Liverpool vs Man City 2-1 Recap: Spurs Sack Thomas Frank

Podcasting from Studio 2520, somewhere near Akron, Ohio. Bringing you all the latest talk in motorsport and soccer.

This is Tackling the Chicane.

Here we are. Yes, it is cold as fuck in this studio. I opened your vent in the bedroom, which was closed, by the way, so that should help a bit. Notice that the last time I was here. Huh.

Well, we have the faux fireplace. It's supposed to be, uh, letting out heat. I— it— you have to give it a little warm-up. Like, if you start it a bit early, it works better, but it'll— it will take off the, the chill here at Studio 2520. That is the— that's the rue, or ruination, of, uh, a lower level in this climate.

It's just, it's— you need 2 furnaces is what you need. It's great in the summer. Oh yeah, it's perfect. Great in the summer, but, uh, winter it's like a, like a meat locker down here. Yeah, it's a little— it's probably 65-ish.

Yeah, there's— I, I don't even know if it's that, but Yeah, it is cold. Anyways, um, so we're gonna get into some Premier League action this week on the show. Liverpool and Man City from this past weekend, it's going to be our, our headliner. We'll talk the latest and greatest in the Scottish Premiership as that title race continues to evolve, and it really shows no signs of, of stopping from, um, from the, the point of view of twists and turns happening. So we'll get into that, um, talk some, some motorsport here.

We do have the Daytona 500 occurring on, uh, well Let's hope for Sunday. Um, some, some duels are taking place as we, as we record. I— they might actually be over, I'm not entirely sure. But, um, we did, I guess, sort of the headline news, uh, out of F1, at least from an American perspective. Cadillac revealed their livery via the Super Bowl through a commercial.

I, I have to say, you texted me about that before the game happened and I kind of blew it off. I shouldn't have, obviously, but it felt like I had not seen anything about Cadillac doing a commercial. So I was like, okay, we'll see, I guess. Didn't really think it was going to happen. And I, my suspicions were correct until about the third quarter.

And it was like, I just heard it off in the distance. They were like, Super Bowl 60 brought to you by blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the Cadillac F1 team. I was like, oh shit, he's actually right. Did you grab it?

Did you, were you able to see it? I did see the commercial. Yeah. Um, I thought it was pretty cool. It was a cool commercial.

That was, um, so the rumor is that that was nearly a $10 million spend to do that ad. Okay. Um, who does that benefit exactly? Uh, the network. Yeah.

Well, the money, but I'm talking about from spending the money from the perspective of, well, you have, obviously you have a captive audience with the Super Bowl. Yeah. You have, fans of different forms of racing. I mean, F1 still continues to gain popularity here in the States. And now that we have a truly American team to back and root for, um, I, I will always have a soft spot for Haas because they, they were the sort of the man on the moon as far as having something based out of the States here.

Um, but this Cadillac team is going to be really special. I think this year, I don't know that they're going to be super competitive, but that remains to be seen. We're dealing with a brand new car. So everyone has to figure it out.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. As far as the actual livery goes. Yeah.

I think we— black and white. Okay. We all knew it wasn't really going to be spectacular. No, but if you— the first thing I thought of is the classic Cadillac crest has other colors in it, some reds and blues and yellows. I would have liked to have seen them play that up a little bit more, but who knows?

People sit around a 15-foot table And talk about, talk about what a car should look like as far as the livery goes. I kind of figured they would play it safe and they did. I, I don't know if you remember the opening scene for Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Yeah. I've seen the movie 23 times now.

Yeah. So, you know, storyboard and heavy size. And no real dialogue. Nothing actually really happens. Uh, so yeah, we'll see.

Yeah, I, I think, um, as is usually my role on the podcast, I, I struggle to really get swept away in, in sort of the, the pomp and circumstance of F1, especially like a new team. I think I just have a very tempered expectation about what Cadillac can actually do. I, I think Perez and, and Bottas is about the best lineup you could hope for just based off available drivers, drivers with past race-winning pedigree. Now there's absolutely zero chance Cadillac is competing for race wins this year, barring something spectacular. But I, I do hope that they, they can kind of ruffle some feathers, push, push forward up the table, and maybe disrupt a few of the, the old guard.

