Chelsea survive Wrexham, Sunday shocks + Spurs in crisis

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1:54Liam Twomey: Packham. We check out who's made the quarterfinals and shake our heads as Sunday's old firm shenanigans and check in on Spurs. Thursday V Palace was Patetico. Next up it's Atletico. Is another change imminent in North London? It's the Totally Football Show.

2:16Liam Twomey: Good job at Liam Toomey. Always lovely to see you Liam. Always lovely to be here. Let's FA Cup. Let's Let's FA Cup, Colin Miller. And let's do a little bit of Old Firm Derby. Oh, sorry, Old Firm shenanigans.

2:30Daniel Storey: Yeah, what a weekend of football, James. Can't wait to talk about it.

2:33Liam Twomey: Well, that's good as well. Daniel's story, you've been everywhere this weekend, as per usual. And right now you're on our big screen, thankfully.

2:42James Richardson: I am indeed. Good evening, James.

2:43Liam Twomey: Good evening. Fifth round weekend, I'm noting. What was your favourite bit of the FA Cup-ness?

2:49James Richardson: I think drawing between Port Vale and knocking out Sunderland, which is excellent, their owner or their chairperson, Carol Shanahan, is one of the nicest people in football. Anyone who meets him will agree. And also that period of time when Mansfield were level against Arsenal. I also enjoyed Riccardo Calafiori coming off the pitch. A Mansfield lad shouting, Calafiori, Calafiori, and him looking over with a big smile as if to say, yeah, hey, mate, and the little kid just swearing at him. And Calafiora just went, why? Why? Why do that to me? Which was also really good.

3:22Liam Twomey: Yeah, magic of the cup, magnificent. All right, let's check out the results then. Oh, round five. Sunday afternoon saw the biggest win of the fifth round, so far at least. Leeds defeating Norwich 3-0. Earlier on, we had some upsets. Port Vale, bottom of League One, lowest-ranked side left in the competition, knocking out Premier League's Sunderland 1-0. Fulham also tumbling out 1-0. at home to Southampton, who certainly improved since the last time they faced Premier League opposition. In Saturday's matches, Wrexham twice had the lead at home to Chelsea and even with 10 men, took the Blues to extra time.

3:58Liam Twomey: But it is Liam Resenia's side who go through 4-2 on aggregate. Newcastle went ahead against Man City through another bit of Harvey Barnes brilliance. City, though, came back to win 3-1 with a career weirdest goal from Savinho and a brace from Marmouche. Arsenal also progress despite the best efforts of Mansfield Town. 2-1 that finish. And on Friday Wolves and Liverpool met again. This time it was slot side who triumphed 3-1. And through they go to the quarterfinals. The draw for which will take place on Monday night before West Ham take on Brentford in the final game of this round. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson,

4:38James Richardson: part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Goodmanson takes it on and looks to hit the byline. Oh, lovely bit of skill! Fantastic goal! How about that? From Longstaff.

4:51Liam Twomey: Leeds-Norwich, if you have to pick a game to start with, that's the most recent. And it probably featured the goal of the round. Daniel?

5:00James Richardson: Yeah, I think so. I think Ebrecht-Eyes' goal was brilliant as well in terms of power. But yeah, this was Leeds kind of getting back into form. The FA Cup is a really big opportunity for them. I know they slightly got dragged into the relegation race, but I don't think they'll go down. And if you look at what happened to Fulham and Sunderland, Leeds will fancy their chances if they avoid one of those big four, yeah, of going to Wembley. And they really should. Their backup players are good enough. Joel Pirot was their top scorer last season. and he's not really had much of a kick in the Premier League, but his goal was beautiful.

5:39James Richardson: Sean Longstaff's touch, it was a brilliant goal. The touch is slightly fortuitous, I think, although really good. But I don't know how he generates that much power, while he's sort of mid-air to fire in the near post. And yeah, Leeds just look really good. I thought this could be a bit of a banana skinny, because Norwich have been really good under Philippe Clement since he took over, but yeah, vast gaps between the two teams.

6:01Liam Twomey: They dress like banana skins as well, don't they? Norwich. Were you able to see that, Liam, the Longestaff goal? I did, yeah.

6:08Colin Millar: The sheer Dennis Bergkamp-ness of it. That was what I immediately thought when I saw. And I feel like you have to give him the benefit of the doubt for the first touch. It just sat up nicely, brilliantly improvised on the spin. Yeah, brilliant goal.

6:22Daniel Storey: And so many of the best goals come from an inadvertent first touch. And it's just that moment of inspiration afterwards. It was a really good finish, wasn't it? And I think once they went on the love, Leeds were really in the ascendancy from that point on.

6:34Liam Twomey: If that goal was Bergkamp-Escar, how would you or what would you compare Savinho's goal for Man City to?

6:41Colin Millar: Like a minimalist painting. I loved how little he moved. Right. And how much that was a deliberate choice.

6:48Liam Twomey: It was.

6:49Colin Millar: Yeah, I think it was. I think it similarly improvised. I think he realised, if I move almost nothing here except the angle of my left foot, this is going in.

6:58Liam Twomey: This is from the Saturday game against Newcastle. I'm not sure how much Pep Guardiola will have enjoyed his approach because it very nearly didn't cross the line on account of the fact that it was travelling so very slowly.

7:09Daniel Storey: Yeah, but again, those finishes can look really weird, but it's all about just placing it, right? Placing it on target and reneuvering your leg in a way to do that, which is quite clever. It's been a round of weird goals, though. The Garnaccio goal for Chelsea, which went straight back out again at such a speed that...

7:26Colin Millar: It's a hit, a completely solid part of the net,

7:28Daniel Storey: which I didn't know existed. Yeah, it was this really strange moment, but I think the Savino goal was probably underrated in terms of it doesn't look like he's meant it, but he must have meant to do that angle in the finish.

7:42Colin Millar: I thought it was a really clever goal. It's the kind of goal that might start a little bit of a fight in a five-a-side game. If he finished a chance like that, you might be seen as taking the mickey a bit.

7:51Liam Twomey: Right. Pep, we'll come on to what really got him angry in that Newcastle-Man City game a little bit later on, But returning to Sunday's action, so Leeds going through to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2003. Famously a club that struggles of late with this competition. Also on Sunday going through Saints, who've got a lot better, Daniel, since we last saw them taking on Premier League opposition.

8:19James Richardson: Yeah, they had a really weird season in that Will still was appointed and then fairly quickly sacked because it wasn't really working, although he started really well. And then Tonda Eckhart came in as caretaker and won five games in a row. Sort of had to be given the job and was given the job and promptly went in this horrible, horrible run of form. And everyone thought the one thing you don't do is give the job to the caretaker. And now Southampton look really good again. They are the club who look most like breaking the playoff party. And they are the team that nobody would want to face in those playoffs, I think, because of, well, I was going to say Premier League pedigree.

8:56James Richardson: let's say Premier League history. And yeah, they made the most of Fulham making lots of changes. I sort of feel for Marco Silva a little bit in that he was getting criticised for making quite a lot of changes when Fulham were in mid-table and surely FA Cup's a priority now, which, yeah, fine. But the XI's still strong. The fringe players should be good enough to beat Championship opposition. I forgot to mention the other moment of the weekend, which was Fulham's disallowed goal in the first half, which was a thing of absolute beauty for people who haven't seen it. So Southampton get a goal kick, the goalkeeper rolls it to the edge of his six yard box and then immediately spots something down the pitch and thinks, I'm going to launch this.

