Episode #229 – Comeback Kings Arsenal take the Lead in Thrilling Victory over Aston Villa – Manchester City’s Disappointing Draw with Nottingham Forest: Erling Haaland’s Missed Chance Proves Costly

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[Music] hello and welcome to the squeaky bomb Time Podcast presented exclusively on

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the chop Sports channel of the premiere streaming Network we are recording this on Thursday February 20th no we're not

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on Monday February 20th I am your host Laurent corteens in this episode

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Arsenal comes back off the head of a keeper City stumbling and why I'm okay

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with it and sit and United are actually real contenders

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speak but first oh my God Grand Potter is doomed and we will go to

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XG school but before we get to that please like subscribe share the show it

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means everything to us if you love me if you listen to the show and you aren't sharing I'm not sure our relationship is

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going to work but please do like share the show it means everything please uh follow the links in the description to

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um find out where to find the show uh I'm on Laurent courteans on YouTube

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um and you can go to the Chop Sports Network to find anything you want to please like And subscribe to the show

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let's get to it so Grand Potter is doomed uh why do I say that

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um Chelsea lost this week to Southampton

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at home on a free kick by James Ward price and the football itself is is not

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what's important what I think is more important is just the way we have to think about football and the way

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Americans owners think about sport versus

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um Europeans I think the Burley experiment owning Chelsea they

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think they have time they think they can hire um a project coach that can loot that

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can go five and eleven one year or go one in fifteen you know like if you think about

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uh Jimmy Johnson when he first took over the Dallas Cowboys job sorry my European friends this is a famous story uh Jimmy

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Johnson went on to become a great coach for in the NFL but he took on the biggest it would be the equivalent of

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taking on Manchester United and finishing just above the or finishing in the relegation Zone except the NFL

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doesn't have relegation they had a 1 in 15 season in a 16-game season and it was

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fun they traded their best players away uh in um Herschel Walker this is like

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1990 I think or maybe 1989 and um got all these picks and ended up turning the

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franchise around and if Todd Boley thinks that he can do that with grand Potter he is mistaken

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football does not work that way in Europe we have to keep bringing this up

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it's not it's not owners and players there's a Third Estate it's fans and a

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fourth the the writers who represent were supposed to represent the fans the

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Chelsea fan and supporter is not going to accept losing um they've just come off 20 years of a

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maniacal winning owner in Roman Abramovich whether he was making every call or not whether he was a good guy or

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a bad guy he had a method in place they put all the infrastructure in behind and

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the coach was the last piece that could be swapped in and out and the expectation at Chelsea was winning

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winning winning winning if you played poorly you could have had a good season if you didn't win a Champions League you

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could be sacked you could win the league and be sacked anything that detrimented from winning and changing things up

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Abramovich fired people and it didn't matter because the results

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continued regardless of whether they fired people or chopped and changed and whatever now we know that we are now in

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a different culture at Chelsea essentially that entire infrastructure was ripped out of the team

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tuko held the team together when Abramovich was forced to sell the team which that's a little bit weird by the

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way anyway I'm not going to go into that um and Boley has come in and taken on this

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team and is slowly trying to put something in place but if he thinks that he can place an American model

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onto this team he's going to run into something he

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hasn't seen before uh we have seen it something similar like this happened in

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Charlotte with the Charlotte Bobcats they had a Charlotte Hornets they had an owner that the town hated and they

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forced the team to move and that team moved to New Orleans and Oklahoma City and then stayed in New Orleans and the

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Bobcats went to Jordan but there was an original team the Hornets that were in um that were in Charlotte and the owner

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was so hated that the fans stopped going uh I don't think Chelsea fans will stop going to Stanford bridge but what they

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will do is make it toxic they will sing for Potter's head they will sing you're getting sacked in the

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morning they will sing you don't know what you're doing these are classic songs that supporters can voice

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their displeasure at a club for and there's a little bit more ownership from

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supporters to their Club then customers to their teams and franchises in the US so Potter really

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this is not some little thing and and in some sense Potter should be fired already

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uh to be frank if if we're going by results and by spending so there's an

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expectation level here but I think borley is going to treat it like it's an American team and he's gonna around

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and find out now to be fair to Potter this is a difficult situation there are

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30 players on that team 33 players a normal football roster that's manageable

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you play about 15 16 in training with with the roster

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to go to about 21 to 22 something like that cities I think is like 21 or 22 but to have 32 players on the first team

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roster so they don't have roster limits these players are signed to contracts are there Potter's having to manage

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players that are two coaches before and where do they go when they do trading so

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how do you manage the egos of a bunch of international players some of them purchased within the last 12 months for

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dozens of millions of dollars Raheem Sterling 50 million dollars 60 million dollars he's not in Potter's plans how

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do you manage that and then the other piece that I think about with Potter is he does not have a built-in level of

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trust that when you walk into Chelsea Football Club you expect there to be a manager

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with a resume that matches the level of the players at the club by that I mean

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is that player is that manager someone who has won a league is that manager

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someone who has won a champions league is that manager someone who's consistently year over year over year

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taken a relatively big Club not as big as Chelsea and put them in a good place for

