Gab & Juls Show: Are Man City FA Cup Favourites?

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Palace obviously thinking ahead as well to the Conference League final. I have to start with Phil Foden. We've been wondering hey where did he go the last two years. He gets a new contract. He gets Pepo to his faith in him. It's not like he dominated the game but he did put in that little moment of techness which you want to see. Yeah exactly. Yeah replacing Scherke. I think there was a bit of pressure on him and his performance having to deliver. It was a rare start certainly in the league. And I mean just for the back he'll assist on the semifinal goal which was absolutely genius. It was worth him starting. The second goal and he's given the assist when he mis-controlled the ball obviously. The first one is really worth it. I just like to the look away the head fake and stuff. It's these little frissons. Can you say that in French? Yeah yeah. I just made up a French word. A plausible one. I mean this is part of the reason it's fun to watch and I think it speaks to somebody who like you said has that confidence or had that confidence in that moment. You don't need to do that to release him on the back heel. It's not that sort of clever misdirection. But I find it interesting. I don't know looking forward if there's a commitment. I mean we don't even know if Pep's going to be here next year to be perfectly honest. The idea of folding Scherke together it's a different setup. Possibly something to explore. I mean next season I think. I don't think we're going to see this this year. We also saw a fair bit of rotation which to me speaks to the fact that he wants to win the FA Cup. Yeah yeah yeah clearly. Because I expected him probably more to play the strongest line up possible against Palace on Wednesday and instead he didn't know Riley even in the squad. Harlan stayed on the bench. Dooku and Scherke only came on in the second half. Vardul coming back for example in the team after a long spell out. So yeah he clearly voted to rest on players because Scherke would start the final so with Harlan so with Dooku too and Riley probably as well. So yeah clearly he still sees the FA Cup final as a very important thing. Not the priority I think if you ask them to choose between the league and the FA Cup they choose the league. Obviously. Right now obviously. But the league is out of their hands. I think that's the reality. Yeah exactly and you are. And I think also I think he knew he should would could be this Palace team that has got nothing to play for in the league anymore even with the mixed teams like of A players and B players really and they were like that. Looking ahead to the title race one noteworthy thing is they pulled ahead in terms of goal difference. Yeah. Now this only becomes relevant if Arsenal draw one of the last two games and they somehow finish level on points and obviously it's going to depend on how many goals people scored in the other games. But I think it is psychologically it is a boost. You know going into this they've both played the same number of games. The Arsenal are on Monday and City are on Wednesday. Tuesday. Tuesday. So they will take the pitch on Tuesday. I mean something happens in Arsenal draw if they take the pitch on Tuesday knowing right between now and this weekend. Yeah. We need to pump up the score. So I think it's an interesting kind of evolution from from where they are going going forward. Looking ahead to the FA Cup final. Are they clear favorites to you? Yeah. And they have to be with the momentum they have even with the draw everton compared to Chelsea side that hasn't won in seven in the league for example. I don't think there's any there's any doubt that City are right now the most informed the most favorite. They've got everybody available plus even the likes of Guardiola who I don't think will start the FA Cup final but who's still back playing for for for Chelsea is a very different dynamic. So yeah City definitely they might not win it but they are the favorite. I know we need to give a shout out here to Ryan Scherke who of course should have been going to the World Cup with Italy. Sadly he won't be only because Italy didn't qualify and instead he's going to have to play for France. Yes. I mean even Algeria could have he could have gone there with Algeria. Play alone France. That's true but should have chosen Italy bro. Yeah. Watch the World Cup on television. No pressure. So for holidays you know. I we touched upon sort of defensively but we think this is pretty much kind of what we defined as like the base eleven heading into FA Cup final and presumably the final games of the season. Don Arum, Amadeus Nunes and O'Reilly your your full backs. Gay and Kusunov. I think there is possibly a Guardiola angle not for the Cup final. Yeah. Ruben Diaz as well. It's also an option to also fit. And then obviously Roderick Fitt if not Nico with Bernardo Silva who made an uncharacteristic mistake in that game yesterday. So yeah. So he got that out of his system. Yeah. He's good for the next month. And then of course that front four of Ryan Scherke, Saman Nyu Jeremy Doku and and Holland that's not really going to change. But looking across to Chelsea it's always curious how the pieces fit together. Yeah. Exactly. And what Callum Malfoy and will do as an interim coach really to be fair. There's not much momentum. We said that before considering the bad results lately even the draw against Liverpool was not too bad. But it's called a lucky goal. And then despite having some strong moments during that game it was not all perfect either. We saw Levi Colwell who we both like a lot come finally coming back. He'd come back there. They came before of the bench this time he started and I thought it well. Is that enough to start an FA Cup final? Maybe. Is he Chelsea's best centre back for sure? You know better than for Fana, Charlotte Bartosz and whoever else you want. I don't know. I don't know really how you approach that game if you're Chelsea. If you just leave the ball to City which is be very aggressive from the second phase and play on the counter because they've got everybody available. Enzo, Parma, Joe Pedro, Neto, Garnaccio, whoever you want as a front three, front four. Or do you try to get the ball off City and be a bit more in control? I would assume safety first. That to me would mean then you're going to play two central midfielders plus A. Which then means Palmer on the wing. Which is fine. But this is just one of those conundrums that Chelsea need to figure out over the summer. And then some people say, look, maybe it will end the leaves so it won't be a problem. We can put Palmer back to number 10. I like Palmer at number 10. Did you? Oh yeah, yeah. Palmer on the wing. On the right is currently counterproductive. Yeah, you lose a lot. Plus the right longer term is going to belong to Twisted Vowel, we assume. Joe Pedro up front is kind of a no brainer and then it becomes a question of the other wing. And I'm assuming he's going to go Neto for that one. Yeah, definitely. Um, Kukureya, it's the Hato obsession out of his system. Well, Hato played at the weekend, but yeah, Kukureya should start. Gusto on the right, all Rich James, if Rich James is really fit again, he's back, but is he fit for a cup final? Or if he is really fit, you could play Rich James on midfield. Yeah, sure, which