In Episode #130 of the Squeaky Bum Time Podcast, Mike is out, but Laurent gives his breakdown of midseason players of the season and rants about the German Whingebag coaches in Tuchel and Klopp
- Laurent’s Beloved Brighton and Hove Albion get a convincing draw at Stamford Bridge on a Danny Welbeck extra-time header.
- City toy with Brentford, don’t really get out of gear in a 0-1 win at the Community Stadium to go 9 points clear of Liverpool, who have a game in hand.
- Manchester United show some muscle in a 3-1 win over the VERY well rested Burnley
Follow us on Twitter (@SqueakyBum_Pod), Instagram (@SqueakyBumTimePod), and Facebook (Squeaky Bum Time Podcast) to stay up to date!
Part of the Chop Sports Media Network!
Transcript
hello and welcome to the squeaky bum
time podcast with mike and laurent laura
mike is not here here here he is
watching american football it is friday
december 31st the last day of 2021 uh a
terrible year that hopefully will get
better in this episode united get back
on track my beloved brighton are back
and i will give my
mid season best 11 best manager best
everything player of the year etc but
first
scores
okay the scores have been today today
today manchester united defeat burnley
3-1 burnley off after 18 days manchester
united trying to play after a tough game
against newcastle they were better
yesterday my beloved brighton
draw 1-1 at stanford bridge danny
welbeck you beautiful menk bastard they
get their first goal at stanford bridge
and their first points incredible work
for brighton they blew chelsea out of
the water my other beloved manchester
city are also in london all at the same
time saying hello to chelsea but they
beat brentford at the community stadium
one nil ho-hum the less talked about
this game the better
city
rested some players phil foden got the
goal grealish played uh this was a de
bruyne game aki played left back very
weird but city win to go
nine
points
clear
of eight points clear of chelsea nine
points clear of liverpool liverpool have
a game in hand wowie wow but but but we
still have more to go
that's where we are right now 20 games
for most teams 19 for others
i and with city winning their game
we are now in
crazy
narrative mode about
cities
buying the league city's got too much
money uh tucol and klopp are making
excuses but i don't want to talk about
that yet i will talk about that in one
minute first first first
here
are
here is my
best 11 for the season
and uh i'm gonna jump around i'm gonna
go with the traditional 4-4-2 nothing
crazy there some players moving around
some players moving around i'm going to
start with the best player
mo salah
mo salah is in my best 11. you put him
where you want
doesn't matter to me
another player in my best 11
joe alcancello
has to be in the fullbacks are easy
it's joel conselo
and trent alexander arnold gerard
concello is playing something
similar to to left back i don't know
trent alexander arnold is the most
lethal attacking fullback i've ever seen
in my life he makes liverpool go
uh his defense is bad but his offense is
so good it doesn't matter mo salah is on
a 30 goal
20 assist pace he won't get that but
he's insane there out on the wing
on the other
outside of the pitch
i thought about foden
but i like to be a little funky i'm
gonna give it to emmanuel dennis
of
watford
this guy
is
constantly keeping his team in games
when you watch watford
they have to be there he's second in the
league in goals he's
in the top
tier
of players
in goals and assists now is he on a good
team no
but
i like him i want to reward him he's
gonna go to the african cup of nations
this might be his only chance so
respect where respect is due
and mr dennis is gonna be
on my team
uh at at this time
because he's that good he'll be heading
to the club world cup he is on eight
goals and five assists a
and way over his expected goal so he's
getting lucky he's doing well and i like
him so respect to mr dennis a young guy
just23 uh who else is in my list
in the midfield
where it gets tough i have one definite
and if you watched listen to the pod you
know who it is
it's mr connor gallagher
what a player what an attacker what a
man
conor gallagher in the midfield for sure
an amazing player
that has to be there
then i go
bernardo silva
who's been playing midfield who's been
playing up for city he has been making
the team go he does everything but pass
the ball forward he presses he attacks
he score goal he scores goals and city
are the best team in the league so they