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several years in a row I think we thought that was true of grand Potter with Brighton but Brighton

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are not quite a big enough Club the the players don't hold the stature

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to challenge Potter whereas at Chelsea there are players that are

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like who the are you what have you won you won the Swedish league in the

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Arctic Circle you made one Europa League run that was cute you kept Brighton up and you finished sixth once

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I wonder if watching Champions League 18 months ago what are you talking about I've been playing top level football

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since I was 18 years old what are you talking about who the are you so I think that is a piece of this that's

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happening with Potter uh and I am curious about his

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very XG based method so one of the things that's made Potter well-loved among me

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among the footballerati is his play has generated a lot of expected

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goals and held expected goals back and I wanted to get into expected goals this is for you Mike Redman

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um you know I talk about it a lot and I want to make sure that everyone understands what I mean by expected

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goals expected goals I'm gonna go to the old GPT chat and I put it in the

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description of expected goals for a five-year-old and I'm going to read it off to you guys uh

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XG is a way to see how likely it is that a shot in soccer will result in a goal

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it looks at things like how far are playaways from goal the angle is shot and how the ball got to the player by

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comparing these things to lots of other shots it can figure out how likely it is

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that a goal will be scored if the XG is really high it means there's a really

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good chance the shot will become a goal so XG numbers on every shot are placed

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between zero and one a score of 0.5 means that if the same shot was taken 10

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times 5 would be expected to result on a goal and if the sh if if the XG is 1 or

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0.9 basically it's a certain goal so for instance a penalty is has an XG of 0.7

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so there's a lot of different ways to calculate it so you'll see different numbers in different places some of them

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were very simple some of them are calculated some of them are from Super high-end data collection where they add

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multiple factors in and some of them are just this is the shot and it's not 3D

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and it's just it's from here there's a value they basically take the pitch and and annotate values based on every shot

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that's ever been taken and they just mark it that way it's fairly accurate and why do I use it

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I use it as a way to get a sense of how

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a game went and what kind of chances a team had when

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they played another team so when I say oh my God uh Arsenal had an XG of 1.1

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but Aston Villas was 1.9 that just means that if you

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accumulate all the shots from Arsenal and all the shots from Aston Villa that Aston Villa's total shot values resulted

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in more goals just means they had more chances so that's how I use it and if you see xg's of like four or three and a

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half those are big numbers one thing to remember is when you look at XG

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good teams that are winning leagues generally outperforming their XG because it means that one they have good players

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who are not average so when a great player takes an average shot they tend

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to get it in more often and that when you're winning and you're top of the league you tend to

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outperform your XG either in defense or offense that's why you're where you are if you just stay at your XG you tend to

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slip a little bit and then one of the things I also use it for is to see if a team is underperforming uh this season

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the big XG underperformer would be West Ham who's in a relegation Zone but they shouldn't be they've get had horrible

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luck that shots aren't falling they can't get any goals same thing for Chelsea so that was for you Mike a

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little primer on the XG let us go quickly to the scores

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so early game early kickoff Aston Villa 2 Arsenal 4 amazing game we'll get right

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to that in a minute Brentford the amazing Brentford pull one out late in a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace Crystal

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Palace our allegation Zone uh wolves lose to Bournemouth I told you Gary O'Neal was

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good one nil good stuff from Bournemouth and then the Deutsche Revolution continues Everton one leads United nil

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fantastic result from our boy Sheamus Coleman on an amazing shot then Chelsea

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nil Southampton one Southampton get off the schneid all the bottom three win today Forest one my beloved Manchester

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City won you got battered but I'll get to that game as well Brighton nil uh

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Fulham won this was a battle for the European places and Fulham pull it out away from home but they were battered as

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well we're going to XG on that one and the our beloved Newcastle lose at home to Liverpool on the most ridiculous red

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card you will ever see then on Sunday man united wiped the floor with Lester but this game was much

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closer than you'd expect early on Lester put two really good chances on in the Reyes save their ass second half United

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were fantastic and then Tottenham beat West Ham Sunny getting into goals the

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general connection of Kane to Sun get the goals but we will go

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to Birmingham and Aston Villa to Arsenal

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four wow this game was fantastic this game was fun this game made me

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angry because all I wanted was for Arsenal to goddamn lose but they found a

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way to win so early on uh our boy Ollie Watkins puts

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ones in on a nice angle put in through scores the goal and it's looking like Arsenal are in deep deep trouble

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and then on that's on five then bakari asako there were some great goals in this game Saka on a cross half volley

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top bins sitting in the middle of the Box how the did he get there bang bang Zoom he puts it in then coutinho

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just as the second half is at just as the half is getting to end we it's leveled off after 16 minutes then

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coutinho the dreaded coutinho finds a way finishes the goal does nothing else of course shows up on Match of the day

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is always really good Philip coutinho you're not good but you did have a good finish so we go into the break 2-1 Villa

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leading unai Emery's loving it with his weird beige coat I didn't like his coat that was weird then

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Arsenal come out second half like a hurricane they completely

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dominate the second half they come at it you know shot after shot after shot Eddie and Katya three in a row 61 61 61

