Salah edges towards Anfield exit as blockbuster interview stokes the contract fire
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Seriously popular. Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the wisest one of all? Famed is thy beauty, majesty. But hold a lovely podcast host. I see. Reveal her name. Chris Sutton. It's the crisis game of Saturday's programme. City, four straight defeats at home to Tottenham.

Man City 0-4 Tottenham

Chris, I'm going to wonder whether Henry, our producer, was on drugs on Sunday night when he put that rather hallucinogenic composition together. The point of it, of course, is to give you your props. Last weekend when we talked about the, or last Thursday, sorry, when we talked about the Manchester City-Tottenham game, you put your...

Colours on the mast and for once we almost got it right. I say almost because you said it could have been 4-0 either way. So not this, not specific. But I did, I did get it right. What does it tell us and everybody that you are lucky to have me? Well,

I've known that for a while. Don't worry about that. But just to underline that it's no good walking into a bookies and saying, oh, I think this one will go 4-0 either way. They'll probably want to know which way it was going to go. But fair play to you. You don't give me any credit.

And that's the point there. And you're wrong about Postacoglu and you owe him an apology. Hang on a minute. What a manager, what a team. Talk about credit. You spent the preamble to this podcast telling me about your wife's nickname for you. Sounds as though she's given you plenty of credit where it matters. So we don't need to worry about that. But Manchester City 0, Tottenham 4.

Chris may have seen that coming. I don't think anybody else did. That is an astonishing result. Five defeats on the spin now for Pep Guardiola's Manchester City. Some people will now tell you that Liverpool have their hands on the Premier League trophy already. I'm not sure about that, but we'll get to all of it and we'll certainly get into the Man City-Tottenham game a little bit later in the show.

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So Liverpool are sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League, eight points clear now after another fascinating weekend of football. If they beat Man City at home next weekend, some people think the title will be theirs before most of us, Chris not included, have put our Christmas trees up.

But there is a cloud in the Anfield sky and it goes by the name of Mo Salah. Magic Mo scored twice as Liverpool won at Southampton on Sunday, but he's out of contract, as we know, at the end of the season. And in the interview area at St Mary's on Sunday, this was what he said to our Merseyside reporter, Lewis Steele.

Just want to talk about your future. What's the latest you can tell us on that? Well, we're almost in December. I haven't received any offer to stay yet in the club. So probably I'm more out than in. Would you like to stay now? Well,

Hello.

That was Mo Salah talking to Lewis Steele and a few others outside St Mary's on Sunday. Excuse us for the relatively poor quality of that recording. You can't help it when the children are screaming at their idols in the background. But I think we picked up, Chris, what Mo was saying there. Essentially, the takeaways are that he hasn't received a contract offer from Liverpool, which makes him feel that he is more out than in, in terms of whether he stays or goes. And when he was asked...

If that's all disappointed him, he said, of course, yes. You think he's really going to go, Chris? This is the beginning of the end for Mo Salah. Um,

Do I think he's really going to go? Well, I mean, it looks that way if he's saying that. I've got to say, I'm probably the same as you. I'm slightly astonished that Liverpool have gotten themselves in this situation. Because, I mean, you take Mo Salah out of the Liverpool team this season and Liverpool are absolutely flying.

But you take Mo Salah out of the Liverpool team and you'd say, well, you know, will they win the league if Mo Salah doesn't play another game? I don't think they would. I think that they are still so reliant on him. He's their most important player. You saw when he whipped his shirt off after scoring yesterday. He is an incredible Nick, unlike yourself and me. And...

And, you know, his importance to the team is so valuable. He looks fit. He looks sharp. His goals, assists. Why wouldn't they have made him an offer? I don't get it. Interesting.

Interesting you think that Liverpool wouldn't win the league without him in the team. That's a big call. And I think a lot of people would agree. Now look, I smell politics here. I smell jiggery-pokery here. This is a game. I fail to believe that there hasn't been a contract offer. I fail to believe it. However, I agree with you, Chris, when you say that it is remiss of Liverpool to have allowed this situation to reach this point.

So it was Lewis Steele, our Merseyside man, who was asking some of those questions at St Mary's. And Lewis joins us now. Thank you, mate, for coming on the podcast. Mo Salah isn't normally a great talker, especially to the written media. Rarely does anything with the written press at all. Tell us exactly what happened after Sunday's game, mate. So I think, first of all, the context needs to be explained that

In his however many years at Liverpool, coming up to a decade, Mo Sellers stopped in the mix zone just twice before Sunday. He doesn't like speaking to the press unless he has to. And there's a running joke that goes on that we always ask him to stop. Mo, have you got two minutes? And he always says...

