Episode 153: Arsenal inch closer to a title as Manchester turns red, F1 off-season malaise

Podcasting from Studio 2520, somewhere near the Arctic Circle. This is Tackling the Chicane.

Ah yes, Old Man Winter is here and not going away, as it would seem. Seemingly not. Uh, Snowmageddon is hitting Sunday, allegedly, across much of the United States. Yeah, so tomorrow it's supposed to have a swift temperature drop, sub-zero. Um, and then I'm not— I haven't tracked what's happening Sunday, but apparently we're going to get a little snow.

So you're going to get a little snow for sure. It's actually more south where— oh, is it? It's occurring. Okay. It's a standard— well, we'll see, but it's more a standard snow event, uh, up in Cleveland, 6 or whatever inches, which is what it is.

But, uh, down south are much larger projections, including here, apparently. Apparently no one actually knows. Excellent. So I brought this all on myself because I Yeah. Gave my snowblower to your brother because the last 3 winters I didn't use it.

And well, and it's fine because I, I like to shovel. I don't like to shovel, but I will shovel. Um, yeah. So I guess we'll see what happens on Sunday night here. Yeah, we'll see.

I don't know, you never really know with winter. Winter projections are usually the most, uh, faulty of them all, it seems. Yeah.

All right, well, let's get into it. Well, uh, really not a whole lot to actually say in the world of F1. We have a number of Livery drops since the last recording, none the least Haas Audi.

Are you on the Haas email? Do you get their updates? I do not get Haas emails. They had a nice video that they sent with the livery reveal, which. For that color scheme, I thought was pretty good.

I thought you wanted— I want less white. I do. But if they're going to go with predominantly white car, I do like the more— the larger graphic on the rear wing looks nice. And the TGR logo looks really good. So Gazoo Racing.

Uh, it must be a bigger part this year. They're predominant on the car, whereas before they were just a bit smaller. It looks like they have a few new sponsors as well, so that's good for them. Um, the other reveals that I saw were a little bit less, except for the Red Bull looked good. That was last week though.

And then the Mercedes car looks exactly like the Silver Arrow would. Yeah, um, it's TGR Haas this year is the official team name. Yeah, so Toyota Gazoo Racing, um, they must have ponied up a little bit more dough. Um, yeah, car looks good. I'm looking forward to the kickoff.

And Audi, they revealed their livery. It's Less than impressive with a red splotch and black. Yeah, I thought maybe they might go a different direction, but they didn't. So, um, we'll continue to see liveries. Uh, Cadillac, I've already seen some previews of that.

Um, it's very crest-oriented, so you're gonna see the most of the car is going to have that Cadillac crest on it.

Um, it's black, so that's cool. Uh, we'll just have to see what everybody else comes out, uh, out with, I guess. Yeah. Nothing really has knocked my socks off from this round of livery reveals. In fact, I think most of them are not good, uh, or are just kind of steady as she goes.

But yeah, I've said this way it goes. Yeah, I've said this before. If you dip into the F2 and F3 pages on the— go to the F1 site and then just go to the F2, F3— they have much more, at least interesting liveries on those cars. Maybe it's because the sponsorship is is different. Um, but yeah, I think the Haas car looks pretty, pretty good for this year.

TGR is, uh, it's good that they're partnered up with them. I think Toyota has a lot to bring to the table. Yeah, I don't really exactly know what Toyota being involved Yeah, I think it has mostly to do with facilities. So they're using Toyota test wind tunnels and whatnot for aero. Um, they must have some consultancy.

It would be really cool if Toyota had a PU, you know, a power unit, but they don't. So, um, we'll have to run with what we've always run with, which is a Ferrari-based unit. And We talked about this before on podcasts past, but we'll see in 2026 if, if we have significant failures like we used to have. We might, we might see that. I don't know.

I would say it's probably likely at least the first year. Yeah. So other than that, We're definitely in the off-off season. I know this doesn't excite you very much, but Drive to Survive Season 8 will drop 24th of February, I think. I guess if there was a season to, to watch, it would be last year, um, with the interesting title race.

I just— the, the the sports behind-the-scenes documentary thing. It's just been beat so far into the ground for me personally. But yeah, I haven't watched that show in a while now. For me, it's just some content when there is no content. Yeah, so I'll, I'll blaze through it probably.

Um, yeah, it'll be interesting because they always go the season before. So there'll be a lot of talk, um, about the McLaren rise and then sort of semi-fall and then rise again at the end, I'm sure.

