Arsenal meet Villa again, Cherki's on fire + the Cherries are in crisis

0:00The Athletic FC

0:30There's the latest from Morocco as the Cup of Nations rolls on and big thoughts on what that new year holds. It's the Totally Football Show.

0:43Monday the 29th of December 2025. Joining us for what is our final show of this year, Daniel Storey. Hey Daniel. Hello James, festive greetings again to you. Well very much to you as well. Joyeux Noël to Tom Williams, who's literally in Paris. Hey, Tom. Hi, James. A very joyeux Noël to you as well. Season's greetings of the season. Magnificent. Magnificent. That's the most thorough Christmas greeting I've had in this entire festive period. Seb Stafford Blor, meanwhile, is twiddling his thumbs in the middle of the Winter Pals in Hamburg. Hey, Seb. Hey, Jimbo. You've been forced to come on a Premier League podcast to find something to talk about.

1:25I very selflessly spent three days sitting on my sofa watching Premier League football. Well done me for doing that, obviously. Absolutely. Well, we'll hear your thoughts on it all. Was Hamburg very festive? It was very festive. I went into the city on the 26th and the winter markets were still going. It was very busy. Glur vine cooking. Versed as well. Lovely. Very, very nice. Nice. Love that. Love that. And Tom, you've been in Paris doing Match of the Day as the French dug into the Le Festive football. But this being our final show of 2025, I'm just wondering, does anybody have any big thoughts about the new year?

2:05They're calling it 2026 that is set to get underway this Wednesday night. Daniel? Yeah, I think broadly with a monster World Cup on the horizon from June onwards, my main hope is that the Premier League title race and relegation battle provides us with enough to take us right through until the end of the season. I think sometimes with these pre-World Cup seasons, if it's all over any form of shouting at the end of April, May can sometimes feel a little bit sticky. So, yeah, that would be my hope. We are being promised a brilliant title race and a really interesting relegation battle and everybody else being mad in the middle.

2:51So long may that continue, I guess. It does look prospectively like quite a seismic year with, as you mentioned, the biggest World Cup ever, possibly a new England manager thereafter, possibly a new Man City manager around about the same time. We could see Arsenal winning their first Premier League title in 22 years. Villa, perhaps their first ever. In France, Tom, Lens, could they win the French Ligue 1 title? Could they? I mean, they're top of the table going into 2026. They almost certainly won't win the league, but they're the perfect counterpoint to PSG in the sense that they are very much have-nots, whereas PSG are one of the game's great haves.

3:33So, yeah, I mean, if nothing else, a fantastic subplot for 2026, having those two going head-to-head. Absolutely. Frank Lampard's commentary is another shout. Returning to the Premier League, potentially, quite likely, in fact, for the first time in a quarter of a century, Seb, what's the word in Germany ahead of 2026? Long term, I think we're not really in World Cup mode yet. We haven't really engaged with that. But I think from Bundesliga's perspective, there's a high chance of Schalke getting promotion from the side of Bundesliga. I think it's part of a wider conversation about the need for some of these historically large clubs to play at the Bundesliga level.

4:11And that includes, obviously, Cologne and Hamburg surviving this season, which they should do. They're well-placed to do that at the moment. just have a really strong Bundesliga where you've got regional powerhouses in different parts of the country. I think it's very, very important for the future of German football. So fingers crossed for that. And that's kind of my hope. That's my macro hope for the 2026. January, first month of the new year, will feature a transfer window. Are there any big noises that we can get ahead of the curve on? Kind of maybe Premier League-related ones as opposed to, you know?

4:47I suppose the big one is Antoine Semenya. I think that'll probably end up being the biggest deal of the window and I expect that'll go through within a week. I think elsewhere, I think Tom will say the same thing. The German market really depends upon what the English clubs are doing and how much English money is flowing into the Bundesliga. I don't really expect very much. I think there are a few German clubs you need to get rid of a few players. I know that Eintracht Frankfurt will probably loan Eli Wahi back to Alicain at some point. It hasn't really worked out for him over the past year in Frankfurt.

5:22But nothing massive, I don't think, at this point. All right. Daniel, you across any... Where's Saminha going to go? Is it Chelsea? No, I think he'll go to Manchester City as a priority. And if they decide they don't want him yet and he decides he doesn't want to wait yet, then I guess Liverpool come into that conversation. You might have heard this season, but there's something going on with their right winger. So that would make some sense. I think he probably will get the move. Where that leaves Bournemouth is a bigger question because they're on a wretched run at the moment and that is a potential game changer in a bad way for them.

5:57And then I think other than that, the kind of interesting subplot in January is West Ham buying a striker and whether that striker saves their Premier League position because they're not playing with one at the moment. They're playing with Jarrod Bowen up top. They're not even picking Callum Wilson. So where they buy a striker from and how that striker does probably decides the relegation battle, I think. So that's probably the other interesting January transfer window subplot, I reckon. All right. And Tom Williams, you've got another one you can throw away. No, I was just going to say heartened by the fact that we're heading into a new year and West Ham are looking for a centre forward again.

6:34I mean, you know, that is one of the great joys of the festive season. and we all get together and we do the things we've done a million times before with the same people that we've always done them. And here we are, West Ham, going into January. Can they sign a centre-forward to save their season? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. I think there's a really interesting subplot of Spurs to Jimbo just because you've got old new owners. Enoch is still in control of the club, but are now much more at the reins. And you've seen little snippets filter into the media over the past few weeks. and very clearly there's a bit of a talent deficit there regardless of what other other issues what Thomas Frank's flaws are perceived to be but you also wonder so you've got this large amount of money to spend potentially but are you a very attractive club?

7:19Are you in a position to really attract kind of eight, nine out of ten Premier League players? I don't think so. So how they navigate that's quite interesting because they've kind of weakened their own negotiating position. Hey, we've got all this money that we're willing to spend. Okay, then here's our seven out of ten players being brought out. Do you want to overpay for them? So let's see. And obviously there's that kind of ongoing, very fluid Fabio Paratici situation in the background as well, which we're not quite sure how that ends yet. Italian's convinced he's already pulling strings for stricken Fiorentina, who are currently five points from safety at the bottom of Serie A.