No sorry and carries on. The only time I've actually had more than that was down at West Ham last season when he said if I speak today there will be fire and those eight or ten words made more headlines than you know a sit down for an hour with another player would. That's the gravity that Mo Salah's words carry and on the other hand just for comparison I always joke that I speak to Virgil van Dijk more than I speak to my family.

But Mo came out of the mixed zone, came out of the exit just by the team bus. It was raining. We were close to giving up, to be honest, because we thought, all right, no one wants to speak to us today, then we'll just go home. But we thought we'd stick it out in the rain for a few more minutes. But what's interesting about this one, it wasn't us that said, Mo, have you got five minutes for a chat? It was him that asked us if we had five minutes for a chat. Basically pointed at us, me and two other reporters who covered a club every week,

And walked towards us saying, can I speak to you? And, you know, the fact that we don't speak to Mo Salah, it made me feel a bit nervous. Whereas speaking to other players, it's almost like you don't think about it. And you could tell straight away he had something to get off his chest. He looked agitated. He was smirking in that way that he sometimes does when he's being a bit mischievous.

There was a couple of questions about how the game went, but you could tell he wanted to rush through them and talk about the contract because he had something to get off his chest. So after those couple of warm-up questions, I asked him and then he launched into this tirade about the club and their position. And to be honest, it shocked me because we don't speak to Mo Salah often and for someone of his status to pick out reporters to speak to, it was clear that he wanted to say this.

What has baffled me, Lewis, about the most out-of-contract situation and the Trent Alexander-Arnold situation and the Virgil van Dijk situation, they're both out-of-contract as well in June. What's baffled me from the start is Liverpool's silence on this. We don't expect clubs to say things on the record when these situations are bubbling away in the background, but they do normally offer guidance. They do try to steer reporters so that the club's side of the story can be given. There's been none of that from Liverpool.

so far this season. What is the club's situation now? Are they saying anything at all about Mo Salah?

What I would say is there seems to be a swear word at Liverpool this season and that is contracts. You know, you can talk to the manager, the players, those around the club who you speak to about anything you like. But as soon as you mention the big C word, they all shut up. Now, I just want to point very quickly to an example in baseball. Now, you're probably thinking, why on earth are you doing that? But it's important because the Boston Red Sox are owned by the same guys that own Liverpool Fenway Sports Group.

Mucky Betts was by far the Red Sox best player, he was the biggest earner and his contract was running out. FSG did not extend that contract, he wanted to stay but he didn't and he sailed off into the sun and won two World Series elsewhere. I can see parallels with Mo Salah now, he's by far the best player, he's the biggest earner. Will FSG learn from that mistake? Let's see what happens. But me personally, I think that they need to make an exception to any rule they have here.

about ageing players or whatever, they need to make an exception for Mo Salah because he is that good. So there we go. That was Lewis Steele, our Merseyside reporter. Fascinating insight from Lewis about what happened at St Mary's in the interview area on Sunday and what it means for Mo Salah and what it may mean for Liverpool's

future 3-2 of course they beat Southampton to strengthen their position at the top of the Premier League a bit more suicide football from Russell Martin's team of course not a great day defensively for the Saints and it is interesting Steve Cooper has been sacked at Leicester and Leicester aren't even in the bottom four we'll get to that in a while Russell Martin meanwhile nailed to the foot of the Premier League five points adrift from safety

but he sails on. Anyway, Chris, drama off the field at St Mary's and drama off the field at Portman Road as well on Sunday. I was there as Ruben Amorim's Manchester United reign got off the ground with a one-all draw against Ipswich. Bit of argy-bargy afterwards though, mate. Your old Celtic

uh, teammate Roy Keane, former Ipswich manager, of course, um, calling out an Ipswich supporter, offering him out into the car park after the guy started mouthing off at him while he was preparing to do his post-match work for Sky by the touchline. Like I said, I was there. I saw it, albeit from a distance. I've watched the videos. I'm sorry, mate, but I mean, I'm on team Keane with this one. Don't know about you. Um,

Blimey. Well, if every time I got a bit of abuse, I offered somebody out in the car park, I think I'd be fighting three times a week, Ian.

