48: The Not So Little Zebras

Sabiri tries it out, suddenly! And he scores a super goal! 11th minute! What has Sabiri done? A fantastic net! All of a sudden! Hello and welcome back to another episode of Serie A Spotlight. This is season 2 episode 8. We are hosts Matt and Jake here to bring you everything you need to know about matchday 7 in Serie A. Feel free to follow us on Instagram to stay up to date with our podcast. You can interact with some of our content, particularly our stories and our posts.

Serie A Spotlight slips and all that. We're good on TikTok, you can follow us there too. It's at Serie A Spotlight. You mentioned Serie A Spotlight slips, so I think it's a good idea to just get that out of the way because it's been a fucking nightmare. Yes, we're cursed bro. We control the destiny of those we gamble on. This time you were our victims. We bet that they would beat Monza. We added another one, I believe it was with Inez.

No, it was the lettre game against Salernitana under four goals. It worked out well. It was very close, but it worked out well for us. But yeah, you know... Monza get their first ever victory in Serie A against Juve and that's all because of Serie A Spotlight. Literally, literally. So if you guys need some voodoo shit done for your team to win a game, just let us know. Perhaps we should bet that Napoli would win next. Literally.

So before we get into it, I just want to go through the scores for any of you that are commuting or can't listen to the entire podcast. So Milan won Napoli too for the biggest match this weekend. Odinese beat Inter three goals to one. Upsets only this week, by the way. It was Roma 0-1 Atalanta 1. Monza 1-0 Juve. Cremoneze 0-4 Lazio. Fiorentina 2-0 Verona. Torino 0-1 Sassuolo 1. Bologna 0-1 Empoli 1. Thiago Motta's first game in charge over there.

Salernitana 1-0 Lecce 2. And Spezia 2-0 Sampdoria 1. So overall, a week full of upsets. We're looking at over here Odinese's victory, Monza's victory, there's Sassuolo's victory, Empoli's victory, Lecce's victory, Spezia's victory. These are all mental. Yeah, they're all upsets, literally. Yeah, I think it's a dumb thing to start that betting segment this season in Serie A. But this is always, the beginning of the season is always the hardest part to kind of bet on.

Eventually teams will pick up momentum, there'll be stretches in the season where the big teams really don't drop that many points. That comes towards the end of the season, typically. Like last year, you know, you look at the stretch, Inter and Milan barely lost towards the later part of the season last year. But anyway, shall we get into Milan-Napoli? Let's start off with this gold-forsaken game. Go for it. So a true spectacle of a game.

Milan won Napoli 2. Now to get into a bit of history, recent history between these two sides. Milan won their last league match against Napoli before this one, after a run of two consecutive defeats. Yeah. This would have been two wins in a row for Milan, had they won in Serie A against Napoli for the first time since 2010-2011 under Allegri. Oh wow, okay. Milan have now actually lost three home games against Napoli in a row. The other two were both to a score of 1-0.

And it's the first time since 1979 that Milan have suffered three consecutive home defeats against Napoli in Serie A. Okay, and the second one was absolute shit, I remember those Cassis disallowed goal for the offside of Giroudi. Exactly, Giroudi was in an offside position, but yeah, yeah, yeah. He was on the floor, it was really weird. Milan's unbeaten streak has come to an end. They were unbeaten in their last 22 Serie A games with 15 victories and 7 draws.

This was their longest unbeaten streak since a run of 27 games without defeat in January 2021. As Radic Roenich said, we start again. There you go, that's the mentality. He was interviewed after the game and he was clearly miffed about the loss. But to be honest with you, bro. Good, I'm glad he's miffed. Yeah, but ending a 27 unbeaten streak against Napoli, against this Napoli side isn't the worst thing in the world.

No, it's kind of like the best case scenario over the worst case scenario, you know what I mean? Exactly, I mean, if there's a team, you would almost, not expect, but you would take a loss against the season so far, judging by their form and everything, it's Napoli. You know, Inter, it's a derby and... You don't want to lose a derby. No, you don't want to lose a derby at all. Teams like Atalanta, it's almost expected to get something out of the game now.

I think Napoli, even without Victor Osman, is still the team you can look at and say, all right, that's almost guaranteed points dropped for the time being. It's them and Udinese right now, funnily enough. Yeah, they're the two with the most momentum. Probably Milan. They're the two hottest teams, of course, yes. The three teams right now in Italy on the best form would be Milan, Udinese, and Napoli, right? And Atalanta right now. And Lazio kind of as well are looking pretty good.

Yeah, but anyway, Saltibe was at the game, bro. He was, supporting Napoli, I'd imagine. I'm not sure he clarified, he was supporting. He had photos with everyone from Napoli. Okay, but you know what he did before the game? He made a steak or something for someone. No, he said that Napoli would win 2-1. Fuck me. He predicted the fucking score, Saltibe. He predicted the score. He's a fucking chef in Turkey. We're here with a podcast, and we can't even win a bet.

And this guy is casually winning fucking outright scores. Fuck your six scores, man. Jesus, but anyway. So let's get into the lineups. Milan lined up with Mannyan in goal, Theo Hernandez on the left, Calabria on the right, with a center-back pairing of Tomori and Keir stepping in for Kalulu. Tonali and Benassir in the double pivot. Krunic came in for the suspended layout on the left, Decatelare in the middle, Salamakers on the right, and Giroud up front.

Thank you for not mentioning Theo Hernandez at left back, but it's kind of an obvious one. I said Theo Hernandez at left back. I don't know. I think he said Calabria and a center-back pairing. I don't know. We'll continue. Damn, bro. You got to listen to me, man. Marete in goal for Napoli, Di Lorenzo on the right, Mario Rui on the left, Mingjie and Rahmani as a center-back duo.

The three midfielders were Zilinski, Lobotka, and Anguissa, Gvarak, Xelia on the left, Poletan on the right, and Raspadoury up front. So instinctively, bro, coming into this game, there was a lot of... There were many comments being made online about Milan's lineup, about Kroenich coming in instead of Leo, and Kier coming in instead of Kalulu. What were your thoughts? I think Milan fielded a very physical 11 and maybe a more... Not conservative. Well, yes, a more conservative 11 as well.

I think Kier coming in for Kalulu brings more kind of balls to that center-back partnership. Obviously, the difference you see between Kalulu and Kier is that Kalulu is quicker and Kier is stronger. Kier is more experienced. Then you look at Kroenich, who is essentially a box-to-box midfielder being played out wide. So you could add some physicality on that side and maybe drift into the midfield and show some... Pardon me. And show some strength over there.

And then Salah Makars is the more conservative choice on the right-hand side, as we said before, way more conservative than Messias, who goes forward more. And then obviously there's de Catelari ahead of Brahim Diaz giving more physicality over there. So all around Milan fielded the most possible physical 11 that they could without starting Pobega, pretty much. Okay. Interesting point. I do agree. I feel like Kier was selected over here because of his experience more than the physicality.

I think you play Kalulu, someone who's still very young, and you put them up against this Gvarak Shrelia, Poletano, Raspadori, they're very mobile, these guys. And he gets a yellow card early on, Kalulu, that could ruin his game, that could totally distract him, that could make him not commit, that could make him get a red card. So Kier's experience over here, I think he always knew purely that he was going to bring on Kalulu, this game for Kier, but he started out with Kier over here.

Aha, for sure. I don't even think Kier's got 90 minutes in him anymore. Probably not. Off the bat, who do you think is at bigger loss? Is it Milan without Leao or is it Napoli without Ozymen? Coming into this game, who had it worse? Okay, so I would say Napoli feel the loss of Ozymen more than Milan feel the loss of Leao. Okay. And simply because of how Milan played, because at the end of the day Milan totally dominated this game and were unlucky to get nothing out of it, quite frankly.

Yeah. Napoli's offensive charge looks completely different without Ozymen. Raspadori does not have the same characteristics and neither does Simeone. Ozymen's a terrorist up front, as I've discussed before. An absolute maniac. But what do you think? Do you think it's Leao? No, I don't particularly think Milan were worse off without Leao. I think one thing you miss are two players that can change the game entirely just by being themselves.

So you have Leao's dribbling, you have Ozymen's charge and finishing. I think if I were to see Milan over 10 games without Leao and Napoli over 10 games without Ozymen, I think Milan would be better off than Napoli. I think so. And I think over the stretch of time Milan can replace him with Rebic. Probably only Rebic. Rebic is the only player that can play on the left unless it's Kroenich. But ideally Kroenich would stick to that midfield role.

And then when you look at Napoli, I mean Raspadori and Simeone. Are both new. They're both new. They're both good players. They are both good players. But yeah. They need time. They need time, but they are backed up very well by their teammates. Their teammates are very good at giving them exactly what they need at playing to their characteristics. But anyway, I'm stalling from you getting into the game. Yeah, no, it's perfectly fine. Let's get into the game.

Yeah. It was all tied in the first half. The thing that I think we should take away from the first half was Gavrack Scalia. Pretty much forcing yellow cards with every single foul he drew. He got Kier and Calabria were on yellows because of him. And that went into half time. 55th minute, Gavrack Scalia forces a penalty as well. So that's three fouls, one, two yellows, and one penalty. That's a ticket. He didn't get on the score sheet, but he was amazing in this game.

Poletano stepped up in the 55th minute and scored. This was given away, by the way, by Dest, who was brought on for Calabria in the second half. There was a double change by Piolli as the second half started. Kier and Calabria out, Dest and Calullo in. Now, OK, so Napoli are winning 1-0. In the 69th minute, Wells, Oli G, finally managed to connect one of Theo's low crosses from the byline and equalized.

Not the most difficult goal, but positionally put himself in the correct position, made it easy for himself. Exactly. Theo Mann had so many of those low crosses from the byline. I'm happy he managed to get to the end of it. And then in the 78th minute, Xalito got the ball outside the area and was pressed by three players. Unfortunately, none of these three players actually committed aggressively enough.

He managed to play the ball out wide to Rui on the left and managed to slip between these three players. Rui crossed the ball perfectly and Giovanni Simeone scored the header. It was so against the run of play at that point. It really worked. Napoli didn't have a bad game by all means. They were fucking fantastic. Towards the end of the game, bro, Calullo had a Thiago Silva-esque moment.

I can't remember the game where Thiago Silva did this, but I remember him basically starting a charge from the back, just playing the ball and sprinting the full length of the pitch. Then the ball was played to him again and he had the crossbar. The exact same thing happened to Calullo. The exact same thing. It was a brilliant piece of skill. I was very upset that he didn't put that into the back of the net though. Yeah, I mean. Very upset. But did you expect him to do better?

I mean, as a defender, you'd never expect them to do better. You just hope that they do better. But I think Calullo has been fine in front of goal. He's always been okay in front of goal. He's been composed as we've seen for France and we've seen for Milan on a couple of occasions as well. It's sometimes maybe. I think it was mostly because of the power over there. Mostly the Giroud touch that threw him off. I don't think he thought that Giroud would get a touch on it. Could be.

