England on the brink, Scotland’s miserable wins + Dyche to Forest?

0:00The Athletic FC

0:30And catch up on the women's game, a Manchester United side that wins and a Barcelona team that's even more brilliant this year. It's all in this Totally Football show.

0:43Monday 13th of October, listener, thank you so much for joining us. Hello, viewer. If you're catching us on YouTube, and why wouldn't you? Because we look splendid here today. Mark Carey. Morning, James. Nice to see you. You too. Tom Williams here as well. Hello, James. With a hot train ticket burning a hole in his pocket. Oh, yes. And also on our biggest of screens, Matt Davis-Adams. Hello, James. Hi, Matt. Matt's on a slight delay of run. Hello, Matt. Or is he? Is he? Longer thing in time. He's just given us the Davina treatment. Oh, I see. I hear that's part of Matt's armoury these days. Just add a soupçon of suspense by delaying your responses just a little bit longer than people would expect.

1:23I respect it. Why not? Add a dash of danger to your social interactions. is that right yes it's actually terrifying if we do this all day you'll miss your train to cardiff to see wales taking on belgium tonight monday tonight as we record yes wales belgium aka the big one and potentially another historic uh night for wales against belgium historic in the sense of shipping three goals in the first 20 minutes type historic for i mean hopefully a different kind of history. We're hoping it's going to be more the kind of beating Belgium and qualifying, knocking them out of Euro 2016 vibe rather than, yeah.

2:02Okay, you can't actually, you stroke Wales, can't actually qualify this Monday evening against Belgium. The situation in that group with North Macedonia on top, Belgium in second, a point behind and a point behind them. Wales, that's correct? Yes, but Wales can take control of their qualifying destiny with a victory. We're at the destiny stage of the group. This after Belgium only drew 0-0 with group leaders North Macedonia on Friday despite having 78 possession and 25 shots. North Macedonia no shots on target and next year 0.06. So you've got Belgium tonight and to what extent is your confidence shaken by what Mark witnessed at Wembley on Thursday against England?

2:47It was just friendly. You could go down that route, I suppose. And Craig Bellamy after the game did say just how much... I don't believe in friendlies. Yeah, also that exactly, yeah, but also how much he learnt from the game and how much they will take things from the game and not just treat it as a bit of a one to push to one side. What do you think Craig learnt from the game? I think well, he said before the game that they weren't prepared to sit back and just let England come onto them and die a slow death. We're going to be pressing high, which they did and got picked apart a little bit. Against Belgium, I was looking at the Belgian team, and yes, they've still got quality, but I don't think they have the same quality that England do, such that Wales would probably have confidence that they can implement the style that Bellamy wants to against Belgium and have a bit more success, I would suggest.

3:38I know that you've got to still be careful with Kevin De Bruyne on the ball, Jeremy Doku on the sides with his dribbling ability, but I do think it won't be done within 20 minutes as it was on Thursday. I see. Matt, did you see Thursday's England-Wales performance? 3-0 to the Lions. I sure did. I stuck with it for more than an hour until I thought, why am I still watching this? This is a friendly that was finished 20 minutes after it started. But yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because Craig Bellarmine and Wales more generally got a bit of criticism for, I think, picking this friendly before such a big game against Belgium.

4:13one that was always likely to end in defeat, albeit maybe not be over so quickly as it was. But then what's the better thing to do? You know, Belgium obviously played North Macedonia and didn't beat them a game that, although North Macedonia are top of that group, I'm sure they would have expected to win. So if Bellamy did manage to take something from that game, then maybe it's not the worst preparation for it. And I guess what he would say was, well, we did manage to find a solution to stop England scoring goals. So not a total negative to take into this game, but it's just Wales-Belgium, isn't it?

4:46I mean, it wouldn't be an international break without Wales playing Belgium in some form or fashion. I think it's the sixth meeting in the last four and a half years. They did go more than 50 years without playing one another. But yeah, every time you think of international football and qualification, you think of Wales-Belgium. Kevin De Bruyne was pretty fed up of it, wasn't he, a few years ago, and they've probably played another five times since then. Crikey, Tom. Wales did at least silence the Wembley crowd, much to Thomas Tuchus' chagrin. I mean, well, the funny thing about that is that the Wembley crowd does a very good job of silencing itself, regardless of what's happening on the pitch.

5:22I mean, I have been to more sleepy England home games, both friendlies and qualifying matches, than I care to remember. And the atmosphere is pretty much always the same and always has been, because there is no jeopardy. Obviously, there's no jeopardy in friendly matches. There's very seldom any jeopardy in qualifying matches for England these days, particularly with the expansion of all the major tournaments, making it even easier for them to qualify. And you get a different kind of crowd, you know, more families going, you know, more tourists going, things like that. And there aren't many international stadiums, particularly in European football, that, you know, are renowned for being a bear pit when it comes to international football.

6:01I mean, I was amused that that was what made the headlines afterwards because England had been very impressive and Wales had been. pretty wretched. It would be interesting to see if there's any kind of reaction, but I think Tuchel maybe hasn't quite grasped that really dreadful atmospheres are just kind of part of Wembley's fabric. Right. Much akin to Mauricio Pochettino with the US Men's National Team. Tuchel's got an interesting line in national team management diplomacy, eh? P*** off your major player. Have a go at the home fans. Matt? Yeah, I mean, and this is what he's able to do, right? because he's here for a good time, not a long time.

