Madrid Grand Prix Recap: Rangers Rout Celtic, VAR Chaos

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This is Tackling the Chicane.

Fight! Yes! All right, not too shabby there. Got a little control on the buttons this evening. So here we are, uh, episode 6,000 million And 2, I think it's 182 or something.

Stickers still flying. Posted one at the Quaker Steak and Lube in Austintown yesterday. What were you doing there? Uh, a little work lunch action. So, um, yeah, not sponsored by the lube.

Not yet, not yet. Uh, any uptick vis-à-vis the stickers, uh, analytics-wise?

Um, give me something. Let's see.

Um, I mean, actually, I mean, sort of, but we've seen sort of a, an uptick in, in listenership since the World Cup, which is not that surprising, I suppose. I think, uh, maybe a little word of mouth has done us some, some help. Um, but yeah, like since the World Cup, we've been pretty consistently, uh, higher than we were before. Um, so that's cool. Yeah, I mean, it's, uh, obviously a labor of love.

We're by no means a professional production here, and no sponsorship or monetization of any kind, so No, but I have to say, having been a regular listener of, of podcasts and podcasts that do quite well, actually, um, not too shabby. We're not too shabby. We're just a couple of guys here with some equipment, a couple computers, and, um, But I do think we have some loyal listeners, and the, uh, drive to bring more folks to this podcast will continue as we move forward. Yeah, yeah, I think we've, we've sort of hit a nice groove recently. Uh, I was pretty impressed by the content we were able to get out during the World Cup.

I was, um, just kind of hoping we would do more stuff during that, and we did. I mean, we recorded 6 episodes or 7 episodes during that, that run. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6— yeah, 7, which for 2 guys that have full-time jobs elsewhere and other stuff wasn't too bad. And I think that kind of paid off a little bit. Not literally paid off, but in the sense of, of decent listenership from that.

So yeah, um, yeah, uh, we'll keep it rolling here. We've got a pretty packed show this time around. Of course, Formula 1 Uh, inaugural Madrid Grand Prix. I have opinions on it, I'm sure you do too, what with it being a, a new track. We've got our first kind of big IndyCar silly season slash offseason news, drivers, uh, chopping and changing there, which we expected now that we're in the offseason for that.

Um, a maybe shock result in Scotland, perhaps. We have, uh, the Glasgow derby, Rangers-Celtic, to discuss. And controversy as per usual in the Premier League, specifically regarding VAR in the Manchester derby, which we'll probably conclude with. Uh, but for now, let's keep her in Spain here. The Madrid Grand Prix has come and gone.

Um, I guess I would like to know your thoughts on the track specifically. The F1 community, if you will, uh, very not sold on it. Um, wasn't a whole lot of overtaking, passing being done. Um, and of course, you know, a fairly unsurprising winner in Kimi Antonelli. So what did you think?

Um, so this particular circuit came to this— that Formula 1 weekend with quite a bit of fanfare, but as F1 is quite good at creating fanfare for a new circuit in a new city and probably a shit ton of money paid to the FIA for said GP. Yeah, you know, so I guess I was thinking about this after I watched the race.

Does— is the overtaking track-related in this case, or is the overtaking related to all of the stuff that we've talked about this entire season? Um, the way this car is set up, the clipping that we've learned about, the constant battle driver versus this particular powertrain. Does that enter into the conversation as far as overtaking at this, or was it simply just not a great circuit to overtake at? I think maybe both played a bit in this part.

Was it visually a fun race to watch?

Sure, potentially. Um, I don't know. Uh, so highlights from this particular GP: Norris grabs a pole, which is okay, that's, that's great. Norris grabs the pole. Um, lap 6, Hamilton has a brake failure for Ferrari, and basically that's it for, for him, which you You know, these things happen, but I'm sure that's not what Lewis would have liked for this particular GP.

Um, Stroll off track.

Okay, lap 14, virtual safety car. Key moment here. Somehow McLaren completely effed up this, uh, pit strategy under the VSC, um, or I think eventually it was a regular safety car, not 100% sure. No, it was just the VSC. Um, yeah, so really what happened was a case of Mercedes being very reactive to a VSC and pitting Antonelli right away.

You get— it's a super long pit lane at that track, which is kind of ridiculous, I think. Um, here's where I start to get frustrated.

What, what do you people get paid for that sit on the pit wall sometimes? I understand blunders are made, all this nonsense, but what the— how You knew the VSC was out. If you just react to it, you, you know everyone is going to pit under the VSC because it, it saved something like 16 seconds, right? And then they waited until it had concluded to pit Lando Norris, functionally losing the race for him.

