A look back on the weekend of sport

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The Claire Byrne Show 8 min 3 speakers 7 chapters transcribed 1 hour ago

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What is the opening preview of the weekend’s sporting action?

Claire Byrne 0:01

The Claire Byrne Show on News Talk. With Aviva Insurance.

Clare Byrne 0:09

Now we're gonna look back at the weekend sporting action with Owen Shahan from off the ball. Michael Carrick is saved. One all draw pull em out the gap. No?

Paul Lambert 0:19

I I I thought you were about to bring us down a tangent here where you'd heard somebody coming out in support of Michael Carrick or indeed the club, which is usually the sort of message of death for any manager who's under a bit of trouble. So he hasn't got the the dreaded vote of confidence just yet. But I think when Michael Carrick was handed a two year contract as opposed to a meteor deal when he became permanent manager, you knew that if something was gonna go wrong, his head would be on the chopping block. Now, as you say he has sort of saved himself for the time being and he will see this international break out given Mateus Cunha's late goal yesterday. But he'd have to think that it's only a matter of time before this thing does fall in on him.

Paul Lambert 0:55

And it's not really his fault is i is the problem. Like they they could have uh a whole host of other managers in there at the moment and they would be providing similar results. Just with Michael Carrick, they haven't gone for the outstanding candidate. They haven't gone for a transformative type in the dugout and I guess you can't really expect transformed results on the pitch.

Clare Byrne 1:14

But it was all going so well until he got the gig. Do you know when he was in there temporarily, it was grand. Yeah. Then he gets the gig and it all goes horribly wrong. Yeah. So if it's not his fault, what's what's happening in your view?

Paul Lambert 1:26

Well, I do think Manchester United's recruitment has changed over the past couple of years. And I don't want to say it's disimproved because it was it's been terrible for a long period of the post-Alex Ferguson era. But if you go back five, six, seven years, Manchester United would be top of the class in terms of spending money. They would they would lash out the pounds and euros and the likes of Paul Pogba and Harry McGuire and Anthony and And that didn't work. They seem to have gone down a more frugal approach over the last couple of seasons. Like, for example, when you look at the big money that's being spent in 2026, it's their noisy neighbours who are spending all the money.

Why is Michael Carrick’s future at Manchester United under scrutiny?

Paul Lambert 2:02

The the the big fees went to Enzo Fernandez and uh Buadi and uh a whole host of other uh Elliot Anderson and uh like their midfield alone uh was a was a huge bill from Manchester City this season. They they were the sorts of deals that Manchester City. Chester United were making eight to ten years ago. Yeah. And because

Clare Byrne 2:20

the whole thing's disgusting, isn't it? That you have you have to spend well yeah. Tens of millions to be in in the mix.

Paul Lambert 2:28

But professional sport is in itself very disgusting. And the more the more you look underneath the bonnet, the more disgusted you tend to be by everything that you see, but particularly Premier League football. So look, I I don't think it was Manchester United's plan to be more frugal. I think maybe a a lack of consistent Champions League football maybe played a part in this. Uh and maybe they kind of thought to themselves, look, we're gonna do this bit by bit. Last year they revamped the attack. They brought in the likes of Cunha and Mbumo. So uh this year it was the the midfield that was up for grabs, and they brought in Yuri Tielemans, they brought in Carlos Baliba, who to be fair we haven't seen yet.

Paul Lambert 3:01

And every time it feels that they're about two or three steps behind where they need to be in terms of their recruitment. So I I I I think Carrick deserves a bit of slack on on that front, but at the same time, could they have been a little bit more ambitious with the appointment post Ruben Amarim? Maybe they were just scarred by going for

Clare Byrne 3:22

Then what happened to Arsenal with that Brighton loss?

Paul Lambert 3:24

It's a great question. It was a complete meltdown from Arsenal. They just couldn't handle Brighton's high press yesterday. Uh I'm usually a big believer in expected goals. I think it's a useful temperature check for a lot of football matches.