Latest / Premier League Playground: Lad and Dad / Week 17 Premier League Recap

Transcript

Week 17 Premier League Recap · Premier League Playground: Lad and Dad

• 0:05
  Welcome into another episode of the Premier League Playground
• 0:09
  with the dad and the lad. I am the dad.
• 0:12
  Bjorn with me is our star, the lad.
• 0:15
  Luca Miller. Luca and it is a Merry Christmas
• 0:19
  coming up here Christmas in what happened 2 days.
• 0:22
  I know I can't. I can't wait.
• 0:23
  I'm so happy. I'm like, I'm so excited.
• 0:26
  I know this is a fun time of year.
• 0:28
  Obviously Christmas year is be your favorite.
• 0:30
  Holiday, yes. Yes, yeah, yeah, Most kids, I
• 0:32
  think Christmas is their favorite holiday.
• 0:34
  So yeah, Christmas in two days. Google, we've got games galore,
• 0:38
  you know, the holiday fixture schedule in the Premier League.
• 0:41
  Lots of games coming fast and furious here.
• 0:44
  So yeah, let's let's dive on it. We have Week 17 to breakdown.
• 0:50
  Look, I can't believe it. We're almost halfway through the
• 0:53
  Premier League season. That'll be Week 19.
• 0:55
  Maybe we'll do a little like halfway recap of of, you know,
• 0:59
  in a couple weeks, we'll go through some of the surprises,
• 1:02
  some of the best teams, best signings.
• 1:03
  We'll do a little there. But but for right now, look, we
• 1:06
  got to get through Week 17 of the Premier League.
• 1:10
  Are you ready? Yes.
• 1:12
  All right. Well, I guess before we dive in,
• 1:14
  I didn't even ask you how you're doing.
• 1:16
  I'm doing good. How are you?
• 1:17
  I'm doing real good. I'm doing real good.
• 1:18
  What have you been up to the past couple of days?
• 1:20
  Well, I had a football game. We went to a play.
• 1:25
  How did you do in your football game?
• 1:26
  We tied. Yeah, it was tough game, tough
• 1:31
  time. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:32
  I thought you guys played well. The team was pretty good.
• 1:34
  You guys played well too. 6A. Bit of a time, yeah.
• 1:36
  A little bit of a chippy game. A little chippy game, Yeah, the
• 1:39
  other team's coach got a yellow card.
• 1:40
  I know, yeah. You don't see that too often.
• 1:42
  No. All right, Luca.
• 1:45
  Well, let's dive into the games then.
• 1:46
  First up, Luca, we had an interesting game to me before
• 1:51
  and it turned out to be a pretty interesting game and Newcastle
• 1:54
  hosted Chelsea. This game ended 22.
• 1:58
  I predict to be two on Chelsea. Ultimati scores in the 4th and
• 2:02
  the 20th minute. Pretty much like a 2A tale of
• 2:05
  two halves. All new class won the first half
• 2:08
  and all Chelsea in the second. Then James Reese, James 49th
• 2:12
  minute, really nice free kick Pedro or Ciao Pedro in the 66th
• 2:17
  minute, really nice, nice goal Chow questionable defending
• 2:22
  there. You know, kind of kind of gets
• 2:24
  turned off of a header turn. It was weird.
• 2:28
  Volta Monte 7th Premier League goal of the year.
• 2:32
  Chelsea only one win in five matches.
• 2:35
  Also PK question mark in 53rd minute.
• 2:39
  Chow a ball runs into Gordon just like looked like a football
• 2:43
  tackle if anything. I think that's definitely a
• 2:46
  penalty. He looks like he made no effort
• 2:48
  to get the ball. And yeah, I didn't get called,
• 2:51
  but yeah. Yeah, a couple of so a couple of
• 2:53
  things I want to unpack with you here in this game.
• 2:55
  So yeah, definitely a tale of two halves.
• 2:57
  You had Newcastle absolutely dominating the first half.
• 2:59
  Voltamade, who's been doing great for them, probably should
• 3:02
  have had three in the first half, but he ends up with two
• 3:05
  goals. But Chelsea, you know, come back
• 3:07
  out in the second-half, claw back in this game.
• 3:09
  But yeah, so the first thing I want to talk to you about is, is
• 3:12
  in the second-half there the the coming together between Chaliba
• 3:16
  and Gordon. So it's it's like a ball is
• 3:17
  played down towards the end line.
• 3:19
  Gordon and Chaliba are going for the ball and they obviously have
• 3:23
  like a coming together there. Chaliba kind of hit some, mostly
• 3:26
  with the shoulder. Yeah.
• 3:28
  Tell me why you think that's a PK.
• 3:30
  Well, I mean, he may it's a he just like makes no effort to get
• 3:36
  the ball. It's not a like he's not trying
• 3:39
  to. It didn't look like he was
• 3:40
  trying to get the ball. It looked like he was trying to
• 3:42
  just knock down going like just barrel into Gordon.
• 3:47
  There's basically. That's how I saw it.
• 3:49
  OK, I think, you know, child is it's a it's a risky tackle to do
• 3:56
  because this could go either way in my opinion.
• 3:59
  I don't think this was clearly one way or the other.
• 4:01
  So I think, you know, it could go either way.
• 4:03
  But, man, like, if you're a defender, you don't really want
• 4:07
  to give the referee a decision because Chaliba, now he, you
• 4:09
  know, gets lucky here. But I could see this be given.
• 4:12
  And I think you bring up a good point.
• 4:14
  His effort for the ball is pretty minimal.
• 4:16
  Yeah. It's also a lot of contact with
• 4:19
  the shoulder. I mean, in soccer, you're Luca.
• 4:21
  You're allowed to use your shoulder, right?
• 4:22
  You're allowed to be physical. You're allowed to sort of bump
• 4:24
  and bang you. You can't, you can't just run
• 4:26
  people over with yourself. You can't just drop your
• 4:28
  shoulder and do that. No, I don't think that's exactly
• 4:30
  what he did. I I I I'm OK with this kind of
• 4:33
  going either way. You know, the call on the field
• 4:36
  was OPK. They look VAR looked at it.
• 4:38
  I think this is a case where it wasn't clear and obvious to me.
• 4:42
  So I like that they just left it with the call on the field.
• 4:45
  But I also could have seen it be given too.
• 4:48
  So Newcastle probably obviously would have feel a little hard
• 4:51
  done by that. Yeah.
• 4:53
  And so look at the the the the tying goal in this game.
• 4:57
  Robert Sanchez, Chelsea's goalie, has it, spots Al Pedro
• 5:00
  kind of up on the left side, plays a real nice long ball to
• 5:05
  him and Pedro sort of has his back to Chow.
• 5:09
  He kind of heads it turns and then Chow, it's like a little
• 5:12
  bit of a slip, a little bit of poor positioning, but all of a
• 5:14
  sudden it's a breakaway. So are you are you faulting Chow
• 5:18
  for bad defending or are you saying this is just sort of a
• 5:21
  nice play by Zhao Pedro with the turn?
• 5:23
  I think I'm faulting Chow for the like, questionable defending
• 5:28
  there. OK, All right, So you have a
• 5:30
  problem with the defender on that one?
• 5:32
  Yeah, I mean, it's he does slip a little bit, but you don't see
• 5:36
  this too often. Premier League defenders are so
• 5:38
  good, you don't see them just get turned and I mean, you know,
• 5:42
  to lead to a breakaway in a tying goal.
• 5:44
  I mean, this feels like a game where both teams could have won
• 5:47
  this game. You know, both teams had chances
• 5:50
  even when it was 22, You know, Luca, Chelsea, now they've
• 5:55
  fallen off there a little bit. I mean, they're, you know,
• 5:57
  they're still in a good position.
• 5:58
  I mean, they're still in fourth, but there's now some distance
• 6:01
  between the top three. We'll kind of talk about that,
• 6:03
  but they're now 7 points off of Villa in 3rd.
• 6:06
  So in terms of them thinking about a title contention, I
• 6:10
  think Chelsea sort of falling off of that.
• 6:12
  You know, there's all this now talk around their manager Luca
• 6:15
  Enzo Maresca. You know, last week he came out
• 6:18
  and said it was the worst 48 hours he's ever had at the club.
• 6:22
  That was kind of goofy because they won the game.
• 6:24
  They won the game. People don't even know who he's
• 6:26
  talking about. He made sure to say it wasn't
• 6:28
  having to do with the fans. So then like, who's he talking
• 6:31
  about? He's not talking about his
• 6:32
  players, so he must be talking about, you know, the owners, you
• 6:35
  know. Then there's all these links
• 6:37
  that that when Pep leaves City that Maresca may take over there
• 6:41
  so that the Pep's. Going to leave city.
• 6:43
  Well, every year he, they, we do this dance with Pep.
• 6:46
  Is he going to stay? Is he going to go?
• 6:47
  He's going to stay. Pep is under contract for
• 6:50
  another year and a half. So he has this year and the next
• 6:52
  year. Now he can still leave at the
• 6:54
  end of this year if he wants. And there's been some talk that
• 6:57
  you know, and but again, we hear this every year, but the tie is
• 7:00
  that Luca Maresca managed cities under 20 ones in the 2021 season
• 7:06
  and then the next season he was Peps assistant.
• 7:08
  So that's Maresca's ties to City and why people are saying, look,
• 7:12
  he's done a good job at Chelsea. Maybe he'd be a good fit to come
• 7:16
  whenever Pep leaves. But you have that rumor now
• 7:19
  swirling around after Maresca said it was the worst 48 hours.
• 7:22
  It feels like there's a lot of drama around Chelsea at all
• 7:25
  times, isn't there? So, but yeah, you know, like I
• 7:28
  said, Luke ends up in a tie, each team get a point.
• 7:31
  So Chelsea now, like I said, tied with Liverpool for 4th.
• 7:34
  Here comes Liverpool and Newcastle just so sort of
• 7:37
  banging around. They're an 11th on 23 points.
• 7:40
  We keep waiting for them to make a run.
• 7:41
  I don't know that we really should be waiting on them
• 7:43
  anymore, Luca. Maybe they're just sort of a mid
• 7:45
  table, slightly top ten team. Yeah.
• 7:49
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, are you, are you still
• 7:51
  hopeful? Like like would you still, are
• 7:53
  you still thinking Newcastle could have a champ chance at
• 7:56
  Champions League or you just now?
• 7:58
  Anyway, probably not. Probably not.
• 8:00
  What makes you say no? I don't think they've played
• 8:03
  good enough for a chance to get Champions League OK, but I
• 8:07
  don't, I don't think their performances have given me much
• 8:10
  hope that they can get Champions League.
• 8:12
  Yeah, and I think it's fairly because we're 17 games in.
• 8:14
  I mean, there's now a sample, so you can't just say it's just a
• 8:17
  bad run of form and we're almost way through.
• 8:19
  So they just haven't shown you enough, huh?
• 8:21
  Yeah. OK.
• 8:23
  All right, Luca, let's move over to a team that's showing
• 8:25
  everybody enough city. They're hosting West Ham.
• 8:30
  You predicted 3 Nothing and. It was 3 nothing.
• 8:33
  Lucas. Where I got perfect this week
• 8:36
  we. Had a good week with your picks.
