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Week 28 Premier League Recap · Premier League Playground: Lad and Dad

• 0:03
  All right, and welcome into the Week 28 edition of the Premier
• 0:08
  League Playground. I am the dad.
• 0:11
  You weren't with me as our star, the lad.
• 0:13
  Luca Miller. And how are you doing today,
• 0:15
  Luca? I'm doing good.
• 0:16
  How are you? Good, good.
• 0:17
  We're back for another pod. The games are coming fast and
• 0:20
  furious. We had, you know, midweek games,
• 0:23
  weekend games. We have another midweek games
• 0:26
  coming up. So we got to be right on top of
• 0:28
  our pod schedule here. So we're doing it after all the
• 0:30
  Sunday games today. But how was your weekend, Luca?
• 0:34
  It was good that was your weekend.
• 0:35
  My weekend was good, my weekend was good.
• 0:37
  You had a couple games this weekend.
• 0:41
  How did they go? Not so great.
• 0:44
  We lost both of them. Lost both of them.
• 0:46
  They were close games. 31 and two one move.
• 0:48
  On 2/1, how do you think you did?
• 0:50
  I hit the crossbar in one of them and I think I did all right
• 0:55
  in the other one. Well, yeah, in the in the game
• 0:58
  today, you did. You had a real nice shot hit the
• 1:00
  crossbar so close to going in. They tied up the game too.
• 1:04
  You had a real nice though goal line save with a ball you know
• 1:09
  you're you play tend to play more midfield and and winger, so
• 1:13
  you're not really a defender, but you would hustle back got on
• 1:16
  defense. The ball had beaten the goalie
• 1:18
  and your defenders is definitely going in and you clear it off
• 1:20
  the line and save a goal. That was a nice play that you
• 1:22
  had. But yeah, you guys I think
• 1:24
  played well. Yeah, tough.
• 1:26
  You know, both games were tough. You know, competitive games
• 1:28
  could have gone either way. But yeah, tough to have two
• 1:31
  losses in a weekend. But yeah, Luca, Week 28 in the
• 1:36
  books. We're we're rolling through
• 1:38
  here. Lots of goals this week in the
• 1:42
  Premier League. Yeah, good news.
• 1:45
  So we got a lot to get through, so why don't we dive into the
• 1:48
  games we could take us through? We started off on Friday with
• 1:51
  Wolves hosting the. This game ends 2 nil wolves.
• 1:57
  Wolves. 2 nil wolves. Let's go.
• 1:59
  We don't need to edit that out. You sure you have that right?
• 2:02
  Yes, yes. Win.
• 2:04
  Yes, yes they do, and they win 2 nil.
• 2:07
  Goodness gracious. I predicted 2 in the last in
• 2:09
  Villa. Yeah, the right score, just the
• 2:12
  wrong team. Yeah, OK, Xiao.
• 2:14
  I think it's Xiao Gomez. Xiao Gomez.
• 2:16
  Yeah. And the 61st minute, and then
• 2:19
  Rodrigo Gomez in the 99th minute to steal the game.
• 2:25
  That game was bananas. Wolves second win of the season,
• 2:29
  now on 13 points above Derby's 0708 record-breaking Premier
• 2:35
  League season with 11 points. And now through A1 win in the
• 2:39
  last five Premier League games. They're on a bit of a dry
• 2:42
  streak, but yeah. Yeah, this was a shocker.
• 2:45
  But Wolves, we've been saying Luke, have been playing teams
• 2:47
  tough. They're not just rolling over.
• 2:50
  They're likely going to get relegated.
• 2:52
  You said it's not mathematically done yet.
• 2:54
  They are certainly headed that way.
• 2:57
  But they are, look, they tied Arsenal a couple like a week or
• 3:00
  so ago. They just beat Villa.
• 3:02
  I mean, that's the team that's in first and Arsenal and then
• 3:04
  Villa in 3rd. So they're they're they're
• 3:06
  being, they're still competing. You know, a lot of teams sort of
• 3:09
  quit at this point in the season.
• 3:10
  They know what they're, you know, their fate's going to be.
• 3:13
  But Wolves look at, I mean, they, they do well against
• 3:16
  Villa. They've won five of their last
• 3:17
  seven Premier League games at home against Villas.
• 3:20
  They really give Villa problems at home.
• 3:23
  You know, Villa look like you said, have won one of their last
• 3:25
  five Premier League games. Boy, they're sort of feel like
• 3:28
  they're fading a little bit here at the worst part of the season.
• 3:32
  You know, we thought now they seem like a lock for Champions
• 3:35
  League. Well, this form has really sort
• 3:37
  of brought everything back in play where I feel like they're
• 3:40
  you can't really say they're a lock anymore.
• 3:42
  I still like them to maybe finish, but right now look
• 3:45
  they're on 51 points, Chelsea's on 45 points.
• 3:49
  So it's Titan there where where Villa had a pretty good cushion
• 3:53
  for 3rd, but now United have caught him for 3rd and now I
• 3:56
  think they're back in the mix of, you know, all these teams.
• 4:00
  For Champions League. Their Champions League spots.
• 4:02
  So you know, I'm curious where you are on this right now.
• 4:06
  If if you had, you know, again, I'll probably be asking you this
• 4:09
  every week. But if we figure Arsenal and
• 4:12
  City finish one and two in some order, then the big thing is
• 4:15
  you've got United, Villa, Liverpool, Chelsea for three
• 4:18
  spots, four teams. If you had to give me right now
• 4:21
  your three that are going to finish 3rd, 4th, 5th, Who is it
• 4:26
  going to be? United, Liverpool and.
• 4:31
  OK, all right. So you still think they're going
• 4:33
  to get it done? Well, I mean, they're the ones
• 4:34
  in the positions there. Chelsea's the one chasing them
• 4:36
  with 45 points. We'll get on to the Chelsea
• 4:39
  Arsenal game they lost this weekend.
• 4:41
  Chelsea a big one with City coming up.
• 4:44
  So all right, well, there you go Luca.
• 4:46
  Like I said, well, they'll have got to find some form here
• 4:49
  moving forward. But good on Wolves, Luca.
• 4:51
  They are they are not going to be they're not going to have the
• 4:54
  worst Premier League season of all time.
• 4:56
  Like you said, they've passed the 11 points of Darby.
• 4:59
  All right, Luca, let's move on to Bournemouth and Sunderland.
• 5:01
  I got this spot on. I got 11 and it was 11 Myenda
• 5:06
  and the 18th minute off of like a Diora cross like shot and then
• 5:11
  it gets filled and my end it comes and rebounds it and and
• 5:16
  then Evan Nielsen header on the 63rd minute, real nice ball from
• 5:20
  Tavernier puts it right where Evan Nielsen wants it.
• 5:24
  And yeah, great, great goal. Bournemouth 15 points from
• 5:29
  losing positions this year and Thunder and winless and last
• 5:33
  nine on the road. Yeah Lucas, Sunderland really
• 5:35
  struggle on the road, 4 draws and five losses in their last
• 5:39
  nine on the road. They just don't get many points
• 5:41
  away from home. Yeah, Bournemouth are one of
• 5:44
  those teams. So So Villa, I think I have 19
• 5:46
  points from losing positions and Sunderland have 16.
• 5:50
  So Bournemouth, you know, Sunderland and Villard are teams
• 5:53
  that sort of when they go down, they seem to be able to claw
• 5:55
  back and gain some points and and look, Bournemouth, they feel
• 5:59
  like they are a streaky team, started off the year real hot,
• 6:02
  then hit a real cold spell. They're hovering right now in 10
• 6:05
  from 39 points. And so we've talked about that
• 6:07
  sort of 7th spot, you know, getting the UEFA Conference
• 6:11
  League, they're in the mix. I mean, you know, they're only
• 6:14
  four behind Brentford now the. Chase for Europe is very juicy
• 6:18
  this year it. Is I think it's really
• 6:19
  interesting when you've got teams like right now it's
• 6:22
  Bournemouth, Everton, Fulham and Brentford.
• 6:25
  You know me, Everton, yeah, I didn't say Everton.
• 6:28
  Yeah, yeah, Brentford, Everton, Fulham, Bournemouth to me feel
• 6:31
  like one of those four will get that seventh spot, which I think
• 6:34
  is kind of interesting. So.
• 6:36
  But you're right, it is. I think it is interesting.
• 6:38
  I think it's interesting because we don't typically see these
• 6:40
  teams compete this high. It's really tight.
• 6:43
  A lot of these teams play each other coming up.
• 6:45
  So that's going to make it kind of interesting.
• 6:47
  I think this week we'll get on to those games.
• 6:49
  I think Bournemouth play Brentford.
• 6:51
  I think Brentford has to go play Fulham in a couple weeks.
• 6:54
  So there's going to be some kind of key matchups as we kind of
• 6:57
  look at that sort of secondary race there.
• 7:00
  But yeah, Bournemouth, like I said, if they kind of keep this
• 7:04
  streakiness, but at least right now they're they're in a good
• 7:06
  spot here. They, like I said, they're
• 7:08
  coming from behind. You know, they probably would
• 7:10
  have liked to have won this game, but you know, they take
• 7:13
  the point, they move. On Yeah.
• 7:15
  All right, Luca, what about? Oh my goodness.
• 7:17
  Liverpool West Ham goals galore. I predicted 1 NW and was 52
• 7:23
  Liverpool is. This your worst prediction of
• 7:25
  the year? Possibly.
• 7:27
  You predicted the wrong winner and you predicted one goal and
• 7:29
  there was 7. Maybe this is Lucas Worst.
• 7:32
  You got some really good ones. Yeah, I maybe your worst, I
• 7:34
  didn't make it up this year with two or on this this week with
• 7:39
  two spot on picks and like multiple that were just right.
• 7:43
  So yeah, but this was a rough pick.
• 7:47
  Ecka TK in the 5th minute, then Virgil Van Dyke off header.
• 7:52
  McAllister in the 43rd minute, Really nice volley.
• 7:55
  Sue check in the 49th minute. Gakko in the 70th minute.
• 7:59
  He gets kind of lucky, takes a deflection.
• 8:03
  Tati Castellanos, the new winter signing, in the 75th minute and
• 8:08
  Desasi Owen going the 82nd minute.
• 8:11
  Three goals from corner kicks in the first half.
• 8:14
  Only second team ever in the Premier League to do it.
• 8:18
  Eka TK20 goal involvements in all competitions.
• 8:21
  I don't know if Eka TK's goal is really a corner kick goal, but
• 8:25
  sure, sure, we'll give it to them.
• 8:27
  Yeah, I know. I I got they never to me like a
• 8:30
  a goal off a corner kick is really like the corner kick.
• 8:33
  Ball comes in, you either head it, chest it, kick it like right
• 8:38
  in when the ball sort of like it's headed around and kind of
• 8:41
  comes out to the 18 yard box and there's like three other passes.
• 8:44
  I don't know if I I'm kind of with you.
• 8:46
  Is that really a goal off a corner?
• 8:48
  I mean. It's not half a corner.
• 8:49
  I know like the official, he's like.
• 8:51
  Cleared off. It was like cleared away I.
• 8:54
  Know I mean this way like if the ball may be like bang like if it
• 8:56
  like lands in like the six yard box and is banging around and
• 8:59
  somebody kicks it in like. There's a couple headers still
• 9:02
  in the and like inside the 18 then yeah.
• 9:07
  I know, but I'm kind of with you on this one.
• 9:09
  I was a little surprised when I saw that.
• 9:10
  But yeah, anyway, it goes down to three corner kick goals in
• 9:13
  1/2 and that's pretty amazing. That's only the second time it's
• 9:16
  ever happened in the Premier League.
• 9:17
  But yeah, you know, look at West Ham.
• 9:20
  I thought they'd have a better showing in this game.
• 9:22
  You know, that they they they came in with one loss in their
• 9:25
  last eight. They've definitely been playing
• 9:27
  better. But they sort of, I mean, this
• 9:29
  game was sort of blitzed at half time.
