West Ham go down and the great guard of honour debate: Football Weekly

17:52Max Rushden:They're very wrong indeed. And I suppose the wrongest I was was having Everton finish in 19th, and yet I feel if the season had gone on in maybe another three weeks, they would have finished 19th. really gone out. At one stage, it looked like they might... Not too long ago, people were talking about them potentially qualifying for the Champions League and their season has just ended with a total whimper. I don't think the fans are happy with David Moyes or the style of football they play. So yeah, they had one job yesterday and obviously they blew it.

18:33Jonathan Wilson:Yeah, so they did do that comeback against Man City, which was sort of slightly out of character from their last few games. Back to Spurs, Barney. De Zerbe has worked, right? He came in, they're paying him a lot of money and he's come in with positivity, which, I mean, after Igor Tudor, it was hard to take it down for Tudor in a positive sense, but he's done what he was, you know, brought in to do.

18:54Barney Ronay:Yeah, I noticed nobody really talks about Igor Tudor's role in this. Nobody's paid tribute to the work of Igor Tudor in building. I mean, that was... Insane. Probably the stupidest appointment maybe ever.

19:09Max Rushden:Celtic would like a word.

19:12Barney Ronay:Well, yeah, but the issue was that it thought it was intelligent. It was based on, you know, look, this guy has this record and he's done, but it didn't really fit. It was a really bad application of the idea of someone having a track, alleged track record that just didn't actually fit the situation at all. I mean, nobody has a track record that reflects accurately the job of managing spurs. This is like a unicorn club, isn't it? It's a very strange place with lots of odd things that you have to negotiate. But maybe it's like when you pull back, maybe he created such a feeling of despair and low hanging fruit that maybe he perversely, it was so easy to improve that.

19:53Barney Ronay:Maybe it was like pulling back an elastic band until it almost snaps and then it can only go forward. So maybe we need to pay tribute to Eagle Tudor. But you'd be seriously worried about people involved in appointing him who are still there and will now. But I think De Zerbe is a really good manager. And something about his energy seems to fit the stadium and fit the fans. I like looking at him. I like watching him. I like the way he jumps around in his black T-shirt. I like the fact he looks a bit like a caterpillar. I like his little facial hair. I like the way that he talks about the players.

20:26Barney Ronay:He seems to understand how to motivate them. They will obviously have a clear out. I'm assuming get rid of their captain now. There's a strange vibe inside the squad. It was nice to see Christian Romero there celebrating wildly with his teammates, which was good. I always knew you could do it, lads. I have a feeling they could just finish sixth next year because the club has income it does have a base of a good squad now has a good manager and this will seem like a strange fever dream maybe it's even a good season for Spurs because what is a good season? It's lots of content isn't it an energy and Spurs have been one of the stories of the season maybe this has been good for them in a weird way

21:08Jonathan Wilson:I've been on Google images of caterpillars I can't really see any that look that much like Roberto De Zerbi I mean, you're not...

21:16Barney Ronay:I'm thinking like a cartoon caterpillar. Like if you have a naughty caterpillar who's, you know...

21:22Jonathan Wilson:But he needs some antennae, doesn't he? Do they have antennae?

21:25Barney Ronay:His hair is a little bit like antennae. He has like the sticky up... He has the hair of like a 2003 boy band in a documentary where they're like, I've been through hell, but you still have the same haircut and beard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:39Barry Glendenning:So just on Romero, we should say it was a very good day for him because Belgrano scored twice in the last four minutes to beat River Plate and win the... Well, maybe that's what

21:47Barney Ronay:he was celebrating when he was jumping around. Maybe he had a... It was later on.

21:50Barry Glendenning:It was later in the evening that it happened.

21:53Jonathan Wilson:Aidan does say, as a Spurs fan, I feel absurdly optimistic about next season under the Zerbi. Well, I never learn. It'd be interesting to see, Wilson, what they do with the squad and the players and as Barney mentioned, you know, Vino Venkasescham and Johan Langer. We talked about West Ham's, you know, the people who run the football club there. They've made some odd decisions this season.

22:13Barry Glendenning:Oh, they have. I mean, I think, although he'd gone by then, Tudor was definitely Paratachi's man, that Paratachi had looked at him. I mean, again, why would you appoint a man on the say-so of somebody who left the club several weeks earlier? But, yeah. Zerbi said, there's 10, 11, 12 players good enough to stay, which sounds like quite a big clear-out. Yeah. It might be, to be fair, there's probably eight or nine players he hasn't even met yet because they've just been getting treatment. I think he's envisaging quite a big overhaul but the oddity this is something that uh Jack Brooke pointed out was that it felt exactly the same as a Brighton game final day last season when admittedly they lost 4-1 but they finished 17th there was huge celebrations the players on the pitch are taking the acclaim of the south stand last season you know there was what four days after they won the Europa League and there's a sense I'll all be fine next season and this time was a similar thing of oh it'll all be fine next season now of course the difference is Dezerbi is there he's got an achievement under his belt he'll have some idea of what he wants to do with the squad well change it I mean we've seen that and and he's now got the the summer to sort that out whereas Thomas Frank was coming in as being the bloke succeeding the bloke who'd actually achieve something uh with your boss cover 11 one new open league so that dynamic maybe is slightly different but I don't think anybody should be sort of suckered into thinking this is all suddenly fine it should be fine and Barney's right the no European football there's every chance they can finish say sixth maybe maybe even fifth you know it's they have a potential to do that they've got good young players there people like Archie Gray and Bergvau you know Madison if he's fit they are good enough to to have a decent run no European football will help but equally it could just be another season like this one.

