The sorry Spurs spiral continues – Football Weekly

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1:00and deeper as the game went on and man united probably deserved a point insert a comment about that guy's haircut a brilliant comeback from leeds at stanford bridge cole palmer missing a glorious chance to win it in injury time while bournemouth's good run continues winning at everton in the efl there's southampton three down at leicester at halftime and winning it in injury time we revisit barry and cake answer your questions and that's today's guardian football weekly on the panel today jacob steinberg welcome good morning hello barry glendening Hello, Max. And from the Racing Post, Mark Langdon.

1:30Welcome. Hi, Max. Adam says, will Spurs get promoted to the Premier League next season? Lucas says, who will you support two years from now when Spurs and Cambridge face off in League One? Yes, a big win at Crawley last night for the Hughes, two for Sully Kaikai. We'll get to that. And I did enjoy the tweet from Alex THFC, who says, not cutting my hair until Tottenham Hotspur win one game in a row. So there we are. Just three points above Forest and West Ham. So the bottom of the table looks like this. Wolves and Burnley we say are done. West Ham have 24 from 26. Nottingham Forest 26 from 25. Tottenham 29 from 26.

2:04Leeds 30 from 26. And Brighton 31 from 25. Mark, no win in nine in the league. Two wins in 18. Surely that is it. We're waiting for your phone, aren't we? We're waiting for your phone and your Tottenham Hotspur WhatsApp groups to ping. Yeah, it would be the most excited any Tottenham fans have been for quite some time if the corner flag is sort of tweeted out at some stage today with a statement. But just the five, I remember one Spurs fan saying he wouldn't cut his hair until they had five completed passes in a row. So we might still be waiting a while. For that, another really, really poor performance.

2:46The 2-1 really didn't do justice to Newcastle's dominance for most of the 90 minutes. It was a brief spell just after half-time when Tottenham threatened to do what they did against Manchester City. But for the most part, they were completely outplayed by a Newcastle team that's also got injuries and didn't have a number of players that you might suggest would be in their best 11. So I think the excuses have... They run out about Christmas, but Thomas Frank is still hanging on. As you said, Max, at the start, I don't think he's the only problem at the club. Clearly, he's not the only problem, but he's like the quickest one to solve now.

3:26And if Tottenham don't feel like they're in a relegation battle, then they will sleepwalk into the championship because they've got a job on. You don't see where the next sort of win is coming from and unlikely to be next time out against Arsenal. So it's really a sort of shocking state, really, for a club of Tottenham's resources. I was going to say that, Mark. There is still a feeling that I have that Tottenham are just a bit too good to go down? Or not too good, just too big. And I don't know, amongst the Spurs faithful, is there now a real feeling like, actually, we are. Because other teams, like Leeds, show something, don't they?

4:01I don't know, maybe Forest aren't playing well, but West Ham are showing something. Tottenham are showing nothing. I think there was last night, in that sort of live standings, when it briefly looked like West Ham would narrow the gap to three points, that I think it sort of maybe hit home for those that were oblivious to the fact that, they were kind of just slipping down towards the bottom end of the table but it would be okay. They've got some, what you would call relatively easy in inverted commas, home game still to come against Leeds, against Nottingham Forest, like Brighton are in a bad state but at the same time Tottenham have lost at home to West Ham they've drawn at home to Wolves you cannot trust them to win any game I don't think at the moment And, you know, they've got Champions League as well, which comes at a shocking time now, given the fact that they are in this relegation battle.

4:54And it could look even worse after the matches tonight because, you know, Nottingham Forest will expect to beat Wolves. He's surely done, Barry, isn't he? Well, he seems incredibly confident that he isn't going to be sacked. And I am aware that this will sound stupid if you have had to proceed this podcast with a voice note saying he has been. but he thousand percent confident he would not be sacked today he said after the game and the tnt sports post-match interviewer kept pressing him and pressing him and pressing him trying to get some sort of reaction out of him didn't get the reaction he wanted he did get the stink eye a very disapproving side eye from thomas frank which is as near as i've ever seen to him losing his composure with an interviewer.

5:42If you do sack him, who do you get in? Is it a vibes man like Harry Redknapp? Do you send up the Ryan Mason insignia into the night sky over the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium? I don't know. What I would say is whatever about the fans taking a while to twig that they might be in a relegation baton. I wonder, do the players think, no, they're in a relegation baton? You know, Mark alludes there to easy games they have coming up in inverted commas. You don't have easy games when you're in a position like that down among the dead men. And you certainly don't have easy games when your players convey the impression they think they're above this kind of struggle.