9:35James Richardson: Launches it, but only succeeds in launching it, I think at the sort of neck of one of his teammates who goes down, you know, saving private Ryan style. and the ball immediately just deflects to a Fulham player who puts it in. And it was disallowed because the referee, I think rightly, although slightly spoilsporty, said that the ball was moving when the goalkeeper kicked it. I think it was, but I feel like if you kick the ball into the face or neck of your own player and then concede from that, maybe you get lucky if the referee has spotted the ball slightly rolling in the six-yard box.

10:08Liam Twomey: Should transcend any other infractions that might have taken place. Colin? yeah that was such a strange moment

10:14Daniel Storey: I think the referee actually makes a mistake by blowing up before the ball goes into the net I think you should just let it play out and then make a decision if the ball's been moving then you can bring it back and disallow it for that and even at that it's a technicality it's a technicality that the ball's moving which is fine so it's technically correct to disallow it but surely in the spirit of the game if you're trying to gain an advantage and make a mistake in doing so and you're punished for it. I kind of think that's fair enough if the goal had been given. So, I mean, that was a massive let-off for Southampton.

10:46Daniel Storey: However, in that game, they were really, really impressive. They caught Fulham cold on the counter-attack quite a few times. I was really impressed with them. I disagree, actually, with the Marco Silva analysis. I'm being on here quite a bit. I really like Marco Silva. I love what he's done at Fulham. But they need... I mean, surely they should be prioritising the FA Cup. But you're at home to a championship club in the fifth round. You should be playing your full-strength team. and I know that the players that they have that come in are, they're not bad players, they're good, but football is all about the connections and the continuity between players and what you work on and you just find that rhythm clearly quite a lot of those Fulham players aren't in any sort of rhythm at all so they were pretty much relying almost exclusively through set pieces for their main opportunities in this game, it wasn't a fluid performance and it was never going to be a fluid performance and I just think that especially if you're a fan of Fulham it doesn't really matter if you finish 8th, 9th, 10th anywhere down to about 14 for 15.

11:40Daniel Storey: For me, you're not going to remember it really for that reason. You'll remember a cup run. I just think it was the same last year when they were playing, I think it was Palace in the quarterfinals and they were eliminated. And it just feels like they're just like one match away from really making it big in a cup and they always kind of just keep coming up short. But I just don't know why these mid-table teams when they've nothing else to play for the rest of the season don't just prioritise trying to win a trophy and trying to get into Europe as well. It's not just like a for the fans moment. I mean, Europe would be huge for the club financially too.

12:10Daniel Storey: So I think there was a bit of a misstep here. In Southampton, as Daniel says, really good form and they were good enough to take advantage with the late penalty.

12:18Liam Twomey: There you go. Saints go through. Let's get on to Port Vale then, who've had an extraordinary week in the FA Cup because it was only last Monday that they finally booked their place in the fifth round with a goal from Ben Wayne. And look who it is who scores against Sunderland to take them through to the quarterfinals, the Kiwi again. Again, did he do an Alan Shearer, which seemed to be the suggestion in his goal celebration?

12:40Daniel Storey: Yeah, he definitely did, didn't he? That raised arm. Because I think his mum's side were from Newcastle originally, and that explains the Newcastle link.

12:49Liam Twomey: Daniel, you were speaking in heartwarming terms about Port Vale, the Valiants. And it is a remarkable situation that they're in. The lowest ranked team in the competition, rock bottom of League One. they've now won almost as many games in the FA Cup this season as they actually have in the league. They're 11 points from safety, is that right? At the bottom of League One, but with three games in hand. What's behind this Cup runner? Why should everyone be rooting for Port Vale?

13:18James Richardson: I mean, I don't know is the honest answer. They've been pretty wretched in the league. They are the kind of archetypal club who are always going to be good in League Two if they go down and probably always going to struggle in League One if they go up. They came up last season and are now struggling. They had Darren Moore as manager, who they kept quite a lot of faith in, which the club liked doing with managers. They liked to give them time. Eventually made the change and brought in John Brady, who hasn't started particularly well in the league, but certainly has done at Vale Park in the FA Cup.

13:48James Richardson: They just took their chances and defended really well. I suspect for some of those clubs who were struggling in the league, the FA Cup feels like something different. It's less of a grind than desperately trying to get enough points to stay up, which you probably aren't going to do. You are able to completely play as an underdog in that competition in both of the home games against Bristol City and Sunderland. Reggie Labritte also made some changes to kind of follow on from Colin's point. But it's just a brilliant, brilliant story. I really hope they get the draw they want, whether that's big club at home or whether that's the chance to go and win a quarterfinal and play at Wembley.

14:25James Richardson: whichever they want I hope they get it because yeah to kind of repeat the point Carol Shanahan is this she's just this kind of guardian angel of the Portvale football club she took over when they were struggling for money badly she made a huge amount of money as a local businesswoman but has basically said the club's only part of it I'm going to take this whole area forward and she's put in millions and millions and millions she's um yeah she's a deeply impressive woman She sort of, when I spent the day with the last season before a game, there's a church on the one corner of Vale Park and she goes and prays before the game and offers hope for good results.

15:05James Richardson: And she's just a lovely, lovely person who has taken that club on. I know it might not look like it when they're in the League One relegation zone and fans get a bit upset about going down, but the club is in such good hands. So I'm glad they've kind of got this breakout moment. And yeah, why not? Why not draw Southampton at home and see what happens?

15:22Daniel Storey: Can I just say something very quickly on Port Vale? They're the only one of the 92 EFL clubs that aren't named after a place name or locality.

15:30Liam Twomey: Oh, so I understood that there were two and they could indeed draw the other one in Monday's draw. Arsenal?

15:38Daniel Storey: Well, they're from Woolwich Arsenal originally. Oh, I see. Hence the move and the name. but yeah it is a slight bone of contention is yeah they're not named after their current locality but yeah okay sorry I don't think

15:51Colin Millar: Arsenal's fans are sensitive to this kind of thing or anything so you're fine

15:57Liam Twomey: Colin supplementary question what are Port Vale named after?

16:03Daniel Storey: well I did look this up I didn't know but the name apparently refers to a vale or a valley of the canal ports hence the Port Vale which were along the Trent and Mersey Canals. So it is, in a way, vaguely named after what they would have referred to the place as, but not actually. They're from Burslem, sort of near Stoke-on-Trent, I think. So, yeah. But it's great to see a club at that level still being involved in the competition. And that's, I think, one of the things that these matches always remind you of, as I said earlier, about the connections between players. But obviously they're playing their full-strength team and this is a massive, massive deal for clubs outside of the top one or two divisions.

16:41Daniel Storey: but also it's just like the actual drop in level isn't as much as everyone kind of assumes I don't think for those one-off games you can always raise your match and I think they'll definitely want a Glamour Ty Noi

16:53Liam Twomey: They were wearing a kit based on the one they sported in the 1954 53-54 season This is to mark the club's 150th anniversary and wouldn't you know it, 1954 was the last time they made it to the last eight how far did they go back then daniel you'll know the

17:13James Richardson: answer to this yeah i don't so i'll talk about the kit which is a beautiful white out kit with a little black collar it's yeah it's gorgeous excellent let me just have a word for melke

17:23Colin Millar: elborg's header save from a 40 yard back pass please well there were a number of really

17:30Liam Twomey: impressive defensive headers in in that game but this one topped them all it was the most comical

17:35Colin Millar: sequence that I've seen in quite a long time. Luco9 went to go full Axel Dezassie on a back pass. I say that because Axel Dezassie against Leicester in the FA Cup a couple of years ago. Still the gold standard for me of getting a shove from an attacker as you're booting the ball back towards your goalkeeper and just shanking it into the rough, or in this case into the net. But Elborg responded brilliantly. And it was again, we talked about great moments of improvisation in other games. I think for a goalkeeper this was pretty impressive.