7:55All right. Well, anyway, January's going to be a blast. Before that, we've got the final round of Premier League action starting on Tuesday and loads of stuff that's happened since our last show. First of all, on Boxing Day, was it the highest scoring Boxing Day ever? No. It was 65 goals short. Only one goal scored on Thursday. Man United beat Newcastle with it at Old Trafford. Saturday then saw the top three in the Premier League all winning by two goals to one. Arsenal against Brighton with a fantastic late save from David Rea to safeguard the three points. Man City beating Forest 2-1 coming from a goal down with a late winner from Ryan Cherky.

8:34And Villa at Chelsea with two goals from substitute Oli Watkins. That is Villa's eighth straight win in the Premier League. It's the fifth straight away game in which they've gone behind but come back to take the points. And their next game is on the road at Arsenal. Saturday's other matches saw Liverpool climb to fourth with a 2-1 win themselves against Wolves. Brentford beat Bournemouth 4-1. The Boies moving up to eighth. Fulham are not far behind in tenth after beating West Ham 1-0. and there was a goalless draw for Burnley and Everton. On Sunday, 1-1 for Sunderland and Leeds. Dominic Cavett-Lewin scoring for a sixth straight game.

9:10And Spurs beat Crystal Palace 1-0 at Selhurst Park. That is now three defeats in a row for Palace in the league. Matchday 19 starts on Tuesday. It's the reverse of the fixtures that were played three and a half weeks ago. So you've got Arsenal hosting Villa, as mentioned, who beat them 2-1 at Villa Park at the start of December. Man City will be away to Sunderland and, well, eight other fixtures. We'll get into them in the course of today's show. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Goes Watkins!

9:48Villa have done it again! Ollie Watkins sends the away end at the bridge into delirium and puts Villa on course for an 11th straight win. What would drama from the Villa on Saturday? Arsenal, of course, have won earlier on in the day. Man City, too. But around about 6.15 on Saturday evening, the supposed third force, as the Villa, were a goal down. And on the ropes at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea pummeling them 10 shots to none in the first half. Come full-time, though, as mentioned in commentary, Villa had done it again, turning around. To take all three points, what happened? Basically, Unai Emery made a spectacularly successful triple substitution with half an hour remaining, sent on Oli Watkins, Jadon Sancho and Amadou Inanna, and Villa took control of the game.

10:46In the first hour of the match, Villa didn't show up at all, completely pummeled, and then that switch, that triple switch, gave them the momentum pretty much immediately. I think within four minutes, Morgan Rodgers has freed Watkins to run through and score a slightly fortuitous equaliser after Amadou Inanna had won the ball back inside the Chelsea half. And then right at the death, Watkins pops up to head in the winner. And it was, I mean, one of the features of this remarkable run of Villa victories is that an awful lot of their wins have been like this with sort of late winners. You think about that Emi Buendia goal in the 2-1 win against Arsenal a few weeks back.

11:30They've rarely looked massively convincing. You know, they won 4-3 at Brighton. They won 3-2 at West Ham. It doesn't feel particularly sustainable, but they keep pulling it off. They keep getting away with it. And as a consequence, you know, they are now in the title race. I think if you look at the broader context of this game, team its two managers are in completely different places at the moment both in terms of the squad dynamic and their own performance so you've got Villa who have won five of the last six away games having trailed you've got Chelsea who have squandered 11 points at home from holding leads you've got Maresca bringing on four subs of which the oldest was 22 and then you've got you've got Emery being able to bring on Luka Dean and Sancho and Inanna and Watkins who are these kind of experienced game-changing players.

12:21And there's also a sense, I think, around both. As soon as that equaliser went in, that it kind of felt self-fulfilling. Like Oli Watkins mentioned it after the game. He made the change, the change looked good, and from that point we thought we were going to win the game, even though they were trailing and they'd been awful. And you saw Chelsea fans throughout the game saying, we kind of know what's going to happen here because we've seen it before. We'll concede and then Mareska will be too slow to react to the changes that other managers make. The subs themselves will be fairly prescribed and there'll be an experienced players that can't really cope with it and so we'll fall away and that's exactly what happened I didn't see it at all in the first half but then we're the idiots because this is exactly what's happened to these two clubs over the last three months I think what's interesting is this this young player volatility thing comes up uh quite regularly and especially after a result like that I remember having a conversation with um an agent over the summer he was talking about a young player and Chelsea was one of the options for the young player didn't end up going there but he said to me like one of the difficulties there is do you have any on-field captains like beyond the nominal captain do you have anybody that can offer guidance to young players when they face adversity because Dan's quite right like you can question substitutions and tactical changes and how a head coach reacts to the changing circumstances within a game or completely valid points but then there has to be a degree of management that comes from the pitch itself in those situations and when things aren't going well for a young player who is the kind of the uh who is the the hand on the shoulder guy and and the absence of those those players at chelsea is is kind of it makes everything seem very very brittle and very fragile over your over your shoulder gym bar can see a christmas tree and all the shiny decorations and for the sake of a seasonal metaphor, the talent, the lights and the baubles, right?

14:14You still need to have the tree for it all to make sense. And Chelsea, I don't know, it just feels like they could do with a little bit more solidity, a bit more kind of emotional stability, I think. For all the issues over Maresca's changes and the lack of a decent, pine-dropping-resistant bow like the one I've afforded my living room, is the fact that they've actually had their Christmas tree in a way up since July and the heat of Midsummer America, the Club World Cup. That's probably a bit of a factor as well. By the radiator, right? By the radiator, exactly, yeah. So that might, I imagine, play into the fact that they keep dropping points from winning positions.

15:0111 points so far this season, the most in the Premier League. that aside Villa Tom's just come out and said it they're in a title race Daniel do you believe are you waiting for Tuesday's game against Arsenal yeah I mean Tuesday's game is massive Unai Emery is doing exactly what he should do when he's constantly being asked by this after every win and he's saying I don't really feel that yet I kind of feel like we're doing good things and we'll see where we get to which is exactly the right attitude for a supposed also ran who find themselves in a title race there's no point piling on extra pressure it's that lack of pressure I think you know you talk about coming from behind in games and the comebacks that can put pressure on a team Emery seems the sort of guy who's like when they're losing he's like well it hasn't gone well so there's nothing to lose now just go out and play I'll make the changes you you match up to them and we'll see what happens and that seems to be in the context of the title race exactly what he's saying he's like people are talking about us because we're doing really well they're not talking about us as potential title winners because let's face it Manchester City and Arsenal are both stronger than them even though Villa have beaten both and yeah I don't think they'll win the league but I always fear with these overachieving clubs in the context of a season when we kind of set them up and then they get knocked down by finishing third or fourth if Villa finished third or fourth given all the noise over the summer given Monchi leaving given the start to the season the lack of transfers that Emery was unhappy about.

