Are Manchester United a basket case?

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1:55Hello and welcome to the Game Football Podcast from the Times and Sunday Times. On today's show, Lissandro Martinez launches a verbal hand grenade towards the Manchester United hierarchy as Michael Carrick's beleaguered side lurched towards another full-blown crisis. Pep Guardiola returns to the Etihad to show support for under fire Manchester City and watches on in horror as Enzo Maresca's side are swept aside by Paris Saint-Germain. And as the independent football regulator publishes its state of the game report, are most English clubs really living on the edge of financial disaster? I'm Gregor Robertson and joining me to discuss all of that and more are the chief correspondent for the Times and Sunday Times, Martin Samuel, the chief football writer for the Times and Sunday Times, Jonathan Northcroft, and the former Aston Villa and Marcy striker and Times columnist, Tony Cascarino.

2:47Guys, good to have you all. Good morning. Bags of goals and some stunning Champions League football this week, but I think we're going to have to start with Lissandro Martinez and his blistering attack on the Manchester United hierarchy, Johnny, after the 2-0 defeat against Atletico Madrid, in which he basically said he expected more Simons in the summer and pointed the finger skyward, upstairs. Yeah, I mean, and he's since doubled down with a long Instagram post last night, which is what you'd expect from Lissandro Martinez. You wouldn't expect a sort of apology or anything like that. It was an unusual interview because he names the technical director, I think, as much as anything else.

3:25It's the personal nature of calling out Jason Wilcox. I know Martinez has been roundly attacked everywhere for rocking the boat, for breaking that kind of code that footballers have got of you have to always stick together and keep things in house and we could go down that route but I actually think that in the we're all in the media we want people to talk we we want people to be honest we like people expressing their opinions so yes he may have not helped the team yeah he might have a personal agenda he might want out I mean that's he's in the last year of his contract his mate Kuti Romero did something very similar when he wanted to leave Spurs all of that's true but I also think he touched on something that a lot of supporters are saying something that we can all see which is that this is a big six club this is a Champions League club this is a club with pretensions to get back to glory days that hasn't invested enough in its squad in the last two or three seasons hasn't invested that money always well I mean I actually think in the last two or three windows individually the signings given the budget have been by and large pretty reasonable but the budget isn't big enough and I find it interesting that this comes at a time that Bruno Fernandes is still discussing a new contract and I interviewed Bruno back in March or May at April and he said something that that kind of echoes in a way what Martinez was saying, which was, you know, I said, what will make you stay at the club?

5:03And he said, well, I can't ask this club to guarantee that I'll win something, but I can ask this club to guarantee that we'll be competitive. And that's what he was looking for. So I would be surprised if Martinez is a lone wolf in the dressing room and that nobody else shares his opinion. And the point he's making is you keep sacking managers, you keep asking us to all start again. but you're not investing enough. You're not giving us the tools to compete. And I think we can all see that on the pitch. Martin, what did you make of it? Do you want me to say it again? It's the worst one club in football.

5:39You know, every single time I'm asked about Manchester, it's the worst one club in football. They've got every single advantage. Every single advantage. Because, you know, down the road, where Manchester City, where people were putting a load of money into the club, that turned out to be not the thing. So this is meant to be the model. This is Manchester United. They're one of the elite clubs. You know, they're doing everything right. They've got more advantage than just about any club in the country because they're Manchester United. They're huge at a time when being huge, having the money, having historic success before the financial rules came in, sort of pretty much cement you up there.

6:18You know, it's very hard to get in front of anyone. And yet you can get in front of Manchester United because they're not buying players of the quality that their position should get. Martinez, you know, it's not the greatest timing when you've just lost Solanke for the guy, you kicked it through your own net the previous week. I mean, he's following a long line of turncoats from a particular national team. If you think of Romero, Enzo Fernandez, these guys are not really the sort of blokes you want on your side when the chips are down because every single one of them has sort of turned on their club in the last year.

7:01Unless they're playing England. Unless they're playing England in which case, you know, fantastic. So I'm not necessarily a great lover of Martin is and what he did. Having said that, you know, you can't say he's wrong. You can't say he's wrong. What would you have made of that in the dressing room, Cass? I think there's certain managers that wouldn't be too happy about a player making comments, especially when, as they sort of alluded in the last year, the contract, and not particularly played well. And I'm not even sure they'll offer him a new deal. Does it matter if he's not playing well? Like, should you have said it anyway?

7:39I find it... Look, Manchester United as a football club has really hit ground zero, hasn't it? Where it's just... I don't know, has it? I mean... I just don't recognise the club. I speak to Manchester United players that I know played with. I think I had about eight or nine over the years talked to them about the football club. And they say things to me about how things used to be. The problem at one time is that, although it wasn't a problem because they won loads, is that a guy that was all over everything at the football club. And that made the club work because he had such an important drive in himself and others around him.