• 9:30
  They did. They fought back a little bit in
• 9:32
  the second-half but never really made it that close.
• 9:36
  Virgil Van Dyke Look at his 28th goal in the Premier League.
• 9:39
  Excluding penalty kicks, only John Terry had.
• 9:42
  He had 41 has more goals from a defender in the.
• 9:45
  Premier League, he's a little bit far away, 13 goals away from
• 9:48
  John. Terry I know, I know so but you
• 9:50
  know, it just goes to show you you know, when you can get goals
• 9:52
  from defenders which will get onto the Arsenal game, like how
• 9:55
  important that can be in certain games.
• 9:58
  I mean it goal didn't really trump be a vital goal.
• 10:00
  They scored five. But, you know, obviously he's
• 10:03
  been an amazing player for a long time.
• 10:05
  And I think what makes him great is not only he's a great
• 10:07
  defender, but when those defenders can contribute
• 10:09
  offensively, it's just like the total package.
• 10:12
  I mean, he's yeah, he's been, he's been one of the best.
• 10:14
  He's still up there. I mean, I got a tremendous
• 10:17
  amount of respect for for yeah, he's like I said, Liverpool.
• 10:20
  I don't particularly like them, but man like he seems to go
• 10:23
  about the. Lil Legend.
• 10:24
  Yeah, I, I agree. I mean, it's I.
• 10:27
  He's a Liverpool legend, probably Premier League legend.
• 10:29
  I think he, I think he probably has to be right.
• 10:31
  I mean we. Did the club for so long?
• 10:35
  He won them the first Champions League.
• 10:37
  He's been their captain, I think for a while now.
• 10:40
  So he, I think you're right, he's.
• 10:42
  So he obviously he was there for last year's Premier League win
• 10:46
  and he was he there for. The he was there for the last
• 10:48
  one too. Was it 1819 I think?
• 10:50
  And then Champions League 2. Yep, I think if you've captain
• 10:53
  Liverpool and you have two Premier League titles in a
• 10:56
  Champions League title, I think you're a legend.
• 10:58
  And you've contributed 28 goals. Right.
• 11:02
  As a as a central defender, yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, I'm
• 11:06
  with you. No, no argument here, Luca,
• 11:08
  Totally agree. Liverpool legend, tip of the
• 11:10
  captive to VVD. All right, Luca, this game
• 11:13
  bonkers, bonkers, bonkers here. Firmly hosting Brentford.
• 11:18
  Did you think we were going to be talking about maybe one of
• 11:20
  the most exciting games of the year 2?
• 11:23
  1. Well, you predicted the right
• 11:25
  goal differential and winner. I don't know that anybody was
• 11:29
  going to predict what happened. So take me through the craziness
• 11:32
  of this game. This game ends 43 heard.
• 11:35
  That right 43. Yes, you did.
• 11:37
  Burnley, Brentford 43. With Brentford winning.
• 11:41
  Yes, Brentford. Like I said, you picked the
• 11:43
  winner, you thought it be a one goal win for Brentford.
• 11:45
  You got that? 21 Brentford dams the guard in
• 11:49
  the ninth minute, Tiago in the 25th minute and shot in the 34th
• 11:53
  minute. So Brentford are up 3 hill then
• 11:57
  Coyote unwell right before half time. 44 or OK sorry.
• 12:01
  Dams Guard 9th minute, Tiago 25th and shot in the 34th.
• 12:04
  I don't know if I said the minutes, Coyote earned goal in
• 12:07
  45 + 4 right before halftime, then Anthony in the 47th minute,
• 12:12
  Fleming in the 60th minute. Oh my gosh, it's the wild.
• 12:16
  Burnley's wild. Remin Tata and then Damsgard
• 12:21
  scores in the 94th minute. Winner There's it was.
• 12:25
  So there. Fleming gets called for a
• 12:27
  disallowed goal in like the 77th minute for being offsides and
• 12:31
  then there's another disallowed goal for Burnley in like the
• 12:34
  99th minute. They took like 5 minutes to sort
• 12:40
  this out with VAR. It was just called for a
• 12:44
  handball. Bonkers.
• 12:47
  Well, yeah, so yeah, so like you said, that Burnley goes down 3,
• 12:51
  nothing quickly rallies like they score right before the half
• 12:55
  to get at the three one. But then within 15 minutes of
• 12:57
  the second-half, they got the game all equal.
• 12:59
  They got the momentum. Like you said, Fleming puts the
• 13:01
  ball on the net to put them up for three.
• 13:03
  That gets disallowed for offsides.
• 13:05
  Then then like you said, Damsgard puts Brentford up and
• 13:10
  then Burnley again claw back score.
• 13:13
  Now I want to, I want you to take me through this though a
• 13:16
  little bit. So again, again it's 43, what
• 13:17
  we're like in the 7th minute of extra time.
• 13:20
  The ball kind of what is it like?
• 13:22
  It's sort of headed over and so they do not call a handball on
• 13:28
  the field, they call a goal. So that he kind of, I guess the
• 13:31
  best way I would say he sort of traps it against his arm and
• 13:34
  body, his left arm and body, and then sort of volleys it in.
• 13:38
  And like I said, that would have tied the game for four.
• 13:41
  They look at it on VAR and they overturn it.
• 13:44
  He. Doesn't even go over to the
• 13:45
  monitors. That's the thing too.
• 13:47
  Well, for something like that, they're the he's having other
• 13:50
  people look at it to tell them like what basically what to do
• 13:52
  on that so. Well, what is again VAR just
• 13:56
  trying to ruin ruin games again. We're in perfectly good games.
• 14:00
  Well what? What?
• 14:01
  So give me your opinion. So in in your opinion, is this a
• 14:04
  handball and did VAR get it right?
• 14:06
  No, no. Tell me why.
• 14:09
  OK, if it takes you 5 minutes to look at this, that's not clear
• 14:13
  and obvious and it shouldn't be overturned.
• 14:16
  I mean, come on. What did you see?
• 14:18
  Like I mean in your opinion? It was like like it was like in
• 14:22
  his armpit near his armpit. OK, so I mean it like it barely
• 14:28
  touches his arm and it the IT the.
• 14:31
  You made the point you felt like his arms in a natural position.
• 14:33
  Yes. Yeah, I, I, so I, I agree with
• 14:37
  you like, wholeheartedly that like, so VAR is supposed to
• 14:40
  overturn something if it is they, their words clear and
• 14:44
  obvious. Like that is what VAR is for.
• 14:46
  Like if my hand is outstretched and the ball smacks into my hand
• 14:49
  and the ref doesn't call it, VAR should look at it and be like,
• 14:51
  yes, that's a handball. I I think by definition, Luca,
• 14:55
  if you're looking at something for literally 5 to 6 minutes,
• 14:59
  you're looking at 2:00. You're missing the point.
• 15:03
  Yeah, I think you're missing the point then.
• 15:05
  How can it possibly be clear and obvious, right?
• 15:08
  Like, again, clear and obvious. I think we know what that is
• 15:10
  supposed to be, right? A lot of times you see a replay
• 15:12
  and you're like, oh, that's obvious that he pulled his shirt
• 15:16
  down, that is obvious that it hit off his hand or something
• 15:19
  like that. That is what it is not supposed
• 15:21
  to be, to go like frame by frame, rotate.
• 15:25
  Like I said, two different angles to look.
• 15:27
  I do think it probably did touch his hand.
• 15:30
  Can I be 100% certain that it did?
• 15:32
  I don't think I can be 100% touch.
• 15:34
  His hand. Too Well, yeah, his upper arm
• 15:37
  still, I mean, you know, arm, hand, all kind of the same thing
• 15:41
  below the shoulder. It's all sort of the same.
• 15:43
  So I don't know, I'm kind of with you on this.
• 15:45
  Like I just I, it frustrates me a little bit with VAR that like,
• 15:48
  you know, I, you know, first of all, it would have been an
• 15:51
  awesome comeback. So maybe that's part of it is I
• 15:54
  would have loved to see this game.
• 15:54
  N44 was firmly tying it up again and almost winning.
• 15:58
  It. Yeah, I was about to say that.
• 15:59
  Because of the Fleming goal too. Just got crazy come back in this
• 16:03
  one. But yeah, I mean, Luca, it's a
• 16:06
  big win for Brentford, though. I mean, like I said, they're
• 16:08
  challenging for that for top 7 here.
• 16:11
  Igor Tiago, what a season. He's having his 18th goal.
• 16:15
  He's now four behind Holland. I mean Holland.
• 16:17
  Holland. 'S not going to have an easy run
• 16:19
  at this. I mean, it's, it's absurd to
• 16:21
  think that Holland was like, I, I think it felt like he was
• 16:25
  twenty goals up on everybody. And now I mean, I know it
• 16:28
  wasn't. I'm being exaggerated.
• 16:29
  Ten goals, maybe. Crazy.
• 16:30
  It's crazy. He's only four up.
• 16:32
  I mean, Tiago's had such a good year.
• 16:34
  He's only four up. I mean, you know, Holland missed
• 16:37
  this week. It's just it's apparently it's a
• 16:38
  minor injury. So I think he'll be back and
• 16:40
  he'll probably get rolling. But man, what a season Tiago's
• 16:43
  had. Yes, I I wouldn't be surprised
• 16:46
  if he starts for Brazil in the World Cup.
• 16:48
  Yeah, I know we talked about that before.
• 16:50
  I mean, he's got to make the team.
• 16:52
  I mean, Brazil obviously loaded at every position, but man, if
• 16:56
  you put in 18 goals in the Premier League this year, like,
• 16:59
  I mean, how do you not get playing time?
• 17:03
  Yeah, we'll see. That'll be an interesting thing
• 17:05
  as we kind of look at the World Cup and when they form rosters.
• 17:07
  You know, obviously we're a Premier League podcast.
• 17:10
  We'll have to maybe do something for the World Cup, you know,
• 17:12
  like a preview and look at the rosters and see and kind of make
• 17:15
  some predictions. But yeah, I agree with you,
• 17:17
  Luca. He's going to be 1 to keep an
• 17:18
  eye on. Like can he translate this
• 17:20
  success to the World Cup? You know, big stage.
• 17:23
  I don't think he's ever had a cap for Brazil, you know,
• 17:27
  because he sort of burst out of nowhere.
• 17:29
  But he. Didn't even like play a game
• 17:31
  last season. He was like he had like a really
• 17:34
  bad like knee injury or something.
• 17:35
  Yep. Man, and here he is like, you
• 17:37
  know, like in the middle of like Holland, you know, the goal
• 17:41
  leaders, Holland, Tiago Simeno, Ekatique Zhao Pedro, Danny
• 17:45
  Welbeck, Victor Giocores, like, I mean, we all.
• 17:47
  Strikers. All strikers, you know, But
• 17:50
  yeah, I mean it great on him. I mean, it's it's a cool story.
• 17:53
  I love seeing sort of these guys come out of nowhere so and boy,
• 17:57
  he's like been so important for Brent.
• 17:59
  I have to say one thing, though. What could have Scott Parker
• 18:04
  possibly said in his halftime team talk that made Brentford or
• 18:09
  Burnley almost win that game? Yeah, seriously.
• 18:13
  Halftime team dog, did he say? That's a good idea.
• 18:17
  What did he do? He lit a fireman, that's for
• 18:20
  sure. Because they came out.
• 18:21
  Do you? Like flip a table like a miracle
• 18:23
  or something. I mean, what could he have done?
• 18:26
  Well, you know, and like, to their credit, I mean, again,
• 18:29
  they're a team in 19th place. I mean, they've been awful.
• 18:31
  They're probably getting relegated too.
• 18:33
  So in some ways they kind of don't have a lot to play for.
• 18:35
  So I mean, you have, like you said, you have to kind of give a
• 18:38
  manager credit for like getting them still motivated to go out
• 18:41
  and play. You would think A-Team like that
• 18:43
  would be down 3 O and just be like, forget it.
