Mailbag: Do we put too much pressure on football managers?
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It's Saturday, so of course we're here. Welcome to the Football Ramble Mailbag. My name is Pete Donaldson. My name is Luke Moore. And I'm called Andy Brassel.

Remember, if you want to get involved with the mailbag, you can tweet us on X at Football Ramble, message us on Instagram and Blue Sky at Football Ramble. And of course, you can email us, show at footballramble.com. Luke Miller, Andy Brassel are with me and we are going to town.

on your questions, so to speak. I made a little, while we're waiting there, I made a little jingle for the mailbag. The mailbag. The mailbag. The mailbag. Pretty cool stuff. Yeah, that literally sounds like it took 10 seconds.

Well done. Well done. Well done, Peter's mailbag. That's by the way, to everyone listening, that was not me and Andy clapping and cheering. That's a pre-recorded applause jingle. Yeah. So yeah, we're on the mailbag again. I have not done any mailbags. Then over Christmas, I've done two mailbags. And I really like the cut of the listener's jib, I have to say. This is the only contact I ever have with any of our listeners. That's not true. That's not true. Well, Peter,

We got a message from Tim via email. Andy, could you give us what was said by Tim via email, please? LAUGHTER

What a well-oiled machine this is. While I sneak a little mince pie in my mouth. I particularly enjoy the fact that I'm given the email as the slightly older one. He won't understand Blue Sky or Instagram. So let's just give him the emails. I've got out my electronic letter opener to reveal Tim saying, a lot has been made about the visible distress that Pep Guardiola has been displaying recently. However, he isn't alone. Ange Postacolo has spoken about the pressure he is under as a Premier League manager.

Do you think we underestimate the pressure of being a top-level coach? Brentford sports psychologist has suggested that football is guilty of putting too much responsibility on one person. Do you think that is fair? Is it football or is it media, would you say? Because they're always the ones who are on the chopping block. But I think football tries to spread it around.

managers sometimes are quite resistant to that particular change but um it's always the man it's always the um that the media i mean us to a lesser extent you'd probably say as well um who focus in on how important a manager is in in the entirety of the club luke yeah i think yeah i mean it's probably a bit of both i mean the sport itself the the fact that these people in these jobs obviously want to be well want to do well so they put pressure on themselves um that's not to absolve the media's part in it because obviously that's a big part of it but i think it's um

It's the same as any other big high-profile pressure job that comes along in the public eye, right? Not just in sport, but in things like politics and business and whatever it may be. That's just part of it. And without sounding too unsympathetic, because I'm sure we can unpack it and discuss it in greater detail, no one's making them do it, right? They're choosing to do it. And I don't think it's a reasonable argument to say that

They're not going into eyes open, particularly at the top level. So it's all part and parcel of what they do. Do I think that it's unbearable? I think it depends on the individual human's response to things like stress and high pressure. And that's different for every individual. But I think it has been a little bit uncomfortable for

See in the way that Guardiola for example has has worn his recent travails Like I said a couple of times now very clearly a very emotionally led person heart on the sleeve Demands a lot of himself and probably that's why in the past. He's not had an elongated period of time at the clubs He's managed until here at City because he's probably neither way in fact He said that he's needed a rest and a break there have been studies done in

In the pretty recent past about the pressures managers are under, their heart rates, their level of stress, their physical symptoms that come along as a part of that stress. So it's obviously not for the faint-hearted at all. But again, it's going to sound callous, particularly at Christmas, and I don't mean it to, but I think it's an important part of the conversation to say no one's making them do it. They don't have to do it.

And they're very well recompensed for doing so. So, I mean, it's a lot to unpack there, I think. How do you feel about it, Andy? Well, firstly, if we're starting with Guardiola in particular, clearly he is an obsessive personality. And that's part of what makes him the very best. I mean, one of the notable things in Marty Perenow's book about his time at Barclays

Pep Confidential, which is a great book, by the way. If you didn't get it for Christmas, buy it with the book tokens that you got for Christmas if you haven't read it. He speaks about how Guardiola's obsessiveness is such that the thing the players, the players all really like him, but the thing they don't really get about him is the level of prep that goes into like a home game. Say they're playing Mainz at the Allianz Arena and

