Transcript of Fenerbahce thwart Liverpool and Arsenal pushed in Prague: Football Weekly

This is The Guardian.

Hello and welcome to The Guardian Football Weekly. Defeat for Liverpool in Turkey, Dirk Coutts, Fenerbahçe winning by the odd goal in 5—all five of a thoroughly enjoyable low quality. Meanwhile, Man City are pushed in Leipzig. The game began with a wonderful own goal and ended with a beautiful sweeping move finished off by Erling Haaland, who always scores in this fixture. Arsenal win 2-1 in Prague, they looked a bit tired, but Victor Gyokeres set up one and scored a lovely goal too. Perhaps he's not just a lumbering oaf in, certainly, it's only Slavia Prague. Caveat: elsewhere, a Real Madrid against a Real Madrid this competition, just finding a way. A 3-2 win in Athens courtesy of a beautiful Valverde injury time strike, a glorious Bellingham back heel in there too.

Hi Max.

Welcome, Jonny Lou.

Hi Max.

And good morning, Lars Iversen.

Good morning, Max.

Let's begin with Fenerbahçe 3, Liverpool 2. Really enjoyable game this, Jonny, I thought. 30 shots on goal, incredibly open, and I thought five goals of such incredible low quality. Like, it looked like sort of League Two, it was like a League Two highlights reel when you watched it. I've seen, I've played in games where all the goals kind of bobbled in or were deflected in, and I thought, this is what we need more of in the Champions League.

Yeah, two deflections looks, looks, looks just very ugly. Obviously the technical quality in between was fine, obviously. It's a great stadium, great atmosphere, very high-quality individuals on the pitch. But yes, I mean, the story I guess is Liverpool's defending, the individual errors, the kind of the sloppiness. That final goal where the ball just disappears into the air, and I think, I think Gnoni is under it, and Jacquet, and maybe McAllister.

McAllister's there, yeah, sure.

Who is it, who is it who gets up and scores the winner?

Maricki.

Maricki, yes. And you see the three of them looking at them afterwards going, "Whoa, you're allowed to jump. You're allowed to jump for these." None of the three of them had managed to get off the ground to make a challenge. It's just such an elementary goal to concede. And then, you know, the 2-all goal, which so many things have to go wrong in a row, you know, right up to Gakpo sort of misjudging his header and Archie Brown getting it at the back post. So yeah, I mean, for Liverpool it was one of those games that they weren't quite in control of it, but they had it.

Yeah, actually after the game, Areola sort of said on those goals, "Cheap goals, messy goals. We knew set pieces were one of the strengths of Fenerbahçe. We've been dealing with them well, both this season and today. It's been something we've been working on since pre-season, but it cost us today. The last goal was maybe because they are strong and tall." I really loved that as an excuse. But the other two we have to control better. And I think he also said that it was so loud that maybe Gakpo and Alisson couldn't hear each other for that miscommunication. But Barry, it does look, it looks kind of weak.

Well, it was weak because that winner, Jonathan, spoke about the guy who scored it, Maricki, he didn't jump either.

Which held everyone down.

Four players under this ball that seemed to hang in the air for minutes. Nobody jumped. Alisson stayed rooted to his line. He could have come for it, and then none of the four players waiting for the header would have had anything to worry about. It was another ropey performance from Alisson, actually, after his boo-boo at the weekend. I think he was culpable for the second one as well. He could have come out for that. He's not having a particularly good season by his own high standards.

Would you agree with that, Lars?

Yeah, and I don't want to pick on Jeremy Jacquet because he started the season really well for Liverpool. I think he's been a very positive story for them. I think he's going to grow into being a very, very good center half indeed. But he's still young, right? He's still inexperienced. And it's just this sort of, it's such a strong image is almost a kind of cliché, and it's something you'd write if you were writing football fiction. Like you're going away to a team in Istanbul at the Sucre Sarı Kokluf, which is this sort of chocolate box, tight stadium, super, super loud, and you're having to play not against these flashy, glamorous Premier League players, but you're coming up against a 32-year-old striker who's six foot four from Kosovo, who spent half a lifetime sort of grafting away at various European leagues, but did score 23 goals for Mallorca last season.

So I lower the rate.

