Moshiri's Legacy and Chelsea Preview

How will Everton Fans remember Farhad Moshiri? The new stadium looks fantastic, but will the chaos he created on and off the field dominate his legacy?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to episode 79 of the Blues Brothers Everton
podcast.
It's Austin here.
I'm from New York, I've gotAndy and Adam with us.
We sort of had Ben with us, butnot really because his son is
not complying with recording thepodcast.

(00:38):
It's just going to be the threeof us.
Andy, how are you doing?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hi Austin, I'm good.
Thank you.
Yeah, quite busy at the moment.
It's always a busy time of yearin the logistics industry, but
today's been my second day off,so, yeah, chilled at home, met a
friend for lunch, had a Wagyucheeseburger, which was very
nice, and looking forward tochatting Everton for a bit.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Are you going to say something different when you say
the first syllable of Wagyucheeseburger?
That's a dramatic overshare.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
I'm glad you're having a relaxing day.
Uh, adam, how you doing?
Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm good.
Uh, yeah, I've broken up for,uh, broken up for um from work
uh, from work.
That sounds really weird.
I've broken up from school, uh,which is work, and today, so,
yeah, that's nice, nice, acouple of, uh, couple of weeks
off now, doing amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Look forward to so well, you know, we're gathered
on this happy occasion becausewe're recording this on friday
the 20th.
Uh and everton have new owners.
We finally, uh, we're going totalk about mishiri a little bit
and it'll be interesting whatyou guys think.
But anyway, for better, worse,that era of Everton is over.
The freaking group completedtheir takeover.
Everton are in a, at leastfinancially.

(01:53):
I mean, you know there's a lotto come and we don't know what
it's going to look like yet butat least financially, in a much,
much better position than wewere 48 hours ago, where most of
our debt is now gone.
Certainly, all of the, thenonsense around, some of the
things like 777 have all gone,but now part of a, you know,
owned by people who aredefinitely grown-ups.
We can say that at the veryleast.

(02:14):
So, andy, I'll start with youuh, thoughts, reflections, how
you feeling everything around it, it's extremely positive.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I mean, obviously, once mishiri became an absent
owner, you know the best part ofa couple of years ago now and
all the shenanigans about himand the rest of the board not
being able to attend matches andobviously having an interim
board I mean, what's the worldrecord for an interim board
remaining in place in charge ofa company?

(02:44):
Because everton's interim boardhave been there for at least 18
months now, if not longer.
So the club has just been inalmost a form of stasis at
executive level for such a longperiod of time and we've
obviously been waiting for newowners to come in.
And new owners were alwaysgoing to come in because the new

(03:06):
stadium is clearly a bigattraction.
Man City's owners bought thembecause they had the Etihad
ready built for them.
So new owners were always goingto come in and obviously, with
the financial complicationsaround the previous sort of
loans being given to the club bythe 777 group, it's obviously

(03:27):
taken a little bit of time toget this situation to the state
where the freaking group canfully take over the club.
But, like almost allEvertonians, I'm just relieved
that two have finally got tothis point because we can
finally now start to actuallyhopefully move forward.

(03:50):
I would like to mention,actually, I think, the members
of that interim board, colinChong and Kevin Thelwell, as a
contractor in the season, Ithink they've done a very good
job in steering Everton throughchoppy waters with, you know,

(04:10):
psr breaches and pointsdeductions and having no money
to spend and all the rest of it.
I'd just like to place onrecord that I think they've done
a good job in very tryingcircumstances.
So, yeah, I mean like allowners you know they've said I'm
sure we've all read the lettersthat they've released to the

(04:32):
media and they've said all theright things.
We'll have to wait and see ifthey back up that with concrete
actions and words.
But I'm extremely happy thatthe takeover has finally
happened because Everton itneeded to happen and Everton
deserves to have, you know,competent people in charge who

(04:57):
can take us forward in the newstadium next season.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, very much so, Adam.
How?

Speaker 2 (05:01):
are you feeling?

Speaker 1 (05:02):
stadium next season.
Yeah, very much so, Adam howare you feeling?

Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, I'm really positive about it.
It's been too long, you know,having Moshiri in, having too
much control of the footballingside of things, and maybe you
know obviously we'll go on totalk about Moshiri's reign
specifically a bit later on.
So it's really positive.

(05:27):
And when you have people thatobviously clearly see the vision
and the impact that the stadiumcan have and obviously
restructuring our debt andtaking away all the debt or
restructuring it, it puts us ina lot better financial position.

(05:47):
Obviously, with the stadium aswell, our revenue will increase
an incredible amount.
So financially, things arelooking much better.
But it must be caveated withthe fact that you know, the
freaking group are not wellregarded at Roma at the minute

(06:07):
and they've been there for fouryears.
Roma, obviously a verytraditional Italian club, had
Daniele De Rossi in charge, whowas a club legend, and then they

(06:27):
sacked him quite early into theseason because of a poor start.
You may argue that it was, asfar as I'm aware, it was his
first managerial role.
But having said that, it doesunfortunately lend itself to the
argument that they don'tnecessarily take into account
the traditions of Roma andthere's obviously certain
parallels with Everton there.
Um, they've made that clear intheir statement, like they

(06:50):
understand the traditions andthe history of the club and the
importance of the fans with theclub um.
But unfortunately the actionsof them at Roma, where they've
they're on their fourth managerof this calendar year, indicates

(07:16):
that we should be wary of whatthey bring.
But I suppose we're judgingthat against the baseline of
Mishiri, whose footballingdecisions overall have led us to
playing very poor football andstaying up only by the skin of
our teeth in the two of the lastthree seasons.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, I mean you can sort of say with some certainty
that four years from noweveryone will think they can
play complete assholes, becauseit's what football fans
inevitably end up doing right,because to us it's a community,
it's a club, it's a passion,it's all those things.
To them it's a business.
So there's going to be liketension there.
I guess you can maybe try andseparate that from the

(07:59):
underlying performance, becausewe'll hate them for something
right.
There'll be something thatthey've done or not done that
we're pissed off about, butoverall we'll be in a better
position than we are today.
It would be tough to be in aworse position, I guess and just
so good.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Just one point about the stadium.
I mean it's it's hard not tooverstate the importance of just
getting the club's finances inorder, because I don't know how
much we were spending onservicing the debt we had, but I
mean it must have been tens ofmillions, just in interest never
mind.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Apparently it was around, apparently it was around
100 million a year.
Yeah, so which is you know?
It tells you that it was um,who knows?
I mean, there's a lot of um,there's a lot of figures
knocking around, but the youknow I there's a lot of figures
knocking around, but I figurethere's been knocked around at
$100 million a year, which hadincreased a lot.