Guardiola will lock himself in his office and watch three days worth of videos of Mainz. And the player's sense here is we're buying, you know. I think if we concentrate on what we're doing, we'll probably be fine, to put it mildly. And I think that is a sort of look behind the curtain about just –

unhealthy level of that obsession really I think the other thing with him is he's not taken a break in over a decade now since he took over the buying job going back to 2013 now when you look at him finishing at 2012 at Barcelona that's the last time he looks this frazzled

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I remember watching his last game in charge of Barcelona at home, the Copa del Rey final, against another team who were completely cooked, Bielsa's Athletic. And I remember sometimes you need someone outside the football tent to sort of get a clearer perspective on things. And I remember my wife coming in while I was watching it and going...

who's that guy? Is that the Barcelona manager? And I was like, that's Pep Guardiola. And she's like, that's Pep Guardiola. You know, it's almost, he was a bit Tony Blair. You know, he'd aged so dramatically and it was a very different role. And of course, I think what's really interesting in Tim's question is the fact that

He interchanges, as we often do, the word coach and manager. Because we have head coaches now. We don't really have managers, do we? We don't have that overarching Brian Clough or Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger figure. But we have someone who's a coach. And every job that Guardiola has had constructed for him, because clubs have been so keen to bring him on board, of course,

If you look at the Bayern and the City jobs, it's all been set for him to just do the coaching and not think about the other stuff, which he had to do at Barcelona and what really put so many miles on the clock. But, you know, he's been at City a lot longer than he intended. He's always been clear about that. He's talked about taking a break a few times and not. And, you know, I think the fact is that he just needs a break. Going on to the more...

general point of the question though I would lean into what Luke says as well like not just that there's the choice for them to do that but I think rather than the media it's a myth that's sort of given weight by managers slash head coaches that I am the man who controls it all

And that's not just Mourinho, is it? It's someone like, it's Alan Pardew. It's so many managers or coaches who want you to believe that they're pulling all the strings. They always say the buck stops with me, be it in a positive or negative sense. Whereas you look at someone different to that,

Zinedine Zidane or Carlo Ancelotti who say, well, it's down to the players actually. You know, I try and give them the best possible conditions to succeed, but it's about the players. And the thing is, we're conditioned so much by...

an environment created by the managers actually, and by the head coaches that I'm the puppet master. I make it all happen. That when you have someone who comes along like Ancelotti or Zidane, who says, well, it's down to the players and you know, it's their thing really. That if you asked like 10 people in the street with, who have like a, I suppose a less than,

obsessive view of say Real Madrid for example they would tell you that Zidane and Ancelotti don't really have tactics they're players coaches which is not true it's emphatically not true but because they don't come out there and blow up their own myth and we'll find this with Xabi Alonso when he takes over um

an absolute elite level, they're in the news all the time club. You know, you get more of the detail of what he actually does. And he's that kind of guy that goes, oh, well, I just like trust the players to interpret their own role really. And it's not just about the tactics. It's not really about the shape. That's a framework. It's about more than that, isn't it? Sure. But I think what we're talking about though is the idea of, to me, what I get from the question from Tim is the idea of responsibility. And the idea of responsibility and leadership position is,

is quite a singular one. You need to be almost comfortable in the storm getting wet and saying, "I'm going to do everything I can to sort this out." And I think there should be, in my view anyway of leadership, there should be an almost implicit understanding that if the people who are working for you are successful, they should be able to take the credit. And if it goes wrong, you should take responsibility because that's what a leadership position is.

And to me, that's how I think it should be approached. And I think that maybe there is some truth in the idea that the player, because what you're getting at, Andy, although you didn't actually say it, what you're getting at, I think, is the idea that the manager wants to, a lot of managers or coaches or whatever you want to call them, they like to kind of believe in their own myth. Totally. And yet when it comes, and I think we see this a lot in public life these days, by the way, the idea that if something goes wrong, it's never really your fault. You know, like the classic example of that is,

In his first period as president, Donald Trump, after coronavirus, and someone said in a press conference, do you take any responsibility? And he said, I take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever. He said it all straight-faced, even though he's ultimately the most powerful person, certainly in the US, if not the world. So the responsibility comes with its own amount of pressure, and you have to be comfortable in that pressure. And I do think, like I say, I'm not trivialising the pressure these coaches are under, but I do think