24:03Barry Glendenning:There's nothing certain about it.

24:05Jonathan Wilson:No, something good about singing Freed from Desire, having got 41 points and coming 17th. If it's a banger, you'll always dance and sing to it. Anyway, that'll do for part one. Part two, we'll begin with the emotional goodbyes.

24:26Jonathan Wilson:Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So just to confirm everything, Arsenal won the league into the Champions League, City, United, Aston Villa and Liverpool. Bournemouth and Sunderland go into the Europa League. Palace will do if they win the Conference League on Wednesday. And Brighton are in the Conference League. Let's do the goodbyes. So City won Villa 2. This was all about the farewells of Pep, John Stones and Bernardo Silva. They named a stand after Pep, a statue's coming. Barry, actually, of all the emotional goodbyes, it was Pep's dad wiping a tear away that got me slightly going.

24:58Jonathan Wilson:The number of applauses and guards of honour and people crying. That was the thing that hit me a little bit.

25:05Max Rushden:Yeah, it was nice for Pep. I think the one that got me was him quite visibly bawling his eyes out when Bernardo Silva came off. It was a nice occasion at the Etihad. I think the result was a complete sideshow. It didn't really matter. I was shocked if he would have won, to be honest. I would have bet my life on City winning that game. Which shows how much I know about anything, but it was an emotional afternoon for everyone at the Etihad. And Barney has stuff to say about Guards of Honour, mid-game Guards of Honour. I didn't think it was a big deal, really. The game was a complete irrelevance, like the one at Sellers Park, basically, wasn't it?

25:52Max Rushden:Yeah. We can go to the Guards of Honour if we want, Barney. I mean, the best thing about the Guards of Honour was the discussion about the Guards of Honour.

26:03Barney Ronay:I mean, I liked Wayne Rooney's absolute look of horror as though someone had shot a budgerigar on the pitch or eviscerated a dog. He looked absolutely appalled. And that made me think that I should probably be appalled by it as well. Because it is, I mean, come on. I mean, there is a lot of fawning in football. It's very internet. it's very kind of look at this clip of someone crying it's very it's this parasocial attachment to players which I think really has something to do with the way the game alienates people there's this huge well of I think it's a really interesting subject there's this huge well of emotion people love football and it is at the same time it's constantly telling you that you're just a consumer or you're not attached to it I mean the whole story of West Ham you know the story of Spurs is of taking this addiction to football and to a club and absolutely monetizing it to within an inch of its life.

27:01Barney Ronay:And so people want, there's all this emotion that wants to attach to things. And the habit of, you know, pictures of players that sort of say little clips. It reminds me of tennis. Tennis does this a lot as well. You create this entire emotional construct around players and around optics, around what they look like and someone brushing away a tear. And it's a really strange phenomenon. and it's a kind of imagined relationship in many ways that has nothing to do with what these people actually like or what they're, you don't know them.

27:30Jonathan Wilson:That's how listeners feel about us, Barney, of course. People are thinking, waiting on your every word, Barney, and thinking if you ever retired, they would weep tears.

27:40Barney Ronay:Yeah, like the degree of sort of hatred, disdain and kind of, you know, imagined engagement is kind of similar. You're right, it's a very minor version of that. But I don't know, having a guard of honour in the middle of the game, it is ridiculous. Like, what's that for? What are the Vastabula players doing? Guards of honour, you have them in cricket as well. And it would often be maybe on the last day of a game when it's petering out and there's a genuine sort of legend in the room. I'm pleased for, I really like Bernardo Silva. He's one of my favourite footballers. And he does really, really speak to the kind of late Pep.

28:15Barney Ronay:Pep loves him. He really, he's the most intelligent footballer. He really is, I think, a really underrated player. My favourite memory of him, and probably of Pep as well, is being in a press conference. And it was quite a big game and something had happened and we had to talk about the VAR decision. And there was a point where Pep just went off into this rant for about 10 minutes about the three different images that Bernardo Silva has in his head when he's playing out of possession, how he has three different press options. And while he's looking at what to do, Pep can also see those in his head.

28:48Barney Ronay:He can see the images that Bernardo Silva's having. And he says every time Bernardo chooses the right one. And he gave a really specific example. And no one was listening. The entire press corps was typing up, there are peps just going on about something. But he'd gone into this reverie about pressing position choices being made in real time. And you saw how much he loves football, how much he loves Bernardo, and their weird networked kind of brains on this. It makes me think that Bernardo Silva is probably going to be a really good coach at some point. Because he has made an astonishing career out of a really quite, he's not a very physical person.