(08:52):
I think that had doubled in thelast 18 months.
As we'd had to take on we were ahigh-risk organization.
It's a lot of money too.
So we were taking on more andmore short-term debt.
And it was interesting I waslooking this morning on
Everton's records on company andhouse and you have to record

(09:14):
charges.
So secure debt, basically theonly one that's outstanding is
from Metro Bank.
All the others MSP 777, there'sa couple of others, farhad
Mashir obviously have all gone,all been cleared, and it doesn't

(09:34):
say how much the debt is toMetro Bank, but word is the
number that's been knockedaround is it's less than 5
million.
So the club is effectivelydebt-free.
So if you take, if it was, evenif it was half of 100 million
right, even if it was 50 millionthat we were paying in debt
interest that we're now notpaying.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
That's obviously a huge amount of money yeah, yeah,
the benefit of the club'sfinances and obviously, again,
with the stadium because it's a,not the the matchday revenue is
obviously going to increasedramatically.
We were amongst the lowest inthe Premier League.
I don't know where the newstadium will put us, but it's
clearly going to be much more.

(10:15):
And obviously the stadium isgoing to be a nominated stadium
for Euro 2028.
And in the last few years,taylor Swift, bon Jovi and Elton
John have all played up atAnfield.
Well, in the future, those gigsare going to be at Bramley Moor
because it's a more modernground, it's easier to get to

(10:35):
and it's not surrounded byhouses.
So the amount of revenue we'regoing to get, in conjunction
with the fact that we're notspending loads of money on
servicing high interest debts,it's completely trans.
It's a lot of the sort ofbehind the scenes stuff that
football fans often don'tappreciate or, frankly, often
don't care about.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
but again, I don't think you can underestimate the
importance of the, the financialtransformation that's happened
in the last few days yeah, Imean, the club's estimate for
the first year is that it willhave a a top line, so gross
increase in revenue of 60million from the new stadium.
That's what they're thinking inyear one and that has quite big

(11:18):
implications because nowthere's obviously the debt is
there's some debt somewhere?
And I think what's happened isthe freaking group are
themselves, they have taken ondebt which they can do at a much
more favorable rate thanEverton can.
So you're going to see thatcome out and I'll put this down
now that Everton fans need to beaware in a year when they see
25 million quid leaving Evertonto the freaking group, we need

(11:41):
to not all lose our shit becausethat's what they're doing.
That's why they're doing,that's why they're doing it.
They're doing this so they canmake money, right, so they are
going to take money out of thisfootball club, like that is what
is going to happen for sure,and none of us had the money to
buy it.
So we need to be, you know,sensible about complaining about
the people who did.
But, um, yeah, the obviously 60million quid great.

(12:04):
The club will probably go frombeing financially a bucket with
a hole in the bottom to beingsomething that hopefully washes
its own face.
But of course from a PSR pointof view that's top line money
for the calculation around whatyou can spend.
So that opens up because it'sobviously the percentage.

(12:27):
What's used is the loss, againon footballing activity.
So if we put 60 million quid inmore at the top, that's 60
million we can spend beforewe're incurring a PSR loss.
So that's going to be a big,big, big deal.
If you have owners who want toloosen the purse strings and put
money in and they've sort ofsignaled that already that

(12:49):
January we can't really do verymuch because we're still wrapped
up in PSR for this season butafter next season, different
story, adam.
How are you Farad Moshiri right?
How do you think we're going totalk about him five years from
now?

Speaker 3 (13:09):
I think we separated two different things.
I think he was a businessmanwho wanted too much control over
the football side of things andallowed too much outside
influence, because I think we'vegot a very negative opinion of
him at the minute, or a lot offans do.

(13:30):
But the stadium will, I think,be something that he is, will be
almost his legacy, and withouthim the stadium would not be in
place and all the hopefulsuccess or the better, or
certainly the potential chancesof success that will come from

(13:54):
having the new stadium is downto Fahad Bashiri.
So it would be very unfair tosay that his tenure has been a
complete disaster, because ithasn't.
However, the football inside ofthings and his control over
certain things has been hisdownfall.

(14:15):
So just a few sort of stats,just a few like stats.
We've had seven permanentmanagers since Roberto Martinez,
because he came in whenMartinez was manager and sacked
him 72 days into his.
Into Moshiri's tenure.

(14:35):
The managers have averaged 309days in charge since then.
Permanent managers Wild he wasresponsible for introducing
Steve Walsh, who was a fantasticscout but not a footballing
strategist.
Obviously, steve Walshh if youforgot, if you forgot who he is
he was the guy who was lester'sum uh scout who identified

(15:00):
angelo cante mares and jamievardy.
Um and his um.
He was um instrumental to theiruh, their premier League win in
2016.
And then we took him.
We made him the director offootball, which is a completely,
completely different role.
His job at Leicester was toidentify players and work them

(15:24):
within a system.
He did not design thefootballing strategy that runs
through all the facets of a club.
He's never done that before.
So Machiri was very, very naiveat best when he made that, that
decision to hire him.
He then sort of rectified thatby bringing in someone who
actually had real nous in that,with marcel brands.

(15:47):
But then we saw him have toomuch influence on things because
Marcel Brandt basically walkedout because he'd had enough,
yeah.
And then you've got like otherminor things, like there was a

(16:09):
winger from Villa that we loanedbecause we were doing an agent.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
El Ghazi, thank you.
So that sort of thing where hejust had too much influence on
the footballing side of thingsand quite patently didn't know
what the fuck he was doing froma football strategy side of
things.
So, to go back to what I saidearlier, I think he should be
judged in two ways a footballingside, an absolute disaster.

(16:41):
From a business side of things,and helping us ensure, ensure
the success of the club.
Because I can't see any.
I can't see how, unless weroyally, royally fuck it up in
the next five years, how we'renot going to go on an upward
trajectory from here.
The footballing side I think heshould be remembered.