6:39So he doesn't need to ingratiate himself with the support particularly. And the only way that he's really going to do that is by winning the World Cup. But I mean, this is an argument for playing these types of games, not at Wembley, I suppose. You know, we saw what the atmosphere was like when England toured around the country all those years ago, regardless of the game state, the opponent, whether it was a competitive game or a friendly, always felt like it was much more of an occasion. whereas at Wembley it's all a bit stayed these days isn't it you can see why the FA want to play there because they're pretty much guaranteed to get a sellout no matter who the opponent are and they don't have to give any money to the club whose stadium it is etc but this is just an inevitable by-product of it but I really I mean I'm a big Thomas Tuchel fan anyway but I really like the fact that he's not here to win friends and influence people he's here to try and win the World Cup and he's got that kind of bluntness to him that means he's going to say exactly what's on his mind and if he thinks that jude bellingham's not the best player to help him win a particular game then he's not going to pick him it was funny he rode back a little bit in the the post-match presser because he said what he said in the the post-match interviews and it was it ended up you know getting around that the journalists that that's what he said and it was the first question that was asked to him after they'd had a comprehensive 3-0 victory a really good performance in his eyes and he said immediately after he was asked it he said that's that's your first question that's what you're going to ask okay i suppose it's a good opportunity to address it and he did row back a little bit and complimented England for their away support in recent games and I'm sure that the Latvia game will be filled with the similar sort of atmosphere as it has been previously however I just would have liked to have seen I think he said I would like to have seen the roof come off with how we were playing in the first 20-25 minutes I was expecting that so I think it was maybe his I don't know maybe the comms guy England maybe just saying like okay well maybe just still give the positive vibe because we're doing so well on the pitch.

8:30Don't mar it now. I don't know whether that was necessarily the case, but it felt like he did row back ever so slightly in the minutes that followed. Quite possibly. Probably going to have a roof-off style atmosphere scenario tonight in Cardiff. Yeah, Wales obviously got a fantastic record at the Cardiff City Stadium in recent years. And we have previous, when it comes to beating Belgium in home qualifiers, albeit it was now 10 years ago, But June 2015, beat Belgium 1-0, a Gareth Bale goal in the first half, a key staging post on the path to Euro 2016, where, of course, we eliminated Belgium in the quarterfinals, which I may have mentioned on this podcast before.

9:06And we do have a decent record against Belgium. You know, some of the players already have been talking about the atmosphere, what to expect, that the fact they'll have to try and, you know, try and shut that out. and on paper Belgium are clearly favourites but I think with the kind of culture that the Welsh FA has created in recent years the fact that generally speaking results under Craig Bellamy have been very positive I think it means that there will be a huge amount of optimism and a huge amount of expectation and yeah, fingers crossed we absolutely destroy them. Are you going as a fan or are you working Tom?

9:41I am going as a fan. Whoa. Yeah, also went to the reverse fixture in June when Wales fell 3-0 down, rallied to make it 3-3, and then conceded a Kevin De Bruyne goal right at the death. So we owe them one as well. OK. You going to sing the anthem? Of course. Want to give us a bit now? Really? We'll move on. Results. I feel like I've sung enough on this podcast in the past. That's so true. Since our last show, two more nations have booked their places at USA stroke Mexico stroke Canada 2026. Catchy. We're going to have to come up with something better than that. World Cup 26. World Cup 26. But I mean, it's always got the country name in there.

10:24Historically. Someone needs to come up with a kind of a catchy The Americas. Portmanteau. The Americas? I don't know. World Cup, maybe. I mean, we can, you know. What did 2002 have? Because 2002 was kind of shit. What would you have described that one as? People just called it Japan Korea, didn't they? Unsatisfying You've got Tex-Mex You're thinking of something like Yeah Tex-Mex And then Is there a Canadian thing That rhymes with Mex I'm sure we'll find one I'm sure we will Can Statesico Can Statesico I like it man Decent contender The best we've got so far Algeria and Ghana Are the nations Algeria Who beat Somalia 3-0 Ghana had a 1-0 win Against Comoros And through they go In Europe This week Could see France, Switzerland Portugal and England So up there spots.

11:10England on Tuesday against Latvia. Wales, we've heard all about them. Scotland, they're in an interesting position. Two wins from two in the last few days means it's between them and Denmark in Group B. The Danes are ahead by a significant margin on goal difference and they meet in November. It's even tighter for Northern Ireland because in their group, it's a three-way tie between them, Germany and Slovakia. A Monday night Northern Ireland host, Germany. Woof. The Republic of Ireland's hopes all but over after their 1-0 defeat away at Portugal. A late, late Ruben Neves goal after Cristiano Ronaldo missed from the spot.

11:48But their chance is all but done. They need to beat Armenia at home on Tuesday. The Republic, too, have any chance of making it into a playoff spot. Elsewhere, Switzerland, Spain and Norway continue their perfect starts. Austria made everyone sit up and take notice on Friday by putting 10 goals past San Marino. They then made everybody sit up and take notice a few days later by losing 1-0 in Romania. Italy, looking mighty fine under Rino Gattuso. They won all three games under the growling man and scoring lots of goals. 13 so far, the latest one being a 3-1 against Estonia. Estonia's goal, not sure if you saw it.