Up north of the border at Sky Sports, we offer cuddles in the car park. I bet you do. Not fighting. But, yeah, look, I mean, it's something I think that as pundits and summarizers, you have to get used to it. And, you know, Roy Keane, you know, on the front foot there. Doesn't make it like it.

No, it doesn't make it right. And you're absolutely right. But in that sense, and I can understand how Roy Keane felt in that situation, but you have to keep calm in situations like that. And sadly, it's just one of those... It's part of the job which most pundits have to get used to. A little bit of context, please.

Like we say, like I said, Roy Keane was a former Ipswich manager, not particularly successful Ipswich manager, but clearly did his best while he was there. After the game, I was still up in the press box and there was a bloke, this bloke who had a go at Keane was right down on the front row of the stand, obviously with an earshot of Keane. There was a bloke behind me, screaming, just screaming randomly at the pitch. F off Keane, F off Keane, F off Keane. He turned around, it's like, what?

What's wrong with these people? They've just had a brilliant afternoon. They've watched their team go toe-to-toe with Manchester United. It was a really brilliant game. Atmosphere is fabulous. United scored after two minutes. We'll get to that. Looks as though they were going to blow Ipswich away. Ipswich went on to be the better team, gave their home support, value for money. Great game. Great point. Great equalising goal.

why on earth can't you just go home? Why do you then have to, Oh, you know what? Before I go home, I'll stand in the, on the upper tier of the main stand and scream down at a bloke who, who I don't know. And I've probably never met, but I'll just do it anyway. And that'll just finish off my afternoon nicely before I get home. If I tell you what, mate, I get a little bit of aggro occasionally, very occasionally out and about, um,

maybe someone outspotted me, not like something that I've written. But if I was getting that kind of abuse regularly, then I'd snap eventually. I would snap eventually. There's nothing in Roy Keane's contract or your contract as a pundit for various people that says you have to put up with shit like that. There just isn't. But you're, I mean, you're viewing this from an angle like this is a one-off. That's my point, kind of. If you're a pundit,

It's not. It's virtually every week that I work, I would take similar to that. And because I'm such a gentle, big guy...

Every week, though. I know you've told me before. Yeah, absolutely. No, I do. But on the flip side of that, there are also a hell of a lot of nice people out there who I see at train stations and airports who are very chatty and nice. But there is the other side of that. And it is a weekly occurrence, but you just have to swat it off, bat it off, and not be so thin-skinned. And Roy Keane obviously felt that...

The guy was over the top and put him on the back foot, offering him having the car park. It was about to get worse for Keane, actually. That wasn't the low point of his afternoon. That came about five minutes later when the post-match chat between Kelly Cates, Keane, Jamie Redknapp,

and Ruben Amirim the Manchester United manager was interrupted by Ed Sheeran for those of you who come on what's your problem with that for those of you who are fortunate enough not to know who Ed Sheeran is he's a

bang average singer who was also a minority shareholder at Ipswich and took it upon himself to wander up to the interview podium and put his armour on red napping and essentially steal the moment. What's your problem with that? He was just thinking out loud. Is that one of his songs?

Is it? I don't know. Is it? Is that a gag? If that's one of his songs, that's a good gag. If it's not one of his songs, I don't know what he means. You're the only person on the planet who doesn't like Ed Sheeran. Well, I doubt it. Kelly Cates dealt with it brilliantly, by the way. Amarin looked as though he wanted to be anywhere but standing where he was. And heaven knows what Roy Keane was thinking. So there we go. Ed, listen, Ed.

No offence meant, mate, but I don't really want to listen to your crap music and I don't want to look at you when I'm watching football on TV either. So jog on, pal. Anyway, after one minute of that... What? That's remarkable. What? Are you all right? What? Are you okay today? I'm fine, yeah. That's an amazing outburst, even by your standards. I don't think so.

It's a football programme. Ed Sheeran get his moment when he's on stage in front of all the people who pay to watch him sing. Celebrity fan. Does a lot of good things, Ed Sheeran. Anyway, there we go. After one minute of Amirim's debut as Manchester United manager, it looks as though things were going to go his way. He must have thought it was easy. Marcus Rashford scoring after 80 seconds. Didn't quite turn out that way. Won all the result. Great game. Afterwards...

Amrim said he thought his players looked a little bit anxious and confused. He said that we will take risks in the future, which means we will have to suffer, but it also means that in a year we will be better. Lots of work to do for Amrim, but we think we knew that already, didn't we, Chris?