I mean, you'd have to be in the exact same situation as him to understand why he was thrown off and why he didn't hit the target over there. I'm sure there's valid reason in his eyes. In those situations, you just hope it's a goal. What a game Meret had, man. It was amazing. Meret was super. It was Meret and Mario Rui for Naples. I think for me, the man of the match was Mario Rui. It's between Mario Rui and Meret. I think I'd give it to Meret personally. He had some fucking stunning saves, man.

Particularly on Giroud. No, there was a one-shot. My God. An absolute spectacle, bro. Are these the two best teams in the league? Yes. At the moment, yes. And I'm reluctant to say that they are in fact the best teams in the league because they were the best teams in the league in the beginning of last season as well. And then Napoli kind of fell off for a while. And we see strong starts like this from Napoli where they look unbeatable. You know what I mean?

And then we see a realer side to them come January. This time last year, they were still undefeated. True. They had gone on like a mad streak of 10 games undefeated. They tend to start well, Napoli. It's true. What's his name? De Laurentiis said that he had been saying for a while that this Napoli side that he built since the departures of Koulibaly, Fabian, Insinia, Ospina was a competitive side. But no one really believed him. And now he's saying like, look at me now, basically.

Yeah, without those guys. Do you think that he actually knew that they were going to be this good? I'd say so. They must have been rubbing their hands at the site of Gvarra and training. Because these guys are great at bringing people in. These are the same guys that brought in Hamsic, that brought in Mertens, that brought in all of these people, the Levetsis for crying out loud, Cavani. They've got an eye for talent, these Napolitans.

Everyone's like, ah, but they're replacing Insinia, the club legend, the captain, the heart and soul of the team with a guy from Dinamo Batumi called Kvaratskelia. Kvichua Kvaratskelia. Everyone's like, De Laurentiis out. De Laurentiis out. Koulibaly out and Minjay in. Who the fuck is this Minjay guy? Fucking hell, two of them. I'm telling you, bro. I haven't seen some, I haven't seen an Asian lift his leg like that since Bruce Lee, my friend.

Honestly, the way he cleared it from Brahim's header was insane. And then the scream right after. Wow, dude. Bro, that was intimate. Like, that was intimate. He's a great defender. He's really good. Why do you think Napoli won this game ahead of Mian? Because it was tight. Do you think Milan had the better game overall? Because I've been seeing at least my Milan fan friends have all been saying, ah, we dominated the game, though. Dominated.

Do you think dominated is the fucking word or do you think Milan were very competitive? I think Milan dominated the game, quite frankly. 22 shots to Napoli's nine. An edge on possession as well. Just even watching the game, Milan were in control of the tempo for the vast majority of the game, particularly in the first half. And then right after Milan scored the first goal, their first goal, Milan were trying to pop them like a massive pimple. You know what I mean?

And I remember you saying you were like, wow, chenelabu, which means like how we're playing, you know? And Milan were playing really well up until that point. And then, you know, Napoli actually managed to stay composed and they got something out of it with a very good move by Simeone and Rui. Yeah. I couldn't help but notice when it comes to Milan, a little bit of fatigue here and there, particularly from the main man, Oli G up front. A few cramps coming up.

Bear in mind, Milan did play midweek Champions League football last week before this match, winning the first actually Champions League match at San Siro since like 2013 or some shit like that it was. And obviously Giroud had to play that game because Giroud is the only striker on their Milan's roster thus far. And it just didn't seem like he was. He's always available to play the ball to it, just he's not always in a situation to attack the ball.

And that could do that could have something to do with fatigue. I think this was one of his better games. Yeah, no, I think I think Giroud played well, but he was you could see him pulling up. He went down around twice with cramps. Yeah. Which is never good to see whenever I see a 35 year old go down, I'm like Madonna. They're done. Exactly. Especially when his substitutes are Orygi who I have no idea what's going on with him, flying to Belgium, then coming back and now he's available.

But then boom, two days before the game, he's not available. And then he's available for the next one. Then he disappears again. Like then he plays and he's really selfish and he's gone again. You know what I mean? It's been a roller coaster with Orygi so far. And Rebic, who apparently has the back of an 80 year old former construction worker. I don't know what's going on with these guys. Man Giroud has to fucking work overtime. And he's been doing brilliantly.

Like you said, Giroud, he's been he's been by far one of Milan's best players. However, there's a point I want to compare Napoli to Milan in this sense. Napoli as a team, they play to each other's best capabilities. So if I know that you're quick, I'm going to knock the ball in front of you. But if I know that you're slow, I'm going to play the ball to your feet. If I know that you're good with a header, I'm going to cross it to you in the air.

If I know you're good with the ball on the ground, I'm going to play it to you on the ground. Milan don't exactly do that when it comes to Giroud. Giroud, I always see him criticise, not criticising, giving his teammates a telling off saying, give me the ball. Fuck in here in front of me, head level. I want to get some momentum and smack that ball in.

But it always seems like he needs to stay on the spot, jump up, try hanging the air and kind of try to head it goal words or try to head it outwards. And it's like the service is there, the players are there, but you just need to give it to him on a silver play. That's what you get with Giroud. Yeah, play the ball at his feet. I get it completely. And to be honest with you, I do agree that there are way too many over the top balls, not this game particularly, but we've seen it before.

No, these long balls ahead to Giroud, that doesn't really make more sense. Like you play it to him directly for a knockdown, that's one thing, but trying to play him in behind, it doesn't make any sense. And yes, the Serenopolis seem to have figured themselves out really well, to be honest, considering the losses. Bro, who was Milan's best player this game? Milan's best player this game. That's a good question. It's a very good question. I quite liked Tonali. I thought Tonali was quite good.

For me, it was Benassir. Yeah, that's probably a better answer than mine. I think Benassir is the better known. It was a fantastic showcase of two super, super defensive midfielders on both ends. Ball playing midfielders, it was Benassir dictating the play for Milan and Lobotka dictating the play for Napoli. It was a showcase, it was a masterpiece watching these two switch the play from end to end. Watching these two switch the play from end to end and really control the game.

Honestly, it really was. Both very good players, probably the best kind of registas in the league right now. I have a note over here, bro. Cholito living his best life, no? You could see him. So first he scored his debut goal in the Champions League and kissed the Champions League tattoo that he got on his forearm when he was 30. He broke it to mainstream media with that as well when the story got told everywhere. And then he scored the winner against Milan a few days later.

There was a video of him in the tunnel of Milan running with his arms extended. I hated that. He's just living his best life right now. You can't help but feel like you can keep bringing him off the bench and he's going to keep scoring. Raspadori and Cholito are both new for Napoli, but they've both hit the ground running so far. Raspadori not performance-wise, but goals-wise, certainly.

It seems that Raspadori almost needs to re-adapt to his natural position after being played out wide for so long as a secondary striker for so long for Sassuolo. He needs to stop being 14 years old, bro. He does need to stop being 14 years old. The man needs some spinach. Yeah, he needs some spinach, literally. He's so small, dude. And I think this is the best way to utilize Cholito as well. As a substitute, bringing him on and getting important goals. We always criticised him for being too...

Inconsistent. Yeah, kind of ridden off of form and form only. We know the quality is there, but he doesn't always have it pretty much. So bringing him off the bench, giving him 25 minutes, like, okay, prove yourself, go, kind of thing. I think we could really see the best of him over there. Probably a top side, but not as the protagonist. Eight goals conceded in the last seven games for Milan, which is probably more than the final stretch of the season last year.

Milan are not the same defensively. Their stability is not as good, quite frankly, defensively. What do you think is the cause of that? I took Maniano on Fanta-Culture because Milan got a lot of clean sheets. And again, we simply control the destiny of this team. There's nothing I can look at and pinpoint in saying this individual or this individual hasn't been as good as last year. It just seems like as a unit, as a unit, they're not performing as well as they were last year.

And it's down to many factors. I mean, that's always these isolated instances, no? It's not like there's an overall lack of performance. You know, it's not a lack of performance. It's a lot of freak goals, like the two goals against Lugnaz, a kind of both out of nowhere set piece here and there. A couple of goals at the near post that you don't really want to see. Two penalties as well were conceded this year, thus far, I believe.

I think many of these goals, bro, go down to overly aggressive pressing in defense. Like you see Tom Ori and Kalulu typically, the way they press the guy on the ball, like if you both commit, like, for example, on Simeone's goal, you see three players pressing Simeone and no one gets the ball. If you go in, if you commit three men onto one player, you have to get the ball, you have to foul him. You can't let them play the ball because look how much space there's around, you know?

Everyone's concentrated in that one area just outside the box. And I feel like that goal was, we've seen it before this season. So Dinez, there was a similar one, like this overly aggressive pressing at the back. And I feel like Milan sometimes this season are playing hastily. Too much, like it's the 85th minute from the get go. Yes and no, because I kind of like the increased pressure in this Milan team. I like the bit of Geig into the play.

I'm not saying Milan play with the Geig in press, but there's a little bit of Geig in. They do play with the Geig in press. They do play with the Geig in press. Is that a fact? Of course, of course. It's high press, Geig in press is high press. Okay, okay. 4-2-3-1 I believe. So it's good to see that all around when it gets tricky when it's the defenders. Now normally we'd say that we're covered because of the amount of pace there is within that back line. So if Tomori presses, Kalulu can cover.

If Kalulu presses, Tomori can cover. But it's as simple as they've been being caught out. It's not simply down to those two. We see Theo Hernandez going up quite a bit. We see Tomori going up. We see Kalulu going up. We see Calabria going up. And it's probably counterattacks. The reason would be a lot of them would be counterattacks. It's catching Milan out or catching Milan on the press in that case. So that's probably it.

The same thing that makes Milan so dangerous off and on the ball is the same thing that makes them vulnerable at the back. So probably after a bit of time come January, we'll see that back four gelling together better than they were in the beginning of the season. But we'll need to wait and see. We'll need to wait and see. Theo's out for a while now, I heard, no? Around two weeks. Apparently, yes, he might be back for the Chelsea game. So we'll see how he does.

But yes, both him and Calabria were pulled off the national teams. Origi should be back though for Champions League. Nice. We'll see what happens to him right before to miss it. Speaking of Theo Hernandez, bro, it was nice to see him making the team walk to the fans at the end of the game as they were singing. They were doing the whole... What's the song? That's where they sing. They're singing it. Exactly. And that was called to... When Milan aren't winning, the fans sing that basically.

It's like, we'll always support you. We'll never leave you. You're our only love. All that. So the fans were singing that at the end of the game, which was nice to see. There was a time when every time Milan would lose a game, the players would get booed to oblivion. This is the best time in recent history to be a Milan fan. For sure. And I know there's 2007 winning the Champions League, Kakao winning the Ballon d'Or, and all that, and there's 90s as well.

But I've never seen the fans have so much faith in the players, the players have so much faith in the coach, everyone playing for the shirt. We've filtered out the ones that weren't. And there's just this belief, this enthusiasm, everyone that's there purely at the helm. And there's just love and respect and acceptance all around, man. Everyone wants everyone to perform well.