18:07Liam Twomey: So the ball is arching or arcing through the air towards his net. On a devilish trajectory. Yeah, indeed. And he has the presence of mind to head it away rather than catch it because as they repeatedly stressed on commentary, it would have meant a free kick had he handled coming as it did from a defender. The commentators were indeed the halftime presentation less impressed with the fact that he got back up smiling and chuckling at the incident. They felt that he should have been screaming at Luka Nye

18:34Colin Millar: If you can't enjoy your job at a moment like that, I don't know when you can as a goalkeeper. It doesn't strike me as a hugely enjoyable job most of the time.

18:43Liam Twomey: Really? Highly pressurised, more criticism than praise.

18:47Colin Millar: Especially as a backup goalkeeper.

18:49Liam Twomey: Yeah.

18:49Colin Millar: He's hardly played all season and this is his moment.

18:51Liam Twomey: Here comes Daniel.

18:53James Richardson: Just because you aren't allowed any joy in the world, we should say that Portvale scored their winning goal from the resulting corner from that back pass. So maybe he should have caught it and gone for the free kick.

19:02Colin Millar: But that, to me, made the whole sequence just chef's kiss. The fact that you then add a layer of hubris to the smile.

19:08Liam Twomey: It's funny because when that happened and they said he would have conceded a free kick, it did cross my mind. Isn't this the season when a corner is actually more dangerous? Well, there you go. Anyway, thought-provoking stuff. That was Sunday's action in the FA Cup fifth round. Loads happened on Friday and Saturday. We'll get on to that stuff next.

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21:52Liam Twomey: morning. Among the hot topics this week we've got Paris Saint-Germain blowing up again as the Ligue 1 title race back on. Milan Derby, sorry Milan Derby, which is happening even as we record. Also we hear from James Horncastle, he's on his way to Italy again. Last week he was there speaking to Ficayo Tomori and you can see the results of that in a special interview that's up and you can hear it as well. Anyway, it's there. It's out there on our various channels. Of course, in the Tony Football Show European Edition, we'll be talking about the Champions League Last 16, which gets going on Tuesday.

22:29Liam Twomey: Arsenal, Spurs, Newcastle, Man City and Chelsea are all involved against a variety of top European opposition. Chelsea, for example, Liam, will be heading to Paris and the Pacte des Princes to take on Paris Saint-Germain, a club still reeling from their defeat on Friday to Monaco. Chelsea meanwhile had quite the trip of it to Wales what did you make of their clash with Wrexham?

22:57Colin Millar: I thought it was a great advert for Disney Plus wasn't it? It was a fantastic game, fantastic cup game made really by Wrexham I think you have to say even though Chelsea scored four goals I don't think they came away with many plaudits from their fans certainly the travelling fans for the way that they played Wrexham took the game to them. They didn't play as if they felt like they were an inferior side or it didn't really feel like an underdog strategy. First of all, Chelsea altered their system to match up with Wrexham. Liam Rosinia switching to three at the back and of course making a lot of changes to his team, which is always controversial at Chelsea.

23:40Colin Millar: And Wrexham were the better team from the very start. I believe Sam Smith's goal was the first effort on target for either team. So all of the play that you're making your judgments on was between the boxes, really, until that point.

23:56Liam Twomey: The Limb Report wants to nominate Sam Smith's goal for goal of the weekend. It was a lovely, superb move.

24:03James Richardson: Now that one might get Smith in. Sanchez is going back to goal, and Sam Smith puts it past him. from back to front and a half feet.

24:14Colin Millar: The first touch in particular from Callum Doyle's long raking pass was excellent and dropped the ball exactly where he wanted it to be. I think the demerit for me, when you put it against some of the other goals in the round, is just because of the poor defending from Chelsea. I think the pass exposed Tosin's lack of speed and mobility on the turn, which has been a bit of a theme at Chelsea when he's played. and then Robert Sanchez, who of course was benched for the game against Aston Villa, did himself no favours in this game by kind of coming for the ball, then stopping and retreating, which made Benoit Badia-Shiel hesitate, which gave Sam Smith enough time to find the finish.

24:56Colin Millar: So it was a great goal, really well taken, but it didn't show Chelsea's defence in a good light at all.

25:02Liam Twomey: Six goals all told. There was some other nice ones, Joshua Chimpong's goal, which I think put Chelsea... 2-2. that was the 2-2 goal Callum Dawes just before that about a minute before

25:12Colin Millar: that was actually a nice finish I mean it looked a bit of a scruffy goal but it was a really nice little flick on a Josh Windus shot

25:20Liam Twomey: and Wrexham had other goals or at least one other goal that they thought they'd scored which VAR took away from them a lot was made again in coverage about how this will be a completely novel experience for Wrexham fans who will be bewildered Wrexham's owners too non-plus to what the delay is about because they won't have experienced

25:37Colin Millar: the a horse never watched any other never seen it this was their first taste of var and they're

25:44Liam Twomey: unlikely to come away with a positive feeling yeah the two big moments of the game both went

25:48Colin Millar: against them dobson's challenge on on garnacho which i think you would say was orange putting it charitably was judged to be serious foul play after a var review and then the offside was offside it was marginal uh i know there were lots of people feeling it was against the kind of karmic justice that it didn't count. Wrexham did deserve to tie the game, but it was offside.

26:09Daniel Storey: Wrexham are really unfortunate with a lot of moments in this game. So at 90 minutes, they had exactly double the XG of Chelsea. So it was 1.65 to 8.2, right? So they, or sorry, 0.82, so Wrexham really had the better of the chances, the better of the opportunities, but a lot of the small moments went against them because obviously Chelsea's first goal was sort of the cannon deflection off the goalkeeper into the net. Bit of bad fortune there. Chelsea's second equaliser, great finish from Machenpong, but it had come from a kind of deflection off the defender to put it right in his path, which is a little bit fortunate.

26:41Daniel Storey: And then obviously the goal as well. But Wrexham games, I mean, I know a lot of people don't, I mean, it's not a fairytale story, is it? I mean, it is.

26:53Colin Millar: It's just one that's been extensively documented.

26:57Daniel Storey: Yeah, it's one that I think a lot of fans of clubs instead of Championship League 1, League 2 might feel a bit aggrieved about, because obviously it doesn't really feel like an authentic thing. But I don't really have an issue with it myself. But the Wrexham games are always just amazing entertainment. There is always amazing drama. And this game, I think, will live long in the memory. And they have every chance of going up potentially through the playoffs this year too. They've got a really, really good set up there.

27:21Colin Millar: Come to the prem as Badadeg Bali was overheard telling Ryan Reynolds on the pitch after the game. Right. That was the, I don't know if that was the full extent of their conversation, but that was what was picked up on.

27:33Liam Twomey: And you never know, going out of the cup and a slight reduction in the number of fixtures might even help their attempts to make a fourth straight promotion through the playoffs. As for Chelsea, Daniel, they've got Paris Saint-Germain coming up this midweek. You can understand why Liam Rossegna would rest some players. And he did it and has got through to the quarterfinals.