I would be surprised if Pep Guardiola thinks

a single moment about what anyone in the media thinks about him and the pressure you're seeing of him is the pressure he's putting on himself because that's the type of character he is i don't think it matters a damn to him what in real terms what the guy from the daily mail says or what the ram or whatever any anyone who says he's like i used to be up here now i'm not up here why and starts getting in his own head and puts pressure on himself but to answer the question you know

It is probably guilty as a sport of putting too much responsibility on one person because that person is ultimately the figurehead, the lightning rod for everything. And the truth is probably quite different.

But, you know, people need an easy story. People need something to look at. People need something to identify and say, that's the reason. And it can be players. I mean, I don't think it's a zero-sum game. It's not either or. The players get a lot of pressure as well. Of course they do. But the manager also gets it because he's a figurehead and he knows the job. He signs on as a head coach or as a manager and he knows what he's doing. And if they don't like doing it, there's loads of other jobs out there, right?

And also you would say that a character like Pep Correola, he's been a top-level professional footballer at one of the, or the biggest... Yeah, they've lived their lives in that world. So they've lived their lives in the spotlight. I guess...

maybe managers who have had sort of darker days as footballers probably felt a little bit more alone, a little bit less supported as footballers as they go into the management role. Probably makes them a little bit better coaches, you would probably say, because they've sort of been down and they understand where the books are. Well, Pete, that's a really great point. And I think the example I'd use of that, and it's a really good counterpoint actually to all the names we've mentioned so far, is Gareth Southgate.

But Gareth Southgate isn't someone who seems to wear his pressure or his stress on his sleeve at all. He seems pretty even-handed, pretty balanced, has talked at great length about how he felt unsupported after Euro 96, and that's informed how he's set about being a leader and being a manager in the environment in England, and has always been very happy

happy to take responsibility for the bad stuff and been very quick to, you know, compliment his players for the good stuff, right? That to me is probably why he's spoken to a large part of the country in a slightly different way to just being a football manager. I think he's a great example of how you can really revel in

in that scrutiny. And that's not to say it hasn't taken its toll on him because of course it has, but he's almost been able to channel it as far as I can see. So I think for everyone under huge amounts of pressure, there are people, I sound like a kind of like a daily mail kind of reader saying this, but you know,

is it as really pressured as being a firefighter or working as the lead consultant in A&E? Or being on 20 grand and having two kids. Exactly. So we have to maintain some perspective because the real pressure is thinking about where the next meal for your kids is coming from. It's a really good point to make.

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Looky Moore gives the next one. Absolutely delighted to. This is from Jack on Blue Sky. Now, Andy, Blue Sky is a social media account which has been kind of tipped to replace Twitter. What's social media?

Well, you've got no problem with Twitter because you're a big fan of free speech. But some of us who don't like it have moved over to Blue Sky. Jack's one of those people. And he asks the following. And this is a great one for me to be asking because I don't actually watch Amazon's Boxing Day Goal Show. Jack says there's been a lot of talk about the 3 p.m. blackout recently. And it feels like we got a glimpse into what life would be like without it.

what did you think of Amazon's Boxing Day goal show? Personally, I thought it was a huge upgrade for the Premier League despite the presence of Tim Sherwood and Dion Dublin. Well, for what it's worth, I think if the removal of the 3pm blackout would mean more Tim Sherwood on my screen, I'm strongly in favour of that.

funnily enough I do have a bit of response to this because while I was at Newcastle United versus Aston Villa at St James' Park I had my little iPad with the Amazon Goals show on because it turns out even when I'm at live football I have to multi-screen people have got so much of my personal brand and it's great to know that it's absolutely correct yeah it is isn't it people next to you going who is this

absolute danger sitting next to us. I'm imagining one of those Chinese guys on the mopeds where they've got loads of mobile phones connected to them and they're going out searching for Pokemon. Or a mob with loads of wing mirrors on their scooter. Yeah. It's hard to do exactly that. Pete, we talked, I don't know if you were on the show, but I talked on one of these episodes quite recently at great length, I think with Jim maybe, about

