The Preview - Tottenham vs Liverpool
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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. Hello, I'm Michael Bailey. Welcome to the preview on The Athletic FC. Today we'll be focusing on Tottenham versus Liverpool before turning our attention to the fixtures elsewhere.

With me today are the athletics football writer Tim Spears and data analyst Mark Carey. Let's start with Tottenham then, who were in action on Thursday night, beating Manchester United 4-3 in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals. Let's hear from Spurs writer Jay Harris, who is at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

That was a crazy game of football. Spurs looked like they were cruising a 3-0 up and Fraser Forster made a couple of mistakes which allowed Manchester United to come back into the game. There's going to be a lot of focus around Forster in the next 24-48 hours but we shouldn't catastrophise what Forster did. He has actually performed quite well playing out from the back while Guglielmo Vaccaria has been injured.

and every goalkeeper that tries to play out from the back gets caught and makes mistakes. It's just unfortunately for Forster, it happened in quite a high profile game and it happened twice within five minutes. But I think for Spurs, we've seen so many times this season they have a great result and they follow it up with a bad one. It's going to be a really tough task against Liverpool on Sunday. If they get a positive result out of that,

Then they can sort of look ahead to Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day, hopefully get a couple of key players back from injury in the first week or so of January, and then they can sort of build and look ahead to having a much better second half of the season.

Another crazy game involving Tottenham Hotspur. They don't make life easy for themselves, do they, Tim? I guess that was probably more a case of relief than anything for Ange Postakoglu and Fraser Forster. Yeah, absolutely. It was a really strange game. The look that both managers gave each other at full time was very telling. Sort of like a knowing smile. Like, yes, we know that game was crazy, but yes, we know our teams are a bit crazy as well. Yeah, two very flawed...

sort of inconsistent teams both finding their way at various stages of their respective projects. I've seen a few interesting perspectives as to like who was the better team tactically Spurs or Man United and

I think from Spurs' point of view, you do have to take into account that they had, what, 10 players unavailable? But basically, both teams just gave goals away all night. I mean, obviously, Forster gave United two goals. Spurs didn't jump for the corner for United's third. It did remind me of the Brighton game from a few weeks ago where they were...

2-0 up and then the slightest bit of adversity and they just visibly start to fold. So it was pretty important to get through them and they've had a couple of nightmare Thursdays recently away at Bournemouth and Rangers. Not necessarily a nightmare at Rangers but you know a disappointing performance and result. And they got through it. Massive win for Spurs. Potentially their biggest of the season but as Jay said...

in his note there, when they tend to have a good result, the next one tends to be not so good. So it doesn't really necessarily mean that the good times are coming. It's interesting with Spurs, isn't it, Mark? Because it feels like they do things that invite pressure on. Yeah, it's self-inflicted. I think that's the frustration, maybe, from the perspective of the Spurs fans, is that they do it to themselves. It's sometimes good play by the opposition, but it's more often than not self-inflicted. And to Tim's point, they...

They were 2-0 up against Brighton, they were 2-0 up against Chelsea, they were 3-0 up here and granted it must be remembered that they A won the game and B they were never behind in the game so it was kind of a few nervy moments but they did still just about come out correctly on the other side should we say but

We know this to be the case. There's no surprise in the way that the game actually potentially panned out because that's how Postacogby likes to play. It's the general principles with which he plays that Jamie Carragher said it really well. He said it for a couple of weeks now that they play the same way irrespective of the game state. Now, my perspective on that is that

You sometimes have to have the footballing intelligence to know when to manage the pressure or the momentum of the game. Sometimes it's riding out the good momentum. Sometimes it's switching the momentum in your favor. But if you want to empower the players to take ownership over what the situation is, then you need to be able to trust them to do what they believe to be the correct decision on the pitch. But if you're

telling them what to do irrespective of that situation then there's going to be maybe mistakes along the way because especially to Tim's point that they've got a lot of injuries at the moment to try and consistently play the same way and not

to what the situation within the game is, but also within the wider season, then something's maybe got to give. Often, I try and think of this in a broader way. You can sort of add Russell Martin and Southampton to this. Is it that the players really want to play that way and they've absolutely bought into the style that the manager wants? Or are they playing in such a way because they're fearful of being dropped if they don't instill the ideas that the manager's asking them to do? I don't know what the answer is. It's probably maybe somewhere in between, but...

