Hey everybody, it's Diana Rossini from the Scoop City Podcast. It's Super Bowl week and the eyes of the world are on New Orleans to see if the Chiefs can make history. or if the Eagles are ready to rain on their parade, myself, Robert Mays, Derek Claussen, and a whole host of NFL reporters and special guests will be live streaming every day from Radio Row, covering all the buildup to Sunday's showdown. Join us on The Athletic each week.
YouTube account every day at 5pm Eastern Time. It's not to be missed. And welcome to the Total Soccer Show. My name is Taylor Rockwell. And as the old adage goes, when Kyle Walker leaves England, Ryan must return. Ryan Bailey has returned to the splendid environs of palatial Bailey Manor, which leaves we three here on YouTube to carry forward the weekend review banner. And what a weekend it was. at least for Arsenal, who at full-time reminded City it's best to be humble.
There's a rhyme. Prior to Kendrick Lamar blasting around the Emirates, Arsenal put five past City, who did anything but lock the gates. Last weekend, I pondered if City had found an approach to give them hope. This weekend, the answer to that question was a firm, resounding nope. Speaking of things not going well for the city of Manchester, a loss to Palace.
meant United's form at home continued to fester. Joe requested at least 30 minutes to discuss the situation at United. Just kidding, any chat longer than three minutes, and it will have your host indicted. Marcus Rashford plays for Villa now, and Joe Felix from Chelsea might be moving, but the biggest news... In Serie A, Inter hit the woodwork thrice and had three goals disallowed.
But in the 93rd minute, Milan's defense eventually bowed. In the end, a one-all draw was a fair enough conclusion. Also, how is Benjamin Pavard suddenly powered by some form of nuclear fusion? And over in Spain, a Madrid loss has the title race heating up. Is Luminium all still quite... Good. Joe's expert analysis. Yep. Barca got a 1-0 win and Atleti did one better. Here with me to talk it all out is Graham Ruffin, our 17 screen go-getter. Hello, Graham.
Hello, Taylor Rockwell. What an introduction. What a Ryan Bailey impression there. I am still thinking about the palatial Bailey Manor. Yep. And are we talking about like the house from Saltburn here? Like that's what we're imagining. Times two. Times two. Minus the bath, hopefully. How many peacocks do we think are on Bailey Manor, if we had to guess? Surely double-feggers. Yeah, I think so, right? Is there a peacock wrangler at Bailey Manor, do you think, Graham?
Oh, several, I would presume. Ryan knows none of their names, of course. Of course. Oh, no. It's just the help. They're all just collectively the help. To continue our introductions, at this point, I ran out of time writing the intro. That's on me.
I couldn't think of any more rhymes. I apologize, Joe Lowry. Wow, yes, you could, and you did. Taylor, you have, I really feel like over the last two shows that you've hosted, you have brought your rhyme game to a completely higher level. It's always been good. Like, you've always done a good job, and it is a very...
excellent Ryan Bailey stand in, you've like added your own sort of flair and panache to it. I think you're mounting a legitimate title challenge to Ryan Bailey on the intros. I said it. I'll be the first. I said it. I appreciate that. Other than when I think written down Emirates and Gates rhyme.
Said out loud, I'm not sure they do. Also, Arsenal and Humble. That one was good. I'll admit I didn't know exactly where Gates fell into the equation until you just explained it. But legitimately, the quality of the Rhine is elite around here these days. Your seat's getting toasty, my friend. That's all I'm saying. You better hurry back soon. We do. Also, we do miss you.
Come back. He's got to wade through that horde of peacocks to make it back in time. We do miss Ryan Bailey. He is over in England where Kyle Walker is not. Kyle Walker is also not with Man City anymore, which is maybe for the better, Graham Ruffman, given the way this weekend went for them. For Milan or for Man City? Who's it better for? I'm confused. Let's go Men City first, then we'll talk Milan.
I mean, I think they could have used Kyle Walker in this game the way that this match went. I mean, I watched the Milan derby and it seemed like an improvement on what Mateus Nunes was doing in this match. it's amazing how normalized this has become for Man City they lose 5-1 and everyone just kind of shrugs their shoulders and is like yeah that's the way Man City are at the moment and it was quite the statement win for Arsenal I would say
Yeah, and then some. Joe, how surprised were you by this one? I'm not surprised with an Arsenal win necessarily, but how resounding it ended up being was a bit of a shocker to me. Yeah, I'm still right there with you. It's taken me quite some time to shake off this feeling that Man City should be.
in these kinds of games in a more real way than they actually were in this particular match. At least in the opening stages, they have a couple of challenges out of the back, of course, and that comes back to bite. But then I felt like they stabilized a little bit and they didn't allow a ton of chances.
And then you get to the second half, and after Erling Haaland puts the ball in the back of the net and ties it up, you think, okay, this is going to be something. And it just wasn't. Like, they just... crumbled in the second half and they've had too many of those sorts of moments in recent weeks. We saw some of this recently in the Premier League. We've seen some of it in the Champions League.
This is a team that does not seem to be able to play to even the sum of their parts. Forget more than the sum of their parts right now. This does not seem like a team that is playing up to their level. And when do you do that against a very, very motivated, clearly, team in Arsenal and a very, very... good team, a team that had some incredible defensive moments in this match and had some quality attacking play too.
This is the kind of thing that happens. Also, for YouTube viewers may have noticed some sort of weird lag there. I now have to explain my absences. I got to go flip my Internet. So I'm going to walk in the room back in my room right here before on audio only. I would never had to explain. But that's why I'm about to get up from my chair and move. I'm not. you guys. I mean, I am, but you know.
The magic of YouTube right there in front of our very eyes. Joe, I agree with everything you said there. I thought it was very similar to the PSG game that we watched in the Champions League a couple of weeks ago, where after a while it just felt like City couldn't hang with the intensity of their...
and Arsenal just ran over the top of them in that final, what, 30 minutes of the match. And in the first half, I actually thought, and Joe, you kind of cut out for a moment there, so I apologise. It was super insightful, Graham. Don't worry. I actually thought... his first half performance was decent.
If you take out those mistakes playing out from the back, which were notable and that was the thing that gave Arsenal the lead in this game, and Kai Havertz, if he'd not been Kai Havertz for a moment, would have put Arsenal 2-0 up as well. But while they didn't create a whole lot of scoring opportunities...