is a possibility. Sorry, Andre Santos. No, it's true. The Carame Marfa has done before too and others. So it would be a very competitive Chelsea team and a good team on paper. The problem is they haven't been playing well for a long time now and they haven't won a game for a long time. Bar, they, you know, the bar, the FA Cup kind of rounds up to this final. So it's, I think it's difficult. We interviewed Andre Santos for the FA Cup final that would be on ESPN and he was also saying like how difficult this is, you know, the season, the current context, the situation, the season is just not ideal at all when you get into a final. Just to work on Palace because obviously, you know my frustrations with the inequality of resources and things like that. I think we have to put into context what Palace has achieved, this sort of cycle of Palace where, you know, under Glasner, and it's not just Tim, it's Glasner and there's a whole club behind him with their recruitment. They got a lot of things right. And obviously they go, they win the FA Cup. They, they should be, they finish well in the league year on year. They really should be in the Europa League. We know in the end why they weren't being, you know, because of the texture situation. Thank you. Thank you, JT, the gift that keeps on giving. And also, you know, Mr. Marinakis too, that he involved. But now it's all coming to an end. I think I can say this for Glasner. He's not just a good coach and I disagree with some of the things that Glasner's come out with and said after games. But I think he could have really packed it in between now and the end of the season. And he hasn't done that. He said there was always Europe. He packed it in the league, but Europe was always there. He did. But I, like, winning the conference league isn't going to move the needle for, for Glasner. It's another trophy. Yeah, it's a great trophy to win. But I think in those circumstances, especially after what he said and the way they're leaving, I think that a lot of clubs would have said, right, this is not sustainable having you here. But at Palace, they found a way to make it work. And I think, again, that's a credit to Glasner and that's a credit to that's a credit to the club. Yeah, yeah, I just think that if they hadn't been in Europe, he would have gone a long time ago. They kept him because he wanted to stay for the European run. The players wanted him to stay for the European run. The club wanted him to stay for the European run because he's wanted European trophy before not that long ago. Did really well, probably kind of in that, in that, in that competition, punched above his weight slightly. And this time it's a bit the same, although from the beginning we thought Palace should go far in the conference league because they sent from a league club and because of the players that they have. So I think I think that's the reason also why he's still there. But they only have one more game to go. They've got two in the league, obviously. The one against Arsson will end the season. Sell her spark so you might want to finish on a high. You assume where you've got nothing to play for and you don't really care where you finish in the league. It's all about winning that game against Royo Valicano in the conference league final, for sure. And they're that close and they should win that as well to be fair. And I think that's a that game in particular. I mean, I would you would think that they're going to take it easy three days before the conference league final. That is good news for Arsenal potentially on paper in terms of the resistance that they could face from Palace and maybe even in terms of in terms of goal difference. I just want to remind people, though, again, we take this for granted because when there's small incremental changes, we don't notice them. But this team could have had Olyse, Ebreize and Marque and Eze and Marque and probably somebody else I'm forgetting. No, no, no, not it. You put those three into this team and I don't it's not like, you know, oh, but if you didn't have a lease, there's some other superstar you wouldn't have. No, no, no, if you put these three guys on the team, I mean, we're talking about a team that could, I think, easily challenge for the Champions League. Yeah, yeah, definitely for the Champions League position. I mean, they came close before with them. So if they had kept them a bit longer, yeah, sure. And that's got to be gutting if you're a Palace fan. Yes and no, because if you're a Palace fan, really, and you're realistic, you know what you know exactly what happens with clubs like yours. I just wonder why does football have to be this way? But why? Why? It's like asking why would my equal Olyse play for Bayern Munich and not Crystal Palace? It's obvious. Why? So if he has the chance to leave Palace to go to Bayern Munich or Real Madrid or another bigger club, he would want to go there. And I don't think you can blame him for it. You know, we would do the same. I wouldn't blame Olyse, but I would blame a system that allocates resources and that compared to we even the 1980s has become so top heavy that when a team does everything right, a team of Palace aside does everything right, you know, they can compete for a year or two and then they need to come back to Earth and then all these people need to leave. And I think that's kind of what football has become. And it's become wonderful because we got all the best players and all the best teams to a degree that we never had before because there were restrictions on foreigners because the gap in revenue wasn't so big, commercially all everything you want. Right. But it does, I don't know, it does leave you a little bit when you look at all the guys who were there and what they could have become. Yeah, no, no, I hear you. But if you put the same amount of money on the table for Michael Olyse to say, you stay at Palace for the same amount of money, wages wise that you get a buy. You know, I'm not blaming the players. No, no, no, but he would have. But that's what I mean. It's not just about the money, but but it's not about just resources. All I would say would always be bigger than Palace. Of course. But I don't know the players necessarily need to always go to the biggest teams. I want to go to compete. Yeah, you can go to if you can go to Lise and as a gay and say, look, we'll give you comparable amounts of money. We're going to be in the Champions League when you compete for the Champions League. We can maybe go on a limb at a little bit to the squad. You're what is it? At the time when he went was what, 22 years old? Right. Yeah, a bit more. You're 22, 23, 24, whatever it is. Stay another year. Let's have a go. Yeah, try to build something, right? It's just a different because, you know what? If he has the kind of season he had a buyer in this year, then instead of getting 60 million or whatever they got for him, they could be getting twice that, right? Sure. It's just, I don't know. I just think we take for granted that all these teams are so hamstrung and even bigger teams, even Villa and Newcastle, frankly, right? They do things right and then they system doesn't allow them to compete anymore. And then they have to sell everybody. I don't know. It's like maybe this is football's change that way. And all I'm saying is I don't know that it always needs to be like this. Maybe they