16:31It would be an astonishing achievement to get into the Champions League again. And they look set to do that. So, yeah, I'm kind of in wait and see territory, which is the least interesting answer, I suppose, on a podcast setting up in 2026. Well, they do go into Tuesday's game without Matty Cash and Bubikar Kamarov. They're both suspended. Not the deepest squad, of course, Villa, for the reasons you just hinted at. Arsenal, who are so strong at home, they've only dropped points there, I think, in one game so far this season. But they don't have a good record against Villa or indeed against former manager Unai Emery, who is unbeaten in his three visits to his former stadium since they sacked him, once with Villarreal and twice with Villa.

17:17Crikey, Arsenal this weekend beating Brighton 2-1 there. Lots of celebrations for Martin Udegaard, who got his first goal of the campaign. Still, that is the only one of the Gunners lost six goals that wasn't either an own goal or from a set piece. Does that matter? I think the fact that Arsenal are still managing to get wins is the most important thing and the only thing that their supporters will really care about. This period of the year has been problematic for Arsenal in recent history. You go back a couple of years, 2023-24, and they were looking in a similarly strong position and they lost back-to-back games at home to West Ham and then away to Fulham.

17:58And that was when the fragility really started to creep into that team. And everyone is kind of waiting for Arsenal to choke, for Arsenal to bottle it, because that's what we've kind of become accustomed to in recent years, or at least that has been the narrative. They look stronger than they have in any previous season. We know that their squad is deeper, and that's being really tested at the moment because they have got an awful lot of injury problems. You know, Calafuri getting injured in the warm-up prior to the Brighton game, so Lewis Scully has to come in at left-back. And they haven't been convincing in recent weeks.

18:33They lost at Villa. They needed two own goals to beat Wolves. They needed a penalty to win at Everton. They were actually decent, I thought, against Brighton. You know, good value for the two-nil lead that they had. And then Brighton get a goal out of nowhere with half an hour remaining. And you felt that nervousness creep in. I think the fact that Arsenal managed to get over the line by hook or by crook will actually serve them really well. Because in previous seasons, this game against Brighton or the game against Everton or the game against Wolves is a game that they don't win. And then all the doom mongering really picks up pace.

19:08I think the fact that they managed to come through this period with so many points on the board is really positive. Of course, the Villa game is massive, but picking up points when you're playing badly, as we have long heard, is generally a pretty good sign from a title contender. I think also it's kind of testament to their squad building as well, because like Tom mentioned what's happened in previous years. And if that Brighton game happens two years ago, you don't have Pierre Hencapier playing at centre back. You don't have the ability to absorb some of the injury issues. And I know there's an ongoing conversation about whether Victor Xocharez is good enough to play or good enough to start as nine.

19:49But then to me, kind of incidental because you have Gabriel Jesus fit again. Kai Havertz, we're told, is kind of imminent. And you have three very different abilities as well, but sort of stylistically contrasting players that can play against different kinds of opposition and cause problems. And it seems a lot healthier and there's a lot more solutions rather than every now and again, you saw somebody sort of crowbarred into a position. You thought that's not going to go very well. And that kind of fed into this sort of the old notion of Arsenal being a very fragile contender, which I don't really see.

20:23I don't think they're playing particularly fluidly. And, you know, Manchester City were kind of more exciting to watch on the 27th. But they look solid enough, right? Feels like we're trying to find reasons not to believe in them, which is kind of fair. given the past few years, but it seems fine. That's my analysis. It seems OK. OK, part of the reason is that City look quite fearsome when they get going, as Daniel will perhaps touch on in a second. Just on the subject of teams that struggle at this time of year, Tom, fun fact about Brighton's Fabian Hurtzeler, or Fabian, sorry, Hurtzeler. Fabian, isn't it, Seb?

20:58It is, yeah. Fabian Hurtzeler has never won a game in December in his nine years as a professional first-team manager. I know you have a Winter Pals in Bundesliga. So presumably that goes all the way back to his time at Pippins Reid down in the kind of the Bavarian Regional Leagues. Sorry, what are they called? Pippins Reid. So I have a Fabian Hösler anecdote from Pippins Reid. I went down to visit the club and it's just a village football team. There's about a thousand people who live there in total. And I just went to take some photographs of the stadium and, you know, they have like, they have a go-kart mounted on a stand which acts as a kind of tool for the ultras to kind of…

21:46Basically, the roof of one of the stands has a go-kart track on it. So, no, no, no. Oh, they mounted a go-kart on the roof? So, there's a tower which I think at one point in the club's history was used as a kind of a floodlight tower to mount floodlights from. and currently they have a go-kart up there because they use um the horn on the go-kart and the electricity to kind of to to accentuate that atmosphere it's a great place anyway i went down there just take some pictures and the cfo was outside the clubhouse having a cigarette um yozup and we just uh yeah we ended up having a chat about the club's history when i went down there but he was just there and it was like an average tuesday morning and he was maybe hiding from his wife i'm not sure possibly did he touch on what a time they used to have in december under fabian he didn't it didn't come up we talked uh yeah but that's a strange because fabian has has not consistently been a head coach for nine years so i i'm throwing some doubt uh on that statistic yeah well yeah cling to that brighton fans as they go into their final december fixture which is away at west ham here's another thing brighton fans can cling to the hammers have never beaten the Seagulls at the London Stadium in eight previous attempts.

