Chelsea vs Liverpool: Who will win the first trophy of the season?

Hi there, this is the Athletic Football Podcast weekend preview with Premier League action and the first domestic silverware of the season on the line. I'm Adam Leventhal, joined this week by Tim Spears. How are you, Tim? What's up, bro? Why did you do that? I try and do something different every week. Oh, right, OK, cool. Excellent. I'm good, actually. I've got a scratch on my forehead, if you can see. Oh, yeah, what are you doing? Repairing something. It wasn't repairing, actually. No, it wasn't. I was pruning some roses. It's not the most hardcore story, but yeah, and it got caught on my forehead, which is quite sizable anyway, so it could sort of hook onto it. Anyway, but I'm fine aside from that. It's great to see you, Tim. Where are the roses? That's what we want to know. In the garden. Right, OK. In the garden, yeah. In the garden. Well, not going to be inside, are they? You might have been gifted them. Oh, yeah, they could have been a gift. Yeah, around Valentine's Day. Oh, yeah, that would have been better, wouldn't it? But it wasn't. No, it wasn't. Cutting yourself on roses you were given as a present would be quite something, though. Well, no. Well, you never know. You never know. Anyway, John McKenzie is here from Tifo. Hang on a minute. Why have you been talking about throw-ins this week for Tifo? I've got issues with throw-ins. Carry on. I spoke to Thomas Gronnemark this week for the Tifo football podcast. He's Mr. Throw-in. He was working with Liverpool and, yeah, I spent an hour talking to him about throw-ins and now know everything about throw-ins. So ask me a question and I'll tell you. Do you approve of long throw-ins being used in football? Yeah, it's an interesting question. We touched on this in the podcast and Thomas was saying if you've got the players to play long throws to the box, then it's a good strategy. But if you haven't, then it's not, which I guess makes a degree of sense. He was saying that there's a lot of people now who use the data which suggests you're more likely to score if you throw the ball in the box. He was saying, well, yeah, that's true because teams that are good at throwing the ball into the box do it a lot and score goals. But the other teams are taking bad short throw-ins and not getting any benefit from them. So he was saying if teams got better just at those short throw-ins, then those numbers would have come down. So, yeah, very much a horses for courses kind of guy. Did you talk about towels? We didn't mention towels once, actually. Can I ask, who's good at throw-ins? As in like a player? Well, OK, so he was working with Liverpool and he said that when he first came in, Andy Robertson could only throw the ball a certain amount of distance. And he gave him like an extra eight or nine metres onto his throw and improved the technique. And he says he now reckons that Andrew Robertson is one of the best throwers in the world. So, yeah, he mentioned him. But I don't know beyond that who he would have said. We didn't really touch on individuals because we ran out of time because there was so much to talk about with the theory of throw-ins. But, yeah, really interesting episode. Yeah, we'll check it out. Luke Boscia, how are you? Good to see you. Are you excited about your Wembley appearance with Chelsea? I personally won't be appearing at Wembley, but the club will be. And yeah, that's exciting. I am looking forward to it, yeah. Yeah, good. Well, it's good to have you in the studio. The fixture formation this week in terms of the Premier League action is obviously slightly reduced because we've got Liverpool against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final. We have a 6-1-1 formation from Saturday through until Monday. I will go through the fixtures for you now. We have four Saturday 3pm's. Oliver Glasner's first game in charge of Crystal Palace against Burnley, who are seven points from safety. Fourth-placed Aston Villa are against the fifth-bottom side in the Premier League, and that is Nottingham Forest. Manchester United three points off the top five. They take on Fulham in 12th. Brighton are in seventh against Everton, who are only out of the bottom three on goal difference. Then we have a Saturday 5.30pm. That's Bournemouth in 13th against Manchester City, who are second and hoping to close the gap once again to one point. And we also have a Saturday 8pm. That's Arsenal in third against Newcastle, who are eighth. Then on Sunday 1.30pm, yeah, it's Wolves. Super Sunday. Super, super, super Sunday. Wolves in 11th against bottom of the lot Sheffield United, who are also seven points from safety. And then the Monday night football is West Ham, who haven't won in eight games in all competitions, and they've lost their last three in the Premier League without scoring a goal. But they're still ninth against Brentford in 14th. We're going to be previewing the Premier League action a little bit later on, but let's start at Wembley. Liverpool against Chelsea, the first domestic trophy of the season. The Carabao Cup is up for grabs. It's a rematch of the 2022 final, which was a nil-nil draw in normal time. It went to extra time. And then after 21 perfect penalties, Kepa Arrizabalaga, who was brought off the bench for the shootout, missed his pen, leaving Liverpool 11-10 winners. Let's talk about who this is most important to. Who needs it more? Pochettino at the start of his Chelsea career, or Klopp at the end of his time in charge of Liverpool? Where are you sitting on this, Tim? Pretty even, I think. It could be Poch's first trophy. It could be Klopp's last. That's the... It's big, though, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. There's absolutely no guarantee that Liverpool will win any trophies this season. So this could be the last trophy he wins. So it's high motivation for both, really. Sometimes in some of these finals, you get the impression that one team's sort of, yeah, whatever, it's the Carabao Cup, and the other's really going for it. But this feels pretty even. Two motivated teams that have shown good form recently. Liverpool are obviously big favourites, but if Chelsea reproduce the levels they're doing against Man