Transcript 0:01 Welcome back, everybody. This week we're talking Brighton, who declare that they are in this for the long haul. United, sorry Dex, they still look a mess. And will anyone, please anybody, score on Arsenal? 0:15 [laughs] All this and more coming up. [upbeat music] Astonishing. Crown the new Premier League kings. Torres. Oh my, oh, [laughs] oh. Oh. Oh. 0:34 Two penalties. Welcome back to the Wellstruck Podcast, a football show by Soccer People. I'm your host, Sean, and with me as always are my two co-hosts. First up, the only person to put both pant legs on at once, Mr. 0:50 Kevin Stafford. [laughs] Good evening, friends. How are you? Yeah. I like when we throw him off. [laughs] And last, and obviously certainly not least, the rudder on this ship of friendship, Mr. Dexter Remy. 1:06 Hello, my brothers, and hello our podcast friends. Yeah. Hello, everyone out there. So if you're looking to follow us- Hello, everybody... yeah, yeah, you can hit us on, uh, Instagram and Threads @wellstruckpod. 1:17 Uh, if any of you are on TikTok, which I'm not, but I hear people are, we're at well.struck. And you can pick games or create a league for your own friends at playfantasypredictor.com. 1:27 All good stuff you can do to interact with us three on the old pod. And, uh, we're gonna get into it, but first let's have a little somber moment before we get into our games. 1:36 I think it's important to repeat something that's a bit of an axiom on our show, and that's when we're talking about players and how we don't like them, we're talking about on the field. 1:45 We're talking about, you know, sports hate. You know, we understand these guys are real, you know, they're real people with real lives, and they should be allowed to live those real lives. 1:54 And I bring this up obviously, uh, with the tragedy that happened this weekend in Spanish fourth division, where player Jesús de Miguel died after suffering a cardiac event on the field following a collision with the, uh, the opposing goalie. 2:06 We're not gonna do any speculating on what happened or what's going on, 'cause we're not doctors, as you may see from the look of us. Except for Dexter looks pretty smart over there. But we're not doctors. 2:16 And we're just gonna send thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of, uh, Jesús de Miguel, and to Jesús Awoniyi, the goalkeeper who collided with him, because 2:25 I'm sure he's feeling about as miserable as a person can. I mean, you're just playing a game and someone dies on the field. It's a real tragedy. So we'll give a, we'll give a quick moment of silence here. 2:37 All right, so again, sad times, but let's move on. We gotta, we gotta move on with life, 'cause as everyone does. Let's go game one. We're talking, uh... Ooh, it's, it's the, the pod brothers against each other. 2:49 This is Chelsea versus Man United. We get a two-nothing win. You get a Morgan Rogers goal where United was playing, uh, what we're gonna call the Bluetooth defense. 2:58 [laughs] Then Palmer makes it two-nothing after, uh, Martinez, I don't know, loses his goddamn mind for f- three straight minutes there. I mean, puts one in, not the greatest penalty, but gets it two-nothing. 3:10 I'd say first half was a pretty even game. Second half, I think United forgot that we play 90 minutes, not 45. And, uh, yeah, Chelsea come out with the two-nothing win. So you know, I'm gonna throw it... 3:21 We won't say losers first, but let's say not winners first. Dexter, your thoughts on your squad dropping yet another one, and this time to the Blues. 3:30 First of all, let me say, like I've been saying in previous episodes, that I was looking at Chelsea as like they're warming up. You know what I mean? 3:38 Um, and, uh, I still do think they're warming up, you know what I mean? I like, I like what happened. I'm talking as a analyst here. [laughs] I'm not talking as a United fan. 3:46 Just so everybody know, especially my United brethren out there if you're listening. [laughs] I'm talking as a analyst. I, I, I like what was going on as, as far as what Xavi did. 3:56 He took Kenda out of the starting lineup, you know what I'm saying? He said, "Let's take him out." Put Estevao in, who really, for lack of a better phrase, showed his ass, in a good way. You know what I mean? 4:08 Um, and, and you know, Lavia came in for Henderson. Henderson was sick? Is that the s- is that what happened to Henderson? He, he had a illness or something like that? I think Henderson's just old as shit. 4:19 [laughs] It might be that. 'Cause see, I, I was thinking- Or a man needs a day off... I, yeah, I was thinking if Henderson was in the midfield, it'd have been a little bit more raucous. 4:28 In my mind, that's what I was thinking. It'd be a little bit more raucous. It wouldn't be as athletic, you know what I mean, with Lavia in there instead. But, uh, that's just a thing. 4:37 Um, but yeah, I still think Chelsea's a team that's warming up for me. Dare I say, as an analyst, and you my brothers, so I watch Chelsea, you know what I'm saying? Neto, 4:47 r- fairly quiet, but he had a, he did have a great moment. He had one great moment. But Estevao took it was, took over everything. He was just so much more a- active in everything. 4:57 So yeah, so I'm, I'm not mad at Chelsea's f- I mean, except for the first half, it was an even game. It was an absolutely even game. 5:06 And now as a United fan, it was a even game, but you gotta finish certain stuff, you know what I'm saying? Bruno, y- he had a big chance, and he just totally, he, he blew it. You're our captain, you blew it. 5:18 And Amad, Lord. Y- let me tell you, when you go- [laughs]... get those, when you, when you're dominating a, a defender like that, and you're robbing him and you're running past him. 5:28 I mean, it, once you just took the ball away from him, and another time you just, you got a pass, you ran past him. You gotta finish these things. You just have to finish these things. 5:36 You can't, you can't not finish these things. So the first half is ridiculously lively and ex- ex- spectacular. And I'm thinking, "Okay, you keep this energy up, something's gotta come, come to it," you know what I mean? 5:48 Something has to come to it. There was signs of things that was gonna crack. Like look, I like watching Neto. I like the Neto, Acheampong lineup. I like that r- that row. But... 5:59 And Neto didn't do much this game, but when Harry tried to do some kind of weird-... pulled back thing, and Neto just grabbed the ball from him and crossed it. It was almost a goal there. So he was there. 6:11 Everybody on Chelsea was still there. It was just the game looked even. And then the second half fell apart. 6:17 And the only way I could put it is, you hear a lot in, when we watch football, that announcer that always goes, "Corridor of uncertainty." [laughs] Morgan Rogers was given a corridor of certainty. 6:29 [laughs] He was literally given [laughs] he was literally given an official escort. He was given an official escort. Dudes, I mean- Oh, man. I love that, I love that you worked on that all week. I did. Absolutely. 6:42 [laughs] You gotta, you gotta work on this stuff. He was given an official escort. I love it. I mean, he gets the ball, um, 'cause r- po- sadly, Evo lost the ball on that whole run down to Lavia. He gets the ball. 6:56 I mean, he just ru- everybody's just running next to him. They're just running [laughs] next to him. Santos slide tackles, like, from 10 yards away. [laughs] I don't know what he was doing on that. 7:08 [laughs] I, I don't, I don't even know. The, the, the- What was he doing? To let this man kinda- The me [laughs]... single-handedly- The me-... do this wild performance and score was insane. And chip. Like a chip, too. 7:20 Chipped over. Chip, right? The meme right now is when you're- Chip... is, um, is playing a clip of the ref's view and then just captioning it, "When you're playing, when you're playing FIFA on beginner mode." 7:33 [laughs] Like, you're, we've all been in- That's wild. That's wild... we've, we've all, we've all played FIFA on career mode where you, you've leveled up your player to the point where literally he's unstoppable. 7:44 And you just run through the middle of the defense. That is exactly- Yeah... what happened here. Yeah, yeah. Just the Red Sea parting for Morgan Rogers. I- It was, it was comical... I'm surprised he didn't miss. 7:55 For him to have gotten 25 yards and look around and still no one's even thought about putting a challenge on him, I was, I was surprised he didn't, like, have a brain dead moment and miss. 8:08 The fact that he kept his calm and was able to- It, it, it was, it was-... to finish that... yeah. Yeah, it was just pure one-man solo performance with an escort the whole way. No one put a body on him. 8:19 No one fouled, no one tried anything. They just kinda just... And when he got between Harry and Martinez, it was over. It was really over right then and there. Put a body. 8:27 Nobody, nobody even breathed in his general direction. It was really bad. He was- It was really, really bad to watch. So, so, and, and- And you mentioned your man, your man André Santos. 8:37 His- He s- he did a slide tackle-... slide tackle out of nothing... from 10 feet away. [laughs] If you go back and look. Where were you going? 8:43 What- I'm gonna, the only, I'm gonna try to give him some credit and assume that he was thinking that Harry or, or Lisandro were going to step up to Morgan Rogers. And he was just taking- Like a defender should... 8:54 away the right-handed passing lane. That Morgan Rogers was never going to take. It was, it was dreadful. But I, you could see he hit the ground and like- Dreadful defending... 9:01 you could almost see him shaking his head of like, "Why did I do that?" As soon as he hit the ground. It was- Yeah. Now, now, and then the thing is-... truly comical... it, it was wild. He scores the goal. 9:10 The camera goes immediately to Bruno complaining to the ref. I don't even know what he's complaining about. I really don't even know. 9:16 For our podcast fr- friends listening, just to let you know, I'm talking about this after United had that crazy game against Roma at Old Trafford. So I'm just, we're talking about this game. 9:28 We're not talking about- Yes... what happened tonight, all right? Just so you know. [laughs] All right? Yeah, so if Dexter sounds not quite as mad, you're like, "Man, shouldn't he be way more mad?" 9:36 It's like, no, no, 'cause they just had a miracle comeback at Old Trafford. [laughs] That's why. So I just want everybody out there to know. That's why he's not so happy. That's why. We're talking about the, the pro... 9:44 The, and problems aren't over, friends. I just want you to know, whoever's listening, [laughs] I'm just talking about this game. So anyway, I want, I wanna say Morgan Rogers is absolutely earning his money. 9:57 Mad respect to him, all right? He's, the man's earning his money. The man came to, to your, your team and has just been like he's been there for forever. You know, he's just earning his dough. 10:08 The other thing, of course, we gotta talk about Martinez. And look, you know, Martinez I wanna bring up again later, 'cause we're gonna talk about something that happened l- in another game that got on my nerves. 10:17 But the first g- yellow card, you're, you're freaking trying to mug Morgan Rogers. I don't know what you're doing. [laughs] You're grabbing at his shirt. You're holding... All, all sorts of stuff. 10:28 And, and rightfully so, Morgan just stopped after a while like, "All right, not what we doing here." You know what I mean? He gets the yellow. The second yellow, you're not even looking at the ball, Martinez. 10:40 You're not even looking at the ball. At least pretend you're looking at the ball when you do an elbow. At least try to do that. 10:47 Which makes me say, and I'm gonna c- talk about Martinez a little bit more later, but let's just talk about Martinez now. Ipswich game, we win 5-1. Why did they get one? 10:57 Because you're goofing around in the back there with the ball, and Sesko takes the ball, crosses it to somebody, it's a goal. Tottenham, we're winning the game one-nil against Tottenham. They score. Why do they score? 11:09 'Cause you're wrestling with a guy who's five, six, seven inches over you, and you're not looking at the ball. And the ball bounced him in the back of the head, goal. 11:17 [laughs] But dude, y- you're, you, you, you're doing stuff, you're doing... I wanna say you're doing too much. You're just not doing the right thing, you know what I mean? 11:26 And for a guy who's such a talented passer, I really still believe he's a talented passer. You're, you're messing us up, man, you know what I mean? You're messing us up. And 11:35 I mean, once he was out the game, I went back to work, you know what I mean? [laughs] I just, I literally saw that, I was like... I said, I was watching TV here, I just, I just took my phone and walked to work. 11:43 I just started walking to work. I said, "It's over then." You guys never stopped. After that, you guys just never stopped. I, I, I thought about the, the, the things, the goals that was called offside. 11:54 That was great to watch. I mean, there was just so many good moments. And we just never showed any passion, you know what I mean? We just never showed any passion. 12:04 [laughs] But when it comes down for me right now, it's that first half. You gotta finish those goals, man. You, they were- Th- they were passionate in the first half, and you got... You have to actually finish. 12:16 We have the, the, we have the skillful players. You gotta finish. And also, Mbeumo had a great shot at the end there. Just- Oh... it was unlucky. Just hit the, the way it hit. 12:24 He hit that thing with everything in his heart, you know what I mean? And that's what happened. But anyway, that's all I gotta say. Props to you guys. 12:31 I mean, and, you know, you gotta love Morgan Rogers for earning his money. You know, Morgan Rogers got excited after, right after the World Cup. I was like, "Who is this cat?" 12:40 He's e- like, when he comes on, something's going on. I mean, he's like, he's doing all right. And then all of a sudden, he gets signed to Chelsea, and he's earned his dough the whole time. 12:48 And I think that's all I gotta say for now, but if you have anything else to say, I'll jump in after you. Yeah. As far as Morgan Rogers, he is well worth the 117 million we paid to Aston Villa for him. 12:59 He is absolutely paying it back in spades. It's no... I feel like it's no coincidence that he's taken his game to his, to another level now that he's back with his best friend, his youth team partner in Cole Palmer. 13:12 Like, they absolutely tore up the youth leagues before, before they both were sold, obviously, to, to a couple of, you know, different teams respectively. 13:22 I think Morg went out to Middlesbrough and then ended up at Aston Villa. But just w- what a, what a player, what 117 million pounds well spent. Um, I can't say enough about him. 13:32 And [laughs] as you sa- rightfully, uh, mentioned, like, that goal, the, you know, just the, the, the Bluetooth defending, as Sean called it, and just the, 13:41 just the a- the awareness of him and, like, the maturity, honestly. 13:44 Like, briefly said, I would've expected him probably to miss for such a young kid to have the freedom of the entire Manchester United half to run into, and then still take his time, chip Lamins with a, you know, just a, a beautiful left-footed chip. 14:00 Like, j- He's signing in the summer right now for me. I really, really can't stop singing his praises. That's great. And then, uh, you know, you called him out, too. Estevao was absolutely electric on, on the right side. 14:14 He's been begging to get in. Chelsea fans have been, been dying for him, uh, to get some more playing time. Every time he comes on, he creates something. He's not always making the best decisions at the end of the day. 14:25 He's shooting when he should pass. He's passing probably when he should shoot sometimes. 