Jose’s Jugs
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The old lady versus a load of old men. Welcome to the Football Ramble. It is Thursday the 12th of December. I'm Pete Donaldson. I'm Luke Moore. And I'm Jim Campbell. MUSIC

It turns out that European teams can also claim their Man City voucher, a line that was written to me by producer Charlie, and I'm using it with gusto because it means something. Because no, you're using it with gusto because you simply did not realise you were hosting this show until about three minutes ago. I may have gotten on the call and wondered where Marcus was about two minutes before we started and realised that I was in... And my seat became hotter and hotter and I was like...

Hang on, am I in the hot seat? And I am in the hot seat. How hot is it? It's pretty steamy, to be honest, and I'm wearing a shacket in my cabin. Juventus 2, Manchester City 0. I mean, it was... You know, like when they crush, like, a Prince Rupert's drop?

You know like a Prince Rupert's drop? It's like a piece of glass that they... It's hot molten glass that they drop in water and the bulbous end is the hardest thing known to humanity. You cannot smash the end of a Prince Rupert's drop, but you can snap the tiny little leg of the Prince Rupert's drop and the whole thing just explodes. Are you familiar with this phenomena? No. I think you're just saying what we're all thinking. Jim, have you ever heard of that? Nope. Nope.

All right. Well, you will have seen it. You will have seen people crushing it with pneumatic presses online. It's an incredibly tough material. No, our online habits are very different. I know, Jim. The explanation is excellent, though, and I do understand what you mean. Jim's algorithm is just tits and steak. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. Just watching those retreats where men go to Thailand to just hang out with each other and talk about their investments. Exactly. No, I've got to allow it. Dads with swords is probably our crossover, Pete. Pretty much, pretty much. Well, how does this relate to Man City then, Peter? What's the analogy? Is it going somewhere? People for about four seasons have sort of been experiencing this, the Orby end, the toughest to break down, the most impossible to beat. But now people are just sort of following...

the end of the Prince Rupert's drop and going, oh, this bit's very small and tender and cracked. Explode! And then Man City just explode and they can't simply get a result. All over Pep Guardiola's scratched face. Exactly. And that's why his face got scratched, the Prince Rupert's drop. Sit in deep, give them no space at all, then just lamp them up and beat them for pace. It is the Man City blueprint that every team is enjoying this season and I don't know why Pep Guardiola hasn't figured this out, Lucky Mo. Yeah, it's...

I mean, oh, I've got nothing against them, really. But it's good, isn't it? It is good. Like the same way it's good when Man United meltdown, and we've been enjoying that for a while now. Liverpool meltdown sometimes, it's great. You know, Chelsea's meltdown was brilliant. You know, there's loads... For me as an outsider looking into all these big teams...

It's interesting. It's very, very interesting. It's almost like an obscure World War I battle that I'll watch an eight-part Netflix series about and be really into it, like a proper weird dad. It's like that. And I, for one, am enjoying it. With a pint of Doom Bar. Exactly. The dad drink of legend. Do you

The first you've ever had this goal last night that was just over the line and it was a bit unclear and then the goal line technology confirmed it was like, oh, even that's against them. Even that's working against them. So it was fascinating. I think...

You know, they look really lethargic and passive and like shorn of confidence, which is really interesting because the problems maybe we've seen in the past at key moments for Man City under Guardiola, and they've gone pretty much the whole way and sort of even those out, were just these kind of overcomplicated fiddly bits that Guardiola would get stuck into that would cost them a cup fine or whatever. Now...

It seems to be that, like I was watching them against, I watched the game last night and they had chances and everything. And, you know, there was a really good save from the goalkeeper against them from Erling Haaland's save, which is a brilliant like textbook Man City move. Ball comes to De Bruyne, plays a perfect inch pass, like weighted ball through and it's saved. And you thought, okay, it feels almost like a team doing an impression of a Man City team, like going through the motions without the conviction of it.

It's a lot from the Jersey Boys getting pushed on stage. A bit like that. It is actually. It is. Adam Durrell from The Offensive and from lots of other shows. He actually does Sherlock and Co now for Goldhanger. He was one of the Jersey Boys in the West End and now he's touring it. I should have got him on the show today and said, how different are you to the actual Frankie Valli?

because that would have helped us. But, Jim, I don't know if you feel the same, but to me it feels very, very much like this is what we should be doing, but we're not doing it with any real confidence. And it'll be fascinating to see if Guardiola can do that because it feels to me this is the first time we get to do this as a coach. Yeah, but I mean, I think...

what's going wrong is it's almost the opposite problem from what you were describing before, where they were overly intricate. It's the simple things that aren't really connecting and they're not doing particularly well. I know this is an extreme example, obviously, but it's kind of an illustrative one. The point where Kyle Walker just puts the ball out rather than being able to make a simple pass to Kevin De Bruyne. Now, as I said, that's obviously an extreme example of it, but it is the little things like that that kind of

have made that sense of dominance and inevitability about them kind of slip away a little bit. Teams know that actually you can pounce on their mistakes now. They didn't really seem to ever make them before, you know, they were machine-like and it's interesting to see City go through a period like this, isn't it? You spoke earlier about how much fun it is to see one of the big boys, you know, having these types of meltdown and it is, we all enjoy that because football is kind of snarky like that and also it's just interesting to see these big institutions in crisis. But,