(17:05):
The business side of things heshould be remembered more fondly
because of the stadium.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Andy thoughts.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, I think in five years' time we'll look upon
Moshiri as somebody whose heartwas fundamentally in the right
place and he did what he thoughtwas best.
Unfortunately, a lot of thosedecisions, time has just not

(17:35):
looked upon them very kindly.
I agree with Adam.
The football side of thingsunder his stewardship has
lurched from one crisis toanother.
And the business side of thingsI don't think it's quite as.
I think it's a bit morenegative than what Adam's just
described, because I've alreadysaid about you know we affect

(17:58):
almost a financial basket casein many ways.
So, yeah, he's delivered thestadium and when we're sat there
and that will be his legacy andit's going to be a legacy
obviously for a very long time.
But yeah, the footballing sideof things was yeah, because you
had seven permanent managers.
I mean, how long have you got,how long back have you got to go

(18:21):
prior to Moshiri's tenure tohave the previous seven managers
?
I mean, you know you've got togo back donkey's years, possibly
to before I was born.
You know you're going.
You're going back years andyears.
So that just demonstrates thatyou know an average managerial
tenure of less than a year is isis absolutely nonsensical.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Um well, and you know some of them sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Sorry, awesome, yeah, so we had two.
So we had two managers in the15 years, in the 14 years that
preceded his tenure.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, you look at the stats.
I'm just pulling up our finalleague placements under Moshiri
and it makes some of themanagerial stuff actually make
even less sense.
So, roberto Martinez, 15, 16.
Uh, we finished 11th when wefired um.

(19:20):
We thought we'd fired martinezjust before the end of that
season.
We were 12th when we fired him.
Now, think about that.
We fired him because we were12th and we weren't doing very
well and, as you pointed out,adam, 72 days into his tenure.
I mean a ludicrous decision inretrospect.
Ronald Koeman next finished 7th.

(19:41):
Ronald Koeman again, wefinished 8th the next season,
which was the start ofAllardyce's season.
We fired Allardyce when wefinished eighth, which maybe we
all agree with.
But we've um, but we've beenAdam.
You're on mute.
Sorry, dear listener, adam's onmute.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
I think he's trying to say something no, I'm not,
I'm, I'm talking to um.
I'll talk to uh El's dog, whohas just started barking.
So what's the dog's name?

Speaker 1 (20:10):
it's Teddy.
What's the podcast?
Talk about the dog, hey, teddy.
Oh, you can't see this.
Dear listener, one day we'll beon youtube and you can see the
pets.
Um, yeah, so we fired kuman whenwe were uh, we were 18th.
But then we then finishedeighth.
Okay, fair enough, marcosilva's full season.
We finished eighth.
We then fired him.
Uh, we were 18th.

(20:31):
We then got Ancelotti finished10th.
He leaves Benitez.
We fired when we were 16th.
We finished 16th.
Lampard kept us up.
Lampard did effectively twohalf seasons.
Dyche comes in, we finish 17th,then 15th last year.
So there's this pattern herewhere people would have a good

(20:52):
season, get us to a good place,start the next season poorly and
get fired, and you think two of, I would say at least twice.
And he was unlucky withAncelotti because he had a guy
who was going to be his guy.
But with Martinez and withSilva, you think, god, we should
have just kept the faith.

(21:12):
Honestly, it would have been.
I think most fans agreed withthe decision to fire them at the
time.
But look what Marco Silva'sdoing at Fulham now and how he's
got them playing.
And you're like boy oh boy heknows how to coach a football
team.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah, and even Koeman as well that season when he was
sacked and we were 18th afterhowever many games, but we'd had
the hardest first set offixtures, I think, in Premier
League history.
We played all the top teamswho'd finished at the top of the
league the season before, soit's hard to, so he was being

(21:52):
judged very harshly in that setof fixtures.
Now again, would Koeman have?
We weren't going to getrelegated that season.
If Koeman had stayed that wholeseason, then we weren't going
to have got relegated becausewe'd have got enough points
against the other teams.

(22:15):
I've got no doubt about thatwhatsoever.
But yeah, moshiri, I agree andyou can understand it to a point
, I suppose.
Where he's bought the club,it's his club, it's his money
he's put into it, it's his plaything.
He wants to have the finaldecision.
But I mean, austin, you'll knowbetter than me, given the

(22:38):
industry you work in, one of thebiggest facets of successful
management is delegatingdecisions to people who have got
more knowledge than you aboutabout a particular subject and
trusting their judgments when itcomes to making decisions
around it.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, because if you were these managers, then one of
the things that is immediatelyapparent is every single one of
them.
We went from Martinez to RonaldKoeman entirely different style
of football.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, right, and then Koeman to Allardyce.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, allardyce, again, it may be Koeman to
Allardyce more similar, butAllardyce is Allardyce.
Marco Silva totally differentto Ronald Koeman.
Yeah, Carlo Ancelotti, okay,maybe, but then we go Rafael
Benitez totally different, thenwe go Frank Lampard totally
different, and then we go SeanDyche totally different.
So that's the thing that islike, if you look back, is most

(23:35):
nuts is the lack of.
The most important thing ishaving a strategy, because
short-term things can happen,but long-term, if you head in
the right direction, you'll endup where you want to end up.
And clearly he never had anyidea what his footballing
strategy was Exactly.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
And the contrast between that approach and the
one of Brighton down at Brightonexample could not be more stark
, because I've no doubt thatwhen Herzl leaves Brighton which
he surely will not only willTony Bloom, brighton's chairman,
know the next person he wantsto appoint, he's probably got
eyes on the guy after that aswell.

(24:14):
And the same with the playersin the position, because
Brighton are I mean Porto arefamous for important players
from South America and sellingthem on for huge amounts of
money and making big profits.
And that's the model thatBrighton have gone for as well.
I mean, they've signed someBrazilian kid on the 1st of

(24:34):
January I forget his name andI've note out they've paid a few
million pounds for it, and in acouple of years' time he'll
probably be in the ChampionsLeague and they'll have sold him
to Chelsea for 80 million.
And so that's the sort of modelwhere I completely agree.
It's a consistent approach.
Everybody's pulling in the samedirection and they're always

(24:56):
thinking three steps.
Like a good snooker player, agood chess player, they're
always thinking three movesahead.
So when Ancelotti walked,everton had to have an emergency
board meeting about what to donext If Hertler resigns tomorrow
.
Tony Bloom gets on the phoneand just contacts the guy that
he's already earmarked.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
And that's the difference.
You've also got David Weir thereas technical director, which is
effectively the same as adirector of football in some
regards, so you've got himrunning through as a permanent
fixture as well.
Who's in control of thefootballing strategy?
And you're absolutely right,andrew.
We've sort of made this pointabout Brighton in the past,

(25:40):
where they have a footballingstrategy and then they choose
coaches that will fit thatstrategy and whereas Everton has
been much like their transferpolicy over the last eight years
, since Moshiri came in, it'sbeen scattered.
Ours has been no strategy interms of trying to marry up a
director of football with amanager.