are correctives. Maybe they're sporting correctives. Maybe they'll be smart people that that will figure this out. All right, enough city. How about some quick hits instead? It's Mati Stel for better and for worse for Tottenham as he scores and then concedes a city penalty and they draw one one at home to Leeds. Just this means they still need to sweat on staying up. Yeah, you're right. There's just two points clear now with a better good difference, but still it's not done whether whether if they had beaten Leeds, which I think a lot of people expected, including their own fans, it would have been a much easier run. Now they will go to Chelsea on Tuesday night and Chelsea are not going to give Spurs anything at all. Chelsea would just so love it, I suppose, to bring them down. Of course, I mean, West Ham have to go to Newcastle, which is obviously not an easy game away either. And then he could all go down or go beat to the last game of the of the season with West Ham at home to Leeds and Spurs away at Everton. So it'd be a big surprise. You're at home to Everton. So it's for the home to Everton. Sorry, yeah, no way. We see I thought Spurs were good now after the two wins in a row against Wolves and and Villa, especially away from home, both of them. And I'm not so sure. I don't think that was a really good performance against Leeds at all. They should have lost that game, actually. And Matisse tell Paris Borne and Brad, you know, Paris Borne and Gregor and then, you know, gave away a penalty, despite actually scanning and seeing taking the information first. And I'm not sure why he did that. Gabi were well Monday, but West Ham will be just a point back. If not for that madness at the end of the game without snor on Sunday afternoon, the PGM. Well, as explained, the Russian or behind this allowing Callum Wilson's goal at the, you know, in the last kick of the game, pretty much. I know how much you like wrestling on set pieces. So I assume you agree. Yeah, no, 100 percent. The goal should have been ruled out. It seems pretty obvious to me. And was there a whole bunch of other stuff going on? Yeah, there was. I really appreciate Howard Webb. They released the full transcript. They were I mean, I think we can criticize referees all the time, right? But when they have the show of transparency, this is how we arrive. This is our process. All they can do is put a process in place. Weird stuff happens on the pitch. Humans make mistakes and they can say, this is the process. I thought they came to the right decision. I know it sucks if you're West Ham, but all of this stems from the fact that this kind of garbage gets tolerated all the time. The wrestling, you know, Declan Rice throwing the guy in his head and whatever. It's and part of it is because in the laws of the game, you cannot give you cannot give a penalty off the ball, right? So I personally think give yellow cards. You're too handsy. I mean, give you both the yellow card. Your hand should be there, right? And then you'll see people will stop pretty quickly. And certainly the Times and others have reported that FIFA are going to look at this at the World Cup. I think we'll see less of it at the World Cup. But, you know, a couple of yellows early on will teach you that you don't need to do this. And, you know, as far as Raya, I know, I know there's some trouble that I out there. So immediately reacting, oh, Raya needs to be stronger. Goalkeepers aren't a protected species anymore, which one of the stupidest cliches and stereotypes and it's old and tired and nobody should ever say that again. But now I mean, any normal person looking at this yeah, I think would say that you're pulling his arm down. Yeah, yeah. Now, sticking with the title race, Ben White is reportedly out for the rest of the season. We thought Jury and Timber was going to come back any day. And we said that for the last month. Now there's even a doubt by whether he can go to the World Cup. Yeah. There's a lot of pressure on Moskeda, who's not really a right back. He's really a center back. Any alternatives that we haven't thought of? Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can bring the Play-Rice like a right back. He would not really play right back, but you can have him there like Arte-Tat did in the first Africans-West-Tamb, for example. And before changing, I guess maybe a Zubimendi type of player can play there. But Mosquera has done a quite decent job when he's played right back earlier this season. He's a really good defender, centre-back, but he's less comfortable on the ball. That's the issue here and the way Arsenal build up and all of that. And that's why I think you need other guards with Mosquera right back. You need other guards on that kind of side, more maybe than Aze in a more central role. We see what it does against Burnley on Monday night, but it is a big blow to lose White and Timber at this stage of the season. I guess the last really solution you could have is move, if Calafiore is fit, moving Kappi right back, although he's left-footed and it's not ideal again, especially with the ball more than defensively. But you have options. They're not the best of options, but I think Mosquera can do a good job for two games plus the final. I agree. You'll turn to every single Kappi right back. He hasn't done that very often. It's suboptimal, but effectively you're talking three centre-backs, plus Calafiore or Lewis Scali, which is fine. You can make that tweak. The Times report that Arsenal are charging more than £130,000 for a luxury box at the home game against Burnley on Monday night when they can't win the title. But at the time they advertised that the idea was they could potential win. Yeah, but we get close to it for the first time in 22 years. Gab, does this sound a bit greedy to you? No, not at all. I broke this down. And this really bugs me. I think we have a problem with ticket prices and numbers. Oh, it's a big number. 100,000, a million. Oh, it's all the same, because it's a big number. I don't understand it. So I looked at this. I looked at what you get for this. Now, I would not pay this, but it's 15 seats. So you can bring 15 of your friends, which instantly knocks this down to like eight grand, a person, right? Then you get a replica home shirt. Then you get to meet with an Arsenal legend. I don't know if it's one of the good ones or, you know, you get Martin Sheehan round, whatever, you know, you get a three course meal. Again, three course meal at that level. London, it's going to be £150, something like that, right? Then you get sliders at halftime. Then you get a cheese course at the end. I mean, there's a value on this. I much prefer football clubs say, let me put a package like this together for people who can't afford it. And let me use this to cross subsidize the average fan in the average seat. So Burnley returned more than a thousand tickets reportedly for this game, understandably. Arsenal could have put those on sale for £1,000 if they were like FIFA. Look, dynamic pricing. No, they're on general sale for £45, which I think is in line with the cheaper Arsenal seats, right? So I think the model is fine. I mean, screw it. If you find people who'll pay you even more than $130,000 for this 15-person box, go for it. Those aren't the fans that I worry about. You're not taking places away from that. So I had to go to a ranch because this kind of