Are We Live? Episode 40

- VAR stings United

- Chelsea being Chelsea

- Tottenham season from hell continues

- Vintage City in the Carabao final

Song: Podcast By Snail Music (Loop)
Author: ‪@SnailMusicES‬

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Are we lying? No, no, no, yes. Yes, yes, yes. We lied. Yes. Okay, so I ain't gonna curse you.

unknown 0:06

But these punk.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Yo, we back. Got some prem games to talk about. Got the caravel final. Um, so yeah, let's just get right into it. First game of the weekend, United at Bournemouth, uh, Friday night game. Well, Friday night local time. Um big game for United, especially. Of course, they're gonna hold on for that uh top five spot to get in the Champions League next season. Bournemouth are pretty much, you know, not really playing for too much, but you know, they're at home, they're gonna play hard and stuff like that. But um, let's get into it with the lineups firstly. Um and for United Carrick, bro, I'm begging you, please cut this out. Why why is Mbumo still starting ahead of Sesco? Like, and I which I'll get into I'll get into this even more detail a little bit later, but he's providing and bumo is providing nothing on the pitch. So he just I just don't understand it at all. And I some I saw some people like trying to run this narrative that Cesco is only effective off the bench, which is total nonsense. Like um in his last four starts, um, all of them being under, you know, after Em Random was sacked, he scored three goals in those four starts. Like, what are we talking about? Cesco, whenever he's on the pitch, either as a starter or a bench player, he is getting on the end of chances, and Bumo is not doing that. Um, yeah, and I'll get into Mbumo's form or whatever a little bit more later when I talk about individual players, but I just think that decision is making such a huge impact on United's performance levels. Um, and I don't think we'll see the best version of this United team until Kara you know goes with Cesco. And um, of course, I believe Mazarwi should be starting a Hellusha as well, but I guess that impact isn't as uh noticeable than the Sesco and Boomer one for me, so I've stopped really trying to complain about it. But um getting into the game, it is hard to talk about this game without talking about the referee, um, especially that no-call penalty on Ahmad, which resulted immediately in a barn with goal. But um, yeah, I'll get into that in a second. But for you from United perspective, I thought the performance was pretty good. I thought they played some good stuff, they weren't really creating like high high quality chances, but there were a good amount of like half chances. You know, Bruno got a volley at the back post, which is clear off the line by the keeper Petrovic. He had another shot on the edge of the box, which I thought he could have been better with. Um Kunya got in some dangerous areas, Ahmad gotten some shots off that were blocked, one was saved. I thought United were, you know, in the first half and up until the first goal, I thought they were playing pretty well, all things considered. And and I hate to keep harpy on this, but I just felt like bro, if we can just play Cesco ahead of Umbumo, we'll create even more high-quality chances and eventually score goals. But you know, that's that conversation I'll leave at the end. But um, yeah, United were playing pretty well, I thought. Not amazing. I mean, Bournemouth were in the game, like they had some openings and whatnot, but no real, like, you know, nothing, no real chances of note. But um, United are playing pretty well. Cunha, who I thought was probably United's best player, wins the penalty, he beats a man, he's about to shoot, and I think Jimenez the the right back pulls him, tugs him. Really dumb foul, but uh, yeah, penalty, United go ahead 1-0, and it kind of feels like United are gonna you know go on from there and go on to win, maybe 2-0 or something like that, and you know, further their uh top four charge. But in really controversial fashion, Ahmad goes down in the box, there's no penalty given. The referee is sitting literally right there, like a feet a foot away from the situation. He doesn't call it, and from that sequence alone, Bournemouth got on a pitch and score, you know. And I just think that's a ludicrous decision to not call penalty there. I mean, the defender, I don't remember who it is, but did not play the ball whatsoever. He just two-hand pushes Ahmad on his side, bundling him over, so much so that he landed on top of the ball. Like, um, yeah, to me that was clearly a penalty. And the only reason I felt like the referee did not call it is because he already called a penalty like a few minutes earlier, and the only reason VAR didn't change it is because I don't know if this is a new thing, but or like a more recent thing, but it feels like the VAR is just going with the on-foot decision way, way more often, like they're not even really considering overturning calls unless it's like the most blatantly obvious mistake of all time, and even then sometimes they've not they've not been calling it because I mean I'm sure Totnol fans are familiar with the lack of consistency in the calls that they face. I mean, every every every team has really yeah, I think the biggest issue with VAR right in a VAR right now is they're going with they're just defaulting to siding with the referee decision on the pitch if it's with any doubt, you know. And in a vacuum, that doesn't sound like the worst idea, like to not, you know, re-referee the game with technology and whatnot. We don't want too much intervention from replay, which sounds good in theory, but what that leads to is a completely different application of the rules depending on the games, like the same exact fouls that are called because the referee called it are now not called because the referee didn't call it, like it just almost changes the rule book in a way by not consistently applying uh no the rules to the same situations, and I think that's a huge mistake. Um and and again, that was to me blatantly a penalty, and that would