about the 3pm blackout and about the protection it affords to, or it might be with Andy actually, to speak about the protection it affords for kind of lower league, non-league clubs and stuff. Yeah, it was. And the reason that the, for those who aren't that clear, the reason there was a slightly different feel about the Boxing Day

football is because it was all shown it was all shown all afternoon because of course it wasn't a Saturday it was a Thursday and it's Boxing Day which is a completely different kettle of fish but Jack's right to say that does give you a bit of an insight on what a football day would be like on a Saturday if the blackout didn't exist Pete you presumably are of the opinion that everyone's streaming this shit anyway so what's the difference

I would certainly. I've got my own Amazon, the Boxing Day Gold Shore, if I need it. But I would say that I think with how it kind of worked out yesterday, or the day before rather, it was quite interesting that when you would join a match and you would click, I want to watch this match.

They would just give you that little option to go through the highlights of the match that had already taken place, basically. So if I'm joining a match... The rapid recap, they call it. The rapid recap. The Amazon rapid recap. Lovely little touches like that. Just having everything. It's not even about blackouts and stuff like that. It's just genuinely just paying one fee, having everything in one...

space at the same time and knowing exactly where I'm supposed to go for it. This three or four different kind of providers, it's just no good for anyone. And it's just kind of, uh, it makes it more difficult. It's a real mess. I agree. It's, I guess it's one of those sort of tropes of modern life. It's like what's sold to you as, um,

being ultimate consumer choice is actually not that at all, is it? It doesn't make life any cheaper. In fact, it makes it more expensive. But in terms of, I guess this isn't strictly about the 3pm blackout, more about what, if I can interpret this, Jack's question is, I think it

means to be interpreted as sort of the idea that you can watch a sort of, I guess, goal show of all the games. Now, this is something they have in the Bundesliga on a Saturday afternoon for their 2.30 p.m. UK, 3.30 p.m. their time kickoffs. And it's just a great thing. They've had it for many, many years. And that thing of conference, they call it. And you used to have this German pub in Vauxhall.

that they would show conference on the big screen and you would have a pub full of people wearing different shirts of all the different teams involved. So you'd have so many different clubs involved and, you know, they'd go, oh, there's been a goal at Stuttgart and people go, hey,

in one corner of the pub. And then when they realised that goal had been scored against them, the fans from the other team would start cheering. That's never going to replace going to a football match or even watching a full match on the television. It's always a tantalising... So are you guys suggesting that a goals show...

Would be a good compromise then. Yeah, well, I just think it's a really good television spectacle. I think it's really fun. It's transfer deadline day. Yeah. It's transfer deadline day for two hours, writ small. So I don't watch those types of goal shows because I just don't,

Because they never have the goals in them. Remember the one that Andy used to appear on? I think me and you were on it a couple of times, the BT Sports one. Yeah, score on BT Sports, yeah. You don't see the goals, so what's the point? But that's like, sure, but that's like a TV show, isn't it? It's a TV show first. Yeah, but the thing is, I mean, it depends what perspective you're watching it from. I think if your team is playing at the time...

maybe it's not for you because you would like to watch your entire team's game. But if you're someone who's Premier League agnostic, like I don't have a Premier League team, for example, and I probably never will have, even being relatively optimistic, I don't expect my team to get there. That for me is something that's really good. And if I'm not at a Champions League game, which is relatively rare, or I'm not on the goal show,

I love to watch it. It's, it's, it's something. I like it when you're on it, Andy. And, uh, I would very much, um, I, I am absolutely excited to see what's going to happen on the last day of the champions league. Um,

fixtures this time round because I think they've got to get through 45 fixtures or something they're all at the same time it's going to be mad all at the same time a goal show where goals are flying in constantly how do you prioritise why would you prioritise who's going to be managing the stats where are you going to be Andy on the final day of the Champions League how many screens are you going to have more importantly how many screens are you going to have like one on each fingernail

Have you got your book? Have you got like a booking already, Andy, for that night? Or are you just going to be like Interrail card in your hand, just go wherever you're told? Yeah, that's pretty much it. I'm going to be on the platform at the Gardenoor with two burner phones on the go. I'm needed in Brussels. I'm needed in Brussels. All right, I got a message from Harrison via Instagram. I'm a West Ham fan and I'm currently losing the love of going to watch my team.