12:24It was a horrific Donnarumma spill. One to forget. And a 3-0 up for Italy, so no jeopardy. And a very eminently claimable cross comes in from the Estonian left And he just drops it Drops it and it bounces in Calamitous Drops it and the Estonian attacker nearest him pokes it in That's a fair description Decent opportunism but concerning Also of note in this international break, the Faroe Islands They beat Montenegro 4-0 And then, in what's being hailed as the finest result of their entire footballing history beat the Czech Republic. They're rivals for a playoff spot in their group 2-1.

13:22Dolly Flopper writes in and says, Faroe Islands have won back-to-back games. Why can't Manchester United? It's a fair question. It really is. It's not one we're going to get into right now, but in terms of the Faroe Islands, brackets, 54 ,719 people, an archipelago in an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, located between Iceland, Norway and the United Kingdom in the northern Atlantic Ocean. They do have an outside chance of making it to the World Cup, where obviously, Mark, they would be far and away the smallest entity to ever reach that tournament. Current high water mark or small population mark is Iceland with about 400 ,000.

13:59but they're about a tenth of that. Yeah, I watched the goals back from the game against Czechia and there was some terrible defending from Czechia's part. It was wide open for the Fero-Wallens to score and it was some well-taken goals as well. But yeah, there was some terrible defending to go along with that. But it is remarkable just how such a low population in general and then the selection to choose from, as you mentioned, the pool to choose from is astonishing. I actually have a friend when I did my PhD, I had someone who was from the Faroe Islands and we played football every Tuesday afternoon.

14:34And we joked with him that given the population of his country, he probably got to a good standard in the Faroe Islands and he sort of laughed along. It took us about a month to two months to realise he actually played to a half decent level, played a Champions League qualifier and had to mark Nicholas Inelka. No way. Against Fenerbahce. Such was. He was a good footballer. He was as good as your eye. But it was just remarkable how high you can get, and then you think about international football on top of that. I believe that they have 15 ,000 kind of eligible males for the national side, which is, I mean, it's not no one, but it's not.

15:09It is a small pool. It's a small pool. One of the smallest of all the pools. I also briefly watched the highlights. First goal was really nicely created, scored by Hannes Sorensen, who celebrated with a knee slide on an artificial pitch. I noticed that he regretted it immediately. Which I always think is punchy and ill-advised. If you're going to celebrate a goal with a knee slide on an artificial pitch, you want to make sure it's a goal that is relatively important. You definitely want to make sure it's a goal that is not going to be immediately ruled out by VAR because that would be particularly annoying.

15:44But, I mean, fair play. He absolutely nailed it. Can Faroe Islands make it to the World Cup? Well, maybe. The Faroe Islands' final game is against Croatia. At the same time, or in the same break, Chechia will be up against bottom side of that group, Gibraltar. If the Faroe Islands can better Chechia's result, because they're level on goal difference, then they'll be through. And in the draw, where potentially, if they draw Egypt, we could have the dream, the Faroes playing Egypt. We live in hope. We live in hope. Excellent. Well, that all adds up to a pretty exciting international break so far.

16:21We'll get on to some of those stories a little bit more in depth next. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. We touched on England's performance against Wales. Any thoughts ahead of the clash with Latvia? Harry Kane, is he still scheduled to be back? Matt, what are you looking forward to seeing on Tuesday night? Yeah, I think there's still some questions for Thomas Tuchel to answer. I would expect Harry Kane to come back. And full-backs, the other big thing I think that Thomas Tuchel needs to sort out. Obviously, Rhys James pulled out late of this squad.

16:53He's very much Tuchel's man for right-back, but has his own history of injury problems. We've got, what, Esri Konza and Jed Spence starting against Wales. So a right-footed left-back and a centre-back at right-back. So interesting to see what he comes up with in order to work his way around that. It feels like not that long ago when people were making an entire England XI out of right-backs and now you've got, what, Trent dropped, slashed, injured. Liveramento, who's played at left-back, but is usually a right-back, also injured. Walker Trippier, too old. Wan-Bissakri was in the conversation for a while, switched to Congo.

17:28So problems there. And yeah, other than, well, Myles Lewis-Skelly was kind of the first choice at left-back for England, wasn't he? But he's not in the Arsenal team at the moment. So that's a real problem area for Tuchel. But other than that, great options pretty much all over the pitch. I think Elliot Anderson and Declan Rice seem to have established a nice combination as a pair. And they look like the first choice team midfielders for England. And then it's what he does with the number 10 position, right? And it seems that Morgan Rodgers is very firmly in possession of that shirt at the moment.

17:59Got his first England goal against Wales and feels like one of the first names on Tuchel's team sheet, which is one of these weird quirks of international football when you get players that just seem to fit either the manager's style or the international game. Generally, obviously, Rodgers had a really difficult start to the season for Aston Villa, but he's kind of like, I don't know, Gareth Southgate's Harry Maguire or Sven Joran Eriksson's Emil Heskey in that he's a player who just seems to be picked consistently by his national manager. Just wonder if he's going to need to pay reparations to Cole Palmer for using the old cold celebration now that Palmer has trademarked Cole Palmer for his own personal use, including the selling of bath salts, which does that really work for cold?

