OTB Football
FOOTBALL DAILY: 'I find it hard to listen to you Jamie... ' Slot takes on Carra, LinkedIn Rosenior and Infantino's relationship with Trump
22 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What were the highlights of Liverpool's recent match against Marseille?
Off the Balls Football Daily.
Hello and welcome along to Thursday's Football Daily. I'm Phil Egan. Coming up today, Arnold Slott's question by Jamie Carragher about his style of play despite a 3-0 win away to Marseille. Newcastle go one step closer to qualifying for the next round in Europe. Evan Ferguson's back for Roma and Bohemians make another signing ahead of the new season.
But first, Liverpool have put themselves in a strong position to finish in the Champions League top eight after a 3-0 win away to Marseille. A Dominic Sabasai free kick in the first half
Chapter 2: How does Arne Slot assess Liverpool's luck in their performance?
Then a known goal from Geronimo Rulli and a Cody Gakbo strike proved to be the difference on the night. Boss Arne Slot says they had luck on their side for a change.
The moment we were having a big chance to score the 2-0 that hit the post or the bar. Ten seconds later they had a big chance and usually this season that ball goes in and we're all complaining. But now the ball went over and we extended our lead to 2-3-0 and the performance is still the same.
The win moved Liverpool up to fourth and a win in next week's final game at Hunter Carabag would ensure they avoid the playoffs and Slot says his players could do with the time off.
Chapter 3: What did Jamie Carragher question about Arne Slot's style of play?
We're already seven, eight months into the season and I don't think Virgil has had more than three days off and it's the same for Ryan and it's the same for all these players. But they constantly show up, they constantly show mentality no matter how many setbacks we've had this season.
Slott was on the CBS Sports Champions League show after the game. Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher was part of their coverage as always and he questioned some of the style of play from Slott's team this season.
I think we played a very good game. I don't know if Jamie saw it because I heard he was constantly on the phone with his mum, but I can tell him we played quite a good game today.
Arne, can I ask you about the set-up of the team tonight? Because over the last few months, you're trying to obviously... make the team get better, get better results, and you've played lots of different formations at different times. Can you just explain how it looked tonight? It looked like you had two wide strikers and a box midfield.
Chapter 4: How is Newcastle preparing for their challenge against PSG?
Yeah, I find it hard to listen to you, Jamie, because you were the one that told me that I had to make sure we didn't concede that much, so I started to do that, and as a result of that, people were complaining that it became boring, so I'm not sure if I should listen to you.
But because of some injuries we have, because of the players we have available and the style of play Masaya has, we thought it was a good idea to play with Mo and Hugo up front and to overload the midfield with players that are very good in between the lines.
And I think you could see that today with full-backs that could attack down the side and Mackay and Ryan who could help out Joe and Virgil in build-up. So that worked, in my opinion, quite well today.
Arnie, you mentioned there about, obviously, at the moment, the criticism about the team is that it's a little bit slow, it's a little bit boring. At the start of the season, it was completely different. How difficult is that as a manager to sort of get that balance right?
And also, if that is the criticism right now, about the team being a little bit slow, a bit pragmatic, how do you improve that? How can you work on that?
I watched Real Madrid-Barcelona for Dutch television and after 32 minutes when it was still 0-0 the commentator said that Barcelona played really slow and boring and that was because Madrid was constantly in a low block and it was really hard for Barcelona to play through.
Ten minutes later it was 2-2 because of individual quality of Ravinha, Vinicius Junior and it said peace and then they went to the studio and the pundit said it's one of the best games we've ever seen. So goals in football are so important what people's opinions are.
And I think we've shown this season that every time when it's a bit of a more open game, and that has mainly been in Europe and a few times in the Premier League as well, we are a very good team. We can make it very good difficult for everyone.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Chelsea face in their recent game?
But when we face low blocks, we struggle a little bit more to create chances for me for obvious reasons. Everyone in the club also is aligned on that. I think Pep said something about it yesterday, what you need against low blocks. But today we didn't face a low block and we played a very good game. But we don't play slow. If you face a low block, it's very hard to get pace into the game.