I think there was always a feeling with City that they had kind of cracked some sort of algorithm, particularly with Guardiola, that meant that would never happen, that it would be two or three games at the most and that the squad is kind of like future-proofed and that the way they play is future-proofed. There is simply no way that this kind of almost mortality will creep back into what they do. So I think it's

it's come as a big surprise to me, really. I suppose when you look around at the age profile of the squad, I think part of what's happening is there's been a dip in quality of a few players at the same time. But it was hard to predict that happening because of how good they've been and how successful they've been recently. Obviously, the injuries haven't helped. Yeah, and the injuries, you know, the injuries are a massive, massive factor in it. Everyone gets them, et cetera. But, you know, only the club with the injuries that they're dealing with have to deal with them. But yeah, it is a really fascinating thing to see. And also,

it's not surprising that Juventus have won this game, is it, really? It's the first time in a long time. Juventus have been in an amazing form though, haven't they? No, but they're a good team. They're a big team. They understand their role at the top table of football in the Champions League. I mean, Pete, do you want, would you prefer, from me next, would you prefer a Tim Fourhat theory or would you prefer me to get a, to piss at our gym a bit?

Oh, it depends on what is it going to be. I don't know. Jim's got everything going for him. I'm worried that he might go... I think that's why he needs to be taken down a bit. Yeah, maybe it'd be good for me. You might take the spectacles and I'm wearing spectacles. No, we'd never do that. I worry that that might sort of ricochet off him and hit me. I'm out number two to all the specs front today. I get some specs, mate. Eight eyes to two, mate. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I've got eight eyes against me. I...

I was just going to say, this is going to be a little throwaway comment. You know, it might work, might not. Let's give it a go. I was just going to say, when Jim talks about it being enjoyable, I was like, yeah, because Arsenal fans have seen, have tried, seen Arsenal try really hard, be really improved. And the last two seasons, they've had to watch Man City win the league. And this season, they've tried really hard, done the best they can. And they're going to probably, you know, it's a nice change for them because they get to watch Liverpool win.

in the league that's what I was going to say but nice mate you've got to take the schadenfreude where you can exactly at least it's like a bit different isn't it I was the Tim Thorne hat side of me

Tim wonders whether, and it is a big side of me because obviously I am Matt Letizia's nemesis and you can't really have a proper enemy unless you know that enemy well enough. You must know that enemy as you know yourself. So I spend quite a lot of my time with the Tim Four hat on in my neighborhood challenging people. You're the third weirdest man in your street.

Probably second, actually. I definitely know who's the weirdest. Definitely. Jim knows him as well. Anyway, I'm only joking. So basically, can it be... So we are talking about... I'll do it in the form of a question. We are talking about the worst, not dip, not just in Man City's time under Guardiola, but Guardiola's managerial...

you know, career in general. And it's been like almost catastrophically bad. One win in 10, conceded more goals in all competitions than any other team in Europe's top five leagues since the start of November. It's been a catastrophically bad six weeks or so, right? Is it real? Is it realistically...

the case that this is not in some way related to the fact that they might be about to have some really fucking bad news about these charges. I would, I would let, we know the world works. We know we're going to hear what's going to happen before the official announcement because shit gets leaked and journalists are briefed and all the rest of it. I just wonder whether they are expecting some really bad news and it's become almost existentially disappointing for them and they can't get themselves out of the funk in response. Yeah.

I mean, it wouldn't be surprising, would it? And we've been saying for a while now, it must be a factor. At the very least, having this stuff hanging over the club can't help, you know? That's probably more likely, isn't it, that? Do you not think that, like... I mean, have we got, like... We haven't got an end to it, though, have we? When this is all going to be kind of cleared up, no? Like...

Will they realistically know right now? It's going to be fairly soon. It's going to be in the new year. It's going to be soon, but it will be appealed, won't it? Essentially, whatever happens, the other side will likely appeal the outcome. So it could drag on for a long, long time. But still, I mean, perhaps that's part of the problem. The point is, as of the start of this week, the news came through that the inquiry has concluded. Right. It's concluded, but it hasn't been announced yet. Right.

Okay, so I mean, we're in a situation where... But this poor run of form started a very, very long time ago. Is this not just a little bit of... With these things having a hold of Manchester City a little bit and the fact that... And probably due to that, they haven't really strengthened in the same... With the same vigour that other teams have, the...

you get the sense of the last generation, they're kind, Pep Guardiola knew to get rid of certain players and knew, and now, and now they're in a situation where players can't really flourish in that kind of system. The squad looks old, it looks slow, the fullbacks don't seem to be able to sort of do that quick up and down and Doku, and Doku, if you stifle Doku, they haven't really got much of an outlet.