I haven't heard of any instances where there were clashes between teammates or clashes between coaches, the staff and players. And the only one that was caused an uproar, it was Calabria being disappointed when he was subbed off in the Champions League. And he was sulking a bit. There you go. But yeah, you're absolutely right, it's true. This Milan's very cohesive. Napoli and Atalanta are the only two unbeaten teams in the league so far, bro. Fun fact. And there you go.

I find they're very similar, those two teams. I know their formations and their shape would be completely different, but their high intensity football is very similar. I see a lot of similarities between Gasparini's style of play and Spalletti's style of play. Maybe Gasparini's style of play last year and the previous years, not so much this year. No, this year's a bit different. I still need to put my finger on what Atalanta are doing this year.

They seem a lot more defensive than they were in previous years, which gives them a better balance. They're not quite winning game 7-1, like they would randomly a couple of seasons ago, but they're still undefeated, which is a good sign. We'll get into them later on. I have a few points I would like to make about Atalanta. We'll try to move on because we've been on this game for a while. Hey, bro. In fact, we can conclude. Guess what I haven't prepared? Oh my God, where they are.

Yeah, don't worry. I'm pulling up the table. Napoli sit first with 17 points, while Milan sit fifth with 14 points. The next game we're going to be covering might be deemed as the biggest upset that there was, but to people that have been tuning in on Botring Serie A for the past four weeks, then perhaps it's not. It's Udinese 3-1. Udinese were coming off a 3-1 away victory to Sassuolo.

Faisinta were coming off a 1-0 victory against Torino with that last-minute goal, and a 2-0 away victory at the hands of Victoria Plizan, who have the stupidest name I've ever heard in my life. Victoria Plizan. Bro, there isn't one vowel in there. PLZN. It sounds like one of those local youth student councils in the world, the PLZN. Short for Partit Laborista Za Zah Nacional. Or some fucking shit. I don't know.

Udinese are now on five wins, one loss and one draw, while Sintra are on four wins and three losses. So looking at their lineups, Udinese lined up with their 3-5-2 formation, Silvestri between the sticks, a back three of Becquiao, Bijole and Neu in Pérez, Udodjie and Pereira out wide with Mackengo, Wallace and Lovric in the middle, Beato and Deleveaux starting up front. A very versatile team. You look at the substitutes as well.

There's Isaac Success, there's Samardzic, there's Arslan, so on so forth. Very versatile team. You then look at Inter. Can you imagine De Paul and Molina on that team? Jesus Christ. That would be crazy. It would be. Fucking hell. I don't know how they line up, they're more team-oriented than they've been in recent years. Yeah, I agree.

You then look at Inter's lineup also, Fielding at 3-5-2, Handanovic and Golovic, Skriniar, Acerbi and Bastoni at the back line, Dumfries and Darmian being the wing backs with Barela, Brozovic and Miketarijn in the midfield, and Lautaro and Zerko up front. Obviously Lukaku is still injured. He's been training alone at the moment. And Shala Noglu is injured and is out for two to three weeks because of a hamstring injury. And Acerbi starting at the back ahead of Devri, was a bit of rotation.

Is it a bit of rotation? Is it things to come? We'll have to wait and see. Acerbi might be better than Devri at the moment, to be honest. At the moment, Acerbi was the only one that had a decent performance this time round. Bastoni wasn't exactly great, he was caught out a little bit. Skriniar had a bit of a shocker, but I'm about to get into all of this. The scoring was opened in the fifth minute. Do you remember I said Pellegrini is better than Barela because he can hit free kicks and stuff?

Yes, bro, I remember that very clearly. He's been doing none of that. Barela smacked in a free kick this time round, making my point absolutely un-nulled. Stunning free kick. It was just outside the area off to the left-hand side, and he curled it into exactly the top corner, pinpointed into the top corner. Nothing any goalkeeper in the world could have done about it. A brilliant strike by Nicolo Barela. Except Skorupski, bro.

Except perhaps Skorupski, but that doesn't mean Mannian could do something about it as well, because he's number one and number two subsequently. You're right, yeah. I don't normally mention yellow cards, but I think it's important to point out that in the 13th minute and in the 21st minute, Bastoni and Mkhitaryan were both booked, probably because of the NERZA make teams do that.

And then in the 22nd minute, Skriniar put the ball into his own net after Pereira's free kick cross hit Skriniar's hip and into the back of the net. He might have not saw it coming. There was a lot of commotion going on in front of him. The ball seemed to get through, hit him in the hip, and it went into the back of the net. Very dangerous cross by Pereira. I love it when you see those powerful cross coming in just into the middle of the box and all that mayhem. It's like good luck.

In the 30th minute then, a double change by Simone Nzaghi. Very, very controversial. Taking out Mkhitaryan and Bastoni, who were on yellow cards, bringing on Gagliardini and De Marco. Weird, to say the least. Really weird. A very, very weird move. If you take out Mkhitaryan in the 30th minute and you bring on Gagliardini, who's going to fucking charge here. Exactly. It's weird taking out Bastoni as well, but I get that you're bringing on De Marco.

You're bringing on someone that can play the ball from the back three. Although Bastoni can do that, no problem whatsoever. I would have made this change later on. You take out Mkhitaryan. You're missing Chalanooglu. You put Mkhitaryan on instead of him so you still have that attacking avenue. You take him out in 30 minutes because he got a yellow card, and you replace him with Gagliardini. Exactly.

He's prioritizing the probability of being sent off, of being a man down over the actual cohesiveness of the team. Exactly. Exactly. And it's a weird decision, especially. I get it if you take out a defender at half time, like Piolli did. Well, to be honest, Calabria had picked up a knock as well. But you take out a defender at half time, I get it. No need to take out your attacking midfielder because he's on a yellow card. There's no need to do that.

If they had Sensi still and they brought on Sensi, I might close an eye and say, okay, they still have an attacking avenue over, even though Sensi was rubbish for Inter. But bringing on Gagliardini over there against Udinese, are you playing for a draw here, bro? You just conceded and you're bringing on Gagliardini? What's going on? Honestly, bro, I have no idea what the hell he was thinking. It's really fucking weird. It's really weird. Really weird one.

You know, as you mentioned, Piolli did the same thing, but Piolli was up against one of the best 1v1 wingers in the league, probably the best alongside or behind Leo, probably behind Leo. Exactly. But yes, so this game, you really don't trust your guys to finish the first half without being sent off. You could see Bastoni was so visibly irate when he was substituted.

And I think there is something going on within that inter camp where players aren't too happy maybe with the management of... I don't know if it's the management of Simone Enzaghi or maybe there's a bit of an atmosphere of hotheads. This is essentially the same side that lifted the trophy under Conte. So you must have a few characters over there. You must have a few divas, so to say.

And this is the first time Enzaghi is leading an inter side that aren't champions, an inter side that lost the league because Radu fucked up. And you can probably imagine, right, that behind the managers back, these guys would be saying he's no Conte. For sure. And I mean the relationship they had with Conte, there was that whole time Lautaro boxed him because they had a public argument. They're like, OK, we settled this in the ring. That's fucking brilliant. You know what I mean?

Now they have this guy who looks like Pippo but sweats like Lieven. He looks like he pisses himself. He looks like someone that has like pee in his underwear. Please elaborate on that point. You don't know what I mean. Looks like he has a pee stain. Yes, like one of those salesmen with the long hair, the baggy suit that's trying to sell you a Toyota Corolla from 1999 with 80,000 kilometers on it. He's like smacking the trunk of it while he's talking. It just strikes me as that kind of guy.

How do you know that this type of person would have dirty underwear? Are you trying to make me politically incorrect? You want me to say because all salesmen smell like piss or something? I think it's because you're a salesman, my brother, so maybe you have dirty underwear. I just want to point out that I'm the head of sales. The head of sales. It's like Sean. The head of sales. In English. The second half. At this point, 1-1. Inter have no yellow cards.

Whoop-de-fucking-doo. The sixth minute Matteo D'Armian yellow card. Later on in the second half, there was a brilliant... ...and then Delafoe hit the post with a low and hard attempt, and they had Handanovic totally rooted to the spot. Delafoe was on fucking fire, man. He really was. It was then in the 79th minute. It took till the 84th minute for Bijol to score, making it 2-1 for Odinese.

It was a near post corner taken by Delafoe that found Bijol, who directed the ball into the bottom far corner. Handanovic rooted to the spot, but there's not... ...but that, maybe try to show that... And then it was the 92nd minute that Delafoe had another moment of brilliance to assist Tolga Arslan. It was a brilliant cross by Delafoe that found him totally, totally by himself, and he headed the ball in off the crossbar just over the goalkeeper.

I want to fact check because I said that Pereira's free kick hit Skriniar's hip and went into the back of the net. Was it Pereira or Delafoe? Because I saw that Delafoe had three goal contributions, but I'm obviously only counting the two assists. It might have been Delafoe, to be honest. I can't quite remember right now. I know Delafoe struck the post. He did when he had Handanovic rooted to the spot, Lowhard attempted us after the save on Lovric.

Where the hell do we start from? Where the fuck do we start from? I have something I'd like to say about Inter. So first of all, Inter have lost two games this season. No, in the league. No, three now. Three, yes. They've lost against Lazio, Milan and Odinese. Now granted, they've lost against three good sides. At the moment, Odinese's form, it's undeniable to say that they're not one of the best sides in the league. They lost against Milan, fine.

And they lost against Lazio as they did last season, fine. Are people panicking too early? Because I've seen people calling for Anzaki's head, saying that he's not ready to coach. That he can't handle the pressure of San Siro and all this stuff. Do you think this is true? Look, I mean, like I said earlier, this is the first time that Anzaki has 11 mentors, or something that aren't the champions of Italy. So it's the first time they have to inspire themselves.

They have to come back and, yep, inspire themselves, rather than be inspired from the fact that they're champions and they're on a high. So they have to come back from disappointment, essentially, in the manner at which they fucking lost the league in the first place. Now, are they exactly playing uninspiring and unattractive football? I don't think they're playing uninspiring and unattractive football, but I think they're limited.

They're limited in certain avenues that they certainly weren't limited in last season. We start off with the Perisic, the whole Perisic thing. Down the left-hand side, Gawson comes in, you keep him on the bench, he's recovering and you keep on utilising Perisic because he's on such great form. He does that, Perisic fucks off to Tottenham and you give Gawson the opportunity. Is he being given the opportunity? No, I don't.

Because from what I'm hearing, they want to give him to Brentford, they want to start Darmian on the left-hand side. He was very close to going to Germany, I believe. He was linked with fucking Brentford and Leverkusen, man. Is it a Gawson's problem, that? Is it a team problem? I think Nzaghi needs to appreciate the player that he has available over here, Gawson's, the monster. That is the same Gawson's that we saw at Atalanta two years ago, three years ago.

He was an animal, an absolute animal on the left, one of the best. There were shouts that he was better than Theo at the time. He needs to get this guy and make him feel like he's part of the project, that he's a centre-part of the project, play him even if he doesn't play well, build a team around him, give him the confidence to succeed. He's not going to get the confidence to succeed from the bench. No, absolutely not.