Um, I don't know, it's mildly entertaining. I agree. I think that you only have so much life expectancy of a series like that, and once you get past 5 seasons or so You know, that's— they're going to keep doing it because it keeps drawing attention somehow and eyes. Yeah. Um, and the other series have joined in.

There's an IndyCar, um, similar series, and the NASCAR one I don't think really did all that well, but I'm not sure about that. Um, maybe as we arrive to the racing season here in the next few months, we might have to start talking a bit of NASCAR because there's going to be some changes. Yeah, well, the new playoff format, which is kind of— it's, it's not really new, old, the new old. Basically, the Chase is back. Uh, the highlights are no more win and you're in, which thank God.

That was easily the dumbest part of the format for NASCAR, was you win one race and you are essentially in the playoffs. Um, so you can fluke in, in NASCAR. You can fluke wins. You can fluke a race win and then do nothing the rest of the year, but because you won that one race, you're in the playoffs. So Oftentimes you would see probably the bottom 2 of the 16 drivers that made it just stink it up for 3 weeks and that would be that.

Yeah, so that, that's gone, thank Christ. Um, no, also eliminates the championship race. Win that and you're the champion even if you are 10th in points. Deal, so that's also gone. So I think it's a net positive overall for the series.

In fact, I don't really see any negative from it. I have to wonder too if with the reintroduction of internal combustion, uh, Hemi engines for Dodge, you know, they— are they gonna come back to NASCAR with the new Charger, I wonder. I don't know. There's been rumblings about, you know, Dodge being back in, and there, there's a lot of, of courtship from manufacturers of NASCAR. I know Honda have been sniffing around for a couple years, and whether actually, you know, with intent or not, threatening to ditch IndyCar and then nothing ever happened.

So, um, yeah, I don't know what, what Dodge's particular, uh, situation is with NASCAR, but it would be interesting to see another engine manufacturer slash chassis in the fold in the Cup Series at least.

And they, they did a— as most manufacturers did this year, a complete 180 from They were trying to make the Charger all-electric. They, they did. It failed miserably. So then they decided, well, we're gonna have to Hemi it up again. I don't know if that has any significance with them coming back to the series.

I haven't heard anything necessarily, but the person who's in charge at Dodge now is You know, he was basically the guy who brought us the Hellcat. So had a slight hiatus. He left for a while and then, um, Stellantis just kind of milquetoasted everything. They were, they were really pushing the EV stuff and it didn't work for the Dodge crowd because those guys are pretty hardcore and they realized it. I, The car is beautiful.

I think the Charger, I love it. I think it's a good looking car. And now that they brought back, um, at least the, at least the opportunity to have, you know, an internal combustion engine, which is what everybody wanted. Um, interesting to see how that's going to play out. There's the boomers love their Hellcats.

Yeah. So, um, it's, it's sort of the last bastion of the American muscle car, honestly. Yeah. And I mean, Ford with Jim Farley at the helm, he's a racer. He competes in, in IMSA as a driver.

Um, they developed the GTD Mustang, which is basically a Mustang in name only. They take a stock Mustang and they hack off everything from the rear B-pillar back and from the A-pillar front, and it's all bespoke. It's built by a Canadian company. The car is $400,000, but it is, it's a, it's a race car. It's, it's built for, it's built for IMSA.

To compete, believe it or not, with 911s. Slow, slow in practice or in qualifying today, was it? Yeah, I, I've only— I've read tons of articles on it. I don't— we'll see how they can perform actually in race, um, garb. Yeah, so to speak.

Of course, a lot of that, you know, driver lineup and all that comes into account. It's not like the car is just a complete turd, you know? No, it's, it's pretty impressive. If you haven't Googled that particular model, um, the GTD is pretty— it's interesting. Um, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole with Ford, but they're, they're also, um, for 2027 maybe Is gonna— they're gonna have a Dark Horse SC, which is a supercharged 5.2-liter, 860 horsepower.

It's probably gonna land somewhere in the low 6 figures if you want one of those. Yes. Yeah, the Dark Horse has been out for a year or two already. This will be a level up from that. Um, did they finally move away from the Mustang looking like a Ford Fusion or?

No, it's, I'm so the model designation is S650. I'm not a big fan. I was not a big fan of the 550s either.

Um, in my, yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's big.

Yeah, it is. It's— it, it looks a little more mean than Mustangs have looked in a while, I suppose. But we're sort of a purist family here. Yeah, the last— the 2013-14 was the last really good-looking one, in my opinion. Um, and of course I have '05, which is an S197 designation, and that was the very first iteration of the retro look back.