I thought City responded well to going behind early on and they controlled the majority of possession. And Raya makes a couple of big saves in that first half. There's the one from the header from the corner kick. Then there's the save from Savinho low down where it takes a deflection as well. And it's an incredible.
save, and at the point of the Haaland equaliser, the way the match had gone until that point, I thought City were the more likely to win the game, but after that it was a completely different story. Grim, that's basically what I got to now that my internet issues have hopefully been resolved. City continue to shoot themselves in the foot, but I thought they responded fairly admirably in this game. Arsenal didn't...
wow me with some of their attacking play. City, I thought, actually ended up controlling a lot of the game. The thing that City didn't do in this game, and this is something I really want to give credit to Arsenal for as well, sort of things can be two things situation.
City didn't create a lot of chances. I know you mentioned those two opportunities they had that forced saves out of Raya, and those are real things, but they were not especially dangerous. You can look at the first 20-30 minutes of this game. They're barely generating chances. They're barely getting into the box. They're barely getting into the final third. Arsenal controlled the tempo of this game and they had the luxury to do so.
because City shoot themselves in the foot so early on with that turnover from Akanji and Stones puts him in a bad spot to begin with in the second minute. But after that, City had so little to offer in terms of the attack, setting those couple of little chances aside. Maybe little is a bit.
a bit reductive there but arsenal did such a good job of controlling manchester city without ever needing the ball and yes they had possession in this game but in that very fluid 4-4-2 mid-block that Mikel Arteta likes to use, and their aggressive, man-oriented press that really denied a lot of the options through the middle, a lot of man-to-man actions throughout the pressing sequences from Arsenal, where they were blocking off...
The middle and really trying to force the ball wide and force turnovers. They had a ton of success doing that. So this is a weird game in a lot of ways because I don't think City were horrible in this game outside of the turnovers. Arsenal certainly weren't perfect either, right? We saw that throughout this match. But I do think this is a worthy and just result, if not the scoreline maybe quite following the action of the game.
I do think so often with results like this, matches like this, the question becomes, was this city being poor or Arsenal being exceptional? Oftentimes the answer is a combination of the two. I do sort of give the edge to Arsenal in this one because of the way...
They defended and how well they utilized the press. It wasn't a full press. It wasn't heavy metal pressing or anything like that. They would press at times. Then they would sit off. Then there would be individual pressing triggers. And I think it really disrupted what Citi wanted to do.
But I also think when you do that, when you have this mixed approach for Arsenal, you have to have everybody switched on and dialed in and knowing exactly what to do and exactly when to do it. And that was so apparent so often, especially in those early chances they created.
via City's sloppiness and possession was that once one player goes, everybody goes. And there is good tracking and good running. And Declan Rice covers 40 yards to make plays on the ground. I think I combined those two things all at once. And I think that was what stood out to me.
this game so much was just how locked in Arsenal were, how focused they were on executing the game plan. And I think there was an element of a grudge match here too. I'm not sure if either one of you has thoughts on that, but this felt like... Love that. Yeah, this felt like not quite the old school like Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira going at each other, but you could sense there was some some bad blood and some maybe demons being excised by the end of this one.
Yeah, mainly between Gabriel and Haaland. Of course, that stretches back to the match earlier in the season and maybe predates that match into last season as well. This has been bubbling away between these two teams for a number of seasons now. And you could see, like, I don't know if this...
was a statement win by Arsenal because City aren't the force that they were last season we've seen a number of teams dismantle them in this way and that's what I said at the top of the segment let's be real away from home as well yeah exactly so I don't know like if this had been last season that really would have been a statement
But we certainly saw how much this win meant to Arsenal because City have been the yardstick for them for the past three seasons. And you could see how much they relished this confirmation that they are a better team.
than them at this moment. There's absolutely zero doubt about that right now. They went to the Etihad earlier in the season. They got a draw with 10 men. They come back to the Emirates and they absolutely smashed them in the second half. And while I found their first half performance a little bit frustrating actually on the...
Arsenal side of things they are they seem to be slowing down the game when they were 1-0 up and there was a number of opportunities where they would have the chance to take on a man or make a pass in behind and they would turn back and slow the game down and I don't know I think Arsenal are guilty
of being a little bit risk averse in possession. And there were moments where they could have really killed the game off or taken the game to Man City in that first half. So I find them a bit frustrating. But in that second half, they were absolutely rampant after the City equaliser. And you could see how much they were up.
They didn't just want to win this match. They wanted to get in Man City's faces, as Gabriel did to Haaland. They wanted to rub it in by mocking Haaland's celebration and by playing Kendrick at full time. And it felt like a release for those Arsenal players.
And their fans. And ultimately, I don't know whether this gets them any closer to the title because Liverpool are now the yardstick at the top of the table. But I can put myself in the shoes of an Arsenal fan and understand why this game felt so good for them.
For folks like myself who missed it but then heard about it after the fact, I completely forgot about the who are you confrontation between Lewis Skelly and Erling Haaland five months ago where I think Lewis Skelly tried to have some words with Haaland who responded quite clearly, who are you?
And so I think that, yeah, the Lewis Skelly goal and then Mockinghall and celebration definitely meant to announce who he was. I enjoyed Mikel Arteta saying that he wasn't pleased with the kind of individual attempts to go to Man City and get in their faces. I feel like that maybe carries less weight when the entire stadium is then blaring be humble by Kendrick Lamar, a thing that Erling Haaland also suggested Arsenal do. So it felt to me like this was.
a game that Arsenal desperately wanted to win to keep their season alive, to keep their title challenge potentially alive, to put pressure on Liverpool. But I think also just to sort of... Make City less of a boogeyman, make City less of a team that just feel like this all conquering heroes. And instead, I think kind of brought them back to Earth and humbled them a bit. So credit to Arsenal for that performance.
Sorry to take us away from the game a little bit here, but just on the Kenrick Lamar humble thing and the celebration, I loved it, right? So I want more of this stuff in the Premier League. I'm a neutral. Does it not kind of prove Erling Haaland's point? Like, is this not the whole thing? Is that Arsenal haven't won anything, you may beat City, but...
Like, don't get too big for your boots. Does it not prove I'm right? Am I reading that incorrectly? Because they're celebrating so much a single victory? Is he not thinking to himself, well, that's exactly what I was talking about. I don't know. It was just a weird disconnect between messaging there, I thought. I think Ernie Holland is thinking zero, one, zero, one, one, zero, zero. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, if he had human emotions, yes, I think certainly that would be what he's thinking.
