Tottenham relegation panic, Wrexham’s FA Cup heartbreak, and Arsenal's quadruple dreams stay alive: Men in Blazers 03/09/26

18:17Roger Bennett:Yeah, that's the dream of football. It's what, when they sat in the Midland Hotel and drew up the rules for the football league, that's what they thought. They thought, Ebenezer, we are creating a global content platform.

18:27Rory Smith:Yes, eventually. The world will catch up with what I'm telling you now. But remember, these are my last words. Football will soon be the world's greatest global content platform. It's all we want. It's why we watch. Look, by the way, we laugh at that, but I watched the game. I ran off stage. It's such a content. I ran off stage at Sloan with all these incredibly intense analytics people and charged to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where the Boston Reds, the local Wrexham fan club meet. By the way, at the quite incredible McGongles, an Irish bar that has just been named. I didn't know when I went there, but it's been named one of New York Times 50 best restaurants in America.

19:06Rory Smith:I'll just say the spice bag is to die for. I have been to Wrexham so much. I went to Wrexham with my dad when I was a kid a lot, when Everton were away. I've obviously been a lot in the modern period. And we talked a lot in the show about how it's lifted the region economically, psychologically. What I had not encountered really till this weekend was the American manifestation. I met a man, Wayne Cramp, L.A. Wayne, you beauty, who described himself as a diehard Patriots fan who had never been a soccer fan until he'd seen the documentary, which is incredible. He fell in love. Stay with me here.

19:43Rory Smith:He said in the post-Tom Brady Patriots world, bit of a dip, bit of a lull, kind of created an emotional vacuum. Watched this film, became utterly hooked, started this fan club, all of them there at the pub. Now goes across to Wrexham, you know, three, four, five times a year. It is crazy. That kind of deep, deep from not knowing anything to being utterly all in. Every member of this fan club tell me they don't watch Premier League football roar. All they do is obsessively watch championship football so they can scout Wrexham's future opponents, which is amazing. It's a level of kind of fresh, no fanaticism, the lack of which I've not glimpsed before.

20:22Rory Smith:I had the same experience when I went to Wrexham a few months ago now.

20:26Roger Bennett:And that was for a championship game against Birmingham, another global content platform. And you're kind of wandering around outside the Stoke Tyrasse. And what you hear is American voices, people who have very obviously come on holiday to Britain. and this is not something that used to happen, Rog, you will be aware of this, but perhaps listeners won't be. It was very unusual for Americans to include in their itineraries of this glorious island a visit to Wrexham. That was not a thing that happened, ever. No one ever said. I'm not sure anyone had ever been on holiday to Wrexham. That's not a thing that is possible.

20:58Roger Bennett:It's true. As a British person, you would never be like, we might just have a weekend in Wrexham, to be honest. But people have bonded to the show and to the team in such a way. This is a debate I've had with a lot of my friends over the weekend. that I think the show has been the gateway to the team. And in my mind, what's basically happened is these people have been exposed to the magic of football in the same way that you were when you were a child or I was when I was a child. They needed a different gateway to it. We got ours through, you know, your dad telling you to support Everton or my half-sister telling me to support Liverpool or my dad putting football on the TV and saying, this is the World Cup, enjoy it.

21:36Roger Bennett:I'll see you at the end of the week.

21:37Rory Smith:I got mine by going to the game with my dad and the singular joy of having someone roll up a programme and then urinate on the back of my leg behind. That was a nodding who it was.

21:45Roger Bennett:I was like, yes, I'm in! This is very much a warm and slightly moist place and I want to come here again. But all that's happened, and I think there is a little bit of kind of, there's a cultural disconnect that people struggle with a little bit over here, is that the TV show has enabled those people, it's opened up that magic of football. It's still the football that gets you to an audience that would normally have been put off because they thought they weren't into sports or because it wasn't a sport they'd been exposed to. What has happened is they've opened a doorway that enables you to see the wonder of sports.

22:16Roger Bennett:And it doesn't matter to me how you come to it. It's that you come to it.

22:20Rory Smith:I could not agree more. I can't tell you how much knowledge there was in that room. There was also a lot of North Walians who happened to be in Boston who were there. And honestly, you could not tell the difference in terms of the intensity, the passion, sense of connection. And for me personally, I want to add, to the football right now, but it was so bloody fun to watch this game. As opposed to watching Everton, which I think is, it matters almost too much. It is utterly excruciating. I felt so emotionally connected to this game. It was just an effervescence, a pure fan wonder. I watched this game with a naive wonder.

22:58Rory Smith:It was really beautiful.

22:59Roger Bennett:But that to me has always been part of the FA Cup, where you, even if you take away the kind of the connection that people have built to Wrexham or whatever over the last few years because of the show, the specific Retsham context. I think an FA Cup shock or the potential for an FA Cup giant killing appeals to everyone because it is all of the reward and none of the risk. Because ultimately, if the team loses, you don't care. It doesn't hurt you. If the team that happens to be playing the Premier League giant loses, fine, it's not your team, it doesn't really hurt. But if they win, it's amazing.

23:31Rory Smith:As Whitney Houston sang, didn't we almost have it all? It's Rog. If you haven't noticed, I absolutely adore New Balance and all that they create. And although I'm not a professional footballer, I still love their boots. Worn by some of the greatest in the game, such as Bikai Osaka, Eberichie Eze, Jeremy Frimpong and the legend James Rodriguez. Whether it's the Fioran or the T 'Kella, both boots are made for performance. Fiorans are crafted for speed, features a new speed control stud designed for sudden stop shot, pivots and moves. used by the fastest players on the field. And T 'Kella provides superior touch and control to bring your vision to life, reducing the space between the foot and the ball for a close, intuitive feel.

24:17Rory Smith:Grab yourself a pair today at newbalance.com slash soccer. To the game, the noise of the Stoke Kairas. Cut from pure shared collective dreams. 18 minutes in, they were rewarded. The ball driven downfield. Sam Smith, 28-year-old forward. ground the hard yard, see the leagues after emerging from the Manchester United Academy, chased onto it, flummoxed to quite panic Robert Sanchez and reeled away deliriously with surprise and ecstasy. Raw, in that moment, someone turned to me and said, oh my God, if only there was a documentary to capture these kind of moments.

24:54Roger Bennett:It must be a challenge for them though, because they only have certain numbers of episodes, don't they, per season. And this does feel like the high point of Wrepsham's season, you know, taking the lead against mighty Chelsea. But it might not be. It might yet be a footnote. And that is purely as a kind of global content creation logistical issue. That is a problem.

25:15Rory Smith:You know what? We're going to change the name of this podcast to Today in Global Football Platforms. And because at the end of the day, football doesn't allow for romance, which is what you're hinting at. 40th minute, I think it was Chelsea's second shot of the game. Gone out of the chair. had a shot cleared off the line by George Thomason, but the ball smacked off poor Arthur Oconquo. You will remember him as the goalkeeping hero of Wrexham's shootout victory. He came on our show right after Wrexham defeating Nutty and Forrest in the last round. He is such a humble warrior. I adore Arthur. With another Arsenal Academy product, truly nothing he could do about it.

