Welcome to the Squeaky Bum Time podcast, where we bring you all the latest action from the Premier League in England. In this episode, host Laurent Courtines will take you through match week 24’s action and give a shout to the upcoming fixtures in both the Champions and Europa leagues. First we’ll talk Chelsea and Potter and xG history before getting to our rundown.
- PART 1: Arsenal’s Comeback Win against Aston Villa
Arsenal comes from behind to beat Aston Villa 4-2
Jorginho scores the winning goal that sends Arsenal back to the top of the table by two points
- PART 2: Manchester City’s Draw with Nottingham Forest
Manchester City drops points and loses their lead at the top of the table
Erling Haaland misses a crucial chance and City gives up a late goal to draw 1-1 with Nottingham Forest
- PART 3: Manchester United’s Dominating Win over Leicester City
Marcus Rashford scores two goals to maintain his red hot form
Manchester United closes the gap with Manchester City for second place, now only three points behind them
- PART 4: Liverpool’s Much-Needed Win against Newcastle United
Liverpool beats Newcastle United 2-0, with goals from Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo
Nick Pope is shown a straight red card and will miss the EFL Cup final against Manchester United
- PART 5: Chelsea’s Continued Struggle under Graham Potter
Chelsea loses to bottom of the table Southampton, and questions remain about Potter’s management
Southampton interim manager Ruben Selles gets his first win in charge and looks to bring the team out of the relegation zone
- PART 6: Tottenham’s Victory over West Ham
Tottenham beats West Ham 2-0, with Hueng Min-Son coming off the bench to score
The loss keeps West Ham in the bottom three in the Premier League
- PART 7: Recap of Other Fixtures from the Weekend
Everton’s important win over Leeds to get out of the relegation zone
Bournemouth’s win over Wolves to stay above the relegation zone, and Fulham’s narrow victory over Brighton in a matchup of teams fighting for European places
Join host Laurent Courtines on the Squeaky Bum Time podcast, as we delve deep into the latest action from the Premier League in England and preview the upcoming fixtures in both the Champions and Europa leagues.
Time Stamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:10 Graham Potter is Doomed
08:15 xG a History
11:30 Premier League Scores
13:00 Aston Villa 2-4 Arsenal
19:55 Nottingham Forest 1-1 Manchester City – Pep and Ederson at fault?
25:55 Manchester United Takeover bid and 3-0 Leicester City
35:15 Newcastle United 0-2 Liverpool. Pope sees Red
40:00 Chelsea 0-1 Southampton. UNREAL to lose this
42:45 Spurs 2-0 West Ham. Kane connects to Son
48:30 Everton 1-0 Leeds United. Coleman a legend
50:40 Bournemouth win v Wolves. Solanke a difference maker. xG failures Brighton 0-1 Fulham
54:15 UEFA Champions League midweek preview
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Transcript
0:00
[Music] hello and welcome to the squeaky bomb Time Podcast presented exclusively on
0:07
the chop Sports channel of the premiere streaming Network we are recording this on Thursday February 20th no we're not
0:14
on Monday February 20th I am your host Laurent corteens in this episode
0:20
Arsenal comes back off the head of a keeper City stumbling and why I'm okay
0:25
with it and sit and United are actually real contenders
0:31
speak but first oh my God Grand Potter is doomed and we will go to
0:38
XG school but before we get to that please like subscribe share the show it
0:45
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
0:52
going to work but please do like share the show it means everything please uh follow the links in the description to
0:59
um find out where to find the show uh I'm on Laurent courteans on YouTube
1:04
um and you can go to the Chop Sports Network to find anything you want to please like And subscribe to the show
1:10
let's get to it so Grand Potter is doomed uh why do I say that
1:16
um Chelsea lost this week to Southampton
1:22
at home on a free kick by James Ward price and the football itself is is not
1:28
what's important what I think is more important is just the way we have to think about football and the way
1:34
Americans owners think about sport versus
1:39
um Europeans I think the Burley experiment owning Chelsea they
1:45
think they have time they think they can hire um a project coach that can loot that
1:52
can go five and eleven one year or go one in fifteen you know like if you think about
1:58
uh Jimmy Johnson when he first took over the Dallas Cowboys job sorry my European friends this is a famous story uh Jimmy
2:05
Johnson went on to become a great coach for in the NFL but he took on the biggest it would be the equivalent of
2:11
taking on Manchester United and finishing just above the or finishing in the relegation Zone except the NFL
2:16
doesn't have relegation they had a 1 in 15 season in a 16-game season and it was
2:22
fun they traded their best players away uh in um Herschel Walker this is like
2:27
I think or maybe:2:33
franchise around and if Todd Boley thinks that he can do that with grand Potter he is mistaken
2:41
football does not work that way in Europe we have to keep bringing this up
2:47
it's not it's not owners and players there's a Third Estate it's fans and a
2:54
fourth the the writers who represent were supposed to represent the fans the
2:59
Chelsea fan and supporter is not going to accept losing um they've just come off 20 years of a
3:07
maniacal winning owner in Roman Abramovich whether he was making every call or not whether he was a good guy or
3:13
a bad guy he had a method in place they put all the infrastructure in behind and
3:19
the coach was the last piece that could be swapped in and out and the expectation at Chelsea was winning
3:25
