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Chapter 1: What managerial changes are happening in the Premier League?
Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same, everybody. Welcome to the Football Ramble. It's Wednesday the 3rd of June. I'm Luke Moore.
I'm Jim Campbell. And I'm David Cartlidge.
Yeah, very warm welcome to the Football Ramble on this Wednesday, as I said, the 3rd of June. Gearing up for the World Cup action, the hot World Cup action that's just around the corner now. No Marcus today. Can you guys hide your disappointment?
Yeah, I'm worried about him, even though I know he's probably just doing extra World Cup prep, isn't he?
He's at a Lily Phillips convention.
I see.
Yeah, so he can't work this week. But he will be back soon. So look forward to that. Marcus, if you're listening, which I know you are, have a lovely time. Thanks to friend of the Ramble, Nathan, for giving us that intro line. If you want to submit an intro line for a future episode and get an extended edition of today's show, then become a friend of the Ramble on our Patreon now.
Just head to patreon.com forward slash football ramble to get involved. There's thousands of you on there. There's loads of you on the Discord. We're very, very grateful that you're involved. We'd love to see more of you. So do do that and you can submit an intro line every Wednesday.
As I said, right chaps, I think it's a bit like when I worked at ASDA putting all the promotional stuff on the shelves when I had that job today. It's a manager special. Yeah. It's a manager special, guys. It's not two litre bottles of dark Pepsi for two quid. It's Andoni Iriola. It's the amazingly named Pierre Sage. It's Tonda Eckhart doing a hostage type video. It's Craig Bellamy.
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Chapter 2: Why is Andoni Iriola's appointment at Liverpool significant?
Are the natives going to get restless? It's a different challenge, isn't it?
Yeah, but I think given the situation they're in in terms of the kind of transitional nature of this generation of players with Andy Robertson, Mo Salah and now Ibrahima Kanate all leaving and with young players like Jeremy Jacquet coming in and Giovanni Leone coming back from injury.
even if they'd kept slot around, you know, there is a sense that actually they're very unlikely to become the finished article straight away. So I think that will go in Areola's favour because this summer is going to be really, really interesting for Liverpool because we thought they'd built this kind of invincible super squad last summer. That clearly didn't turn out to be the case.
Did we think that?
Did I say that?
I didn't say that, did I? I don't think you used the words invincible super squad. No. I wish I had that. But we looked at that squad and just thought, wow, I mean, this has got everything and they sprinkled some stardust on top of it and it didn't quite work out in that way. I think there's just going to need to be patience, right?
Because, you know, Salah in particular going is a bit of a blessing for Iriola because he's not someone who's going to play the pressing style that he needs. but they are going to have to replace the goals that he's previously brought to them. They're going to probably have to get someone with a bit more steel in midfield, you would think is perhaps where Alex Scott comes into it.
They're going to have to do quite a bit of major surgery. And only Iriola's first team is going to look wildly different from even Arnaud Slot's last team. And I think in a situation like that with a new manager coming in, it would be madness for them to not be patient.
I just think that Salah was a huge distraction last year. Completely agree. And so it's a blessing. It's also a blessing that Canate's gone because he's been diabolical last year, in my view. I should say at this point, he's close to agreeing a deal with Real Madrid, which, as Jim said to me last night, is great news for Barcelona. So, I mean, obviously they're not put off by it.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does Iriola face stepping up to a big club?
He's mad. Yeah, I just thought that might work. But now they've gone for PSRs, this makes even more sense. He's Glasner with a baguette instead of a Bradburst. He's a brilliant like-for-like sort of replacement for him.
You should only be able to hire... um, Championship League 1, League 2, English, and at a push, Scottish managers in the World Cup year. You can't be bringing more French or Germans into the country in a World Cup year. Jim, agree?
Uh, no, no.
I, I think, um, You did know Tottenham was the guy you were obsessed with for a while.
