Arsenal & Liverpool's Tactical Stalemate; Amorim Out at Man United; Rosenior In at Chelsea

26:24He was with Rooney at Derby, his first job, wasn't he? And Rooney, yeah, raved about him. So I think there's a lot, and we know that he's very good with the media, he was working with Sky TV, very articulate, which you've already seen in his first interview, which I do want to talk to you about. So there's the positives, right? I went back, because that's the sort of guy I am. I went back yesterday, and I watched two games from Strasbourg, right? To get more of a sense. Part of the Blue Co system, that's just for our viewers to know, they're part of the Chelsea kind of multi-club system that they own.

26:55Yeah, so Chelsea own the club, and they loan and all that. I didn't realize Chilwell's there, isn't he? Ben Chilwell's at Strasbourg. Again, Chirot's another one that talks very highly about Liam Messina. Anyway, I had a quick look at some of the games, a couple of two games. There was a league game, super expansive, three at the back. So it's kind of the Man United system. Now, I don't know whether he'll do that into Chelsea, but I wouldn't be surprised because they're really expansive. A million passes. They played lovely football. It was almost like the total football in that system to try and win games.

27:24They've been successful. I think seventh the place they were and could have done better things in European football. and then I went back and watched the Crystal Palace because they played Palace in the Conference League and they beat Crystal Palace. And the same thing, really, really expansive, attacking, attractive football. That's all the positive side of it. The negative side of it is, wow, what a jump. What a step up. Like from going from Hull City to Strasbourg, which it's been good, but I mean, it's a different animal to be manager of this football club with the expectation, with a difficulty level of trying to manage these different competitions, of managing players that are multi-millionaires now.

28:04And these are all things that he has not done. He has not done with Hull City and Strasbourg. Very different in terms of trying to win over the dressing room with that. His first few meetings, his first few training sessions will be key. And again, back on the positive side, our understanding is that he's really good at that stuff. But, I mean, talk about Chelsea Football Club and those fans, Rob, to see a somewhat rookie in Enzo Maresca kind of coming in and then leaving and then even a more junior, really. I mean, Emesca saw success at Man City, Rob. He saw a treble. He saw what winning looks like in the Premier League.

28:38Rasenia's less close to that. So there's the side of, wow, this is amazing for a young black manager, by the way, Rob. I think it's the first black manager of Chelsea. Brilliant, amazing. Well, no, Rude Hullet was... Oh, sorry, Rude Hullet. Yeah. And then there's the bit about, wow, inexperience. This is such a difficult job with scrutiny. The last thing I'll add, Rob, before I throw it back to you, is I saw his first interview with the Chelsea Football Club about how he was. And as we know, really good talker, right? Really good. And this is maybe me. I'm a miserable old pundit, and I'm looking for kind of like things that aren't.

29:19he spoke a lot and it's great and he said what he wanted Rob and he talked about I want to entertain the fans I'm here to win I want to play brilliant football I want Stanford Bridge to be on their feet in our games in the first 10-15 minutes he talked a great great game season career.

29:43I feel at the beginning it's probably better to say a little less and start humbly and not about how he's going to get them to play winning football and expansive football and creative football and I want, do you know what I mean Rob? Am I being a bit negative? Did you see the interview by the way? I did see the interview, yeah I did and I'm smiling to myself. Is he talking too much? As he was doing the interview, I was thinking to myself, there's going to be two schools of thought here. Some people are going to say he's over-talking it. He's trying to create this perfect scenario where it's going to be great.

30:20Or if he goes the other way, I'll tell you what would have happened. People would have said, oh, I don't know if he's going to be ambitious enough. Let me tell you where I'm at with this situation. And we come from a slightly different place. he's 41 years of age he's young kind of probably more in touch with these players than certainly Maresca was possibly Pochettino was I'll ask you the question because I knew this was going to come up what's the bigger jump Liam Messina from Strasbourg to Chelsea or Keith Andrews from set-piece guy to Brentford manager. Liam Rossini, bigger jump. Bigger jump.