I would say Doku, even in the game last night, Doku still looked sharp. But he was well, he had a lot of man on him, man meat. I have seen that talked about a lot and I've seen it talked about in a way that feels to me like press and people want to find a reason for something because they've got to write about it. And I just don't necessarily see that being the case by watching them, just by watching them. Because if you look at the players they've lost this summer,

Julian Alvarez, fine. He played a lot. He was important. They lost him for quite a lot of money. Gio Cancelo had been...

gone anyway. I mean, he just confirmed that he was going. Taylor Harwood-Bethis never played. Calvin Phillips never played. Tommy Doyle, who they also lost, never played. I can't think of anyone else that they've lost of any impact whatsoever in terms of transfers out. But certain key players are either missing through injury or are just not at the level. Karl Walker's not been at the level. John Stones has been missing. Rodri's the massive one that's been going to be out for a while. Phil Foden as well. Foden as well. I was thinking about Foden this morning. Yeah, that's part of it as well. So I

But it looks to me, the problem is though, Pete, you can say that, but I don't think it's a reasonable argument to say because of those things I've said there, they couldn't have enough to get past Crystal Palace or, you know, who else have they... They're 22nd in the Champions League table with two games remaining. They've got PSG on the horizon and Club Brugge, which is...

I mean, one of those teams will be really, really up for the cup and the other one you'd probably imagine they could get through, but they're 22nd. Yeah, exactly. And the key stat, and then Jim, if you've seen this, but the key stat is the amount of chances they're now conceding. If you see that in the infographic, it is absolutely stark. It's like a massive skyscraper, but again, compared to what it was last year, year before, year before. So that to me is a lack of intensity.

Yeah, there is a lack of intensity, but is that just not personal getting a bit older and injuries? But on the other side, I think, Jim, you spoke about they're making more mistakes. I don't think they're making more mistakes. I just think they have the temerity to lose the ball in the final third and their full-backs can't keep up with whatever the other team has got to throw.

them yeah I guess that that swarm isn't there is it that's kind of what I mean though is that sort of drop off in intensity those those lack of kind of recovery runs or the slightly misplaced pass I'm not I'm not talking about howlers I'm just talking about you know the very very basic things that they do so well you you forget it's even possible to make a mistake I think the starkest thing with the Champions League as well if we're just slightly going back to that is that obviously they've got those two games left to play and the PSG games are massive um

massive game because they themselves are in 25th there at home and they need a win so that's going to be a really interesting game but there's two games to go and City are five points off of the current top eight which is obviously going to shuffle around a lot as we've seen because of this format so they are really really up against it in terms of getting into the kind of automatic places. Jeremy Carragher said last night that he doesn't think Man City will be in the Champions League next season.

Wow. That seems alarmist, but the longer this period goes on, the more it's reasonable to be alarmed, I suppose. I still think they'll pick it up once they get their...

They're walking wounded, less wounded and more walking. I mean, there was a massive play to be had on social media yesterday regarding the training session that Man City live streamed. Phil Thorne, Jack Grealish, Gundogan and Haaland all missed successive penalties. There was no goalkeeper in the net. They say they were aiming for the woodwork and I happen to believe them. It was obvious that they were aiming for the woodwork. It's not what you want to see.

It's not what you want to see. If you're a Juve team looking at what they're doing, we'll probably win this because they just appear to be pissing about. They've brought their toys in, it's the last day of school before Christmas and they're just pissing about. Isn't that what you want them to be doing though? It's not completely ridiculous that they're just trying to lighten the load and have a bit of fun as well. I like it, but I'm not Pep Guardiola.

I know you're not. I know you're not. I'd probably be better prepared. They are winning in the Champions League and I don't agree with Jamie Carrick. I think they probably will make Champions League. They'll sneak in there somehow. But Jose Mourinho says that he does not want Man City to be relegated. He says that he likes justice. I suffered when I was at Roma regarding fair play, financial fair play. He said, I don't think it's fair that the big jugs always find a way to escape the rules. Big jugs.

It's not fair to big jugs. Always find a way to escape the rules. I've said that at a bar before when I'm not getting served. Unbelievable. He's on a roll, isn't he, at the moment? He's very truth social. He's entering his truth social kind of... He's becoming populist, for sure.

If his autobiography isn't Little Horses and Big Jugs, I'll be very, very disappointed. And people have got the temerity, and I agree with Marcus who was saying this the other day, people have got the temerity to say they don't think it's a good idea that Munger comes back to England. It's obviously a good idea. He should be coming back to England all the time. Until he dies, he should be back. Well, he may yet. So just be careful what you wish for. It's all I'm saying. It gets boring. Do you reckon that's a...

A kind of slight translation error in switching between the four million different languages he can speak. Or do you think he just thought, no, no, I'm going to say it like that? Big jugs of money? I don't know. It's just very confusing. I don't know. But his style of managerial sort of elegance, I would say, is rubbing off on his team. Sofie and I avoided a red card last night for throttling a man in their loss against Atletico. In his defence, he did think it was Eric Ten Hag.

yeah it was an opposition player right it wasn't just a man no no no it wasn't and it was he was a cameraman someone who had to teach a lesson get my best angle well to be fair the man shouldn't even really be on the pitch yeah um judges uh obviously of course it's it's it's nearly christmas time and managers are losing their jobs you know form is dropping off uh as we head into a really busy festive period um

And he's linking himself with the Real Madrid job. He says, they have the best coach in the world, my friend Carlo. He's doing very well. The future depends on what the president wants. If he wants a young coach with a big projection as Xabi Alonso or continue in the same line as Carlo, a coach with experience, it depends. Mate, shut up. You just lost 2-0 in the Europa for crying out loud. It's good stuff, Jim, but I just feel like he's doing it at the wrong time. He'd do it at the end of the season.