Yeah, and I think we cannot discount, uh, a certain Adrian Newey Aston Martin, who, if you read into the design of that particular vehicle, this could be a game-changing season for Aston Martin. It remains to be seen, but we know that he had great success with Red Bull, and Red Bull's success was mostly thanks attributed to his aero and package. So it'll be— I just, I call it fun, you know. So let's inject Cadillac into the fucking series and see what happens.

So are you, are you trying to say that Aston Martin along with Cadillac will disrupt— not, not along with. Um, but we, I also, we also know that Cadillac has spent a couple of years in development off of the grid, basically. Um, it just, it gives a little bit of a refresh to the brand, not Cadillac, but to the F1 brand and bringing that'll be top of table is going to be this new team. I hope they get proper coverage. Oh yeah, they will.

You know, F1 will be all over. They know how to sell themselves. Yeah. And a new team being involved is obviously going to be a major talking point along with Lando Norris being the defending champion, especially now. That it's— we're basically— there's a dog.

That is— we might need to pause. Okay, great. That's Rod's dog.

Hey, Tweeter, back after, uh, neighbor's dog has gone off the fucking grid. Askew. Here comes Richard in The dog is gone, but if Richard gets sight of that, he'll be fired up. Well, he's already detected some movement as he has now entered the recording studio, and he makes his way towards the laptop which is currently recording, and he has sniffing the lap, and he will then— you might hear him brush the mic. Richard, how we doing tonight?

Sniffing it up. We'll get any, uh, audible from Richard, but you might hear some shit go boom because he knocks it down or something. This is, uh, he hasn't done this in a while. No, it's been a few episodes since our executive producer has graced us with his presence. Can't— yeah, I guess a little quality control is all he's doing right now.

Um, what the hell were we talking about? Cadillac. He's on the keyboard. Oh geez, gonna be pissed. He's gonna be pissed.

Oh, he's got the feet going and it's a disaster. It isn't— okay, so yeah, we're talking about Cadillac here. What can and can they not do? Can they ruffle some feathers this season? We did have some testing going on in Bahrain this week, which I don't personally read a ton into.

It looks like Verstappen is fast again. Cadillac's kind of been in the mix there, mid, mid to lower mid table.

Um, I just don't really know what to expect or what the expectation should be with Cadillac. I, I don't know. I don't think they would be fighting for podiums. I think they'll be looking mostly for those to be in the mix for lower points more often than not. It's so hard to tell.

I mean, historically, new teams are bad. If you go across the piece of F1, new teams are usually pretty awful, but F1's never really been set up like it is now to be as competitive as it is now across the full field. So I think we can expect them to maybe have a few good results, but I guess we don't really know. And that's, yeah, that's kind of, uh, like I said, it's a refresh. I'd like to see, you know, we're gonna have a little bit more competition potentially.

They might be a tractor. They might not be a tractor. We'll just have to see. And testing is, I, it's hard. It's a little bit hard to follow.

Um, I'm not sure exactly when Apple TV is going to dip in. So is that probably on now? No, you can never really watch testing. I don't think. Well, I see stuff.

In the rest of the world, if they have F1 TV, then you could probably watch. I don't know. I just see it on Instagram.

Yeah. All right. So yeah, we'll see. Uh, come, you know, we're fast approaching open wheel racing season, uh, with IndyCar coming up here in March and then F1 kicks off Shortly after that, uh, the week after. We'll see.

And whatever season of the Netflix series is out, I think Feb 27th was the launch for that, so I guess I should check that out. I guess if there was ever a season to watch, it would be that one. Yeah. As we've discussed in previous podcasts, uh, I don't know how much longer you can continue this. It must be still doing enough for them to keep doing it.

Yeah, it, it was intriguing at first because no one had ever seen it, but now we're like season 8. Yeah, and the thing with, with Drive to Survive is it didn't really even become a thing until COVID. When no one had shit to do. Because you remember the first season takes place in 2018, and there were 2 seasons before COVID happened. And again, like I said, that, that's when F1 really exploded in popularity, was because being, you know, uh, largely it wasn't a super spreader type sport back in the day.