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and then boom our guys in changko off the corner unmarked

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well yeah Ming's gonna pick them up zinchenko with with the fireball shot into the corner doesn't really celebrate

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runs back to the end line showing Arsenal how to win just like let's just like off and let's get it done and

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basically it's all Arsenal the rest of the way uh in the second half Villa take three shots

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none On Target I'm sorry take three shots all saved but Arsenal just take 18

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shots in the second half they're like we're not losing this League there was one moment where you felt like

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arsenal were in deep trouble when Martin Odegaard missed on 77 that was the

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highest XG spot there also Eddie and Katya it missed one in the middle of the box and kettia has had a hard time but

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he hasn't stopped working and then late in the game georginio edge of the box

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fires it in hits the post and goes off the back of the head of Emmy Martinez in

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soothing scenes um there is a corner late that um that

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Emmy Martinez against the orders of unai Emery tries to go up and uh and score

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Martinelli gets a late goal uh on the 98 uh to win it now I have to be I have to

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get the drama right georginio's is in 93 plus 93rd minute uh there was a lot of time

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wasting there was a lot of housing as you would expect it's Emmy Martinez he's trying to slow things down he holds

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a grudge against um against um Arsenal uh Martin Odegaard was incredible in this game he created

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11 scoring chance opportunity what's the

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word shot creating actions 11 shot creating actions that means that he's either making the pass or the pass

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before the pass so he was just all over the pitch really trying to will Arsenal to win this and in the second half

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Arsenal just killed let's go back to XG Arsenal's XG and this was three uh they

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did get a full one point for the final shot in the game so maybe a little bit less than that but uh a really good win

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and this is a narrative shifter um you know I said on Thursday that this

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game was the biggest game of the season for Arsenal and you could hear it

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the way the announcers announced it um guys voices were cracking giving a

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little whoa on the on the georginio goal they sensed the moment I think I think with football the moments are what

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matter and this became a moment uh Arsenal coming out in the second half

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and just refusing to lose and really finding themselves again after a few days a few games about three weeks of

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not being themselves but they really found it against Villa and they deserved there they're not going to go away so

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after losing to city and after losing a couple games and only catching one point in their last nine available they get

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this massive win and their back top of the league they're back in front they have a two-point lead and we'll get to

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City in a minute but for Arsenal psychologically this lifts them this

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puts our tetza back in the driver's seat this puts the faith back in the team this puts them back together as feeling

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like okay we're gonna be in this this is not nothing um this is a good good good Arsenal team

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and when I said about a month ago that anything Arsenal losing this league

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would be a bottle job it's because of a second half that I just saw this is how

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Arsenal have been playing all year and this three-week blip was not really how

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they played City haven't played this well at all all season City have not played as well as Arsenal in hardly any

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games all season so to get Arsenal into this space is where they need to be it's

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where you believe in them it's where you feel like they have the look of a

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champion there's a lot of psychological stuff you've got to take on a team they they smell there's feel there's energy

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there's they got down and now they've lifted themselves back up does this wind now lift them up and say okay we're here

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we'll Puffs out we got a late winner the later the win the more likely you feel

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good about yourself is something weird that happens in football and that is why this show is called what's the show

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called squeaky bum that was a squeaky bum time goal and a

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squeaky bum Time game for Arsenal mid-season there's a long way to go there's a long way to go but for them

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this uh this is massive uh and I do want to give a little little shout to my friends at Aston Villa Luna Emery has

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this team in good shape Aston Villa are fine I love Ollie Watkins um you know they they're probably a

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Defender away you know they could probably replace Mings or Konza but Ming's is a left-footed goalkeeper so

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that makes him more fun um you know they have they have a ways to go but

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they're good I really enjoy them a lot and we got to see something we haven't seen before which is buendia and coutinho playing

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together which is something we'll we'll figure out a little bit more as the season goes along

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so where does that take the chasing pack we go to Nottingham not quite the

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Midlands but sort of close City going to the city ground going to our friend

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Christian who has been sharing in the WhatsApp videos of the city ground of

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fans singing it makes our WhatsApp group fantastic if you really want to know where it is let us know go to the go to

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the you the Facebook group and we'll get you into WhatsApp group you can get live updates only from the city ground and

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Nottingham Forest which is fine but City completely annihilate I mean I have to be fair City draw this

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game but they're completely in control of this game uh it's really not a contest that

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I'm worried about and it's one of the reasons why I'm not particularly worried for City in this game

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they miss tons of chances tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of chances just unbelievable amounts of chances and

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the fact that they only scored one goal on 2.5 XG or really goes to show what

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they miss Holland missed sitter sitter sitters uh Bernardo Silvers was an

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amazing goal another assist for Jack grealish who's been playing who's been City's best player over the last uh

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couple weeks again shot creating actions Jack rilish had 10 so

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he was actually City's best player de bruyne took seven shots and only one on target all bad he just couldn't seem to

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get his shooting boots on he had the space he tried to do it and he just couldn't get any good shots off

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um Holland uh he had two shots you know just couldn't get it done City

