Another Arsenal clean sheet, Liverpool have life, and are Manchester United still "back"? Men in Blazers 11/03/25

26:09250 goals for Liverpool, only the third player to do it after the great Ian Rush and the legendary Roger Hunt. He's now equal Wayne Rooney's 276 goals for Manchester United for the most goal involvement in the Premier League for a single club. By the way, I said to Mo Salah, almost every goal of yours rolls up some kind of record now. What was fascinating, as he did it raw, almost a sign of his current mindset, the struggles, the challenge, the mentality, not a smile on his face. There was none of the sitting in front of a beloved cop. There was none of his patented Archer celebration. There was none of that in this moment, as big as it was for him.

26:49And he would have known Raw because he is a player that's very acutely aware of every single goal, every single record. It was just stoic. Yeah, he's had a difficult time this season personally and professionally. And he spoke about it after the game that he hasn't been happy with his performances this season. He hasn't been happy with results this season. That's two and two now. And maybe that's the start of a little bit of a turnaround for him. But I think there was a message in that stoicism. It was partly I'm not happy about how I've been playing and how things have been going, but maybe it was partly I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with you either because I'm aware of the criticism.

27:27Yeah, you want me to get my nipples out. I'm not giving you that. Exactly. And I do find it, I think, one of the things that's been really odd about Liverpool's difficulty, ongoing difficulty, they've got Real Madrid and Manchester City this week. I think there's a very good chance that there is another twist to the corner turning. It's the speed with which people turn. You know, they won the league last season. They obviously suffered a tragedy in the summer. Mohamed Salah is their greatest player of the modern era. Certainly Liverpool's best player since Steven Gerrard. And yet within what, you have a month where you don't win all the games and suddenly it's, well, sell Salah to Saudi Arabia and sack on a slot.

28:04You can't tell people how to be football fans, how to support their team. But it's not like that. I mean, it is amazing. I mean, we talked about this before, when Liverpool had that off-season after Klopp delivered the much-dreamt-of title win. You know, when there were people all over, so FSG, get out what you're doing in me club. Like that pivot in modern football, just at the extremes. I'm always like, God, I wish FSG would come and ruin my club like they have Liverpool Football Club. But into the second half, it would get worse for Aston Villa. Became utterly blunt. Poor Ollie Watkins. He had just 18 touches, zero shots in 73 truly sad moments.

28:45Second Liverpool goal, again caused by Villa, coughing up, playing out the back, Liverpool recovered, charged straight down the gut, Gravenberg charged in, left foot strike, heavily deflected past a flat-footed and quite bemused Martinez. Raw, both goals had the stench of good fortune about them. Does it matter? Well, no, I think ultimately that is what happens in football matches. And I think you could make the case that quite a few of the goals that Liverpool have conceded in the bad run had the stench of bad fortune about them. Sometimes the ball bounces for you. I think the bitter thing was it seemed odd to me that Villa were trying to play out from the back when all we've seen in the last, what, month, six weeks is if you don't do that, Liverpool can't hurt you.

29:28If you go over their press, not only do you get to have as many shots as you like, but you completely negate that pressure, which even Jurgen Klopp used to describe as his best playmaker, was pressure. The fact that Villa played into it and paid for it, I think, is maybe worth remembering because it's easy to kind of characterise that style, that direct style, as rudimentary and simple and all you have to do is this. But a lot of teams can't play it well. A lot of teams aren't set up to play it. They don't have the personnel to play it. So there's a real risk for a manager like Emery. do you go to Anfield and say we're going to do something we have never done before against this one opponent and see if it works or do you go and say well look we are good enough to try and beat this team that has no confidence playing the way we normally play and if that happens it might mean you play into Liverpool's hands but also it's staying true to yourself I think it'll be interesting as the season develops to see how many teams are prepared to completely change their style against Liverpool to say just for this one week only we are stoked 2008.

30:38Manchester United kind of did it and I say that genuinely without any bitterness. They have every right to do it. For Brentford and for Palace, two of the other teams to beat Liverpool, wasn't a massive shift. They just played their normal game and it suits them perfectly. But what does City do next week? Does City go, well, actually, we're quite happy going along. We did it against Arsenal. We will sit back, absorb pressure and we'll try and hit you on the counter-attack. Or does City at the Etihad feel they have to play like Manchester City? God, that's just one of the most intriguing early markers of this season.

31:10What Pep does after. Remember that Arsenal game, shields up, how he plays it, what they do. We'll talk more about him in a minute. I've got to credit Aston Villa. They kept plugging away to the end. Sancho, quite, I'd say, a flashing, motivated cameo. Marlon, an ebullient force of energy. They felt kind of if we get one, we can get two. but it was not to be. Liverpool, clean sheet, which has been a while. They will not be stripped of their title like Prince Andrew. Anfield rang out to Arna Slott's name. He brought us number 20 and his name is Arna Slott. Really a symbolic riposte to the social media keyboard dickheads demanding he be fired.

31:51How do you understand what was different? There was an intensity. There was a cohesion in the press. Key for me was Andy Robertson on the field, both his play, but also so Virgil could focus purely on his game, not to have like an eye on his kind of like scrappy-do fullback Kirkus. Also, difference between McAllister on Wednesday and McAllister yesterday was really, really stark. You know, or is it just a matter of like, we're just going to get Simakas back and we're going to be back to normal? Is it crisis overall? Or do we have to now go through the system of reinvigorating in all of the new multi-million dollar talent like Vert, Kerk, Ezenizak and begin the rebuild all over again.

32:33I don't think it's crisis over. As I say, they've got two really difficult games this week. To me, the biggest difference, Rog, was that Liverpool didn't let Villa create many chances. So obviously they hit the post twice, one of them very early through Morgan Rodgers. But if you look at the XG, they were low percentage shots. I mean, the shot from Rodgers is brilliant, but also if that goes in, it's a world-class goal. You know, it's relatively rare that goals like that go in. Liverpool restricted Villa to not very many opportunities, which meant that Liverpool didn't concede first. And the way that the league has gone this season is if Liverpool score first, they generally win.