Yes, because Eintracht Frankfurt were just an absolute basket case. They scored 61 goals and conceded 65 goals last season. I, I, And that sort of calmed down after they sacked him a bit. It was just nonsense. I watched a fair bit of the Bundesliga highlights just because they do a really smart thing where they do a half an hour package of every game. So it's really easily digestible.
So you can actually kind of keep track of what's going on in the league in a fairly top line way, but an entertaining one all the same. And Frankfurt were the box office attraction every single time.
Yeah.
It wasn't that you didn't know what was going to happen. You knew what was going to happen. It was going to be goals. And some of them were going to be absolutely ludicrous from their perspective. So I think if that's Topmuller's fault, then I'm all for him coming to the Premier League, particularly with the team I deeply dislike. Which, to be fair, to be clear, is not Crystal Palace.
No, right. So if you had to bestow... Okay, fine, great. David, what about Pierre Sarge, though? Because he steered Lens to second place.
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Chapter 4: Who is Pierre Sage and why is he being considered by Crystal Palace?
Probably not. Let's see what happens. All right, coming up after this, Tonda Eckert gets even more weird.
I mean, if you're asking me whether Harry the Hornet, who I presume is the mascot, should dive in that way, I think it's disgraceful. Welcome back to the football round.
Well, I haven't ever heard that before.
Yeah, we play it quite regularly. Roy Hodgson's just confused why a giant hornet's in the stadium, but he's presuming for now he's a mascot.
um as i mentioned before the break tonda eckert's become even more weird i need some help on this guys because i understand i recognize my own inbuilt bias um i'm checking my own privilege on this i've got a huge amount of privilege being a portsmouth fan in this situation so i need to be honest about that i find it very difficult to assess what's actually going on at slams at the moment what i'll do is i'll lay it out to you guys then you can pick up the baton and run with it
And the motivation for talking about this today is because Tonda Ekert released a video on Tuesday morning, which ran to almost eight and a half minutes on his role in this whole Spygate thing. Now, in the running order here, it says he's apologizing for his role in it. I don't know if I actually agree with that. I think he's probably making quite a lot of excuses. I've watched it.
He does that kind of non-apology, apology type thing, saying that, you know, oh, well, in Germany this happened, and in Italy that happened, and all we did was this, and it wasn't really that bad. At one point he actually names Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich.
trying to intimate that this is pretty normal behavior from the top managers in the game, despite the fact that he, the owner, and the club have admitted the behavior they've been found guilty of. My take is that I find it just baffling he's still in a job, let alone the fact that the club have agreed to let him release that video on all their official channels.
essentially just making excuses for what they've done. And no point does he really take any time to properly apologise to Middlesbrough, to Ipswich, to Oxford. He spends a bit of time talking about how upset he is on behalf of the fans. But to me, this is one of the weirdest situations I can think of at a top club in recent years.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Marco Silva leaving Fulham?
You've grown up under their shadow, you know, for your entire life.
I totally get it. Yeah.
But I just think the evidence just mounts and mounts and mounts. You know, it starts with, you know, Rupert Lowe. It goes through to Rishi Sunak, to Ricky Lambert, to Matt Atissier, and now Tonda Recker. It's an absolute Mount Rushmore of wrong-uns.
And, you know, I think if we had anything about us at all as a club, Portsmouth, there's a big hill called Portsdown Hill, a big chalk cliff over the Portsmouth Harbour. They should carve that into that just to remind surrounding people whenever they go through that this is what they're all about.
I just, honestly, joking aside though, if it were me owning that business, I wouldn't want someone who's in such an important position with absolutely no integrity. I just don't see how you can preach certain values like all clubs do, being big in the community, doing the things they do and have that as an example. To me, it just doesn't work. And there are other coaches out there.
Yeah, and Dragan Solak has made a big noise about how they need to look at certain things in their internal kind of runnings and day-to-day operations. And he also compared the incident to players diving. So does he get it or not?
It's bonkers. I want Tondra Ekert to pop up at the World Cup in some way, like scouting a player. Yeah, fake moustache on. Yeah, there'd be a lot of scrutiny on him, yeah.