And, uh, I still think that Saleen looks better than most, if you ask me. Just my biased opinion. Yeah, I, I don't know what they did with the, like, the front of Mustangs, but they I'd say they kind of ruined it. Well, a lot of design's been ruined by, um, pedestrian safety measures that they have to run, they have to fall into. So that's why cars have weird front ends now, because they actually do tests where if you should hit someone pedestrian-wise, what, uh, what the result will be.

Believe it or not. Um, but anyhow, we could— I could talk about that. That's too boring.

It feels like generally this is a rather dark period for the, the Big 3 in America. Uh, speaking about cars here, it's Well, the sedan has died in the United States, so there aren't very many offered. Um, I lived through what they called the Malaise era, which was '75 to '84-ish, and, uh, that gave us some really crappy, some really crappy stuff. So yeah, the fact that you can obtain a Mustang that in base GT form is nearly 500 horsepower is pretty incredible. Mm-hmm.

You know, Dodge is right there as well. Um, but I came from growing up in high school where the average vehicle had less than 100 horsepower. And so when you, you see what is sort of available now, it's, it's pretty incredible that we're still doing that kind of stuff. So I'm looking at the, like the '80s era Mustang and suddenly I don't feel so bad. Yeah.

Well, the Fox Body is good. So '86 or so on to '93 is a great looking car. That's when they brought the 5-liter back. Your best scenario in the '90s for a 5-liter Mustang was going to be right around 225 horse.

Then of course when the 3-valve came out after that, we were pushing 400, and then the Coyote came out and, you know, you could get it in different iterations around the 500 horsepower. Mark, um, for as a Ford guy and clearly a Mustang guy though, these, these new ones, I just, I'm not a huge fan of. You would not spend your dough on a, on a Mustang currently is what you're saying? I don't think so. I mean, I've thought about shuttling the Celine and getting something different.

Um, but at the end of the day, for my money, it still looks good. Doesn't owe me anything. So you don't want a Porsche? Well, 911s, the 911 is almost unobtainable now. Even, you know, I missed the boat on that.

I should have bought one 15 years ago when they were reasonable, but Even an '80s and early '90s era Porsche 911 is going to run you over $100 grand used. Damn. So, and a new one is not obtainable. So I don't know. We'll see.

Bucket list. Yeah. I, uh, I do, uh, buy raffle tickets anytime there's a GT40. Or, uh, the GT, the Ford Mustang GT, which was a 2-year run, '05 and '06.

Um, cars stickered at $150,000. Now they trade pretty normally at $400,000 to $500,000.

So with a little luck, if I can land one of those, I think I would drive it for one season and then probably take the $400,000 payout so I can retire early. There you have it. All right. Well, uh, I don't really think I have any, anything else to say about Formula 1 at the moment. Nope.

We're, uh, we're in the off-off season for Formula 1. So we'll, uh, Watch deliveries come in and get ready for, you know, racing in just a couple of months. So not even— yeah, a month and some change. Same thing with Indy, it'll be back in March, so looking forward to that as well. Yes, with a new and improved schedule in IndyCar, St. Petersburg starting like always, but then right to Phoenix.

New— well, not a new, new oval, but, uh, old new, uh, doubleheader event with NASCAR. So IndyCar will run, I think, Saturday night. NASCAR, the traditional Sunday whatever slot. Phoenix is a dogshit track for NASCAR, but I don't know how IndyCar will run there. It'll be interesting to see.

They have a giant dogleg on that track, so could be interesting. Yeah, and we'll, uh, keep an eye on the Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan team with a couple of new people behind the wheel there, see if we can actually make a run at something?

Probably not. Probably not. But there's always hope. Mick could be lights out. I would wager, I mean, I don't know.

Depends how he adjusts to this vehicle, but I feel like he has the talent to be really good in IndyCar.

RLL, I don't know if that's the place he would end up being really good, But yeah, I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. ROL is, uh, with McLaren now in IMSA, no longer BMW. That was something I had picked up on when I was watching the qualifying.

What is that? 24. What is the car? What do you mean? Uh, what class?

No, I mean, what— so it's not a BMW, so McLaren. I don't know what McLaren models are, right? I'll have to, I'll have to look that up. I'm not sure either. Yeah, I don't really know how you even go about doing that.

