Arsenal tension at the top, Thomas Frank sacked, & FA Cup Fourth Round: Big Weekend Preview 02/13/26

0:00You're listening to the Men in Blazers Media Network Suboptimal Radio.

0:11We brace ourselves for a weekend in which football has become dominated by Franks. There's the defenestrated by Spurs Thomas and the Manchester United non-haircut variety. We'll touch upon both. Talk about Arsenal fans sphincters tightening. That's a four-point gap. and revel in an FA Cup fourth round weekend, aka the 48 hours in which the world learns what a Macclesfield is. This is Big Weekend Preview, where we make it all stop making sense. And it's a joy to welcome my friend in pod, the Crown Prince O 'Harrogate. About to head for Hull for the Chelsea Games, Mr Rory Smith. How you doing, Rog?

0:50Rory, I can almost hear the Smithmobile humming in the drive. I want to get you on the road, but how am I doing? better than Thomas Frank but not as good as Frank Isla which is kind of where we all are somewhere in between right? That is the spectrum that we exist on now just in the same way as I can imagine that in years to come there might be a graphic to sort of stress how tight a title race is that is based entirely on the sort of aperture of a sphincter I think the Frank spectrum now spans all of humanity we are all somewhere on the Frank spectrum Human history between two curly main blokes that's the world 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.

1:34Discover what's possible in sports and in life. What would you like the power to do? Let's start with Thomas Frank. Raw Wednesday. Oh, I do love this man. It's been torture watching him. Almost like if you remember a show Game of Thrones listeners, it's like watching Reek be tortured. finally let go from Spurs, put out of his misery really. I think there was a Paddy Power commercial that really spoke the truth. Spurs having the kind of season that could only be cut from Arsenal fans' pure lols filled dreams, injury ridden, dank football propelled, descent into madness or at least 16th place on the cusp of the relegation zone and a tortured Frank has paid the iron price, being belatedly canned after gleaning a mere 29 points from 26 games, lowest of any Spurs manager who's played more than five games in the competition.

2:27His card loss in, probably leaving an overachieving small club, low-possession football tactic approach and coming to a bigger club that demands optimistic, buccaneering, Champions League-aspiring football. And he was rejected, honestly, from the beginning, like a donor organ in a host body. Raw, so many questions remain. Was this merely a problem of management? Or was Frank really just a symbol of a total systemic culture of chaos at the club? Bit of both. Bit of column A, bit of column B, I think, Rog. So it was fairly obvious relatively quickly. And I say this as someone like you, who is full of admiration for Thomas Frank, who really liked him, who thought he was a really sensible appointment, desperately wanted him to succeed.

3:07It was pretty obvious pretty quickly that he didn't quite fit, that for whatever reason, and I've seen it characterised this week as he had to make the switch from being a primarily reactive coach to being a proactive coach. And I think that probably fits it as neatly as anything. And I think he struggled with that. And the Spurs fans started to turn probably as soon as late September, early October, when you ended up with performances that were worse than results, particularly at home. I think that was really telling, that the home form was really bad. Even the games that they won, Spurs weren't convincing.

3:41so it looks to me like you can say okay this is just one that hasn't worked out it's a fit that for whatever reason wasn't there doesn't mean that Thomas Frank's a bad manager I'm sure he will go on and get another job somewhere and do well but then if you look a bit deeper a lot of the issues are nothing to do with him and in fact that the issues kind of underpin both his reign and Ange Postacodlu's reign Spurs have won five home league games since the end of 2024 that's insane. I mean, it's ridiculous for a club of that quality, of that ambition, of those horizons, to have that sort of home record.

4:16So I think you have to say that, on balance, as much as Frank maybe wasn't the right man for Spurs, as it turned out, he's probably more symptom than cause, I think. Raw and news breaking as we discuss the future of possibly Mauricio Pochettino's post-World Cup Tottenham Hotspur. David Ornstein, who is the font of all knowledge, has just tweeted, that Igor Tudor is possibly going to be coming in as the interim manager at Tottenham Hotspur. Roar, remind us who he is and what you make of our return to the Tudor age. Tudor was a Croatian defender, played in Serie A for a long time. His coaching career has been kind of curious.