Oh, oh, 100% losing the race for him. But it is someone else's call on the— I don't know what you call it. The guys that are watching all the TVs are making the call. And they screwed this one up 100% because he missed it by seconds.

Basically, if he would have pitted when he came around to his opportunity to pit under the VSC, would have been fine. But he drives by and then he has a huge lap to make because this is a tremendously long circuit. Yeah. And as you said, the pit lane is long as well. Took him from 1st to 5th and then just has to fight from that position forward.

So yeah, bad call. Yeah, it just took pretty much all of the steam out of this race. Uh, Verstappen was never really able to give Antonelli any sort of fight, finishes 4.3 seconds behind Antonelli. Norris rounds out the podium. Uh, Leclerc, the top finishing Ferrari.

George Russell finishes 5th, meaning that of course Antonelli extends his championship lead. I'm probably about one win away, um, from calling Antonelli the champion here. I, I just, I really don't see anyone else winning it at this point. Yeah, Azure by John coming up, uh, in a couple of weeks. Yeah, yeah, a week from today or tomorrow.

Yeah, um, I'm just gonna say it, I'm just gonna note Top 3, 4.3 seconds from 1 to position 2. From 1 to position 3, 5.089. And then 29 seconds for Charles Leclerc, uh, in P4. 30 seconds behind the leader.

Russell right there at 29.82 in 5th place, and then a jamming 86 seconds for Liam Lawson, who's driving for Isaac Hadjar, I believe. They didn't— they said he injured his wrist during the summer break, but they didn't really say if that was an off— was that an off-track issue? Or— I mean, we've seen that before. Yeah. Yeah, Lawson seems to just constantly be in and out of different Red Bull seats for whatever reason at this point.

But, um, uh, yeah, it's— it is what it is at this point, really. There's 2.75 teams that have figured out the car in any meaningful way, which means that, um, you get this huge drop-off more often than not after about the top 3, sometimes more like the top 2. Uh, but yeah, it's a really odd almost minute in between 4th, uh, 5th and 6th, um, which is kind of hard to explain. Uh, Piastri nowhere near it. Colapinto 7th, your top Alpine on the day.

Arvid Lindblad and Nico Hulkenberg rounding out the points there. But yeah, it doesn't make for particularly interesting racing more often than not when you have such large gaps. So really looking to other teams here to kind of figure their shit out. Yeah, um, I understand how broadcasts work and The folks at F1 are trying to make these races interesting and competitive, and there's all kinds— I mean, we, folks, we don't even go into the hours of coverage pre and post and warm-up and all that. I mean, there's tons of tons of stuff that you can watch, and it's mostly just a bunch of bloviating as to how these races are gonna be great and this and that, and then when it really comes down to it, not so good.

I mean, and we've talked about that all year, and I, I'm fine with saying it.

And I don't know if we need some improvement to the way these powertrains are working, and we've talked about that in the past. It's probably gonna come up at some point. Where they're going to have to make a little bit of differential in the way these cars work.

Um, but yeah, I mean, we'll see what— we'll see what happens next in the next GP. I, I agree with you. I don't think that, um, anyone's going to unseat the driver for that championship. Uh, Although things lately— late happened in the past where there was a little bit of a battle, so there might be a battle or two. Um, we're just gonna have to see, I guess.

Yeah, uh, I think you're being charitable there. I'm gonna be honest, I think you're being very, very charitable, uh, which I understand that perception, uh, but I just don't see it happening. We are looking at an 81-point advantage for Kimi Antonelli that grows seemingly every week. Uh, George Russell has really not put up any sort of fight, um, in recent months at this point. Um, and as you say, that last week the Constructors is pretty well and truly done.

Yeah. Um, yeah, we could see, we could see something at the 3rd and 4th position for the drivers standings. 191 to 186, Lewis Hamilton leads Lando Norris. So maybe something to keep an eye on.

Potentially, if Lando has a good weekend, he could he could supplant Lewis pretty easily.

But we'll just have to see. And if they if McLaren continues their poor strategy, then possibly not. But yeah, Madrid. Yay, nay, somewhere in between? Uh, too hard to call at this point.

It, it was a fledgling effort. Did I think going into it, I thought it was going to be a little bit more interesting of a race than what it ended up being?

Um, it's, it's, it's a street slash road course. So whatever. I mean, I don't know what it's trying to be really.

I, I don't know how the contractual part of it works, but I'm sure we're gonna see that course again. Yes, uh, we are supposed to see it for a while. Spain notoriously fickle about what venues they actually use for the race. This is like the 4th or 5th venue that the Spanish Grand Prix has taken part at. It's been Barcelona every single year, and now it's this Madrid Frankenstein.