• 8:37
  Yeah, you should talk up your picks.
• 8:39
  Yeah, 4 of 10, Correct, Completely correct.
• 8:43
  And then I had two like, just like I had the right team
• 8:47
  winning, just not the right. Yeah.
• 8:48
  Luca picked 4 perfect, 4 perfect predictions, two others where
• 8:52
  you pick the winning team. That's pretty good getting.
• 8:55
  Six out of 10/6. Out of 10 where you know and
• 8:58
  obviously you know for results, I mean you can have a win, loss
• 9:00
  or ties. Yeah, so.
• 9:01
  That's pretty good. That's good.
• 9:03
  All right, so take me through the city West Ham game.
• 9:05
  City pretty much dominated this. I mean, West Ham had a few
• 9:09
  chances. 66 possessions, 17 shots to West Ham, 76 corners
• 9:15
  TO015, crosses to 1. Holland in the 5th minute,
• 9:18
  scores, rinders and 38th minute and Holland in the 69th minute.
• 9:24
  Pretty much just expected win from City here.
• 9:27
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're, you know,
• 9:30
  like you. I mean, look, you predicted 3
• 9:31
  nothing. You know, that's prediction spot
• 9:34
  on here. I mean, you know what, what are
• 9:36
  we in a city at home versus a terrible, terrible team?
• 9:38
  They get the win. They, you know, keep rolling
• 9:41
  along. You know, the top three all won
• 9:43
  again this week. So it's back-to-back weeks.
• 9:45
  It feels like. It's almost like, you know, a
• 9:47
  boxing match where it's like, you know, if he throws their
• 9:50
  punch, Arsenal comes back, throws their punch, then Villa
• 9:53
  came back the next day, threw their punch and they all
• 9:55
  there's, you know, a bit of a separation at the top.
• 9:57
  I mean, Luga, I mean, what else do can we say about Holland
• 10:01
  here? He's now on 19 goals. 36 is the
• 10:04
  record, which of course Holland has.
• 10:06
  He did that in the 2223 season. He's already at 19 goals.
• 10:11
  We're not even halfway through. I mean, he's gonna.
• 10:13
  He said more goals than games. Yeah, I mean more goals in
• 10:18
  games. He's got more goals.
• 10:20
  He's now has the same amount of goals as West Ham's entire team,
• 10:23
  He's the same amount of goals as Burnley's entire team, and he
• 10:26
  has 10 more goals than Wolves entire team.
• 10:28
  Entire. Team, I mean this is just has.
• 10:31
  Nine goals. Yeah, Wolves have nine goals, I
• 10:35
  mean. More than Nottingham forced his
• 10:38
  entire team, yeah. I, I mean, he makes goal scoring
• 10:41
  just like boring in a way. It's just like, Oh yeah, city
• 10:43
  shop Holland scores. Oh, he got to this game great.
• 10:46
  I mean, it's just it's it's crazy.
• 10:47
  Look, I mean, Ronaldo's best Premier League season was O
• 10:51
  seven O 8. He had 31 goals.
• 10:54
  I mean, we're talking about Ronaldo's best Premier League
• 10:56
  season. It was 31 goals.
• 10:57
  Holland's at 19 already. And he and he, he's basically
• 11:01
  gonna break his own record, I mean.
• 11:02
  Wait, what was this record that one year forget like it was like
• 11:05
  40 goals or something, No. Holland at 36 in the Premier
• 11:08
  League and in the 2223 season. That's the Premier League
• 11:11
  record, which again, it's funny that he's just like all he's
• 11:13
  trying to do is break his own records now.
• 11:15
  I know, but. I just think like to put it into
• 11:16
  perspective, I mean, Ronaldo is like, you know, one of the best,
• 11:20
  if not the best. Player I still think Ronaldo has
• 11:22
  had a better career than Holland.
• 11:24
  Well, all right, but I mean, Holland's career is not done
• 11:26
  yet. You didn't give.
• 11:27
  Him a chance here, like Ronaldo's career, he's like at
• 11:29
  the very end here, maybe it's like one or two more things he
• 11:32
  can do. Holland has his whole career in
• 11:34
  front of him. I mean, I would say this, look,
• 11:36
  if Holland stays in the Premier League, he's going to smash.
• 11:39
  He's going to get every goal scoring record, like he's going
• 11:42
  to break, you know, the season record.
• 11:44
  He will break shearers record. I mean, he'll have all the
• 11:47
  Premier League goal scoring record if he stays.
• 11:49
  Yeah, that's the big question. You know, does he get bored of
• 11:51
  all this and want to go on play at Real Madrid?
• 11:54
  It's too easy. Yeah, I mean, so look, I mean,
• 11:57
  this is, you know, City are are finding their goal scoring touch
• 12:01
  for sure. They have, you know, this is
• 12:02
  now, you know, three or more goals in six straight against
• 12:06
  West Ham and they just pummel West Ham.
• 12:08
  But they are putting multiple goals in against these teams and
• 12:11
  cruising to victories. I mean, Donna Ruma had to make a
• 12:14
  couple saves in this game. You know, West Ham did have a
• 12:16
  couple chances. But All in all, it's a pretty
• 12:19
  easy win for City, all right, Luca, not exactly a glamorous
• 12:23
  game as we move on to. We just were speaking about how
• 12:26
  bad Wolves have been. Well, they were hosting
• 12:29
  Brentford, a chance for them to maybe get their first win of the
• 12:32
  season. And they lose 2 nil.
• 12:34
  I prayed to be one. One team was part of a two goals
• 12:38
  in this games in the 63rd minute, 83rd minute and then
• 12:42
  there was also a miss PK by Strand Larson.
• 12:45
  That's pretty much it. Wolves only the 4th team in
• 12:47
  Premier League history to have 10 consecutive losses in a row.
• 12:52
  Wait, what? Killer has saved 60% of his PKS?
• 12:58
  He is faced in the Premier League three of five.
• 13:00
  So he's a, he's a good PK like he's a good goalie for PKS.
• 13:05
  Well, you were just saying you're you're pretty impressed
• 13:07
  with him as a goalie. Yes, I I like him as a goalie.
• 13:10
  He's good. I think he's good.
• 13:12
  You know, I think he was a good signing for Brentford.
• 13:13
  You know, he's been what, back up at Liverpool now for a couple
• 13:16
  years. Obviously he's not going to
• 13:17
  start ahead of Allison. So that I think that was a good
• 13:19
  move for them. You know, getting him, it
• 13:21
  reminds me a little bit of like when Emmy Martinez left Arsenal,
• 13:24
  he just wasn't able to crack, crack the starting line.
• 13:26
  But he was still a solid player. Yeah, exactly.
• 13:28
  Still a solid player and I think he's showing it, but he clearly
• 13:31
  has a knack for PKS. Now, 5 isn't a ton of PKS that
• 13:35
  he's faced, but still. I mean saving three or five.
• 13:37
  I mean, yeah, pretty good. Some.
• 13:39
  Most goalies don't say that much.
• 13:40
  Yeah, I mean, this game, there's not much to say about this game.
• 13:43
  And I don't want to keep beating up on Wolves.
• 13:44
  I mean, they're just in like record territory for how bad
• 13:46
  they are. I mean, this game was pretty
• 13:48
  bad. Look, in the first half between
• 13:50
  both teams, there's only three shots.
• 13:52
  That's the fewest in five years in a Premier League game.
• 13:55
  I mean, it's just like, this is not exactly a glamorous game.
• 13:58
  I don't know that we need to spend a whole lot more time on
• 14:00
  it. Brentford, you know, look,
• 14:02
  they're sitting in 12th place in 20, you know, on 23 points.
• 14:05
  They've been like a, you know, I think this is kind of where we
• 14:07
  expect them to be in this kind of range.
• 14:09
  So I think they're sort of doing what we expect.
• 14:12
  I mean, yeah, Wolves are like on their way to break a record they
• 14:19
  don't want to break. No, you're talking about the all
• 14:22
  time worst season ever. Yes yeah, they're well, yeah,
• 14:26
  they're they're well on their way to it.
• 14:28
  It's. They've locked, completely
• 14:30
  locked their spot in relegation. They're going down.
• 14:32
  We already know it. We're not even halfway through
• 14:34
  the season. They have two points.
• 14:36
  Two points, Yeah. Unbelievable.
• 14:38
  It's bad. I I, yeah, I kind of hope they
• 14:40
  get a win at some point. I.
• 14:42
  Just I want to see like if they would actually go a whole season
• 14:45
  without winning. I hate to see that.
• 14:47
  I mean, I wouldn't want to see that, but that would be just be
• 14:49
  crazy. It would be crazy.
• 14:51
  It would be crazy for sure. Derby County is like like eight
• 14:57
  points for like. Maybe they had 11 points, so
• 14:59
  they won one game. I think they had eight draws and
• 15:01
  they ended up with 11 points. Yeah, it's.
• 15:04
  Not very good. You know, so yeah, we'll see.
• 15:07
  You know, like I said, wolves, every week it feels like there's
• 15:09
  some record of futility that they're setting.
• 15:11
  So yeah, 10 consecutive losses. Hard to believe.
• 15:16
  Yeah. All right, look, not much
• 15:17
  happened in our next game, but Brighton hosted Sunderland.
• 15:23
  Not not much Britain Sunderland 00 I predict to be two one
• 15:27
  Sunderland Brighton winless in the last four Premier League
• 15:30
  matches Sunderland 6th clean sheet of the year.
• 15:34
  So kind of not really anything in this game, kind of.
• 15:38
  This was more about like who wasn't there, you know, we
• 15:40
  talked last week. Sunderland were hit hot hit hard
• 15:44
  by AF con players leaving to go. Play.
• 15:47
  So they were missing a bunch of their players there, but but
• 15:50
  Brighton were missing Welbeck, Boliba, Dunk, Van Hecke.
• 15:54
  So you know, they they're bright and actually look at they have
• 15:58
  the the youngest starting 11 so far this year.
• 16:01
  Their their average age of their team was 23 years, 240 days.
• 16:05
  So they they went with a very, very young line up.
• 16:08
  There just wasn't a whole lot to talk about in this game.
• 16:10
  I think both teams just were missing a lot of key players.
• 16:13
  It's not a great game. Lewis dunks English.
• 16:17
  Yeah, they're injured. For Bright, Yeah, I thought you
• 16:21
  said AFCON. No.
• 16:23
  Well, Sunderland are missing a lot of guys for AFCON but
• 16:25
  Welbeck, Bolivia, Duncan van Hecke where they're dismissing
• 16:28
  because of injury and illness. They're all in.
• 16:30
  Oh yeah, so they were dismissing those.
• 16:32
  A lot of key players missing on both sides in that.
• 16:34
  OK. All right, let's move over to
• 16:36
  Bournemouth hosting Burnley Luther.
• 16:39
  This game also a tie 11. I got spot on one, one Simeno in
• 16:44
  the 67th minute and Broyo in the 91st minute.
• 16:47
  Yeah, I'm not. I mean, both teams had a couple
• 16:51
  chances. Simeno or Bournemouth kind of
• 16:55
  dominated this game. They just were not very clinical
• 16:58
  with their finishes. Bournemouth, no winless in last
• 17:01
  eight Premier League matches. That's not very good.