So then then his celebration that when he scores, he's he's got this like smirk on, but he's not actually celebrating. And to me, that felt a little bit like I'm not saying anything, but I am saying something. So it felt like he even himself got got into the trolling a little bit. He was pointing at, full time he was pointing to the, you know how City have a Champions, like a gold Premier League badge on the sleeve. So he was like pointing to that. So he loved it as well in his own way.
See, I would give credit, except that I feel like we just saw Jamie Vardy do that to Tottenham like a week or two ago where he pointed at the sleeve and then was like, I've got one, you've got zero. So all I feel like now is Erling Haaland is just copying people. And now we're going to find out that that's where that celebration came from as well.
I mean, I guess it does sort of prove his point a little bit, but I think Arsenal will be fine with that given the way they proved that point in such emphatic fashion. We did have Kai Havertz missing what I would say would have...
been a goal should have been a goal so you know we still have the old standard though he does end up getting one uh later on in the game joe where was the xg on that kai havertz miss are you okay with me saying he should have finished or was it more difficult that maybe i'm letting it on it probably was a bit more difficult than your left
Letting on. Let's see. Fatmob has it as 0.3 XG. It's a good chance. It's a really good chance. And that might even be a little bit lower than I would have expected. Given the context of the shot. But he's fairly far out. And. Yeah, it's a bad miss. There's no doubt about it. It's a bad miss from Kai Havertz in that moment. And that would have been the second goal scored off of a Man City...
Oopsie, right? Like that was the theme of this game for Man City deep in their own half. And you get deeper into the game and the Thomas Partey goal in the 56th minute is also off of a Man City turnover deep inside their own half as Phil Foden's pass gets cut out by Partey and then he doesn't have a lot of pressure around. him and goes up and shoots and scores. It was sloppy. And for as much as I think we all agree.
The margins between these teams probably weren't as wide as four goals says they were. City did not do themselves any favors in this game. I want to take us back, not to the celebration from Myles Lewis Skelly, the Pirate himself, but... to the couple of goals scored by Arsenal youngsters in this game. I forgot about the pirate part of this. Yeah, no, it's back and it's never leaving. Graham put it in the dock and I was so proud. I feel like we're really doing something here, guys.
62nd minute. It's a great goal for Miles Lewis-Skelly. And then Ethan Waniere comes off the bench and scores a goal that is less satisfying than the one he just scored on Wednesday in the Champions League, but it's basically the exact same goal. It's the Arian Robin goal. He's on the right wing, cuts inside on the left foot.
scores to the far post. That's becoming a theme, and I really enjoy watching Ethan Waniere play. I also have enjoyed watching Miles Lewis-Skelly play in his limited minutes so far this year. Lewis-Skelly's 18 years old. Waniere's 17 years old. Arsenal's pipeline of talent, and this is not unique to them. This is shared by a lot of other top teams in the Premier League.
is just ridiculous that they are suffering, that they have suffered as many injuries as they have this year. This is the team that I believe all three of us on this show predicted to win the title in the Premier League. I know I did. I believe I was not alone in that fact early on in the season. Graham did. Taylor can't remember.
what he predicted. I definitely had them second behind Liverpool, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, yeah. Nice. I had Nottingham Forest fourth, by the way, or third. I can't remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's weird, bizarre. I guess we're just that good. This is not unique to Arsenal in terms of the talent that they have.
But you look at all of the injuries, but Kiyosaka is watching this one from a box or the stands or wherever he was in this game. They have dealt with so many fitness issues this year and they are getting legitimate contributions out of children on the soccer field. It is.
It is a really positive sign for this Arsenal team. It's not going to matter this year in terms of them winning the title, but they have found real contributors to a team that needed maybe a few more of those sorts of depth pieces. and now is going to be something closer to Bulletproof next year than they were this year. And he is absolutely perfect. I'm talking about...
the pirate himself, Miles Lewis-Kelly, or MLS, as I'm calling him. That's the latest nickname I'm giving him. But anyway, he's perfect for what Arteta wants from his full-backs, right? Because he's actually a midfielder. He's been retrofitted as a left-back. I don't know. if listeners or the two of you are kind of familiar with his youth career but he's a midfielder that has been played at
He's been played at left back this season because that's where the need has been with injuries. And so he is really comfortable coming into those central areas and he'll drive forward with the ball. And we've seen with Zdenchenko obviously doing that a couple of seasons ago and then Ben White.
doing it at right back. It feels like he's an elevation on that because he's even more comfortable doing that sort of thing. And it feels like he looked at what Ricardo Calafiore was doing earlier in the season where he was driving into the middle. And I remember we talked about Calafiore and the impact that he'd made. And how he wasn't just going into the middle, he was then driving into the final third with the ball. And it feels like Lou Skelly has looked at that.
And kind of copied that and added his own dimension onto it on the ball. And there was a point in this game where he brushes past Erling Haaland, kind of holds him off on his back. And he's like half the height of Erling Haaland and he wins the free kick. It was super. super impressive and I think he's a real prospect for Arsenal. Calafiore on the bench for this one comes on in the 90th minute for Louis Skelly. Is he returning from injury or is Calafiore now a deputy?
To a teenager in the form of MLS. So I think both of those things are true. Calafiore's been out this season for a long time with injury, and so maybe he doesn't quite have much sharpness yet. But I think Lou Skelly's absolutely first choice left back for Arsenal at this point. Wow.
All right. Well done, Lewis Skelly. Well done, Arsenal, for the resounding win. We'll see what happens next. But I do think, at the very least, it has to give you some confidence going into a fairly tricky stretch. I think their next few games, they've got Newcastle. I think Manchester United's in there.
They might have Chelsea in there as well. And then there's some like Leicester, some other teams in there as well. But it's going to be an interesting run of form for Arsenal. We'll see if they can keep it going. When we come back, we'll keep it going and talking about the Premier League. But still, Serie A and La Liga to come as well. Back soon. It's the final week of the transfer window, and that sound you can hear is David Ornstein's phone blowing up.
I'm Ayo Akinwalere and you can join me, David and our esteemed reporters every day on the Athletic FC podcast as we leave no stone unturned on picking every major deal. You know, this is a major development and let's see how it goes forward don't miss a beat with the athletic fc podcast listen for free wherever you get your podcasts
Welcome back to the Total Soccer Show. Let's continue our Premier League rundown. We've got Manchester United nil, Crystal Palace 2, another loss from Manchester United at home. A really resounding and comprehensive loss in which Kobe Minou started as a number nine and failed to do much on the attacking side.