(26:01):
It's either been a manager,then we hire a director of
football who suits the manager,or you have the opposite.
It's been a like.
I've, maybe, but perhaps I Igoing back onto what you pointed
about, um, but before about thebusiness side of things, andrew

(26:21):
, I think you're right to sortof, like you know, pull me up
about the uh, some of thebusiness side of it, and I think
, um, I was more, I was morelike saying how the fact that
he's delivered the stadium willensure positive, that positive
side of things, business-wise,um, and because that has

(26:44):
inevitably led to the, thenumber of interested parties
that have wanted to take over aswell no, no, that's a very good
point.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, if we didn't have the new stadium, then would
the freaking group have come inas potential owners?
No, I think the answer to thatis a fat no, and then we really
would be up the creek without apaddle.
So you're quite right.
The new stadium has been thecatalyst that sort of opened the
door to new owners and giventhe ability of those new owners

(27:12):
to drive the club forward.
So, yeah, I agree with phrasingit like that.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
And you know best estimate, moshiri lost £750
million as Everton owner, whichis apparently, according to the
Athletic, he's quite sanguineabout it, which is good for him,
Because if I lost £750 millionI would not be sanguine.
So you know, yeah, complete.
You can sort of summarize it as, like Andy's heart's in the

(27:41):
right place, almost in completeincompetence on every front,
basically, which provessomething I learned a long time
ago from you know just placesI've been able to be, which is
you assume these people who makea lot of money are sort of
next-level geniuses or knowthings we don't know, whatever.
Nah, absolutely not A lot of it.

(28:02):
I mean, generally work hard,also, right place, right time a
lot of the time.
And you can have someone likeMishiri who clearly has been
very successful, doesn't knowwhat the fuck he's doing and
never has.
Where do we think this leavesSean Dyche?
Because we did our Dyche Outpodcast two weeks ago, so don't

(28:22):
want to re-record that.
But what do you think Let mephrase it maybe slightly
differently what do you think heneeds to do to keep his job?
Because his contract's over theend of the year, so by the
default, he goes.
So they've got to make adecision to keep him.
Adam, what do you think Dycheneeds to do to keep his job?

Speaker 3 (28:42):
He needs to win more football matches and play a
better style of football, whichhe's not going to do.
I think it's a veryhypothetical question because I
just can't see any any scenariowhere he gets an extension of
his contract.
Um, but let's entertain it.
Let's entertain it for a bit,like if, if he, if he, if we go

(29:05):
on a decent run and end up, wewere 15 points above, uh, 14
points above the relegation zonelast season and actually, you
know, obviously including our,our um, if you've taken to
dash's actual performance andthe team's performance, we were
22 points above it and we endedup with 48 points.
So you would like, you would,you would hope that we would get

(29:28):
more than that um, and thatmight show that he's making
progress with the team.
But I think the style of playfactor has started to tilt the
balance of that argument, whichmeans that, much like the
Allardyce thing, where he gothis eighth it was, you think it

(29:52):
doesn't matter.
Basically, yeah, football is arecreational activity.
It's something people do intheir free time.
People want to be entertainedis the bottom line.
We are a team that plays themost long balls out of any other
team.
We have a high-pressing way,but we don't play through teams
in any real way.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
It's not enjoyable to watch, so I really can't see
any scenario where where he willkeep his job beyond, beyond uh
the um the expiration of hiscontract yeah, I mean you make a
good point, that like, even if,even if he started winning a
lot more games and we don't winenough games which I think is

(30:35):
something that Dijsensacknowledge but doesn't
necessarily have the acumen todo anything about Even then if
we were winning games the way wewin them, because I was at the
Wolves, me and you and I were atthe Wolves game and we won 4-0
and we were shit.
I mean we didn't play well, wedidn't play badly, but Wol, I
were at the Wolves game and wewon 4-0 and we were shit.
I mean we didn't play well, wedidn't play badly, but Wolves

(30:57):
were horrendous and we got fourfree kicks.
I mean we were joking that likewe scored.
We'd scored a goal from aDwightonville cross and then
have that one disallowed, whichI still don't really understand
why it was disallowed, and thenthe fourth goal.
At the end I went to you andsaid we've scored every time
that this ball's been in thisposition.
We're going to do it again andwe did, and we did.

(31:17):
Yes, and it was that kind ofgame you know, where, everything
which had four shots you know.
So you can misread that andit's interesting.
There was a thing.
Ian Warne one of his saidsomething that was quoted in an
article a couple of weeks ago.
I think it was by Paddy Boylandon the Athletic.
Basically, this had obviouslybeen briefed by Deitch this

(31:39):
article and it's always aninteresting question when you
read anything in any newspaperanywhere and go who wanted this
story to happen.
And it was a story that wastrying to say the coaching staff
understand that they can'tcarry on playing the way they're
playing, but that they haven'tgot the players to do it any
differently and if given achance, they would right.

(31:59):
That was the story.
But Ian Warne said somethingwhich was quoted as something I
thought was pretty damningactually, where he said Ian
Warne said at the start of theseason he felt Everton were at
their best when they playedaround 300 passes a game.
Now, to put that in context,that's about half the average of
a Premier League team-ish and athird of man City-Arsenal.

(32:22):
So that is like we believe ourbest way of playing football is
to play very differently to therest of the league and be more
direct.
So it kind of reinforces yourpoint, adam, that actually I
don't think they want, theydon't want.
It's not even a case of do theyhave the capability.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
They don't want to do it any other way than the way
they do it no, no, over theyears I've become I've become
more of a uh, an attacker of thepoint where you see football as
a results business and in thesense of it's a business wins
get you money.
From that sense, yes, it's aresults business, but fans will

(33:06):
only care about their teamwinning to an extent and
Everton's fans, I think, havereached it.
Looks like West Ham fans know,rightly or wrongly, you can make
a point of whether thatdecision was the right one to do
, but West Ham fans got to thatpoint when they just got a bit
fed up of of the way that Moyesplayed football um and um.