winning winning winning if you played poorly you could have had a good season if you didn't win a Champions League you
3:32
could be sacked you could win the league and be sacked anything that detrimented from winning and changing things up
3:39
Abramovich fired people and it didn't matter because the results
3:44
continued regardless of whether they fired people or chopped and changed and whatever now we know that we are now in
3:51
a different culture at Chelsea essentially that entire infrastructure was ripped out of the team
3:57
tuko held the team together when Abramovich was forced to sell the team which that's a little bit weird by the
4:03
way anyway I'm not going to go into that um and Boley has come in and taken on this
4:08
team and is slowly trying to put something in place but if he thinks that he can place an American model
4:15
onto this team he's going to run into something he
4:21
hasn't seen before uh we have seen it something similar like this happened in
4:27
Charlotte with the Charlotte Bobcats they had a Charlotte Hornets they had an owner that the town hated and they
4:33
forced the team to move and that team moved to New Orleans and Oklahoma City and then stayed in New Orleans and the
4:38
Bobcats went to Jordan but there was an original team the Hornets that were in um that were in Charlotte and the owner
4:45
was so hated that the fans stopped going uh I don't think Chelsea fans will stop going to Stanford bridge but what they
4:52
will do is make it toxic they will sing for Potter's head they will sing you're getting sacked in the
4:58
morning they will sing you don't know what you're doing these are classic songs that supporters can voice
5:06
their displeasure at a club for and there's a little bit more ownership from
5:13
supporters to their Club then customers to their teams and franchises in the US so Potter really
5:21
this is not some little thing and and in some sense Potter should be fired already
5:28
uh to be frank if if we're going by results and by spending so there's an
5:33
expectation level here but I think borley is going to treat it like it's an American team and he's gonna around
5:40
and find out now to be fair to Potter this is a difficult situation there are
5:47
30 players on that team 33 players a normal football roster that's manageable
5:54
you play about 15 16 in training with with the roster
6:00
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
6:08
roster so they don't have roster limits these players are signed to contracts are there Potter's having to manage
6:13
players that are two coaches before and where do they go when they do trading so
6:19
how do you manage the egos of a bunch of international players some of them purchased within the last 12 months for
6:26
dozens of millions of dollars Raheem Sterling 50 million dollars 60 million dollars he's not in Potter's plans how
6:33
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
6:40
trust that when you walk into Chelsea Football Club you expect there to be a manager
6:46
with a resume that matches the level of the players at the club by that I mean
6:53
is that player is that manager someone who has won a league is that manager
6:59
someone who has won a champions league is that manager someone who's consistently year over year over year
7:05
taken a relatively big Club not as big as Chelsea and put them in a good place for
7:11
several years in a row I think we thought that was true of grand Potter with Brighton but Brighton
7:17
are not quite a big enough Club the the players don't hold the stature
7:23
to challenge Potter whereas at Chelsea there are players that are
7:29
like who the are you what have you won you won the Swedish league in the
7:35
Arctic Circle you made one Europa League run that was cute you kept Brighton up and you finished sixth once
7:44
I wonder if watching Champions League 18 months ago what are you talking about I've been playing top level football
7:51
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
7:57
happening with Potter uh and I am curious about his
8:02
very XG based method so one of the things that's made Potter well-loved among me
8:08
among the footballerati is his play has generated a lot of expected
8:15
goals and held expected goals back and I wanted to get into expected goals this is for you Mike Redman
8:22
um you know I talk about it a lot and I want to make sure that everyone understands what I mean by expected
8:27
goals expected goals I'm gonna go to the old GPT chat and I put it in the
8:33
description of expected goals for a five-year-old and I'm going to read it off to you guys uh
8:39
XG is a way to see how likely it is that a shot in soccer will result in a goal
8:45
it looks at things like how far are playaways from goal the angle is shot and how the ball got to the player by
8:52
comparing these things to lots of other shots it can figure out how likely it is
8:58
that a goal will be scored if the XG is really high it means there's a really
9:04
good chance the shot will become a goal so XG numbers on every shot are placed
9:10
between zero and one a score of 0.5 means that if the same shot was taken 10
9:17
times 5 would be expected to result on a goal and if the sh if if the XG is 1 or
9:24
0.9 basically it's a certain goal so for instance a penalty is has an XG of 0.7
9:30
so there's a lot of different ways to calculate it so you'll see different numbers in different places some of them
9:35
were very simple some of them are calculated some of them are from Super high-end data collection where they add
9:41
multiple factors in and some of them are just this is the shot and it's not 3D
9:46
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
9:53
that's ever been taken and they just mark it that way it's fairly accurate and why do I use it
I use it as a way to get a sense of how