City, then it's going to be a hell of a game. They were fantastic. We'll get stuck into the form, et cetera, in a moment. But on that question, who do you think might want it more? Well, that's a deep psychological question, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, yeah, for Liverpool, I guess this is a bit of a free hit, right? They'll treat it as, this is a great chance to win silverware. It's not the silverware that they're going to be focusing on this season, but they'll happily take it. Whereas with Chelsea, as we know, they're not challenging for the Premier League, not in European competition. So this is the best chance probably they're going to have to get silverware this season. They've had a pretty rough run of it for the last couple of seasons, and the sort of Todd Bowley project, or however you want to term it, needs a win. So I would say that this is probably more important for Chelsea. But I don't know, sometimes wanting it more can be a hindrance rather than a help, can't it? Maybe Liverpool going in and having a little bit of licence to not worry as much as Chelsea might, will help them to win the trophy. How much do you want it, Luke? I mean, personally, I think it would be great for, I know this is really football cliches territory, but it would be great for the project, I think. I think it would help buy Pochettino a lot of favour with the fan base, maybe not so much with the club hierarchy, because I think the sort of financial benefits from winning the Carabao Cup and then going into the Europa Conference League next season aren't amazing. But certainly I think it will kind of help to validate his time at Chelsea, which has so far been quite up and down, ebbed and flowed quite a lot in terms of how fans are feeling towards it, or the sort of general sense of how fans are feeling towards him. Because I think some have been quite level-headed, but others have been less level-headed, shall we say. But to be honest, to go back to your first question, I think it means more to Chelsea and certainly Pochettino. I think Liverpool are in this weird position where they're the better team, but they're also going to manage to kind of be almost underdogs going into the game because of their injuries that they've got, which I think is a great position for them to be in, in terms of that mentality. And I think Chelsea, five finals at Wembley, they've lost them all. You know, that's their recent run, which isn't great going into it. But then again, this is a different Chelsea team. You know, the player turnover has been extraordinary over the last kind of 12 to 18 months. Is there any clues as to why they can't perform at Wembley? I don't know. I think they've obviously faced some pretty good teams there. You know, Liverpool, as you talked about, I think they've lost to Man City and Arsenal in the Carabao and FA Cups. But I think it's just one of those things. I genuinely think it's just one of those things where on the day each time, they've kind of been second best and couldn't really complain about losing. I don't think it's necessarily a mentality thing or this group of players type thing. Because as I said, I think there's been enough player turnover that, you know, hardly any of the squad, if any, will have been at Chelsea when they lost the first in that run, which I think was probably about six years ago, maybe. But they do go into it in good form. And as you obviously mentioned, the Liverpool injuries may well be a bit of a leveller. Do you think that there are views withinside Chelsea that you could sneak into Europe via the league, even if you don't win this cup? I think that would be really hard to do via the league. Because if you look at the teams, Chelsea are 10th right now in the table, and you look at the teams above them, West Ham, admittedly, are on a massive downward trajectory, having been as high as fifth or sixth, I think, a couple of weeks ago. But, you know, above that, you've got Newcastle and Brighton, who, you know, have had their own injury problems this season, but are two very strong teams. And I think very capable of going on decent runs, you know, when they get some of their more... capable of going on decent runs when they get some of their more important players back, and particularly in the case of Newcastle. So I think based on Chelsea's inconsistency in the league this year, it'll be really difficult for them to, you know, say, yeah, we can definitely get a seventh place. So I do think this is their best chance of getting into Europe next year. Do you not want to mention the team in 11th that's level on points with Chelsea? I don't know who that is, but... Not particularly. Do you think Wolves could go on a run? I think Wolves are under the radar, as just proven there. They're where they should be, right? Yeah, but they can be... Wolves aren't under the radar. Come on, everyone talks about Wolves. Everyone loves Gary O'Neill. I never really noticed, because I'm in the bubble. No, everyone likes Gary O'Neill. I think Wolves are... I wouldn't say Wolves are under the radar. I just think when you look at the strength of the... I think Newcastle and Brighton are just like, they're the teams that are like, kind of fighting out for that last European place. I think the teams above them will stay the same. The top six, the order will change. And then I think it's like, Newcastle, Brighton... Chelsea probably like to think they can, but won't. Well, we've also got a set style with a set team that suits them really well. They can beat any team in the league, so... They can also lose to any team in the league. They've beaten Man City and they've lost to Sheffield United already this season, so... But if they can put a bit of a run together... I don't know why we're talking about Wolves all of a sudden. It's a bit simply because of you. It's simply because of you two. It's fine. No, that's fine. You're entitled to do that. You besmirch them just because they're on the same points as Chelsea, you see, so... Yeah, well, that's true. They're mid-table fodder, aren't they, really? If it comes down to penalty kicks again, who's going to be the better goalkeeper in a penalty shootout? Kelleher or Petrovic? Don't look at me. I'm not