have probably been 2-0 at that point, and it's almost definitely game over from then. Instead, it's 1-1. Um, the game flips. United go on to score again anyway. Uh, a few minutes later, from my uh own goal from a Bruno corner, it's 2-1. Okay, it looks like feels like United have taken back control. Uh Carrick finally brings on Cisco at the 70th minute, but then Maguire gets sucked in and he fouls. Um, was it Eva Nelson? I think yeah, it was Eva Nielsen. He's last man, he doesn't play the ball. It is a clear foul, so red card, penalty, and Bournemouth equalize. Now, to me, the push that Maguire did was basically the same thing that happened to Ahmad in the no-call penalty. But like I said, the referee called the Maguire push on the field a penalty, so they're not gonna change that. He called the Ahmad uh push a no foul on the pitch, so they're not gonna change that. So, like I said, the two exact same things essentially are refereed differently or they're ruled differently just because of the referee's impulse in the moment, and that to me is just a terrible way to you know apply the rules of the game. Um, so yeah, at that point it's 2-2. Um, there's about like 15 or so minutes left in the match, and at 2-2, at that point I was like, okay, United just need to hold on for the draw. Um, if they can nick a count a goal in the counter, then uh maybe. But um, yeah, United kind of just held on at 2-2 for a draw, um, despite being down to 10 men, despite Ugarta coming on the pitch and genuinely playing against them, I felt like. Like, if you told me Ugarter had a bet on Bournemouth to win the game, I would not be surprised. But at the same time, I'm also not surprised if that's just who he is, because he is that bad. He is that bad. Um, in all aspects of football. I mean, he came in, he gave away stupid fouls. He um the one thing that just annoyed me beyond belief. There was a sequence where he picked the ball up in loads of space. Cesco makes a darting run. You can see him, he's gonna he's gonna be clear on goal, and instead of looking to pass, he almost just Ugarte just towers like and dribbles into the corner, so he doesn't do anything, just gives the ball a bruno, and by that time the chance has gone. I'm just like, this is just a horrible. How did this guy make it pro, honestly? That's how I feel like that's how I feel when I watch this guy. But um, yeah, the game ends at 2-2. I think Bournemouth were very fortunate to get a 2-2 draw out of that. That United were clearly the better team um up until that non-penalty call, which resulted in a Bournemouth goal. Um so yeah, harsh result for United. Um luckily for them, they actually gained a point in the top five race, which I'll get into in a bit. But um, yeah, I thought um let's just get into the individual performances that I want to talk about. Um and the three attackers on the pitch for United, I need to talk about them. Cunya, firstly, let's let's start in a positive note. Um, I've been really critical of this guy um over the like the first uh for most of the season, I would say. I you know, I've been I've been saying like, okay, this is not a starter in a serious team. Um and I still he still has some faults that annoy me in his game, but to be fair, I like he's been really good the last three or four weeks. Like when he commits to playing with with and playing as a real winger, he's been fantastic. Like he's like fullbacks can't handle him. He's been a fan, he's been a huge threat dribbling past defenders, uh, getting a position to score goals, winning fouls, winning penalties. So, yeah, he's probably been United's best player over the last couple of weeks, I would say. And if he can commit to doing this, that would be huge for United because they need that presence on the left wing uh for us this season, and maybe going forward as well. Um, so yeah, that's a positive uh thing. Now the two the next two players need to talk about is more negative um Brian and Brumo. And I I just don't understand like how this guy keeps playing. Like the thing that's most annoying me about Carrot picking him is that he has benched every other attacker at some point. Kunya got benched initially when Carrot first came in. Um he played Dorgo on the left and Bumo and Bruno through the middle, uh, which I was fine with. He benched Sesco. I mean he's benched Sesco basically the whole time. I've only started Sesco for what one game? I think maybe two. Um he's benched Ahmad for a couple of games. So every one of these attackers have been benched except for Mbumo, and I think almost definitely he's been the poorest of the four. Um the one thing in his favor is that he scored a couple of goals in his first two games. So I guess you know, in Karrick's mind, he's like, okay, he's not playing good, but or he's not playing well, but he's still gonna get a goal or maybe an assist or something like that. Which I can almost understand, but the the thing with me is like with them boomo, it's like, what are you what are you providing us at the moment? Like, on the ball, you're extremely sloppy. Your touch is bad, you provide zero you know dribbling threat, uh, he's not creating chances for his teammates. Um, and off the ball, he's not like this transition, this guy running the channels and causing havoc to center backs and you know holding the ball up and whatnot. He's not he's not a constant threat in behind to get on the chances. Like, I mean, people have been I've I've said this before, people compare him to Sala. I'm like, bro, even this current version of Sala that's old and washed up, you know, he's a threat to getting behind the score, you know, the whole game. I don't see that with a embumo at all. Um, and he just doesn't look like he doesn't look sharp, he doesn't look like he has confidence, he doesn't look like he's in shape, to be honest with you. Like, I mean, we've all seen in the preseason he looked you know quite bloated, and I don't think he's really ever gotten on track. So I'm not gonna be completely out on him as a United player going forward, but right now he needs to sit on the bench, and um, you know, I've been saying that Cesco needs to be started at