that's what I think sometimes the most interesting especially if you've got a young group of players as Spurs have got that which side of the coin are they falling on is that they really want to do this or they feel they have to do this I mean Tim I can imagine there are loads of

football fans following clubs who are a bit dull and a bit boring and they're maybe eking out 1-0 wins or losing and not scoring a lot. They would love to see a team scoring a load of goals and then conceding a load of goals, but then coming out on top of things sometimes and it must be great and exciting for Spurs fans generally, you would think. But I would also always think that if you've got games like that, you're probably not going to win anything because you can't trust them when it gets to the pointy end and you come up against...

better or more disciplined sides? Maybe, although it does sort of lend itself to like a cup football style. That's why I was so disappointed last season that Spurs sort of threw the cups away, certainly the Carabao Cup with a weakened team, but it seems like this season will be different and that could be really important for Postacoglu. I mean, God, if he's the one to end their trophy track, then it guarantees him another season, doesn't it? I think that's what he needs. He needs...

He needs sort of three, four years, I think, in this to really do what he wants to do in terms of changing the culture of the club. But in terms of whether it can bring success, I think, yeah, the football can bring a level of success. I don't think they can win the league title. But obviously recruitment is absolutely key. And we've discussed on this podcast quite a bit that they had, in my opinion, an iffy summer where they took their eye off football.

The current team too much and looked a bit too much for the future with the amount of money they spent on young players. The reason, the biggest reason, and Mark alluded to it there, the biggest reason why it doesn't work is injuries. I mean, this is two seasons in a row that injuries are seriously costing them dearly. As Postacoglu said, they've got 10 players out at the moment, including basically their first choice defence and keeper. Last season they had like 11 out at one point, I remember, just after that.

disastrous defeat at home to Chelsea when they were down to nine men. I feel like Spurs aren't or

Spurs and or Daniel Levy aren't the kind of club or people to fund a huge squad where 22 players are of similar levels and then they can rotate and maybe negate the injury issues. So I don't see that being solved, to be honest, which is the main thing that's held them back now, I think, for two seasons in a row. People can look for other reasons and excuses and tactics and post-crawling and whatnot, but the bare facts are that when you've got the majority of your team out,

you're going to struggle and this is the second season in a row this is happening Tottenham have kept just one clean sheet in the last 23 home games Mark I mean they've got Fraser Forster who's sort of in place of Vicario following his surgery and injury and I mean Fraser Forster is a great shot stopper but as we kind of saw in midweek it's trickier with his feet sometimes and I guess I find it interesting that he is obviously going to be the goalkeeper for the longer term until Vicario is back fit but

how much should you be sort of altering what you do to play to the strengths of your players rather than putting him in positions where you know you might end up turning over a three goal lead in a few minutes yeah no I think it's exactly that that I think the the most elite managers find the balance between still wanting to impose their principles but sometimes just having a little bit of a balance again depending on the situation I keep coming back to it to to just maybe play ever so slightly differently and it's not that

you then say, "Okay, Forster's maybe not the strongest in playing short, therefore every time he gets it, it has to go long." It's just that certain situations, like the one where he'd already made a mistake and within minutes you give the ball to him with an Amad Diallo bearing down on him, maybe just don't give him the ball in that situation. Maybe just try and play it wide or play it forward or just manage the situation slightly differently. Maybe sometimes empowering the player to say, "We know where your strengths lie." Give a bit of positive reinforcement rather than saying, "You're not very good with your feet."

positive reinforcement to say we know what you're good at go and show that when you've got the opportunity to and when we've got a bit of time on the ball we'll go and impose this style I think to

Tim will be able to sort of say about this better but I wonder how much the injuries that across both seasons have been the case is maybe because of the style that that they play and again managing the game in certain moments like if you're going a bit more hair and scaring when you're two three nil up sometimes resting on the ball and knocking it around for a little bit and killing the game and yes it's not the entertainment value that Poster Coghly wants but you might save yourself a

a couple of hamstring injuries there. You know, you might just drop a little bit deeper and Mickey van der Ven doesn't go and get injured and then you can still impose the style that ultimately you want to across that season. So,

Again, two sides of the coin. The positive side of it is that the absolute entertainers, this is the spurs that fans will largely want compared to the drab football that they had under Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho. But at what cost? As the meme goes, I think it's sometimes just balancing all of the above and making sure that the players not only get the best out of themselves, but are also fit enough to be on the pitch. It all does still link back to the style that Pastor Coghlan imposes.