Um, people would watch F1 because it was one of the only sports actually on during COVID So that plays a lot into the fact that F1 exploded in popularity. And then there was already 2 seasons of this basically reality TV show about F1 out that people could watch. And that's when you saw— and then you had the 2021 season with all the drama with Max and Lewis. And then the year after, it seemed like everyone suddenly was— in the States, at least— everyone seemed to have at least a passing interest in F1 if you were a sports fan. It's crazy though how that spawned enough interest in the series though that they brought it to the US.

You know, before that early part of the Netflix series, we, you know, the US was largely not an F1 venue. Now we have 3 races. Yeah, and I think that's complete overkill if I'm being honest. I don't think there's any reason why we should have 3 races. In fact, so with that being said, would you— what, what should be shuttled?

I mean, oh, Miami. That's a completely pointless event. Yeah, it's in the parking lot of a stadium. I would— I don't think anyone would shed a tear if Miami was gone tomorrow. Now Miami weirdly has produced some interesting races, but yeah, I mean, it, it's just a race in the parking lot of a stadium, um, with fake marinas, and it's just kind of a dumb event.

Well, we may have jumped the shark in Vegas too with the Lego car. Uh, no, Vegas will be there for a while because I think F1 loves the fact that it's a nighttime kind of showpiece-style event. Yeah, it's, it's very, um eye-centric, like visually you would tune in and be like, even if you didn't give a fuck about racing, be like, what the hell is going on here? Then we had controversy for the first round with the man, the, the famous— that's happened at a lot of street races though. The F1 has shown up too.

Um, yeah, I, I don't know. I think there is a very fine line that needs to be toed with the fact that you can pretty easily oversaturate a market, and F1 is getting about as close as they can get to doing that without maybe stepping over. I, I think, you know, between us, Italy is the only country with more than one race. They have 2. Um, for the United States to have 3 in, in a, a country where F1 is not even the most popular form of racing, I think it's just complete overkill.

But F1 always just follows the money. So yeah, the money is in the US, the money is in the Middle East. Why do you think F1 races in the Middle East 5 times a year? Because those governments pay billions with a B dollars to have F1 there. So that's just the, the way it be.

Yeah, and it's, it's largely been that way historically too. If you go back, um, it's always about that.

Unfortunately. Indeed. But, uh, we'll see. I think this season will be fun with the new regs, new team. I'm, I'm kind of, you know, ready to stop talking about it and actually see it play out.

But that's kind of at the, the cabin fever part of the offseason. Uh, but we do have some motorsport taking place this weekend if you're of a NASCAR inclination. They're their showpiece event in the Daytona 500. Looks like we have a duel number 2 happening, as one of the Penske guys must have won the other one because they were interviewing Logano and Blaney. Um, what do you make, uh, of this year's event?

I know we don't follow NASCAR— well, we don't cover NASCAR all that closely, but, uh I— it looks very similar to past years, uh, about 10 people in the stands. There's probably way more in the infield, in the camping area. Speed Week is all infield, and then obviously the main event has, yeah, the sellout crowd. But yeah, I'm— it'll be interesting to see this year with NASCAR, new format, obviously no bullshit playoff bullshit. That's the only way I can really describe it.

Back to the chase. Uh, hopefully less kind of fluky nonsense. We can get back to more of a true champion being crowned every year. And as far as the car goes, they've tried to pivot as much as they possibly can with these, the vehicles that you see on screen here. Um, you know, several years ago they went from a mechanical gauge package to an electronic gauge package, which I know it sounds a little cursory, but not so much.

I mean, for years and years and years they had mechanical gauges. Now they have an electronic gauge package. They went from a 4-speed manual transmission to a sequential shift car. They also finally killed the 15-inch steel wheel several years ago. If you remember, they went from a 5-lug setup to a single lug setup.

So they're, they're, they're trying to be, they're trying to get this thing out of the '50s. Yeah, and I think, you know, NASCAR is, is NASCAR at the end of the day. It doesn't have to be F1. It doesn't have to be IMSA or WEC. No one watches NASCAR because these are the cars with the latest and greatest technology.

Oh, it's 20 of the best drivers in the world are going— it's— you watch NASCAR because it's stock car racing. It's bump and runs. It's very little rules, all things considered, and it's big fucking American-made engine blocks with this year's 750 horsepower that are loud as fuck and they go in circles, and that's what you come there for, you know. And I think NASCAR could just do with— we know what we are, we know who our market is, we need to we need to just sell to our fan base, and that, that would be fine. Yeah, and it's still definitely something that if you haven't been, you should.