• 18:45
  But they battled back and I know it's like it sort of breaks your
• 18:49
  heart, you know, that they can't get at least a.
• 18:51
  Point I was like we are getting ready to go my soccer game and
• 18:54
  you told me that Fleming scored for as 4th three Burnley.
• 18:57
  I was like, Oh my gosh. And then you said he.
• 19:01
  Became a Burnley fan. Yes, for 30 seconds, yeah.
• 19:05
  And then you just told me he was disilled and I would just.
• 19:08
  I know, believe me, I was even disappointed too.
• 19:10
  So I was like, Oh my gosh, this could just be epic, you know,
• 19:13
  like if they come back to win even, I mean, they almost sort
• 19:16
  of tied, but if they come back to win, oh man, it would have
• 19:19
  been like 1 great thing for their season, which is probably
• 19:22
  going to end in relegation where they could be at least like
• 19:23
  remember that Brentford game when we totally came back and
• 19:26
  won, but ultimately, no, just another loss.
• 19:30
  And that stings, even as an Arsenal fan.
• 19:33
  I don't know why it just does. All right, Luca, well, let's
• 19:37
  move over to Arsenal's biggest rival right now.
• 19:39
  City went to Ellen Rd. to play leads.
• 19:41
  Yeah, this came in one NIL City again, city getting lucky and
• 19:45
  the 40 like seconds before halftime, Simenio scores like a
• 19:50
  tap in. I predict to be two, two.
• 19:52
  I mean goodness, thanks. I was close on my prediction
• 19:56
  though Weeds had some chances like I mean city without
• 20:01
  Holland. They've had fourteen wins, 2
• 20:03
  draws and two losses. That a better win percentage
• 20:07
  without Holland. Yeah, we looked at that a couple
• 20:10
  weeks ago. I mean, it's hard to like wrap
• 20:12
  your head around that, like how that even makes sense because I,
• 20:15
  I don't think anybody is going to sit here and be like, they're
• 20:17
  better off without him. He's like the best striker in
• 20:19
  the world, Like, but. What I said.
• 20:22
  May I? Well, I think what may happen is
• 20:24
  I feel like when Holland plays. They rely on him.
• 20:26
  They rely on him and so much is like geared towards him.
• 20:29
  It's all about like getting Holland the ball in positions
• 20:32
  where he can create scoring chances.
• 20:34
  Maybe without him, it's like a little bit more of like all
• 20:36
  these other creative players sort of having a little bit more
• 20:39
  freedom to kind of do their thing for other guys and and
• 20:43
  mate, maybe you know that that tends to work.
• 20:46
  You know, I mean, look, their win percentage is high both
• 20:48
  ways. You know, apparently the
• 20:51
  injuries very mild, minor. So I don't think Holland.
• 20:54
  'S going out. For that long, But right
• 20:56
  Simaneo, you know, like you know, we've sung his praises
• 21:00
  when he was with Bournemouth. 18 more involvements this season.
• 21:03
  Yeah, I mean, it's just it's incredible.
• 21:04
  He's third in the league in scoring.
• 21:06
  I mean, it's sort of frustrating, I think from a
• 21:08
  standpoint of I think, oh, look, obviously it's sensitive us as
• 21:12
  Arsenal fans because we're competing directly against them.
• 21:14
  But if if you're like a Premier League fan, like I don't know
• 21:17
  that it's like great that like this great team City, you know,
• 21:21
  in the January transfer window can just be like, well, we're
• 21:23
  just going to go get the best player from Bournemouth and the
• 21:25
  best player from Crystal Palace and Oh yeah, the best player
• 21:27
  from Bournemouth happens to be third in the league and score.
• 21:30
  You know, like, I mean, like, what if Arsenal was just like,
• 21:32
  well, we'll just go get Hugo Ekatike and we're just going to
• 21:34
  put him on our team, you know, like that's essentially what it
• 21:37
  is. You know, he's got Semenya's got
• 21:39
  fourteen goals and he's scoring some big goals for City 2.
• 21:42
  Like, I mean, they needed that goal today because if they had
• 21:45
  tied, that would have been. I say, I say this all the time.
• 21:48
  Man City don't have actual fans. Their fans are bandwagons and AI
• 21:54
  generated people like AI is on their side.
• 21:58
  I mean, it's either bandwagons or Siri.
• 22:01
  I mean, give me a break. No one wants to see them win
• 22:05
  again. At least from my standpoint, I
• 22:08
  don't. I know.
• 22:09
  And look, I know a lot of what I'm saying is sort of sour
• 22:11
  grapes because, you know, it's just like frustrating because
• 22:14
  you saw City hit this sort of wobble.
• 22:17
  Luckily, they did it right around the January transfer
• 22:20
  window and they needed defenders and they're like, OK, we'll just
• 22:23
  go get Mark Gay, he from Crystal Palace and they had dope and
• 22:26
  Simeno go down. They're like, we need wingers
• 22:28
  crate. We'll just go get Simeno from
• 22:30
  Bournemouth. And it's like other teams just
• 22:32
  can't do that, you know, and I'm not saying Arsenal don't spend
• 22:35
  money. Liverpool spend money, you know,
• 22:37
  but I think Chelsea, you know, is absurd with the way they
• 22:40
  spend City. City are smart with the way they
• 22:43
  spend money but like nobody has the backing of an entire nation
• 22:47
  and like the money of an entire like country behind.
• 22:50
  Them they have an entire nation behind.
• 22:52
  Them well, yeah, we talked about that Luca, their, their owners
• 22:55
  essentially is like one of like the part of the ruling family of
• 22:59
  the United Arab Emirates. It's a country that has a ton of
• 23:02
  oil, extreme wealth. So we talked about like, you
• 23:06
  know, if you look at like the owner, like Stan Kroenke owns
• 23:08
  Arsenal, he's probably worth all his things.
• 23:11
  Like he's like $9 billion. You know, the Glazier family
• 23:15
  owns Manchester United. They're probably like 5 to 6 to
• 23:17
  $7 billion. You know, most of the other
• 23:20
  owners of these big teams, Todd Boley, Chelsea, again, probably
• 23:24
  in that range. Then you shift over and this is
• 23:27
  the same thing with PSG because they're owned by Duke like a,
• 23:29
  you know. Saudi.
• 23:31
  No, no, Saudi owns Newcast. Right.
• 23:34
  Yeah. Now, but like, if you look at
• 23:35
  city's owner, he is estimated to be worth like 300 to $400
• 23:40
  billion, you know, So it's like, you see the difference in like
• 23:43
  the financial might of that. And it's just like money is sort
• 23:46
  of no option. And you know, look, we we can
• 23:50
  get on to like the 115 charges. I feel like it always has to
• 23:52
  kind of be brought up because it's absurd that there's been no
• 23:54
  decision on this and. It's they're still looking or
• 23:57
  are. They, I think it's all been
• 23:59
  done. They've, they've gone to the,
• 24:02
  there's three independent people that are lawyers that each side
• 24:06
  pled their case. So the Premier League came in,
• 24:08
  said these are the, the charges that we have against City.
• 24:11
  Here's our evidence. City then has the right to
• 24:14
  defend themselves and their lawyers came in and say here's
• 24:16
  why it is so. That apparently that was, you
• 24:18
  know, done a year from in 20/20/24.
• 24:23
  That was done. Yeah, yeah.
• 24:25
  I mean, we're we're talking like now we're over like a year and a
• 24:27
  half ago and other teams have been penalized.
• 24:30
  Lester just got penalized in the championship.
• 24:32
  And you told me about that. So like we've seen other teams.
• 24:34
  So what is going on with this is?
• 24:36
  It Are they just stalling? Well, I don't know.
• 24:39
  I mean, like, who knows? You know why?
• 24:41
  And of course, nobody can say anything because it's a legal
• 24:43
  proceeding. They're not allowed to but.
• 24:45
  Were they in like a court and the judge makes like a verdict?
• 24:49
  No, no, it works a little bit differently.
• 24:50
  And look, I'm not, I don't know, but it's because essentially
• 24:53
  there were three independent people that are lawyers that sit
• 24:56
  on like the three of them are hearing the case and then
• 25:00
  they're going to make a ruling together on it.
• 25:02
  That's like I said, the best way that I can describe it.
• 25:05
  I don't know too much of, but it's not like, you know, like
• 25:08
  where a judge sits there in a jury, anything like that.
• 25:10
  It's like an independent panel. They, these three people have no
• 25:13
  say in, you know, they're not for the Premier League or First
• 25:16
  City or anything. They're supposed to be
• 25:17
  independent, hear the evidence and get a ruling on it.
• 25:20
  But you know, look, it is what it is.
• 25:22
  Look, the city just kind of keep rolling in terms of this is just
• 25:25
  what they do. They grind out wins.
• 25:27
  You know, this time of year, you know, it's going to be real
• 25:31
  problematic if their defense is able to keep clean sheets.
• 25:34
  Because I thought that was the one weakness in this team
• 25:36
  because they're going to score goals.
• 25:37
  They're going to score goals. Like I said, they have the
• 25:39
  number one goal scorer in the Premier League.
• 25:41
  They have the number three goal scorer in the Premier League.
• 25:43
  They have the number 2 for assists #3 for assist.
• 25:47
  So I mean, they're going to be scoring like a ton of goals.
• 25:50
  But the thought was always like they maybe would leaks, you
• 25:52
  know, goals, but now they're, you know, their defense is
• 25:55
  getting guys back, you know, and Gay.
• 25:56
  He was a good signing. So it's hard needs.
• 26:00
  To be stopped too. Well, we'll see.
• 26:02
  So like I said, we'll see. All right, Luke, let's move over
• 26:05
  to Newcastle and Everton. Well, Brantwaite scores in the
• 26:08
  19th minute. Ramsey then equalizes in a 32nd
• 26:12
  minute. Beto off of a really bad mistake
• 26:15
  by Pope. He like, spills it the wrong
• 26:19
  way. And McNeil?
• 26:20
  Takes a shot from like 25 yards out and it should have been an
• 26:23
  easy save and he somehow like almost drops it into the path of
• 26:27
  Beto. And he sprints out, gets a tap
• 26:30
  in Murphy in the 62nd minute. I am, yeah. 62nd or 82nd, I
• 26:37
  think it's. I think it's a 62nd.
• 26:38
  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's 62nd and Barry in the 83rd minute
• 26:43
  gets the winner. Yeah, go ahead.
• 26:47
  Everton's second highest XG of the season. 2.13 Everton now 8th
• 26:55
  on 34 or 40 points. Yeah, I mean, the story here is
• 26:59
  like, I, I mean, it's like I said that I said this last week
• 27:02
  about Newcastle, like they're not even worth talking about
• 27:04
  anymore. They're in 13th place on 36
• 27:06
  points, 4 losses in their. Listen to Everton is.
• 27:11
  They're just not a good team. You know, like I said, I said it
• 27:13
  last week, they're just, they're going to finish probably 12th or
• 27:16
  11th. Like they're sort of irrelevant
• 27:18
  now. I mean, and they're a huge
• 27:20
  disappointment to me, but I think Everton's A-Team to talk
• 27:23
  about how well they've been doing 8th place.
• 27:25
  I mean, they're on 40 points. They're three points behind
• 27:28
  Brentford for seven. They're in that mix there of
• 27:30
  like they got a real shot that, you know, like I said, 7th place
• 27:35
  in European football. And this is, this would be a
• 27:37
  real good season for Everton if I did not see this coming from
• 27:40
  Everton this year. You know, like I said, I thought
• 27:42
  they'd be sort of a bottom table team.
• 27:44
  Anyone. Yeah, they, like I said, I've
• 27:46
  been and real good and we don't typically see them, you know,
• 27:49
  win games. You know, like you said, they're
• 27:50
  XG of 2.13 usually. The other we talk about their
• 27:54
  sound defensively. They don't score many goals, but
• 27:57
  yeah, they sort of outscored Newcastle in this one to get the
• 27:59
  three points. Yeah.