25:55Rory Smith:It ricocheted off his back. And what I admired was how tenacious Wrexham were. They didn't wilt. George Dobson, it's got to be said, pulsating in midfield. Another Arsenal Academy youth product, audacious, heart of all that was good. Game was open, it crackled. Again, Phil Parkinson, I love this man. I've come to know him quite well. Wrexham manager. I loved how he kept refreshing in this one. In a way, he doesn't always in the league. Kept throwing on attacking pieces, substitute after substitute. It was really fortune, favours of bold, and it was rewarded. 78-minute corner, flicked home by defender, Manchester City Academy graduate Callum Doyle.

26:33Rory Smith:This moment was beautiful. It felt like human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together. It was mass hysteria, Rupp.

26:42Roger Bennett:And at that point, there was a nostalgic flicker because Wrexham, in the pre-Reynolds Mac era, produced one of the... Just have your normal surname, for crying out loud.

26:53Rory Smith:No! Do what you want nowadays when you're global football.

26:56Roger Bennett:I might rebrand as Rory Smith. You could be Rog Ben. Yeah, Wrexham were famous. One of the high points of Wrexham's history was an FA Cup shot against Arsenal in 1992 when they won 2-1. And on the TV coverage, it was really interesting to me that they kept cutting in the reaction shots to that goal from Rob and Ryan in the owner's box to Mickey Thomas, who scored the first goal in that win. He didn't score the second one. The guy who scored the second one, I think, has been forgotten. but he was the central figure in that win, Mickey Thomas. He's a big kind of character.

27:31Rory Smith:Icon. Went on to become a United stuff.

27:33Roger Bennett:Yeah, he's not just a Retsam icon. He's one of those older footballers who belongs to us all now, Mickey Thomas. And it was that kind of... He's all of our dads. He's your uncle. Do you know what I mean? He's just the country's uncle is Mickey Thomas. But it was a really nice kind of distillation of the two sides of Retsam that is this modern, quite glamorous, very sexy, kind of amazing story centered on these two Hollywood actors. But it's also got Mickey Thomas in it. And that was what Wrexham were. And at that moment when they went two and up, you did think, okay, actually this is on. And the context has changed completely.

28:12Roger Bennett:Like the circumstances of this are totally different. But the outcome might well be the same. God bless.

28:18Rory Smith:I thought you were going to say the camera's cut. I didn't think about Mickey Thomas. I think about the shots in that moment to Liam Rossini, who just like a human gulp on the Chelsea sideline. I thought that hotel beer is going to be severely lacking in aura tonight as he frantically saw answers deep into his Microsoft surface. And whenever it was on it, he found it four minutes later. It was quite agonizing. Josh Achenpong, quite brilliant in clinical action, ruthlessly seizing on a moment of indecision in that Wrexham back line. Muscled Thomason, off the ball, smashed home high. Truly a deflating moment.

28:55Rory Smith:The fella of McGonagall's, like having to watch one you love suffer in pain. There can be no dreams in football, Ruk.

29:02Roger Bennett:No, but you still have that sense, don't you, at two all. Okay, they've taken the lead twice. Chelsea have fought back twice. And look, what it will have said on Liam Rossini's Microsoft Surface would have been, have a squad that costs a lot more than your opponents. That was the secret to that. For all the quality that Chelsea had on the pitch at that stage, you still wonder, do they get one more chance?

29:21Rory Smith:God bless. Yes, I mean, Wrexham, I felt they played their faces off. They survived a thunderous shot from Pedro Neto that crashed off the bar. But on the stroke of the final whistle, just before the game went to extra time, tired leg, shattered minds. Garnaccio drove through the Wrexham gut and was side down by, I think in the olden days, we call it a reducer from George Dobson. An agony that it was him, really. An attempt to stop the break, a little overzealous, took out the man a little too high a little too out of control according to VAR by the way Roar Phil Parkinson has managed over a thousand games across seven teams incredibly this kind of tells you about the rise that's still it wonder this was his first ever experience of VAR spent the whole time in the lower leagues is that right?

30:09Rory Smith:that's extraordinary isn't it? isn't it? I don't think he likes it too much mostly because Roar VAR is pragmatic VAR is unromantic. VAR's a dream killer.

30:21Roger Bennett:It is, but VAR's also an interfering kind of busybody. And that was almost a platonic ideal of a foul that is both a yellow card and a red card. And both decisions are correct. So the fact that they went across and re-refereed it is, I think, to a lot of people, kind of what's wrong with VAR. You could have just left it as a yellow. It wasn't an absurd punishment for that tackle. Just as if the referee had shown an initial red, that wouldn't have been an absurd punishment for the tackle either.

30:46Rory Smith:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why re-decision it? There was a very, I mean, this is where football is and I kind of loved it. After the game, Rob Mack said something about VAR and what he thought about it. And Noah Kahn put out an Instagram post with Rob Mack's words about VAR, very, very kind of tactically explaining exactly why it was a red card. Noah being a huge Chelsea fan. And I love it. This is where we are, football in 2026. But we also are where football is always. been as a cruel lover. Garnaccio, the man fouled, was the menace who scored the winner from close range. Atlas Rolo wrote quite unkindly in the Men of Blazers Discord, this is Alejandro Garnaccio, talks like Ibrahimovic, walks like Neymar, ego of Ronaldo, the finishing of Darwin Nunes.

31:37Rory Smith:I don't think any of that's particularly kind. There's a lot in there that we're not going to be able to unpack. We'll say for the show today in Alejandro Garnaccio. Had to be him though, Rol. It did, yeah.

31:47Roger Bennett:That's the other thing the FA Cup does. It likes to round off its storylines. But at the same time, Alejandro Garnaccio, who is a fringe player really at Chelsea, or a squad player, say, cost, what,£49 million,£60 million? That is the level of talent that you're talking about. So even though Wrexham are not the plucky underdodge that you might imagine them to be because of the investment that's gone in, what they're playing when they play Chelsea is an order of magnitude greater than anything they can muster. So in a way, it kind of highlights just how well they've done to take them to extra time.

32:19Rory Smith:Yeah, God bless 10 men Wrexham thought they'd even summed an equaliser when Lewis Brunt headed home some corner chaos. But after the stadium exploded, with a noise I do believe was audible, in outer space, VAR again stepped in and ruled he was offside just again. Wrexham felt hard done to. But again, the VAR thing has no feelings. It's probably something that they're going to have to get used to if they do knife fight their way through the playoffs roar. But it still felt heartbreaking. João Pedro turned the knife, killed off the game. Six goals, one assist, last five games for the Chelsea striker.

32:53Rory Smith:By the way, quick word on him. Liam Rossini, almost like that gent's personal hype man. He was asked if João Pedro was in the same bracket as the likes of Kane and Bape Harlan. He said, for me, João is in that category now. I do believe he's right if we talked about the last five games roar. but there is a thing called consistency that we've got to see right

33:12Roger Bennett:yeah I mean it's a slightly unfair question of Liam Rossini I don't want to criticise the journalist who asked it but your manager can only say one thing I suppose he could maybe have said he's got to work to get to that level that's the talent he has he could get that far well done

33:27Rory Smith:by the way in a post models world you could now be a manager that's the line

33:31Roger Bennett:if you but at the same time if you want to kind of build on the confidence your player has you maybe want to say yeah look he is he is just that good but I mean obviously he's not he's obviously not as devastating as Erling Haaland he's obviously not got the career of Harry Kane that goes without saying so Rossini maybe could have tempered it a little bit better but ultimately I think there's only certain things that a manager can say in that situation I'd be staggered if he means it

33:53Rory Smith:I think Liam got some credit for not just blurting out the first thing that came to his brain which was no he's not he's better than them all it might have been he resisted it yeah he resisted it so he just went one down instead of going two down Find that third gear. For Chelsea, survive, advance and breathe. Liam Rossini will not have loved it. He had to make six substitutions to do this job before they have to travel to Paris Saint-Germain this Wednesday night in the Champions League. What can we actually take from this? Because looking at the Chelsea fan post-mortems, there's a lot of heat, I'd say, that a lot of the squad players are not fit for Chelsea purpose, It's just not at the Chelsea level.