Yeah, I mean, there's nothing which surprised me about the Manchester United performance. And Ipswich was a better team. Ipswich should have won the game. Had it not been for Inanna, they would have won the game. So, and I think Amrim afterwards came out and said what everybody knew and everybody was thinking in the fact that this is going to take time. You cannot tell me they've both been great players, Casemiro and Eriksen,

You know, they cannot be a regular midfield duo for Manchester United if they want to move forward. There are so many issues within the team and it's not going to be one where Amarim goes in and flicks a switch just because some of the players said that they enjoyed training under him and training is better this, that and the other. I do think that there's a lot of hype about Amarim coming in, but...

Now reality kicks in and Manchester United still are what they were, but you can't, that's not Amrim's fault. He's had one game, two training sessions with some players, one training session with other players. And it's, you know, it's going to be a slow process.

Yeah, it's absolutely true. But he didn't lose. I'm not being facetious when I say that because he could have done. And Arna made a great save from De Lappe at the end of the first half and a great save from De Lappe at the start of the second half. And another save right at the end. They could have lost that game. They didn't. I think Amarim probably went home feeling reasonably satisfied with his day's work. And I think he probably has every right to do so.

slightly different feeling for Pep Guardiola as we mentioned at the top of the show that is now five on the spin defeats that is for Manchester City it's never happened to Guardiola before and

And they've got that huge game at Anfield on Sunday in the Premier League. But let's talk about Spurs briefly. They were the team who did win the game 4-0. Another jaw-dropping performance in the topsy-turvy world of Ange Postakoglou's Tottenham. I want to talk about one player briefly in particular, Chris James Madison, scorer of two super goals. He's such a great player, Madison, former Norwich boy, of course.

Coventry also. Aberdeen? Good point, loan at Aberdeen. But he's not, he wasn't in the team for the previous two games before this one. He's not in the England squad or hasn't been recently. Yeah.

If I was Postacoglu or any manager with a player of those gifts at my disposal, I'd want to be building my team around him. And that's not a criticism of Postacoglu. There must be a reason why he's not. How do you read that situation? Well, it's like anything. It's about earning the right, performing on a consistent basis and making sure you're the fit for that particular manager. And he has been left out. And that tells you there are deficiencies there.

in his game uh but he's i mean i followed his career very very closely because of his his uh you know connection to norwich and you know cover a lot of scottish football went up to aberdeen on on loan and and and um you know did exceptionally well there uh he's he's always been such a talent um he's had his moments off the field hasn't he a couple of moments at leicester where um

Certainly with the international team, was he in a casino one night? To be honest, there were issues, but they were pretty minor. They were pretty minor, really. But he is such a wonderful talent. And the awareness which he has, I mean, he's brilliant at set plays, but the awareness which he has, I mean, his finishes were wonderful at the weekend. Yeah.

And, you know, hence why that's why Poster Coghlu signed him at Tottenham because how he held him in such high regard. And, no, he was brilliant at the weekend, as were Tottenham as a whole. And, you know, you think about missing their first choice centre-half pair in Romero and Van de Ven. That's...

That is some scalp. But that's why Postacoglu, you know, he's one of the best things, in my opinion, which has happened to the Premier League. We seem to... There's nothing in between with Postacoglu. I mean, on this podcast, you know, it's either we're talking about him in glowing terms or I am. And then, you know, they have a defeat as they did against Ipswich and the wheels are completely off. But in terms of a box office team, that's what Tottenham are. And really, was it...

Because of Manchester City's home record in the Premier League, I mean, nobody really saw that coming, that defeat, other than myself.

But that's not such a great surprise. Is it Tottenham doing that to teams? It's just, they've just been slightly inconsistent this season. I'd really like to know what the deficiency is that Postacogli thinks he sees in Maddison. I wonder if it's hard work. I mean, just very briefly, do you see that? Do you see any lack of endeavour when you watch him play? Do you see any failings in what he does off the ball when you watch him play? Just quickly. Did he not...

I can't remember which team it was against. Did he not hook him? I can't remember which team it was against. Well, I think he hooked him quite early and put on...