Chapter 6: How is Liam Rosenior adapting to his role at Chelsea?
And I think we've tried against Burnley. We did find a few adjustments which helped because against Burnley we've created probably two or three times the amount of chances as today. But now we score three. And now people like Jamie are very positive about us. I don't think you were very positive about us after the Burnley game, were you, Jamie?
I was, actually. I said that's just one of those games that sometimes you have to accept. But what I would say, Arne, I think some of the games that we've watched against, say, Sunderland and Leeds, I would say at home, was not like the Burnley game. The Burnley game was one of those games that I think it was unlucky.
Chapter 7: What is the significance of FIFA's relationship with Donald Trump?
Whereas the Sunderland game and Leeds game, you are there as a supporter or a pundit or as a Liverpool fan as I am, actually think we need more than that. The game needs to be a bit quicker. You know, the intensity needs to be there. That was lacking, I felt, in those games. But that, I don't think, was the case against Burnley.
I agree. I think against Burnley was much more intense than in the other two games. But... We've played Burnley twice so I think I can say this. I rate Leeds United and Sunderland a bit higher than Burnley. So it's also harder against teams that are very well organised and even better than the ones of Burnley.
It makes it really hard to create a lot of chances unless you have certain quality where I've spoken a lot about and Pep has spoken about yesterday evening. And that can change the game. And I just gave the example of Barcelona-Madrid, where Frenici scored an incredible 1v1. I think he made a run of 30, 40 yards. And the same for Rovinje.
And there was a set piece, which is also very important to unlock a low block. So I completely disagree with people who say that we are playing slow, because we have the ball, we control possession, and we want to go as quickly as we can. But if there are 10 players inside the 18-yard box, It's quite hard to get tempo and rhythm and it's hard to score goals and especially for us.
Chapter 8: How has Infantino's leadership affected FIFA's ethical standards?
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is relishing next week's trip to Holders PSG as his side attempt to qualify automatically for the last 16.
I think they're a real inspiration to us with their style so I think this is the hardest if not one it's difficult to put sort of a label on it but one of the hardest games we can play which would be great for our development but we want to try and go there and win of course.
Newcastle have secured at least a play-off spot after their 3-0 win at home to PSV Eindhoven. They return to action at St James' Park at the weekend when they face Aston Villa on Sunday. Chelsea are also into the automatic qualification places after their narrow 1-0 win at home to Pavos. Boss Liam Ross Sr. says his players show great fighting spirit.
You have to keep knocking on the door, but you also have to keep the back door shut. There are things I was pleased with, there are things that we need to improve on, but overall the body language of the group, they kept going well. they were making block after block and save after save.
On last night's football show, Owen Doyle joined Owen Sheehan and said Rosinha might need to be a little more mindful of how he comes across in the press.
Liam Rosinha and his start to life at Chelsea. LinkedInification of football is what I saw as a headline on Football 365 earlier as he gets lumped in with Southgate and Frank. Are you a LinkedIn man yourself? I'm not, no. You? No, not on LinkedIn. But I mean, I'm not against these LinkedIn individuals.
I think in these press conferences, he needs to tone them down a lot. Just say what you have to say and get out of there. Because I said to you, fair, he's going to become a meme. And you said, no, he's already a meme. And he needs to shake that. You'll shake that for a while if you win a few games in a row, and that's fine. And to be fair, he's obviously came in and
the Charlton in the FA Cup he beat Brentford today and then against Arsenal came back twice and they're not out of it and like we hope he just gets judged on that but we all know that football isn't like that I just think he needs to be very very careful in how he's carrying himself when it comes to these press conferences because it's an easy out for a football club or a fan base to turn on him Can you un-meme yourself?
You look at him now and he's a serious operator. Serious, serious man. Nobody takes the piss out of him for how he says good evening anymore. No, no, no.
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