How do you— well, if you're forming a team, how do you first off partner and secure a vehicle? And how would you go about switching? Is it all just contractual or contractual cash? It's all about money.

So if I wanted to create an IMSA team and, and join, like, you would have to partner up with the manufacturer, decide what car you're going to run. In the GT2 and GT3 class, I think it's mostly BMW, uh, obviously Ford with the GTD Mustang, and then 911s, Porsche, Lexus, uh, Mercedes.

I'll have to look at the rundown. Well, it's called GTD in IMSA, GT Daytona. Okay. Which is like your street vehicles, street in theory, right? Um, yeah, that's the qualifying session that I was watching, and there was, um, of course Porsche, uh, Lexus, Aston Martin who were on pole, uh, Ford.

Um, that Aston would probably be a Vanquish. Again, I don't know the models. Yeah, Mercedes-AMG and Lambo. There was a Lambo, uh, and Ferrari were the ones that I remember off the top of my head, at least. Um, But yeah, in, in the prototypes, it's all about Porsche Penske in IMSA, at least Ferrari if it's WEC.

Yeah, they're— I'm— they're just mostly the team names. Doesn't— oh, Corvette obviously is in there too.

I don't know if there are any Caddies. I don't think I saw any. There might be some GTD Cadillacs. It would be the Blackwing CT5, probably. Um, well, that'll be happening Saturday night— well, Saturday afternoon, and then for 24 hours after that.

Uh, Porsche Penske has won the The, the big, the big class, I suppose, are the one that pays the most. Uh, 2 years running. Last year was, you'll recall, they, uh, ended the race like early, basically. Uh, I don't quite remember why they did that, uh, but it was a very close finish for IMSA standards and they checker-flagged it. Early.

Yeah, because it's a timed event, and then they decide at the end of the running when they're up against the clock how many more laps or less laps they're going to complete. So once they hit that 24-hour mark, there's some governing body that says, okay, we're going to run 2 more laps, or we're going to end, or we're going to check or flag it. You know, and I think that's kind of what happened last year is they were mid-lap or something and they decided, all right, well, this is it. So, huh. I don't know.

Oh, I'll have to, we'll have to follow it. Uh, Meyer Shank has a car in IMSA. That's a Columbus-based team that we've talked about in the past. So, um, they're an Acura team, I think. Correct.

Yeah, and they, they run the prototype, it looks like. Yep. Um, and those cars are like spaceships. They're pretty amazing. Yeah, a lot of familiar names, especially if you're a follower of IndyCar in the Rolex 24.

A lot of IndyCar drivers in it this year, or former IndyCar, uh, or, you know, tangentially related. A couple— I think Connor Zilich is a NASCAR guy who is doing it. Um, and then your kind of classic sports car names as well. So I always just like to see what IndyCar guys are in it. Will Power is racing in not the prototype class, but that'll be interesting.

So something to, something to look, look out for this weekend.

All right, let's move. Yeah. Okay. Uh, we're gonna talk some soccer here. Let's, let's dive into the Premier League since we haven't really given it the time of day in a while.

First things first, it would be, uh, silly not to mention that that, um, Liverpool dropped points to Burnley. They are not really in the title fight anymore, I think it's fair to say. 14 points down from Arsenal in first place, but they do continue to have a rather rickety form. They've drawn their last 4 matches. Uh, we'll obviously get into Man City here, and I will make Um, what is, I don't think, that bold of a prediction.

Arsenal drew, uh, with Nottingham Forest 0-0. That I, I was hoping maybe that would be the game we'd cover, but it ended up being, uh, you know, not very interesting. So, uh, and with this Man City result as well as Aston Villa losing to Everton despite Arsenal not winning, they actually gained a point on their closest rivals, Man City and Aston Villa. So they sit 7 points atop the Premier League, um, and looking, uh, pretty fine and dandy, uh, for this title race this season. Down at the bottom of the table, Wolves still trying to not make history.

Remember that 11 points is the mark to at least tie to not be the worst team in Premier League history by points total. They currently sit at 8. Um, Burnley probably all but relegated at this point, barring an insane turnaround. West Ham also 5 points adrift from Nottingham Forest. In the relegation zone.

That would be, from a neutral perspective, hilarious if they got relegated. Their stadium— first off, they're a big club. They won the Europa Conference League 3 years ago, uh, but their stadium holds 60,000 people. And for that type of venue to be in the Championship, the second tier would be kind of hilarious to me. So, uh, the cynic in me is kind of hoping they get relegated.