• 28:02
  All right, Luca, let's flip over to Man U, one of the hottest
• 28:04
  teams in the Premier League versus Crystal Palace.
• 28:07
  Well Crystal Palace get a really early goal with Lacroix.
• 28:12
  Wait, how do you pronounce his? Name I think Lacroix.
• 28:14
  Lacroix, he's French, so it's like impossible to pronounce his
• 28:17
  name header in the 4th minute and then he gets Lacroix, it's a
• 28:23
  red car in the 56th minute he gets I think it's now a goal
• 28:27
  scoring opportunity and then Fernanda's who's in the box.
• 28:30
  So it's a PK and and then Fernandez scores in the 57th
• 28:34
  minute. Chesco then gets the winner in
• 28:36
  the 65th minute. He's he's been good.
• 28:40
  That's his sixth goal in the Premier League since the star of
• 28:44
  2026. And yeah, Man United are not
• 28:50
  tied for third. Yeah, yeah, they like said
• 28:52
  they've been a real hot team. So the Lacroix red card, Luca,
• 28:56
  the ball sort of gets played down the left sort of side of
• 29:00
  the box. He kind of gets the I don't know
• 29:02
  who. The thing is, CUNA.
• 29:04
  Cuna kind of gets, you know, gets basically behind him.
• 29:09
  Lacroix kind of commits the foul.
• 29:11
  You have any problem with this being around?
• 29:12
  Yeah, not really. Yeah, I think it's like I said,
• 29:14
  it's it's definitely a goal scoring chance.
• 29:16
  He commits the foul in the box. So kind of is what it is.
• 29:20
  But yeah, look at Man United. I mean XG 2.05, Crystal Palace
• 29:25
  XG 0.38. So this game probably wasn't
• 29:28
  even as close as you know, the goal line it shows and and I
• 29:32
  mean, gosh, United, look at just keep rolling here.
• 29:36
  I mean, it's pretty incredible. Again, Carrick undefeated as a
• 29:40
  as. A Oh goodness, not any I need.
• 29:42
  No, I can't hear any more about this carrot guy.
• 29:46
  I'm sick and tired of hearing about it.
• 29:47
  Sure, he's undefeated, but he's like managed like 15 games in
• 29:51
  his career. That's.
• 29:52
  Pretty good though well, it's not quite 15.
• 29:55
  I I think it's like maybe 10 or so, but look at that he's
• 29:58
  starting I mean this is like one of the best starts for a united
• 30:01
  manager ever I mean he's now look at they're now in 3rd place
• 30:05
  they're ahead of they're tied with villa on on points, but
• 30:08
  they're ahead of them on goal differential I mean look at when
• 30:11
  when would you have dreamed that Man United would be in 3rd place
• 30:16
  in the Premier League? This is pretty unbelievable I.
• 30:19
  Mean, not unbelievable. Yeah.
• 30:22
  You think that you, you kind of saw these.
• 30:25
  This was like what you I. Thought they were making
• 30:27
  Champions League. You did at the beginning of the
• 30:30
  season. OK, All right.
• 30:31
  So for you, this isn't a huge surprise.
• 30:33
  Well, it's a bit of a surprise that they're in 3rd, but it's
• 30:36
  not a surprise that they're in the Champions League, right?
• 30:38
  You're like fighting for champions.
• 30:40
  League, yeah, I don't know. They're they're this team's sort
• 30:43
  of showing me a lot, like I said.
• 30:44
  I mean, Cesco, like I said, is now really starting to come
• 30:47
  home. Come on.
• 30:48
  I mean, another game-winning goal.
• 30:50
  It's like his goals are. Like clutch.
• 30:52
  His has that. That's just it, Like his goals
• 30:54
  are clutch. They're important.
• 30:56
  It's one thing when you're up like 3, nothing and some guy
• 30:58
  hits like the 4th and 5th goal and you're like, all right,
• 31:00
  that's fine. But they're not like important
• 31:01
  goals when you're getting like the deciding game-winning goals
• 31:05
  like he got last week and this week.
• 31:06
  And that's huge, huge to get these sort of clutch goals for
• 31:10
  him. It wasn't the 65th minute so
• 31:12
  there is still time, but like. No, I know there's still time.
• 31:15
  It doesn't always have to be like at the death at the very
• 31:17
  end, but it's still, I mean, it's still the game-winning
• 31:19
  goal. And you know, like I said, this
• 31:22
  team, they're, they're starting to be kind of fun to watch.
• 31:24
  Like I said, they've got some exciting players.
• 31:27
  You know, Bruno with another assist.
• 31:29
  I mean, he's having an amazing year.
• 31:30
  He's 13 assists to lead the Premier League.
• 31:33
  The next best is 7. I mean, he is probably almost
• 31:36
  locked up the assist title. But yeah, like I said, man, you
• 31:40
  keep rolling along. They got an interesting game
• 31:42
  against Newcastle coming up. I'll be curious your take on
• 31:44
  that. But another team, Luca, that is
• 31:47
  rolling along doing pretty well here is is your boys the the
• 31:50
  Cottagers, A Fulham, they have Spurs a little London Derby
• 31:54
  action here. And I got this one spot on.
• 31:56
  I predicted 214, it was 214. Wilson in the 7th minute, he
• 32:01
  gets a nice little volley. I will be in the 34th minute.
• 32:04
  Really nice goal. There's like Curry hits it with
• 32:08
  the inside of his foot and it hits off the post and goes in.
• 32:12
  It's a really nice finish there and we're Charleston and 68
• 32:15
  minute, 66 minute and of course he gets into a fight with Bassy
• 32:21
  for the ball for whatever reason.
• 32:23
  Oh man, I can't stand that guy. He's the worst.
• 32:27
  He's the worst. Oh, is he your least favorite
• 32:30
  Premier League? Player a least favorite person.
• 32:33
  Least. Favorite.
• 32:33
  Oh my gosh, I cannot stand that guy.
• 32:37
  Oh. Yeah, where Charleston is sort
• 32:39
  of next level. I mean, he plays for Spurs.
• 32:41
  Level. He is pretty unbelievable, like
• 32:44
  just constantly in the scout, a lot of case.
• 32:47
  He messing with Bassy? Yeah, I know, I know.
• 32:49
  He's he's, he's such a, you know, a fake tough guy.
• 32:52
  I mean, just, you know, anytime I were to get serious, he's
• 32:56
  would back right out of it. Yeah.
• 32:58
  I mean, you know, he knows that like if Bassie turns squares on
• 33:01
  him, he's going to be going running back.
• 33:04
  But wasn't it Gabrielle he started to like after something?
• 33:07
  I mean, it's just yeah. For Charleston.
• 33:09
  I mean, look, he's he's actually, I will say this, he's
• 33:12
  actually played better. It was great when he went to
• 33:14
  Spurs and he was like a joke for two years.
• 33:16
  He had like one goal in two years.
• 33:17
  It was great. But he's actually scoring some
• 33:19
  goals. Remember 2223, it was like
• 33:23
  Liverpool and it was 3/3. He got like a tying goal and it
• 33:28
  takes takes his shirt off to the knee slide and then Diogo Joda
• 33:32
  gets like the winner and added time and there's this little
• 33:35
  like game celebration that was that was so good.
• 33:38
  I think we're Charles has done that twice.
• 33:40
  Where? He's done that.
• 33:42
  Yes, he's here. He takes off his shirt, then the
• 33:46
  Wicks in like the 97 minute gets the.
• 33:48
  Tire, it's great. It's great, yes.
• 33:50
  So good. Pulling your shirt off of the
• 33:52
  game's not over yet. Getting yellows too for your
• 33:55
  like yellow card accumulations. Ridiculous.
• 33:57
  It's so bad. Well, Lucas, Spurs, they'll get
• 34:00
  lucky here because the other teams at the bottom of the table
• 34:03
  did not do. Anything.
• 34:04
  Either. So basically, you know,
• 34:05
  everybody towards the bottom here, Newcastle, Palace, Leeds,
• 34:09
  Spurs, Forest, West Ham, Burnley.
• 34:11
  All lost. So there's like no movement from
• 34:14
  13 through 19. So all these teams, I guess sort
• 34:17
  of get a reprieve for the week here.
• 34:19
  But yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty amazing how bad Spurs
• 34:23
  are. I mean, it's just incredible.
• 34:25
  Harry Wilson. Look, I mean, you know what
• 34:26
  else? Is going assist.
• 34:28
  Twelve goal involvement since December.
• 34:30
  Only Holland and Fernandez have more.
• 34:32
  I mean. How many does Holland and
• 34:34
  Fernandez have? Holland has 14, Fernandez has
• 34:36
  13, so Wilson is just one and two behind those.
• 34:39
  My gosh. What's that as Holland Berlin.
• 34:42
  Holland. Bruno Fernandez?
• 34:44
  Harry Wilson. All right, it's.
• 34:46
  Incredible. Like it's again, he's like
• 34:48
  almost like Thiago. I mean, if I had to think of
• 34:50
  like out of nowhere guys this year, like who are the two best
• 34:54
  players that just literally sort of feel like they came out of
• 34:56
  nowhere? I mean, I think it's probably
• 34:58
  Thiago and Harry Wilson. I think like most improved, if
• 35:01
  there's like a pole for that, you'd probably like go to Thiago
• 35:06
  or Harry Wilson. I don't disagree.
• 35:08
  With that biggest, biggest shock.
• 35:10
  Biggest shock? I mean, maybe throw like Dominic
• 35:12
  Calvert Lewin in there with his ten goals.
• 35:14
  Yeah, but that doesn't. It's good, but not as good as
• 35:19
  what? No, I agree with you.
• 35:20
  I agree. I would go with those two guys
• 35:23
  in terms of I never would have dreamed and seen this coming.
• 35:26
  For these two. Guys.
• 35:28
  So, yeah, I mean, look, a Fulham sitting there in 9th on 40
• 35:33
  points, but they're only three behind Brentford O they are
• 35:37
  fully squarely in the mix. I would love to see them that,
• 35:40
  you know, we like Fulham, right? Like, I mean, you know, we've
• 35:43
  talked about this, we've seen a game of Craven Cottage, we've
• 35:45
  done the stadium tour. You know, one of my best
• 35:48
  friends, a friend of yours, Andrew's a big Fulham fan.
• 35:51
  So like I, I kind of am with you in terms of like, I do really
• 35:55
  like Fulham as a football club. They have not had a lot of like,
• 35:59
  you know, success in terms of trophies.
• 36:02
  So if if they could qualify, if they could get 7th, if they
• 36:05
  could qualify for UEFA champ, that would just be, I think a
• 36:08
  very, very cool story. I think it'd be good for that
• 36:11
  team. So I it's if I have to ask for.
• 36:13
  Like you want to watch the Europa League and Europa
• 36:16
  Conference League now? I would, yeah, absolutely.
• 36:18
  If Fulham were in it, I would definitely watch, you know, And
• 36:20
  so if you figured like the teams in the mix there, Brentford,
• 36:23
  Everton, Fulham, Bournemouth, let's say Brighton and
• 36:26
  Sunderland, I would say I just as a personal opinion, I'm not
• 36:30
  saying who I think will do it because it's really impossible
• 36:32
  to know, but I would. I'm rooting for Fulham and
• 36:35
  Bourne. What about you out?
• 36:37
  Of those teams, this is your rooting interest.
• 36:39
  Don't tell me I don't need to know.
• 36:40
  Like who would you just want to, you know, for your Harley?
• 36:44
  Out of what? Fulham, Sunderland, Bournemouth
• 36:47
  and Brighton. Yeah, so like Brentford,
• 36:49
  Everton, Fulham, Bournemouth, Brighton, Sunderland, if the if,
• 36:53
  if just one of those teams is going to get 7.
• 36:56
  Like who do you just who just you're gonna root for?
• 36:59
  For. Full All right, who would be
• 37:00
  your number 2 if you had to pick a team for number 2?