4:56He's done well at Marseille and at Juventus without ever really impressing anyone enough to get any of those jobs for a long period of time. He strikes me as being a relatively smart appointment, I think. He's a competent coach. he's worked with big players. I don't know how stylistically different he is to Thomas Frank and I don't know how well suited he is to getting Tottenham out of a potential relegation battle. But what I think it mainly illustrates is that Spurs sacked Frank despite all of the kind of forewarning they must have had. They got rid of him without any sort of plan in place which is not a great sign.

5:28Who saw this coming? Is what they said to each other as they sat around the table. I love the name Igor. My late father Ivor when he'd come over to the United States They didn't quite understand that name. And whenever he'd have to wear a name tag in an event, nine times out of ten, they'd print it Igor Bennett. And it cracked me up every single time. I want to talk more about the Tottenham situation on Monday in our show, but let me ask you this one. Tottenham are in 16th place, five points. Positive goal difference also above newly alive West Ham. Are Spurs really in the relegation dogfight?

6:02The tabloid kind of fear mongers are brewing up? and if so, is that squad assembled for that purpose? What should the real worry be for Spurs Nation, Steve Nash and Cope? It feels really hyperbolic, Rog, and like you, I don't like being hyperbolic. Don't like it. Just don't like it. At all. No place. I think to an extent you have to say they are in a relegation battle, to be honest. I don't think they'll go down, but then if you look at their form, if you look at the fact that Leeds, who've now gone above them, I think, and even West Ham are finding a little bit of form, that seem to have a bit of purpose.

6:34There is that old cliche that there's always one team that gets dragged into it unexpectedly. And that, in English football tradition, that's the worst team to be because you're not, like you say, you're not kind of ready for it. You're not psychologically steeled for the battle ahead. I think it could be Tottenham, to be honest. They've got so many injuries. They've got such terrible home form, as I say. And I think the club itself must feel so unsettled and uncertain. I don't think they'll go down, but I do think they'll have to turn it around pretty quickly to avoid complete panic. Because it looks like this year you'll need quite a lot of points to stay up.

7:09That has been dropping. Traditionally, when we were growing up, we would have said 38-40 to stay up. The last few years it's been 32-33. I think it's back towards 40 now. So Spurs don't have long to kind of pick themselves up and sort themselves out. If only, Roar, Sean Dyche was available. He's the perfect man for the job. He's the perfect man for the job. He'd never leave Forest though, would he? Well, not unless Evangelos Maranakis decided that drawing at home to Wolves was unacceptable and fired him, Rog. But he'd never do that, would he, Rog? No, he's too rational. He'd never have four managers in a season.

7:40Evangelos Maranakis is the last person you'd expect to fire three managers in the same season. God bless. And then replace the last one with the guy who's just been fired by Wolves. God bless footballing autocracies.

7:57I do want to talk quickly about the other Frank. Oddly enough, right now the most successful one, Haircut Boy. We've talked a lot on this show about how football discourse is now post-tactics. We're even post-duels. We're into duels briefly, Raw, but we're not there anymore. We're post-transfer hot take. We don't care about that anymore. We've become utterly ensconced by the white hot heat. of whether the United Strands' Frank Islet will ever get his bloody haircut. And Wayne Rooney may despise him. But the man's really the perfect bellwether for football in our extremely online age. It was incredible.

8:34Midweek, it really was. Tuning in with the world, even people who didn't like football were tuning in to watch Manchester United play West Ham, ultimately a 1-1 draw. Again, it was completely overshadowed by his non-haircut journey. Michael Carrick's interim record is this, four wins and one draw. I think that's breathtaking. But at the final whistle, it felt like a shattering defeat. And it's incredible, A, to see a fan who clearly loves his team, completely undermining the thing that he loves in equal measure in the process. What could be more modern football than that? But also, watching West Ham players get post-game haircuts on social to mark the snapping of the five-game haircut streak as if it was a seismic victory is also so pure zeitgeist.