14:28 He's maybe trying to take on two, three, four players, trying to make something happen, and I think that is why he's not playing more. That is why Xabi Alonso has been bedding him in slowly. 14:40 He wants that decision-making to better. He wants Estevao to be making an impact with every touch instead of trying to make an impact with every touch, if that makes sense. Um- Yep... 14:51 but the, the Giovanni Kenda experiment from last week just didn't work. Uh, Kenda looks like a player. No, no. He, he looks like a very talented player, but he absolutely shot the bed. 15:02 So why not bring in, bring in the, the, the young kid? And he was on fire from minute one. He had that early goal ruled out for legitimate offside. He was a good [laughs] yard and a half offside, but 15:18 as far off as he was on that one, I swear, is how far onside he was for that second goal that he, he got called off. Like- Th- th- they showed the graph. They showed the graphic... 15:28 I, I'm still looking at the, the video today- And I still think it's off... and just like, I don't understand 15:32 how the geometry works, that the, this parallax is that far off that he's even close to being offside, let alone beyond Harry Maguire. He looks onside to me by a good yard. 15:43 There's some BS on the internet that the Premier League has reached out to Chelsea to apologize. I don't believe it. I think he is actually offside, just, I think just the way the camera angle turns. But good Lord- Mm... 15:55 did he look onside by, by a long way. But ultimately, he, he doesn't know he's offside. Yeah. He goes in. Yeah. Beautiful finish. Like, you know. Well, that, that's the thing. 16:04 These were offside sequences, but they were spectacularly done. They were just done perfectly. We had nothing there. We wasn't defending it. I mean, yeah, you're off by inches. 16:15 Great- Yeah, fair enough, like, you know, we'll take that, but still. Yeah, it was a great ball through from Palmer. You know, and like I said, a good... 16:22 The thing that I want to see from Estevao is that he went in and he finished that. He didn't blaze it over. He didn't hit it straight at Lamins, right? No. 16:30 He, he put it in the back of the net, and he let the, you know, let VAR do what VAR needs to do. [clicks tongue] And that's all you can ask for the kid, is, you know, to be making an impact. What else? Oh, yeah. 16:41 Well, s- we gotta talk about Wes Fofana because you mentioned the- [laughs]... the chances you gotta put away. Every one of the chances was him just gifting- Yep... go, go f- go front. Like- Yeah... 16:53 if you thought the United defending for Rogers' goal was bad, that, that second chance that, um, that Amad had, when Fofana thinks he's... Like, he's gonna try to, like, body the ball out into touch from 22 yards away. 17:11 [laughs] I don't know what he's thinking. He puts his body, like he's gonna get body c- positioning over Amad instead of just kicking the ball to Penders- [laughs]... 17:19 for Penders to boot it down the other w- end of the field. Amad gives him a little shift, like, you know, touches him on one side, goes around the other, and just left Fofana in the dust. 17:28 Thankfully for us of the blue persuasion, Amad put it, you know, all the way back to Manchester. He missed the goal by so much. Yeah. It, it was a mess. But Fofana, if, if you had- Um, yeah, I, I... 17:40 He, he was a, he was tricky, yeah... if there was another fit center-back, I would almost guarantee you he would've been pulled at halftime. Yeah. Uh, and- Yeah... and we would've seen somebody else in that pitch. 17:53 The funniest part of that, [laughs] just go... Like, stats are, stats are wild because Wes Fofana was the highest rated player on Sofa Score out of both squads. [laughs] Wow. Like, that, that's just funny 'cause, like, 18:07 thank God we watch games with our eyes and not with stats [laughs] because that's wild. He was so bad. But he won Man of the Match from SofaScore. 18:16 So the next time anybody tells me about somebody's, you know, average SofaScore rating and why they're the most important player, uh, and should win the Premier League, uh, MVP, [laughs] I'm calling bullshit on it. 18:27 [laughs] I, I don't care. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, a- as you mentioned, Dex, you gotta... United's gotta finish those chances. I give Bruno a little bit of credit. That ball comes in at him fast, it bounces. 18:40 It's a hard touch to control. You know, puts the next one over the top. But both of those Amad chances need to be put away. Uh, th- it's, it's ridiculous. 18:48 One of those Amad chances was a wonderful pass from Bruno from behi- like, a long pass, and he just beat Fofana, just had him beat. And you gotta, you gotta put this stuff away. 18:58 Mbumo was probably w- the best player we had. He... But he was forced to be so deep, that's why he lost the ball. 'Cause he... 19:08 What are you doing in, at midfield, midfield, and losing the ball to Lavia that caused all that stuff? He shouldn't even be that far, but he's not getting any service. [clears throat] Yeah. Right. 19:19 So, you, you don't think he's- He's gotta drop deep to get the ball. Yeah. So he's not f- getting any service if he has to drop deep, so some of his best moments was him passing from a position he shouldn't even be in. 19:29 The, uh, the, the position, the pass to Bruno, yeah, that's one thing. But then, he... A, a wonderful pass to Cunha. Cunha, his touch was too heavy, you know what I mean? And then he had a pass to, to Amad, too. 19:41 He was, he was doing h- what he could to at least help the team, you know? And, uh, what can I tell you? It was... Our second half, we just, it fell apart in the second half. It was simple as that. 19:50 And once, uh, Licha got those two reds like that, it was a mess, you know? That's... I mean, you gotta, you gotta just give the guy credit for, for dogged determination to make sure he got sent off. 20:04 [laughs] Like, it just- That's what it felt like. See, [laughs] that, that's what I wanna say. That's what it felt like. 20:10 What on earth were y- like, I've seen, I've seen on rare occasion happen in Tottenham game where one player has been booked twice on, like, one passage of play, right? Um, and, and that's, that's out of control. 20:24 [laughs] I think that- [laughs]... very rarely happens, but he got his two, he got his two yellow cards on back-to-back plays. 20:31 He gave up the free kick by pulling Morgan Rogers back, so he's yellow carded for that, and then he takes his second yellow card on the resulting free kick. There's gotta be some kind of record. 20:42 And it's funny you- Agreed... Dex, you mention the, the Solanke goal where it comes off the back of his head and Licha's not paying any attention. That, that's his MO. Clearly, that's what he does. Yes. 20:52 'Cause that's what he did here. He's just wrestling. He turns his back- He's wrestling... and he's just jumping into Fofana. And that's a problem. That's a real problem, you know? Um, and, and really spectacular passing. 21:04 I've seen it with my own two eyes. But that's his problem. Like, you're, you're not looking at the ball, you know what I mean? You're not looking at the ball. 21:12 And, and if I could mention, pinpoint all the times he, he, he screwed up this w- this year, he screwed up. Um. [clears throat] It's wild. 21:19 He was probably your best center back for the last four seasons, and he's- And, and let me tell you something. That's a shame. 21:26 You know, I, it made me go down memory lane and look at some of our center backs, since you bring [laughs] that up. It made me go down l- memory lane. 21:33 I said, after that happened, I said, "Let me just look at, just to remind myself of some of the center backs we had." Of course, V- Vidic and, and Ferdinand. I, I don't have to say nothing a- about that, all right? 21:45 I'll, I'll even, I even like Lindelof, who's still playing, you know what I'm saying? I, I think Lindelof got short shrift at United. I think he is a- I do, too... was a far better- I actually do... 21:56 far more capable player. I think he got scapegoated for a lot. But he, he's over there at Villa doing his thing. He's doing fine. He's doing his thing. You know? Marcos Rojo was wonderful for us. Marcos Rojo. 22:08 You, you have- Okay? He was fun... you have a thing for diminutive Argentine center backs, apparently. We do. We do. We do. That, that is, like- Chris Smalling. Chris Smalling was good. 22:18 All right, now you're going too far. All right? [laughs] Now you're going too far. See, I'm look, look, compared to now, those guys, they had more discipline. I'll give... When Smalling went to Roma, he excelled. 22:28 I'll give him that. He- He to- he totally excelled, yeah... he looked like a different player at Roma. Um, a- and I know he was older, but Raphael Varane was, was, was good for us. 22:35 I mean, that's Cadillac, like, when he came. Okay? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. He was good. And this is the funny one, because I never liked him before this, but he grew into something special elsewhere, Jonny Evans. 22:46 [laughs] I never liked Jonny Evans for us, ever. God. Ev- I felt every time he played for us, we lost. I really did. I felt every time he played, he, we lost. But- Well, but- Anyway, the- Where, where's Phil- Mm-hmm... 22:56 where's Phil Jones on this list? Phil Jones is here, too. I'm looking [laughs] at Phil Jones, too. Phil Jones paired with Smalling and Rojo at times, and he wasn't even... 23:05 He gave his all for the team, you know what I mean? With his weird faces. He [laughs] was even- You know what I mean?... he was to prove it. [laughs] Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. But yeah, something's gonna have to change. 23:16 A- again, podcast friends, we're not talking, 'cause today it was a great ga- it was, it was a Europe, Europe night at, at Old Trafford. It was spectacular. We're not talking about that. 23:26 We're talking about what happened in the league. Let's- Okay? Just to- Let's talk about that for one second, though. And I f- Uh-huh... uh, 'cause I just wanna say, 23:34 I think coming back and winning that game might be the worst thing that could happen for United's season. Pr- or, or- Michael Car- Michael Carrick staying now. You keep getting- Or, or... 23:44 like, that's like, that's Ten Hag winning the FA Cup. Like, it's just like, your, your, um, your, your directors seem to really hate firing coaches mid-season. I think they would not have had a choice. 23:57 They would've had to move Carrick on going into that international break after the, after the upcoming week 24:04 had he, had they capitulated there and gone down three, four, maybe, you know, five-nil to Roma, who looked great for about 10 minutes and then were ass the rest of the game. Well, well, listen, listen. 24:14 But now he's gonna stay, probably? Okay. Like, I dunno. [laughs] Well, listen. In, in the end, man, dude's gotta go out there. You got pride i- in your, in your own skill. You gotta go out there, do something. 24:24 Now, I want you to have pride in the badge that's on your chest, and some of these guys know it, some of th- these guys not. Shout out to Cunha, 'cause Cunha was acting like he knew what this meant. You know what I mean? 24:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that- Also, shout out to Cunha when he scored that second goal because the Roma defender pulled... I, I mean, I don't know if I've seen a more piss-poor attempt at a clearance than... 24:48 The ball's b- there's no one near him. He's under no pressure. It's a free kick, you know, a cross game, and he just straight up whiffs on the [laughs] goddamn ball. It goes to- You mean the second goal? Yeah... 24:59 Yeah, the second goal. Goes to Cunha five feet away. That, that, that's, that's the magic. And then Cunha tears off- I don't-... his shirt like he just scored a fucking screamer. 25:05 And then b- It's been too- And, but this is what happens. This is what annoys me about this crap. 25:09 If I have anyone on my team, like if I'm ever a manager, I'm telling them, "If any of you take your goddamn shirts off and get a yellow card for celebrating, I'm taking you off the pitch immediately." 25:19 'Cause what happened? Cunha comes in on a hard tackle later, misses the ball, and he's off. Right. And almost- He's way-... almost cost you the game... he, he was way too hyped up. I'll give you that. 25:29 You can't be giving away- But this, but-... a goal f- either. Until they get... Which, first of all, I, I will also say this. I think it's a stupid rule. I don't think you should get carded for taking your shirt off. 25:37 But because that is the rule, if you do it, I'm pulling you off the pitch immediately and you're not playing the next game. This is nonsense. I don't think you should get carded for that too. 25:44 But I think, you know why that started? 25:45 Because freaking, back in the day, Diego Forlan, who was a great player for us, took his shirt off after a goal and was [laughs] running around with his shirt in his hand playing the game. 25:56 [laughs] I think that's how it started. I think that's- I-... that's when it started. But, um- I, I feel like they're watching too much NFL. They're like, "We, we wanna be the no fun league. No celebrating." Yeah. 26:04 [laughs] But, but the p- the point is, um, the, uh- Realistically why they did it is because a lot of players were that, taking their shirt off with shirts underneath that were saying things. Protest shirts, right. 26:13 Not even protest shirts. Yeah. Uh, well- Just like, "I belong to Jesus," or, you know- Uh-huh... "Get, get well soon, Mom." Like, they, like, literally just any saying. 26:21 But I think the issue is, well, if we allow that, then the guy who, you know, has like, "Albania forever," [laughs] or whatever, like- [laughs] Or something, some- You know, like-... some nonsense... 26:32 that, well, that's a problem and I have to book him. Yeah. Well, why do we have to book him for a political statement, but that guy can, can show get well soon Mom? So they were just like, "Nope. 26:41 Cannot take your shirt off." And I get it, but also there's gotta be something between, like, a foul and a yellow card at this point, right? Like, some sort of, like, sin bin. 26:52 Like, all right, maybe you spend two minutes off the, off the field instead of- I would love that... instead of- I would love that... instead of getting yellow-carded for taking your shirt off. Like, it's so- Yeah... 27:02 it's so stupid in a way. Like, it, it doesn't, it doesn't hurt the game. It doesn't hurt the opponents. Not at all. 27:08 Maybe it hurts somebody's feelings if you, you know, if you show something they don't wanna read, but like, let's grow, let's grow up. We're all grown adults here. Right. Well, well we're talking Balotelli. 27:17 Balotelli was always writing crazy [laughs] shit on his shirts though. But why? I know, I know, I know exactly who you're talking about too. Why always me? [laughs] We- Why always me? Why always me? Right, right. 27:24 As he's getting a card. All right. Final thought is, as good as the game was, it was for Chelsea in the second half, Cole Palmer... First of all, that was a garbage free, uh, garbage penalty. 27:34 He's lucky Lavins didn't just pat that away easily. And he missed, like, two other really, really good chances, where he couldn't even put it on frame. I'm... I, look, I love Cole Palmer. I think he's a great player. 27:45 But, and we've talked about this. In the absence of Pedro, I need you to step up. 27:49 And yes, you, you moved the ball around great, but when a ball is squared to you and you're at the top of the box, you at least gotta test the goalie. 27:55 You at least, on your strong foot, coming in perfectly, you gotta make, you gotta make him do some work. But- If you wanna-... win's a win... if you wanna kill Cole Palmer on something, it's that he does waste chances. 