answering that. Come on. I'm not answering the question on goalkeepers. Why not? I haven't got a clue. I think... I don't know anything about goalkeepers. Now I'm really plucking this. I think Georgi Petrovic came to Chelsea with a bit of a good reputation for saving penalties. OK. In MLS. Yes, that's right. From New England Revolution. I think he was known to be... And he obviously saved... He's a great shot stopper, isn't he? Yeah, he's a great shot stopper. Like, slightly less good with his feet. I think he saved one or two against Newcastle in the competition earlier in the season when that game went to a penalty shootout. But he's quite... I think he fills the goal quite well. I think when you look at... When he's in that Newcastle shootout, when you look at him. So I would instinctively say him. Done very well, I think, since coming into the Chelsea team. In the game against Liverpool, the 4-1. Pulled off some absolutely cracking saves in that game. But if it doesn't get that far to penalties, in terms of the two styles, John, it's over to you and your underlying numbers. Well, I won't say any underlying numbers. But I do think playstyle-wise, it's a really interesting match-up because, as we've already mentioned, we had that 4-1 win to Liverpool in the Premier League earlier on. And I think Liverpool's playstyle causes a lot of problems to Chelsea because they are able to actually target the weaknesses, I think, that Chelsea have out of possession. So Chelsea do a couple of things that I think Liverpool really targeted in that game. So one of them is that Chelsea can often press quite high and aggressively. And if you can get through that line of pressure, you can find space in between the midfield and the defence, which you can then run at the back line and cause problems. That was the first goal that was scored. Diogo Jota, McAllister punches the ball through the lines to Jota, then runs at the back line and gets the first goal. And then the next two goals. So there's a goal by Conor Bradley and there's a goal by Dominic Sobreslai. In those two scenarios, what happened is that Liverpool were able to target the fact that Chelsea actually get quite narrow, quite compact vertically when they're defending as well. So if you can get the ball through the first line and then switch it quite quickly, then space opens up on the other side. So you may remember Conor Bradley running down the wide area, receiving the ball and playing it back across the goalkeeper. And then he also played across to Dominic Sobreslai as well when they created space on one side by switching it from the other. So, yeah, I think that play style wise, regardless of the fact that Liverpool are missing some players, which I think will impact that. Liverpool playing quite directly will cause Chelsea some problems. Well, we shall see how it pans out. Before we get your predictions, just a quick word from you, Luke, on Chelsea nicking everything they can from Brighton. They've taken Sam Jewell, who was the head of recruitment. The role that he's going into at Chelsea is sort of slotting into that recruitment system, maybe playing a role in terms of their group with Strasbourg, etc, etc. What is it? Why are they so fixated on taking everyone from Brighton? It's the 11th Brighton player or member of staff to switch from Chelsea in 18 months. What's the deal? I mean... Get some new ideas. I mean, I think it's been spoken about on this podcast before about how well run Brighton are and how well they've done to recruit such great players, unearth these McAllister, Caicedo, others. And so I think it's just a case of seeing they're good and we can kind of take these people from them and instil them into our project, entice them with presumably higher salaries and a slightly higher ceiling in terms of the club's ambitions. So it kind of makes sense. And then when you think about Chelsea hired Paul Winstanley, whose job at Brighton Sam Jewell stepped into. So obviously, Winstanley very aware of Jewell's work and his pedigree. So it kind of makes sense from that perspective in terms of bringing in people that you know. Let's get the predictions from one of the prediction lords himself. Thank you. You did well recently, apparently. Did you? I said Arsenal would beat Burnley 5-0 last week. Yeah. And it was a complete fluke. You got it bang on. Yeah. Well done. What's the prediction for the Carabao Cup final? I don't know really. It's a tough one. I mean... Lord knows. Yeah. I guess from Chelsea's point of view, it's the best time of the season to play Liverpool because they've got 10 players out. They did it in the week anyway. They'll have Salah and Nunes back, but otherwise still missing up to half a team potentially. And yeah, they looked pretty good last week. But I think still, even if Liverpool's team is slightly patched up, they've got a better side. They've got pedigree and I think they'll win 2-1. It'd be nice to have a classic though. I was trying to think of my favourite Carabao Cup final earlier and not many sort of sprang to mind. No. They've either been tight or no contact. The last year's all right between Man Utd and Newcastle. It was okay. We haven't had a humdinger though, have we? We haven't had a humdinger. I want a 4-3-er. Last minute goaler. Yeah. Luke, Chelsea going to win? I'm going to go 1-1. Right, and then who's going to win? I don't know. It'll be penalties. That's the top of the coin, isn't it? And then who's going to win the penalties? Football. Brilliant. Are you not going to... You're not going to give me a prediction? I'll give you one. 1-1 is the prediction. That's a scoreline. Not for a score prediction. I've given you a score prediction. Give me a prediction. Who's winning it? Who's lifting the pot? Potch? Is Potch going to lift the pot? Liverpool, I think. Clock popped. Good. John, two numbers or just a simple prediction? 