33:10And if they concede first, they generally lose. That's kind of the pattern. Because when you're chasing a game, as Slott said this a million times, you have to take more risks. You leave yourself more exposed. The fact that Liverpool would go into half-time, thanks to Emi Martinez, ahead, that was the thing that made the difference. From here on in, I guess he has to stick with this system. Izak isn't fit, which in a way makes it a little bit easier for the time being to bed the team back into some sort of form and then try and introduce the most expensive player in English history gradually and hope that he can do more than score one goal again in Southampton.

33:47Kirk, as I think it makes complete sense to let Robertson take the lead for the time being, and Kyrkhez to take his time to get up to speed, what it means to play for Liverpool, what you need to do in that system. The really big question mark for me is Wurz because Wurz is a player who you kind of have to construct a side around. You can't say to Florian Wurz, we want you to play as one of the three because that's not what you promised him. You kind of have to make him the focal point of your creative endeavours. How slot does that? I have no idea. Real Madrid arrive at Anfield on Tuesday, then the visit that we've mentioned of Manchester City.

34:23next week. Very quick one. Will Anfield embrace Trent or will they boo him before he comes back on loan? I think they take him back on loan. I think he probably gets booed but not by everybody. That would be my instinct. There'd be more boos than cheers. Hedged booze. Hedged booze. Hedged shoes. That's football. It's why we watch. And from Liverpool too. Oh, gosh, that mighty opponent they will face next Sunday. Manchester City, three. Oh, Bournemouth, one. Golden War Cherries had arrived at the Etihad. I think they'd come nine times, lost each of them, but they'd never come in second place. Arriving on D 'Andoni Ereola, the Bastion, that brain in a bottle many believe will replace Guardiola.

35:16City ultimately, they fielded an attacking 11, an optimistic 11, and they opened up with no respect. All out blitz chess. Junior Kruppi finished off a lightning counter started by Tyler Adams inside the first minute. It was offside. It did not need to be. Junior Kruppi, the adrenaline of you. City tried to pound back. O 'Reilly and Foden causing moments of panic. Bournemouth sat back, sprung forward, but then sprung forward with a little bit too much abandon. Highline, I think it was on Ange Postacoglu, reckless settings, Raw, in the 17th minutes. Sinesse charged forward, tried to press Cherky a little headlessly, and the French recruit just blithely, beautifully, stunningly, what a moment of just improvised genius, nodded the ball into space to unleash the gimp.

36:08Harlan into acres of space, halfway of the field, Rumble, in on goal to finish through the keeper. All that raw milk coming out in that moment. Raw, I know he's just a YouTube influencer, but I also know Mr. Beast does not have 25 goals in 16 games for Clevel Country this season. It's celebration, the Harlan robot celly. For me, it was just a very self-aware, unbelievably meta moment, just like a goal-scoring robot does the robot to try and throw us off the scent from the fact that he really is a bloody robot. I'm not falling for it. He needs to kind of up his game, I think. It is meta, but it's slightly obvious meta reference.

36:51So I would prefer it if he kind of pulled away half of his face to reveal like a T-1000 thing. That is where we need to be getting to with Erling Haaland celebrations. He's done it yet enough practice, Rog. Yeah, I mean, it's like I am hiding in plain sight. You think I am a robot. I am a robot. Was that what he was saying? It was like wheels within wheels. There were just layers to it. If he just like plummeted his hand into his own body and pulled out just a stream of chips, chips um like i would be i'd be less surprised it would be i mean surely there is a way a way in which he can get some sort of temporary tattoo of wiring so he lets his if he lifts his jersey up yeah it just looks like wiring that would be a far better that that's the next level of celebration special tattoos i like this this is just like two people who don't know a lot about engineering trying to have an engineering convey part of the podcast i know enough about um about footballers to know that the limit of the joke will have been they think I'm a robot what if I do the robot that is the joke that Harlan did ha ha ha ha ha that's amazing it's like um it's like Brian and Bumo they think I'm bald I've had a hair transplant um although that's a little bit different by the way Bournemouth credit them resilient this is my moment of the weekend let me enjoy it it was ultimately irrelevant but from a set piece god bless from Wappingers Falls New York.

38:13Tyler Adams, first goal since I think played for Leipzig in 2021. Really a significant moment. He told us last time he came on, I actually think he's coming on this week, which I can't wait to talk to him about this goal moment. But he told us last time he came on that Andoni Arola said, you must add more goals to your game. Here, Donnarumma, let's just say still adjusting to the corner frenzy of Premier League life, flapping at the ball after being quite cleverly and almost fiendishly, momentarily distracted by Scott. That's what you see now. On a corner, the attackers will just do something illegal to the goalkeeper, but for a very tiny second.

38:51And then he unlocked his arm. Donnarumma was confused. Pep Guardiola later said 100 % a foul, criticise a referee, but no one knows what fouls are in corners at the moment. Adams reacted quickest to the slop, slapped him. He had no idea what Selly to do, just shouted out, Ev Nielsen! Ev Nielsen! As if he was like Ev Nielsen was the most potent goal scorer he could think of. It was a lovely, lovely moment, Rob. It was and deserved for a player like Adams, I think, who is such a central but such an overlooked part of that Bournemouth team. And as you say, kind of reward for Bournemouth's bravery in attacking Manchester City.

39:28We talked about, with Arsenal, that sense of Burnley saying, OK, you're winning now, there's nothing we can do about this. First of all, I don't think Manchester City quite have that aura back yet. I think teams, as they do with Liverpool, still look at City and think, there's a chance here for us. But also, I don't think Bournemouth know any fear, to be perfectly honest. I think they wouldn't look at Arsenal and think, we can't score. They'd look at Arsenal and say, we haven't scored yet. What about if we try a little bit harder? And that is to Iriola's enormous credit. Yeah, I mean, they play high risk, high reward football with that high line, with that press.