28:08 He- Yeah. And I'm not, I'm not killing him. The, the- I'm just saying I need better... no, but the flip side of that coin is he creates a ton of chances. He does. 28:15 Um, so I'm not too concerned about the ones he misses, because he creates enough to get a goal- Yeah... or to get an assist. Uh, I'm- But I agree with you... I'm just being a dad right now. I wanna- I would love... 28:24 No, I, I'm agreeing with you. You gotta put that away. You have to put your foot down on their throat and, and put the team to the sword. Like- Exactly. 'Cause again, we- Get, get a goal here. Get-... 28:34 we mentioned briefly- Get a goal that you, gets you moving and that gets you on form when you're playing a team that's not playing well. Yeah. 28:42 And even, look, when there's down to 10 men, United still have talented players. And Muimo showed us when he hit that fucking howitzer off the... I mean- Yeah. Yeah... and Pendries got, Pendries got fingertips to it. 28:52 I don't know if it fully was that the reason it didn't, it didn't go in, but at least he got a touch to it. No. But that thing was mean. 100%, 100%. 28:59 Yeah, he, he, he got a touch to it, but that thing, I mean- Which was- The good thing he had gloves on... when you see the reverse angle, he gets... 29:06 It deflects just enough where it would've hit the- Yeah, 'cause it, yeah. But- Had he not touched it, it's hitting the underside of the bar and it's going down and in. Yeah, that's a fact. That's a fact. 29:14 He got just enough to put that ball onto the bar enough where it came out, you know, out of goal. And, uh, that was the last thing I wanted to say before we move on for this, is I have to give the 21-year-old goalkeeper 29:30 all of the credit in the world for how he's reacted since he punched the ball into his own net against Spurs and cost us three points. Really, one point. 29:38 I don't think we were ever winning that game, but we were probably walking away with a nil-nil draw, until Mike Pendries went and did whatever the hell that was. [laughs] Um, 29:48 you know, he's now got back-to-back wins and clean sheets, made some really top-class saves. Confident with the ball at his feet still. He doesn't look shaky. He doesn't look scared. 29:58 For a man of, not even a man, for a, a kid of 21 years old to have the confidence and the maturity that he's displaying, 30:08 he reminds me so, so, so much of Thibaut Courtois, when Courtois first came back from Atletico Madrid. Yeah, he made some mistakes, but he makes some incredible saves and 30:21 you look at him and you're like, "Yeah, he's, he's destined for the top." Like, there, there's nothing gonna get in his way. And he's, he's a giant too. He's- He's big like Thibaut Courtois He's huge. Right? 30:29 Yeah, he's a big boy. You, it's yet again, proving my point. Get- It's, Stella- Stella Glimman's was at the other end going, "Wow, there goes my chance of being Belgian number one." All right. 30:36 Enough ma- enough making Dexter feel bad about United losing. Let's make him happy about a different Manchester team, 'cause they lost. City, at home, at the Etihad, goes down one-nothing to Brighton. 30:47 Brighton score early on a quality play, just excellent passing and, you know, I don't know if Ayari could've, could've... I mean, look, Ayari maybe could've missed it. 30:56 He's [laughs] he's shown us the last few weeks that he's capable of missing anything. Buries it, uh, and then they... Honestly, Brighton went on and did pretty much an Arsenal. 31:07 They, they didn't go a lot forward after that. I mean, they've had some chances, but they soaked up a lot of pressure, a lot of misses from, uh, City and it ends up one-nothing. 31:17 So Kevin, what about Man City dropping and, you know, point deduction on the way possibly? Who knows? Do you think they're getting, the players are getting disillusioned, or this is just Brighton is that good? 31:29 Uh, I don't think this player's getting dis- disillusioned. I do think this is Brighton is that good. But I also think this is, this is Maresca football. We saw it the last two years with Chelsea. 31:39 [laughs] Like, this is the team. We are well aware. They are who we thought they were, to quote an American sports legend. Danny Green. They are who we thought they were. 31:48 Um, but yeah, uh, Yassine Ayari makes up for his awful, no good, very bad week that he was having up 'til now. He missed that exact same sitter, basically, against Liverpool, put it over the bar. 32:00 Then he missed the penalty at the Etihad midweek in the Carabao Cup, which led to, led to Brighton getting dropped, uh, dunked out of the cup. Dunked. That's 'cause I have a note about Lewis Dunk coming up here. 32:11 [laughs] Oh yeah. We, we, we, we all with it. Atta boy, attaboy. Uh, getting, getting dumped is the word I was trying to say. There we go. Getting dumped out of the cup. Pretty close. Um, i- in penalties. 32:22 Dunk also missed his penalty, so you can't put that one all on Ayari, but yeah. As I say, he could hardly have missed that. I would be shocked if he missed that twice, like he missed it at Liverpool. 32:33 But that goal was just a... That's Brighton at their most Brighton, right? That's everything that they do. The long diagonal out from Lewis Dunk, who can hit him as well as any center back has in the last 15 or 20 years. 32:49 This man does not get enough credit. He's only played for England a handful of times. He should've been a nailed on starter for, for at least the last six years. 33:00 When you're talking about Phil Jones and Harry Maguire, or Eric Dier and Harry Maguire, and you've got Lewis Dunk sitting at home, it's insane that he didn't get to play more f- for England. 33:10 But just a absolutely beautiful ball, 60 yards or so, out to Diego Gomez. Takes it down lovely. First touch whips in a cross on his very next touch, and it is, like, inch perfect. 33:24 It's just too far for the defenders tracking back. Goes through Iliman Ndiaye's legs, which you'd probably want him to go ahead and clear that one. Gonna give him a little bit of schtick for that. 33:35 [laughs] Gets his legs all wrong. The only thing you'll kind of give him, maybe give him a little space is he doesn't wanna be there defending. 33:43 He doesn't wanna be back in that position trying to, trying to cut out a cross. It's probably better that he missed it. More often than not, he'd probably... 33:51 If he makes contact, he's probably going in the o- in, in for the OG. But anyway, he doesn't make any contact. And the, the De Kuiper touch is, is delicious. It's so cushioned. He could've hit it anywhere, right? 34:04 Like, this is a whipped in cross. It was fired at him. It's bouncing, it's bobbling. And he just cushions it so beautifully right into the path of Ayari, who really can't miss at that point. 34:15 And he doesn't, thankfully, unlike he did against Liverpool as I me- as I mentioned. It's one-nil to Brighton, and from there, that's it. They, they shut up shop. They, 34:27 they attacked where they n- where they needed to to keep City honest. But they just, they showed that they can win gritty, they can win ugly, and Sean, as you said, they can win Arsenaly, right? Like, they- [laughs] 34:40 They got the early goal, and they said, "Okay, beat us." For me, that was the most impressive and the most shocking sort of part, is that that is the antithesis of what we've seen from Fabian Hurzler for the last year. 34:53 He is hell for leather, we're gonna outscore you if it's, if it's, you know, eight to six. We're gonna score the eight. You can score six. That's fine. Don't really care. But they held him. 35:03 You know, the dam didn't break. Vuskovic is just fantastic signing. Continues to impress day after day. Spurs are gonna, I think, be really, really sad and upset that they let him go. 35:15 Not that Van Hecke's a bad signing for them. We'll get onto him. He did score at the weekend. But Vuskovic, young kid, is just absolutely, you know, a stud. 35:25 And getting to learn from Lewis Dunk next to him, who's that Virgil Van Dyke type character. Nothing phases him. He's unflappable. 35:35 He's, you know, always in the right place, reads the game so well, is so calm on the pitch, which is what I think a lot of young kids lack, right? 35:44 That, that, that serenity, that calmness of, "I know what I'm doing and I'm fully in charge." 35:50 To be able to play next to Lewis Dunk and watch him exude that confidence every time he does that, that saucy little, like, chest pass back to the goalkeeper to pick up under pressure, Vuskovic's gonna be picking that up. 36:01 He's gonna be... He, he's gonna be a top quality defender. I will not be surprised if you're hearing Real Madrid, Barcelona looking for him in two, three seasons, you know, maximum. Yeah. 36:16 Outside of that, said Brighton, you know, they held on. Kit Anderson I was actually really impressed with. I didn't, I didn't get the, the sort of the fervor, the hype around Anderson. 36:27 Uh, over the summer I thought he had a good World Cup. You know, he's useful, he's tidy, he's a good s- you know, sort of CDM. He was good. You know, I thought he was good at, at, at Forest. I was... 36:36 But I was never, like, blown away by Elliott Anderson. At no point did I look at what Elliott Anderson was doing on the pitch and go, "Yeah, that's a in- you know, record, uh, English transfer right there. 36:48 You know, that's 116-million-pound transfer." 36:50 Where I have with, like, Yves Bissouma when he was at Brighton, Moises Caicedo, Declan Rice, where you look at these defensive midfielders and you're like, "Yeah, those guys are game-changers. 36:59 Those guys are top, top, top tier game-changers." I never looked at Elliott Anderson that way. And over this game and the last three games, he's really changed my opinion. The, the kid can play. He's all over the pitch. 37:13 He's showing up in the box, he's shutting down attacks and, and counter-attacks at the other end. Just absolutely all-action midfielder. Absolutely. Sort of like a th- like, like a throwback type player. 37:24 He's given me, like, a, you know, like a Scholesy. You know, just a vintage midfielder. Box to box, can do it all. Whoever gets him in the relegation clause when the sanctions come in- [laughs]... 37:37 is gonna really have won a, won a sweepstakes, 'cause that guy is such a player. And I think the last thing, or maybe two, two points before, uh, Dex, I, I give it over to you. Illuman Njie had a, had a game to forget. 37:52 He, just... [laughs] He mis- Keep going, keep going. I'm wa- I'm gonna say something when you're done. 37:56 He misses that cross for De Kuyper's, uh, you know, to De Kuyper's center-back, Tayari, uh, and then just heads the ball wide when he's got the entire net to hit. 38:07 Tries to put too much on it, you know, too much, um, too much neck movement, doesn't get enough contact, heads it wide. Just, he was having a rough day with, with crosses. And outside of that, he wasn't, like, he just... 38:18 He wasn't involved. He wasn't impressive. He didn't, he didn't show up on the pitch, which, 38:25 which is the, the brush I would've tarred him with at Everton, too, is that he'll have great games and then he'll have games where you're like, "Njie played that game? I don't remember seeing him." 38:35 And, and the last point that I'm gonna make is, man, Brighton really look like they're gonna be around in this title fight the whole way. 38:44 The fact that they showed that they can win ugly t- this weekend really, for me, cements that they... I have a hard time seeing them fall away. 38:51 In the way that Bournemouth and Forest, who were up there the last couple seasons, where you're like, "There's no way the, that they're staying up there." Like, there's no way that Bournemouth is ending up in, in third. 39:02 It's just, it's not happening. As good as Areola had that team playing, you know, the Forest year, like, when they got into Europe, like, there's just... 39:09 You could see that they were playing sort of above their level, right? They were, they were getting lucky in games. They were 39:17 getting outstanding performances guy, from guys like Matt Sellings, where, like, they were stealing points. Brighton doesn't look like that. 39:24 Brighton doesn't look like the Leicester year, where you're like, "How is this team still doing it?" I look at Brighton and I'm just like, "Yeah, they're a great team." They've got fantastic players. 39:36 I don't see where they start sliding back. The... 39:40 You'll expect Chelsea, you'll expect Liverpool to come back into this, you know, season a little bit more and challenge Brighton, but I think Brighton is e- easily as good as Chelsea, and very likely as good as Liverpool from player to player. 39:55 So, if they stay in this race, if they end up second, they take Arsenal all the way, or heck, they go on and win it, it won't look like that, that Cinderella run that Leicester took. You'll look at... 40:09 For me, you look at Brighton and you go, they're su- sustainable and repeatable. They are such a well-run team, and they have such good young players. 40:18 I expect them to continually, to continually progress and be better year on year. Uh, you know, to that fact of, like, you know, Brighton's a well-run player. 40:30 The, and beating City here, I feel like they are absolutely just taking a big, fat number two on this, like, City argument about, "We had to cheat to compete because Liverpool, Man United, and Arsenal pulled the, pulled the drawbridge up on us, so we, we weren't allowed to spend. 40:48 So the only way to get to that level was to cheat." Brighton has never cheated. They've never fallen afoul of FFP or financial... The PSR rules in, in the FA, um, you know, the English FA. 41:03 In fact, they've made a profit on player sales the last two seasons. Nobody has ever questioned that Brighton might be doing some dodgy dealings, right? And they are going toe-to-toe with City. 41:15 They are going toe-to-toe with Arsenal. They prove that you can do it. You can, through smart acquisitions and great business and great data, 41:25 earn a seat at the table without cheating, and it just puts paid to the fact, like, City's whole point of, like, "Well, you changed the rules and that's why we had to cheat. We couldn't do anything but cheat. 41:36 It's your fault we cheated." Brighton is like, "No, you, you could do it. Maybe you can't do it in two seasons, but you can do it. 41:44 You can spend correctly, you can run a team correctly, and you can challenge at the top of the Premier League table." And I think consistently. I, I think this is not an anomaly. 41:55 I think this is just the first of many seasons to come where Brighton is in and around that one through six place. All right, Dex. So with that, Kevin, well s- well said. Well said. Well said. 42:06 Dex, what are your thoughts on this? Well, this is why you- 'Cause I know it would be fun for you to talk about City losing, which I know you enjoy. [laughs] This is why you my brothers. 42:13 I got pretty much the same notes with different words, all right? Lewis Dunk, absolute captain's performance. I don't know how else you could put it, right? The, the... 42:25 First of all, the man grew up in Brighton, born in Brighton, played for Brighton his whole life. This is an absolute captain's performance. Spectacular pass. That started the... 42:36 It was his pass that really did everything. It was that pass. If you look at where he hit it from, it was, it was his pass that started the, the whole thing that caused this. 42:45 Then after that, you know, he had like, he covered Andersen well in about the 21st minute. He blocked Haaland in the f- like, later in the game, the 42nd minute. He had two handball accusations that were dismissed. 42:59 But it showed you how much he was involved in everything going on in the game. He was all over the place. And this is just, this is the, I call this captain's behavior, you know what I mean? That's captain's behavior. 