34:37Roger Bennett:Well, if only they had a club that would regularly trade 10 to 15 of them every summer and get some new ones in. Yeah, I mean, if you make a lot of changes to a team, if you bring in a load of players who have been on the fringes, then what you lose is coherence. That is just a universal truth of football. Those bonds that build up with repeated practice aren't there, so the team doesn't look as convincing. And the other thing I'd say is that I think in games like this, the giant, in inverted commas, you can't win really because if you win heavily then everyone says well they're a championship team they're rubbish you should win heavily if you win narrowly as well you should be doing better than that against a championship team and if you lose obviously it's hugely embarrassing but in reality they went to a very difficult place a team that's got a lot of momentum a lot of form behind them has a good championship level squad and they got through and that is ultimately all you can ask of them

35:31Rory Smith:Come to Everton on loan Mr Liam De Lappe As for the Wrexham, what was amazing? Final whistle. There was not sorrow. A little bit like the Chicago Bears when they got beaten by the Rams in the playoffs. It was a very eerie moment. It was not a sadness. It was a sense of valiance, sense of defeat, yes. But defeat against the Club World Cup champions who were stretched and were left feeling that they'd laid bruises on that team as they left North Wales. A tremendous pride almost. And I do believe a marker that the ultimate dream, the crazy dream, is ultimately touchable. But Raw, beneath all of that, the league is what matters.

36:12Rory Smith:Tuesday, that's the important one against Hull. Then Friday against Swansea, right?

36:16Roger Bennett:Yeah, well, that is the thing that will drive Wrexham to the ultimate kind of pinnacle of their journey, which is getting to the Premier League. This has been a great subplot in the FA Cup, you know, to get through to the fifth round, to get Chelsea to take it so far, to compete so well. But ultimately, the crescendo to the season will be, can they get promoted to the Premier League? And that is where their minds will have to drift. But this was not, I agree with you completely, it wasn't a kind of chastening experience for them. It should really have whetted their appetite that they can compete.

36:50Roger Bennett:Because ultimately, it wasn't Chelsea's strongest team, admittedly. But Chelsea aren't the weakest team in the Premier League. Chelsea are fifth. You know, that is, you have given a very good team, one of the most expensive ever assembled, a really good game. And that should really encourage you.

37:03Rory Smith:And I mean this sincerely, as a footnote on this. Wrexham, they're good for the heart.

37:09Roger Bennett:There's an awful lot about modern football that can be quite dispiriting. But Wrexham isn't one of those things. I think as a kind of palliative, it's quite useful.

37:18Rory Smith:Talking about good for the heart, yours, not mine. Wolves one, Liverpool three. not to go all Shakespeare on but we came to bury Liverpool not to praise them speak neutral objective outsiders this game really more than an FA Cup fifth round rumble we'll get to the big picture question of whether winning the FA Cup Bawble will be enough to redeem a season of slop and fecklessness for Arna Slott but the prospect of his defending champions going to bottom feeder Wolves twice in three days and losing both Roar that was a humiliation on par with being beaten up by Milhouse in the Simpsons simply couldn't be countenance, right?

37:57Rory Smith:Yeah, I went

37:58Roger Bennett:into this full of dread, Rog. In fact, the best way I can sum up how Liverpool fans, I think, felt about this game was I said to my son, do you want to stay up and watch it? And he said, no, I don't want to watch them lose to Wolves again. Can we watch some Ben Fogel instead? Oh, blessed. His little heart couldn't take it.

38:18Rory Smith:No, too disappointed. Oh my god when Everton were really in their low um this is even before like the relegation dodging of the past couple of seasons I'm talking like you know early 2000s when we were just adrift completely new era of bankruptcy um my children who loved Everton all they wore was Everton jerseys to school when they were five four you know six um they couldn't watch the games with me um I didn't realised at the time, they found it too excruciating to watch me so upset and so angry watching something on the regular basis. They both loved it and could not stand it. So there you are, tiny little glimmer of that.

38:59Rory Smith:It's good for your kids. But despite the Champions League Tuesday, the Galatasaray Rumble to come, Oneslaw had to start a strong side here, even flung in Alisson when this could have been a Marmash-Vili joint. But the first half, if you dared watch it raw. It was lethargic, it was low intensity, it was low cardio. At the same time you had Luis Diaz bringing up 20 goals to add to his 16 assistants in his first year at Bayern Munich. The cutting edge was blunt. Really a first-off performance with all the excitement of a McDonald's CEO eating the new Archburger. We are over 30 games into the season.

39:35Rory Smith:It's still hard to try and understand what this identity is, what Liverpool are trying to do.

39:40Roger Bennett:Yeah, I think that's the biggest issue with them. It's the biggest issue that Slott has in terms of the future as well, is that it's not just that results have been inconsistent. I think they're now on three defeats in 24 games or something. It's not been that the worst of the crisis was kind of November, early December. The problem is that I'm not sure anyone can really see what it is everyone's waiting for. What's the thing that comes at the end of it that makes all this worthwhile? I think fans generally will give you time and space if you can sell them on the idea that there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

40:14Roger Bennett:I'm not sure Liverpool fans know what that looks like at this stage.

40:17Rory Smith:And that's a real issue for Slott. There is no rainbow. Six minutes into the second half, though, redemption came from two old Liverpool hands. Both joined the club back in days of yores. Was it 2017? Been a focus of and stars of perhaps the club's greatest nights in the modern period. First up, Andy Robertson. Rare start, rare a goal. Started a counter by blocking a cross at one end and legged it up the other end to unleash on the ball. It's celebration. Fascinating. Really a furious little roar. It's like seeing a lion in winter. relive the heart, the fight, the tenacity personified that he'd really embodied in his peak.

40:59Roger Bennett:Yeah, by this stage I was watching because I had sent my son to bed. So it felt very much like one of those bolts from the blue that Liverpool have lacked this season and have needed so much. Just that kind of decent move, looks like it's broken down, player realises they're in a pocket of space and catches the ball incredibly sweetly. Robertson himself said afterwards he doesn't hit many quite that well. But it seemed to break something in Liverpool. It seemed to remind them, oh yeah, that's what we're meant to be doing. And that it was him who has never been Liverpool's best player, but for a long time he has been the heartbeat of the team.

41:33Roger Bennett:He embodied the style of Liverpool, under Klopp particularly. It felt suitable and fitting that he was the one who reminded everyone this is the general idea.