Joe, you said you had five to ten minutes of content for this one? Fifty. Fifty, actually. All right. All right. I'll just clear out that space right now. Go ahead, Joe. I was going to add it in post.
Okay, okay, we'll do it in post. We'll do it on the night. We'll do it on the night. Okay, so then I guess we won't talk too much about that. Let's instead, Graham, talk about a Spurs win. Spurs and Manchester United battling for who might not get relegated. Spurs, maybe with the advantage, even though they are a place behind. get the win, a 2-0 win over Brentford. Things are all happy now with Tottenham?
Not quite, but certainly more positive than they were before Sunday. By the way, we will be recording a transfer window update on tomorrow's show. And I feel like we may have quite a lot of Spurs news. They seem to be the most active of all the teams right now. I'm unsure of whether... they're actually going to get any deals done because they've left it so late. But maybe Spurs fans will be... Tease it now, Graham. Who are they linked with so we can see how much ends up happening?
Okay, so at the time of recording, they are linked with Mark Gahey. They've made a bit of £70 million for Mark Gahey. Seems a bit late in the window to be making offers of that size, but nonetheless, let's see what happens. And then just before we started recording, Matthias Tell, which has been...
going back and forward he's been going to Chelsea then he's been going to Manchester United apparently Sky Germany are saying that he's agreed to go to Tottenham and he's on his way to London so that seems more likely than the Mark Gehye one there's also a couple others that I can't I'm blanking on that they've been linked with but they
They seem to be very active on the final day of this transfer window. So maybe Spurs fans will be feeling even better tomorrow after a win over Brentford on Sunday. And heading into this match, I really feared the worst for Spurs, considering how things have been going for them recently. Brentford have one of the best home records in the Premier League, of course. But this was a big, important win. And it was very unj, unj ball, unj.
un-ang-ball like un-ang-ball-y there we go in the way that they got the win because Spurs were quite happy to sit deep for long periods and stay compact and make it difficult for Brentford to play through them and find space they did all those things really well They scored a goal from a set piece, managed the game well, fought hard in their duels. They made more clearances in this game than in any other Premier League match this season.
And then they scored a second goal to secure the three points in quick transition. So when people talk about, and we've spoken about this ourselves the last few weeks, when people talk about Spurs needing to be more pragmatic in the situation that they're in right now, this is what they mean.
This is certainly what I'm in. And so this feels like having got the, they've got proof of concept now. They've got the evidence that this sort of thing works. I think this is what post-call glow needs to do in a number of games between now and the end of the season.
And I think if you're Spurs, if you're Daniel Levy, given the protests, given the kind of frustrations with supporters or from supporters, you do have to, if you're going to back Big Ang and say, this is our guy, we're going to stick with him, you kind of have to then reinforce a little bit. So I think it's good that they are doing so. We will see.
how happy Spurs supporters are at this time tomorrow when we record that transfer review show. Let's see if they had other names as well. But I'm going to say in the meantime, Graham, Nottingham Forest supporters feeling pretty good about this weekend's activities.
Yeah, they'll be feeling not bad after a 7-0 win over Brighton. Keep in mind they got smashed 5-0 by Bournemouth the week before, so that's quite the response. They've already made up the goal difference that they lost. We're doing great. On aggregate, they're 2-0 up at this point. And first of all, a point on Brighton. As brilliant as Forrest were, and I will round this.
round to talking about for us but I did look at the Brighton team sheet when it came out before the game and this was the early game on a Saturday so I naturally always kind of pay a little bit more attention to that match as the first game of the weekend when the team sheet came out I looked at it and wondered how on earth
the setup would work for Brighton specifically in the middle of the of the pitch where they had they basically had five attackers and then Hinshelwood as the only orthodox midfielder in their team It didn't work. Spoiler alert, it did not work as the scoreline suggests. And I don't really understand what...
Hertzler was trying to do I don't know whether he thought well Nottingham Forest are a team that like to play in quick transition if we just pin them back with so many attackers then they're not going to be able to get through I don't know what the thinking was but it was a little bit galaxy brained from Hertzler and it was disastrous because
Forrests were absolutely rampant in this game. I know Chris Wood gets the hat trick, which is just a lull at this point that he's scoring so many goals. But Anthony Alanga, I thought, was the star man for me. His assists for the first and second Wood's goals were so good.
drives at his man, he beats them, then he gets the delivery and the first one is this incredible curling cross that's impossible to defend for Brighton and Wood gets his head on it and scores. The second one is this driven cross to the back post and Wood just needs to be in position six yards out and he finishes.
So that Forest attack is just really formidable on their day. If it's not Gibbs-White, it's Alanga. If it's not Alanga, it's Hudson-Odoi. Yeah, there's something special when they hit form like this. Did you have Chris Wood in your fantasy team, Graham? That's the most important question. I had an absolutely cracking weekend fantasy-wise. I think I'm up into the top 50 in the TSS League. Oh, no. I don't know where I am, but I don't think I'm in the top 50 because I keep...
keeping Manchester United players in my team, and that's a mistake, Joe. You shouldn't do that. I know, it really is at this point. Is top 50 meant to sound impressive? I actually don't know how many people are in our fantasy league. I think there's like 400, so it's not as high as I would like.
to be last season I think I finished like sixth or something so I need to push on alright you can do it Graham we believe you can get back into those European spots that sounds made up to me it sounds made up to me that he finished that high but I mean I finished top three but I'm glad we're all about the making up of stats on this show. That's good for us. That's quite the accusation.
And with Forrest, Anthony Longa playing well, continuing the tradition of players leaving Manchester United and then being good. A very fun weekend for Manchester United supporters, I have to say. Let's just move swiftly away from the Premier League, shall we? Unless you guys want to pour in.
more salt into that wound to La Liga where Anthony was man of the match in his first game for Real Betis and was really good I watched that game live do you want to talk about that Taylor no no kind of do why was he good He looked like the Ajax, Anthony, where I think I figured out not to go long on this game. I'm fine because we're stalling for time so I can get us to a second break. So I think the difference is Betis actually give him the ball. So when you have Isco bouncing passes off.
off him and you know little rotations and he's getting loads of touches of the ball Anthony looks good and effective and his first shot leads to the opening goal for Bettis then plays a couple of really good through balls and behind you need to get him on the ball he never did that so I was impressed. I thought he looked good. But when you get him on the ball, doesn't he just do the spinny thing? Like, does he actually create on the ball?