Um, let's talk this, this Manchester derby then, shall we? Yeah. So before that though, will, will Man City play Arsenal at some point? Um, I think they play again this season.

Yes, April 18th. Okay, so, you know, a, a switch in form either direction for both teams could, could have, um, pretty interesting— an interesting result on the, on the table. I should mention though that Man United— or excuse me, Man City actually lost in the Champions League yesterday. To Bodø/Glimt of Norway 3-1. So I really don't think Manchester City are primed to claw back 7 points, um, but it is not impossible.

So I guess keep an eye on that. But, um, in this one, they, dare I say, look bad. Yeah, they, they laid an egg basically.

Manchester United was in control of this match most of the time. Yeah, you really, if you had, so Man City had good saves. They were being attacked. They were being rifled on and they, they did have a decent guy with Donnarumma in the box. He saved this from being potentially a 4-0 or 4-0 match.

Yeah. It's important to note that, that they went out and bought Donnarumma over the summer from PSG, who you'll remember won the Champions League last season. So that was a big get for I actually think if they didn't have Donnarumma, they would be much worse off this season. So my first note, and I mentioned it this afternoon, not knowing the details that I had written down, but DeLott versus Doku on a pretty egregious tackle, pretty much full spikes to the upper part of the leg. And yellow should have been a red maybe in that instance, which might have changed the, the look of this match, but it was not called.

And I mean, from what I saw on the replay, and of course I was listening to, um, the pundits, but the people calling the game thought for sure that that would be a red card penalty. Um, yeah, I, I don't know. I don't really know what to fucking think of officiating anymore, and that's not even a curmudgeonly old head take. I, I don't know. There's no consistency with, with how games are called in any league, in any game, in any competition in, in, in soccer right now.

Um, I'm, I'm actually rewinding just to get a second view of this here tackle.

Um, yeah, I mean, he doesn't really get the ball at all. Um, I don't know, officiating has gone completely out the First off, okay, I'm gonna go on a little rant here. VAR is completely fucking useless in soccer. Please— this won't ever happen— get rid of it. It does not work because no one has any consistency with how they use it.

When VAR was brought in, it was to be used for obvious Clear and obvious mistakes in officiating, which— what does that mean? I don't know. What is clear and obvious to you could be different. Yeah, that's a red card. I'm still looking at it.

Yeah, I— studs are up. He doesn't get any of the ball. Yeah, it was— I've seen that called before. Yeah, many times. Um, I consider myself still a newbie to the sport, but I have to agree that there doesn't seem to be any consistency with when VAR is called upon and when it is called upon, we can't even, we can't even.

So in American football, replays are replays and rules are pretty standard. Although we've, I've seen in the, in the college playoffs that we had. Well, here's the thing.

The— they used to be, and then things like replay started to muddy the waters, and rules have gotten a lot more subject— with American football, they've tried to make the game safer, which means they've completely muddied the actual rules. What is— what is roughing the passer? What is targeting? What is defensive pass interference? It used to be, uh, you kind of a, you know it when you see it.

Now it's, well, did he lead with the crown and did the receiver make a football move? Right. The fuck is that? Uh, did, uh, did he launch at the quarterback? Did the quarterback start his slide here?

Or 2 pixels before that, 2 frames before that. And that is essentially what happens about every 2 minutes in soccer now, is was this guy's toenail offside, or what was— was, uh, okay, this tackle looks a lot worse because now I'm watching it 100 times slower than I just did in real life when I deemed that it was a yellow card. And now that I'm seeing that it's, you know, one frame per second, it looks like the greatest atrocity in the world. Right. And that's— I said this a long, long time ago that you're, you're going to ruin the happenstance of sports with the single frame replays and being able to have such high resolution.

And in the same, it's the same thing in baseball. I mean, everyone in baseball now looks at the fucking target on TV for pitches and for strikes and balls. Yeah. Well, and it's never going to be the target. It's always the front.

First of all, the umpire is not in front of the batter. Yeah, he's behind the batter. I'm not— I, I will not, uh, I'm not gonna side with the umpires in baseball on this podcast. So, uh, I'm just— I know as an overarching thing. Yeah.

Yes, we've, we've sort of— not every single play needs to be put under a microscope, which when you do it in soccer, you could find a a quintillion things wrong with every play ever. So that, that it just doesn't work. And even when it's supposed to work, it doesn't. When a challenge is clearly a red card offense, it somehow— it just never seems like we get to the right call half the time in soccer, which is a very low percentage that everyone seems to kind of just accept as being the norm, that officiating sucks and that's just the way it is. At least in, in, you know, baseball, people don't put up with terrible calls, you know.