18:43I'm not so sure. If you're having a cold bath, presumably that's how it will work. They're bath salts. But are the salts going to have any kind of impact if the water's cold? Surely the water needs to be warm for the salts to take some kind of effect. I'm not an experienced bath salts guy. Maybe if you're feeling cold, you want a hot bath. But it's a really important legal issue you raise. If you register that trademark celebration and somebody else does it, do you go after them? I don't know. Mark, I think you wanted to talk about something else, though. No, just very briefly. And a further complication in all this is that Cole Palmer pinched the celebration from Morgan Rogers in the first.

19:25So I put it to you, Your Honor, that in actual precedent, this is Morgan Rogers' celebration. and, you know, Cole Palmer should probably, you know, cut him in on the deal. Well, I'm banging my gavel. That case is closed. Mark, there was something else you wanted to address. Just one more thing on Bathsalt. No, I was going to go back to what Matt said at the very start, which I thought was interesting about the fullbacks. I agree, it felt like two functional fullbacks in Jed Spence and Esri Konza. But being at the game and being so close to it on that side, the way that they were both overlapping and underlapping and dragging players, the Welsh players, away, for Bakayosaka and Anthony Gordon to get on the ball was almost like a club side.

20:09You know, you think about international football in general, Matt alluded to it, that you want to get your best players in. But a Trent Alexander-Arnold or a Rhys James wouldn't be marauding forward quite in the same way. That's not their style. They want to have the ball to feet a little bit more. But you look back at the Bakayosaka goal, the reason that he was able to get it onto his left foot and do what he did and it was a world-class finish was because of Esri Konza's underlapping run, just to drag a Welsh player away just a couple of yards to give him the space to then go and do what he did.

20:36There's so many examples of Jed Spence doing that on the left-hand side to allow Anthony Gordon to come in. But you just think, again, if Tuchel's building a team and not a set of individuals and star players, which of course England have, that are those players a good example of that where they're able to functionally perform a role, do what the team needs, not necessarily show their best attributes. I thought that was a key thing that I took from Thursday night. OK, we'll see if that continues Tuesday night in Latvia. Latvia, of course, were beaten by England. 3-0 back at the start of qualifying.

21:05Since then, they've had a pretty woeful record at home. They drew 1-1 with Albania. They lost at home to the woeful Serbia. And then they also drew 2-2 with Andorra. So let's see what the three lines can do. Scotland, meanwhile, Mark, you saw a lot, and a lot more than you'd have liked, perhaps, of their performances. Now, back-to-back wins and qualification very much in their sights. why are they getting jeered by the fans? Well the Greece game they won 3-1 against Greece and it was a bit of a backs to the wall okay we accept that we are probably not having a good performance here so we'll get the win we move on we take that against Belarus it was no we are the protagonists of this game we need to break down this team I think they're ranked 100th in the world we are at home we should be being on the front foot Belarus have been beaten 6-0 was it by Denmark a few days before?

22:01Exactly, yeah. So everything led to the idea that Scotland should be a bit more coherent, a bit more dominant, possessionally and otherwise. And even just in the first 10, 20 minutes, everyone was a bit confused. Belarus are doing quite well here. Belarus are the protagonists in this game. What's going on? Scotland were really slow out of the blocks. Such that Scotland went on to win that game. They went 2-0 up and there was a late goal from Belarus. So again, another win. Everything should be positive in results. terms. A 1-0, there was also a Belarus goal disallowed by VAR. Yes, which, somewhat controversial, it was for a foul on Scott McTominay.

22:36It was the kind of goal that wouldn't have been ruled out in the Premier League, you suspect. Kind of shoulder to shoulder with a bit of extra oomph. And with that, the game could have completely changed with that alone and you don't know what Belarus would have maybe gone on to do, but two wins, but two kind of the atmosphere after was more, well, we should have been winning that game far more comfortably the performance should have been far more comfortable and both Steve Clark and all the Scotland players were pretty forthcoming in saying as much after the game which felt quite Scott McTominay particularly forth forthcoming after the game Steve Clark said I am really really disappointed as disappointed as I have been during 72 games in charge we just didn't turn up the reaction from the fans to what extent is that conditioned by memories it's great that they qualify if they qualify for a World Cup but memories of what happened last time there a tournament under Steve Clarke?

23:29Yeah, maybe that. I think so. I think that they did look a little bit stodgy. The Scotland kind of narrative is that they never do it the easy way. So there's kind of a bit of an acceptance that that is going to be the case. I think that if Scotland do qualify, I think it's well established that it would be the first time since 1998. So there does need to be a bit of a reminder, albeit with an expanded World Cup, that this is, you know, for a generation of Scotland fans this will be something that is the first time they get to see it so I think that is there's a bit of pragmatism that probably needs to be required yes they didn't perform amazingly but if the if they improve the performances between now and the summer then that's the main thing you want to you want to get for now it was just about the results right and Steve Clark did ultimately conclude with that even though he started by saying the performances weren't good we did still get six points from six okay they've got Denmark coming up in November Greece away before the Denmark game, which looks pretty key because they're level on points, but Denmark's goal difference is six goals better.

24:29Hmm. Elsewhere, Northern Ireland will be hosting Germany in a huge match on Monday night, as we mentioned. Michael O 'Neill's side coming off a 2-0 winning against Slovakia on Friday night, which has put them level with Germany and Slovakia on top of that group. Germany, who had a bit of a wobble to begin with under Julian Nagelsmann, beat Luxembourg 4-0 on Friday. They also beat Northern Ireland 3-1 in Cologne last month. Northern Ireland's chance for revenge, but it won't include Connor Bradley. Yeah, and I don't want to be too reductive because he's a player who plays Liverpool. He's now the captain as well.