And he has something that, interlack at the moment, interlack an individual that can basically charge forward and take a motherfucker on. Lukaku was injured and he's really not that guy anymore anyway. Lautaro is good in between the lines, but he's not exactly a dribbler. Barela maybe is a little bit of that. One v one dribblers, they're extremely limited. Exactly. I believe the stat was that their joint lost with Cremona. Yeah, it's a 4.7. Oh, sorry.

The actual stat is 4.7 successful dribbles on average per match. Gossens can be that guy. Gossens can really be that guy down the left. He can really advance forward, he can square the ball, he can pull the ball back, he can cut it inside, not giving him that opportunity. They're playing Darmian Inverted. Give me a fucking break. Don't play Darmian Inverted. Try to get Gossens into the game a little bit.

But I don't think Inzaghi, I don't think they should be calling for Inzaghi to be sacked yet. Firstly, give a coach two years, always give a coach two years. Someone with the caliber of Inzaghi at a team like Inter, give him two years. I don't think it's as simple as that. Imagine though halfway through the season he's in high risk of missing out on trapping his league football. Let's say he's in sixth and he's nine points off of fourth, for example, halfway through the season.

You know what I mean? That might be sackable considering Inter's ambitions now. Yeah, but we're seven days in. Sorry, seven games in. So I don't think they should be calling for him to be sacked yet. It's way too early still right now, exactly. I do agree, but I was responding to the two-year claim. I think with, obviously it depends on the situation. If they're fucking, like you said, out of Europe in that case, then that's obviously...

It's expected that you would sack your coach in that sense. But I still don't think it would be a no-brainer in that case. I think if you look at Inter and they need to get Champions League, let's say they're in fifth or they would have a couple of games remaining. You totally ditch Inzaghi, who's very capable of getting you there, and you've seen it before for an entirely new project. So it's always up for debate, and I always like to give the benefit of the doubt to the manager.

But let's stick to Inter right now. What would you say is their biggest concern? Their lack of defensive depth, their lack of creativity in midfield, their manager's obsession with statistics. Those are the three concerns, I think, in my opinion, for Inter. And does the atmosphere within the team come to mind when I mention concerns for Inter? It's only natural that when you don't win, things aren't going to look as pleasant. These were the same guys we saw when they were winning games.

They were having all these barbecues, posting on social media, living the time of their lives. So obviously the mood is reflected by the performance and by the results rather, not even the performances. So I think right now, look, they lost one, they won one, they lost one, they won one, they lost one. It's not terrible yet. Yeah, not terrible, but certainly concerning. But at the end of the day, they lost against Anudineza that are flying right now. They're like no other team, pretty much.

They lost against Milan in the derby and they lost against Lazio. And there's like this whole Simone and Zagikaris at Inter when they play Lazio. So three losses that at the end of the day could very much occur against a team like Inter. However, obviously it's disappointing as a manager and as a team, you have those three tough fixtures and you get zero out of nine potential points. Yes, let's see how this evolves. It's definitely too early for them to press the panic button.

As we mentioned, they're two points off of fourth spot and very much within reach of the top of the table. Exactly. Let's jump a little bit to Anudineza, who have been stellar right now. So they have now beaten Fiorentina, Roma, Sassuolo and Inter. What is their ceiling for this season? I think at the rate things are going, they could definitely aim for a conference league spot. Do you think they are actively aiming for a conference league spot or do you think they'll see?

How far can we possibly go? I think first, it is too early to look at the table, but they're probably looking at the fact that they can beat most of these top teams or they can give them a game at least. You know what I mean? They scored two against Milan, they beat Inter, they trashed Roma. They're probably thinking to themselves, listen, we can do something this year. Let's see where this goes. Probably, Sartil is telling his men not to take any notice of the table and play without pressure.

Exactly. I think that's what they're doing so well. And this Sartil guy, there were so many questions asked about a guy that was managing Ascoli last year, but he's really come into this area. He was highly rated in Serie A, by the way. He came into Serie A and he's doing bits. What is he doing so well? So he adapted. The most important thing I believe that he did here was he adapted to the Neymar 3 at the back system that they've been using for so long.

They've used it with Gotti, they used it with Choffy as well. All the guys that came before. He was playing for the back at Ascoli and that's typically his brand, but he came to this team and he focused on adapting himself to the team instead of adapting the team to himself. The opposite of what Aconte would do. Exactly. The opposite of what Sardy would do. And I feel like he's doing it brilliantly and he's making the most out of the tools he has.

He has a bunch of utility players that he's using brilliantly. He gives players confidence. He has substitutes that feel like they could make an impact as well. He's really created a squad over here. He has, man. And it's also Odinezza were great towards the end of last season as well. Like the last quarter of the season, they were very good. But under Choffy and Gotti, it seemed like they were a bit boring to watch.

They relied a bit too much on turning the game into a scrap and utilizing their physicality as much as they possibly can. They're so much more versatile. It feels like they have way more weapons. But when you look at the starting 11, all that changes is that they lost a threat like Molina. But suddenly it looks like they have all these weapons at their arsenal. So that high press, that fluid football, that dynamic football, high intensity, high pressure. It's just lovely to watch.

And they're really capable of keeping it up for 90 minutes, man. You're in 90 minutes of hell when you play Odinezza right now. Definitely intense, intense 90 minutes. For sure. So it'll be interesting to see what they can do against the rest of the top seven sisters. I believe. What is it? Is it three down or four down now? Three down. Fiorentina, Roma and Inter. You can consider Fiorentina one of the top seven. They technically are and Atalanta are in Twitter's here, which is weird.

Let's say three out of eight, three out of eight down, including the loss against Milan. I think we can move on to the next game. I don't want to praise Odinezza for too long. The table. Oh, yeah, you're right. Ha ha. The maestro gets gets what gets what maestro? The I guess so. Yeah. How the turntable. Exactly. So Inter are currently in seventh on 12 points. But, you know, two points out of that Champions League spot. So relax. And Odinezza in third on 16 points, one point behind first.

So the next game we're going to be covering is Roma nil Atalanta one. One, not one. Roma had won their last two Serie A meetings with Atalanta under Jose Mourinho. They could have made the three in a row for the first time since 2011, bro. This was under Claudio Ranieri and Luis Enrique. Quite a while. Yes. But Atalanta caused an upset. Would you call this an upset? I would totally call this an upset personally. Let's get into the lineups and I will discuss that.

OK. Roma lined up lined up with Rui Patricio on goal. Mancini, Smolling and De'Banja is at the back. Spinazzola on the left. Celic on the right. Matilce and Cristante in the middle. Pellegrini and Zaniola playing off the shoulder of Tammy Abraham. It was a 3-4-3 for Atalanta with Mussone on goal. Toloi, Demiral and De'Rune at the back. Hattabur on the right. Malle on the left with Kube Miners and Scalvini in the middle. Pasalic on the right, Ederson on the left and Hoylen up front.

Now, any takeaways from the lineups? I mean, it's good to see Celic starting ahead of Karsdorp. I think Karsdorp might be injured though, that's why. OK. In fact, he wasn't on the bench I'm seeing over here. But it's still nice seeing Celic get some minutes. He's been much better. He's been much better than Karsdorp this year. Otherwise, nothing to write home about that Roma side. Atalanta, obviously, I'm never surprised with anything they do.

So starting Hoylen up front with Pasalic off the shoulder and Ederson off the shoulder. That doesn't shock me. I'm shocked by everything, Gasparini. But they wouldn't exactly be like, OK, it's a 3-4-3, but it's more of a 3-4-2-1. And Pasalic and Ederson are those two more offensive avenues in midfield. With Scalvini and Kube Miners just behind them, a very, very attacking team. A very attacking team. You're talking Kube Miners as part of your double pivot in midfield alongside Scalvini.

Then you have Pasalic and Ederson. It's a very attacking team. But their physical characteristics, these players, are still destructive when it comes to breaking down play. They're very capable. Yeah, but it's loads of goal scorers. Yes, that's true. They're very capable. Loads of goal scorers. The only goal of the game, bro, came in the 35th minute and that was from Scalvini. George was Scalvini. It was a Rasmus Hoylund assist.

It was a low-driven shot placed into the bottom corner from outside the area. It was a really good finish by Scalvini. It's kind of like the Kalula goal, remember, from outside the area. Yes, yes, yes. Last season. Or kind of like Bastoni's trademark goals from outside the area. Yeah, in the 57th minute, Mourinho got sent off. Of course, you couldn't believe his eyes. It must have been extremely frustrating for him because this game was a sequence of failed opportunities by Roma.

Roma totally dominated this game. I was surprised they didn't get a single point out. They probably deserved three. Atalanta played the most Jose Mourinho game. You know, they Jose Mourinhoed Jose Mourinho. Literally. Because like you look at this, they broke down the play so many times. Every 20 minutes, they stopped the play and then it became more frequent as the game progressed. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven yellow cards for Atalanta compared to Roma's zero.

They have a red card, of course, that's on their coach. But yeah, they broke down the play well, bro. They fucking caused a massive upset over here, in my opinion, a few stats. So Roma's XG was 2.44. Atalanta's was 0.17. Fucking hell. These are expected goals. I know some people don't agree with the philosophy, but it's quite telling in my opinion. And the goal that they got was a placed shot from outside the area. Against the run of play. Placed on a silver platter for them.

I know Zanullo was terrorizing them. And he's probably the reason a bunch of those guys were on yellow cards because late on in the match, he was even brought down in the box twice. First one, not a penalty. Second one, there was contact, man. There was contact with the man and there wasn't contact with the ball. At least there was contact with the man first. Who was who? I forgot who it was. It's difficult to tell because all their three centre backs were on yellow cards.

But I recall Zanullo diving relentlessly. But there was one. And in fact, Mourinho said after the game, he said, just because my player doesn't hit the ground, it doesn't mean it's not a foul. It's like, I'm not going to encourage my players to hit the deck. He said, I'm going to have to change my entire way of coaching. And bro, Zanullo got his shirt tugged in the box twice. But he was also pulling the other guy's shirt. That's the problem. What do you want him to do?

No, but he might have even the commentator said on both instances that Zanullo was the one who originally fouled the man. You know what I mean? So their 50-50s are not clear. And that's not what you should rely on anyway to win you the game. Mourinho said this, in fact, to your point. He said, if you have to be a clown, and there are a lot in this league, and dive like you're in a swimming pool, then I need to change the way I'm coaching my team in training.

Now, it's so funny how he says this when Zanullo looks like he's performing Swan Lake every time he fucking enters the box. But the whole point is that he didn't. At one point, he definitely did, bro. At one point, he fucking dove so badly, bro. No, but what Mourinho is referring to there is the fact that Zanullo didn't go down screaming in the box when his shirt was getting tugged. On time one instance, yes. But the thing is Zanullo is a notorious diver. Yeah, it's true.

Everyone fucking knows his reputation for diving, no? That's true. Yeah, but basically, bro, last week we said that Atalanta have learned how to win ugly. They've transformed into a team that is more mature and more streetwise. Here they are again, four shots to Roma's 21 and they go home with all three points. It's absolutely crazy. Yeah, a very opportunistic display by Atalanta to be able to get away with a victory. Like you said, 21 shots to Roma, four shots to Atalanta.