need to have someone uh represent them
up front
next i will go
with
the other midfield partner well i'm
putting silva up front in the as one of
the strikers rodri is going to go up in
the midfield for city he's been
incredible making the team tick
controlling the pace stopping counter
attacks rodri has now become the
fernandinho that we wanted him to be
took two years but rodri's been
incredible only only only um
city fans will see this and then
partnering up front
i needed
to
have a liverpool player jaego jata takes
that spot
just over ivan tony who i love a lot so
here's what i have for the midfield so i
don't know uh i have fullbacks conselo
arnold
i don't know the wingers are salah
dennis in the midfield i have rodri and
gallagher
then i have up front is my two silva and
jota
i'm bending the rules here letting silva
be a striker and then in my central
defense pairing this is where it gets
tricky
i'm going to give
chelsea a player because they deserve
someone so rudiger will go there or
silva it was between rudiger silva
um
i'm loathe to give the 38 year old uh
propped but it'll be thiago silva who's
old right now
and then the other
primary defender
after ruediger in central midfield to
complete my group
will be
i hate you virgil van dyke you are
good but you have not been good
this year i'm gonna give it to ruben
diaz who makes
city tick without diaz city are not the
defensive team that they think they are
he allows and creates a platform for
city's other defenders to go run like
conselo and and rodri he just is a glue
his numbers and stats aren't there if
you look at all his who scored he's not
really doing too much but reuben diaz
for city fans he is my guy so across the
back arnold rudiger silva cancello
across the four in the midfield salah on
the wing
rodrigue and central midfielder
partnered with gallagher and then
emmanuel dennis and then my upfront
partnership is jota and silva
honorable mentions
for ivan tony
phil foden
frankly joel matthip at liverpool and
then in goal for mike
i will give a shout out to hugo laurice
who's also been great this season also
david de gea who's basically saving uh
united but i didn't want to have any
united players so that is my
best 11 for the half
ramsdale
alexander arnold
ruediger
diaz conselo sala
rodri gallagher
dennis
jota
silva
that's my group uh the player of the
season it's this is the easiest thing
i've ever had to do mo salah is the
player of the season he's on 15 goals
and
nine assists
that's insane if he got to if he even if
he's if he goes to 28 and 15 that would
be an incredible season
um
my manager of the season
it has to be arteta
it has to be it's either arteta or pep
i'm gonna go with
arteta because he took
a very listless arsenal team that had
got the doors blown off them held them
together have they beat a good team no
but he's taking on the personalities in
the team and shaping the team in his
um
image i would go grand potter because i
love him but uh i think having arsenal
in the top four having passed west ham
we know that david moyes was the manager
of the season last season but arsenal
with a young group
moving up the table
now from where they were dead and buried
sure they have six losses which is as
many as more than half the teams in the
league i think art has done a good job
especially handling bam yang getting
locked as that back on the side bringing
through jacques after he was gone
getting all the young kids to buy in the
ramsdale purchase looks genius i thought
it was a disaster but he knew better
than i did that's why these foot people
do what they do
they see something we don't see
uh so i thought that i think that
arteta's had a good half and uh we'll
see where he ends up
with the rest of the season
my signing for the season
signing for the season
while it's just alone it's conor
gallagher or saw
uh ish or saw at um at wolves the
goalkeeper there who's been incredible
in keeping his team uh jose saw from
portugal shocking um
he's
he's been a great goalkeeper and these
are these sort of side things that you
don't really notice but saw's been
incredible and one of the reasons wolves
were terrible last season was um oh my
god his expected goal is different it's
the best in the league so sad has been
incredible keeping wolves at bay
no pun intended i don't know how we
treat loans if it's a straight signing
then it's sa if it's a loan signing then
it's gallagher um
worst signing of the season
the worst signing of the season that