40:03And again, it was Cherokee. You struggle with a thigh injury. in terms of playing time this season. Broke that press again with a sublime flick. Harlan, if you look at the play, was actually rumbling forward before his teammate had even released it, finished from an acute angle. His teammate was actually, I think, celebrating before he'd even finished it. It was reciprocal. Made that finish seem easy. By the way, I'm old enough to remember, Roar, when City goals had to legally come as a result of 25 passes mesmerically placed together, then pulling the ball back from the byline. Now we just see Haaland charging forward as if he's chasing a raw steak.

40:4213th goal of the season in the Premier League. Ridiculous numbers. Kind we laugh at that Harry Kane scores in the Bundesliga. We're like, yeah, Bundesliga attacks. This is the Premier League. Their own goals is City's second top scorer at Sofo. A Liverpool fan, I think, in our Discord, pointed out that Haaland's greatest contextual statistic is that he scored more than Everton has conceded, which is some feat. Pep Guardiola has coached some of the greatest collective squads we've ever seen in modern football history. Is this his new creation, his new invention, football's most potent, most powerful one-man team?

41:19Well, Pep, to be fair to him, has always said, if you looked at the figures that Messi racked up in his Barcelona teams, that there was something similar about that. The difference, I think, is Messi fitted that system. Messi kind of was capable of these individual moments of brilliance, obviously. He's Lionel Messi. But equally, he was part of the play. He added to the overall impression, the pattern of Guardiola's Barca. Haaland, it seems like City are now constructed to maximise his opportunities. And the one thing that really struck me in the course of this game was City crossing the ball and crossing the ball properly to the far post for headers.

41:56Because that for a long time was the anti-Guardiola move. You kind of retained possession. You horseshoed around the box. You worked the opening. Crossing is, even when done really well, it is kind of surrendering the ball to luck. Because if a defender jumps a little bit higher than your striker, or at times their leap, you lose the ball and you're vulnerable. But everything about City now seems to be designed to maximise Haaland's opportunities. It's working incredibly well. I should, for the sake of balance, Rog, we said about Arsenal needing to score more from open play. City could probably do with not allowing one player to score all of their goals.

42:32That's not a great idea. because if Haaland gets injured, that's a bit of a worry. But, you know, you've got Cherky coming back, Marmouche coming back. There are goals in that team. But at the moment, it does look an awful lot like the story of this Premier League season, for the title at least, is going to be this absolute collective endeavour from Arsenal against Erling Haaland. Yeah, I mean, it is remarkable. By the way, I thought you were going to say about Arsenal being too reliant on corners. I think City are one of three teams in the Premier League who have not yet scored from a corner, which is really rather remarkable.

43:06You know, Pep always either chasing trends or creating them. Here going completely against the grain of what the leitmotiv of this season has been. Another incredible Haaland stat. I think he's scored more than 10 Premier League teams in their entirety. When I watch City, I find my eyes just constantly going to Haaland. The moment City get on the ball in and around their own halfway line, And his movement, his burst of speed into space is really mesmeric. Almost shocking when someone else scored. Makeshift fullback Nico Riley killed off the game around the hour mark. I've seen someone not named Erling scoring for City.

43:45I didn't know it was allowed. Riley actually used the giant Norwegian as a massive decoy. Slotted home, 3-1. Cue Pep Guardiola kisses. Nine wins in the last 10 home game. City have done it all, as I say, without scoring from a corner. Bournemouth, second loss of the season. and the other one on the first day of the season against Liverpool. That not bad man. I think any Cherries fan, I know a lot of deflated Bournemouth fans in our mailbag, but you would have bitten my arm off at the beginning of this season and you know you would. City, stealthily up to second place. It is fascinating to watch them.

44:20Their football is not inevitable. They almost seem fallible, yet potent. This is a new City world. Watching Pet Blue kisses, watching Haaland do the robot almost seems more joyous because it is so much more human. Yeah, it's new for Guardiola. And what's really interesting to me about it is that it feels both like a beginning and an end. Because there is something, obviously something that he is trying to construct at City, a sort of Manchester City 3.0 under Guardiola or whatever. But I don't know whether he's building it for himself or whether he's building it for somebody else because so much of what he's done this season, signing Donnarumma, kind of recalibrating the team so that it basically feeds into Haaland because they have this one super weapon that they can use.

45:06A lot of it feels like the act of a man who wants one of two major trophies this season and then he rides off into the sunset. And yet you feel as though this is a new type of Manchester City that's starting to form. This is a new kind of era for the team. One where the collective isn't the star, The big blonde Norwegian is the star. And I don't know how to kind of, I don't know how to join those two things together. The big blonde YouTuber. Look, it's the future. You say he's, you know, Guardiola's not following the corner trend. He is absolutely following the content creator trend. He's taken someone from the baller league and put them up front.

45:45He's got a YouTuber. What more do you want? Well, no, Pep's totally committed to this when he starts to play Drewski in the hole. You talk about beginnings and ends. Let's talk about some middles. Nottingham Forest 2, Manchester United 2. A game that took place one year to the day. Ruben Amarim took over at Old Trafford. The Portuguese entered this one on a, what, three-match Premier League win streak. They back. Trademark, the longest winning run of his tenure. I actually spoke to Amarim on Friday in an interview that were going to pop out imminently. We went deep. by crap you not on whether Frank Eilert will ever get that haircut.

46:23But into this game, strange bit of spite in the pregame based upon comments, I love this, that Sean Deitch, the pundit, made when watching Manchester United, where he kind of boldly claimed he could win games with Amarin's squad playing a 4-4-2, which left Amarin to strike back, forcing Deitch now, the manager, to backtrack before the game and explain, this is like watching a politician, Clickbait kills everything. I just, it's so crazy. If only clickbait could defend corners raw, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In this, Deutche's first home Premier League game in charge at Forest. His team actually started strongly.