You'd never imagine that Atalanta would, or any side for that matter, would get away with three points over there. I might go as far to say that they didn't technically deserve it. Not because they didn't do what they had to do, because they did exactly what they had to do. But the reason Roma didn't get all three points is solely down to Roma and their end product. They can create all the chances in the world if they're not going to put down the back of the net.

And we've been saying this from day one, bro. If they can't put the ball into the back of the net, then it's for nothing. Zanullo needs to work on his end product. Tammy just seems like sometimes he's off and sometimes he's on. And he's been way more off this season. He's finishing particularly, right? I think it was a mixed bag of a performance for Abraham. I thought he held the ball up well and set up his teammates well. But then when it came to one-on-ones, it's inexcusable, man. Yeah, yeah.

And that is the case where I would like to see Bellotti more. And I think that Bellotti on the break would probably be more effective than Tammy Abraham on the break, for example. Just a situation I see it happening more. But yeah, that's my take. Atalanta didn't exactly deserve to win the game. But the reason Roma didn't get the full three points is totally down to them and no one else. Yeah, that's it. Hats off to Atalanta. It seems that every season they come up with like a new player.

They pick him off the street, like Hoiland up front, you know, Scalvini in the middle. These guys starting. Pretty nice to see, you know, every single season, new player and then boom, sold for 20 million. Sold for 30 million. So yeah, nice to see that they've kept their form up, Atalanta. Yeah, yeah. Now we'll see for how long they can actually keep it up. It's a strong start, but it's all about sustainability.

But I think since they're having such stable performances that doesn't require so much offensive output, they are saving their energy. They have a very versatile squad, so they'll bring in more players. So I don't anticipate that they'll have many, many injuries going forward as a result of the tight schedule and fatigue. That's true. Atalanta can relax, right? They can focus on the league. That's all they have to work. It's clearly helping.

Rome, on the other hand, need to start taking their chances. But I do believe that the goals will come and the way they're playing, it's inevitable that they're going to start scoring. You can't keep missing these chances. You can't. Eventually, you know, if this keeps happening, I wouldn't be surprised if Balotti outright ventures, Tommy Abraham. Yeah, I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be surprised with that either. Or maybe they can start with two up front.

They're two strikers that could potentially work pretty well together. But with the amount of talent that they have in the attacking midfield region with Zaniolo, Debala, Pellegrini, it's very difficult to see them sacrificing one of those to facilitate adding a striker to their arsenal. So Tommy is going to need to step it the fuck up or Balotti is going to need to step it the fuck up. That's it. Osho Moradov. Osho Moradov, who, by the way, missed an absolute sitter, man. Missed a sitter.

Yeah. Who was the whose chance was the best, you think? Probably Osho Moradov, man. He had an open goal. And he didn't even have a defender on him. He didn't even need to jump. He saw it late. He saw it late. Tommy's on the first one was quite bad. I think we should have done way better there. And the bunny's got the closest, of course, when he hit the crossbar with his head. Yeah. But that's it. I feel ready to move on to the treat, bro. Amazing. Will you let us know where they are? Of course.

Roma are sixth with 13 points, while Atalanta are second with 17 points. Wow. The next game we're going to be covering is just hold on one second. Monza one, Juve nil. Single handedly, the biggest update update. The biggest upset. The new hours. This week. Yep. Monza were coming off. One, one away draw to Lecce, which was actually their first point that they had received and shortly followed by this match, which was their first win in Serie A history ever for them.

And it came under their caretaker manager and much like Bologna under their caretaker manager, they managed to get their first win of the season. You were coming off a two, two home draw to Salernitana and a two, one home loss to Benfica. They're now on two wins, one loss and four draws. But yeah, let's go through the lineups. Monza lined up with a three, four to one formation with the Gregorio on goal and the back line of Itzo, Mari and Santos.

Augusto and Ciurra were the two wing backs with Sensi and Trofella and holding with field draws. And Caprari, Pessina on the wings with Mota just ahead of them. Juve lined up now for three, three with Perin in goal, Desilio, Gatti, Bremer and Danilo forming the back line. McKennie, Paredes and Miretti in the midfield with Di Maria, Vlaović and Kostić forming the front line. Any takeaways from these lineups or pretty much all as expected? About the lineups, no. About the game, fuck that.

So let's get straight into it. So Monza's starting to think there was any point in the game that Monza and Monza want to get that clear out there because I'm about to say something and people will use this as an excuse as to why Juve lost the game. In the 40th minute, Di Maria elbowed Itzo in the chest because Itzo pulled his shirt a little bit. He got a straight-thread card for that.

Really, really, really dumb fucking move by Di Maria, especially with Juve's lack of resources at the moment and their lack of points, they could have really used them to try to squeeze something out of Monza. There are some players that can have all the experience in the world and still act out of emotion and just maybe Di Maria is one of those guys. They needed his creativity and he did that. 40 minutes in and he does that.

The reason I pushed for us to bet on this game was because of the return of Di Maria. I really thought he could do some damage over here, but he really let us down. He's done some serious damage, almost broke Itzo's rib. It was from the get-go though, prior to this moment, Monza had 56.4% position. That's crazy. That's why I wanted to make it clear that Monza were better when Juve had 11 men as well. Juve were playing counter-attacking football. Do not get it twisted. Monza controlled it.

Monza controlled it. It was then in the 74th minute where Ciurra had the ball out wide. He had an in-swinging cross to the near post. Gitkiere managed to get ahead of Gatti, sliding in to put the ball past Perin. There was a lack of pressure by Kostić on Ciurra, which allowed him to deliver the cross with no pressure whatsoever. Monza win the game 1-0. Absolutely unreal for them.

Their first win in Serie A ever and it's under their caretaker manager, Raffaele Palladino, who might actually stick around after that, but we'll wait and see. Gagliani compared him to Saki. Relax. I know, right? As in to the point that when he brought Saki in, apparently he was a nobody. He wasn't proven yet. Raffaele Palladino is a former Juventus player, so this is kind of written in the stars as a start to get Monza their first ever victory against Juventus.

I think it would be unwise for them to not go for Claudio Ranieri though. I would really buy Winberg and Scolini and Gagliani and now just push for Ranieri. It doesn't mean they're going to get rid of Palladino. He's still going to be involved in the team. They should bring in someone like Ranieri. He's a man that has a style of play. He can really give Monza a sense of identity about them. I think Ranieri would be the way to go, very experienced as well. We'll see.

It's always interesting with these young managers. Let's see if they make the strut ball mistake twice. Exactly. Monza had 60% ball possession. They had 17 goal attempts, four of those on target. They had nine off target. They had 17 free kicks. They had five corners. They were in offside position six times because they were so eager to go forward. They had 534 total passes to Juve's 333. Do not get it twisted. Monza dominated this game.

60% ball possession and 17 goal attempts against Juve is unheard of. They were in full control. It was a good performance by Monza, but it was encouraged by Juve. Juve did nothing in this game but encouraged Monza to play their game. Yes, attack us. Come forward. Maybe you won't get a goal. Here's a fucking red card. Attack us some more, please. Attack us some more, please. We're going to sit back a little bit. And we're going to lose our shape a little bit. Good luck.

Change the ball around and see what you can do. Dreadful performance by Juve. Monza won. Sure, they were good, but because Juve encouraged them to. What are your takes on the game? They totally set themselves up for failure over here. Playing against Monza on the counter doesn't make any sense, especially when you have your most experienced player who's meant to be the game coach.

Especially when you have your most experienced player who's meant to be the game changer, getting a red card in such an impulsive, stupid, hot-headed way. It just goes to show that things are not looking good for them. Fortunately, they have a way out. No, they can sack the coach. No, wrong. Allegri signed a five-year contract. I believe he's on his third year now. He has two more years left, which is mental. To give a coach a five-year contract is crazy.

Apparently, they would have to pay him up to 36 million gross, according to Corriere de la Serra, if they were to sack him. It would be the equivalent of signing a good player, which I don't think they have the funds to do. They're kind of fucked right now. They're stuck in a bit of a predicament. Plus, Anjeli's pride, you know? Because Anjeli doesn't want to make it look or show that he's made a mistake rehiring Allegri. So I think it would hold on to him for a little bit longer.

But how much more of this can Juve fans take? We're seeing them melt down. I mean, it's not looking good. Di Maria is missing the Milan game because he got a two-match ban. Allegri keeps making scapegoats and excuses. This is a virtual Juventus. Take away five starters from Milan or Inter. We'll see if they struggle. You take away five starters from Milan and they win the league, my friend.

Brother, have you watched a game last season, Allegri, with the African Cup of Nations losing your two starting central midfielders in Kessi and Ben Nasser, having only Giroud up front because Zlatan constantly injured? No, last year during their stretch, Koulibaly and Ozymen, and they still went on to do well. Shut the fuck up, Allegri. It's ridiculous. And the more he speaks, the more he's digging his own grave because he's making these really simplistic analogies.

That makes me think this guy is living not in the early 2000s, not in the 90s, not in the 80s, living in the fucking 60s, man. His mentality is you need to... It's a very simple game. You need to pass the ball. You need so many things to win a game of football this year. You've got the first case in point. They need to improve so many avenues if they're going to want to start winning games because they've got nothing to their arsenal. Nothing to their arsenal.

They've got a world class striker up front, world class defender at the back, and they have a very talented young midfielder in Miretti in the middle. Tell me what else they have going for them right now. They better turn things around or these values are going to start depreciating and everything's going to look terrible for them. They're on the brink of crisis right now. And even their wage structure isn't the best.

If you look at the five highest or the ten highest turners in the league, how many of them are youvas? The vast majority of them. And if your wage structure looks like that, you best get Champions League because you need that money. Especially if it looks like that, you best... You went to Skurva because there isn't enough going on, decided to put a banner up against Bonocci. You are not a leader either at AC Milan or here. You will never be. Oh my God. I know. When did that happen?

I guess when he left to Milan, of course, he burnt a few bridges there. Maybe. You still have the T-shirt, you know. I still have the T-shirt with Bonocci. And to be honest, I'll never get rid of it because that was one of the most gassed moments of my life when Bonocci joined Milan. It was a fever dream. Because youva were so dominant back then, you know, just taking their best defender at the time was so much fun. He had six months with Milan when he was awful.

And then he had like the remaining however months, three, four months where he was decent, man. But yeah, that's fucking passing. Passing, their passes are made in their own half. There's absolutely nothing exciting about watching them right now. On the other hand, Monza, let's show them some credit because they did manage to get their first three points of the season and their first three points ever. They are showing improvements in every single game that they're playing.

You could tell they're a little bit more fluid. You could tell Caprari is getting a little bit more into it. And other players, you could tell that Sensi is picking it up as well. So it's a good performance by them. I've just heard that they've terminated Andrea Ranocchia's contract. It's quite surprising, but he hasn't really hit the ground running. He must have been terrible. Hey, man, I haven't seen much of him, if I'm being honest. He hasn't played much, to be fair.