25:05But because he's suspended for this game, you do think, how are they going to maybe be overly creative? I watched the highlights of this game. They were really, when they won the ball, Northern Ireland, and they were very aggressive in pushing forward and creating chances. And Conor Bradley was the one to catalyze that against Slovakia. And without him, it was a silly challenge, really. He does have a tendency to do that for his club as well. Just little challenges that aren't enough to, well, I suppose they are enough for a yellow card, but it's a bit on the fence as to whether or not it's, is it really that bad or was it just a bit clumsy?

25:38It was one of those challenges. And you could tell immediately that he regretted it. He just stuck a leg out and knew that then a yellow card obviously meant that he's out of the Germany game. So the way that Northern Ireland play and, you know, with a wing back, Conor Bradley playing as part of a wing back system, it allows him to start higher and really use his energy getting up and down. And without his quality in the team, maybe that'll be a big miss. But it'd be a big ask for Northern Ireland to get a result against Germany anyway, I think. Matt? Yeah, just to piggyback onto Mark's point there.

26:08Yeah, that will be frustrating for Arna Slott as well as it will be for Michael O 'Neill because I watched Bradley at Chelsea before the international break and he got booked in that game and got substituted at half-time because of it. So it's definitely something that he needs to be wary of and try and cut out of his game if at all possible. And just quickly on Germany, Serge Gnabry in the goals again for Germany and he is turning out to be the key beneficiary of Jamal Musiala's absence in that it looked like he would be leaving Bayern earlier this summer which obviously would have had consequences for his international career but he's ended up kind of stepping in for Musiala at club level and is now also doing it at international level Here's a question from London Guna, is there a better defence stroke midfield in international football than Dumfries, Timber, Van Dijk Van der Ven, De Jong, Gravenberg and Rheinders, that's Netherlands?

27:04I mean, on paper, it is very nice looking, but then we say this about the Dutch national team quite a lot, don't we? Results are good. Back to back, 4-0 victories over this international break against mighty Malta and fearsome Finland. They're currently three points clear of Poland on top of their group. Netherlands, sexy. Yeah, no, I watched this, the second 4-0 win against Finland and it was, yeah, pretty comprehensive. And you do, you just look at the star names exactly as you say um and then you think of someone like Memphis Depay the most prolific uh national team uh goal scorer for for the Netherlands which feels I don't know with all the incredible strikers that they've had it's probably the longevity as much as anything with Memphis Depay but him and you think of Daniel Marlon as well who started against Finland that there may be two players a bit like we were speaking about with England who you wouldn't maybe necessarily say are the they may be not in their peak or not in their best form at the moment maybe not playing all the time whatever it may be that actually when it comes to playing for their national team they they always seem to to turn up and perform well so I think we do need to get into the mindset and always have needed to get into the mindset of the fact that how a player plays for their club and how they play for their country is two different things and the systems are obviously dependent on that and certain international systems get the best out of certain players so true so true by the way it is the 13th of October as we record this which is the anniversary of Tom 13th of October I don't look it up well don't look it up Netherlands beating England 2-0 in Rotterdam in 1993 of course a game immortalized in one of the all-time great documentaries if you've never seen it please look it out I'm sure it's on YouTube do I not like that the tragic tragic comic let's go with tragic comic story of Graham Taylor's ill-fated attempts to qualify England for World Cup USA 94.

29:01Spoiler alert, it didn't go well. But Graham agreed, who was, I think, by popular consent, was about the nicest guy in football, agreed to be mic'd up for that documentary. And when he said yes, the producers could not believe it, but kind of very quickly suck a mic on him and got some just glorious, glorious dialogue. Even if he doesn't see it as a penalty, he has to go you know that I know you know it so and then the fella scores the free kick I just say to your colleague referee's got me the sack thank you never so much for that won't you do you know who played in that game for Netherlands Ronald Koeman yes clearly also Dennis Bergkamp thank you Matt no you're absolutely right but I was I was looking for Dennis Bergkamp because our last totally extra show was all about.

29:56The legendary Ajax and Arsenal and briefly inter-player as well, Dennis Bergkamp, the footballer's footballer. Well, as Johan Cruyff said, when I think of a footballer, I think of Dennis Bergkamp. There is no higher praise than that. Really isn't. Anyway, check out some of our not quite as good words about Dennis in the new Totally Extra, which is out there. Next up on this show, Quick word on some managerial moves, potentially, and then let's get stuck into some women's football.

30:35This 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, Olly Kaye and the very best football writers around. Oh my goodness, since we started recording, Matt, am I to understand there's been some big managerial news? There surely have, particularly if you are a fan of League One, because that is specifically where it has. But this is something that is a little more wide reaching, I suspect, and people will be very interested in how it goes. Because Jack Wilshire is the new Luton Town manager.

31:10His first foray into senior management, obviously on a permanent basis. At least he had a short spell at Norwich at the end of last season. He is still only 33 years old, Jack Wilshere. And this is going to be a really, really interesting slash difficult job for him, I think, because Luton have had a rotten start to the season. They're 11th in League One. They've just been beaten by Stevenage before the international break. You think it's only a couple of years ago that they were in the Premier League, but their recruitment over the summer was not good. It hasn't worked out well for them. they seem to have not spent the windfall that they got from the Premier League wisely at all so it's an interesting step for Wilshire to take I think he was pretty close to getting the Plymouth job in the summer I think he was quite disappointed that he didn't get the Norwich job having done okay in the few games that he did there but I'm interested to see that he has brought in Chris Powell vastly experienced coach as his number two I always think that's a really good idea for young managers and not enough of them do it just lean on somebody with loads and loads of experience.