8:21I hate the word complacency. Or when people say about a football team, oh, they're complacent. They're basically saying lazy. Once you start getting lazy, complacency sets in. Well, this team has got that. I look at it and I think, I don't know if they run as hard as the opposition. I don't know if they keep pointing the fingers at other people. They do all of this stuff at Old Trafford. You know, this was the Tottenham scenario as well, wasn't it? You know, you felt that all these sort of ideas of how they should play, what formation. They fail under every formation. I don't get where they are as a football club.

8:57They buy a young man like Belieber comes in and yes, he's been injured and he'll come back in. I guarantee you he'll become a worse player pretty soon. Well, that's what they're doing. That's a problem. That's what they're doing with nearly everybody. People go to United and get worse. People go to United and you think, he's a player. That guy's a player. And then you see him at United and you think, what's happened to him? And it's been going on for years. If you look at Angel Di Maria, for instance, then he left Manchester United and then you saw him afterwards for, I think it was PSG. And you're looking at him going, he's a good player.

9:31He's a really good player to meet, Di Maria. I always thought he was a good player. What happened to him at United? And I know he had personal circumstances there as well, which were unfortunate. But, you know, this idea of players getting worse the more time they're with the club, that's not good that's not good you should get better it's always a sign of England managers one of the things that was good say with Southgate for instance the longer players spent with that England set up and that was what changed that's what changed about the England set up the longer the players were with them the better they looked it hasn't always been the case with England managers it's certainly not the case with Manchester United sorry Johnny no no I'll tell you who else gets worse at Man United is coaches you know this place is a black hole this place sucks people in.

10:19Why? Well, it comes from the top for me. And Tony's absolutely right. You see it on the pitch, but that's the end point of a rotten club where I don't think, Jason Wilcox, yeah, he's, I know Martinez called him out, but the problem's way above him. This is Jim Ratcliffe, if we're talking about complacency. No, it's Jason Wilcox, he's spending the budget and I think he spent it okay. Also, they hired the best in class man, who's Dan Ashworth. Yeah. And then when that went wrong, he was just the man to step into the vacuum. And if you're talking about complacency, this is a guy that from the sidelines was telling us how brilliant he would be if he was in charge of Man United.

10:58And he comes in and seems to think that a couple of big sort of business statements is enough. But he hasn't backed it up with his own investment. In fact, there's a fascinating bit of analysis by Kieran Maguire that he put on X yesterday, which shows that under Ratcliffe, the investment in players has gone down, in player wages and transfers, while the matchday revenue secured from every fan, so how much money they're wringing out of every supporter, has almost doubled under Ratcliffe. We know that they're putting ticket prices up, they're squeezing the fans. And this seems to be the business model.

11:38And he doesn't succeed in sport. We've seen this at the other sporting entities we've got. But of course, on top of him, because Jim Ratcliffe might reasonably turn around and say, I've got the Glazers on top of me. And they're sucking money out of this football club. You know, the debt is over a billion pounds now. And I think you see a team on the pitch that isn't motivated and it's limp because the players are part of a rotten system. The players get a defeatist feeling that there's nothing we can do. And it's not really our fault because it's everyone's fault. then you just come all the way back to what made them successful they haven't moved on from losing it's obvious thing to say but they had this mighty unicorn manager pulled everything together they haven't found any way of replacing that and they're now in such a position that the only way I can imagine them getting out of it unless as a somebody buys a football club is them winning the lottery and getting another unicorn manager but they shouldn't be in this position Because, you know, you can plan your way out of this, but they're so hopeless that they're just waiting for another Fargo.

12:43I've only had two managers. I think it's two managers since the war, isn't it, that won the league? Yeah. I think Liverpool had six, is it, or seven? Something like that, yeah. You know, they've had as many managers who've won the war since the league as Tottenham have. You know, I think Chelsea have had four or five. You know, so what you're looking at with Manchester United is these two isolated events where two extremely gifted managers, coaches, built incredible teams. And apart from that, they've been flashing around and particularly recently. And I was looking back and I saw the report of the game in which Manchester City win the league in 17, 18 or so, when Man U lose at home to West Brom, who are bottom of the league and already relegated, and that gives City the title.

13:37and that's one of the seasons that everyone says, oh, Manchester United would have won the league. They got booed off. They got booed off in front of a half-empty Old Trafford by the end of the game. So it wasn't like there was this cracking Manchester United team that would have won the league. Even that season... It's not been close. They weren't really a good team. It's just that now people are going, oh, they've got an asterisk next to it. But that doesn't mean that the team that came second they weren't Liverpool a point you know parked up their backside and a point behind or goal defence or anything you know it's been it's been wrong for a long time you know so we're all kind of agreeing Lissandro Martinez has a point yeah but how much more pressure does this heap on Michael Carrick now it's two wins from their opening nine games against Azerbaijan Azerbaijan Champions Saturday they've got leads away Greg, they are unrecognisable from last season.