this point. You know, Xerxy would play uh provide more than uh Embumo. Well, I don't even rate Xerxy like that, but yet at this point, he would provide more than him, and and let alone Zesco, who should obviously be starting. Um, and the last player I wanted to talk about um Ahmad Diallo, a player that I rate very highly from a skill set standpoint, that I think has all the tools and whatnot to be a top player, to be a player that starts in a title-winning team, is disappointing me quite a bit because the biggest issue I have with Ahmad right now is that he's playing like he's afraid to be great, like and then what what do I mean by that is like like this performance against Bournemouth from Ahmad was not bad to be to be totally fair. He was not bad, like he was a threat, he was helping us, you know, in possession defensively, all those things are true. But Ahmad Diallo to me has a lot more in his game that he's afraid to show right now, and I don't understand it. Like, I mean, I mean, there's a sequence that to me uh you know sticks out the most, and all people are pointing out the loose touch he had when he was throwing goal with uh the cunia pass. That's obviously poor quality and all that, but um the thing that stuck out to me the most with this there was a sequence where he's on the right hand side and Dalo is overlapping him, right? And the fullback kind of shifts out the way to mark the overlap. And in that situation, I'm like, bro, any top wide man in that situation is cutting in and smacking a shot, you know. No matter what happens, the result, any you know, top player is just cutting in and shooting death. If it's cunha on the other side of the pitch, he's cutting in and smashing out his right foot. Now, where the ball ends up after that, I don't really care, but still, any player with any type of confidence or belief or you know, selfish, whatever you want to call it, any type of top player takes a shot there, and instead Ahmad just you know casually plays that low on the overlap, the cross is blocked or whatever, and nothing nothing comes of it. And that to me is just like okay, you're right now playing scared, you're afraid of being great. I don't just understand it. Like, uh, I talked about last week about how he's clearly playing with low confidence right now, but he needs to shake out of it, and I guess people out there, people around him need to help him, but he's capable of way more, and I want to see it from him going forward because if he doesn't turn around, like United are gonna have to buy a proper right wing with how he looks, with how embumo looks, like it's not looking good for that position uh going forward. And one thing that made me think about is like you know, people talk about the United shirt being heavy, and I've always been like, man, that's a bunch of nonsense, like it's a bunch of cliche nonsense because like any footballer who makes it this level, you know, has the confidence, self-belief, all that to you know, play United. But then you watch, I watch a mod, I watch a mbumo, and I'm like, okay, there's another when you play at the highest level or at the you know at a top top club where the spotlight is on you, there's another like level of self-belief that you need to succeed at that level, and you see that with Bruno, you see that with um Cunha, you know, and in some ways, this self-belief and Casemiro is another example of that. Like, in some ways, that self-belief can be a bad thing because you can try too much stuff, but you know, that kind of like you need to be a lunatic in in terms of self-confidence to really thrive at a top top club, and we're not really seeing that from Ahmad or Mbuma right now, and um, I need them to snap out of it and you know believe in themselves. Um, yeah, alright, so that's it on the individual players. Let's get into the um takeaways, you know, long-term takeaways for United. Uh, despite what we we looked at as drop points, they somehow gained a point on Liverpool and Chelsea after this weekend, which I'll get into some of those uh some games later. Um, so uh they're still in the driver's seat to finish in top five at least. Um I think Carrick is doing a good job. He just needs to pick the right players, which I've been saying for weeks now. Like, the brand of football he's giving me, I'm a fan of that. Like, it's not the most you know, you would have a possession or complex, all that, but it's common sense football, the we play good stuff, like you don't really concede, we don't like aren't haphazard at the back defensively, all that. So I I'm in I'm enjoying his football. I just need him to pick the right players so we can maximize this current team. Um, so yeah, I like I've said a hundred times if they get the job of Karak, I'm not upset at all. Um, this idea that other managers are more safe, I don't buy it really. Um, yeah, and um two more things I want to talk about. One of them being, you know, this is not a dig at Carrick at all because he's doing a great job, but top four this season for United wouldn't be some like, oh my god, what an achievement. I'm not looking at like that, to be honest with you, because you know, to me, when I watched the whole league this season, and I watched United under Carrick, I'm like, dude, if they had just sacked MrM after the Europa League final, and if they had just signed another quality midfielder or whatever, they could have really done, you know, something this this season. Whether or not they probably would not have won the league, but could they have contested Arsenal closely? Like, yeah, why not? You know, why not? They've played, I've seen I've seen them play against Arsenal and say this season. It's not like they're there's streets ahead of them. I don't think it's that crazy to say at all. Like, could they have forget and then let alone the league, like they could have done something in the cups? Like the fact that they got knocked out by Grimsby and Brighton in the Cups in the first round. I mean, that's shambolic, really. And I it's hard for me not to watch the season unfold and be like, no, this is actually a missed opportunity to do something this season instead