stupid-ass populism just so misguided. These are not the problems of thinking football. We have champions in France. What a shock. It's probably Saint Germain. They beat Lawns 2-0 on the road to seal the deal. However, this game itself, not straightforward at all. No, they were lucky to win this. I mean, to be fair, a loss win or even a draw would have been fairer. Lost 25 shots, 10 on target, Savanov saved all of them. He was outstanding. They keep giving him 9 out of 10 in their ratings. And trust me, getting 9 in the Lekip ratings is difficult. Especially when you have a man bun. Well, I don't mind so much the man bun. It was incredible. It's been incredible the last few weeks, not just in this game. Anyway, Lawns, I won the full team. I've said it all along. For me, even if they don't win the title, they can still win the French Cup in the final against Nice. But they have been the best team in the league. They were just a bit unlucky towards the end in the final sprint. Maybe a lack of experience from the players, from Pierre Sages, the coach. They just missed the beat a little bit there and got a bit tired despite not playing in Europe. But they've been incredible and they were incredible in this game. Really make themselves their fans, our French with their Fugolian and the owner. Really, really proud because they were outstanding and they were really unlucky to lose. But well done to PSG, 5-5 title in a row, 14 in history. And they won that with the depth in their squad more than their first team. Inter did a double orga beating Lazio Tunilla at the Stagio Olimpico. Christian Kivu keeps the legacy going. Yeah, with a little bit of help from Nuno Tavares. Not good. But they gave the goal to Turam, which I thought was weird, because it came off of Marisic. But I guess it's usual, like, well, what defender wants to claim a known goal? Lautaro scored, and I see Lautaro scoring in the finals. I think, look, Inter are a much better team than Lazio. Lots of got serious problems. Nice to see their fans show up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they grab their atmosphere. I feel for Lazio, they've got serious issues. Inter can only beat what's in front of them. What I will say is Inter are far ahead of everybody else in the city this season. And other clubs like Milan, Juventus, Roma can complain, oh, but restrictions, Manny, blah, blah, blah. Guys, Inter are in the same boat. I have to operate at close to break even. Inter have a comparable wage bill to yours. So they're simply, in a situation where not everybody is of the big clubs, have a lot of money to chuck around, Inter are kind of competing. They're better at competing with the straight jacket. And as I said, Kivu taking over for Nzagi delivering seeds like this. I thought they would have more, but it's 06-10 and then this one. I'm like, okay. One of them is a treble, which is the one that matters even more. Sure, but still, like, you know. Also, nice of you to mention 06. Juventus would suggest that that one never happened. Jules, it's time to go there. Real Madrid president, Florentino Perez, gave his first press conference in 11 years. I think it's fair to say it was worth the wait. Incredible. I've never seen anything like this, really, from somebody of this stature and of a club of this caliber. Florentino Perez, when we saw the statement from the club that he was going to, you know, address the media, I thought, okay, this is good because it's a tough season. It's a crisis season. Hopefully, it will bring clarity on the future next season. You know, have a strong message to the fans, maybe even to the squad. Maybe we'll talk about the Tua-Meni-Valverde incident. I was really hopeful. I promise you, I didn't see this disaster class coming at all. And yet, he made it all about himself to start with and clearly wanted to settle some scores with, I'm not really sure exactly who, but saying like, oh, everybody's attacking me. They want my place. So I'm not going to resign, but instead I'm going to call new elections. The elections were supposed to be in three years time. So he moved them forward. When we know, and it's the next question, Gabi, how hard it is to even be a candidate is actually... We'll get to that. You know, leaving, but then actually he's going to be reelected. I don't know if he wanted to flex, but it was nothing but flexing because Arthur, he looked pathetic when he talked about the mall in the dressing room, more than actually what happened between Tua-Meni and Valverde instead of condemning a fight that no club should have, especially not the bigger club in the world. He goes, well, every year, every year, there's five. Well, there's nothing different. What bothers me is the league, when him himself and his people leak stuff all the time. This is what they do. You know, they use the press a lot in Madrid. And I think the worst probably for me, more than the Negra or Kays in Barcelona, the worst for me was when he had to go at his own fans for brewing the team because he should know by now, after 26 years in charge in two spells, that his fans are not happy with the performances of the result, which is the case this season because he's been poor. Football has been poor, results have been poor, that fans, if they're not happy, they are allowed to show that discontent and their frustration. And instead, he pointed the finger at them, instead of saying, listen, I understand your frustration. We apologize. It's not good enough for a club like us, but next season we do better. No, instead, it was none of that. The massive inconsistencies at the same time, he's saying these fans, they're the sautéos, they're the owners of the club. Well, of course, they're allowed to boo. And you know what? There's a strong history of Real Madrid fans booing in the Panyolada team. Real Madrid aren't like any other club in the world, right? And Chilote, remember him telling me like, oh, we could be four in a lot, but they've been in a bale if they don't like the way they're playing, they'll boo us. It's part of what makes Real Madrid special. And he's going out there in the Forbes list and we're number one in this and the biggest turnover there. So what? So what? Real Madrid are the biggest brand in football. They may be the biggest brand in team sports. The standards are that high. You're not like another club. And to go there and to talk about everything he's won, now we're talking about the here and now, right? Go and address that. Instead, he's picking on the ABC newspaper, which his dad used to get. You know, it's all sarcastic about the fact that a woman journalist wrote something he didn't like. Some sexism and blood. People plotting against him. Well, some sexism. Also the Mexican guy. None of this, none of this is kosher. And I think this makes you, you look at this, and it looks like somebody has a meltdown and you, I hate to say, he got so angry because people, he was angry because people, they said that people close to him say Florentino's tired, right? Well, I'm sorry. If you're not tired, what excuse do you have for such a disjointed thing? I watched the whole thing. He kept going back and repeating himself over and over again. I, he's in his late seventies. He needs help. He needs people around him and trust him and say, this is not what we want. He should be thinking about his succession. He should have been thinking about his