a game went and what kind of chances a team had when
they played another team so when I say oh my God uh Arsenal had an XG of 1.1
but Aston Villas was 1.9 that just means that if you
accumulate all the shots from Arsenal and all the shots from Aston Villa that Aston Villa's total shot values resulted
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
half those are big numbers one thing to remember is when you look at XG
good teams that are winning leagues generally outperforming their XG because it means that one they have good players
who are not average so when a great player takes an average shot they tend
to get it in more often and that when you're winning and you're top of the league you tend to
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
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
the big XG underperformer would be West Ham who's in a relegation Zone but they shouldn't be they've get had horrible
luck that shots aren't falling they can't get any goals same thing for Chelsea so that was for you Mike a
little primer on the XG let us go quickly to the scores
so early game early kickoff Aston Villa 2 Arsenal 4 amazing game we'll get right
to that in a minute Brentford the amazing Brentford pull one out late in a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace Crystal
Palace our allegation Zone uh wolves lose to Bournemouth I told you Gary O'Neal was
good one nil good stuff from Bournemouth and then the Deutsche Revolution continues Everton one leads United nil
fantastic result from our boy Sheamus Coleman on an amazing shot then Chelsea
nil Southampton one Southampton get off the schneid all the bottom three win today Forest one my beloved Manchester
City won you got battered but I'll get to that game as well Brighton nil uh
Fulham won this was a battle for the European places and Fulham pull it out away from home but they were battered as
well we're going to XG on that one and the our beloved Newcastle lose at home to Liverpool on the most ridiculous red
card you will ever see then on Sunday man united wiped the floor with Lester but this game was much
closer than you'd expect early on Lester put two really good chances on in the Reyes save their ass second half United
were fantastic and then Tottenham beat West Ham Sunny getting into goals the
general connection of Kane to Sun get the goals but we will go
to Birmingham and Aston Villa to Arsenal
four wow this game was fantastic this game was fun this game made me
angry because all I wanted was for Arsenal to goddamn lose but they found a
way to win so early on uh our boy Ollie Watkins puts
ones in on a nice angle put in through scores the goal and it's looking like Arsenal are in deep deep trouble
and then on that's on five then bakari asako there were some great goals in this game Saka on a cross half volley
top bins sitting in the middle of the Box how the did he get there bang bang Zoom he puts it in then coutinho
just as the second half is at just as the half is getting to end we it's leveled off after 16 minutes then
coutinho the dreaded coutinho finds a way finishes the goal does nothing else of course shows up on Match of the day
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
leading unai Emery's loving it with his weird beige coat I didn't like his coat that was weird then
Arsenal come out second half like a hurricane they completely
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
and then boom our guys in changko off the corner unmarked
well yeah Ming's gonna pick them up zinchenko with with the fireball shot into the corner doesn't really celebrate
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
basically it's all Arsenal the rest of the way uh in the second half Villa take three shots
none On Target I'm sorry take three shots all saved but Arsenal just take 18
shots in the second half they're like we're not losing this League there was one moment where you felt like
arsenal were in deep trouble when Martin Odegaard missed on 77 that was the
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
he hasn't stopped working and then late in the game georginio edge of the box
fires it in hits the post and goes off the back of the head of Emmy Martinez in
soothing scenes um there is a corner late that um that
Emmy Martinez against the orders of unai Emery tries to go up and uh and score
Martinelli gets a late goal uh on the 98 uh to win it now I have to be I have to
get the drama right georginio's is in 93 plus 93rd minute uh there was a lot of time
wasting there was a lot of housing as you would expect it's Emmy Martinez he's trying to slow things down he holds
a grudge against um against um Arsenal uh Martin Odegaard was incredible in this game he created
11 scoring chance opportunity what's the
word shot creating actions 11 shot creating actions that means that he's either making the pass or the pass
before the pass so he was just all over the pitch really trying to will Arsenal to win this and in the second half
Arsenal just killed let's go back to XG Arsenal's XG and this was three uh they
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
and this is a narrative shifter um you know I said on Thursday that this
game was the biggest game of the season for Arsenal and you could hear it
the way the announcers announced it um guys voices were cracking giving a
little whoa on the on the georginio goal they sensed the moment I think I think with football the moments are what
matter and this became a moment uh Arsenal coming out in the second half
and just refusing to lose and really finding themselves again after a few days a few games about three weeks of
not being themselves but they really found it against Villa and they deserved there they're not going to go away so