14:37So whatever's happened in the summer, whether it's players coming in or certain types of... Not coming in. Yeah, you know, they look a completely different team. The whole energy has gone out of this team. And that's concerning because they're going up against Leeds on the weekend away. And I did them at the weekend against Arsenal. And one thing they've got is plenty of energy. And they'll fight for you in every part of the pitch. now if they ain't matching that they'll be rolled over for sure Decent decent game performance by Balaba is that a glimmer of hope because this has been a big problem area again kind of vast open spaces in midfield Johnny and you saw that a little bit even for the goal they considered in the opening minute Yeah look midfield and lack of energy those have been the two biggest problems you know on the pitch for years and Balaba I wrote this after the whole defeat you know I think he just signed us before that match but you could see it in that whole game, the lack of legs, the lack of ball-winning capabilities, the lack of edge in that area.

15:39And you always thought he was going to bring it. I think Andre Santos looked quite good in combination with him. That raises questions as to what you do with Maynou and Tielemans. But yeah, there is a glimmer of hope there. Still that of a striker, still have only got old Luke Shaw at left back. Still got defence that might need to be sorted out. But yeah, I mean, what's different than last year? I mean, there's no Casemiro, that's obvious. He was accounted for quite a lot of set-piece goals. Bruno Fernandes looks in a trough. He does, doesn't he? And that's a big loss. And they did have a striker for that period under Carrick when Seska was actually fit.

16:21So there are obvious differences there. But I share Tony's sense that there's something bigger affecting them that seems to go beyond individual players. And it's not just that they sort of suck the life out of players. When players leave, they seem to get a new lease of life as well. I mean, you know, Scott McTominay goes to Italy, wins Footballer of the Year. Now, Scott McTominay looked a good player. He didn't look like he was going to be the Footballer of the Year anytime soon, did he? He looked a good player. You often looked at it and thought, why isn't he in the team all the time? He's as good as they can.

17:01Anthony. Look at Rashford. Awful, leaves good, comes back. Comes back, doesn't the same play. Absolutely right. And this isn't making anybody a scapegoat. I look at Ahmed. It's everybody a scapegoat. No, but Ahmed. I'm watching him at the weekend. I'm thinking, that bright young lad that was wanting to have a go at everyone. energy everywhere gone yeah when Amorim you're thinking that's the one thing that has really gone for him that kid's a player and Amorim is making him look like a player two years later you look at him going what does he do he does nothing he's you know look at Leni Jorgo plays brilliantly for France or his debut the French go whoa what a talent he comes back in United yeah well I know it sounds cruel but we're laughing because it's like I'm watching and we're all looking at it and going what are we watching now?

17:59they're making fools of us as I said already I thought they could be the closest challenges to the last of the season how wrong that was it wasn't an unreasonable expectation you think like finally there's some stability you'd look at it and go well Tiedemann's looks alright for Aston Villa you know Santos always seemed a strange one to me bearing in mind he was a fair amount of money see but that's the other problem that you it's i might have said it on here i can't remember what i said but 50 million is the new 30 million yeah now and and that is a problem because that's that's the market that they're dealing in all the time now look you can make a rick with 100 million as as as liverpool have proven with you know so far but in the in you know go back a few years you bought a player for 30 million it's an awful lot of money and yet people go well you know he's he's he's there's no guarantee that has now gone to 50 million you spend 50 million on a play and people go well he's not quite the finished article and you're thinking 50 million quid how can he not be the finished article but that's the market that Manchester United are moving in Santos is a classic example of that and you're looking at it and going he couldn't get in Chelsea's team and Chelsea weren't pulling up any trees but he couldn't get in the Chelsea's team as you say big trip to Ellen Road at the weekend followed by a clash against Como in the Champions League.

19:22So another big week for Manchester United. Terry Como, lovely card. Yeah, something like that. Anyway, on to the Etihad now. Manchester City losing 4-2 against Paris Saint-Germain. Pep was watching from the stands. Manchester City's first home game since the independent panel found City guilty of cheating on an industrial scale. But the football stole the show, Johnny. What a game. Brilliant game. I mean, that first half or the first 40-35 minutes was incredible from PSG. And they've morphed so much from this sort of patient possession team that Enrique initially had. They were so devastating on the counter-attack.

20:03The goal where Douay crosses... It's the best one-two I've ever seen. Amazing! I've never seen one-two crosses. Was it Belly crossed Douay and Douay crossed the back door when he scored? I mean, I've never seen that. It's ridiculous. And then you have to give Enzo Maresco a bit of credit because at half-time, he made brilliant changes and they were very different. Boadi was fantastic and then Dai brought some energy and actually bringing Ruben Diaz off was a pretty bold move, but he'd been terrible. And City in the second half were fantastic. And I sort of think, what could the score have been?