43:11 100%. I'm gonna, I'm also gonna give a little props to, uh, Verbruggen, 'cause he was saving like crazy, too. I gotta give the goalkeeper a little bit of love as well. 43:21 And then I gotta go to, my, my next thought was Elliott Anderson earning his money. Elliott Anderson's out there earning his money. He was everywhere early in the game. 43:32 The, his dis- distribution throughout the, the first half was crazy. He was passing crazy. He was all over the place. To Doku, he passed it to Núñez. I mean, there was some great stuff in, in, in the early in the game. 43:44 And even in, in the, the block shot by Haaland, he was involved in that as well. So, I, I have to say, just like you, I didn't know nothing about this dude. All right, he, he was, he was at the World Cup. All right. 43:56 [laughs] All right, cool. Nottingham Forest. I went and looked at Nottingham Forest highlights of him. I was like, "Oh, he's cool." But I didn't know, he really is that. He, he's good. He's good. 44:06 Like you, I said the same thing, too. Njie got quiet. Totally quiet. Didn't see anything from him. Doku was a little bit more threatening on his side, but that's that. 44:15 Cherki even had some nice passes, but the individual perform- uh, brilliance didn't come together like it, it normally does. 44:23 And I think once they, that goal got scored and then, especially after the, the charges, when a team gets on them like that, they, they... I don't know if they can handle it now, you know what I mean? 44:34 I'm not sure if they can handle it as well, but- Yeah, they seem- Brighton really- They seem to be, they seem to be a different- Yeah... proposition without- Mm-hmm... that Pep aura, right? Like- Yeah. Yeah, yeah... 44:45 without that, like, "We've got a guy who can make the difference. He may be on the bench-" Yeah, look- "... and, and, you know, directing us." Yeah "But we've got a guy who you don't have and can never have." 44:55 With Maresca, they don't have that now. And that's what I'm saying, um, but, but Brighton, they w- first of all, Maresca, he could dress like Pep. 45:03 [laughs] He could almost look like Pep if you look really quick, if you, like, look, take a quick glance. Diet Pep. You ain't Pep, my man. Diet Pep, as, as we like to call him. [laughs] Diet Pep, that's nice. 45:14 Brighton looked brilliant defending, great defending. Took, took advantage of what they had to. No fear. Nobody's fearing City now. Nobody's fearing them, you know what I mean? Everybody's going right at them. 45:25 It's like Brighton said, "All right, Villa. Look what Villa did. We definitely could take these guys," you know what I mean? 100%. That's the way I feel. The energy is just totally changing now with these guys. 45:33 And you know, of course, there's a part of me that loves it, you know what I mean? [laughs] A little shot at Brighton. [laughs] There's a part of me that loves it, you know? 45:41 Y'all, y'all trying to play that rich man cheating stuff, this is what happens to you. I think it's- And I think that's all I got out of... Huh? I also think it's great. 45:48 Brighton obviously had to play them twice in a week, um, at- Yeah... both games at the Etsy Hat as well. So Brighton didn't even get the bonus of playing one at home, one away. 45:57 They had to, they had to go to Manchester twice. And in both games, I would say they outplayed City. And City were lucky to... 46:04 Maybe not lucky, but they had to work their butts off to, um, to get penalties in the Carabao Cup, and then at that point, it's, you know, it, it's anybody's game. Uh, Ayari misses. 46:17 Dunk, who you wouldn't expect to miss, misses. And, and- Mm... you know, and, and City get through. And, and that could've tanked Brighton out, you know? 46:25 They could've looked at that game and like, "We have to go back there f- three day, or four days later and do the same thing, and we weren't able to get past them the last time. 46:36 Are we gonna be able to get past them this time?" And they looked undaunted. And you have to give Fabián Huerzeler credit for that. That's gotta come from the management structure of, "Look, we're as good as they are. 46:47 All you have to do is believe it. I'm telling you, you're as good as they are. If you believe me, we'll go out there and win." And they did. A couple fun stats from, uh, uh, from the game, 46:57 or, or just generally speaking, after the game. You mentioned Verbruggen. He made seven saves on the day. Not that that's anything, you know, record historic, but you know, just great work. 47:06 Just get, his, getting through his business, earning his paycheck. And they were all important ones. They were all important. The seven, th- uh, uh, some of them were definitely important. Yeah. And they... 47:15 I wouldn't say any one of them is gonna be up for Save of the Month or even Save of the Week. No, no. 47:20 Um, but you gotta give credit to Brighton for, they were not giving up opportunities that were drastic, opportunities that required- No... Verbruggen to become Superman. They- No, this was grind-it-out save. Yeah. 47:31 It's, we, you know, we're gonna hold this win. We're gonna hold this together. It just showed that City, City carved out their chances. Verbruggen stood tall, held it all. Mm-hmm. And then 47:40 Brighton now have won, obviously, five of their last six matches. In all five of those victories, they have kept a clean sheet. 47:49 For me, [laughs] that is, like, the most shocking because prior to this season, uh, you know, going into last season, Brighton was in that realm of, like, Chelsea, where, like, Brighton hasn't kept a clean sheet in 19 months, you know? 48:02 [laughs] And it's like, it's their first home clean sheet since 2008 or whatever the... [laughs] Like, and here they are, in f- five of their last six games, they've not given up a goal. 48:12 Not really changed anything fundamentally. They're still in a, a incredibly fun team to watch, watching them go forward. 48:19 They, they, they can play tiki-taka pa- you know, they can play old school United diagonals out to the wing for a cross, as we saw, you know, in this game. Like, I just think they could do it all. And 48:32 the one thing I think they won't be able to do is keep Fabián Huerzeler for too much longer, 'cause some- Bigger club, air quotes, inverted commas, is gonna come in for him. Maybe it's Bayern Munich- Yeah... 48:42 maybe it's Borussia Dortmund, he goes back to Germany. I think most teams would be worried about their great manager moving on. Except Brighton has now done this three times in a row. 48:55 [laughs] And they've gotten better each time. And, and, and not gone back. They just find the next better guy. They're like, "Yeah, fine. Whatever." Like, I don't think he leaves- Mm... 49:01 until they know who they want next, like, [laughs] and then they just go on from there, so. Yeah. No, absolutely. [coughs] Great job by them, but- They've already identified who they think is the next manager. 49:10 Tony Bloom hires, hires people with the understanding that I will have to replace you in a couple years because you are going to do well enough that someone else will want you. 49:21 So I'm sure they've already identified who their next manager between two or three people, uh, are. Wouldn't be surprised if it was somebody like Matt Torrazo, uh, who's the American coach who's just a, like, 49:35 flying under the radar. You talking about Brighton? You talking about Brighton's next coach? Yeah. Who, I'm saying who I think could be their next coach is the American, Matt Torrazo. Oh, could be. Okay. 49:45 Dude flies under the radar 'cause he's not Jesse March, he's not... Really, that's the only American coach I can think of off the top of my head. 49:52 [laughs] But he's probably the most successful American coach in Europe of all time. Look him up. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's somebody like that who Brighton bring in. Some guy who you're like, "That guy?" 50:01 And then he comes in and crushes it, and somebody else buys him. Mm. So. Yeah. 50:05 To end, yeah, Brighton seems to, they always have a plan and, like you said, they plan for people doing well enough to not be at the squad anymore. 50:13 It, they're not surprised when guys move on, 'cause they're like, "No, no, we, this is exactly what we signed you for. We signed you probably for three to four years. Ge- get us better. 50:22 We'll make money on the deal, of course, 'cause we're Brighton." Yet again, don't do deals with Brighton. You're gonna lose out. Oh- In it for the long haul. Mm-hmm And City, Maresca, like, look, they're gonna be good. 50:31 They're gonna win a whole bunch, and then when we find out whatever deduction they have, that'll be the end of their season. All right. Should we move on to the next game? I'll just throw one more thing in. Yeah. 50:38 I'll throw one more thing in. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Um- Go ahead, Dex... everything you said about Brighton I agree, until or if they win the, the league. Yeah. Let's see how their attitude changes after that. 50:50 You know what I mean? Yeah. Su- yeah. Success is d- that, that'll be the one thing. That's the only catch. The season's more... Yeah. That's the only catch. 50:56 Honestly, I think they cash in all the chips and maybe the guy just sells the team at that point. [laughs] It's like, yeah. That might be crazy too. That might be crazy too. Can't see it. All right. So- Uh-huh... 51:04 that, let's, let's go into game three, and just to make Arsenal fans mad we'll talk about Tottenham first. Spurs win again, three on the bounce. 51:12 Uh, they take down Crystal Palace two-nothing, and really the moment of this game is Mateta 10 minutes in, was it 13 minutes in? But he eventually got the actual card after VAR. 51:24 I- just takes a straight red at midfield, no other attackers around. The ball's going back towards Spurs' defen- [laughs] Like, Spurs just played that back to the goalie. Like, the, I... 51:35 One of the more ludicrous red cards I think I've seen in years, and it just speaks to- Hmm... this guy doesn't want- Yeah... 51:43 to be at Crystal Palace, and it seems like he's now doing everything in his power to not play at this. 51:50 So then Archie Gray gets the first one once they're, uh, they're up a man, and Van Heck scores a very fun goal from his butt [laughs] after on a, on a nice rebound there. 52:00 And then probably my favorite moment of the day, which this guy, he, Kudus is so happy that they were up two-nothing because he took a ball inside the six-yard box and put it out for a throw in. 52:11 Which, the long side, not even like behind. He went the long way back where the ball came from. But it's two-nothing for c- two-nothing Spurs. They are three in a row now. 52:21 Dex, your thoughts on what the Tottenham Hotspur is up to these days. Uh, they're another one of the teams I think are, are warming up. I do think they're warming up. 52:30 But then they show you signs like they're still horrible at the finishing. [laughs] Let's talk about Mateta for a second. I like to look at tackling in three stages. There's absolute clean tackle, great job. 52:44 There's that where me and you, or us three go into. We're tackling you- What do you mean us three?... but we really just want you to know we here. Perfect tackle- Huh? What do you mean us three? 52:53 Perfect tackle every time right here. It's us three. I don't wanna hear your bullshit. No, it's us three. I want perfect tackle every time. He's saying- It's us three. Nah, we wanna let the guy know we're there. 53:01 Is that, is that- We wanna let the guy know we're there. Yeah, we're there. Uh, no. You not, it's not gonna be soft. No, you don't wanna let the guy know you're there. We, it's not soft. Mr. Sean Stafford. 53:08 I- it's nothing soft over here. And then there's that reckless ignorant tackle. Okay, that's me. You know what I mean? Sorry. That's actually me. [laughs] You know what I'm saying? 53:16 And, and he was in the level I'm gonna call reckless ignorant tackling. You know, like dude, come on, man. Oh, you're being... Dex, you're being polite. The man lost his entire brain. It, it, all right. 53:29 What was he thinking? Fair enough. Like, what did he think he was going to do? See, see he's thinking- You know something? He, he was looking at the ball, but he was nowhere near getting to it. 53:40 But see, he- That was the funny part... but where in your brain says, "I'm gonna slide in and win that ball, and then what am I gonna do with it? Because even if I win it off Micky van de Ven, 53:54 Jean-Paul van Hecke is gonna get the ball. Like, I'm alone." Yeah. "By myself." Yo, Van Hecke was a- R- r- Yo, Van Hecke was heated too... running- But go ahead... half speed 54:04 against Micky van de Ven, who is six times faster than me 'cause he's the fastest player in the league. What did Jean-Paul Mateta think he was going... Uh, Jean-Philippe, not Jean-Paul. Uh, that's, that's Van Hecke. 54:16 What did Mateta... I'll just go with last names. What did Mateta- [laughs]... think he was going to do? That's my honest question. It's not rhetorical. 54:23 Somebody explain to me what he thought he was going to do with that ball. He was getting an early shower. That's what he was doing. He was getting all the hot water. That was- He was making sure- It, it made no sense. 54:31 It's like y- yes, in the, in the replay he's looking at the ball, but you're nowhere near it. Like, what are, what are you trying to do there? But even if he's looking at the ball- He-... 54:39 the way he goes into that, he's not coming in swiping it to, like, clear a path, like, and then run onto it. He's coming in f- Studs up. All he's gonna do is poke it away. Best- It's super reckless, man... 54:52 best case scenario, he pokes it away from Micky van de Ven. And then what happens? Nothing. [laughs] Either- Van Heck plays it- Either Micky van de Ven gets up to get the ball- Van Heck plays it back to the goalkeeper... 55:05 because he's faster. You're, you're on the ground. You're not gonna get the ball. Or- Yeah... Jean-Philippe Mateta- And the ball's not near the touchline... 55:09 who's standing right next to Micky van de Ven in the team van gets the ball. Right. Like, there's- 'Cause the ball's not near the touchline. Just to make sure that's clear. It's far from the touchline. 55:19 [laughs] It's dead middle of the field. It's dead- Yeah... middle of the field. So I don't know what he was doing. Now, now the play be- It's not like, it's not like he was like, "Oh, I gotta break up a counter-attack." 55:25 He's going backwards. Yeah. They're going towards- It just, it just-... Anton Strakosha... reckless, dumb sort. Yeah. 55:32 Just, I just, I don't know what he was thinking, and I know in most cases professional athletes are not Mensa candidates. But what the hell was going through his mind? I know this. 55:47 When I start to feel when, when that happens and that early in the game, you're just ruining the game now. You're just, [laughs] you ruined the game now. 55:54 You know, and you know VAR and the, uh, the official were like, "Is there any way we can not send him off? Because it's 12 minutes into the game. He did a slow lunging tackle. 56:07 Like, is there any way we can keep 11 on the field and not, and actually have a game?" And there's no way. Like, there's nothing you could do there. Like, that is stone-cold red card every time. I, I'm flabbergasted. 56:21 If I am Pierre Sage or whatever you pronounce it, I, I don't know if I'm playing him again, even when he's available again. Like, that's brain-dead. That's just absolutely brain-dead display, and you cost your team 56:38 any, any opportunity at getting a win. Yeah. And so- But- I mean, once, once he was out of the game- I yield the rest of my time back to you, Dexter. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once, once he was out, 56:50 I'm gonna say Crystal Palace had a couple of chances. They really tried, but it was all Tottenham after that. I mean, they were doing smooth stuff. 56:57 Even Son Heung-min had a nice little pass early in the, the first ha- Like, guys was doing crazy stuff. But overall, my, my final thoughts was, uh, Jean-Paul van Hecke earning his money. My man's earning his money. 