• 37:03
  Bournemouth or Sunderland? Okay, yeah, yeah, some of them
• 37:05
  would be cool too, yeah. Newly promoted team and that
• 37:08
  would be really nice cuz usually the newly promoted teams do not
• 37:13
  do well. This year I think probably most
• 37:16
  likely only one of the three newly promoted teams are getting
• 37:20
  relegated. I think that's probably the
• 37:22
  case. You know, most likely because
• 37:23
  leads are in a pretty good position right now, even losing
• 37:26
  the city. Yeah, they're in a good spot.
• 37:27
  They need to just not collapse. You know, leads just sort of
• 37:30
  keep doing what they're doing. Scrap out a win a tie here, lose
• 37:33
  a couple, they'll be fine. But yeah, just don't collapse
• 37:35
  and you're fine. Sunderland are basically safe.
• 37:37
  They're on 37 points. Like they're, like I said, I
• 37:41
  think they're totally safe. So yeah, like I said, that's
• 37:44
  going to be fun. Like I said, watching those
• 37:45
  teams all kind of battle for that though.
• 37:47
  But all right, well, look. Well, let's move over to one of
• 37:49
  those teams we talked about Brighton, They hosted Nottingham
• 37:52
  Forest. Oh yeah, this game 21.
• 37:55
  Brighton I predict to be 00. Gomez in the 6th minute, Nice,
• 38:00
  has a nice volley. Goalie probably should have done
• 38:03
  better, but he's at a very tight angle.
• 38:05
  He struck it really well. Then Gibbs were really nice
• 38:08
  going 13th minute. Well back in the 15th minute, he
• 38:12
  another night school. Well, that's tenth Premier
• 38:15
  League goal and Brighton now 11th on 37 points, so yeah.
• 38:19
  Yeah, like I said, Brighton and you know like I said, so they're
• 38:21
  certainly in that mix. Six behind, six behind Brentford
• 38:24
  for 7th there and and Forest, like I said, I guess no harm, no
• 38:28
  foul. They stay in 17th, everybody at
• 38:30
  the bottom basically lost. So they'll all go again next
• 38:33
  week and kind of see what will happen.
• 38:35
  But all right, Luca, let's move over to the last game of the
• 38:38
  week, probably the one we want to talk about the most.
• 38:40
  Yeah, a big London Derby, Arsenal hosting Chelsea.
• 38:45
  Take me through it. This game ends 21 Arsenal.
• 38:48
  I predicted the three 2 Arsenal so leave a header in the 21st
• 38:54
  minute, Hincapier uncle in the 45 + 3 Timber in the 66th minute
• 39:00
  and net to red card in the 70th minute.
• 39:04
  Two yellows in 3 minutes, so. Yeah, strong work by him.
• 39:08
  I mean, just basically imploding your team there and when they
• 39:12
  probably had a chance to come back.
• 39:15
  But yeah, all three goals from corners.
• 39:18
  Arsenal 16 goals from corner kicks now tied for most ever in
• 39:23
  a Premier League seasons. We just need one more to break a
• 39:25
  record. Arsenal unbeaten in last 9
• 39:28
  versus Chelsea in the Premier League.
• 39:30
  So Arsenal and Chelsea both could possibly break a record
• 39:34
  this year. Arsenal set pieces, Chelsea red
• 39:37
  cards. They could possibly break it,
• 39:40
  yeah. Crazy I mean you know we've
• 39:42
  Arsenal called set piece FCI don't think any Arsenal fan
• 39:45
  cares like one bit how the goals are scored.
• 39:48
  You know people criticize them for scoring too many corner
• 39:50
  kicks. I'm like.
• 39:51
  I don't. I could honestly care less.
• 39:54
  I could care less. The the so the record holders
• 39:57
  for this. So yeah, they got their 16th
• 39:58
  Premier League corner kick goal so Oldham in 9293.
• 40:02
  Three West Bromwich Albion in 2016 and 17 and then Arsenal in
• 40:07
  2324 all had 16 as well. He.
• 40:09
  Said so long ago those teams were like.
• 40:11
  Well, Arsenal from last year. No, but seems like prehistoric,
• 40:15
  yeah. So yeah, so like I said, one
• 40:19
  more corner, kick, goal and they hold the record.
• 40:21
  You know, it's amazing. Arsenal have sort of own
• 40:24
  Chelsea. Like I was a little nervous
• 40:26
  about this game because I'm just like our Chelsea just do for a
• 40:29
  result against Arsenal. I mean, Chelsea are a good team,
• 40:31
  you know, I really dislike. Them four times as you're not
• 40:34
  lost once. I know well so Liam Rosini or
• 40:37
  that the new manager, Luca, he's unbeaten in the Premier League.
• 40:40
  Except for on against Arsenal. Arsenal.
• 40:42
  So they're the two League Cup games, which aren't Premier
• 40:45
  League games. So this is his first technical
• 40:47
  Premier League loss. I mean, he's like doing great
• 40:49
  against everybody but Arsenal, yeah, you know, You know,
• 40:54
  Arsenal, look at they also sort of own London derbies.
• 40:56
  The Arsenal have lost one of their last 26.
• 40:59
  Premier League London. Do we know who that was against?
• 41:02
  No, I don't know who the. One lost, it couldn't have been
• 41:04
  against Tottenham, Tottenham, but just we own.
• 41:06
  Tottenham, yeah, I don't know. Like I said, I mean, if you just
• 41:08
  add up all the London teams and when we play I I don't know who
• 41:11
  they it was. Probably Chelsea or something.
• 41:14
  Well, like I said, Chelsea, I mean, it was.
• 41:17
  Probably it was. Probably full.
• 41:19
  On maybe a. Couple years ago I think we tied
• 41:21
  and lost to them, so maybe they're.
• 41:23
  But yeah, otherwise we do very, very well against the London
• 41:26
  teams. Yeah.
• 41:27
  This is to me, look, it is a pretty massive win for Arsenal
• 41:30
  because it keeps the five point cushion even though city have
• 41:33
  the the game in hand. But this was a big one.
• 41:36
  This is 1. You like you know when you're
• 41:38
  looking at the schedule now and and so Arsenal have played 29
• 41:41
  games. So we're like, you're kind of in
• 41:43
  the home stretch here. You're kind of like looking at
• 41:45
  the rest of the look. The players will take it one
• 41:47
  game at a time. But we're fans, right?
• 41:48
  You start looking ahead, you know, where are like the
• 41:51
  potholes on the schedule? Where are the games that really
• 41:53
  make you nervous? Well, it's probably the decider
• 41:57
  the Arsenal versus the City game.
• 42:00
  Well, yeah, and that's coming up, but this game today, Luca,
• 42:03
  this this was one to me that I had circled that I'm like this
• 42:05
  is 1 where you know, Chelsea are not going to want to keep losing
• 42:08
  to Arsenal. I.
• 42:08
  Mean and they just keep doing it.
• 42:10
  They do and I mean you know again they shoot themselves in
• 42:14
  the foot with the red card, you know Neto.
• 42:17
  So when Timber scores the goal, apparently Neto picks up a
• 42:20
  yellow for descent and then 3 minutes later take me through
• 42:22
  the 2nd yellow. Did you have any issues?
• 42:24
  With Nah he, Martinelli and net tower, I'm like a race down the
• 42:28
  sideline. Martinelli has the ball that
• 42:30
  though clearly tries to tackle him and like it's it's like for
• 42:36
  stopping a breakaway he found he's clearly trying to foul him.
• 42:40
  But the yellows for stopping the breakaway and I have no problem
• 42:43
  with this. Yeah, I agree with you.
• 42:45
  I mean, I it's not like you look at the foul and it's like a
• 42:47
  violent foul that deserves the yellow.
• 42:48
  But you can't. If it's like when a guy's, you
• 42:51
  know, like you clear a corner kick and your team and you get
• 42:54
  it, you're breaking out of your own half and you're going to
• 42:56
  have numbers. You know, it's like a three on
• 42:58
  two and somebody just sort of like pulls you back a little
• 43:00
  bit. It's not like a violent foul,
• 43:01
  but you're stopping that breakaway.
• 43:03
  You're stopping what could be a possibly a goal scoring chance.
• 43:05
  So they give a yellow for it. This is sort of the same thing
• 43:08
  because you know, Martinelli, he does a nice little move there
• 43:11
  where he's like they're like running.
• 43:12
  He does like a little bit of a slow down and then he sort of
• 43:14
  picks up his pace again. And Neto realized at that point
• 43:17
  he's by him and he clearly is trying to bring him down and he
• 43:21
  does. The interesting thing to me,
• 43:22
  Luke on this one was that Martinelli gets back up with the
• 43:24
  ball and they don't play advantage.
• 43:26
  It's really weird. I know.
• 43:28
  I thought that was really I. Think Stu would have gotten the
• 43:30
  red card too even. If they.
• 43:32
  Like we should have, they should have played advantage and then
• 43:35
  once the play was over, given him the second yellow.
• 43:38
  Yeah, referees do this all the time.
• 43:40
  Where where like you said, if I try to like, let's say like grab
• 43:43
  you and pull you down on a breakaway or something like
• 43:45
  that, but let's say you then you make the pass, the referee
• 43:48
  should then play advantage and then when the play stops, go
• 43:51
  back and give you a yellow card. Like that happens all the time.
• 43:53
  There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to blow the
• 43:55
  whistle and do it. I thought that was like a little
• 43:57
  odd. It did again matter in terms of
• 44:00
  the outcome of the game, but to me it was a definite scoring
• 44:03
  chance for Martinelli's coming in.
• 44:04
  There's two guys in the box like who knows what would have
• 44:07
  happened, but I thought that was a little bit strange.
• 44:09
  But yeah, look at Chelsea. I mean it's just unbelievable
• 44:12
  with these red cards. We so we looked it up, look at
• 44:14
  the record for. So that was what Chelsea 7th
• 44:17
  Premier League reps now I think they also have to and other
• 44:20
  competitions as well. But the record in the Premier
• 44:23
  League, Luca is 9 for a team. Sunderland did it in 09 and 2010
• 44:27
  and then Queens Park Rangers did in 2011 and 2012 with 9.
• 44:32
  So Chelsea are two away from tying a record.
• 44:35
  It's absurd. I mean, I mean it is.
• 44:37
  It's just look at they've 7 yellow cards in 28 games at
• 44:40
  every 4th game. If you're going down a man, I
• 44:43
  mean you, we know how hard it is to get results when you go down
• 44:47
  a man. When a red card happens, it
• 44:49
  changes the course of a game entirely.
• 44:51
  It is so difficult to get results when you go down.
• 44:53
  They're shooting themselves in the foot with just lack of
• 44:57
  discipline, Luca. Like, I mean, this is just like
• 44:59
  if you're the manager, it's got you got to be pulling your hair
• 45:01
  out with this kind of stuff, I mean.
• 45:04
  I like your figurative language well.
• 45:06
  Yeah, I mean, I don't know man. It's just like, again, it's
• 45:08
  helped Arsenal because Chelsea have done it now twice in games
• 45:12
  with Arsenal, so it's clearly helped us get results against
• 45:15
  this team. Now, who knows, we might have
• 45:17
  gone on to win this one two to one, but you know, again, it
• 45:21
  like we were up two to one, which probably made it much
• 45:24
  harder for them to come back in the game, you know, being down
• 45:28
  to 10 men so. Yeah.
• 45:31
  All right, Luca, crazy week of games there.
• 45:33
  You know, 22 goals were scored in the five games on Saturday,
• 45:37
  12 goals were scored in the four games on Sunday.
• 45:40
  So these are kind of what we want to see these.
• 45:43
  Yes. Action-packed goal scoring weeks
• 45:45
  there. Wasn't any goals this season.
• 45:46
  I feel like this this week was good.
• 45:48
  I know lots of goals from corner kicks, lots of goals from
• 45:52
  deflections. I think I saw that they've now
• 45:55
  already all the teams in the Premier League combined have set
• 45:59
  the record for corner kick goals, so we've.