32:14So yeah, really fascinating to see how he gets on. He had the spell, didn't he, in charge of Arsenal's under-18s for a while. So he has actually been coaching for a reasonable amount of time. But the fact that he's only 33 is pretty staggering. And he will start with a home game against Mansfield at the weekend. Oh, interesting. Stephen Gerrard, meanwhile, has turned down the chance to return to Rangers for a second stint on the bench there. Rangers are currently eight Eight in the Scottish Premiership. Eight, Tom. They've won only one of their seven league games this season. Yeah, I must admit, I hadn't realised quite how badly things have been going under Russell Martin.

32:49I don't follow Scottish football very closely at all. I'd seen the headlines, but I hadn't seen much more than that. And I thought, well, obviously, they'll be off the pace in the title race. But I had a look at the Scottish Premiership table the other day and seeing Rangers down in eighth is really striking. Really brings it home. Relegation form. On Gerrard as well, I watched the podcast, people might have seen it as well with Rio Ferdinand recently, and he said how much he is looking at opportunities. He's having conversations about opportunities, but as much as anything, he's having conversations with other coaches to build his team to make sure that when the opportunity does arrive, he is in the best position to do so.

33:25And not just taking an opportunity because it's available and then actually maybe giving himself the worst opportunity to do well. So I wonder whether there's something in that where maybe the stars haven't aligned for him building his coaching staff with Rangers who are in a dire situation. It's almost like he's being thrown into the wolves a little bit. So it might have been a wise decision on his part to wait and hold off for a different role. Fair. Matt? Yeah, the season's a right off for Rangers, isn't it? There's nothing he can do that's going to improve on what he did last time when he won them in the league for the first time in ages.

33:53And after two poor ends to his last two spells, Villa and Al-Etofaki, he needs to choose his next position really wisely. I mean, they are in the Europa League, aren't they? So I guess that was some appeal. But it looks like Danny Roll, another young manager, after we were talking about Jack Wilshere, is the heavy favourite to take that job. Former Sheffield Wednesday, whilst was assistant to the Germany national team as well, and he's only 36. So that'd be an interesting move for him because he's very highly thought of. Matt, exciting though that Jack Wilshere news at Luton Town is it would be perhaps eclipsed if another rumoured move went through in the next few days.

34:28Reports were circulating on Saturday that Sean Dyche is under consideration to be the next Nottingham Forest manager. And when I say next, that could be this week, according to the stories. I mean, the worst thing is, I don't even think it's a bad idea at this point. This is where we are. Bunkmoreland makes me sick how far we done fell, etc. Talking about Rangers, Ange Postacoglu is very much like Russell Martin at Rangers. It's just not going to work. The fans aren't having him. the style of play is far too different to what came before so it's inevitable that he's going to go sooner or later but it's like what what are we doing here are we lurching back to Nuno Ball which I guess has a lot of comparisons with how Sean Dyche plays we've had the conversation about how a certain player is going to go from adapting to Nuno's style from Nuno's style to Postacoglu's style well what about all these players that you've bought in flair creative players McAtee back where players we've not really seen much, what do they think about playing under Sean Dyche?

35:29Are we saying this is a short-term thing till the end of the season? Does Sean Dyche want to do that? I'm not so sure. I mean, it absolutely reeks of desperation. If you're going to do it, you should have done it at the start of this break, not near the end of it. At least give him some time with the players. On the positive side of the ledger, he would keep Forrest up. I have little doubt about that. Would it be pleasing to watch? Not particularly. But he is an ex-Forest Academy player. He often speaks about the influence Brian Clough had on him. He'd bring Ian Wain and Steve Stone, his two assistants, who are verified Forest legends along with him.

36:01So you'd quickly get the fans on board, I think. But yeah, I mean, from where Forest were a year ago to where they are now is just an absolute calamity. How real is this story? It comes from the Telegraph and John Percy, who is extremely connected to the club. I I wouldn't say that he's a mouthpiece for them because he's a better journalist than that, but they do quite often feed him stories that they want to get out there to kind of take the temperature. I've seen a fair bit of Rafa Benitez floated as a potential possibility, and I think I'd rather Sean Dyche than him. So yeah, I would say it's pretty realistic, but get off the fence, just do it now.

36:37The Postacoglu thing's not going to work. It is ridiculous in some aspects to the soccer manager who's had seven games in charge, but also what are you waiting for? If it's not going to work, it's not going to work. Boom. And it makes a lot more sense on paper, Sean Dyche rather than Postacoglu. I mean, even beyond the fact that he has this association with the club, that he knows the area, just in terms of style, the pivot from Nuno Ball to Ange Ball was always going to be, you know, a fairly significant transformation. there have been little signs that some of Postacoglu's ideas are coming across.

37:15They scored a beautiful goal against Real Betis in Europa League. Yeah, the first half against Betis was some fabulous football. But there's an awful lot of things that need unpicking before Postacoglu can stitch together the kind of football team he wants to see. Whereas Sean Dyche has got a football philosophy that is much more similar to Nuno Espirito Santos. and albeit, as Matt said, there are lots of very talented footballers who would probably enjoy playing expansive football. It's a very complicated thing to completely recalibrate the way a team plays midway through the season. No question.