47:02Resolute at the back, full of intent going forward, but 37th minute, United on the attack. Ball, stay with me here. Incorrectly judged to have crossed the end line before Forest, Nicolas Savona could save it. United rewarded a corner they did not deserve. of corners Forrest Achilles' heel. And for the second week in a row, the tricky trees conceded from a wrongly awarded set piece. It's like the A-team unjustly accused of a crime they did not commit. From the resulting corner, Casemiro left to do his best Harry Maguire cover band impression. He rose like a Brazilian slabhead to nod home a free header.

47:37Raw, we know VAR can't currently intervene in these situations, but there's over 25 cameras at every single Premier League ground to quickly help, as opposed to, you know, the assistant referee from like 40 yards away, just guessing. Corners in our day and age are like penalties. This is a mad one not to automate, right? Yeah, it's one of those, along with kind of first yellow cards that are wrongly awarded, that I find really strange. But at the same time, where does it end, Rog? If you're relitigating every single decision, you're kind of changing the nature of the sport. So yeah, Sean Dyche has every reason to be crossed that for two weeks in a row, his team have conceded from a set piece.

48:19That should not have been a set piece. But at the same time, I'm not entirely sure that's not a price worth paying to not continually, you know, for a football match, not to basically be waiting around while someone checks a monitor. This would have taken about, you know, 25 seconds. Where does it end? It ends at human truth rule. And I do, I believe in human truth philosophically, but don't let me get ahead of myself. And don't let me get ahead of a Sean Dyche halftime team tour, which probably, if I know him well enough, probably involved a couple of shots of Bell Scotch whiskey and some nut punches handed out to a couple of players who are on this crap list, talking about being switched on, clickbait, switched on.

49:01Whatever he did, God bless. Forrest came out, two goals in 102 seconds. First, just three minutes after the restart. Lovely Forrest build-up. Ryan Yates clipped a ball back post. Morgan Gibbs-White, big boy, the mad to head past the completely outstretched Lowman's 1-1. And then a mere 39 seconds after the restart. Goal ripped straight out the Deitch playbook. Deflected cross in the Nottinghamshire night. Mad scramble. No one won the header. The ball dropped inside the box and it was Savona. Oh, God, there's a justice to this who stabbed home. Oh, vengeance. 2-1. Raw, two goals in this short span.

49:38And when this happens at this level, I mean, it's just mental lapse, isn't it? Defensively. But also partly I always think it's kind of momentum shifting. You know, you feel suddenly the team is, they'd obviously suffered an enormous injustice, Rog, the sort that in years to come will be investigated by various authorities at the Hague. They conceded a corner wrongly. Clickbait! Clickbait. It's clickbait refereeing, that's the problem. Whistlebait. Clickbait. And suddenly, you know, they get a goal, a lovely goal as well from Gibbs White. And the city ground erupts, the noise is there, the momentum's with Forrest.

50:12I think United's confidence is still probably quite fragile, even after those three wins. And in those moments, it is dangerous. You see it quite a lot that games are so finely poised that when momentum shifts, it shifts pretty starkly. I think that's what the truth of the modern Premier League is. Yeah, I actually admired United in this one. They lacked the cutting edge that we've seen in the past couple of games. In place of that, we actually saw a real resilience. 81st minute off a corner. Remember, no team in the entire Premier League has shipped more from corners this season, not in Forest.

50:43Ball half clear to the edge of the box, where a mad pounced, plucked the ball out of the sky with a left foot of vengeance on the volley. When you saw that, you were like, wow, bloody hell, 99.9 % of humans would whiff, obviously. But 99.99 % of professional footballers would probably have smashed that high and wide over the bar. Mar just swept it, turned that ball into essentially the unidentified intercontinental ballistic missile in the House of Dynamite. At the death, United could have won it. Another fantastic and mad strike. Frantically and brilliantly cleared off the line by Murillo. United's winning run taps out at three.

51:21Cue relief and Murph for the haircut. Fane keeps living. His meme work keeps going. Where are you on United in terms of their backness? United are back. I think we continue to, we have to, the official status is that Manchester United are back. They're only not back if they lose a game. I think it's a positive point. It wasn't the smooth, free-flowing, confident performance you'd seen in A's Brighton, say. And it wasn't the really effective, precise, pocket-picking in A's Liverpool. but it was gritty, it was well organised, it was disciplined, it was a tough point at a tough ground against an opponent that is quite close to the bottom of the table and has a lot of reasons to be scrapping.

52:05So I think Amarin will have taken that as an enormously positive result, particularly because they came back from 2-1 down to draw 2-1. It will feel like a point gained. I think it doesn't prevent United being back, Rog. Yeah, I mean, I thought that was fascinating actually watching Amarin postgame. It didn't feel like the the status of past average performances were just like everything suddenly feels crap and the fans unload on one scapegoat player or another. But that low point of Grimsby feels like it's almost in another life now. The focus post-game kind of just shift immediately to the journey to Spurs next weekend.

52:44And in a sense, big picture. United can do big picture now. That's probably great progress rather than just gut snap reaction to one terrible result. And a sense that 10 points out of 12 is still an incredibly good run of form. Given where they were, it's an astonishing run of form. As you say, Grimsby feels like an awfully long time ago. so does the part where it looked basically unfathomable that Amorim would keep his job until his year anniversary. He looks like, weirdly, he's probably in the strongest position now that he's ever been as Manchester United manager, certainly since the first few weeks.

53:18It looks like the players are starting to get the principles of what he wants. The win at Liverpool is kind of proof of concept, I think, that this can work. It'll be interesting to see what happens if they were to go to Spurs and lose or if they were to hit a bit of a rough patch. after the international break. I agree with you. It does feel as though United now, for the first time in a long time, are thinking, where does this result fit into our long-term plan? I don't know how permanent that is if they were to have another bad couple of weeks. I did say to Amarib when we finished chatting, I hope this is the low point.