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just huffed and puffed and never really got anything done but the thing that I want there's two things about the city game that I do take in

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on 58 Nico Williams and Andre IU come in for Danilo and callback for Forest on 72

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mangala comes in for Shelby on 79 tuffalo comes in for Lodi and on 79 wood

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comes in for Arya have you noticed that I have not mentioned any City changes so

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Forest made all five of their changes so of their 11 they swapped them all out

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they had fresh legs in the game and you could tell you could tell City where

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leggy city were mentally sort of slowed down I would have taken de bruyne off

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because I felt like forests were getting a foothold in the game not because of

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their play but because of their energy they had hung on they had weathered the storm of cities attempts on goal and

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didn't get their goals and then on 84 there's Chris Wood back post from Morgan

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Gibbs white one of the best players out of one of the of the of the other 14

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Morgan Gibbs white has got to be one of the players of the Season outside of the top six

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uh cross across the back post Chris Wood is there and City just kind of

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lost energy um Bernardo may have been at fault I don't

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know I don't understand why you're winning one nil and you're in the 80th minute you don't go to your traditional

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back four that they did the other day against Arsenal and solidified the team

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um I just wonder you know sometimes pep just does these weird things and you're just like how can you not see this I can

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see this I can see this I'm not smart um then the other one that I want to

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talk about that the city city world if you're into city world uh which most of

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you aren't and this is one of these things that only fans of their clubs can see is ederson for City our goalkeeper

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has been poor um he's the third worst safe Supreme safe

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percentage in the league basically of the last 14 shots on goal

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against City eight have gone in so we're not getting that extra line of defense that that Allison and Allison provides

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for um for Liverpool and we'll go to that when we get to to Newcastle

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Edison just doesn't bail City out you want him to bail us out once in a while and I understand the way City play when

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City give up chances they're really good chances and that wood chance was about as good a chance as you get but it felt

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like Edison maybe could have got on the cross maybe could have come for something I'm not sure what it is but I

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just wish we had a keeper on form I don't want ederson to come off I think

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he's fine you know it's just when you dominate a game like city did

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you don't get a result you just got it uh and good for Forest I

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mean it seems like again Steve Cooper my favorite ugly coach uh had a game plan he was like Hey if we hang in here I'm

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gonna go for it and I think that was Brave um to bring on Chris Wood when you're someone like Forest most of the time

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these lower down teams they don't try and win these games they just say not in the face we'll take our one with no loss

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but not not um not not Cooper he said hey I've got Chris Wood I brought him in

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here on loan for a reason let's go get this game let's go put these five fresh legs on if I can change half my team

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just the running alone should give me something uh and it did and and Forest

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deserved their point even if they were should have gotten beat you know they they saw an opportunity and said hey we

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haven't lost this game let's go win it and so they go get their point um they look they haven't lost the game

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yet let's try and draw let's try and get something out of it and so Cooper does that and pep and again City now they

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have that great win and then they slip again so this this this city team is still not sharp yet but

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I will say this performance from city was really really good and something to

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not worry about uh that has to take us to something I am worried about which is uh Manchester

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United three nil over Lester um I do want to talk about the Takeover

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bids so United are up for sale I think the sale

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of Chelsea really pricked the ears up of all these um all these owners and we're

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just like do you bought what for Chelsea I'm man united it should be worth seven billion dollars uh so the glazers

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notoriously one of the most hated owner groups in the Premier League American owners owner of the Tampa Bay

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um Tampa Bay Buccaneers uh the glazers on the team they've owned the team since 2005. they did a very leveraged buyout

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meaning they borrowed money against the purchase of the club to saddle the club with almost a with about half a billion

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dollars in debt and they've been taking a dividend they have not invested in the team uh United

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fans can tell you much better than I can that they're running it for profit in a gross way they're not

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taking their role as owners as

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seriously as the English would expect the owner of Manchester United to take their club now

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they've been there 15 years they've won things whatever they spent lots of money but there's something different there's

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an intangible desire that you want from your coach uh from your owners they're

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treating United as though they're slumlords versus someone who's saying

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hey this is a venerable institution that I've purchased that means a lot to a lot of people that I'm going to take care of

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and leave in better stead than when I got here so right now they've let United

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decline the same way that Mike Ashley let Newcastle decline they're kind of

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parallels to Mike Ashley except the money is different where United are just like you know they generate cash because

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someone put the work in they did 25 years of winning and the glazers have been living off that

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um but the owners in question are a weird one here where a shake from Qatar I

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don't have his exact name who's the head of the uh Qatari Islamic Bank the qib

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who's not the state very important because the state of Qatar owns PSG this

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is an individual and they're already saying the right things we're going to buy this thing outright no debt we're going to respect

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the institution and take care of them then the another guy is called Sir Jim

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Ratliff Radcliffe he's a very he's one of the richest man in Britain uh in England and he's known for um he owns

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nice and he has been around he's from Manchester and he's sort of buying it

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with capital and he doesn't have the same packages the qataris so this is an interesting piece where you know we're

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all attacking City attacking Chelsea oh your money is ill begotten

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United's could be ill begotten we have to deal with these moral quandaries