37:48They next take the field, Nottingham Forest, Saturday lunchtime when they're going to be at home to Chelsea. Who will be on the bench? Who? We just don't know. But Thursday we'll be looking ahead to the Premier League weekend on Totally Football Show. Maybe we'll know more by then. Listen, next up, let's talk about WSL.

38:12You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now we do four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Busy time in the women's game. We had the opening round of the Women's Champions League last week. Got more action coming up this midweek. And in between Matchday 6 and the WSL as well, Megan Faringa joins us now. Fresh from a very busy Sunday, Megan, you were up on Merseyside, first at the Hill Dickinson and then at Anfield to see Liverpool against Man City. First of all, let's hear about Everton's game with Man United and tell us about a slaloming low-bund wisp called Jess Park.

38:55Yeah, it was... First off, Hill Dickinson is such a phenomenal stadium And I'm not being paid by the club to say that. It's a cool stadium. I really, really enjoy it. And the 18 ,000 people who showed up also really enjoyed it. And I think they were all really disappointed when, you know, you go and lose 4-1 to Manchester United. Because this was not a great performance from Everton. It was pretty disappointing. That said, they did open the scoring. It was, like, very much against the run of play. And then it sort of felt like maybe this was going to get a little bit better. but Manchester United should have probably been 3-0 clear with just 10 minutes.

39:32I don't know how they managed to not even hit the target with their three chances. Elizabeth Turland was probably two yards out from goal, and somehow her header managed to go both sideways and upwards. I don't know how she did it. But Manchester United, they were good. They weren't clinical, and then Jess Park came on in the second half, And that kind of changed the game, which ironically, Everton set up initially like for Jess Park. So they know Jess Park quite well. She was on loan with them about two seasons ago, three seasons ago. So Brian Sorensen, the Everton manager, literally set up his team to stop Jess Park.

40:10And then Jess Park ended up not starting the game because she was quite tired from the Champions League game earlier in the week. And so 10 minutes happens. Man United are all over Everton. and Emily Ramsey, the Everton goalkeeper, goes down and Brian Sorensen has to completely rejig his entire side because Jess Park's not on the pitch, which I don't know how many other people can kind of dictate a team or oppositions at that level. Was it not a genuine injury? Was that actually a little bit of a tactical break? Oh, no, like Brian Sorensen in his post-match press conference said, oh, yeah, Emily Ramsey went down because we thought that Jess Park was going to start the game, which I like that kind of candor.

40:45At least he's going to tell us that all of these silly little goalkeeping injuries aren't actually injuries. Excellent. So United played Everson off the park and then brought Park on. And how good was she? She was really good. And she was only on the pitch for half an hour, 39 minutes, I think it was in total. But what she gives to Manchester United is something I don't think they've had in quite a long time. They just look so much more dynamic. When she cuts inside from kind of on the wing, there's no one that's going to stop her. She pops up in these little spaces and you can just see the defence kind of crumble around her.

41:20And she's been doing this since she got to United this summer for Manchester City. That deadline day signing was really dramatic. And a lot of people thought maybe it was a sideways step for Jess Park. But I think at City, she wasn't really being allowed to give that freedom that United are giving her. She's allowed to get a lot further forward. She's not so much the person that's kind of like doing the administrative work in midfield. She's allowed to be kind of that creative force. The way she carries the ball is unreal. So, yeah, for United fans, I mean, I think Jess Park is probably their signing of the season.

41:51And she's just been such a fun, just a joy to watch, really. United currently lying third in the WSL. They're a point behind Man City and two behind tabletop in Chelsea. They also won their debut European game last Wednesday against Valorenga. Yeah, the only English side to do it, which was sort of a point of pride, I think, for a lot of United fans. because a lot of people kind of written off United going into the Champions League and Valoringa is going to be their easiest game in the Champions League group stages. But in terms of getting three points on the board, I know Mark Skinner, the manager, had said ideally they need to get at least nine points from this group round, maybe 12, and they might be able to avoid the playoff.

42:34So three points is huge for them. They've got Atletico Madrid coming up this midweek, who got beaten, was it 6-0 by Barcelona and Femini the weekend? Yeah, 6-0, which ironically is the scoreline that they consign Poulton to midweek in their Champions League group stage. So I guess, you know, you give and you get. Football in karma. After you went to Hill Dickinson, it was back to Anfield for Liverpool Man City. What did you learn from that one? I learned that Liverpool just really don't like playing at Anfield. The women, for whatever reason, they've got this Anfield curse. I've only managed to win one game.

43:09That was last season against Manchester United. and it was sort of this Olivia Smith, just like artistic, beautiful performance from her. But yeah, Liverpool are struggling. There's seven games, yeah, seven losses in a row. It's a club record, stretches back into last season. The thing is, though, there were moments where they actually looked quite good and I thought they probably deserved in pieces a point, but then you just see them try to play out from the back and that's the way Gareth Taylor, the new manager, wants to play. and you just can't do that against Manchester City, not with the quality that they have.