Mark makes a good point. They're infuriating to watch sometimes. That Chelsea game recently where they lost 4-3 at home, they were just screaming out just to put their foot on the damn ball for like 10 minutes and just slow it down. But they appear incapable of doing that. That's what really annoys me about them. I love watching them and I love what Postacoglu is trying to do, but that lack of common sense during the games is pretty infuriating. But

We should expect it. You know, this is a guy, and this is one of the quotes that's really stuck with me, one of the most sort of pertinent quotes you could ever find for Postacoglum Spurs was after the Brighton game when he was asked why he didn't make any subs when they were 2-0 up, they lost 3-2, they completely lost momentum, they were shipping goals regularly. And he was asked why he didn't make any subs to sort of stem the tide. And he said, All these things, you know, are totally irrelevant to me.

substitutions and all those kind of things. If you're not competitive, it doesn't matter what you do, you're not going to get rewards. They don't deserve to win. So we didn't deserve on our second half performance irrespective of subs or anything else to get something out of the game. And I think if you do get something out of the game, then you're falsely rewarded and I don't want to get falsely rewarded. I just found that so telling. I don't think any other manager in the Premier League would do that. And I think once you understand where he's coming from with that viewpoint, then you can see he's never going to change. He's not going to change his tactics for Liverpool at home.

It may be to his downfall, ultimately. I mean, I think they should stick with him and he needs another transfer window or two. However, they are 10th in the table and it's pretty congested in there and they could easily be sort of 13th where Man United are if they lose to Liverpool and results go against them at the weekend. And that's when the pressure will start. You know, obviously, great result against United on Thursday night, but it wasn't so long ago that Postacoglu was...

getting in a bit of a spat with away fans at Bournemouth and you can see the unrest is growing there. As much as Spurs fans loved this last season and it was very refreshing and they were singing they'd got their club back, after a year of indifferent results now,

and a defence that just isn't getting any better no matter who plays then yeah they're going to be frustrated and we know that there won't be much patience from above if Spurs are in the bottom half of the table which they might be if they don't win this weekend We will come on to Liverpool Mark and Liverpool have defensive issues themselves but where do you look at Spurs at the moment and see how they can hurt Arnaud Slot's side I mean for me Dejan Kulishevsky looks like he's coming back into some real incisive form now especially but

I'd like to hear your view rather than me tell you what mine is. No, I quite agree with that sentiment exactly. I think that that would be my answer in terms of looking at wide areas. I think to your point, the creativity of Kulosevsky on that right-hand side is super strong. I think it's an ongoing debate as to whether he's stronger wide right or a little bit more inside and then it's

it's something of a domino effect is that okay well you bring him inside then you can't play Madison quite as strongly and then the midfield's disrupted so it's a bit of a balancing act in that regard of if you have one then you maybe can't have the other but I'd probably go with him on the right hand side I'd say that's probably the best way to attack Liverpool especially because

At the moment, Liverpool have had a few issues with Andy Robertson on the left-hand side. I think that it's actually probably been a little bit inflated. Yes, he had the red card, but there's some element of truth to it. I think you look at Liverpool's goal that they conceded against Fulham. The first goal was from a back post finish from Andreas Pereira and maybe Robertson could have done a little bit better there as well.

So with that in mind, I think that then Dejan Kulishevsky is great from a technical perspective, being really good in tight areas and linking up coming inside, but maybe thinking about the straight line running and the more purposeful running of Brennan Johnson, who's been brilliant at getting on the end of those sort of back post crosses this season and last season to a certain extent, that maybe there's a place for him for this exact game and the requirements that

that would be needed for this game because you could see if they get the ball onto the left-hand side, get a few overloads. And Madison's been great recently at making those underlapping runs to the byline. You think then Brennan Johnson could get on the end of that, then there could be a place for the purposeful running of Brennan Johnson, especially against Robertson, who's maybe struggling with a little bit of confidence at the moment because he's already going to be back for this game because he served his one-match ban in midweek. So

Yeah, there's potential options there, but I do think that the right-hand side for Spurs will be maybe where they'll have their biggest upside.