• 17:04
  No, it is not very good. They're they're, you know, right
• 17:07
  down there in that relegation zone and 19th.
• 17:10
  They feel like, to me, you know, it feels like obviously we
• 17:13
  thought Wolves are a lock. I, I feel like, you know,
• 17:16
  Burnley, you know, there are only two points behind West Ham,
• 17:18
  but they're now 7 points behind Forest.
• 17:21
  Yeah, it just feels like Burnley is probably going to be one of
• 17:23
  the teams going down. It's giving me battle for like
• 17:27
  18th. Yeah, pretty much.
• 17:29
  You know, I, I mean, look, Bournemouth, Luca, they found
• 17:32
  Tyler Adams is out three months with a knee injury that that's
• 17:35
  not good for them. He's been really good to start
• 17:37
  the year. It's not good for the US men's
• 17:39
  national team too, with the World Cup this summer.
• 17:41
  Oh, right. Oh yeah.
• 17:43
  So looks like he could probably be back, but you know, he's in
• 17:46
  such good form. You would have loved to have
• 17:47
  seen him finish out the year strong and take that, you know,
• 17:50
  good form into the World Cup. Like you said, Bournemouth
• 17:52
  pretty much dominated this game. But wasted chances, yeah.
• 17:56
  A lot of wasted chances. They had 66% possession, they'd
• 17:59
  16 shots to Burnley's for the XG on the game.
• 18:03
  Look at those 1.71 to 0.38. I mean, Burnley did nothing
• 18:07
  until, you know, Broy, you know, heads that ball in.
• 18:10
  But it's a big point for them, you know, as Burnley, like I
• 18:12
  said, they're just trying to chip away and get a result here
• 18:14
  and there. You know, Luca, the one player I
• 18:17
  want to do a little player profile on Simenio, you know how
• 18:20
  we've talked a lot how good he has been.
• 18:24
  You know, he gets a big goal for them today, eighth goal in the
• 18:27
  Premier League this year. So that puts him tied for third.
• 18:30
  So Luca, he's a 26, he's 26 years old.
• 18:34
  The interesting thing with him, Luca is what maybe happens in
• 18:37
  January with him because he has a release clause in his contract
• 18:41
  that is apparently active until June, January 10th.
• 18:46
  So we, we know that there's a January transfer window that
• 18:48
  opens up where teams can now start to buy and sell players
• 18:51
  for the month of January. You know, he look at he is a guy
• 18:54
  he was born in England. He plays for Ghana, came up with
• 18:58
  Bristol City and he was there from about 2017 to 2023.
• 19:02
  He got loaned out though to Bath City, Newport County,
• 19:06
  Sunderland. Bath is a city in England.
• 19:09
  Oh, I've never heard of that. Bournemouth bought him Luca for
• 19:13
  about I think about like, you know, $18 million and he's been
• 19:19
  obviously great for them. He has sort of burst onto the
• 19:21
  scene, you know, now his release clause, Luca, it's 86 million.
• 19:26
  So the question is, you know, now a release clause means
• 19:30
  A-Team can come in and pay it and if Bourne, Bournemouth can
• 19:33
  say we don't want to sell them. But if there's a release clause
• 19:35
  and it gets paid, then they have to like, let him go.
• 19:38
  So my question to you, Luca. And you know, he's been great
• 19:41
  for them. He's their best player.
• 19:42
  Eight goals. He plays left wing, he plays
• 19:44
  forward. You know, would you, if you were
• 19:47
  a team like City, Liverpool, possibly even Arsenal, Man
• 19:52
  United, you know, that was the kind of the rumored team
• 19:54
  floating around, would you pay 86 million for him?
• 20:00
  No small chunk of change, but he's a good player.
• 20:02
  So what? What, like would you, if you're
• 20:04
  one of the big clubs here, He's a.
• 20:07
  Lot. Do you think he's worth 86
• 20:09
  million or would you maybe try to negotiate a lower fee?
• 20:12
  I wouldn't negotiate all like maybe 75,000,000, OK, maybe
• 20:17
  80,000,086 million's a lot. But if in some, if I was a lower
• 20:27
  team or it's hard to say, it's hard to say.
• 20:30
  I, I would probably try to negotiate a little bit of a
• 20:33
  lower fee like 80,000,075 million.
• 20:36
  But because 86 million is just, I think it's a little bit too
• 20:39
  much because he's like he's cooled down a little bit and if
• 20:42
  he start keeps cooling down, I don't know if 86 million is the
• 20:47
  right amount for him. Yeah, I mean, I, I like that
• 20:50
  he's like Premier League proven, you know, he's been through the
• 20:52
  Premier League. So I like, I like that.
• 20:55
  But it does make you, I mean, that's a lot of money for a
• 20:58
  player who, you know, like I said, hasn't played in like a
• 21:03
  big stage really, you know. So if you were to go to United,
• 21:07
  if you were to go to Liverpool, you know, how does he sort of
• 21:10
  fit in when all the expectations now ratchet up a whole lot?
• 21:14
  And we see this with some of these guys that make these
• 21:16
  transfer. You know, Jack Greelish went to
• 21:17
  City, just didn't quite work there.
• 21:19
  You know, there's no guarantee these.
• 21:21
  And he was great at Aston Villa. You know, now it works for other
• 21:25
  guys. You know, Declan Rice was great
• 21:26
  at West Ham, he's great at Arsenal.
• 21:27
  So you you can never quite know, you know, and again, he looks
• 21:31
  great in this situation, but it would give me a little bit of
• 21:34
  pause. I like him a lot as a player,
• 21:36
  but that'd be a lot. I agree with you.
• 21:38
  I think you maybe try to go in there and say, say to
• 21:39
  Bournemouth, listen, like, you know, he's probably gonna leave,
• 21:44
  so maybe you take a little bit less.
• 21:46
  But if there's big, if there's three or four big clubs, then it
• 21:48
  can be a bidding war and teams can, you know, even up.
• 21:52
  And maybe it's a matter of yet someone's got to pay even more
• 21:55
  than 86 million. Yeah, you.
• 21:56
  Know. But he's, like I said, he's one
• 21:59
  to watch in January because I think there's a lot of noise
• 22:02
  around him moving and I could see Bournemouth sort of cashing
• 22:06
  in, you know, I think they'd be fine.
• 22:09
  They're not going to get relegated.
• 22:11
  They've fallen way off of that pace.
• 22:12
  They said at the beginning. So they're going to probably
• 22:15
  finish 13th, 14th. So they may look at him be like,
• 22:18
  hey, if somebody does offer US 86, maybe 90 million, we got to
• 22:22
  take it now and sort of, you know, do what they do reinvested
• 22:25
  in good young players. So I see I I see him moving in
• 22:28
  January. Where we'll find out I.
• 22:30
  Guess. All right, Luca, this fixture is
• 22:33
  typically absolutely crazy. Spurs, Liverpool.
• 22:36
  I think I saw that there has been more goals scored in these
• 22:40
  matchups in the Premier League than any other two teams
• 22:43
  matching up, so they typically get together and produce wild
• 22:45
  games. Yeah, this was a wild game.
• 22:49
  Yeah, it definitely it definitely lived up to its
• 22:52
  history. ESAC, well nothing in the 56 in
• 22:56
  the first half except for Javi Simmons red card for like going
• 23:02
  like high up on the ankle on Van Dyke in the 33rd minute.
• 23:05
  Nothing in the other, nothing in the first half there in the 56th
• 23:09
  minute, ESAC scores but ends up getting injured on actually, he
• 23:15
  breaks his leg, has to have surgery and he's out for like 2
• 23:18
  to three months at the at a minimum.
• 23:20
  So he scored, but at what cost? And then Ekatika in the 66
• 23:27
  minute, Charleston in the 83rd minute.
• 23:31
  Seems like Spurs are back in it and then they kind of just
• 23:33
  Romero in 90 plus 4. Then it was 4 I think red card
• 23:42
  for a very distinctive reaction to a foul like kind of like
• 23:47
  kicks Kanate and just second yellow.
• 23:50
  And that's so stupid. He's their captain too and he's
• 23:54
  this is so stupid. But yet I predict to be two nil.
• 23:57
  It was 2 one, yeah. Yeah, like I said, these games
• 24:01
  are typically crazy. Last year the results were 6-3
• 24:04
  and five one. It typically goes Liverpool's
• 24:07
  way. Spurs only have two wins in the
• 24:08
  last 26 Premier League meetings with Liverpool.
• 24:11
  So typically Spurs find themselves on the losing end of
• 24:14
  these these matchups. You know, you're right, Lucas,
• 24:18
  So that Javi Simmons is kind of lunging for the tackle.
• 24:21
  Van Dyke is sort of playing the ball and he catches them like
• 24:23
  right on the Achilles. I I agree.
• 24:25
  It's high up. It's forceful to me.
• 24:28
  It's a red, you know. So.
• 24:30
  And then you're right. I, I think Romero, Luca, you
• 24:33
  know, he's like one of these defenders that just sort of like
• 24:36
  we talked about before, Kaiseto is one of these guys like you
• 24:39
  love the physicality. Like, I love players that are
• 24:41
  physical, but they run, they tend to just sort of run hot all
• 24:45
  the time and at times they can just get themselves into like a
• 24:49
  total mess and into trouble. So you're, you're on a yellow,
• 24:52
  you're the captain of the team. Your.
• 24:54
  Team needs you in this moment. Your team needs you.
• 24:56
  You're already down a man, you're already down to 10.
• 24:58
  And it's just something dumb where he just sort of clearly
• 25:00
  kicks out, which it wasn't much, but you can't kick out like you
• 25:04
  just can't do that. And so you get a second yellow.
• 25:07
  I, I, I, I don't know, look at like, I just think like a
• 25:09
  captain of a team. Captains are like really
• 25:11
  important in in soccer and football because I just think
• 25:14
  they can like set the tone a lot.
• 25:16
  You know, people sort of look to them, you know, in other sports,
• 25:19
  I don't think quite as much. But, you know, I just don't
• 25:23
  think he's got the disposition to be a captain.
• 25:25
  I I think his captain's arm man is going to go to someone else
• 25:29
  pretty soon if he keeps doing this.
• 25:32
  Like maybe he goes to someone else's.
• 25:36
  I think like Van de Ven could be a good one.
• 25:38
  You know, he seems like a calm, like he's a good player, but he
• 25:41
  seems like a good like, I think you want somebody who like.
• 25:44
  Kudos maybe? Yeah, but he just got there.
• 25:47
  True. You know, like, you know,
• 25:49
  Vicario, you know. Vicario is kind of, he can, he
• 25:53
  can get kind of wrong, yeah. I don't know, I was thinking
• 25:55
  about this and I agree with you. Like to me, this is the type of
• 25:58
  thing that you pull the captain's armband from.
• 26:00
  And I think, and I don't say that like because I think that's
• 26:02
  a big deal when somebody gets the captain's armband taken from
• 26:04
  them. But I think he's got a track.
• 26:06
  This is not a one time off. This is this is his like this is
• 26:10
  the way he plays. He plays recklessly and again,
• 26:13
  at times when he's on Luca, he's a really good physical defender
• 26:17
  and like that's like that's what you want.
• 26:19
  But he just he just gets himself into trouble by running so hot.
• 26:22
  And this is what I Sado did against Arsenal.