of oh wow, we're top four. It's like, bro, yeah, top four, but top four with two good teams, you know what I mean? So, two good teams in the league, I mean, so yeah. Um, and the last thing I want to talk about is like I feel like we say this every single year, but this upcoming summer is so crucial because um Arsenal, what I'll get into later, Arsenal are probably gonna win the league, but nobody can watch this Arsenal team and be like, oh, you know, catching up to them is unachievable. Hell no, hell no. And with Man City, there's a lot of you know questions about Pep's future and all that, and um, you know, we'll see what they look like next season. You would think that they're gonna eventually figure it out, but it's two you know relatively poor seasons in a row for City with Pep maybe being on the out. Like, you have to look at this summer like we can make the leap to you know Premier League title contention, and and I think that needs to be the aim. Um, there've been some conversation about signing Bruno Gomares. Okay, that would be a signal that you're being serious about competing next season. Um, but there needs to be more than that. There needs to be two, three midfielder signings, there needs to be another winger, um, a left back, um, a center back. And to me, a center back is a low-key important thing because if you look at the four center, five center backs are united right now: Delict, Maguire, Lissandro Martinez, Aiden Heaven, and Lenny Yoro. All five of these players to me, I think everyone can confidently say none of these players are bad. These are all players you would be happy to have in your squad. But which one of these players do I trust to play 30 plus games and be a rock at the back? I don't think you can be confidently say that about any one of these guys yet. Like Heaven and Euro are still young, they still have, I mean, they're clearly talented players, but they need to like still prove that. McGuire has been he's gotten always older, he's picked up injuries. To me, he's in decline. He's still very solid, and and at times he can be very good. But I don't think he's reliable from a 30-game, 30 plus game um perspective. Lissandro, at this point, you have to admit, he's pretty injury prone. Um, on top of his own deficiencies as a defender to go along with that. Um, and delicked, I don't know what this back injury is, but it seems pretty like maybe career threatening or whatever. Because to be out this long with a back injury, I mean that's pretty crazy. But um, yeah, like I said, center back, left back, we need another wing. At least two midfielders, and that's assuming Bruno Fernandez is staying, you know, this summer. But if not, you have to replace him too. Um, so this summer is just massive for United. Um yeah. Alright, that's it on United Bournemouth. On to the Everton Chelsea match. Um which was actually important for both teams, which I'll get into in a bit. You know, but normally I go in-depth with the game with the 11s and all that stuff. But let's just let's just talk about this game, you know, a little bit more stampistically, because I mean there's not much to say about this game. Like the conversation for Chelsea at this point is uh the same every week. Like, if you're Everton, this has gotta be one of your easier wins you've had all season, which is crazy to say. Um, maybe maybe not even true. Maybe I'm being you know dramatic with that, but it just felt like a routine 3-0 win at home for Everton. Um, and you know, they had some Everton had some initial possession in the first 10-20 minutes. Um but uh the mostly for the most part, they backed off Chelsea, they dared them to create chances, and I don't feel like Chelsea created too much from open play. Like most of their threat or danger came from like set piece mayhem. Like Pickford made a great double save um in the first half on one of those, but um yeah, it didn't feel like Chelsea in open play were doing too much, to be honest with you. Um, even though they had like you know predominant position in the game. Um and Everton just I mean, all three goals are just way too easy, way too easy, like the first goal. Like, how does James Garner have that much space to just pick a pass to put in Beto? And of course, it's a great pass, great finish from Beto, but that's just too easy. The third goal is just way too easy, he's a it's a goal kick, it's hoofed to the other side of the pitch, uh, it's flicked one flick on, and the guys one moment to Kaiseado. Kaiseido gets beat to the inside too easy, for my opinion, and it's a great finish from um in die, which made it 3-0, and then I mean the second goal is just poor from Robert Sanchez. The ball is just straight at you. The ball cannot go in the net from that. Um, so yeah, 3-0 to Everton, an easy win it felt like just a toothless, lifeless performance from Chelsea. Um, you know, all three goals came from it. Look like all the defending, poor defending, poor structure, um, lack of urgency to win the ball back, all that jazz. Um, and and speaking of Chelsea, it's just like two things to me when I stick out when I watch this team. I'm like, first of all, what manager is gonna take this job, bro? And to be fair, it came out a report today that uh Chelsea are not gonna sack Rosenior this year, even if even if he misses all in Champions League, which is gonna be interesting. Like, how bad does it have to get for him to be sacked if that's the case? Um, yeah, and the second thing that sticks out to me is like Chelsea have a handful, and I when I say handful, I I literally mean like less than five, like three to five meaningfully good players that should be playing at the highest level. Like, I look at Paul Cole Palmer, of course, he's had he's not had a good season. I think injuries are a huge part of that. I think the context of the players around him are a huge part of that, but he's he's I think generally speaking, a very good player. Uh Reese James, of course, top player. He obviously has some injury concerns in his career, but nonetheless, when he plays, top player. He's been a little bit, a little bit higgy like these last couple weeks, but generally speaking, a