23:00Anyway, Manchester City, Daniel, who've got a trip to Sunderland, I think on Thursday. We have to wait for that one. How did they look against your mob, aka Nottingham Forest? I don't think they were great, actually. It was quite similar to the top three in the Premier League, Villa, Man City and Arsenal, all 1-2-1 in different ways, right? So there was a 2-0 lead and a peg back. There was a 1-0 and there was a come from behind. And I think the pegging back and then winning late is probably the least secure of those three. And that fit the run of the game. Forrest were the better team in the first half, I think.

23:34Certainly he had the better chances while understandably having less of the ball. They then equalised with a really, really nice team goal. Morgan Gibbs-White involved, Amari Hutchinson finishing it off, Igor Gizis, who I thought was excellent again, and really kind of troubled the City centre-backs. But they did find a way. And they found a way because Ryan Shirky is close to doing Ryan Shirky things level now in terms of the consistency of the production. What's happened at City is that Jeremy Dock, who is not available at the moment, and he has been the chief creator. He's created, I think, in terms of per 90, more chances than anyone else, regular starters in the Premier League this season.

24:15But without him, they don't have a natural winger or Pep Guardiola doesn't want to use one of their natural wingers. So instead we've got Foden and Shirky as these kind of narrow, narrow wide midfielders slash two number 10s behind Haaland. And when it's not against your team, it's a joy to watch them because they must be two of the best players in Europe finding passes or beating a man in tight spaces. And it's just really fun to watch them try and manage those really tight spaces because the closer that you get to them, the more easy they seem to find space. And it's, yeah, it was a kind of scratchy game for City.

24:55Guardiola said afterwards, you know, kind of we wouldn't have won this game last season. I mean, they literally lost to Forest at the City ground last season. They've drawn at the City ground as well, won all when Forest came from behind in that game and then City couldn't find a winner. So it did feel like a really big goal. The away end was, yeah, it was very, very raucous at that Shirky goal. And because it came, I think, from a set piece, a slightly non-normal City goal, there was this sort of outpouring of joy and surprise, I think, from the players that they'd scored. Because I think they were really worried at that point about Forrest's threat.

25:26And there was an argument that I think Forrest probably believed that they maybe had a chance to win the game. So, yeah, a big, big, big result for City, assuming they then back it up at Sunderland, who have not lost at home this season in the Premier League yet. and they put a lot into their game against Leeds but that's another big one for City because with Arsenal and Villa playing each other a statement win at Sunderland they will feel very, very good about their Christmas period. Thursday, will Pep go into the stadium with the exact same line-up for the fourth game in a row which is madness really when you think of his managerial track record particularly at Man City.

26:05Reading today that he has actually not changed his team six times this season, which is as much as in the past four seasons combined. Certainly he's gone with the same 11 for the past three games. And suggestion is that the extraordinary form of Ryan Shirky is the reason for that. The way that he's linking up with Phil Foden and just the way that he's illuminating that team through some difficult matches means a pet, I mean, to quote Jefferson, Starship, or whatever they were called at the time, he built Man City on Ryan Shirky. Starship at the time, right? Starship, there you go. I think at the time.

26:38Great interest in how he's getting on here in France. He actually spoke to us at Canal Pruise after the game and was in very playful mood. And he was asked about this nascent title race with Arsenal. And he said, well, you know, we've done our job. We've shown that we're ready. Let's see if they are. And obviously this is slightly ahead of kickoff in the Arsenal-Brighton game. So a sense that he is relishing being part of what is his first ever title race. because in all his years at Lyon, he was never duking it out for the league title. How do you say Nassant in French, then, Tom? My instinct would be to say Nassant.

27:18You know what I love about Dan Tushness, about Foden and Scherke, is that both those players can take balls on the half turn and it means that they can just sit between the centre-backs and the deep-line midfielder and you just ping a ball into them and they can do something with it in tiny amounts of space. And that seemed to be one of the themes of Forrest. And I didn't really have a horse in that race, but I just remember thinking, every touch Cherki had was kind of a spectacle of its own, right? Just thoroughly enjoyed watching him play. Do you think Cherki's form is the reason that Pep has kind of altered his approach?

27:52And when was the last time that there was a player who had that much impact on Guardiola? I was going to say, Guardiola does have these, I wouldn't call them flavours of the month necessarily, but he does something. yeah he does something new with a player and it becomes it instantly becomes really really hard for everybody else to stop the the best example i can think of was just is almost overnight converting raheem sterling into this penalty six yard box and it was just it just became a cheap move for about four to six months in which nobody could work out how to stop it or stop it you know stop the build-up even to it happening shirky is in that place at the moment inevitably there will be a shift, possibly when Doku comes back, because there's decisions to make about the team there, because Doku has been fantastic this season.

28:41And actually, Erling Haaland has really liked working with Jeremy Doku in terms of getting those balls from deep, the byline, into the box, which Haaland loves. So there will be an adjustment, but it's nothing but good things for Shirky. He had a fun time with Gabriel Jesus when he first turned up. Do you remember that? for the first sort of six, eight weeks of a new year after Jay-Z moved to England. Like he was that time when there was a kind of conversation about him and Aguero and whether Aguero was really suited to playing for Guardiola. It was that period. That was fun. Maybe when he inverted Karl Walker, that was a fun new tweak that he seemed to enjoy doing.

29:22Philip Lahm, if you go back to Bayern Munich, the way he used Lahm is it was a kind of, hey, this is a player that I haven't had before. or I can do new things with him. That was one of those, I think. Although we check it, it's almost the fact that he's not doing anything with him, just saying, you go and do stuff. Just play, yeah. Which is so nice to see, although possibly not for Sunderland, as Daniel, you were touching on, when they host City and try and keep that unbeaten at home record going on Thursday. Forest, meanwhile, will be taking on Everton this midweek. Everton, who beat them 3-0.

29:57at the Hill Dickinson earlier in December. Intriguingly, Everton haven't scored a goal in their three matches since that win, most recently having a 0-0 draw last Saturday against Burnley. One other note on the Forest front, Daniel, is the sad news of John Robertson's passing, which came on Christmas Day. Robertson, who I imagine was a massive figure for you in your childhood. yeah yeah I mean in that he was the other than Clough as this kind of all dominant force of Forrest folklore Robertson was the sort of the the the guy that came with it you had Clough and Taylor and then it was and John Robertson I don't know if he's the best player that Forrest have ever had but he's certainly the one that seemed to epitomize that the magic of that and kind of mania of that decade, 15 years, because he'd been at Forest since 1970.

