Arsenal are set piece kings, Chelsea see red again, and Carrick's Manchester United are for real: Men in Blazers 03/02/26

15:17Rory Smith:Aubameyang wondering in and being like, lads, did I leave a... No! Get out!

15:22Roger Bennett:The pressure, though, must have been immense. Yeah, but if you look at Arsenal, Rog, I think they have coped well with pressure. They've obviously had hiccups over the last few weeks. You know, it was two wins from seven at one point, and that counts as we discussed. We went through the scientific terminology. We decided it was a wobble. They did have a wobble, but at the most crucial moments, they've been able to stand up and count, not least last week in the North London derby where they'd had that kind of devastating two-all draw with Wolves. And they go to Tottenham, have what was it, history won't remember it like this, but have quite a difficult game for an hour.

15:53Roger Bennett:And then kind of ease to victory. So I don't know. I think the one thing that we have to be careful of is assuming that Arteta is quite as frantic in private as he is in public. Not convinced that he necessarily radiates calm on the touchline. I think maybe sometimes that's something he could work on a little bit more. I know he's tried, maybe. He's doing the work, Rog. He's doing the work. he's on a journey but I think in the privacy the sanctity of the dressing room my guess is he's saying to the players this is how we do this we know how we win this game we know we can win this game you just have to kind of keep going keep doing your thing and he's normally right yeah it begins in C and ends in order

16:35Rory Smith:is that what you think he says it's at the root of the word corner it's a core in the English language it is core. No. Core. I mean, let's get to the core. When we talk about your question, it's a great one because the players did come out, by the way, to a suddenly noticeably much quieter Emirates. I mean, an Emirates gripped by anxiety. You know, it stopped feeling like a game of football. It was more like watching the team you love, the team you adore, the team you dream about, since you're having to play chess with death. And it was mistake-filled slop. Chelsea ratcheted up the pressure. You saw fatigue in this Arsenal side.

17:14Rory Smith:Some of those poor souls overplayed. Zubamendi uncharacteristically shattered in this one. Declan Rice, he looked shattered, had to come off. Arteta said post-game he'll be assessed for Wednesday's game. A moment, Saliba uncertain. Corners, though, are almost like life rafts for this team. 66-minute. Declan Rice dispatched another stunning. Timber found a sliver of space, headed home. Arsenal defenders God bless them scored three corners on the day raw hanging out muscled poor Sarah again by the way on this one this is it 16 total goals from corners now joint most ever obviously nine games still to play are you like if it ain't broke keep milking it or are you at a point where you're like this is like watching a game of corners where occasionally football breaks out

18:02Roger Bennett:both depending on who you're thinking about so I think from Arsenal's perspective obviously it works for them they're really good at it they want to win the league. It's clearly in their interest to keep emphasising the set pieces. It's an amazing weapon to have. It means they can have these games where they don't play especially well, where they don't look very fluid, they don't look especially fluent, and they still win. They can reliably score at least once from a set piece every game, if not two or three, and that is an amazing skill to have. But I've got to admit I did watch this game thinking, it's not even so much the corners I wouldn't mind if they were kind of thumping, towering headers from the penalty spot.

18:38Roger Bennett:There is a degree of spectacle to them. But all three goals were so scrappy. And it's the ball bouncing around, being swiped at, second third ball, little ricochets, deflections. And there is a point where I think that the Premier League is the richest league in history. It is the most popular domestic sporting competition in the world. It is like the blue ribbon sporting event. Certainly for football if not everything else. Increasingly it's kind of got greater prominence in the Champions League. And you just watch the goals that are deciding it, and you think, is this really worth all that money?

19:13Roger Bennett:All the money that the teams have paid for the players, all the money that we pay to watch it, should it really be coming down to who is winning the wrestling match at the corners? I'm not sure it is. And for that second Arsenal goal, Robert Sanchez was convinced he was fouled. And then you saw the replay and you thought, look, no one's run anywhere near him. I think there's an arm caressing his shoulder at one point. He was fouled in the mind. He's fouled mentally. He's fouled himself mentally. Don't we all? But, you know, I think his shoulder is caressed by an Arsenal hand at some point. But if anything, it looks supportive.

19:50Roger Bennett:But then you look back at the replay and obviously here on the TV, the commentators are saying, well, there's no foul there on Sanchez. And they're right. There is no foul on Sanchez. But there's about eight other fouls happening at the same time all over the box. there's Chelsea midfielders grabbing Arsenal players by the stomach, there's shirts being towed.

20:06Rory Smith:I'm pretty sure there were at least two decapitations. I only watched the replay twice, but I'm pretty sure in that one. It's the end of the Godfather, the grotting. A lot of grotting going on. Yeah, a lot of defenestration.

20:17Roger Bennett:To be fair, all those Arsenal players are practice pickpockets, Rog. They've been trained in it. They've been trained in the arts of pickpocketry. No, I just don't know. Is that what we want to watch? Is it good for the Premier League? that increasingly, and look, this isn't an Arsenal thing, it's not a Chelsea thing. There were quite a lot of goals this weekend that didn't really live up to the billing of best league in the world. And I think, I think that is a problem.

20:40Rory Smith:It's fair. And by the way, I mean, it's like watching the UFC fight that's just a ground game. Everyone says, yeah, it's for the purest. I mean, it is, it's tough to watch football without open play majesty. But we've got another great talking point we do need to get to. The contractually obliged Chelsea red card. A weekly thing, ninth actually of the season. Most ever, I think, in the Premier League era, seventh in the league itself by some stretch league leaders right now. Neto had just been booked for dissent. I mean, this was almost insanely spot marketing. Within two minutes, 58 seconds, he decided to let out his team's frustration by diving through Martinelli on the break.

21:23Rory Smith:Roar, it's in moments like this that you see Chelsea at their heart, this project. A young, Roar manager leading a young, Roaring, experienced team. Really, almost to a player, Sean, of leadership.

21:38Roger Bennett:Yeah, but funny enough, you're completely right, Rog, but that's not necessarily something I'd throw at Neto. Neto's not especially young. He's not inexperienced. He's been around for ages. He's a full international. He's been in the Premier League for, I would guess, like five years now. he's one of the senior players in that dressing room and it does speak to a lack of discipline. Not necessarily the second one, although that sort of suggests a lack of common sense. Why are Chelsea players getting booked for dissent? When you have that disciplinary record, when you know it's a problem, you can't afford to give away cheap yellow cards and put yourself at risk.

22:11Roger Bennett:That's where the issue is, I think. That inability to control their frustration and their emotions when things aren't going their way.

22:19Rory Smith:Yeah, I don't know. Pomi realised or thought as the resulting football, maybe this was all part of one of Liam Rosini's cunning plans because going down to 10 men again, his team seemed to play better a man down. Arsenal, by the way, I don't know if it's like physical fatigue or mental fatigue. We will have no insight into it right now. But this team were vulnerable down the stretch. Chelsea outpassed them with 10 men. This is incredible. 114 to 55 passes after the red. Double. And my God, it got nervy down the stretch. a wobble? I mean, you're the expert. Where would you rank the last five minutes for Arsenal where a raya palm kept Garnaccio away from being the hero in your kind of greed of Arsenal fearful football?