29:20Barney Ronay:It's all in the brain. And yeah, I think he's a really, really great player.

29:25Barry Glendenning:Yeah, on the Guards of Honour, I'm completely in the Rooney camp here. So any league, it's a feature of any league, they come at the end of the season, the incentives for different teams will be different. And the league only functions, it only has integrity, if everybody is still at least making some sort of effort to win the game or to get the result that they need out of the game. Bournemouth thanks to ludicrous regulations but Bournemouth needed City to win that game to have a chance of getting into the Champions League if City and Villa are messing about having guards of honour in the middle of a game and you know when this happened with John Terry in the Chelsea Sunderland game years ago I felt exactly the same they're not by definition they're not taking the game as serious as they ought to and it's I think it's really it's really contemptuous of City and to a lesser extent Villa of teams below them in the table who require them to play that game seriously?

30:22Max Rushden:I would argue that City and Villa have no responsibility to try and get Bournemouth into the Champions League. If Bournemouth need to want to get into the Champions League, that's within their own purview. Yeah, it shouldn't be on Villa or City. They have no obligation to Bournemouth whatsoever.

30:47Barney Ronay:No, they do. They have a responsibility to the league. They do have an obligation. They have an obligation to play a robust game of football. You can't just do an Austria-West Germany and decide to stop playing. The whole thing collapses as soon as nobody really cares about what's going on on the pitch.

31:03Barry Glendenning:One of the problems when leagues began 150 years ago was getting towards the end of the season, teams who had nothing to play for just literally wouldn't turn up for games. So you look at tables from, happily our league seems to have got away with this, but look at tables from the late 19th century and often you'll have the top three or four teams will have played 30 games. And then teams are 27, 24, 22 because they couldn't be bothered. This is essentially the same thing and it's outrageous. You've got to play properly or the league falls apart.

31:35Jonathan Wilson:A day goes by when I don't look at league tables from the late 19th century, Will, so it's nice to know that we share that. And just moving away from Guards of Honour, Barney, you wrote a piece about Pep. And I was pleasantly surprised that Kelly Case and Alan Shearer at least brought up the charges because it's sort of deafening the silence in all the tributes to Pep. I think because people just don't feel comfortable talking about it. And, you know, we've talked about this with Spygate. Everyone can talk about a man hiding behind a tree, but people find it hard to talk about the possibility.

32:04Jonathan Wilson:Because I thought the point that you made that a lot of these titles and these trophies have been very marginal. You know, one goal or one point. And so we do have to wait until the end of these charges.

32:15Barney Ronay:Yeah, I mean, it is boring. I know it's boring. No one is interested in people not filing their accounts or not cooperating with the investigation. That sounds really minor. Like everybody's been late with their submission to HMRC or whatever and had to have a phone call where you wait for ages and then you explain yourself to someone eventually after 40 minutes. But they are really material. essentially these are accusations of financial fraud which obviously City deny and and you're right I think people sort of think they're historic as well and they don't relate to things that have happened during Pep Guardiola's time but they do and yes it's really boring but most other teams not all of them were sticking to these rules whether you like them or not and they success in football is totally attached to expenditure it just is now and the fact is City do have a massive advantage in that there is no financial jeopardy.

33:11Barney Ronay:It doesn't really matter if you spend 100 million on a player, it doesn't work out. Nobody's counting the cost. There's no opportunity cost in that. That's a huge advantage. Now, this sounds like sour grapes. It's not. Two things can be true at the same time. I have no skin in the game. Pep Guardiola is an incredible manager. He's a genius and he's created beautiful teams that I have loved watching. It's frustrating that these two things have to exist. It's not to say that he wouldn't have done exactly this without whatever, even if the charges are proven, which they haven't been, that this wouldn't have happened anyway.

33:44Barney Ronay:And he's essentially operating under a scheme of patronage, which is really interesting. It's kind of like being a painter in a Renaissance city where you just make your patterns, do your glorious thing. And that's been really beautiful. And I am interested to see what the statue looks like. Which pep will it be? Will he be crouching down? Would he be clawing at his own skull? Would he be bursting his trousers? Would he be sitting glassy-eyed in a press conference saying, I'm so, so happy and giving death stares to Jamie Jackson? But I love all of these inclinations. I've really enjoyed watching it.

34:20Barney Ronay:But the fact is, it's also really great to have this not mentioned. I liked Alan Shearer's response where he just said, yes, if these are proven, there will have to be an asterisk against this because he understands. I mean, he's played for the first team to really do this before FFP. His own Premier League title was based on massively gaming the league, this time by a steel magnate in his hometown. So, yeah, we have to talk about it, unfortunately. I think it makes it more fascinating, not less in its own weird way.