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about owners who are they what do they do what are they about how do we feel about it I know I have to

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deal with my own owners everybody has to deal with their owners it's kind of one of these things but you

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know that's the status right there two bids in on United it's going to take a long time we're talking

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between five and seven billion for United now the actual match

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first half I thought Leicester were very very good especially the first 20

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minutes they had really good chances uh the Harvey Barnes shot was a was a .45

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XG save by dehea which is a huge huge number uh and then the other save

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was another one from ianacho on 21. So within the first 20 minutes Lester had a goal of XG saved so that's

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massive and then rashford gets his first goal in really strong Fernandez has been fantastic Saboteur has been fantastic he

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puts it to Fernandez and Fernandez gets it on to rashford who finishes with a rifle and from there it feels like you

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know Lester lost a lot of juice so United go in at the break up a goal

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and feeling like hey that was tough that was weird

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smartly um tenhog makes a change he brings any a

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nacho changes the shape and the game completely changes second half is all United they completely

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battered they completely battered Lester um really really badly I mean Delo

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almost had a goal in the first half but it was really over from then on and late rashford gets one on 50 and then Sancho

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I'm the best goal of the game uh gets another Fernandez and Fred both with the assists on the goals respectively and it

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kind of Peters out with a 3-0 win for United but a difficult three-nil win even though in

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the end the XG is really high the first half was poor in the second half they were dominant

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um what does this mean United are three points two points behind City and they they have to be

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discussed are they a real title Contender are they there I mean if you

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take out the sort of first three games of the Season United are top two like

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they're really really good and I think you know I talked about it a few months ago but

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10 hog has transformed this team he has done an amazing job I mean we're talking

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about Erickson and casemiro coming in but Erickson and casemira have not played

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for the last few weeks and United are still winning these games they had a little bit of a slip against leads those

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leads games were tough and I thought Leeds played well but they got results and they're sitting

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you know in the in the driver's seat in third place maybe Arsenal and City punch themselves

32:05

out there's a gap now coming between the top three and then the next uh and then

32:10

the fourth place spot that Spurs now occupy which seems bizarre because the season has been so weird but

32:18

uh we have Arsenal and 54 City on 52 United on 49 and then it's seven points

32:25

to Tottenham and fourth so there's a little bit of a gap opening between the top three and the rest uh within the top

32:31

four but um United are really good United are really good they play really

32:38

well uh and ten hog changes games you know we you want your coach

32:45

to make the right decision from the start but if you're not gonna make the right decision from the start when you

32:51

make changes you want those changes to affect the team and um his changes do

32:57

affect the team you know it makes the team do something different it makes them tougher to play

33:03

it makes them create more scoring opportunities he moves a player 10 yards here 10 yards there uh one of the

33:09

talking points of United has been uh the the much loved veg Horst who had a

33:15

pathetic attempt at I had a bicycle kick he can't score he can't move he's all over the place he's

33:22

playing as a 10. but I think there's something about him that brings spirit that his teammates seem to like him so I

33:30

think that's a that's a good thing for uh United he's still shooting he's still

33:36

trying he took uh four shots most of them blocked only one on target

33:41

um you know that he late in the game but I think he's liked he's working hard uh

33:46

there was another shout around Sabbath sir that he put his knee into

33:54

his leg yes that he pressed down and push on it no and I think that's the

33:59

reason he got away with it I think and this is one of the reasons why

34:04

players throw themselves to the ground had phase

34:11

thrown himself on the ground and acted like he was shot in the kneecap

34:17

by sabot Sir he savitar would have been sent off but because phase without phase gets hit

34:24

in the leg and kind of keeps going then the referee is just like oh it's

34:29

fine and that's the reason there's a reason why people dive and

34:35

roll around it works I know no one likes it I know everyone thinks it's wrong but

34:41

the fact of the matter is referees don't call calls unless you act like you've been shot so if you get spiked in the

34:48

knee roll around on the ground and make sure the guy gets sent off even if it makes you look bad because the fact of the

34:55

matter is without Feist did not throw himself on the ground and roll around so Saboteur didn't get sent off now is this

35:02

another VAR controversy sure I don't want to get into it you guys know how I feel about VAR I think it's wrong I

35:09

think it's stupid I don't want it I'd rather we just play on because what I love about football is its continuity

35:17

speaking of continuity um uh we've got to go to Liverpool who

35:23

have been playing with continuity and do get some of their players back they go to

35:29

Newcastle and what you expected would have been a massive game and

35:34

in the first few minutes Newcastle are on they're on top of of Liverpool

35:41

um uh almiron almost puts one in but um again that Edison versus Allison thing

35:48

Allison comes off his line and saves it thank God for Liverpool they need him there's still a little

35:55

a little flaky but this is a good away win um uh let me just go into the play log here

36:02

yeah first few minutes yeah Alma run goes in and say maximum has a different shot then um but then

36:09

early on on 10 Darwin Nunez on an amazing pass from Trent Alexander on the classic Trent Cross Field ball from

36:16

about the three-quarter line right into Nunez takes it down on his chest there's a look of handball it's never a handball