No, no, come on. As much as I'm, you know, I am very aware that it gets very tedious quickly if it's happening in your domestic league. I'm all for him linking himself to the Real Madrid job. Now the Real Madrid job, I know he's done it before, but the world has changed and I love that he refuses to. I like that he, so I was talking about this to a friend the other day saying that how could we feasibly make an argument for Mourinho after his career and the stage of his career he's in now to be back in the Premier League at a big job?

And he always seems to find a way to kind of PR himself. And clearly the way he'll PR himself this time is he'll say, yeah, but at Man United, I should have won the league, but I didn't because they cheated. And so it's not fair. He's already done that, essentially. Yeah, exactly. He's laying the groundwork for that. And then I was thinking, oh yeah, because he could probably, if he banged that drum enough and charmed everyone and his agent did the usual,

I could see him at West Ham, for example, or Newcastle. Newcastle's a massive bit of him, right? But he, it's incredibly reassuring for the theory that he is still thinking, no, no, I'll bet Real Madrid. Don't worry about that. No, well, no, aim for the stars and aim for Real Madrid. What level do you think you're at now, Jose, in your career? Real Madrid. Yeah.

Well, maybe he's got that mentality. If we say that, well, he's 90. True. Completely agree. Well, coming up, Arsenal march on and we've found potentially the strangest celebration of the season. It involves a tree.

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You just mentioned the low block. When they hardly allow you to enter the box, what's the solution?

Give someone. Arsenal 3, Monaco 0 in the Champions League. Gabriel Jesus at the moment. He is going through some... What's the opposite of a purple patch, guys? What colour is that? Yellow?

Piss yellow? I don't know. A piss yellow patch. A piss yellow patch, yeah. Yellow snow patch, yeah. He had a couple of decent chances yesterday and I'm a big fan of Gabriel Jesus and I still think he's got a bit in his locker. But I think he, I think the first chance that he had one-on-one, he sort of

swung at it with his tour, which really does show a player who was not necessarily on farm and low in confidence, Jim. Well, you know what, actually? I quite liked that chance, despite the fact that he didn't manage to finish it. It wasn't particularly clinical, but it did...

He only had kind of a split second to react within it because it was sort of the opposite of what happened in the game against Fulham the other day, where there was a chance that came over and he kind of pulled out of going for it. He was a bit braver with it this time and he didn't finish it, but he got the assist for Pakaio Saka shortly after that. He had another chance that, again, he might have done better with,

But, you know, he's he looked a little bit more like himself. He tied in the second half. He's kind of like, you know, plowing those furrows and being busy and being a little bit more tenacious. So if he is going to get back on top of his game, that's what he needs to do. He needs to get himself in these positions and he needs to essentially be having chances at all. So it's, you know, it's it's it still wasn't amazing, but it's kind of I personally hope and I'm certainly putting a kind of positive hat on to look at this, that it's a step in the right direction.

But the problem is with Jesus, he's on massive money. He's on like something like 250 grand a week. And he's not making the contribution of a player that kind of sits in your squad on that level. So we'll see if he really has much of a future at Arsenal. I think the second half of the season will be him really playing for that. Generally...

I thought Arsenal were actually really sloppy yesterday. They won 3-0, but a lot of that was because Monaco kind of gifted them a second goal and then kind of fell apart. Similarly to the City game, actually, there were a lot of sloppy passes and it was the whole team as well. David Rea made a couple of uncharacteristically bad kicks that put pressure on people. Like throughout the team, there were sloppy passes and things just not quite clicking. Yeah.

And it sounds weird to say it, but the atmosphere was kind of flat as well. But then obviously it is a really positive result, particularly because winning by three goals. Goal difference is really important in this format, isn't it? It's put Arsenal up to third. And it's going to be the case probably all the way until the end of it because there are so many teams on the same points throughout the table. So that's a really sort of interesting element of it. So yeah, it was a strange, strange game. But I'll take a 3-0 win when you don't play particularly well.

Jim, I think what's interesting though is the juxtapose that against Man City and what we talked about earlier because, you know,

Arsenal, for example, have got so many defensive players out. Yeah. And they can have an off night, which is what it looked like to me as well. And obviously I wasn't at the game like you, but I saw large parts of it. Yet they still can play with that intensity and they all know their jobs and they've got that system. And they're also able to occasionally...

just give the ball to Bukaya because he's so good and he will do something or he'll... And even the fortunate second goal he gets, it's because he's being tenacious. Yeah, absolutely. It's because he's right on his toes all the time and plays with such intensity. As is the third, really, too. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah, that was fortunate as well. But...

Ben White, Takahiro Tomiyaso, Alexander Nchenko, Gabriel, Ricardo Calafiori, they're all out. You've got Thomas Partey playing right back. You've got Myles Lewis-Skelly coming in left back, who's an inexperienced but really exciting young player. And they still managed to get it done. Yeah. Not conceded a goal in the Champions League at home this season yet either. Exactly. Exactly right. And it

Listen, it's not that long ago that we were sitting here talking about the size of job Mikel Arteta had to get the club into a position where they were confident, where they were, you know, not just flogging new fashion lines every five minutes, but actually playing like a top-level club. And regardless of what happened... Hey, did you see those jackets before the start of the match? Exactly, that's what made me think of it. They're still doing that, but at the same time... Are they like basketball or baseball jackets? Baseball jackets. I mean, I wasn't against them, but it's just the whole corporate...