But he must have been fucking terrible in training as well. Petanja must have been spinning him every other game. But anyway, last week after the sacking of Strappa, Berlusconi takes Monza tactically himself. After this victory, he took all the credit. He was like, the module works. He even posted a video of himself holding a Monza shirt with Berlusconi 1 on it. Isn't Berlusconi just peak narcissism? He's celebrating a beautiful victory, holding his own name up.

The man's been in power of something for probably most of his life at this point. But you need a couple of characters like him in the league because it just simply makes it more entertaining. That's shit house, Rui. And no matter what he does, Pato still fucked his daughter. He could do whatever the fuck he wants. Pato fucked his daughter. Then he fucked with your son's victory. Pato fucked your daughter. Did he marry her? He did marry her, yes. Pato divorced your daughter as well.

Pato fucked and divorced your daughter. You are in eighth on ten points. You're already seven points behind first. Monza are now in eighteenth. Four points, one point away from safety. And safety is Verona and above them is Bologna. So we're seeing a couple of good teams down at the bottom. Sampdoria at dead last. Verona, Bologna on sixteenth and seventeenth. It's exciting stuff. Over to you, my dude. Cremona is at nil, Lazio four. And it should have probably been more.

Probably. Cremona and Lazio faced each other for the first time since March 24th, 1996. The last time they played was in Cremona. One-two-one by Cremona. With a 10-20 brace and a Negro goal. Do not cancel me. Cremona have won four Serie A matches against Lazio. They've drawn three and lost eight. Against no opponent have they claimed more victories in the competition. So Lazio, no Cremona are Lazio's dark horses historically. That's hilarious. Yeah, different time. That's brilliant.

Let's get into the line. Let's get in. Lazio in goal, Hisa and Marasic out wide. Patrick and Crasale. Crasale always fuck up his name. Crasale at the back. Milinkovic-Savic, Cataldi and Vecino in the middle. With Anderson on the right, Zaccani on the left and the Mobila up front. God bless me. Finally you get to experience this. Let's see how smoothly I can do this. Radu in goal for Cremona. With Lacrofts-Villy at the back. Kirikes and Aiwou. Valeri on the left. Sernicola on the right.

Mete and Escalante in the middle. Zanimakia on the attacking midfield road. Okereka up front alongside Dezers. That wasn't bad, but there's also a lot of names. Yeah, because they brought the Mete, the other midfielders. There's no Azcaki boy. Azcaki boy. But yes, line-up straight forward. What was to be expected from these two sides. Luis Alberto once again being on the bench, funnily enough. But yes, it all started in the seventh minute.

Where Sergei Milinkovic-Savic played a clever ball through to a Mobila who took his trademark touch and executed clinically 1-0. The 21st minute was a Mobila again. The arms of Lacrofts-Villy, or how do you pronounce his name, were in an unnatural position in the box as the ball hit his hand. Avar review quickly prompted the referee to point to the spot. Mobila sent rather the wrong way. 2-0 for Lazio in 20 minutes.

In the 46th minute in the first half, Milinkovic-Savic made a 3-0 after a Rado blunder. He basically gave the ball away. Eventually it led to Sergei Milinkovic-Savic rolling the ball into an empty net and he celebrated using a dummy. He put a dummy in his mouth and sucked it in front of the camera. And later on in the second half there was a Valerio bicycle kick which was probably Cromanez's highlight of the match.

In the 79th minute, Mobila squared it to Pedro after having a few selfish moments himself to get his hat-trick ignoring Pedro out wide. This time he played it to him, Pedro found himself one on one. He was never going to miss, he curled it around the keeper. Easy 4-0 victory for Lazio. I can never understand how Lazio get trashed by Mitaland in Europe and then come back to Italy and just win 4-0 away to Cremona like it's nothing. I guess maybe we know where their priorities lie. That's it, eh?

Maybe they don't give a shit about the Europa League. Quite potentially they don't exert themselves, right? But Sarri is a winner in Europe. Sarri did it with Chelsea. He had won the Europa League with Chelsea. And we've been seeing Italian teams show a lot of importance to even the Conference League. We saw Mourinho win it with Roma last year. So he'd probably be itching for a trophy in Europe as well and to advance in Europe.

But at the end of the day, I just think Mitaland must be a tricky team to play, bro. They fucking fucked up Roma as well last year. So to be honest, yeah, Mitaland are great, man. I'm not going to say Lazio should have beat them or anything like that. They're apparently seventh in the Danish Super. What the hell, man? I wish they could just come into Sarri and we'll see what they can do over there because they're better than the Roman teams, apparently. Yeah, it is. It's truly bizarre.

But anyway, Lazio domestically are a different animal. They do destroy the teams lower than that. And this is where Mobil is stat bad most of his goals. Yeah, yeah. It's important to get plus four goals in a game like this. Mobil was very wasteful at his game as well. Granted, he was clinical in the first moments where it really counted. But then for his hat trick, he missed an empty net. So over you can just game in there. Exactly. I think Cremoneza panicked here.

Kyriakos was subbed off early as well because he was absolutely terrible. There were Radoo blunders. You know what I mean? It was a they panicked, I think they conceded early in the seventh minute and they just completely collapsed. Bro, when did Cremoneza, so I didn't watch this game, right? Seeing here, Cremoneza had more shots than Lazio. 18 shots to 14. Yes, but not many of them were on target. They were just long distance attempts. Yeah, that four, I mean, four on target isn't isn't bad.

Lazio had six. That's interesting to see. Yeah, it's true. They did shoot a lot, Cremoneza, but overall the tempo was very much dictated by Lazio. No, I have no doubt that Lazio dominated the game. But it's a show that Cremoneza weren't, you know, playing defensively against Lazio to try not to make this a spanking. It seemed like they they went out and actually tried to do something to maybe get points or to get back into the game.

Ten of their shots came when they were 3-0 down, when they were already 3-0 down. OK, well. So yeah, they didn't start off very well and they paid for it, quite frankly. Yeah, yeah. Poor Alvini, right? I feel bad for him. Yeah, well. Our new best friend. He's going to have a lot of these moments, I'm afraid, as Cremoneza as a manager. Do you think there's any hope for Cremoneza to survive? I mean, it's still incredibly early.

It is incredibly early, but from what you've seen so far, do you think they can survive? I think they're one of the teams that I can. They're the only team I'm confident will go down. Yes, they're probably destined for relegation. They're definitely the worst out of the promoted three. Until last week, the worst was probably Monza. But even then, Monza look a bit better on the ball than Cremoneza. And that was obvious just by looking at the lineup that they're in. Exactly.

As the season progresses. Yeah, I'd put my money on it. It won't happen that I put my money. Yeah, probably Cremoneza are down, they're down bad. But anyway, we saw another classic case of SMS to Immobile. We've got the Lazio classic over here. No more to say about this one. Lazio in fourth with 14 points, Cremoneza in 19th with two points. The next game we're going to be covering is Fiorentina 2-0 Verona. So Fiorentina are coming off a 2-1 loss to Bologna and a 3-0 loss to Istanbul, Basaksehir.

Verona on the other hand coming off a 2-0 loss to Lazio. They're currently on one win four losses three draws, which is very concerning. Fiorentina on the other hand, two wins two losses three draws. Not the best either. Fiorentina's lineup, Terracciano on goal with Biragi, Ranieri, Martín, Esquartá and Venuti. At the back, Mandragora and Amrabat in that double pivot with Sotil and Jonathan Iconi out wide. Barak in the attacking with Fildrola and Kwame up front. For Verona, it was a 3-4-1-2.

Montepo in goal with Hien, Gunther and Coppola at the back. De Pauli and Lazovic out wide with Tamiz, Illich and Hrstic in the middle. Henry and Lasagna up front. Pretty much what we expect to see over here from both sides. Except for obviously Kwame up front for Fiorentina. Quite a weird flex over there. So Iconi opened the scoring in the 13th minute with a Prime-Ariane-Robin goal. Keep Mintoff away from that because you're serious. You're comparing Iconi to Prime-Ariane-Robin man.

But the defending was absolutely terrible. Was that Coppola? Yeah, it was Coppola and he got done. And you know what? I don't think anyone in this Fiorentina team needed a goal as badly as Iconi. Iconi's confidence had dipped so low. He had been playing so badly. I think he even got sent off recently. Everything was looking awful for him. No, he had been awful. His teammates were frustrated with him. So it's nice to see he scored and after he scored in fact he was playing a little bit better.

Well, in the goal he darted down the flank almost from his own half really well. Coppola just absolutely done for pace. He showed both a little bit, dropped his shoulder here and there, cut inside and went to the near post. Bottom corner. It was a fantastic goal. A few moments later then Kwame was brought down by Coppola inside the box. And Fiorentina were subsequently awarded a penalty. Coppola had a bit of a mare in this match.

He got booked for the foul over there. Biragi stepped up as I've been shouting for him to step up to take penalties because of my Pantacalcio. Steps up, misses. Great save by Montepo. Quite a central penalty but just the fact that he tracked it got down well. Great save by Montepo. Montepo then had a fantastic save later on after he extended on a Martinez-Cuarta header from a corner. Really firm one-armed save, bro.

You see a lot of those cases where that parry the ball out wide or the ball would go back into play. Spanks it like. Spanks it like. Good luck getting to it. He then had an acrobatic one-armed save on Bonaventura's long-range strike as well. So Montepo showcasing a little bit of his strong forearm here. Ninetieth minute and then Duncan with a Pirlo-esque ball to Mandragora who squared it to Nico Gonzalez who converted at the near post.

Fan favorite Nico Gonzalez and it's good to see him back and getting goals and assists even when he's back. We saw when he featured last time this season bagged a couple of assists as well. They're going to need him. His impact is massive. It is, man. So interesting to see. He just came back and scored already in the 19th minute. He came on in the 66th minute so just over 20 minutes. He got a few minutes which is good. Last time he came on he's been coming on the 85th minute and stuff like that.

So it's good to see him get a couple of minutes. As the scoreline shows and as Verona are as a team, they don't make it easy. They didn't make it easy in fact for Fiorentina either. In fact they had more ball possession than Fiorentina. They had eight attempts of themselves. OK, Fiorentina had 15 attempts and nine of them on target. So Montepo was a very, very busy man. Verona don't look like a team that are going to get relegated, but they are incapable of getting points.

They really haven't been stacking up on those points, man. So unless we could see them get that end product and start scoring goals and getting points, then unfortunately they're going to remain in that relegation battle. It clearly shows to me, the main talking point in this Verona side is, it clearly shows that they've invested everywhere and I mean everywhere except for their defense. Yes, it's true. It's so incredibly obvious. Coppola was horse shit.

Gunther has never been amazing, has he? He's got mistakes. Gunther is your average defender at the end of the day. Him and Davidovic are two incredibly average defenders, man. But Fiorentina finally getting a bit of a clean result over here. Tunel win over Verona. So a win over Verona at the moment is more of an expectation, but it's a good opportunity for them to get the three points right off it.

Now they go to international break, they recoup, revitalize, get back in and hopefully pick up where they left off. Yes. I think Fiorentina needed a victory like this. It had been a while. They've come off three games without winning. So they played against Bologna and lost, they played against Juve and Drew, they played against Udinese and lost, they played against Napoli and lost before that, they played against Empoli and drew before that. So they drew to Napoli too.