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Liverpool were also in action in midweek. They beat Southampton 2-1 at St Mary's to book a Carabao Cup semi-final place for a record-breaking 20th time, where they will play Tottenham, first leg is in North London. Arnaud Slot heavily rotated, but Liverpool did find a way to win, and all after fighting back twice against Fulham last weekend and playing most of that match with 10 men.

Tim, I mean, have we seen something a little bit different from Liverpool in the last week or week and a bit? We certainly have in terms of personnel, some emergency centre-backs. Gravenberch was there against Fulham and, yeah, Endo at centre-back. I know he's done that a little bit in his career, but still unusual for him at Liverpool to be dropping at centre-back against Saints in midweek in the Cup. So, yeah, this adaptability, flexibility, you know, we talk about Spurs, it's the exact opposite situation really at Liverpool.

Liverpool, who are sort of enlisting a number of different formations and styles. And that's something that slot wants, you know, to make it difficult for the managers to predict how they're going to line up. Not so much in terms of personnel, but definitely in terms of shape and approach. Everything they're doing is sort of...

seamlessly and serenely impressive. It's the best sort of takeover from one era to another that I think we've seen in the Premier League era. I can't remember a more sort of seamless transition and actually improved the team with the same players. Is that adaptability what's impressed you most? Do you think, Mark? Yeah, I think so. It's something that

I know you and I, Michael, have spoken about at length on the Athletic Football Tactics podcast, which people can tune into, but it's something that we had a whole episode on. It's a theme of what we often bring up with Arna Slott, that adaptability. Tim mentioned the tactical tweaks, bringing Ryan Gravenberg into central defence, born out of circumstance with the going down to 10 men, but going from a back

back five system back to a well starting with a back four system going to a back five system after the red card and going back to a back four system you could see the the cogs whirring in Arnaz Lott's brain on the sidelines just to try to work out how to overcome the issue when they went down to 10 men and I think that's been a key to what slot's done between games of trying to obviously still impose the style that Liverpool want to and

but also adapt to the strengths and the weaknesses of the opposition going into each game. But also I think it's been really pertinent at half time, we're looking more specific at the second half, that sometimes it's not always gone to plan and it's the first time slot has faced any of these teams before.

in the Premier League and you can see that there's a different game plan or slight little tweak in the second half which I think has been hugely beneficial to then helping Liverpool to either get over the line or come back in games if things have not quite worked out tactically so I think he's far better at tweaking and adapting based on that it's something which to the point of Postacoglu he could maybe learn ever so slightly from because I think the best managers are

are good at doing that still kind of having that consistent theme of how they want to approach the game the general principles etc but knowing that there's sometimes positional tweaks stylistic tweaks in and out of possession that will then just allow you to get the most out of the team and

I've got a piece coming out on Trent Alexander-Arnold. I think it's coming out Sunday morning. And it includes a quote from Trent Alexander-Arnold about Arnaud Slott, how he's just really worked on his positioning. And he says, sometimes when the ball's on the opposite side, it's just about knowing where to be. And it just shows that Slott is really...

on just making sure that those small details are met in everyone's individual position. So I don't think it's by chance or any kind of new manager bounce that Liverpool are at the top of the table in the Premier League and of course in the Champions League as well. I think it's definitely by design. It just shows how strong of a tactician slot is. Liverpool have lost just two of the last 23 Premier League games against Tottenham. They've scored at least once in each of their last 17 against Spurs. This fixture, of course, last season was the...