2-0 to Liverpool. Right, let's get back to the Premier League and talk about the title race. Liverpool, four points clear at the top now with 60 points, but they have played a game more. Then Manchester City have 56 points and Arsenal have 55. And they have been in really, really good form, Arsenal, so far in 2024. Five Premier League wins in a row. They did obviously have that hiccup in the Champions League against Porto on Wednesday night. This weekend, they're hosting Newcastle. It is the late kickoff on Saturday night. Looking for revenge after that controversial 1-0 loss at St James' Park earlier on in the season. If you could describe it in a sentence, what would you describe that fixture as? That controversial game? It's just... Well, it should be AR nonsense, wasn't it? Three things in the goal that could have gone either way, maybe. They've had a bit of beef over the past couple of seasons with time-wasting and Arteta versus Eddie Howe and Jason Tindall. Yeah, there's beef, we like it. And they have the best defence this season, only 22 conceded. They've only conceded two goals in the five Premier League wins in a row. How are they keeping teams so far away from their goal, John? Well, I think this summer, Arteta wanted to make them more defensively solid. I think the general reading he had at the end of last season was that they lost it because William Saliba got injured and they weren't able to stay in games as long as they were in the previous half of the season. So they've definitely recruited with that in mind. They've brought in Declan Rice, who is, as the kids say, a cheat code when it comes to defending wide spaces in transition in particular, which is important, I think, for a team like Arsenal, who are trying to be high possession. So they're going to be trying to move the ball into the opposition half, squeeze them into their own box. And then you're always open for these counter-attacks that we see Man City conceding from all the time. But also bringing in players like Kai Havertz, who is going to, yeah, obviously a very controversial figure for a lot of people in terms of his success rate. But out of possession, another player who's really going to add to your steal, but also gives you the option of getting those stale wins over the line where you've got someone in the box who you then aim at as well. So I think personnel-wise... Before you go on, is the jury still out on Havertz or have they returned a positive verdict now? But I think everyone's always known what Kai Havertz is, right? And I suppose the big question isn't, like, has he been successful or not, so much as have Arsenal got out of him what they want to get out of him. I think Arsenal fans probably would largely argue that, yes, they have got what they wanted out of him. They have been able to... Games against the top six in particular, they can play him in a certain way and he adds a lot to their ability to control games. It doesn't necessarily always translate into, oh, here are the goals that we're... The famous chant, 60 million down the drain, that whole chant... The idea is, well, if you're spending that amount of money on a striker, second striker, then you should be getting a massive goal return for that. But it's not just about that. It's about the flexibility that he then gives them in order to be able to play in different ways. And one of those aspects is the out-of-possession side of things. But beyond that, with that in mind, all the personnel that they have now, they can now play a really, really smart, modern, I would say, out-of-possession game. And what that tends to look like is the ability to shift from structured blocks, jumping forward into a man-to-man moment. So the game against Liverpool, I think, was a really good example of that. They're just able to shut teams out because they can stop them from... They can stop them at source from being able to build up and cause them problems entering the final third in the way that they want to. So they make it harder for them to move the ball down the field into those dangerous scoring areas. But also, if their press does get broken, they can fall back into that and do that box defending that makes them pretty much impenetrable as well. William Saliba, just, for me, the best centre-back in the world right now as well. So I think that they've just got brilliant personnel and they're really well coached. And the result is what we're seeing in the league, is it's very hard to score against Arsenal. Saliba better than Craig Dawson? It's tight, I would say. But I think, yeah, this season, he's finally persuaded me that he's made that step. OK, all right, fair enough. Stop mentioning walls, you're obsessed. I was just talking about... I was just comparing, you know, apples with apples. Goats with goats. Yeah, absolutely. What was he known as? He's Dors... Dorsinho. Dorsinho, yeah, something like that. Do you call him anything? You don't seem a big fan of... Craig Dawson. Yeah, you call him Craig Dawson. We're getting sidetracked again by walls, that's fine. In terms of the talk around Arsenal, yes, we've spoken about their defensive record, and it's exceptional. Have they got the Stardust? Have they got the Salah? Have they got the Haaland? And is Saka that guy? Can he have as much influence in this remaining 13 games or whatever it is? Why were you looking on the table for that one? Because I was trying to find my table, actually find my table on my phone. It is 13 games to go, yeah. Yeah, that's right, yeah. So, can he be? Yeah, I mean, he sort of is already. I think only Salah and Haaland have had more goal involvement since the start of last season than Saka. I mean, the key to Arsenal's form is going on holiday. It's crazy what two weeks in Dubai... In fact, maybe, you know, if this pod needs a... If. For the push for the last few months of season, we should just go to Dubai. They're talking about roses again. We need to send them off. Yeah, that's what else. But yeah, before they went, seven games in all comps, won one, lost four. And then since then, going into the Porto game, they'd won five and scored 21 in the process. And they look good enough to win the league at the moment, but obviously the level of opposition has to be taken into account in their last two games. But sure, I think one thing that James McNicholas pointed out this week, which I thought was really interesting, was that for the Porto game, only Kai Havertz had played in the last 16 Champions League tie. Like featured, not just started a game. So I think we forget how inexperienced they are. That will