41:44Rory Smith:Yeah, I think perhaps the greatest tribute I can give Andy Robertson is that as an Everton fan, and he's given us so many truly awful memories. But even though deep down I do admire him. I also love that Alisson calls him Robertson Carlos. I know it was Robertson Carlos who set up Mo Salah, whose goal on Tuesday had been his first in the league since November. This one, his 254th Liverpool jersey. A goal though met by a relief, an exhale, the sense that the game was safe and it felt surreal. Curtis Jones added a third. God bless becoming an FA Cup goal-scoring specialist. Slott said post-game, reflecting on the difference between the two performances, comparing it to the self-soiling on Tuesday night, he said, of course it's the perfect response when you look at the result, but every stat is exactly the same as three days ago.

42:34Rory Smith:There were a lot of similarities between this game and three days ago. Was he right, Roar? What was different this time?

42:41Roger Bennett:I think he was right, but he's not right in the way that he thinks because the issue with Liverpool this season hasn't really been the stats. In most games, when Slott has said they had more shots or they had more chances or they had more possession or they had more dangerous passages of play, he's been completely right. Liverpool, in most objective ways, do dominate most games that they play. But at no point in any of them have they looked like they're a threat. They've never carried any real edge, or very rarely have they carried any real edge. And I think the difference on Friday night compared to Tuesday night was they had a couple of chances and they took them.

43:19Roger Bennett:And then obviously that goal has changed games. You know, the scoreboard is against Wolves. Wolves have to come out a little bit more. That means Liverpool can try and pick them off on the break. They do that. They get the third. All of a sudden, it feels easy. And he's right to say that on Tuesday night, I can't remember what the stat was on Tuesday night, but certainly by half time, possibly after an hour, Wolves had had an XG of 0.00. and Liverpool had something like 17 shots. But there actually wasn't a huge amount better, to be perfectly honest, because they're playing so slowly with so little purpose.

43:51Roger Bennett:They carry so little threat. They don't really seem to have a great idea of how they're going to score. That's it. And ultimately, a lot of that was true on Friday night as well.

44:01Rory Smith:Yeah, I mean, if I was a Liverpool fan, which is an abhorrent couple of words, I think I'd be elated to see 70-year-old Rio as a difference maker, his willingness to use the ball aggressively. You're talking about creating. He created fearlessly. Also, great to see Florian Wurtz back as a second-half sub, back from injury. You think about what he and Eka TK provide. That duo have been compared by many Liverpool fans in my life to the Instagram toothpaste that make your teeth look whiter within just 30 minutes without either of them on the pitch. It just feels like such a slog to watch slot ball, which brings up the question, slot, it's got to be said, has worn out his welcome in terms of many of the factions of the Liverpool fan base this season of Langwood football will do that for a crowd who've become really accustomed to a swagger.

44:50Rory Smith:If on a slot wins the FA Cup rule, is that enough? It's a tchotchke, but it is still a vaunted ball ball for other fan bases. I'd bite your arm off for it. Is that enough to have won in two seasons, the league and the FA Cup? Will that, in your mind, let him hold on to his job?

45:07Roger Bennett:Oh, so I think there's two different questions there. I may be quite old-fashioned, but my sense of Liverpool and the FA Cup is they haven't won it enough. And that it's something that every season, I think there's a risk the club will look at it and think, oh, that's not that important. Let's focus on other things. And I'd really like them to win the FA Cup. Like, it's cool when Liverpool win the FA Cup. It does matter. It's not the lead. It's not the Champions League, but it matters to me as a fan. And I think that's true of a lot of fans. So yeah, if they were to go on and win it, and look, there's still some big teams left in the pot.

45:39Roger Bennett:It's not all Port Vale, Rog. So it's still a big if. If they went on to win it, it would make this season a qualified success, I think. Maybe depending a little bit on where they finish in the league. If they finish fifth, get Champions League and win the FA Cup, that's fine for me. I'm not greedy. That's a good season. If they finish sixth, don't get in the Champions League and win the FA Cup, that's more of a question mark. But I don't actually know if it's relevant to him keeping his job. And I go back and forth on slot a lot, as I think listeners might be able to tell. and it's not really related to results it's that thing that we were talking about I don't know what Liverpool being good next season looks like based on the Liverpool I've seen this season and that's a real issue and I think that is what the what the hierarchy at Liverpool have to consider it's what Slott has to consider, it's what the fans have to consider because ultimately there hasn't been enough excitement, there's not been enough purpose in their play this season, they have looked lost and kind of just bereft of ideas for so much of the season He won the title last year, so fans will kind of tolerate that for this year because fans ultimately aren't stupid, they're not ungrateful.

46:44Roger Bennett:But if you go into the start of next season just with the memory of 25-26, as soon as they have a bad result, everyone will turn and that is unsustainable.

46:53Rory Smith:And talking about winning things, Mansfield Town 1, Arsenal 2, a cavernous 58 league position separated, the third tier stags, 16th in League 1 and your Premier League quadruple chasers, Arsenal Football Club. Yes, Mansfield have beaten Burnley in the last round to reach the lofty heights of the fifth round for the first time in 51 years. Mansfield. What's a Mansfield? It's a historic market town. It's 12 miles to the north of Nottingham. It's on the border of Sherwood Forest, which makes it sound amazing raw. In fact, it calls itself the gateway to Robin Hood country. English geography is far more accessible to the American mind when it is linked to Disney movies.

47:37Rory Smith:Slightly less romantically, 2022, Mansfield was named one of Britain's most miserable places to live. after a government survey. I don't know why the government surveyed that and why they would then release those findings. It's doing a bit of a dirty to Mansfield Roar. Well done, government. Have you been there, Roar? Can you describe what this part of the East Midlands is like for us?

47:57Roger Bennett:I've not been to Mansfield, the town. I've been to the East Midlands a lot and to the countryside around Mansfield. It's old mining country. It's part of post-industrial Britain. To be honest, it's not massively dissimilar to North Wales in that sense. It lost a lot of its identity, a lot of its kind of wealth when the pits shut in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. We can do a little bit of British social history if you want, Rog.

48:22Rory Smith:Painful social history.

48:23Roger Bennett:Margaret Thatcher's role in it. But yeah, it's a part of the country that is very proud, is very rarely, actually very rarely depicted in any form of media. You never hear much about the East Midlands. It has a really specific accent that no actor can do, which is a point my dad is from the East Midlands and it's a big thing for him is that people group it in either with the North or with Birmingham which is the West Midlands the East Midlands is a whole other thing and we don't really appreciate that Not even Mirren, not even Helen Mirren I don't want to say it's beyond Helen Mirren what is beyond Helen Mirren Rog?

48:58Roger Bennett:Nothing's beyond Helen Mirren but no he gets very annoyed about it because you'll get drama set in like Nottingham and they will all be talking Mancunian he doesn't like it

49:07Rory Smith:I'd love to say Helen Mirren do Cole Palmer, by the way, but I don't want to get off on that. Hell of a million Cole Palmer will be. Chef's kiss. God bless to the football. And Arsenal incredibly started two young sensations. Max Dowman, Marley Salmon, were making Arsenal the first ever Premier League team to start a competitive game with two kids 16 or under in any competition. Dowman making his first senior appearance since November after recovering from injury. He was fearless, had a chance in the fourth minute. Goalkeeper Liam Roberts played it straight to his feet. He charged in, feeling dangerous but was smothered by a trailing leg from the keeper.