31:09Really? Yeah. When Keith Andrews has not managed at all... He's been at the football club. He knows how it works. The players know him. He's been telling you where to stand on corners and where to sit free kicks. He's also a coach. He was gearing to be a manager. But this guy's a coach. This guy's coached at Hull City in the second division. He's coached at Strasbourg. I think it's about 175 games he's coached. He's a young man. I kind of think we do this like, you know, everybody was saying that Keith Andrews will be relegated and Brentford will be relegated because he's got no experience. He's never coached at this level, bloody boy.

31:41He's fifth in the Premier League. Look at when the goals go in. His team run over to him. He's got a relationship, a man-management relationship. You know as well as our inner dressing room, the man-managed relationship is as important as your tactics, is as important as your set-up and all that. does the guy who's running you, do you want to play for him? Do you want to do... This guy looks to me smart enough to do two things. Find the right way to get on with the players, and sometimes that includes discipline, and find the right way to get on with his sporting directors and the people who are his bosses.

32:19Because if you fall out with either of those two parties, you're out of job pretty soon. Yeah, and that's great. And I think he'd be good at that, Robbie Hill. What I would ask you, what's it like on the sideline when he's 2-1 behind against Pep Guardiola's team? Or Arnestots Liverpool? Keith Hounder's never had that thing. And he made the decision. He knew how to make the decision. But the expectation and scrutiny at Chelsea, Rob, is different. I hear you. But I'd also say, Graham Potter went into this football club with experience, had done things at Bryan, struggled. Nuno had a great season.

32:55and he's gone in at West Ham, it's struggled. Amarin is all, looked like the perfect fit for Manchester United, it's struggled. Pereira has one good season at Wolves, the next season, it's struggled. The age in your, I think we sometimes go too far down that, oh, he's not from there. We've got to give this guy, this guy's smart, this guy in two. Of course that. We've got to give him a chance. Of course we have. And that's why I outline the positive side of this appointment and the potential negative sides. Or the challenges. Any manager you take outside of maybe an elite six or seven, maybe ten at the max, are all going to be a step up.

33:36We talk about Thomas Frank going to Spurs. Well, he's been a great manager at Brentford. Can he make the step up? Well, everything would tell you that he should do, but he's gone there and he hasn't. Chelsea fans, though, Robert, might expect, and they've not had this, they might expect a coach to have gone in there that has been coached in the Champions League before, that he has managed kind of top players, and he's, you know... They might expect that, but that hasn't necessarily been successful for them. Well, they've had every manager under the sun. Every type of manager has been and gone.

34:06All I'm saying is those... Listen, I'm fascinated by this appointment, right? And a young manager that's obviously smart, that talks really well, that I feel has got a great relationship with the players. I'm here for it. And that's one side of it. but we can't ignore how much a jump up this is in being in this dressing room, of this club. They want to win every game. They want to win the Champions League. If I'm Blueco and I've got a multi-club system and I'm sort of gearing people to do something, do you know what? Why don't I give this guy a try? It might be too early. In a year's time, we might go that it was a wrong decision.

34:43Do you think the Chelsea fans would think the same way, Rob? Yeah, just give him a try. Yeah, just give him a go. No, no, no. It's like they might think the whole thing is a big experiment. It's like one big experiment, they might think. No, this thought, yeah, but this thought behind it, he's in their system, he knows what he wants to play, apparently he wants to play possession, because there's no guarantee when you go and buy, you go and get... There's no guarantee with any manager. Graham Potter. I know. You go and get Enzo Moresca, you go and get whoever, whoever. There's no guarantee with any of those anyway.