And there's quite a few road courses now in the series. Yeah, which I prefer over oval, but to see an oval race is something that is obtainable as far as ticket price goes. You know, we, we're talking about F1 a lot. It's still a series that largely is not obtainable for most people. It is closed off for about 95% of the world.

Yeah. So, so if you want to go watch racing and you haven't seen racing, then I would I would implore you to go watch a NASCAR race or an IndyCar. IndyCar is still fairly affordable as well. So IndyCar is probably the most of those 3 that you named off. But yeah, I, I'm looking forward to this year and seeing how that new format impacts the racing.

I think we've gotten— we've strayed away a little bit from what NASCAR is in, in the past decade or so, which would shows up in TV ratings and shit like that. So, uh, looking forward to it, and hopefully it doesn't rain like it always seems to do on Daytona 500 day. And may the best car win. Don't— last year we had our Trump Uh, I remember that whole ordeal. Newly erect— elected, uh, Trump.

That was a whole big deal. I, I don't think we'll get that again. So, uh, looking forward to it. Hopefully Bubba Wallace is in victory lane by the end of it. Probably not.

There will probably be a 37-car pileup at some point, which is always awesome. Before we eschew from motor racing, uh, you had mentioned earlier this evening we have a new, uh, driver who came up through the ranks and is now in the Premier Series in— you'll have to remember. Yeah, he's Connor Zilich, it's his name. Now if you're tapped into NASCAR, that's not a name that would be new to you. Um, he's sort of, I think, potentially the next kind of big thing to come out of NASCAR.

Um, 19 years old, 11, um, Xfinity, now the O'Reilly Auto Parts, the series below, feeder series. Wins, 10 of which came last year. He did not win the championship because of the dumbass format, which is now gone, thank God. Um, but yeah, he's kind of the, the hot protégé, uh, racing for Trackhouse this year in the 88, replacing Daniel Suarez, and with a very prominent big-ass Red Bull sponsorship. Um, he is a Red Bull athlete.

He has been a Red Bull athlete for a while. He piloted— oh, was he? I think he was in the Cadillac for, uh, the dates or the 24 Hours of Daytona, uh, in the, the, um, what is it, GTP class, the whatever GT, the, the highest class. Yeah. The prototypes.

Yeah, so he's kind of— he's actually racing right now. He's kind of the potential next big thing in NASCAR that honestly I think his skill set potentially might even transcend NASCAR racing. But of course he's very young, so it's more of a we'll see moment, but Yeah. So, um, I'm trying to recollect. Um, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Never mind. We'll save it for another, another podcast as we enter the F1 season. Um, cause the Cadillac team has another driver who possibly could enter The arena, and his name is escaping me right now. Correct. IndyCar driver now in F2.

Yeah. So we'll see how he performs in F2. And that's going to be important because he has to get his super license.

Yeah. He has to win. I think. He has to win or place in— No, no, it's— he basically has it. He's at the point where F2— okay, this is how dumb the fucking super license thing is.

F2 gives you more points than IndyCar, which is stupid because F2 is a junior series, but it's just set up for the FIA to gatekeep who can be in F1. He does not. I don't think he has to place particularly high in F2 because Cadillac is going to give you— get— you can get super license points by participating in FP1 practice sessions and shit like that. So Cadillac is— he's, he's racing for Cadillac next year basically no matter what, unless he absolutely tanks it in F2, which he won't. Because like I said, half of F2 drivers are 19 years old and only there because their dad has a lot of money.

Um, so he'll be fine. Um, and Cadillac has set it up to where he's gonna get the points because they'll, they'll put him in enough practice sessions and they got it all figured out. Yeah.

Okay, well, I, I think that takes us away from wheels at this point, if you're okay to move on to a little footy. I am. Um, let's go ahead and do that. I think we'll, we'll go ahead and start in, in the Premier League down in England. Of course, you know, we are limited this time of year since we can only really record once a week.