It was Valencia for a while. It was all these other things. Will it actually run its whole, uh, contract? And probably not. We'll see.

Um, I don't really care either way. I don't think it was very good. Um, and to give you credit, I don't know if that's more just to do with the series this season not really being that incredible or just the fact that the track just isn't good. Uh, but, um, another week off here for Formula 1, uh, before Azerbaijan takes place, uh, thus beginning the world tour of dictatorships, monarchies, oligarchies, and any other non-democratically elected officials running a country. No, F1 is really good at going to countries that really aren't so hot in that department.

Yeah, it, it is a world series of racing. And as I've said before on this podcast many, many times, um, I prefer to keep the political side out of racing, but at the same time, I understand, you know, where you're coming from as well. Um, But clearly money talks. Yeah, the, the thing is, and promise it will not do more than like a minute here, but it's, it's— you— I get the concept of wanting to keep those separate. They're pretty much inseparable with F1 just because how often are these events, wherever it may be, kind of like this big showpiece for the country that it's in.

And oh, here's so-and-so, the fucking king of whatever, or these are all the leaders, or it's the military flyover. And it's like, you don't— you really— you kind of can't, because there's a reason why these— this F1 circus travels to some of these places. You nailed it. Uh, these places open up the pocketbook and go, look how great we are, we got an F1 race. Yeah.

Um, so I don't know, just one of those things that kind of just comes with the territory of F1. Yeah. And it kind of makes me wonder if from the other side, um, do those folks see us in the same light? Because now we have 3 races in the United States. Yeah.

Um, what do those folks feel about that? How do they feel about that? Um, yeah, it is— it's kind of strange that this race series can open up a conversation about— well, clearly there's, there's nothing to be had here except for the fact that these, these races occur in countries that have incredible wealth. And we've said this before too, it's extremely hard for a regular race fan even in the US to go to an F1 event. Yeah, um, we've mulled over several different places that we might try to go to Um, COTA seems to be maybe an open door at some point, but still quite expensive.

Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely something to think about as a race fan.

All right, well, I think that will do it for F1. We will, uh, shuffle into the world of IndyCar here briefly. We had our first bit of silly season moves— drivers moving teams, maybe someone out of a team. Dennis Hauger, who was the guy I talked about last week in hoping that he would find his way to a seat, well, he did. Multi-year deal with AJ Foyt Racing to take over the number 14 machine for him.

Um, I can't imagine that there's been any other Norwegians to have driven for AJ Foyt. Maybe that's something for historians to look into. But, um, yeah, I'm really excited for, for him to have gotten that opportunity. I think he showed a lot of promise, obviously the Rookie of the Year in the series, and had some good qualifying efforts Looked pretty solid on ovals too. Um, it does mean that your boy Santino Ferrucci is seemingly out of a ride.

Well, one of the things I've learned is when you maybe buy the, the shirt or the jersey, don't expect it to, um, stick around for too long in this series. Doesn't matter, yeah, who you are or what you choose to purchase. Um, I will say this, um, Foyt's— AJ Foyt's racing team seems to be a bit of a springboard potentially for some of these drivers. Yeah.

Um, or perhaps just a place where many go to perish. Well, I mean, it doesn't look like Ferrucci ever really made it past the, the Foit level. Kind of an indie— I won't say wizard because he's never won it, but well, and that was always his best race, which you felt like kept him in this. Yeah, I was doing a little research, um, because clearly he doesn't have a ride now, but I didn't realize until earlier today when I did some Googling that, uh, he, he got fired from an F2 team because he purposefully— did you actually not know that? Well, I probably did, but I had forgotten.

I mean, well, that wasn't Really, 7 years ago. That wasn't the main reason. The— and okay, well, we're doing this now, so let's do it. There's a reason why Ferrucci is the least liked driver in the series, and it's because of his time in F2, uh, where he had a teammate, I believe, of Indian nationality and he made it very clear that he didn't like, uh, his teammate Ferrucci, that is, and said, uh, racist things about him. So didn't know that, but I, I do know that he perfect— purposefully put someone, uh, off the track.

Uh, that's why he got fired from F2. And he came into IndyCar, now that you say that, as kind of the— everyone's like, oh, he's spicy. You know, yeah, but I guess the clear, the clear question here is, can Larry Foyt bring this legacy team into some kind of upper echelon or victory? Can Larry Foyt bring a driver who is going to bring AJ Foyt Racing into their, you know, salad days of, you know, back in the, you know, when AJ was hot. And can they do it?

Can they do it with Dennis Hauger? Can they win some races? Can they get some points? Can they be up in the standings? That is the question for And I'm a Foyt Racing fan because of the history, because of my contacts at Indy who are also Foyt fans.