6:29And think that, oh, we're not going to muddy our spats in a relegation battle because we're too good. And that Leeds are fighting. West Ham are fighting. Spurs are showing no fight at all. And at the moment, it looks like they're just relying on someone. They're more focused on someone else getting fewer points than them than getting any points of their own. I suppose, Jacob, one issue for Spurs is they don't like... Manchester United have so many DNA candidates, don't they, to sort of get them out of this hole. And like Barry mentioned Harry Redknapp, and I've thought about this before and it seems so ridiculous that this season I would be saying, I really think Tottenham would have a better chance of beating Arsenal in 12 days if Harry Redknapp was in the dugout.

7:09Okay. I'm not sure that it's him, but I was looking earlier at the available coaches that are out there, and Barry's right. There's not really anyone obvious to come in. I mean, there's, I mean, Amirim is available. People like Xavi, he's there. Edin Terzic, who obviously took Dortmund to the Champions League final. But there just aren't loads of people that you look at and you think, well, that's the person who's going to come in and change it. But you do get to that point of thinking, it's just anybody at this point. I don't think that you can go any further than this with Thomas Frank. I mean, looking at the highlights of the game, I was just struck by how basic and sort of childish and soft everything was.

7:56It looked like they had no real desire. They weren't playing as a team at the first goal. If you look at, obviously, they get away with the VAR one, which was pretty lucky with Joe Willock. The tiny team on top of Joe Willock's head. Maybe he should have got a haircut. But then it's just straight away, your phone's pinging again. Oh, right, it's 1-0 to Newcastle anyway. And that first goal, the cross comes in so easily. No one's trying to stop the cross coming in. I think that was Jed Spence, who doesn't make any real effort. And then it's an easy header at the back post. And then even when the ball spills out into the six-yard box, It just looks like Malik Teores wants it more than, I think, it's Saai, just pushes him aside to get to the rebound.

8:40And it just looks like there's no heart in that team at all. And it doesn't look like they want to play for Thomas Frank anymore. It never really looked like they particularly did in the first place. So you get to that point of thinking it just has to be anybody. But, I mean, obviously, they brought in John Heitinger last month to be the number two. and there was a feeling of is he there potentially as a caretaker is he there to support frank the the only the probably the problem with with john heitinger is that he was run out of town in his last job at ajax i was at chelsea ajax in in october and ajax lost i think 5-1 that night they went down to 10 men very very early he took off one of their attacking players and the ajax fans started singing something in in dutch and i asked the dutch journalist what it was and oh they were just singing fuck off john fuck off john okay okay maybe that's not the guy for spurs but maybe we'll have to be spurs fans won't have to you know that's they're sort of in that mode aren't they spurs fans i mean it's interesting mark that jacob says anybody because that does that opens it up to quite a lot of people in the world but like who who would you want yeah i mean that song, I mean, you could just replace John with Tom and it kind of would have the same kind of...

9:58I do want to just say, I don't think these home games are easy and it was inverted commas that the people that are not the people that are kind of not quite aware of the problems might think that they're easy. Like Harry Redknapp, I think he's nearly 80, I think he's 79 next month Max, like, it really I mean, I do, I know Harry, I like him but I think he's more interested in his horses these days. Fair enough. My dad's 87. He might not be able to do Cheltenham. That might be a problem. But I think Tottenham are now in a really bad situation in terms of what do they do because I think a month ago they maybe could have just looked to have seen it out with maybe Heitinger or just kind of anyone as Jacob was sort of alluding to.

10:50now you almost feel like they probably need to think about like what do they want sort of for next season like and they're in a position where they probably want to wait there's a lot of managers becoming available after the world cup pochettino would be the obvious one given the kind of the interview he gave recently and his love for the club etc but they probably can't wait that long anymore. So if you were looking at kind of now, could you tempt Glasner out of Palace? Allardyce. Oh, no, I was going to say Glasner. I'm trying to be serious here, Max. I mean, Allardyce. He'd get you three wins.

11:27I'm trying to be facetious here, but Sam Allardyce would get you three wins in the last, which is probably what you need. Yeah, I don't think he'd lift the club too much. You know, could you get Glasner out of Crystal Palace and sort of maybe make a long-term sort of deal with him. Amorim, I just don't think he's got the personality to lift the club. I mean, that was one of the things I felt he struggled with at Manchester United. So I would be stuck for finding a replacement, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't. I mean, that's what Venga Keshin presumably has paid a lot of money for a CEO and Johan Lange, the sporting director.