actually plays i think it's sancho it's
so disappointing he's done nothing so
far the team is sputtering uh he didn't
play until today he had a good game but
jaden sancho was supposed to be one of
the great young players in europe and
he's done nothing i think it's maybe
because united doesn't have planning and
they probably shouldn't have bought him
but uh so
signing of the season is jose saw let's
just make a ruling of wolves worse
is
sancho
and best loan is uh gallagher
because i can't get enough of gallagher
uh from there so those are my player of
the season salah coach of the year so
far arteta best 11 of
arnold
rudiger
diaz consailo across the back a midfield
a four across the middle of salah roger
and gallagher
and dennis from watford and then up top
bernardo silva and joe gojolta not a
traditional striker uh with the
honorable mentions for tony
phil foden joel matip and thiago silva
but they didn't make it all right that
is my team of the season i like
it let's go let's go
next up
the narrative has shipped it has shifted
are like i said eight points clear
and the
same
narrative
about cities wealth
has come flying in
oh teams can't compete
oh city have ruined the league oh
they're eight points clear this is the
disaster
this league has 54 more points to play
for
we have
the two german coaches in tukel and
klopp
complaining incessantly about the
schedule
tukel is off the chain with his
complaining it's out of control now i
think at this point tukel is hurting his
team he's saying things like
we don't have enough players um we have
nine players in covid
we can't do anything
this is chelsea football club
this is a club
with the greatest
youth set up in the country conor
gallagher is a
chelsea player
um
you bring him back
they s uh gilmore is a chelsea player
they could bring him back
livermento they sold for nothing lampty
they sold for nothing these are players
they could use and that's not to mention
the players that are literally just
their under 23s what is the point
chelsea of winning all these
youth tournaments
and not using them when a once in a
generation pandemic comes in don't
complain
play your players
so uh we're getting from tucol and klopp
two german coaches if you don't know
this i'm going to explain to you in
england is the only league that plays
during the christmas break
most leagues just before christmas they
play their last game they come back
after the new year very normal non-weird
thing to do germany's is even longer
but in england not only do they play
during the christmas period they jam
four games in 10 days in so they play
boxing day the 26th they usually play
the 28th and the 29th and then they play
new year's day
uh and plus another one usually so it's
different and the german coaches and new
coaches just come in and complain tukol
is at another level
he is a chelsea coach chelsea have not
bottled this league they merely have
gone three draws and a loss uh in the
last few weeks they're fine
they're fine
they're just freaking out
right chelsea
last five
draw
win
draw
draw and a win
they're okay they're okay they need to
chill out
they're still
still
on about an 84 point pace the problem is
is cities on another planet we've taken
off
uh and the narrative around city is just
that we're ruining football
but let me just explain some things to
you
relative to each other did citi spend
money in 2008 2009 2012 to
to catch up
yes did chelsea do that in 2004 2005 and
2006
yes
is liverpool a club that spends money
yes
are all these teams liverpool chelsea
west ham sorry not west ham man united
spurs do they all spend money
yes
relative to each other
it's close together
i found a stat that
i shared on the facebook group about the
relative net spend
when you take um
transfers into account so this is wages
plus
uh transfer fees transfer fees are
applied on a season-by-season basis by
taking the size of the transfers free
and the year is the contract so
if i do 100 million dollar transfer and
i stretch it out
over a five-year contract i book that
transfer fee as 20 million dollars a
season
okay so not too crazy to get understand
and get but here we go
the relative cost of these teams based
on that number
is the following
so this is the last six years
uh 2015 total spend liverpool 227
manchester you know what i'm not gonna
read it out just know that it's super
close okay
between the the five-year average for
liverpool and manchester city in total
cost is 300 3 million 226 mil 326
million
cities is 375.