• 46:02
  Already probably carried that. Well, I know we obviously have a
• 46:05
  lot, but everybody is scoring goals from corner kicks and set
• 46:07
  pieces. It was like the total theme of
• 46:09
  the week. It was like deflection goals and
• 46:13
  corner kick goals. Yeah, it really was.
• 46:15
  I know, some pretty incredible. But all right, Lucas.
• 46:18
  So whenever we wrap up the week though, you need to tell me who
• 46:21
  your player of the week is, who your goal of the week is, and
• 46:24
  your team of the week. You got 1 you want to start
• 46:27
  with. I'll go player of the week and I
• 46:30
  will do who stood out this week? I'll go.
• 46:40
  I'll go VVD. OK.
• 46:44
  All right. I thought he played.
• 46:45
  I thought he played well in that, in that West Ham game.
• 46:49
  Team of the week, I'm going. I got to go.
• 46:52
  Burnley, I got to go. Burnley, even though they lost,
• 46:54
  Wow. This may be your first pick for
• 46:56
  a losing team, but it's a big comeback not to be.
• 46:59
  Lynching the wolves though for being the 3rd place today.
• 47:03
  Wow, a Teams of the week, the 19th and 20th place team look at
• 47:06
  you. I got to show the bottom level
• 47:09
  team some love. They play good and both deserve
• 47:12
  the win, both of them I think in my opinion.
• 47:15
  Then goal of the week, I think I'm going to go with Gibbs
• 47:17
  Whites with an honorable mention of I will be.
• 47:22
  That was also really good. Yeah, those were good, both of
• 47:25
  them. I like those gives away from
• 47:26
  outside the box kind of a little bit of a knuckler and even a
• 47:28
  whoa, B is kind of like a he was like.
• 47:30
  There was a. Little bit like.
• 47:32
  Off the post, it was really satisfying to go in.
• 47:34
  He's been good for them, but yes, really been like a good
• 47:37
  player lately for them and I love to see it just because he's
• 47:39
  like, you know, he came from Arsenal and I like to see the
• 47:41
  Arsenal guys doing well there. So all right, Luca, well there
• 47:45
  you go. We rolled through the week, so
• 47:48
  we got to look ahead. Luca Week 29.
• 47:50
  It's coming up fast and furious here.
• 47:51
  So midweek games because next weekend we get back into some FA
• 47:55
  Cup action. So I think we have games
• 47:57
  Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of this week.
• 47:59
  So everybody, you know, no breaks from the Premier League,
• 48:02
  right? We get Monday off and right back
• 48:04
  into it. So you ready for some
• 48:06
  predictions for week 29, Luca? Week 29.
• 48:09
  All right, Wolves host Liverpool.
• 48:13
  I think Liverpool's going to get the win 31.
• 48:16
  I want to predict Wolves to win, but I just don't think it's
• 48:19
  going to happen. All right, Yeah.
• 48:21
  I mean, Wolves have been, you know, I think the thing that
• 48:24
  people don't quite real, Liverpool have actually been
• 48:26
  pretty good lately, or at least they're like getting some pretty
• 48:28
  good results lately, you know, three wins in a row, 4 in their
• 48:33
  last five, Like Liverpool are actually, you know, starting to
• 48:36
  get some results. So.
• 48:38
  But Luca, I'll be interested in this actually a little bit
• 48:41
  because wolves have been pretty tough.
• 48:42
  They've not sort of rolled over. Install the big teams too.
• 48:46
  Yeah, yeah, they seem up for it. So all right Luca, what about
• 48:49
  Leeds hosting Sunderland? I think this is gonna be 11. 11
• 48:55
  OK, so at Ellen Rd. Tough place to go play.
• 48:58
  We talk about how Sunderland really struggle on the road.
• 49:01
  They don't tend to score a lot of goals.
• 49:02
  So you're keeping this low scoring one.
• 49:04
  Yeah. All right.
• 49:06
  Everton Luca hosting Burnley. Oh wow, what a glamorous game.
• 49:14
  Why we would have said that about Burnley Brighton or
• 49:16
  Burnley Brentford? That's true.
• 49:18
  I think I may predict 54 Everton. 54 Everton Holy snugs
• 49:23
  Wow. All right, so 5 for Everton,
• 49:28
  let's see if Luca can get that one right.
• 49:31
  All right, here's an interesting game, Luca.
• 49:32
  We talked about a lot of these teams battling for 7th place.
• 49:36
  You've got Brentford and 7th hosting Bournemouth and 10.
• 49:39
  If Bournemouth can win this game, they move one point behind
• 49:43
  Brentford. So what do you like?
• 49:45
  I'm sorry, Bournemouth hosting Brentford, what do you like in
• 49:47
  this game? 21 Bournemouth. 21 Bournemouth
• 49:53
  OK, so Bournemouth at home and Bournemouth have been good.
• 49:56
  Both these things have been pretty good lately.
• 50:00
  But yeah, Bournemouth tend to be pretty good at home.
• 50:03
  Yeah, This is this is an interesting game.
• 50:05
  I'm I'm gonna definitely have my eye on trying to watch a little
• 50:07
  bit of this game here. All right, Luca.
• 50:10
  Well, our boys Arsenal, Luca, you know, holding down 1st place
• 50:14
  going to Brighton. What do you like for this game?
• 50:18
  I think we'll get 2 nothing win. All right, tell me why you think
• 50:23
  2 nothing Arsenal in this game. What's your thoughts on?
• 50:25
  It because I think if we can win, beat Chelsea 21, then I, I
• 50:31
  think we can beat Brighton 2 nil.
• 50:34
  Like, I just think we've a better team, but more depth and
• 50:40
  yeah, I, I just think we'll be able to beat this team, even
• 50:46
  though it is a, it's a way, But I, I do think we'll come out
• 50:52
  with the win. All right.
• 50:53
  Do you worry a little bit about any?
• 50:55
  Like are you worried about a let down at all?
• 50:57
  Like you've had two pretty big emotional games, you know, 2
• 51:00
  London Darby's you had the gaming and Spurs north London
• 51:03
  Derby. Now you play Chelsea.
• 51:05
  Do you worry at all about the like a let down or are you
• 51:08
  thinking like? What do you mean a let down?
• 51:10
  Well, just like an emotional let down.
• 51:11
  I mean, look, the Darby gaming, it's your biggest rival you get
• 51:14
  up for. It's all that emotion that goes
• 51:16
  into a game like that. You know, then you've got to
• 51:19
  turn right around and play Chelsea again.
• 51:21
  It's like, you know, it's a big team coming in one of the big
• 51:23
  six. You know, you've got to win.
• 51:25
  You can you get something that's hard to just dial that like, you
• 51:28
  know, mental energy and that emotion up for all the games.
• 51:30
  It's one thing to be like physically ready, you know, But
• 51:33
  sometimes it's just hard to like mentally get yourself like
• 51:36
  prepared, you know, for these games as they're coming
• 51:38
  back-to-back to back, you know, and you think, OK, now you're
• 51:41
  going like sometimes like the home energy, you know, for the
• 51:44
  Chelsea game can carry a little bit.
• 51:45
  You're at home, they're singing, you know, the fans are into it.
• 51:48
  You get back, you know, now you got to go like on the road, you
• 51:51
  know, maybe you're a little tired, a little fatigued.
• 51:54
  I mean, this is where the squad depth really is going to come in
• 51:58
  handy, right? I mean, Arsenal have a deep
• 51:59
  team. Kai Haberts was back this week,
• 52:02
  but we still have Ben White out, Odegard out.
• 52:04
  Wait. Ben White and Odegard out.
• 52:06
  I thought they Bush were back. No, they're, you know, they were
• 52:09
  out the past two games, so. I've said this to you, Elder
• 52:14
  Card was was made from popsicles, Popsicle 6, The power
• 52:20
  of Friendship, and three paper clips.
• 52:23
  That's what he's made of. Well, he's he's definitely been
• 52:26
  injury printed. Well, I I wouldn't say that, but
• 52:29
  I was. Now the good thing is is though,
• 52:31
  I mean, we have he's still. Good though.
• 52:33
  You know, so, you know, the question is just like going to
• 52:36
  be, you know, this is where you'd like to try to rotate
• 52:39
  guys. So I wonder if this is maybe,
• 52:43
  you know, Habert's came in and gave him about 15 minutes, but
• 52:45
  he's been out for a little bit. Can haverts start this game?
• 52:47
  Give as a little bit of a break. Yes, yes, yes.
• 52:50
  Why no, He's like your favorite player, but this would be like,
• 52:53
  so like the lineup is going to be interesting to me for this
• 52:55
  week because then the good thing is, is this weekend for Arsenal,
• 52:57
  you have an FA Cup game against like Mansfield, which is another
• 53:00
  League 1. So we caught a break in the FA
• 53:04
  Cup for sure, because a lot of the Premier League teams are
• 53:05
  playing each other. So we catch a little bit of a
• 53:08
  break in the League One team where you look at that and
• 53:10
  you're thinking, all right, this could be a chance to really
• 53:13
  rotate the squad. You know, Nora guard, maybe Max
• 53:17
  Dalman's back, maybe he gets some playing time.
• 53:20
  Salmon. So you know, Kepa goes in goal.
• 53:23
  So like we have a real chance on the weekend to rotate.
• 53:25
  So I think if you're if your arsenal, you know, you're
• 53:28
  looking at it like, OK, we, you know, maybe rotate a few guys
• 53:32
  for the Brighton game, but we don't want to do too much
• 53:35
  because you got to get the win here.
• 53:37
  But you know, on the weekend, all right, FA Cup game, League
• 53:39
  One team, we can probably rotate a lot there where some of the
• 53:42
  other teams don't have that advantage for the FA Cup match
• 53:45
  up. So.
• 53:45
  Like what are some of the other games?
• 53:47
  I don't know, I'd have to look at look at the FA Cup games, but
• 53:50
  I know a lot of the Premier League teams not.
• 53:51
  Playing against. Each other.
• 53:52
  So all right, look, here's a bit of an interesting game.
• 53:54
  Villa struggling a little bit but they're at home against
• 53:57
  Chelsea. Oh, I think 22. 22 OK, all
• 54:03
  right, so two teams here, you know, right in the Champions
• 54:07
  League hunt, this is a big one. You like 2-2 Newcastle hosting
• 54:11
  Man U? And then you are just probably
• 54:14
  going to RIP them the shreds I think, I think 2 nil.
• 54:17
  Two nil OK at Saint James Park. But Everton beat them at Saint
• 54:22
  James Park. I know, I know.
• 54:24
  Yeah, that again, that'll be an interesting one to see.
• 54:26
  You know, just can Newcastle do anything and command you?
• 54:29
  Just keep this amazing run going.
• 54:30
  So All right, Lucas City hosting Forest.
• 54:35
  I think City will get the win to nothing as well, you know.
• 54:37
  Yeah, I mean I. Hard to imagine them.
• 54:40
  Dropping points. At home to anybody?
• 54:42
  Fulham hosting West Ham? Here's a London Derby.
• 54:45
  For I think I think formal win 2, not 21. 21 OK, yeah, I think
• 54:50
  West Ham, West Ham can score goals, but they give up a ton of
• 54:53
  goals. So yeah, I think they'll
• 54:54
  probably be some goals in that game.
• 54:56
  And then our final one, on another London Derby, we have
• 54:59
  Spurs hosting Palace. One Nail Palace.
• 55:06
  One nail palace. Oh my goodness.
• 55:08
  That's not with my heart, by the way.
• 55:10
  I don't know if I believe that. You will believe that.
• 55:13
  Yeah, I mean, you know, Palace are a team that kind of seemed
• 55:16
  that, you know, their last four win, loss, win, loss, you know,
• 55:20
  it'll be interesting. And these Spurs are awful at
• 55:22
  home. You know, I you know, it's hard
• 55:25
  to pick Spurs to win at all. I mean, to win any games.
• 55:28
  I mean, the way they look is just so, so bad right now.