very good player. Um, I think Joe Pedro, I think you can include him in that list now. Possibly he's a great season, in my opinion. Um, but then around that, it's like bro, this is a joke. Like, this is actually a joke. Like, how how I think the fact that Enzo Fernandez is a hundred million midfielder is probably the most under-talked about thing in the world. Well, only even less talked about than that is fully invert speaking 100-pound player, but 100 million pound player, but that's for another day. But um the thing that like the thing I really can't get over is how does a supposed big club spend any meaningful money on a player like Garnacho? And to some people that's gonna sound like you know, a hindsight type thing. This is not true at all. Like, I'm a United fan that watched every game Garnacho play for United. After after a certain, you know, after that initial thing where a young player looks good, you're like, oh wow, this is the next big thing, and then I kept watching Garnacho for United. I'm like, actually, this guy is not very talented, and he the best thing about him is his desire to score goals. Um, but you look at Garnacho, is he overly quick? No, overly strong, nope. Overly, I mean, uh, is he impressive as a dribbler? Nope. Impressive as a creator, nope, impressive as a his ball striking, is it high level? In fact, nope. In fact, it's very poor, I would say. Decision making is poor, but you know, that you can at least hope to develop with a young player. Um, he had multiple attitudes incidents at United, even you know, across different managers. Um so yeah, how does a how does a supposed big club that needs reinforcements in attack sign that player? I just don't understand how that's possible. How can a supposed professional executive at the highest level really do that? Um just crazy to me. An embodiment of this whole Chelsea project. Like, oh, we're gonna sign you know talented young players and they're gonna you know cultivate into all stars and eventually and we we bought these guys when they were you know unknown or whatever, and it's just like okay, but like can we get some premium young talent? Like, how does Garnacho fit into that philosophy at all? I just don't understand in the slightest. Um, yeah, and now um with this with this result and this Everton victory, Everton and Brentford have a legitimate chance at getting that fifth spot for Champions League. I mean, with Liverpool losing, with Chelsea losing, they're only three points off the fifth spot, which is just I mean, it's been under undertalked about how how big a failure the third world season has been. If they don't even finish in the top five, my goodness. Um, yeah, and I and I said earlier how this upcoming summer is huge for United, it's even bigger for Chelsea, in my opinion, because this summer is gonna tell us is this hierarchy or you know, whatever you want to call it, the Clay Arc, whatever they call the blue coat, whatever you want they call it, I don't even know what the real term for it is. This ownership or whatever you want to call it at Chelsea, are you serious about being a top-level club that wins things? You know, that wins things this summer. We're gonna really see if they have another summer of spending loads of money on you know potential good players, you know, instead of addressing needs with you know, not necessarily like you don't have to sign a four 35-year-old ready-made, but like, can we sign someone that we know is good, you know what I mean? Like, you know, or or if it's gonna be a young player, someone that's you know, okay, that guy is yeah, he's on the path to being a superstar, like a little bit more concrete in their evaluation. Like, for example, like there was rumor that they wanted Hugo Eckert, um, but they backed off and went on to sign Liam De Lap. Now, to me, there's a big difference between Hugo Eckhart TK, who played in the Champions League, was bought by PSG, who's in the floor for the French team, who had a top season at um was it Frankfurt? Yeah, at Frankfurt. He had, you know, great performances in the Europa League, all that stuff. Then Liam DeLap, who while I had a promising season, had one promising season at Ipswich, you know, for about 12 goals. Like to me, there's a clear delineation in those young player brackets. And um, yeah, the fact they I think the fact they went with De Lap is a who I like by the way, De Lap is a player I have liked in the past, but the fact you would choose De Lap over RKTK, you know, hypothetically speaking, that to me is a clear demonstration of their uh broken philosophy. Um, and this summer needs to be about, bro, we have an issue with a goalkeeper, we have an issue with center back, we need better attackers. Let's sign players that are actually good that'll fix that need today, you know, and if they don't do that, then man, you know, and I've seen some uh I've seen like Chelsea fans on social media reminisce about you know the Roman Abramovich era where they were just you know had great players and all that, and really back in the day, like Roman Abramovich would just sign whoever the hottest guy in the market was, like, even if they didn't need him. Like, I remember when they signed Shevchenko when they already had Drogba. And I'm pretty sure at the time Joseph Marino didn't even want Shevchenko, but Abramovich was like, I don't care, I'm gonna sign him, I'm gonna sign. And and Chelsea and Real Madrid are the two clubs that you know, no matter what, we're signing top stars, you know. We're gonna sign the top quality stars. We don't care about fit, but we just know that we don't care about managers, we don't care about you know, oh developing process, we don't care about you know long um long rebuilds or whatever you want to call it. We're just gonna keep signing top quality stars, and those guys are gonna win us trophies, and that worked. That was that's that is proven to be a winning formula in football, you know. People don't like it, people think that all player power they don't care about, they don't like managers getting sacked every two years. Bro, that formula worked for them, and it works, it really works at every