spurs is 188. arsenal's is 290. man
united's is 385 million 385 million and
chelsea's is 353 million yes
manchester city's is really high no
one's denying that
but the idea that liverpool chelsea and
man united are
are three times less to have five times
less money or city has spent ten times
more money it's ludicrous it's not true
it's fake it's a lie
so
this and this information is public the
teams do publish their books for the
purposes of financial fair play i'm not
making something up did city spend
before 2015 sure
sure but are there any players on the
team from:no
kevin de bruyne
maybe
kevin de bruyne
fernandinho
so all those transfer fees are gone and
city
are competing in the same space what
does that break the narrative of
pep guardiola
is a great coach
city have a great team
and that's not to diminish liverpool
and chelsea
but
they're playing on a level playing field
it's the same the difference is
city have pep
and he has self-selected both the front
office between trigger giberstan and
eferon torres these are guys he worked
with at barcelona they have a vision
they have a system the whole thing is
connected
it's all on his personality and city
have the lead they have because they
play the best football any team has ever
played in england in history
they're on pace for 95 points because
they're better than you
not because of injuries not because of
anything and the fact is
city and guardiola and the team itself
planned for resting players planned for
rotation while other teams are running
the same guys out there and not getting
things in city developed foden and
developed uh cole palmer
so i don't like this narrative of 2008
of uh sheikh mansour those days are gone
this team is self-sustaining has the
best coach in the world has the best
players in the world and has a
eight point lead and no complaining from
tukula clop can change that
okay
i've had enough
i've had enough
of the other teams on the
accomplishments
when city win this league with 95 points
going away and they they win by 15
points
it's not because they outspent and out
maneuvered it's because they're better
they have the better players who fight
for the shirt and fight for points and
play the most the most compelling
football anyone's ever seen
methodical destructive powerful football
the narrative around
the narrative around liverpool and the
likability of klopp i can't control that
right
i can't control and field i can't
control for that but my teams play on
the field
pep controls and they win and
they're better than your team and you
can be pissed off about it but frankly
it's the best team in the world and it's
gonna win the league again
and i'm tired of klopp and two
goal and everyone else complaining and
going with a narrative from 20 years ago
15 years ago
so it's a little bit much around these
teams
a little bit much around these teams
in general
the newer the nouveau reached teams like
city and psg
and and chelsea to a lesser extent
we have to earn the right to glory
and suffer through this and i get it
we have to suffer through the barbs of
you don't you're not allowed to win
you're not allowed to have glory
and the legacy clubs
call them pre-premier league powers
liverpool
arsenal
spurs to a lesser extent
men united
real madrid around the world uh
barcelona around the world
juve etc ac milan inter the teams that
historically have history and have won
the champions league over years over
time multiple times
etc they
feel
as though
they have ownership of glory
and it's their teams that can control
and be glory hounds and who do you think
you are manchester city who do you think
you are chelsea who do you think you are
psg buying into glory you're not allowed
to have glory
well i'm sorry
as far as i know
the rules as they were set up allowed
for
the wealthy around the world to buy into
your club
that you
did not monetize properly that you did
not protect that you did not apply
um general business practices about how
to run a sports club for money
and we're gonna buy our glory and when
we have our championship leagues
trophies
and it's three it and it's five champion
and it's and city wins their fourth
league title in five years
you're going to respect our glory
and over time
fans who see city
are going to associate the premier
league with city whether kids
you know
hold on to that
we're playing on a longer timeline
glory
and brand
take a long time to develop especially
in football
and it takes a long time for it to
decline
arsenal is on year 20 without winning a
title
ac milan will enter just one ac milan is
on
10 years without winning anything
and declining but they still an
important club we still talk about them
so city will have to continue to win
and they may
have to
be more bold with their branding and
sign players who are bigger than a club
just to get that juice
to have their ronaldo
to have their messy
right now sport is very much about brand
and i think city's
goal and ethos has been if we play