53:55Chatting to me of your time at Old Trafford. Talking of Tottenham. Oh my God. Tottenham, Nill. Chelsea won. A game that honestly felt existential before kickoff. Yes, Spurs are in third, but they hadn't really truly excelled. Had a very kind opening fixture list. And their home form, they gleaned a meagre four of their total 17 points. That robust, reactive, set play-powered football that they play on the road that I'd seen at the Hill Dickinson can only thrive without the judgment of a hungry home crowd. God bless Chelsea. also a team that are an enigma. Football's kind of reigning madhouse, undisciplined chaos.

54:37I wrote in the Raven, this game felt like a crossover episode of that old show, Entreatment. And I would have bitten your arm off for an episode of Entreatment in the first half. It was honestly hard to watch. It was like watching two teenage kind of scrappers attack each other with very, very tiny hammers. Stop, start, fair. Lots of set pieces, lots of injuries, more set pieces. It was grinding in truth. Chelsea, God bless, have beaten Spurs. This is incredible. Four times running, five of the last six at Tottenham. So it was almost no surprise when Chelsea took the lead. Mickey van der Ven scored twice at Everton last week.

55:16Still in the goal habit, but sadly as creator here, no team have made more mistakes leading to goals than Spurs who are tied. God bless, with walls, which is not where you want to be. The supremely potent, Kaiseido, having a runner form, which has really just established him as the most potent midfielder in the Premier League. He nicked the ball off him, artfully maintained his balance while improvising a slip pass to João Pedro, who had the composure to go all scooped. There it is. Net his first goal for Chelsea since August the 30th. Maresca celebrated. Thomas Frank kicked a water bottle in disgust.

55:50That's why we watch Roar, isn't it, for the cinema? It is. And the shot of Maresca celebrating in ultra HD, 4K. hey, Moresta wearing that kind of lounge wear that makes him look a little bit like he's about to mug a grandma. And then in the background, you just had this very svelte Danish man kicking something. That was better than anything that happened on the field. The one thing I'd say about Caicedo, he is holding Chelsea's season together. He is the project. He's the franchise. Because they paid a huge amount of money for him. He is worth every penny. If Chelsea are to build on their Club World Cup win, if they are to kind of turn this into a positive season, if they start to ape the Dodgers, Rog, and maybe have a little bit of glory, it's going to be about Caicedo.

56:38And it's strange that we'll occasionally talk about City as being a one-man team in Ireland, or there have been spells when United are a one-man team with Bruno Fernandes. Chelsea, especially without Cole Palmer, it is Moises Caicedo and 10 other people.

56:56God bless come back to us Cole come back Premier League is better with you and this game would have been better Vecario kind of kept things close there was an incredible smother of a João Pedro shot game became just niggly quasi-intentional fouls in there Tottenham looked disconnected they looked discombobulated they looked mistake prone they were booed off at half time they couldn't create Xavi Simons departed one assist No goals in 12 games with the club. Barely a dent in this one. Tottenham, honestly, I love the club. But watching that place, it really scared me. I was thinking about the Hill Dickinson.

57:38It felt airless in that stadium. The host barely laid a glove on Chelsea. I mean, if they wanted to prove that they could ball at home, this was the complete opposite of that. That was what was frightening about this. It was Vicario stopping a crushing beatdown. Tottenham had an XG of 0.05, one shot on goal at home. I want to talk about this, Rour. This is crazy to me, this double nature of Spurs under Thomas Frank at home. They're like Dr. Donald Blake, scrawny human with a lame leg. But when he strikes up Walking Kane on the ground, he could become Tottenham away. Thor, the mighty god of thunder.

58:16Four points from their first five league games at home. Join worst ever Premier League start there. The Thomas Frank kicker, the water bottle, was probably the closest they came to scoring. Spurs fans left foaming, left to decode. The Mickey Van de Ven and Jed spent snub of their manager's handshake at full time as if it was like the Zapruder film. This is where we are now as football fans. How do you understand their complete impotence at home when they're so superlative anywhere but in North London? I think it's what you said, Rog. I think that teams have to play a certain way in front of their own fans.

58:55I think there are certain things and certain fan bases that won't accept what appears to be passivity, even if it's deliberate, even if it's strategic. I think, and I put Spurs certainly in that category. There is a sense that they have to exert agency on games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, whereas on the road, on most occasions, they can benefit from the fact the other team is meant to have the ball a bit as well, that their fans will tolerate that. There's quite a few teams like that. I think West Ham are like that. I think West Ham fans expect their team to try and make the game at home.

59:31I think it's probably true of Everton, isn't it? That either Goodison Park or at the Hill Dickinson, Everton fans don't really like it, in my memory, if their team sits back and tries to absorb pressure. They won't really tolerate it. Yeah, I mean, the Spurs story this season is so complicated. They are still, they're in fifth place, but they're getting booed off. It reminds me of like that joke at the beginning of Annie Hall. What is it like? The old joke about the bad food at the Catskills Hotel. It's terrible tasting. Yes, and in such small portions. By the way, this statistic, the starting front four in their last five Premier League games for Spurs have not registered a single goal involvement.

1:00:13They've almost replaced the days of the reckless highline with this very, very stilted, unspurs-like DNA kind of fair. For Chelsea, a 1-0 win that actually sounded closer than it was. Chelsea could have had goal after goal. By the way, two goals just in injury time. Didn't need them. Six wins in seven visits to Spurs. That blip against Sunderland corrected from the week before. And you can tell at the end the way they celebrated. I'm not sure whether Spurs are a rival or just a weakling that they love to beat up, feel all the better about themselves. We will see biggest win of the weekend for Chelsea.

1:00:50No red cards, baby. From Spurs to clubs in real trouble, Fulham three, Wolves nil. By the way, lost in everything we're about to discuss. Relief for Fulham ending a four successive league loss run. Cruz really against 10-man Wolves. Their manager at the time, Vitor Pereira, called the performance, quote, the worst of my tenure. This was a tenure with no wins in 14 games, 189 days. So he had a lot to choose from. His own traveling fans sang prophetically, you're getting sacked in the morning. Came to be true Sunday morning. Walls bottom of the Premier League without a win from their opening 10 games this season.