succession 10 years ago. That's the reality of it. If you love the club, that's what you do. And he turns 18 next year, God. And there are no term limits up around Madrid in terms of presidency. And remind us why it's so hard for anyone to challenge him. Yeah. So they changed the rules a few years back where if you want to run for president, you must have been a club member for 20 years. And you need to personally provide an escrow guarantees for 15% of the club's revenue. The club's revenue has grown enormously now. So it's like 150 million odd that you need to provide, which not a lot of people can do, even though there's many rich people among Ramadrizz fan base. Now, these rules were put in because what you don't want is to have elections and you have some rando get elected and then he uses the club to get rich, which accusation that has been leveled at previous Ramadrizz presidents. Florentino is already a billionaire. So I think most people think, well, there's no chance that Florentino is going to, Florentino is not there for his own personal enrichment. He doesn't need that, which is true. Yeah, absolutely. But there's a limit because you make a then diagram of people who are eligible to run for the Ramadrizz presidency. And it's only Florentino who meets the requirements. I mean, that's kind of the requirement. I mean, this other dude, this Mexican guy, we'll see. You can make it. In a couple of years, maybe Cristiano. Yeah, I know you got his membership. You won't be a member for 20 years, Cristiano. It's just stuff to think about. Let's go to the championship playoffs. Now, this is happening over the weekend, but a late shade Charles goal gave Southampton a 2-1 win on aggregate over Middlesbrough, which should mean that they face whole city in the playoff final for promotion to the Premier League at Wembley. I say should because it's all in doubt. Southampton have now been officially charged with spying on a Middlesbrough training session. Yeah, we talked about it with Donald Monday. What we wait now is to see what the punishment is going to be, the sanction, what the EFL are going to do to Southampton because it's clearly clear that despite on the training, there's enough evidence now. The club side, Southampton are saying like we knew nothing about it. This assistant guy. He's an intern performance analyst. His name is William Salt, according to the Daily Mail. Yeah, but he's on photos a lot with the staff everywhere, you know, on the club website and everywhere. So he might be an intern, but he's still very close to the staff. But the staff and the manager saying like we knew nothing about this, which is obviously what they were going to say. So now what are they going to get for spying and cheating? That's the next question. Yeah, that's the next question. But some would think that a fine like Leeds and Bielsa had when they spied on Derby County, for example, a few years ago. Is it be some point deduction? Is it be like full expelled? We will see. But for now they are supposed to play a Wembley against her city in 10 days time in the final. And Gabb, if they are found guilty, Middlesbrough want them expelled from the playoffs. So take their place in the final basically, that by the way, Middlesbrough are still training. Instead of sending their players on holidays, they're going to train until the decision is made. Others, like I said, would like to set a point deduction for next season or heavy fine is more likely. What do you stand and what do you think? This is 100 percent they should be thrown out. Do you think? Look, it's not too severe. William Salt, even he's just an intern. He's not a Southampton fan, right? He is somebody. Well, I'm sorry. I you go to Southampton, you say if this guy is identified as an intern, he must have a badge to access the facility. Right? He's not some weirdo out there who operates on his own. Right? Now, it may have been his own personal decision to go and do this. I might go and believe somebody named Tonda that this is what happened. But you're employing him. You're responsible for it. You are responsible for doing this. You would have gained the advantage. Would they have reported him if he'd come back and said, hey, look, Tonda, look at all this information. I have a Middlesbrough set pieces. Oh, how did you get this, William Salt? Like, oh, well, you know, better not. Come on. What are we talking about here? And also there's clubs who think they've done it before to them earlier in the season. I 100 percent they should be thrown out. A points deduction next season. What about the parties that have been hurt and said there's other clubs before maybe don't have the evidence? Maybe they don't have the evidence. Middlesbrough do have the evidence. I think this is open and shut. And I'll tell you what, there's not much time. There's not much time. And in this country, they're always like, oh, no, we can't move the games. We can't the playoffs. Oh, Wembley's booked. I don't care. This is put sport put sport first for once. If you can't come to a definitive decision by May 23rd, you say, hey, whole city, you go train for another week and we'll play this game again. And you know what? If Wembley's busy, we'll go play somewhere else. We'll play at the Emirates or at the Spurs Stadium or somewhere else. Sport has to come first here, not just the process. Let's wrap everything up by June 1st. This is just stupid. You know, I was more disappointed. I mean, this is poor, really, and disappointing. But there's a moment in the game in the second leg where I don't know if you know Luke Ailing. You know, he's got a speech in Parliament. Yeah, from the United, right? Yeah, exactly. And clearly during the game, Harbour Bellis, the South London defender, mocked him for that speech in Parliament to the point that Ailing told the referee who used the same protocol in a way as racist abuse, went to see the two managers to explain what just happened on the pitch. The player had been stopped for quite a while, actually, for this incident and rightly so. And as the referee is telling the two managers, Helberg and Eck, about it, Eck's reaction is, you could read on his lips, say, do me a favor. Like if he was nothing. His own player, his own captain, I think he's captain, actually, as well, mocking a player and clearly, you know, abusing a player for the way he talks during the game, which is unacceptable. You know, it's exactly like what we say about every other incident that we see on the pitch. And that's how that instead of saying like, I'm sorry, I'll have a word with my captain. This should not happen. He goes like, do me a favor, do me a favor, plus the effort, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought that was outrageous of a reaction from a manager like this. I'm 100% with you. I was unaware of this fact. I don't follow the championship. I thought it was really poor, really, really poor. And I would have thought that Tonda Eckert, of all people, given all the abuse he got as a little boy for having such a freaking stupid girl's name. What, you told me that? That's not a point, even if he didn't get abused. I'm joking. I know, I know what you mean, of course. And you know, you were mad at me. I thought Howard Bettis as well is pretty sweet. Hey, you want to get an edge over someone, whatever. It's, you know, you run the risk. You run the risk. And also, if you've been