57:11 Look good. He looked good. All right? All right? This, this is another guy from, from the new era of, who got traded, earning his money. He had a spectacular pass to Pedro Porro. I don't know if you saw that. 57:22 Pedro Porro's touch was chef's kiss, as you like to say. [laughs] Yeah. It was spectacular, all right? I thought, I thought Pedro Porro- Like late, like let me s-... was probably the, the best player on the field. Yeah. 57:35 Spurs s- When he came on, he wa- Yeah. Spurs fans will be so happy that he's back. I know he didn't start the season so great, but he had great World Cup. Spurs fans could be only happy that he's, he's back. He's 57:47 quite possibly the, the best, maybe second or third best right back in the league when he's on form. You know, you're talking about it's him, it's Jurrien Timber, 57:56 it's Reece James on the rare occasion that Reece James is not injured, right? Like, he's up there in that level right now. Um- Yes. And he was, and he, when he went on, came on, he was spectacular. 58:07 But it was the Tottenham show after a while. It was like 11 different guys was taking shots and getting touches on. It was wild. It was like about 11 guys d- different guys j- had to touch on the ball. Mm. 58:17 This guy Tell, man, this kid who I was ripping- [laughs]... because of that, that free kick a, a month ago, he's on fire now. The kid's on fire, okay? Um- Dex- Dex, that's literally my point. 58:28 I, I have written down, "Since Dexter had gotten on Tell for that free kick, the man has been reborn." He's changed. I don't know. He, he watched the podcast 'cause- [laughs]... [laughs] 'cause, you know. 58:39 He said- He changed... he said, "Joe's on me first out there in the US-" Yeah... "getting on my case." Uh, but yeah, he- I know, right... 58:46 outside of Pedro Porro, the guy, like I thought m- I thought Tell was the, the best player, uh, on the- Lovely. Yeah... on the, in the game, so. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Van Hecke, he, he, he scored, which was wonderful. 58:58 He passed, which was wonderful, and he played defense. He was, he was on point. Tell is just improving. Dangerous dribbling, sharp. He had a wonderful turn on... I wrote the person's name down. 59:09 He turned on somebody that was so, so nasty that, um- Was it Disasi? Because it was usually Disasi... it'll come back to me later. It wa- it, it was. Um- It was probably when he got yellow carded. Yeah, it was... 59:22 Yeah, it was, it was horrible. It was, it was a wicked turn on him. But anyway, um, he's doing good. I, I'm gonna give one person on Crystal Palace credit and that's Dean Henderson. 59:32 Dean Henderson played, [laughs] did all he could. He, he, he was getting an onslaught. He did all he could. Dominic Solanke, look, I'm gonna give him a little, I'm gonna put a little respect on his name. Very little. 59:46 Wait, what re- I'm sorry... He, he, he shot really horrible. One- What respect- Yeah... do you have to put on Dom Solanke after this game? All right. Look, look. 59:51 He, he- This, this is the most intriguing point of the week so far is that you have respect to put on Solanke's name. So- So I'm all in... I, let me tell you. I, you know how I feel about Solanke, man. 1:00:02 Yeah, look, he, he moved around a lot in a good way. [laughs] Wait, wait. Right? Wait, wait, wait. Wait. He, he, he, but he took one horrible shot. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Uh-huh. I have, I have to... 1:00:14 Are, is the respect you're putting on Dom Solanke's name is that he moved? [laughs] No, no, no, I'm gonna get what it really is. Is it that he's alive and moved his body? No. 1:00:23 No, no, [laughs] what it really is, is he, uh- That has to be like the bar is low for my boy if that's where we're giving him respect. He... No. No, what he did was, the best thing he did, two things. One... 1:00:34 Well, three things. One, first he took a horrible shot. It was horrible. Then he, he, he had one turn that was spectac- and a heavy shot, but it was saved. Dean Henderson was on fire. 1:00:46 But then when I realized what he did do, which is helpful, he had a great defensive stop later in the game- Hey... when, when there was a chance of recuperating. [laughs] That was his, that was his, uh, contribution. 1:00:58 Good job, Dom. Good job. But on our list of strikers, you gotta score. He's on, he's the top of the list 'Cause he didn't do anything else with that. Like, 1:01:07 y- you need, your striker gotta score [laughs] I mean, Dex, like literally word for word, I have a point here where I'm like, "All right, Spurs, they're not as bad as they were the first six. 1:01:14 They're not gonna be as good as they have been the last three." They always play hard, which is great, but they need an actual striker, 'cause Solanke ain't it by a long shot. They- Like, he's just- There you go... 1:01:23 like, he- Let me tell you... he ain't it... let me tell you, he is not it. He's not it. So Do- Go ahead... so Dom Solanke is a Chelsea youth product, right? So I- [laughs]... followed his career trajectory, right? 1:01:33 We had this kid, we're like, "You're not gonna believe. He's, he's gonna come in, he's gonna take Diego Costa's job." We had this kid that everyone was so hyped on. 1:01:42 At no point have I ever been said that we saw Dom Solanke. I'll just put it that way. [laughs] From every game. [laughs] Every game I've watched of him, just like, "Yeah, okay. Cool." What, what- He's just a big guy. 1:01:54 That's all he is... what the- Right now, need to... That's all he is, is a big guy... like, there, there have been- He, he doesn't do much... 1:01:59 there have been times when I'm like, "We probably could use Tammy Abraham back, right?" There are some guys, would've been nice to have kept him. You know, Fikayo Tomori, Diego Moraya. 1:02:09 Um, some guys were like, we probably moved them on too quickly, right? We... Lewis Hall, Tino Livramento for a hot minute. At no point have I ever looked at Dom Solanke and been like, "We should've kept that guy." 1:02:22 And he scored- [laughs]... 20 goals for Bournemouth in one season, and at no point was a l- was I thinking, "I wish we had Dom Solanke back." 1:02:29 [laughs] I never paid any att- since, until we started the podcast, I started watching this guy. I'm like, "This guy sucks. What's wrong with him?" [laughs] Like, I ran the... I never even heard of him. 1:02:38 I was like, "This guy's trash." Yeah, you're not good. You're not good. Like, he's horrible. You know what I mean? Um, but Dex, I did write, I did put down your Matias, Matias Tel, whatever Tel, um- Yeah. I don't know... 1:02:48 just, just Tel. Just tell me about him. The, the, it's called Tel. [laughs] Uh, but fear not, because a new challenger has entered the fight for banter player of the year, and it's Mohammed Kudus. 1:02:59 [laughs] This dude has been lethally bad. I just watch this, like Solanke, I just watch this guy and just like, you just watch him to see what, what mistake he's going to make next. Sean, you already brought it up, but 1:03:15 you said inside the- Miss of the year... you said inside the- Miss of the year... six. He was two yards out. He was, he was two yards out from that, um, Williams-Barnett cross. [laughs] And he- Oh, man. There it is... 1:03:30 he hit it past William, Williams-Barnett out for a throw in. [laughs] You're just like, if you're, if you're that kid, what, I think he's 18 or, or, like 19 or- And yeah, and we gotta, we, I wanted to talk about him. 1:03:42 I wanted to talk. Go ahead. Go ahead... he put that cross in, and he said, "Oh, it's my first Tottenham assist." He's, he's signing. He's out there signing, like soccer ball's in his mind. 1:03:51 He's, he's gotten a si- he created a goal for his boyhood club, Tottenham. And then he sees that ball whip past his head, he has to be like, "What the fuck?" Yeah. "How did that end up over here?" 1:04:04 Williams-Barnett, man, he dribbled past a dude, took on two other dudes for that play, and Kudus just totally muffed it on him. That's being polite. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and shout out to Williams-Barnett. 1:04:18 That was spectacular. 18 years old, by the way. 18 years. Spectacular dribble. I feel, I feel like I, I feel like I wanna go and give that literal millionaire, that 18-year-old millionaire a hug. I feel bad for him. 1:04:30 Yeah. I know. It, it was, it was a spectacular play. Me, in my- A, a great caveat at the end of the game... in my unfinished garage, [laughs] doing a, doing a podcast that four people listen to feels bad for- [laughs] 1:04:48 In your unfinished garage... for Luca Williams-Barnett, for Kudus. [laughs] That's where I'm at right now. Like, like- Yeah... my dude, I will trade places with you. I feel bad. I feel that bad. I will trade places. 1:04:58 [laughs] That was- Oh, man... comical. Call that, we used to call that a dick out shot, right? If you take a shot that's so bad 1:05:09 that it goes out for a throw and you gotta play with your pants down for the next five minutes. [laughs] Oh, yeah. [laughs] That's, that's pushups. That we, when, when we were younger- Seriously... that was pushups. 1:05:18 You miss- Uh, yeah... if you take a shot and it goes for a throw, that's pushups. [laughs] But, but- All right... absolutely great performance by... That little job, great job by that kid. Good stuff. But anyway. Yeah. 1:05:27 I, I'd say f- finally, like Palace, I mean, this is three straight losses without scoring a goal. They're down in the relegation zone. I mean, they are, they are begging for the days of mid-table mediocrity, 'cause 1:05:40 they look bad. I guess new manager, just to try to get a few points on the board to turn the team around, but this is a team... 1:05:48 D- Dex, you can look at your squad and be like, "All right, well, at least we're not Palace." Holy moly. [laughs] That's bad. You guys at least have, you guys at least have talent. That's awful. 1:05:54 Like, you've got talent around. Palace has, d- I don't know what. They just, you know. 1:05:59 Again, they gotta take that FA Cup and- And look, when, when, when, when, when Mateta tries to, quote-unquote, "tackle" in the 11th, 12th minute, that, like that and gets out the game- Yeah, but then you can't-... 1:06:09 that says it all... you can't play a guy who spent the entire off-season saying, "I cannot express this strongly enough. I do not wanna be at this club." Horrible. And you tell him, "Hey, go out there and score goals." 1:06:19 Like, not shocking you're not getting his best performances. Horrible. I mean, you gotta bite the bullet and just move on from him. Do something. This might... Who knows? Maybe this will get him traded. Who knows? 1:06:28 He, the only... I think the only, you know, sign forward for, for Palace is at least Oliver Glasner will probably be available soon that, and they can hire him back. [laughs] 'Cause he's absolutely- He'll never... 1:06:41 gonna get fired from Forest in the next two weeks. [laughs] So maybe they could bring Glasner in and, and- Okay, Forest... get back to 12th like they do every year. Right. 1:06:51 Like, that, that, that is the only silver lining in this cloud right now. Yeah, get him back. 'Cause- For real... Pierres Ach ain't it. He doesn't have it at this level. Um- No... 1:07:01 it's either that or you have to put massive respect on Ollie Glasner's name for what he got out of this club. That without him, they are in the relegation zone. So, and that's, and that's all I have to say about that. 1:07:18 All right. Should we move o- All right. Shall we go on to probably game of the week? They, uh, they made their- I, I call it game of the week. That's a fact... 1:07:22 they made it like a standalone, uh, standalone game that day. Liverpool, Arsenal. Arsenal goes to Anfield and comes away with a very Arsenal one-nothing win. They, they sneak a one early off a mistake from Allison. 1:07:37 Kai Havertz puts it in. 1:07:39 Um, they yet again get away with, I guess, as many penalties as they wanna, they wanna ha- Isak clearly gets pulled back by Timber, and VAR apparently was like, "Ooh, sorry, our cameras are off at the moment. 1:07:51 We didn't really see that one." And before all Arsenal fans, you know, chime in, w- what was it, Cariono, who, w- there was like a young guy who hit Ødegaard and- Noni? What's his face? 1:08:00 Oh, like those should, those should've been reds Noni? Noni Noni, yeah. Like, those should've been reds. It's like, look, he probably should have at least one yellow from those two. You're not getting red for that. 1:08:09 Calm down. I disagree And then Edge with that Timber should've gotten- I think he probably should've been off. The first one is either a straight red or they're both yellows. Um, I think he easily could've been off Yeah. 1:08:17 Look, again, if Arsenal wants to complain, that's fine, easily. But then they can't just, then, okay, I'll... 1:08:22 You counter with Timber should be off for a dog so, 'cause Isak was in behind everyone and you pulled him back from scoring a goal. So that's a penalty and a r- and a red card should have seen. 1:08:31 And then Mac Allister gets headbutted, and they... [laughs] Again, it's a soft headbutt, but we saw this with Betancor. It doesn't have to be hard. 1:08:38 You know, apparently you're allowed to throw headbutts if you're wearing the, uh, the Arsenal red these days. Uh- I don't agree. I don't think that's a headbutt 1:08:46 If you're gonna c- Look, if they call it on Betancor, the, the, any, you make contact with your head, I don't think it's a headbutt either. 1:08:51 Uh, there's no contact though Look, to go out, to, to speak trainly- There's no contact though. Yeah, whatever. No, no Be- Betancor made contact... we, we're gonna have- There's no... 1:08:59 The, the breeziest of breezy touches. Uh, Mac Allister is- L- listen... a pussy. I'm sorry. Listen, listen Get up. Listen, o- on the Well Strunk! Podcast, we're gonna have this phrase for stuff like this called CTF. 1:09:15 Pardon my language. Friends, cut the fuckery. All right? All right. Gabriel, that was nonsense. Oh, Jesus. Extreme fuckery. All right? Extreme fuckery. That was absolute... And then Mac Allister, cut it out, man. 100%. 1:09:28 Cut it out. And when- Again, no, no, look... it's specifically- You, you guys know me of all people-... with Mac Allister- Oh, yeah, go ahead, Kevin. Sorry... 1:09:34 specifically if you're going to lean over the guy you just fouled, was a foul, wasn't a, wasn't a brutal foul, but you fouled Ødegaard. 1:09:42 If you're gonna lean over him, yell, shit talk him, and then swipe the back of his head, you're not allowed to go down for whatever that was that Mataweke did. 1:09:54 Well, what, all of that was- If you're gonna be a hard man, you're gonna be Vinnie Jones, you're gonna be Roy Keane, you're gonna shout at people when they're on the ground. You go down from 1:10:04 someone's head coming vaguely near your own head, you can get all the way F'd. Like CTF, man, as Dexter just said. Yeah, CTF, man. Cut the fuckery. That's gonna be the new thing. 1:10:14 When we see that, we gotta call it like that. Like bullshit. Yeah, 'cause, you know, Dexter, beau- beautifully put, beautifully put. 1:10:18 But I think the, the league has encouraged this sort of nonsense by saying, "Well, any time you do violent conduct with your head." 1:10:25 It's like, man, we all know what an actual headbutt looks like, and we know what two idiots look like getting in each other's face. Those two things are extremely different. You know what? 1:10:33 If you don't do a Zinedine Zidane headbutt to the chest, that is what I'm calling a headbutt. 1:10:38 Don't give me this, we put our faces near each other, like, 'cause we've all seen, we've seen a million thugs and morons do that. Well, that's, that's exactly what I said You know, after they've had too many pints... 1:10:46 in the Betancor thing, is that I don't think he necessarily should've been sent off for that. I don't think it's a headbutt. 1:10:51 I think he ran up with his head slightly in front of his torso, and it, and it contacted the player. Like I, to me, that's not a headbutt. 