43:45And, yeah, eventually Manchester City's quality came through. Yeah, for Liverpool, this isn't great. Seven defeats is not a pretty sight. And, yeah, Manchester City got what they probably deserved. OK, a point off the top of the table where Chelsea sit, despite grinding it out a little bit. Matt, you were at their derby against Tottenham at the weekend. I was, yeah. I'm not sure grinding it out is quite right. I mean, they absolutely battered Spurs, but a problem that has been there for Chelsea all season in terms of actually converting chances. They had 27 shots in this game, but only four of them were on target.

44:22They also had 16 corners. It was an immense goal from Kira Walsh to win it when it eventually came just after the hour, kind of 25-yard pinged right into the corner. Walsh! Oh, how about that?

44:42The story, and this is so weird to say, of Chelsea under Sonia von Pastor is kind of brilliant results and underwhelming performances. Obviously went through the whole of last season in the league without losing a game. But if you tried to pick out a standout memory from that season, there weren't many of them. And it started in the same vein here. they had a poor result in the Champions League in midweek when they only drew away to 20. She made seven changes for that game. All the big hitters came back in this one and Chelsea massively deserved to win. But again, just not able to take the chances that they are generating.

45:18Maybe that will change when Sam Kerr comes back to peak fitness. But it feels a bit off to criticise Chelsea when they've just equaled the second longest unbeaten run in WSL history, 31 games. I think it's 51 home games that they're unbeaten in the league and they've won 48 of those. So, yeah, if that can happen while you're not at your best, I guess it's not the end of the world. But big game for them against Paris FC at the bridge on Wednesday. They need to win that after only drawing in their Champions League opener. Arsenal, meanwhile, midweek will be away at Benfica after losing their opening game at home to Lyon in the Women's Champions League, which certain to four games without a victory.

45:56They did end that winless streak this weekend. And how did they look in their match, Megan? Yeah, it was OK. They had an early goal. It was an own goal technically from Brighton defender. But Olivia Smith, it was sort of her deflected shot that ended up going in. But the problem with the Arsenal this season is that they'll have these sort of bright starts and then they just will not capitalise on their momentum. And we saw that against, even against Manchester City in that really dramatic 3-2 defeat. They'd have these moments where they're on top and they're just not able to really get into that rhythm and just sort of put away their opponents.

46:31And, you know, they managed to get a 1-0 win here, but there were definitely times where you thought Brighton probably could have hurt them a little bit more. Michelle Agumeng and Kafahi weren't on the pitch for Brighton because of loan rules. Obviously, they're loaned out from Arsenal, but you do wonder if maybe if those two players were available for Brighton, if this would have been a little bit more difficult for Arsenal. But still, like, ending your four-match winless run is probably more important than anything, and I know that's what René Slager said after the match. But yeah, there's still some issues for Arsenal in terms of the gelling and the rhythm and making sure that they put away the shots mostly.

47:09It's just been kind of disappointing in front of goal. If they've been a bit of a work in progress so far and not quite the sum of their parts, could we just hear a word or two about Barcelona Femini? I thought the idea was this season was a slightly kind of, how do you say, redimensionado, slightly cut down in size, certainly in terms of squad numbers they were, but they're on an unbelievable tear right now. Eight straight wins. Mark, you were pointing out that they scored over four goals a game last season. They're currently averaging over five. Yeah, I mean, Barcelona, it was kind of funny in the summer.

47:41I think everyone was more maybe trying to manifest that this was the end of Barcelona because they've always been these giants. I was like, well, they've lost 17 players around their first team. This must be the end of them. But what's really important to point out is they didn't really lose any super key players. They managed to keep the core of that squad. So they lost a lot of the players who were sort of around the first team. And, you know, in a couple years' time, maybe that is going to be a problem because of bringing in youngsters and being able to have that depth. Equally, if there's any injuries to anyone in that squad, there's probably going to be a problem later on in the spring.

48:15But at the moment, they look phenomenal. They just look like the usual Barcelona, the kind of team that you just don't want to come up against. And, you know, they all have social media. Maybe they read all of us sort of saying, well, this is the end of them and that's that. And maybe they're using it as some sort of inspiration in their locker room. We don't know. They beat Bayern Munich 7-1 in the opening round of the Women's Champions League last time around. It's now 44 goals in eight matches this season. As we mentioned, Atletico Madrid, they beat 6-0, I think, this weekend. Next up, free-scoring Barca Femini play Roma, who, given that they got beaten 6-2 by Real Madrid in their opening game, could be in for a difficult evening.

48:57Crikey, anything else we should be looking out for midweek, Megan? I'd like to have a word for Spurs. They remain fourth in the table in the WSL, and I think a lot of people didn't expect that to happen this season. I know they lost to Chelsea on the weekend, but there should just be a word out there. They're doing pretty well this season, and I think a lot of us had written them off, so they probably deserve a little bit of a shout-out because they're doing okay under Martin Howe. Megan, thank you so much for that round-up. We've got the Champions League action coming up on Wednesday. We'll react to that in Thursday's Totally Football Show.

49:28Chelsea hosting Paris FC. Arsenal at Benfica. Atletico Madrid will be the destination for Manchester United. We'll also be looking forward to the Premier League action. What are we up to now? Matchday 8, I think. Manager number 3 potentially for Nottingham Forest. All sorts to talk about then. For now, many, many thanks. Megan to you, to Matt, to Mark, to Tom, to Jake and producer Charlie in the booth. And you, listener, we'll be back with you Thursday for now from all of us here. It's goodbye.

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