23:03Roger Bennett:It's not quite a wobble, Rog, because they got through it. Is it a stutter? It might be a stutter. It might be a slightly queasy, uncertain anxiety attack.

23:17Rory Smith:Yeah, God bless them. Thank God it passed. A first league defeat for Liam Resignia. A man must hate the Arsenal. I don't know if you saw his full-time interview. He looked ashen-faced. Felt like his team were in the ascendancy. Angry that the players let themselves down for the third straight game. I mean, he looked haunted at times in that interview, looking at camera. Coming off two, damp home draws with Leeds and Burnley. Chelsea now down to six. Three points behind Liverpool in fifth. beginning of the dip that we've said would come, that he'd have to weather or show us that he could weather raw.

23:52Rory Smith:I mean, the vicious gauntlet of games that you look ahead to come. Who is it? Aston Villa and then a nasty trip to Wrexham in the FA Cup. PSG, Newcastle, PSG. OK, Everton, three points there. And then Manchester City. That is a savage buzzsaw for him.

24:10Roger Bennett:Yeah, and I think that's why he was so upset about those drop points against Burnley and Leeds, because he knew that there was a spell coming where Chelsea are all but certain to drop a sufficient number of points that they needed everything in the bank. They couldn't afford to kind of waste the points where they could get them. But then on the plus side, Rog, he's got like a 15-year contract. Chelsea don't sack manager. He'll be fine. He may be Forest's manager by the end of the season, by the way. But then the other thing is, he's still only lost to Arsenal. They're the only team that have beaten Liam Rossini.

24:42Rory Smith:Yeah, three times.

24:42Roger Bennett:That, I think, is something that deserves a little bit more respect than maybe he's getting.

24:49Rory Smith:I mean, he's getting almost no respect. Yeah. And I hate for him because I think he knows that we know that he knows that we know all that is to come. Godspeed, man. I wish him well. For Arsenal, three points hard won. Five points clear. One more game played. As ugly a performance as the City game we were about to talk about the day before. but Brighton midweek then League One Mansfield in the FA Cup of the weekend where please God Arteta will rest some of his front line starters nine games to go in the league now Raw Arsenal players post-match and in every interview I hear from them they keep saying the same thing how much they're enjoying it they're not enjoying any single moment of this I don't think this is all just like grinding through games now at this point just like low on fumes just getting it done winning almost by all means necessary are we at a point where the how is actually not important this is all outcome the process is it's almost irrelevant the process won't even be remembered um it's like come to watch the corners just enjoy them take your medicine as long as they win this bloody thing yeah i think

25:55Roger Bennett:the tifo before the game did say you've only was a big banner saying you've only come to see the arsenal i'm not sure that anyone is doing that at the moment to be honest basically yeah you're Right. To Arsenal fans, they won't care how they win the title. They just want to win the title. I do think the style has an impact on your legacy a little bit, as how you're remembered as champions. And I think that's not entirely irrelevant. I genuinely believe on some level you should try and win the title well, allowing the fact that well is totally subjective. But I think given 22 years, given the fragility of previous title challenges, given the stress of this one because of City breathing down their necks.

26:36Roger Bennett:I think for Arsenal, we are very much in the just-get-it-done territory.

26:40Rory Smith:And I think we're going to hear a lot from pundits in the next couple of weeks about the mental pressure on Arsenal. They don't have the ability, they will crumble because that's really the only storyline, the only narrative that they can cling on to in this moment. I think it's meant, I've said it a number of times, I think it's the fortitude it takes to come second three times. So all you know is choking, failing, bottling. in the eyes of the wider court of public opinion, and to rise up still and win this thing, I think, in its own right, when you talk about legacy, it's pretty humanly remarkable.

27:11Rory Smith:Well, I don't want to get ahead of myself. Try and enjoy every second. The epigraph in my book is a line for, well, my writing hero, really, Eduardo Galeano, the great Uruguayan poet, who said, football is a pleasure that hurts. And Arsenal fans, you are living that out, both sides of that, in every second this season. Back to Saturday evening. Leeds United 0-0. Manchester City 1-1. Manchester City over-reliant on Erling Haaland? Well, we've said that a lot. This was a game when we saw how they'd do without him. Hurt himself in training, said Pep. Mysteriously not giving a timeline for his return.

27:51Rory Smith:I think Haaland may have joined the sidemen on a permanent transfer, Aurora. We'll find out. Marmush and Semenya led the line in this game, in which they try to get within two points of Arsenal again. But first, they'd have to survive Leeds after dark. Skinamax. This is incredible, Raw. Leeds record in night games at home. They had not lost under floodlights at Ellen Road since August 2023. 24 games. Really, well, you would live near there. You go there. I mean, from the outside, it feels like this surreal reinforcement of City, team, fan base, that makes, honestly, Ellen Road like the worst place to be at night since that Duke joint Purlines in Sinners.

28:34Roger Bennett:Yeah, it's a slightly kind of tricky statistic because obviously a lot of those games are in the Championship and Leeds are one of the best teams in the Championship whenever they are in the Championship. So they would naturally win more games. But this season, they'd had seven after five o 'clock. They kicked off after 5pm seven times and I think they'd won five and drawn two, which is way better than their home record in daylight. so there is a part there is a point at which like the players aren't any better it's the same team they've got the same squad night goggles! it's either that they've got like crazy out of whack bio rhythms Rog or that Ellen Road is a little bit more boisterous a little bit more raucous when it's night time and I think that's true I've been to more than a dozen Premier League stadiums this season I don't think I've been to all of them but I've been to certainly most of them And Alan Road is, along with Sunderland, is by some distance the best atmosphere.

29:29Rory Smith:I think you've just kind of nailed it. You said on Friday's show, in Yorkshire, there are no monsters in the dark. We're the monsters in the dark. But listening to you, it's pretty scientifically easy to work out. The darker it is, the longer the pubs have been open. And the longer the pubs have been open, dot, dot, dot.

29:48Roger Bennett:I think that might be related, yeah. I mean, I think Daniel Farker, the Athletic asked Daniel Farker about this, and he did say... Fire Beast. The fire beast does not like a 12.30. He did say it's easier for the fans. The fans are coming tipsy, not all of them obviously, but the fans that will have been in the pubs, they'll have been building up to the game all day when it's a 5.30 kick-off or even later. 12.30, there's probably quite a lot of people who are hungover.

30:17Rory Smith:12.30, they're just a dozen of beers in.

30:19Roger Bennett:I mean, it's like amateurs. They might have had to get up early. It's kind of in the middle of the day. Roy's trying to not say the word hungover. There will be people there who are hungover on a Saturday. And it's true everywhere, not just at Ellen Road. It does change the atmosphere. You very rarely go to a 12.30, even if it's a big derby.

30:39Rory Smith:Just to be clear, Roy's talking about the fans, not the players. Although you may be talking about the players. Very much not the players, Roy, just the fans.

30:46Roger Bennett:Just the fans.