30:56He wasn't bought, he was inherited by Clough. And he was kind of jobbing as a winger. And Clough turned him into this superstar player through talent alone. I mean, it's no exaggeration to say that in the tunnel during big European nights at the city ground against Liverpool and Cologne. And, you know, even in the final, the talk in the tunnel of the players was like, we'll just give it to Robertson and give it to Robbo and we'll be fine he scored the winner in the the final against Hamburg in 1980 uh he was a guy who I mean 72 is is young to pass away but he was a guy who squeezed an awful lot of life into those 72 years I think it's fair to say he was kind of the cluffy disciple on the pitch in that he he liked to live his life off the pitch and yet if for a moment you think that means he wasn't committed to football you've completely misunderstood the whole point of the situation because it was just his freedom to to be who he was on the pitch and yeah he will be very very sadly missed I think we've known you know for his supporters have it's been rumoured for a while that he's been quite poorly but yeah the other thing to say is that the club the owner and the club have have already moved to put in motion the naming of the Bridgeford end after John Robertson so that will have Cluffy one side of him Taylor the other and Robbo in the middle which is just about the best tribute can play I think to that era Robertson at least by Culls he's passed him Bertels Robertson that's the first 20 minutes gone and Robertson looks for his in front Peter Taylor and Brian Clough said one would do that's the all-important first goal

32:55This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Oli Kay and the very best football writers around. Sunday's action in the Premier League. You had Sunderland, 1-1 with Leeds, 2 o 'clock and that was followed by Spurs getting a very handy win. away at Crystal Palace, former form team Palace, who've now had three Premier League defeats in a row. This one coming at the hands of Archie Gray, making his seventh start in eight matches and getting his first goal. Big for Spurs, handy as I say, ahead of an emotional return, perhaps, for Thomas Frank to the G-Tech Stadium at Brentford, which is coming up on Thursday.

33:42Do you want to talk about that game? Perhaps you'd like to talk about Dominic Calvert-Lewin. And his dramatic, absolutely sumptuous team move produced equaliser for Leeds against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. Yeah, it was a very undirty Leeds goal, you know, bucking the club's noble traditions of skullduggery to produce some absolutely exquisite football. and a deserved equaliser for Leeds, who were comfortably the better team in the first half, have been completely invigorated by this change of system that Daniel Farker happened upon at half-time of the 3-2 defeat at City, switching to a 3-5-2, more men in the middle, a partner up front for Dominic Calvert-Lewin, wing-backs are suited to that system as well.

34:36and yet despite the fact that they had much the better of the first half it was Sunderland who went ahead, Simon Odinger scoring his first goal for the club from a lovely granite Xhaka through Bortles, Xhaka who otherwise was pretty hopeless and yeah within two minutes of kick-off in the second half Leeds have scythed through Sunderland from back to front all 11 players touching the ball at least once and Calvert-Lewin knocks in for the sixth game running in the Premier League And yeah, an entertaining game, probably a fair result in the end and maintains both promoted sides, very healthy dynamics.

35:13Up to pointing out that Harry Kane never scored in six Premier League games in a row. Dominic Cavett-Lewin has. Remarkable. This damascene conversion that Daniel Farker had in the bowels of the Etihad, what, just a month or so ago, previously said in his career, Was he never aware that other tactics were available? Or did he just kind of made it this far? Yeah, that did come up at Gladbach, actually. But it's interesting, though, Jimbo, because over the summer, it looked like Leeds were building a squad to play exactly this way. Did it not? I mean, the profile of the players they brought in. Anton Stag was probably the biggest signing they made.

35:52But also, it seemed like everybody was modelled after Anton Stag in kind of size and presence. I mean, Stag can play. So it seemed as if surely there would have been a conversation about using them in this system before that happened. And whether there was just the delay in Daniel Farker accepting that, I don't know. But now that it's happening, I mean, it seems about six weeks ago there were serious questions about his job security. And now nothing could be further from the truth. He seems very secure and Leeds are playing really, really well. I like Dominic Calvert-Lewin as well. I think it was during the COVID shutdown games.

36:30It's probably the richest form of his career. He just saw what a good finisher he is. So it's kind of nice to see him get back to that. And, you know, World Cup in six months. Question mark, discuss. Yeah. On the Farker point, Leeds had 43 touches of the ball, I think, in Sunderland's box, which is the most in a Premier League game by them since 2020. and there's an awful lot of Bielsa that came after that. So this idea that you can only, we'll have all the touches in your box but we'll also let you have loads in ours. They were so intense that second half, Sunderland barely got a kick into the last 10 minutes.

37:08So you can do it both ways. It isn't all midfield battling. And also mentioned the significance of the shift to a 3-5-2 but they had to abandon that system after Joe Roden went off injured, having turned his ankle twice in the first half an hour or so. And it didn't really seem to affect them. And they scored that fantastic goal playing with the back four. So yes, the tactical shift has given them a new kind of momentum. But I think the confidence they've taken from that means that perhaps they're not as tightly wedded to that structure as you might think. The initial goal in this game coming from Simon Odingre.

37:48And it was his first 1-4 Sunderland. He previously hadn't been playing very much, which led to him not getting selected for Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations. They're doing quite well without him anyway. Ironically, he's now playing for Sunderland because so many other black cats did go to the Cup of Nations and so on and so forth. Anyway, there you go. That was Sunday's action. We've whizzed past Spurs. They, as mentioned on Thursday, will be visiting Brentford at the GTEC, who have actually got a better record at home than Sunderland. They're not unbeaten at the GTX, but they have picked up more points there, three of which came this weekend as they thumped Bournemouth four goals to one.

38:29Three of those goals coming from Kevin Sharder, who's only the third player in the Premier League this season to score a hat-trick. That feels few to me. Do you want to guess who the other two are? I want to say Alec Holland. No, he's not. That's the weird thing. Where are you? Mateta and Eze, the former stroke current Crystal Palace. Yeah, Eze's inevitable hat-trick against Tottenham. Yeah. I've redacted that from my own mind. Right. I was going to say on Bournemouth, I mean, they're not quite in the relegation mix yet because as we said about other clubs over the last few weeks, that relies upon West Ham actually winning games to put some more pressure on, which they haven't done.