Listen, Pete. The weight of corporate kind of style on top of it. I'd love to see Jim walk into the office wearing one of them. Chewing some gum. You know? Yeah. With his hands oily from his hog. I don't know. A pair of ripped jeans on. Yeah. A basketball in his arm. Do you know what I'd say? If he walked in dressed like that, I'd say, keep talking, whoa, keep talking. That's what I'd do. Ah!

So, sorry. In this scenario, I've walked into the studio in the morning. I'm wearing an Arsenal-branded baseball jacket. Yeah. And my hands are oily because of something to do with a hog. Can you elaborate on that bit? Your motorbike. Your motorbike. Oh, I see. I thought you meant a literal pig. That's what the gang call a motorbike, mate. A hog. Hog what? I honestly thought that you meant I'd just been shoveling bacon into my face, like without any... I mean, that's...

That's very American too. Marcus isn't there in this at all. He can be there if he wants. Pancake and syrup and bacon. Yeah, absolutely fine. Jim, did you think that Saka's first was very Raheem Shaquille Sterling? Just the effect of that man coming up at the back post. That's just what Raheem Sterling does. He's teaching. You're right, actually. It was a very Sterling-y finish. Perhaps...

Perhaps there is a bit of influence there, but he's very good at arriving at that point. I don't want to make it sound like I'm too glum about a 3-0 win. There were just certainly moments in it. It felt a little less slick than it has before. But, you know, Arsenal have had patchy form lately and you have to win games while you're getting up to top speed. And that's exactly what they did. And they did it well.

I think both teams saw this as a way to kind of arrest a bit of a slide. But no, it really didn't happen for Monaco. And you could kind of tell from the body language of the celebrations. They would say that it felt a bit FA Cup, like third round kind of lower league.

trying to win people were like but I tell you what they were distinctly underwhelming the celebrations but Rochdale's Torby Adebayo Rowling he celebrated his goal against Leamington in the FA Trophy this week by running the length of the pitch jumping off the advertising holdings and out the back of a stand and then he just hugged a tree

And if that name, Adebayo, seems familiar, actually the nephew of our very own Dotton Adebayo. Have we got a line on the young man, Lukey? No, because Dotton works nights.

Rather unwelcome. A little phone call at 3am. Hello, mate. Sorry, Dotton, that OTC show you did, which is already incredibly inconvenient for you and way beneath your level. Can you just give us another line for absolute, for nothing? Just for nothing. No, it doesn't actually hug a tree, does it? You just kind of, to me, I don't want to, I do not want to besmirch the...

the good reputation of the Adebayo family in any way. Right. Because they're a lovely family. But it looked to me like he got carried away, ran the length of the pitch...

jumped over the thing to kind of show off to someone. There was no one there and he kind of did an arms outstretched due bellingham to the tree rather than hug the tree from what I saw but the angle wasn't that helpful and it was very poorly lit so I could be wrong on that. I imagine if there's a bit of dot in him he probably told that tree a little story about a rapper from the 80s or something.

Speaking of inspirational messages, Monaco's training facilities recently had a €55 million upgrade and they've only written something on the wall. It's not a rude daubing. It's not a painting of a free kick trainer. It is rise, risk, repeat on the wall in the gym, which is, as inspirational messages go, we should start doing that at Ramble HQ. Start writing, you know, that's what football do to you.

All of our classic catchphrases, get it on the wall. Yeah, why not? Yeah, I think so. When I saw... I did hear rise, risk, repeat, and I heard it on the telly, one of the commentators talking about it, and I didn't hear it properly. I thought it said rise, whisk, repeat. I thought that's great advice for a meringue. It has to be said. It's not that dissimilar from...

From what I remember, I haven't been to your new house, but in your old house, you had, just a picture in my mind now, in your living room, next to all your Gavin and Stacey DVDs, you had Live, Love, Laugh, didn't you? It's all similar, isn't it? Yeah, and bits of Driftwood with gin is my favourite soup. It's Prosecco o'clock. All those ones, all those good ones. It's five o'clock somewhere. You know, we were on a break.

We were on a break. Lovely, yeah. I can't remember any other friends' lines. Do you have anything for that? Do you want to read the one that's behind you now? Well, elsewhere in the Champions League last night... No, fuck off. You're not moving on.

Strangers are just friends we haven't met yet. Friends you haven't met yet. Any more? I can't think of any more, but I'll come back to it later. Get him on ChatGPT. I imagine ChatGPT would be absolutely amazing for getting inspiration. If I was your husband, I'd drink it. Or something. I don't know. I love Housework. I could watch you do it all day. That's a good one, Jim. Is that one of your own?

No, that's one from... It's actually from a... It's on the wall in a cafe not far from our studio. So there's a really boring peek behind a curtain that no one hears. In here, beer. Over there, bears probably. Possibly. Oh, God. That's a good one, yeah. I've got a good one for you. Hard work never killed anyone, but why take the risk? Yeah.