12:10But if you look at it, since Vinay left Arsenal, they've got better. Since Lange left Aston Villa, they've got better. And since Frank left Brentford, they've got better. So yeah, it's looking good. It's pretty bleak. From Newcastle's point of view, Barry, this is a huge win, isn't it? I mean, you could see what it meant to Eddie Howe with the fans afterwards. Jacob Ramsey, who, you know, had done nothing all season, scored the winner. I don't know how much pressure it lifts on them, but it really does. It's just kind of, it stops the rot. Yeah, nobody seems quite sure how much, if any, pressure Eddie Howe is under.

12:47As far as I can tell, and I could be wrong, the match-going fans are happy enough with him, most of them, but some of the internet fans are more vocal in their disapproval of him. Newcastle have been famously bad away from home this season so this was probably as Dr. Tottenham-y as Dr. Tottenham gets because to all intents and purposes this was a home away from home for Newcastle because the atmosphere at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is so toxic that the fans turn on their own team very quickly and if you didn't know much about football watching that first half you would assume Newcastle were the home side because they completely dominated they should have been much further ahead by the break I think this is only their third away win this season in the league I think and yeah it's a really good result for Eddie Howe and you could see how thrilled he was at the end of the game Joe Willock offside, Jacob.

14:00It is so... I mean, I know it's offside. I don't know why I'm even bringing up VAR again. But you do watch it going, this is so silly, isn't it? Or are we happy? Offside is offside. No, you're completely right. I don't think it's what... It's not really in the spirit of the law, is it? I mean, there was the one earlier this season as well where it was the Fulham Liverpool game, the Florian Wurtz goal which was given because apparently there was more benefit of doubt given to the attackers that was a change but he looked completely offside and there was a massive long delay to work out whether it was or wasn't it's just taking so long to get to these decisions and I don't think it feels like there are there are goals ruled out where in the past I don't think anybody would have had a problem with them being given I don't think that Spurs fans would have looked at that and gone well that's obviously offside that's got to that's got to that's got to be ruled out similarly like in the in the West Ham Mayniter game last night the Casemiro goal I mean when you saw it and it was in the freeze frame thought it's probably just offside but if that had stood I don't think that you'd be going absolutely crazy at the linesman for not being able to spot it so so yeah I'm I'm with you on that it's it's it feels too much it feels like we've gone too far but I don't think it's going away I think if we work on the assumption that VAR is here to stay the most workable solution to these problems is to introduce an appeal system give it like they have in cricket give each manager slash captain two appeals per game and it's up to them whether when and or if to use them because would would Tottenham have appealed against that goal?

15:47I think you'd appeal every goal, wouldn't you? You'd just appeal every goal. If you appeal, if you waste your appeals frivolously, like you see a lot of cricket batsmen doing in cricket, then they're gone. So you have to use them sparingly. No, you're right. If you have two, and you hopefully, most teams don't concede two every game, then you just chuck it. I don't know. I like the idea, but I reckon once you've tried it in practice, everyone would just appeal the goal. Oh, I'm sure people would find some way of messing it up or gaming it. Can I just give a shout out though to that Newcastle front three and sort of the Willekin and Ramsey because the near goal came from a deep run and there was a lot of fluidity to their sort of front five that maybe hasn't been there all season.

16:35When Gordon played up front right at the start of the campaign, if you remember, he was playing really well but wasn't taking any of the chances. And I think from a team point of view, they actually looked better without kind of somebody just standing up there almost sort of in that centre forward position. And Eddie Howe has been accused of not changing. This was a slight tinker. And I thought Langer, particularly first half, might have been one of his kind of more dangerous 45 minutes of the season. Been a waste of money so far. but the offside goal came from that kind of deep run and Willock and Ramsey were making those runs and sort of joining the front three and there was a lot of attractiveness, I think, to the way that Newcastle attacked last night.

17:22Yeah, but they were only playing Spurs, so, you know. There is that. It is interesting as well that they didn't start Vissa or Voltamada in their kind of, I don't know what to make of that, but it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of either. No, it isn't, but it worked and they won. And so it's a ringing endorsement of Eddie Howe, I suppose. Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two, we'll go to the London Stadium.