• 26:24
  You want to run around, you want to be like, you know, you want
• 26:27
  to be physical, but just people don't know how to dial that
• 26:30
  back. They cross that line and
• 26:32
  ultimately they end up with like red cards.
• 26:34
  And, and The thing is, is it Spurs went down to 9 and all of
• 26:37
  a sudden created like three or four chances.
• 26:39
  Like they actually got, they were in this game, they had a
• 26:41
  couple chances, even down to 9 players.
• 26:43
  So even if if they had 10 players, you think they could
• 26:46
  have maybe stolen a tie out of this game and got themselves a
• 26:49
  point? Right after Charleston's goal
• 26:52
  there, he had a breakaway, yeah, that he just, like, shot it a
• 26:56
  little too late and it got saved by Allison.
• 26:58
  But yeah, they could have. They could have really stolen a
• 27:01
  tie here. Yeah, and again, you know, it's
• 27:04
  like, you know, we talked about sort of Spurs on the other side
• 27:08
  of this, just sort of how bad they've been.
• 27:10
  You mentioned their their home record is just unbelievably bad.
• 27:13
  Last year we talked about how almost like historically bad
• 27:16
  that team was Google last year at this point in the season,
• 27:19
  they'd scored eleven more and conceded two goals less.
• 27:23
  I mean, so they were, you know, they, they're almost worse than
• 27:26
  they were last year. I mean it like it's almost hard.
• 27:30
  It's almost hard to explain, you know they.
• 27:32
  Started out so good. And they the only teams that
• 27:34
  have taken fewer shots are Everton, Sunderland and Wolves.
• 27:38
  I mean they just aren't like broken in the attack.
• 27:41
  Yeah, jeez. OK.
• 27:43
  Well, that's interesting. Yeah, So, you know, like I said,
• 27:46
  Salah gone to AFCON, so that sort of drama is off, you know.
• 27:50
  But now, look, now they're down Salah because he's at AFCON.
• 27:53
  Esac's going to be out for months with a broken leg, You
• 27:56
  know, all of a sudden, Liverpool again.
• 27:58
  Luca A. Little short on.
• 28:00
  Attackers. Maybe Semenya is the answer for
• 28:02
  them. Maybe.
• 28:04
  You know, that's, that's putting the puzzle pieces together.
• 28:06
  Liverpool feel like maybe they need to.
• 28:07
  I think Gakpo even has like a thigh injury or like a muscular
• 28:11
  injury. So probably nothing too serious
• 28:13
  but he's missed the past I think 2 games for them.
• 28:15
  So they're starting to feel a little short in the attack.
• 28:18
  Katika has been playing good, but if he hurt, if he gets hurt,
• 28:21
  they're really short on attackers.
• 28:23
  He's been great. He's been great for them and
• 28:25
  you're right. But now the question, now the
• 28:26
  all the burden falls on him. Now he's got to play the whole
• 28:28
  time, you know, because there's no E SAC and they're sort of
• 28:31
  running out of guys. But man, he has been really,
• 28:34
  really good. I mean, it's hard to think of a
• 28:35
  better summer signing. Yeah, yeah, I I think he's
• 28:39
  probably the best summer signing for me.
• 28:41
  Yeah, so far I think so too. All right, Luke, let's move over
• 28:44
  to our boys. Arsenal here headed up the hill
• 28:47
  Dickinson Stadium to play Everton.
• 28:50
  Yeah, this game ends one new Arsenal I predict to be two.
• 28:53
  One Arsenal. Yokra is in 27th minute PKR off
• 28:57
  a pretty obvious handball from O'Brien it.
• 29:01
  They had to go to VAR to see this.
• 29:03
  I don't know how they didn't see it in actual play, but whatever.
• 29:08
  Arsenal hit the post twice and soccer had one clear off the
• 29:12
  line and XG for Arsenal was 2 for and .20 for Everton.
• 29:21
  So we pretty much dominated this game.
• 29:23
  Not quite as clinical as we would have wanted, but a win to
• 29:27
  win. Get out of this Hildeck and
• 29:30
  Stadium was a win. Yeah, there was, there was a
• 29:32
  moment. So I agree with you most of this
• 29:34
  game. Everton, you know, ever again.
• 29:37
  Everton, we're missing some guys.
• 29:39
  They're they they are missing in die and Gana Gay.
• 29:43
  All right, AFCON they're missing.
• 29:45
  Dewberry Hall has been great for them.
• 29:47
  He was missing with a hamstring injury.
• 29:49
  So they they were missing some key guys and it and it really to
• 29:52
  me showed in the attack because Everton, you know, their defense
• 29:56
  is always solid. They have a great goalie in
• 29:57
  Pickford. They're always organized on
• 30:00
  defense and so they're always a hard team to score a bunch of
• 30:02
  goals against, but they just offered nothing in the attack.
• 30:06
  I mean, Greilish on the left wing I thought was held pretty
• 30:09
  well in check by Timber. That was a kind of a match up
• 30:10
  that I was eager to see cuz Greilish is good on the ball and
• 30:13
  he's real dribbly with it. But I think Timber's one of the
• 30:15
  best right backs and I thought Timber did a good job there, but
• 30:18
  they just couldn't generate anything.
• 30:20
  Now on the other side of it, it's, it's interesting, you
• 30:22
  know, because at times I just felt like Arsenal, we're still
• 30:25
  lacking a little bit of that creativity in the final third.
• 30:27
  But again, they, they had, you said they hit the post twice.
• 30:31
  Saka had one clear off the line, but Luca, there is a bit of a
• 30:34
  controversial moment I do want to get to where Seliva and Barry
• 30:38
  sort of have this coming together in the box.
• 30:41
  Take me through this and your opinion on this.
• 30:44
  Potential PK was obviously not called APK, but take me through
• 30:48
  what happened here in your thoughts.
• 30:49
  So Pickford has a long ball in and everyone's kind of battling
• 30:55
  for it. It gets up in the air, Saliba
• 30:57
  goes to kick it, Barry touches it right before he tried to
• 31:02
  clear it and follows through and hits Berries heel.
• 31:06
  And I want to say a personal experience during my football
• 31:09
  games, almost the exact thing happened to me.
• 31:12
  It was not called. This wasn't called either and my
• 31:15
  my heel still hurt because of this, but it was not called and
• 31:22
  I think it wasn't called because I what what the Premier League
• 31:28
  said it wasn't enough sufficient contacts, which now I'm a little
• 31:32
  confused because I don't know what sufficient contact is now
• 31:35
  that's. That's the question, right?
• 31:36
  So like what, what is sufficient contact?
• 31:38
  It's, it's so vague, right? Yeah.
• 31:41
  Yeah, So it when you watch the play, like what was your
• 31:46
  thought? Like if you were the referee
• 31:47
  watching that play, like just, you know, forget about
• 31:50
  sufficient contact and what that means.
• 31:52
  Like in your eyes, like the eye test to you?
• 31:54
  Was that a PK or not? I think it was not a PK because
• 31:57
  he tries to go for the ball, Barry just happiness to get
• 32:01
  there before him and he follows through.
• 32:03
  How is he supposed to react that quickly and stop in his tracks
• 32:08
  just to save the player from getting kicked in the heel?
• 32:11
  I mean, nothing really he could do.
• 32:14
  It's just Barry got there first and so he follows through and
• 32:17
  it. Yeah.
• 32:19
  But I mean, so like, what was the game?
• 32:21
  Douglas Louise in the foot? We'll get to the Fulham game,
• 32:24
  but a similar situation where where Kevin has the ball in the
• 32:27
  box, Doug Louise is going for the ball, misses it, kicks
• 32:31
  Kevin's leg and there's a foul there.
• 32:33
  Well, Douglas Louise misses it. Well, yeah, but Saliba doesn't
• 32:37
  touch the ball at all in this situation.
• 32:39
  Well then, then I don't think that should have been called.
• 32:42
  You don't think the Fulham should have been a PK either?
• 32:45
  Yeah, if it was the same thing as this, then no.
• 32:47
  Well, I mean it wasn't exactly the same.
• 32:50
  I guess my point with the Saliba thing is.
• 32:52
  Clearing it though. Well, not, but he was making an
• 32:55
  attempt on the ball, like you said, like if we're saying
• 32:58
  there's an attempt on the ball, which yes, I think there has to
• 33:02
  be like an attempt on the ball, but he gets none of the ball.
• 33:04
  He clips the man. Now I agree with you.
• 33:07
  It just happens in like it's like bang, bang, right?
• 33:09
  I mean, it's like he's going for the ball.
• 33:10
  I mean, he's literally like a fraction of a second away from
• 33:12
  hitting it and Barry touches it up and then he gets his foot and
• 33:17
  Barry sort of throws himself down to the ground.
• 33:19
  But I like when I initially saw this, I was, I was very, very
• 33:24
  nervous. I think, I think Arsenal got
• 33:25
  lucky here. I'll be honest with you, I think
• 33:27
  we got lucky that this was not called because I just feel like
• 33:30
  Luca, I've seen this called in the Premier League.
• 33:33
  And again, we see this, we talk about this all the time, the
• 33:35
  inconsistency of the referees in terms of what they call it, this
• 33:38
  one game they call something like this, you know, But there's
• 33:41
  been other times, you know, I made the analogy to you when
• 33:45
  Arsenal played Newcastle and theochrist touches the ball
• 33:47
  around Pope, Pope, it gets like a little flick on the ball, but
• 33:51
  then like wipes Chiocores out. And doesn't get called.
• 33:54
  And doesn't get called and I felt like that should have been
• 33:56
  APK. And so I kind of have to stick
• 33:58
  with my same thing that like I look at it this way, look at it
• 34:01
  if this had happened to Arsenal the other way around, but I have
• 34:04
  wanted a penalty, I think I would have.
• 34:06
  Well, yeah, because you're an Arsenal fan, no.
• 34:08
  But that's what I'm trying to do.
• 34:08
  I'm trying to be like neutral about it and just like, say,
• 34:11
  like if it was on the if it was the other way around.
• 34:13
  And I'm trying to really be like honest about it.
• 34:15
  And look, I'm being honest. I think we got lucky.
• 34:17
  I think when I watched it, Luca, and then I kind of watched it
• 34:20
  back, I was sitting there and I'm like, they're going to
• 34:22
  overturn it. They're going to give him a
• 34:23
  decay. I was surprised when they came
• 34:24
  back and said, you know, not sufficient contact because I
• 34:27
  agree with you. I don't even know what that
• 34:28
  means. Like it just wasn't hard enough.
• 34:31
  Like how do we judge how hard it was?
• 34:32
  Like, you got kicked, same situation.
• 34:35
  You're going to play the ball, you know, and you poke the ball
• 34:39
  away and the kid kicks you in the leg.
• 34:40
  And that felt like sufficient contact to you, right?
• 34:42
  That hurt you a lot. You like follows through like
• 34:46
  sleep well doesn't like go up and like just kick you like that
• 34:49
  like mine mine was he was going up for a shot.
• 34:53
  I tapped it away on the ground. It wasn't in the air, falls
• 34:57
  through waxed me in the back of the leg like but Saliba was
• 35:02
  pretty much the same thing but he was in the air but but like.
• 35:06
  OK, so I'll ask you in your game, did you want a foul?