How many times do we get this message in? A combination of the new stadium, the football and the commercialisation of the Premier League has changed the atmosphere at games. Am I a bad fan or is it acceptable to fall out of love with supporting your team? You know what? I think this is a really interesting question and as Luke has kind of hinted at already, it's...

not an unusual question. This, I think this would have been a more unusual question. Um, if we go back, say five or six years or, or even longer, um, because it's not the sort of thing that people would have ever said out loud. And I guess a few people would still never say this out loud. Um, but I do think we, we talk about the, um, the pressure on players of the fixture list, um,

even though this doesn't explicitly come up in what Harrison described I do think that the saturation level of current football current top level football is definitely part of that it's nice I think for football to feel like a treat now look I realise I'm in a slightly different position because you know I don't

I don't live in London at the weekends anymore. So when I get to go and see my team, it is a treat. I might maybe go and see my team like maybe 10 times a season if I'm lucky. And it does feel like a proper treat. And I guess it means like if it's a defeat or a bit of a boring game, it's not something that I dwell on for too long because I've enjoyed the experience, especially now I sort of go to London

my fair share of away games with my kids up north, which is really nice. And, you know, if you have a nice day out, you know, the result doesn't weigh too heavily on that. But yeah, I think if it begins to feel like a drudge, I think that can be something that's,

there's a problem and I think it's fine to admit that and it's normal to admit that I think the other point as well is because of football being how it is I think maybe if you're a West Ham supporter you might go into a season and they've had some exciting recent seasons haven't they I mean obviously in some cases because they've been flirting with relegation when they shouldn't have been

but mainly because of Europe, you know, and that was something that the London Stadium was sold to them as, wasn't it? You know, it was sold to them as this dream of European football. And obviously the first game they played there, they got knocked out of the Europa League by Astra, I think it was, from Romania. But since then, you know, they have had that sort of,

But for a lot of clubs and a lot of fans out there, and we've talked about this mainly in respect to the Premier League, I don't know what you guys think, that feeling of, you know, maybe you had it as a Newcastle fan under Mike Ashley, that sense of this club is never going to win anything. There's no sense of jeopardy at the start of the season, you know? I think it's...

if I sort of looked into the future when the takeover happened, I kind of saw myself losing a fair amount of love for that side because we all kind of knew or thought we knew how it was all going to go. It was going to be, you know, £100 million, you know, Man City level transfers and an apologetic, you know, pro-Saudi fan base, you know, enjoying all the spoils of murder. And,

and I think possibly tempering that has been their lack of success in the league and their lack of success in the transfer market, just simply because of the, the fair play rules and stuff. So you, you keep hearing about the, the, the movement of the, um, of the stadium down the road. You keep on sort of hearing about all of the things that are going to change in the future. Um, if, if certain people have their way and it is, uh, sometimes somehow a race to the bottom for me. And it, uh,

And I'm not an old kind of duffer who doesn't believe in progress, but I do believe in respecting a little bit of heritage there. Yeah, I wonder how much Newcastle I would, how much I would consume in Newcastle if I didn't work there.

sort of in football. Do you know what I mean? But then when they win, I'm watching them, you know, win or lose or draw. I still watch them every week, but I can feel a slight disassociation with the side that I followed all my life and thinking about what I thought that club represented. But then maybe I'm just being naive as a child, I suppose. Now, your final point there is really interesting, Pete, because to me, because we get these questions a lot, right, in different forms.

And it's really important, I think, every so often at least to incorporate them into the show because you want to talk to football fans ultimately. And these questions to me always feel like questions about distance. And your final point there is what you're describing, a distance between you and the club. And the distance gets bigger every year, right?