(33:29):
You know, contrary to what I Idon't know I made the point a
few podcasts ago that I wouldlike to have Moyes back.
I would because I'm comparingit from Dyche and I think Moyes
plays better football than Dychedoes.
But West Ham fans got to apoint when they didn't really
want that and Everton fans arein that position now.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, yeah yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Dyke has obviously demonstrated that he's a very
limited manager in terms ofadapting his style of play and
far too obviously you start agame off with a point and far
too often when we've came awayfrom games having drawn them the
Brentford game at home earlierthis season when they played
with 10 men for half the game isa good example he's far too

(34:16):
satisfied with just getting apoint, in my opinion.
In terms of answering thequestion around what happens to
him for the rest of the season,I don't think the Friedkin group
are going to come in unless itgoes really sideways in the next
few games.
If we lose to Chelsea, man Cityand Nottingham Forest, if we

(34:38):
lose all those three, forexample, they might make a
change in January.
But assuming Dyche continuespicking up a point a game, which
is obviously what he averages,I can see him remaining in post
for the rest of the season.
We've already touched on thefact that we probably won't be
able to make many new signingsin January, but we'll be in a
position to in the summer.

(34:58):
So I think between now and theend of the season it'll be a
case of muddling through to anextent on the pitch with what
we've got, unless things looklike they're really going south,
which I don't think they will.
And then Dice doesn't get hiscontract renewed at the end of
the season and then a newappointment is made to take us

(35:21):
into the new stadium next season.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah, and they can think about.
You know they've got time tothink that through.
Then you know, between now andthen, and I guess I would hope
alongside that, I don't know,I'm not, I'm not qualified to
judge whether Kevin Stelwell hasdone a good job or not.
I mean, I think financiallywe're the only team in the
league over the last three yearsto have a net positive transfer

(35:46):
spend.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
So in that sense, it's a significant one as well
that £18 million.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, In that sense you've got to go well it is
difficult because, as I've saidalready, he hasn't had any money
to spend.
So if you did give a directorof football even a transfer
budget, a modest transfer budget, he might be able to do far
more with it.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, and his mandate has been following and they
mandate has been following, andthey obviously never intended to
get dot points, but we were thefirst people to full file the
rules.
But certainly since then it'sbeen to under no circumstances
do anything that results inanother points deduction.
I guess he's done that verywell, I think.
If you look at the way we'vesold particularly, I think it's

(36:31):
been good.
So I guess I hope that he stayson or, if they don't, that they
bring in someone who's going tobe, because you're right, adam,
we need a director of footballa la David Weir who is going to
be there for a decade.
Managers, coaches, will comeand go, but the idea of the
philosophy is the same and wedesperately, desperately need
that.

(36:51):
All right, so Moshiri doesn'tknow what he's doing.
Dyche is cooked.
Can we talk about how awesomethat stadium looks for a minute,
and particularly imagine how wewould feel if Liverpool were
getting a new stadium thatlooked like that.

Speaker 3 (37:07):
Oh, it'd be sickening .
Yeah, that's how they feelright now.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Yeah, it really does look fantastic.
I mean I went and had a beforeI went to the Wolves game a
couple of weeks ago.
I went and just had a look atit for 15, 20 minutes and I was
by no means the only other, notthe only Everton fan doing that
and it really does lookfantastic.
I mean it looks like a UFO'slanded when you're close to it

(37:35):
on that road it's fuckingenormous, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (37:39):
It's huge, it's huge and you're like fuck me.
That's the thing that reallystruck me Because it looks
beautiful.
If any of you are in Liverpool,anytime, the ferry currently
maybe this will carry on goes upthe river a little bit to kind
of divert to go past it and youget a great view.
But being up close to it, or asclose as you can get it, is

(38:02):
enormous.
You know it's on an entirelydifferent scale to you know
anything we've experiencedbefore.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Yeah, and the location as well I mean the area
surrounding it at the moment isobviously it's an old dockland
so it's quite run down andthere's not a huge amount around
it at the moment.
I mean it similarly reminds meof when um pride park in derby
opened.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
I went there a couple of years after that had opened
and it was just surrounded by abunch of car dealerships, wasn't
?

Speaker 2 (38:32):
it.
Yeah, there's nothingsurrounded, but you go there now
when it's surrounded by theshops and restaurants and it's
it's still the centerpiece ofquite a vibrant area and I've no
doubt in time that will happenat bramley moore dock as well.
Um, and it's actually correctme if I'm wrong, but isn't it?
It's uh closer to the citycenter than Goodison Park is.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Oh, yeah, much closer , it's much closer, it's way
closer.
Yeah, way, way closer it's.
I mean the walk, I've done thewalk from Goodison back to Lime
Street loads, it's like 45minutes.
You know Bramley Moor is 20minutes.
I mean it's way closer.
So it would be way easier,particularly for, you know, a
wave bands I guess more so butget the tree, get the train into
lime street, you just be ableto walk.

(39:14):
You know it'd be easy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah theground it does.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Look at that I can't wait for.
Uh yeah, I just can't wait togo and watch my first match
there.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be loads of fun and
you're right, that area, it'sgoing to revive that whole area.
So I'll take this opportunityto say fuck UNESCO, who removed
Liverpool's World Heritage site,world Heritage designation,
because we were going to build abit close to a wall.

(39:50):
That's really old, the wall'sstill there, they kept it.
It's just we were going toalter a bit close to a wall.
That's really old, the wall'sstill there, they kept it.
It's just we were going toalter the surrounding area so
much that the UN decided that wewere no longer worthy, the
entire city was no longer worthyof World Heritage status.
Well, fuck off, that's yourperspective, because I think
we'd rather have the jobs.
And we've still got the wall,the wall's there, it's fine.

(40:14):
They haven't done a great job.
I mean they.
You know there's all kinds ofstuff.
The old pump room's still there.
You know they've relayed theytook out but then relayed the
old rail from the docklinerailway, you know which is part,
and they've just done aspectacular job and I think it's
gonna enhance everything,enhance everything around it.
And we've seen I mean, andy,you and I are probably old

(40:35):
enough to remember, but when wewere kids the Albert Dock was
not what it is today, to say theleast.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh well, the decline of the docks.
I mean it happened in such ashort period of time.
Liverpool went from being oneof the largest ports in the
world in the 1960s to within 10years.
It was still a port, but theamount of tourneys just declined
dramatically and obviouslythere were members of our family

(41:06):
who worked there, who losttheir jobs and the entire city
suffered terrible economichardship.
In such a short period of timeand you know, up to the the late
80s, the albert dock was I mean, it was just a dump.
You know, the river mersey wasone of the most polluted
waterways in the whole country.
Um, the whole area was justderelict with fallen down

(41:30):
warehouses and all that sort ofthing, and you know, you know to
see how it's been rejuvenatedover the last sort of 30 or so
years with the Liverpool OneShopping Complex and all the
redevelopments around the docksand the arena and the Beatles
story and all that, the wholehost of things.
And the Bramley Moor DockStadium is just the latest