Well done, boys. Good process game, which is fun. Mohamed Salah, he was rested in midweek. His record this season is phenomenal. I've got it here. He's been involved in 71% of Liverpool's Premier League goals this season. So,

bit over reliant there you could say found the net 13 times and then you've got nine assists on top of that throw in Tim Spurs' full backs Mohamed Salah may well be licking his lips Blimey quite the prospect yeah I think

Spurs, whenever they don't have Van de Ven, which I don't think they will this weekend, with his incredible pace to cover for those fullbacks, that, yeah, they've become a different proposition. It begins to see who Salah is up against. Adagi is probably back. I think Postacoglu say he'd probably only start one of the sort of two games in the few days with United and Liverpool. Jed Spence has sort of come into the team and played fullback for pretty much the first time in a Spurs shirt. Long time coming. Thought he was great at Southampton.

last weekend and pretty good against United on Thursday night as well so it's great for him there's been a real sort of clamour for years now from Spurs fans for him to come into the team it's just needed a bit of a

needed to find his home and have a bit of an arm around the shoulder and didn't get that from Antonio Conte. So yeah, him against Salah would be a fantastic proposition in a weird kind of way. I don't want to be too disparaging to Destiny Adogge here, but I think that the good form that Spence is showing and coming into the team and the pace that he has might be a slightly better bet against Salah at the moment because Adogge's form this season...

kind of reflecting Spurs has been pretty good going forward and contributes well in the opposition box but he's made so many glaring errors that have almost directly led to goals at the other end. So Salah's obviously Liverpool's best player and a doggy has been one of Tottenham's weaknesses this season defensively. So that would be a key area for Liverpool to target for sure. I mean I sort of joked about a reliance there on Mo Salah, Mark, because in a way he's sort of stepped up for

Darwin Nunez maybe not being quite at the races over recent weeks especially and then Diogo Jota's obviously been injured but Jota is now back so there's quite a few choices aren't there at Slott's disposal it'd be quite interesting on the choices he makes for this one. Yeah I think so yeah Nunez got his goal midweek that was it was fine as a goal I think that he got a little bit lucky that the goalkeeper slipped a little bit I think you know goals can change a striker's confidence so hopefully he'll

kick on from there in terms of goal scoring I think the fans still are behind him broadly for his endeavour if not his technical prowess shall we say but Liverpool have got so many options in that number 9 area there's Jota who's got the

probably the strongest case to lead the line when all things are equal. But then Luis Diaz has been really good as a central striker at times in a completely different way to a Jota or a Nunez. I think his first game this season as a central nine was against Bailovacus and he obviously got a hat-trick in the Champions League and he played there against Manchester City as well. He did the same last week against Fulham and he's really good at kind of drifting around into little pockets,

kind of in the same way that Roberto Firmino was playing a bit of a false nine, but the way that he kind of links up with everyone, he's a bit more micro in his technicality.

technical skill set than Nunes, who's far more macro, shall we say. But I think with that in mind, I think because Spurs will continue to play a high line irrespective of the personnel, you maybe think Nunes' running power and pace could kind of barge his way past the Spurs high line and maybe try and exploit things that way. And at the very least, his running tendency will maybe stretch Spurs' high line and make space for others to maybe operate like Sobislai in the pockets.

And we can throw in Federico Chiesa as well, Tim, as Arnaz Slot did. But we've not really seen a lot of him, which I guess has been kind of the issue in Italy for Chiesa as well. Yeah, he was a low-risk purchase. But yeah, they would have hoped for him to have contributed more in the first half of the season. Especially, you know, like we say, with someone like Nunes struggling for goals. I think it's 4-21 for him this season. I know he scored in midweek, but...

He's not putting up anywhere near the sort of numbers that he needs to. And yeah, it's getting busy. Liverpool will have 11 games between now and the end of January, which is a lot for this time of year. However, their good form dictates that a couple of those in the Champions League, they can actually rest players. I think they've got Lille and PSV in their last two, but they're already basically through, aren't they? I know they'll want to finish as high as possible in the table for a decent seeding for later in the draw, but...

Yeah, those are the kind of games that you can imagine. Chiesa starting, as are Accrington and Stanley at home in the FA Cup. So yeah, the big period for Liverpool is the next four because they've got this glut of Premier League games coming up. Obviously Spurs away, then Leicester home, Boxing Day, West Ham away on the 29th, which is potentially a tricky one, and then Man United on the 5th of January, which is a really unusual time to have that fixture. And yeah, United sort of coming in

or sporadically coming into a bit of form and looking to get their act together. So that's always a big one as well. And then Forrest away. So it doesn't really get any easier. But in terms of that Champions League, that might be a couple of decent opportunities to rotate. And you'd imagine that Chiesa would come into the reckoning for those. This episode is brought to you by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check the date of the big game first.