count against them when you look at what Liverpool and City can do. But at the moment, certainly in terms of the defence, I mean, that's what all great title winners have, is a solid defence. Normally when the team is inexperienced and it's, you know, can you outscore the opposition kind of approach and gain momentum, but Arsenal have controlled this year. They have that in their back pocket, for sure. One thing that I've kind of liked about the defence in recent weeks is I think we've seen Zinchenko struggle a bit with injury and also form. I think he's come under a lot of flank, particularly defensively. But then Tomi Asu was playing at left back and then Kivio had that one game where he looked really unsteady. But Arteta's kind of, he's almost like freed Ben White on the other side in order to bring Kivio in in the last couple of games and have him be more defensive. And I think that's gone really well. I think that those kind of mid-season, tactical tweets that are quite subtle, those are really important if you're looking for a team to go on a run and kind of dealing with problems in terms of personnel is just really good. Because I don't think anyone thinks that Jacob Kiviar is a title-winning defender, but the fact that he's able to play a pretty crucial role when Arsenal do have had those injuries to Zinchenko and Tomi Asu to contend with is, I think it's a mark of how tactically astute Arteta is and getting the best out of someone like Ben White. I was just going to say, we talk about their defence because the defence is the best part of their game, but they do have this tendency, I think, to at times struggle at generating chances. And even in some of the games they played recently, I think, was it the West Ham game where they scored three set pieces to go 3-0 up? Yesterday against Porto, they put up 0.09 expected goals in open play, which is mind-bogglingly small amount of open play generation. And yes, obviously their set pieces are brilliant and Niko Jovo has done a really good job there, but there's a lot of times where you feel as though they've got to go up in games in order to then be able to release the handbrake or whatever they call it. And sometimes they do have these games where they just struggle to get over the line of the first goal. They're very sort of game-state heavy team, I would say, in that once they go up, you think they're going to win this. But there are times when they're in a drawing game state and you think this could go on to 80, maybe even 90 minutes before they're going to get that goal that turns it around. So it's kind of interesting because it's sort of flat-track bully teams that they've flat-track bullied teams at the moment in the league. And then they've gone to Porto, not being able to get that first goal and really struggled as well. So yeah, for me, there's still be questions about the way that they are able to progress the ball down the field and the stuff they do in possession. Out of possession, really, really good, but sometimes questions about the in possession. And it's interesting you mentioned about the experience because that Porto side was very experienced, wasn't it? Yeah. And although it is a first leg, and you would expect, well, Arsenal fans would certainly expect them to go and win it in the second leg, that maybe that nows factor in the Champions League. We definitely saw that with the amount of time wasted. The ball was hardly even played. Okay, let's switch to Newcastle. Their sort of issues at the moment. Their defence last season was standout. Their overall performances were far better, obviously, as we know. But now they've got one of the worst defensive records, especially in the top half of the table. What has changed for them, John? Yeah, I think it's just the ramifications of playing a really intense style of football, right? I see Eddie Howe's Newcastle as almost being a sort of reproduction of Jurgen Klopp's early Liverpool, where he came in and was like, you know, counter pressing is the best number 10 in the world. We're going to come into the Premier League and sort of Bundesliga it a little bit, bully it up. But very quickly, I think... Just hang on a minute. You can't say, you need to explain it for people. I think people will be able to work it out from the context that I said Bundesliga first and then bully, just to help them out. So it's a shortened version of Bundesliga. You're not a fan. You wanted to call it... I don't mind bullying. You wanted to call it Bundy, didn't you? Bundy, yeah. I thought Bundy might work. Anyway, carry on. Jurgen Klopp. Yeah. Heavy, heavy, heavy metal. Heavy metal. Very quickly, Jurgen Klopp realised that his Liverpool had to develop elements of control. And as a result of that, we saw things changing and they became... They kept, obviously, elements of that really intense Gaghan pressing all the way through. But they developed the ability to keep the ball as well, realising that you can't just constantly go and go and go because you get burnt out from it and you aren't able to control games. And I feel as though that's where Newcastle are at now. They've had Champions League football that they've had to add to their schedule. And they haven't really been able to develop that ability to not have to play directly all the time. Whenever you play in that kind of press-heavy, intensive way, if you're using it as a way of generating chances, which they were, and then suddenly you're not able to be as intense, not only are you losing the ability to defend as well, but you're also losing the ability to attack as well as well. So as well, quite a bit there. But the problem then is you get like a double swing. You're a little bit more open, but you're also not as dangerous going forward. So I think this is part of the process that those sorts of teams go through in the Premier League. So the big question is going to be whether or not Eddie Howe can fix that. They also had a freakish run in terms of selection last season. So they had the same back five pretty much every single week. Pope, Trippier, Bottman, Cher and Bird. They missed nine games between the five of them for the whole of last season, which has got to be the most consistent back five in the league, I would