(41:55):
development of that.
Because I mean, just on thepoint about rejuvenating the
area, the area between the sortof city centre and the stadium
you imagine will be the nextarea to sort of, because once
you, once you get the footfallof the staging people, as we
said, walk in that distance,other businesses will come in
and fill yeah, totally fill thatgap.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
And there'll be demand for, you know, hotels,
people, yeah, want to staycloser to there.
There'll be restaurants, thestadium is going to be busy,
there'll be a tour business, youknow, there'll be concerts
there.
There'll be all stuff, allkinds of stuff happening yeah
you know, I've read like theyestimate.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
it's estimated that it'll, over the next few years
it'll pretty it'll lead to abouta 1.3 billion boost for the
local economy and it thinks thatthere'll be well over a million
extra visitors as a directresult of things that either the
stadium going to everything,games going to see it, or just

(42:51):
gigs and things like thatthat'll be held there's on um, I
mean, the stadium is on the onthe shortlist for the 2026
champions league final as well,which, yeah, it might be a bit
small for that because it's 52and a half thousand, but I mean
that would.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
That's the kind of thing if, if that kind of thing
starts happening, eveninfrequently, it just puts it
literally on a map in adifferent way yeah, because I
think, because I believe uefarates stadiums, give them up to
five stars, one to five stars,and for a ground to be awarded
champions league final status,it needs needs to have the top
five star rating, and I thinkthe minimum capacity might be 50

(43:30):
000.
So right, it's only, it's onlyjust over that.
But, yeah, your five-starrating it's all to do with your
dressing rooms, for the teamsneed to be of equal size and a
minimum size and have minimumfacilities, and match officials
need to have a decent change offacilities.
There's a whole host of, andyou need a certain number of

(43:51):
corporate boxes.
There's a massive list of, andyou need a certain number of
corporate boxes.
There's a massive list ofthings that you need to satisfy
to get a Chavis League final,which obviously a new ground is
going to have, I mean conversely.
I mean Anfield and Old Traffordwouldn't meet that criteria.
For example, yeah, they've gotmore seats seats, but that's not

(44:13):
the sole criteria.
There's a whole host of otherthings you need and they don't,
um, they don't currently meet it.

Speaker 3 (44:20):
Well I mean yeah sorry go ahead oh well, yeah, I
was gonna make the point about,you know, liverpool, because I I
mean evertonians, joviallynamed uh, have named anfield
standfield because that was theother response to everton
stadium.
Like they're just gonna buildtheir the giant main stand, um,
and take anfield's capacity upto about things like 60 000 now.

(44:43):
And you know the thing is,liverpool are fantastic on the
pitch, they don't need to reallyworry about that.
But, but from a but that willtheir.
Their revenue is sort of limp.
Their revenue is limited.
It's almost completely down totheir footballing success with
Liverpool.
Obviously, they've got such ahuge global hull.

(45:05):
Their stadium doesn'tnecessarily matter as much, but
they did have the opportunity togroundshare because Everton
were quite strong advocates fora ground chair and Liverpool
have always poo-pooed it.
So I think a lot of them willbe looking over and looking at
that stadium and going I wishthat we were in that and not

(45:28):
Everton.
Oh yeah, the footballdifferences between us.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
Have either of you guys been in the away dressing
room at Goodison Park?

Speaker 3 (45:38):
No, yes, I've never done a tour of Goodison, you
know, oh you go do it.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Find a time.
Yeah, do it, it's really goodyeah.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
I've done the tour twice and both times I've been
in the away dressing room.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, yeah, it's really make sure you get up
there before they knock it downand do the talks.
The tour's really good, but theaway dressing room is fucking
hilarious, I guarantee, like oursecondary school.
The changing rooms there arenicer.
I'm not joking Because the homedressing room is like they're

(46:12):
both small, but it's like, youknow, one square, the home one,
one square.
There's like a separate showerfacility with like 12 showers.
There's a treatment room andeach player has a locker and a
seat which is like leather andpadded and a cubby underneath
and their names on it and allthat sort of stuff.
The away dressing room.

(46:33):
I love this.
I would want them to transportthis brick for brick and put it
in bramley more dock, becausethey may as well put a big sign
on the on the wall that says bythe way, fuck you too, everton
fc.
Because, first of all, it'sit's, it's an l shape, right, so
the team can't be addressed inone group by the manager.
It's impossible.
There are seats for 18 people,right.

(46:58):
There's no lockers.
It's like a bench, it's like afucking council gym and I don't
mean that in a derogatory way tocouncil gyms.
It's a wooden bench with hooksand there are a count of them.
There are 18 hooks right, sothat's all you can fit in there.
There's a shower wall which hasfive showers, but it's just a

(47:18):
wall.
There's no treatment room.
There's a TV that doesn't havea power cable and the people at
Everton were like, oh yeah, theyhave to ask if they want the
power cable and the heating.
There's one hot water pipe thatruns through along the ceiling
that provides heating in thewinter, so it's fucking freezing
and it's not soundproofed andit's right below the main stand,

(47:42):
so apparently you can't hearyourself thinking there half
time because you just people arelike getting the bovrils and
stuff like three inches it's,it's such they've, obviously
they.
They have not spent a pound onthat ever and I love the fact
that fucking Cristiano Ronaldohas walked into that place.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Oh yeah, you're thinking of players that have
been in there over the years.
Absolutely, yeah, incredibleyeah, no, it's so funny, so I'm
sure the one at Bramley Moor isgoing to be beautiful, but I
like the fuck you of that oneyeah, well, the one at Bramley
Moor will be will be much better, because if it wasn't, if it
wasn't the same standard as thehome dressing room, then

(48:23):
Everton's Bramley Moor docwouldn't be on the shortlist for
the Champions League final orbeing one of the host stadiums
for the euros in 2028.
So unfortunately, we will haveto be.
We will have be treating awayteams slightly, uh, in a more
nicer fashion in the new groundyeah, one of the downsides of