30:48Rory Smith:But God bless those fans because they bellowed that team on. And within four minutes, Brendan Aronson scrappy dude his way down the flank. Arcton, quite beautiful cross and poor, beautiful, sweet, dominant Calvert-Lewin. Stabbed wide. Really a let-off from the start. Remember, famously, the reverse fixture of this game at City. They were relegation zone. They were 2-0 down. They ended up losing 3-2, which way went 3 at the back, started to try and play counter-attacking football instead of possession-based. And we knew they had lost just two of the 14 games. It's very much a different creature.

31:23Rory Smith:And you saw that here. They pressed, they harassed, they broke out the play with an incredible passion. Pep, I mean, he loves the passion of English football. He was getting a kick out of all of this. I thought watching, he would have the experience to tell these players to weather this storm. Trust that the lead's adrenaline and intensity would burn off. It's hard to keep up that level of fanaticism, that freneticism for the whole game. And on the stroke of halftime, What was the mood in the stadium like when Cherky fed out Norrie on the byline, pulled back and Semenyo slapped home and then fired up his guitar?

32:00Rory Smith:I mean, that was, by the way, vintage Pep Gola, the David Silva era from the byline. 14th of the season for Antoine. But what was it like inside the stadium?

32:08Roger Bennett:A sense of missed opportunity, I think, because for the first 40 minutes, Leeds really had City on the ropes and in a way that they hadn't when Arsenal had come to Allen Road. Arsenal were solid, unspectacular and then kind of wiped the floor with Leeds. City looked really rattled by the first, certainly half an hour, up to 40. They didn't have a shot on target until the 40th minute. They'd barely been in Leeds' half, to be perfectly honest. All of the game had taken place from basically all of the first half in City's territory. And I think when the goal went in, it was a combination of, oh, for crying out loud, but maybe not in those words.

32:44Roger Bennett:And we needed to take one of those chances. That's the abiding sensation right on half time. you've been the better team you've missed three or four really good chances you know you're going to get punished and suddenly the whole task changes

32:57Rory Smith:I love Anton Semenya by the way we had a really insightful conversation with him you can find it in the notes below he's a beautiful beautiful humble guy it's amazing to watch him soar at that higher level second half City tried to kill the game off with possession sterile possession really Leeds honestly struggled to get on the ball I do love though You know, there's the energy that Daniel Farr breathes into them, the old fire beast. They are like, I said this last week, they're like Brad Pitt's character in Snatch. They're just like bare-knuckle brawlers. They always fancy they'll have a chance to pop their opponent on the chin.

33:34Rory Smith:And the last 10 minutes, they made life tough for a quite exhausted City down there. They were nervy down the stretch, like Arsenal were in their game. I mean, they'd seen what happened at Newcastle the week before. And relief for City, the W ultimately all that mattered. here. A bit like the old cheap Taylor's joke, never mind the quality feel the width. I think Farker a bit annoyed, frustrated probably venting at the final whistle, got a red card, seething at the timekeeping of the referees decision not to let Leeds fling the ball in one more time at the death really a symbol of Leeds frustration.

34:08Rory Smith:They'd played well, they'd been organised, they had a game plan, it was working and the game somehow had been lost, almost in the margins. Well for Pep to win at Ellen Road at night time. That is some feat, man. He'll be pleased by the improvement of some of the players. I think Norrie, I thought, was very good in this game. Cherky, Gahey continues to excel. But most of all, he'd be relieved that his team emerged from Yorkshire with three points in such a hostile setting. I mean, after the game, it was lovely to watch him revel and the fact that the Leeds fans called him wanker, wanker, as he said in his mouth throughout the game.

34:45Roger Bennett:Yeah, and he was really full of praise for Farkas Leeds. He was asked a question, a perfectly valid question, about whether it's sustainable for City to keep having these narrow games or whether you're using up mental energy. And that is the sort of question that I think is, this is absolutely not a criticism of the journalist who asked it, I don't know who it was. And Guardiola, you could tell he got kind of a little bit riled by it, and I think he took it to mean you should be winning better. but to him, as he said he kind of looks at Leeds and thinks that's an incredible team, that's a really really good team they are hard to play against they made our lives incredibly difficult he would obviously have wanted to win that game much more comfortably he wouldn't have wanted to have to endure that last 10 minutes where Leeds didn't really make any chances but they did have about 6 attacking players on which is testament to Farker's courage to be honest and they did make City sweat for the win but that's the challenge of the Premier League that you're not playing, there aren't any teams, including Wolves now, who go down easily.

35:47Roger Bennett:And I think Guardiola knows that. I suppose the way he'll look at it is City don't have to strap for every single point, every single win from now until the end of the season. And that will be exhausting, but it's exactly the same for Arsenal.

35:59Rory Smith:And for City, Forest midweek, Newcastle in the FA Cup for the weekend, then Real Madrid. And by the way, in the week leading up to the Carabao Cup final against Arsenal, Man City have to play Real Madrid. And in a week leading up to the epic, civilisation-defining clash at the Etihad, Manchester City may have to travel to Bayern Munich. Context is a killer. From one Manchester to another, and United to Crystal Palace won this morning after Villa's loss, which we'll talk about a massive chance for United to move into third place for the first time since the end of the 2023 campaign, propelled by the quite humbly inspirational Michael Carrick.

36:41Rory Smith:I mean, just remarkable to see that man in his peak out week after week, standing there as a coach in the same stylish way as he played on the half turn, guided them to five wins in the draw since taking over. No Premier League team has earned more from the last six games than his. Visitors here, Crystal Palace and the lame duck, Oliver Glasner, their focus, Conference League or bus now. And instead of tied legs after their Thursday endeavours in that the competition. We'll say, they came out swinging just the fourth minute from a corner. French big man, Maxence Lacroix lost Lenny Jorow, guided a stunning header, placed it beautifully past Lormans in the United goal.

37:23Rory Smith:Almost seemed like United needed that sting of conceding to wake into the game. Second half, first a clever Bruno slip pass, sent Cunha through on goal. Actually, it was Lacroix who tugged on his shoulder VAR, gave a penalty and a red card for the dial of a goal-scoring opportunity. I think Raul Lacroix with a goal, a red card and a penalty conceded. I think that's called a John Terry hat trick in it in the game.

37:47Roger Bennett:It is captain leader Lacroix. It's a very soft penalty and red card, Rog. It's very soft indeed. That would be my view.

37:55Rory Smith:God bless Manchester United into third place. Montenegro's a connection. Fernandes thumped home from the spot to make it 1-1. And just seven minutes later, the Portuguese metronome at it again, slinging a beautiful cross out to the right into the La Croix-sized hole in the penalty area for Benjamin Sesko. Who else? We've never said a bad word about you, Benjamin. Crashed it home. Stunning. Big Slovenian. Seventh goal in his last eight games. God bless Slovenia. Tiny slither of a nation produced Luka Doncic and the great Sesko. It's amazing hearing Sesko explain what's happened. I think he scored one goal every 720 minutes before Carrick arrived.

38:38Rory Smith:I think it's like one goal every like 40 minutes or something. Afterwards, he just said, suddenly feels like everyone believes in me again. Is it that simple, Rul?