20:40You play that game, I mean, 8-6 or something. like that. 27 shots Manchester City had. Most of it came to the second half cast. They certainly made a fist of it but as Johnny said PSG were just irresistible in that first half didn't they? I just think this you know when you watch a team and they're just scary how quick they play and also their finishing is normally one touch and if it is a touch it's next touch is a shot you know what I mean? They do that really I mean Dwayne is such a dangerous player. I mean I look at him and I think how is he 21? 21 Greg? Is he 21? Not much older. I look at him and I think, he's got so much.

21:17You could play him on the left, you could play him on the right, but they've all got that hunger again. We've just spoke about, about, you know, about other teams that wouldn't have that. I find them scarily good. I think who's going to beat them at the moment? I can't. Maybe Barcelona would give them a bit of a match, but I'll say the word but, it's a real tough one because I think City would have been frightened out of their life in the first half hour because they were literally being torn apart until they got the grip of them. And then it became a game. And then you could see... Cabral Scullier didn't even play...

21:49Well, he came on last night. But he didn't start the game. If they win three Champions Leagues in a row, I mean, we've been talking about it for a little while now, whether this team could become a proper dynasty. I mean, do you think they're on that path? Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, look, the French Domestic League hasn't got the cachet of other domestic leagues. So the judgment of PSG was always going to come in the Champions League because, you know, there are certain leagues that you can win and win and win and win at Bayern Munich, say in Germany. The Arshtick is going to be, OK, what do they do in Europe against their arm, against teams that are as strong as them?

22:29And PSG are proving it. And if you win three, I mean, I think if you win two, you're sort of the best part of the way there. to win three, we didn't think it was going to be done in the modern. If you think until Real Madrid came along, no one ever retained the modern Champions League until Zinedine Zidane's Real Madrid side. And then they did it, and then you're thinking, oh, we might not see that for a few years, and then PSG have come along, and they've done it twice. You wouldn't back a day, would you? I mean, this is going to take... You're going to have to stop them. And we all thought Arsenal were the best stopping team probably in Europe last season.

23:11That's what we thought going into the game. And they stopped them, but they couldn't win the penalty shootout. But it's going to take a... Because I don't think... I take Tony's point about maybe Barcelona, but I still don't think there was a team there that is going to outplay them. So there might be a team that could stop them. Martin, you were at Anfield at the weekend to see Manchester City's first game since... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you just quickly reflect on? What do you make of that atmosphere? On the atmosphere? The atmosphere was what speaks for. Funnily enough, I didn't think the atmosphere was as lively as that Champions League quarterfinal.

23:49You know, the one where the City coach got smashed up and everything. I didn't think it was as lively as that. Now, that could be because Liverpool went 3-0 up very, very quickly in that first half. So there was this sustained energy throughout the match. This is sort of sustained hostility. But I can remember thinking on that night that the City team looked shocked at how hostile Anfield was on that night. This time, I didn't think it's the same way. The problem is it's hard to boo and cheer at the same time. You've got to try and get behind your team. You can't constantly boo the opposition because at some stage you've got to cheer your own team.

24:27And funnily enough, the one point that Anfield really took off, I thought, was at the start of the second half when they peppered City's goal. And it was just before the Gravenbergs ending off, which City then took advantage of. And that killed the game from the Liverpool perspective. But in terms of the atmosphere, yeah, it was what you expected. Maybe not even quite what you expected. but I thought City were extraordinarily impressive because I thought they controlled the guy apart from that period in the second half and right at the start of the first half there was a lot of energy I thought City and I thought Mureska was a perfect manager for that because I think Pep might have tried to get a little bit too clever as he sometimes did or he might have tried to go toe to toe with them whereas Mureska didn't Mureska played it like one of those matches where you needed to quieten the crowd where you needed to sort of control the tempo of the game and for the most part succeeded.

25:30And then the three goals were fantastic. Johnny, finally, Pep was in the stands for this game and show any support. What do you make of this kind of sense that we don't really know exactly what games involving Manchester City mean at the moment? Yeah, we're in this sort of doomsday scenario that we've all anticipated, actually. First of all, the supporters were criticised for being defiant at Anfield. How can you criticise supporters for being defiant? That's what supporters do. The players were criticised for celebrating. Well, you know, fair play to them. They played with pride and they celebrated a really good victory.