So when you get him into a rhythm and he has someone like Isco, like Manchester City don't have a player like Isco, like a rhythm builder. I also thought he looked pretty good with Johnny Cardoso next to him as well, where Johnny was giving him a lot of the ball. This episode is pain.
Graham, how was the rest of the weekend in La Liga since you forced us in that direction? We'll keep it going. Espanol with a 1-0 win over Real Madrid. Not a result I saw coming. How big of a deal should this be for Real Madrid?
Yeah, it is a big deal because all of a sudden the title race is blown open again, particularly with Barcelona winning. We'll come on to them a little bit later. They weren't entirely convincing themselves. But in this match, this was a return of the bad Real Madrid we saw earlier in the season. And I have been saying not to...
blow my own trumpet here but I've been saying for weeks that the real test of this side would be when Vinicius is back and he was injured for a while and then he was suspended and when he comes back into the team how does this team fare against a low defensive block answer Not well. This was, again, what we saw earlier in the season where...
It was just remarkably easy for Espanyol to sit deep, stay compact, block off any space in behind, and then attack the open space on the counter. And there was this real disconnect for Real Madrid between the midfield and the forward line.
Again, not to blow my own trumpet, I've been saying it all season, Brahim Diaz needs to be in that front line for games like this against low defensive blocks. He's the cohesion player. He gets them rhythm, similar actually to what Anthony was doing for Real Betis. That was the sort of player that Real Madrid were missing. Real Madrid should sign Anthony is basically what I'm saying here. But the balance is off when it's...
Mbappe, Vinicius, Rodrigo and Bellingham. There may be matches where it clicks and just through them putting one in the top corner from 25 yards out they get through games like they did against Brest in the Champions League.
But I think they're going to get caught out against low defensive lines more often than not, actually. And that's what happened in this match. I could have had a thousand tries. A thousand tries on what club will Graham say should sign Anthony. And it would have taken me a thousand. or more teams before I got to Real Madrid.
Today's show is an amazing, beautiful thing that we should never stop recording. We're doing great work, guys. We're doing great work. Graham, one other thing to note from this one. Antonio Rudiger off in the 15th minute. I believe he is their only fifth senior. your center back at this point. So a problem, a problem.
Yeah, as bad as this was, this performance was by Real Madrid, that is the real damage from this game. Eder Milatao is out injured. David Alaba is technically fit, but has been out for so long that Real Madrid are kind of easing him back into the lineup. I don't know if he's ready to start. And apparently Rüdiger's going to be out for three weeks. And Real Madrid's fixtures in that period are the Madrid derby and two games against Man City and a Copa del Rey quarterfinal. So...
That is far from ideal for them. Wow. Well, at least they don't have Barcelona, who looked good enough, I would say, this weekend in a 1-0 win over Alaves, in which, Joe, let me know you all.
Just continues to justify the hype that you have poured onto him. Every time I think it can't get even higher, the level of hype, he does things like he did this weekend and that ratchets up just a bit more. Well, and I'll go ahead and move this conversation even further forward. The thing that I'm about to talk about...
was Lionel Messi-esque. And there's no other player that came to mind for me in this clip that was shared immediately in our TSS Slack is something that I had seen. Watch this game as well. Lamine Jamal receives the ball sort of in a right back position. It's in the fourth minute.
of this game against Alves, which was not a great game for Barcelona, as we've already sort of alluded to. He receives the ball on the right side, drops his shoulder, he's got two men sort of right trailing him, and he beats both of them, knifes into central midfield, continues to dribble.
Another three players sort of come and surround him. Then there's a fourth. Then there's a fifth. He continues to dribble. He continues to slalom. Gets the ball eventually on his left foot. He's now moved the ball all the way into zone 14, by the way. So again, he started basically as a right back in terms of where he picks up the ball in this moment.
And then weaves his way past a bunch of players all the way into zone 14 and then clips a lovely little left-footed ball out to Rafinha on the more the left side of the box, maybe just outside the box. And Rafinha shoots and it ends up going wide. It's like that Lionel Messi moment that is so viral from Messi where he eventually ends up actually going and putting the ball in the back of the net himself. Lamal doesn't do that in this game, but it is so, so good.
From the 17-year-old, excuse me, I'm talking all about teenage soccer players on today's show. He is so unbelievably good. Like, he's not necessarily going to be the next Lionel Messi, but I think it is still going under disgust. how incredible he is. He might legitimately be the best soccer player on the planet. Right now, that might be Pedri as well. I'm not going to fight Pedri fans about that. It's definitely one of the two. There's no argument I'll hear as to the contrary.
He is absurd. If he was playing in the Premier League, this is just a fact. I think he would already be in those types of conversations more widely, but at least on this show, we can talk about it for what it is because he is...
so absurdly good. He's also involved in the goal sequence for Barcelona as well. It's him kind of hitting the ball in the volley. He's trying to shoot, ends up taking a deflection, and it's Robert Lewandowski who ends up putting the ball in the back of the net. It is kind of a fluke goal for Barcelona, and they... They needed a little bit of that in this game. But my word, Barcelona's right wing are unbelievably good. I can't get enough. Graham, co-sign on that one?
Oh, absolutely, Cosine. It's the moment where he almost gets knocked over and somehow keeps his... keeps his balance, and then sort of turns back on himself to take on, I'm not sure if it's the same two players again or whether it's another two players, but slalom is the right word. He just... jinxed through the entire middle of the Alaves team. And I only wish he'd kept going. In the end, he sort of feeds the ball out to Rafinha and Rafinha has not a great shot on goal. I kind of just think...
You've come that far. Just try and score yourself, to be honest, at that point. Rafinha had an appropriate look of shame, and then I think he adjusted his socks to maybe not have to make eye contact. Like, I know what you did, and I know what I did, and I apologize for the seismic gap.
in quality between the two but there's so much pressure on him in that moment where it's like oh whatever it reminded me of like so when we were we were moving house my wife cleared out the entire garage and my job was just to put the stuff in the skip and first bag I lift up the bag the whole thing collapsed
at the bottom of it and the shame that I felt in that moment having contributed nothing to the garage clear out until that point was the shame that I feel Rafinha felt in that moment. You know, to be fair to you, Graham, that's a packing issue. That's not a you problem. That's a structural packing issue. Fair point, Joel. Fair point. I mean, it doesn't seem like a you problem, my friend. So...