38:50Roger Bennett:Well, it can't be, Rog, can it? But Carrick makes it look like it is. And it's not just Chesco. It's most of that United team suddenly looked full of self-belief and confidence and vigor and enjoyment and enthusiasm and all this kind of broiling, brimming, excitability to be alive, this zest for life. And Michael Carrad seems like a very nice man. He's bright, he's smart. He doesn't strike you as being like a particularly tub-thumping orator, but he's done something, together with Steve Holland, his assistant, and the staff they've brought in. They have just revitalised basically every player at United.

39:27And Szczesko, we knew, was talented.

39:29Roger Bennett:We knew when they signed him that he was maybe a little bit raw for the price. That was, I think, kind of baked into the deal. And Carrick has unlocked something. He's managed that situation perfectly. But then, to be perfectly honest, he's managed basically every situation perfectly since he took charge.

39:45Rory Smith:So that brings us to Michael Carrick. First of all, United win again. Michael Carrick now has the joint best start after nine games by any manager or head coach in Premier League history. You do know who the other manager is who carries the joint best start for nine games, don't you, Rul?

40:01Roger Bennett:And Sposter Coddly.

40:02Rory Smith:Yes, I know. It's like one of those great undermining compliments. You're a legend. Who's the other one? Okay. I mean, that does lead us to the point. I think it's fascinating. Carrick, seven games unbeaten since he took over. By the way, United were seventh when he came in. They had 32 points. are now on 51 points in third place. He's won six out of seven, 19 points out of a possible 21. It's been phenomenal to watch. And that clamour for Carrick to be given the job permanently is ratcheting up, shall we say, even though United have been there before with the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer experience in 2019.

40:43Rory Smith:What a band. What a band. By the way, cover band. We're the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer experience. Good night. All of it has left Gary Neville saying last week, this is his quote, I love Carrick, I think he did an incredible job so far, but I just feel Manchester United should go for the best in-class manager available. I think the best option is to eliminate as much risk as possible. However, Roar, there comes a point where the results make it a risk to eliminate him as well.

41:16Roger Bennett:There comes a point where what you're doing is ignoring the best available evidence. All we can see so far, and it is a small sample size and it might turn, but Michael Carrick is good at managing Manchester United. If there was an immediately obvious replacement out there who would definitely covet the Manchester United job, it might be a little bit different. If United think they can get Luis Enrique, maybe there's a case to be made that you go and do that and you say to Carrick, thank you very much you've you've set this up perfectly but we're going with someone who is who is very obviously kind of one of the best three or four managers in the world but short of that I don't think there's a candidate out there who you could you could say is any less of a risk than Carrick you know Thomas Tuchel looks like he's going to sign a new contract with England so that rules him out Mauricio Pochettino would be an option but you've got to wait till after the World Cup after the United States win the World Cup so he won't be around until like early August.

42:12Roger Bennett:And then if you don't get Andoni or Iola or Glasner, both of whom are excellent managers, Glasner's not doing himself any favours at the moment, you don't know how they're going to adapt to that squad. You don't know how they're going to kind of settle into life under the scrutiny that Manchester United attract. You don't know if the squad will be able to adapt to their way of playing. You know all that stuff with Carrick. So why wouldn't you give him the job? So will he be the manager opening day next season? 100%. Barring any kind of spectacular collapse from here until mid-April, if United lose four games in a row, then it changes, obviously.

42:45Roger Bennett:But if he keeps on this form for another few weeks, why would you not give him the job? Again, unless you've got someone lined up who you think is Pep Guardiola reincarnated, this generation's Jurgen Klopp, you give it to the person who has shown that they can do it. I think anything else would be willfully contrary.

43:07Rory Smith:And by the way, it's crazy. They have gone for the best-in-class manager before. They've gone for the best, you know, the legend. They've gone for the best young man. They've tried everything, you know, he did.

43:16Roger Bennett:Apart from man who looks like he's a natural fit for the job. That's the one thing they've never had. Whether you get somebody who's got an incredibly sort of glittering CV or not, it is a risk because you don't know how managers adapt to the environment of a new club. You know that with Carrick. You have seen with Carrick over the last seven games. He's good at this.

43:37Rory Smith:He is bloody good at this. And from one red North Western team to another, to Anfield, Liverpool, five. West Ham 2. Liverpool 3 straight clean sheet wins which honestly sound better than they were to watch. Your defending champions trying fractiously to claim Champions League football for next season entered in 6. Your visitors West Ham in the relegation zone but Nuno inspired glow up in full effect. Just one loss in the last 6. I think 44 % of their points have come in the last 6 games. Just 2 points between them and safety for the first time since November. By the way, the team busts getting stuck on a ramp leaving the hotel.

44:17Rory Smith:I think that's called foreshadowing. In this one, it was Liverpool going corner city. Early doors, Ryan Gravenberg slinging the ball to Hugo Eketike, coolly slotted home. Went with the gladiator, Sally. We'll talk about West Ham in one moment. They did create chances in this game. They did press forward through that Dutch chaos agent, Somerville. But pretty well, any time Liverpool had a set piece, felt like they scored. 24th minute, another Liverpool corner, Sobbersly whipping it in for Big Verge to Duncombe, then right before half-time, you guessed it, Mo Salah corner, back post, Eka TK, teed up Alexis McAllister to go all, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ginger, a really fine scissoring volley, 3-0.

44:58Rory Smith:Liverpool, first team to score three set pieces and a half since 2016. Again, Roar, this was not a game which was as kind of straightforward as it sounded. West Ham did have chances, but Liverpool, this is incredible. Now top of the 2026 calendar for set pieces with seven. At the end of 2025, they were last in the league. They couldn't defend them. They fired their coach, Aaron Briggs. Are Liverpool the Arsenal now, Ro? What do you make of this Liverpool set-piece-ient?

45:27Roger Bennett:I think it's probably more coincidence than anything, although I suppose with Van Dijk and Canate, they do have two players who should be a considerable threat from corners and free kicks. It's just really funny, the absolute transformation in Liverpool's set pieces, because they were utterly useless from them for so long. And, you know, in that kind of, in that dark winter period where they couldn't, they just couldn't get a win, you did think, why aren't they, why can't they nick one from a corner? The problem now is kind of the exact opposite is why can't they do anything except nick ones from corners?

45:59Roger Bennett:And in a 5-2 win, that doesn't make that much, you know, that's not that much of a worry. But I think against teams who defend corners rather better, that might be a problem.

46:08Rory Smith:Yeah, but West Ham, oddly we'll draw some positives from this performance. They edged the expected goals, which is incredible. Alisson, when called upon, made saves that were routine for him, heroic for mere mortals. Quick one on West Ham. Do you still feel a pulse

46:23Roger Bennett:on the patient, Dr. Rory? 100%, yeah. I think it ended up being quite a good weekend for West Ham. They lost, but they lost with credit, as you say. Liverpool helped them by presenting them with at least three chances, which feels a little bit like it maybe just skews the XG slightly. But they did create chances. They did cause Liverpool problems. Somerville is in great form Nuno will have come away from that thinking it's really annoying we conceded five goals to that team who aren't very good but at least we got at them at the back basically every time they went forward and then all the teams around them lost, that's the other thing West Ham would have looked at Anfield and thought this is a place we have won once in about 60 years we're probably not getting three points on those weekends you don't want the teams around you going and winning and changing the gaps changing the math of it all at the bottom.

