Chapter 1: What sparked the controversy in the Arsenal vs. West Ham match?
It is not war and death and famine. It's not that at all. It's the opposite of that. It's to persuade there's a world outside of that. That's why sports are important.
Welcome to Cheat Week on the Second Captain's World Service. It all started with Arsenal West Ham. Sorry, Ken, that's completely wrong. And got progressively more cynical and slimy as the week went on with the Southampton Spygate saga, Celtic's late penalty against Motherwell, and Florentino Perez calling out all the haters and losers at Real Madrid. Let's start our best off with that spy story.
And Ken exploring the risk-reward of Southampton allegedly sending someone to spy on playoff opponents Middlesbrough using just their iPhone. What's the reward?
The reward is we have a game which is set pieces are more and more central to what happens. Okay, so if you can see the set pieces that they're practicing, if you can see what they're working on, that is more of an advantage now, I would say, than even when Bielsa was doing it. You've got the team, the... You can see which the lineup is.
And it's a point that Halberg has made before this game saying, well, look, I can change the lineup, but then I'm not playing the best team. Then I've changed what I think is the best team for this game for Middlesbrough. You know what I mean? So we're at a disadvantage. I can still change. I can still surprise them.
But we're already at a disadvantage because they've seen what I think is the best team for this game. And so there are advantages to it, but the risks are, Well, evidently, they thought the risks were manageable. Because what happened with Bielsa, not much. Well, we say evidently, obviously. Bielsa got fined. The course of EFL justice set us to run its course here.
Yeah, and so you've got a lot of clubs that are going to be like, screw these guys. Well, maybe, it'll be interesting to see which clubs are enthusiastic and which clubs seem less enthusiastic. Yeah, yeah. Do we really need to start lifting the hood? Yeah, you know.
There but for the grace of God.
But it is, it's an interesting one. Just the way that Halbert kind of puts it there, like we've, you know, we believed in this.
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Chapter 2: What happened in the Southampton 'Spygate' saga?
But anyway, he just wouldn't give the ball back to the middle of the player. And the Miserable Prayer is looking an absolute shock. You know when something happens, it's like when Kepa didn't come off that time. Yeah. When Sari was trying to substitute. This isn't done. This doesn't, what? No. And Sari's just blowing his nut. But the keeper's like, well, come and make me. You know.
He should have gone and dragged him off. Pretty similar. Yeah, one of his maybe younger, stronger colleagues at the time. But, listen, I'm talking too much about Sari. Yeah, it was. This kid's just like, no, I'm knocking the ball back. Real nonchalant. And it's like. Give me the fucking ball. And the Middlesbrough fan didn't even really try to wrestle it off him.
It only became more of an issue when St Hampton subs came in to back their ball kid slash teenager. So that was going on. Did you see this lad in the crowd? Yeah, I saw that. He was a Middlesbrough fan with sort of like a GoPro thing. It looked like a monocular thing. Yeah, I presume it's meant to be a gag about this. Well, there are many, many... Is it a gag? That's what I took it to be.
There are many fans dressed up in foliage. Yeah, the fact that they were picked out by the TV director and they lingered on him for a few seconds. Oh, foliage as well. Honestly, I was looking... Arcade for fuck's sake. No, I'll tell you.
You know what, honestly, I thought... This is as bad as the Edamame, by the way.
Listen, do you know what I honestly thought? I was like, what is this guy meant to be? It's like the Arsenal overland and sea thing, which about a million Arsenal fans say, we sing that every game. Overland and sea. Okay, sorry. Sorry. But I thought, what is this guy meant to be? Like Papageno? Papageno. The character in the Magic Flute. I was like, that's a bit far-fetched.
But he's a chicken, but he's got leaves on him. Maybe he's meant to be Papageno? I don't understand. But of course, no. Of course, he's hiding in the bushes. He's hiding in the bushes, of course.
Next on the football sludge pile is the handball VAR drama that occurred 99 minutes into the game between Celtic and Hearts on Wednesday night. We chatted to CiarƔn Canning, who tells us this incident has added yet more fuel to the football conspiracy theory fire.
time for conspiracy theories you know the hearts fans think there's some sort of you know it's amazing how the the referees can be both biased in favor of celtic and rangers you know this seems to be the idea that you know there's there's something out there trying to stop hearts doing this despite the fact it would be a great story for scottish football if hearts going to win the league um and i also wonder derrick mckinnis the hearts manager was very um
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Chapter 3: How did Celtic's late penalty against Motherwell affect perceptions?
He's like, he's one of these kind of big businessmen who's like trying to push himself to the front. He might be one of the people in the shadows who Florentino was calling out and saying, come on and fight me in an election. They're called because he announced, I'm going to do an election. Nobody knows more about winning elections than me. Let's have another election.
He doesn't actually say when the election is going to be. He doesn't say when he's going to resign because he has to resign if there's going to be an election. He doesn't sort of give any details on it. But he says, let's have an election. Basically, I'm going to flush out all these little slugs who are nibbling away at Real Madrid's bones in the shadows.
News emerged this week that Chelsea are looking to get Javi Alonso as their next manager. News that astonished Ken, given Liverpool seem a better fit and given how Liverpool's season has gone with slot in charge. All of which makes Ken wonder if Liverpool's once much vaunted chief executive of football, Michael Edwards, is no longer any good at spotting talent.
He made lots of good signings, or at least it seemed for a long time almost every signing they made worked out. Now I would say... he's lost his edge. I mean, it's fairly clear, right?
You know, whatever edge was there back in the, you know, 10 years ago, he being part of the sort of first wave of the people who understood data or were thinking seriously about how to apply to football and to recruitment,
You know, he was there in the sort of beginning of that process and was knocking around different clubs, Tottenham, where was it, where they all were, Portsmouth, with Richard Hughes and so on. And eventually winding up at Liverpool and doing kind of some great work there before he left four odd years ago, the first time he left Liverpool. And, you know, there was some very good signings there.
This time, what do I see? They're by the three most expensive players in Europe last summer. The three biggest, they just go, Izak, he's like the top striker in the Premier League. We'll have him. I mean, apart from Haaland, who we can't get. We'll have him. You know what I mean? It's not exactly like a sophisticated pick. You know, it's like we're... You know, we'll have him. We'll get Ekotike.
You know, I've seen the goals and assists, the goals and assists chart for the Bundesliga that everyone was using to sign players. You know, he was right up there. You know, Marmouch, of course, said he got first dibs. He was up there at the top. But Ekotike was just there, you know. Again, it's not like, it's hardly a visionary signing. And at a top price, right?
Top price, like 90 million euros or whatever. And Wirtz, who's like the golden boy of German football. Again, at a top price. this isn't like hidden gems. This isn't rough diamond stuff. It's like, wow, this is real value. We've got you, Gini Wijnaldum. Yeah, sure, Newcastle got relegated and people are like, well, what's he really done apart from scoring four goals in that game?
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