Midweek action is happening pretty much every week right now with the scheduling, so these teams have all played since we've recorded twice, and we're going to talk about a game from the weekend, but know that, you know, the rest of the league, including Man City and Liverpool, have both played since then. Both of these teams have won, Man City and Liverpool. Arsenal drew today, so the, the, uh, gap between Arsenal and Man City is back down to 4 points, which it's been a number of times, uh, since the turn of the year. But let's go ahead and discuss from the weekend. Liverpool won Manchester City 2.

Man City on the road in this one at Anfield. Liverpool have largely failed to meet expectations this season under Arne Slot. Reminder, you, it, you maybe have forgotten this if you're not super tapped in, Liverpool are the defending champions. Uh, they don't play like it, and they are in 6th place after 26 matches for a reason, with basically no shot of winning the title at this point, 15 points down. And you know, in this one, it, it never really felt like Liverpool were gonna pull away.

Now yes, they do score first in the 74th minute, but They never really put Man City to bed, and Man City had a number of good chances in this one. Um, I'm sure one of your notes, and I'll, and I'll set it up here, but first half, uh, kind of a snooze fest. Yeah. Um, I have 3 lines in the first half, and most of that is how Haaland was not He, he was, you know, as good as this guy is, sometimes he is just on another planet. He's ineffective.

Yeah. I don't know if that's because he's not getting the ball enough. He's never been a guy that needs a bunch of touches every game, but when he's disconnected, like you said, it's, it's very apparent in Man City right now, and I've, I've had this discussion more than once off air with friends, the reason why I have no faith of them actually winning this title is because their play basically just depends on if Haaland scores or not. And he scores in this one, a penalty of course, the winning penalty, but When he's off, the whole team is off. They can't really, they don't score reliably otherwise.

And that's why I just don't really find that obviously either of these teams are winning the title, but I'm just not convinced in Man City. So interesting you bring up that point. They pressured early in the first half, but Liverpool paid, played a very pesky defense in the first half. And Man City could not play anything to the right side of the goal. Everything went left.

Yeah. And the only thing I have even as a note is that Haaland had a decent shot in the 34th minute. And then we go to the half, which is, you know, 10 minutes later, still nothing.

Liverpool threatens again in the 54th.

And in the 65th, we had a couple of shots again from Liverpool.

A free kick to live in the 73rd. Szoboszlai scores the first goal of this match, and it was a rocket. That was One of the best free kicks I have ever seen. Uh, and as did the pundits. Yeah, said the same.

So that, that was one of the— so I knew the result before I watched this match, but I didn't know the any of the context of it.

Um, so I knew there was going to be goals. I was just waiting for it. 74th minute comes along. Foul, kind of outside the box. Szoboszlai has been great from free kicks and set pieces this year for Liverpool, been one of their really only shining lights in a campaign that otherwise they've been pretty bad, quite frankly.

But I, I did not see that coming at all. And frankly, like I said, that is Truly one of the best free kicks I have ever seen. The perfect bend to get over the wall, and then it sort of knuckles it. There's no spin on it afterwards, knuckles kind of the opposite direction, and Donnarumma, who's one of the best keepers maybe even in, in the world, couldn't even make sense of it. So we have to assume that the listeners and some of you are like me, you may not understand the choreography of a free kick is that the opposing team has to be at a minimum of 10 yards off of the kicker.

So then they present a wall to try to defend and to be able to score over that is, is It's pretty— it's, it's very low percentage, which is why it's a big deal, right? Free kicks are scored. Um, yeah, and that was one of the best you'll ever see. So if you didn't catch this one, do yourself a favor and at the very least check out that goal. Szoboszlai has scored a number of good free kicks this season.

As I said, probably Liverpool's best player. In an otherwise pretty drab season for them. Um, like I said though, Liverpool never really put Man City out of it. Man City were creating most of the good chances even in the first half where none of them went in. Omar Marmoosh was, uh, pretty troublesome for Liverpool early on, at least 2 total shots in this one.

Um, 3 chances created. So he was causing some issues for Liverpool. He gets subbed off in the 61st minute. It would come 10 minutes later in the 84th when Bernardo Silva, uh, grabbed a goal back for Manchester City. Well taken, um, from just outside the 6-yard box.

His first goal this season. See, I did not know that. And interestingly enough, the oldest player in this Man City lineup at only 31 years old. So this is a Man City team that is sort of cycling through kind of the old guard, and you can tell they're getting towards somewhere. It's, it's about— it's pretty rocky, all things considered, you know, when you put so many young and new faces together and trying to get them to gel as a, as a cohesive unit.