26:05And we're going to see this week in, week out where the rest of us are sort of saying, shouldn't you be ashamed? Shouldn't you meekly not try or whatever? You can't expect that. But we are in a really difficult situation where that great victory that City had on Sunday might mean nothing at the end of the season. you know, if the punishment comes in. But only to City, John. It means something to Liverpool, if you know what I mean. They're not sector points behind Arsenal. Yeah, absolutely. So then what do you do? Do you take that result away? Yeah, look, we've got a club that's been found guilty of years of cheating, but we've got a process that won't get finished maybe this season.

26:49Maybe it will. I mean, I know the regulator was saying it probably will be. but then we've got that's when you finish the appeal but then there's the meeting out of the penalty phase which may again take months so we're in a horrible could be subject to appeal could be subject to appeal and then there's the high call so we're in a state of limbo we've got the question of what happened in the past but we've actually got this very real question about what this what this season is all about I think we've got no I know Gary Neville's saying he's not going to cover any more City games I just think we've got to carry on we've got to keep writing about what they've been found guilty of and we've got to try and write about the football and watch the football and there's no road map for this but this is where we all dreaded we would be when years ago we were debating this process and enjoy it when it's a game as good as it was last night against Paris Saint-Germain well that's it we can enjoy the spectacle you can't turn around to Brighton's fans and go oh by the way this is all meaningless because it's not If you're Brighton, if you're Brentford, it's certainly not meaningless if you're Tottenham at the moment because someone's going to get relegated at the end of the season.

27:59No one's going to turn around and go, oh, don't worry about it. We'll just play this season again. It's not going to happen. Someone's going to get relegated. Tottenham in the bottom three. Every game's got meaning at Tottenham. Arbeloa at Fulham is bottom of the league. It's all got meaning. It's all got meaning. There's one club that don't know where they're going to be. The other 19, there's a league table there, mate, and that's where you are. Now, you might be eighth, not ninth, you know, or you might be winning the league. Who knows? But that's where you are. OK, after the break, we'll be discussing the inaugural state of the game report.

28:37Came from the Independent Football Regulator. See you after the break.

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30:46Welcome back to the Game Football Podcast from the Times and Sunday Times. I'm Greg Robertson alongside Martin Samuel, Tony Cascarino and Jonathan Northcroft. The inaugural State of the Game report, more cheery stuff. 295, so I'll have to go with them. Highlighted that despite the success of English football, it's an underlying fragility and it's a game loaded with risk that can no longer be ignored. David Cogan, the IFR chairman, also spoke about the Manchester City case. said they would resign if there was any government interference. We'll come to that in a moment. First Johnny, what did you, gives your reaction to this report and its contents?

31:20Look, it is 280 pages. It's actually quite nicely set out. There's lots of charts and it's quite readable. I think we've got to understand what this report is. So this is a snapshot of where English football stands financially. And it covers other stuff as well actually, you know, things like history. history oh yeah and how clubs are doing as employers diversity you know blah blah blah it's fascinating and one of the benefits in fact this to me emphasizes why we have a regulator and I'm being a bit on the fence both ways but this would this report gives us a priceless opportunity to look properly at where English football is and it wouldn't happen without a regulator because it's drawn its information from the clubs and it has a statutory right to get that information.

32:11So we wouldn't know this otherwise. The snapshot is probably telling us what we know already, that English football's a basket case of an industry, but it gives us incredible detail on that you know some of the headline figures like 93 percent of clubs making a loss you know um 17 percent of clubs that even if the players played for nothing would still be making a loss i mean that's that's mind-boggling go skint within a month go skint within a month owner funding is like i think in the in the in the championship alone there's eight clubs who wouldn't survive 15 days without owner funding you know and there's there's a much greater 66 percent of all clubs wouldn't survive more than 90 days.

32:57And why is this important? Well, it gives us the case studies of Wigan and Derby and Bury and it identifies this cocktail of over-reliance on owner funding and overspending or overreaching financially. So it shows us the cliff edges within the cliff edge of going from the Premier League to the Championship. But there's fascinating detail on the cliff edge between the big six and the rest of the Premier League. incredible difference you know average of 500 million pounds a year more in revenue from a big six club than than outside so you start to understand why clubs at different points in the pyramid are overspending because it's always to try and get to improve yeah and it's to get over that cliff edge the thing the thing that i think should lead to a bigger discussion is if we're talking about owner funding we've just talked about manchester city nobody yet has answered or squared this circle where we don't want clubs to be over-reliant on ownerships that could then pull the money out or go bust or do something else and yet we do want investment in the game and I think this report could be a starting point to decide how we get to that because this does show the case for spending controls otherwise we'll have more Berries, Derbys, Wiggins and yet we need money coming into the game so that was one of my big takeaways but I actually would say to anyone you know pour a cup of coffee and have a look at the report there's lots of nice graphs and it will really interest you I agree I did the same and I kind of you know you're someone who's really been very sceptical about an independent football regulator I've sceptical about independent regulator not this one I don't like the idea necessarily of a regulator but I like this regulator and what do you think of this report it's It's very good.