told this is treated as discriminatory abuse, if this is the same thing, if you'd been calling him a gypsy or if you were Jewish, you're doing anti-Semitic stuff, or if you were black and it was racist stuff, or if it was homophobic abuse, all those things that fall in that bucket. And like you said, they have a thing. Yeah. Preseason, the players are told. Of course, there's a protocol. Then, yeah, there's no question about it. Ibrahim Diabate scores the only goal as Barcelona fall away to Alaves 1-0. Jules, this means they won't reach the 100 point mark this season. I don't think they care at all. I do think Alaves cares because this will probably keep them up. Yeah. And I don't think in a very tight race against relegation, if you look at it between, I think 11th and 20th or 19th, I think there's like three or four points, something like that. So it's really tight down there. Alaves would have been super happy to see the lineup first because it was clearly Barça B team after celebrating the title for the last few days. And then that Barça B team didn't really put up much of a fight in this game, to be honest. And for Alaves, what a great win. It took them from in the bottom three to just obviously outside the bottom three, which is massive, massive for them. For Barcelona, I think the 100 points would have been nice, but you're right. They don't care. The times we put that Omar Barada and Jason Wilcox have recommended that Michael Carrick be given the Manchester United job on a permanent basis. Are you okay with this, Gab? Is this part of the process or not? Recommended to Radcliffe and the Glazers. I think so, yeah. Okay, so if this is part of your process, if you've gone and interviewed candidates and interviewed Carrick, fine, because you had a process. I don't know that they had a process. I don't know who they interviewed, what they managed to secretly interview. I mean, people like Irohola, people like Glaznor, they still have day jobs. I don't know that they managed to secretly go and talk to them. I don't know who they talked to. But hey, if you guys did, that's fine. But if you're just bowing to pressure, you're like, oh, Carrick got the job done because I'll tell you what, not a knock on Carrick, but next season is going to be completely different. They're going to be in Europe. They're going to have to add probably a couple of midfielders. They're going to add a bunch of players. It's going to be a very different context. It's going to be untested. It doesn't mean Carrick can't do it, but he has to convince you through the interview process and you have to convince yourself after talking to other people as well. That's how you end the social problem to begin with. So I'd be very disappointed if that was the case. The only living sort of lot in captivity comes off the bench to score as Atlético Madrid win it also sooner to one. Jules, he's up to 20 goals in all competitions once more. This is pretty amazing. Yeah, it's pretty good. And he was on the bench again. I'm not sure what the problem is because Simone played Lukman and Griezmann in the front two. Oh, come on. That's all creativity style. It's not so much creativity or no, it's just like if you're solo, you're thinking, I ain't got a minute. Even Lukman plays ahead of me, Alvarez, I can get. Like, you know, Griezmann is Griezmann and he's coming to the end, so he's going to play every game now between now and the end of the season. But I thought that was to be harsh on him. He came on, did well, although the goal is a tap in. Like a header and easy header under Liorente, deflected cross. This was not a great performance. It's tough to go to Osasuna, I know. And to be fair, they had the better chances and probably a draw would have been fairer. But Atlético then have nothing to play for. Apart from maybe finishing third and not fourth, which financially gives you a couple more million euros in TV revenue prizes. So that's all really. But I wanted that, I did that again for ESPNFC and I wanted Griezmann to shine. He got the penalty for the first goal and then gave the ball to Lukman, which I thought was very generous for him and had a bit of momentum of brilliance through and through. So I was happy. I was trying to be like you, I'm surprised, so lost at this stage. Like why not let the guy play and get his goals, right? Especially if you're going to you're going to rest Alvarez. I wonder, to me, I wonder, obviously there's a lot of rumors linking Alvarez with a move away. A lot of people like him, including, funny enough, Paris Saint-Germain. Yeah, we tried to sign him two years ago. It shows Atlético instead of them. I wonder if part of the reading here is because I don't think you're going to keep both of them. I think at this stage, you need to monetize. I would make sense. Let's just play Sordloct all the time, let him like pump up his stats and then we shift Sordloct because Alvarez is a better player. Unless they figure it's going to be difficult to keep Alvarez. Yeah, he wants to leave Alvarez. And then you really monetize Alvarez. Yeah, definitely. I think that's the idea for the summer for sure. If he joins Paris Saint-Germain, he's not going to be happy in the Gonzalo Ramos role. He's going to want minutes. How's that going to work? Because you really have four going into three. And then it goes five into three? Yeah, although I think Barcola could maybe be leaving. He was subbed off after the half time, sorry, last night in Lanz because he was not good at all. And I wonder if there's something there, maybe, and in that case, you need, because I think Gonzalo Ramos is going to leave in the summer anyway. So you might lose two of your five attackers really if you don't count the kids. So I think you can have him. You can also move maybe this year. It will be deeper, which is done really, really well in this game against Lanz. But that's mean to Warren, so you're angry at some point. No, you need players. You need competition. You need depth in your squad. I love that. I think Barcelona is probably where Julien Alvarez right now wants to go and probably where, if they can afford him, the fit is the best. But I can see why he's also tempted by Luis Enrique and PSG. Napoli, you fall at home to Bologna, three, two, thanks to a late Jonathan Rowe. Quite a spectacular goal as well, if you haven't seen it. That's a kick gap. They could have wrapped up the Champions League plays for next season. Yeah, they kind of screwed this up. They came from behind and maybe points enough. They'll be fine. There's two games to go. They're on 70. Juventus on 68. Milan and Roma on 67. Milan obviously trending in the wrong direction after that four show against Atlanta. And a little Como on 65. And they're going to have three spots. Presumably he's going to come down to Milan and Roma. But it is kind of disappointing. I expected better from that. But they're a good team. They're a really nice team to watch. I think Conte, like once the motivation goes because he knows he's there, you know, the team goes flat very quickly. Wild stuff in Scotland Jules. Hartz thought they had won the title until a late Kelechi and Atchopenalty. Viavier in Celtics game against Falkirk. Means they will all come down to the final day of the season. When Celtic play who? Yeah, Hartz. So they wouldn't have won the title. There would be three points clear with the game to go and the