I'm not getting there. You've got to bring in the Ents for this one.

There was this moment Bars, I think it was a 0-0, wasn't it? Green was running through and Simakas just sort of pushes him over. And you are like our sort of shove correspondent. And this must be, I mean, this is, of all the shoves, I can't understand how that isn't given.

No, me neither. It should definitely have been a penalty for Fenerbahçe and possibly a red card because he made no attempt to play the ball. So yeah, I don't understand why it wasn't given.

I don't either.

And in this game, Fenerbahçe, the score, the three goals came from set pieces. They should have had that penalty. And they absolutely smashed one off the crossbar as well. They could conceivably have won by more.

Positive to Liverpool, Jonny. I guess Nioni, big moment for him, you know, the second youngest Champions League scorer for Liverpool, behind Trent Alexander-Arnold. The youngest player to score his first Liverpool goal in the European Cup, surpassing David Odgaard's feat at PSV Eindhoven in December 2008. Just to mention David Odgaard.

That's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Quite a fun word to say. But it's interesting, Areola clearly rates him. I don't know if you've seen enough of him. I certainly haven't to make a judgment on what kind of midfielder he is and, you know, how high the ceiling is for him.

Yeah, I mean, I thought he had a really good game. A very, very controlled, you know, very composed on the ball. And, you know, he's a sort of player who I think the main worry about him at this point is, you know, how is he going to deal with really physical midfields? How is he going to deal with chaos? And I thought he acquitted himself really well. I mean, I think that goal was obviously going to give him a lot of confidence. I mean, in terms of other positives, I think Izak looked pretty good.

All right, let's go to the Leipzig-Man City game. City rotated a lot. I mean, it was a really great second half this, Lars, after a joyous own goal in the first half.

Yeah, and that was a meaningless one. I mean, you often think like these sort of crosses that gets bundled in, it was like, "Oh, it's unfortunate, you know, the defender had to do something." In this case, I'm not really sure he did have to do anything. It's like you watch it going, "What? There was no need for that." That was unfortunate. I think it's an endearing thing about the City team, if we can ever use that word about that club right now, is that they are now, I've said it a million times, but it keeps being true, they are no longer able to control games in the way they were.

Just on the own goal, I think Bill Leslie was doing the international comms, and he gave a very understated, "Well, that was not supposed to happen like that," which I really enjoyed as a line. Now look, Jonny, that's a great change.

I think what happened there, he was a little unfortunate in that he went to flick the ball away towards the touchline or out for a corner with his right foot, but it hit his standing leg and just went in. So it was somewhat unlucky, I would say.

Yeah, that's very generous of you. Donner Bomhanov.

I'm a generous man.

No, I know that. But Jonny, Donner Bomhanov had another weird night. I mean, there was one stunning save, I think it was from Baumgartner. And, you know, the weird goal he conceded at his near post. Just, and I'm worried I've created this idea that he isn't any good anymore. And so I want to kind of prove it every time I watch him. But he is an odd goalkeeper.

That Baumgartner save was, I think it was literally like a couple of minutes before the error. And at first viewing, it doesn't look so bad. You know, sometimes you just get a freaky shot that sneaks in. But when you actually, when you look at the replay, you realize that he's actually, he's a good six yards out of his goal. He's come a long way. And actually offered Baku a quite sizable target there, which is, you know, you could say that's poor anticipation or, you know, equally you could say that it's a keeper who has maybe come into a team where I think the onus is on him to be a lot more proactive and a lot more coming forward than he has been in his career so far.

Yeah, he's 27. He did have a couple of other wrecks yesterday that he got away with. It was when it was still 0-0. Antonio Nusa had a long-range effort, which he almost flapped into his own goal. And you could see his heart was in his boots, but it went over the bar rather than under it. And then towards the end, there was a round free kick from out wide. And he misjudged the flight of that, but it dropped onto the crossbar. So it could have been a catastrophic night for him, but he kind of got away with it.

He's 27 until, of course, he's 28. Lars, look, the last two goals from City were great. The Fernandes bullet header enjoyed that. And then the move for the Haaland goal is super.