34:50It's absolutely what I would expect because he was talking from the very start in a way that showed he had an understanding of football. When you talk about Cliff Edges in the Premier League, no one had talked about that before. Everyone had always talked about, oh, it's the difference between this and that. And there's leagues within leagues. And he's the first person, Frozen Company Express, to actually say, you know, there is a league within this league. Bournemouth and Manchester United are not the same. They don't want the same things. And so I'm very, very interested. The problem you've got is that you look at this and you think, if there are so many clubs on owner investment and that's all that keeps them going, have we got too many professional football clubs?

35:43And that's something that I spoke to Cogan about. And he, you know, genuinely, you can have that conversation with him. He said to me as well, this is early on, that sometimes a club is going to go bust. And, you know, to some extent, you've got to allow that to happen, as opposed to sitting there going, oh, we can never allow a football club to go bust. you go, well, it's quite difficult if the only thing that keeps that going, if there isn't the interest, there isn't the commitment locally, and the only thing that's actually keeping it going is one guy who is a nutcase, a fan of that club, keep putting it.

36:22Because what happens when he dies? What happens when he loses interest? What happens when he gets a divorce and has got a giant alimony payment or whatever, you know? All of these things that can happen. It's a really precarious thing. That Jack Walker scenario, isn't it, where once he was funding the club and doing brilliantly well, I was interested. I did this a couple of weeks ago. I was looking at someone who asked me a question about how hard it is to be a footballer. I'm getting a little bit off track here. I said, well, not really. It's probably the easiest sport to earn good money, and you can be the 5 ,000th best footballer in the world and earn a load of money.

37:00I said, there's 170 ,000 male footballers, professional. I think there's four and a half to 6 ,000 women professional footballers now. So there's this massive drain on the clubs for keep improving, keep getting bigger. I mean, you only have to, I laugh when we're going to the start. I remember the times where I used to go to Arsenal, see George Graham next to Don Howe, and you'd have a player. And that was it. Now you've got like 40 of them. And I'm thinking, how does this football keep financing all this? Well, this maybe takes you on to some potential solutions. Clearly, you could talk about capping the size of squads.

37:38That's to do with cost controls and stuff. But he sets out, I say he, the Independent Fulbright, this report sets out a six-point plan at the end. But it sounds a bit kind of mealy-mouthed. It's like, revenue distribution should be reformed, but changes should focus on financial stability, not encouraging imprudent spending. Okay, that's good, but how? Leagues, clubs and other stakeholders should take action to reduce financial losses. That's good, but how? Action should be taken at National League level to ensure football governance matches the risk within the game. Clubs must improve how they manage financial risk.

38:12That's good, but how? Clubs must show how they take fans' views into account. You could do that. And clubs should improve corporate governance and make progress on boardroom and senior executive diversity. So these are all great things to aspire to, but there's no kind of route to the getting there. No, but there isn't. But then we should understand what the regulator is, which is it doesn't have powers to sort out football. No. It's got powers to regulate it. So actually those six recommendations are really to leave the game to reflect and the leagues, the clubs to do something about. The levers that the regulator can pull is a licensing system, provisional license at first, then full licensing by 2030.

39:00So next month, start of November, the applications open for a club license. And by the end of the season, clubs will be told whether they'll get provisional licenses or not. That is meaningful. That's the first step in getting ownerships to show some sort of... He can't show you how to run your football club. But he can't, that's not his power. No, he can't show you how to run your football club. He can tell you what a well-run football club should look like, but he can't go in to any football club and say, right, you need to do this, this and this. They're going in as much as they can. They've had clubs in the fifth tier, in the National League in particular, saying to them, what you're asking us to do, we haven't got a staff to actually do that sort of audit.

39:49We haven't got the, right, we'll put someone in there. The employers of the independent football regulator have all got about five to ten, I think it is, clubs that they are responsible for. And it's their job to make sure that every... So if you're a club in the National League and you say, you've asked us for this very, very detailed audit, you know, we've got Doris the tea lady and Sid the daughter of Gateman, a car park attendant, and they're on Tuesdays to Thursdays and we really haven't, you know, we'll go in there. We'll sit down with you. We'll show you what an audit looks like. That is about the extent of their powers in terms of how to run a football club.

40:33They cannot turn around and say to the chairman, you need to sell four players and I will say this one, this one, this one, and this one. Get them off your city. They can't do that sort of stuff. Okay, well, just final question, Johnny. given all that and the kind of conflicting interests of the clubs in the Premier League even within the Premier League as Mark just outlined but then the Premier League to the EFL and then both of those to UEFA and then the PFA who have got their players rights do we think in two years time or when we come to issuing licences the game will have actually got us together and done anything about any of these things?