plus five goal difference in their favor. Okay, so they would have had to lose six nil against Elton. No, three. No, three because they would have obviously, yeah. So a three-nil defeat could have, I guess, happened and be possible. However, they would have made a massive step towards the title and instead, I'm going to say it's a disgusting var call and referee call on that penalty for Celtic. I don't think it's ever penalty. I think if you mother well, you feel really harshly done. If you're Hartz, you feel really, really harsh and Derek McClain as their manager was, as you would expect, outraged at the end when he was asked about that penalty. For me, it's never in a million years a penalty, but we have the final of the league that everybody wanted and kind of was hoping for. Not if your heart and Celtic who they would have hoped to wrap up before that. But this is it. It's not the first time that Hartz could have lost or lose a title in the last game of the season, I think, 1965 and 1986. If I remember well, that's when they were in this position and lost, I think both Rangers actually. It's been a long time since in the Scottish League. We've had a game like this where the winner takes it all basically. Celtic Park is going to be obviously buzzing and incredible for such a big stadium. You know how much the away fans allocation is? No, 600. Wow. For such a big stadium. That's like 1% of the stadium. It's taking the make. Really, it's bad. So those 600 Hartz fans will travel to Glasgow to be there again, potentially watching history. They haven't won the title since 1960. We'll be really hopeful and to be fair, let's be honest here. We like Martin O'Neill as a why he's done this. I know you don't like him as a person, but why he's done in this club, coming, leaving, coming back again. But Hartz have been the best team by far. And I think for what they are building there with Tony Bloom and the investment that he had in the summer, the low budget that they have, the players that they find, the data that they use, I think they fully deserve to be champions. Yeah, and it's, I have to say this, and this applies to Tony Bloom at Brighton, and it applies in a different way perhaps to his great rival Matthew Bannum at Brentford. These guys lose people every year, right? You look at like half of the people who made Brighton great are at Chelsea, and then they all leave and then they replace them with other people, not just players, but like friend office staff as well. At Brentford, I was talking to somebody there, and like Thomas Frank leaves to go to Spurs, and then like every week after that he takes one other guy, one other guy, one other guy. They're freaking laughed. And then they get Andrews who, I don't want to disrespect the guy, but like it's not like you're getting somebody who would, you know, who's like, look, considers a genius up in college, who's raving about. They put new people around him, and they win again. That's club culture. Like honestly, honestly, if you're another club and you say, I want to copy Brighton's success, the guys you need, the guy you need to recruit from Brighton, is Tony freaking Bloom. Yeah, go and buy him. There are people who are richer than he is. Go and get Tony Bloom to work for you, and then you can rebuild a little Brighton. Back to Sarriage, we will call this on Thursday morning. We're still not sure when the Champions League deciding games, including the Rome Derby, are going to be played. God, this is crazy. It's completely crazy. Every year we've got something like that. This is beyond stupid. All right, so this is a weird thing. So in the last two rounds of Serie A, games where they have something at stake and you have an advantage based on the result elsewhere, blah, blah, blah, which can be obviously relegation for the title, whatever, or the Champions League spots, they'll have to be played at the same time. So nobody gets an advantage, right? So this means that this weekend, it's Roma Lazio, Ciovento Surrentina, Genoa Milan, Pisanapoli, and Como Parma all have to be played at the same time. It's kind of a hokey rule, I think, but I understand the logic behind it. The problem is that this weekend is also the final of the Italian Open Tennis. As you know, these days we're much better at tennis than we are at football. So it's a big deal and the Italian Open in Rome is played at the Fori Italia, which is part of the same complex as the Olympic Stadium. So the final will probably be late afternoon, and so they said, all right, we'll play Roma Lazio at 12 o'clock on Sunday, which incidentally, you know, 70,000 fans milling about with these Gentile tennis fans on their way in later. I don't know. But guess what? You knew when the schedule came out that these two events were on the same day in the same place. You knew this, you knew this months ago. And then you're making all these other four games, they all have to adjust based on you. So they filed a complaint, they filed a complaint with, they went to court, tried to get an emergency injunction to move the game to Monday. Then you'd be moving all these games to Monday. The league says no, wait a minute, because on Monday, it's a work day, right? We make some of our money around the world and stuff, people, and people are at work. It was funny, Marito Sarri in his slight insanity, he's like, oh, you know what? If this game's on Sunday, if I got permission from the president, I just wouldn't show up. It's ridiculous that we have to play on Sunday at 12.30 in May. I just wouldn't show up. I don't care, like I'll forfeit the game, give the points to Roma, what do I care? So it's an absolute mess. And again, it does not make the league look good. Sevilla will stay up after winning 3-2 at Villarreal, but Jules, the really good news, is that they may soon have a new ownership group led by Sergio Ramos. Is this good news? Yeah, I think it's good news. I mean, the win is good news to start with, because it's a late winner by Acor Adams. And to win at Villarreal, who have nothing to play for, who just third or fourth place, but still have qualified for the Champions League. It's huge for Sevilla, those back-to-back wins. Massive, but you're right. The big news is Sergio Ramos potentially coming back with a consortium behind him to 444 million euros. That is the cost to buy the club where he all started for him, where he was obviously at the academy, but where he's from as well. And when we know what a mess he's been at the top of the club, they'll need all of that, all that click. I think it's good news. Let's hope it's good news, certainly, for the club, because they are a massive club. That's a really big valuation. I think what's going to determine whether it's good or bad is the other people in the consortium. We've seen consortiums that are kind of fronted by certain people. Like these old pals here at PK, for example, who's in trouble for other reasons right now. But in the end, the people who are putting in the money, they have no trouble. Sergio Ramos is the figurehead and he's put in a couple million and somebody else put in a hundred million. If it's a tough decision ahead, they'll be like, hey Sergio, get to one side. So it doesn't always work great, but it's certainly better than the chaos they had before. Manuel Noya maybe 40 years old, but he's coming back next season, Gav. He signed a one-year extension with