27:54James Richardson: Yeah, for those teams who are in Champions League or Europa League and Premier League contention for something, you know probably top four or five in Chelsea's case yeah I can completely get it they have deep squads those deep squads should be good enough to beat championship opposition they were just about good enough on Saturday evening and yeah PSG is is absolutely the bigger game if Resenia had picked a full strength team and someone had got injured or the players looked a bit tired in Paris everyone would have said well what are you doing making changes it was kind of a no-win situation and how they play in Paris and at Stamford Bridge I think will go I mean Liam will know this more than me but it feels like even more than the Premier League will determine whether Liam Rossini is seen as a kind of long-term option by anyone but the people that hired him I think because there's been some naivety in the team that has been there all season that he hasn't improved this is his real chance to put down a marker to say I you know I deserve to be here.

28:54Liam Twomey: Liam you will know better than Daniel. Well, with that endorsement, I feel the pressure. You're going along to the Parc des Princes on Wednesday.

29:04Colin Millar: I am, I am. My colleague Simon Johnson got the trip to Wrexham. I got Paris, c 'est la vie. That's just the way it is sometimes.

29:12Liam Twomey: Nicely done. Thank you. That would come in handy midweek.

29:14Colin Millar: Yeah, hopefully. As long as I don't need any more words, that would be good. But honestly, I think you may see this as a negative for the current Chelsea ownership, I think probably the top priority will be qualifying for next season's Champions League, followed by the Champions League, followed by the FA Cup. I think that's the way that they look at it. But clearly this is a chance for Chelsea to prove that the Club World Cup final wasn't some kind of strange heat of the American summer fluke. There's a little bit of needle there with PSG, I think from the way that game ended and the fact that PSG are Champions League holders.

29:57Colin Millar: Those Chelsea players will be very motivated for that game. The Premier League is definitely the single most important thing for them and for Rosinha going forward, I think.

30:06Liam Twomey: I think Chelsea could be favourites for Wednesday night. The results have been coming, even when players have been rested. Jean-Pedro is in fantastic form. They're showing loads of character. They keep coming from behind in games.

30:20Colin Millar: twice in this one they may well go into the tie with the best attacker in the tie in charles pedro the way he's been playing um i just don't think you really trust either team and that's where the compelling nature of it comes in because the way psg have been playing has been so vulnerable and soft-centered but at the same time chelsea have the ability to be on top in a game and let the other team back in so i i think there could be a few twists and turns over the two legs Nice. Love that.

30:49Liam Twomey: Here's a fact about Chelsea boss Liam Resenia. He has lost three of his 15 matches in charge of Chelsea. All three of them have been against Arsenal. So there you go.

31:01Colin Millar: They really don't like defending set pieces. Right, yeah. Which is good because PSG, that's not really part of their game, is it?

31:09Liam Twomey: Arsenal, Mansfield Town. Who saw this one early Saturday?

31:12Daniel Storey: Colin. Yeah, I watched this game. It was a really enjoyable cup day. It's kind of a theme throughout this round, but you've got a lower league team rising themselves against a team full of changes, and they're a little bit vulnerable. Mansfield Town had 18 shots across this game, which was a lot. Arsenal, I think, had nine changes from the midweek win at Brighton.

31:35Liam Twomey: How does that 18 compare to other opposition that Arsenal have faced this season?

31:41Daniel Storey: I think I must be right at the top. I haven't checked but it wasn't just the quantity the quality was quite high I think they had an extra year of around two for this game so they could easily have gotten from

31:53Colin Millar: I saw one stat that it was more than any other Arsenal opponent for about a year which is pretty remarkable obviously not Arsenal's strongest team

32:01Daniel Storey: Yeah, it very well could have been Liam I think you looked at Mikel Arteta on the touchline and he seemed to be constantly furious at the way his side were managing or not managing to stop the movements through when you're playing two 16 year olds as well, Max Diamond who was really impressive again in this match, a lot of excitement over his development and Marley Salmon who maybe struggled a little bit more but it's very difficult to come into this sort of environment as well, especially at a ground where the pitch might not be the best and it's not really what you're used to in the sort of playing a lot of youth team football especially so that's not a surprise but yeah, I mean I guess the negative for Arsenal is Trossard and Calafiore both picked up knocks in this game the negative as well they were pushed quite a lot it wasn't one that they could coast to they obviously had to bring on the likes of Iberichi Eze who scored a fantastic goal Bakaya Saka came on later on but they remain in all four competitions at this point in the season and you can't really say fairer than that and they're going into a really crucial run of course but it almost feels like because there's so much talk of what the league situation is it almost feels like these games are a lot more enjoyable from a fan point of view because it's not like they wouldn't care if they lose but they're not they don't have that sort of pressure and all the sort of talk around it as well so I think you could see as well the fans enjoyed the winning goal too but yeah that's what the FA Cup is all about but again when you look at Arsenal City and Arsenal City through Chelsea and Liverpool through it could be quite a few tasty quarterfinal draws

33:34Liam Twomey: Oh! Defenestration1 says Max Downman chat incoming

33:40Colin Millar: Incredibly good in small spaces, his technical ability, just ducking and weaving in and out of challenges. Really impressive. He was desperately unlucky not to score at least once, maybe more than once in this game.

33:51Liam Twomey: Daniel, any truths about Mansfield 1, Arsenal 2 that you'd like to add? No, I'm just really pleased for Nigel Clough

33:58James Richardson: to get that breakout afternoon. He's been a long old career. He's now managed more games than his dad, which feels an absolutely ridiculous thing to say, but he's been in the game a long time. I've seen more interviews and more him smiling more in the last week than have in the last 15 years put together. So I'm glad he feels like he kind of could make peace and enjoy this game. They're like 15th, 16th in League One, which is a really good achievement for a club of their size. It's such a tiny little town, really. So, yeah, good on him. I root for Nigel all the time. And when it went 1-1, I thought, surely, surely not.

34:33James Richardson: But obviously the FA Cup is the one trophy his dad didn't win. So it's a big deal in the Clough family, the FA Cup. So I'm glad he got that day.

34:42Liam Twomey: Excellent. Well done to Mansfield Town and to Arsenal who go through. We'll hear, I guess, about Trossard and Calafuri and whether they can feature in Wednesday's clash with Bayer Leverkusen in the next day or two. Newcastle and Man City facing each other on Saturday evening. Both clubs, of course, have got Champions League fixtures coming up midweek. City keeping their quadruple hopes alive with a 3-1 win here and coming from behind to do it after Harvey Barnes' gorgeous opener. That's another one that deserves a citation. Then you had the bizarre goal from Savino. And then you had Omar Marmouche, who scored a brace.

35:20Liam Twomey: Pep Guardiola facing a two-match ban. What was it that sort of upset him? Nobody knows.

35:25Colin Millar: It was a tackle on Jeremy Dock, I believe.

35:27Liam Twomey: Was it?

35:28Colin Millar: Oh, yes. It was Kieran Trippier, I think.

35:30Daniel Storey: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he got upset about the lack of punishment that that received.

35:35Colin Millar: And delivered a very Pep Guardiola-esque, passive-aggressive assessment of it afterwards, saying, we have all the records, now I want the record for the most suspensions. Basically saying he'll always defend his players in situations like that. Right.

35:51Liam Twomey: I love Pep. He's a man who I think is acutely aware of his own emotional imbalances and does his best to make light of them, if you will. He's certainly self-aware. Yeah.