17:53Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So West Ham won, Manchester United won. You are a West Ham fan, Jacob. I know you were at the Chelsea game, but oh, what a blow. Like presumably, I'm trying to think of the time. Yeah, the Chelsea game had finished. I don't know if you'd finished your writing or you're watching this at the same time. But once Xerxes missed that header, you must think, OK, we've got this now. So I didn't see the Xerxes header until I saw the highlights after. But I had the game going on my phone while I was doing my rewrite for my match report at Chelsea. It got to about the 93rd minute and then Liam Rossini came in for his press conference.

18:29I thought, United don't really look like they're going to score here. They're not really doing a lot. So I had to turn off my phone, put it on the desk to record Resenia. And then he spoke for five minutes. And then I came back and I saw the score.

18:47I mean, and you sort of know, I guess as a West Ham fan, you're just like, that's what would happen, right? That's what you expect. I mean, it's a brilliant finish from Sesco, isn't it, Jacob? It was an incredible finish. One way of sort of almost reluctant to blame them for that going in. And I suppose the one thing that you take away from it is that the cross comes in in the first place. And that's been a problem all season. They've been letting in that kind of goal, particularly from that side. I mean, he gets in front of De Sassi. But even at that point, he has so much to do. It is an amazing finish.

19:21I like him. Seska, I think that obviously he's had a difficult start. But I think there's quite a lot of intelligence, especially the way that he's able to finish. And it is an incredible goal, probably the only way that that could have gone in. So you struggle to be too harsh. I mean, I suppose that you just look at game management and whether they were able to run it into the corner. And also that they had a couple of chances on the counter-attack to go to Naluk. But it's just really gutting for them in that they, I think it's now 20 points dropped from winning positions this season. And quite a lot of those have been very late on.

19:59And I think that's the second time in the last two or three weeks now where they've let in a very damaging goal in stoppage time because it happened at Chelsea. But you go through to the Fulham game where it was a late winner from them in December. They've given away 2-0 leads against Bournemouth. Brighton was a stoppage time equaliser as well. So that's really costing them because there are so many points that are just being thrown away when there have been some quite positive performances. performances. I guess the difference between them and Spurs is that they are producing positive performances and they've got some fights and that they look at the moment, unlike Spurs, that they've got some obvious match winners in Jarrod Bowen, who we all know is a fantastic player.

20:42And I think that he's struggled a little bit, I think, with the weight of the captaincy, but he's starting to now put in the performances that you know he's capable of. And Somerville as well who have going from a from a winger who was sort of flattering to deceive for much of his time into sort of like prime messy for the last few weeks and the the sale of paquetta has was obviously something that i think people thought would maybe hurt them but i think in a way it's almost clarified things because that they they're sort of playing in a much simpler way and without somebody who whose mood was going up and down with the ability sometimes just to bring the place down or lift it once every 10 games.

21:24And it was often the case with him where it was a sort of quite pointless flick or trick here or there, which would go nowhere or lose the ball in a dangerous position. Without him there, it's almost like they've been able to go, okay, we're going to play in this very set, quite simple way, 4-4-2. And actually, we're going to be very clear on what we're doing. And also, Mateus Fernandes in midfield has almost made it irrelevant that Paqueta has gone because although they weren't able to sign a replacement for Paqueta, he's just stepped up and he's been fantastic for them in the last few weeks.

21:58One of the rare good beasts of business they've done in the last couple of years, particularly in midfield. So there are a lot of bright things for them. It's worrying for them, I guess, that they're maybe doing this a little bit too late and that the gap is still potentially tonight going to be five points, if you would expect for us to beat Wolves. And it's just, do they have too much to do? Is it all coming? Have they wasted too much going into this period? And they've got some hard games coming up now as well. What do you reckon, Mark? Have they left it too late? What do you think? No, I don't think they have left it too late.

22:36I think that there's a togetherness that I don't think you could have anticipated maybe even a month ago, really. The atmosphere sounded positive and really noisy and kind of what you would want as a team in a relegation battle hasn't always been the case at the London Stadium. But definitely the fans were with the team and obviously there's anger towards the ownership. But it's almost like the fans are just putting that to one side now and trying to sort of drag the team over the line. It will hurt this morning, but it's still a good point. they're playing Manchester United if you're if you're down in sort of that bottom three area I think it still represents you know a good point they've got leads on the final day so in their heads you if you can get to within three of leads on on the final day you can maybe make that cup final the team looks a lot better with the full-backs returning from AFCON as well so like I think there are reasons to be positive obviously it would have been I think Nuno referred to it as a punch in the stomach um and you know united i don't think had loads of chances really and it wasn't like it was wave after wave of attack so it will hurt but i i would mainly be on the positive there about west ham and they they look a very different team to kind of the one that looked like it was just um just gonna sort of relegate themselves in disgrace almost a couple of months ago yeah it was that wolves game wasn't it when we basically said they were completely done what did you mean from a united perspective barry what did you make of this well just son nuno saying is a punch in the stomach.