41:10It's a good question because there's been so many changes with the financial fair play regulations and I do think that the Manchester City case may have an effect on getting clubs to adhere to the rules more. May have an effect. We don't know. We might still be going in two years' time. Don't know. The honest answer is, if I had to say yes or no, I'd say no, because we know this is a pattern of football. One thing that caught my eye, and I'm just raising this as a kind of indication of how football behaves, transfer factoring. I don't know if any of you'd heard. I hadn't really heard of this phenomenon before but it's there's been a leap in something called transfer factoring in the last couple of years is debt well yeah what that is is when when a club buys a player it tends to pay in installments right 30 million pounds in five installments what factoring allows the selling club to do is then get all the money up front from a third party lender yeah and then it pays when the installments come in then it pays the the lender plus interest and the championship clubs have already factored almost double the money that they're still owed from from transfers if that makes sense so so more than you know essentially everyone in the championship the minute they make a sale they then go to lender and it's taking the money and it's all in the never never and that's just a small snapshot of of how football behaves and what we're really asking is an addict to change its addiction to chasing the dream, isn't it?

42:42And I don't think it will happen. And that's part of the problem because it's the dream, isn't it? That's part of the problem because you wouldn't want, if you're looking at, you know, we started off with a conversation about Manchester United. What is everyone asking Manchester United to do? Spend money. Spend more money. Spend more money. Why was nobody happy with Mike Ashley? Because he didn't spend any money. But he created a football club that Saudi Arabia wanted to buy because it was a very professionally run football club. Now, we can all look at Mike Astley's Newcastle and go, there was no vision of what that club could become.

43:18There was no vision of what could be achieved at Newcastle. But it was a government regulator, all of those things that you've called out there. You'd look at Mike Astley's Newcastle and go, well, tricks every single box they're never going to go skiing maybe for an engagement yeah above an engagement but you know I'm sure there's a story we're going to return to many many times in the future Johnny you've got to shoot you're interviewing a Bayern Munich player which you can read in the Sunday Times this weekend maybe the Times maybe just last the weekend okay CBC okay thank you very much for joining us Johnny cheers John cheers you're flying to Munich I presume he's not coming over to see you it wasn't like that of course well there was loads more action in the Champions League to talk about Tony Arsenal 3 Lille 0 3 goals in 7 second half minutes and Mikai Osaka maybe is an impact deal in the show Mikel Arteta has kind of challenged him this season to be more ruthless in front of goal and he's done that so far I don't know maybe it's me but I actually think he gets quite a raw deal from just generally by people who think I get the idea you're trying to improve and trying to push a player onwards and upwards I get all of that But I still think, I mean, they stuttered against Lille.

44:32I thought they stuttered in the game. They didn't quite get going, you know, like we know they can. The one glaring thing, and I'll be interested to see what you two think of this, and I don't want to go down the road because I've been there myself, Jokeres, he looks like he couldn't get in any of the Premier League teams at the moment. He really is off the pace. I don't know where we talked about this earlier with Manchester United, But when you're a striker and you not really feel wanted, because he clearly doesn't, because his, you know, habits will play if he's fit in the big games. Well, do you not think that that's why he looks off the plate?

45:10Yeah. Because he knows that he's... I've always said this, right? Especially bigger lads. The moment you become a bench player and you're on that sideline getting up and down, you're getting 15 minutes, 20 minutes, you lose your capacity to run, chase and run as hard. When you're being worked every week, you feel like you're on top of your fitness. Big lads struggle. You're not like a Zola or Dennis Wise or these smaller lads who can get around the pitch. That's interesting. They need hard training, big lads. It's a bit like watching a heavyweight boxer and then you see him gas. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

45:47You don't really see little boxers or the flyweights or the batonweights or the welterweights. and they don't gas like that. Big lads do. And he looks like a guy that can't get going. And that is a problem for Arteta because we know Everts is going to get injured. What do you do then? Are you going to really consider somebody else? I found it a really strange game because Arsenal, when they did get good, you could see, right, they're right. They're OK. They've got in their groove and they're doing what they can do. I thought that was really interesting. but I did think there was other points around them because I don't quite know how this Jokere thing is going to turn out for the club and him because he doesn't look like calls.

46:31I mean, there was one ball on Saturday against Leeds. He came on and he got caught. There she's standing on the ball, stood on the ball, you know, completely misread it. And I thought, I've been there. I've been there. Straight away, I've been there. I've done that. And, you know, in a game where fans are grumbling, look, what's he doing? you know stark contrast to Nicholas Jackson Aston Villa yeah two goals 6-0 win against Fernabache I mean he's with a lot again a lot spoken about his price tag in this summer but he looks like a perfect fit for Unai and his team for the kind of that hard one and sort of direct is it a coincidence that he had him at Villarreal and it works and he had him at Villarreal and he knows how to get the best out of him or what makes him tick and what type of chances I mean, the thing with his couple of goals is both times he gets in, he gets out of his feet really quickly and shoots, right?