Yeah, and it's Erling doing, Erling Haaland doing what he's really good at, which is attacking those sort of spaces. And I think, again, he has had periods at City where he's frustrated about the number of times that ball arrives. Because they do like a more patient build-up sometimes. But I think Elliot Anderson deserves obviously his flowers for just a brilliant assist there. And I thought he was very good. He's been a very good signing. I will count myself among the people who were a little skeptical about whether he could make the jump up from the way, not necessarily ability-wise.

Arsenal are 2-1 at Slavia Prague, their third away game in seven days. It sort of showed Bars. They look pretty leggy in this. And, you know, had Slavia Prague scored a bit earlier, it could have been a different outcome.

Yeah, it wasn't a particularly good performance from Arsenal, especially in the second half. They took their foot off the gas at 2-0 up. Mikel Arteta was not happy after the game. You could see he was fuming with cheapness, with which Arsenal gave the ball away with the chances they gave away. And Slavia Prague did have chances to score before they did. I thought they should have had a penalty for a Merino Barge at a corner.

No, he said that we're extremely far from our standards in everything that we have to do, in every basic, in every concept, and in everything that we discussed to avoid the game that we played in the second half. That is a huge learning, he said. The Merino one was, I think Novak headed it and Merino headed him instead of the ball. And it's kind of the head isn't, you can't foul someone with a head unless, of course, you do a head-butting action where there's no ball anywhere near you and then you can. But like he really nuttered him, but it wasn't a penalty. The positive, I guess, Lars is, you know, Jochourez setting one up, scoring one, you know, being good.

I thought the Jochourez goal was very good and I thought it was interesting because he did the exact thing that I think he gets criticized for not being able to do, which is the strike on him is that he's just a little clumsy. His technique is not always quite on point and in the Premier League it means he often doesn't quite get the space he needs to get a shot off because he gets closed down too quickly. But here you can see his touch is perfect and he, again, without having too much space to work with, gets a really, really good finish off. Kind of clutching at straws here really because in the name of Scandinavian solidarity, I would quite like him to succeed, but maybe that is a sign that he is improving.

Unless you're incredibly time-rich, Lars, I'd say you don't have to go back and watch the second half of Slavia Prague, Arsenal. You know, and you know, for all the dogginess of Slavia Prague, they have set the record in the competition for the longest time without a victory, 22 matches in the competition stretching back.

23 matches.

Is it 23?

23.

Thank you so much for the update.

So I'm thinking maybe becoming more and more chaotic in games might not be a good thing.

Probably not.

Like maybe it's not what you want.

They won their first game in 2007 and that's been it for them. Any thoughts on Arsenal, Jonny?

Just, I thought they looked weirdly arrogant in the second half. That you could see Arteta, I mean, Arteta, I think he said this after the Brighton game, he said this after the Leeds game as well, where they were a little bit underpowered. That the intensity of Arsenal is their superpower. They don't have, you know, they don't have like a Yamal or a Haaland. They don't have a, you know, a generational talent. They don't have 14 Champions Leagues behind them. They don't have a state backing them. Their one superpower is that kind of like really intense energy to them, the obsession, the relentlessness to just keep making the right decision again and again and again.

All right, that'll do for part one. Part two, we'll begin with Real Madrid's victory at AEK Athens. Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. I mentioned it in the intro, Bars, but you get the sense that Real Madrid are being quite Real Madrid in this Champions League, finding a way.

Certainly are, aren't they?

José Mourinho, you can just see, you know, can we handle José winning this whole competition? Like they've got the players to do it. You know, how they pulled this one out, I don't know.

I don't mind José doing well as long as he's not doing well in an environment where I have to watch all his interviews and pay attention to his press conferences and see his team play week in, week out. So if he wants to go and win the Champions League with Real Madrid, that's fine with me. I have no problem with that. But we saw they came back from the dead to beat Roma last game week.

Yeah, Pilios has only scored three goals for AEK Athens. And two of them have been against Real Madrid and Man City in the last few weeks. The power that Bellingham gets, like the timing, Jonny, of that backheel. It's like a sort of half volley. It's so beautiful.

It's just such. It's pure talent, isn't it? If you pulled that, if one of us pulled that off, we would be talking about it 10 years later.

I mean, I've talked about far worse goals 10 years later. And Barry's talked about a head we didn't even score for 25 years.