I think, and in some cases, and actually West Ham is a pretty good example of this because there's a physical distance with the new stadium being in a different place and you being physically further away from the players because of the way the stadium is set up, which is a really nice metaphor for the distance that people feel between them and their clubs because their clubs don't,

really treat them with any respect whatsoever. They don't seem, they don't need to. I mean, ultimately Andy always kind of cites the old, look how bad football was during COVID. Fans are really important. And I think that clubs do begrudgingly understand that and have no choice but to respect that. But if they had the choice, they wouldn't respect that because they don't have any need for, really for this kind of stuff on a match day anymore because of the way TV money is and the way that actually people who,

A lot of clubs are supported by massively wealthy owners and stuff. So it's not, to go back to Harrison's question, you're not a bad fan. And it's absolutely acceptable to fall out of love and support your team, in my opinion, because you're honest about it. You want to support them, but you feel like they're moving away from you effectively, from what I can make out from the question. And that is ultimately, to make my final point, why a lot of people...

are finding a lot more joy going to watch local teams or non-league teams because they feel they can be a part of it. I love going to my local team because you feel like you're really amongst it, like you're actually a part of it and that you can really have an experience. And what happens now is, you know, the last big brand new stadium I went to would have been the Spurs Stadium, right? And it's objectively an amazing stadium and they've done a load of work to make the atmosphere feel good there.

inside it and it sounds good and you can really hear

for good or bad the way the fans are feeling right and that's an important part of it but it's also accompanied by going into a stadium that basically feels like going into an airport right sitting in a stand that feels much more like a public event than a football match and um it's just a very very different feeling now there's some good parts of that the good parts of that are that all different types of people feel welcome whereas perhaps they didn't in the past they feel safe that's also really important

But all these questions that come in are ultimately, whether they're being articulated that way or not, are basically, in my opinion, the idea that a club is moving away from having a direct relationship with a normal common or garden fan because that's the way the sport's gone. And what your response to that is as a fan is up to you. But I don't think it's unacceptable or illegitimate to go, do you know what? Actually, that's not for me. Ah.

I'll watch football on telly sometimes. I'm going to go support my local non-league team because I can get the experience that I want out of that. And there I am. Now, some people obviously will defend their team. Whatever happens, they'll defend them to the hill. And I've had people phone into me on radio shows saying outrageous stuff in defense of their club because they're so one-eyed about it. But of course, that's not for everyone. Some people react to things slightly differently. So I wouldn't say that Harrison needs to feel guilty in any way at all. I would certainly say he or she is not a...

Not a bad fan. Definitely not. No, completely agree. All right, we'll be back after this. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. One of the perks about having four kids that you know about is actually getting a direct line to the big man up north. And this year, he wants you to know the best gift that you can give someone is the gift of Mint Mobile's unlimited wireless for $15 a month. Now, you don't even need to wrap it.

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From Muno Discord, lads, what's been your favourite football or football-related moment of the year? I think, for me, it was Liam De Lappe scoring Ipswich's first Portman road goal. Wow, Peter, what a selection. Which was in a 2-all against Aston Villa, of course, early in the season. It was a lovely moment, I think, and everyone had a bloody, bloody good time. Lukey? Yeah, I think it was a lovely moment.

I think Liam Glap's had a really good season so far and I've enjoyed watching him play. Very dynamic, slightly tempered by the fact that he's yet another one to come out of the Man City caddy that they could probably do without him back because at the moment they would take anyone. A shout out to Moon who always gets questions from the Discord included in these shows. His standard of question asking just must be very high. My favourite football related moment of the year has to be

the Ollie Watkins goal for England against Netherlands in the semi-final of the Euros because it was like, for once, England have done something amazing in the last minute and it really can't be denied because it's the goal so late. And it was such a great quality goal as well. It was a brilliant finish, an amazing moment. It's hard to top that. And obviously what came afterwards was a little bit regrettable. But I would also add, by the way, that...

We experienced this in Euro 2020, which of course was in 2021 after COVID when England got to the final again. And to me, the best moment there was

was the Denmark semi-final because you've still got hope about what's going to come in the final. Yeah. But it's a lot of kind of, it's like, it's amazing, but there's still more to come. Semi-finals are often better than the final. I think so. I think you look at Man United winning the Champions League in 1999. Obviously, there are reasons why they gave the performance they did in the final. You mean like Juventus and Turin you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It was, yeah.