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Let's focus our attention elsewhere now. Wolves sacked manager Gary O'Neill after their 2-1 defeat at home to Ipswich last weekend. It was a finale to forget, or maybe remember. They conceded in the 94th minute. Ryan Aitnuri was sent off after the full-time whistle. Matthias Kunja looks likely to receive a retrospective ban for his role in the skirmishes on the pitch post-match.

Tim, I guess Wolves were left with no choice but to move on from O'Neill after all that shenanigans. Well, I mean, that's one way of summing it up. Sort of apocalyptic scene, really. It's against, which has not been disparaging to Wolverhampton there at all. It was more in terms of football. Yeah, in terms of players losing it, fans going for the owner, basically.

basically just angry at everybody angry at the manager angry at the owners angry at the players and then this sort of comedy slapstick defending which they do I mean the first goal of games in Sips which was just Laurel and Hardy type stuff and people just slipping all over the place and ricochets and rebounds oh it's awful oh Tim I feel like you need a hug yeah

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to be disrespectful to a man who knows far more about football than me, but I am pleased that Wolves are moving on from the O'Neill era. I did think it was overdue and I think this is a good opportunity with the week before January to get going again. And yeah, I think O'Neill, with all the carnage we've seen in the last few weeks, just showed a lack of authority towards him, to be honest, from the players. He obviously couldn't get them in check in terms of their discipline and

um in terms of fighting but also in terms of the defense because they were just as he said himself after the Ipswich game they weren't standing where he wanted them to do for set pieces so once that's happening it's only going to go one way and yeah they need they need a new voice and that new voice is Vitor Pereira who's been a new voice for lots of clubs over the years 13 in fact and

and with varying degrees of success as we talked about earlier this week Michael on our Wolves special athletic podcast

So yeah, I'm going to the Leicester game on Sunday. Very interested to see how Wolves set up, particularly defensively. Scoring goals is not an issue, although they do have an over-reliance. Not a Mo Salah level of over-reliance, but they do have an over-reliance on Mateus Kunja, who, as you say, may miss a few games coming up. So they need to find another avenue of goal scoring. But the defence is the problem. They're conceding to a game, at least. So that's his first task. And we'll, you know,

going to give them the benefit of the doubt. We'll see what happens. It's not going to be boring. No, indeed. No one really worries about pre-Christmas cheer anymore. Sacking season is in full flow because Southampton followed Wolves' lead, putting company with Russell Martin on Sunday. The Athletics' David Ornstein has also just broken the news that Southampton have agreed a deal with Ivan Juric,

having parted ways with Roma in November after fewer than two months in charge at the Stadio Olimpico. Mark, nine points adrift from safety. Any surprise Southampton waited until now? Maybe. I think maybe they were looking to see if things clicked a little bit more with the players they had, obviously adapting to a new league, etc. under Martin's style, just to see whether they could get a bit more upside. I think

A good comparison to last season would be, albeit it was a new manager coming in rather than the new team coming into a new league.

Bournemouth under Andoni Iriola took a good couple of months, few months to really make sure that they had the style imposed and were really kind of embedded into the way of playing in the Premier League as well. And then once they did stick with Iriola, there was the game against Burnley, I think it was, was a pivotal game around winter where once they won that, it sort of kick-started their season. I feel like Southampton were kind of waiting for something to kick-start their season and be like, okay, something has clicked and we kind of move forward here. And it's just...

It hasn't happened. And there's an Opta statistic that says that they picked up just five points from their first 16 games and only Sheffield United in the 2020-21 season have picked up fewer points at this stage of the campaign in Premier League history. And that was just two points. So I think it's

much a foregone conclusion that they will get relegated and maybe they should be preparing for the championship now but I think as much as anything we know Southampton they kind of look alright on the eye at times in possession they can knock it around until they then go and make an error of course but they look pretty decent in the middle third shall we say but they've just been awful in both boxes and I think when you're

that week in defence and attack then I think there's a clear reason why they're 20th. Southampton do head to Craven Cottage on Sunday to face high-flying Fulham which is probably not the fixture they'd necessarily want. I mean Tim does that feel like a sort of appointment for next season? I mean surely if you're making an appointment like that you are actually giving it all you've got for the rest of this year and then you'll see where you are come the summer. Good question. I mean if Juric is the man then it's a