after losing to city and after losing a couple games and only catching one point in their last nine available they get
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
City in a minute but for Arsenal psychologically this lifts them this
puts our tetza back in the driver's seat this puts the faith back in the team this puts them back together as feeling
like okay we're gonna be in this this is not nothing um this is a good good good Arsenal team
and when I said about a month ago that anything Arsenal losing this league
would be a bottle job it's because of a second half that I just saw this is how
Arsenal have been playing all year and this three-week blip was not really how
they played City haven't played this well at all all season City have not played as well as Arsenal in hardly any
games all season so to get Arsenal into this space is where they need to be it's
where you believe in them it's where you feel like they have the look of a
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
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
we'll Puffs out we got a late winner the later the win the more likely you feel
good about yourself is something weird that happens in football and that is why this show is called what's the show
called squeaky bum that was a squeaky bum time goal and a
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
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
this team in good shape Aston Villa are fine I love Ollie Watkins um you know they they're probably a
Defender away you know they could probably replace Mings or Konza but Ming's is a left-footed goalkeeper so
that makes him more fun um you know they have they have a ways to go but
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
together which is something we'll we'll figure out a little bit more as the season goes along
so where does that take the chasing pack we go to Nottingham not quite the
Midlands but sort of close City going to the city ground going to our friend
Christian who has been sharing in the WhatsApp videos of the city ground of
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
the you the Facebook group and we'll get you into WhatsApp group you can get live updates only from the city ground and
Nottingham Forest which is fine but City completely annihilate I mean I have to be fair City draw this
game but they're completely in control of this game uh it's really not a contest that
I'm worried about and it's one of the reasons why I'm not particularly worried for City in this game
they miss tons of chances tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of chances just unbelievable amounts of chances and
the fact that they only scored one goal on 2.5 XG or really goes to show what
they miss Holland missed sitter sitter sitters uh Bernardo Silvers was an
amazing goal another assist for Jack grealish who's been playing who's been City's best player over the last uh
couple weeks again shot creating actions Jack rilish had 10 so
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
get his shooting boots on he had the space he tried to do it and he just couldn't get any good shots off
um Holland uh he had two shots you know just couldn't get it done City
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
on 58 Nico Williams and Andre IU come in for Danilo and callback for Forest on 72
mangala comes in for Shelby on 79 tuffalo comes in for Lodi and on 79 wood
comes in for Arya have you noticed that I have not mentioned any City changes so
Forest made all five of their changes so of their 11 they swapped them all out
they had fresh legs in the game and you could tell you could tell City where
leggy city were mentally sort of slowed down I would have taken de bruyne off
because I felt like forests were getting a foothold in the game not because of
their play but because of their energy they had hung on they had weathered the storm of cities attempts on goal and
didn't get their goals and then on 84 there's Chris Wood back post from Morgan
Gibbs white one of the best players out of one of the of the of the other 14
Morgan Gibbs white has got to be one of the players of the Season outside of the top six
uh cross across the back post Chris Wood is there and City just kind of
lost energy um Bernardo may have been at fault I don't
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
back four that they did the other day against Arsenal and solidified the team
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
see this I can see this I'm not smart um then the other one that I want to
talk about that the city city world if you're into city world uh which most of
you aren't and this is one of these things that only fans of their clubs can see is ederson for City our goalkeeper
has been poor um he's the third worst safe Supreme safe
percentage in the league basically of the last 14 shots on goal
against City eight have gone in so we're not getting that extra line of defense that that Allison and Allison provides
for um for Liverpool and we'll go to that when we get to to Newcastle
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
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
like Edison maybe could have got on the cross maybe could have come for something I'm not sure what it is but I
just wish we had a keeper on form I don't want ederson to come off I think
he's fine you know it's just when you dominate a game like city did
you don't get a result you just got it uh and good for Forest I
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
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
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
but not not um not not Cooper he said hey I've got Chris Wood I brought him in
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
just the running alone should give me something uh and it did and and Forest