Um, a manager will come out and fucking chew out the ump and he'll get thrown out, but we don't We don't put up baseball— and I'm not trying to go down a rabbit hole— it's black and white. And that's why I get so pissed off with strike zones. Strike zones aren't subjective like a what is a foul in soccer. It's not, you know, I'm gonna give that— no, it's a zone, so you don't get to blow it, you know. It's, it's a strike or it's not.

So you're not allowed to be wrong. That's why I get pissed in baseball, and that's why I'm never siding with umpires. So in soccer, we have always given the refs a subjective view of the game, and a ref deems if something is a foul. And then you bring in the fact that, well, VAR can kind of just cover my ass. So I'm either gonna blow this dead now, or I'm gonna give a red and we'll see.

And you just never get to the right call, I feel like. And that's what pisses me off the most. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's part of the sport. What I'm understanding and learning is it's part of the sport. It's the most subjective Um, set of rules that I've ever seen.

And even offside, onside, that's, that's probably one of the most clear-cut of all of them. Yeah. Either are or you aren't. Um, so that, that works. VAR works pretty well for that because there are instances where you have to do that.

Um, Other than that though, the subjectiveness of a tackle or a foul is pretty much just to the eye of the beholder, I suppose, which is why nothing is ever the same. So, you know, you have that incident and it's sort of a tone setter. Maybe, uh, you know, a, a sky blue perspective of that would say, man, United's incredibly lucky to keep playing with 11 men. But let's look at— I mean, look at the rest of the match. Man City was never really in it.

It was always Manchester United on the attack. They had a million chances. They put the ball in the net 5 times. Yeah, it just so happened that only 2 of them were legal. Plenty of chances I have written down here for City in the first half.

Plenty of chances that didn't work out in their favor.

And then Donnarumma, as I said, he had good saves or else this could have been a more of a 4-0 match.

We come into the second half and 64th minute and Mbeumo on the break. Yes. And pretty easy. Yeah, and a lot of Man United's goals, that which half of them didn't stand, came from kind of similar sort of breakaways or very quick movement, whether it be on the ball or passing. And Man City, with a patchwork defensive line, um, just could not handle it at all.

Erling Haaland was a ghost. He was a ghost in this game. Oh, I'm well aware because he's on my fantasy team. And usually that's not the case. I mean, he's very dynamic as a player.

So it's, one has to think, okay, was this just an off night? Did he not get opportunities? Was he not given the ball enough? Well, they didn't create anything. They had 1 shot on target, 0 big chances created.

Man United had 7 shots on target, 6 big chances. Um, Man City right now kind of seem like if you shut down Haaland, they can't really do anything. Uh, that's what it feels like. You have your, you have your Rolls-Royce at striker, but if your defense is made of a bunch of Camrys, then it doesn't fucking matter. Yeah.

You know, and this is a backline kind of in tatters right now for a number of different reasons, injuries notwithstanding. I mean, you look, this is okay. Let's take a look just right now. Savinho injured, defender. Oscar Bobb, defender, sometimes injured.

Ruben Diaz injured. Gvardiol, injured. John Stones injured. Those are all 3 defenders. Mark Gaye, their new signing, was suspended due to a red card.

Um, so they were playing with a ragtag, at best, backline, and it looked like it because they were, you know, about as useful as traffic cones, and Man United was just able to do whatever they wanted. Um, and I think that's really the reason why they were able to run away with it. Yeah. Sealed in the 75th by, uh, Dorgu. Mm-hmm.

2-nil. And there was plenty of time left for some kind of evasive, uh, recovery from Man City, but it just didn't happen. No. And again, I just, they never really felt like they were really in the game. Uh, and I think Man United were clearly the deserved winners here.

I think they put the ball in the net 5 times. It's just offsides, I think, was the culprit on maybe all of the disallowed ones. Um, either way, I mean, shit, Man United steamrolled Man City. It seems like Man City, the only team they can't seem to beat consistently is Man United. Regardless of how— if, if Man United is in a tizzy, if they're in a— if they're sort of a dumpster fire.