47:12Roger Bennett:West Ham, it was a free hit. They didn't take it, but there has been absolutely no punishment for them.

47:16Rory Smith:Flip side quickly for Liverpool. Five goals sounds like they corrobagged West Ham, but the fact is, the set pieces aside, a lot of the progressive play was stodgy. They still seem awkward in shape, lacking balance. The idea of football is still a work in progress, but they played here again without Florian Wurtz. Gent's got a back injury also for him. He won't be playing midweek. We know. We don't know how long he will be out. The Reds go back to Wolves, by the way, for the FA Cup game on Friday. Mo Salah in his longest ever Premier League goal drought. I think it's 10 games now. Who do you see?

47:54Rory Smith:How do you see on a slot replacing Wurz's artistry, really? The cohesion in the final third. There's the nerve centre of the Liverpool attack.

48:02Roger Bennett:Well, I think what you've seen in the last couple of games is that he can't, really. And that is maybe the measure of how important Virts has become. It does seem a long time ago that we were having that conversation about whether he'd settle, whether he was worth the money, how Liverpool would get the best out of him. You can see in his absence how important Florian Virts has become to Liverpool because without him, and as much as you've got Alexis McAllister and Dominic Sobber's light in those sort of central roles, without him they don't really create anything in open play and that's a real concern because what you've got, even in versus absence are some extremely good footballers who still, as you say, don't seem to quite know how to break teams down.

48:43Rory Smith:One note here, highlight my weekend and you can see this on our Instagram. I did love Liverpool. For the first time, I had sign language experts on the field during You'll Never Walk Alone signing the club anthem to the crowd, encouraging supporters to sign along as part of their inclusive read together strategy. It was really beautiful to witness. Even when things are not going perfectly on the field, a club can still not lose sight of, I think, what is the most important thing, the city, the community, one another. Huge, huge respect. Huge, huge love. Talking about love. Fulham 2. Tottenham Hotspur.

49:25Rory Smith:The Everton of the South won four points between West Ham in 18th place and Spurs at kick-off. one Spurs fan tweeted their pain saying that he watched Sidney Sweeney dribble the ball before the Sporting Lisbon game and he can safely say she looked better at football than most of our players as they travelled 11 miles to Fulham Spurs the only team yet to win a game in calendar year 2026 poor Igor Tudor looks like a man who's wondering why he chose this life already weary two weeks in talking about how the club are poised between life and death. By the way, dude's more hyperbolic than me, which I've got a huge respect for.

50:06Rory Smith:We wondered if we'd see the fighting Spurs at the first half hour of the North London Derby or the slightly surrendering Spurs of that last hour. And we found out within seven minutes, Oscar Bob making his first Premier League start for Fulham, nodded back across the goal. The ball flicked off Gallagher and dropped to the unmarked Harry Wilson. Probably the only Fulham player Spurs wouldn't have wanted to see in that situation. but completely unmarked. And he howitzed one into the net. And poor Igor Tudor, he couldn't believe this goal stood. Jimenez pushed Dragas in slightly, but two-handedly before the goal.

50:43Rory Smith:Looked a little light last week's Spurs equaliser, which was disallowed when Colin Moani shoved Gabriel. Was it just that Gabriel's acting was better, Ro?

50:51Roger Bennett:But what Igor Tudor's got today used to, Rog, is the Premier League has a sort of deeper sense of irony than any other league in Europe. in Serie A or La Liga or the Bundesliga, they're all fine competitions, absolutely huge tournaments. But it isn't the convention that if you see a goal ruled out one week for your team, for a vaguely nebulous reason, that the next week, by law, your team has to concede a goal exactly the same way.

51:19Rory Smith:Yeah, it's a law of physics. It's the Alanis Morissette law.

51:22Roger Bennett:It is, yeah. And he's got to get used to the irony of working in the Premier League.

51:26Rory Smith:I'm going to send Alanis Morissette's finest track to Igo Chido, although if he does actually listen to it, he will not understand what irony is at the end of it, which is perhaps the ultimate irony. The stat is damning. Spurs have failed to win any of the last 29 times they conceded first. That is just brutal. And they struggled in response, honestly. Had plenty of the ball, could not conjure a shot and goal in the first half. Fulham looked dangerous every time they moved forward. They had Emile Smith-Rowe dropping deep, Creating space for Wilson and Jimenez to run into. No surprise when they doubled their lead, to be honest.

51:59Rory Smith:But my God, the goal was just a stunning poem. Iwobi, 1-2 of Harry Wilson. Outside the box, side-footed, with very little wind-up, but somehow generated just arch power. A beautiful whip, too. It was almost physics-defying raw. The look on his face when he celebrated, it was like, you can take the boy out of Arsenal, but a goal against the Spurs always feels like it should count double. Richarlison got a goal back minutes later coming on the sub, made a little angsty at Craven Cottage, started to fill with Spurs hope, but it was not to be. Richarlison's goal, the only shot on target, Spurs had all game.

52:38Rory Smith:There was one moment in comms where the broadcaster said, Spurs look like a team of strangers. How has this happened that the ninth wealthiest club in football in terms of revenue in the world is hanging by a thread here right now.

52:54Roger Bennett:Bad recruitment, bad decisions, lack of joined up thinking. It's surprisingly consistent injury list, Spurs. I think that's something that seems to be a pattern now rather than kind of an unfortunate coincidence. An inability to kind of think their way around a problem, uncertain ownership. There's just, I mean, everything that you could do wrong, Spurs have done wrong. and it reaches the stage where the best thing that Spurs did this weekend was being a relegation battle with teams that didn't win either.

53:24Rory Smith:Yeah, I mean, I will say when Igor Tudor does listen to Alanis Morissette's irony, there is perhaps an irony that Spurs fans have been waiting, begging, crying, pleading for Daniel Levy to be fired and this complete and utter freefall. I mean, you can't be hypothetical about his who would have happened if he was still there. We do not know. But that dovetailing is probably a double agony. because it feels like no one at the club knows what to do in his absence. Only the second time ever that Fulham had done the double over Spurs. Spurs 10 games now without a win, tying their longest streak ever back in 1994.

53:59Rory Smith:It's hard watching Igor Tudor. It feels like he doesn't quite know if he wants to commit to this, whether he really wants to throw himself in, thus become blamed. In his post-match comments, there's still a bit of distancing between him and his players, They're still using the shock of, wow, we can't score, we can't defend kind of the language he does seem to be. And this makes me very afraid. The Wilford Nancy of Igor Tudors. Their game against Crystal Palace Thursday is going to be really quite a surreal knife fight. Huge pressure on the players. It's already suffocating. Ro, are Spurs really going to go down?