deserved their point even if they were should have gotten beat you know they they saw an opportunity and said hey we
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
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
have that great win and then they slip again so this this this city team is still not sharp yet but
I will say this performance from city was really really good and something to
not worry about uh that has to take us to something I am worried about which is uh Manchester
United three nil over Lester um I do want to talk about the Takeover
bids so United are up for sale I think the sale
of Chelsea really pricked the ears up of all these um all these owners and we're
just like do you bought what for Chelsea I'm man united it should be worth seven billion dollars uh so the glazers
notoriously one of the most hated owner groups in the Premier League American owners owner of the Tampa Bay
they've owned the team since:meaning they borrowed money against the purchase of the club to saddle the club with almost a with about half a billion
dollars in debt and they've been taking a dividend they have not invested in the team uh United
fans can tell you much better than I can that they're running it for profit in a gross way they're not
taking their role as owners as
seriously as the English would expect the owner of Manchester United to take their club now
they've been there 15 years they've won things whatever they spent lots of money but there's something different there's
an intangible desire that you want from your coach uh from your owners they're
treating United as though they're slumlords versus someone who's saying
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
and leave in better stead than when I got here so right now they've let United
decline the same way that Mike Ashley let Newcastle decline they're kind of
parallels to Mike Ashley except the money is different where United are just like you know they generate cash because
someone put the work in they did 25 years of winning and the glazers have been living off that
um but the owners in question are a weird one here where a shake from Qatar I
don't have his exact name who's the head of the uh Qatari Islamic Bank the qib
who's not the state very important because the state of Qatar owns PSG this
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
the institution and take care of them then the another guy is called Sir Jim
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
nice and he has been around he's from Manchester and he's sort of buying it
with capital and he doesn't have the same packages the qataris so this is an interesting piece where you know we're
all attacking City attacking Chelsea oh your money is ill begotten
United's could be ill begotten we have to deal with these moral quandaries
about owners who are they what do they do what are they about how do we feel about it I know I have to
deal with my own owners everybody has to deal with their owners it's kind of one of these things but you
know that's the status right there two bids in on United it's going to take a long time we're talking
between five and seven billion for United now the actual match
first half I thought Leicester were very very good especially the first 20
minutes they had really good chances uh the Harvey Barnes shot was a was a .45
XG save by dehea which is a huge huge number uh and then the other save
was another one from ianacho on 21. So within the first 20 minutes Lester had a goal of XG saved so that's
massive and then rashford gets his first goal in really strong Fernandez has been fantastic Saboteur has been fantastic he
puts it to Fernandez and Fernandez gets it on to rashford who finishes with a rifle and from there it feels like you
know Lester lost a lot of juice so United go in at the break up a goal
and feeling like hey that was tough that was weird
smartly um tenhog makes a change he brings any a
nacho changes the shape and the game completely changes second half is all United they completely
battered they completely battered Lester um really really badly I mean Delo
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
I'm the best goal of the game uh gets another Fernandez and Fred both with the assists on the goals respectively and it
kind of Peters out with a 3-0 win for United but a difficult three-nil win even though in
the end the XG is really high the first half was poor in the second half they were dominant
um what does this mean United are three points two points behind City and they they have to be
discussed are they a real title Contender are they there I mean if you
take out the sort of first three games of the Season United are top two like
they're really really good and I think you know I talked about it a few months ago but
10 hog has transformed this team he has done an amazing job I mean we're talking
about Erickson and casemiro coming in but Erickson and casemira have not played
for the last few weeks and United are still winning these games they had a little bit of a slip against leads those
leads games were tough and I thought Leeds played well but they got results and they're sitting
you know in the in the driver's seat in third place maybe Arsenal and City punch themselves
out there's a gap now coming between the top three and then the next uh and then
the fourth place spot that Spurs now occupy which seems bizarre because the season has been so weird but
uh we have Arsenal and 54 City on 52 United on 49 and then it's seven points
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
four but um United are really good United are really good they play really
well uh and ten hog changes games you know we you want your coach
to make the right decision from the start but if you're not gonna make the right decision from the start when you