1:01:25Fired their manager. The fourth dismissal of this campaign, more permanent sackings in the Premier League at this stage of the season than any other before. This is where we are now. Every single move is so costly. The crazy thing about this, Pereira lasted just 45 days after being handed a new three-year contract, talking about costly. That's almost reckless board behavior, which we'll discuss on another day. But Vito Pereira, what an arc he had. Less than a year, arrived last December, Wolves in 19th place, and they take like nine points from 16 games. Totally resurrected the team, joyously harvested 33 points from 22 games.

1:02:06They were saved by April, but then they sold Cunha to Manchester United, sold Ryan Aitnuri to Manchester City, the squad a shadow of itself. This season being really a garbage can on fire. The meta question is, do we ever know how good a manager really is? No, just managers are totally dependent on context. And I think clubs generally are kind of reluctant to acknowledge that. So Pereira came in when Wolves were at a really low ebb and he was clearly exactly what that group of players needed at that exact time. He was this kind of passionate, quite irascible, very intense figure. And the results were spectacular.

1:02:44As you say, they were safe by April. By the end, it didn't really feel as though they were in a relegation battle. And only part of that was because the three teams that went down, the three newly promoted sides, were dreadful, apart from Ipswich, who were okay. At that point, if this was 1990s Italy, Rog, Wolves would have said, Vitor, thank you for your service. We're going to appoint somebody else now. Italian football has this concept of the tragetatore, which is the ferryman, the guy who guides you from one side of the bank to the other. And at the end of the season, the clubs don't give them long contracts.

1:03:16They say, thanks, bye. We're going to go and get someone who we think can fulfill our longer term ambitions. And often what happens is that doesn't work out. So they go and get another ferryman at the end of that season. Whereas in England, we still seem to have this kind of quite sweet, naive loyalty where we think, well, this tiny sample in these extreme circumstances, that feels exactly indicative of what's going to happen next season. Here's a three-year contract. I was at Wolves' game against Newcastle a few weeks ago. And, you know, Wolves were OK, to be honest. They put up a fight. They're a big physical team.

1:03:50They work hard. They lack a bit of quality. But you could sort of see something coming together at that stage. and Pereira afterwards was full of kind of optimism and fight and all that stuff that you'd expect. But at the same time, you look at what's happened around him to the squad at Wolves, not just in Pereira's time, but over the last two or three years, it's been continually weakened. There doesn't appear to be any long-term vision. As we're recording, Rog, the person that they look like they're going to appoint is Gary O 'Neill, who's the guy they sacked last time. This is not a well-run club.

1:04:24This is not a club that's got an idea of where it wants to be. This is not a club that's capable of saying to a manager, you have done the thing we wanted you to do. Thank you very much. We're going to appoint somebody else. And clubs like that eventually get relegated. By the way, I'd love to see Wolves now. This is their mood. Just like have this tandem of coaches, Gary O 'Neill replacing Vito Pereira, and then Vito Pereira replacing Gary O 'Neill. And just like for the next couple of seasons, this is our duo. We're just going to new manager bounce our way perpetually to like 16th, 17th place.

1:04:59It's as good a plan as whatever Wolves are actually doing, Raj. It's amazing. Talking about plans, West Ham 3, Newcastle 1. What? The Hammers? Honestly, before this one, living in purgatory. Worst start to a Premier League season in team history. And Nuno's team began in a self-soiling way, a reminder if we needed it, that life is cruel and football is crueler. First, Jared Berwyn cut inside, unleashed a stunning shot, but it bounced off the post. And just 26 seconds later, holy crap, while the West Ham bubbles from pregame were not even done popping, all their hope and optimism still glistening in the London sky.

1:05:39Jacob Murphy just raced downfield, last one low from distance. The West Ham backline just seemed to welcome him with a convoy on his way to goal. And I was braced for toxicity, West Ham surrender. Instead, God bless this West Ham, winless since the 31st of August. They even had the penalty overturned, but maintain their intensity, maintain their focus. This was so bloody admirable. Kept attacking, 36 minutes, Somerville shot, punched out by Pope, only to Paqueta. He struck from long range, dipped like a Pulskeen sink ball. And then on the cusp of halftime, Wan-Bissaka got in behind, slapped across, botman stretched, poked it home.

1:06:19actually made the difficult finish look very easy, just as Nuno drew it up. Newcastle, very odd team, a bit like Spurs in reverse. They turn into a dread team on the road. I think they scored just twice away all season, didn't mount a shot on goal when they were chasing the game until the 90th minute. Only for Suchek to stab homey, late, late backbreaker. God bless the Magpies without an away win since April, which is really an anathema. I don't understand Newcastle at all, Roald. They're almost an entire symbol of this season's Premier League unpredictability trapped inside one team. Is it a matter of Champions League battling on three fronts is just too much for this team, this squad, this club?

1:07:03I mean, that has to be part of it, I think. Although it got a little bit lost because of the furore over Izak. But I actually thought Newcastle did really well this summer to strengthen their resources. is just last time they were in the Champions League two years ago, it had really cost them. They hadn't had the strength in depth to compete across two or three fronts, however you want to qualify it. And it looked to me like they'd bought their way out of that problem. They've got backups in pretty much every position. They have real strength in depth. I think there is an issue that Eddie Howe is quite reliant on a core of players.

1:07:38So Nick Voltemada, who's been a great signing, I think had played five games in 15 days when he walked onto the field at the London Stadium. He looked like he had played five games in 15 days. There's a point at which Newcastle maybe have to trust their reserves a little bit more. Will Osula, the striker, had done really well in the Carabao Cup in the week. That's a factor. But I think, to be honest, the second bit of what you said is the more accurate factor. It is that Newcastle do kind of sum up what the Premier League is now, which is the margins are really fine. Everyone's quite balanced.