24:08I think before the game, he was probably expecting a kick in the ball. So I call it a good point, a good result, a good point. Yeah, a good punch. From a United perspective, I think it was probably their worst performance under Michael Carrick. I thought they would win. I thought they'd win comfortably, actually. I think on the evidence of the game, it's a decent point for both sides. but obviously West Ham will be gutted that they didn't get all three and they really did Spurs or United really did Spurs a favour. So yeah, Michael Carrick was probably Tottenham's best performer on the night with his Spurs pedigree.

24:54But yeah, it wasn't great from United and definitely their worst performance under Carrick considering the results he has got. yeah i still know disaster is it you know four wins in a draw and this does bring us to haircut man i was interested i mean i don't know it's it's his journey like a a great social commentary of our time or is it just someone who hasn't had his haircut i can't work it out because obviously the first time you hear about it which is i don't know a few months ago you're like this is quite funny look at his massive hair well this is funny and then and then you go is this a bit annoying And then some people, some really sense people start getting so irate about this guy who's just said something a few months ago and has stuck to it.

25:39You start thinking, well, it's just sort of fun. I don't know. Where do we stand on? And some people will be like, I can't believe you're talking about haircut man when there's a football match happening. I am one of them. I think all I would say, Max, is that not many teams win five matches in a row. It was a very weird sort of point to which to go down. I mean, you have to be a very good team to win five matches in a row. Manchester United have not been a particularly consistent or very good team for a long time now. So, yeah, I mean, it's going to be a while, I would say, before they do win five in a row.

26:20I'd be surprised if it was this season. I don't know. I just sort of think, Jacob, in a social media world, he's come up with an idea. It's worked. I think there's a lot of jealousy because he was like doing an advert with PK and a pair of scissors the other day. It's like this is, I mean, it is just ridiculous, but it feels harmless to me. Yeah, so Wayne Rooney was having a pop at him. A pop. He said once they win five in a row, he's probably hoping that they don't because he'll just become irrelevant. Yeah, he's wound everybody up. But are you jealous? You mentioned jealousy. I'm not jealous.

26:56I mean, I suppose that's interesting. I mean, if he's, I've spent, what, 20 odd years trying to carve a career in this. And I wouldn't know. Has he made more money than I have now in just like six months because he hasn't got his hair cut? I mean, I don't know if I'm jealous of that. I think I'm fine with it. I think, you know, you try something, it works, you know, make hay. Because once his hair is cut, you know, I don't know what he did before. I don't know what his, maybe he's got other strength to his bow. Is there a film in this, a book for him? It seems very much like a one-trick pony to me, but maybe I'm doing him a massive disservice.

27:36I think you're on thin ice, Max, accusing anyone of being a one-trick pony. I don't know, but he seems to, I don't know. It seems fine to me. It's like fair play to the guy. I mean, people have become famous in the social media world for less and for more harmful sort of behaviours, I would say. I think you're right. I think you're right. Anyway, Barry, would you like me to move on? Go deeper. I'm quite indifferent. Fair play to him. If he's making a few quid out of not getting his ear cut, great. Okay. Let's go to Stafford Bridge then. Chelsea 2 leads 2. Jacob, you were there. Feels like Chelsea should have won this football match to me.

28:23Yeah, absolutely. It was bizarre because it was, as Rosinia said, six minutes of utter madness from Chelsea. The frustrating thing is that they were pretty good for an hour. I didn't think they were sensational, but they had the game under control against a lead side who didn't have Calvert-Lewin, Stack, Stroik, some players coming back from injury as well. and Farker dropped Noah Okafor after his goal against Forest. He said afterwards that he's a player who needs a bit of time to get back up to physical speed after putting in a big effort. So he also wasn't sure if he would be able to deal with it from a defensive side against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

29:07So Leeds looked quite blunt, certainly at the start when you looked at their team because there were six defenders in there and you weren't really sure how they were going to score in Chelsea, just gradually worked it out. The setup in possession was pretty good. It got them through this very difficult Leeds setup and it was sort of around the 20-minute mark, you suddenly realised that Parma was getting into loads of space through the middle. It happened once and they almost scored and then it happened again and they did score. That link up with João Pedro is really important for them. It was something at the Club World Cup that there was an instant connection between the two of them.