So they hadn't won a game in a while. No, draw, draw, loss, draw, loss, win. So they very much needed this. It's interesting to see, of course, Quame as an option in the striker position. I think we'll be seeing him more often than not over there, to be honest, considering the form of Jovic and Cabral. Jovic was injured by the way, right? He must have been. Yes, but not severely injured, he has a knock, which kept him out of the game. Quame is a very mobile striker.

He provides something that Cabral and Jovic do not, and that is pace and agility. So it'll be interesting to see them work around him. Verona on the other hand, bro, they've slowly, slowly, man, their management is just letting go of so many players. Their best players are just leaving season after season. I don't know if this is sustainable and I don't know how long this can go for. Last year, many people said that they would get relegated.

We instantly said that they're not going to get relegated. They're too good to get relegated. But this season is a bit different. They've lost a lot. I don't think they'll get relegated, but I think at this rate, in three years they might. In five years' time, they might actually go down. If they keep investing this poorly, they're fucked. You look at their starting eleven in this match.

I mean, you look at that in comparison to the one they lined up with, first match of last year or the one before that. Significant changes in the team. You know, losing Caprari, losing Giovanni Semione, losing Barak, losing DiMarco, for example, as well. They've lost everyone and they haven't really, and who do they bring in? You know, Henri? Sure. That's fine. That's their only OK purchase, in my opinion. Sure, you know, it's OK. There was Zakanje as well before. They had Zakanje as well.

They had a team that could fight for Europe. And now suddenly, that starting eleven is a relegation battling team. Will they get relegated? Probably not. Because there is an element of continuity. These players, Ilic Lasovic, Thames, De Pauli, Gunther, Lasagna, they know each other and they have quality. And they know the league. Yeah. And want to pose a fantastic goalkeeper as well. I think they'll be safe. They'll be fine.

But they really need to start getting points and they might need to beat some teams that are better than them along the way. Totally. But I think that's it. Unless you have any additional points on these teams. I mean, we've pretty much covered Verona.

I think for Fiorentina, it's about them riding off the momentum now and seeing how they're going to react to more midweek action, because that was the weirdest thing, was seeing them try to play with certain players in certain positions and changing things up. And their squad is very versatile when it comes to wingers. But when it comes to midfielders and defenders, maybe not as much as I'd like, especially in the defensive area.

Things aren't looking very good for them either in the Europa League. They're currently lost in their group. And their group consists of the Conference League, you mean? Yeah, sorry. RFS, Hearts and Istanbul, Bassakir. Yeah, they're the team that just fucking spanked them 3-0. I don't think it's a priority for Fiorentina. I think they're just like, let's get out of the Conference League and let's focus on the league.

But if they get Conference League again, in my opinion, that's a successful season for them. So they might as well put their eggs in the Conference League basket. They're like, now let's aim for eighth. Exactly. Fuck the Conference League, guys. Let's get eighth. We want to be where Atalanta were last year. That's our goal. They're in tenth right now, so they're not far off. They're on nine points. The Faroan and Seventeenth on five points, one point away from relegation.

The next game was Torino nil, Sassuolo won. Torino's loss means that they have now lost four of their 19 Serie A matches against Sassuolo. The last one before this coming in 2020. The Granata have collected seven draws and eight wins in this period. Torino had scored in each of their last 11 games before this one, bro. So this was a bit of a combo breaker for them. Now, lineups. Torino lined up with Vani Amelinkovic, Savage and Goal, the Titan himself. Buongiorno, Schuers and Gigi at the back.

Lazaro on the left, Shingo on the right. Linetti and Lukic as a double pivot. Vlasic as the treco artista and Radonjic and Sec as the striking partnership. Concilie and Goal for Sassuolo. Tolian on the right, Rogerio on the left. Ferrari and Aihon as the centre back pairing. Harui, Lopez and Frattesi in the middle of the park. 18-year-old call up from the primavera D'Andrea on the right. Lorente on the left and Penamonti as the striker.

Now, it's good to see them fielding someone from the primavera team. I don't feel like we see it enough in Italy. We see it a lot with clubs like Juve bringing through Miretti, Rovella, so on so forth. Uncharacteristically for Juve. We see it a lot in the Premier League. We saw Arsene field a fucking 15-year-old last week and they got 30 minutes of game time.

More of that and maybe not 15-year-olds but more primavera players in Serie A. I think Serie A should one-up them and bring on a 7-year-old next game. Amen, amen. Let's do it. In the first half, Lazaro scored a rebound after Vlasic struck the bar. He was celebrating but it turns out after a VAR review that he was in an offside position. Vlasic had been in an offside position. Roasted. The game was pretty much a stalemate with Torino kind of controlling things.

In the 92nd minute, actually let's say it from the second he came on. In the 86th minute, Alvarez came on for Pena Monti and he looked so hungry, bro. He instantly took a shot from outside the area. Quite a decent shot after quite some nice movement. He skied his attempt, it was very close, quite a decent attempt for his first one. Then in the 92nd minute, Sergio crossed the ball to him and he scored with a header. Ran to the Torino fans and pointed a heart at them as Ferrari told him off.

He celebrated basically in front of the wrong fans. We don't really blame him for doing so because Sassuolo do not have many fans. He spotted three fans next to each other. It's like there they are, our curva. There they are, I love you guys. It's quite a funny clip, you can see it on our TikTok, I'd say a spotlight. Sassuolo showing maturity, bro. Dionisi said that he wanted to concede less goals and here we are.

Sassuolo did not concede against a team that had scored against them in the previous 11 games. That's a big success for them. They won ugly, they struggled, they suffered together and they won. What do you make of this game, bro? It was nice seeing Alvarez come and go and getting a goal. It's just a reminder to Pinnamonti that he is going to need to work hard if he is going to keep his place up front. Of course, to be quite frank, it must be up for grabs at this point.

Dionisi isn't getting exactly what he wants out of Pinnamonti. I think Alvarez performing is something that could potentially change that. They are both starting from ground zero, the point you mentioned. Pinnamonti got one goal, it was a bit of a gift for him to be honest. Alvarez's goal is a bit more impressive. I particularly like Alvarez because of his Uruguayan industry. He is 21 years old. Uruguayan players tend to have this fire in them, this aggression.

The Cavani's, the Suarez, the Diego Forlans. And Alvarez did demonstrate a bit of the spirit while playing at this game. Agreed, agreed. I'd like to also highlight Gigi's golden chance at the near post. In the first half he shanked it and the commentator said that's what a defender does with a volley. Not wrong, not wrong at all. Sasuolo's first win in five games means that they are now 11th in the table with nine points as Torino are 9th with ten points.

And the next game we're going to be covering is Bologna 0-1. This was Mata's first game in charge of Bologna and it has in fact ended in defeat. Bologna were coming off their first victory of the season against Fiorentina. While simply were coming off a 2-1 home loss against Roma. So a much changed Bologna side in Mata's first game in charge. So looking at this they started with a four at the back and played 4-2-3-1.

Skorupski in goal with Cambiasso, Lukumi, Posch and Di Silvestri as the back four. Schouten and Medell in the double pivot. Good to see Garry Garry playing in his natural position over there. Barrow out wide and Orsolini out wide with Soriano on the attacking midfield role and Arnautovic up front. For Empoli it was a 4-3-1-2 formation. Vicario between the sticks who was just called up for Italy and rightly so. Stojanovic with Mildiluperto and Parisi making the back line.

With Haas, Marin and Bandonele in midfield by Rami attacking mid with Satriano and Lammers up front. So this may have been just a one-nil victory for Empoli. It was however one of the most exciting encounters that we had this matchday. Which is saying a lot because we had many good encounters. So it was Skorupski versus Vicario on this. Whichever goalkeeper was better their team would come out with the victory. Skorupski started off superbly.

He had a fine save to deny Lammers' header which was heading into the top corner. Acrobatic stuff by Skorupski. There was then a terrible back pass by Cambiasso played way too short to Skorupski. It put Satriano clean through on goal and Skorupski denied him. Shortly after this time it was Posch's turn to play the ball back to Skorupski way too soft. And this time Lammers was clean through on goal and again Skorupski denied him. Brilliant stuff by the goalkeeper over there.

Shortly after then it was Vicario's turn to turn things up. He had a fantastic save on Orsalini after some great work by Medel. And then shortly after Cambiasso's cross was handled in the box by one of the Empoli players. However Avarczyk deemed the incident to be in an offside position. So the penalty wasn't essentially given. Vicario then had another brilliant save to deny Orsalini. He got down well to stop a low, hard and accurate strike. It was absolutely unbelievable.

In the second half and then Henderson's square pass caused Skorupski to parry the ball away to the path of Bandinelli who finished into an empty net. I found it hilarious that on who scored it showed that this was an error by Skorupski leading to a goal. Absolutely not. It was a rebound. You know what I mean? But the low ball played in at the near post could have been handled a little bit more promptly by Skorupski to be fair. I don't think so. I think that's why they marked it as an error.

As in he parried the ball out and it only went as far as... It's harsh to call it an error. It's harsh as fuck. It's harsh as fuck. That is no way we'll ever see that and go, ah, the goalkeeper fucked up and they conceded. It was soft goalkeeping in my opinion. It's a shame because he had a really good game other than that. But this moment I think he reacted a little bit late to the Lammer's ball coming in.

I think what you're trying to do here is keep up the anti-Skorupski agenda because I said he's the second best goalkeeper in the league. Because what he does is deny a goal and the ball goes into the striker's path and he finishes into an empty net. There wasn't soft goalkeeping. There was soft defending. He came out and made a stop otherwise the ball would have gone into the back of the net. He parries it, goes into the striker's path and he taps into the empty net.

But it's by no means Korupski's error. What I think you're trying to do is overly defend a guy that you overrated in your rankings, my friend. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Maybe. I mean... No way would you ever look at that if it was another goalkeeper and say that was a goalkeeping error. I mean, who's score thinks it is? It's a rebound. He saves the ball. It goes to someone else and they finish it. He made a good save. I'm sure it was his near post. I feel like he should have been more assertive.

And at the end of the day he goes down, he parries the ball. He collided with their striker. He clattered with their striker. I don't know what else he could have done. He grabbed it like when he's getting clattered inside of... He had the striker and the defender. Go body on the ball, you know. Oh, come on, bro. It was a shot. He stopped it. Sure, sure, sure. There were little more. Yep. That's it. So Empoli made it 1-0 over there.

Shortly after, Arnautovic hit the post with a header at the far post with Vicarrio absolutely scrambling back. And moments after, Xerxie hit the crossbar after a corner. He was totally by himself and pundits were saying how he should have scored, but he would have seen it late and didn't manage to react in time. So victory for Empoli. Mota's first match in charge ends in defeat. I'm starting to think that Bologna should just operate with a caretaker manager.