54:38Roger Bennett:No, Rog. We talked on Friday about it. I wrote about it in the correspondent last week, the newsletter. I think the fixtures are on their side, but not theirs so much as West Ham's and Nottingham Forest. I think they don't have neither of them have got obvious routes to 40 points, which is what you need at this stage. Or even 38. One of them may be. It's possible that Forest or West Ham go on some sort of run and pick up three or four wins. We know it's an inconsistent lead, an unreliable lead where form kind of flips in an instant. You look at Brighton a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Saki and Fabian Herzler all of a sudden can't stop winning.

55:13Roger Bennett:But I mean, that is kind of what happens in the Premier League now. So it's possible that one of them can go on a run. I think two of them doing it is relatively unlikely to be perfectly honest. And that will be enough, I think, to keep Spurs up. But would you want to be taking that gamble? Do you want to be putting your, you're the ninth richest club in the world, like you say, do you want to put your fate in the hands of West Ham and Nottingham Forest? That isn't a great situation to be in. Oh my God.

55:38Rory Smith:I don't think you're going down Spurs at all. Just to be candid, Spurs fans, you are safe. By the way, dot, dot, dot. But as you said, not because of your own play. I think they'll be saved by West Ham. By the way, thanks to H. Phil in our Men in Blazers Discord, who said, all those years we joked that without Harry Kane in the team, Spurs would be relegated. We didn't know just how much truth there was in that humour. Slightly less funny. for Champions League chasers. Wolves 2. Aston Villa 0. Unai Emery is a man who's seen almost everything in football. A horsefly, a dragonfly, a housefly, but he'd never won in his four previous trips to Wolves.

56:22Rory Smith:And his Villa entered the West Midlands derby in third place, but they'd won just one of their past five games, all comps. And this one on a boggy, soggy field against bottom-feeding Wolves. First off, a knife fight in the mud on the hour. A moment of magic. Armstrong laid the ball off for how Gomez smashed first time off the bar. Cue incredible gallage humour from that quite ecstatic Wolves fans roar. It must have been so joyful to sing this. They sang 1-0 to the championship.

56:52Roger Bennett:Yeah, they've been doing this for a while now, Wolves fans, and because their relegation has been so obvious for so long, they've been able to get some good lines in. It sounds very strange to say, but Wolves are making the most of quite how bleak this season has been. I think, by the way, they made the most.

57:10Rory Smith:This is where we're going. But I just adore that on every single level. Heavy rain, heavy mud. Villa created little Unai Emery losing his mind on the sideline, flinging players into attack to try and salvage anything. But it all left Villa Shields down a 98 minute on the break. How Gomez found another random Gomez finished through Emi Martinez to deliver the second Premier League win of the season for Wolves in the biggest game of the year. Quite remarkable scenes of jubilance, which I just love. Remember, this team is still 14 points for safety. But watching the manager run down the sideline, the fans lose their minds.

57:53Rory Smith:The players charge around as if they just won a trophy. This is a team getting relegated. But they had won something precious, Roar, because beating your hated rival, your hated neighbour, it's still priceless, right?

58:07Roger Bennett:Yeah, I think it would give Wolves some satisfaction to know that even though they've had one of the worst seasons in Premier League history, which I would just as a little side note a little asterisk, Wolves aren't that bad I've seen Wolves twice live, they're fine Wolves, I don't quite understand how they've got so few points but they will know that they can't have nice things this season, but the opportunity to remove nice things from somebody else that's really precious

58:30Rory Smith:It's the best feeling in life to ruin someone else's day, West Ham, Spurs and Burnley still to play by the way, talking about the opportunity to piss in everybody's punch, Aston Villa five games in February one win three goals scored in the process best of times or worst of times as Unai Emery said post game he said one month ago I was dreaming about maybe winning the Premier League now we are in the average to be in the top five they fall to fourth seems like opponents know that to throttle Morgan Rodgers is to shut down a lot of the threat of this team is this a matter of a team which just completely and utterly magically overperformed their XGA all of its data really it's just drifting towards the meet.

59:11Roger Bennett:I think there's an element of overperforming. They were on a hot streak and the temperature has cooled a little bit, Rog. But the other thing is fatigue. The Villa have got not just an exacting Premier League campaign, they're in Europe as well and they don't have quite the depth that the traditional top six do. And I think what you're starting to see there is that the players who they've relied on all season are starting to run on fumes.

59:34Rory Smith:Aston Villa's midweek game against Chelsea, epic in size and scope and connotation. In other games, Brighton too. Nottingham Forest won. Premier League, great goal dance-off. Gomes from an acute angle using the defender as a screen to embarrass Celts a little bit in goal. Forest under-teared. Igor Jesus found Morgan Gibbs-White, who just stepped up with some Bigfoot slap shot. But then, all father time, Danny Welbeck, touch away, span round, bounce the ball off the turf like a wily old Doc Hudson from Cars. all of that raw within the first 15 minutes of the game which is just incredible um also incredible two league defeats on the bounce for forest fourth manager of the season veto perera manchester city midweek for a forest manager where would you put his job security he's already like

1:00:26Roger Bennett:slightly precarious i mean i think he started it slightly precarious as soon as he put the pen down on signing the contract he was it's like with a car when you drive it off the forecourt it loses half its value. It's the same with the Forest manager. What did I just sign? Your death sentence. Surely Maranakis wouldn't do five.

1:00:45Rory Smith:Keep going. Keep going. That kind of a phrase, Roar, he feeds off that. Surely Maranakis wouldn't do five. I dare you, Evangelos. I dare you to do five in one season. Do it. Do it. It's going to be genuinely amazing. Ange Postacoglu, two. Electric Boogaloo. Don't be a coward. Bournemouth, one. Sunderland 1, draw between two teams who had been going in opposite directions. Bournemouth suddenly unbeaten in eight. Sunderland stopped the rot of three straight losses. A different, stealier proposition with the return of captain leader legend Granit Xhaka, who'd missed four games through injury. He led to the slight, in Rory terms, a wobble, Mayenda opened up the scoring first goal in six months.

1:01:28Rory Smith:Then Evan Nielsen shouldered home the equaliser. Bro, I had a dream on Thursday night for real that I went to a wedding and Andoni Irola was there. And at the reception, man, dream Andoni.

1:01:41Roger Bennett:He's an incredible dancer. Is there any other type of Andoni? Is Andoni Irola himself not a dream?

1:01:48Rory Smith:It's like watching Bas Travolta. Everyone was just watching these moves and like, oh my God, just watch him let out all that pressure of being a Premier League manager on the dance floor. It's magnificent. How did the dream resolve itself? I woke up, the alarm went off. It was genuinely, I have very little dreams, but it's one of the few dreams that I do not know what it means. When I'm stressed about work, I dream about work. When I'm stressed about the world, I dream about the world. Dreaming about Andoni Arola being the greatest dancer was not on my list, but we've got to move on. Dream experts, by the way, meninblazersgmail.com, please tell me what that means.