I think it was, might have been Saar. So he wanted more legs in the middle of the park and played him a little bit deeper. So it's about finding a role for Madison in the team. Kulosevsky moved out into the wide area. He has been playing Kulosevsky, who's such a talented player as well. And, you know, maybe he's lacked a bit of consistency as most of the Tottenham players have.

this season, but they've also got a fair bit of strength in depth. Tottenham, you look throughout their, uh, their squad, it's just sort of, you know, there'll be a frustration within the squad. It's just nailing it down, you know, where they can, they can perform, uh, and get results on a weekly basis. I suppose you wonder if, if with players like Kulishevski, like you mentioned, and Brennan Johnson and Son, um, in the team, uh,

maybe, maybe Hans thinks that he needs some security. Maybe thinks that one of the players out of those, including Maddison, has got to go every week to try and get some security in the team and they haven't got the ball. I don't know really, we're just hypothesising. Anyway, great result for them. Crisis time at Manchester City, say that with my tongue in my cheek, it's no crisis to be in the top four of the Premier League, but it is unusual that they seem to be

drifting should we be worried about Kyle Walker and I asked that because he was done for pace by Timo Werner who's not slow for the final Tottenham goal but it's not the first time it's happened he was done by Adama Traore a couple of times when Fulham visited the Etihad and he hasn't looked the same play for England either are his legs going? I

He probably doesn't have the dynamism which he once had. I mean, you made the point, Werner is particularly quick, but over the years we're used to Kyle Walker recovering in that situation. I don't necessarily think that Manchester City's problems are all down to Kyle Walker. I think if you're talking about...

who aren't what they once were, I think you could look at Kevin De Bruyne. I know he came off the bench against Tottenham, a wonderful player, which he's been, had injury issues previously.

You could look at Bernardo Silva. Doesn't have that dynamism anymore. You could look at Gundogan. I think he dropped the run of Madison for the first goal, I think. Yes, he did. So, you know, you could look at those three players. Three incredible players over the years. They're just aging. And I think that...

Look, it's easy to say all this after, you know, Manchester City, a team who are on a desperately poor run by their standards. You know, this just doesn't happen to Manchester City. But the longer it goes and some of the manner of their defeats, then, you know, I think you do have to look a little bit closer. And that would be something which if I was Pep Guardiola, I would be concerned about. You know, they have so many ageing greats.

in their team. And that may be a bit of a problem for them. I mean, Tottenham can do this to anybody, a little bit, you know, a little bit like Brighton, you know, teams like that. And that's what makes the Premier League fascinating. But you don't often see Manchester City demolished, especially on their own patch.

All the stats were actually in City's favour, apart from the goals scored. They had an awful lot of shots themselves, early and hard, and could have had a hat-trick with the factors that they looked desperately vulnerable when they didn't have the ball. And it did interest me, you mentioned them there, it did interest me, De Bruyne, Jack Grealish both started on the bench, and Pep didn't bring them on until they were 3-0 down with a quarter of an hour left.

Whether that's a fitness thing, I don't know, but I thought that was quite telling. Anyway, like I say, City go to Anfield on Sunday for what could be a season-defining team game for them, if not for Liverpool. Please let us know what you think about City's demise. Is it a rot that's setting in for the long term, or is it just the biggest of all blips? Roy Keane in the car park.

Do you think he was right to give as good as he was getting from that bloke by the side of the pitch? And if Roy Keane offered you into Carport, would you go or not? And what do you think is going to happen? Don't be stupid. What do you think is going to happen with Mo Salah? Does he stay? Does he go? Is he more out than he's in? Or is this just part of...

political war between player and club at Liverpool. You can let Chris and I know what you think on our social media platforms. X is probably the best one to go to. Although my friend has now joined the growing community on Blue Sky. You can find him there as well. I haven't made that movie. Nice and friendly, Blue Sky. So, you know, after what you said about Ed Sheeran earlier, you're not welcome.

for now, mate, for now. But don't people realize that it's not really Twitter that makes Twitter bad. It's the people on Twitter. So I'm afraid that those people, the lunatics, will soon gravitate to blue sky. It's not technology. It's not social media platforms that are the problem, Chris. It's the people who live on them. And I'm sure that we'll all end up in the same mess on blue skies. We have been on X these days. But anyway, fine.

Find us. I'm full of positivity today. Find us on those platforms. You know how it goes. I'm the one with the silly name and Chris is the one with the famous name. You can also get in touch with us by going to the show notes at Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever it is you get this show, and leave us some comments there. And while you're at it, hit the follow button and leave us a review.