If I had scored that goal on the five-a-side pitch, I think I would be well within my rights to never play football again. You'd just sort of, you know, you'd just sashay out of there. And no celebration. Like he just, he doesn't celebrate it, which I love that. It was very, very modest, very understated, very Yeoman, very 1950s. Like you just, you know, a little handshake with your inside half, Chubby Taylor, or whatever his name would be. And, you know, back across the center circle. And I think, you know, just to follow on from the Madrid discussion, I think when you have players of that caliber, you're never quite out of it, are you?

I didn't see all this game because I was watching the Galatasaray-Liverpool one. But I believe that was Bellingham's second backheel goal of the game. But the first one was ruled out for offside and was apparently even better. So I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it. And last night, that was his 60th Champions League appearance. So he's the youngest player to reach that. His 60th milestone, I suppose it is. It's not 50, it's not 100, but it's a number within a zero at the end of it.

Yeah, yeah. He surpasses David and Gogh with that record, of course. And if you remember, I've probably told this story before, and you know, and it's proof, Jonny. If you remember Gianfranco Zola's volley for Chelsea against Norwich through the legs, if you remember that one, I did that, Carl Schulten away. And honestly, like the look of absolute shock on everyone. Like I didn't Bellingham. I didn't celebrate. Like, you know, I didn't celebrate because no one, including me, could believe it. But it definitely happened.

No, I think if you...

Could get another column out of it next year. Yes, Jonny?

If you score a goal that is demonstrably too good for your talent, I think there is a certain embarrassment that follows it. You can't really say, unless you're a twats. Like, unless you're a twats, you can't really say, oh yeah, well, that is entirely indicative of my ability on a football pitch. I think you do have to be slightly bashful about it.

You're right. Although it's highly possible that I didn't celebrate because it was too good for me. But I'm also a twats. I mean, both things are possible. What do you make of Real Madrid's? Lars, I mean, we haven't really talked a lot about that Valverde strike, which is absolutely perfect.

No, I was going to be that person and say, okay, clearly, I mean, technically, yes, the Bellingham goal is the greater achievement possibly. Just find the Valverde shot so incredibly satisfying to watch. I don't know, there's something about the angle and the trajectory of the ball. It just feels pleasant. It triggers positive chemicals in my brain to watch that goal. Real Madrid are motoring. That's seven straight wins for them now. And I have a theory. My brain kind of pricked up a little bit as well when you said, ah, Real Madrid or Real Madriding.

Well, I'm going to Jamie Jackson reporting on JJ Gabriel saying that Real Madrid are close to an agreement with him and they can sign him via a FIFA loophole that allows clubs in the EU to secure young players on professional contracts if they have an EU passport. Gabriel walked out on, Gabriel, sorry, walked out on United in September, is believed to be training in Spain. Has anybody, there's been so much written about this footballer who I've never seen play and I just, there's almost been so much content I haven't really followed it that much. I don't know if anyone else has or has any sort of strong views on all parts of this story, I guess, because, you know, it's young players and tapping up or not tapping up or freedom of movement or what a parent should do for a player and all those kind of things are sort of quite interesting.

I have a strong view, which is I think it's extremely problematic that there's been this kind of global media attention on someone who is essentially a child, legally speaking at least, who has played no senior appearances anywhere. Yet you have the sort of sports media industry that we're all part of in some way or another churning out content, looking for clicks and stuff about his future and what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do. I think it's extremely unhealthy and I think the best thing we can do is not talk about it at all.

No further questions.

I totally agree.

Yeah. Okay, that's fair.

I mean, I hold his team responsible for that as well. I mean, he's not, like JJ Gabriel isn't planting his own stories in the Daily Telegraph. So there was clearly an industry at work behind him.

Fair. Well, let's talk about Lens One, Como Nine. Ed saying a 4-1 defeat at Como looking a pretty decent result now. Carrick in. The biggest margin of victory in Champions League history. Nine is a lot of goals, isn't it? They were one they're up after half an hour and then the goals didn't stop. As far as I could tell, Nico Paz scored one and set up about 25 more. The greatest part of this barrier is that the best goal of the night was scored by Lens. That was my takeaway from this.

That was my note. Ruben Aguileras' sweet volley into the far corner from an outswinging corner to make it 7-1. And then the way he sort of rallied the troops with a lasso motion. Come on, guys. We can do this.