club that that you know replicates that success. So, hey, maybe there was something to it. Um, so yeah, that's it on the Everton Chelsea game on to Tottenham Forest, the relegation six-pointer. Um, and really, you know, there's been a lot of talk about how embarrassing it is for Tottenham to be in this situation where relegation is a real thing, and honestly, and maybe maybe they have there has been. There should be a lot of conversation for that for Narnio Forest as well. Um, I believe they're still in Europa, uh, the Europa League, or maybe their conference league. I think it's Europa League. Yeah, it's Europa League. Um, and they have a lot of quality players like Gibbs White, Elliott Anderson, uh Hutsana Doy, like uh Melinkov uh Milankovich. Uh uh I'm blanking on the goalkeeper's name now, the Belgian goalkeeper, Sells. Um, these are all quality, like these are all quality players. The fact you can get relegated with this is kind of crazy. And like when you look at the two teams, Tottenham and uh Forrest, you look at Tottenham's 11 with all their injuries and whatnot, you're like, okay, this looks like a championship, this looks like a championship relegation type team. When you look at Forest, it's like, oh hell no, this should be a mid-table club at least. Um, yeah, now getting on the game. I mean, Tottenham came into the game off what you would consider two positive performances, right? You got a draw at Anfield against Liverpool. Um, now to be fair, it was a very much uh Liverpool rotated a lot of their starting players, and a lot of their better players did not start that match, but still, a draw to Anfield, considering their circumstances, was a good result. Um, a very good result, actually. And then you put Athletic in a second leg after being humiliated in the first leg, and even though, like, yeah, you're down, you're down three goals, so uh part of it is that Athletic is like, Alright, we're already through, but to get a win in that situation, it can be you know a confidence booster for the club and all that. So after all that, to come into this game and before the match, actually, uh, supposedly the Tottenham fans had a protest planned for the current ownership and you know hierarchy and all that, but cancelled it and instead you know kind of paraded around the team to like back the team and all that um before the match. So they were they were they were uh accompanying the the team bus, you know, all you know, cheering them on and all that stuff. So to go from that and to be rewarded with a 3-0 loss at home in a relegation six-pointer. Oh my god, bro. Like, if you're a Tottenham fan, it's like man, we sure we might as well just rip the stadium up. Like, like we you cancel a protest and get rewarded with that, I'd be disgusted, bro. Um, and one thing that that's hilarious about these matches at Tottenham, um, and all these Tottenham matches at home when they're losing, the cameraman is just going crazy at picturing all the depressed Tottenham fans. Like every time they're losing at home, the cameraman just finds the most depressed Tottenham fan of all time, and it's just hilarious. Um speaking in the game, like I actually thought Tottenham in the first half especially were kind of decent. Like I thought they were the better team for the most part. But then it felt like the Igor Jesus goal from a set piece was kind of like a sucker punch they couldn't recover from. Um, and then going to the second half, the game felt you know kind of even, and then the defending for the second and third goal from Tottenham. I mean, in considering the circumstances, to give away those goals like that just so easily, I mean, that's just I don't know what to say. Like at a certain point, if you're a Tottenham fan, a part of you is like, man, if we get relegated, all these men will leave. So that's like that's like a silver lining, at least, you know what I mean? Because the fact you could allow those type of goals when you're fighting for a relegation life, like, how could I mean that's just it's it's it's hard not to be cliche when we talk about the games like this because that's just mentality that it just is like there's a World Cup winning center back in Romero, and he's just like, Yeah, we're just gonna let Gibbs Weiss score a free goal in the middle of the middle of the box, basically. Like, you know, we're gonna let Nico Williams have time and space on the wing and pick out a cross for I won't need like like a like a training session, basically. Like, man, crazy. Like those goals, those second and third goals were just way, way too easy. Um, you know, and as a result of this game, uh top number one point off relegation. Um, but they're ahead of West Ham, who lost to Villa. Uh Running Force went ahead of them, I believe, two points. Um, leads are also in the mix, to be fair. Like, they could also get drawn into this uh relegation fight. But um, yeah, if it was me, um, I would sack Tudor. I would have sacked him a couple weeks ago, to be honest with you. Uh and I would just sign Deserby or whoever, like, bro, anyone to give me some sort of lift in the short term to avoid relegation, you know what I mean? Like, I saw some people talk about how De Zerby is kind of like a short-term manager that's not gonna work out in the long run. He's like a he's got his issues like Conte does, where he's gonna he just blows up with the team behind the scenes and all that. I'm like, bro, I don't give a damn about all that. Just can you get me two wins to avail relegation? We'll worry about the rest later, you know what I mean? So um, yeah, I would bring in this Erby, he's available. I would give him a crap little money just to coach us at least for the end of the season. Um and yeah, I mean, I tweeted this out earlier that you know, before the Europa final against Man United, if you offered Tottenham fans, I I mean uh before after the Europa League game against May United where Tottenham won their first trophy since I believe 2007, Tottenham fans in that moment would have basically accepted 99.9% of possible outcomes for this, you know, this season. And they are really there's a really good chance they