1:08:12And you will get a lot of teams who are really good at home and not very good away because all that's changed is kind of the opposition style of play or the opposition's momentum or the opposition's kind of the balance of the game of switch because the opposition are at home. And that changes everything. I think we'll see a lot of teams who have that kind of dichotomy of performance. The weird thing, I guess, is Spurs who were inverting it by being terrible at home and good away. But I think that will happen a lot because the margins are so fine now. Joy for Nudo, first win in his fifth game after gleaning just one point to this point.

1:08:46Cue, war bubbles of joy. It was a first home win for the Hammers since February 27th, but West Ham are now just three points from safety with Burnley to play next weekend. Glimmers of Hammer hope, or as Paul Atreides said in our Discord, did the Premier League's blindest squirrel just find a nut? Come on, you irons. In other games, Brighton 3, Leeds, nil. Dr. Leeds almost cured a run of two straight Brighton losses. Leeds hadn't won on the south coast in 16 agonising years here. They were undone by the quite electric Yacouba Minto, who cut them apart well. And goals from the resurgent unk Danny Welbeck and two from young Paraguayan stud Diego Gomez exiting to Miami.

1:09:29Danny Welbeck, though, raw, not played for England since September 2018. seven years on, more potent than ever. Dude is honestly like a hymns commercial. He's about to turn 35 this month, equal top scorer in the Premier League. Danny Welbeck for England. Leading English scorer, I think, but obviously behind Harry Kane, if we're including Harry Kane. There's an argument that Welbeck should be there just as a finisher. He's one of those players, Welbeck, who his chronological age may not match his football age because he missed quite a lot of his early career through injury. And I always think that that tends to mean, in a kind of yin and yang vibe, you get a longer tail in that situation rather than someone like Wayne Rooney, who was playing every three days at the age of 17.

1:10:16By 30, he's burnt out. It's a bit like Malcolm Gladwell's 10 ,000 minutes theory, Rog. I have a theory that you have so many football matches in your legs and you get to use them all up. It's just that some people burn through them really fast and some people spread them out a little bit longer. So I wonder if Welbeck is in the second camp. You do as a viewer as well. Use those games, just pace them out. You'll live longer. One lovely Leeds note. We had a great conversation last week with the quite ferociously tenacious Brendan Aronson, where he talks really from his heart about his return to Leeds, which was not easy and how he's found his rhythm there.

1:10:53and please got his place in the current US men's squad. One of the sweetest gents in football, Brendan Aronson. Give it a watch at the link in the show notes. Oh, talking about great Americans. Chris Richards, Crystal Palace 2. Brentford, Nil. Fixture Pileups Palace set to play a quite insane four games in eight days because they've reached the quarterfinals of the Carabao Cup. Lollered back from thrashing Liverpool midweek in that Carabao and gritted out a quite comfortable return to victorious ways. Jean-Philippe Mateta's eighth goal of the season off the set piece. Deep flick on, back to the centre.

1:11:29He's just charging with a header. If you've not seen this header, find it. He just calculates physics, angle, velocity in the blink of an eye. It's amazing how good at maths you can be, Roar, when you really want to conjure a reason to kick a corner flag. That's the great inspiration that a lot of the stalling systems are missing, I think, Rog, that if that was the reward for doing, people would do it more often. I would have done my sums. We have Sunderland's victory at home to Everton still to come this afternoon, Roar. They could go second. They could go second. The lead table is fascinating, Rog.

1:12:00And I wrote about this in the correspondent last week that I think this is the new model of the Premier League where you look between, let me just do my maths. Speaking of maths here, Rog, let me just do my maths. Carry the three. That is the... There are a grand total of nine points between second and 17th. That's not very many points. You know, if you're Aston Villa in 11th or Brighton in 10th and you win a game, you could conceivably go third. It's all just remarkable. And by the way, so is the correspondent, your newsletter, which is available via our website. It's my favourite thing we do.

1:12:38I'm braced for this afternoon. David Moyes returning to the stadium light for the first time since he left. a quite bereft, bedraggled, relegated Sunderland in 2017. How much both he and Sunderland have suffered, but also rebounded since then. Also, Jordan Pickford returns emotionally. It will be, he'll get an incredible welcome to the club he joined the Youth Academy at, was a huge fan of as a kid. It's really his first club. At a time when the club feel utterly, utterly resurgent. By the way, Jordan Pickford, they say never meet your heroes. I say, who are they? Jordan Magnificent, I learnt so bloody much about life and football by hanging out with him last week.

1:13:18Find that interview on our YouTube, also linked below. But it's time, Roar, for a question from our bulging mailbag. This one from the quite great Mike Brown in Seattle. Hello from Seattle, Washington. That's Mike, not me. I'm in Yorkshire. I love your weekly takes on the Premier League and I look forward every week to the MIB pod. I especially love all of Rory's Yorkshire anecdotes. Who doesn't? I spent about a year working in Leeds as a consultant, helping the then Halifax Building Society, now part of the Bank of Scotland, introduce the first telephone banking centre in the UK. And it's a great telephone banking centre.

1:13:54We're very grateful. I worked in a building that I believe has now been replaced by the Bridgewater Place complex. Little side note here, Rog. Bridgewater Place is what passes for a skyscraper in Leeds. How many stories? Three, maybe. Three or four. It's made out of mud. They built it. There's this sort of weird tacit competition between Leeds and Manchester to have the tallest building in the north. Leeds built Bridgewater Place and in the time that it took them to do it, I think Manchester put up two that were roughly twice the height. It says 32 floors. I've just Googled it. God bless. Imagine that.

1:14:3032 floors high in the sky, Rog. It's not natural. It's like Nick Voldemort that's taller. Keep going, baby. It's not normal being that high up. When my Seattle-based company sent me to work there, I'd never ventured much north of London, so I had no idea what to expect from post-industrial Leeds. I wound up loving both the Yorkshire people and Yorkshire itself. Leeds is also where I learned to enjoy a pint of bitter, different type of bitter, specifically Tetley's at the pub after work. Lastly, I'll forever be indebted to Leeds for introducing me to Terry's Chocolate Oranges, which has become a staple Christmas gift from me to my family every year, along with a few for myself.