34:52Jonathan Wilson:Yeah. And we did actually, Michael Speller on the radio with me and Barry yesterday brought up a good point about Pep's influence that in grassroots and I've noticed this playing Vets League you know people play out from the back now and they didn't 10 years ago

35:05Barney Ronay:Don't you think that's a bit overstated like I hear this all the time yeah I mean we do live in an era where we live in an age said Arsene Wenger where everything is totally networked people do just copy what they see it was not possible to have this kind of influence previously now you just everyone sees everything and I've seen this as well in kids football people going like you shout at people for hoofing out the pitch, which is a complete 180 from the previous thing of showing people for not hoofing out the pitch.

35:33Jonathan Wilson:I love it when people hoof out the pitch. I love it so much. Just get rid, get rid.

35:40Barney Ronay:I think the cultural influence has been more normalising political interference and bending of rules and a sense of corruption that you just argue about on the internet. That seems more of a cultural influence than a little bit of passing around at the back.

35:56Jonathan Wilson:yeah yeah potentially i mean they both have their place but you're right we don't discuss those you know on princess park of a sunday afternoon that is true um while we're on goodbyes wilson what did you make of uh most allah and andy robertson and the those at anfield yeah i mean

36:11Barry Glendenning:it is the end of an era that that liverpool team the klopp team that that won the league that won the champions league it is now definitively over and that's been a process that's probably gone for what two three years he began under Klopp that he made a series of changes and obviously Klopp goes yeah Salah has clearly been one of the greatest players in the Premier League it's probably the right time for him to go because he has been nowhere near that level this season and Robertson as well that you know he's clearly he's starting to slow down he's not able to play as regularly but he has been a I mean a brilliant signing was eight million he cost from eight million yeah yeah he's he's arguably been the best left back in the Premier League over that period so So, yeah, two great players for Liverpool, and at least they had the dignity to wait until the end of the game to stop and take their applause.

37:00Barry Glendenning:I mean, I know they got substituted and got the applause, but that's how you do it. You don't need everybody to stop and give you a guard of honour.

37:06Jonathan Wilson:Well done, Brentford, Barry, because Wattara missed a header right at the end, which would have moved them up to seventh. You know, Keith Andrews has done a brilliant job. You could just see, you know, his head in his hand.

37:17Max Rushden:He had such a brilliant season. his lovely hair in his hands yeah yeah he's had a remarkable season lots and lots of people predicted Brentford would go down at the start of the season because they lost several key players they lost their manager they took a punt on Keith and you know Brentford's owner famously made his money out of gambling and that was a gamble that paid off massively he's done really well Delighted for him, obviously, because he's Irish. And it is a bit of a shame they didn't make it into Europe. But I think we very much glossed over Sunderland getting into the Europa League.

37:59Max Rushden:I think that is an unbelievable achievement by Regis Labrie. And if I could just go back to Andy Robertson, his story, I think, is remarkable. I mean, there was the tweet, I think it was in 2012, when he was an amateur footballer with Queen's Park. And he said, being broke at this age is rubbish. The hashtag needed job. I think he was working in M &S. And he had a proper job while playing for Queen. Then he went to Hull. Liverpool signed him. He seemed to vanish off the face of the earth for about three months. But it was clear that Jurgen Klopp had a team of experts turning him into the Andy Robertson we came to know and love.

38:47Max Rushden:He seems like just such a lovely, lovely bloke. I'd imagine he'll be a big loss to that dressing room. One of those guys is clearly just a good lad to have around the place. And the fact that he's really good at football is also helpful, of course. But yeah, back to your original question. Brilliant maiden season for Keith Andrews. be interested to see how he goes from here. Don't leave Brentford, Keith. Stay there. Yes,

39:17Jonathan Wilson:forever. I think you're right. Yes. And I mean, rumours that Andy Robertson has agreed to go to Tottenham. So, you know, who knows? He'll be good to have around the place, but you know, I'd have another think, Andy, given what's happened. Let's not gloss over suddenly getting to the Europa League. Then Wilson, they beat Chelsea 2-1. It is, as Barry said, a phenomenal achievement.

39:35Barry Glendenning:Yeah, I mean, it's just one of those things that I never thought would happen. in my lifetime. Sunderland have only had one season a year previously, which was the Cup Winners' Cup in 73-4, where they beat Varsha of Budapest and then lost to Sporting. And to be honest, even at half-time yesterday, I didn't really think it was going to happen. I was sort of looking at the table going, hang on, Sunderland are in the Europa League? That can't happen. Because it's been odd. This has been the best season by a promoted side since Ipswich in 2000-2001. They finished fifth. Now, Sunderland finished seventh in 2001.

40:09Barry Glendenning:They also finished seventh in 2000. And certainly that 99-2000 season felt a lot more impressive than this season, I think, because they started the season so well, because they were scoring hundreds of goals. Kevin Phillips obviously won the European Golden Boot. It does feel slightly as though they've snuck in. But equally, I think they got four points fewer this season than they did in 99-2000. But, you know, they've kept going. They were really, really good at Everton last week. And seemingly, yeah, I've only seen the highlights, but seemingly physically intimidated Chelsea in the way they physically intimidated Everton.