1:02:26Rory Smith:Burnley 3, oh, Brentford 4, just an agony of a game for Scott Parker and Burnley. Clamets were 3-0 down inside 34 minutes in front of a watching JJ Watt. Doug Deke fought back, actually made it 4-3. But then Jadon Anthony was judged to be a shoulder width offside. And then at the death, Mikel Damsgaard reminded us there's no romance in football. Scored the winner for Brentford three minutes into injury time. But then Ashley Barnes, God bless him, netted in the 98th, triggering huge scenes of jubilation. But his last second equaliser was Vardov by those cruel bastards for handballing the build-up after an enormous delay.

1:03:07Rory Smith:Didn't we almost have it all? Burnley ended up with nothing. My friend JJ Watt tweeted post-game, if it takes 10 minutes, it is not clear and obvious. Rarely do we hear a co-owner speak up so honestly. And he's not really wrong, is he?

1:03:23Roger Bennett:No, I mean, well, so he is and he isn't, Rog. because with handball, the threshold isn't clear and obvious. And that's one of the issues that they've got, which is I think that they've managed to muddy the waters so much in terms of what we're looking for, that J.J. Watt is perfectly entitled to think, well, it's not clear and obvious, so why are you changing it? But the referees will say, well, that's not how handball works.

1:03:43Rory Smith:You're going to have to be brave enough to tell him. I'm not telling him.

1:03:46Roger Bennett:I don't want to tell him. I'm on J.J. Watt's side because I agree with the principle. I think if they can't spot it immediately, I'm not even sure having watched it several times on television, whether it touches his hand or not. I still don't know. How you rule that goal out, because it might have touched his hand, that seems like some weird, like, Inception, Bourne Identity stuff going on. I'm not even sure that Jadon Anthony was offside. It was his shoulder, like his clavicle is a thing now. His clavicle, I don't know. It was that bit. And I thought that it wasn't, that wasn't where you took it from.

1:04:21Roger Bennett:His clavicle, not Lux Maxing. He is, yeah. the pgmol is looks max in roger and that's the problem the um the both decisions i think were ridiculous i think again without being too negative on a on a monday morning i think we've got a real problem i think we've got a real problem and they need to think about whether

1:04:38Rory Smith:this is the game that we want yeah we just want corners give us bloody corners man people pushing each other at corners that's what football is about give us what we pay for it's meant to be entertainment. By the way, I was so rooting for Burnley. I always do for JJ, but especially this week on Wednesday night, we will be in Houston, marking 99 days out for the World Cup with Mr. 99. JJ Watt, Kona Burnley. I'm not going to tell him he was wrong about the VAR. I don't have the confidence.

1:05:08Roger Bennett:Put him onto me, Rog. It'll be alright.

1:05:09Rory Smith:I'll just phone you up, baby. I've got some bad news for you, JJ. We'll be live on stage at a sold-out Rice University, Brockman Hall for Opera. But what is this life twisted? On Saturday, I'll actually be live in conversation with the incredible Brentford owner, Matthew Benham. Man has used data to find marginal advantages, striker after striker, and managers like Keith Andrews and his beautiful eyes just signed a new contract until 2032. We'll be live on stage at Sloan Sports Analytical Conference in Boston. Come and say hi. Give us a cuddle if you're there. Let's save the best till last. Did this really happen?

1:05:46Rory Smith:Newcastle 2. Everton 3 just a remarkable human experience up there we're watching Andoni Erola dance at the dream wedding the Anthony Gordon Memorial Derby Newcastle trying to do the double over us we came out I'll say with an unfamiliar intensity we pressed Newcastle into slop and mistakes took the lead off a Chexnotes corner we're good at them too now swung in Tonali tried to clear out Gerard Brantway just succeeded in helping him get pushed towards the ball just a fantastic flick into the corner. At AITHC, noted in the MIB Discord, Brantwaite is from Good Farmer stock. There's no pushing him.

1:06:26Rory Smith:It was a brilliant goal. We're poor man's set pieces FC. Now, here's the truth for all. It's what I want to talk about with you very quickly. When Everton score, I actually don't enjoy it. When we open the scoring, I feel worse than when we concede. And I went to see a therapist and he said to me this. These are his words. He said, it sounds like you take control of the experience of disappointment by preemptively becoming disappointed. You savor the anticipated loss when the team is down, a stance in which you can quite comfortably root for a win because you don't risk much. But when they take a 1-0 lead, it's inherently less pleasurable because you can't enjoy it.

1:07:08Rory Smith:you manage the anxiety associated with the inevitability of the mucking up by negating the positive mood and you try and spoil it yourself what do you think of that i think it's

1:07:21Roger Bennett:really interesting that you managed to find the therapist who's also an evertonian oh it wasn't

1:07:25Rory Smith:he was a liverpool fan really yeah which maybe should be like they should should he not have exempt himself medically did i there's surely some conflict of it but what do you think of it

1:07:33Roger Bennett:You have to recuse yourself there. As I hear it, it's crazy, man. That makes sense to me that you are, I think, in the same way. It's only at myself. Well, no, but we talked about this, don't we, on the Friday show, that both of us struggle to predict our own team to win because you are stealing yourself against the idea that they might not. I think that's instinctive fan psychology, I think. So it makes sense to me that when they score, you'd be like, oh, no, this has just annoyed them. I've got to, I must have. I know, I make a noise.

1:08:02Rory Smith:I make a noise when we score. It's a very like, it's a very sweet. Do you feel like a wash of relief initially? No, I feel like there's an ecstasy and my kids go crazy. I feel happy for them. And then it kicks in, it's in waves. Like there is a, it's like that ecstasy, that weird noise I just made. But then literally within about 1.2 seconds, a darkness, like a cloud, just, oh, now we have something to lose, precious. And I just manage it with my own anxiety. I think. Is it different depending on when you open the scoring? Honestly, I wish it was. It's not. I always think... 95th minute. It's 1-0.

1:08:40Rory Smith:Oh, we're going to throw this away. Well, I mean, by the way, we did give the lead away. Seconds after the commentator said Newcastle had gone behind seven times and lost six of them. Of course, when he cursed to say that, they scored off a massive Gerard Brantwaite deflection. I knew the goal was coming, so it didn't hurt. But then shock, pivot. This shocked me. This was like a punch in my face because two minutes later, I had no words, no comprehension, no ability to understand, no experience of how to process. Everton, tenacity, took the lead back. Dwight McNeil, sweet, sad Dwight, never said a bad word about you.

1:09:16Rory Smith:Speculative shot, Nick Pope, hot messed it, I think, swooped in, allowing who to swoop in, but Beto tapped home. I love that man. Raw, no one is more surprised when he scores than Beto himself.

1:09:30Roger Bennett:But that makes sense because I'm pretty sure Beto was trying to miss. If you look at how close he is to the goal and how far into the corner he puts it, that is a man who is trying not to score.

1:09:42Rory Smith:That's Beto betoing and I love you, man. Newcastle all over us in the second half without really challenging Jordan Pickford. The inevitable, though, late on 82nd minute. Jacob Murphy rifled the shot, another heavy deflection and it did feel darkness on the edge of the town. So bloody familiar. But again, Everton suddenly only let Toon score so that they could take the lead again. This was crazy, man. Within 60 bloody seconds, Anthony Gordon should have counted double. He was dispossessed. And the quite excellent Kieran Dewsbury Hall rolled in on goal, prodded the ball home by Tiano Barry. Serious question, Raw.