39:12Right. But they've now taken 35 points in the last 31 Premier League games, Bournemouth, which is not very good. And away from home, over that same period, so that goes back to, I think, mid-February 2025, no team in the Premier League's taken fewer points away from home, 12 from 15 games, not even Wolves. So of those kind of Premier League ever-presents who have been there over both seasons, they've got the worst away record. So we talked about Semenya at the top of the show. it is a big problem because he scores or assists about 40 % of their goals. It just looks like the summer, other than Treffer, I think, at left-back, the summer business is now being proven to look slightly iffy, I think, in terms of just not having the levels of all the players they sold.

40:02And you've also obviously got this situation with Andoni Arreola, who's out of contract at the end of the season. I was speaking to a Bournemouth fan on Saturday. And he was saying this was the first time where there's been some real grumblings in an away end against Iriola of like, what's actually happening here? Is he staying or going? And is that helping or not? Was that Bournemouth fan called Andy Jennings? Because Andy's written in, said the last two years at Bournemouth have produced some of the finest performances in the club's history. But with Iriola's reluctance to sign a new contract, seemingly now affecting squad harmony and performances, should the board do the unthinkable and sack him before the slide becomes irrevocable?

40:39They are nine points from the drop, but they have gone nine games without a win. And as you say, Semenya could be doing one in a matter of days. Should they? I mean, no, they won't sack him. But the question, what Bournemouth have always managed to do is win weird games that you don't think they'll win. So of those four away wins that they've had since February 2025, I think Arsenal, Spurs and Newcastle are three of them. they do manage to produce performances kind of when it matters the question is if Semenyo I mean I think they should just refuse to sell Semenyo I think they should say sorry mate but you can go in the summer and your release clause is lower in the summer so your earning potential will be higher but please you've made yourself here give us four or five more months and make sure we stay in the Premier League I don't think that's unreasonable to say to him Dan can I devil's advocate here and just put myself in Semenya's position and say like it's it's a very reasonable argument at the same time like you've got the summer you've got the world cup you've got um a lot more availability of players and perhaps he gets a lesser move as a result of it um just because budgets reset in that way don't they also I was going to say actually and jump in um on Dan's point like I don't think that Iriella should go and I I'm clearly there are kind of system problems and there's also that that issue which we've seen before with like Southampton um in the last decade where if you sell too many players eventually even if your recruitment is really good your systems start to really suffer and the cohesion between the players I remember watching and this is this shouldn't take anything away from Brentford's performance or Kevin Shard's hat trick well played but the simplicity of some of those goals is really worrying um there was a couple where all it needed was a ball forward and a flick on or a second pass and there was all sorts of space which is kind of um yeah it's a little bit of a red flag um about where a team seems to be and um wouldn't surprise me if they got a you know if they somehow managed to get a result against arsenal when that fixture comes around because as dan said that's kind of what bournemouth do um but there's some tightening up that needs to happen i think over the next few weeks definitely well nine points above west ham currently west ham who were beaten saturday three o 'clock by full of Ralph Jimenez, late on, who was such a big part of Nuno Espiritu Santo's Wolves success, handing his former boss another hammer blow.

43:07The ghost of Espiritu Santo past. Or something. Yeah. Heart-rending scenes for poor Oli Scarls, the young West Ham left-back who had swung a leg in the direction of a loose ball in the box and failed to connect, leaving. They're full and ready to pounce with that late, late winner. Crikey. Cottages are now 13 points clear of the relegation zone and one off seventh, which I reckon constitutes Europe. It's madness. Every team this season is destined to be one point off Europe at some point. This is when your time will come. Will West Ham ever be one point? No, I don't think so. No? No. I don't get their refusal.

43:51I don't get Nuno's refusal to pick Callum Wilson. He's been on the bench for the last four games. It seems so obvious to try and replicate that Forest system of a target man striker with Somerville and Bowen on the wings providing ammunition and being really good at that. It sounds like that Fulcrook is going to be loaned to Milan. He's gone. He's gone. He's gone. On the picture in the shirt. It sounds like Fulcrook has been loaned to Milan. And yeah, and Callum Wilson is still not getting a game. They really want a striker. and Larson of Wolves has been mentioned as have championship options.

44:29You know, again, we said this at the top of the show, but that will define West Ham's season because I don't understand why he's not picking Callum Wilson and seeing if he can do a Dominic Calvert-Lewin. But the worrying thing was that this was the first of a run of fixtures, which supposedly was where West Ham were going to put their league position in a slightly better light after some tough games. But this one certainly didn't go their way. The next one is Brighton at home, They haven't mentioned their terrible record at the London Stadium against the Seagulls. Then they are away at Wolves.

44:57And then they've got Forest at home. But yeah, seven games without a win now for the Hammers. Tom? Yeah, just on Fulham, I think there are similarities with what's happening at Aston Villa in the sense that Fulham had a very underwhelming summer, didn't really sign any players. There was a lot of grumbling about a lack of ambition. Went into the campaign without massively high hopes. how long is Marcus Silva going to stick around for, etc, etc. And have suddenly hit this really rich vein of form. I mean, you know, one away at Spurs, albeit, you know, obviously everyone does that at the moment.

45:31That incredible 5-4 home defeat against Manchester City that was one of the games of the season. You know, one at Burnley, one at Hamster Forest, and now one away at West Ham. And they're doing it with the players who were there last season. You look at the starting 11 at West Ham, I think it was Kevin, who was the one big-name recruit they managed to bring in, who was the only new player. And on top of that, doing it without Chicoise, who's had a big impact in recent weeks, without Alex Iwobi, who's absolutely crucial to the way they play, without Calvin Bassi, who's at the AFCON as well, Rodrigo Mounir's injured, Ryan Sessignal injured as well.

46:08So I think it's a really interesting dynamic. And again, proof that you can lose the transfer window and still come out, if not on top, then higher up than people might have expected. You can coach your way out of problems. Interesting. They're going to be at Crystal Palace, another team who didn't go big on the transfer window, but are having one or two issues at the moment. We'll be touching on what's going on at AFCON very shortly with Jay Harris, who's flown out there and was just in time to see that absolutely banging Nigeria-Tunisia game, but two more games, stroke three, if you count Burnley-Everton, to touch on from the weekend.