It's an interesting appointment and it just shows you the allure of the Premier League, you know, once again from Roma to Southampton, despite the sort of precarious position they're in and almost certainly going to be in the Championship. We've seen this a little bit in recent years, you know, Emery Tavila sort of set the tone really, the Europa League manager and one of the most talented managers in Europe going to a team that was threatened with relegation at the time. Lopetegui going to Wolves when they were bottom of the league, you know, he'd won the Europa League.

And I guess from his point of view, you know, even if Southampton go down, if he enlists improvements in them, which shouldn't be too difficult, then he can sort of put himself on the radar for maybe another Premier League job further down the line. But I'd be interested to know the sort of terms of his contract in terms of like a relegation break clause. But yeah, he's kept teams in consistently in the top flight in Serie A over the years. So that would bode pretty well if Southampton were within a decent points total of the

of the safety line but they're not so there's I don't think there's any hope for them music

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Manchester City's dreadful run of form. That got even worse last weekend, losing to Manchester United, of course, in the Manchester derby. In comical circumstances, it's written here. I don't want anyone to pin that on me. I'm sure that Manchester City fans did not find it very funny at all. But Pep Guardiola's side, they now head to Aston Villa.

in Saturday's early kick-off. Tim, it's a difficult one to call this, isn't it? Because both sides are sort of having a mixed time of it almost. And surely Manchester City are going to turn this around at some point? I mean, they've got a pretty favourable run of fixtures coming up. But yeah, we've been saying for a little while that you just expect it to turn. And yet, you know, you look at them...

against United last weekend and not having a I don't think they had a shot in the second half they just sort of desperately tried to see it through but with no real authority in terms of keeping possession you know the way that we we've become so accustomed to so I don't know I don't know when the table I don't know when the form does turn for them really I keep seeing the issues they've got with injuries and fitness are so debilitating to them because you know Guardiola can't rotate his players and some of them like Gundogan and

I'm not used to playing so many in a row and it's affecting them in terms of what they can, literally what they can do from match to match. So I don't know, their fixtures, like I said, are pretty kind coming up. After Villa, they've got Everton, Leicester, West Ham, Brentford and Ipswich in a run. So you expect it's going to turn at some point, but I don't know, we keep saying that week after week and they're so soft in the centre of the pitch and so easy to play through that it's hard to predict when that's going to happen, to be honest.

And it will be interesting if some of those sides, because of maybe a slight loss of fear factor, some of those sides who actually do go for it a bit more, give them trouble and see what their attitude is towards the games. What surprised me, Erling Haaland is still level, I think, in terms of the Premier League top scorer charts with Mo Salah, somehow. He's in my fantasy league team and it feels like a while since he's scored a goal. You've still got him in your team. Wow. I know, yeah. Well, that's why, yeah, that's another story and definitely not for here.

Before we go, let's check in with a couple of the club pods from across the Athletic FC. Firstly, it's Karl Anka speaking on talk of the Devils after the Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham and ahead of them hosting Bournemouth in the Premier League on Sunday. Now's the time to build momentum, although there are no mugs. And last year, one of the Bournemouth players pointed out that they actively targeted the space behind United's fullbacks.

in that defeat, knowing this idea if we win the ball back and we can hit the ball into those areas quickly, we can get a result. I think Bournemouth have some very good players who probably could be playing in the Champions League. Their left back in particular impresses me. I think Evan Nilsson has the minerals to be playing Champions League football eventually as well. So I think this is a good test again of Amarant's

I think that right-hand side now is getting better and better and better, especially the longer Madden-Masraoui play. I think Ugart is getting better, but they're all also things that need to be sorted out. It's seven places, but just three points separate Man United and Bournemouth. They're 13th and 6th, respectively. I mean, Mark, Anthony Arreola's done a brilliant job with Bournemouth this year, but this is like a proper test, isn't it, for...