If we're extending that analogy, then what you're both saying is that the pass from Lil Mignol should have been better and that maybe it's not Rafinha's fault. It's Imol's fault in the end that he didn't do more. Okay, cool. Tighten up.
Unimpressed by that performance, slightly unimpressed by Barcelona's win, but still a win makes the La Liga title race that much more captivating and compelling. Speaking of which, we've got a title race in Serie A that we will talk about in just a moment. First, one more break. Welcome back to the Total Soccer Show. Gentlemen, it's time to talk. Milan, Darby, a game that we had, I think, in the Weekend Review notes as like a proposed game we would cover.
As long as it wasn't fully, fully boring. And there was a chunk of time when I was a little bit worried about how this was going to go, Graham. In the end, do you feel like this gets appropriate billing as maybe the second biggest game of the weekend? I think with the way Arsenal City finished, that is probably a top billing. sort of situation. Did Milan and Inter live up to the hype or did they live up to the concerned hype that we had for this game?
A little bit of both. I think in the first half I was concerned that we weren't going to have all that much to talk about. And to be honest, I got exactly the sort of performance out of Milan. that I thought we were going to get. I said last week after the Parma game that Milan were playing in a way, or they played in that match in a way that I didn't expect under Sergio Consasso, where it was a much more of a basketball game. And ultimately they win that game three too, but that wasn't.
what I expected from Consasau Ball. Well, I think they heard me because this was classic Contesau ball in the way that Milan set up against the ball. They were quite happy for Inter to have the ball and be the protagonists in this game and have a line of five out of possession and defence with you.
You know, Moussa being the one to drop back on the right side, at least in the first half. That was his role until they kind of changed things with the subs. And the one or two times Inter were able to get in behind.
they were caught offside and Inter had a goal disallowed in the first half for an offside. There was a couple other disallowed goals in the second half as well. And I thought AC Milan were... largely well drilled defensively the thing that was largely missing was threat going in the other direction the one time that Milan were able to get out on the break and get the ball into Liao with players up with him and that was the crucial thing Milan scored and even then it came from
from a Jan Sommer parry, which he might have held onto in another moment because the ball across from Leão wasn't actually that good. But there were a good number of moments. And a good number of examples of Milan playing the long pass from deep. I think particularly in the first half this was the case. But they would play the long pass from deep and they would have Liao or Abraham in behind.
but not with a lot of support. And inevitably Pavard or Bastoni would then make the recovery tackle. So it felt like Milan were closer to what they want to be under Sergio Contesau, but maybe still a bit too one-dimensional to get the winning end. Joe, is that about your summary of Milan on this game? I think so. I wasn't especially impressed by their performance. I thought they were
the second best team on the field. The part of that could be game state related, right? Where Inter, because they go down towards the end of the first half, have an entire 45 minutes plus to try and claw their way back in. They were already the protagonists. Inter in that classic 3-5-2 shape.
that we've seen under Inzaghi, the classic personnel that we've come to know and love from this Inter team. They were the protagonists anyway, but when you go down, that's going to shift even more dramatically in most cases over to you. And so Milan...
didn't have the quality or didn't have the need or some combination of the two to go out there and really impress in the second half. But even in the first half, fellas, I didn't think Milan showed a ton in this game. And I think part of the setup in this match from Concesa was...
Curious, not defensively. I thought the defensive setup worked out fairly well in this game, and it is very on-brand for a Conceição team, as Grant has talked about. We got a good taste of that when he was in Portugal. We know sort of a lot of what his managerial ethos is. I thought the attacking structure early on in this game was odd, which as I saw it was...
Basically a 4-4-2, where you had Christian Pulisic playing next to Tammy Abraham in sort of a front two, and then you'd have Yunus Moussa high as the right winger on that side, and you have Rafael Ayao opposite him on the left, and then you'd have the double pivot with Reinders pushing a little further forward, but not...
all that much further forward, and then you'd have the fullbacks kind of pushing up the wings at times, and then the two centerbacks. I didn't think that really served almost any of Milan's players. particularly well. Christian Pulisic is, I don't think, at his best in the front two. I think he's at his best either a little bit deeper, playing more underneath of a striker, or even better, a little wider in the half spaces or even sort of boots on the chalk kind of a situation. And Yunus Musa...
He's just not a winger, man. I think we've seen this over and over again. He has a moment in the first half where I was actually really proud of him because he kind of drops his shoulder and tries to go to the end line and put a cross in. And we just don't see a lot of that from Yunus Musa because he's not super comfortable in the final third. And I liked that action. And then a few minutes later, he's coughing up the ball at the edge of the box and you go down the other way. It was...
Kind of the Yunus Musa winger experience where he just doesn't offer you very much. I think he can get better in that role over time if given more experience there. But he did not add a lot for Milan in this game. And Pulisic didn't add a lot for Milan in this game. Leal gets that moment on the counter that Graham already talked about. But by and large, Milan were just so quiet in the attack. I think they're fortunate that they get that goal before the halftime whistle.
and obviously far less fortunate that they concede before the full-time whistle. But I don't think Milan can look at themselves and say, yeah, this was an unjust result. I think it was extremely just. It's probably the quietest I've seen Pulisic in. I don't watch every Milan match in full, but of the matches I've seen this season in full, it's probably the quietest I've seen him. I can't really recall him.
having a really genuinely dangerous moment in this match or meaningful attacking moment in this game. Younus Moussa, I agree, Joe, all the flaws of Younus Moussa as a winger were there. I think Constance will still be pleased with his performance because he'll be looking at the defensive side of what he offers.
and the fact is that Federico Di Marco on that left side for Inter was basically shut down in this game and he is such an important part of the way that Inter construct attacks and they use him as a funnel into the final third he has a disallowed goal in the first half but other than that I can't really recall DeMarco doing anything in this game. In between Kyle Walker, this is why I was a little bit confused, Taylor, with the...
with the Kyle Walker comment of the city game. I thought Kyle Walker was pretty good in this game, at least from a defensive point of point of view. Right. So you thought that as well, is that correct? Yeah. So between him and, and, and Moussa completely shut down that, that left side of the inter attack.