Um, Pep has kind of gone away from his traditional 4-3-3, um, these days, but it, it seems like City are maybe, maybe a season away from being really, really, really good. And right now they're just— they're good, but I don't think they're as consistent as Arsenal. They're They're just lacking some of the sharpness in attack, and defensively they ship goals that they probably shouldn't, um, which is why I still favor Arsenal to win the title. Um, 84th minute that occurs. Then we have the penalty incident.

We had a couple incidents relating to VAR. Yeah, of course. In— I believe this was in stoppage time. It was, uh, penalty to Man City. VAR PK, Haaland, uh, good.

2-1 Man City. Then a late potential goal in this match, which, uh, I don't recall why that was. He off— was someone offside? Is that why they pulled it back? Yeah, yeah.

And then a late red card to Liverpool, uh, don't recall the player, but it was Szoboszlai, uh, yeah, for a tackle that was given, um, 90 plus 13 on that one because the game was basically over and then they were reviewing for a while. A red card, and then they had to play another few minutes for the delay. But at that point, the game was pretty much game, set, and match. Liverpool continued to be in pretty bad form, um, and could be in danger of missing out on the Champions League entirely. 3 points back on Manchester United, who are in 4th.

2 points back on Chelsea, who Um, currently that is a Europa League spot in 5th place. We'll see if that continues to be the case. Now again, it should be known that we did have a midweek match week here in the Premier League, which has given us another sort of twist and turn, uh, as it tends to do. Arsenal dropped points today to Brentford. 1-1, while Man City got a routine 3-0 win against Fulham at home.

So that gap is 4 points. It's been 4 points a number of times, and typically it seems like when Man City get it down to 4 points is when they stumble the next week, the next match, and Arsenal end up winning, and then it's back to 6 or whatever, 7. So, um, Liverpool got a 1-0 win against Sunderland. In other news, this might come as a little interest to you and other listeners. Tottenham Hotspur were defeated 2-1 to Newcastle at home, spelling the end of manager Thomas Frank's time at the club.

He has been sacked. Tottenham sit in 16th place, just 5 points away from the relegation zone. Remember, they finished 17th last year, uh, but won the Europa League with a man by the name of Ange Postecoglou, who was basically pointed out and scapegoated as the reason why Tottenham were so bad last year. And here they are, 26 matches into this season, in a relegation battle. So it seems as though Ange Apostolakoglou was not the, um, linchpin of this particular squad.

Evidence is starting to suggest that no, he was not. He was not the main reason, at least, that Tottenham— so now as they, they spin into, um, a vortex of being horrible And they've shuttled their manager again, which it seems to me like this, this happens more than any other league that I've seen. It does. And quickly. You get a few months at any Premier League team.

Yeah. Anywhere in the table. If you're not doing well within a few months, you are gone. Uh, Nottingham Forest. Kind of unfortunate.

Yeah, it's dumb. I mean, these teams— it— I could go on a huge rant about how the Premier League operates. These teams, some of the— it's— this is very much— and it's kind of a— maybe it's an odd analogy, but you know, on like The Great Gatsby, there was the old money versus the new money, and Jay Gatsby was the new money and look down upon. And my point is this: in the Premier League, any team, just for competing in said Premier League, makes right off the rip over £100 million because the Premier League has the best TV deal of any league in the world— soccer league, that is. So these teams, regardless of their stature, regardless of how big their fans are, regardless of how much revenue they actually can pull in, spend money like the world is ending tomorrow.

So when no other league will you see teams spend money in such a stupid fucking fashion as the Premier League, and that goes across the entire table. Liverpool, one of the best-run clubs in the world, has lit on fire £145 million on Alexander Isak this year, and nothing really will come of that other than the fact that they spent a shitload of money and he's done nothing for them. But you have teams like Tottenham who spend money all the time to get nowhere. Promoted teams spend a fuck ton of money and oftentimes get sent right back down. Eventually, because history shows, eventually the bubble does burst on these leagues.