7-1 is a dangerous lead. Next goal's crucial, lads.

But yeah, it was the best goal of the night. So there's that for Lens. They were appalling and Como were just rampant. Looking at mine, yeah, just I made a note of the nine goals or the 10 goals and Nico Paz's name seems to feature quite sleeping off the page at me from a number of areas. De Vica scored a hat trick. I think a couple of Italian lads scored for Como. I think some of the criticism Ces Fàbregas has been getting according to James Horncastle, Italian expert, is that he doesn't give enough Italians opportunities.

No, you're right. The guy's got a hat trick. De Vica's no relation of Steve Vickers, by the way. Jonny, I guess Como went out of the stage of you wouldn't want to play them, you know, like as the tournament progresses.

No, I think so many teams you see them come into the Champions League for the first time and they just look discomforted. Whatever they did the previous season, there is something about the step up in level that seems to disorient them a little bit. You saw it with Leverkusen actually the year after they won the Bundesliga. Como have just absolutely taken to this stage. A really high level of technical ability. They compete physically as well. They're not scared to just get in a cross and look for the big man as well.

I saw footage on social media of the Como players. They just arrived at the stadium and were going out to, you know, inspect the pitch or wander around and have a look around. And they were all wearing what looked like impossibly expensive overcoats, suits, and very expensive looking loafers with no socks. So they're a very dapper team as well as a very free-scoring one.

And people say they don't play in the Italian way. Come on. They're bringing the culture. My question is, does this result mean that United have actually beaten Lens 5-0?

Well, of course. Yeah, that is effectively. That's how football works, of course. Yeah. Maybe we should have some Football Weekly loafers as merch. I believe that the shop is not well stocked after Producer Joel's terrible half-and-half scarf idea. Viking 4, Saber 1, or Viking, apologies, Lars. I suspect they went into this game as favorites, right? But what's the feeling around Viking?

It's great. It's a win in the Champions League. This is a team that I think it was 2018 was in the second tier in the Norwegian football and they've won a game in the Champions League. They've won a game in the Champions League in which, if I'm right, they've started six players from the local area and four more came on off the bench. So you've got 10 players from the local area playing in a win in the Champions League. And this is not a huge place like the Stavanger region is, I'd say, about 300,000, 350,000 people. And I think that's incredible. I think that's absolutely unbelievable. And even if it's just Sabah from Azerbaijan, it's an incredible moment.

And also hilarious fourth goal. About sort of four ricochets where it squirmed in. It looked like that when it's next goal wins after two hours at fireside where nobody can move type goal. Elsewhere, Club Brugge won 2-1 at PSV, Dortmund beat Real Betis 2-1, Porto beat Napoli 4-1. My only note is, oh, that's where Jan Bednarek is. Porto's, sorry to steal what I presume I know you also had, Barry.

No, I didn't.

The opening goal for Porto. But unless anyone has any fascinating things to say about any of those three games, I will move to the next bit of this podcast.

We're just looking at the top eight of the group, about halfway through the group stage. I suppose Como are the only real surprise inclusion in there, presumably at the expense of Bayern Munich. You've got four English teams, Arsenal, Villa City, Liverpool, PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, and yeah, Como are the only kind of outlier in the top eight.

I don't know either. I guess Napoli sort of not qualifying might be the biggest side in that bottom section at this stage, but you know, four games to go. We will see what happens. That'll do for part two, part three. We'll talk about West Ham's comeback yesterday and do a Premier League preview. Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. As we mentioned yesterday, FSA award nominations are open. And if you haven't voted yet and you heard yesterday's pod, shame on you, but also please vote for us.

I don't know if anyone has caught the highlights of this game. Speak now or I can talk you through it. But Jared Bowen was brilliant in this one. Basically set up all three goals. Almost a sort of Harry Kane style for two of them, sort of dropping back into midfield and playing beautiful balls over the top. So that was quite a morale-boosting point for Scott Parker. Big win for Wrexham over Middlesbrough. Big win for Phil Parkinson in particular.