• 35:08
  Call it on that kid. Probably because I was the one
• 35:10
  like getting kicked. I bet Barry wanted a foul too.
• 35:13
  You know you can't always go what you want though, can you?
• 35:16
  No, but I'm just saying that like the moment you're like,
• 35:18
  well, I just got I just got kicked in the leg really hard.
• 35:21
  I want a foul on that I'm. Just kind of on the ground in
• 35:23
  pain for recycling. I didn't really care about the
• 35:26
  foul after. After the game I was a little
• 35:30
  ticked off. But now that I see this, I'm
• 35:33
  like, I mean, it was he was about, he was about to kick it.
• 35:39
  So I just tapped it and kicked me in the foot.
• 35:43
  So. Well, fair enough.
• 35:44
  Look, I think you know, look Everton, Luca, Arsenal have done
• 35:47
  very well again. It's Everton like Everton are
• 35:49
  now winless in their last six Premier match, Premier League
• 35:51
  matches against Arsenal. And in fact Everton this year
• 35:55
  Luca, have lost all six of the Champions League clubs from from
• 35:58
  last year. They don't.
• 35:59
  They tend not to really show up against.
• 36:00
  He's lost to all of them. They've so far like they've
• 36:03
  lost. They have losses to all this.
• 36:05
  They tend to do real well, like they tend to beat the clubs
• 36:07
  below them in the table, but they can't really seem to beat
• 36:09
  the clubs above them in the table and then look that.
• 36:11
  So where are they now? They're in 10th, They're on 24
• 36:14
  points. They're in a pretty good spot,
• 36:16
  but that's probably about wherever 10 are going to be.
• 36:19
  You know, it feels about right. You know, again, we talked about
• 36:22
  our City winning Arsenal, like I said, at one point were, you
• 36:26
  know, below them in the table. They, you know, when they do the
• 36:28
  live table and when they hadn't played yet because City played
• 36:31
  before then. But yeah, it's a big win.
• 36:33
  I think, like I said, you know, City at home against West Ham,
• 36:35
  that's a much easier matchup than having to go to Everton in
• 36:38
  their stadium. And the fans, they're really
• 36:40
  good. This is like, you know,
• 36:41
  ultimately it's a good result. I think we're still kind of a
• 36:45
  little nervous about this Arsenal team.
• 36:47
  Look, they don't quite look as fluid and as silky, as smooth as
• 36:51
  City do right now. But on the other hand, they're
• 36:55
  finding ways to win games, you know, getting guys back.
• 36:58
  Kai Habert's back at practice today, so like hopefully
• 37:02
  Gabrielle in the next week or two.
• 37:05
  So like, this is what like what I've wanted.
• 37:07
  I just wanted a point in the season where Arsenal had all the
• 37:11
  available guys. I understand you're never going
• 37:13
  to have everybody available, but I mean all the key guys, you
• 37:15
  know? If we can get Gabrielle back,
• 37:18
  like he's like the horror of our team.
• 37:20
  He gets everyone pumped up. He's like we need him back.
• 37:25
  If we get him back, I think you'll be seeing the Arsenal
• 37:28
  that we saw like in the beginning of the season with
• 37:31
  him. I think if you, if you can have
• 37:33
  a back line of timber saliva Gabrielle California and then
• 37:37
  you can bring like you know, obviously Ben White's out for
• 37:40
  another couple of weeks. But it's just skelly.
• 37:42
  Yeah, you've got Lewis Skelly, you've got Hinkapier, you know,
• 37:45
  Ben White like and again, I I get that you can't just say,
• 37:47
  well, I want everybody healthy, like every team wants that.
• 37:49
  There's always going to be two or three guys that are injured.
• 37:52
  But I'm just saying if you can have that core of the that 4,
• 37:55
  you know, and then if we can just have a rotation of, you
• 37:59
  know, Jay, Zeus, Haverts and Yoker as a striker, whatever the
• 38:03
  game calls for, you know, they're all different types of
• 38:05
  players. But having just the options of
• 38:07
  those guys like this is just what I wanted to see when they
• 38:11
  when they sign these guys in the summer.
• 38:12
  It just felt like we've we're almost halfway through the
• 38:14
  season and we've not had the all the options available on defense
• 38:19
  and the attack. Like that's what I kind of want
• 38:21
  to see. And that's why I think they're
• 38:22
  going to need it. I think they're really is.
• 38:24
  Sign all those players like in the summer.
• 38:27
  We would be in trouble, yeah. There's no way they'd be in top
• 38:30
  of the table right now. Yeah, there's no way.
• 38:32
  You're right, Luca. Like it that the depth has kept
• 38:35
  it at this point that look, you can go in and and again, yes, we
• 38:39
  talked about Everton, we're limited in this game, but they
• 38:41
  still kept the clean sheet. You know, Arsenal, like I said,
• 38:43
  limited the chances, kept the clean sheet and they had to
• 38:45
  because our margins feel like this is what makes me nervous is
• 38:48
  our margins appear slimmer than cities.
• 38:51
  Cities win, are winning games 3 nothing, you know, comfortable,
• 38:54
  cool. We're sweating games out till
• 38:56
  the very end. Now, that doesn't mean that can
• 38:58
  change. Everybody goes through runs of
• 39:00
  good form and bad form, you know, and if our bad form is
• 39:04
  winning to Wolves and winning at Everton, OK, I'll take it.
• 39:08
  You know, like we're still winning because hopefully better
• 39:11
  days are ahead. And I also think our schedule
• 39:13
  probably is going to get a little bit easier.
• 39:14
  If you look at like our away games coming up, you know,
• 39:17
  there's the the away game at City is massive, but there's not
• 39:21
  a lot of tough away games left. So you feel like when you're
• 39:24
  home games, when these away games and then that game against
• 39:27
  City is going to be massive. Well, don't we play like Crystal
• 39:29
  Palace in the final day? Yeah, I think we we have palace,
• 39:33
  you know, and. And we have them in the final
• 39:35
  day though, and City of Aston Villa in the final.
• 39:39
  If it really did come to the final day, I think we would have
• 39:41
  the advantage if it went to the final day.
• 39:44
  Yeah, I, I mean, I think so. But if I think if you so, I
• 39:46
  mean, I think City still have to play Chelsea twice and then, you
• 39:50
  know, they're going to have Liverpool.
• 39:51
  We have to play Liverpool again. Of course we play each other and
• 39:54
  they have the advantage that we have to go to the Yeti head now.
• 39:57
  Like, you know, they came to ours and tied us.
• 39:59
  I'm nervous about that one. So that's big.
• 40:01
  No, look, I fully we can definitely go get a result
• 40:05
  there, but it's gonna be tough. You.
• 40:07
  Know. Yeah, for sure.
• 40:09
  Be sure. I'm not guaranteeing anything,
• 40:12
  but there's no question Arsenal can go get a result anywhere,
• 40:15
  Luke. Well, I mean, by the time we
• 40:16
  play City, we should have Gabrielle back, I would think.
• 40:20
  Yeah, I mean that that game against, yeah, that game against
• 40:22
  City Lucas, not till April. So it's we're months away now.
• 40:26
  Look, I mean, we could, you know, have guys injured.
• 40:29
  Who knows what both teams will look like then.
• 40:31
  But I mean, that's a massive game.
• 40:32
  And once we play them, each team has five games left.
• 40:36
  I mean, that is like, you know, you know, like it.
• 40:39
  Might be the decider. It could be the decider at that
• 40:42
  point because you're right like, and our, our run in is
• 40:45
  Newcastle, Fulham, West Ham, Burnley and and Palace.
• 40:48
  So and Newcastle's at, at the Emirates.
• 40:51
  So that's a pretty good run in for us.
• 40:54
  You know where if you're like City and you're looking at like
• 40:57
  OK, what they're run in is so they they then would play us,
• 41:00
  they get Burnley, Everton, Brentford, Bournemouth and then
• 41:03
  Villa so. They also have an easy.
• 41:06
  Except for the Villa game. And the Villa game is at the
• 41:09
  Yeti so. I feel like they have an easier
• 41:12
  run than we we do. Yeah, I think the key is like
• 41:16
  what you want us to be able to like control your own destiny.
• 41:19
  You don't want to have to go into the last week and hope that
• 41:22
  Villa go to the Yeti hat and somehow win because we've seen
• 41:25
  that before and it doesn't happen.
• 41:27
  If City have if the title, if they're up by a point on us, you
• 41:31
  know they're going to go get a win on that list.
• 41:32
  But we have to be like a point up on them And no, we've got to
• 41:36
  go play Palace and get the win. Like have it in your own hands.
• 41:39
  Don't have it where you're, you know, watching, you know, some
• 41:42
  other game hoping for a result there, but long way off anyway.
• 41:46
  All right, Luca, let's quickly roll over to Leeds and Crystal
• 41:49
  Palace. It came in four one Leeds I
• 41:52
  predict to be 21. Crystal Palace Dominic Calvert
• 41:55
  Lewin scores in 38th minute and the 45 + 5.
• 41:59
  Then Ampadu in the 60th minute, the Devaney in the 93rd minute
• 42:05
  off of a PK and then stack another good free kick.
• 42:08
  He's a good free kick kick taker in a 90 + 12.
• 42:12
  Dominic Calvert Lewin has scored five goals in straight five
• 42:16
  straight, Scored in five straight matches.
• 42:18
  Now has seven goals on the year. Palace have lost back-to-back
• 42:22
  games for, Yeah, back-to-back matches.
• 42:29
  First time since April. Yeah, yeah, a little bit of a
• 42:33
  wobble for Palace. Big three points for leads,
• 42:36
  though, because you talk about the the bottom five teams, you
• 42:40
  know, Leeds, Forest, West Ham, Burnley, Wolves, There's a big
• 42:44
  three points for them. I'm pulling for leads to stay
• 42:46
  up, you know, I, I, you know. Yeah, I want, I want them to
• 42:49
  stay. I kind of like this team.
• 42:50
  Dominic Calvert Lewin's a good story.
• 42:52
  You know, he's one of these guys that's always been effective
• 42:54
  when he's healthy, but just gets hurt all the time.
• 42:56
  So he's healthy scoring goals for.
• 42:58
  Them Brendan Aaronson. Just about to say, yeah,
• 43:00
  American Brendan Aaronson I think is doing well there.
• 43:03
  So leads, like I said, are a fun team.
• 43:04
  They always, they seem like an awesome place to go watch a
• 43:06
  game. Ellen Rd. like fans that seem
• 43:08
  crazy and good. So yeah, this is a good win.
• 43:12
  They they kind of steamrolled palace in this game.
• 43:14
  You know 41 that's that's a big points for them and like I said,
• 43:17
  gives them a little bit of a cushion.
• 43:19
  They're now look at you know, 6 points ahead of West Ham on that
• 43:22
  last that eight that you know the bottom three teams go down.
• 43:25
  That's a nice little cushion all of a sudden for leads here.
• 43:28
  You know so good on them. All right, Luca, this one with
• 43:31
  Aston Villa, Man U, another one of your spot on pitch. 21 Villa
• 43:36
  is what I predicted and it ended up to when Eston Villa, Rogers
• 43:42
  and the 45 + 5 four. Sorry, 45 + 1 nice curler into
• 43:50
  the far corner cunion. 45 + 5 giveaway from Maddie Cash and
• 43:57
  your boy. I gotta do a little bit better
• 43:58
  there. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:59
  And then Rogers again in the 57th minute.