And when it does— I'm not saying it will, or maybe it won't be for a long time— but if the Premier League bubble bursts, most of these teams are completely fucked because they run their operations like They're chickens with their head cuts off. If, if a company that— just imagine, listeners, co-host, the company you work for spends, uh, 2 months searching for a new CEO and gives them this, him or her, a big package we'll call it $1 million, just flat million. And we spent all this money recruiting this person and we did a whole hiring, uh, process, all that nonsense. Okay, uh, you're not really doing exactly what we want you to do within 60 days. You are gone.

And we have to spend a fuckload of money to get out of our contract that we gave you. Oh, and by the way, uh, we spent 80 billion— 80 million pounds on a midfielder, and we spent 35 million pounds on a defender who barely plays. And oh shit, we're 4 points adrift and we're about to get sent down, and we spent all this money. At some point that bites you in the ass. And for Tottenham, it's like, when does that cycle end?

When does the cycle end that you hire a manager, it doesn't work out as quickly as you want to, you fire him, give him all this money, meanwhile you're spending a shitload of money on players in the transfer window that doesn't work out? Eventually that catches up with you, and Tottenham just happened to be the first big club in the Premier League where it might really catch up to them in They're really up shit's creek. Yeah.

I think it could be said of a lot of major sports.

Um, we've seen that locally with an NFL franchise who can't find a coach that works, who can't find a quarterback that works. And money is spent and contracts are paid annum. Yeah. So yeah, it's, I think it's just kind of, unfortunately it's the rule of the day with this big money, these big, big money leagues. So, and we, we, we see it in the Scottish league as well.

So a probably a good transition point from the Premier League to the Scottish league. And if you want to talk a little bit about that particular table and where we're at with that. Yeah, so again, we had midweek action in the Scottish Premiership after a Scottish Cup weekend, which brought more twists and turns in what is going down as one of the best seasons of Scottish football in decades, for most in living memory. Uh, obviously for me, but, um, man oh man, I mean, it is so hard to call what the hell is going to happen with this, with this title race. I it's still really hard to say that one of Celtic or Rangers is not going to win it.

But basically what we have here, Tuesday night Hearts played their bitter rivals Hibernian in an Edinburgh derby, and it looked like it was headed towards a nil-nil draw, uh, but Hearts rescued a win in the 88th minute. Uh, to get all 3 points. So they rescued all 3 points in, in their match against Hibernian. 88th-minute winner, rabid celebrations. Did you, did you ever think that entering into this campaign that we, we would see this table, the top of this of the table the way it is?

No, no. If you can find the episode from August of this year, or late July before the season started, I predicted Hearts to finish like 5th because the year before I predicted them to maybe challenge for 2nd and they were fucking terrible. Yeah, so no, I did not expect this at all. Um, I don't know if it's really strike— I don't know where every listener stands on their knowledge of, of Scottish football, which generally is pretty niche, at least in, in the States. But I don't think it has landed on a lot of people just how historic this season has already been.

There has not been a team outside of Celtic or Rangers that has led the league after Christmas since like 1993. So we've already seen history. We, we are— there's 12 matches left. Hearts have a 4-point cushion at the top of the table, so You have to be really— it has gotten to the point where you have to be serious about their, their title challenge at the very least. I'm not saying you can write them off as probably winning it.

I still don't— I don't— logic would point towards them not ever winning the title, but this season hasn't really followed logic in any way. So no, I did not think it was gonna shape up this way. I don't think anyone in the world thought that at all. Meanwhile, Celtic rescue 3 points against Livingston. New signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, FIFA 13 cover athlete, uh, and former Liverpool and Arsenal player, gets the game winner in the 95th the first minute to rescue 3 points.

Rangers drop 2 points to Motherwell, who are having a season of, of their lives, currently sitting in 4th place. That game is noteworthy for a number of reasons. One, Rangers dropping points obviously is a big deal right now. The equalizer is scored by Celtic loanee Stephen Welsh of Motherwell, who, um, has really found his footing there, will probably leave Celtic this summer if I had to guess. Um, but man, isn't, isn't that funny how that works?

Well, and this one started off as most people would concur Raskin scores in within the 6th minute of this match, 1-0 Rangers. And so that's kind of the way we thought this was gonna play out. And then the first half went pretty much dead. There was a free kick to Motherwell, um, couldn't convert. Another free kick in the 29th minute to Motherwell, nearly a goal but nothing there either.