1:10:19Rory Smith:Is there a better finisher in the world of football with his ass?

1:10:24Roger Bennett:Ex-ass. a new stat. It was an extremely unusual part of the body to store a goal with, but I would have said it was lower back. I think he stored with his top six. You do? With his what? His top six.

1:10:37Rory Smith:Yes. Is that not just with his looks maxing? We talked about the Pickford save of saves. At the top man is a biblical bloody hero. Bigger than that. Boo's at full time at Newcastle. Is it five losses out of the last six? Champions League is where they are saving their best performance. By the way, Anthony Gordon, symbol of that. Ten goals, I think, in the Champions League. Just three in the league. It's the first time Newcastle have lost three successive Premier League games at St. James' Park under Eddie Howe. Is this how it ends quickly for Eddie Howe after nearly five years? Not with a bang, but just a whimper of suboptimality.

1:11:15Roger Bennett:Yeah, there's a little bit of noise and whisperings around the idea that Eddie Howe might be reaching a point where he might think that his journey has run its course, or Newcastle might think that their journey together has run their course. I actually think the issue that he's faced, Eddie Howe, isn't really to do with him. It's to do with the lack of direction from the club's owners, who just seem to have lost a bit of interest, if I'm completely honest. A lot of the promises they made to Newcastle, a lot of the big ideas, the grand visions that they sold to the fans when they took over, just haven't really materialised.

1:11:44Roger Bennett:They've appointed a new chief exec who speaks very well about wanting to be one of the biggest clubs in the world by 2030. But if I'm completely honest, if I was a Newcastle fan and I heard my chief executive say that, I think I'd be inclined to think they weren't desperately serious.

1:11:59Rory Smith:CFTO can't fire the owners. Everton, ah, perfect day. Good, better, best. Three points. Striking tandem, both scored. And Anthony Gordon, that ginge, Benedict Arnold's tears. Incredible list. Only lead leaders, Arsenal and Manchester City, have picked up more points on the road than Everton this season. If only we had a shiny new home stadium that could be our fortress roar. But let's go and read a letter from our bulging mailbag. It's been honestly really, really lovely this week in this darkest of times. Your letters sustain us. This one is from the mighty John Black.

1:12:36Roger Bennett:And it's a lovely one, Rog, this one. It says, Team MIB, you have no idea what your podcast has meant to me over the years. I get so much joy from listening to it. And I love that it's now something my 11-year-old son can enjoy with me on our car rides to his trainings. My son, who's in remission, went through two and a half years of chemotherapy for leukemia. He's a true warrior. And that's what I mean when I say your podcast has meant a lot to me. Your authentic passion for football and storytelling provided me comfort and respite during tough times. I could go on more about my love for MIB.

1:13:06Roger Bennett:John recognising that, you know, at least one of us is British and therefore is starting to feel slightly awkward. But the reason for me reaching out was to ask a question about the pre-order of your book. Thanks, John. This will be the third of your books I've owned. I ordered 10 books through Elliot Bay. Not because I need 10 books, That would be deeply weird. But because my good mate, also a GFOP, is turning 50 in May, and I want to give him your book. And more importantly, I wanted a personalised video from Rog, wishing him a happy 50th. That's what life's about. Much gratitude and courage, John Black.

1:13:37Rory Smith:Ro, a lot of life John Black is living through that.

1:13:42Roger Bennett:Yeah, that's an awful lot to go through. And as a parent, it fills you with horror and sadness to hear of kids going through stuff like that, and inspiration to hear of their response and fighting it. And yeah, I personally wouldn't turn to this podcast in such a wide range, Rog, but I'm glad that some people do.

1:14:01Rory Smith:That's what I'm saying. I wish I knew your son's name. Tell us your son's name because I do want to drop him a line. But my God, I mean, everything he's been to and then poor bastard has to listen to all that stuff. Yeah, awful business. I don't know. Sir in general, there's got a lot of health warning on this crap. John, I want you to know, I was incredibly moved by your letter because it contains all the bloody good stuff. The friendship, the cross-generational memory making with your son, who sounds like a hero. I really do want to drop him alive. Bonus points for Elliot Bay Books, which is a Seattle gem.

1:14:34Rory Smith:I think I can say it's my favorite indie bookstore in the United States and so many of you have sent so many to me that I do want to visit. But thanks for your generosity of spirit and the moment with my bloody book. Books are so hard. Tell me what you do with the other nine. that you brought. I do want to see them like jammed over at every desk, every table, just like, you know,

1:14:56Roger Bennett:hopefully put to good use. Presumably he will read one of them himself.

1:15:00Rory Smith:Yeah.

1:15:01Roger Bennett:And I guess you'll give one, he'll give one to his son, I would have thought. I mean, I know young people don't read now, but it might make a novel kind of like... Book on tape. Yeah, like, well, maybe it kind of, it makes a talking point for his son and his friends. What's this? What's this ancient artifact? What do you do with it? So, you're looking at seven spare books and I'm thinking you could kind of be giving that out as Christmas presents to your wife to your wife's friends, to your parents for a good two or three years to be honest I reckon that's money we'll spend

1:15:32Rory Smith:I'd probably just give it to your in-laws here's a present, I was going to get you some socks you didn't want but here's a book you don't want instead. Thank you for your letter John Black, you beautiful human being keep writing to all of us here at Men in Blazers at gmail.com I do try and answer everything I want to give huge thanks to Bank of America, Official Bank of US Soccer and the FIFA World Cup 2026 for supporting the Men in Blazers media network. Discover what's possible in sports and in life. What would you like the power to do? That is it for today. We'll be live in Houston Wednesday, live in Boston Saturday.

1:16:05Rory Smith:Come join us quickly before we sign off. Atlanta, we're headed to you for your heartbeat of the American football world. March 27th at the Eastern for our World Cup countdown show. soccer's coming home 76 days out we'll be on the stage presented by our friends at bank of america come and be with us just bring on all of your passion all of your joy and we'll celebrate everything that is to come a link to tickets in the show notes really really really it's going to be a gorgeous gorgeous time and i can't wait to celebrate with you in these crazy times um and to raw big big love on a sunday um to you for being with us thank you beautiful the whole

1:16:46Roger Bennett:week is open to me, Roger. I'm going to go to the best country. I'm going to San Sebastian.

1:16:50Rory Smith:What, to find out why Andoni Ereola is such a great dancer to get to the roots of the mystery? I'm going for work.

1:16:56Roger Bennett:No, it's the best derby and I've always wanted to go. So I'm going to go and watch Real Sausage I'd play Athletic Bilbao.

1:17:00Rory Smith:Oh my God, I'm so jealous of your life in every regard. You know, we've talked about getting a Bodo Glimp for so long, but now we'd look like bandwagoners. I know, it's awful. The game I do want to go, I'd love to see Real Betis with you more than anything. I'd love to go to that derby more than anything in the world with the Aurora. But it's nice to dream. This is Rod saying, let's not take a second of watching football together for granted. Big love and courage.