And that's a huge upgrade for Milan, him over Calabria. I feel a bit sorry for Calabria because he's a Milan fan and there was footage of him leaving the training ground and he was in tears. And there was obviously that moment where Concert Sound, I think was that last weekend after the win. over Parma squares up to him after the game. So very much feels like he's been Marcus Rashforded out of that club over the past week. Let's not do that.
But I thought Kyle Walker was good. Obviously, Milan will want to see more from him in an attacking sense, but hopefully they'll see that in games that aren't against Inter Milan and the best team in Serie A. Wasn't my Kyle Walker comment just he left England? I think there was confusion about maybe Kyle Walker being better off for not being in Manchester. Which he was, because they got clapped, as we discussed already.
So I thought Kyle Walker, I noticed weird things in this game. I'm not going to lie. Maybe it was because I watched it at 11 p.m. last night. This is where you're going to have to explain your Benjamin Pavard nuclear fission comment. So we've all been waiting. First of all, fusion. Second of all. Hold my hands. I'll start with Kyle Walker passes the ball.
in a very aesthetically pleasing way i can't explain it but watch him when he passes and there is i i don't know if it's because he's been with pep so long and so there's like a fluidity to the way he plays but he it's a languid passing of the ball that is still speedy at the same time
which doesn't make sense since those are antonyms. But he moves the ball so well, there is a certainty and assuredness to the way he passes in comparison to some of his teammates. Tamore, I think, receives a pass from him and turns and kind of stabs this awkward 30-yard ball.
wide and it just stood out in stark contrast to each other. So how calm Kyle Walker is on the ball and how much of a veteran he is, I think we'll end up helping Milan quite a bit this season. And I thought he he looked pretty sharp overall. With Pavar, I think the thing that stood out to me and the reason why I made that comment in the introduction is because I know he is a good...
defensive player. I know he can stand up and defend well 1v1. I know he is good in the attack. Obviously, we've seen him score some goals, not least for France. But I don't think of him as much of a fluid attacking player. And in this game, he has a couple different moments in the first... where he receives balls that are difficult, either like lofted diagonals or through balls or just balls that are kind of pinged into his foot. And he...
kills it first touch every single time. His first touch is so deceptively good. And then his speed to make up ground. He has two different plays where I think both of them are on layout or maybe just one is on layout, but both of them, it seemed like he is done and dusted.
is going to lose this foot race and he somehow hangs in and and with the layout one i thought for sure like okay this is gonna be a red card challenge there's no way he's sliding in and winning this ball and he wins it so cleanly he does that a couple different times i just Did not realize he had that level of speed to him. Maybe it was just the occasion.
He gives it the big, like, explosive celebration in that moment as well. And I went, oh, Benjamin Pavard. I didn't know you had that in you. I thought he was quite like a reserved sort of guy. So I can see that. But when you're powered by nuclear fusion, anything is possible.
A person who was not powered by nuclear fusion, I feel like I talk about him every time we talk about Milan, but I'm going to do it again, was Rafael Leao. And I am once again sort of confused by him as a footballer because I still think of him as a potentially elite world-class attacker. And I...
at the same time. Cannot really remember a time that we've seen that recently. He has the semi-assist in this game, and even there, I don't think that was what he was aiming for with the ball that is then parried and eventually converted by Reinders. But his lack of celebration when...
When the ball goes in to me tells me that he was maybe trying for something else and it didn't quite come off. And I felt like that moment aside, we didn't see a ton from him. I feel like we saw him kind of doing the same thing we've seen, which is making the wrong run at the wrong time and getting frustrated with balls. are played to him or when they're not played to him.
I just, I cannot figure out what isn't really clicking with him. Maybe this is me just starting to watch him and only seeing the negative. So I'm asking you all if I'm being overly critical or if you feel like there is some deficiency to the way he is playing of late. No, I think there is. And it's not just of late. We've never seen Rafael Aal make that jump into the tier of players that you're talking about to the point where at 25, that's probably not.
going to happen so I think maybe part of your perspective on him Taylor is skewed by that belief in his potential which is still And it's not impossible, but I don't think it's likely that he ever makes that jump as a player at this point. There's also a very real sense in which I think he has taken a step back this year and been less efficient. He's been less purposeful. And Christian Pulisic has sort of taken on that mantle as the most...
important attacker in this Milan team. No, don't get me wrong. I think Leal is an incredibly talented player and his ability to attack in quick transition is elite. I think it's at least one of the best. He's one of the best players at it in Serie A.
I think he's fantastic out on the counter. That's not to say he's always going to make the right choice, but he's going to get you in positions more often than basically everybody else to the point where when he messes up on one of those five extra chances that he got you, you're still going to live with it because he got you.
you those plus four like he's plus four in that moment anyway right I think he's an incredibly talented player I do not think he's a perfect player and I don't think he's had a great season so all those things are real and then there's the last component from this game where I just felt like Milan and Graham you did a great job I think of
almost talking me back a little bit because I was so critical of their attacking structure. And I thought Milan were basically toothless in the attack in this game.
I think a lot of that is because they were so focused on absorbing pressure and committing numbers defensively, and that's also a personnel thing, right, with Musa, and you talked about that well, Graham. They did a good job of absorbing and making Inter's life hard. That means it's more difficult for you to look excellent in the attack.
and it also meant structurally in this game. I don't think Leal had a whole lot of help. I don't think there were a whole lot of great passing angles on that left side. So it's a whole mess of factors, but... Ultimately, I'm just not sure that Liao's ever going to become the player that I think we all, or at least I did, Taylor, very much thought he could be a couple of years ago now.
Yeah, his physical attributes are still up there with some of the most impressive in European football, but his decision-making hasn't really improved. That's where he hasn't taken the step forward. Where I do have a bit of sympathy is there's been a huge amount of flux.
and instability at AC Milan particularly in those attacking positions so they've been through two managers this season obviously it was Stefano Pioli last season they bring in Alvaro Morata for this season who I was convinced was going to be great for AC Milan he is now playing for Gal-
Galatasaray. He's been shipped off to Galatasaray on loan. Not entirely sure what they're doing. Stoppiling another center forward. So that's Mauro Icardi, Osman, and Morata on their books at this point. I can't wait to see how that works out. Although I think Icardi... you might have a long-term injury.
But nonetheless, it's Tammy Abraham who starts this game, and he works hard in this match, but we haven't really seen consistent output from Tammy Abraham for like two, three seasons at this point. Santi Jimenez watches this game from the touchline with Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
which he has signed from Feyenoord. I think that's to be ratified today. So it's going to be another change for Rafael Leu. The player that he's playing off is going to change from Giroud. It was Zlatan at some point in the last couple of seasons. Then it was Morata. Then it's going to be... Jimenez, Pulisic has been playing on the right, then he's central. So I do have some sympathy, and he hasn't really been allowed to build any chemistry with the players around him.