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Right, let's do some questions for Chris. These ones have all come from X, as it happens. It does still serve a purpose, at least to us. This is from Adrian M. Chris, if you hadn't thrown a hissy fit at Glenn Hoddle back in the day, would the SAS, that was you and Shearer, been as good for England as it was for Blackburn? And do you still talk to Alan?

That's two questions. You're only allowed one, Adrian. Yeah, well, I talk to Alan a little bit when I see him on the media rounds. With regards to the SAS, well, England had their own SAS, didn't they, Shearer and Sheringham, who were quite the partnership. But yeah, that's gone now, hasn't it? I mean, you know, we don't need to regurg all that and that.

Good question from Adrian. Good questions. This is just a facetious offering from GJPUSB. Is Ruben Amrim taller than Ian? Well, I think he's taller than five foot, isn't he? Hey, careful. My mum's only four foot eleven. Yes, he is taller than me. I can assure you I've stood next to him already. And he is. Christian Richardson on X.

Chris, a word, please, about Ian saying that Liverpool were in a false position at the top of the Premier League. When did I say that? Sometimes. Sometimes. When did you say it? You did say it. Sometimes it's just better to say I got it wrong. I'm not there yet. I've played 12 games, that's all I'm saying. Kevin Hamilton on X. What does Celtic's best midfield three, Chris?

Oh, good question, Kevin. So I know where he's going with that one. Callum McGregor, Rio Hatate and Arna Engels. And I think they're Celtic fans because Arna Engels was their record signing who...

Probably would have expected more from him this season and there are Celtic fans out there who are saying, well, they should play Bernardo in the middle of the park with Hatati and McGregor. But I think Engels, like any new player, needs. And the final offering this week for questions for Chris comes from Mr. Mealy on X.

Chris, you might want to explain that one.

Well, the Wrexham goalkeeper, and you keep getting mixed up with Wrexham and Wrexham, don't you? But the Wrexham goalkeeper, Wrexham is a little town in Norfolk, the gateway to the broads, lovely little town, holiday destination in the summer. This is me doing my bit for the Norfolk Tourist Board. But the goalkeeper is... You don't get paid by them as well, do you?

by everybody else. Well, you know, if they want to, then that's fine. But the goalkeeper for Roxham is my son, Ollie, who's 28 years old and he scored his first ever goal. Saw the opposing Graves goalkeeper off his line and punted the ball up the pitch. Couple of bounces, Gale Force wins into the goal. And he'd been getting a fair bit of stick all afternoon. Good natured stick, but from the Graves support team.

who were calling him son of Shearer in a round of battle all afternoon. And it was good natured, he said after. So then when he scored, and they won 5-2, they've been struggling this year in a bit of a relegation battle. So then when he scored, what did he do? He ran over to the grey support who were...

like giving him pelters all afternoon, doing the Shearer celebration. That was beautiful from Oli. And it's actually on X, actually, and you see the clip. And as he runs over, they all start singing, Shearer, Shearer, Shearer. So it was brilliant. He's obviously inherited that very natural sense of pettiness that his father has.

And I absolutely love that. When you say the travelling Grey's support, I mean, how many would we be talking about? Six, seven? Well, Grey's were at home. Grey's were at home. Oh, sorry. Sorry, mate. So, yeah, so Roxham travelled to Grey's. So, yeah, Grey's had sort of in recent... I think Julian Dix was once their manager. Yeah.

And I think they'd been doing okay a couple of years ago. But anyway, they were a good lot actually though. And there are certain stadiums which Oli plays in and he does get a fair bit of flack because I'm his dad.

but that was all pretty nice natured so fair play to the Grace fans. Message to Russell Marsden at Southampton, see, it does work when you punt it long. We've been telling you this all season. I love the way that you suggest that he did it on purpose, that he spotted the goal to slash his time. Surely he just wellied it as far as he can like he does every time he gets it. Exactly. Do you know what? I mean, it's...

When he was younger, I mean, he could barely kick the ball out of his box. And this was just till about a couple of years ago. He couldn't kick the ball over the halfway line. So Storm Burt, you know, thanks to Storm Burt really for that. Yeah. We've had another sacking in the Premier League and we take no pleasure in saying that. Steve Cooper has gone at the King Power at Leicester. Interesting one, Chris, because as I mentioned earlier on in the show, they're not in the bottom three. Yeah.