1:11:01 To me, what Mataweke does is, is not a headbutt Yeah, heads coming in contact with each other. Yeah A headbutt is a headbutt. There has to be like a sharp forward motion. 1:11:10 Running at somebody with your head down, unless you absolutely snowplow the guy, is not a headbutt. I'm sorry. Yeah, no. 1:11:18 Yeah, so a lot of the, a lot of controversy, but in the end, it ends, this ends, honestly just ends up being a, a, a typical Arsenal. They score early, they pack it in. You know, Liverpool took a lot of shots. 1:11:30 None of them were very threatening for the most part. 1:11:32 Mac Allister, when he's, you know, pretending that his head was hit, he should've been using his head to score a goddamn goal on a freaking header, which he, I mean, wide open and just blazes it over the goddamn bar. 1:11:41 [laughs] Shame. It doesn't even test Raya. Uh, I think this is a big disappointment from, from, from Liverpool for me. I, I think you've got to... 1:11:49 If you wanted to step into this race right here, this was the game to do it. And again, we will be called Arsenal haters, and I will wear that ba- uh, badge proudly. But they play boring, ugly fucking soccer. I hate it. 1:12:03 It's incredibly effective. It's amazingly effective, but I hate it. And then you've got Arteta, when they ask him about the shirt tug, he's going, "Oh, I've got plenty of clips and photos of, of shirts being pulled." 1:12:14 It's like, shut up, you smug little fuck. Like, stand in your box, play your goddamn defensive game, and if you win the title, you win the title. But don't give me this like, "Everybody does it." 1:12:24 It's like, yeah, you know what? When you're on the top, everyone is mad at you, and you get scrutinized more. So deal with it. 1:12:31 Like you can't, you don't get to be, "Oh, we're the eighth place team who's trying to do well. Don't pick on us." You won the Prem. We're gonna pick on you. 1:12:38 We're gonna watch everything you do, and we're gonna critique everything you do. I'm sorry. It's a side effect of success. And I hate the way they win, but they win. 1:12:45 And you gotta give them the, you know, they get their points. Points are points. But give, as few games as I can watch a year of Arsenal, I think I would. 1:12:53 Because the second they score in the first 15, 20 minutes, you know exactly what the game's gonna look like. And unless the, you know, the team on the other side is a PSG, it's hard to make them pay for it. 1:13:03 So that's me yelling. [laughs] You can clip that one. Let's throw that one on TikTok of me screaming about Arteta. 1:13:08 Uh, but you guys tell, you, you guys give me an actual nuanced take because mine is always super angry about this stupid team. I don't know how nuanced I'll be. Um, I'll go real quick. But like- I'll be the nuanced guy. 1:13:20 You, you- Go ahead. Yeah, you do. You, you br- I'll be the nuanced guy... you bring the, you bring the both sides of the argument. Um, it's just 1:13:28 that, like you mentioned, like the Arteta, the Arteta clip about like, "Oh, I have, you know, a dossier of, of shirt pulls." You know there are a dossier of shirt pulls because he thinks they're calls against... 1:13:39 that didn't go in his favor. But he's not saying that. He's not saying, "I have a full folder of all the times we didn't get the call." 1:13:48 Which the underlying statement there is like, "I believe that that's a foul, and I didn't get it, but I'm just gonna tell you like, 'Hey, you don't get them.'" And he's not necessarily wrong. 1:13:56 Like, yes, you don't, you don't always get those calls. Liverpool didn't get it here. I think more often than not, referees are hesitant to call that. They let that go. 1:14:07 I'd love to see them over-index on the other side, is like, "Just cut it out." You... That's not part of the game. Holding and grabbing and pulling is not part of the game. No. 1:14:18 Like, it doesn't, it no longer needs to be sustained and impactful. If you grab somebody's shirt and I can see it come away from their body, if it's in, if it's in your penalty box, it's a penalty. 1:14:30 If it's anywhere else, it's a foul. If you grab ahold of their shirt and that shirt stretches, it is now a foul. Every time, that's what we should be calling. 1:14:39 I, I, I don't get it, I don't buy it, I don't believe it that like, "Well, it's part of the game. It happens." It's not part of the physicality of the game. It's not part of, "It's a man's game." It's bullshit. Cheating. 1:14:51 It's trying to get a, get the slightest edge. And I'm just sick of Mikel Arteta's, like, victim mentality. 1:14:59 With, you know, two weeks ago, a week ago, when he's like, "Oh, well, I've, I've compiled a dossier of all the ti- of all the other managers who step outside of their technical area and don't get carded." Uh, 1:15:11 that's not your problem, man. Your problem is stay inside your box. That's your problem. Worry about that. Were you outside the box when you got yellow carded? The answer is yes, you were. Yes. 1:15:21 [laughs] So take your card and move on. Like, don't tell me, "Well, uh, well, everyone else does it." 1:15:27 Like, as m- as our mother, and I'm sure every mother in the tri-state area said to their kids, "If everyone else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you, would you as well?" It's not about everyone else. 1:15:39 It, it's about you. And Sean, as you said, like when you're on top, people are gonna take shots at you. And there's a way to navigate that and win with dignity, and Arsenal ain't, like doesn't have it. 1:15:51 They're constant victims. Making the rounds today is all these Arsenal online idiots. Um, and, and I say online idiots 'cause I separate them from, like, real Arsenal fans. 1:16:04 'Cause these people are just posting for rage bait. Like, they're posting for clicks. 1:16:08 They're posting because they wanna be the next AFTV and make ad money, and the only way to do that is to get the people click, uh, click on and engage with their things. 1:16:15 But they're posting an image of Jeremy Doku hold- grabbing Declan Rice's shirt in the penalty box, and they're like, "Oh, but nobody wants to talk about this, so if one's a penalty, why isn't the other?" 1:16:29 Well, for two reasons. One, if you watch the video, which they won't post because it disproves their point, Jeremy Doku doesn't hold his shirt. He grabs it and as Declan Rice runs away, he lets it go. 1:16:43 It doesn't stop him, it doesn't impede him, it never stretches to the point where it makes any material impact on Declan Rice's physical ability to play the ball. 1:16:53 And the other reason it's not a penalty is because it was a Liverpool free kick into Arsenal's defensive box. 1:17:01 Declan Rice is running back towards his own goal when Jeremy Doku grab, like grabs him and, and doesn't impede him. The ball goes over David Raya's head. 1:17:11 The only two people who are near it are Declan Rice and David Raya. Nobody else is in, in the biosphere of it. 1:17:17 Like, you're trying to make this narrative of like, you know, "We're, we're jobbed by the, by the, by the league all the time, and the league doesn't want us to win," and it's not, it's not realistic. 1:17:29 It's this victim mentality. It's this victimhood of like posting sh- that actually disproves your point. Your point is, "Well, if Isak's was a penalty, this should be a penalty." 1:17:39 It's like, okay, well, let's, let's take your point then. I agree. If that's a foul, it's not a penalty, but if that's a foul, then so is Isak's, and you should've given up a penalty. And we can play that game. 1:17:51 I will, I will play your side. I will lean into you. You don't win a penalty. Alexander Isak does win a penalty. 1:17:58 With that said, I don't think it was necessarily a penalty, at least in the sense of like I've seen those not called. I don't think Isak's getting to the ball. 1:18:06 I don't think it actually impacts his ability to head the ball. It's clean over his head. Um, and the fact that no one was upset about it, 1:18:17 like, in real time, to me says no one else felt that it was a penalty, even the players on the field. But then, you know, nine minutes later, 1:18:27 they're all up in arms because of, you know, a slight arm from Zubimendi over Gakpo. Like, so like when they think it's a foul, they're gonna let you know. 1:18:36 Nobody reacted to, to Isak's, um, shirt pull as if it was a foul that prevented a goal scoring opportunity. However, with that said, by the letter of the law, 1:18:48 should be a penalty, and probably at that point then should also be a sending off because he's not making a genuine attempt to play the ball. But we just need to start calling out all of the bullshit, uh, as we see it. 1:19:03 We need to... You know, Timber did, you know, that's twice. 1:19:06 He, he held Isak and then said that 29 minutes, on 29 minutes, when they looked at two VAR calls, they looked at the Zubimendi hold on Gakpo, and they looked at Timber grabbing, again, another guy, a guy's shirt. 1:19:19 I can't remember who it was. Uh, might've been Gravenberch, who goes, who then goes, who goes down theatrically. I don't think it was a penalty. Honestly, he grabs it. It's not impactful in that-... 1:19:28 but like, that's clearly what Tim- that's clearly Timber's motivation. That's clearly what he does on these free kicks, is he grabs your shirt and hopes you don't get to the ball, right? 1:19:36 We need to s- we need to, to knuckle down on that. We need to knuckle down on the, the Gabriel's, like, 1:19:45 pirouette, like, first day at, at figure skating camp, whatever the hell he was doing, because a finger came slightly near his chin, and then a hand touched his chest. That's, 1:19:58 that's as distasteful as Alexis Mac Allister's rolling on the ground like he'd actually been injured by Mattaweke's eyebrow. All of that needs to be cut down on. 1:20:10 All of that needs to be legislated out of the game, because it's ruining the game. It's so annoying. It makes you, like, 1:20:19 unless you're an Arsenal fan or a Liverpool fan, whatever, if you're, unless you're a fan of the player who's doing it and winning the free kick, it makes you, like, viscerally angry to see that, right? 1:20:28 So, honestly, my main takeaway from this game is that Arsenal are fantastic defensively still, and the spectacle of the game is being ruined because players are playing to 1:20:42 win fouls, get people sent off, get people carded, instead of just trying to go out there and beat you. That was my main takeaway, is just, like, this is just... 1:20:53 This isn't the game we should be playing anymore, or, or now. This isn't the game that I love. I do not wanna watch this. I don't wanna wa- 11 players trying to get the other team sent off. All right. 1:21:05 I'm gonna give the nuanced response, and then I'm gonna come back to s- to what you're talking about right now. First, defending champs doing what defending champs do. They're finding a way to win, simple as that. 1:21:16 Alisson, if Alisson just kick that ball f- out the way, like, instead of trying to make this cute pass to Jack, it'd have been a whole different game. It really would have. And, but this team, they are defending champs. 1:21:30 He made s- that mistake, and every name on the team had something to do with that, that goal. Ödegaard intercepts, passes it to Guimaraes. Guimaraes gives it to Mattaweke. 1:21:42 Declan Rice starts overlapping, gets it to Declan Rice, lovely pass to Havertz. If you watch Havertz in that play, he's waving to, to Declan like [laughs] it, like he's waving to him. He's by himself on the end. 1:21:55 So they just took advantage of a bad mistake. Um, and the reason... And Declan Rice definitely, look, Declan Rice is a captain. We know that. He's a captain from West Ham. He plays and acts like a captain. 1:22:05 This is my nuanced answer for you Arsenal fans out there listening, by the way, so y'all don't say that everybody's bashing him. He's a real captain. 1:22:13 He, he not only scores that goal, I mean, he doesn't, help ins- assist that goal. About two minutes later, Barcola, they, they almost make the same mistake. 1:22:23 Raya sh- does a short pass, Barcola jumps on it, and who comes running out of nowhere? Declan Rice. 1:22:29 Kicks the ball out of the way and saves, saves pretty much what would've been the equalizer right there, I would like to say. So, these guys, they know how to play. 1:22:38 They, they were serious about this game, too, because of the 14-year drought with winning at Anfield. 1:22:44 You could see them yelling at each other at some parts of the game when something happened, like, but i- and, like, encouraging each other, like yelling to keep together, 'cause they wanted to win this game. 1:22:52 They really did want to win this game. Now, freaking Konsa Timber grabbing, uh, freaking Isak. Look, I'm so over this, this, h- this new shirt holding thing. It's so annoying. 1:23:06 A week ago, I saw before the half, the Ipswich captain, Daryl O'Shea, his shirt was in shreds before the half by Liam Delap. All right? Liam Delap ha- his shirt was ripped up. 1:23:20 How don't you get a card for that or something? You gotta get, you should get a red card for just... Y- you're not playing the game now. Now you're just... That's not, that's not part of the game. 1:23:30 Th- the beautiful game doesn't mean you have to grab somebody's shirt so that it's ripped. It wasn't, it was before the half. I wanna make sure that's clear. This wasn't the end of the game. 1:23:39 Daryl O'Shea's h- shirt was ripped, like, bad. Yeah. It was ripped out. It wasn't even, like, a little rip. It was like- It was ripped- Yes... in both- Like, the seams was, the seams was rocked. It was like, you know. 1:23:51 And I, I, like, we're over this now. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm surprised VAR didn't look at this and go, "You know what? This is a penalty." You know what I mean? 1:24:00 It's- When you could see, you could see his shirt totally tugging as he's trying to go. You know. And you could see Isak afterwards look at him like, "You got that one. You got off on that." You know what I mean? 1:24:10 There's- You know? There's physical play that's acceptable, and I... Like, we were chatting today during the Roma game, you know, kinda giving Harry Maguire some schtick about his physical play. 1:24:23 But, like, there's physical play that I'll let go. Harry Maguire is a very physical presence. He's got arms all over the defender or attacker, depending on if it's his defensive or his attacking free kick or corner. 1:24:36 And then there's holding the shirt. Those are two different things. Yes, you can play with your arms. You can, you can manhandle the guy. You can move him out of the way, up to a point, and I'll allow it. 1:24:47 But there is, at no point in my opinion, any space for holding a player's shirt. That, that's holding. Like, that's, that's a penalty, or a foul- Yeah... if it's not in the penalty box. Like, that, 1:25:01 to me, that doesn't make any sense. 1:25:02 If you see a player with a handful of jersey, and that jersey is away from the other player's torso where it exis- where it should exist, just immediately whistle, because that's a foul. Like, every single time. 1:25:16 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's what it should be called. Yeah. Like, if- Uh, let me say two more things about Arsenal, though. 1:25:22 One, uh, s- in the second half, early in the second half, if you, from the view when you're watching, uh, watching the game, they are-... perfectly lined up defensively. They are absolutely lined up defensively. 1:25:34 Ooh, in, in, in a, a kind of like a four-four, like the, the, the top two guys are the ones doing all the pressuring and everybody's lined up like in the... They, they're disciplined. They really are disciplined. 1:25:44 I'll give them that. And the other thing we have to, we can't ignore the fact that, you know, Liverpool had 17 shots. And some say one on goal, some say none on, on goal. You know, it's a shame. You know what I mean? 1:25:58 Like, these are teams I don't really love, [laughs] that's the funny part. But as an analyst, and, and of course I, I like L- I would like to see Liverpool... 