1:15:05It's the best way to eat them. Now to the questions. I have two. pub question what's your favourite pub in Leeds and given that we're seeing teams go direct again without shame do you think we'll ever see the re-emergence of the football hard man is it just that American football and is it just the American football and hockey fan in me that thinks a Javier Mascherano like player is just what the doctor ordered for Liverpool's current vulnerabilities I have fond memories of Javier and not so fond memories of Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira putting fear into opposing teams and sometimes their own is the extinction of the midfield enforcer defensive destroyer another thing to hold against VAR.

1:15:39It was great seeing Roger in Seattle a few weeks ago. Next time, Bryn Rory with you for the World Cup. Courage. Oh, Rory, I'll answer the pub one first because I went to university in Leeds. Whitelock's Alehouse in the city centre. I think it was founded in like the 1700s, early 1700s. I'd say a pint for there is a pint for life that you'll never forget. But Rory, the honours are yours. I would, in Leeds itself, also Whitelock's. White Locks is an institution. That is the correct answer. It's the best pub in Leeds. I had a Yorkshire pudding in White Locks, which was genuinely life-changing. Outside the city centre, there's a few.

1:16:21I quite like the Three Horseshoes in Headingley. That's where we did a lot of semi-legal drinking as children. I say semi-illegal drinking as children. They didn't know. It's different ownership. It's fine. It's not libelous. and there's lots of lovely country pubs around, Rog, if you go out into the wonderful Yorkshire Dales. The Fleece in Addingham is a favourite. So there's plenty, no shortage of pubs. In terms of the midfield hard man, I don't think we can blame VAR for that. I think it was disappearing long before VAR came on the scene and I think it's to do with the gradual but definite kind of protection of attacking players in the rules, that there's been this real move by FIFA and IFAB, which is the shadowy body that sets...

1:17:08That's how you have to describe them. Shadowy body IFAB. No one knows who's on it, but it's British. It's the most British thing about football now is that IFAB is the body that sets the rules, basically. Clickbait! And there are eight people on the board and four of them have to be British because ultimately it's still ours. This whole thing is still ours. You don't get to have it yet. We used to have an empire. Now we have four members of IFAB. That's all we need. And to be honest, it's much more efficient than having to run a whole empire. So I think there has been a deliberate, in the last 20 years, a deliberate attempt to make the game as fertile ground as possible for creative attacking players, which is why we've seen the kind of erasure of the midfield hard man.

1:17:57But I think Mike is completely right. Yeah, as a Liverpool fan, I would have said if you shoved somebody in there who could really kind of snap into tackles, that would probably help solve quite a lot of the problems. And I think there's quite a few teams who are a little bit like that. If you look at the players who pass for defensive midfielders now, there's very few who you'd say fit that kind of Mascherano hard man mould. There's no Thomas Graveson knocking about Rog, I would say. That said, there are players who are a little bit more kind of combative and dynamic who are, who would be able to hold their own with your classic midfield hard men.

1:18:32Sandro Tonali being maybe the best example of that. Moises Caicedo, you know, these players would not look out of place thundering into a two-footed tackle with Javier Mascherano. So they do still exist. They're maybe not quite as pure and uncut as they used to be. I don't think we'll ever see the hard man in the game again. It's just too much money, too much at stake, too much football on the calendar with too many injuries. So I think if anything, the protection is only going to increase and increase. a little bit like the NHL that you love. By the way, I did meet Jim Beglin for the first time last week, a lovely, lovely man at Everton.

1:19:08He's a commentator on a lot of games, Jim Beglin. You may have heard the name. I told him actually that he makes me laugh. He makes my kids laugh too. He was a left back forever at Liverpool when I was a kid. And when he commentates now on Everton games, there'll always be a moment like a horrific foul of Illumina Dye or someone. and I'll show a replay of Illy being like borderline decapitated. I told Jim Beglin, I said, you are guaranteed to say as his teeth fly out of his mouth. He'll always say, oh, I don't see anything in that. There's nothing in that. And so we're chatting about the hard man.

1:19:43I asked him, who's the hardest man he ever played with, Roar? And he didn't have to wait a beat. I was actually surprised by his answer because he played with some proper, proper monsters. He said, Ronnie Whelan. Really? Yeah, he said he was a Liverpool, an Irish midfielder, listeners. Just a bruising wonder. He said he used to watch Ronnie. He said Ronnie's move was when there was a 50-50 ball in midfield. He'd always slow down right before getting in there. So it became a 60-40 ball to his opponent's advantage. He said, just so he could go in over the top. And he said, we'd watch it week in, week out.

1:20:19and you'd almost as a fellow player, you'd brace yourself knowing that that was about to occur. Like it was always hard to watch that, dear listeners, is why Jim Bedlin always says, I don't see anything in that. He is a really, Jim Bedlin's a really nice man. And to be honest, Rog, even a little bit further forward, you still had stuff like that. I spoke to an ex-player the other week, I won't name him, who was sent on in a game, in a game in maybe the early to mid-1990s with the specific instructions to two-foot somebody because the manager wanted to have a fight. So football used to be, the team was losing, the manager didn't want there to be lots of questions afterwards about why the team lost.

1:21:04So he decided it would be better if there was a mass brawl on the pitch and he needed someone to start it. And that's what football was. By the way, that football, the NHL-ification, that's what it would take to get it to really go over the top here in the United States. Mike Brown, send us your post. I hope you're enjoying your beautiful, beautiful Kraken. We will send you a coveted MIB patch. Keep sending your letters and questions for Roar and me to meninblazers at gmail.com. That's it for today. We're in New York City this week. We have Ruben Amirim coming on. We've got Antoine Semenyo joining us.

1:21:38We've got Euro Knights tomorrow. James Horncastle, the King of Horn, on Wednesday on YouTube. Huge thanks to you, Roar, your Crown Prince of Harrogate. It's been a pleasure. I'll see you for European nights. Oh, this is Rog sending you big love. Let's not take a second of watching football together for granted and courage.