They're not in crisis. I think we said last week on the show before, when we previewed their game against Chelsea, that they lost 2-1 on Saturday. If you've come up from the Championship and you've played 11, 12 games of the Premier League season and you're not in the bottom three, then you're doing okay. But it wasn't good enough for the Leicester board

they got rid of him. I have a little bit of background as far as I'm aware from what I'm told. I think a lot of the players at Leicester hadn't quite moved on from Enzo Mureska, the coach who got them promoted and then walked out the door to go to Chelsea. Not sure they ever quite talked to Steve Cooper's methods. Maybe an appointment that shouldn't have been made in the first place, Chris.

You can say all that. And, you know, Steve Cooper gets the sack after 12 Premier League games. You quite rightly made the point. Promoted, came up. What's the expectation this season? Well, I think for any promoted club, we saw the three promoted clubs last year get relegated. The expectation was to stay in the Premier League. So it seems ridiculous to sack him after 12 games. I just wonder, the people who made the decision to appoint Steve Cooper...

Why aren't they sacked? These are the decision makers and they're holding their hands up and saying, well, we got that wrong. So how can you trust these people to put the right guy in place this time around? I do not understand that in any way, shape or form. And it is unfair to sack him after 12 games and all this stuff about all the players aren't taking to him. I read Tom Colamossi's article.

column this morning or his match report and the issues surrounding Leicester City and I mean one of the things he wrote was the players weren't happy about the standard of hotel in Germany when they went on a pre-season tour I mean do me a favour for God's sake I mean what does that tell you about the mentality and the group of players there if that is

is the case. The players, by the way, obviously before they knew what was going to happen to the manager, some of the players seem to spend Saturday night in Copenhagen, of all places, at a club Christmas party, which is not a great look now that the manager has been sacked. But players will be players, I guess.

Well, it's quite early to have a Christmas party. I mean, blimey, some people put the decorations up before December, which is ridiculous. So for Duster to have a Christmas party in November is slightly odd. I've got to say, doing it in Denmark, though, quite a good idea, although not such a bright idea because people have cameras and camera phones, don't they? So people can take a picture on that or a recording on that. I mean, at Celtic once we tried to get away from your mob,

the press and discreetly went to Newcastle on a club coach, filled the club coach with crates of beer that barely got out of the car park. And I think all your guys just followed us and we ended up having four players arrested.

And on the front page of every Scottish newspaper. I think Neil Lennon was one of the players. Johan Mialbi, Rab Douglas and Bobby Petter. Of all people to get arrested, Bobby Petter. Why should he not be arrested? You just would say that one person who would, you know, I mean, there was a...

I think there was an altercation with a camera guy and a camera went and I think, I can't remember, this was a long time ago, I think the camera got launched.

In Fittire? Well, I think that was the river in Newcastle. I'm not so certain what exactly happened. I wasn't there, but no, it was one of those. We tried to get out of the way and stayed discreet, and we were not that discreet. And Martin O'Neill, suffice to say, Martin O'Neill hit the roof. A couple of things here. I mean, going to...

A group of high-profile Scottish football players at a Scottish club deciding to go to Newcastle to keep their Christmas party discreet is a little bit like saying, oh, you know, I need to keep away from the water. I'm going to jump into a swimming pool. I mean, you know what, I'm going with that. I'm going with that, don't you? I love the fact you all went down on a bus.

Like you're in some kind of carry-on film. Footballers and Christmas parties, I mean, we could do a podcast on that. All on their own. There's been a few famous ones over the years. Leicester have had theirs now, and by the time they got home from Copenhagen, they found they no longer had a manager. Graeme Potter, by the way, would be my pick to be the next Leicester manager. He was interviewed for the role before Steve Cooper got it. Didn't take it.

Graham Potter's got to work at some point. He's got to go back to work at some point. It's been 18 months or more now since he left Chelsea. At some point, he's got to pop up. I think that would be a reasonable place for him to start his career again. Right, Chris, quickly, moments for the weekend. You can go first.

Well, my moment of the weekend I saw in Mike Keegan's confidential mail column where Norwich City, thinking outside the box, are putting on Jack and the Beanstalk over the Christmas period at Carrow Rose. A bit of panto at Norwich City, which is lovely, isn't it? No, you love a bit of panto. I went to one on Saturday. Oh, no, I don't.