'Cause they look good in certain games. 1:26:10 But to, to not get one on goal and you're at Anfield is crazy. It's just crazy. Yeah. I have a, I have a point about that. 1:26:21 I think it's the first time in recorded, in recordkeeping history that Liverpool have, have failed to produce a shot on target in a game at home. 1:26:30 So that's like since 1992 apparently that they've been keeping records, or at least the first time in the Premier League era, um, that Liverpool have failed to ke- to, um, produce a shot on goal. 1:26:41 The problem with that is that the stats are arbitrary. Because Alexis Mac Allister very clearly takes a shot on goal from about 35 yards that David Raya catches. It's going in the goal if David Raya doesn't catch it. 1:26:58 But because it was so far out and considered not a genuine, like, goal-bound or scoring opportunity, Opta had decided that it's not a shot on goal. So like- Okay... so you wanna, like... All of the, you know, all the... 1:27:13 Arsenal, "No, we went to Anfield and we ke- you know, we kept them from having a shot on goal." Well, well you didn't, though. Like, you didn't. 1:27:19 The other, the other side of that coin is also like blocks, blocked shots are officially not shots on goal. But they were all goal-bound shots. They were sh- a shot on target that was blocked. 1:27:32 Like, so those sh- like to me, that should count, like as a shot on goal. Like, it is a shot on the goal that was going on frame that got blocked. Why is it a shot on goal when the goalkeeper blocks it, 1:27:46 but it's not a shot on goal when the defender blocks it? What is the difference other than an arbitrary marker of, "Well, we think that's a shot and that's not." Right? So yes, they had 17 shots, none on target 1:28:00 according to Opta. I- So basically it's up to us. It's really up to us to watch a game and go, "That could've been a goal." Yeah. Look- Really... look at that game- It, it really is up to us... 1:28:10 look at that game and tell me Liverpool didn't have opportunities. Absolutely. Yeah. I thought, I, I, it's not 'til later I saw that the 17. I was like, "What?" Exactly. And- So the eye test doesn't match the stat line. 1:28:22 The, the, the eye test says Liverpool outplayed- Yeah... in many respects Arsenal, and Arsenal defended very well. 1:28:29 The, the Mac Allister header that he missed, the Mac Allister header that he missed is a shot on goal to me. You know what I mean? Yeah. [laughs] That's a shot on goal. He just was, wa- it was over the, the, the goal. 1:28:40 It's, it's a- But it was a shot on goal... it's a scoring chance, for sure. If, if we- That's what I'm saying... yeah. I call that a shot on goal. You know. Yeah. 1:28:46 And it's like that's the point, it's like you can make the numbers and stats, like, tell the story that you want it to tell. 1:28:51 You can make any amount of data tell the story you want it to tell by how you look at it and how you carve it up. 1:28:57 So if you're an Arsenal fan you're gonna go ahead and say, "We kept Liverpool from getting a shot on target for the first time in the Premier League at home." 1:29:06 However, as a neutral or as a, as a, uh, you know, Liverpool fan, you're gonna look at that and say, "Yeah, that's 'cause you blocked 14 shots," you know, or whatever it was. 1:29:16 And really, really the big picture is this: Liverpool never stopped attacking and, and, and trying to, to, uh, and equalize it in. They ne- they never did stop. To me, they never did stop. 1:29:25 Yeah, Liverpool was the only team- Um... that looked like they were trying to win the game, in my opinion. A- after- Yeah... after Hakvert scored. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 1:29:34 Uh, but i- i- it's such a tricky thing because it's like... Arsenal's like, and Arsenal fans, if they're smart, they, they shouldn't say anything else but this. "Beat us." That's it. "Beat us then. You don't like it? 1:29:48 Beat it." You know? That's what they should say. They, instead of giving all these other things and pointing out all these other things. They should just say, "Beat us." 1:29:55 The problem is their manager, they have a victimhood. They have a victim mentality, these online Arsenal fans. And you're absolutely right. 1:30:02 If, if I were sitting in, in their shoes, um, and I have, you know, in the Antonio Conte like Chelsea era when, like, you couldn't touch us. "Oh, you don't like it? Beat us. Like, go out there and beat us. 1:30:15 Score more goals than we, than, than us [laughs] like, and, and prove it." 1:30:21 The, this Arsenal, this AFTV of it all, there has to be this victimhood, this, this sense of, "Well, Arsenal are the only good team that's ever existed." Um, and it, look, it's not just Arsenal, right? 1:30:33 It, it is largely Arsenal because they have, all credit to them, probably one of the largest worldwide fanbases. And they, a large portion of their fanbase are younger online people. So they have more 1:30:49 fans online, so they are going to have more of a presence. You're gonna see more of this nonsense posted. Mm. But I just can't- Well, you know what... I, I can't get through a week, 1:31:03 uh, with this, this victim mentality and this sense of like, "Well, Arsenal's the only good team that's ever good teamed in the history of good teams." Um, 1:31:13 and, and it's all for clickbait and it's all, like, because it's annoying. So other fans will look at it and be like, "How the hell are you gonna pick 1:31:20 Mataweke over Lamine Yamal as your, as the best right winger in the, in the world right now?" It's like, well, we- Oh, see, that's going over the top... it's like, well, we did it- That's so crazy... 1:31:28 because you clicked on it, and now I make ad, ad revenue All right, guys. We, look, we could, we could hate on Arsenal all night and- No, I, I'm not hating. I'm gonna call them. No, no, but we- They are defending champs. 1:31:38 Yeah, they are. Do what defending champs do. Win it, win any way you can. Exactly. And look. Um- We have plenty more, I'm sure plenty more one-nothing Arsenal, [laughs] wins to talk about for the end of the year. 1:31:46 That's true. But let's, uh- And I wanna say one thing, too... yeah. Yeah, quickly. Let's remember Brighton beat Arsenal and Man City. Let's just remember that, too. That's player. 1:31:53 So let's see what happens as, as we go down the road. Quite true. All right. So let's hit some of the, the remaining games. 1:31:59 We're not gonna give you quite as much in depth on it, as it's been, it's been a long night so far. Uh, the other two legs of the Bermuda Triangle, though, both with wins, both with two-nothing. 1:32:07 Right, Bournemouth over Leeds two-nothing. And, uh, Bren- Brentford two-nothing over Nottingham Forest. As Kevin mentioned ear- earlier, Forest just looking terrible this year, and their manager's probably gone soon. 1:32:20 Uh, as for Lee, a blip putting it to Bournemouth's on a streak, six in a row now. No shame losing to them. And Leeds is tough. They'll, they'll, they'll bounce back a bit. Anything on those two games, guys? 1:32:29 Uh, ever since they beat Milan, man, they've been on fire. I give them their respect for that. Yeah, yeah. That's it. Simple as that. You gotta give Bournemouth a lot of credit. 1:32:36 They looked, they looked dead and buried, much like Spurs, um, you know, a couple weeks ago. And now they look like, they look like the Andoni Iraola Bournemouth. They look like they are gonna make a run for Europe. 1:32:48 But they're a manic team. They're entertaining. [laughs] That's about all. Yeah. No, Leeds, uh, then, uh- On, on the other hand is Leeds went from a team who can't stop scoring to a team who can't find a goal. 1:33:00 Hey, look, I'm gonna question... I'm gonna... I know Dominic, uh, Calvert-Lewin- [laughs] Oh, boy... had a handball in that game. But- That's so unlucky... you, you gotta be better than that, my man. 1:33:08 You got, you gotta be more of a threat than that. I'm j- I just have to say that. Go ahead. Yep. Yeah, yeah. It was a little unlucky for him there. 1:33:15 But again, yeah, the, Calvert-Lewin is gonna continue to Calvert-Lewin, [laughs] and that's just what's gonna happen. That's what I'm saying. He's not doing nothing. 1:33:21 He's not doing nothing that I gotta go, "Oh, he's, you gotta watch him." Yeah. You know what I mean? He's always doing his thing. New Boys Coventry, they're, you know, showing little signs of life. 1:33:28 I mean, again, this is against Sunderland, another team who's kinda in the doldrums. All right, 3-1 Coventry win there. 1:33:35 And then in the match of the other two, uh, promoted teams, Hull and Ipswich, they each go home with a point. I'm sure they're both relatively pleased with that, and then get as many points as they can. 1:33:45 Hull, obviously, as we kinda predicted, dropping off a little bit. 1:33:48 And Kevin, as you mentioned, you s- you were worried that they would start giving up some goals, 'cause you were pretty impressed by how few they'd given up. But it does seem like that's turning around a little bit now. 1:33:58 Um- Yeah, and Julen Lopetegui... anything from the, on the, any of the new guys? Jul- Julen Lopetegui is the- Yeah... only Ipswich player that you have to look out for. He did it again. Yeah. Yeah. 1:34:06 I wa- I wanna say that. Hu- e- every goal he has is pure hunger, okay? It's pure hunger. It's not, n- no help from the team. It's him fighting to get the, get the ball and shoot. That's it. It's, it's, it's only him. 1:34:20 And one more thing, McBurnie two for two now, all right? McBurnie. He's two for two. Brilliant- There he is... brilliant free kick. There he is. My brother McBurnie with a goal and an assist. That free kick. Yeah. 1:34:29 I mean- Look at... Spectacular assist... that free kick was lovely, too... by the way. Yeah. Pa- apparently- Yeah, free kick was brilliant, and, and a wonderful assist. So shout out to McBurnie. 1:34:38 Him and Telles are, him and Telles are listening to the podcast together, being like, "Fuck these guys next to them." Absolutely. They're like, "These yanks." "We're gonna show them right up." 1:34:44 [laughs] They said like- "Who are these?"... "These bloody yanks. We're gonna show these guys something." [laughs] Uh, Fulham in full turnaround mode. I guess, you know, regression to the mean for them. 1:34:52 They get a one-one draw at Villa. Disappointing for Villa, you would probably say, but it does seem like Fulham's kind... Fulham's getting their shit together a little bit. 1:35:01 But again, if you're, if you're, you know, true, like, "Ooh, let's push for this," this Villa the last couple years where we think they're ma- all right, think they're about to make this run, and then they drop points to so... 1:35:11 A team you... They probably shouldn't be. But a point's a point, right? It's, it's very Unai Emery- Yeah. E-... uh, of it all. Yeah. You know. Nicl- Yeah. But Nicholas Jackson scored again. 1:35:20 Every Chelsea fan who wants to find a reason to kill, you know, the sporting hierarchy at Chelsea is like, "See, we sold him too soon. We let Maresca run him out." No. Like, n- no, no, no. 1:35:33 This is what Nicholas Jackson does. No, I'm happy for him, I guess. [laughs] He'll get red carded in the next game, and then go on, like, 10 games without scoring a goal. Th- this, this is what Nicholas Jackson does. 1:35:41 I think he is a very talented player. He's, he's not, he's not this player. He's streaky. Yeah. He's kind of r- I do, I do not mi- I do not miss him. One more thing. Go ahead. John McGinn, I love you, man. 1:35:53 I've been shouting your name out a lot. You gotta, you gotta bury that penalty. [laughs] I, I gotta call it how it is, all right? That was, uh, terrible. Terrible. I'm, that was a horrible penalty. I'm calling that that. 1:36:03 I don't care about hitting the... Dude, you gotta hit that penalty. You're the captain, my man. You could've won that game. But go ahead. Yep. No, yeah, that's a big miss. That's a big miss there. 1:36:12 Uh, Everton makes it two games in a week over, uh, Newcastle, one-nothing. Yeah. Don't care about those teams that much. Hey, Chris, give it up for Barry's goal. I, we're gonna... I, I watched it. 1:36:20 [laughs] I watched some of it. I don't care. I told you the score. That's all I really need to know. Give it up for Barry's goal. All right. 1:36:25 And you know, Kevin, Kev, Kev, Kevin, you told me Barry poached it as a complete poach. It was absolute poaching. 1:36:31 Well, Hor- Hornesschek or whatever his name is, Hornecki, because it's, uh, election night here in the US, I'll g- I'll call him Hornecki, uh, got, got on the big board, let the ball go under him. Pretty innocuous shot. 1:36:43 Burns under him. And Tino Barry, he couldn't miss. Standing two feet out from, uh, from the goal, nobody near him. Tyree George did all the work there, by the way. Tyree George is definitely, um, definitely impressing. 1:36:59 No one was really the, the star that game. Dewsbury-Hall was really the star that game. He was serving the ball crazy, just people wasn't [laughs] underneath it. But he was serving the ball the whole game. 1:37:10 It's amazing how much better he is at a team where his, where the expectations are lower, right? Like, when he was- Well-... at Leicester, he was fantastic. He came to Chelsea, couldn't hang it. 1:37:21 You know, now he's at Everton the last two seasons, and he's the best player on the field almost every game. He, really. He, i- he, he looked great in this game. He was, he was all... All his service was good. 1:37:34 Everything that he did was good. But, uh, what can I tell you? That's how it goes Well, nice. We're, if we're talking, uh, good performances, let's segue right into Dexter, your most impressive performance of the week. 1:37:47 What? Uh, Lewis Dunk. Absolutely Lewis Dunk. Captain Lewis Dunk. That was a ca- That's what you want from your captain, you know what I mean? He could... 1:37:54 He helps on the offense, and he plays defense, and he's, he's involved in everything. So I gotta give it to Lewis Dunk. Love to see it. He also seems like a great guy, like a legit, like- Yes... really nice guy. 1:38:05 And- Every piece I've seen on him, he's, he seems cool You gotta love the, the one club man, you know what I'm saying? You gotta love that kind of guy. That's his team to the end, you know that. All right. 1:38:15 Kevin, what do you got? Who impressed you? I gotta go with Brighton and Arsenal. One, one-nil away wins. They both scored early. They held on against teams that are plus plus attacking talent. Very impressive. 1:38:29 I'd expect that from Arsenal after the last, you know, three, four years with Et- uh, with Arteta. Would not expect that from Brighton, as I alluded to earlier. 1:38:38 The fact that Brighton are putting up clean sheets is, is a new level to their game. So most impressed by those two teams. Brighton just shading it because it's Brighton, and I like them. Nice. Yeah, we love that. 1:38:54 All right, so I wanna go, uh, I'm gonna be a homer on mine, and I, I wanna give Lavia my most impressed. Just seeing him being healthy finally for once and just running through the midfield like that, it's... 1:39:05 It was really nice to see. Quick and dirty, that's, that was my most impressive. After three- Uh, he was great... seasons of not completing a full 90 minutes, he's now completed 90 minutes in two straight games. 1:39:14 And Sean, I... Sean, that was my thought. I was like, "What if Henderson was, was healthy?" 'Cause i- I thought he was sick or something like that. Wh- what would happen? Lavia came with a lot more athleticism and stuff. 1:39:27 You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, obviously. I mean, no offe- no, no, no shade to Henderson. You're an old man now- Yeah, yeah... and, you know, this guy. Yeah, yeah. 1:39:33 If he's r- if he's right, he's playing, and that's the, you know, that's the, the beauty of what you want. Like, you've have Henderson. Ideally, Henderson's playing, you know, some cup games and a game here and there. 