49:43Rory Smith:Failed, it's got to be said, cabbage patchy-esque. Stadium compact. Quite beautifully, at the end of the Mansfield tunnel, they actually have a quote by the legendary Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger, if you don't believe you can do it, then you have no chance at all. And credit Mansfield, they did have belief roar. They did attack in flurries. They got in behind. They actually caused some League One chaos. They had seven shots in the first 20 minutes. unbelievably more than any team in any competition against the Arsenal this season.

50:10Roger Bennett:But I guess that's partly because, again, you're playing a team that's slightly less familiar with each other than even with Arsenal's massive squad and the endless rotation that Arteta can do. There's a little bit of uncertainty. But even is the fact that the stadium's a little bit worse, the changing rooms are a bit smaller, the pitch is difficult, all of it just puts the Premier League teams off. And that does have an impact. And that's why, ultimately, that's why there's a history of FA Cup giant killings. That's where it comes from.

50:37Rory Smith:Yeah, there's a real beautiful storyline to this one. Man's further managed by Nigel Clough, former Nottingham Forest star, son of godfather of English football management Brian Clough. A bit like if Vince Lombardi had a son. He said, quote, Arsenal are slightly technically better than us, but we'll try and play our normal game. He said it's a difficult surface, this. And credit the Staggs, they made it through the first half hour. thanks to Arsenal miscalibration, a trossard injury and kept a chill. Then the breakthrough, 41 minutes, which came almost as a relief rather than a typical orgasm of a goal.

51:12Rory Smith:The goalkeeper, Roberts, parried a shot from Madweke out wide. Martinelli picked it up and found Madweke again and just left for edge of the area, got his foot round it, actually pointed where he wanted it to demand it and then just lashed on it as if he crushed it with a three-wood. Taking Madweke, a couple of shots, let's just say, to calibrate and create Arsenal's 100th goal of the season. Shane, in the Men and Blazers Discord wrote, I've always thought Madweke is one of those players who plays as if he's better than we can all see he is, and every now and again, he's as good as he thinks he is.

51:47Roger Bennett:Is that fair or unfair? It might be unfair. I think Madweke has been really good for Arsenal. I think so, too. I'm not sure that, yeah, I mean, he does have a little bit of a swagger, but that's a positive as a footballer. You want to have that. His job is to replace Pekai Osaka in the team. You need to have a bit of self-belief.

52:02Rory Smith:By the way, it reminds me of Eden Dzeko, who English journalists used to agonise over whether he was an average footballer who had truly brilliant moments or a brilliant footballer who had lots of average moments, which is an agonising defeat, aren't we all, in a way? By the way, it looked less than controlling, less than domination. Manfield pressed high, urged on by the crowd. Intensity never wavered. In the 50th minute, this lowly team, they hadn't buckled, they hadn't shown quarter, and they gained their reward. Ultimately, their memory. Will Evans pounced on a hospital pass from Young Salmon to Mosquera and the 28-year-old journeyman striker who spent much of his career moonlighting, this is true, as a farmhand to support himself in football.

52:50Rory Smith:Gent had just come on as a half-time sub. God bless for milking cows to score in the goals. He turned Mosquera inside out, went across the goalkeeper. Just a moment of true excellence, Ro. On one level, I thought, wow, his whole life is built up to that moment. And in the future, he'll always be the man who scored against the Arsenal. But the quality of the finish, Ro, is a reminder of something you always say, the profound talent that exists at every single level of the game.

53:20Roger Bennett:Yeah, none of these are bad footballers. They are all excellent footballers, whether you've heard of them or not, whether they're playing for Mansfield or not, whether their careers have worked out as they might once have imagined or not, they are all outstanding footballers. And I guess the difference is the consistency with which they can produce those moments. But Mansfield has scored some absolutely brilliant goals in this FA Cup season. The free kick that took them through against Burnley was of the highest quality. And it is, like you say, it's a reminder that what you're watching are some of the very finest athletes in the world against some of the very finest athletes in Europe.

53:54Roger Bennett:And there is a difference, don't get me wrong, but it's not a massive one.

53:57Rory Smith:Arsenal countered by Sineon Eze, who's ultimately synonymous with FA Cup glory and within the blink of an eye, Norgaard fed Ebs on the end of the area and he streetballed his way past the defenders, just lashed it, smashed it, battered it. Glory to God. Glory to Eze. Eighth goal for the Arsenal. This one, in our interview with him, which you can find on our YouTube, he talked about cage decisions, kind of flow state goal that he scored a lot as a kid playing on basketball courts. This was the cage decision. He lives to singe the Spurs and he lives to turn it on in the FA Cup. Five goals, three assists in the competition since the start of last season, including this banger.

54:37Rory Smith:Is Eberichieze in the FA Cup like the Ark of the Covenant?

54:41Roger Bennett:He does seem to quite enjoy it, yeah. I guess there's a fairly obvious reason for that, isn't there? That he's got a lot of good memories in this tournament, so why would he not want to save his best for it? But at the same time, that's not a bad thing for Arsenal, is it? Having a single FA Cup specialist who can kind of win the tournament for you, that's quite a useful little thing to have in your back pocket.

55:00Rory Smith:Spurs specialist tick, FA Cup specialist tick. This game is getting ever more hyper-specialised. By the way, an Arsenal fan I watched on the TV, in that moment when Ebb scored, waved goodbye to the Mansfield fans, which I thought was a little bit harsh. Slightly unfair, yeah. Yeah, that was it. Mansfield, courageous, noble. They exit, heads held high. ultimately two brilliant finishes difference between these two teams I think the fans, the owners of Mansfield will be able to tell their kids and their grandkids about the day the best team in Europe came to town and felt the Mansfield breath on their collars, that is beautiful by the way

55:39Roger Bennett:It's really nice, it's the fact that even if it was only for a few minutes, they were level and that's what matters, is that Mansfield lost that game and they're out of the FA Cup, but I think they will all, the players, the club the team, whoever it might be, they'll all have proved a point to themselves. There is a victory in there somewhere.

55:55Rory Smith:I love it all. These stories will get, and should be, get bigger with every telling. Arteta, by the way, interestingly, breathless about Max Dowman. Even he couldn't hold it in. Max was exceptional when the ball's bouncing all over the place on an uneven pitch. You have people on your back, the way he handles time and space and the touches that he takes. It's just incredible. That's high praise for Mikel, who often plays stuff down. kind of wild and wonderful to be candid. If I was an Arsenal fan, I'd be salivating. Arsenal, through to the quarterfinals of the FA Cup. Quadruple still on. Raw, quickly, how many of the four?

56:29Rory Smith:League, Carabao, FA Cup, and possibly the Champions League, will Arsenal win? Two. Can I push you on this? Which?

56:39Roger Bennett:Is it a Carabao and FA Cup double? Is that what you're hinting? Premier League and Carabao, I think. I mean, look, I think they'll make the Champions League final. If that helps. Does that help? their side of the draw is not easy it's the Champions League but it's favourable I think Spurs I think Tottenham will have too much with them in the final

56:59Rory Smith:that would be amazing oh my god

57:01Roger Bennett:no Spurs would be the semi-final wouldn't it Spurs are on their side of the draw no but you look at one of PSG, City, Real and Bayern Munich coming their way in the final that I think at the end of a launch season that might be too much I think they'll win the league they should be really proud of themselves for winning the league and one of the domestic cups. I'm not sure both.