35:12I mean, just a side note, would any other Premier League club look to appoint Liam Rossini, Rob? Like, just, if they had... Yeah, of course they would. Brentford would. Brighton might. They're progressive. Brighton, Deserbys and the likes have gone into that football. Potter went into that football club. They've had no Premier League experience. No, listen, I'm here for it. I don't think that I don't... I would say if I think it's a bad decision, I'm not saying that. I'm just laying out my thoughts from what excites me. There's going to be some difficult times. he's got to be smart enough to get through those difficult times and then come out if he can do that within this season to build his kind of yeah if he can get those players on board with his training with his meetings once he starts his summer with a few players in his way it could be really exciting but I'm delighted he's been given a chance me too I'm delighted he's been given a chance yeah absolutely and if Chelsea fans won't have a go it's all me or me whatever let's wait till the end ok my friend should we talk quickly about the game because it ended up a defeat for Chelsea obviously not in the great form and another record so he's going to have to deal with some of this the record and the lack of discipline around because that can hurt you Rob at the top end yeah it will and that's one I mean is that five now I think five red cards from the season, which is an amazing amount.

36:46I mean, Liam Dillap, he worked with at Strasbourg, Rob, so he knows all about him. Dillap's good for him to get a... I think it's his first Premier League goal for Chelsea, by the way. He had him at Hull. He had Dillap at Hull. Did he have him at Hull? At Hull. He was, yeah. You know, he had him on loan. Oh, right, right. I thought it was Strasbourg for some reason. You know, the story was his Hull team beat Mureska's Leicester team 1-0 and Dillap scored for Hull. good knowledge Rob Earle good knowledge yeah I mean the game's the game 2-1 they'll be delighted with it you know I'm excited he's going to come in for the FA Cup game isn't he now I think Rosinia they'll start working with the team straight away it's going to be fascinating to watch this wasn't a great game for them Cucureas can be hot-headed again that's one of the jobs of the new head coach is to try and get a little bit more I don't know emotional control with some of these young it's a young team and he's used to work on a young player.

37:41He's a young team. He's a young manager, but he's got to teach them how to get through those tough moments. Yeah, yeah. Whip around. Let's whip around some of the others. It's a title race implication game. Man City won, Brighton won. Haaland scores a penalty. Matoma scores a lovely goal from the left-hand side. City, I think, has three draws now and a spin. Three straight draws, yeah. Are they spiralling to averageness or can they go again? Careless, Rob. They've become careless. The football going forward is still quite nice and still quite threatening. They always look like they're going to score goals.

38:10but they're going to concede goals. Rodri came on for about 20, 25 minutes later on into the game. Got to be honest, Brighton could have been 2-0 up, Rob, in the first 20 minutes, had two great chances. And then late on, Gomez has a chance at 1-1 to make it 2-0. It comes off his heel. Could have been a different score. So there's a careless edge to this new City team that haven't quite been grooved in the way that Pep wants. And it's going to be really tough for them to go on the kind of run centre-back's injured Diaz looks like he's out Gavordial's out possibly to the end of the season you know, Stones we're not 100 % sure talk about Gueye trying to go for him possibly in the window it'd be a good signing Semenya's on his way Antoine Semenya's on his way that one's done so, yeah another difficult day for City and Palace and Villa didn't get a chance to see much of this one obviously an Ilhano Dior at Palace that, you know, a point apiece.

39:09But, you know, with both those dropping points, that was where the opportunity was for Arsenal. But everybody ends up drawing and everybody ends up getting a point. And I suppose we have to be happy with that. Let's go to some amazing storylines this week, my friend. Amazing storylines. So let's start at Bournemouth 3, Tottenham 2. I mean, a fairytale ending for Antoine Semenu with the late goal that wins the game. He goes up the medical at Manchester City, expected$86 million move to go through by time probably tomorrow morning. Goals from Matthias Tell for Spurs. Evan Nielsen gets one back for Bournemouth.