imagine. This season, the same five players have missed 31 games. So that's undoubtedly played a big part of it because they just haven't got the strength and depth. And we know that they're taking their time to build their squad rather than doing a Chelsea and just chucking at it in one window. So yeah, I think they'll be better off for it next season. I think it aggregates as well, right? They were able to play that back five the whole way through last season, but this season they've all started getting injured as a result of the fact that they were played so regularly last season as well. So clearly squad depth issues there. Where do you stand on Newcastle, Luke? Obviously they've had this difficult season as we've been discussing, but albeit they're still in the top 10, they've got the issues with Dan Ashworth, heading away from the club, wanting to leave the club, maybe going to Manchester United, all that sort of stuff. There's not really any talk about Eddie Howe being under particular pressure, but there's just this sort of feeling in the ether that maybe at the end of the season, there might be some sort of reflections on where they stand, not in terms of him directly, but how well the process is going or the project is going. From the outside looking in, where do you see them? Do you think they're doing well in the circumstances? I think when you look at Newcastle squad, you know, last season and this season, I think it's still hard to argue that Eddie Howe hasn't done a very, very good job coaching wise. You look at some of the players, you know, you talk about the players that are in the back line, you think no one thought Dan Byrne would be a, you know, Champions League left back, but he was integral to them last year and this year. And someone like Miguel Almiron, you know, his form's dipped off a little bit this year. And I think that's a reason why they've struggled a bit going forward at times because he hasn't been as productive for them. But, you know, these are not like, you know, particularly well-heralded players all over the pitch. You know, someone like Joe Linton's been, you know, reborn as a central midfielder. His absence, I think in recent weeks has been really crucial for them. And, you know, I think Eddie Howe's done a really good job. And I don't think that can be underestimated. And I think, you know, when Tim compares it to Chelsea, the fact that they managed to get Champions League football in, what I believe was Eddie Howe's first full season in charge, was absolutely unbelievable. So I think this season, it is a little bit more of a regression to the mean, but I think it's been, you know, perhaps, you know, even heavier than that because of the injuries that they've had. So I think next season, when they have another transfer window of, you know, PIF money and, you know, they refresh the squad a little bit more, I think they will definitely be targeting a kind of top six finish, you know, for the 24-25 season. Let's get your predictions. Tim, it's Arsenal against Newcastle again. Yeah, that's it. That's it. I'm going to say 3-1 to the Arsenal. Okay. Luke? I think a lot will hinge on whether Fabian Scherr is fit because I think he's a bit of a doubt, but I think I'm going to go 3-0 Arsenal. I'll go 2-0 Arsenal. Okay. Thank you, gents. Next up, we're going to be checking in with Crystal Palace's new manager. So Crystal Palace take on Burnley in one of the three o'clock kickoffs on Saturday, and it's the first game in charge of the new boss, Oliver Glasner, who has been speaking about his plans for Crystal Palace, and I will boil his philosophy down into something pretty simple because he did as well, and that was wanting to score goals because that's what we all like to do because we all want to celebrate with each other, and we've all wanted to do that since we were in the playground at school playing football, which I quite like, to be honest. But, John, it does feel a little bit like they've gone from, and this is no, well, it is, from Roy, sort of a little bit dull, to someone that just wants to go, oh, come on, let's forget about all this. Let's enjoy our football again. Is that a misrepresentation of this swing from Roy to Oliver? I mean, I think it's very easy for a coach to come in and say, what's your philosophy? Scoring goals, it's a bit of a tap-in, isn't it? I wouldn't necessarily, everyone seems to have this opinion that Oliver Glasner is this sort of like swashbuckling gung-ho coach. My experiences of watching his football hasn't been that. He plays in this 3-4-3 formation, which can fall back into a 5-4-1 with the front line dropping alongside the midfield and an assault strike, and they're quite passive in their block. But it's a really nice counter-attacking shape, so if you win the ball back then, you've got all of the space for the wing-backs to run into. And so they can be exciting going forward in that way, but I wouldn't describe them as a sort of like, throw all four sheets to the wind. I'm using lots of pirate metaphor for some reason. I don't know why my brain has gone there. I was speaking to JJ Bull earlier on, he did something about pirates, didn't he? He enjoys pirates, yeah, and skeletons. But I won't, I'll miss the skeleton analogies, I'll stick to the pirate ones. Yeah, I don't see him as a guy who's going to just come in and have them playing this really, you know, sort of defensively naive style of play that almost sounded like what was being suggested there. I think they'll be very solid. I think they'll be interesting. They'll be well-coached. They'll know exactly what they're doing. And I think Glasner's had a history of working with decent teams in the Bundesliga now who've got a couple of exceptional players, and he's got the most out of them. So Val Veeckhorst at Wolfsburg when he was there, Randall Colomwane, or Daichi Kamada as well. Players like, really good high-level players in a team where you don't have that sort of depth across the whole team, but he's got them playing in this system which allows these players to actually shine. We've seen, obviously, Randall Colomwane ended up going to PSG, so it really made him shine in his system. I think that will work quite well for Palace. He'll