57:22Rory Smith:I agree with you utterly. I think Arsenal do do the double, though the league is the sun and the moon, the everything for every Arsenal fan. And they leave a coups and await midweek in the Champions League, then sigh Everton Football Club at the weekend. Let's go to the Hunters, kind of. Newcastle won, Manchester City three. Your casual fifth clash of the season between these two teams. Obviously, they played in the Carabao semi-final, won by City. They had a split in the league games. Both clubs preoccupied with the Champions League games against Barcelona for Newcastle on Tuesday. City taking on their regular booze, Real Madrid, on Wednesday.

57:59Rory Smith:And then the effort to combat tired legs. Lots of changes here. Pep made 10. Erling Haaland wasn't even in the squad. He was left to focus on growing out his beard hairs. Eddie Howe rang in four changes. No matter how rotated the squads were, every single song Newcastle played pre-game just feels like a ballad of war. My God, and Newcastle responded from the off. Absolutely pinged City in the early exchanges. Alfie Barnes made it 1-0, 13th goal all comps this season. But in the 39th minute, Jeremy Doke, who drove into the heart of the Newcastle defence, hit one. This is incredible. low across the six-year-old box, found its way through a thicket of legs.

58:42Rory Smith:And then Savinho just stood there and let it bounce in off his legs. An incredibly bizarre looking goal. You don't see it very often. Savinho less an attack and more a human Brazilian backboard. The commentator said in the time, he said, Savinho didn't even swing his legs because he knew if he did, he'd miss, which is a bit harsh. Mean, just mean. Yeah, I mean mean, but like, I mean he's just calling it as he sees it did Savino mean it raw because if he did it's footballing galaxy break

59:13Roger Bennett:that's a good question I don't think he can have done because I think your instinct in that situation as a footballer is always to try and move your leg to redirect the ball I think it maybe just hit him but sometimes that's the right thing to do sometimes the right thing to do is to do nothing

59:27Rory Smith:I think he did mean it by the way the instincts of some footballers Siena Barry would be to get his arse into place to arse it in But it's a particularly effective ask. Yeah, Beto would try and shoulder it in. So, you know, different horses, different courses. I think he did mean it, because if you see, he flexes slightly his leg into position. But whatever happened, they lit the fuse on the pep bob. City flooded forward in numbers from that point on. Paul Newcastle just wilted. Omar Marmouche scored twice. Gent loves haunting the tune. 14 goals he scored for City, and seven of them came against Newcastle.

1:00:00Rory Smith:It's like Egyptian Eze when facing the Spurs. Other headline coming out of this one, early second half sideline. Pep Gazzam, after a perceived trippier foul on Doku, that earned Guardiola a yellow card, his sixth of the season. Thanks to new rules introduced this campaign, six yellows means a two-match touchline ban. Pep said post-game, we have the manager with the record for the most yellow cards. I'm so proud of that. I always wanted a new record, and now I have it. Two games banned now. I will go on holiday, and the team will continue. He then jawed with the third official and then TNT asked him after the third goal what he said to the official.

1:00:38Rory Smith:He said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry for how good we are playing. I watch Pep this season and I admire so much about him. I really do. It is amazing to witness, though, when he came to Barcelona, young Pep, before he invented cargo pants with like crazy pocket placing, When he used to face Jose Mourinho on the regs in the Real Madrid Barcelona epic Rumble days, Pep was the force of good. Jose was the dark side. It is remarkable to watch Pep now at Manchester City. All the winning, all the controversy, probably the strain, the immense pressure facing expectation and the media and all that.

1:01:18Rory Smith:His heel turn has been remarkable to witness. It's been like watching Michael Corleone's art through the Godfather movie, starting as a pure hero. and end up being like, don't ever take sides of anyone against the family again, ever.

1:01:32Roger Bennett:Yeah, I've got to admit my main sense of Pep is it's just really not very good luck. I get that he's won everything and he's reinvented the game and his status is clear. And to an extent, he must sometimes feel that he's being disrespected or overlooked. And he clearly has a rich variety of chips on his shoulder, just as we all do, Rog. but I do find he's not wearing his elder statesman garb very easily do you know what I mean? There's a sarcasm there's a chippiness there's a kind of sense of having quite a kind of acidic tongue that is slightly it's just slightly unbecoming of someone who you kind of think of like that I'm not sure Pep Guardiola is interested in winning friends, I don't think he cares about winning friends, although he does seem to get very upset if anyone criticizes him or says you know says they don't like his football which makes it sound a bit like he does quite want to make friends but i just think mainly it's it just all seems so unnecessary you know that these he's been asked a lot of fair questions by people who are doing jobs none of it's kind of particularly outrageous and he just seems to respond his default response now seems to be sarcasm and it's just yet another kind of example of how he doesn't really seem to be

1:02:44Rory Smith:enjoying any of this anymore yeah every time i interview him i do ask him a different variation of do you actually enjoy any of this? And he answers, yes, in a way that makes you think he's not. But it's proof you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself chase an Arsenal quadruple while staying alive with your team on every single front, which we actually hear so little about. But it is unbelievably true. How many will City of those four possible trophies?

1:03:13Roger Bennett:Not the Premier League. Does Arsenal win that? let's average it out and give them one domestic cup. Not sure which one. Obviously, they've got a decent chance of winning the Carabao. So one domestic cup

1:03:27Rory Smith:and not the Champions League. So one. God, I bite your arm off for one as an Everton fan.

1:03:35Rory Smith:Talking about bite your arm off, Port Vale one. Sunderland, nil. All hail. Port Vale, an area, not a city, based in the town of Burslem, which is part of Stoke in the middle of the country, often referred to as the mother town of Stoke-on-Trent, the heart of the classic industrial revolution pottery industry. I think every Briton knows that or thinks about this area as the potteries. The official tourist website proudly states we are the world capital of ceramics, even as that pottery industry has totally collapsed. It's a tough region. First time I went there, Roar, parked the car, we're making a film about Stoke.

1:04:12Rory Smith:the cameramen got out and started to unload and a gang of six or seven 11 year olds marched calmly towards us each of them as they got nearer I saw they were carrying bricks in their hands and then the big one at the back had a large 2x4 piece of lumber over his shoulder and the thing that was so chilling was that they moved so slowly like no one can stop us, no one can help you, which only added to their menace that is... Hang on, what did they do?

1:04:40Roger Bennett:Ultimately what did they do?

1:04:41Rory Smith:Yeah. How did that story end? Don't leave me hanging. I'm not too proud to admit this. We all ran really fast from a group of 11-year-olds who didn't pick up pace as we ran because I think they always knew there could be another victim. And that's what was, you know, it was very, very chilling. I'm not going to lie. I've never been in a zombie situ. It was as close to a zombie situ as I've ever been in.

1:05:03Roger Bennett:Yeah, it is a tough town, Stoke. Paul Vale are actually quite a big historic name in English football. and they've got one of the strangest things about Port Bale is the size of their ground for the size of the club it's an enormous stadium given how kind of and I say this with respect and love how much of an afterthought they have been for quite so long they haven't really troubled the scorers up at the top table for decades they've never

1:05:29Rory Smith:they hold the record for the most seasons in English football 130 without ever reaching the first hit

1:05:36Roger Bennett:so they've obviously never troubled the scorers in terms of actually being in the top flight, but they are a grand old name with a long, long history and an ardent, smallish, but very dedicated fan base.