And I think that's been a little overblown this season. Man United fired Ruben Amorim, or he left depending on who, who you ask, and they have their caretaker interim manager Michael Carrick at the helm now. For, for all of the the drama that has come out of the Man United camp— let's remember, this team finished 15th last year, which was their worst finish in the Premier League era, so since 1992. Um, for all the sort of drama that seems to keep coming from Old Trafford, they're in 5th place, 1 point behind Liverpool. So they're in a Champions League spot right now and could improve up to 4th and really aren't too terribly far away from Man City, 8 points down.

I don't know. I mean, that's improvement. That's certainly improvement. And I just don't know how much of that was Ruben Amorim's making or not. Or not, but he seemed to be doing okay.

Yeah, but that's sort of the, the fickle nature of the Premier League. And you saw it, you know, a little bit in Scotland as well with Wilfred Nancy. You've got, especially with these big clubs with big, big history, big expectations, the most you're getting is a year to figure it out. The most, and that's about what Amorim got, a little over. Um, and it didn't seem to be going exactly where it needed to, um, or at the speed that it needed to.

Um, and they had to make a change. And that's kind of the nature of the Premier League. It's incredibly topsy-turvy in that way. No one's really ever safe in the managerial sense.

I will say this and maybe we can transition to talk a little bit about Scottish Premier League and Celtic.

So that their acquisition manager was not given 33 days much of a chance, although he Really, he put himself in the bag as far as, you know, you just can't have that many losses. Yeah. If there was any hope or glimmer of a draw here and there or some positioning where he's just trying to find his way. And strangely, Martin O'Neal comes back and all of a sudden we're winning again. And so, yeah.

Albeit not the most exciting form of football, he finds a way to grind it out. Yeah. You know, against that Scottish team that we saw at the pub the other day, they should have— fucking Lek Talbot. We had aspirations of there being 5 or 6 goals in that game and it just never Those guys were, uh, feisty. Um, I don't know what you want to call it, but the thing with Celtic is right now they'll make any team look competitive.

That's just how bad they are. Celtic is Celtic, so the expectation is they win every game in Scotland, so they, they might still win games. But they don't do it in any type of impressive fashion, which is how it should be. Scraping by, Falkirk beating Auchinleck Talbot 2-0, a 6th tier team in Scotland. The 6th tier, these guys are teachers and firefighters and college students.

They're me. Yeah. And they look, they look pretty damn good in that game. That's what I'm saying. Celtic make anyone look competitive.

That is not really— that's not Martin O'Neill, because first off, he's an interim manager. He's just there to put out a fire. This squad, which has been allowed to rot by the board, is awful. They are terrible. By Celtic standards, they are dog shit.

Just about all of them. If they left over the summer, I would not care. In fact, I would probably be happy. And we don't have any dynamic marquee person. Signed a striker today.

So we'll see. More to come on Sunday. I just, that game against Auckland, all I kept thinking was they kept going to the left and who was the, I can't think of the guy's name. It doesn't really matter. Every time he got the ball, it's like he never played a day in his life.

I mean, you just described basically everyone on the park. But I mean, they kept going. To the left side, left side, left side. I never saw any movement to the other striker. Yeah.

Who was playing on the— oh, Balikwisha. Yes. Michael Ange Balikwisha. Yeah, he's terrible. I don't know.

He didn't play today. Thank God.

Yeah. Celtic aren't very good. A pretty damn impressive draw. All things considered, today against Bologna in Italy in the Europa League, which means currently we are the final team that would make the cut for the knockout rounds. We are playing Utrecht from Netherlands next week at home, which should be a win, but you know, that's never a given with Celtic in Europe.

Um, yeah, I don't know. So many of these guys just have to go. They just have to go. And will they? I don't know, because then that means the board has to replace them, which they don't seem too keen on doing.

We've made 2 signings in January, finally got our striker, uh, Tomas, uh, Kavancara. And I know that's not how it's said. From Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany. He has one goal this season. So we'll see.

I don't understand the hoarding of cash. I wish I knew. I don't understand the ability to not spend. You should go out and get the best players that you can afford. And obviously they can afford to do it.

What? What are you hoarding $150 million for? Is it the foundation? Is it? No.

I don't know. You know, they're the richest team in the, in the Scottish Premier League. They go get somebody. They run a club like a business. Football clubs are not businesses.

You, when you purchase a club, as a billionaire, as most of these people usually are, your purpose for buying said club should not be to make money. That is stupid because football is inherently a sector where you, you lose money because In order to have success, you have to spend money. You spend more money than you make in soccer. Every single— and I'm not saying you have to have insane debts like Man United or, uh, Barcelona, but every single Premier League team operates at a massive deficit. A massive deficit, and they make money like no other.