Can they bring a driver that will get them into the running? Well, that might be the idea here with Dennis Hauger, who's shown a lot of promise so far in his American open-wheel career. Obviously won Indy Next as a champion, uh, dominating champion in 2025. Looked pretty impressive this season in spurts, uh, kind of a very much a rookie type of season. But, um, I think someone that certainly has a lot of promise, and, um, I would, I would love to see that happen for sure.

Um, just 23 years old. March 17th, 2003. I guess the only question is, or the one of the questions I have is, who fills the second seat? Because from what I have read today, Collette is also probably going to be shuttled. Yeah, it seems like it's going to be Josh Pearson from IndyNext, who has a rather large bit of funding behind him.

It's what it sounds like. Well, and that's why Hauger also was in the conversation, is— and okay, listeners, I'll clue you in on something with racing.

Just follow the money. Yeah, um, not as big of a deal with Halger though. I, I think he doesn't— with teams like Foyt, yeah, it's important to bring sponsorship. It is. And, and this, you know, the teams that we talk about, the MSRs, the, the, um, throw another small team out there.

Well, I don't have to because literally every team does it Sans Penske, right? Because Penske's a billionaire. But, uh, Kiffin Simpson runs for Chip Ganassi. He is a pay driver. McLaren, Nolan Siegel, pay driver.

Um, so all the big teams— Stingray Rob, well, I'm very obviously a pay driver. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's just how it works. That's— it's the same in, in our, uh, golden child series, F1, as well. Yeah, um, not— but it's really with Hauger, he brings budget. Yeah, but the guy destroyed Indy Next his first season in American open wheel and was the Rookie of the Year last year.

Yeah. Who, who do you run for this year? I'm sorry. Uh, Dale Coyne. Okay, so quite small.

Yeah, so Foyt is an uplift for him. And hopefully an uplift for the Foyt team. So yeah, I mean, we'll keep an eye on any other movement that happens on the offseason, which obviously it does quite often, uh, in IndyCar. But yeah, I'm— I guess I'm interested, you know, I have to be. It'll just be who's the second seat and Possibly the gentleman that you mentioned earlier.

Yeah, I think it seems like that's where it's headed. Mr. Josh Pearson, 20 years old, uh, has a lot of money. One Indy Next win, 5 podiums, and 2 poles. Finished 6th in the, in the series, uh, last year. He has quite a bit of Indy Next experience actually, so if he's gonna make that step up, it's pretty much got to be now.

Um, only 20 years old though, so I guess kind of it's still a young buck in that respect. So yeah, that is the IndyCar news that we have for you. So, uh, I think that'll conclude our racing section unless you have something else. No, I think we're good. Alrighty, well, let's go ahead and transition into the world of soccer.

We're going to start in Scotland this time, just as our kind of a big headline coming out of Scotland. It was a, a League Cup weekend, so no Premiership really to speak of. There were some midweek action, uh, yesterday, which I'll— I can touch on briefly afterwards. Uh, but let's not really beat around the bush too much here. Uh, the big headline: Rangers 3, Celtic nil.

An absolute drubbing from the boys in blue. League Cup quarterfinal, right?

Um, Rangers came out hot within 4 minutes. Johnson throws a bullet, it goes wide.

Um, Celtic was, was on their heels this entire match. They, they never They never— I never felt like that we even had a chance. They— fifth, I looked up possession because I was, I was like, oh well, Rangers have to have the— it was 50-50 possession in this match. But yeah, I— they didn't— they look like they were just unorganized.

Uh, one— well, basically just one team showed up. Happen. It was Rangers. I don't even think it was unorganized. They just didn't even show up to play, really.

Pretty much kind of what it felt like. And I mean, yeah, a complete just nothing performance from Celtic, which means that they got boat raced by Rangers. No Celtic fans in the building for this one. Um, I don't have enough time in the day to explain why that is the case. The pettiest rivalry continues to be the pettiest rivalry.

Um, yeah, like I said, really not a whole lot to touch on. Um, so go rewind, go back.

They weren't allowed to purchase tickets? No. Okay, well then, oh, let's, let's touch on that a bit. Yeah, what in the hell is this league all about? Um, being silly, uh, to put it diplomatically.

Um, I mean, that's like the Browns and the Steelers, and you tell all of the freaking Steelers fans that they can't show up, sort of. Uh, the thing is, like, okay, so let's, let's— since we're doing the allocation issue, we might as well give it the, uh, the full rundown. Obviously it's not the same over there how it works here. You can't just buy a ticket and show up, uh, if you're an away fan. I wouldn't even recommend doing that even if you could, uh, because this rivalry and many European soccer rivalries don't, uh, they're not friendly, right?