1:05:48Rory Smith:Yeah, their team, including Robbie Williams, bottom of the third tier, League One, but that didn't dent the day in an incredibly stylish anniversary kit. They welcomed the team 56 places above them in the pyramid, but on a lumpy field, you wouldn't have known it. Port Vale dogged, hungry, audacious. They had one shot on goal the whole game and they made it count. 24th minute, New Zealand, the Ben Wayne, a childhood Newcastle United fan, cleaned up some corner slot with a deftly executed floating head. It was really beautifully intelligent into the corner. Third goal of the FA Cup run for Wayne.

1:06:23Rory Smith:He also scored the only goal of the last round against Bristol City last Tuesday. Very delayed fourth round game. What five days that man has had, but nothing raw. will have felt as good as the moment he celebrated scoring on Sunderland by unearthing the signature Geordie hero Alan Shearer goal celebration. It was just Jeff's kiss.

1:06:43Roger Bennett:There's an element, yeah, you've got to know your audience. And you've got to know why people are engaged with the story. There will have been an awful lot of Geordies watching that thinking, this could make the FA Cup fifth round a lot more entertaining

1:06:53Rory Smith:than it was on Saturday night. Fourth successive 1-0 home win for Port Vale. Big in Newcastle as well in the FA Cup. they're into the quarterfinals. 1954 last time they got there they'd done it again 72 years later. God bless marooned at the bottom of League One suddenly feeling euphoric 90 minutes away from a Wembley semi-final. I love life, I love football, I love the joy it brings Leeds 3, Norwich 0 in the Daniel Farker present meets Daniel Farker past Derby. The fire beast watched on, he's suspended so he had to sit in the seats up high every time he was on the phone he's probably the Premier League manager who looks most likely to be actually ordering a pizza and not giving tactical orders to his assistants.

1:07:37Rory Smith:But it was a second string line-up, nine changes. He still held Norwich at arm's length, took advantage of a couple of moments of deeply unconvincing defending to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in 23 remarkable years. God bless Leeds. I'm really, really rooting for them. Finally, Fulham nil. Southampton won. Old friend Southampton, currently eighth in the championship. Deserving winners. 91st minute penalty, but they've been resolute. They've been hungry. They played the counter really well. Fulham, strangely, almost dozed through this game. Huge pain and agony, really, for Fulham fans.

1:08:12Rory Smith:They know their team can be so whip-smart in moments, so vicious. But oddly for Fulham, they can also feel so dead. And this was very, very odd. The wisdom for a lot of fans of Marco Silva making nine changes to this starting line-up when this club are 12 points clear of relegation. They've never won a trophy ever. They had the chance to make an FA Cup course final at home right here. Did Crystal Palace die for no reason, Rook?

1:08:39Roger Bennett:Yeah, I've got to admit, I found it really annoying. If I was a Fulham fan, I'd be quite cross. Maybe with Silva, maybe with the players. Marco Silva, I think, has made it pretty clear he'd quite like to win a trophy, which doesn't explain... Didn't look or feel like it. No, which doesn't explain the changes. I'm conscious that we are kind of reverse engineering our opinions on this. Just Leeds made loads of changes and won and therefore no one will criticise Daniel Farker. I guess the difference with Leeds is they have a live relegation issue and you can see why Farker doesn't want Dominic Calvert-Lewin to pick up an injury in the FA Cup.

1:09:12Roger Bennett:That has to be their priority. Making changes for them is justifiable. For Fulham they've got an outside shot of getting into Europe through the lead. That is possible. But at the same time there is a pathway to the semi-finals for Fulham here. and not to take it just feels so... It's such a massive missed opportunity. Southampton aren't great. They also have other things to think about. And as you say, Fulham have never won a trophy. Palace showed you last season, and Newcastle to an extent as well, what it can mean to a club.

1:09:43Rory Smith:Maybe he's looking at Palace now. He's like, lads, we do not want that future. We don't want any of that.

1:09:48Roger Bennett:Maybe that is the logic.

1:09:50Rory Smith:We don't want any of that pleasure than pain.

1:09:52Roger Bennett:Marco Silva has decided that no highs means no lows. and he's happy just to sail on through. If I was a Fulham fan, I'd be really annoyed. I think it's a real shame that they didn't make more of a crack of it, given it was a good tie in the fifth round, spotting the quarterfinals, and all of a sudden, they've proved this season that they can live with some of the bigger teams. So why would you not think in a quarter or a semi, we might be able to beat one of them?

1:10:18Rory Smith:Q, 1 ,000. Has Marco Silva given up on Fulham up-ends until the weekend? Okay, Everton took the weekend off from hurting my feelings. So let's go right into your mailbag in San Antonio. We'll do the honors. I don't know how to pronounce this first word, Roger, in a British accent. Howdy.

1:10:35Roger Bennett:Howdy.

1:10:36Rory Smith:Yeah, it's not said often. It's A up in Texan.

1:10:40Roger Bennett:It's not a greeting we use very often in Yorkshire, but I'll give it a go. Howdy from San Antonio, Texas, home of the best capitalised tacos, and in particular breakfast tacos, not Austin. That feels like an internal debate that I don't need to be part of, to be perfectly honest. I'm not getting involved in this argument. It's your domestic dispute.

1:11:00Rory Smith:This is the Arsenal fans who've really made Roe back off criticising things.

1:11:05Roger Bennett:It's truly a highlight of the week to listen. I'm really sorry, Connor. I can't do this in an American accent. So I'm going to change y 'all to you all. I can't be y 'all either, by the way. Let's not try and pull it off. Come on. It's truly a highlight of the week to listen to you all crown, then uncrown potential title winners. go inside the mind of managers, mostly Resenia, and give extra points to teams like Newcastle for nipping sacks and West Ham for throwing opposing players away like a Kleenex. What's nipping sacks? I don't know. I don't know if I want to know to be candid.

1:11:35Rory Smith:Go on, keep going.

1:11:36Roger Bennett:I'm 26 years an Arsenal fan after watching the infamous Golazzo by Thierry Henry in 2000 against United. It was the first time I'd ever watched and at 10 years old, I had no team yet until I saw that. And I've been a gooner ever since. a confession that means something now that's rather different to what it used to. That same year brought me to the under-10 YMCA soccer field, where boys become boys and dreams are about much else than soccer. One of my most clear memories of those early soccer days was shin guards. My dad, who knew nothing about soccer, went to the local academy and returned with guards that were the better part of my entire leg, including an ankle wrap so they didn't fall down.

1:12:12Roger Bennett:My first impression was, shin guards are to soccer what armour is to a tank, an absolute must-have if you want to keep your legs. The referee would come round and physically check to make sure everyone had them on and that they were big enough. Which brings me to my question. I watch every week and I've especially noticed the lack of shingard presence. Or grown men wearing something that looks like a folded piece of paper placed inside their sock. Kid-sized equipment. In some instances, I wonder if they're there at all. So are shingards still required for professional footballers? I can't rest or watch in peace until there is clarity.

1:12:43Roger Bennett:Jokes. That's just because I'm one of those stressed, anxious, afraid to win Arsenal supporters. Much, much love, Connor.