39:51Bournemouth go 2-1 up with Kruppi. Polina with a beautiful overhead kick. He wins 2-1. And then Semenyo, 95-plus minutes from the left-hand side, comes in on his right foot, hits a shot. brilliant scenes, lovely emotional scenes with him and the manager and the fans, Semenya, at the end of the game. A couple of things in this one, mate. I don't know if you saw the video that was doing the rounds. There was a video of the Spurs players going up to the fans after, and there was some I think Mickey Van Der Ven, I think there was Porro and one or two others, I don't know if Paulinho went to try and calm things down or whatever, but there was a bit of a mess between the set of fans in the players.

40:33And then I don't know if you also saw, Rob, the little coffee cup of Thomas Frank with an Arsenal coffee. I mean, I'm not sure how that happens. I'm not sure how maybe in light of a Premier League manager with so much on your mind, you don't even notice it. But a few difficult times for Thomas Frank. I think somebody's suggesting like if they went out of the FA Cup early, he might find it difficult to hang on to that job. He might. And there's one other thing I thought you were going to mention there. Christian Romero put a social media message out. Oh, yeah, this guy actually come out with some message, hasn't he?

41:08Yeah, it doesn't help. And I think he edited his message and I think he basically was saying, like, you know, where's the support from the directors or other people at this higher-ups at the football club? They only come out when they're winning. So that's not good, yeah. So it's, again, a difficult job, but there's some bad stuff there and I think you're right. I mean, Thomas Frank, talk about where they are right now. the 14th Rob in the Premier League table, 27 points. Even we know that some of the three, well, the three main players are out injured for them right now. Madison Kuduski and Solanke are still not good enough.

41:41They should be way higher than that with the squad that they've got. So he is absolutely bang under pressure. As you said, cup game can sometimes, that's another potential upset for them. So that's a story that we absolutely will keep an eye on. Newcastle 4, Leeds 93. Maybe the game of the match round, by the way. And again, all these games at the same time, it's hard to get a real close look at it, but what amazing end to this game. St. James' pub. At one place, Rob, there's a late goal that goes in from Harvey Barnes. Can you imagine? There's no better scene, is there? When the goal goes in, right, on the screen, I'm looking at the crowd most of the time.

42:15Yeah, yeah. Like the hairs go on the back of your neck, don't they? They're all jumping off their seats. I mean, what a finish from the penalty to the late winner from Harvey Barnes. To turn that game around in stoppage time at the end of the match was... Sounded like amazing. The greatest goal and record in the Premier League, apparently Harvey Barnes. It's the latest winning goal, isn't it? The latest goal on record. The winning goal. Yeah. So that's amazing. Your little beloved Sunderland didn't have a good one, Robbie. He didn't. They lost to your other beloved team, Brentford. They lost 3-0 at Brentford.

42:44Yeah, my beloved forward, Igor Thiago. What about him, by the way? Brandon, another two. Earl was on him early, right? I get that you're on him early. He is looking... I mean, he's starting to look really, really, really good. He scored the most goals now in a single season of any Brazilian. I mean, by the way, as you would know, you had an incredible Brazilian who played Juninho with you. You think of Firmino, you think of Coutinho, you think of some of the great Cunha. Think of the... There's been a lot of good Brazilian players in the Premier League, mate. I mean, the desire of the big clubs in English football, or the Premier League, to look in for strikers.

43:23I mean, he is doing himself a ton of favours. I mean, this club and recruitment and strikers, it's so many now. And the manager, by the way, mate. I know. Let's just give that manager. I know we've mentioned it before, but this fella, I mean, this is incredible stuff that's going on. And I know he was around it, and I know he's watching Thomas Frank and seeing how he works and picking a lot up, but his role was the set-piece guy. It's like Arsenal set-piece guy. And then Mikel Arteta goes, and they go to that Nicolas Chauvet. You take over. I'll see what that looks like. Yeah. Keith Andrews gives unbelievable credit for what he's done with this group of players.

