, Lars, could you explain what you mean by that for anyone?

11:08Yeah, Thomas Frank was depicted drinking from a cup that had an Arsenal crest on it, which is a suboptimal visual for an under-pressure top-of-the-manager. The optics are bad. It's a Wilfred Nancy optic. The optics are not ideal. It absolutely does not matter on any level. but the optics are not ideal. And then you also have, speaking of optics, you have both Mickey Van de Ven and Pedro Porro confronting members of the away support after the game, not knowing what was said. I have no idea what the background was or the justification, but it's still one of those things that don't look ideal. And you've got the captain, Christian Romero, coming out against the club on Instagram post-game as well.

11:48The vibes are continuing to deteriorate, I think it's fair to say, at the moment. Romero said apologies to all fans of you who follow us everywhere who are always there and will continue to be we are responsible there's no doubt about that I'm the first but we will keep facing up to it and trying to turn the situation around for ourselves and for the club at times like this it should be other people coming out to speak but they don't as has been happening for several years now they only show up when things are going well to tell a few lies we'll stay here working sticking together and giving our all to turn things around especially at times like this keeping quiet working harder and moving forward all together is part of football altogether it will be easier at Spurs official heart I don't know what do you make of that Barry it's very Father Ted Golden Clerics Award isn't it and now the liars I don't know who he was alluding to should I well the assumption be in the before times everyone would could would have considered that this was a dig at Daniel Levy but of course it can't really be that anymore there's new new liars in place I think this should be this sort of rule of like if you've just lost quite an emotional game.

12:52No posting from the team bus. Just leave it. When you're on the team bus away from the ground, maybe put the phone into a box or something and throw away the key. And it's easy for him to just... He can probably come out now and say, I was emotional after a bad day at the office, but it's not an ideal message from your captain. I do like Romero as a player and as the sort of resident head case in the group there, but I'm not sure the resident sort of hothead should be the captain. I'm not really sure that's a good sort of thing that you want. And I do also worry on a more serious note. This wasn't by any means the worst Tottenham performance, but it is another game in which they've not won, they've not gotten a result.

13:31There is the sense that this is going nowhere under Thomas Frank, and I do think they're going to have real issues keeping hold of their best players this summer because they're going to finish somewhere in mid-table under a coach who has not convinced in his first season. If you are one of the handful of players in that Spurs squad who have big clubs that would be interested in you, Romero being one of them why would you stay this summer like really if you have a contract you can get out of at least so there might be some some transfer tugs of war at that club I think going forward next couple months Spurs are in an identical league position now after 21 games as they were last season but they have three points more and while I agreed they played quite well last night and it is possible to play well and still get beaten this was textbook dr tottenham and i noticed the next league appointment in his book or in his diary is at west ham no it's home to west ham i think and then they go and then and then dr tottenham goes to burnley it gets worse doesn't it um what do you think spurs should do johnny well if you look at those two goals i mean um tell is basically kind of a pot shot from from the corner of the area which which um the keeper should save and and then paulina's overhead kick which probably has a negative xg um another another act of xg larceny from tottenham um but but i mean the interesting thing is right like look at spurs's top scorers from last season all competitions you have uh Brennan Johnson, 18, Solanke, 16, Madison, 12, Son, 11, Kulisevsky, 10, and then Pat Matassar on 6.

15:12That's 73 goals and none of those players are available. And in their place, you have players who have never been a consistent goal threat. Kola Mwani has never been a consistent goal threat, nor has Kudus, or Tell, or Audubere. I mean, it's ironic, really, that when Frank came up with Brentford, they almost had this reputation as the entertainers of the championship. But they've always, his Brentford team's always had reliable goal threats and the team built around those goal threats. And Frank can't do that at the moment. I mean, you know, Antipas Koglug was getting killed last season because he didn't have a defence.

15:46And eventually he's kind of knuckled down, got his defenders back and won a Europa League. It's harder when you don't have any goals in the team. You know, Richarlison's kind of, you know, obviously outperforming himself a little bit and is probably overplayed. But it's hard to just magic goals out of a team that doesn't have any goal scorers, that's a much harder trick to pull. And I think you can quite easily say, okay, there are no patterns of play here. They don't really seem to know what they're doing in possession. But when you have a coach whose entire philosophy is built around getting the ball to proven goal scorers and getting them to score and you don't give them any proven goal scorers or you don't have them for whatever reason, I think that does kind of, it does affect how they should be seen and the kind of job they're doing.