36:22

he fires it in then on 17 on an amazing pass I missed these uh from Masala he puts in

36:30

gakpo gotbo bangs at home and two nil two nil to

36:37

um to Liverpool and they're cruising now

36:42

are they still giving up chances yes then on 22 after the goal five minutes

36:47

later there's a an amazing ball from Alice and Allison you're better than ederson uh fights a ball directly to Mo

36:55

Salah off a corner he grabs a ball and Nick Pope inexplicably who's been playing a high line and is one of the

37:00

most active um goalkeepers in a league he misjudges the Flight of the ball

37:06

he tries to head it he takes a step back he takes a step forward he tries to hit it then just gathers it with his arms

37:13

outside the box for a red card because he knew Salah was right there then so there you go Nick Pope red card

37:21

dubrovka comes in they have to reshape the whole thing and the game's basically over from that point on

37:26

um now from a Liverpool perspective

37:32

it's weird because Newcastle still created a lot

37:40

um you know Linton Joe Linton had a shot Alan say maximum was taking had another

37:45

shot even in the second half uh Alexander Isaac had a decent opportunity

37:50

that he misses and then um Joe Linton not as good a shot but Callum Wilson gets saved on 82 like there's just

37:57

opportunities for a 10-man Newcastle that you have to give credit to Newcastle but

38:03

come on Liverpool uh that's not cool you're still not airtight so they were

38:09

lucky to get away from this game with a clean sheet and I would not feel great about this performance to be fair

38:17

um and you know they had 22 minutes where they look like Liverpool and then the rest of it they look like Liverpool

38:22

of this season but they're fine you know they play I should bring it up I'm going to talk about the Champions League in a

38:29

minute they play Real Madrid tomorrow or Wednesday I'm not sure and that'll be a game where they really need to show up

38:35

or else they'll get beat badly another piece on this one for

38:41

Newcastle for Newcastle this is a loss on back on the back of all those draws they're now out of the top four

38:48

uh Spurs pip them uh With The Wind that they got and they lose Nick Pope for the

38:54

efl cup final which is on Sunday so this is a real blow I don't know what Nick Pope was thinking just a brush of Blood

39:01

to the Head as they say so they will have to go to their third choice keeper because their second choice keeper

39:07

already played for United in the same tournament and is something called being cup tied which means you cannot appear

39:13

for two teams in the same tournament it's really big in England so dubrovco

39:19

was on loan at man united they recalled him to Newcastle he was the previous goalkeeper before Pope and he wanted to

39:26

play and um he now cannot play in the AFL Cup Final Nick

39:33

Pope can't we may find our friend Loris karius the former Liverpool player who

39:38

famously got a concussion in the 1819

39:45

1819 Champions League final for Liverpool because uh Sergio Ramos elbowed him in the head which was

39:51

anyway craziness craziness but we'll see what's

39:57

there Liverpool have Real Madrid City have Leipzig but we'll cover that in a minute

40:04

ah jail so we move on to our friends and Chelsea um

40:09

I don't know what else to say about this team they cannot score I talked about it

40:15

on Thursday I was like you've got to score against Southampton and they couldn't score against Southampton I

40:21

can't believe it it's absolutely mind-boggling that Chelsea Football Club

40:28

one of the great clubs in London cannot score goals to save their life

40:36

they're not even creating goals like they had one and a half XG okay to 0.8 for um for Southampton Southampton we're

40:43

game for this game Salas has already said I want the job over uh over Jones he's got the playing well he looked

40:50

great on a sideline Raheem Sterling missed an inexplicable goal uh classic Raheem Sterling he always misses these

40:57

kinds of gold that his misses his four shots were worth one goal uh 0.9 XG uh

41:02

I'll stop talking about it but yeah more of the same I could have told you Chelsea fans

41:10

for him Sterling scoring goals unless you give him goals you gotta put it on a platter for him so more of the same from

41:17

Chelsea more control kovacic was there and so Fernandez like I said look good he went with

41:24

Striker because he still can't find one and maduke was in there and Mason mount

41:30

on the other Wing he's still teetering and tottering and trying to figure out what the best group is

41:37

um Kula Bali came back in he was a mess uh for Silva no Silva in this game ended

41:42

up I think he had to bring him on later did he bring him up I don't remember no he did bring on um

41:48

for fauna for Kula Bali so a lot of weird stuff going on with Chelsea and again like I said at the top of the show

41:55

I don't know what's going on with Potter um you guys know I loved him I loved what

42:00

he did at Brighton I think in the long run he would he will turn this team around

42:07

unless they do see him as less than

42:13

I don't think his skills are missing it's a psychological thing maybe the players are like you ain't it you're not

42:20

him so uh Chelsea just have to turn this around they do have an opportunity to

42:26

turn around they are in the Champions League so Chelsea do um

42:31

take they already took on Dortmund last week but you know they're down a goal they have another week to prepare for

42:36

that game and see if they can't turn that around but again they haven't scored two goals since the War of 1812 since the Battle

42:43

of Stanford bridge I don't know how they're going to score two goals to beat um Dortmund