40:46Barry Glendenning:So they need more investment. There's a danger that the strain of Europe, you know, makes next season a relegation campaign. But if they put in another 100, 120 million, they could have the Euroleague semifinals featuring Sunderland, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace, which feels like it should be a championship playoff from about 15 years ago.

41:04Max Rushden:You're right. My other Macam Jonathan mate, he has already booked his hotel room in Frankfurt for next season's Europa League final.

41:14Barry Glendenning:That's literally on my to-do list today. I mean, I'd probably be covering it anyway, but, you know, nice to get it sorted.

41:21Max Rushden:I'll bunk up with you, Wilson, if you don't. You will not.

41:27Jonathan Wilson:Gary says, Chelsea know Europe equals league title next season. It'd be interesting. Alonso is a fascinating appointment, Barney, isn't it?

41:33Barney Ronay:Yeah, it'd be very interesting to see how he gets on. The problems at Real Madrid are kind of well documented. I like the story of Alonso giving really detailed video briefings to the Madrid team and the Madrid superstar players doing theatrical snoring noises while this was going on. and him having to stop the briefing and say, I didn't realize I was at a kindergarten. Now, I don't know if he'll accompany, he'll find similar problems at Chelsea. I don't know if that's exactly the problem of the Chelsea squad. It's quite a lot of young players, isn't it? I mean, the problem was a lack of experience maybe.

42:09Barney Ronay:So maybe they're really ready to buy into someone who is really a systems manager. It's clearly very smart. It seems an odd, I can understand why he would take the job. But it's a really, for all the kind of idiocy of the way Chelsea have been run. It's an amazing opportunity and there is real talent there. So maybe it could work. I agree that not having European football be really good for them. They didn't want to play in that conference league. And the project is at a real low. It's a good moment to go in there in some ways. Although there's a World Cup in the middle of his summer of rebuilding and trying to get his message across.

42:43Barney Ronay:It will be fascinating to see how he goes. He's making Chelsea feel a bit more likeable, I think, which is strange and I don't know how to process it.

42:52Jonathan Wilson:Yeah, no, no, it's a very good point. Barry, any strong thoughts on the remaining games or the teams involved in them? Because we've done quite a bit on Bournemouth qualifying for Europe already, Manchester United, we've talked about a lot this season, who won at Brighton and, well, the Arsenal Palace game.

43:07Max Rushden:Yeah, I feel under pressure to have really strong thoughts about them now and I don't is the honest answer. Yeah, the Arsenal Palace game, that must have been a weird game to be at. I know loads of Arsenal fans were all, the ones who weren't able to go to the game were all up on the Holloway Road convening at the stadium afterwards. I was going into Talksport Towers yesterday. I've never seen so many Arsenal shirts. Every third person seemed to be wearing an Arsenal shirt. I have noticed some of their fans have moved on from celebration to score settling which is yeah a lot of shots fired from the cannons so and I presume you know I guess they're entitled to do that

43:56Jonathan Wilson:yeah Verminex says Raya and Kepa in outfield shirts and gloves for a trophy lift that happened about an hour after the final whistle Raya wasn't even in the squad should Arsenal be stripped of the title or just have points deducted for next season. And I just, on North London Forever, I was like, is this a total blind spot for me? Have they been singing this for like 50 years? Is this like you'll never walk alone? And then I realised it was, I looked it up. It was only released in 2022, but, you know, I quite like it as an anthem. You know, I can see how it works for fans. It's got all the things you need.

44:26Jonathan Wilson:I think it makes you emotional. That was interesting for me, if no one else. Christian Norgard started, Barry. He was taken off. He was hooked at halftime, but, you know, nice to see him out there. So Fulham beat Newcastle 2-0. and Bernie and Wolves both get relegated and they drew one apiece. Yes, Barney?

44:45Barney Ronay:Is it worth just noting that Arsenal won the league by seven points and won their last five games? Which is interesting. I mean...

44:53Jonathan Wilson:Well, after the City game, wasn't it? After that City defeat, yeah.

44:55Barney Ronay:The bottling and the, you know, it's not done and the idea that you were going to become an eternal meme of failure and it's not what happened. It always seemed an odd thing that they were simultaneously being accused of extreme pragmatism and of being bottlers as well and fragile. They're either too rigid, formalized and robotic or they're too brittle. It never quite added up. I feel like you can only be one of those things. But yeah, they won the league by seven points. It's pretty good.

45:26Max Rushden:Do we expect Arsenal to play the same kind of football next season? I mean, I don't like watching Arsenal matches. I find them incredibly tedious watch most of the time. I mean the last game I think I can remember them being like not knocking my blowing my socks off or anything but they beat Leeds 3-0 at Ellen Road and it was like oh that was good but apart from that it's quite a difficult watch for me as someone who doesn't care whether Arsene win the league or not I wanted them to bottle it because it would have been funny and they didn't so grand but will they play the same kind of football next season do you reckon?

