Ian Irving
speaker
542 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 12 Jul
Ian Irving’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.
Appearances
it became a left-sided forward position that he played in the majority of the second half of the season under Michael Carrick.
There were times where he'd drift, there were times where he went central, but it was Brian Mbumo who'd be used as an alternative centre-forward, not Mateus Cunha.
He did it a couple of times, but I wouldn't have said from what I've seen that's his strongest position.
When we were doing Talk of the Devils previewing the World Cup, we actually talked about what this tournament could do
for Cunha in that role as a number nine sort of leading the the forward line the star-studded forward line of Brazil what it would do for his growth as a player as an individual at the stage of his career that he's at so I'm intrigued now to see how he goes on from this because they were two goal scorers goals weren't they really in that sense they weren't you know spectacular long-range strikes or anything like that they were very much centre forward play so that's definitely something to keep an eye on not everyone was impressed though let's hear from James Horncastle who was there
The change from Morocco, Liam Tharm, to the game last night, when you look at the way Brazil set up, it was pretty similar by all accounts.
And it was mainly just Igor Thiago out and Mateus Cunha in.
Because when I saw the team sheet, I wondered how they might look to help some of the issues they had with Casemiro and Bruno Guimarães in the first half against Morocco in particular.
And even the centre-forward, I mean, they've got so much talent in these attacking positions that the list of forwards in their squad is a joke, really.
And clearly the journalists feel that too by asking about players who haven't played, basically.
I said it yesterday, Liam Toomey, but I still feel the same.
You kind of still try to get a gauge on how good this Brazil team actually is.
No, OK.
Definitely something to keep an eye on, like we've said throughout this.
Lots of different narratives throughout this tournament.
And remember, you can keep across all the fallout from the results if you want to know more about what we've been talking about or the other games.
All the action is reviewed on the Athletic app and throughout the tournament on the app.
It's free for you all to read as well.
So go and have a look at that.
Okay, quiz time.
Showing 321–340 of 542 · page 17 of 28
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