42:50

uh and now your top four Mr Tottenham Hotspur defeats West Ham

42:57

um this was an ugly game first half very much what you'd expect from a London Darby what you'd expect from two teams

43:05

that are known for the hooliganism between each other not in general but uh this was an ugly ugly first half uh the

43:12

only cheers in this game were for tackles some people like that kind of stuff it was not fun to watch uh and

43:19

then in the second half it opened up Emerson on a really good goal from Ben Davies they were both playing fullback

43:25

they were both playing Wing back um really nice uh combination play there

43:30

from Hoiberg to Davies onto Emerson who's played great since um since uh

43:36

Pozo came in and then Sun from Kane who else on 72 to get the two goals and put

43:42

West Ham away West Ham are so so bad right now they can't seem to score goals at all

43:51

um they have the Firepower it's there they only put one shot on target versus

43:57

Spurs Spurs ain't this good that's Eric Dyer in the middle of Defense

44:02

what are you doing it's Clement Longley like this is not a

44:07

great defense what are you doing uh West him you've got to attack this team

44:13

you've got to find a way to hurt them they're not this good stop being so

44:19

defensive open up like if you're gonna lose lose trying

44:25

so Moyes I think any other season he'd be in trouble but he's getting a lot of

44:32

opportunity within the context of this season I'm not sure he deserves it

44:38

um there's nothing here that says that that West Ham are good aside from the

44:44

fact that their XG is good so yes they lose but they're losing well and they're

44:50

taking shots and they're creating opportunities for themselves but they are in the relegation Zone it's a fact

44:57

it's a fact there are 15 goals off their XG

45:02

that's bad finishing it's shocking they're XG difference is plus two but in real

45:10

actual sport they're -10 that's a 12 gold swing when you have a 12 goal swing

45:16

an XG during the relegation battle they should be somewhere in the top ten uh frankly that's what

45:23

their underlying numbers say that they are a top 10 team they're playing like a

45:28

top 10 team but are in fact in the bottom three it's shocking and I'm sure

45:33

David Moyes is showing these stats people going like how the are we

45:39

not winning these goddamn games there's no way they should be this bad I want to

45:45

look at the culprits of who's taking these shots and not getting the goals in I think I

45:51

looked at it a while ago and I just want to look at it again

45:57

it sort of spread throughout the side Bowens has six XG six and a half XG but

46:03

only four goals banrama has 3.9 but only three the count Antonio has 3.1 but only two

46:10

you'd want someone to be outperforming it maybe it's Gian Lucas gamaka who has

46:16

three on 2.5 but then there's a lot of Declan rice has near two but only one

46:22

goal so there's a lot contributing to it and it's just shocking

46:29

how unlucky they've been they just can't seem to get their goals to go in

46:36

um and it's a pretty bizarre uh same here same goes for Bowen Bowen is the

46:41

one who you'd expect to have you know at least two three more goals they just

46:46

need someone to outperform like somebody has to show their class around goal or else they will be in this relegation

46:53

Zone and I think ultimately if they move on from Moyes

46:58

they'll be in more trouble um and that's that's my West Ham take and then for Spurs Spurs are in the top

47:05

four they're just plugging along winning the games they need to win um they're still scoring more than you

47:12

expected defense has been awful this year uh you know just XG of 28 goals

47:18

against 35 so it's giving up seven more than you'd expect sometimes that's on the keeper sometimes that's on the

47:24

defense and you can see these are when I talk about XG and I've talked about it a lot I know it's really to confirm what

47:31

your eyes tell you right it's hey they look like they give up a lot of chances

47:37

but they don't seem to give up that many goals and then you look at it and you're like oh they're all performing their XG or

47:43

damn that shot seemed to just go in why did that happen then you look and you're like oh that Keeper's bad

47:49

so it's really to help confirm what you see uh so Spurs sitting in the top four a new they have a game in hand on

47:56

Newcastle but they're they're they're they're they you know they're a point ahead of them there's no reason that

48:02

they can't finish in the top four at all uh there is some buzz on Liverpool finishing in

48:09

the top four now there's a little bit of like hey maybe Liverpool have a run in them uh I not the way they defend I

48:16

still don't see it they still they still way way way a midfielder away from that

48:22

uh being true um but let's look at the the rest of the fixtures so I think the big one of the

48:28

rest of the fixtures was the Everton game versus Leeds what a massive win for daish at home you just expect it you

48:35

know I mean it's daish it's Liverpool it's Everton they're at home they're gonna find a way to win but what a way

48:42

to get this goal uh Sheamus Coleman been at the club for almost 15 years 10 years

48:47

was there for the good days uh bought from from Ireland for like half a

48:52

million dollars has been the captain of the team famously broke his leg missed whole seasons and became more defensive

48:59

he was a much more up and down and attacking uh fullback at that time he just fires in a shot that he's hoping

49:06

for and it goes in on a tight tight angle uh beating melee who just stood

49:12

there and watched the goal go in uh we did not see much from leads in this one

49:17

this was a good dominant strong performance from Everton and you know

49:23

they're going to get these results and they're going to stay up there's just no doubt on it not doubt in my mind now