Another amazing thing Dragon Solak said was, I'm amazed that Tonda is willing to come back in this hostile environment after the witch hunt he had in the media. And I love the use of the phrase witch hunt there. It's like, because he did do the thing that he was accused of. And you know that.
It's like, if there is a local woman flying around on a broomstick, turning village folks into pigs, a witch hunt is a completely reasonable thing.
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Chapter 6: What is Tonda Eckert's controversial apology about?
I think it's too big for him at the moment. No? I mean, I know, but like, you could put us in charge there, you know what I mean? We do a decent job. No, you're talking. All right, coming up after this, we're going to talk about law changes. It might not be as shit as it sounds.
Now, despite my jokes before the break about how boring this section might be, I don't actually think it's going to be boring. I think this is a really important bit of admin, a bit of scene setting for what we can expect in a key part of the football when it comes to the World Cup. Because IFAB doesn't work, does it? Pugmo works. IFAB's already IFAB. We're not saying the I-F-A-B.
We're saying IFAB already. They've made changes in how the game is going to be refereed at this summer's World Cup. Before I get into it, Does it seem bonkers to anyone else that they're doing it in the World Cup? To me, it feels like they should try it somewhere else.
No, no, this is perfect for that lot because they like to make it all about them. True. That's probably where they're doing it.
They used to do it in the Confederations Cup, didn't they? They used to roll stuff out in the Confederations.
Well, they sometimes do it in lower divisions in Canada and things like that as well. That's how you know you're not respected, isn't it?
Yeah, quite. Everywhere's their sandbox now.
Yeah, it is. But it's like the surefire way to know that the rule makers of the game don't respect you is when you get some kind of lab test in your league.
Like, we're going to now... We're going to use a square ball.
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Chapter 7: What are the upcoming law changes for the World Cup?
David, you're a man of the cloth. What do you make of this?
Yeah, I mean, look at... Every little helps. Yeah, yeah. They need it. They've won one for 25 years. Very important in Brazilian culture, so I completely get that. I just thought they might have had maybe Kaká doing it in his little T-shirt, you know, his famous T-shirt.
Jim, I would quite like to smother you with two arcs of water before the first Ramble episode of the World Cup. You strip down to just your pants, me and Pete on each side, and we'll spray you with water and baptise you so you have a good World Cup.
I haven't been baptised, so I'm fair game on that.
Yeah. Would it help you get into heaven to know that me and Pete would do it?
You'd have to ask the big man. I wouldn't presume to speak on his behalf.
Speller and I will have a word. Yeah, good idea. But do you know what? The news that I loved this week about the World Cup is that Guillermo Ojoa has been named in the Mexican squad.
Incredible stuff. I mean, this is magnificent. He's back into fatigable. It's going to be his... He is a thousand years old.
It's his sixth World Cup. He respawns every World Cup.
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Chapter 8: How does the discussion on José Mourinho's potential return to Real Madrid unfold?
Argentina do it, but with a real edge as well.
Yeah.
Argentina are probably the only nation that have ticked both boxes of being absolute shithouses, but also full of flair as well. You don't often see that. It's very true. And they're very good at that. So that makes for a heady group.
The collection of Argentina boot boys are all there. Paredes and De Paul as well. So there's potential, you know, we could have a replay of that.
I mean, De Paul was known as Messi's bouncer for a while, wasn't he?
Watch any tunnel walk. I love that role.
Like a proper henchman for the best players who have played a game. That's fantastic. Do you think, because Argentina are in a group with Algeria, Austria and Jordan, I think they'll walk that. And Netherlands have got quite an interesting one with Japan, Sweden, Tunisia. I don't know, it's hard to work out what the paths would be because of the third place qualifiers and stuff like that.
Marcus would know.
He probably would. Marcus would know off the top of his head. On his shift, he definitely would know. But we'd love to see them play each other in a knockout. Anyway, before we go, let's do a little bit on Real Madrid and Jose Mourinho and Florentino Perez. David, we haven't had your take on that yet. Our take on Monday was that this is bananas.
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