47:25That sounds simple, but that's what I always remember Andy Cole being brilliant at that. Andy Cole was really good at getting things out of his feet and shooting early and surprising goalkeepers when a shot shouldn't go in, but it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Jackson's got that in his game. But yeah, it's great for the Villa. I mean, the team I watched against Brighton early on the season, they lost 4-0 and they could have lost a lot more. he looks like he's now moulding that Villa team together. And Bradley Barkalow, the star of the show for Liverpool, in their 6-3 win against Lask. Another chaotic game, this one.

47:59I think he's already coming under a bit of pressure, clearly with his price tag. This is what happens in modern football. He'd only played a couple of games and people were pointing the finger at him, saying he could be the next first. Well, I always think when you get by players and they've had their summer training camps and they're not quite on it because it's been interrupted and it's been all round a transfer, all this stuff going on. Then they turn up and they go, they're not quite as sharp as I thought they were. No, no, no. You look at the PSG players against Man City and you're thinking, God, they're up to speed.

48:36Now, Barcala is a real talent. He's just never been that clinical, hoping that the hat-trick sort of gets him going because it is a big relief. Whatever you say. I remember skipping my first goal for Villa and thinking, oh, some relief. No one's talking about me not scoring anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that first goal and then getting another goal and it's a big thing for forwards. See, Liverpool travelled to Brentford at the weekend. It's what game. Very different. Very different game. Brentford in fourth. Yeah. You were a team, it was one of the teams you referenced in a column you wrote in the week, Martin.

49:08You mentioned a little bit earlier on about this idea that the league has been rendered meaningless. It's not for teams like Brentford. I don't agree with that. I think there's one team. There's one team that doesn't know where it stands. Everyone else, there's league table, you know where you stand. You cannot expect people to forget their own team. You know, if you're a Brentford fan, what's happening with Manchester? Well, that's something that's happening over there. At the moment, Brunford fans are entitled to anticipate, arguably the greatest season in the history of the club, if they could get into the Champions League.

49:45And there's no reason why they couldn't, because there's some very poor teams around that we expect to be a lot better than they are, like Manchester United and Spurs and Chelsea, although I get the feeling I think Chelsea might get back into the top four quite quickly now. Brunford have pulverised Chelsea already this season. Brighton have beaten Arsenal. And the idea that none of this matters because of what happened with Manchester City, I don't hold with it at all. As I said earlier in the show, three teams are going to go down. Four teams are going to go into the Champions League. Teams will go into the Europa League, the Conference League.

50:21That's what will happen. There are teams below the Premier League who are busting a gut to get into this supposedly meaningless competition. So there's one club that doesn't know where it starts. doesn't know where it will be at the end of the season, pending a sort of legal appeals process that is ongoing. The rest of them, you know where you are. I don't think any results are going to be expunged. I don't think that for one second, because what would you do? Do you give everyone their money back to watch this game that you've now said? So I don't think the result is going to be expunged. And when you're talking meaning, I think the only complication could be if there are two Manchester City seasons.

51:10In one, if you know what I mean, there's the Man City season where they're going for it, as they were certainly at Liverpool at the weekend, and they're playing and they're three points. And then if they were suddenly deducted 70 points or they were relegated or whatever, there will be this other part of the season where everyone's now working out what their move in the summer is going to be. they're already relegated and what are we going to do? Then I think you might get some of the opponents saying well this isn't right. We played a Manchester City team that was at it twice and got our backsides handed to us in a high hat both times and our rivals get to play them when their campaign's over.

51:55All you'd say with that is there is that every season because there's always a club that's already been relegated and there's always a team that's got into Europe but they can't actually get any higher than where they are. They can't win the league. And so you do get meaningless matches in every season from one perspective. So I do think everyone has cracked it, get over it. I mean, it's a massive story. So you carry on reporting that story but you don't then just ignore the league because we sat there talking about Manchester United for probably a half hour or 20 minutes or whatever it was, if we'd all just sat here and gone, well, it doesn't really matter, you know, we'd all be out of a job.

52:39What are we doing? What are we doing? What's the actual point of us coming in? And you people, you good people at home listening to it, what's the point of any of it? That's our Monty Python sketch. It's true though, isn't it? I mean, you've got to sit there and go, right, there is still a football season going on. The season rolls on and we will do all of that on Monday when we return. There you go. Tune in on Monday where we're discussing this utterly meaningless season that, you know, no one cares about. Martin Samuel, Tony Cascarino, thank you very much for joining me. Meaningless or not, we'll be back on Monday to discuss all of that.

53:13I hope to see you then. I'm not saying it weren't. I'm not saying it weren't. I'm on your side. You know that.

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