• 55:31
  It's pretty incredible, so. Yes, it's very incredible.
• 55:35
  All right, Luca. Well, all right, let's move over
• 55:38
  to the viewer mailbag question, OK?
• 55:40
  The viewer mailbag question is comes from me to you involves
• 55:44
  Luca. My question is, should the
• 55:45
  Premier League have a playoff? Now we know Luca, in American
• 55:50
  sports, they all have playoffs, right?
• 55:52
  I mean basketball, hockey, NFL, like they all.
• 55:55
  You have a regular season, then you get to a playoff and
• 55:58
  eventually leads to either a Super Bowl or championship game.
• 56:01
  Even in soccer, Luca, we do have a little bit of playoffs.
• 56:04
  The championship, of course, has a playoff.
• 56:07
  So there's all League One and League 2.
• 56:09
  Yeah. And so the way the championship
• 56:11
  playoff works is you do have a, you do have a winner, of course,
• 56:15
  at the end, you know, if you finish one, you win the league.
• 56:18
  But in order to be promoted, the top two teams immediately get
• 56:22
  promoted, right? You finish 1-2, you are moving
• 56:24
  up to the Premier League, You're done.
• 56:26
  OK, now it gets interesting. 3 through 6 have a playoff, so 3
• 56:30
  play, 64 plays, five winners then go on to play each other
• 56:35
  and that winner of that game gets promoted.
• 56:37
  So you can finish in six and still be promoted to the Premier
• 56:41
  League if you win the playoff. So there's a little bit of a
• 56:43
  precedent for a playoff, but my question to you involves the
• 56:46
  Premier League. Do you like the structure the
• 56:48
  way it is now? You just you play your 38 games.
• 56:51
  If you are top of the table, you have won the league, you are
• 56:53
  done. Or do you think there should be
• 56:55
  a little bit of a playoff where maybe you do OK, top two teams
• 57:01
  get like a buy, you know, you have three, play 64, play 5.
• 57:06
  Again, like the championship where you're getting maybe the
• 57:09
  two winners that go on now, like 1 plays the bottom winner, 2
• 57:13
  plays it, and then you do that. What do you think?
• 57:16
  I think I like the 38 game standard form just season with
• 57:22
  no playoffs. I don't it, it's, it's a little
• 57:28
  like I like how everyone just fighting for a Champions League
• 57:32
  spot instead of just seeing if you can just get to 6th to get a
• 57:38
  playoff. Like with the top four and five,
• 57:42
  you're really pushing, but then once you're in 6th you're just
• 57:46
  chilling a little bit so. Well, would it keep more?
• 57:48
  So I'm just talking about the winner, not like Champions
• 57:50
  League spots. I'm just talking to like to
• 57:52
  crown a Premier League winner. Like would it bring more teams
• 57:57
  into play here? Like would theoretically
• 57:59
  Liverpool, Chelsea, Brentford be playing a little bit harder
• 58:02
  because they know well hey, if I get the 6th then I get into the
• 58:05
  playoff? But once you get to 6th, are you
• 58:08
  still playing hard? That hard.
• 58:10
  Well, yeah, I mean, because you'd want to stay in six to
• 58:13
  make it into the playoff because, you know, like right
• 58:15
  now if you're Chelsea, you're on 45 points, right, Arsenal are on
• 58:19
  64. You know, you have no chance of
• 58:22
  winning the Premier League. Now the Champions League brings
• 58:25
  in the element of like, they still have a lot to play for,
• 58:27
  but they have no chance of winning the Premier League.
• 58:29
  Like, and in fact, probably Luca, for the past maybe month
• 58:33
  or maybe month or two, only two teams really have a chance to
• 58:36
  win. It's City or Arsenal.
• 58:39
  So what like, I guess the playoff, I guess the theory
• 58:42
  behind it would be is it keeps more teams thinking we have a
• 58:46
  chance to win the league, which is what we're all playing for
• 58:48
  here involved because they're like, OK, well, if I just get
• 58:52
  into the playoff and if we're playing, you know, well, we
• 58:55
  could go on a little run in the playoff and then we could be
• 58:57
  crowned champion. Yeah, but I'm still I'm still
• 59:02
  good with the regular season. OK, So you're you're so more the
• 59:06
  traditional, let's just keep it the way it is.
• 59:08
  Yeah. You know, yeah, I mean, you do.
• 59:10
  I think the Champions League does help to keep things sort of
• 59:14
  spicy a little bit, you know, where you do still have teams
• 59:18
  playing for a lot. Of course, at the bottom of the
• 59:20
  table you have a lot of teams playing for a lot because people
• 59:22
  don't want to get relegated. So I do think it works pretty
• 59:25
  well where most teams, as we start to get over the next
• 59:29
  month, there's going to be some teams that really have nothing
• 59:30
  to play for. Like, you know, if you're a team
• 59:33
  that's in 11th and you know you're safe from relegation,
• 59:36
  but. Like Newcastle?
• 59:38
  Yeah, Like, I mean, you know, they're not that they're not
• 59:40
  going to play hard, but I do think it lacks a little bit of
• 59:43
  zip and fire in some of their, like, games at the end of the
• 59:46
  season where it's like a bit of a meaningless game, you know.
• 59:50
  So, you know, like, one thing that's interesting to me is like
• 59:53
  City play Villa on the last day of the season.
• 59:56
  That game, like possibly could mean nothing for Villa because
• 1:00:00
  Villa, they've already qualified for Champions League.
• 1:00:04
  Like, and they're not going to win the league.
• 1:00:06
  Like why would they be playing hard in that last game?
• 1:00:09
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:10
  And so, like, now, look, you can make the argument, well, if
• 1:00:13
  they've qualified for the playoffs, why would they be
• 1:00:15
  playing hard anyway? You know, like, so I get that
• 1:00:18
  part of it. Like it's just one of those
• 1:00:20
  things in the schedule where you're like, you know, you want
• 1:00:23
  to keep as many games relevant, you want to keep as many teams
• 1:00:25
  sort of trying to like basically try as far as you can.
• 1:00:29
  And it's a challenge in American sports too.
• 1:00:31
  Like a lot of teams just start tanking because they.
• 1:00:33
  Want a better draft? Pick or things like that.
• 1:00:35
  So all right, Luca, well, your vote.
• 1:00:37
  Thumbs down on a Premier League playoff.
• 1:00:39
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:00:41
  All right, Luca. Well, let's move over to our
• 1:00:43
  Digeno section and Luca, we are up to West Ham United.
• 1:00:49
  We have two teams left, West Ham and then Wolves and we have
• 1:00:53
  finally made it through all 20 teams in the Premier League
• 1:00:56
  getting to know them well, our did you know?
• 1:00:58
  We'll have to move to a different thing, but we are
• 1:01:01
  rolling through. We are down to our 19th team,
• 1:01:04
  West Ham United, Luca. But Dave, a lot to talk about.
• 1:01:07
  Yeah, I mean veteran. They're from East London.
• 1:01:10
  They are nicknamed the Irons or the Hammers.
• 1:01:12
  Their colors are claret and sky blue.
• 1:01:17
  Luca. They were founded in 1895 as the
• 1:01:21
  10s Ironworks and they were reformed in 1900 as West Ham
• 1:01:28
  United and in 1919 they joined the Football League.
• 1:01:33
  They went through a period, Luca, where they had a nickname
• 1:01:34
  the Academy of Football because they developed like so much
• 1:01:38
  talent for a while. Some people are say they're like
• 1:01:40
  the Academy of Football. They are owned by a couple
• 1:01:43
  different people. Actually, David Sullivan, he
• 1:01:46
  owns about 38%. He in 2010 he bought in.
• 1:01:50
  There's a guy named Daniel. I'm going to butcher his last
• 1:01:54
  name there, Kafen Kafencinski. He owns about 27%.
• 1:01:59
  Vanessa Gold owns 25%. Tripp Smith, that Daniel
• 1:02:04
  Kafenski guy Luca also owns Sport of Prague, so trophy room
• 1:02:09
  for them. Luca.
• 1:02:09
  They have three FA Cup wins, so 6475 and 80.
• 1:02:14
  They have a Euro Cup Winners Cup from 1965 and they have a, they
• 1:02:19
  have a UEFA Conference League trophy from 2023.
• 1:02:24
  Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of about
• 1:02:28
  it, you know, for they have not had a lot of other great
• 1:02:30
  success, Luca. They play, of course, at London
• 1:02:34
  Stadium, which was built for the Olympics in 2012 and they moved
• 1:02:38
  in in 2016. They kind of retrofitted it and,
• 1:02:41
  you know, to make it more of a soccer stadium.
• 1:02:43
  It holds about 62,500. They used to play at a place
• 1:02:47
  called Bowling Ground or it was called Upton Park and that was
• 1:02:50
  their stadium from 19 O 4 to 2016.
• 1:02:53
  Then they moved into this nice new stadium, London Stadium,
• 1:02:57
  Luca. They kind of known.
• 1:02:58
  They have a song they're known for.
• 1:03:00
  I'm forever blowing bubbles. You probably turn on a West Ham
• 1:03:03
  game. There's bubbles everywhere in
• 1:03:05
  the beginning of the game. And they had a player nicknamed
• 1:03:08
  Bubbles in the 40s, this guy named Billy Murray, and he was
• 1:03:13
  nicknamed Bubbles. And so someone, they came up
• 1:03:15
  with this and they're like, well, let's start playing.
• 1:03:17
  I'm forever blowing bubbles. And so at the start of a West
• 1:03:20
  Ham game, bubbles get blown everywhere.
• 1:03:22
  They play their song and that's that's a better.
• 1:03:24
  Thing. It's kind of different, right?
• 1:03:27
  Yeah. Their biggest rival Luca is
• 1:03:29
  Millwall, who are actually third in the Championship right now.
• 1:03:34
  So it could be where like West Ham come down, Millwall go up.
• 1:03:38
  They may not get their big dirt, Darby, so we'll see.
• 1:03:42
  Can't have that happen. We need Spurs going down.
• 1:03:45
  So Luca, it is called the dockers Darby because both
• 1:03:49
  Millwall and West Ham are like famous.
• 1:03:52
  Like it kind of started with dock workers, like people that
• 1:03:54
  worked on docks and like around boats and things like that.
• 1:03:56
  So Millwall and West Ham have a big rivalry, famous managers.
• 1:04:02
  Luca, They had Ron Greenwood, he was their FA Cup.
• 1:04:05
  He managed from 61 to 74. He won the Cup Winners Cup, the
• 1:04:09
  FA Cup and it was sort of under his reign.
• 1:04:12
  Luca When they were the Academy of Football, Harry Rednet
• 1:04:15
  managed there for seven years. David Moist, Luca managed there
• 1:04:19
  for a period of time. Club legends.
• 1:04:22
  You know, I put Jared Bowen on there.
• 1:04:24
  Luke, he's playing. Definitely, definitely.
• 1:04:25
  I think a bit of a club legend, Bobby Moore, Luke, a defender
• 1:04:29
  played there from. He played.
• 1:04:31
  He was their captain of the World Cup winning team.
• 1:04:33
  Well, I know I'll sort of I'll sort of get to that a little
• 1:04:36
  bit. Yeah.
• 1:04:37
  Jeff Hart, Luca Martin Peters was a midfielder.
• 1:04:41
  Billy, Billy, Billy Bonds had the most appearances.
• 1:04:44
  Mark Noble, Luca was a guy. Mr. West Ham is what they called
• 1:04:48
  him, midfielder. Yeah, I have a part of him.
• 1:04:51
  Yeah, he, well he played there from O 4 to 2022.
• 1:04:54
  O4. Yeah, 18 years he played at West
• 1:04:57
  Ham. Pretty amazing it.
• 1:05:00
  Like it's like Tony Adams name is Mr. Arsene.
• 1:05:04
  Exactly, Yeah, yeah. And so it's like if you like are
• 1:05:06
  like a kind of A1 club guy or been in a club for a long time.