• 44:02
  He's just unbelievable. Bruno Fernandez went off injured
• 44:07
  with a hamstring injury. I think they will now won 10
• 44:11
  streak in all competitions for the first time in 111 years.
• 44:17
  Incredible. If you remain 3 points off top,
• 44:21
  so they're also like on Arsenal's tail here.
• 44:26
  Yeah, there. There's definitely now
• 44:27
  separation in the table, Luca, the top three teams, Arsenal 39,
• 44:31
  City 37, Villa 36. You drop, it's now 7 points down
• 44:36
  to 4th and 5th with Chelsea and Liverpool.
• 44:38
  So like it feels to me right now you've got a top three sort of
• 44:42
  battling it out, You've got that bottom 5 battling it out for the
• 44:45
  bottom three spots, and then you've just got this sort of
• 44:48
  mush of teams. In fact, look, when you look at,
• 44:50
  like I said, essentially 4th through 16th right now, 4th
• 44:55
  through 15th, they're separated by 9 points.
• 44:58
  Yeah, I know. I mean, that's pretty big gap
• 45:00
  now. You know, but a lot, no, I think
• 45:02
  that's a small gap Luke of like 9 points separating 4th through
• 45:05
  through 15th. I mean, that is not that big a
• 45:07
  gap separating this sort of mush of teams.
• 45:09
  And points decent. But I mean, to me, it's in my
• 45:14
  opinion, it's actually, I don't think it's that many when we're
• 45:16
  talking about fourth all the way down to 15th in the table.
• 45:19
  But you think it's a lot, That's fine.
• 45:22
  You're entitled to your opinion on that.
• 45:23
  But like I said, to me, it just it speaks like teams can move up
• 45:27
  and down real, real quick and. Knock off three wins or three
• 45:32
  losses and you're like down and up.
• 45:34
  Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, Villa, like I said,
• 45:37
  just just keep rolling. It's pretty incredible.
• 45:39
  We talked about Aston Villas. It's great history of this club.
• 45:42
  I mean, you know, one of the, you know, teams that have been
• 45:44
  around for a long time, you know, they've won titles and
• 45:47
  they've won European Championships and for them to
• 45:50
  set a record that they haven't done in 111 years, it's pretty
• 45:53
  amazing. I mean, they just keep finding
• 45:55
  ways to win. Morgan Rogers, we actually good
• 45:58
  call by us doing a little shout out on him last week.
• 46:00
  He did a little deep dive on him and, yeah, seven goals.
• 46:04
  I mean, he's just so good, great, great player for them.
• 46:08
  Love watching him play and yeah, like I said, nice win for Villa,
• 46:12
  man. You you know, they're missing
• 46:14
  some guys, Luca, they we talked about, you know, some of the
• 46:16
  guys that have left for AFCON there, they're missing the lift
• 46:19
  and McGuire. So they're definitely affected
• 46:21
  by some of the players going to AFCON and some injuries.
• 46:23
  But all right, look, well, let's round it off.
• 46:26
  The last game of the week was Fulham hosting Nottingham
• 46:28
  Forest. I got this one spot on one nil
• 46:31
  forum and I predicted we won. No forum, nothing in this game,
• 46:35
  just Jimenez in the 45 + 6. PK we talked about Kevin's being
• 46:41
  fouled in the box. Jimenez now 11 for 11 on PK's in
• 46:44
  the Premier League forum, now six points off of 7.
• 46:48
  Yeah, so you know, 11 for 11 by Jimenez Lucas.
• 46:52
  So he now ties Yaya Torre for Man City.
• 46:55
  He was 11 for 11. Cole Palmer, 12 for 12.
• 46:59
  So these guys have the best percentage of anybody that's
• 47:02
  taken, you know, more than a couple kicks, you know.
• 47:04
  But yeah, I had no idea that Jimenez was so good from the PK
• 47:08
  spot. I didn't either does this crazy
• 47:10
  starts like way back. He does this little like run up,
• 47:13
  stutter, run up stutter. Obviously just trying to get the
• 47:16
  goalie to sort of show, which obviously works for him.
• 47:19
  I can't, I can't recommend anybody actually do this like,
• 47:22
  you know, because it seems. Crazy.
• 47:23
  Take it normally. Well, my question to you is,
• 47:26
  yeah, So what did, what's your PK strategy?
• 47:28
  You've. Taken some PK's in your life,
• 47:29
  yeah. I don't think I've have I missed
• 47:33
  the peak game in my life, in a in a game, I don't think so.
• 47:35
  I don't remember. You're 100% like y'all, Tori,
• 47:38
  Cole, Palmer and Raul I'm. Up with those guys.
• 47:42
  I don't think you've taken 10 or 11 quite yet, but you're on your
• 47:45
  way. Like 3 or 4 maybe.
• 47:47
  Yeah, I I think I don't. Yeah.
• 47:49
  Am I? Am I?
• 47:49
  So what's? Your strategy like are you, do
• 47:52
  you just pick your spot and go? Are you waiting to see the goal?
• 47:55
  Taking spot and go. OK.
• 47:56
  Do you always pick the same spot?
• 47:58
  No. No, no, I, I I want to make it
• 48:00
  like, you know, questionable. In case people have tape on you
• 48:04
  or something, they like watch Lucas pick PK tape and he always
• 48:08
  goes to the right. I'm going to guess there, OK, so
• 48:10
  you just decide when you get up there.
• 48:12
  So you put the ball down and then you're like, OK, then I
• 48:14
  decide my spot. Yeah.
• 48:15
  OK, All right, All right. I like it.
• 48:18
  All right. Yeah.
• 48:19
  Well, Lucas, so Fulham, you know, they're kind of one of
• 48:21
  these teams I feel like, you know, they win, loss, win, loss.
• 48:24
  They had two losses now two wins, but they have West Ham
• 48:28
  coming up maybe a chance for three in a row.
• 48:31
  Keep this going. I'd like to see Fulham move up
• 48:33
  the table. Friend of the pod Andrew big fan
• 48:36
  of the Fulham Football club and you know again we're we have a
• 48:39
  soft spot for Fulham. We've seen a game there done a
• 48:42
  stadium tour there awesome place to go.
• 48:44
  So hopefully Fulham can keep moving up.
• 48:46
  So all right Luca, well that wraps up our week 17.
• 48:50
  So of course I want to know from you who your Player of the week
• 48:54
  is for Week 17, your goal of the week and your team of the week.
• 48:57
  So do you want to give me, why don't we start with your team of
• 49:01
  the week? Who is your Team of the Week?
• 49:04
  Team of the Week. Some good choices out there.
• 49:09
  Who are you going with? I think I'll go with weeds for
• 49:15
  like, I think I was pretty. I think I'd call that upset
• 49:18
  against. Well, you pick yeah, you pick
• 49:21
  Palace to win 21. So I mean, I feel.
• 49:24
  An upset, yeah, I think it's definitely, I think it's an.
• 49:26
  Emphatic, decisive win for them and a big three points for them.
• 49:29
  So OK, yeah, I like it. Leads your team of the week.
• 49:33
  How about your Player of the Week?
• 49:36
  Morgan Rogers. Morgan Rogers, OK.
• 49:38
  Yeah. 22 big goals for them, Obviously the decisive goals in
• 49:43
  two. One win.
• 49:45
  Yeah, he's been just so phenomenal for them.
• 49:47
  I mean, I can't imagine where they'd be without him.
• 49:49
  You know, important player. You know, I I made the point
• 49:54
  last week when we profiled him. Lugo, like if if I'm England is
• 49:57
  starting the World Cup tomorrow. Morgan Rodgers starts at the
• 50:01
  number 10 for me. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:02
  Jude Bellingham on the bench, Cole Palmer on the bench.
• 50:07
  To me, he's the best right now with that spot for England and
• 50:10
  yeah, they have so many good players, but all right.
• 50:13
  And then what am I left with here?
• 50:14
  Goal of the week. Luca, what was your goal of the
• 50:16
  week? Morgan Rogers, first one.
• 50:19
  Yeah, that was pretty nice. Kind of and his his honorable
• 50:24
  mention to stash free kick and Reese James's free kick.
• 50:27
  Yeah, a couple good free. Kicks there yeah, yeah, some
• 50:30
  good goals there for sure. All right, Luca, so that wraps
• 50:35
  up week 17, but let's look ahead to week 18 and get your picks.
• 50:39
  You're you're red hot with your picks.
• 50:41
  Here I know. So yeah, 4 perfect picks.
• 50:44
  You picked 6 of the 10, right? That's a good percentage here.
• 50:47
  So all right, well, let's look ahead.
• 50:50
  Luca. First game is an interesting
• 50:51
  one. Man U hosting Newcastle so going
• 50:54
  to Old Trafford here, 2 teams that kind of tough to figure out
• 50:59
  and only separated Luca by three points in the table.
• 51:02
  I think I'm going 21 Newcastle. All right, so Newcastle going to
• 51:05
  Old Trafford getting the win. I think Manny and I just have
• 51:08
  too many injuries. I don't think they can.
• 51:11
  It it yeah, I mean, like I said, Fernandez, it looks like he's
• 51:14
  going to be out a minimum of a month.
• 51:16
  I've had to just think it's like a massive loss.
• 51:18
  He's, you know, he's such a good player for them.
• 51:20
  I mean, look at he leads the Premier League and assists with
• 51:23
  7. Like, you know, he takes their
• 51:25
  free kicks. He's the captain.
• 51:27
  I don't. And I think even Kobe menu is
• 51:29
  dinged up with something. So like, I don't even know who's
• 51:31
  going to come in and play that position.
• 51:33
  Maybe Mount, I don't know. But yeah, it's starting to feel
• 51:37
  like the guys, they've lost Africa for the AFCON, the, you
• 51:40
  know, I don't know if the Lichter McGuire is going to be
• 51:42
  back. I had like.
• 51:43
  Feels like it's building up. Man United is one of the, like
• 51:46
  most, the biggest losses for them.
• 51:50
  Yeah, I mean, what is Diallo, Mesrawi and then and Mbumo?
• 51:54
  So yeah, it's important players for them, you know, Imbumo and
• 51:57
  and I'd start most. Games.
• 52:00
  Mesrawi I don't think it's been playing a whole lot lately, but
• 52:02
  that's that's. Still like an option at the end.
• 52:05
  You're missing defenders. Yeah, yeah.
• 52:07
  Good point. Good point.
• 52:08
  All right, Luca, Nottingham Forest hosting city.
• 52:13
  City, you've got to win three now.
• 52:15
  Another three. No win for City, all right.
• 52:17
  Not even forced, you're just dead.
• 52:19
  They are terrible. Yeah.
• 52:20
  City's in great form right now. I can't imagine they don't go up
• 52:23
  there and sort of smash them. Yeah, City's schedule has been
• 52:26
  really kind of them lately. Liverpool hosting Wolves?
• 52:32
  Liverpool better when this one nil.
• 52:34
  One nil OK, close game OK. They're missing too many
• 52:38
  attackers. I just, I don't think they're
• 52:39
  going to generate as much as they did as they as they should
• 52:43
  like. Yeah, you can know.