16:33I don't disagree. If they had some attackers, they'd probably have six more points or nine more points and then they'd be fine. But I might be wrong. I hope they hold their nerve, but they may not. More sad news, the former Spurs and England forward Martin Chivers has died at the age of 80. He scored 174 goals in 367 for the club, winning the League Cup twice as well as the UEFA Cup. He scored 13 in 24 for England. Spurs said it was with immense sadness we announced the passing of our legendary former striker, martin chivers we extend our deepest sympathies to martin's family friends and former teammates at this incredibly sad time rest in peace martin one of the all-time greats yes one of the players that my dad talks about not as much as dimmy grieves but you know he's on that list with the gilzines of you know this was bad you should have seen martin chivers play you know etc etc so yeah our thoughts go to his family as well we'll be back in a second uh well we'll begin part two at Craven Cottage.

17:34Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. Fulham 2, Chelsea 1. You had this on your main screen, Lars, Callum McFarlane's final game in charge. What an era. But firstly, another goal for Harry Wilson. He had one disallowed in the first half. He caused the red card. I think it's not a stretch to say he's one of the best players in the Premier League at the moment. No, wonderful run of form for him. and he's such a he is almost a bit of a throwback because he's not the fastest in the world or he's not like a brute force physical uh guy but he's he's clever and he's got a lovely left foot and he he uses it really well and it's uh i've frequently complained about not always enjoying watching fulham not that they're bad they're just not always very interesting they're like quite good in a way that's not always interesting to watch.

18:23But currently, Harry Wilson, very watchable. Very, very, very good. Very good to watch, I have to say. And yeah, you say he forced the sending off. I mean, that really was the sort of the big moment of the game where Mark Cucurier, not sure what he was thinking. I mean, he is, in theory, supposed to be one of the more experienced players in this team, Cucurier. But yeah, decided to just grab hold of Wilson's arm and not let go as he was running through. Wilson almost made it into the penalty area. Certainly, Marco Silva felt that he made it into the penalty area and that it should have been a penalty.

19:01Replays, maybe he let go just on the edge or outside the edge. It is what it is. But it was one of those moments that it sparked. The red card sparked a bit of a melee where Enzo Fernandez, Torsten Aderbayo, and Cole Palmer were all booked, and Marco Silva was booked. So there was just anger on all sides there. The expected aggro was incredibly high. but this has been the story of Chelsea's season I think that's their fifth red card in the Premier League five red cards in 21 games is too many you know you hamstring yourself massively by getting these players sent off and while they did get back into it with that equaliser from Liam DeLapp I didn't think it was undeserved at all that Fulham found a winner and you know happy days for Fulham Yeah and actually you know this discipline issue Barry is like it will have cost them points, cost them points here probably cost them points old trafford i forget the other ones and they would be in a really strong position you know perhaps not in the title race but you know comfortably fourth say uh if they could have fixed this and maybe well whether mareska would still be there is a different question i guess probably not i don't think he would but it's seven red cards in all competitions is clearly a problem it's not the kind of first impression you want to make on a new manager who's sitting in the stands.

20:16Not sure why he was sitting in the stands and didn't take charge of the team, but that's clearly an arrangement that was agreed on between Rosignor and his new slash old employers. I loved Cucurella's hugely confident howl and protest of innocence in the face of absolutely incontrovertible proof, like seriously caught with his hand in the cookie jar and no no no and dropped to his knees arms like Willem Dafoe when he got shot in platoon it's something that has to be sorted out but if you can't really tell the player you know you can ask a player not to lose his head or not to do something stupid but if they go and lose their head or do something stupid I don't know what what What did he do about it?

21:11So Kukurea did, of course, in one of the last international breaks, nearly hit a friend of mine with a golf buggy. I have to get that in yet again. So I took a screenshot. As he was making these objections to the ref, I took a screenshot of his face and sent it to my friend. I said, is this what he looked like when he nearly hit you with the buggy? And my friend confirmed that it was very much the same gesturing was going on. So he has form for this. I wonder with Chelsea, if they had just one slightly experienced, sensible defender back there, I just feel like they had eight more points at least, because they are not a bad team.

21:48There's a lot of good stuff going on there, but they need an adult on deck to settle everyone down, I think, at the back. That should be Kukurea, right? Kukurea should be that guy. Yeah, well, that's the problem. Yeah, if you look at their birth dates, logically it should be, but it very clearly isn't. But it is a problem of maturity and it's also a problem of culture because you've signed these several dozen 18 to 24 year olds with the specific message of like, this is your shop window. You have two or three good years and we'll sell you on and you get your move to your next club. This is your window.