make changes you want those changes to affect the team and um his changes do
affect the team you know it makes the team do something different it makes them tougher to play
it makes them create more scoring opportunities he moves a player 10 yards here 10 yards there uh one of the
talking points of United has been uh the the much loved veg Horst who had a
pathetic attempt at I had a bicycle kick he can't score he can't move he's all over the place he's
playing as a 10. but I think there's something about him that brings spirit that his teammates seem to like him so I
think that's a that's a good thing for uh United he's still shooting he's still
trying he took uh four shots most of them blocked only one on target
um you know that he late in the game but I think he's liked he's working hard uh
there was another shout around Sabbath sir that he put his knee into
his leg yes that he pressed down and push on it no and I think that's the
reason he got away with it I think and this is one of the reasons why
players throw themselves to the ground had phase
thrown himself on the ground and acted like he was shot in the kneecap
by sabot Sir he savitar would have been sent off but because phase without phase gets hit
in the leg and kind of keeps going then the referee is just like oh it's
fine and that's the reason there's a reason why people dive and
roll around it works I know no one likes it I know everyone thinks it's wrong but
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
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
matter is without Feist did not throw himself on the ground and roll around so Saboteur didn't get sent off now is this
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
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
speaking of continuity um uh we've got to go to Liverpool who
have been playing with continuity and do get some of their players back they go to
Newcastle and what you expected would have been a massive game and
in the first few minutes Newcastle are on they're on top of of Liverpool
um uh almiron almost puts one in but um again that Edison versus Allison thing
Allison comes off his line and saves it thank God for Liverpool they need him there's still a little
a little flaky but this is a good away win um uh let me just go into the play log here
yeah first few minutes yeah Alma run goes in and say maximum has a different shot then um but then
early on on 10 Darwin Nunez on an amazing pass from Trent Alexander on the classic Trent Cross Field ball from
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
he fires it in then on 17 on an amazing pass I missed these uh from Masala he puts in
gakpo gotbo bangs at home and two nil two nil to
um to Liverpool and they're cruising now
are they still giving up chances yes then on 22 after the goal five minutes
later there's a an amazing ball from Alice and Allison you're better than ederson uh fights a ball directly to Mo
Salah off a corner he grabs a ball and Nick Pope inexplicably who's been playing a high line and is one of the
most active um goalkeepers in a league he misjudges the Flight of the ball
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
outside the box for a red card because he knew Salah was right there then so there you go Nick Pope red card
dubrovka comes in they have to reshape the whole thing and the game's basically over from that point on
um now from a Liverpool perspective
it's weird because Newcastle still created a lot
um you know Linton Joe Linton had a shot Alan say maximum was taking had another
shot even in the second half uh Alexander Isaac had a decent opportunity
that he misses and then um Joe Linton not as good a shot but Callum Wilson gets saved on 82 like there's just
opportunities for a 10-man Newcastle that you have to give credit to Newcastle but
come on Liverpool uh that's not cool you're still not airtight so they were
lucky to get away from this game with a clean sheet and I would not feel great about this performance to be fair
um and you know they had 22 minutes where they look like Liverpool and then the rest of it they look like Liverpool
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
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
or else they'll get beat badly another piece on this one for
Newcastle for Newcastle this is a loss on back on the back of all those draws they're now out of the top four
uh Spurs pip them uh With The Wind that they got and they lose Nick Pope for the
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
to the Head as they say so they will have to go to their third choice keeper because their second choice keeper
already played for United in the same tournament and is something called being cup tied which means you cannot appear
for two teams in the same tournament it's really big in England so dubrovco
was on loan at man united they recalled him to Newcastle he was the previous goalkeeper before Pope and he wanted to
play and um he now cannot play in the AFL Cup Final Nick
Pope can't we may find our friend Loris karius the former Liverpool player who
ously got a concussion in the:1819 Champions League final for Liverpool because uh Sergio Ramos elbowed him in the head which was
anyway craziness craziness but we'll see what's
there Liverpool have Real Madrid City have Leipzig but we'll cover that in a minute
ah jail so we move on to our friends and Chelsea um
I don't know what else to say about this team they cannot score I talked about it
on Thursday I was like you've got to score against Southampton and they couldn't score against Southampton I
can't believe it it's absolutely mind-boggling that Chelsea Football Club
one of the great clubs in London cannot score goals to save their life
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