• 52:45
  You could be right. I mean, they saw Becca, TK, you
• 52:47
  know, but you're right. Look, they're they're starting
• 52:49
  to feel a little thin on the attack there, but all right,
• 52:52
  Luca, Arsenal hosting Brighton. 21 Arsenal. 2 Arsenal.
• 52:59
  OK, so Arsenal come home. Gonna get a win there.
• 53:02
  Keep pace with City, all right? West Ham hosting Fulham.
• 53:06
  We got a London Derby here. West Ham hosting for the London
• 53:09
  Steam. Fulham wins 1 Nothing.
• 53:12
  OK, Fulham, get the road win, keep the good vibes going for
• 53:16
  them. That would be three wins in a
• 53:17
  row for them. OK, Burnley hosting Everton.
• 53:21
  I think it's gonna be 11. OK 11, another BB game here,
• 53:27
  Brentford hosting Bournemouth. Brentford hosting.
• 53:35
  I'm going to go another 11. 11 All right, all right, here's an
• 53:39
  interesting game, Luca, Chelsea hosting Villa.
• 53:42
  So we talked about Villa, how great they've done.
• 53:45
  They have three games in a row. They had United, they have
• 53:48
  Chelsea, and then their next game is against Arsenal.
• 53:50
  Big stretch here for Villa to kind of prove whether they are
• 53:53
  true title contenders. Who do you like in this one?
• 53:56
  This game is real interesting. Zillow win 31.
• 53:59
  Whoa, 31 OK, what makes you say that?
• 54:04
  I'm going Rogers with two goals. Oh my goodness, two goals.
• 54:08
  I'm getting begin with a goal. Wow, OK, so you just think
• 54:11
  Rogers just sort of takes over the game, keeps a back-to-back
• 54:15
  braces going. All right, Luke, I am going to
• 54:18
  I'm going against you. I think Chelsea win this game.
• 54:21
  I think what I. Think.
• 54:23
  I'm sorry, I don't think I've heard you right.
• 54:25
  I think Chelsea show up. First of all, they're at home.
• 54:29
  Secondly, I think they seem to show up for big games.
• 54:32
  Look, so when they played Arsenal, they were like ready to
• 54:36
  go, like they, you know, came out and like they were the
• 54:39
  better team and Okai Saido got the red card.
• 54:41
  I think for some reason this Chelsea team, they're kind of
• 54:43
  young, they're a little inexperienced and I think that
• 54:45
  leads to some bad results where they play down to a certain
• 54:48
  level. But I think they play up to a
• 54:49
  certain level and I think they're going to want to prove a
• 54:52
  point. Everybody's talking about Villa.
• 54:54
  Are they title contenders on this great run?
• 54:56
  And that's all true. I think Chelsea Lucas show us
• 54:59
  something here and I think Chelsea are a super talented
• 55:02
  team and I think, like I said, they get a result here, they win
• 55:05
  this game. OK, you do you do you.
• 55:08
  That's not changing my answer. All right, two newly promoted
• 55:11
  teams from last year to this year.
• 55:14
  Sunderland host Leeds. Think Leeds win 1 Nothing.
• 55:20
  At the Stadium of Light, OK. Yeah.
• 55:23
  Wow, big upset there. I like it like a big call.
• 55:26
  It's a hot take, right? There, I mean, some of them are
• 55:29
  missing players from AFCON and we just came off a big wind
• 55:33
  Crystal Palace. I think they'll be pumped for
• 55:35
  this. OK, all right.
• 55:36
  I like it. I like the call.
• 55:37
  Are Crystal Palace hosting Spurs another London Derby?
• 55:41
  Two on Crystal Palace. Two on Palace toy spurs.
• 55:45
  Not good, rough. Rough.
• 55:48
  All right, Lucas, there are your picks.
• 55:49
  So I'm going to see if you can stay as hot as you did last.
• 55:52
  Yeah. All right, Luca.
• 55:54
  Well, let's move on to our viewer mailbag question.
• 55:57
  And the question is, is we have obviously talked about Christmas
• 56:00
  coming up in 2 days, and the day after Christmas in the United
• 56:05
  Kingdom is Boxing Day. And this has always been the
• 56:08
  famous day to have a lot of like football and soccer matches on.
• 56:11
  Sadly, I think there's only one match this year because the way
• 56:14
  TV now sort of pulls these games out and puts them on different
• 56:16
  days. It used to be almost like
• 56:18
  everybody would play on Boxing Day.
• 56:19
  And so it's like a real tradition to, you know, watch
• 56:24
  football and soccer on Boxing Day.
• 56:26
  So it's a little sad that there's only one game.
• 56:28
  Yeah. Question to you, Luke.
• 56:29
  And the mailbag is why is it called Boxing Daddy?
• 56:33
  What is the deal with December 26th being called Boxing Day?
• 56:36
  It actually has nothing to do with the sport boxing.
• 56:38
  So you can hold your horses there.
• 56:40
  OK. It gets his name from traditions
• 56:42
  involving Christmas boxes giving as gifts to poor people.
• 56:47
  Employee servants with like food, money, goods with with the
• 56:57
  boxes distribute you the day after Christmas.
• 56:59
  As you said, 26th So basically it just has it really has to do
• 57:04
  with boxes. They give the boxes like SM
• 57:08
  employees, the poor servants, the churches with like the rich
• 57:11
  people would mostly do this because they have just money and
• 57:15
  they have money, goods, foods, other all stuff.
• 57:18
  And then boxes like as like a big Christmas gift to like
• 57:22
  people who worked for them and stuff like that.
• 57:25
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. So the the people of the servant
• 57:29
  back in the day, the servants and the tradespeople, they had
• 57:31
  to work on Christmas Day for the people that were wealthy.
• 57:34
  So they would get their Christmas box and then they'd
• 57:36
  have the next day off. That's when they would take the
• 57:38
  box home and they'd get to see their families and maybe do
• 57:41
  their celebration. So the day after Christmas, they
• 57:44
  would be off and they'd take their Christmas box home.
• 57:47
  And you're exactly right, it has nothing to do with the actual
• 57:49
  sport of boxing. It has to do with a Christmas
• 57:51
  box, like a present there. So that's how they got the term
• 57:54
  Boxing Day. So all right, look, there's our
• 57:57
  mailbag. Well, let's get over now to our
• 57:59
  Digeno section and our Digeno section.
• 58:02
  Luca We've been kind of rolling through the Premier League
• 58:06
  teams, trying to learn a little bit more about all the different
• 58:08
  Premier League teams as we kind of, you know, our Premier League
• 58:11
  playground here. We figure, all right, well,
• 58:13
  let's learn. And we're just doing it
• 58:14
  alphabetically. And we are now alphabetically up
• 58:16
  to drum roll. Crystal Palace Luda, nicknamed
• 58:20
  the Eagles. Luda from South London, OK,
• 58:23
  that's where they're located. They play at Selhurst Park.
• 58:27
  Luca, which has a capacity of 25,486.
• 58:31
  Selhurst Park was built in 1924. Luca they wear red and blue,
• 58:36
  actually inspired by Barcelona. So like I said, they kind of
• 58:40
  wear that red and blue if you think it is kind of a similar
• 58:42
  reddish and blue to Barcelona. So Luca, they were founded in 19
• 58:48
  O 5 by the owners of the Crystal Palace Company.
• 58:50
  And what happened was Luca, in 1851, there was something called
• 58:55
  the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, a real big famous park in
• 58:58
  London. And they had this famous glass
• 59:00
  palace built for it. Now when the exhibition was
• 59:03
  over, it was moved to South London.
• 59:06
  This great big, beautiful glass kind of Crystal Palace was moved
• 59:12
  and so that's how Crystal Palace sort of took over the name and
• 59:17
  how they got it was from this sort of structure that was built
• 59:20
  almost 50 years before the team was founded.
• 59:23
  Now there's been an amateur team, Luca as early as 1861, but
• 59:27
  really the the the team we know of now was formed in 19 O 5.
• 59:30
  They joined the Football League in 1920.
• 59:33
  They're kind of a mostly second third division team until like
• 59:37
  1961. They got promoted to the First
• 59:39
  Division, but they would sort of yo-yo back and forth, you know,
• 59:43
  they would kind of go back down. Promoted again in 1979, again
• 59:47
  promoted again in 1989. Now their best finish ever.
• 59:51
  Luca was third in 1990 and the 9091 season they actually
• 59:57
  finished in third. They made an FA Cup final, but
• 1:00:00
  again, they were just sort of up and down, up and down, up and
• 1:00:03
  down really. They actually got relegated in
• 1:00:06
  O5. So like I said again, they're
• 1:00:08
  just sort of one of those teams. Until lately, they've sort of
• 1:00:11
  found some stability and have been, you know, in the Premier
• 1:00:14
  League now for for a bunch of years in a row.
• 1:00:17
  They're owned by Steve Parrish. Luca Woody Johnson is a part
• 1:00:22
  owner, just bought into the team.
• 1:00:23
  He owns The Jets. Josh Harris, an American, he
• 1:00:28
  owns the Philadelphia 76ers and the Washington Commanders and
• 1:00:31
  then David Blitzer. So they're owned by like 4
• 1:00:33
  different guys, but Steve Powers is sort of the main guy who sort
• 1:00:36
  of runs it. But you see a lot of Americans
• 1:00:38
  buying into these teams. Of course, Luca, their trophy
• 1:00:42
  cabinet, FA Cup, they're the defending FA Cup winners.
• 1:00:45
  They won last year. We got to be in London.
• 1:00:47
  We watched that game at a pub in London.
• 1:00:50
  That was fun. A lot of Palace fans, that was
• 1:00:52
  kind of a cool thing. They want the Community Shield
• 1:00:54
  this year, so they got that trophy and then they Luca, they
• 1:00:57
  also were an FA Cup runner up in 1990 and 2016.
• 1:01:03
  They're some of their famous managers were Burt Head.
• 1:01:06
  He got them promoted in 1969. We talked about that.
• 1:01:09
  Terry Venables managed them twice from 76 to 80 and then 89
• 1:01:15
  to 99. He's the one.
• 1:01:17
  He was the manager that had the beef with the Brighton manager
• 1:01:21
  and that's how their biggest rival is somehow Brighton, which
• 1:01:24
  is like, you know, not that close.
• 1:01:26
  Actually. Steve Koppel, another manager,
• 1:01:29
  he managed him on four different occasions.
• 1:01:33
  He was imagine from 84 to 9395 to 9697 to 98 and 99 to year 20
• 1:01:40
  year 2000. And of course, Oliver Glassner.
• 1:01:44
  Luca, he's been their manager since February of 2024.
• 1:01:47
  Kind of very well regarded manager.
• 1:01:49
  Luca. They've had some some of their
• 1:01:51
  greatest players. Ian Wright, who played it?
• 1:01:54
  Yeah, he was played from 85 to 91, scored 118 goals for them.
• 1:01:59
  And of course, one of Arsenal's most famous strikers, Wilfred
• 1:02:02
  Zaha, Luca, he has over 500 appearances.
• 1:02:06
  He played from about 2010 to 2023 and then he came over to
• 1:02:10
  the MLS. Peter, Peter Simpson I think is
• 1:02:14
  their all time leading goal scorer with 165 goals.