46:10Barney Ronay:Well I was just going to say I think there's a legitimate point about the way that the game is broken down I think the thing that really exacerbated this feeling that they're somehow this sort of nihilistic team was the taking time out of set pieces that stuff is really infuriating I think it really affected their own football I think they took the rhythm out of their own game by doing that it's very hard to stop and start like that and that seemed like a real excessive thing and I think it really exacerbated the feel they're incredibly a boring team or whatever it is. But they still scored a lot of goals and won a lot of games.

46:42Barney Ronay:I don't really buy it. They have some brilliant players. I think probably winning a first league title, I don't see why they would change the way they play when they've won the league by seven points and they're in the Champions League final. They're agonising over the fact that we don't find them free-flowing enough. I think that they'll carry on trying to win and that's how Mikel Arteta sees it. but I don't agree that they've been boring and hard to watch I think a lot of the games have been tight but it's given us a very interesting dramatic arc and maybe yeah maybe they'll relax a bit and the players will feel able to to play a bit more in what you would call a kind of improvisational creative way because they do have some incredible talent in the team

47:23Barry Glendenning:I think well I think there's two related points here so one is I wonder if this is a way you have to play in modern football if you want to have a proper run in both the Premier League and the Champions League. And don't forget, Arsenal's budget is only the fourth highest in the Premier League. And what I think they've done is they've gone for depth of squad rather than necessarily having lots of great individuals. So as an example, maybe rather than signing Madueke and Yaccaraz, they could have signed Alexander Isak in last summer. Now that I think would have made them better to watch. It would have meant they'd scored more goals.

47:59Barry Glendenning:assuming Isak had actually come in but had a pre-season and not got injured. And one of the reasons why they haven't been great to watch is that their centre-forward, to be honest, isn't really that good. But Arteta's understanding of just how demanding the Premier League is means that he felt the depth was more important. And you have to say that's been vindicated. It may be that if they bring in an improvement for Gioca, they suddenly do look a lot sharper and brighter next season.

48:23Jonathan Wilson:What will be interesting is who will compete with them. I know at the start of the season, and a lot of people thought Liverpool would run away with it this season. They didn't, so maybe Arsenal won't be as good next year. But, you know, a lot of their competitors are in flux, so it'll be interesting to see if they run away with the Premier League by March next year. Anyway, that'll do for part two. Part three, we'll talk about the England squad, and we're all furious about it.

48:55Jonathan Wilson:Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Thomas Tuchel announced his England squad. Well, Harry Maguire announced part of it by saying he was sad. And then Harry Maguire's family all said that they were sad, that he wasn't in. The headlines are always going to be about the emissions. I guess Wilson, Foden, Palmer, Gibbs White, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Maguire, Jarrod Bowen, Lewis Hall. Some surprising inclusions, I guess Ivan Toney, Gerald Quantia, Jed Spence. But what do you make of it as a squad?

49:21Barry Glendenning:It's fine. And what I'm encouraged by is that Tuchel hasn't fallen into the trap that even Southgate fell into by the end of just picking the famous blokes. England's big problem last year, as I know they got to the final, but they didn't play well. They were very fortunate to get to the final, was that everybody was trying to play in that number 10 space. You had Foden coming in off the left. You had Saka coming in off the right. You had Harry Kane dropping deep. You had Declan Rice pushing forward. You had Bellingham, who was actually playing there. You had Cole Palmer coming off the bench doing the same thing.

49:48Barry Glendenning:England have got loads of those players who want to end up in that space. and one of the i mean i know kane had the back injury which obviously didn't help but one of the reasons he was less effective and we'd like him to be at the euros was he didn't have people running beyond him well tuchel has picked players who'll run beyond him and they might not be as glamorous as foden and palmer foden palmer haven't played well this season if you've decided we can only have three or four that type of player well don't take six maybe make the hard call trent alexander arnold is obviously a you know a great footballer he's quite an unusual right back and you know he's not just a plug-in and play player so you either got to say right he's I was starting right back everybody else has to be accommodated around him or you say actually we've got other right backs Rhys James you know is is just as good in his own way and actually he makes it easy for everybody else and then there is no place for Alexander-Arnold yeah Harry Maguire as Barney said in his column you know he's supposed to be this sort of great example of sort of line-hearted Englishmen.

50:47Barry Glendenning:Well, line-hearted Englishmen don't go sort of, they don't get their mothers completing on social media. Yeah, this is exactly the reason why he shouldn't be in the squad, because he's not going to be first choice. You don't want him, as Barney said, you don't want him moping around the tennis courts between games. So he's not so good you can accommodate that, so leave him out.

51:05Max Rushden:It's all paddle these days, though, isn't it? No one's playing tennis anymore. That's a good point.