beautiful football
with the best players who sacrifice for
the team then people have to love us but
people want stories and they want
narrative
and so city have to continue to build
that and have their moments they will
have their moments
it will happen
you've got to put yourself
into the tournaments
into the quarterfinals into the final
weeks of the season
and win big games that everyone watches
and create moments
the more moments you stack on each other
the more famous your club becomes
the more fans you have
the more you grow
and earn the right to glory
and so we'll see where city gets to
uh eventually
and we'll get there and we'll get there
um
that was kind of a big rant and just
something you know i feel passionately
about with regards to football and how
we treat
for lack of a better word the politics
of glory how does that work who who who
gets to have trophies who gets to decide
who's a big club
um
so that's pretty cool
and we're excited about that we still
have more games i need to pull myself
back into the reality of the sport
and pull myself back into the reality of
of where we are and get myself back into
the narrative
um games we had games
chelsea won brighton one
uh just quickly run through this this
was a great performance by brighton
one of their best of the season they put
18 shots
onto
on to chelsea
um
and
six on target
and that was this was basuma just
bossing the game
had so many chances uh mopey had one
mcallister put two on target uh danny
welbeck only put one on target and it
was the winner in the 95th minute
lallana had a chance but this was a
battering don't let chelsea
pretend that they were in this game they
got battered at home
by the great grand potter and the
wonderful
um uh brighton and holt albion
yes brighton didn't have a win through
two months
it was tough
i'll i'll admit it but uh
they got their draws and they weren't
losing they just weren't winning
and they really put a performance on
on on chelsea lukaku
we have to talk about he uh he did score
a goal early in the game and maybe that
was it probably was a foul but you know
he got his goal but then later on today
he just had a huge rant that's coming
out of italy about how he never wanted
to leave inter and he's having a hard
time at chelsea
i think it's fine i think you know
lukaku will
i think it's a contextual thing where
lukaku really loved italy and he really
loved inter and there was a big money
move to go to chelsea but i think tukol
is difficult
to be coached by
and lukaku's got a bit of a
brash personality and he probably said a
little bit too much uh i think they'll
get over it we'll go through the
narrative cycles
for all this whole thing and we'll see
where we are there but uh this is really
about brighton
and i think how much money they have in
players already
between robert sanchez the goalkeeper
between busuma
terry glamte
and
cucarella they may already have 150
million pounds
in players that they could sell on
and that is what that's where brighton
is they've got to find players sell
players show their worth sort of take
the brentford model that they were
moving players on and go from there but
this
kills chelsea they've now
you know they're now on
uh they're now nine points behind eight
points behind city and really in a
hurting
there but uh you know it's not the end
of the world like i said the league
isn't over
but chelsea need to ride the ship city
are just that good
right now
uh chelsea have
dropped
two four six points in their last
um
their last four
so they're sputtering a little bit
uh and and that's an xg problem right
they have an expect they have a goal
difference
girl differential of 29 with an xg of 18
xg goal differential so they were riding
their luck most of the season and that
luck is really coming back to roost to
the roost and it's more on the defensive
side they're not shutting people down
anymore
especially in the midfield where basuma
like i said uh bossed this game
we go on to city
and city just
ho-hum
blast brentford away this is not a
vintage performance and the less thought
about this the better uh foden and
grealish were back in the side uh
fernandinho was there ake played left
back so this was almost like a rest game
for city uh massive possession city just
controlled this game 76 possession got
their goal early like they always do and
really just
kind of did like the big brother thing
where you take your kid brother's head
and hold him and let him swing they
really just held
held brentford at arm's length and
avoided the danger
i'm not there was
one shot on target by wiesa
and one bioneca but you know i don't
think anderson had too much to do pretty
easy game
city avoided
the corners only gave up
only gave up three corners to brentford
so really
took care of business
made sure everything was fine controlled
the game they move on
and uh we play arsenal in the week on
the first
and that should be a good game there is
a really tricky story that just came out
uh jowl concealer was attacked