9:25Let me remind you, that is a team still very much in the relegation zone, going down as it stands raw. Is this who we are now? Just pants. Do you know what? You've crystallised something, Rog, perfectly, I think. I can't really add anything to it. you're right like the saga of frank islet's haircut is the perfect allegory would i think be the the ponzi word for it for kind of the way we consume football now it's all tangential to football the football is the is the raw material and the stuff that we consume the stuff that that kind of hooks us in is all extraneous too i i played football this week and a couple of mates of mine were saying that their kids were a gog at the united strand stream because that's what they wanted to watch they didn't really care about the West Ham Man United score or the game other than how it affected Frank Islet's head.

10:14And it does feel as though that is kind of symbolic of the way we think about football now. It's not the game itself, really. It's everything around it. What I would say is I don't know whether this is good or bad for Frank Islet because Frank Islet gets to still have his moment in the sunshine. So maybe he doesn't want Manchester United to win five in a row. And this is what I assume. By the way, I long for the slightly naive, extremely online days where any West Ham player when they're in the relegation zone who does anything mildly fun would be lambasted. You're in the relegation zone. How dare you smile in public?

10:47Why are you doing your shopping? And why are you just like doing basic necessities, breathing? Why are you breathing? But I mean, it is like now they're in the relegation zone. Let's get the haircuts. Let's win the, let's win the hair, her stoop bants. I mean, this is, this is what we're watching. also so much of it is commoditized isn't it so much of it is deliberate there would have been a point where frank highlight made that bet you know said i'm not gonna get my hair cut until they've won five in a row and it was kind of innocent innocent and pure and he just kind of did it as a joke and now everything around it is completely deliberate to exploit that one moment of virality and that feels quite cynical to me five games is is quite an ask in this modern fight in fact it perfectly represents the over privilege of us as fans i want five wins on the The truth is, this is how it ends.

11:35That dude's going to go bald before Manchester United win five games in a row because nature is healing and it has a cure for everything. It's actually an incredible tweet I read after Gerard Piquet agreed to be in a pre-game hype video with Haircut Boy, chasing around with a pair of scissors before the game. At Psalm 0161 tweeted, imagine having a life. This is about Piquet. Imagine having a life where you were waking up with Shakira every day and winning World Cups, and now you're getting introduced to a burst mattress to the FA Cup, an actual football. Arsenal Football Club, they play third tier, Wigan Athletic, Fallen Giant, at home Sunday 11.30 on ESPN+.

12:19A game played in the shadow of a Premier League battle, which is just tightened like a pair of playboy cards, a skinny jeans. Last night, Arsenal toiled at quite sensationally organised Brentford's story of the season in many regards from a non-top-four POV. And they downed the stretch truly overwhelmingly leading side who were stripped of Saliba, ill. Havertz also ill, missed them terribly in a game of two great headers, two late misses and two massive saves. Arsenal scored on their only shot on target all night. Brentford equalised in the most Arsenal-ish of ways off a long throw two magical finishes to be candid Arsenal's goal worth watching as well by Madweke you can just see the relief and the joy and the sense of belonging roll off him as he celebrates it but the title gap now just four points 12 games to go Manchester City a lot of you on Discord last night in the Men in Blazers Discord talked about them being Timu Manchester City but the North London derby next in the league.

13:23Panic levels in the Hathaway house roar. What setting should they be at? I feel like Anne Hathaway probably has a lot of candles to help relax her. That's so nice. Do you think afterwards she just plays like an acapella version of North London Forever in a bath that's just surrounded by candles in a totally white room? Sort of scents of jasmine and bergamot. I think that's what I'm getting from Anne Hathaway. I think nobody in the world handles disappointment for their football team quite as well as Anne Hathaway. I'll go to Portland and forever. I bet you she smashes things, plates, sunglasses.