What about yours, Andy? So mine's Watkins against Netherlands. What's yours? Okay, well, following on from that, mine would be Dortmund fans relentlessly booing Lenny Kravitz during the Champions League final. That was the one for me. I just, like, the way that the Champions League final has set itself in the last couple of years to try and become like the Super Bowl. And I've particularly enjoyed the fact that fans have come out, not invited guests, but regular match-going fans.

have just come out of those finals and said, I'm not having it. Yeah.

this we are not having this it's a little bit like um what my children used to call the imagine dragons final uh between liverpool and spurs in 2019 in madrid and all you could hear was liverpool and spurs fans being over the top of it you know it's about the fans we said this before and like at the moment where they are making the atmosphere where they are making the occasion where it's one of the greatest moments of their football supporting life perhaps and they feel they just want to

Play Lenny Kravitz over the top of it, playing 25-year-old songs. Apart from a bunch of suit-wearing commercial people who see an opportunity, and FIFA or UEFA are kind of so out of touch, they're like, yeah, that sounds fine. No one actually wants it? No. Exactly. It's what middle-aged marketing people think young people want.

Yes, and it's also like if we do this, we'll get some people who perhaps don't watch football as often to watch the Champions League. It's nonsense. It's like total patronising nonsense. Respect your own product. Yeah, exactly. That said, I'd like those squid games down at Spurs. Quick one from Marie on the Discord. What are the lads' Christmas wishes for their teams? Do you fancy reversing up the reverse that Oli Dundall and Pompey I wear?

For my team, and this is tough for me to answer off the back of our last result, but I, back of Pompey's last result, I would love Portsmouth to stay in the Championship. It's, to me, it feels like their natural level. They keep annoyingly doing an impression every so often of a team that will absolutely stay in the Championship and then soiling themselves straight afterwards. Yeah.

so in many ways I'd rather be in the position like Sir Hampton are in that's it then that's that done we know what we're going to deal with next season now but we're still I mean obviously we're one point above the relegation zone you're pretty much safe I would say so I would like Portsmouth to stay it's a big league

Yeah, I would like Portsmouth to stay in the championship. That would be the wish I've got, I suppose. To give a similarly vanilla answer, promotion. It's got to be promotion this year. Wimbledon have actually got a good team this year. They've got a slightly... One of the best things to happen to Wimbledon in 2024 on the pitch was the fact that the team's become slightly shithousey

which has been always pleasing long overdue yeah I think yeah it's got to be looks like it might be playoffs Andy for AFC Wimbledon so that would be heartbreaking if not hopefully so another trip to Wembley for Andy and I'd just like to see more Sandra Denali right finally for now have the Rammers returned any Christmas presents yet Luke did you get any big ones that you've asked for the receipt for

I don't think I've ever taken back a Christmas present. My Christmas tends to be someone gets me a jumper, a few people get me a few books, most of which, at least maybe sometimes all of which I've asked for. And then people get me kind of,

like theater tickets or like event tickets and i would always go to those because people obviously buy me presents for christmas like know who i am so they'll they'll generally buy me stuff that i would like and even if they didn't i would still go because i think it's an interesting thing to do and you can't really return tickets that someone else has bought for you anyway so i would i'm not really a christmas present returner to be honest i'm terrible with um

with like buying stuff online and not returning it if it doesn't fit me or something. I'm just, my ad on that is just terrible. Axe full of stuff that doesn't fit me. So I'm not a returner of things generally. One of the big problems I think with Christmas is the Amazonification of Christmas, I suppose. In the, not only, well, of course I gave a very explicit like list, short list of a few things that I wanted to open for Christmas and,

and I got asked by Amazon to review one of my presents before I received it. Did you really? That's so funny. Was it a drum and bass record? No, it wasn't. It was a piece of hip-hop vinyl. Oh, so close. So close. Fortunately, you didn't get me in Secret Santa. I gave a Secret Santa. The person who did my Secret Santa didn't turn up for the meal, so I'm still Secret Santa. Andy, how is that P. Diddy record anyway? Is it good?

Thank you for listening to the Football Ramble Mailbag, part of the Aircast Creator Network. Marcus, we'll be back on Monday alongside Luke and Jim. It's been on as private. Please do send us your responses, opinions and questions for us next week's episodes. You can follow us on X, Blue Sky, TikTok and Instagram at Football Ramble and subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

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