So there's a specific section that away fans would, would sit in. You'll see it in any, pretty much any, especially British soccer game. Um, no away fans, uh, for this one because originally Rangers, um, said that they would allow 300 Celtic fans, which is nothing, into the ground. They are pissed because in the Scottish Cup whatever round it was last year, semifinal maybe, or quarterfinal, that was at Ibrox when we had a full stand of Celtic fans. When we won the penalty shootout, Celtic, some Celtic fans rushed the pitch, which then caused the gimps from the Union Bears to fly over to the other side of the section trying to start a fight, blah blah blah.

Both clubs scream and yell at each other, and now we're at no away fans. So that's kind of where we're at. Okay, well, it does add a bit of spice to the league, I guess. Um, here's— let's, before we go into your play-by-play. Sebastian Tenechte for Celtic, don't ever play again.

He fucking sucks. He's terrible. He's not good enough. Yang is out with South Korea for the fucking Yippee-Ki-Yay games or whatever, their fucking bullshit.

Um, it's— yeah, I guess. I mean Sebastian Tenecte doesn't deserve Darth Vader's theme really, because he's not nearly as badass. Um, Martin O'Neill, pensioner, 75 years old, here because— so why else? Why the fuck isn't he here? You know, why not?

Why not have a fucking grandpa as your coach? With all respect to people of that vintage, Even, I think, I think the average 75-year-old go, yeah, I would never fucking coach a professional sports team. I'm supposed to be on my patio smoking cigars. Um, where— what is the vision for this Celtic team? That's what this comes down to, truly.

And we have on this podcast as Celtic supporters have said many, many times, what the fuck are you doing? You have the bankroll. Yeah, you have the money. Where's your ambition to get a manager who is not Martin O'Neill, who you probably— who clearly was like, well, uh, yeah, I'll take, uh, $100K or whatever you guys want to give me because I'm fine. I, I don't, uh, you know, and I'll just sit here on— stand here on the sidelines and Yeah, that's no problem, you know, and I'm sure it's more than $100,000, but, um, I get your point.

Can we please get somebody who can inject some newness into this club and find the talent? There is talent on this pitch. I— yeah, I just There's no vision here. There's no vision for this team. We play— and what did I say last week?

We haven't fucking played anybody. And the one time we did, we lost fucking 5-1. Well, so here we are, we're playing the first team that's worth a fuck in Scotland so far this season, and even they aren't that good. And it's 3-0. They look pretty goddamn good.

Yeah, but this match They're not, they're not. But, um, just fire— firing. Yeah, firing one after the other after the other after the other. And thank God, this match could have easily been 6. Could have 6 goals for Ranger.

Thank God for the keeper who sucked. Well, but he— I mean, there was a lot of defense there too as well. Yeah, otherwise this could have easily been a 6-goal match in my opinion. I think the big takeaway here is, is Celtic never showed up to play. They— and Rangers scored 2 of their, and maybe possibly 3 of their goals from outside of the 18-yard box.

Yeah, at least a couple of them. I mean, Neil was a marksman in this match. Yeah, who I've never heard of until, yeah, uh, Sunday. And that's not because I don't watch a lot of fucking Scottish football. Rangers just have rolled up with about 800 million signings, um, and I'll probably click on him and he'll have played for Rangers for 50 years.

But okay, he hasn't. That's why I don't know him. Um, well, hello and welcome because you owned us. Um, no one showed up for Celtic. I think every single person on that field played like shit for Celtic.

Couple of tough discussions need to be had. Is Casper Hu worth a damn? He came out hot and that is all he's done. At the beginning of the season, and that is quite literally all he has done is that game against Kilmarnock, who are— yeah, we now know are pretty bad. Yeah, I got a bad feeling.

I mean, the 22nd, Kelsey to Neal, 1-0. Halftime, Rangers just keep firing. 59th, Kelsey goal. Uh, VAR check, 2-0. 75th, Neal again from outside, 3-0.

But I got a real bad feeling way before that, that we were not— we were not going to be able to, to contain them. You could feel it, you know. We had come out flat. We weren't really creating any sort of chances. It was all Rangers.

23rd minute, that goal goes in and you go, oh boy. We better be the next— we better be the team that scores next or this is not going to be a good day. And yeah, and we were not. No opportunity. Um, unfortunately this was a League Cup match.

Yeah. So we will not be seeing any time in that particular, uh, crashed out race. Nope, that one's done. So Trophy lost for Celtic. Proof that it's not always sunshine and rainbows for this team.