That seemed like a real shock, Wrexham beating Burrows after all the flowers we hurled Burrows' way last when we did our last EFL podcast. We should probably give a tip of the hat, by the way, to Jack Moylin, who scored a hat trick for Cardiff against West Ham. I saw one of his sensational goals.

Oh, yeah. It was a brilliant goal. And also a mention of Sean Neave, 19-year-old, who's on loan from Newcastle at Wolves, came off the bench to score both and he sort of headed one. He was almost in the goal when he scored the winner in the 89th minute, but ended up in the goal as well. It was brilliant. I think the most interesting thing about the Premier League weekend is these five managers who might not be there after it. You know, you've got Carrick, Glasner, LeBris, Saj, and Gijslaer-Baz. How many do you reckon will still be there in two weeks' time?

I had made a note of this before you said it and I checked to see what's the biggest number of Premier League managers ever to be sacked in a day and it's two and I think that's happened three times.

Right.

And right, if you look at the game, so Matthias Gijslaer, Newcastle away at Fulham, I'd give Fulham every chance of winning that match. Oliver Glasner, Forest, home at City against City, they'll probably lose. Regis LeBris, Sunderland home against Chelsea, I'd say Chelsea will probably win that. Pierre Sarge, Palace at home against Liverpool, fancy Liverpool there. And Michael Carrick, Man United home against Villa.

I've written a piece about this. I mean, the most excited person is presumably Sean Dyche's agent, who is just sitting there going, "Another million? Oh, I'll go there. Another million? Maybe manage more than one club, I imagine." Yeah, what do you reckon, Johnny?

Well, I think some of them are closer to the edge than others, aren't they? I mean, like Sarge does seem a little bit out of his depth. Palace. LeBris, I think it would be harsh on, I think it would be really harsh on LeBris, especially given what he's done over the last couple of seasons. I think he still has a bit of credit in the bank. I wouldn't actually rule out them getting results against Chelsea, sort of depending on what happens. We're sort of recording this before the Europa League games.

I suppose, Lars, the international break is a sensible time to sack managers, but it does seem sort of, you know, just because you get there when most of your players aren't there, so you get a chance to just, you know, like sort your office out before everyone comes in. I mean, that aside, it just does seem slightly strange that it's, I mean, maybe they'll all keep their jobs, who knows? But it happens very regularly, doesn't it? I don't know if it just seems so obvious as a time to just sort of have a little place card in the season to go, "Well, now's a good time."

Yeah, because you don't have a game in like two and a half days, which you usually do, right? It's pretty non-stop now. And just, I think, I mean, this is unludicrous, but I actually think the admin and the turnaround of just getting people out of the office, getting a new person into the office, having team meetings so that the players have at least seen the new guy before the first game. Like that stuff is actually not easy to do when you have midweek games all the time and you have to travel and you have recovery sessions. I think there's a very logical reason for that. Out of all of these, Glasner's the one that fascinates me because it is the XG thing of like their XG difference is still the fourth best in the league.

One imagines, and I could be doing a bit of service, but I suspect Marinakos isn't going, "Well, our XG is fine and we played really well against Palace and lost 3-1, so that's okay."

Stay the course. Well, they're probably not bringing Daishin is all I'm saying because that was not ideal when that happened.

You're probably right because see, Glasner's just popping back to Palace, couldn't you go? Well, why not?

That was a mistake by everyone involved. Let's just go back to.

Exactly. I know where the toilets are. Let me in. In the game's featuring managers that we, yeah, in the game's featuring managers who we presume will still be there after the international break. You've got Leeds, Spurs. Leeds were that a win in five? Spurs won their last three. Means nothing. Brighton, Brentford. Brentford haven't won away all season. Arsenal play whole. Everton conferences on Friday night and Ipswich, Bournemouth. Anything jump out? Yeah, we've got quite a Spurs-y panel here. Lars and Johnny, how are you feeling about the Tottenham renaissance, Johnny?

The bandwagon, the Juggernauts, the Dreadnought, getting like firing missiles off its hindquarters. I don't know. I sort of lost my train of thought there. It's incredible. Just, you know, what a few goals will do for the confidence of a team. From maybe like three or four weeks ago, you just didn't know where the next goal was going to come from. And, you know, even the Coventry game where I think all three goals came from outside the area.

Yeah, probably isn't. But there we go. Any other games, Baz, that catch your eye? You can say no.