Amarim at United. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I love the organised chaos, if you want to call it that, from Eriola's Bournemouth. I think the type of football, it's been said widely, but the type of football that he brings is because it's so jarring to the opposition, they get a lot of advantages from it and a lot of upside from it because teams don't quite know how to deal with it and you wonder whether...

by the end of this season or maybe by next season teams will maybe work out how to do it because it is so different maybe from how others play but I think yeah you're right it's a big test for Man United they've still got a lot of teething problems we've seen in every game that they've played under Amarim recently in and out of possession I think Amarim's still trying to work out

well he's got a very clear idea of how he wants his team to play but maybe the the best players at the moment who can implement it and of course we'll see over the coming transfer windows just how much he is able to implement it potentially with new players but he said as much that he's basically using the games as training sessions if you like and he's clearly trying to coach the players through the games because there's not as much time to actually do it on the training pitch themselves and that's quite

telling but it's just the way that it is at the moment considering it's a congested period in terms of fixtures and you compare that with just how well drilled Bournemouth are everyone really knows their roles they've got such a clear style as I say and it just feels like maybe there's a narrative already kind of created that at the weekend you'll have players who absolutely know what they need to do under a manager versus a bunch of players who are still yet to work out what needs to be done under the new manager so that's not to say that

Bournemouth are guaranteed to win but I just think that I'd probably give them the edge which is surprising considering it's at Manchester United and they obviously won there last season 3-0 and it was to the point I made earlier around December I think it was it felt like that was when things really started to click for Bournemouth in terms of imposing that style so I think it will be a good test of United's build-up as well I think sometimes they've been quite laboured with that back three of just doing it quite slowly horseshoeing it from side to side and if

Bournemouth do just press really hard, get those triggers and really pounce on United's build-up, which can be a little bit indecisive, as I say, then there might be a few calamities. Arsenal face Crystal Palace again on Saturday after beating them 3-2 in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. Here's Adrian Clarke and James McNicholas speaking about their hat-trick hero that night, Gabriel Jesus. Now, they were three great goals, three absolutely brilliant finishes. I thought his touch was absolutely exquisite all evening. The question is...

Would you guys start him on Saturday evening now? Well, I would. He gave their back three massive problems. Yeah, I would as well. I would as well. I know Kai Havertz has had a rest. So I think that will always be tempting for Arteta in an away game, you know, his physicality. But I just think he terrorised them, Jesus. And he'll be absolutely flying. And I think...

I would start him. Would you, Adrian? 100%. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt. I think poor old Kai is just going to have a longer rest and that might do him good. I have to say, for me, it was more of a switch going off in the second half against Crystal Palace. Jesus was fantastic. It didn't feel like he was there maybe the first half, but once he scored that first goal, Tim, he was bang at it. And that could be great news for Arsenal if

Jesus rediscovers some of his best form over the rest of this season. Yeah, I mean, they need to do something different in attack. I mean, no goals from open play in their last three Premier League games. Struggled, obviously, and failed to break down Everton last weekend. Struggled to break down Fulham the week before. So, yeah, I'm not sure if Jesus is the answer, but after scoring a hat-trick in the week, it's probably the best time to play him. The issue is more in creating chances. I mean, you know, when you see Odegaard be taken off after an hour...

against Everton last week. There are obviously issues there and it's not a great time to play Palace. I know obviously they beat them in the cup in midweek but it's players are rested. It's a different game entirely. They look great against Brighton last weekend looking really confident. Glasner's sort of managed to whittle away at his squad to sort of find a decent winning formula in terms of their best 11 in terms of the formation.

So yeah, a tricky one for Arsenal. I kind of question where Arsenal's motivation is coming from at the moment. I think they're out of the title race. The maximum points they can reach this season now is only 96. And if Liverpool head towards the 90 mark, I just don't see Arsenal quite being in contention this year. So I would question and worry for them in terms of motivation, in terms of what they're playing for this season. I think we might see them drop down the table a little bit.

Well, what else is there to end on? Well, maybe Wednesday night was their big game. I didn't think of that at the time, but maybe it was. And on that bombshell. And on that bombshell. And with that, we are done for today's podcast. Huge thank you to Tim and Mark and everyone who's contributed. The Athletic FC will be back on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend and enjoy the football.

You've been listening to The Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beal. The executive producer was Aidy Moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. The Athletic FC Podcast is an Athletic Media Company production.

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