We'll see. You know, the great thing is we play Rangers again on Sunday in the league this time at Celtic Park. No Rangers fans there.

Well, how will this one go? I don't know. I guess we'll see. Doesn't look too hot. You know what the old adage of it's hard to beat a team twice, but what, what, what evidence suggests that Celtic, uh, are gonna come out on top Sunday?

Yeah, other than home field advantage.

I don't, uh, I'll just say this, um, don't have a lot of confidence in this Celtic team at this point, but we shall see. I guess gotta play the game, right? Yeah. Europa League action tomorrow for the Celts, taking on the Hungarian side Ferencvaros, 3 PM, uh, Cleveland time. So maybe they can get a little something out of that before we head back into league play Sunday.

The last week before the big international break, uh, which is extra long this year. Um, your quarterfinals, in case you're wondering, for that competition, actually kind of juicy fixtures, I'm not gonna lie. Hearts versus Hibs, the Edinburgh Derby, on one side. Rangers-Aberdeen, which are 2 teams that, uh, don't have any love lost for each other. So obviously Celtic can't win that trophy, so someone else has to.

Um, it would be interesting to see if maybe, maybe a Hibs can figure out a way to win that trophy. They did actually just sack their manager today, so I don't know about that. But, um, yeah, tough week in, uh, Scotland from a Celtic perspective. Uh, I just do want to briefly brush over the results from the league last night as we record, Tuesday the 15th. Uh, Falkirk got a 2-1 win over Hearts.

Hibernian lost 1-0 to Kilmarnock, uh, thus sacking David Gray from His post as Hibs manager and Motherwell getting smacked around 4-0 by Aberdeen. A league that just, you can't really ever predict outside of Celtic. Um, I would love to see a team figure their shit out and it might be Rangers this season. It might be Rangers, um, who have won 4 in a row. Um, but Kilmarnock still in last but first win of the season.

Yeah, I did see that on Fotmob and followed, um, thusly. Also, uh, my second following team in the Premier League, Brentford, uh, won 2-1 over Reading.

Um, oh, might have been a league— was it in the League Cup? EFL Cup? Yeah, yeah. But still, uh, I guess I'll take it. Brentford sits 7th in the standings, which gives me a little bit of hope.

Uh, as you said, Kilmarnock still kind of bringing up the— excuse me— the rear. Yeah, there's a lot of bad teams in Scotland this year. Yeah. Um, okay, well, I think that'll do it for Scotland. We'll go ahead and push into the Premier League here.

I don't know if you're aware, but Bournemouth and Brentford tied over the weekend in the Premier League 2-2.

Uh, Justin Kluivert and Marcus Tavernier scoring for Bournemouth, and, uh, a brace from Kevin. Uh, probably gonna fuck this up. Whatever. Shade, Shade, Kevin. 2 goals for him.

So Brentford get a result there, and like you said, sit 7th in the table. I will once again pat myself on the back for my second team selection here in the Premier League who Drew 2-2 with Chelsea over the weekend. We were talking about Chelsea as a potential title, um, contender in this one, and they, you know what, they might still be. They might still be. It's only September here, but, uh, 2-2 it went there.

Morgan Rodgers fired up the scoring for Chelsea in the 7th minute. Morgan Rodgers seemingly a great addition to that team. Um, and Bellumi for, uh, Hull City scores a brace, 28th minute. 34th minute looked like Hull City maybe were taking all 3 points until, until João Pedro leveled in the 66th minute, and it would finish there, which means my Hull City who were newly promoted this year sit 4th place, uh, very early on in the season. But they sit 4th on 8 points and are yet to lose.

That match against, um, Chelsea was the first time they actually conceded a goal in the league. Well, obviously, uh, a team that deserves their promotion and have played fairly well. Um, as you said though, it is quite early, but still, um, kudos to your pick. Yeah. And, uh, before we move on and into the, the Manchester Derby, let's do what I am, uh, now just gonna create as a weekly segment because I enjoy the suffering of other fan bases, I guess.

What did Tottenham do this weekend? Din in in in it. We need to get that on the soundboard. Din in in in it. Din in in in it.

Little Austin Powers. I don't know. It just seems like jovial for that'd be awesome. The bullshit. Do you have something like stupid on there for Tottenham?

Some jovial. I don't know. Just like something silly. Hmm. I I don't think so.

Just click a button. See what it does. Yeah, that's too happy. Too happy. Uh, that's not terrible.

Tottenham, Tottenham nil. There we go. Everton nil. So the Spurs, you know, finished 17th last year. Finished 17th the year before.

You know where they are on the table right now?