Yes, they certainly do better with a caretaker manager. But this was an interesting brand of football that Mota played. They had a lot of possession, very possession-based. And they were quite unlucky, I think, to go home with nothing. They were, brother, Vicarrio. He was amazing. Is the reason they were home with nothing. And that unorthodox save at the end on Arnautovic was so weird. Bro. So good. He is a top, top, top, top goalkeeper, Vicarrio.

When he's on, he's on. He also has the odd error in him. I compare him and Monte-Po a lot. I never know who the better one is because Monte-Po will have a brilliant game, then Vicarrio has a brilliant game, and then vice versa, and then vice versa. Bologna really, really did do their best, but I genuinely believe that Vicarrio is the reason that Empoli got away with something and a bit of unluckiness for Bologna hitting the post twice and so on and so forth.

Empoli also had their chances and Skorupski denied them. That is one area where Bologna were really struggling, bro, is when they looked to build the ball from the back, they turned around and tried to play it back to Skorupski on multiple occasions. They did that on two out of all those times. They played short balls and their striker ended up being clean through on goal against Skorupski. For a Mota side, though, I'm sure that'll be brushed up, no? Yeah, most probably.

Look, Mota is an interesting brand of football. He actually did quite well at Spezia. Granted, I think he's a little bit pretentious. I think his ideas are bombastic, but at the end of the day on the pitch, he does show some very positive football, and it has proven to work. I think all he needs is time for Bologna, and time will show that he is probably the right man for the job. This Bologna team is dying for some identity, man. Hey, man, yes. Dying for some identity.

They have the personality. Exactly. So I think it'll give them that. On the other hand, Empoli did a super job to get away with three points in a situation where probably they shouldn't have gotten away with the full three points. And this is their first win of the season. Yes, they had many draws. Exactly. Draw, draw, draw, draw, draw, loss, win. Exactly. So it's good to see them getting their first three points, and hopefully they can monetize that and ride off the momentum.

But yeah, that's that for this game. There's not much that we need to see what Mata can do with Bologna as Empoli obviously all thumbs up to them for getting their first victory. Empoli are in 14th on seven points, while Bologna are in 16th on six points. Salernitana won Lekce two. This was some Friday night madness. And it was also the first meeting in Serie A between Salernitana and Lekce. Go boys. In total, there were 16 games in Serie A between these two teams.

Lekce leading by seven wins to four and five draws, of course. Now, Sepp and Goal for Salernitana as they line up with their 3-5-2. Gjomber, Danilulic and Bron at the back. Matsoki on the left, Kandreva on the right. Vilhena Maggiore and Koulibaly in the middle. Pjontek and DIA were the striking partnership for Salernitana. Lekce lined up with a 4-3-3 with Falcone and Goal, John Dre on the right. Pecela on the left, Basquirotto and Pongracic at the back.

Gonzalez, Humlind and Askildsen in the middle. Di Francesco on the right, Banda on the left and Cissé up front. He has a bit of a struggle over there. Can you tell me again, please? Pongracic. So this was a really good game of football that got going in the first half in the 43rd minute. There was a quick counter by Lekce. That's so Humlind playing a great ball to Cissé on the counter. Cissé is in a lot of space but he still has a defender on him and a lot to do.

He outpaces his man, he shields him off, he gets around the goalkeeper and he casually slides it in. What a goal, what a goal, what a goal. Banger. Amazing player. He's going to do very good things with Lekce. This almost made our goal of the week, which makes me realize we didn't talk about our goal of the week. Oh my God, we didn't. But we plugged in the intro. Oh my God. Our goal of the week was Sabiri. He scored an amazing goal but we'll get to that of course in the next game.

The next goal, the equalizer, was actually an extremely bizarre goal. There was a corner and Joao Gonzales went to kick the ball away and ended up shanking it, mis-kicking it into his own net. Terrible for him, can't tell but feel bad. And it was in the 83rd minute that Antonino Gallo played the ball to Gabriel Streffetza outside the area. Streffetza with his trademarked curler scores a banger, takes off his t-shirt but he's wearing a bra. I've been seeing this more and more recently.

It's not that cool. Sport bras everywhere. When you take off your shirt when you score a goal and you're wearing a bra, that's not very cool, man. Like, peak taking off your shirt in celebration is Ryan Giggs against Arsenal for United. Takes his shirt off and there's a forest of hair on his chest. That's what we want to see as consumers. You know what I mean? We don't want to see sports bras. You know? Yeah. But anyway Salernitana were very wasteful.

Lechev fought hard, I feel like they were quite fortunate to get the three points at the end. But you know, they're just reaping the results of their hard work basically. Yeah. Salernitana have some fucking good service bra out wide with Kondreva and Matsoky over there. Piontek and DIA can definitely feast with these guys. DIA went off injured this game but I feel like they can get those numbers up with the service that they have around them.

Even Maljoria had some good moments with them and playing them through on separate occasions. Yeah, it's a totally different side than the one you see last year. If you compare them to the Salernitana towards the end of last year, you obviously see some similarities because of the Davide and Nicola influence. But they have many more tools to their arsenal now that they can utilise. So they don't have to make do from the scraps that they were left with from last season.

They've invested a little bit in players like Piontek and Kondreva and DIA. So hopefully they can... well, most hopefully they can. They do look a much better side now. Lecce were very organised with their brand of football as well with Marco Barone over here. His first victory for Lecce in Serie A. Right? Yeah, their first victory this season. And it was a massive one for them.

A way to Salernitana is definitely not an easy game to play right now, but they did very well to hang in there and to get three points. Agreed, agreed. So they are... Letria are 15th in the table with six points, while Salernitana are 13th with seven points. Precisely. So the next and final game we're going to be covering is Spezia 2 Sampdoria 1. Another upset over here, maybe not one of the two shocking ones though.

Spezia are coming off a 1-0 loss to Napoli, while Sampdoria are coming off a 2-1 home loss to Milan. So Spezia lined up with their 3-5-2 formation with Dragovski in goal, Nikolaou Kiwiour and Ampadou in the back line. Riek on home, out wide with Kofalenko, Borabian, Bastoni in the midfield, and Zola and Jasi up front. Out there on goal for Sampdoria with Berezinski, Ferrari, Jason Murillo, and Augello at the back. Villar in the holding with Fildro with Rincon and Sabiri up ahead of him.

Leri Santuricic out wide with Caputo up front. So it was in the 11th minute that Sabiri scored what was potentially the... well, definitely the goal of the week and potentially even the goal of the season thus far. It was a very, very incredibly long-ranged dipping strike from miles out. The dip was unbelievable. The ball went so high and then dipped at the perfect moment over Dragovski. Nothing he can do about it. If you haven't seen this goal, guys, look it up because it is fantastic.

And then for Spezia, Holmes Danger's ball, Danger's square ball rather, sorry, was deflected off of Ferrari and then off of Murillo and into the back of their own net for Jason Murillo own goal. It was ping pong stuff in their own box, really unorganized defending there by Sampdoria. Subsequently, Spezia got the goal over there. Augello had a brilliant save on Ampadu. He got into position well and extended his legs super well.

Sabiri then was super close to scoring from distance again with a low-place drive from distance. Close him down at that point. He just did that from 30, 35 yards out. And you're still giving him space to have these attempts from outside the area. So a little bit concerning defending there by Spezia. It was then Inzola that scored thanks to a home assist. So a home crossed the ball with a low cross to Inzola who half-vollied past Audero.

Dragovski then had a double save on Gabbiadini and Sabiri, but to be honest both of them were quite central at him. And Dragovski then had a fantastic save to deny Qualiarella in a 1-1 scenario where he came out well and made himself big. It was a good display for goalkeepers. This week as Dragovski also had a very good performance here. Seven saves, Dragovski. There you go. Massive performance. Keeping the minute.

Spezia, man, these guys have been playing together for like three seasons, four seasons. Now the same faces, you know, Simone and Zaghi, Girozzi, Inzola. These guys are the spine. Simone and Zaghi. Sorry, Simone and Zaghi. Might as well come and coach this team. Luca Gotti is a good manager and he's given them like a new lease of life almost. They're gathering a lot of points early on these guys. Man, Spezia this season. They're having a good start, man.

They are currently on, I don't want to spoil it because I'll tell you guys, but they're on eight points out of seven matches, which isn't bad. Yeah, that's decent for them. That's very good. For a team every season, every season they are contenders for relegation. Are they ever really like though? That's true. That's true, man. They've become experts of survival and experts of winning against all odds. And even here, man, Sampdoria had more shots.

Yeah, but they've never even gotten close to relegation. Like in the final days of last season, they were safe. They were safe, it's true. The season before that, they were safe. They had beaten Milan, remember? No, they... Hold your own, get relegated now. I don't think they will, man. Straight up. I had them in my original prediction. It's so confusing because it might be Sampdoria, man, unless they go for the January, like Pacey Winger or Pacey Striker.

They just need someone to connect that midfield to the attack. They need someone with a bit of fucking mobility in them. I have a point here. They had Sensi last year. That was brilliant. He was a brilliant solution. And Kandreva as well. But Sampdoria, bro, are basically relegated unless they sack Gianpaolo tomorrow. They have the international break coming up. That's a two-week period where they don't have too many players out on international duty.

They could have two weeks under new management, get to know the team. I know two weeks still isn't ideal when the season has already commenced, but it's better than just throwing them into the fray. OK, and you've got a game in five days. He's got two weeks. He could train with the team a little bit. He could get to know them. Maybe now is a good opportunity to do so. I don't think they'll sack him. I think the company believes in him. He's a guy who did very well with them in the past as well.

I think he'll remain until it gets really ugly and then they'll sack him. It's going to get uglier than this, so... I think so. It's still early on. It can totally get way worse, especially if the teams around them keep picking up points. We saw many first wins this weekend. Mm-hm. I haven't seen one for Sampdoria yet on two draws only. Two draws, five losses. Man. Jampala at the hand. Nzola, bro, by the way, last season had two goals scored. This season here, they have three.

There you go. Nzola. It's a good start for him. You take him on Fanta again? Definitely not. After what happened the first time. He took him and he stopped scoring, right? Exactly. Faith is in our hands always. Like Milan lost to Napoli because I was wearing a Milan kit while watching it. You know this. You know this. Spezia in 12th on eight points while Sampdoria are dead last with two points. Guys, you have no idea the technical difficulties we've had in this episode.

It's been very frustrating. We're sorry if the energy has dipped. Yeah. I for one, I'm livid. Imagine guys, we'd be recording and suddenly the wave form things start fucking up. And Matthias goes up, it's fucking up, it's fucking up. We listen back and we're talking like this. And it just speeds up like this. Hopefully it doesn't do that at random moments. Hey man. Hey. Oh good. But fuck it. Let us know if you've noticed any difference in sound quality or whatever.

Remember to give us a nice little cheeky follow on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Rate us wherever you're listening. Two week international break now, but we'll make sure we give you some form of content to consume. You content hungry dogs. But that's pretty much from our end. I know two weeks without culture is a terrible thing, but do try to be productive. Go see the outside world, walk barefoot places and enjoy nature and shit. Do mushrooms. Anything from you, Jake? Nothing man.

Enjoy the international football. Enjoy the break from Syria. And we'll see you shortly. We'll see you shortly guys. Ciao ciao.