13:54Yes, goes bonkers. Hurls things across the room. Yeah, yeah. Just cursing King Lewis Potter. This Keith Andrews, I can't stand. The fact that Anne Hathaway probably knows who Keith Andrews is is actively amazing. It's healing. Yeah, it's remarkable. What a world to bring together that Anne Hathaway knows who Keith Andrews is. Yeah, she's more than a set-piece coach. potential in everybody.

14:21Yeah, I think it's one of, do you know what my main reaction is? I think it's quite good for the league. I'm now experiencing this title race vicariously through my two mates, Colin and Max, who run the best coffee shop in the town where I live. And they are both Arsenal fans, both from Yorkshire, but both Arsenal fans. And I can tell kind of how nervous Arsenal as a club are from how much Colin talks to me when I get my coffee in the morning. If it's a lot, then he's worried. I think it's good for the lead because it creates suspense I think the fact that Arsenal still have to go to the Etihad is this big sort of swinging X factor over the title race but ultimately I think winning titles is not meant to be easy and there are stressful moments in it getting a point at Brentford who could have gone you know could have potentially been sixth by the end of this round of matches disappointed in the moment but long term that's not a bad result You can name-check the coffee shop, Roar.

15:15Is Lastazione. Is Lastazione. We haven't done a sponsorship deal with them, Rog, so I don't want to... Not partners of Men and Blazers, but you can tell how nervous they are by just how shaky the foam is on the latte. Enter fallen third-tier cellar dweller, Wigan Athletic. This game should be a speed bump. Really, the perfect FA Cup fourth-round test, right, Roar? It's going to be fascinating to witness just how seriously all the Premier League teams, like Sunday's Aston Villa against Newcastle clash, most of whom are poised on the knife edge without a safety net in their respective existential kind of Premier League fights.

15:50How seriously do they take the tournament? So in this one, how hard does Arteta chase the quadruple? How much does he emphasise the notion of rest for his squad? I think Fortune might have smiled on him a little bit here, Rog, because he will be able to make substantial changes and still expect to beat a Wigan team who haven't won in lead one since they beat Preston to get into the fourth round of the FA Cup at the start of January. I think they haven't won in the lead since December. There's a really nice story in their midfield, a guy called Matt Smith, who was in 2020 sitting on the substitutes bench for Arsenal in the FA Cup final next to Bakayo Saka.

16:26Neither of them got on, but they were part of the same generation that came through Arsenal's academy. Obviously, Saka went on to be a superstar. Matt Smith is now rebuilding a career at Wigan. He did an interview with The Athletic a little while ago and showed an amazing lack of bitterness. It was a really sweet interview. Just seemed completely delighted to have had his time at Arsenal. It's thrilled to be building a career in the EFL. I think when you're in Arsenal's position and you want to stay alive in those four competitions for as long as possible, getting a nice, gentle home draw in the fourth round of the FA Cup is a real bonus.

16:57So I'd expect changes, but I don't think there'll be a cost to that. And children listening, don't let go of your bitterness. that's the that's the moral that's the lesson if you want to if you want to go down to the third tier just try and be a humble you know a gracious human being as I say lots of fascinating clashes that are going to be echoes of how much do you rest how much do you go for it the Estonville and Newcastle clash 12.45pm Eastern Time on Saturday Liverpool hosting Brighton in the under pressure manager Classico that follows at 3pm Eastern Time I want to ask you quickly about two games that are fascinating at least from a script writing perspective First is Manchester City against Salford City tomorrow, 10 a.m.

17:37Eastern Time. A game which is really narrative one, conspiracy theorist two. Somehow, for the second straight FA Cup season, Manchester City welcome the League Two Minnows, owned by ex-United legends Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Paul Scholes and Sir David Beckham. Well done, whoever drew that one out. How does that happen? I don't know. last season Manchester City crushed the Amies 8-0 I expect that honestly to feel like a close game I think this will be a City rout but I am fascinated to watch Raw Chelsea travel to Hull City where you will be today 2.45pm Eastern Time making Liam Rosinia return to the town of Philip Larkin to face humble Hull City place where he spent 18 months learning his craft the early days a bit like Zach Braff this game having to return to his hometown, South Orange in Garden State.