36:04Daniel Storey: no full praise for Newcastle after as he tends to do after a fairly comfortable victory so good guys

36:11Liam Twomey: no idea how good give some praise to Newcastle would you like Colin I don't know how much praise do you want to throw some at City then

36:21Daniel Storey: yeah well I think for Newcastle it was difficult because they put a lot of emotional energy into the win over Manchester United they had 10 men for a lot of that game so they were probably quite tired only three days later and again and Newcastle do this a lot where they tire out in matches and once that energy goes their kind of structure goes a little bit and I think that Man City I think I don't want to go too much about XG but they created four or so in this match so they had a lot of big opportunities and they were finding a lot of spaces in Newcastle's structure Omar Marmush is quite interesting because they spent big on him just over a year ago 70 million euros and it hasn't really worked out this season he's got six goals and two assists which isn't great but four goals and one assist has come against Newcastle.

37:06Daniel Storey: He absolutely loves playing and just one goal in the Premier League and Champions League across those two competitions. So I think he's a guy they could move on this summer, he just hasn't really found his role in the team but his goal in this game, I think it was the go-to one up for Manchester, it was a fantastic finish, really, really powerful. And City were overrunning Newcastle for so much of this match and they again made changes, James Trafford maybe struggled a little bit but playing John Stones, Nathan Ake, even Savino players who are probably under pressure to prove themselves to have a future whatever Manchester City are going to look like next season.

37:42Daniel Storey: Newcastle, just very quickly, they haven't won this competition since 1955. On the TNT Sports commentary for this game, they said that they had an unrequited love with the FA Cup which didn't seem to make much sense at all.

37:54Liam Twomey: But that does sound quite unrequited if it's 1955. Yeah,

37:59Daniel Storey: that's probably

37:59Liam Twomey: That's a long period of abstinence. They do now only really have the Champions League left for their hopes for getting any silverware this season or possibly even for getting into Europe. So a lot of pressure on their midweek clash with Barcelona. Daniel?

38:14James Richardson: Yeah, and they're going to have to, or Eddie Howe's going to have to decide what he's doing about who's going to lead the line. Because he started Willa Sula against City, having scored the winner against Manchester United, kind of fair enough, although he was pretty much absent from most of the game. They play Nick Voltemada, who they bought for£70 million as a central midfielder. And Johan Wiss has started one game since January. So I just can't really kind of work out what the plan is. Wiss absolutely hasn't worked out. I know he got a fairly bad knee injury in the first half of the season when he was on international duty, but he's fully fit now.

38:47James Richardson: So they're kind of going to have to work out a way of troubling Barcelona through that because they've been playing Anthony Gordon as a central striker. I don't think that, although he's been great in the Champions League, it's not his best position. So, yeah, they just need to work that out. Also, I just wanted to give a shout out for John Stones. I don't know if there's a player in world football I can think of who can come in from any amount of time out and immediately look like he's playing absolutely at his peak. He just ran that game and he's barely played recently. It's really good news for England if he's not going to feel like he needs to play that much between now and the summer because he'll be really important.

39:21James Richardson: But it's just phenomenal how easy it is for him to just fall into a side.

39:25Colin Millar: One point that might give some optimism for Newcastle fans heading into that Barcelona tie is that Barcelona's defensive line is a guarantee of chances.

39:34Liam Twomey: Well, you say that, Liam, and you're saying this on the basis of what Chelsea did against them earlier in the season.

39:39Colin Millar: And several other Champions League games I've watched.

39:41Liam Twomey: Yeah, they did beat Newcastle in that period quite handily. They did. Since this is something that really surprised me, no team in the top 13 of the Champions League let in more goals than Barcelona did in the first phase of the campaign. However, since the start of 2026, they have put together an incredible run of clean sheets. Eight, in fact, so far across all competitions.

40:06Colin Millar: Have they dropped 20 yards and no one's told me?

40:11Liam Twomey: Colin, do you have an explanation for that?

40:13Daniel Storey: It's the same tactical approach. And this is something that Hansi Flick is very dogmatic about. And the advantages are clear. But this has been an issue with Barcelona in European football for about a decade. they could be so dominant domestically but that exact style of football which allows them to be dominant domestically the lack of physicality that they have especially against Premier League clubs a lot of the time they can get overrun and if teams can figure out when to play those to release those runners and behind the defence that's essentially the tie if Newcastle can work out a way of doing that they've got a really good chance of going through because Barcelona have much better players than them and if they I mean Barcelona will score goals but I think this one could be really interesting tactically if Eddie Hall can get it right, then Newcastle got a great chance.

40:57Gordon, as Daniel was mentioning,

40:59Liam Twomey: got a terrific record in the Champions League. I think only Mbappe, only Kylian Mbappe has scored more goals than him in that competition this season. However, if we're talking about leaky defences, Newcastle managed to concede home and away to Carabag. So there's that. It should be a fascinating tie. It should be a pretty lively tie, that one. What about Real Madrid and Man City, Daniel?

41:23James Richardson: Yeah, I think last week I said I really fancied Manchester City to go through. And I do. Real Madrid just look like they're in a really weird place at the moment. Got rid of one manager, not really sure if the current guy is the guy or he's just kind of ticking through to the summer. I think the first goal will be absolutely massive. If City can score first and then try and control that game. I know they've been playing a little bit more dynamically and vertically this season. But I think if you get an early goal in Europe or you get the first goal in Europe and really put the pressure on the opposition, yeah, I think they can win the tie.

41:58James Richardson: The only slight concern for me is that Phil Foden has been brilliant in those games against Manchester City. And he's just not, he had a really slow start this season and then he came back. He just feels quite quiet again. We're not really seeing that Phil Foden we can. So I want to see him on the ball. I know Marmouche has been good and I know Rind has been good pushing forward. Foden Schirke's obviously brilliant on the ball, but there's nobody quite like Foden for kind of buying yourself five seconds as a team just to regroup and keep the ball. So yeah, I fancy City. I really do.

42:28Daniel Storey: Real Madrid are in really, really bad form. Like really bad form. Lost at Osasuna. They lost at home to Getafe on Monday. They got a very late winner at Celta on Friday and they were not good in that match. There's not any pattern to their play. I don't think there's any coaching going on that has really fundamentally improved them since Xabi Alonso left. The issue in this match is that Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham are almost certainly, I think, going to miss at least the first leg. Now, this might sound a little bit mad, but that might be a good thing for Real Madrid. It might mean that they actually play a much more pragmatic approach that is less reliant on those players put them out of the bag.

43:04Liam Twomey: But it's quite a few names now. So Mbappe, who had been the player whose form had kind of carried them through the times when the team didn't seem to be gelling. Bellingham as well. Rodrigo also out. for 10 months or so.

43:20Daniel Storey: It could be, I mean, the issue that Real Madrid have had for the past 18 months or so is how Vinicius operates in all this. And he has, whenever Mbappe doesn't play, he then does not just step up to the plate, but he's given the opportunity and the structure where it's slightly more based around him. Real Madrid should not be getting through this tie based on any sort of current form. However, I just think that if they're a little bit more, Madrid and Europe are always Madrid and Europe, and you can never rule them out. But I think if they're just a little bit more, they have a bit more humility in their play, which I think they will do with the absentees that they have.

43:54Daniel Storey: And they can adapt within that to play a more reactive game. I just think Manchester City, they're not the Man City of old either. They're not going to be able to overwhelm teams as they did in sort of the great Pep Guardiola sides. So it'll be a little bit more hit and miss. I still think City are favourites, but Madrid, if they can rejig it a bit, I just never want to rule them out. I just don't want to do it because how many times do they pull it out of the hat and, you know, appoint Zinedine Zidane in the next couple of weeks for the second leg and he'll see them through to the final and lift the trophy above his head again.