46:49Well, actually, Boxing Day, what, Friday? Man United beat Newcastle 1-0. Lots of firsts here. Patrick Dourgo getting his first goal, a lovely one-two for Man United in his 38th game for the club. United winning a game in which Bruno Fernandes didn't feature for the first time since March 2022, when Ralph Rangliot was still in charge. And Man United playing with a back four for the first time under Ruben Amrum. Has that officially happened now? There's no more, it's no going out with five and then actually when no one's looking, shifting back anymore. He's just come out. Yeah, it was a definite four, albeit kind of forced upon him by selection issues.

47:30We'll see if it holds. The finishing back four, I read, was Euroheaven, Fredriksen and Malastia, which non-Man United following people might feel that they've missed a couple of chapters along the way. But yeah, that's the future. It was interesting after the game, Amarim sort of said, I've always wanted to do this. I just wanted to do it from a position of strength rather than a position of weakness. But what about the Pope? Yeah, I do sort of think, well, is there not another version of events here where if this is the most logical conclusion, it might have been helpful to maybe try it in the first 30 months of your tenure not for me to say because you can't you can't you can't just say oh i've stumbled into a solution after i do admire yeah i do admire the the ultimate long play game of like we're going to play 30 months with a system i'm not really invested in just so when i change it everyone's going to be like who's this guy Who's this bad four guy?

48:27That was Man United's victory over the Magpies, who lie 14th and have only won two of their 12 away games in all competitions this season. Newcastle are away this midweek. They're going to be at Burnley, who was mentioned, had a 0-0 with Everton. Man United, meanwhile, will be hosting Wolves, who had a 2-1 defeat at Liverpool. That was Saturday afternoon. touching tributes in this game from both sets of supporters to former player Diogo Jota. It was lovely to see. Wolves doing their kind of classic thing of looking actually not too bad but still getting absolutely no points. They have become only the second team in the history of English League football to only pick up two points from their opening 18 matches.

49:16The last one was Newport County in the fourth division in 1970. they are the first top flight side to not win any of their first 18 games. If you're a Liverpool fan, should you be concerned by that Wolves, that Wolves scored and could have got more in this game? No? No, I don't think so. Liverpool always concede from corners. That is the concern. I think not so much the identity of the opposition, but the fact that they have this current weakness. Right, but even Wolves, yeah. I mean, yeah, even Wolves. But I mean, it wasn't like the Arsenal game where, you know, Brighton got one back and Arsenal really had to cling on for the last half an hour.

49:55The Wolves' goal did not really change the game all that much. You know, Liverpool were not under siege for the last 40 minutes. It was an avoidable goal. Virgil van Dijk spoke about it afterwards, talked about the team's complete inability to defend corners. They also conceded from a corner in the 2-1 win at Spurs the previous weekend. And it does seem recurrent. And he was talking about specifically the problem they have defending second balls. And it was from a second ball that Wolves scored. So, yeah, I think that particular issue will be a concern. Not the most convincing win, but I think the most positive thing was from a Liverpool perspective was the fact that so many of the new recruits shone.

50:35I mean, obviously, Hugo Eketike has been playing really well from the start of the season. But Jeremy Fringpong got a really nice assist for Ryan Gravenberg. Florian Wurtz got his first goal. teed up by Eketike, Miloš Kerkis had a decent game. And I think in the absence of, you know, the various absentees, Mo Salah at the AFCON, Cody Gakpo, who is injured, Dominic Sabozlai, who was suspended on Saturday, these new players are finally being given a chance to, you know, string a few matches together. And you got the sense watching this that that might be the chief purpose purpose that this game serves uh in giving you know players like Wurz and Fringpong and Kerk as a sense of you know what it is to be a Liverpool player um and you know just helping them to bed in that little bit more.

51:26Vieters had a tricky old uh week in the German press because um last weekend Didi Harman went on a Sky Deutschland show um Sky 90 and said basically you know time's running out time's running out not sure he can make it now Harman yeah Harman's someone who habitually is quite provocative in his commentary um but uh this came at a good time and actually it was a nice moment rudy foller who um who's now the sports director at the german football association said he was watching the game on tv and um when florin viet scored was kind of dancing around in front of his tv um because he was really happy for him because obviously the pressure's been building but uh what an image you what an image or an image but uh good old rudy foller um good old jerry fringpong too because this goal i mean the the assist for gravenbatch that was a very Leverkusen moment from him.

52:14One of his chief modes of chance creation when he was in the Bundesliga was that sort of penetrating run deep into the penalty box and then the cutback that found an unrushing forwarder attacking midfielder. So it's really good to see him find a little bit of rhythm too. Yeah, nice. All my Bundesliga boys playing well. Nice. Liverpool have found some rhythm. Four wins on the spin. Next up, they'll be hosting Leeds who they had that remarkable 3-3 with just under a month ago at Ellen Road, after which Mo Salah stopped by the mixed zone and opened his heart a little bit. Dominic Slobberstein will be back from suspension for that game, though.

52:50So good news for Liverpool. Very good. Well, that is as much of the Premier League post-Christmas action that we've got time for, because next up, Jay Harris is going to join us with the latest events from Morocco.

53:10You're listening to the Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at the Totally Show. Afghan, everybody. Cup of Nations, they've been busy over the past week. Two rounds of matches now completed. Three teams already through to the knockouts. Egypt, who beat South Africa on Boxing Day with a Mosala penalty. Algeria, who on Sunday beat Burkina Faso with a Riyad Mahrez penalty. and Nigeria, who had a highly entertaining 3-2 victory over Tunisia. Jay Harris was there, fresh off the plane, and he joins us now.

53:47Jay, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me. How's everything there in Morocco? It's pretty good. It's raining more than I thought it would be. I have unfortunately lost my suitcase. Well, I didn't lose it. The airline have lost it. So I might be wearing some funky outfits over the next couple of weeks. But otherwise, I'm just looking forward to more football. All right, well, you're feeling the rains there in Africa. And you also went along to Nigeria, Tunisia for what? Your opening game there, was it? Yes, that was my first game of the tournament. Oof. It was fun. It was fun.