have a combination of the ability to have a really solid structure that will allow them to play to their strengths, you know, sitting deep and then hitting on the counter, but also with players like Eze, and like Michael Alise, exciting players who he will get the most out of as well. So yeah, I can see the logic behind it for sure. Yeah, it sounds as if he's got another job and he's familiar with having that sort of setup. For people who don't know much about him, do you want to give us a little bit of a briefing on Glasner, Mr. Boccia? Yeah, sure. I mean, Austrian coach, obviously, was at Frankfurt and Wolfsburg before then, and I think it was Linsk, question mark? Lask. Lask, Lask. Lask was the team he was at for his whole playing career, I think pretty much his whole playing career, so he hasn't really come into management as like a particularly, you know, well-known player, which I kind of like in a coach. I quite like that, that he's not been, you know, come from, you know, been like a huge pro somewhere and got a job off the back of reputation. He's kind of had to earn his stripes, so to speak. But I think it's a really interesting appointment for Palace, and I think it's one of those where it's another, I think it's another mark of the sort of attraction of the Premier League where, you know, this guy coached Eintracht Frankfurt to a Conference League final and did well with Wolfsburg as well, qualified them for Champions League. Come on, he wrote the league. Yeah, so like, and he's going to, like, you know, with the greatest respect, Crystal Palace, who were, you know, genuinely in a relegation battle. And I know he kind of spoke about the fact that, you know, the idea was that he would probably come in at the end of the season when Hodgson would step down, and that's kind of been accelerated due to, you know, a variety of factors with Palace's form probably being among them when you look at how sort of badly they've been doing in recent weeks. So I think it's great for the Premier League. It's great for the attraction to get a coach with that kind of pedigree at Palace. And it'll be interesting to see how it goes because I don't look at Palace loads of assists in the Bundesliga. So it'll be interesting to see how his philosophy kind of translates to the Palace squad, I think. But I think it's a really, really cool appointment. It's definitely a risk. I think Phil Hay did a piece this time last year when lots of teams were changing their manager and analysing just how much of a difference a new manager can really make when it comes to the sort of running. And there aren't many. Teams tend to stay at, you know, similar points per game or get worse. So it's a risk. I thought it was a massive point for them the other night. If they'd lost to Everton, they'd have been bang in trouble. But they've got a five-point buffer, a bit of room to play with. Yeah, it is an interesting appointment. It's also long overdue. The decision to give Hodgson another season just got worse by the week throughout the season, basically. I don't know what the plan was. I don't know why they gave him the job when they had last summer to find a Glasner. Well, Glasner was available. That was it. Because he left Eintracht Frankfurt at the end of last season and that was publicised before he was available. It's bizarre, absolutely bizarre. I don't see what they wanted to get out of another season with Hodgson. There were lots of... You're going to laugh at me for bringing him up. But Gary O'Neill was available last summer, you know, a young guy who could have coached Palace very well. So yeah, they've corrected their mistake. Probably not too late. I think they'll just about stay up. I think it's worth remembering as well that Palace have tried to get the exciting, up-and-coming young European manager before. Twice they've had De Boer and they've had Vieira as well. Obviously to differing levels of success. But I think that when you go through that process a couple of times, you start becoming a little bit more aware of the risks that are involved. So I'm sure it was something to do with that. But I think, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I think with Hodgson, what you get is, you know that he's going to come in and instil that system that he does. And if your coach previously has sort of let things slip a bit, you know that he's going to have that optic because everyone knows where they stand. So it's a nice, solid, easy-to-understand system. And I think they will get that from Glasner. I think that regardless of the concerns about how they fit into a back three system, he will know exactly what he wants from each player and they will be well drilled in that. I think the only thing I see going wrong with it in the future is that they may hit a ceiling and they think, is this guy actually creative enough to get us to the next level? But they're not worrying about that right now because they want to get to that level that they then reach the next level from. Yeah, and they will hope that he has a surging season that he has done at other clubs. In terms of Burnley, a quick word on them. You mentioned points per game. I did a bit of mathematics earlier on and they're averaging 0.52 per game. They're seven points from safety. If they continue on that record, they won't get seven more points to even get out of the relegation zone now in the remaining 13 games that they've got. They are playing Wolves though and we know that they've got a good record against Wolves this season. I'm not talking about Wolves. No, you're not. You've out-Wolvesd yourself already. But in terms of Burnley, they're down, they're out and this is actually quite a nice game for Glasner or does Kompany know his side, even though it's a little bit all over the shop by all accounts, does he know his side better than Glasner will? Yeah, it's tough for a coach coming in as well. People seem to think that coaching is just your turn off and you say, play in these positions and then suddenly everything's fixed. But it takes a long time to get players not only used to the system they're playing in but familiar with the system well enough to be able to manipulate. So I think it's early doors to suggest that like, if