44:26Liam Twomey: Wow, what an extraordinary scenario, Colin. We'll talk more about that game when we get Paul Boulousson and discuss La Liga in the Euro show on Tuesday. Liverpool, of course, we haven't mentioned their FA Cup game. That happened last Friday. They went to Wolves, according to Arnest Slott. They had pretty much the same performance as their previous one, which saw them defeated by the bottom team in the Premier League. Only this time they won. Was the biggest difference the fact that Rio Ungamoa played?

44:54James Richardson: He's just really direct. He's everything that Liverpool need. They need someone to break between those lines and to back themselves to run from midfield, not just to the edge of the box for a shot, a la Gravenbisch or Sobislai or McAllister, but to actually carry the ball that forward, to create overlap so that when he passes the ball to someone, they don't just have a defender staring right at them. And it makes Liverpool look better. It also scares defences, so they drop deep. There's no coincidence that when he drives at you, defenders sit deeper, Andy Robertson gets an extra half second on the edge of the box, Curtis Jones gets an extra half second on the edge of the box, and Liverpool score twice from outside the area.

45:35James Richardson: Like, if teams are scared of you, teams haven't been scared of Liverpool this season, They used to be scared of Mohamed Salah driving at you. That doesn't really happen. There was a little bit of time when they were scared of Cody Gakpo, but that doesn't really happen anymore. I don't think he's in particularly good form at all. So, yeah, it just gives you something different to think about. We said it a couple of weeks ago. It has to be a meritocracy if Slott's going to keep that job beyond this summer because he's going to have to prove that he can bring through players and drop big players.

46:04James Richardson: And, yeah, Salah got his goalie. He looked reason bright, although the offside was really touch and go. So, yeah, it was all about Ngomou and I thought Curtis James was really good as well.

46:13Colin Millar: Just going to add on Rio Ngomou, every time that we see him, the more we see him now, it becomes more clear why Chelsea were so furious that Liverpool managed to prise him away. Because you look at the money that Chelsea have spent on their left wing position alone just last summer with Garnaccio, who's playing better in the last couple of weeks, and Jamie Gittins, who's injured now, so it's unfair to judge him, but he hadn't really done a lot before then. Ngomoua, I mean people were talking about him in Chelsea's academy for years I heard about him long before I saw him that's how much of a talking point he was at Cobham and he looks like he's got a higher ceiling than I think both of those guys and most wingers in the world

46:55Liam Twomey: Excellent, good news for Liverpool they have Galiz Asaray on Tuesday away Istanbul of course is a special, special destination for that club very good very high

47:09Colin Millar: variance team in terms of performance on the evidence of the last round

47:12Liam Twomey: the Juventus tie was an intriguing one they absolutely

47:15Colin Millar: destroyed them at home so if Liverpool get that version of them it could be quite tricky but they absolutely collapsed in Turin

47:22Liam Twomey: Galiz Astray have beaten Liverpool once already back in the league phase 1-0 in Istanbul but you just don't know what you're going to get if only there was some easy pop culture metaphor for that anyway while we ponder on that let's move on next having concluded, I think, all of the FA Cup fixtures thus far. West Ham Prep for coming up on Monday. But also this weekend we had the Old Firm game, which Colin's going to be telling us about. And we're also very shortly going to touch on what's going on at Spurs Part 67.

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50:32Liam Twomey: Taker Fnatic says, I haven't seen it, but were the scenes of the old firm game ugly or were they scenes that we really want to see? Colin, tell us about what happened at the end of this latest clash between Rangers and Celtic.

50:46Daniel Storey: Yeah, I think a lot of the ugly scenes were actually during the 120 minutes of football that were in this match.

50:52Liam Twomey: How many goals were there in the 120 minutes? Zero.

50:54Daniel Storey: No goals. You want to know how many shots on target Celtic had? How many shots on target

50:58Liam Twomey: were there? Zero.

50:59Daniel Storey: No shots on target? No, from Celtic they weren't. They had one shot off target in the 120 minutes. They did have a goal disallowed in the first half. Okay. It was a header, it was offside. Rangers also had a disallowed goal in extra time for a very obvious handball from a corner. But this game was really, really egregiously bad. and so Celtic had a bit of an excuse they have quite a few players out injured Kieran Tierney and Callum McGregor were both missing for this match and the pattern of this game was essentially the Rangers had a lot of possession a lot of the ball in the middle of the pitch up to the Celtic penalty area but just didn't know how to break them down and it had a really really poor affair and I think Daniel might have been at the 0-0 earlier in the season the league match at Ibrox which was whenever Russell Martin and Brendan Rodgers were both still in charge a long long time ago for both clubs now and that was a similarly dreadful experience.

51:53Daniel Storey: And the thing about this game was it had to have a winner. It had to go all the way to penalties and Rangers penalties were pretty poor. Celtic won 4-2. And this game was at Ibrox and obviously Celtic had the cup away allocation rather than the league away allocation. So for this fixture there have been a number of years I haven't been any away fans at all essentially due to the police decisions and everything else that goes into this game. was not an easy one to please, as you can imagine. But there were 7 ,500, I think, Celtic fans for this one. So they had the entirety of the stand behind the goal on the left side.

52:29Daniel Storey: And upon winning the match, there was maybe 100, 150 or so fans got onto the pitch. They were initially celebrating with the players, people taking selfies with Martin O 'Neill and a couple of players. But, I mean, naturally that is a bit of a red flag to a bull situation. And the police sort of came onto the pitch, but also a lot of Rangers fans started spilling onto the pitch at this point. And now this game is broadcast on Premier Sports in the UK. It doesn't show you anything. We didn't see any particular scenes of violence apart from there was one flare from, I think, Rangers fans that was launched into the Celtic fans.

53:05Liam Twomey: Right, and launched back. It seemed to be the same flare that was going back and forth. Yeah, you saw a light tennis. But did we not also see one of the Celtic staff who seemed to be, I don't want to say attacked, but it seems that there'd been physical contact between a Rangers fan and one of the Celtic assistant managers.

53:22Daniel Storey: I think so. So this was a little bit unclear and nobody, I think Martin O 'Neill was asked about this after the game and he didn't really want to get drawn into anything because it could be a police situation but I don't think there was anything overly nasty actually occurred. I think it was stopped before it did. I mean, obviously, this could have got, had the two sets of fans actually have met on the pitch, it could have been a lot, lot worse than what it was.

53:43Liam Twomey: Well done to the stewards who, who, while the Celtic fans were kind of goading the Rangers fans behind the line, the two lines of stewards managed to keep them separated. Take a fanatic's point about was it the kind of scenes he actually quite liked to see or not. I think the fact that there was a kind of a squadron of Rangers fans dressed in black with balaclavas on, marching one way and then the other, gave the whole scene a bit of an unpleasant edge.

54:14James Richardson: I was going to say that the reason to not want to see it is that it almost, as Colin alluded to, fans were banned for quite a long time in that fixture. It seems almost certain now that this will provoke another ban on away fans, given that both sets of supporters were able to get onto the pitch and were aiming to meet on that pitch. I suspect we're in for another season of home fans only, which is a real shame because it's a brilliant game to watch sometimes. But the occasion is made infinitely worse by not having away fans in the ground. So it's a shame that that will almost certainly not happen again next season.

54:50Daniel Storey: The thing about Scottish football is it does have a bit of a different fan culture than English football does for a number of reasons. But there are prominent altering groups at clubs. And I think that was driven, the sort of union bearers, the Rangers, fans and Celtic screen would be great as well so that is kind of the backdrop to why it's a little bit different than matches in England where it's not quite as organised as that may be.

55:13Colin Millar: I just can't get over the notion of catching a flare and throwing it back.