Oh, God, I laughed. I laughed. That was 50% me laughing because I enjoyed it. Sorry about that. Atletico Madrid beat Slava Bratislava 3-1. And I'm mentioning this only because...

absolute right up Rambo-Straza into Rambo-Plaza. It was the first time in Champions League history that there were two dads coaching. Vladimir Weiss and Diego Simeone and their sons were playing. Vladimir Weiss, where did he come up with that name? And Giuliano Simeone in the same game. Not bad, eh? I like that. What's not bad about it is that Giuliano Simeone still got a career and indeed his own legs because when I saw him play

against PSG in the Champions League this season. He got nutmegged right in front of his dad. Oh, right. If you want to get nutmegged in front of a dad, probably best that your dad isn't Diego Simeone. Yeah, he's not just any dad, is he? Also, Vladimir Weiss used to play for Man City. So there's your link. Oh, there you go. Which one? The manager or the son? I'm going to say the son. He only played a few times. Yeah.

All right, well, coming up, great news. FIFA have confirmed the 2034 World Cup is off to... We'll tell you after the break.

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Welcome back to the Football Ram. Well, the next two World Cups have been awarded. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will be joint hosts for the 2030 World Cup with three matches being held in our

Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay to mark the competition's centenary edition. What are the people going to do with the graphics for the World Cup for the BBC and the ITV? Usually, when we've got a World Cup in Brazil, in France you get the Arc de Triomphe. What are they going to do for this? There's so many countries involved.

It's going to be all over the shop, isn't it? It'll be like Eurovision, won't it? Yeah. A flamenco dancer taking spice from Morocco. No, it's like a Eurovision intro. Which is a legal drug for Portugal. Is it? Well, Portugal are very laissez-faire on that side. Exactly, they are, yeah. Yeah.

It's a very interesting, I'm going to say box job, isn't it? Because the 2030, as you said, the three matches being held in South America are to do with the fact it's 100 years since the World Cup started. I'm fairly certain that because of FIFA's own rules, they couldn't give it to South America properly.

So they had to do it in Europe. Also, people are just stopping bidding because they're so fucking pissed off how corrupt it is that they've actually botched job it. I'm not worried so much. I mean, Pete, you'll be unsurprised to hear, I'm less worried about the TV intro, which I think will be manageable, more worried about what we're going to do when all of a sudden a random game is being played seven hours behind where the normal games are being played. It's like drinking. They are, I mean, the...

one tournament will take place in not just different hemispheres but different seasons which is which is really really strange and i i do think it's sad that it's not in south america for the centenary because centenaries are really culturally important in south america like every club makes a big deal of its hundredth years and a big anniversary like that anniversaries like that and i think that's it's part of the heritage that you know fifa uh govern um and it's

And it would be great for that to be acknowledged. And also they break their own rules all the time anyway. So it's a real shame. And I don't think that this is a good fix for that. I think this just complicates the tournament. It's a 48 team tournament already. It's really, really complex. To have it over six countries across two continents is going to be really muddled, to say the least.

Yeah, a little bit. It was all decided at an extraordinary FIFA Congress. And they've named that themselves, haven't they? It sounds like an emergency. You know when something horrible's happened and they sort of assemble a government and they give themselves a sexy name? Completely. The Gun Conference. Some people have said...

The only actual reason that they've done a few centenary games in South America is because that meant that South America would then be unable to bid for 2034, which then meant that Saudi Arabia would essentially, you know, absolutely romp home in their bid for that one. So the whole thing... The whole thing. You know, I know that it's...

I mean, I haven't even got on to 2034, which we'll come on to now. But the whole thing is extraordinarily corrupt. And the difference... And it's not new to say that about FIFA, but...

But I do think what's changed is that it feels to me that when we were kind of talking about this ourselves, you know, on the show 15 years ago or whatever, it felt like the only real people that properly knew or cared about it were, you know, investigative journalists like Andrew Jennings, who had to put years and years of work into it and really fight hard to get people to care.

And so they were at least hiding it, right? And the only reason they got busted last time, because a lot of the stuff happened in the US dollars, then the US authorities started to get involved because some of the stuff was happening in the US. And they are accountable to no one. And the way they're behaving now, it's just like it's openly, they're not even trying. So if you were going to say that who's worse, Aviv Infantino or Blatter, bear in mind that people were desperate for Blatter to go.

I think you have to say in Fentino's watch because when you drill down into the detail as well as how open it is, it's really...

Quite surprising how brazenly corrupt it is. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they were fairly brazen in Blatter's day, but it is now open to the point of obscenity, how corrupt it is. And I think you have to say Infantino is worse. And we'll come on to various things that Amnesty International have said and the kind of farcical nature of the awarding of this bid and all the pageantry that went with it. But I don't think it's unreasonable to say that...

human beings will die as a direct result of Gianni Infantino's decisions. That is surely going to be the case.