Brighton-Brentford's an interesting one. Obviously, there's a lot of animosity between the owners of the respective clubs. Matthew Benham and Tony Bloom used to be partners, business partners, and then fell out. They're well-run clubs. We were obliged to say it. Yeah, that one's interesting. Everton-Coventry. Everton are a weird team insofar as they're doing pretty well, but quite a few of their fans seem, it's like when David Moyes was at West Ham and even though he was doing well.

Tough catch a break, this poor guy.

Yeah, honest to God. He won the trophy, but a lot of West Ham's fans didn't like the pragmatism of his football. And the same seems to be the case at Everton. But he's doing really well this season and he's one of the few dinosaur managers that's still working, if you know what I mean. I don't mean that as an insult to him. So, and Coventry, they're doing all right.

Yeah, I think they're good.

So, yeah, that is, I'm interested in the Leeds-Tottenham one as well because Tottenham will get bullied in this game. You know, however well they play, Leeds are a big physical side of bullies. And we'll let's see how lads at Tottenham deal with that as part of their renaissance.

Sure. Part of the Juggernaut, which suddenly one slight push and it all falls to pieces like a clown car. Yes, Lars.

United-Aston Villa for me.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Aston Villa, who are a massive club, we should say, just be very clear, huge club. They've had this suggestion of there being interest in Unai Emery's services from Man United. It seems that instead Unai Emery is going to sign a contract extension. That seems to be the latest news. And good on Unai Emery for using this sort of, he's had a good start to the, well, he's managed to figure this team out.

Jamie Carragher get a cut? Is that what happens?

And, well, they had a disastrous start to the season, but he has shown that actually he's able to knit this group of guys together into another team that looks like it's going to be able to do well. And then United's interest come down. Instead of going to United, he's maybe get himself a little pay rise out of that situation. I think that's well played, Unai, if that's how that's gone down. And I think interestingly, it's the football gods, you know, they know what they're doing. Sometimes they throw up these things. When there's been so much talk about this, then Aston Villa, massive club, go away to Manchester United and have a chance for Unai to kind of show them what they're not getting, possibly.

Yeah, I think it is the game of the weekend, isn't it? Also, first round properly, the FA Cup ties to look out for Oxford City taking on Leicester City. Burton play Rushton at Diamonds, who reached this round for the first time in their history. The first ever shoot I did for the Soccer Ham Glory Years was a day's filming with Anne Diamond so that we could go, "How did Rushton at Diamonds do last week?" And we go, "Oh, they got whipped." And then it would cut to Anne Diamond whipping me or something like that. It's been an up and down week for Rushton at Diamond. Cut to me and Anne Diamond bouncing up and down on a trampoline.

It was a different time, Matt.

It was a difference. Of course it was. You know, I did have a shirt off, but I was wearing, I was clad from the waist down while being whipped by Anne Diamond. Anyway, Wimborne Town take on Crawley. Stafford Rangers home to Grimsby. Craig Wanderers, who've played seven games already to get here, take on Stockport County. And then might you use go to Bristol Rovers.

They're not Irish. I'm Craig Wanderers Irish.

That's Bray one. That's Bray.

It's the wrong Wanderers.

One of my neighbours yesterday asked me, an elderly woman asked me, "What do you know about Bravey's?" She said, "What do you know about Craig Wanderers for Stockport?" Because she knows I'm a football journalist. I said, "What?" And she, I made the same mistake Johnny just did. I thought she said Bray Wanderers. And I said, "Why would Bray Wanderers be playing Stockport County?" So then she clarified for me, and it turns out someone she used to work with is being interviewed on, I think, I was going to say Football Focus, but it isn't Football Focus, is it?

I'll tell you, Craig Wanderers, they're in the Eastmin League and Stockport County are second in League One. So it would be quite the upset if Craig Wanderers beat them.

Well, we're all Craig Wanderers now. Good luck to them. Good luck to everyone else. Thank you, everybody. That'll do for today. Cheers, Baz.

Thank you.

Thank you, Johnny.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks, Lars.

Thank you, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Matt Bentley-Varney and Ty Papoula. The executive producer is Joel Grove. And we'll be back on Monday.

This is The Guardian.