18:33I found it really moving this week hearing Rosinha speak quite bravely about how his family is bearing under. But we talked about him being negatively impacted in quite a seismic way by the discourse surrounding his Chelsea appointment on social media. I think that's a warning shot, that convo. But we're all listening to him and seeing the results, two different things. I realise he's never going to pull this off. He's a man who has both a winning record in the league. He's been quite amazing when you look at it. But I do fear he's in a no-win situation in which every game is going to just continue to be a must-win, if you know what I mean.

19:12Yeah, it does feel when you kind of watch Chelsea. And all right, the draw with Leeds was disappointing. There's no point pretending it wasn't. But that is a derby game, effectively. That's one of English football's kind of random historic derbies. But Chelsea and Leeds hate each other. When I used to go to Leeds as a kid, we used to sing about Chelsea all of the time. Some not very nice songs. Yes, hate will overwhelm love, people. Come on. But it does feel like there's this massive discrepancy, this disconnect, between what Liam Resignia's results are and the kind of tone of what he's being asked about.

19:44Because his results have been really good. He's had a great start to life as Chelsea manager. But it does still feel as though he's being asked to justify himself in the way that you'd expect of a manager who'd had a bad start. and I think it must be driven by the sense that he's such a risky appointment he's such a sort of an out of the blue undercooked appointment by the standard by traditional standards of English football that there is this suspicion that it can't possibly work and it's being approached from that angle all of the time we can't allow it to work right it can't be allowed to work even if he wins by the way I got a feeling even if he wins the FA Cup we're still gonna laugh at him we're still going to call him a fraud we're still going to say linkedin liam he he he can never shake this the the linkedin liam thing i don't have that much sympathy with him for i think that you could probably turn i think that he will have enough pr people around him to say actually do you know what liam that bit's not helping you so maybe just just rein that side of you in a little bit and i think that's okay like in the same way as i you know i change my accent i don't speak in deep yorkshire to you rog you have to have a little bit of awareness that certain elements of you when you're in that public kind of public facing role maybe don't play quite as you think and it's a shame that you can't be yourself openly but I think if he was to you know maybe speak in the management jargon a little bit less that wouldn't be a massive disaster for civilization the rest of it I think is odd because it's really hard to see how he could have started much better and it feels like we should have moved beyond it a bit by now into kind of okay what does Resenia's vision for Chelsea look like but you're right I'm not sure he will ever be able to escape and no matter what he wins over the course of his Chelsea tenure, how long that lasts, you kind of sense that the story of his reign will always focus on that sense that he got the job too early, effectively.

21:27It is amazing. It's not about winning football, is it? In this kind of post-discourse world or whatever, it's about can he trap the ball when it falls from a grip? He should have trapped the ball! And I think this is going to be a perfect day for Liam. I think he's going to bring one down from the sky and absolutely trap it beautifully and his boys will drop four on the Tigers.

21:50Real joy of this FA Cup, learning about weird England. Keep the FA Cup weird. First of all, Burton Alvium. Welcome West Ham. Saturday, 7.15am Eastern Time, 21st in League One. Burton, Staffordshire, 30 miles northeast of Birmingham. Do you know what it's famous for, Ruh? I would quibble with the concept that Burton is famous for anything. Is it really? does the word beer don't mean anything to you raw? Lifeblood. I know listeners, you're all now shouting at your pod radio saying, of course it's famous for beer. The well water impregnated with calcium sulfate derived from gypsum. It's particularly suitable for the brewing process.