(48:44):
the move.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
When I was in there I was thinking about the time
during covid where they had tolike have the away team like in.
They set up those altar cabinsbecause they couldn't have that
many people at the tunnel.
I was like fuck, that must havebeen such an upgrade for
everybody to be in thoseportacabins we rented.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
I learned GCSE maths in those portacabins.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I learnedloads of games.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Whatever, it's all fine, alright, so the ground's
great Dyche is fucked.
Moshiri never knew what he wasdoing.
Should we talk about theChelsea game, which I don't?
Really I mean I don't want to,but we have to.
Let's do predictions and thenany other thoughts, Adam.
I'll come to you first.
Well, Ben, Chelsea, they'requite good.
They've spent a billion pounds.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
What's going to happen?
I mean, well, you justexplained what's going to happen
.
They're going to absolutelydick us because they have
several amazing players, colePalmer chiefly amongst them.
So, yeah, I'm not holding upany hope for this game,
unfortunately.
I think we need to look atbeating, looking at easier games

(49:50):
, such as man City.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yeah, they really have shit in the bed man City,
haven't they?
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
We can have a fun five minutes of them in a minute
.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah, yeah, all right , andy, tell us your Chelsea
thing, then we'll laugh at manCity.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
Chelsea.
Yeah, I mean at the start ofthe season when they were just
buying everybody who'd everkicked a football and we
wondered what on earth was doing, what was going on there.
But fair play to Enzo Marescu,who's come in, identified the
sort of 25 players he wants towork with, worked with Deb and
basically said told the othersyou're not in my plans, you can

(50:28):
play away in Kazakhstan in theEuropa League and that's your
lot.
And he's managing to do a muchbetter job at getting the team
to play in a coherent fashionthan I think most people,
including a lot of Chelsea fans,probably thought was going to
happen.
It's obviously going to be avery, very difficult game for us

(50:50):
to get anything out of.
We've already commented on thefact that our style of play is
so limited.
You know the chances of uskeeping Chelsea at bay for 90
minutes and maybe getting a draware slim at best, and I can't
see any set of circumstanceswhere we can go win the game.
I just can't see it becausewe're just not going forward

(51:13):
enough and creating enoughchances of scoring enough goals.
And we had a good defensiveperformance to get a point away
at Arsenal last week.
Can we do essentially the sameagain at home against Chelsea,
who are arguably having a betterseason.
Well, I don't think they've gota better season than Arsenal.

(51:34):
I don't think we can, so Ithink we're going to lose 2-0.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
It's tough, isn't it?
Because I think we'll lose?
I agree it's tough because Ithink it's one thing I watched
the Arsenal game and I was asimpressed as anybody with the
hard work, but also found it abit demoralizing sort of make a

(52:04):
good case that we should go andtry and do anything else because
it would be silly.
But I don't think there's Ithink the sort of tank is empty
on the fans tolerance for usdoing that at home.
Yeah, and I think even if we doit really well, I think people
are going to be pretty pissedoff that we literally don't.
I mean, we got, I think Iremember in the arsenal game.
We had one corner, maybe two,nothing happened and we had that

(52:24):
one Decorah shot.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
We basically bothered their 18-yard box three times
in 90 minutes or 96 minutes andit's like wow you know, yeah, I
mean, if your style of play issoaking up pressure and then
hitting teams on the break andyou're good at doing that, then
people will go well, okay,that's a style of play.
You can see what you're tryingto do.

(52:46):
But yeah, when you're doing thefirst bit and you've just got
no, you're very limited goingforward.
I completely agree.
Yeah, fans are going to getcheesed off with it.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah, and it's going to be tough over the break
because we've got a lot of gamesyou know I'm thinking about.
We've got this game in two daysand then in you know seven days
, we've got three games in sevendays.
I think it could be a bit of atricky period.
Can we laugh at man City for aminute?

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Absolutely.
I mean it's quite extraordinaryjust how their form has just
fallen off a cliff.
I mean it was a new story ifthey lost one game in over over
the last seven or eight years.
They might have lost a coupleof games in succession um once
or twice in that period, but tolose eight of the last 11 and

(53:43):
draw two of the other three isgenuinely extraordinary.
And it can't all be All right.
They've lost Rodri, who wasclearly an important player, but
how good was he.
It's far more than just takingone dude out of a team.
Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
You know it's so funny, I think every time he
says, oh well, well, they aremissing, rodri, what the fuck
he's one guy he's got eight legs, can he run at 400 miles an
hour, like it's like yeah, hewas a very, very good player,
but Christ alive, there's moregoing on.
Most football pundits don'tknow what the fuck they're
talking about, but this is whatI've been doing my head in the

(54:21):
last couple of weeks.
Everyone wants to get Rodriback.
No, they're broken.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Something has happened.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
We might not find out what it is.
Maybe they know what the resultof the FA inquiry is going to
be and they know it's allpointless.
But something has happenedthere, because they're broken.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
Yeah, totally.
The Rodri thing really annoysme.
It's like if there's one teamon the planet that can afford to
get bringing a player who is,who is 80 percent of the player
that rodry is who will play, ifhe doesn't, then then it's man
city.
It's absolutely nonsensical.

(54:58):
It's a bad, bad strategy.
Brought in matthias who's who'snot been good.
Kovacic was seen as that.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Gundogan's come back as well.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
Yeah, and neither of whom have managed to step up.
It was either a bad transferstrategy or you just can't have
one guy who is supposedly havingas much influence he clearly
doesn't.
You've got incredible playerslike Bernardo Silva, um making
and Kevin De Bruyne makingcompletely rudimentary errors

(55:34):
and absolutely cacking theirpants on the pitch, and it's
like you're really the impactthat confidence has um
confidence has on a team yeahbecause, structurally as well,
even with my relativelyuntrained heart, I'm looking at
them and just seeing spaces thatthe opposition are exploiting

(55:57):
that just weren't there.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
I mean Ten Hag.
As far as you know, his tenurewent at Manchester United.
He seemed, you know, he seemedto set his team up in such a way
where the opposition could justdrive a coach through the
midfield because there were thatmany gaps in it.
And you're looking atManchester City's midfield when
they're out of possession andthe players, even to me looking,

(56:20):
they just look all in the wrongplace and the amount of holes
and the amount of space thatopposition players are getting
is genuinely extraordinary.
And it's going to be I mean, aswell as it being hilarious for
everybody to watch.
Who's not a man City fan it'sgoing to be fascinating to see
how they get out of it, becauseGuardiola's never been in this

(56:41):
position before as a manager.
None of the man City players,or the majority of them, will
have been in this positionbefore as a manager.
None of the man City players,or the majority of them, will
have been in this positioneither.
You know they've just beenwinning everything for the last
six or seven years.
So the club, the entirefootball inside of the club has
not been in a situation likethis, which I think is unique,

(57:02):
because any other club you lookat has been.
Even clubs that are successfulin Manchester City have all been
in a rut.
Jurgen Klopp, when he wasLiverpool manager, once lost
five home games in successionand he dragged them.
I think he lost to Burnley onone of them.
So they were in a rut and theygot out of it.