1:39:42 Yeah, yeah. But Lavia's gonna be your man. I'll s- and I'll dive right into, uh, it's the same game. 1:39:46 My least impressive just goes to all of United for the second half with s- particularly on Morgan Rogers, uh, parting the Red Sea and looking it like he has a police escort [laughs] down the center of the field with like four m- you know, four United motorcycles on the side of him. 1:40:02 Um- That's what it was like... oh, my God, the number one rule we... I mean, you gotta stop the ball. Someone go to the ball. You ke- everyone can't back up. Someone has to stop the ball. 1:40:11 And just to see United do that was, it just... And then kind of just the no fight they had for the rest of the game was, was sad. That was- So that would, that'd be my least impressive. Kevin, your least. Sunderland. 1:40:22 No, what else to say? Sunderland. What? Sunderland. [laughs] Oh, man. It's not that they were outplayed, but they just lost control of the game. Like they... Really difficult afternoon. 1:40:35 They compounded it by getting a silly red card. Unlucky. When your luck is out, it's out. Those two, you know, the, the, the two goals, um, sort of deflected. It's just like, man, [laughs] just Sunderland was just... 1:40:51 They're not it right now. They are 180 degrees from the team that we saw last season in the Premier League. 1:40:58 And then with a special least impressive shout-out to James Trafford with his pass to [laughs] di- direct to, to Bournemouth for the opener. You see goalies make mistakes, right? You see goalies leave passes short. 1:41:12 That's how Arsenal scored. Alisson plays the ball not to Jack A but generally in the, in the vicinity of Jack A. Even that was 100 [laughs] times better than James Trafford's pass here. I don't... Like, man, poor kid. 1:41:26 Poor kid. Stop making your goalies pass the ball. They're supposed to be catching the ball. All right, Dex, who's your, your least impressive? 1:41:33 [laughs] Um, uh, well, let me say one [laughs] thing about that, that red card and Sunderland. It just gave me... It was Alderete, the center back who got that, that foul, that, that, the, the, the red card. 1:41:44 It was, it was a, it was flashbacks. It was like shellshock from L- Lisandro Martinez. [laughs] That's what it felt like. I just wanna say that. [laughs] Like, it was the same kind of energy. 1:41:55 But w- and speaking of Lisandro Martinez, that's who I'm least impressed with, and I'm gonna say it like this. 1:42:01 When you go on TV and you complain about the technical director and all the, the, the guys in the office, you now say you wanna be a leader on the team. That's what you're saying. All right? Yep. 1:42:14 That's what you're saying. You gotta handle your business. Now I'm taking that. Yes. That's what... Once you say, once you go on TV and say that, that's what you're saying. 1:42:22 So you gotta have better control and be a real leader. You don't go elbow, who was it, Fofana in the neck, and, [laughs] and then, and then... 1:42:31 and get a c- two successive, uh, yellows back to back in, like, three minutes. That... I, I'm not impressed. 1:42:37 And, you know, I, and, and you've heard me say more than once, I, I think he's a talented guy, but th- that's his problem, just kind of like y- you gotta... 1:42:46 Don't go on TV and complain about the, the office if you're not gonna do what's right. And, and now you're saying you're a leader. If you wanna complain, you're saying you're a leader. You're gonna go... 1:42:57 Yeah- There you go... you're gonna go run your mouth about, about the boss. You better handle your shit. You better get your job done. Yeah. Like, he absolutely did not. Yeah. 1:43:07 [laughs] He very much did the exact opposite. And that's, that's the problem. Yep. And that's the problem. All right. Well, our predicted results this week, Kevin and I tied, uh, six points. 1:43:14 We each had a win and three draws. Uh, Sean Swifty back there with four draws just behind us. Dexter, uh- I totally fell off, I fell off the rails. [laughs] Don't worry about it. I'll be back. I'll be back. 1:43:25 Yeah, Dexter works weekends. We get that, so that's fine. But, and again, you can do that along with us, play pr- playfantasypredictor.com. It's a, a lot of fun, and you can set up your own leagues. 1:43:33 All right, guys, quick look ahead to game week 10. Got some games. Well, obviously we got 10 games, I would imagine. But some of them, you know, some that'll matter. Leeds versus Spurs. 1:43:43 Early in the season, this looked like it was gonna be a, a pretty soft one for Leeds. They felt, they're probably feeling good. It's two opposite teams now. 1:43:49 You got Spurs flying, Spurs scoring, and Leeds doing that, not doing that. So what do you think's gonna happen here? I mean, 'cause you said that, it's absolutely gonna be a Leeds, a two-nil win. 1:43:59 [laughs] But no, you're, yeah, absolutely right. It's reversal of fortunes, um, for both these squads from the first couple weeks. Leeds would've, 1:44:11 would, would've been dying to have, to have seen, uh, Tottenham two weeks ago or three weeks ago instead of the Tottenham now. We'll see. Uh, Calvert-Lewin's a streaky scorer. 1:44:19 If he gets, if he gets one here, Leeds go on a run. If he doesn't, they go on a run in, in the negative way. But I think most likely I could see a score draw. 1:44:31 I think Leeds come back to reality, and I think Spurs come back to reality. Neither, as you said earlier, Spurs are not as good as they've been lately, and they weren't as bad as they were for the first four games. 1:44:43 I think the same thing as Leeds. They weren't as... They're not as good as they were for the first four games, and they're not as bad as they've been for the last four games. 1:44:50 So I could, I could see a one-one, two-two kinda draw. Elland Road's a tough place to play, so. Draw. I could see a draw here. Perfect. Um, yeah I like the sound of that. Now we got, uh, new boys Hull. 1:45:05 They are taking on one of the giants again. They've got Arsenal. 1:45:09 Uh, any chance, any chance Hull comes away with points here, or are we gonna have me angry at yet another game that Arsenal wins one-nothing and looks like shit, Derek? Uh, this- No, no chance... 1:45:19 no, this is the type of game that Arsenal puts, like, four down and then, and then- Yep... so all the fans will be like, "Si? Si? Si? Si? You called us defensive, Si?" Sure, they, they do love doing that. 1:45:28 They do love doing that. Um- All right. Yeah. Ar- Arsenal win We'll talk, we'll talk about it when it actually happens. You know, bank, bank it. Yeah, but Arsenal. Sadly. Annoying. Annoying. 1:45:37 Just the team, if you're a city, that you wanna see when you need to get right, they've got Forest and... I mean, if I'm Forest, I'm very worried. If I'm the manager, I'm, uh, I'm keeping my clothes packed in a suitcase. 1:45:48 I don't think I'll... I'm exactly feeling safe anymore. [laughs] Yo, let me just say this, man. Liam Delap, what you doing, my bro? What is he doing? [laughs] What he doing? I don't know, man. 1:45:56 He's g- he's making Chelsea look like what he did. What you doing out here? 60 million pounds [laughs] or whatever the fuck. What, what are you doing, man? You gotta be, you- I mean, he runs around a lot. 1:46:05 I'll give him that. [laughs] He r- he runs around a lot. He does. He crashes. That's it. You know what? Liam Delap is just playing the wrong sport. He needs to be Eric Lindros on skates, like, power forward in the NHL. 1:46:18 [laughs] Just crash- Lindros What are you talking about? No, he's from England. Let him play rugby. Just crash. He should be playing rugby. That's where he's at. No, 'cause he's not talented. He's just a brute. 1:46:26 No, he's fast though when he runs. I mean, he- No, he's just a brute... yeah, they n- they need brutes. He- You need a couple brutes. All right. 1:46:31 We got two of the Bermuda Triangle playing each other, both coming off, uh, wins. Brighton and Brentford. Again, I'm, I'm just gonna keep picking Brighton until they give me a reason not to, and thus far they really... 1:46:43 You know, outside of playing Chelsea, they really don't give you a reason not to. Yeah. A- as much as I like Keith Andrews and, and Brentford, there's no way. They, they can't keep up with Brighton. They can't. 1:46:52 They can't. My heart says Brighton. My head says draw. So let's go Brighton two-nil. All right. All right. Uh, in, in a game that- [laughs]... 1:47:01 in a game that Chelsea will absolutely infuriate me by drawing or probably losing. 100% loss. The p- they're playing Sunderland. Oh yeah, we, we're absolutely gonna lose to Sunderland. Th- this, this is the exact game. 1:47:13 I'll be impressed with Chelsea. Honestly, this is weird to say, but I'll be impressed if Chelsea put this... You know, just put this game where it's supposed to be. Two-bad, two-nothing early. 1:47:23 You know, see it out in a boring... Give me, give me some boring. I'll take... Y'all, I complained about boring from Arsenal. I'll take a boring like that now. But more, like, I want a possession boring. 1:47:32 If Sunderland just pin back, we whip in some crosses, we get the two, and then kinda just hold the ball for the rest of the game. Yeah. That would make me happy. No, maturity is the word that you're, you're looking for. 1:47:42 Show me a mature- Yes... um- Yeah. Would love that. That would honestly make my weekend. Sunderland look awful. Mm. Stadium lights, tough place to play. Yes. But Chelsea are... 1:47:58 They're still a team that you don't know what you're gonna get. I trust Javi Alonso. I think he's a very good manager. We've got very good young players, but they're very young players, so you still, still don't know. 1:48:09 So hopefully we get the win. I'd love to... Like you said, I'd love to get a boring two-nil, 70% percent possession. Maybe one, two shots, you know, on target. Mike Penrice doesn't need to do a lot. 1:48:23 Uh, Bryan Brobbey is invisible. That's, that's what I'd like to see. If you give me that, to me, that is a better omen or a better portent for what Chelsea can be than if we would go out there and 1:48:37 play counter attack and are devastating. We beat them five-nil, but we only have t- 30% of the ball, and we had five shots, and we scored every one, and our XG is.08, right? I'd rather just 1:48:49 take the air out of the game, dominate it, easy win, get back home, no problems. Uh, it would be nice if João Pedro is back. Yeah. It would be nice if he, if he was back, but he won't be back. He's still a ways away. 1:49:04 Yeah, he won't be back- But look, I-... until after international break, if that. Yeah. You listen, I, I'm, I'm believing Chelsea's still warming up. I know there was a little bump in the road with Tottenham. 1:49:12 I still believe Chelsea's warming up. I, uh... Look, when Coventry beat Sunderland three-one, you know, look, I, I, I gotta say, and, and, and managed by a Chelsea legend, [laughs] all right? 1:49:24 I gotta say Chelsea's gonna win this game, all right? I gotta say they're gonna win it. Maybe one. I'll, I'll go two-nil. I'll go two-nil Chelsea wins- All right... 1:49:33 at home with a- Well, from, from your lips then, Dexter. And then finally we got... Now, Carrick obviously we think he at least bought himself another game a- as manager with a Roma victory today 1:49:45 Manchester United taking on Villa. It, a real... They were mentioning it on the broadcast, uh, when United lost to Chelsea. A real tough run, a real [laughs] tough run of games coming up for United. 1:49:59 No easy place to hide. No Sunderland's on there, no Coventry. Then again, you did lose to Hull, but it, it's a tough run. Where do I go? 1:50:06 And Villa is, Villa's one of those teams that's just not, they're not fun to play against, you know. No, no. You, you, you can get goals, but they're not fun. 1:50:13 Like you said, McGinn's gonna be there running, bodying guys all goddamn game. Absolutely. That dude just does not stop. But- Absolutely. The only thing I can say is I hope we have the Bournemouth effect. 1:50:24 That's all I can say. [laughs] All right? I'm hoping, like, the, the, the, the passion that they show, like, to defend their home, to come back kind of comes... 1:50:36 Even though that, yeah, that it kind of spreads into what happens this weekend. That's the only thing I can hope for, and I don't know if that's gonna happen, but I'm going... You know who I'm going with. 1-0. 1:50:47 I'll take 1-0. At Old Trafford. I'll take 1-0. Maybe it's at Old Trafford, right? Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think it's just mentions that it's the... Yeah, I think it's When was the last time Villa beat United at Old Trafford? 1:50:57 Has it been 40 years or something like that? I, yeah, not, not in my, uh, my memory. Because if it was within the last 10, it's absolutely a Villa win. You know, we're in such a weird place. 1:51:05 Because [laughs] We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're in such a weird place. So many people have, for the first time, beat us at Old Trafford in the past two, three years. That's exactly my point. 1:51:12 [laughs] So I, I can't even think, but all I can do is I can just hope we, there's a more of a togetherness after battling back together. There's a more passion for what, what we do at Old Trafford. 1:51:24 So- Well, it's okay... we'll- The last, uh, the last league win for Villa at Old Trafford was 2021, so you're fine. Has it... How, how has it been long enough to be historical? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I know. Okay. 1:51:36 I, I, I was at the Roma game today. Uh, it was nice to see some passion from, from your United players. Yeah. Uh, it had been, it'd been basically missing, but we'll see to them. 1:51:43 I think, I think this is a draw, like a gritty draw. I think I get a 1-1 there. All right. We'll check in on Wrexham. They, uh, went to Bramall Lane, and they lose a close one to the Blades. Oh, right. 1:51:54 14 points from 13 matches. Uh, obviously not ideal. Um, I think they can put their... Unless they go on a crazy run, they could put their promotion ideas to bed, and they should focus on staying in the championship. 1:52:05 That'd be nice for them. Uh, and they got Middlebur- Middlesbrough on Wednesday. Middlesbrough. And then Wolves on Saturday. So two games. Yeah, Middlesbrough. Ooh. We'll get, we'll bounce. It's, it's getting late, guys. 1:52:14 I've been having long, long weekends. And, and by the way, these are both, these are, those are both league games. Those are both league games. Yes. Yep, yep. Damn. Yeah, the championship's wild. 1:52:21 They play a million games in the championship. Yeah. They play a million games. Same games all the time. No, that's crazy. All right. Well, there's about 20... Well, all right. 1:52:26 There's 22 teams or 24 teams, something like that. So it's a lot of games. Yeah. That's... Damn. All right. Well, look, man, you... Like you said, Sean, it's, it's late. It is getting late. We all tired. 1:52:35 But boys, it's al- as always, a pleasure. I think we're... I'm happy to stay up late and talk sports with you. Um- Same here. You my brothers. I love you guys. Exactly. 1:52:43 If anyone's still listening, like I said, you can follow us on Insta and Threads at wellstruckpod. And then the, if you're on TikTok, it is @well.struck. At playfantasypredictor.com, if you want to... 1:52:56 Again, you can always join in. You know, we're not, yeah, winning anything, but it'd be fun to show us how bad we are at picking games. And, you know, you could lord it over your friends. So boys, good to see you as all. 1:53:07 And until next week, I don't know, watch more games. There we go. These are midweek games. And enjoy, and just, uh, enjoy your sport. And I hope you went out and voted today, everyone. I don't care who you voted for. 1:53:18 You should have done your civic duty and voted. And- Yes... we'll see you all next week on the Wellstruck Podcast. See you all next time. Later.