49:28

that they will stay up um and now I worry for leads uh they

49:34

just not creating enough not really finding the back back of the net not

49:40

really taking enough shots only eight shots I mean this was Everton they were one of the worst defenses in the league

49:45

but now they've got daish they've got that triangle of defense that they do from the middle of the goalkeeper spot

49:52

to the corners where they just pack that area with the back five and they just don't let you shoot uh and they block

49:59

everything they don't let shots get on target and so uh for leads they are now in

50:06

trouble uh I think they're probably regretting sacking Marsh especially you didn't have a plan

50:13

what were you doing uh this one had some really fun feistiness uh between McNeil and our boy

50:22

Tyler Adams a little bit of a fight on the side of the end line double yellows good stuff from Tyler Adams I really

50:28

like him I really like Thailand I really like Tyler Adams I really like McKinney I like our American boys we're not

50:34

seeing much from Harrison Aaron Aronson he seems to have uh disappeared a little bit for them a little bit of trouble

50:41

there another relegation Zone winner I do want to give a shout out to

50:46

Bournemouth I did say Gary O'Neill had that team playing and they get a massive

50:51

massive win against uh wolves who are also in a relegation Zone but our

50:57

friends from from uh from Bournemouth do get a win and they are out of the relegation Zone while Leeds and West Ham

51:04

go in to the relegation zone so all the bottom three won and that means we had two go in and two go out

51:11

which is nuts so uh I'm trying to remember this goal oh Tavernier yeah

51:17

it's across from solanki goes off his knee I did say I did say and I don't I'm not a genius I

51:25

did say that Bournemouth needed solanki to be in and solanki has been a catalyst for their last two they've gotten points

51:32

in two of the last three games where you know I think solanki makes a difference for them yeah a win and a draw uh

51:39

solanki is really good at and that draw against Newcastle now looks really really valuable I think Neto coming back

51:46

in for for um Bournemouth makes a difference he's a really really good keeper uh

51:52

something that you know teams should always look at you know he's up there in the in the XG save he's got an 84 save

51:59

percentage 4.4 post shot XG so a really good keeper that's stopping goals that

52:06

you would expect to happen really good player really good player their goalkeeper he had been out for a while

52:11

now he's back in when Gary O'Neal got that bump uh he had Neto and goal so neto's playing winily well solanki's

52:19

back I still think they'll go down I still don't think West Ham should go down I don't think lead should go down I don't think Everton should go down I

52:25

don't think wolves should go down so this is the difficulty three half to go down who are the three uh I still think

52:31

it's um Southampton and Bournemouth but I think Gary O'Neill can feel good about

52:37

what he's done for his team and uh we know about lopategy and wolves really

52:42

just driving that team forward they're going to be absolutely fine and then

52:48

the last game of the day let me make sure that I check in before we go to Europe the Fulham Brighton game was

52:55

really fun uh Brighton going back to their brightness ways where they

53:00

completely dominate this game their XG is over the roof and they lose one nil

53:05

at home classic bright 2.2 XG to 0.3 for Fulham

53:10

fulham's goal is a smash and grab in the 88th minute again Manor Solomon the Israeli

53:17

on the break really good finish fires it low and hard on the brake good pass I

53:22

think just make sure I got this right from Carlos venetius who holds it up

53:31

and then fires it over uh for the goal for Solomon but yeah again freaking the

53:37

chances that uh that they had McAllister again Sully Marsh a couple Ferguson won

53:43

just good good chances that they just can't finish a really frustrating day

53:49

for for Brighton where they could have really put pressure on the European places but instead they sit in sixth

53:55

well Fulham are in sorry in seventh well Fulham are in sixth Liverpool are gonna

54:01

have a hard time jumping those two but they're both nailed on to be really good

54:06

pushing for European spaces okay we're getting near

54:12

the end of the show uh Champions League tomorrow we have Liverpool versus real Napoli versus

54:19

Frankfurt City on Wednesday played Leipzig and interplay Porto these are big games I bring up for Liverpool's

54:25

sake this is their season they gotta win these games please please please please please kill Real Madrid if you can kill

54:31

Real Madrid then I'll feel better about it although that would mean I'd have to play Liverpool I don't want to do that

54:37

uh for City I'm less concerned about Leipzig even though uncle has come back

54:43

for Leipzig uh Leipzig or you know Bundesliga teams are generally

54:48

lightweight uh in the in in the Champions League because they all play

54:54

the same way there is not a lot of variety in how these teams play they all

55:00

press they all run they all have poor defense um they're almost ubiquitous in the way

55:07

German teams play so I'm less worried about Leipzig City can handle a team

55:12

like this no problem they have a philosophy they play two two two four really narrow and city will exploit that

55:18

so less concerned about that but City have should have beat forest and they didn't so we'll see what they do

55:24

there and we will check in with you on

55:30

Thursday with those results okay that was the squeaky bum Time Podcast with

55:36

Laurent courteans we are the football wing of the chop Sports channel and presented exclusively by the premier

55:43

streaming Network we record on Mondays and Thursdays so be sure to subscribe wherever you got your podcast so you

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everything to us thank you

56:00

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