22:29And the monks of Burton Abbey knew that in the year 1002. What is that? How do you say 1002? Is that how you would have said it if you were a monk back then? I don't even know anymore. By 1801, nine brewers in Burton and beer, including India Pale, I've heard of it, made it just an absolute beer capital. Raw at its height. This is mind-blowing. One quarter of all beer sold in Britain was produced in Burton. That is remarkable. There's a town quite near me called Tadcaster, Rog, which makes a very similar claim, which makes me think that neither of them are true. it's a Tadcaster woo how a Tadcaster not in the FA Cup I'd love to do 50 minutes on Tadcaster but until then come on the Brewers another great team fourth here Grimsby are they a football club or are they some kind of foot fungus that affected sailors in the 19th century I'm suffering from monastication Grimsby raw Amarim killers they welcome Premier League walls Sunday AM Eastern Time remind us what Grimsby is all about Grimsby is a port town on the Lincolnshire coast it is, it's fisheries it's fish and chips it's quite a long way from anywhere and it is basically at this point in English culture famous because they beat Manchester United earlier this season, that is without question the only two things that anyone ever discusses in context of Grimsby is whether the BBC goes there too often to speak to people about Brexit Grimsby was always the place they went to talk about Brexit Oh is that like the middle of the country?

23:58Yeah, it's our kind of here's average town USA, like it was It was, let's go and see what the people in Grimsby think. Or, what was it like when you beat Manchester United? So they're the two sides to the Grimsby existence at the moment, I would say. My God, I don't mean to go all Alice Cooper and Wayne's World on your ****, but did you know by 1900, a tenth of the fish consumed in the United Kingdom was landed in Grimsby there? I did not know that, Rog. I don't know why I would have known that, but I didn't. Hashtag Cod Wars. Finally, Port Vale, football club or medieval kingdom rule? We don't know.

24:31We know they're Robbie Williams boys and they welcome Bristol City. Saturday, 10 a.m. Eastern Time. Third tier cellar dwellers from near Stoke. Everything seems to be near Stoke nowadays. Roar, centre of the pottery industry. By the way, Roar, God, this is turning into like proper geography. Do you know why fine ceramics just was dominated by the Stoke region? It's not Tony Poulis, baby. I'm going to guess it's to do with whatever type of clay-based soil that part of the country is on. Oh, you know, if you know about that, please email us, menandblazersgmail.com. I'd like to know. I do know that part of it is that China, obviously, eminently breakable, and it's the centre of the canal network.

25:09Indeed, Britain's industrial might and the entire canal system may have been heavily driven by the need to safely shift pottery around the empire without breaking it. My God, there were days, yes, listeners before FedEx, man, and they were simpler times. Raw, I need to know now, where's the fourth round? FA Cup, big upset coming. It's not a classic draw, Rog. I think the one that looks really obvious to me is Grimsby. Grimsby, I think, will look at Wolves and think, well, we've beaten Manchester United already, so we can probably do that. The one where I think most people will be upset is Southampton against Leicester, who must be two of the most depressed clubs in the country at the moment.

25:46I think that game ends nil-nil, goes through each of the time. It's still nil-nil. There's a penalty shootout. Nobody scores. No one's allowed to go through. God bless thems. The rules, I agree. Grimsby will do to Wolves what they did to United in the Carabao at their tiny little ground, Blundell Park, in Cleethorpes. Capacity 9 ,546, 2-0 to Grimsby. But being Wolves, is it really a shock, though? Dot, dot, dot. Raw, lots of FA Cup wonders to come. Brace yourselves for another weekend in which the likes of historic goalkeepers eating pies in net and low league managers vaping on the sideline predominate.

26:23Raw, let's go to one more big thing. What else are you looking forward to that we're not talked about? I think there is quite a good tie in this draw that's gone under the radar a little bit. And it's the early one on Sunday, Birmingham against Leeds. So obviously upwardly mobile Birmingham, Tom Brady's Birmingham against the Mighty Whites. But this is one of those derbies, a bit like Chelsea Leeds actually, which is a kind of old school English hooligan derby. Birmingham-Leeds was always the sort of game where there was large scale police presence to prevent there being any trouble back in the dark days of the 70s and 80s.