uh outside his home by four other
players by four assailants he fought
them off but they did steal his stuff
and he did
suffer some damage to his face so i
would expect that jiao consailo city's
player of the season so far will miss
the game and i'm hoping that it doesn't
affect him too much i remember being a
kid and getting bullied or getting beat
up
and it does affect you you you can have
bad dreams you can
you can not be in the game so hopefully
um
he can put that behind him and maybe
maybe playing will be the best thing for
him but a little bit scary that um jiao
quincello was attacked
uncomfortable not great bob
but city moo roll on and the machine
rolls on city eight points clear and
then we go to united
um
a big game for them
uh mctominay was fantastic
he scored a goal
his goal for ronaldo was
was on a deflection where he hit the
crossbar ronaldo put it in
um scored a goal sancho scored a goal
off ben mee
uh the lineup was funky it was still
that two two two two but it was
uh ronaldo and cavani up front no bruno
with sancho and greenwood and then the
holders were nomad the machich and
mctominay what was nice about that was
that it allowed mctominay who's not a
holding midfielder to play further up
the pitch
and he took three shots and got them all
on target he was really good
uh i'd say mctominay deserved the goal
he got and he probably should have had
an assist on a deflection but this was
better from uh united
sancho and shaw really combined on their
side of the wing that was good
a lot of running beyond
um
veron got some more time
neil neil lennon got a goal
was it neil lennon
aaron lennon excuse me aaron lennon
scored a goal for burnley it was kind of
an open game especially the first half
really up and down kind of fun
really petered out in the second half
with burnley only taking three more
shots
but
good good performance for united they'll
take it
for burnley this is
a bad performance after 18 days off you
would have expected them to be a little
bit tighter still no corn a for them
and i would have expected them to play a
little bit better show some metal show
some fight against uh united especially
burnley's
up the road it's uh it's not really far
away
it's right there
and uh it's exciting to see
uh teams playing they're still fighting
through the the covet systems right now
but
you know
we play again
and um we preview the next round of
games
headliner is city versus arsenal on new
year's day i love it
um
tottenham play watford
palace versus west ham should be a good
one galileo versus rice
and on sunday the big big game
is the battle of wingers liverpool
versus chelsea um at stanford bridge
should be really good
i have to sneeze so excuse me one second
if i sneeze i sneeze
and both coming in limping uh liverpool
off the loss from leicester
chelsea off the draw from
from
brighton
but it should be interesting uh i guess
it's a must win if you want to stay in a
title race
uh this is a game in hand for liverpool
or or i mean they still are have a game
at hand liverpool got to win to to stay
seven points behind city depending on
what city do if city beat arsenal they
will be
12 points clear of liverpool even with a
game in hand so that pressure that 2019
season where they both went down the
wire we'll be back
but city
to lose this would be
really hard
essentially liverpool and chelsea have
to go undefeated
to win the league i'd say
not well yeah yeah yeah almost
undefeated
i mean uh you know what what can you do
this is what happens this is why you
play this is why you book your your
games you go and you try and win
games uh but i'll be i'll be up for that
game uh for arsenal versus manchester
city i will be watching uh with baited
breath watford vs tottenham uh trying to
see if the kante revolution continues
crystal palace west ham also a must
watch a big game on sunday newcastle
versus southampton these are games that
newcastle has to try and win and get
points uh everton brighton everton
haven't played in ages that might get
called off for all i know uh brighton's
still flying high stake i have to go to
the north burnley versus leeds a big six
pointer you'd expect leeds to pull this
out but this is a place for berlin to
get points the relegation battle is a
real battle uh burnley have three games
in hand and are in are in a good spot
but they've got to convert those games
into points and then the big one sunday
afternoon
uh chelsea first
liverpool
it's hard to do about the show by
yourself i miss mike happy new year
everyone i love you equally but
different
that was the squeaky bum time podcast
with mike's with not mike's learning
lauren cortese we are the football wing
of the chop sports network we record on
tuesdays and fridays so be sure to
subscribe wherever you get your podcast
so you never miss an episode
and
if you are in the uk
i love you
thank you please drop us a line we know
that we're growing with our uk audience
respect to the game we love you thank
you