game for this game Salas has already said I want the job over uh over Jones he's got the playing well he looked
great on a sideline Raheem Sterling missed an inexplicable goal uh classic Raheem Sterling he always misses these
kinds of gold that his misses his four shots were worth one goal uh 0.9 XG uh
I'll stop talking about it but yeah more of the same I could have told you Chelsea fans
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
Chelsea more control kovacic was there and so Fernandez like I said look good he went with
Striker because he still can't find one and maduke was in there and Mason mount
on the other Wing he's still teetering and tottering and trying to figure out what the best group is
um Kula Bali came back in he was a mess uh for Silva no Silva in this game ended
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
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
I don't know what's going on with Potter um you guys know I loved him I loved what
he did at Brighton I think in the long run he would he will turn this team around
unless they do see him as less than
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
him so uh Chelsea just have to turn this around they do have an opportunity to
turn around they are in the Champions League so Chelsea do um
take they already took on Dortmund last week but you know they're down a goal they have another week to prepare for
ed two goals since the War of:of Stanford bridge I don't know how they're going to score two goals to beat um Dortmund
uh and now your top four Mr Tottenham Hotspur defeats West Ham
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
that are known for the hooliganism between each other not in general but uh this was an ugly ugly first half uh the
only cheers in this game were for tackles some people like that kind of stuff it was not fun to watch uh and
then in the second half it opened up Emerson on a really good goal from Ben Davies they were both playing fullback
they were both playing Wing back um really nice uh combination play there
from Hoiberg to Davies onto Emerson who's played great since um since uh
Pozo came in and then Sun from Kane who else on 72 to get the two goals and put
West Ham away West Ham are so so bad right now they can't seem to score goals at all
um they have the Firepower it's there they only put one shot on target versus
Spurs Spurs ain't this good that's Eric Dyer in the middle of Defense
what are you doing it's Clement Longley like this is not a
great defense what are you doing uh West him you've got to attack this team
you've got to find a way to hurt them they're not this good stop being so
defensive open up like if you're gonna lose lose trying
so Moyes I think any other season he'd be in trouble but he's getting a lot of
opportunity within the context of this season I'm not sure he deserves it
um there's nothing here that says that that West Ham are good aside from the
fact that their XG is good so yes they lose but they're losing well and they're
taking shots and they're creating opportunities for themselves but they are in the relegation Zone it's a fact
it's a fact there are 15 goals off their XG
that's bad finishing it's shocking they're XG difference is plus two but in real
actual sport they're -10 that's a 12 gold swing when you have a 12 goal swing
an XG during the relegation battle they should be somewhere in the top ten uh frankly that's what
their underlying numbers say that they are a top 10 team they're playing like a
top 10 team but are in fact in the bottom three it's shocking and I'm sure
David Moyes is showing these stats people going like how the are we
not winning these goddamn games there's no way they should be this bad I want to
look at the culprits of who's taking these shots and not getting the goals in I think I
looked at it a while ago and I just want to look at it again
it sort of spread throughout the side Bowens has six XG six and a half XG but
only four goals banrama has 3.9 but only three the count Antonio has 3.1 but only two
you'd want someone to be outperforming it maybe it's Gian Lucas gamaka who has
three on 2.5 but then there's a lot of Declan rice has near two but only one
goal so there's a lot contributing to it and it's just shocking
how unlucky they've been they just can't seem to get their goals to go in
um and it's a pretty bizarre uh same here same goes for Bowen Bowen is the
one who you'd expect to have you know at least two three more goals they just
need someone to outperform like somebody has to show their class around goal or else they will be in this relegation
Zone and I think ultimately if they move on from Moyes
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
four they're just plugging along winning the games they need to win um they're still scoring more than you
expected defense has been awful this year uh you know just XG of 28 goals
against 35 so it's giving up seven more than you'd expect sometimes that's on the keeper sometimes that's on the
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
your eyes tell you right it's hey they look like they give up a lot of chances
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
damn that shot seemed to just go in why did that happen then you look and you're like oh that Keeper's bad
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
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
they can't finish in the top four at all uh there is some buzz on Liverpool finishing in
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
still don't see it they still they still way way way a midfielder away from that
uh being true um but let's look at the the rest of the fixtures so I think the big one of the
rest of the fixtures was the Everton game versus Leeds what a massive win for daish at home you just expect it you