22:24and i think you know you can see that that urgency almost that kind of desperation and also that the individualism i mean a lot of these a lot of these red cards are basically very selfish uh very selfish acts they are not they're not team red cards they're acts of petulance or they are stupid you know hollywood challenges from a from a ridiculous angle and you know and this also manifests itself in in the way that that they can't really control the game you know when the time comes to you know when they need to slow the game down and and or or manage the situation they can't do it because they don't have the collective emotional maturity to be able to manage those situations if they're all young then maybe there'll be no one you know old man in the dressing room to like talk to the younger players so they'll just stay immature they'll just be like those old people still going on 18 to 30s holidays i guess and rosinia himself is speaks very well seems very mature but is young and is inexperienced it will be interesting to see if he can sort of stop this happening, I guess.

23:25Again, having kind of not maybe praised Fulham enough for winning a derby, which I know means a lot to them, I also want to flag up the header for Joel Jimenez. If you haven't seen the highlights, because of course there were a lot of highlights yesterday and Match of the Day was on very, very late, unbelievable sort of old-school number nine striker's header. You know, makes the move, gets in front of his defender, a slightly optimistic cross into the box and it's such a good header from Jimenez and just vintage you're right and actually you know it's now at the stage where we've completely forgotten about that that head injury and what happened to him that he can get back and head with such bravery and like you're right he doesn't he attacks it perfectly the angle is brilliant and the celebration was great too that sort of like flying fish celebration enjoyed it tremendously to the Etihad Man City won Brighton won their third consecutive draw Johnny I mean they can't afford to keep dropping points like this in the title race with Arsenal looking so good no I wonder whether it's one of those where the the title race could have looked illusorily close for a bit and now I think if Arsenal win tonight it's eight points and and they could very easily pull away from this point you know with with the players coming back uh City obviously they they're now they've now drawn three in a row and I wonder how much that late equaliser that that Chelsea late equaliser took out of them uh because there just wasn't there wasn't a lot of conviction to them at all Foden had six good weeks maybe four really really good weeks and and is now just going back to sort of twiddling around and and Brighton tried to give them they tried to give them so many chances they they just kept passing the ball to them in their own penalty area and saying here have another go and then Harland misses from two yards and then Cherky can't get the ball out of his feet so so yeah I think I think there's a there's a real issue there with I think as much as Pep was talking up, you know, we're over our difficulties.

25:16We've got over the difficult period. We're clicking again. I think the people who watch them every week, that was never really the case. There has always been that certain brittleness to them that occasionally the brilliance of a Foden or a Cherky or a Rinders or a Doku would paper over. And obviously they are now slipping back. Yeah, and Barry, like Brighton really, City had loads of chances, but also in the first half it looked like Brighton were just cleaned through every time you looked up some another Brighton player was in Yeah, Pascal Gross had a good header save by Donnarumma Ferdi Cadilloglu was put through by Reuter and his shot was very weak easy for Donnarumma he should have done better when Cairo Matoma beat I think it was Matthias Nunes down the left wing to latch on to I think Nunes misjudged the cross-field ball.

26:11Mitoma squared it for Diego Gomez, who somehow missed. I don't know how he missed that. And then the ball broke to Mitoma, who hit it against the foot of the post from a very narrow angle. It's a game I think both teams will feel they should have won, and a draw was probably fair. But yeah, there was a lot of chances for both. I think City had two cleared off the line as well. But Erling Haaland, I know he scored his 150th goal, quickest player ever to reach that in English football but he's not playing particularly that was a penalty he's not playing particularly well at the moment and when he's not playing well City tend not to play well and I think that's why they're dropping all these points but yeah very good night for Arsenal who didn't play it reminded me of last season City to be perfectly honest because earlier in the season City have looked different they've been sitting off more They've counter-attacked much more, which has given them the kind of fast-break attacks that Erling Haaland absolutely loves.

27:12And it's also been good for someone like Dooku, who's had more space to run into. Whereas here we were back to City playing a million square balls and really kind of boxing Brighton in, but then not having a lot of space to go into. That being said, yeah, Erling Haaland had a header cleared off the line and he had at least two shooting chances in the box that you would expect him to score from close range that he kind of snatched that a little bit, which to me looks like he's almost trying a little too hard, that he's a little anxious, that he's shooting just a little too quickly. He's getting a little bit yippy.