1:12:50Rory Smith:Roar, I love a technical question. And as an Everton fan, we've got like the late Jack Grealish, Iliad Dye, Tyler Diblin. They barely wore a shin pad between them. The holy shinity. I do love this question. I think the rules, according to the International Football Association board, IFAB, are that players have to wear them but can choose any size, right? They make their own terrible decisions if they want to.

1:13:13Roger Bennett:Yeah, you have to have something on. I always thought there were minimum requirements but it would appear that there are not. So you just have to, you can wear whatever you like as long as you're wearing some sort of shin protection. I would question, Rio and Gamoa came off at Molyneux on Friday night carrying a pair of shin pads that looked, I mean, tiny. They must have been a few centimetres at most and I would question how much good they will do you. But this is very much... He's very sensitive but only in a very small area. There's just one part of my leg that breaks, the rest of it's made of steel, it's fine.

1:13:45Roger Bennett:yeah I think it's a it's a trend that that has has caught on someone like Grealish may well have inspired it to a large extent because there's anyone who's played football at any level knows after a while you get you just get used to wearing shin pads it doesn't really bother you it doesn't it doesn't impinge your movement in any way it's just a shin pad so I'm surprised that the players have gone down this route but then they get involved with all sorts of strange fads the cutting holes in the socks for example is another one the nose strips that they used to wear and the most trips in the late 90s.

1:14:13Roger Bennett:So it might be that we have a period. Maybe it's like shorts. Like shorts sometimes get really long and then sometimes get really short and then sometimes sort of hover in the middle. Maybe we'll be back on massive oversized shin pads in five to seven years' time.

1:14:24Rory Smith:Do you think so? Is everything comes in wave? Like bootcut jeans are now back in, like in 10 years. That's the only thing. To cap this, 10 years' time, the only prediction we'll make is that players will wear enormous clunky shin pads. Just one shin pad across both legs. Yeah, like Michael Elisa of the future will just be like, I wear giant, giant shin pads because they make me feel alive. Boot truck shin pads. It's amazing. The recent photo, that photo that went viral of a 17-year-old Brighton player, Harry Howell, celebrating with his 87-year-old teammate, James Milner. and you can see Howell's tiny, tiny, tiny, like a little nipple on his kneecap and Milner's big old kind of traditional, massive shin guards, which look like he borrowed them from a joust scene in the Night of the Seven Kingdoms rule.

1:15:14Rory Smith:One player has played forever, big shin pads. The other, I don't know, Harry Howell, I wish you a long career, but there is some kind of correlation, many implied in that physique.

1:15:24Roger Bennett:Is there a possibility that James Milner's shin pads are structural? What, you mean he takes off his legs and just has shing up?

1:15:31Rory Smith:No, like the shin pads are holding him together. I do love that idea. At this point, I've been playing so long, the shin pads have just like sailed to my...

1:15:41Roger Bennett:I don't know where my flesh ends of my shin guard begins. This is getting a little bit niche, but again, anyone who's ever played football of any level will know that shin pads after a while become deeply unhygienic things.

1:15:51Rory Smith:James Milner's shin pads must smell weird. I bet they smell like the rest of him, just of like damp moss on a fresh spring day. And just the smell of tenacity, perseverance and wonder. I do know it's correlated in all sincerity, Colin. I think to the end of the reducer tackle football used to be, we talked about how an FA Cup game final, a famous one from the 70s between Leeds and Chelsea, was re-refereed by a modern referee. And he looked at it, he said, I would have given 17 red cards and 27 yellows in that game. Not trying to be funny. But football used to be a game of knee-breaking tackles.

1:16:29Rory Smith:They've been ruled out of the game mostly. I think these gents do feel an invulnerability. There is, though, in sports, Raw, you see in hockey, like the players not wanting to wear visors. You know, the NFL, you know, the guardian cap for helmets, which I know the science is a bit different on that. But for many, the look is the thing, the trend is the thing, what it projects. And there is, like, genuinely, players do buy into that theory that it holds me back. It stops my pure speed.

1:16:55Roger Bennett:Well, yeah, thanks to MIB team member Jacob. I did a story on neck guards in the ice hockey at the Winter Olympics a few weeks ago because they'd been made compulsory by the body that looks after international hockey. And a lot of the NHL players were slightly wary of wearing them because they don't have to in the NHL. I think they're grandfathering in the rule over the next couple of years. And watching the ice hockey at the Winter Olympics, a lot of them looked like they were wearing neck guards, but they were wearing them as low as possible. Now, I don't know about you, Rog, but I'd quite like anything that prevents me getting a potentially fatal injury.

1:17:30Roger Bennett:But listening to players talk about it, they said, well, look, it's what we're used to, we're not used to wearing them, but also there is an element of kind of libertarian masculinity. Like, I'm taking this risk. I don't want to, you know, I don't want it. I don't need it. I'm happy without it. It's up to me to decide. And yeah, I think the footballers are maybe the same with shin pads, as they're the shin pads in Britain rather than shin guards. I just don't quite believe that there can be any real benefit to wearing tiny little ones I don't wear shin pads to play now as a 43 year old man but I can't believe that professional players, the speed the tackles are going you look at George Dobson's tackle for Wrexham a lot of the leg breakers have gone but it's still a contact sport, it's still a physical sport and you would want a little bit of protection at least

1:18:16Rory Smith:It's so funny, the one time I did not wear shin pads in a game because I left them at home I still have on my left leg two stud marks that will never leave my leg to this day. So I am very pro-Shippad. The truth is there is a correlation between injury and Shimpad. If I were a Premier League player, I would wear them. If only to be like a little Luka Modric who takes the field with one Shimpad, a photograph of himself playing for Croatia and winning the Champions League around Madrid. The other has a photograph of his wife and his kids and he kisses that one before he steps onto the field. For that lone roar, take a picture of my dog, Martin Scorsese, onto the field with me before I make my debut at the Hill Dickinson.

1:18:56Rory Smith:I'm going big.

1:18:57Roger Bennett:I would not do that because that would feel a bit like I had a picture of my dog or wife or children on my shin pads and lots of my opponents were going to kick me and thereby kick their faces. I wouldn't like that at all. I would put pictures of my enemies on my shin pads. People love dogs.

1:19:12Rory Smith:They wouldn't get near me, baby. But before we zig off into the realm of complete fantasy, thanks for your letter, Connor. By the way, I'd love to come to your city. San Antonio and El Paso are the two places I long to go to in this nation. Keep writing to all of us here at meninblazersgmail.com. Try and answer everything that comes in. By the way, James Milner's shinny's death smell like the beauty of old leather. 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.

1:19:47Rory Smith:what would you like the power to do? Quick reminder for listeners in Atlanta we're heading down to you March 27th for our World Cup Countdown show 76 Days Out Live presented by Bank of America official Bank of US Soccer and the FIFA World Cup 2026 come join us for an unforgettable night of football and joy and pints at the Eastern as we lean into the summer we've all been waiting for the summer we all need when the whole world arrives in the A for the best 39 days of our being tickets can be found at the link below. I'll be back post-Champions League games on Wednesday with the mighty James Horncastle.

1:20:24Rory Smith:Come and join us live on YouTube. Roar, I'll rock it with you Friday. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. This is Rog saying let's not take a second of watching football together for granted and courage.