55:18Liam Twomey: It might not have been the same flare but I kind of think it was I think you can do that I can't imagine that being your impulse Well, have you not seen, and maybe this is more from my kind of background in Italian football if a flare is thrown onto a field that often a player will kick or throw it back in.

55:36Daniel Storey: And obviously as well, players would come in to be lit whenever the goals are scored. You know, there weren't any. So there's quite a few left over for any... Very good point.

55:44Liam Twomey: Very good point. That was in the Scottish Cup quarterfinals. So Celtic goes through to the semi, where they'll face going, Colin, do you know?

55:51Daniel Storey: I don't know who they'll face, but Falkirk and Dunfermline have been confirmed as you've got two of the other semi-finalists. But yeah, these Celtic and Rangers teams are historically pretty low quality, I would say. So it's still wide open.

56:04Liam Twomey: All right. Historically low quality takes us on nicely to our next bit of chat. One other Premier League side in Champions League action this week, a Premier League side for now at least, Tottenham Hotspur. Since our last show, they slumped to yet another defeat. 3-1 Thursday at home to Crystal Palace to sum things up. They're now a point above the drop. They've lost five games in a row. They've got the worst home record of any side not named Sheffield Wednesday in English football. And they've got Atletico Madrid arriving on Wednesday. Jay Harris joins us now. Jay, thank you so much for joining us.

56:38Liam Twomey: It's my absolute pleasure. Post-Thursday's defeat, you wrote, appointing Eagle Tudor has backfired. Tottenham look more toxic than ever.

56:49James Richardson: Yeah, I'm not really too sure how this has come to pass. There are some very grim statistics that you just read out there. one I want to add on is they've lost five games in a row in the Premier League for the first time since November 2004 so this is really unprecedented levels of badness for want of a better term and in terms of Tudor's appointment he was obviously brought in to stabilise the team he's got a track record of quickly fixing broken teams Udinese, Lazio, Juventus and I thought he'd give this team a little bit more defensive structure but throughout all three of his games in charge the defending's been comical it seems like there's a bit of an attitude or a discipline issue with the players there's still a lot of tension and frustration and during Thursday daytime I just felt like there had to be a reaction to what happened on Wednesday evening with West Ham winning and Nottingham Forest drawing a point above the relegation zone surely that's going to give you the proverbial kick up the backside and make Spurs realise we're in a really difficult spot here we need to start winning games we've got Anfield or a trip to Liverpool Anfield on the horizon and so for Spurs to play the way they did for Mickey Van de Ven the captain to get sent off when their actual captain Romero's already serving a ban yes they went 1-0 up but they were very lucky to not go a goal behind because Ishmael Dasar's goal was was offside and it felt like I was just looking at a club which is a couple of weeks ago I would have said sleepwalking towards relegation but now it almost feels like they're free falling there's no form the atmosphere was horrendous there were fans shouting at club analysts shouting towards the director's box people leaving at half time just a real disconnect and I never felt like Tudor was the perfect appointment they probably should have done a Manchester United brought in someone like Michael Carrick a connection to the club someone who could galvanize the fan base the team Tudor was the option they went for and I know it's ludicrous to say that after three games a manager has been put in a difficult position and the club should consider his position but I do just think this is where Spurs find themselves someone who has no affiliation to the club he's committed to this back free system which hasn't worked and he is sort of publicly calling out the players in there's been no reaction or response so that's a really long whining answer but I just think there are so many things going wrong with Spurs.

59:20James Richardson: It's very hard to sum up in a quick 60 seconds. So that's the best I can give you.

59:25Liam Twomey: Well, yeah, there's plenty more where that came from. Do you think then that rather than a new manager bounce, it's time for the new manager to bounce, as it were? What are his chances of making it through this week, do you think?

59:39James Richardson: I think he will stick around. There's obviously an international break coming up in a couple of weeks. So maybe that will be the actual time for Spurs to consider whether they stick or twist. They've got a game on Tuesday night, like you mentioned, against Atletico Madrid away. Obviously, if they suffer a really humbling defeat there, the pressure is only going to increase. I think they need to try and salvage some sort of result against Liverpool at Anfield, which again is going to be very difficult. But I think now all the focus has to be on Nottingham Forest at home on March 22nd. because if Tudor doesn't get a result out of Liverpool or Nottingham Forest, then I think he probably does have to go because after the international break, more players should return from injury, including Mohamed Koudos.

1:00:23James Richardson: And maybe that's the time where you do bring in someone who's a little bit more connected to the club and just say, look, you've got, what would it be, seven games to save the season, a few players back from injury. Everybody's had time, a couple of weeks to refresh and decompress. And we just got to absolutely go for it.

1:00:38Liam Twomey: It's someone with a gilet, isn't it, Jay? That's who you're talking about.

1:00:42James Richardson: Oh, of course. Someone with a gilet or someone who is known as a bit of a wheeler and a dealer on deadline day.

1:00:49Liam Twomey: Boom. Spurs have got options. Will they take them? Jay, thank you so much for popping in on a Sunday evening for that update on Crisis Club Tottenham Hotspur. Look forward to catching up with you with happier tidings soon.

1:01:03James Richardson: Hopefully. Let's speak soon.

1:01:08Liam Twomey: Daniel's story, just hearing from Jay Harris there. You write, my prediction is that Ryan Mason keeps Spurs up, which is an objectively insane to think seriously, even if it's totally wrong. I'm not sure. There's a lot of clauses in that. Tell us more.

1:01:25James Richardson: Well, I said I didn't get the Tudor appointment at all. I think I said he must have the best agent in football or something like that, which is... Yeah, and I just didn't get it. I know he'd done OK jobs as interims elsewhere, but bringing in someone completely cold with no connection to the club, no connection to the league even, just felt like such an extraordinary gamble. And it's gone as bad as I thought it would, which is that they look absolutely terrible, that his Sergeant Major stuff makes absolutely no difference. And I think they should have, at the time, gone for someone who they knew the club and was going to be able to kind of maybe repair some parts.

1:02:03James Richardson: Ryan Mason had been sacked by West Brom. he'd not done very well this season although they have done worse since but he has managed the club twice before as an interim and done okay doing it it just seemed to make more sense than me given that there were at least a few controllables you could kind of feel that you had whereas yeah now they're going to have to I mean if they get beaten heavily by Atletico and or Liverpool they're going to have to make a change because no supporter they lose those two games heavily will think that he is going to there was a big uptick in performance I still don't think they'll go down but that's more about me not quite getting my head around it rather than when you watch them play, you become very quickly convinced.

1:02:41James Richardson: And yeah, I just think they should have gone for someone like Mason then. I'm not saying he was in any way a long-term answer, but when you've got people talking about people like Glenn Hoddle and Harry Redknapp and Tim Sherwood, I think it becomes a more logical shout.

1:02:54Liam Twomey: Wow.

1:02:55James Richardson: And yeah, I think he would have repaired parts that Tudor looks set on kind of burning to the ground.

1:03:00Liam Twomey: All right. Tim Sherwood, who was talking about this, saying that he feels that the players need a cuddle. Colin, you take a very different view. Again, you've written, these players think they are too good for Thomas Frank. They think they are too good. This is your voice. For Igor Tudor, they are too good for their teammates. They're too good for Tottenham. There are players in the squad who genuinely think they could play for Madrid or Barcelona. The entitlement is mad.

1:03:23Daniel Storey: Yeah.

1:03:24Liam Twomey: And that's why they're going down, you reckon?