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
to get this goal uh Sheamus Coleman been at the club for almost 15 years 10 years
was there for the good days uh bought from from Ireland for like half a
million dollars has been the captain of the team famously broke his leg missed whole seasons and became more defensive
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
for and it goes in on a tight tight angle uh beating melee who just stood
there and watched the goal go in uh we did not see much from leads in this one
this was a good dominant strong performance from Everton and you know
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
that they will stay up um and now I worry for leads uh they
just not creating enough not really finding the back back of the net not
really taking enough shots only eight shots I mean this was Everton they were one of the worst defenses in the league
but now they've got daish they've got that triangle of defense that they do from the middle of the goalkeeper spot
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
everything they don't let shots get on target and so uh for leads they are now in
trouble uh I think they're probably regretting sacking Marsh especially you didn't have a plan
what were you doing uh this one had some really fun feistiness uh between McNeil and our boy
Tyler Adams a little bit of a fight on the side of the end line double yellows good stuff from Tyler Adams I really
like him I really like Thailand I really like Tyler Adams I really like McKinney I like our American boys we're not
seeing much from Harrison Aaron Aronson he seems to have uh disappeared a little bit for them a little bit of trouble
there another relegation Zone winner I do want to give a shout out to
Bournemouth I did say Gary O'Neill had that team playing and they get a massive
massive win against uh wolves who are also in a relegation Zone but our
friends from from uh from Bournemouth do get a win and they are out of the relegation Zone while Leeds and West Ham
go in to the relegation zone so all the bottom three won and that means we had two go in and two go out
which is nuts so uh I'm trying to remember this goal oh Tavernier yeah
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
did say that Bournemouth needed solanki to be in and solanki has been a catalyst for their last two they've gotten points
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
solanki is really good at and that draw against Newcastle now looks really really valuable I think Neto coming back
in for for um Bournemouth makes a difference he's a really really good keeper uh
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
percentage 4.4 post shot XG so a really good keeper that's stopping goals that
you would expect to happen really good player really good player their goalkeeper he had been out for a while
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
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
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
it's um Southampton and Bournemouth but I think Gary O'Neill can feel good about
what he's done for his team and uh we know about lopategy and wolves really
just driving that team forward they're going to be absolutely fine and then
the last game of the day let me make sure that I check in before we go to Europe the Fulham Brighton game was
really fun uh Brighton going back to their brightness ways where they
completely dominate this game their XG is over the roof and they lose one nil
at home classic bright 2.2 XG to 0.3 for Fulham
fulham's goal is a smash and grab in the 88th minute again Manor Solomon the Israeli
on the break really good finish fires it low and hard on the brake good pass I
think just make sure I got this right from Carlos venetius who holds it up
and then fires it over uh for the goal for Solomon but yeah again freaking the
chances that uh that they had McAllister again Sully Marsh a couple Ferguson won
just good good chances that they just can't finish a really frustrating day
for for Brighton where they could have really put pressure on the European places but instead they sit in sixth
well Fulham are in sorry in seventh well Fulham are in sixth Liverpool are gonna
have a hard time jumping those two but they're both nailed on to be really good
pushing for European spaces okay we're getting near
the end of the show uh Champions League tomorrow we have Liverpool versus real Napoli versus
Frankfurt City on Wednesday played Leipzig and interplay Porto these are big games I bring up for Liverpool's
sake this is their season they gotta win these games please please please please please kill Real Madrid if you can kill
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
uh for City I'm less concerned about Leipzig even though uncle has come back
for Leipzig uh Leipzig or you know Bundesliga teams are generally
lightweight uh in the in in the Champions League because they all play
the same way there is not a lot of variety in how these teams play they all
press they all run they all have poor defense um they're almost ubiquitous in the way
German teams play so I'm less worried about Leipzig City can handle a team
like this no problem they have a philosophy they play two two two four really narrow and city will exploit that
so less concerned about that but City have should have beat forest and they didn't so we'll see what they do
there and we will check in with you on
Thursday with those results okay that was the squeaky bum Time Podcast with
Laurent courteans we are the football wing of the chop Sports channel and presented exclusively by the premier
streaming Network we record on Mondays and Thursdays so be sure to subscribe wherever you got your podcast so you
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