27:45But the surprising thing was when you saw the lineup, you see they have a debutante in Max Allain and Kusanov playing next to a Mets center half, and you think, oof, that's not going to be good. And you expect the problem they're going to have is defending. And they did in the first half have some issues with Brighton, beating that high line but overall in the game it was the city having possession boxing brighton in and not finding an opening so it was kind of odd it was a throwback to last season for me all right james milner came on becomes just the fifth outfield player to play in the premier league after turning 40 uh along with sharing him gigs kevin phillips and gordon strachan i see stracking in a coventry kit i mean he must have been over 50 i remember milner's debut for leeds that's makes me feel so old.

28:30He was 16 years old. You are quite old, Barry. I think he might have been the youngest ever Premier League debutant at the time. Yeah, possible. David says, Will playing four at the back ever worked for Man United in the Premier League? Burnley two, Manchester United two. We did do a Manchester United special on Tuesday. So listeners probably hoping for some reprieve. Johnny, you've been writing about Sir Jim and Jason Wilcox. Even got praise from Mark Goldbridge on your article on X on this one. lots of excellent shots of wilcox and uh omar barada in the stands during this game i can i could top that actually there's a i've know someone who who from the world of cycling who knows sir jim quite well and apparently sir jim has read the article and loves it which i agree actually because considering that it was an article basically about how stupid he is so it takes a certain self-awareness i think to to appreciate that which i appreciate in turn yeah i mean i mean uh burnley are burnley they're not good are they but they do keep they do keep coming at you they do keep trying i think that the fight they've shown despite basically going out and losing every week uh playing really well and trying really hard and losing every week i think that it's a credit to them that they still have the you know the wherewithal i think to keep creating chances and keep running at united and and i think they deserved they deserve that point it was never four at the back three at the back that was like honestly it was never the issue i know they won with four at the back and then they drew against wolves going back to the three but it feel like we've wasted a lot of podcasts if that wasn't the issue well no but it but it is it it is so much more about individual errors and uh players not tracking back and players not doing their jobs i mean ultimately it's very easy to blame this oh look at this this system but you know 3-4-3 works 3-3 at the back works has worked for a lot of teams in this Premier League season Leeds are playing it very well Fulham are playing it Crystal Palace play it very well the system is not all you know is not the whole issue here it's the fact that United have a lot of players who for whatever reason over a period of years haven't been performing and that is cultural Benjamin Sesko did score twice Lars yeah he had a brilliant header saved in the first half and both his goals a sort of classic centre-forward goals, and you have probably watched him more than the rest of us.

30:49Do you have high hopes that this will be a big moment for him? I thought the football writer, Seb Stafford-Bloor, made a very good point about Sesko, which is that he is a work in progress, and he looked like a work in progress in Germany as well. But because they've paid so much money for him, people are expecting him to be the finished article. And this is something that's happening now, because teams increasingly are spending huge sums for players who are still young. I mean, it used to be like when you were in your late teens, early 20s, there was an acceptance that you're not the finished article.

31:19And the big transfers would be guys in their mid to late 20s. But because teams have caught on to this resale value issues, amortization, all this stuff, they're now paying huge, huge sums for players who are still not quite there, who are still there. They're buying the potential. And because those players come with a huge transfer fee, the expectation is, because we paid this much, you have to be good right now. So with Cesco, he's never been super consistent. What he has is a lot of good ingredients. He's a big, strong guy. He's fast for his size. He can hit the ball. But he's never been super consistent.

31:53And maybe we should be giving him and players other in that bracket a little bit more leeway. I can't quite decide if the two goals here were just a function of playing him as a number nine in a non-silly formation and put the ball in the box a lot and he'll probably score more goals. That could be true. Could also be that it was against Burnley. I thought United did look better here. I liked seeing Bruno Fernandes in a more creative forward role, not deeper in midfield. It freed him up a little bit. But yeah, and they had 30 shots in the game, United. I think on most other days, this exact game would have ended with Man United winning it.

32:30I would say Darren Fletcher went to bed last night wondering how on earth they didn't win. because they scored two, they two cleared off the line, they hit the post, they had a goal disallowed. Shea Lacey curled the beauty of a shot off the post. Any other day they'd have won this. And while I think Burnley do deserve praise for the effort to put in, that's about as good as Burnley play and they still were almost overwhelmed. I mean, obviously Darren Fletcher would have to ring Sir Alex before he went to bed to just find out if it was okay for him to go to bed. Anthony's Equalizer is brilliant, Jaden Anthony's Equalizer.