51:12Barney Ronay:it was incredibly rude to to dan burn who for example is the player he's referring to as i mean dan burn played in essentially the same thing tuchel doesn't want to play this mcguire is always the slowest person on the pitch and and he steps backwards he drags the rest of the defensive line back with him i know football isn't a game of sprinting but that's really important that space in the field is really important and he obviously doesn't want to do that so you you can only really choose one of Maguire or Dan Byrne, and Dan Byrne played in the qualifiers, so pick him. It was a really interesting case study in the unreliable narrator.

51:48Barney Ronay:The level of delusion in that it wasn't just a narrow call that went the wrong way, it was a travesty not to pick Harry Maguire in his own mind was really surprising. Can I say on Wilson's point about Harry Kane, I've got this dream of England, this won't happen, because there's not time and no one wants to do it but the problem has been harry kane not playing with he seems to always be the furthest forward player in england teams at tournaments so you get to see him trying to sprint beyond the last defender which is obviously a terrible idea and he doesn't play like that for and i would love to play him as the number 10 with ollie watkins ahead of him so that you have a totally different dynamic kane effectively plays a number 10 for buying because the wide players do run on ahead and they're comfortable coming inside um walkins is really good form he's really quick he can score he scored in a tournament semi-final he'll be feeling good kane is england's best number 10 i don't think jude bellingham will play there but is he a number 10 i don't know i've never really seen him play well as a number 10 i don't really know what his position is kane does play

52:54Jonathan Wilson:as a nine who drops deep doesn't he like he doesn't play as a 10 he'll be in the same space

52:58Barney Ronay:as whoever is playing at number 10 when that happens. Somehow it seems to work okay with Musiala, but Musiala runs beyond him. We'll have the same sort of logjam and it'll be Kane trying to sprint beyond the centre-backs and everyone will complain about him being exhausted and injured, but it's just not his game. I'd just like to see a tournament where that doesn't happen and there's someone quick there. That would be really nice, but there's not time to do this. No one wants to do it and it won't happen.

53:24Barry Glendenning:But that's why there's the argument for picking Morgan Rodgers ahead of Bellingham, right? because Morgan Rodgers more naturally would make that run beyond him and it worked really well in the qualifiers.

53:32Barney Ronay:Yeah, he makes really good runs and he makes endless runs that way. Tuchel might pick Rodgers, I think.

53:38Jonathan Wilson:I mean, he did in the qualifiers, I think he might do it. Steve says, can we get Barry's thoughts on Harry Kane once again going missing in a big game? He scored a hat-trick in the German Cup final against Stuttgart. Barry, you are obviously furious about the squad.

53:51Max Rushden:Do you fear it? I think it's a really good squad. If I was to foam at the mouth about any exclusions or omissions, I think Adam Warren's a terrific football player. I'd have him in. And apart from that, really, I think he's a really good squad. I'm worried. I'm officially worried, Max. Okay.

54:13Jonathan Wilson:Well, it's all right. I'm sure there'll be a night on our six weeks together where you don't have to be worried anymore. And I can stare wistfully into the distance at another depressing but heroic defeat. Well done to Hull, who beat Middlesbrough in the Premier League. We've got an EFL pod tomorrow. We'll go big on that. Of course, you were there, Wilson. Did you have a nice time?

54:32Barry Glendenning:I had a nice time. It was a terrible game and it was far too hot. But I'm glad it didn't go to extra time. And I'm glad that it didn't go to the extra, extra time of potential Hull court cases saying that Middlesbrough didn't deserve to be there. But I was certainly glad it was over, put it that way.

54:51Jonathan Wilson:Any questions for the EFL pod or anything else? footballweekly at theguardian.com. Barry, you were on the minute by minute for the Scottish Cup final, Celtic beating Dunfermline.

54:58Max Rushden:Yeah, another sign. We're not allowed nice things. Everyone, I think, apart from Celtic fans, wanted Dunfermline to win in the same way that they wanted Hearts to win the title. Neil Lennon, obviously, manager of Dunfermline from the Championship, coming up against his old pal and mentor, Martin O 'Neill. And Dunfermline, I think the occasion got to them. They didn't turn up until the second half, and by then it was too late. They were 2-0 down at halftime. Celtic scored three really nice goals. Calici Inachos' goal is absolutely terrific. Just this little soft shoe shuffle, jinking past three different players before sticking the ball to net.

55:45Max Rushden:I didn't think he had it in his locker, but he did. I know they're only done firmly in players, but you can only jink past what's in front of you. And look, Celtic have had this season of total turmoil and still come out at the end of it, winning the double. I don't know what that says about Scottish football, but we need to get Ewan back on.

56:08Jonathan Wilson:A couple of emails to finish. Dr. Matthew Clarke writes, Hello, gents. Thank you for your excellent football podcast and all of the niche knowledge I glean and recycle at the pub with mates. I happen to run a vasectomy service in Bristol and I get 20 minutes in an entirely unique position to speak with each patient when all is laid bare. In such circumstances, I find the conversation is surprisingly candid. We often veer towards football. As an Arsenal fan, I confess this may happen more recently. You will be pleased to hear that in these moments, I recommend to anyone listening how brilliant your podcast is.