And then the half, uh, a yellow card in this late 76th minute of this match goes to red, so down a man. And then that's where later in the 89th we see the Welsh goal equalizer and Plus 6 minutes of stoppage and we have basically a draw. Yeah, Motherwell, I would say— I thought they played pretty well. They actually play some of the most interesting soccer in the Premiership right now. Very expansive, uh, keep the ball on the pitch, uh, take the game to the other team.

They have 63% possession in this one against Rangers, who I think were happy to sit back. Um, 1.39 expected goals to Rangers' 1.36, so you'd say the 1-1 is probably fair. Outshot Rangers 19-10. Um, what an interesting team, Motherwell, and they're starting to get their, their flowers. Um, sitting in 4th right now, uh, which is better than I think anyone had them finishing this year.

It's more than likely since St. Mirren won the League Cup that only the top 4 will be getting European places, so that is going to be a very lucrative spot for them to be in if they can finish in 4th. But here's where things sit headed into another huge weekend. Hearts, top of the league, 57 points. 26 matches played. Rangers dropped points against Motherwell, as we just discussed, so they are 5 points back, 26 matches played.

Celtic have a game in hand on both of those teams, and they sit on 51 points, 6 points behind Hearts. If Celtic win their game in hand, of course that would go down to 3. Coming into the weekend, the 2 big fixtures— Celtic are away to a sort of resurgent Kilmarnock team who beat St. Mirren by 4 goals to 3 over the midweek, uh, so that'll be an interesting test. But the, the popcorn event is Hearts taking on Rangers at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow. You have to say if Hearts win that one, it becomes incredibly interesting.

Um, and Rangers would probably— I, I wouldn't say they're fully out of it if they lose that one, but it— I think it quickly becomes Hearts v Celtic for the title. If Rangers win that one, again, it's kind of game on with all 3 really being in play. Uh, if both those teams draw, Celtic get their win and then win their game in hand, that means they would only be 1 point behind Hearts. So I don't know, it's starting to get incredibly interesting, and it has made some, some attention. It's gotten attention from media outlets that normally would never touch Scottish football.

So it's It's starting to get to that point where people who are not invested at all are paying attention because we could witness unbelievable history taking place.

Um, we got to take it a match at a time. So one last thing before we go, uh, Celtic found out that their Uh, quarterfinal Scottish Cup matchup was away to Rangers. So we play Rangers twice in a week. Here's some upcoming fixtures to keep in your diary for Celtic, which pretty much make or break the season depending on how this goes. Kilmarnock away, Stuttgart in the Europa League.

Uh, remember, that's— we're now in the knockout rounds there. Hibernian at home, Stuttgart the return leg in the Europa League, Rangers away in the league, Aberdeen away in the league, Rangers away in the cup. If Celtic win a lot of those games, well, this season could have— could become very good, could become really interesting. If shit hits the fan in most of those games, Celtic season's basically done because they'd be out of the Europa League, out of the Cup, who knows how many points back of the league title. So Celtic's nut is basically made in these next about 8 matches and, uh, over the course of about 3 weeks.

So It is going to be interesting. Yeah, we may not have another scarf to hang. Yeah, I, I don't know. I really don't know. And I think that, you know, that's a good thing.

It's a good thing that, you know, we're obviously— as a Celtic fan, you'd want, you'd want to be having a comfortable lead by now. But if you're just a neutral observer or, you know, wanting some entertainment This is, this is pretty incredible what we're witnessing. And, um, I don't feel incredibly confident that Celtic win the title, um, but if there's any team that can and knows how to do it, it is Celtic. So all of that to say, we could just take it a match at a time, and we will keep following all the stories for you. And see what we have to report on next week.

All right, so coming up on the hour of podcasting here, um, approaching, uh, the beginning of open wheel racing coming up just in about, uh, 3 weeks, 4 weeks or so. So much to talk about that. And then when we reconvene next week, I'm sure we'll have some commentary on the, uh, Daytona 500, which is happening this weekend in NASCAR. And we'll just leave it at that. If you are ready, we will go.

Take us away.

This has been Tackling the Chicane.

Copyright 2026. Studio 2524. Executive producer Richard Tanaka and the neighbor's dog Millie.

We'll see you next time.