54:21Well, for 60, 75 minutes, it was pretty routine. Nigeria were playing exceptionally well. Their head coach, Eric Scheller, has made a slight tactical change at this tournament. So instead of playing out wide on the left, Adam Oda Lutman is playing as a number 10. and it seems to have bought the absolute best out of him. He's got two goals and two assists at this tournament already. He performed exceptionally well at the last half-con. This tournament just seems to bring the best out of him. Osman had so many chances, especially in the first half. He eventually scores and Nigeria just looked completely comfortable.

54:53Tunisia then score from a free kick and Nigeria just did what they do, which is implode and they never make things easy for themselves. They did make it through 3-2. That third goal, when they went 3-0 up and Luckman scoring that after assisting, I think, both of the opening goals. What a magnificent series of flicks and touches they were in the build-up. And another little flick from Ossiman. And then Uwobi in towards him and he's in behind. Squares it to Luckman. Can Luckman seal this for Nigeria? Oh, he can! That is a stunning move from the Super Eagles. That was a beautiful goal. I did think at the time that Luckman was going to ruin that move because I actually think I wanted Ossiman to shoot first time.

55:33Then he gives it to Luckman. and I'm thinking that you've just blown this opportunity, but fair play to him. He just absolutely hammers it. Hits a defender and then I think it hits the post and it still goes in. Nigeria are through to the knockout stages. The holders of Ivory Coast not yet booked their spot. They took on Cameroon Sunday night and drew 1-1. Quite the goal from Amadjalo of Manchester United. It was a beautiful goal, but I think we should not overlook how good the assist is from Ivory Coast left-back Conan. He actually initially receives the ball basically by his own corner flag.

56:06Shimmy's passed a couple of players. Hits this incredible diagonal pass across the pitch. And then Ahmad has taken all the glory because it is a very good finish. But I actually think the assist is even better. But I think their lead lasted only a couple of minutes. And Shamedu scores this deflected effort, which loops over Ivory Coast goalkeeper. I mean, Cameroon and Ivory Coast should both be through. They've both got four points. you know the best third place team goes through in this tournament so a catastrophic series of events would have to happen for either of them to to miss out I guess it's just a case of who's going to to top their group Mozambique won in the other game they beat Gabon so there's still a few things up for grabs and I think it was quite interesting to see this Ivory Coast team that they're sort of in transition in a way because a lot of the players who are at the last tournament Alair, Adingra are not at this edition.

56:57So it's interesting to see how they're sort of reconfiguring their attack. It's obviously going to take a little bit of time, but there are some promising things that they've shown for sure. Mozambique, third place in the Cameroon Ivory Coast group. There, as you mentioned, beating Gabon. That's their first ever victory at AFCON. For decades, they've been waiting to take a win at the competition. Anyway, what else has caught your eyes so far since arriving? um well sudan won yesterday uh they beat equatorial guinea and obviously sudan are in the middle of a civil war at the moment so it was quite an incredible achievement for them to even reach the competition and for them to win a game um i'm sure will hopefully inspire quite a few people back home and what's really difficult conditions and then i'm off tonight to watch morocco zambia so i'm really intrigued to see the hosts i was at the world cup in qatar and morocco were the best fans by far.

57:49The first few days of the tournament, I've been in Fez, which is a bit further out. And it's been quite hard to get a feel of if anybody's actually excited about this tournament. Because every time I talk to a taxi driver or someone who's working in a bar, they just say, we drew with Mali. I don't think we're going to win the tournament. I have not got that sense of real enthusiasm for AFCON yet. So I'm hoping if they win tonight, it's sort of going to explode into life and everybody's going to be happy and there's going to be a good vibe everywhere you go. Oh, that'd be nice. How was the draw with Mali?

58:23I think the thing with Morocco is that there's huge pressure on them. They've got exceptional players, but it's not always that simple. And they're obviously going to come up against a lot of teams who are just going to frustrate them and not have a lot of the ball and that's absolutely fine. And I guess it's a sort of new challenge for Morocco that they're going to have to overcome. At the last World Cup, nobody really expected them to reach the semifinals. I don't think they've won AFCON in, I think, over 30 years. So this sort of pressure is not normally what's expected of them. And I think they're just trying to work out how they navigate that at the moment.

58:57But I'm sure they'll still be fine. The quality they've got will eventually shine through. And it happens sometimes. They're still going to go through, and that's all that really matters. You don't have to play... Ivory Coast have proven. You don't have to play perfectly in the beginning of a tournament to end up winning it. You just need to scrape through, work a few kinks out, and then you'll be good. two rounds of matches now completed we're on to the final match day of the group phase and that's when you're going to go and see Zambia taking on Morocco that's later on today Monday what else what are the what are the key games that are going to decide some of the the places the knockout stages over the next two or three days yeah good question Zimbabwe South Africa is one to keep an eye on obviously South Africa lost to Egypt in their last game and they've been on a pretty impressive unbeaten run before that.

59:43So I don't think they have any chance of topping the group, but they need to just make sure they win to still go through to the next stage. Tanzania-Tinizia is the one to keep an eye on. That's tomorrow evening to see who goes through in second place in Nigeria's group. DR Congo and Sfeda will also play tomorrow evening. That's again going to be one to keep an eye on to see who tops that group. It's all about topping your group and avoiding a heavy hitter in the second round. That's what it all comes down to. So I think they're the games to keep an eye on in the next couple of days. Excellent, Jay.

1:00:15Well, enjoy that. Take a brolly and we'll catch up with you soon. Thank you very much. Speak soon, guys. All the best.

1:00:26Jay in Fez. Not for the first time, I'll warrant. If he's got no clothes, he's going to have to be creative. Exactly. Exactly. That's so true. That's so true. Well, there you go. That's the Toby Football Show. Happy New Year to you all. Many thanks for being with us today, Seb Stafford-Bloor, Daniel Storey and Tom Williams, and of course, producer Charlie. And you, listener, 2026 is going to be amazing. Do join us in it when we return on what I'm thinking is Friday the 2nd of January. Lovely stuff. Many thanks, everybody. We'll catch up with you soon on The Totally Football Show.

1:01:39The Athletic FC