17th. 17th. 17th. Is the manager on, um, call, uh, for being fired? Roberto De Zerbi.

You would have to think it's starting to get close to that. They also crashed out of the League Cup. It's kind of a shame because this is a team that in the past campaigns we've kind of had a little bit of spark for, I suppose. At one point they were pretty good or fun to watch. Obviously the Ange Postecoglou era was very interesting for us.

What is he swimming around in? Coaching Ronaldo's team in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Shabaab. No, that's not what they're called. That is actually a team though. But, uh, Al-Ahli or Al-Ittihad or Al-something. What is Nasser?

I knew I was gonna get to it at some point. Uh, point being, he's making a lot of money in Saudi Arabia. Um, Here's a stat for you before we move on about Tottenham. They have scored 0 goals in 4 league, uh, matches. And last time we were talking about when was the last time they failed to score in 3 matches in the league, and it was 1974.

When was the last time, do you think, they failed to score a goal in the first 4 matches of a league season? Um, 1967. Good guess. It's actually never. They have made history.

Hmm. Which, you know, you want to make, uh, your team to make history. Just this is for entirely the wrong reasons. Spurs just sitting right on the cusp as we speak. Behind Crystal Palace, behind Bournemouth, behind Sunderland, um, right there just waiting to be in the red zone of relegation.

Yeah, and boy would I be happy if they were relegated because I just think that is funny. It's funny. They're a big team with a lot of money and they are just so terrible. Yeah, um But we are not ones to laugh at other people's misfortune, at other teams' misfortune on the— on this show, not on this program. Uh, so we'll go ahead and move on to the Manchester Derby here, the first of the season, the first under the Enzo Maresca era of Manchester City.

Of course, Pep Guardiola, Gonzo, um, and they've replaced him with another bald guy in Enzo Maresca, who was also his assistant at Manchester City at one point. Um, obviously not a whole lot of scoring happening here. Um, they always hype— this is one of those things, you know, you're talking about in F1 where it's like, man, they talk a lot about these games or this race and how awesome it is, and then it's like, huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I— so I spent the entire, uh, 90 minutes with this match and listened to a little bit of fanfare before.

And, um, not really the, the greatest match that I've ever seen in my life. I will say this, Um, what a fantastic venue, Old Trafford. Yeah, oh, I mean, it's clear that, um, this park is probably up there with one of the greatest venues as far as the way it looks, the way it's designed. I mean, it was really, really interesting to watch the panning of the park and stuff.

Um, Foden got sent off. Yeah, I was gonna say skip to the red card. Yeah. Uh, well, what do you think about this one? Because it caused a lot of controversy.

This game didn't really have much going on before then, and that sort of woke it up. I think it comes down to, as you've said in the past, how the officiating— it's all up to the one, basically the, the one guy. Yeah. And was that a card? Was that a red card send-off?

Um, I don't, I don't think so. So Bruno Fernandes, uh, I think fouls him, or they go out for a ball at the same time. He gives him— uh, Foden's on the ground. He gives him like a little kick, a little kick. I, I think that was probably the— a little naughty.

I think Foden didn't take too kindly to that. I, I think that kicked up on him. I think sometimes the officiator gets like dialed into something like that that happens, and he sees an egregious move from another player and he just, you know, by design goes, all right, you're— that's it, you're out. Yeah, it, it was a little— we've seen, we've seen quick fire. We've seen more egregious stuff happen and not get reds, sort of.

Yeah, very quick fire with the red. Very— I don't know, just, just very I think there was a VAR call. Yes, there, there was. And, uh, hard stands. Yeah, that would be the first of 2 major VAR incidents in this one.

Um, I think really just the overarching message here before we dive into VAR discussion, do you see any real improvement from Man United from last year where You know, they, they struggled at the beginning and then brought in their caretaker manager, who is their manager now, Michael Carrick. Had this nice run of form at the end to finish 3rd, but still were kind of lacking in many places. I'm not seeing a team that frankly looks that good here.

I agree. Um, obviously with the result of this game that, you know, I think it, it kind of comes down to, all right, this is a derby. You know, you would like to see a little bit of a little more hotness from both teams, not just kind of a layback Where was Erling Haaland? So is this a Samson issue when you cut your hair? Did he lose all of his power?

I mean, he was non-existent in this game, sans when he scored. Okay, one touch. I'll give him one touch, but not the Erling Haaland that we're used to seeing. Dynamically. No, not in this one.

I think this one in general, this match just lacked a lot of intensity. I think he cut his hair and lost his power. Uh, I, I was on that train the first match of the season when he failed to score, but since then he's scored in every match, so I'm kind of not so much on that train anymore. Um, just, you know, Man United a man up in this match for 67 minutes and you wouldn't know it. Didn't look like they were a man up for 2/3 of the game or more.