That league is incredibly lucrative, but they all operate at insane budget losses. And I'm not saying that's how it should be, but the blueprint is that you have to be spending money to be successful year in and year out. And this current board up until this season perfected the, we will spend just enough to be better than Rangers. And I said this last week, but we'll do just enough to be the best in Scotland, and then whatever else happens happens. Sometimes you go on a nice Champions League run like last year, but when shit hits the fan and you rest on your laurels You get knocked out by a team from fucking Kazakhstan in the Champions League.

You're getting tossed around in the Europa League and barely scraping by. And now you're 6 points behind Hearts and you lost to St. Mirren in the League Cup final. So you can't just do enough to get by. That's not how success successful football clubs are run, and that has kind of been how Celtic have been run for a while. Eventually it catches up, and that's where we still find ourselves with this team.

Even though Martin O'Neill has, you know, steadied the ship, the ship is still a piece of shit, and that's kind of where we're at. Yeah, it is different. It's completely different look. I mean These venues are, dare I say, not impressive when you compare them to the stadiums that we have here in the States. So there's not big expenditure there.

I mean, these are raw facilities. They're not SoFi. They're not, you know. Well, and it's just, that's never going to be the case. And that's fine.

But at least you don't have that on your back. You're not building a $3.2 billion facility. Yeah, and that's just the American sports with— I've said this a million times, I'll, I'll say it again since you brought it up. American sports are the most socialist thing that we actually genuinely have in this country. It's single entity.

One person at the top owns all of these franchises who pay money to the league to operate, or expansion fees when that happens. Um, and then the point is these ownership groups buy— this is how it works in America. An ownership group buys the Browns, let's say, knowing they will make money because the NFL, NBA, MLB, they're all cash cows. You can't lose money You cannot lose money when you are a franchise in an already super successful entity with no competition.

That doesn't sound like capitalism to me. Meanwhile, in, in soccer, not in the US because MLS operates the same way, they are legitimate clubs. Club is not just a throwaway term like it is here. They were founded by a group of people sharing a similar interest, a similar ethnic background, a similar neighborhood in a city. And then you work your way up the pyramid into these leagues, but it's not a single entity that owns— like, the Scottish Premiership doesn't own Celtic and Rangers.

These aren't franchises that can just be picked up and moved. So you, you don't end up making— basically, you make money from your league just based off of what TV deal they have, which in Scotland it's terrible. In the Premier League, it's the best in the world. That's why they have the best players, the best facilities, all that. But there's never going to be a chance in Scotland, and like I said, in the Premier League Those clubs don't actually turn a profit still.

That's the difference. And that is why the Celtic owners seem to be completely in fantasy land. You don't buy a football club to make money. You do it because usually you're a billionaire, but you happen to care about that team and want to win. The goal is to win.

And these fuckers just think it's to make money. Go buy a goddamn NFL franchise if you want to do that. Buy the Browns and maybe they'll fucking win something. So that is— they're in fantasy land. And that is why I can't figure out why the fuck they even do it.

Because if your goal is to make money, go do something else. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's, uh, it's definitely different and You know, it's painful for the fans at some point. It's painful for us this year as a Celtic fan. Watching the product on the field has not been great.

But there's something that just keeps people coming back to root these teams on. So I'll take that, I suppose. Yeah, uh, huge match on Sunday against Hearts, um, at Tynecastle in Edinburgh. I, I feel like if we lose that, I'm not a— it's not a kiss the title away situation, but it's a, um, yeah, probably not gonna happen. Uh, whereas, you know, obviously if we win or draw, still definitely in it.

We still have Rangers to consider who have been playing a lot better than us recently. So all to play for in Scotland still. I mean, we're still— I mean, we're gonna head into February with still this potential insane historic moment, uh, possible with Hearts winning the league. So there's still everything to play for.

All right, well, it's Might be an abbreviated podcast. Not sure where we're at. All right, good. So used your, uh, your car segment to, well, to juice a little in the F1 offseason. That's okay.

That is okay. Yeah. All right, so I guess, uh, we'll get going here and we'll see you guys next time and we'll have much, much more to discuss with the upcoming seasons. Uh, we'll maybe dip into this 24-hour race that's happening this weekend if there's anything, uh, interesting that happens or otherwise.

Um, so if you're good, I'm good. Yep. Take her away.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka, this has been Tackling the Chicane, Studio 2520, copyright 2026.

We'll see you guys next time.