receive the 0.001, you know, the 0.001 season that they would not have accepted, which is them being relegated and Arsenal, their biggest rivals, winning the league, you know, possibly winning a treble. You know, there's not you know, Champions League or whatever, like any of those either league or champions league, like the fact that they could win both and Tottenham could get relegated, like that is legitimately the worst outcome you could have hoped for as a Tottenham fan. And that is just I mean, that might be a sign, like just this sport isn't for you. Like, to be honest with at least this fandom is not for you. Like at that point, I'm giving up being a fan because how could the how could the football gods give that to me? You know what I mean? So, um, yeah, crazy scenes. I do think Tottenham have a good chance of being relegated. Like, West Ham need to win a couple games to make that happen, but hey, at this point, I think people are still in denial that Tottenham can be relegated. I'm not, I think it can happen because on form, this is truly the worst team in the league, uh, truly the worst team of the league on form. So, yeah. Uh, I I think I saw they don't have a single win in 2026 in the Premier League. How is that possible, bro? It's like, man, that's crazy. That is crazy. And Thomas Frank, you aren't you aren't escaping this. You are under the craziest fraud watch we have ever seen. Because not only did you sink this Tottenham ship, Brentford have not missed you in the slightest, and arguably are better off replacing you with Keith Andrews. Um, so yeah, crazy, crazy scenes. Um, on to the last game of the weekend, uh, the Carabao final, Man City versus Arsenal. I think they said it's like the first time we've had the top two teams in the league in the final in like 60 years or something. So very much anticipated final. You know, people have to undermine the caraba. I mean, to me, it's like if your team is in the final, you want them to know when. And if they don't win, you're kind of like, damn, it's not the end of the world, but it's like, damn, we lost a final, you know what I mean? So, yeah, let's get into this game a little bit more in-depth in the last two. But starting 11s for Arsenal, there was injuries to Eze and Timber. So we saw Ben White and Havertz um in their place. Now, the Ben White coming up for Timber to me is not much of a loss, like in some ways, Ben White is better than Timber, especially like in a final third ability crossing type um aspect. Um, but the aze for Havertz swap to me, especially because as has started to be in good form of late, was a big drop-off. Um, just in sheer, you know, X Factor and whatnot, um, let alone overall play. Um, but for City, they went with a very attacking lineup. Um, a midfield three of Cherky, Bernardo Silva, and Rodri, uh Doku on the left, who's been injured for a while, and uh Semeno on the right, of course, Holland through the middle, uh Nico O'Reilly at left back. Um I think Ruben Diaz is injured, so it was uh Kusanov as center back, and uh of course Gahey is um not eligible to play because of the Carabao rules. Um I think right back was Mateus Nunes, right? Yeah. Um so very much an attacking-looking outfit from City. Um, and one thing that said to me is like, bro, is Phil Foden just done as City as a main player? Like, is he just an afterthought at this point? Like, I wonder, well, like will he try to leave at some point? Because I know he's the local guy and he grew up a city fan and all that, but at some point your career is stalling, bro. Like you have to uh consider leaving. Like, he's not gonna be a fixture in the England team, I would imagine. Like, his career is very much stalling, and to be fair, like it's I'm not criticizing Pep for doing that. I think Foden's performances have um justified his dropping, and but I just think from Fordin's perspective, he needs to look out for his career and look to, you know, you know, maybe join another club. But that's just we'll see. Um now getting into the game, I thought Arsenal had a bright start for the first like 20 minutes or so. Um, of course, Havertz had that golden chance when he threw on goal, which was saved by um by Trefford. Um, but after that, like City Gold. Ruined the game, and from like 20 or so minutes on, until they went up 2-0. I thought they bossed it to be honest with you. Um, Semenya was lively. Um, I thought Bernardo Silva and Roger were imperious in midfield. Like that was a classic game for both of them, really. A vintage, I should say, click game for both of them. Um, every, I mean, everyone has seen the clips of City basically backing off Arsenal's defense instead of pressing them and daring them to like beat them through, like, you know, beat us through the lines, you know. Um, and they could Arsenal could not do it. They resume, they resorted to hoofing the ball up to Yuckeres and Havertz, which did not have much success. And, you know, for especially the second half, I mean, it was complete domination from City from the start until it was like 2-0, and then after that, you know, City kind of just hung on for the win. But yeah, the second half performance from City was like a vintage Pep Royal performance as at City, you know, just suffocating Arsenal in their own half. I mean, there's long spells of possession where Arsenal's whole team is in their own half. Uh, they've got like eight, nine players around the box defending. Um, and the goals felt inevitable, and then they did inevitably come um from Nico O'Reilly, both goals, headers, and whatnot. So, yeah, uh justified in the end, it ended a 2-0 justified win for City, in my opinion. Um, let's get into some takeaways. Now, the the funny thing is like, is this game gonna be a psychological blow for Arsenal in the title race? Now, to be fair, I don't think Arsenal have played that great of late, but the issue for City is just that they've been much worse. So Arsenal have been able to, you know, uh push this lead to I think it's nine points now with uh with the game up in hand. Um, because if you remember the Everton game, that was a nil-nil for a long period of time. I mean, Yoker is eventually I