Yeah, I think we've— you and I have talked about this before. Um, A man down sometimes gives the team a little bit more breath, I guess. Well, I mean, they have to play— they have to play— yeah, they have to play differently. Um, and, and Man City did that. They, they take off, um, Enzo Fernandez in the 82nd minute, and they just— Ryan Cherki in the 46th was the big one there.

They had to take him off. He's more of an attacking midfielder. And sub on Iliman N'Diaye, who is their, uh, new signing from, uh, Everton, more of a defensive player. And, uh, it works out for them. They really don't concede many chances in this one.

Um, Man United have 6 shots on— or 16 shots only 3 of them are on target, um, and they create 1 big chance. So as far as playing with 10 men for 67 minutes goes, that's pretty impressive considering you get the win. Um, Haaland does score in the 60th minute, and this is where you get VAR controversy. And I don't know if you remember, but I'll at least give my perspective here. It looks like to me Haaland is offside, but then later, um, the consensus was that Enzo Fernandez, who the ball, uh, uh, he is a part of the goal-scoring play is how I'll put it, um, is also in an offside position.

And even when I'm watching it live And my friends are watching it live and we're all texting, this looks like it's offside. And it's not deemed to not be offside by the referee who then he does the whole VAR charade of going over to the screen, still given his goal. Commentary's like, well, I don't really understand the explanation of why it is standing, but whatever. And then I think it was the next day, um, the refereeing association of the Premier League, or I guess England in general, uh, puts out a statement and goes that goal shouldn't have counted, essentially.

So one of the pitfalls with both leagues, Scottish Premier League and the Premier League, is we don't have any idea what is being said.

That needs to happen.

It doesn't need to happen on every foul or every, every card. But when VAR is concerned, I need to have a mic'd official explaining to me what the call is, and we don't have that. It sucks. It totally sucks. All I get is like, you don't fucking— you don't square gesture.

Well, hold on now. You don't get it for the offside calls. They do it— they now do it for, um, I think it's like when penalties are awarded. Um, they might even do it for red cards. I don't remember if they do it in this one for that, but when penalties are awarded, uh, but not for an offside decision.

At least I haven't seen it. Yeah, for now. I think anytime anything goes to VAR, I need a verbal communication from the ref explaining what is fucking happening. Yeah, I mean, the thing with VAR in the way that it's used, uh, by leagues like the Premier League— not so much in the World Cup, I actually don't really have much issue with how it was used in the World Cup, but there were different usages for it, um, but it's just not— it's especially in Scotland, it is not properly used. Um, it's not— it's very, very rarely is it correcting mistakes.

It's, it's more just re-refereeing decisions that were already made. Um, in Scotland, they just don't even have enough infrastructure to like use it properly. You get the shitty camera angle and all this crap. So if you don't have the infrastructure to use it properly, then don't have VAR because all it does is just create more needless controversy. Yeah, it's 2026.

Mike the ref. Yeah, I would be fine if they just scrapped VAR altogether. Um, that isn't happening. No, but it is what it is. So you have this match where Man City put in this heroic performance, but overshadowed by refereeing decisions, which is always incredibly annoying.

Um, so that'll be a wrap on the Premier League for this one. Uh, just quick score around the league: Arsenal 2-0 winners over Sunderland, so they stay top of the league. Liverpool 0-0 draw with Fulham. So your top 5 Premier League: Arsenal and Man City, Both on 12 points. Leeds United in 3rd place, Hull City in 4th, Brighton in 5th.

I don't think anyone had those 3, 4, and 5 after 4 matches, I'll tell you that much. No. Um, so it should be interesting as we head into the final match week before the big international break. Be on the lookout for more reaction to that. Well, at least I have something to look forward to with my bees, who potentially could, you know, scoot into the top 5, possibly.

Very well could. Yeah. London Derby against Chelsea Friday, a little Friday night action, 3 PM our time. Uh, feeling confident?

Um, no, no, you're not feeling good. So the Bees may be struggling against Chelsea. Hull City take on Newcastle. I actually think they can get something out of that. Newcastle were destroyed by Leeds on Monday, 4-1.

Um, kind of the— is there a box office match for this weekend? Yeah, debatable. Tottenham-Aston Villa. Not so much. I don't know.

Uh, so let's, let's just see what the weekend brings and we will react to it when it is deemed appropriate. But for now, I think that'll do it for this episode. Yeah, I am ready to get gone if you are. I am. Take it away.

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

As Said producer enters the studio. Oh, nice. We will see you next time.