56:38Jonathan Wilson:Not only enough, they appear to listen to me. If you ever want a Q &A on vasectomy on your show, please do give me a shout. Keep up the great work. Dr. Matthew Clark, BSC, BMBS, MRCS, MRCGP, SSM, VAS, which may be vasectomy at the end of it. I'm not sure. Yes, Barney?

56:56Barney Ronay:Why is vasectomy such a theme of the pod? I feel like people are trying to stop the pod from reproducing.

57:01Jonathan Wilson:Well, it happened organically that somebody wrote in to say that they were listening to us while I had a vasectomy. And then others also chimed in to say they were also. That also happened to them. it was the same time as lots of people having car crashes while listening and their car would be a write off and Football Weekly would continue to play These people who had

57:19Barney Ronay:not planned to have a vasectomy when they started listening to the pod by the end of it they're in the clinic under the knife

57:28Jonathan Wilson:As this is humanity cannot continue

57:32Max Rushden:this is all we can do. I think getting a vasectomy is a very arrogant procedure you know it's like i'm having so much sex that i need to go and get a procedure done to stop me conceiving more children you know just just do it the natural way like i do abstinence

57:54Jonathan Wilson:i mean but i would say if you did have two young children you might think even who was even if you just tripped over by accident you'd be like i don't want i don't want the chances we finished with an email from Paul with the subject matter. I may have eaten Wilson's mum. Good day to you, Max Barry. Whoever lines the panel today. I'm writing perhaps a bit late, but I feel that I must, given the frequency of deja vu I've been experiencing from the pod. A few weeks ago, I travelled from Michigan, where I lived to England, to walk the UK coast-to-coast trail. I flew into Manchester and swiftly boarded a train up to St.

58:28Jonathan Wilson:B's. Leaving Manchester Piccadilly, only minutes into my journey, I saw out of my right-sided window a view of the Etihad Stadium, and of course my mind wound back to a recent controversy surrounding Mr. Barney Roney. I toggled my way back to the conversation of the episode, which I had listened to on the plane that morning, included that his claims to be incorrect, though there were rear-facing seats in the car I was in. This was on which side the Etihad was on when you were on the train, Barney, but we don't have time for you to defend yourself. Days passed. Yeah, it's on the right side. It's on the right-hand side.

58:58Barry Glendenning:It's on the right as he had north, absolutely categorically 100%. Okay. Days passed. You'd have nothing left if you had a sound.

59:03Barney Ronay:No, no, but the things I may have been facing backwards in my seat. Like, you know, that's the point.

59:09Jonathan Wilson:You can't get angry with the audience. Days passed and I completed my walk in the north, returned to Manchester for my return. That evening I walked through central Manchester listening to the latest episode where Jonathan Wilson recounted the tales of him spreading his parents' ashes. He told of a bench on the Haweswater in the Lake District where he scattered his mother's... No, it's on Haweswater.

59:27Barry Glendenning:It's Haweswater.

59:27Jonathan Wilson:Oh, dear. Well, that means Paul definitely hasn't. He carries on to say, where he scattered his mother's ashes, only for them to later blow back onto a picnicking family. I was shocked again to be experiencing a pod story in some bend of time. It so happens that I'd walked the entire length of Horsewater days before listening to this and had stopped on a bench to eat an orange and a can of tuna.

59:50Barry Glendenning:Also, it was in 2019, so... Okay. Unless she'd lingered.

59:55Jonathan Wilson:Yeah. Perhaps in the flecks of dormant dust that had blown onto my lunch. I too consumed a portion of Wilson's mother. It's unclear to me, but I can't help feel that I may have had prophetic and prescient relationship to the pod and that all anecdotes past and future have stirred their way into my consciousness. And I neither remember nor forget them. All aside, I want to thank you for your work you do on the pod and your individual pieces. One of these days, I'll heed the appeal to defend press freedom. Yes, donate. All the best, Paul. I'm getting married in a few months. Oh, here we go. If Barry could offer some well wishes to my fiancée, Sutton and me, it would make our day.

1:00:25Jonathan Wilson:So just to confirm, Paul did not sit on a bench near where you scattered your mother's ashes. It wasn't Haweswater. It was Owlswater. So Paul is, okay. So, okay, we can discount this, which is a shame, but I've read the email now. Barry, it's Paul and Sutton. They're getting married.

1:00:41Max Rushden:Well, I wish Paul and Sutton the very best of luck. I'm still overwhelmed by the subject of his email. I may have eaten Wilson's mum. I really don't know what to say beyond that well that's okay very good luck to Paul and Sutton

1:01:02Jonathan Wilson:yeah good luck to both of you and that will do for today thanks everybody thank you Barry thank you thanks Barney cheers everyone thank you Wilson cheers thank you Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray our executive producer is Joel Grove back tomorrow

1:01:29Barry Glendenning:This is The Guardian.