(57:25):
You know Alex Ferguson atManchester United had rebuilt
the side three times.
He had his sticky patches.
You know Guardiola and man Cityare in what is for them
uncharted territory, so it'sgoing to be fascinating to see
how they get out of it, becausewe all thought when they beat
Forest 3-0 the other week oh,they've turned the corner.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Well, they've turned the corner and just gone down
another blind alley.
It's not just the way thatthey've, it's not just the way
that they are losing, but theyare.
It's the manner in whichthey've lost or even drawn the
games like the finals.
Anyone watch the final game athome Saw the highlights.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
It was hilarious, it was.

Speaker 3 (58:06):
It was like it was like you'd basically unbox,
subutu, uh, subutio, and justlike tipped it onto the table
and like that's how the players,that's how the players have
like come into the positionsthat they are.
Because, like I've said thisabout man City, man City's
success is built on the factthat they keep the ball

(58:28):
incredibly well, and youremember the Guardiola's
Barcelona teams, thetic-tac-a-football where they
just pass you to death becausethey are so technically gifted
and their passing and moving isso good you literally can't get
the ball off them.
City aren't don't really playlike that.
They play like a more of a, youknow, high press, win it back

(58:51):
really quickly, but they do liketo keep the ball in around the
18 yard box in the final thirdand so, defensively, they've
always been actually quitevulnerable on the counter-attack
because their defenders areoften like playing like your
inverted wing backs, whereyou've got kyle walker taking up
positions like um in theopposition's half, you know, not

(59:11):
on the wing.
So it means if they do lose theball, they are quite vulnerable
and the problem they've got isthat they're not playing the
football up in the final third.
So but they still have thesedefensive problems and missing
eight out of 11 games anddrawing the other two, and in
really poor circumstances,particularly that final game.

(59:32):
Um demonstrates that Guardiolaactually the evidence shows that
he doesn't actually know how toget his team to defend.
It's like it's a completelyyou're right.
It's Andrew to say like it'suncharted territory.
I don't think it occurs to himto make.
I don't think he actually knowshow do I make my team
defensively sound?
Because that's what they need.

(59:53):
They mean you look at that goal.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
If you look at that second goal, mania knight has
scored it's, it's.
It's so basic.
I mean there's a player youknow left back ish martine, you
know left-back-ish Martinez.
You know he's sort of playingleft of three centre-backs but
he's in the left-back kind ofposition, no pressure on him.
The right winger runs inbetween two centre-backs, no one
tracks him.

(01:00:17):
Are these goals?
Yeah, it could not be.
It's the kind of goal we wouldconcede.
You know it's like it could notbe.
It's the kind of goal we wouldconcede.
You know it's like it could notbe simpler.
You know they could have.
You know Martinez could haveheld up, got his whiteboard out
and said here's what I'm goingto do, and drawn a diagram for
the man to make it more obviouswhat he was going to do.

(01:00:39):
It's like the most you wouldn't.
If you were man United, youwouldn't believe how easy it was
to score that goal.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
And the first goal in that game as well, obviously,
the penalty that man Cityconceded.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
So funny, the most penalty penalty I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Well player you know, obviously Nunes.
Nunes, thank you.
Obviously, you know, plays anill-judged pass in his defensive
third.
Fine, that happens and Diallopicks up the ball.
But for Nunes, just toabsolutely clear him out Makes
no sense, because he got back.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
The keeper had stood him up really well.
Yeah, and he actually didn'thave an obvious way to score,
and all he needs to do is run infront of them.
Yeah, and he actually didn'thave an obvious way to score,
and all he needs to do is run infront of them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah, and he just picks up the last, he clears him
out and, as you said, it's themost obvious penalty you're
going to see in your life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
And then he's taking his hands out.
I can't believe that justhappened.
You just did it.
Yeah, he'd gotten there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Like, why did he not just stand up and go?
Stand between them and go, okay, you've got to do something now
.
Yeah, he'd done the hard bit bymaking the recovery run.
So fair play to you, you'vedone that.
And then that's one of theother aspects of it.
You know, so, mentally, he justhad a massive brain farce and
just cleaned the guy out andagain and that's related to what
I said a moment ago about howthe players are going to deal
with it, because if they're inthese uncharted waters and their

(01:02:08):
brains are being scrambledwhere they're making such bad
decisions I mean even Kevin DeBruyne in that game.
He's hitting free kicks out ofplay, he's overhitting.
I mean all the players are justdoing weird things that we've
just never.
I mean there was one game aswell it might have been the man
U game as well, it might havebeen the previous one where

(01:02:28):
Haaland was back in his own boxdefending All right, fine, he's
helping the team out, that'sfine.
And he cleared it to thehalfway line.
And there was no man City playerwithin 40 yards of where the
ball ended up.
So the opposition just pickedit up and started another attack
.
And you just look at that andyou're thinking how is that team
structurally, how, how is thatallowed to happen?

(01:02:49):
you know, you leave one becausethere were three opponents on
the halfway line.
So how is one not one man cityplayer gone?
Do you know what?
I'm just going to go and standon the halfway line.
So if the ball does come thisway, at least the opposition
have got something to thinkabout.
It's genuinely quiteextraordinary and hilarious,
obviously, what's happening tothe moment.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
Yeah, you wonder when it will change.
I mean, the stats are wild.
I mean you talk about the games.
Going into the man United game,they'd lost seven of previous
10.
Now Ace of 11.
Before that 10, they'd lostseven of 103.
So it's like the wheels haveproperly come off.

Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
I'm just looking at yeah, just looking at me.
They've got Aston Villa awaytomorrow.
I mean there is, you couldeasily see a situation.
You know John Duran, the formerEasing, and John Duran, the
former Easing, and Watkins aswell, who's gone off the ball a
little bit, but you can easilysee a situation where Villa win
that yeah, yeah, alrightanything else for anything else

(01:04:02):
not from me not from me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
No great well, we'll see you on the other side of God
knows when, because there's somany games coming up for
anything else.
Not from me, all right, notfrom me, no, great.
Well, we'll see you on theother side of God knows when,
because there's so many gamescoming up, but we'll be back
over Christmas sometime.
Keep listening, tellingeverything to the boy and mate.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts,follow us on Spotify, wherever
you get your podcasts.
That's where we are.
Thanks for listening and staywell and have an amazing time
over Christmas.