I went to one on Saturday and it was absolutely fabulous. I went to watch Robin Hood at the Zed Arts Theatre in Manchester. Did you get tapped up? In Manchester. I went to Zed Arts Theatre to watch. It was at Amdram, the South Manchester AOS Theatre Group. Absolutely fantastic. I never realised that Pantos were quite so risqué.

I'd kind of, it passed me by that a lot of the fun is for the kids, but the jokes are for the adults. I never really realised that. And on the way home, I did say to Vicky, I said, that's amazing. I said, because I don't think it was like that when I was a kid. I don't think they made those jokes at Pantos when I was a kid. And she just looked at me and I said, what? She said, well, just listen to what you've just said.

I said, what? I said, well, of course they made those jokes when you were a kid. You just didn't get them. That's the point. You were a kid. You were a kid. Anyway, I loved it. Robin Hood at Zed Arts Theatre on a Saturday laughed my little socks off for two and a half hours. I'm going to go back to the football field for my moment of the weekend and I'm going to keep it quite short.

if I can. I just thought that the goal, the first goal from Wolves, Matthijs Kuhne for Wolves in their 4-1. Kuhne. Kuhne for their 4-1 win at Fulham. That was Dennis Bergkamp.

That was Dennis Bergkamp dressed in purple. I would love to say dressed in gold, but they weren't. The rules were dressed in purple. Dennis Bergkamp dressed in purple. What a piece of skill that was. And it did. And his second goal wasn't bad either, by the way.

It did make me think, watching match today on the train to Ipswich on Sunday morning, about the standards of Premier League football these days. You see, I mean, just this weekend, two goals from Cunha, the Madison second goal for Tottenham

Nicholas Jackson's first touch for his goal for Chelsea against Leicester. The Yao Pedro pass for Matoma as Brighton beat Bournemouth. I do see levels of skill every week now in the Premier League that make my jaw drop. And it does make me wonder if, if it is higher now than it's ever been. You've got your head down.

in your hands. And you play with some great players, Shearer, Larson, Bellamy, Zola, many, many others. Are you going to contradict me if I suggest that the levels of technique and application at the top level now are greater than they've ever been?

You're a buffoon, I think. I mean, did you not watch? So just, you know, you're talking about the Premier League, regarded as the best league in the world. I mean, if you want to go back in the day, can you remember Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Gascoigne? If you want to go deep in there, Maradona, Beckenbauer, you know, these are players who,

who we still talk about today, people stepping in like Beckenbauer, people talk about Maradona, the Maradona twirl. They have movements named after them, little skills named after these players. The Premier League is of a high standard, but football hasn't changed in terms of players' skills.

with incredible ability over the years. You read far too much into that. You get sucked in. It's ridiculous. It's like you view football 20 years ago plus as just hoofball. And that was never the case.

All I would say about that is that the players that you mentioned there, all great players, of course, they were players who existed, they were recognised as being right at the top of their game, some of the best players the world has ever seen. What I'm talking about is the regularity with which we see moments of, I wasn't going to say genius, that's too much, but moments of utter spellbinding excellence from all players now.

on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. You know, yeah, Maradona scored. Not all players. Maradona scored his great goals. Hoddle has a highlights reel like nobody else. So does Gazza. I totally get that. But we're now talking about, you know, there were about half a dozen examples on one episode of Match of the Day at the weekend. That's what I'm driving at. Google Ian Crook pass to Mark Bowen. Ian Crook was a guy I...

who had a massive influence on my career at Norwich City. Couldn't run, couldn't tackle, couldn't head. One of the greatest passers of a ball out there. And I'm not, I don't say that lightly. He was an unbelievable player and had a big, big bearing on me really kicking on because he made a lot of goals for me. Player I played with at Celtic, go and look on YouTube, a guy called Lubomir Avchik. And

And look at his levels of skill. You didn't know which foot he kicked with. We've covered a lot of ground today. It's been a busy Premier League weekend. This is why we were so keen for it to come back after two weeks of international tedium. Is Mo Salah going to stay at Liverpool? Are these words hollow or does he mean it? Roy Keane in the car park. What on earth was going on there? Kyle Walker.

The magic sprinter has the magic gone from his legs. Steve Cooper, should he have gone? And once he'd gone, should Leicester's players have gone to their party in Copenhagen? A lot to get to. Let us know. We'll be back on Thursday. Thanks for being with us. I'm Ian Leidman, and the chap who's no longer the most famous footballer in his own family is Chris Sutton. And this has been It's All Kicking Off.