43:59He's done brilliantly. He looks comfortable. He looks very happy in his own skin when he's interviewed and stuff like that. I want to add one thing, though, and this has taken nothing away from Keith Andrews. Yeah. In football right now, you can put football clubs in two buckets, the good recruiters and the bad recruiters. He fortunately works for a club that are good recruiters. in that bucket is Bournemouth, is Brentford, is Brighton. There's good recruiters. Crystal Palace have recruited well. And there's bad recruiters. Now, I'm not talking about the different sizes of clubs as well. Arsenal have been good recruiters.

44:37Man United have been bad recruiters. Spurs have been bad recruiters. The clubs that recruit well, in their little echelon in the Premier League, are going to do really well. And the West Ham United is the epitome of bad recruiters. They're going to struggle. And no matter how big your football club is, from Bournemouth to West Ham United, It's a prime example of a good recruiting team and a bad recruiting team. And that is the difference right now. No matter how big your stadium is, what your matchday revenue is, if you're behind the scenes, use the data of smart people in recruitment. It is everything.

45:08And again, not to take anything away from him, but Brentford, as we've talked about with their strikers, they're a good recruiting team. And whilst that's in place, they're never going to get relegated because they pick too many good players. They can lose two or three of them that they did in the summer. They've lost three in the same time. The manager, mate, to add to the point. Because they recruit good players throughout the club. They've got all the players who've come in and done the job. They've put faith in a young manager who was untested but has proven to be very, very successful. It's a great story.

45:39If they could get themselves in European football as well, it would be a bit like a Palace situation or something. It would be great to see Brentford. After all those years of being down lower leagues and getting themselves in the Premier League and staying there, now they're doing a great job. Best of the rest was a 1-1 draw, Everton Wolves. Neither team, I suppose, well, Wolves picked up a little bit since their recent win. Michael Keane with a goal, Mane with an equaliser. Then we've got two red cards. Michael Keane for a bit of a hair pull. Looked, you know, one of those that if you pull someone's hair out, unfortunately, that's a good other way.

46:17And Grealish, short of the second yellow card, clapping the referee on his decision. a little bit foolish really, it's one of them that sometimes you hope the referee can just have a word in his ear. I mean normally Jack's not like that really, Rob is he? He doesn't often lose it, he totally lost the plot with the referee didn't he? Don't know what that was about, he was getting some stick off the Wolves fans or something and being the next Villa man, don't know if that was the case and then a really big result West Ham 1, Nottingham Forest 2. Yeah, huge result. Murillo with the own goal initially gets West Ham ahead, Dominguez, another corner again and from Conceded for West Ham, and then Gibbs White with the penalty kick to get the 2-1 win.

46:58West Ham in all kinds of trouble, Rob. 18th in the league, seven points behind Forest in a relegation battle. I read somewhere that Nuno lost his job at Forest because they lost to West Ham. Somebody was saying to me, I wonder if Nuno will lose his job a second time for West Ham losing to Nottingham Forest the other way round. But I'm hearing, Rob, the news seems to be that there's going to be some some signings it looks like they're going to be giving him some time um west all my west ham friends are already talking about doom and gloom and championship and yeah there's not much hope at the moment it's astonishing i can't i just struggle to believe again we can go back to recruiting and tim stein that we interviewed pitch side with all the money that he spent your four clubs and guillermo's have done they've done nothing.

47:48But there's a seven-point gap. That's a real gap now. There is 17 games left and if they can find a way to stop conceding goals, they still have a chance. I am not renegading West Ham United right now but it's very difficult. It's very difficult to see. Maybe a Leeds United, Rob, potentially struggle to keep on the great form they're in right now. Maybe they don't. But it's astonishing. Just before we wrap up, Rob, the penalty that was conceded would end up being the match winner for Morgan Gibbs-White. There's a collision between Morgan Gibbs-White and Alphonse Areola. And I think when you first see it, right, and by the way, this, I think I'm in the minority a little bit, but when you first see it, you see a goalkeeper come out, you see him go into a player and it's like, well, he hasn't won the ball, it's a foul.