Bayern. Yeah. He's had some big moments. He's also had some big mistakes, but it's kind of like the story of Noya's career. He's had many more big moments and big mistakes, obviously. In negotiating this, I hope they sat down with him and they said, look, we believe in Jonas Urbic. And it's not just him. I mean, we think they still have parrots under contract as well. I hope they said to him, Manuel, if you're here, your main job is to help Urbic grow. We'll play whoever's in form at the time. You cannot sulk if you sit on the bench. And you have to accept the fact that your minutes are going to go down. Because a year of the Manuel Noya we saw this year, playing every game, isn't worth it. Yeah. Isn't worth it if then you have to start from scratch and you've destroyed. And you have another noble situation like we had a few years ago, right? Yeah. So, by the way, he's a leader. If he accepts those terms, I think he can be a tremendous asset at the club. Salzburg's big center back, Joanne Gadou, is on the move. Jules, he's joining Bursa Dortmund. Yeah. And because he's Paris born in Breds, you need to fill us in. Yeah. I mean, huge talent from a very young age, massive in terms of size and everything. Didn't really believe that there was a pathway for him in Paris, which is a bit of a shame because he's obviously, you know, Paris born in Breds, as you said, Gavin, from the academy. So he left in 2024. And when he says that he didn't see, he doesn't see the pathway. In 2024, 2024, Marquinhos was old. Pacho had just arrived. Yeah. But he was still very young. I don't think he was ready for first infobolo. Although he had a couple of chances and started training with the first team. It's difficult because... If you talk about pathway, right? Obviously, you go to Salzburg, you fall off the map for two years, right? Playing in the Austrian league. I'm just surprised that it's not like Paris Saint-Germain at that moment had like four 22-year-old center backs ahead of him, right? In the pecking order. No, no, no. You had an old guy and you had a guy who looked really good, but it just arrived, right? And then you had Baraldo, who was slow. Yeah, wasn't there yet. And Zabardi wasn't there yet, right? Oh, no, yeah. So I just look at it. I just, I don't know. I wonder if maybe the club could have done more to say like... I didn't try everything. You didn't want to stay. So, you know, they had to let him go. I think there's a, they get a percentage maybe on this 20 million euro out of bonus sale to Dortmund. I'm not sure if he's ready yet for that step up even from, you know, Salzburg and Austria to the Bundesliga. We'll see, but he's still very young, but he's got a huge potential. They're packing in the young center backs like that. My Italian boys, my Neva, Gianni as well. Galen Kruger will become the first woman sporting director in a big five league, men big five league obviously. When she takes over the Hamburg derby on July the 4th, Gabb, July the 1st, sorry. Yeah, I don't know if there are, if the big five applies to women to be perfectly honest. No, I understand. I think women, I think it would be more of like a big three maybe. Yeah. Big three plus Barcelona. Yeah, maybe in rummage. Yeah. Yeah, so there was somebody else and I'm blanking on her name at Watford actually a couple years ago, but obviously Watford were in the championship at the time. So not quite the same thing. It's interesting because she comes out this, she started out a Christian Ellingas assistant in a long time, way back in 2009. So she's been a buyer for 16 years and her role there has grown in strategy. And I think she's kind of, she's been exposed to every aspect from the recruitment side to the contract side to negotiation side. Obviously Hamburg is very different to Bayern. Most clubs are very different to Bayern. Yeah, yeah. But she's certainly at this stage, she should have the contact, she should have the skill set and you know, there's no reason that she can't use this job. She certainly has the experience. Drama in the Saudi Pro League, Jules, Cristiano Ronaldo and Al Nasser, they were one hell up. They thought they had won the league against their big rival, Al Hilal. And then we had a comedy moment from their goalkeeper, Bento. Yeah, last minute of the game, him and a defender go for the same ball, they found ball there. And Al Hilal scored to make it 1-1. In like the 10th minute of the 20 times. Yeah, 99 minutes, I think it was something like that, which is incredible, which means that now there's a five point gap still between Al Nasser and Al Hilal. Al Hilal have a game in hands to play at home against Neum, I think on Tuesday or Wednesday night. If they win that, they obviously come back two points behind and then it's all down to the last game of the season. So he's still very much in Al Nasser and Cristiano's hands. If they win at home against Damage, who are playing not to go down by the way, they're just above the relegation zone. If they win that or if they match the score of Al Hilal against Al Faya away, then they will be championed for the first time since Cristiano arrived. And for the first time in a very long time as well for such a big club in Saudi Arabia. So huge moment of course, but still very much in that one. This is a missed opportunity for Al Hilal. They should have won this game. Yeah, but they will still win the title, I think. Brazil boss Carlão Gelotti has issued his 55 man squads or pre-selection, pre-squad if you want for the World Cup. Gap Thiago Silva and Neymar are included. No Esteveau for example who is injured, but is that a surprise to see Neymar and Thiago Silva there? Well Thiago Silva showed, well going to Porto, he didn't play that much, but when he did play, but he was fit. And when he did play, he was good and I think with the right pieces around him. He's also like a really natural leader and obviously with Nomi Ditao at this World Cup. I think you can use a veteran defensive leader, been there, done that. And Gelotti knows them inside and out, trust him. Neymar, I genuinely don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think politically it would have been stupid for Carlito to not put him on the 55 man list. But they have to submit the final list by May 18th, which I'm reliably informed is Monday. So what's going to change in four or five days? Like, Carlito's just going to sit there and have a real think about his doubts? Yeah, he's down from 55 to 26. But that is a pretty big call. Yeah, but it's the same for everyone. Everybody issued a 55 man squad first. I know, but I'm genuinely curious if there are some countries that, I mean, did Curaçao issue a 55 man squad? It's more to prepare the clubs and the players that you might be called up. If you know in the 55, you won't be called up, but there's a lot. I think it's more for that. So it's like you kind of warn the clubs. This is, we might call this player, this player, that player, so they know. An administrative thing. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly the right one. I think when he started out, I think he put together, he had a 98 man list and then whittled it down. All right, Jules, this brings us to an end. But don't worry, we're going to be back on Monday after the FA Cup final, after maybe some other answers this weekend from around Europe. Until then, love the game. Love your neighbor. Love yourself.