• 1:05:11
  Yeah, yeah. I think Tony Adams.
• 1:05:12
  Yeah. Yeah, Tony Adams is yeah.
• 1:05:16
  Lucas. So other players, of course,
• 1:05:18
  that have come through West Ham, of course, Declan Rice, James
• 1:05:22
  Ward, Prowse, Muhammad Kudis, Dmitri Pyot, Carlos Tevez played
• 1:05:26
  there. Rio Ferdinand played there.
• 1:05:29
  Javier Mascherano, Frank Lampard.
• 1:05:31
  Luca played there before he went over there.
• 1:05:33
  Chicharito Arnadovich, Jermaine Defoe, Michael Carrick, Luca,
• 1:05:39
  your favorite manager played there.
• 1:05:43
  Aaron Cresswell, Cole Benayoun, Scott Parker, manager at
• 1:05:48
  Burnley, Alex Song, Zabaleta, Joe Hart of all come through
• 1:05:53
  there. So, Luca, their highest sold
• 1:05:58
  player ever, this should be easy for you, was West.
• 1:06:01
  Yeah. Declan Rice for $143 million,
• 1:06:05
  their most expensive buy. Sebastian Holler Luca isn't.
• 1:06:11
  On the team anymore, Not. Even on the team anymore came
• 1:06:13
  from Eintracht Frankfurt and he was it was 16 about $60 million
• 1:06:17
  buy there. So yeah, like is that that's
• 1:06:21
  sort of what Oh, oh, the the you mentioned those Bobby Moore,
• 1:06:25
  Jeff Hurst and Martin Peters played there in the 60s.
• 1:06:29
  They are very famously looking from the 1966 World Cup winning
• 1:06:33
  team. I think was it, I think Hearst
• 1:06:36
  maybe had the hat trick in the 1966 World Cup final.
• 1:06:41
  So West Ham out like they had a big core of guides and went to
• 1:06:44
  that 66 World Cup winning team. Yeah, I guess that's that's all
• 1:06:50
  I got on West Ham. Luca.
• 1:06:51
  All right, All right, Luca, we're real quick.
• 1:06:54
  Of course, we always plug our Instagram page,
• 1:06:56
  premierleagueplaygroundyoucanemailus.premierleagueplayground@gmail.com. We have a Facebook page that
• 1:07:03
  we're working on, Premier League Playground.
• 1:07:06
  But of course, we end our show, Luca with our penalty kick.
• 1:07:09
  Trivia, shootouts go back and forth, asking each other
• 1:07:12
  questions. Do you would want to go?
• 1:07:14
  You want to kick first or second?
• 1:07:16
  How many? Kicks first.
• 1:07:18
  Kick first. All right.
• 1:07:19
  So I ask you then, right? Yeah.
• 1:07:21
  All right, Luca, I'm going to start off with an Arsenal trivia
• 1:07:23
  question. OK.
• 1:07:25
  How many FA Cups has Arsenal won?
• 1:07:28
  And I've got multiple choice for you Luca.
• 1:07:30
  Have they won 12/14/18 or 20? 14. 14 is correct, very good.
• 1:07:39
  14FA Cup wins the most of any club ever.
• 1:07:43
  All right, all right. So you scored that one with your
• 1:07:46
  first? 1 and I have multiple choice for
• 1:07:47
  all of mine too. OK, excluding Real Madrid,
• 1:07:51
  Barcelona, Bayern, Manic and Liverpool.
• 1:07:54
  OK, which club has won the most Champions Leagues?
• 1:07:59
  All right, give me the exclusions again.
• 1:08:02
  Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Liverpool, all right.
• 1:08:05
  I'm just going to go ahead and guess.
• 1:08:07
  I'm going to say AC Milan. Yes, All right, you got it
• 1:08:10
  right, 11. All right, Luca.
• 1:08:12
  Last year's League Cup final was between what, 2 teams?
• 1:08:20
  Liverpool. Newcastle.
• 1:08:22
  Good. Yeah, you got that one right.
• 1:08:24
  You want to give me the score? One no Liverpool.
• 1:08:26
  No. Two No 21.
• 1:08:29
  Not Newcastle one. Remember, it was her first
• 1:08:31
  trophy in like 50 or 60 years. Newcastle won two one goals by
• 1:08:36
  Isaac and Burn and Chiesa scored for Liverpool.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah. Oh, so yeah, Newcastle was
• 1:08:41
  there, there, there. The defending league do.
• 1:08:43
  I still get that right. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:08:44
  Because I just I was asking what 2 teams were in, so you get that
• 1:08:46
  one right? All right, I have What is the
• 1:08:49
  name of Borussia Dortmund Stadium?
• 1:08:53
  Oh I know this one. It is signal I Duna Park.
• 1:08:57
  Correct. All right, 222. 22 Yeah, All
• 1:09:02
  right, Luca, Antoine Semenya, we just talked about him a little
• 1:09:05
  bit. Great player for city.
• 1:09:07
  What country? Is he from we're going to ask
• 1:09:09
  you this. OK.
• 1:09:14
  So Ghana? That is correct.
• 1:09:18
  OK, born in England but his dad is from Ghana so he chose to
• 1:09:23
  play for Ghana which is nicknamed the Black Stars.
• 1:09:26
  He could also make, he could definitely make the England
• 1:09:28
  squad. He could.
• 1:09:30
  He did, yeah, but I don't think he can switch now because he's
• 1:09:32
  played too many games for Ghana. So.
• 1:09:35
  But yeah, yeah, I think he could make the England squad, but
• 1:09:37
  yeah. All right.
• 1:09:38
  All right, Luca, man. Whoa. 3 for three.
• 1:09:40
  Here Yeah, OK Lee Classique is a famous rivalry between which 2
• 1:09:47
  French clubs. I think I know this one.
• 1:09:49
  Let me think so Lee La Classique is between, I believe it is PSG
• 1:09:54
  and Marseille. Correct 33.
• 1:09:56
  Here we go. We are rolling, Luca.
• 1:09:58
  We are rolling all right Luca. Question 4 is who is
• 1:10:03
  Sunderland's captain? Enzo Lafique.
• 1:10:09
  Wrong. It's Dan Ballard, isn't it?
• 1:10:12
  It's. Granite Jacques, Luca Granite
• 1:10:15
  Jacques has done a 22 times. Trey Hume has been captain four
• 1:10:18
  times when Jacques has been hurt.
• 1:10:19
  But Jacques is the main captain when he's healthy, so.
• 1:10:21
  Oh my God. Oh, Luca, I thought, I thought
• 1:10:24
  that was going to be your easy. One of the other ones I thought
• 1:10:26
  were harder. So oh, big goalie save Luca
• 1:10:29
  misses a penalty shot. All right, chance to go up here.
• 1:10:32
  Oh. Man, I wanted to get like all of
• 1:10:34
  them right? And you get all of them right.
• 1:10:36
  Who is Tottenham's all time leading goal scorer, excluding
• 1:10:39
  Harry Kane? I was hoping you'd say.
• 1:10:42
  I was hoping it would just be who's their all time indulgent?
• 1:10:47
  I'll go with Jimmy Greaves. No.
• 1:10:49
  Why did I tell you Who is Jimmy Greaves before me?
• 1:10:53
  I might have known, I might have known.
• 1:10:55
  I would have Did we? We just did Tottenham in the Did
• 1:10:58
  You Know and and Jimmy Greaves popped up a lot of things 2.
• 1:11:01
  Of you knew Jimmy Greaves book well.
• 1:11:03
  That helped. Yeah, you should have.
• 1:11:04
  I don't know that I would have done that before.
• 1:11:06
  Why would you be? Too horrible.
• 1:11:07
  Why would you be asking me about Jimmy Greaves?
• 1:11:09
  All right, Luca, last last week I asked you about the Premier
• 1:11:13
  League's all time leading goal scores.
• 1:11:16
  Now I'm going to ask you about the Premier League's all time
• 1:11:19
  assist leaders. Ryan Giggs.
• 1:11:22
  Well, hold on, that's not my question.
• 1:11:23
  Oh, all right. I have the top 10 here and I
• 1:11:27
  want to see if you can name 6 on the list and I'll maybe let you
• 1:11:31
  miss one or two, but see if you can get 6 on the list.
• 1:11:33
  Well, you just name the number one, which is Ryan Giggs is 162.
• 1:11:36
  Henri. No.
• 1:11:38
  Oh my, how is he not on there? The brine. #2 with 119 OK, let.
• 1:11:46
  Me think here skulls. No.
• 1:11:50
  He's not on there. Oh, let's see.
• 1:11:53
  It's probably usually like center mids.
• 1:11:56
  Maybe. Maybe.
• 1:11:57
  Where's Modrich? Actually, he didn't play he.
• 1:12:02
  Didn't play long enough so. Oh, Bergkamp.
• 1:12:07
  Bergkamp is number six with 94 assists.
• 1:12:11
  One more Arsenal player came to the team very young from Bart
• 1:12:18
  Stallone. Cess Fabregas.
• 1:12:21
  Number, yeah #3 that's pretty amazing, 111.
• 1:12:25
  Oh, Lampard, probably. Lampard is number 5 with 102.
• 1:12:31
  Oh, Oh, yeah, yeah, Torre. No, think of like a Liverpool
• 1:12:37
  legend midfielder. Oh, Gerard.
• 1:12:39
  Gerard, yeah, he's #9. 9 OK. There's a Liverpool player
• 1:12:44
  that's playing right now, so the only.
• 1:12:45
  One got to be solid. Right.
• 1:12:47
  Yeah, Pretty, pretty amazing. I don't know if I would have
• 1:12:49
  thought of him. What's?
• 1:12:50
  He yet he's at 8, he's at on 93. And in fact, if he gets, he can
• 1:12:54
  move past Silva. Oh gosh, I just gave you one
• 1:12:56
  David Silva. Oh, thanks.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah, nice. So basically, so Sala's on 93,
• 1:13:03
  David Silva's on 93, Bergkamp's on 94.
• 1:13:06
  So he so Sala with two assists would move ahead of both of
• 1:13:10
  those guys to six. Pretty amazing.
• 1:13:12
  Really. Wow.
• 1:13:14
  So he gets one more. Two more, two more, one more he
• 1:13:17
  ties Silva, one more he ties Bergkamp, and then two more he
• 1:13:22
  moves ahead of Bergkamp. All right.
• 1:13:24
  So you have two more. One of them's going to be very
• 1:13:26
  difficult. Think of a guy who's played
• 1:13:28
  forever, has a ton of appearances over multiple
• 1:13:32
  different clubs, still playing. Oh, James Miller.
• 1:13:38
  James Miller, OH. My gosh, he's.
• 1:13:40
  At #10 they're pretty amazing. What?
• 1:13:43
  And the other guy's more of he's a forward for United, he's
• 1:13:46
  retired, but more you think of him more as a goal scorer.
• 1:13:52
  Rooney. Yes, Rooney is #4 so there's
• 1:13:56
  your top ten all time assists. So all right, I think if I get
• 1:14:01
  this, I win, if I miss I lose. So what?
• 1:14:03
  What do you got? Who's the only goalkeeper to
• 1:14:05
  win, to have won the bond or? Is it yashin?
• 1:14:11
  Yes. Look at this, I brought it.
• 1:14:14
  Do you have a bonus question? I don't.
• 1:14:17
  Never mind. My mind by bonus was more just
• 1:14:19
  the list of them there. So I think I got it again.
• 1:14:21
  Look, I am I am red hot with our penalty kick tribute shootouts.
• 1:14:25
  So oh man. All right, Luca.
• 1:14:27
  Well, good week here. Like I said, midweek games
• 1:14:31
  coming up. We'll hopefully be back, you
• 1:14:32
  know, maybe this weekend, but we'll get out another pod with
• 1:14:35
  the week 29 games. You got anything else for us?
• 1:14:40
  There's the final whistle and that's full time for us.
• 1:14:42
  Thank you for listening. Bye.