this goes, that either Glasner is going to immediately have some kind of panacea that fixes everything or that this game against Burnley isn't going to be a really tough start for them anyway. So yeah, he'll be happy that he's got a chance to come up against the team that he should be getting a win against. But if he doesn't get a win against them, it looks bad from the off. So it's one of those ones where, you know, if you win, great, but if you don't, then it's actually a horrible start. Yeah, and he hasn't got his Stardust to start off with. He hasn't got Eze, he hasn't got Elise, which is what he really wants to get back as quickly as possible. We shall see what happens in that game. In terms of some of the other games, let's quickly rattle through them. Nick Miller isn't here, so we don't need to talk about Nottingham Forest. But they did obviously get a win last time out, which just sort of eased them away a little bit from relegation worry, but they're still one of the low-hanging fruit. Manchester United against Fulham. Rasmus, how would you... I stopped on pronouncing his surname because you'll probably say it's not... You leaned into it then, didn't you? I was going to say, I was going to give him something, but then I thought, go on. How are you saying Rasmus? I mean, I say Hoyland. Proper striker, eh? Yeah, and Man Utd are fantastic to watch at the moment. They are the team that I would tune in to watch at the moment. I think it's 22 goals in the last six games. You've changed. Yeah, yeah. You have, haven't you? It shows you, doesn't it? That's great to hear from you, Tim. Because, you know, you were so critical of them. You were saying they're so inconsistent. I don't know what they're going to deal me out. You don't know what you're going to get. It's like a box of chocolates. So what I said was right. Yeah, you were very, very correct. But now you can. Yeah, I can what? You know what chocolate you're going to get. I still don't think you do, really. Oh, you still don't know? I think the attraction to Man United is the chaos, right? Yeah, they were very cut against Luton last week. Yeah. Yeah, their performances are terrible. They've only got plus one goal difference. But they're very entertaining. They concede a lot. They're winning games. Yeah, at the moment. I don't think it'll last. But either way, you know you're going to get entertainment at the moment. Whether it's against Newport or Luton or whatever. They're going to struggle. But they might still win. Okay, interesting. Brighton against Everton. Everton? I found out an interesting stat about Everton earlier on. I think you were the underlying member. Someone's read the pre-prepared opt-in stat sheet. No, I even went off. I even went off that. Off-script. Who has got the second most... I've sort of given away. I'm going to go. Can I stop you there? I'm going to go with Everton. Is that the answer? Yeah. Incredible. They've picked up the same amount of clean sheets as Liverpool this season with eight. But obviously they can't score goals. And everyone thought that Beto coming in to support Dominic Calvert-Lewin, that would be the thing that might be enough. But they've got relegation goals scored. Did anyone watch that Everton Palace game? Yes, I did. It was absolute dog of a game. It was awful. Terrible. They really picked up in the last 20 minutes though, Evan. They looked absolutely destined to score a few goals. But they've got Decore back, which will help them. They scored a few at Brighton last year, didn't they? Well... They're good from a set piece. It was 5-1, wasn't it? 5-1, I guess, yeah. It was 5-1. Anyway, Bournemouth against Manchester City. Bournemouth aren't going to do one, are they? On City there? They could. I think they could. Do you? Yeah, I think City are looking amazing. It's everyone they play at the moment. Yeah. Okay. All right, fine. We're predicting a Bournemouth win in that one. Yeah, for, you know, John's favourite Spanish manager in the Premier League. Of course. Irayola. What a man. He eats paella. What a team. Drinks Estrella. Meanwhile, a couple of other games. West Ham-Brentford, that's your Monday Night Football, as we've mentioned. But Wolves against Sheffield United. Would you like to say anything about that? What are you excitement in your voice? Would you like to say anything about that? It's not bolded on the sheet, so we can't. They've already beaten us once this season, so I'm not up for it. I'm just being told we've run out of time. Tim, it's been great to have you on the show. Thank you very much. Thumbs up. Audio experience. You gave me a thumbs up. That was a thumbs up. Yeah, good. Luke, enjoy the weekend. Sat at home. Fairweather Chelsea fan. Yeah, just a casual. Just a filthy, filthy casual. Nothing more to add. That's good. And are you going to be watching any games this weekend at home or on location? All of them. You know me. I'm in my, what do you call it? My tactics dungeon or something. Bunker. Bunker, that's it, yeah. Yeah, I'll be keeping my eye open on things. I make an off-the-weekend video every Monday. Did you notice? Where I pick up on some interesting tactical tweet that a manager has done. So I have to keep my eye across everything just in case something happens. And that drops on? Monday. It drops around four or five on Monday afternoon. And where do people see it? Oh, on all kinds of platforms. YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. Yeah, but the name of the... The Athletic FC. Right, well done. Jolly good. We got that. No, but unbeknownst to the audience, I've told them everything they need to know there. That's very clever. Right, I do hope everyone listening enjoys your weekend. IO is going to be back on Monday and we will have another weekend preview next week as usual. Thank you very much for listening. Have a great weekend. If you like this video, click subscribe for more content like this. We'll be joined by the likes of David Oinstein, Matt Slater, Adam Crafton, Karl Anka and plenty more through the season to bring you the inside track to the biggest stories in football. If you'd like to listen to the full episodes for free, search The Athletic Football Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from.