33:10Solskjaer, from your contacts in Norway, Lars, suggests that that is a done deal, is it? Are you dusting down the Solskjaer table? And why would you go back to Solskjaer? Why would they do that? I should stress, in this case, my contacts in Norway is reading the paper. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suspect that that's his agent letting it be known. but certainly the story in the Norwegian press has been that they've been discussing terms. I don't know, man. Like, as a temporary thing. So we all remember how it ended with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United, with the team not being able to, you know, develop their own game in possession, with the team having a couple of humiliating defeats, with him having a very sad goodbye interview.

33:54Like, those were not happy times at Old Trafford. but there is something about olgin asosha is that i know it's a cliche and i know it's easy to be sarky and make fun of but he does genuinely love the club in a way very few people in the football industry do like he has a kind of selfless affection for manchester united which is almost like that of a fan with a total lack of cynicism which i think is very unusual in the football industry you don't see it very often he is someone who will always answer the call and it's easy for like snide people such as ourselves to make fun of that but i'm going to make an effort not to because maybe i'm getting older but i think it's kind of sweet in a way um what he does well so share is and i was in istanbul for his first game in charge of besiktas when they played athletic club he'd just come in he got them organized set them up to play on the counter and beat athletic club 4-1 and while he was in charge of besiktas he was the only manager who beat gal taseray in turkey that season they also beat jose marino's venebache but the problem he had at basiktas was consistently beating the lesser teams who came and sat back against them so for man united fans this will be familiar at united he often did well in the big games uh struggled to develop their own play to break down uh quote-unquote weaker teams but i'm not sure that matters between now and the end of the season if you want us a pair of hands who can go in the players love playing from the last time he was popular in the dressing room he's not gonna reinvent the wheel tactically but to make people players feel good about themselves just for a couple of months you're not gonna make a big appointment right now anyway because lots of good big managers are available in the summer i think there are worse ideas out there to be perfectly honest than getting someone who will be happy to take it for a few months will then step away if asked um and and and i think united's got a really decent chance of making the champions league if you look at where the table is it's very you know it's very tight now they are seventh but they're just two points off a fourth i think having him as a more experienced caretaker than dan fletcher for instance and as someone who will be probably will accept a short-term engagement i guess the trouble is what if he does really well well yeah i mean what if he comes in does really well takes him to the champions league and the temptation to give him a four-year contract will be there and that probably wouldn't be a great idea.

36:16I mean, I guess one other problem he had with Bajiktas is he didn't understand the DNA of the club because he understands the DNA of Manchester United. Along with Fletcher, Danny Murphy suggested Roy Keane, which is, let's face it, what we all want. Anyway, that'll do for part two. Part three will begin at Everton.

36:39Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly to the Hill Dickinson. Everton won, Wolves won. Everton finished this game with nine men. which of the sendings off did you prefer, Johnny? You can't beat a good hair pool, can you? No, you can't. Straight out of kindergarten. You know, a lot of Everton fans out there trying to, oh, he was just putting his hand on his back and there just happened to be hair there and he just happened to close his fingers around the ringlets of hair, which is what any professional would do in that situation. And now we're going to have players growing ponytails willy-nilly in an attempt to game the system and going up for aerials.

37:15Do you remember the fight they had at Old Trafford, him and Gay, Idrissa Garnagwe? Yes, yeah. Keane basically starts that fight. Keane basically shoves him and that's what Idrissa reacts to. There's always been that side to Keane's game. And I think all central defenders have this kind of, there's a slightly snide streak to them, a little dig in the elbows, whatever. and occasionally if if the chance avails itself to just grab someone just grab someone's hair you know i think it's hardwired into a lot of defenders from a pre-camera age that you know you just try and you just try and get some leverage over over the attacker whichever way you can i don't know how he thought he was going to get away with it it wasn't innocuous it's really like it's really horrible having your hair pulled if you've ever had long hair i had long hair for a but if you ever had it pulled e.g.

38:07by a child it's not it's not very nice it's basically like uh you can't move you can't move because someone's pulling your hair and it really hurts yeah that's my analysis of michael keane's hair pull i thought it was quite funny that with one red uh moise was quite happy to defend the indefensible because that hair pull is quite clearly a red card but then when he was asked if he wanted to defend jack gregish's two yellows and subsequent red he went no he has no excuse whatsoever jack hadn't pulled anyone's hair he'd an act of dissent and then sarcastic applause i love a bit of sarcastic applause especially when someone gets sent off for it jerry linton should arguably have been sent off for newcastle before he he got a chance to score because he he dives and then he sarcastically applauds the referee and he probably should have and he took um i think with Aronson out in the air earlier.