mean Max Delman came on and kind of changed the game to be honest with you. Um, but of late, they have not been in terms of performance levels. I don't think Arsenal have been that good, and I think there's been like some cracks where that some mistakes and some cracks like the wolves game kind of stick out to me a lot too, where they are 2-0 up and draw 2-2 to bottom of the league wolves just through sheer stupidity and mistakes, you know. Um, so yeah, we'll see if that materializes in the title race going forward, if it's even a title race. Uh, and the thing with Arsenal is that they're still yet to have a statement game performance against one of the top sides in the league. Now, I've mentioned this before, like, okay, you want to count, I think it was 4-1 against Villa. Okay, that's you know, okay, but every other game against these top five or so teams, against City, against Chelsea, even against Chelsea, even against Liverpool have been so poor this season, against United under MRM, like, none of these games have been convincing from Arsenal. Like, we all laugh at Liam Ross Senior and how Chelsea are a clown show on uh uh uh currently and how Liverpool are so disappointing this season. But when they played Arsenal home and away, I mean these games are pretty even, really. Like if you think about it. So that to me is a massive indictment on um on Arsenal and their you know their greatness as a team. You know, I still think they're probably gonna win the league. I just don't think like I just don't think City are to be trusted still. Like if Holland was firing right now, then maybe I could change my mind, but I still don't feel like he's sharp enough to get them over the line. Like there are gonna be times in the last next, I think there's eight games left or something like that, where city are not gonna be that great, but Holland in his best form can just carry you to a dub, you know, with just with his goals. I don't think he's in that form right now to do that. So I uh so with that I expect Arsenal to still win the league. Um and with Arsenal, it's like Yokrez in these games is basically invisible. Like there's that stat of him. I mean, he's played in like how many games he's had, he's not had a shot on target. I mean, that's a crazy, crazy stat to play like on like to damn near three-quarters of the game is not how a shot on target. I mean, that's that's crazy, bro. First striker. Um Bukay Osaka. I'm a fan of him. I rate him, but I can't rate him and rate these performances. I mean, he didn't do anything in this game, he's not done enough for the vast majority of this season, I would say. Like, and that's not to say that he's been bad, but I rate you as Arsenal's best player, as one of the better attackers in the Premier League. This output and this level performance is not good enough. Um, people are saying that he's past his best athletically because of the injuries. That may be true. Like I was saying last season, a torn hamstring is no joke. You don't your hamstring, you come back next season. Don't come back this season because those kind of things can linger for the rest of your career. Um can derail careers, so we'll see. I mean, I'm not I'm not gonna say he's done for good, but I'm expecting a lot more from him, and uh I'm I I know that's part of that is Arteta, his style of football doesn't maximize attackers, maybe, and that the players around him are awful, like he's played next to Havertz and uh Yucker is who I don't rate. So I know all that is you know a part of the reason, but still, I rate you as a player, I can't let you have the hook for what you're performing right now. Um and for City, Kusinov, I mean, he's he might be like a top player going forward. Now, everyone remembers how badly it started for him when he first signed in January last season, but I mean athletically this guy is a freak in terms of center backs, like genuinely one of the fastest center backs I've ever seen. Like, um, and funnily enough, the only one that comes to mind is like Mickey Vandevan currently at at uh Tottenham is like just terms of speed, this guy is crazy. Um the last thing I want to talk about. Now, this is more a fan perspective than you know analysis perspective. Like, just watching Arsenal week in, week out, like I'm a United fan, so in good faith, I cannot root for Man City to you know go ahead of them in the league and win the league and win trophies or ahead of them and whatnot. But as a football fan, the way they play football and win matches just it just makes me sick. Like, and the thing with Arsenal is like they used to be the club that played football. Now I know that their fans will say when we played good football under Wanger, uh everyone called us soft and chokers and all that, and and that's fair to some extent, but also we remember when Chelsea were winning the league with Joseph Mourinho, they were the ones saying that boring, boring Chelsea and all that. So hey, it goes both ways, but yeah, man, it's just like their approach to the game to me. I just don't I just dislike it completely, it's completely opposed to how I view the game, and the idea that they should be rewarded, you know, they're uh they should have a player rewarded with player of the season, you know, playing football like this, like to me, that's just a ridiculous thing to say. Like, and that's not even me saying player of the season should be Bruno. I mean, somebody else from a different team needs to be player of the year, you know what I mean? Uh whoever it is, I don't even care. But it can't be anyone from this team because nobody in this team deserves to be individually honored, in my opinion. Um, I mean, they're defensively, you might want to say Gabriel Saliba are top. Yeah, I agree with Raya's a great goalkeeper. Devin Rice is an amazing ball winner. Yeah, but let's be honest. None of us grow up watching football to celebrate defenders. You know what I mean? To some degree, you respect it, you appreciate it, but you know, that's not what we that's not why we grew up playing football. Um, yeah, so that's about it. That's all for this weekend. Four games. Um, yeah, I'll see y'all next week.