That's what Amnesty International have essentially said as well. Amnesty released a statement saying, based on clear evidence to date, FIFA knows workers will be exploited and even die without fundamental reforms in Saudi Arabia and yet has chosen to press ahead regardless. It also said that it ignored concerns from LGBT plus supporters. It's another astonishing decision from FIFA and they are just plumbing further depths. They're also complete mugs because they're not the ones with the power here.

uh that they just get a pat on the back and a pat on the head that makes them think that they're this really powerful important global organization but they're essentially just being railroaded into this yet more kind of um sports washing and also you know same-sex relationships are illegal in morocco as well so you know there are two world cups there where where gay people will be at serious risk if they want to attend yeah i i think i think um

Yeah, it's a really good point. Look, in theory, I am mildly sympathetic to the idea that you take big events and you use them to help, you know, open up a country, whatever you want to say, you know, kind of educate sounds patronizing, but, you know, you introduce people to different ways and the whole thing pushes on and everyone gets a lift.

clearly not the case here with FIFA. They use that kind of excuse quite a lot as a fig leaf to say we're doing whatever the fuck we want. And they did do a token thing where there was talk that, you know, oh, maybe Saudi Arabia will benefit from becoming more progressive from this kind of stuff. But it's just complete bollocks. The big...

We saw from Qatar it doesn't happen, right? Exactly. And what's really interesting to me is that... And Jonathan Wilson wrote about this in The Guardian. Miguel Delany, who we have on OTC, has done an amazing job at really banging the drum about this. And his most recent book covers it as well. But the proper interesting sort of detail behind this that is, I think, really fucking fascinating is that...

But Infantino and FIFA were really struggling to get a TV deal in place for the Club World Cup, right? And what's happening now? Well, Saudi Arabia get the World Cup in 2034, which is what they want for all the reasons you've said. They get the highest score of any bid in history, despite the fact that 11 stadiums in an entire city haven't even been built yet, let alone the infrastructure and all that kind of stuff that needs to happen. Saudi Arabia get their World Cup. In return...

it appears the Saudi public investment fund who have been sports washing all over the world for years now have put together a one billion dollar bid for 10% of the company DAZN that have agreed to pay a billion dollars to FIFA to stream the rights for the Club World Cup and all of this is

It's happening in plain sight with very, very, I mean, with greatest respect to the journalists involved, very, very easy journalism to unveil it. The whole thing is just a complete cabal. And that's before you even get into the idea of the stuff you were talking about, like human rights abuses, migrant workers dying, LGBT, Q plus people being discriminated against, et cetera, et cetera. The whole thing absolutely stinks. And it's very, very difficult to see what, yeah,

who can bring it to heel? Who can give the oversight it needs? And to put it in perspective, that $1 billion number for the streaming rights for the Club World Cup, I was reading that Fox, who cover a lot of sports in the US, of course, judged it to be worth $10 million for the US rights. Wow. Right. It's extraordinary. Yeah, I guess the only change can come within FIFA itself and we've seen that they absolutely do not want that. They are

well up for the direction they're going in. The extraordinary FIFA Congress itself was genuinely extraordinary as well. The way these bids were kind of essentially clapped through was also done in this really kind of horrible, horrible, corrupt way. It's like the Hunger Games, isn't it? It was like the Hunger Games, yeah. It's like that big old collection of Zoom windows. So if you didn't see it, that's kind of how it played out. You've got Infantino and a few other people in a venue. You've got lots of screens where people are effectively on Zoom behind people

They announced both bids or the success of both bids, which, you know, each one of which only had one bidder at the same time. And it was essentially ratified by people clapping rather than voting. So there was no opportunity to express any opposition to one bid separately to another one. It was all very...

It was just all just complete pageantry, really. And I'm disappointed that the FA didn't do anything. The Norwegian FA were the only FA that I'm aware of to actually kind of raise any sort of protest. I don't think it would cost the FA anything to register displeasure at this because presumably they're going to still put England forward and

They'll qualify all they want. Yeah, but they're spineless, man. They're fucking spineless. Listen, they're spineless wet blankets. The only thing... Talking about oversight of FIFA from above is completely pointless, as we've said. The only thing that can happen, Jim, and you touched on it there, is the idea that FA's, powerful FA's... Start something new. England, Spain, Italy, Germany, whatever, Brazil, start to say...

Enough is enough. We haven't been involved in this. It's the only thing that will work. Yeah, but I guess that probably involves such a massive sacrifice that they would be doing that on behalf of so many players who would potentially miss out on playing in World Cups and all the rest of it, which is a really thorny issue to get into. We should also mention that FIFA sped up the bidding process for this unannounced.

giving countries only three and a half weeks to put together a bid, which meant that Australia just couldn't do it. We can't do that. I mean, it's impossible. And all of a sudden, oh, what a surprise. Saudi Arabia already had their bid ready. The whole thing stinks. It absolutely stinks. Yeah, I mean, I do agree with you that it's very, very unlikely that national federations are going to go, all right, sorry, players, you're going to miss out on this one World Cup.