• 1:02:17
  He played back in like the 30s. Jim Cannon, Jeff Thomas, some
• 1:02:21
  other good players for them, Mark Wright, other players, Luca
• 1:02:24
  in the Premier League that have gone through there.
• 1:02:26
  Of course every JSA, Juan Bisaka, Nathan Klein, Christian
• 1:02:31
  Benteke, sore loft au Schlop. They've all been at Crystal
• 1:02:36
  Palace at one time for a period, Luca, their biggest sale, you
• 1:02:41
  should know this as a $92 million this summer to Arsenal.
• 1:02:45
  Their biggest buy The the most expensive player they ever
• 1:02:48
  bought. Christian Benteke from Liverpool
• 1:02:51
  in 2016. 2017 for 40 million. I have never heard of him.
• 1:02:55
  Did he end up being good for them?
• 1:02:56
  I think he was OK. I think he was OK.
• 1:02:59
  I don't think he quite lived up to the billing.
• 1:03:01
  I mean 40 million that this is almost 10 years ago.
• 1:03:03
  That was a. Lot, a lot at that time, but you
• 1:03:06
  can see there. So they're a team that doesn't
• 1:03:08
  tend to spend spend a lot on players.
• 1:03:10
  You know, they're they're buying 40 million is the most expensive
• 1:03:13
  player they've ever had. So but that takes us, you know,
• 1:03:16
  like I said, a little run through Crystal Palace.
• 1:03:19
  We've got a couple friend of the pods that are big Palace fans,
• 1:03:21
  my friend Polk, who lives in Philadelphia and and our friends
• 1:03:30
  up in Ironton drawing a blank. Well, anyway, Luca, we got a
• 1:03:37
  nice shout out this week. We.
• 1:03:39
  Did Oh yeah on the Arsenal America.
• 1:03:41
  TJ, I'm sorry, TJ in Ironton. I, I he's.
• 1:03:45
  OK. He's a big crystal Palestine, so
• 1:03:47
  sorry I've drawn a blank on his name.
• 1:03:49
  But yes, look, we got a big shout out this week.
• 1:03:51
  Arsenal, America, Let's. Go yeah.
• 1:03:54
  So Arsenal America, you and I are members of that, and they do
• 1:03:57
  a newsletter and the Canon Chronicles and they gave us a
• 1:04:01
  real nice sort of shout out to the POD in that.
• 1:04:04
  Highbury Library. Highbury Library and I, I would
• 1:04:07
  encourage anybody that is an Arsenal fan that listens to us
• 1:04:10
  to join Arsenal America. It's it's not that much.
• 1:04:13
  You get like a cool little like swag bag.
• 1:04:16
  You get the newsletter, you have access to be able to put
• 1:04:18
  yourself in a lottery to get tickets.
• 1:04:20
  Their customer service has always been awesome.
• 1:04:22
  Anytime you have questions about whether it's going over to
• 1:04:25
  Emirates or how to get tickets or different things about
• 1:04:29
  Arsenal, they're super helpful. So we've been members for a
• 1:04:32
  couple years now. Like I said, I, I love it.
• 1:04:35
  They're great, great organizations.
• 1:04:36
  We certainly appreciate the plug, but I would definitely
• 1:04:39
  encourage anybody to sign up and be a member.
• 1:04:41
  It's really cool. And you know, we always get like
• 1:04:43
  a cool scarf and stickers and different things for, you know,
• 1:04:46
  they always like once a year you get a little bag that gets sent
• 1:04:48
  to you. So yeah, great organization.
• 1:04:52
  But yeah, we appreciate that. The shout out that they gave us,
• 1:04:55
  right? Very much I I was so cool, yeah.
• 1:04:59
  And of course, come find us on Instagram Premier League
• 1:05:04
  Playground. We also have our e-mail for any
• 1:05:07
  questions or plugs or concerns from
• 1:05:11
  premierleagueplayground@gmail.com. We have a YouTube channel now.
• 1:05:15
  Yeah, that's. Cool.
• 1:05:16
  So Premier League Playground on YouTube and I encourage people
• 1:05:20
  to go onto YouTube or Instagram because we had a special visitor
• 1:05:24
  come and into the studio two days before the big day of
• 1:05:29
  Christmas. Luca Santa came into the studio
• 1:05:31
  to give us a little plug. Not two days before Christmas.
• 1:05:35
  And so we got some pictures taken with Santa.
• 1:05:38
  We got a plug from him. So we're going to put that up on
• 1:05:40
  our Instagram and on our YouTube page.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah. All right, all right, Luca.
• 1:05:44
  Well, let's get into. We finish up every episode, of
• 1:05:46
  course, with our penalty kick trivia shootout.
• 1:05:49
  We're going to go back and forth like a penalty kick shootout.
• 1:05:52
  So do you want to go first to Luca or do you want to ask first
• 1:05:55
  or receive a question first? I will ask first.
• 1:05:58
  All right. First question like what do you
• 1:05:59
  got? Despite making 70 appearances
• 1:06:02
  for Manchester City, this striker had only one assist in
• 1:06:05
  the Premier League, which was for Sergio aware of title
• 1:06:09
  winning goal versus QPR. Oh goodness, who had the assists
• 1:06:13
  for that? You like?
• 1:06:15
  Kind of. I don't know, probably.
• 1:06:19
  Should notice I. Don't know who had the assists
• 1:06:21
  for. Him Bowatelli.
• 1:06:23
  Oh my gosh. Mario Balotelli.
• 1:06:24
  Yeah. Jeez.
• 1:06:25
  Wow, Yeah, what a bust he was. Yeah.
• 1:06:28
  All right, Luca, I missed my first one, but all right, Luca,
• 1:06:32
  Spurs second all time Premier League goal scorer is of course
• 1:06:37
  the reason why I'm asking you seconds because everybody knows
• 1:06:39
  the 1st is Harry Kane, who's second all time for them in
• 1:06:42
  goals in the Premier League. Is it song?
• 1:06:45
  It is Hung Ming Song. Yeah, 127 goals.
• 1:06:48
  He now of course has made the move to MLS.
• 1:06:50
  But great player for Spurs back in the day.
• 1:06:54
  Conceding A staggering 104 goals in 2324, Which club conceded the
• 1:07:01
  most goals in the season? Just what team conceded?
• 1:07:04
  Sheffield United. Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  Yeah, and they were pretty bad. How?
• 1:07:07
  Many, I mean Wolves has Wolves conceded like 40 or something?
• 1:07:12
  Wolves. Wolves have given up 37 goals,
• 1:07:14
  you know, so we're almost, yeah. I mean, amazingly, as bad as
• 1:07:19
  Wolves have been, Wolves have given up 37, West Ham have given
• 1:07:22
  up 35 and Burnley have given up 34.
• 1:07:24
  So Wolves are just not scoring goals.
• 1:07:26
  Their defense is not great, obviously, but they're not, you
• 1:07:29
  know? Losing by like 5 nil every
• 1:07:31
  match. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:32
  They just can't put the ball in the net.
• 1:07:33
  Yeah. All right Luca, what 2 teams
• 1:07:36
  share the record for league titles, League Cup titles?
• 1:07:44
  So what to do? Because right now Arsenal play
• 1:07:47
  Palace today in the League Cup. So what 2 teams have essentially
• 1:07:51
  what 2 teams have won the most League Cups in Premier League
• 1:07:54
  history? United.
• 1:07:57
  Nope. Arsenal.
• 1:07:59
  No City and Liverpool which have 9 League Cup titles.
• 1:08:04
  OK, yeah, I missed that one. We're 11, between which two
• 1:08:09
  London clubs record recorded the highest Premier League match
• 1:08:14
  attendance of eight, 83,222. Oh boy.
• 1:08:20
  How about Arsenal? Spurs.
• 1:08:22
  Yeah, in 2018 at the Wembley Stadium, February February 10th,
• 1:08:27
  2018. Nice North London Derby?
• 1:08:30
  Yeah. Art Luca What national team does
• 1:08:33
  Aston Villa goalie Emmy Martinez play for?
• 1:08:36
  Argentina. That's correct.
• 1:08:39
  How many Premier League titles have United won?
• 1:08:44
  2320. 3 Oh, you're gonna be off by 10.
• 1:08:50
  Oh, oh, oh, OK, OK, They're 13. They won.
• 1:08:57
  Yeah. OK, yeah, yeah, it maybe it felt
• 1:09:00
  like 23 because Arsenal finished second so many times, you know?
• 1:09:04
  Usually get that. All right, Luca, who led Everton
• 1:09:06
  in scoring last year? Oh, last year?
• 1:09:14
  Wait, wasn't John on the team last year?
• 1:09:17
  He was. Was it Jai?
• 1:09:19
  Is that your answer? Yeah, that's correct.
• 1:09:21
  Yeah. Nine goals led the team.
• 1:09:23
  Yeah. OK, name only two clubs that
• 1:09:28
  have won the Premier League three times in a row.
• 1:09:33
  City and United, Yeah, Luca. What former Premier League team
• 1:09:40
  and current Championship team are nicknamed the Tractor Boys?
• 1:09:44
  Oh, Ipswich. Yep, Ipswich.
• 1:09:47
  Yep, they're I think 4th in the Championship right now.
• 1:09:50
  OK, so they might get promoted. That could, yeah, name the only
• 1:09:55
  club that has won the Premier League four times in a row.
• 1:09:59
  City, yeah, OK. All right, Luca, my last one for
• 1:10:02
  you is five Premier League players scored over 20 goals
• 1:10:07
  last year. They did. 55 players?
• 1:10:10
  Yep, had either 20 or more 20 or more goals.
• 1:10:13
  Can you name the five players? Who did that?
• 1:10:17
  Sala. Correct.
• 1:10:19
  Holland Correct Esack. Correct, it's a little harder.
• 1:10:24
  Fish wood. Correct.
• 1:10:26
  One more. Who got over 20 goals?
• 1:10:30
  Is he? He's still in the Premier
• 1:10:31
  League. Still in the Premier League, but
• 1:10:32
  he switched teams, so he's in the Premier.
• 1:10:36
  He was in the Premier obviously last year and this year, but he
• 1:10:38
  has switched teams this summer. He's probably a striker.
• 1:10:44
  Yeah, Striker. Winger.
• 1:10:45
  So I wanna are they he's on a good team.
• 1:10:52
  Like are they like top? No.
• 1:10:55
  They're not good. And and your your uncle and
• 1:10:59
  cousin would say they're definitely not good.
• 1:11:02
  Oh, so he's on United? Who switched teams?
• 1:11:08
  But who was on United but switched teams?
• 1:11:10
  It's Brian Imbumo. Oh, Oh yeah.
• 1:11:13
  Yeah, he's on United now. Yeah, he had 20 off.
• 1:11:16
  He had twenty goals. Yeah, yeah, really good year.
• 1:11:18
  Oh, I thought you said you would switch from United.
• 1:11:21
  No, no, no. Yeah, he switched to United.
• 1:11:23
  All right, Luca, I guess that's it.
• 1:11:26
  Why don't you take us out? There's the final wish on that
• 1:11:29
  full time for us. Thank you for listening.
• 1:11:30
  Bye.