48:33And I understand that. But if you actually look at it, from Morgan Gibbs-White's point of view, right, the ball's nodded away before it gets to the two of them. it's nodded away. just before you're ahead of him. But Morgan Gibbs-White is flying and jumping. He's setting off on a run like these two do one, two, three, jump. He's heading towards the goalie, and they're going to collide. There's a collision, yeah. Because the hand is in the face, and people look at the goalkeeper in this sort of collision, it did look like a foul. And maybe I'm wrong, and maybe it was a foul by the goalkeeper. I just think they're both full-blooded challenge.

49:11That collision's happening, whether the ball's there or not, Because the ball's headed away, it makes it look so much worse. And they're both flying into the challenge. Yeah, they're both going for the ball. And, you know, it's one of them, if the header doesn't come in, they both probably challenge for the ball and the game goes on. But I thought it was a slightly tough one. And, I mean, you know, when you see it, you just catch him in the face. And first, because he goes down, then that's the reason that he wasn't going to be overruled. But, yeah, I thought he was a little harshly done. But West Ham, people are licking their wounds, mate.

49:43They need to get on with things. They need to get things right. Just notice as well, they let Callum Wilson, looks like his contract, mutually agree, don't they? They're going to let him go. Listen, mate, I just want to take a moment to pass our condolences to a couple of football greats and send our best wishes. Martin Chivers was a Spurs giant. We lost him this week. He was part of that UA for 72 in the League Cup 71-73 team. That was Bill Nicholson's Spurs way. And everyone talked about Spurs way. That was kind of back in the days. We've lost him. Also, a personal one, just condolences to Gary Logan, a good friend of ours, a broadcaster in the UK.

50:26We lost her dad, Terry Yorath, today. What a lovely guy. He was played for the likes of Leeds, Coventry, Tottenham, was out at Vancouver, Whitecaps, I heard, as well as Welsh International. And Gabby, for anyone who doesn't know, is a really big broadcaster back in the UK. Very much like Rebecca Lowe. knows the football, great personality, a really good friend of mine, so just pass our condolences to him. Well said. And finally, just to Kevin Keegan, mate, who was diagnosed with cancer, did you know? And Kevin Keegan was a, I'm sure of yours, a hero of ours, Tosak and Keegan for Liverpool back in the day.

50:59There was this little diminutive forward who played for Liverpool, Hamburg, Newcastle, Southampton, was the England manager and just a brilliant, brilliant guy to be around. It would make everybody feel special in a room let me tell you a quick story of him because he was newcastle manager when i was playing for middlesbrough yeah and i went out for dinner with my wife and uh i think it was jamie pollock and his girlfriend at the time and um we were in his fancy restaurant in the in middlesbrough and um kevin keegan was in there saw us come over and said hi goes and sits out dinner with his wife and then we found out that he'd pay for our dinner bill that night, you know, and we're kind of meant to be rivals.

51:38What a lovely, he didn't say anything, he just walked out and just what a lovely bloke. And let's hope him a speedy recovery. Yeah, wish him a speedy recovery. What a great guy. What a legend of the North East football as well. Absolutely. Legend of football generally, I think so. Yeah. Well, mate, that puts an end to what I'm calling a mad midweek. Lots of games, 29 goals across 10 games. None of the goals came at the Emmets, Arsenal, Liverpool during the big game of the week. And how's this? Newcastle had a thriller. West Ham loss could be a killer, while Thomas Frank and Spurs could do with a filler.

52:13That's it for this weekend. We're not around this weekend. It's the FA Cup, so enjoy your FA Cup action. We'll be back Sunday. That's January the 18th, so Sunday, January the 18th. Date for your diary. We'll recap match week 22 in the small matter of the Manchester derby. But for now, I'm Earl. He's must be, together with the two Robbies. Thanks for watching and listening. you say stay healthy it's goodnight from me and it's goodnight from him goodnight