But I think there's a long enough run-up at it that I hope there is at least some attempt...

to get the public on side with that idea because there's a long, long way to go. Maybe, you know, certain players will be like, all right, we're not doing that one and you have the time to adjust to that. It's unlikely, but, you know. I'd love to see that, Jim. The problem is, I was listening to the radio yesterday when this was properly announced. The amount of people phoning in to the radio saying, well, we're going to sort our own problems out before we start criticising Saudi Arabia. Yeah, just fucking idiots. Just idiots who don't understand

the wider context of what's happened. This is not about some kind of idea that, you know, white supremacy being exported around the world and our way of life is the only way of life like it was back in, you know, colonial times. It's not about that. It's about the idea that quote unquote respecting people's culture does not involve like ignoring people being abused or people's, you know,

inalienable human rights not being respected or people being beheaded that kind of shit is not culture it's bullshit and so we should call it out whenever we see it and they should absolutely not for a million different reasons corruption logistics ability etc etc be able to host a world cup just because Infantino's in the pocket and quite needs a couple of billion to get himself bailed out and he's using the whole of football the world's most popular sport as his play thing the guy's a fucking moron

You can take issue with the sort of countries that are getting awarded the actual tournaments. But fundamentally, I think you can, if you genuinely believe that it's okay to have a welcome in Saudi Arabia, you should be taking umbrage of the fact that the whole process is bent. You know, the reduction in time that bids have to be put together and stuff like that. It's atrocious. And we've all watched United Passions. We've all watched that fucking terrible FIFA PR film. Like, they started something.

And it happened very, very quickly. Just saying. Yeah, but then as Jonathan Wilson was pointing out, four years later, Mussolini already got stuck into it anyway. But the idea of setting an example and saying, you know, this could improve this, that and the other for these groups of people if we let them do this, it's completely the wrong way around anyway. I said this before, all FIFA needs to do at one of their millions of conferences where they all get pissed and eat as much food as they can. They just need to sit on the agenda and say, these are the things you,

need to have in your country to be eligible to bid. A, it needs to be a democracy, fully functioning. B, it needs to have...

according to whatever body covers this kind of thing, because there's plenty of them out there, it used to have a level of corruption below this number. It needs to have all these things. Don't say good transport, because the UK is out of that. We never get it anyway. The only way it suits them, you wait for sometimes Chuck has won. That's why I think that the FA are so spineless. Because, listen, if it were me, I would sit down with them and say...

I know you want to try and do the right thing, but those people at FIFA, they fucking hate you. And they've hated you for a hundred years. So you might as well go down fighting. That's what I'd be saying. They're probably, I mean, if England hadn't won the World Cup, they probably would be a little bit more toothy about it. They'd probably, because you've got that kind of pedigree. They've got grounds to hate us. I get it, but they do hate us. And it's almost a bit like, are you going to, are you going to give up all the secrets before they kill you anyway? No, just tell them, fuck you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, speaking of ignoring tactics when they suit, the Manchester United versus Victoria Prison and Rangers versus Spurs, Chelsea versus Astana. They are all taking place tonight in that there Europe. Chelsea have made the eight hour journey to play in Kazakhstan where the temperature kickoff looks to be

minus 18 degrees. Put the World Cup there. Have a winter World Cup in minus 18 degrees for crying out loud. And then they're off to Brentford on Sunday night at 7pm. To be fair, they've probably got the planes, they've probably got the private jets, they've probably got the aviation fuel and they've certainly got the squads to deal with such an adventure. I hope they've got the fuel. They're absolutely clear. You're talking...

Let's make it very clear. If you're a pilot listening to this and you're taking them to Astana in Kazakhstan, please do check that you've got enough fuel. In more cost-saving news at Manchester United, Jim Ratcliffe has replaced the staff's £100 Christmas bonuses with a less usable and less lucrative £40 M&S voucher. What are you getting for £40? He will be getting a visit from three ghosts quite soon, I would think. Right, yeah.

Eric Ten Hag Jonathan Woodgate What are you buying with a £40 M&S voucher? Would you go for the Christmas turkey or would you go for a cake? Gets you nothing these days does it? Yeah Gets you a couple of nice candles

Or if you're at a train station, a couple of nice cans. I would say this is yet more evidence to my theory that just because they're not the glazers doesn't necessarily mean they're good. And I think that they have been absolutely incapable, despite him being one of the world's richest men, of controlling any kind of PR strategy whatsoever at one of the world's biggest clubs. So what makes you think that...

that they're going to be fired on the pitch as well. Dan Ashworth, as you guys were saying earlier in the week, Dan Ashworth has spent less time at Man United than he did doing his gardening leave to get the job. It's not going that well because the bar has been so low beforehand, though. No one's saying anything about it. And for those of you who are keen Spurs watchers, little last word on this. We're going to do the show tomorrow as well, of course, but just want to get this in there. Spurs are possibly about...

180 minutes or so from getting rid of their manager. If they don't do well tonight and they lose away to Southampton, I think it becomes untenable. It should be Levy and some of the infrastructure going, but it probably will be Ange Postacoglu going. So there might be a lot of chat on Monday about that. Just a little Moultradamus prediction for you. Not a full prediction, but just...

Putting the tarot cards on the table and saying, what do you think about that? I think he's got a flexi ticket to back up to Scotland. I reckon he's got it booked. Possibly. I'm not predicting, Pete. I'm just...

breathing on and polishing the magnifying glass on the tarot card on the Ouija board on the Ouija board that's all I'm doing and writing down time codes of when this was said well thank you for listening to the Football Rambler part of the Acast Creator Network make sure you join Most Adama's Lukey Moore Andy and Marcus tomorrow for the preview show follow us on X, Blue Sky, TikTok and Instagram at Football Rambler and subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts say goodbye Jim bye say goodbye Luke goodbye and it's goodbye from me

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