Graham, I should mention that Mishi Bacuai also now plays for Galatasaray as well. So more strikers for you. More strikers for you. Do you know where he came from, Bacuai? Oh, I can't quite recall. No. Fenerbahce. Yeah, don't worry. He was already in Turkey. It's just we're trading one Turkish club for another. It's all good. It's all good. Let's stay in Italy for one more moment, Graham. Let's talk about Roma 1, Napoli 1.
With the draw for Inter, this was a chance for Napoli to really state their case, to cement their spot. Instead, maybe a missed opportunity. A huge missed opportunity for Napoli considering, as you say, Inter dropped points in the derby earlier in the day. And for a long period of this match, I thought Napoli were going to extend their lead at the top of the table. In the first half, they did a really good job of limiting, or not just in the first half.
actually for the majority of this game they did a really good job of limiting Roma in the attack and then attacking open space in behind and the finish by Spinazzola over the goalkeeper to make it 1-0 was such an incredible lob the keeper come a bad decision to come off his line creates the opportunity but nonetheless the technical execution from Spinazzola to with his right foot just get the spin right and over the line and into the net was incredible but Roma cranked up the pressure as
the game went on and Napoli got deeper and deeper and deeper didn't really retain much of an attacking threat and when the equaliser came and it is an incredible equaliser by Angelino on the full volley Napoli kind of gets sucked into the middle they all get ball watching a number
of players are ball watching in that moment the cross goes over the head of all of them it's Angelino at the back post he meets it on the full volley it's an incredible goal but I watched this game live it felt like the equaliser was coming and so this is the criticism of Napoli and it felt like they'd moved on from
this criticism in the last few weeks where they had put teams to the sword they scored three goals away to atalanta they scored a couple against juventus as well so it felt like they were imposing themselves on games more more often in an attacking sense but this was a return back to Napoli we saw a couple months ago where that is one of the big criticisms is when they have the opportunity, they don't really put their foot on the throat.
Yeah. And frustrating for me, again, given that I said last weekend, I think City have stumbled upon a formation and a formula that's going to work and get them results. And then this weekend went the way it did. And I also thought Napoli's win last weekend was like, there we go. That's the win they needed. That's the statement.
and then they draw and they don't really further their standing at the top of the table. One positive would be Scott McTominay. Graham, final question for you about Napoli, and this is meant to be more of a yay Scotland than more Manchester United misery type question.
why is he suddenly like a Ballon d'Or nominee? How has Scott McTominay become Ballon d'Or? Thank you, Joe. I saw a clip that was sort of like, how has he primed Zidane? And I wouldn't go that far, but he has some dribbles this weekend that were exceptional. And then he does. does the defensive thing quite well as well. I guess I just didn't know Scott McTominay had this in him. Maybe I should have.
Well, he was like your second top scorer last season, so nobody else was scoring goals for Manchester United last season. That's more of a condemnation of Manchester United than it is a statement on Scott McDonough. I mean, Scott McTominay over the last, I would say, two to three seasons has got to a level that I've always been a Scott McTominay stan. I thought the criticism that he got at Manchester United was way over the top. But even by the standards, I...
held him to he's exceeded my expectations and I feel like we've had a preview of the player that he would become for Scotland where every step of the way it is and Steve Clark isn't in my in my good books at the moment so I don't want to give him too much credit but Steve Clark has pre-
his development in the club game by trying McTominay as oh let's try him as a box crashing central midfielder oh that really worked he's our top scorer in qualifying then that gets carried into the club game the thing that happened last year was
Let's give Scott McTominay more freedom to dribble past opponents. Oh, all of a sudden, Scott McTominay is an excellent dribbler and doesn't give the ball away very often and opens up space. And we're now seeing that on the Napoli side of things as well. So he's just the perfect fit for a Conte team.
just as a personality like I follow Scott McTominay on Instagram he's a very boring follow on Instagram because it is basically just gym work and match photos but like Conte loves that I can't imagine he's had to ban ketchup from Scott McTominay when he's played up with it that way. Do you think he's banned it from young William Gilmore's plate, who does not play in this one? How are you feeling about Billy Gilmore's time in Napoli?
Not so positive. He's struggling to find game time. But I just think that's because that midfield unit of Anguissa, Lubocca and McTominay all complements each other so well. And the balance of that midfield unit is incredible. So he's still one of the first picks off the... bench and we saw this at Brighton Billy Gilmore needed a season to acclimatise to Brighton before he became a first team figure so he's also a lot younger than Scott McTominay so I'm not pressing the panic
Button, yeah. And I would still very much like a Billy Gilmore shirt. If classic football shirts are listening to this, I've DM'd you a couple of times about this. Gotta get the flags in. Joe, here's a fun one for you to end on. Get your creative thinking cap on. If a player performs poorly and Antonio Conte...
bans ketchup from their performance then they perform poorly again he bans ranch what is the third thing that is banned if a player underperforms again is it pizza is it mayo is it mustard no we're we're close i think you were dancing around on pizza Third strike in Italy has to be...
pasta sauce right like it has to be it has to be no more no more sauce no no more sauce so that takes pizza well not every type of pizza because there's lots of lovely white pizzas in italy but just dry dry pasta then yeah that's your punishment like oh you thought you thought you could get away with
three strikes? I don't think so. No, not a chance. Ketchup's off the table, ranch is off the table. You're not having pasta anymore. I mean, again, other types of pasta, but I feel like red sauce really is like integral to the culture. And as we all know, Plain sadness pasta in Italy is...
Bursting with flavor and delicious in Scotland. That's how the flavor profiles work when you move from one country to the other. Graham Ruffin nodding approvingly. I appreciate that, Graham. I appreciate your performance on today's episode in which I struggled to catch up.
with games last night, but here we are. I feel like we've reviewed the weekend somewhat thoroughly. Indeed we did. Thank you, Taylor Rottweil. Thank you, Joe Lowry, for indulging my random questions throughout. Don't take away my ketchup or my pasta sauce. You can take away the ranch. I don't care about that. Agreed on that one. Listeners, thank you all so much for listening. We'll talk to you again tomorrow when we round up the January transfer window that was.