1:03:27Daniel Storey: It's a big part of it. Yeah, it's a big, big part of it. I think I've been saying for weeks that Tottenham are a genuine relegation candidate. I didn't think that they would get this bad this quickly under Igor Tudor, but they have. I think they've gone from being just the worst team in form in the division to being a team who you just don't know where they're not even going to get a win from, but a point from. That match on Thursday against Crystal Palace, it was almost like you were watching this film with all these scenes of fans and the director of this game. I don't know who it was, but he had a phenomenal job of picking out fans who looked like they were having a personal crisis of what was going on on the pitch.

1:04:04Colin Millar: I do feel like if they go down, it may end the meme industry. Like the number of clips that will be generated from the stands just based on what we saw against Crystal Palace.

1:04:15Daniel Storey: They were just so, so bad in that match. They were so fortunate to be 1-0 up after the offside goal at the other end and then to collapse so dramatically, so quickly, it was as bad as you can get. The one thing I will say on Igor Tudor, is that he had been, this is according to the information from people who will know, that Igor Tudor had been a name floated earlier in the season whenever Fabio Paratici, who's now at Fiorentina, had been in place at Tottenham. And Igor Tudor was a guy who's like, you know, if things do go south quickly under Thomas Frank, we might look at him. And the club were like, look, he doesn't really fit anything to what we want to do.

1:04:52Daniel Storey: And then when Thomas Frank does get sacked, there was no contingency plan. There was no, the club had never thought they were going to sack him to begin with. at that point in the season. They never thought, who are we going to bring in? And then all of a sudden it goes back to Igor Tudor. And he is a bad fit. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt about that. But yeah, the players, as I say, and there maybe are one or two players you could see playing potentially for Barcelona or Madrid in a team who dominate possession. But if you're in a scrap that Tottenham are in, I don't see it at all. They're not who you want as teammates in this situation.

1:05:21Liam Twomey: Palace fans chanting, say hello to Millwall on Tuesday night before any come up. Yeah, they could go up. Well, in which case... Everyone could be saying hello to Millwall. That's true, apart from Spurs, conceivably, if you follow me. Before any of such considerations, of course, Spurs' next fixture sees them travel to the Civitas Metropolitano on Wednesday, I believe, to take on Atletico Madrid. The crazy thing about all this is that with all of their problems, Spurs finished above almost everybody in the Champions League. they beat who did they beat they beat Borussia Dortmund they beat Eintracht Frankfurt Villarreal Villarreal as well

1:06:05Daniel Storey: again all those teams are teams well first of all I'll show you the strength of the Premier League but all those teams also kind of struggled separately maybe apart from Dortmund but Dortmund had a player sent off earlier in that game I think Tottenham were a better team at that point of the season than they are now they also support

1:06:20Colin Millar: your big time Charlie's theory that it's a Champions League right let's show what we can do we'll turn up for it yeah The one thing I would say on Tottenham, I'd say the scenario that everyone connected with Tottenham has to be really scared of is that they go to Chelsea on the penultimate game week of the season. And I think every Chelsea fan who will be in that stadium will be hoping that there's a possibility that they can relegate Tottenham.

1:06:46Daniel Storey: And also, I think every neutral fan is watching Tottenham games now, thinking, isn't this a great story if they go down? Because everyone, I think, now believes it. and that's the thing, that this is such a big story. It's such a big club in the context of possible relegation from the Premier League that this spotlight and the scrutiny is like the other club has been in in recent times.

1:07:06Liam Twomey: I don't know if neutrals actually want Spurs to go down because Premier League without Tottenham would be significantly less enjoyable, I think, for any number of positive and negative reasons. But there's no question that the car crash energy of this is really quite dramatic and looks set to only increase. Although we'll see. We'll see what happens midweek against Atletico and maybe this weekend off with the players has been exactly what Igor Tudor needed. Daniel, before we leave things today, I really should have mentioned this before, especially because today is International Women's Day, but you went to see the Lionesses at the city ground against Iceland.

1:07:50James Richardson: Yeah, so this is World Cup qualifying for 2027 in Brazil. It's a mad old, it's sort of like the old Series C playoff format where if you can work it out, you win a prize. Basically, they are in a group, they try to make qualifying more hard, so they're in a group with Spain. The group will come down to that and the other games are against Iceland and Ukraine. They beat Ukraine 6-1 away last week. They beat Iceland 2-0 at the city ground on Saturday lunchtime. Iceland only had one shot. It was England being really, really wasteful. But there is something really nice about, and I'm really glad that they've made the decision with the Lionesses to tour them during this World Cup qualifying because, you know, it was a sellout crowd at the City ground.

1:08:34James Richardson: I walked through, I went out in Nottingham at like four hours after the game at like half six and there were still England fans everywhere, kind of drinking on the streets. It was great. And yeah, a very routine home win. And yeah, it'll come down to those Spain games. Second in the group goes into a playoff, which, you know, the team in that playoff will be far less than England or Spain. So they will still qualify even if they don't. But it's good to have two games against Spain in qualifying to kind of see where they're at.

1:09:02Daniel Storey: And Daniel, correct me if I'm wrong, but under Serena Vigman, a lot of the criticism is it. Well, I don't even know if it is a criticism, really. But outside of the major tournaments, the results and the performances tend to fluctuate quite wildly. when they get into the knockout stages they tend to be sort of relentlessly consistent in what they do

1:09:21James Richardson: Yeah, they are a kind of souped up version of Southgate's England in that they laboured their way through a tournament but that won their penalty shootout to win the tournament They are quite laboured It is the same personnel as well Lucy Bronze scored the opening goal there's talk about whether she'll still be there in 2027 Lauren James was the game's best player She's in this bizarre situation where she's played I think she's played 10 club games in the last 11 months for Chelsea. She's been injured a bit. She's been in and out of the team. And yet she starts for England because she's England's best attacking player when she's on it.

1:09:55James Richardson: And she was on it on Saturday. So there's this, yeah, it is quite, that makes it more important. I think that they journey the team around the country because I think it's quite easy with the Lionesses to kind of get into a situation where you just notice a lot of people in the country, who just noticed them on the eve of a major tournament rather than in between. So, yeah, it was a full-strength team and they only beat Aysen 2-0 because they were really wasteful. They had 31 shots. But, yeah, those games against Spain will be massive and it will be interesting to see where Wiedemann goes. She's been really against bringing in kind of new talent to the team.

1:10:29James Richardson: It's the same old players pretty much, particularly in the final third. So we'll see.

1:10:33Liam Twomey: We'll see. Daniel, thank you so much for bringing things to conclusion on a nice positive note after some of the more troublesome stories we've been touching on. Thanks for all your input today. Lovely to see you there in your haunted attic, beloved of our YouTube viewers. Many thanks to anyone who was tuning in today and got in touch, especially Defenestration, who was busy. One last one from here. It says Spurs' Team Shong should be the sad version of Mad World by Gary Jules. That works, doesn't it? anyway Liam Toomey have a great trip to Paris Colin enjoy whatever it is you're doing midweek we've got of course an extra show on Wednesday morning with Tuesday's Champions League action and then one on Thursday morning doing the same for the Wednesday games and so on and so forth and before all of that the Euros show on Tuesday anyway loads of Totally Football show coming up hope you've enjoyed it many thanks to Jake and Charlie we'll speak to you soon bye bye

1:11:36James Richardson: you've been listening to the totally football show part of the athletic fc podcast network for other great podcasts just like this one including the athletic fc and our dedicated club podcasts search for the athletic in all the usual places we're also at the totally show on insta and at the totally show on youtube the totally football show is an athletic media company production

1:12:02Colin Millar: The Athletic FC.

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