Singapore Grand Prix 2025 Recap: Russell Wins, Palace Fall

Podcasting from Studio 2520, bringing you all the latest in soccer and motorsport. This is Tackling the Chicane.

Yes, so fitting music here to open the show, and we'll pot this down before we get legal notices anywhere. Uh, Rush will be touring in 2026, correct? Yeah, uh, So I'm sure many listening are familiar with Rush, and if you aren't, then that's your fault. But, uh, yeah, so the last tour they went on was in 2015, was the R40 tour celebrating 40 years of Rush. And then of course we had the untimely passing of of legendary drummer Neil Peart back in 2020, uh, unfortunately, uh, lost a battle with cancer.

And, um, that was what many thought was, you know, spelled the end for Rush, uh, unfortunately. And that was a band that early in my high school days I got really, really really into, um, me and my friends. Um, so much so that, you know, when I started collecting vinyl, that was the band that I wanted to buy all their albums on vinyl that I could. And, um, kind of a gateway band into, uh, progressive rock and more sort of experimental stuff. So I credit Rush for kind of shaping my, my music journey and my taste.

That's, that's very interesting because the same happened to me some 25 years earlier, or however long it mathematically would have been. Yeah. Um, The fact of the matter is this was a 3-piece band that played like an 11-piece band and had a great frontman with huge vocal range.

Had— drumming is subjective and people have their favorites, uh, but my— in my top 5, possibly top 3 of all time. Yeah, I think I think he's pretty much undisputed, uh, one of the best rock drummers ever. Yeah. Um, so same with the albums. And, uh, I had a friend who took the drums on as like a freshman or sophomore, and then he was extremely talented, um, and took it to the nth level.

But he was in the musicians union as a 17-year-old playing out with other gig— with other gig bands because he, he was decent, you know, he was that decent at it. But Neil Peart was one of his, uh, it was his standalone favorite drummer. Uh, so that takes me back to high school also, which is kind of cool. So of course, yeah, you, you had the, the pleasure of being alive as they were releasing some of their most, uh, acclaimed material. Yeah, which I never experienced.

Yeah, and I so unfortunately never did get to see them tour, um, but that's gonna change here next year because you and I are gonna go. And they have— they, they haven't released a lineup or anything, have they? Who's gonna— who is going to be the drummer? It's, uh, I'll, I'll look it up for, for accuracy's sake. It's someone I hadn't heard of until Uh, they announced it.

Um, I don't know the pronunciation, so sorry, but the drummer's name is Annika Nilis. So yes, elephant in the room, she's a woman. Um, I don't really know anything about her other than she was selected to be the drummer. So here's what I'll say about that, and it's the obvious statement.

These guys don't roll out on tour at the age they're at, with the legacy they're at, with the fan base knowing, you know, the Neil Peart fan base knowing, without this person being the one to do it. So I'm, I'm excited to see anybody sit behind that and She's gonna have to have the kit. Uh, from what I was reading, um, they picked her partially because they wanted someone not really to necessarily just replicate Neil Peart, but to kind of put their own kind of creative flourish on it. There comes a point where you have to accept that you're— no one's really going to replicate what Neil did. No.

And that, that's probably a fool's errand. Yeah, to try to just have someone play note for note exactly what he would do. Yeah. And that was part of the decision process. As a lot of these places are on the stage, there's a lot of, um, what— I just had the word and I lost it, but it's personalized, as you said.

I mean, you know, certain bass players play the bass the way they do, certain drummers drum the way they do. You know, and that's, it's really cool to think that they're— I always wonder though, is it, is it because you, you miss the itch? You, or you have an itch to get back on stage for like the mass adulation that you had? Well, because it's not, cannot be a question of money. These guys probably don't care about that, but I think they missed just the, the whole sense of being on tour and that just walking out on stage and having 60,000 people there?

Well, there's, there's a whole video they posted, uh, it was a whole social media rollout because they, they'd posted videos from time to time, Alex and Getty together, and then it would end up being like an ad for something or whatever. But this time it started the same way where they were jamming, like it's a clip of them jamming, and then they were talking about the music, blah blah blah. And then, you know, they were like, well, we, you know, we've been jamming our music just in Geddy's basement for a couple years now, and we realized that we've had a bunch of fun playing the music and, um, we want to do it live now. So that's awesome. I mean, these guys are— they're in— I would stretch to say they're in their 70s at this point.

I think Geddy is 72. Alex is a couple years older, maybe. So there is a doc out there. I don't recall the name of it, but it was quite good. And I probably will have to, I'll have to rewatch it.

Um, just go to Netflix and search Rush. Um, it's pretty inspiring. These guys came from, well, as a lot of bands do, but to be a 3-piece and create the type of sound that they did. Very powerful. Pretty amazing, you know.

Powerful band. It's pretty amazing. So, so, okay, and end of Music, uh, 101, or they did add more dates to the tour. I saw it. Oh yeah, to extreme demand.

Yeah, so that increases our chances of getting tickets. Well, if it could be Cleveland or it could be Columbus. It could be— well, the only date around here is Cleveland. Yeah, it's not a— it's not necessarily a huge tour. Um, the reason— there is a reason why, because all the other cities are like Dallas, LA, New York, sure, Philly, then Cleveland, of course Toronto.

Do you know the reason of why they love Cleveland so much? I suppose it's linked to MMS, and probably they got broke or something on that station. Yeah, so their first big single, Working Man, in '74, the first station to pick it up was out of Cleveland. Yeah, so okay, I don't know if it's WMMS. It was WMMS because 101, the Buzzard, was known for that type of, um, breakthrough.

You have to remember, you know, back— this was— I think they They went on air as FM either in '69 or '70, and there were, there were not a lot of FM stations, you know. AM was still ruling most of the airwaves, and so they had carte blanche. And especially as a rock station, you know, they, they were constantly playing, uh, breakthrough artists. A lot of artists got broke— uh, that's not the right word. Broke through though in the Cleveland market.

There's also a documentary on that too, uh, which is quite good. Um, but yeah, there was, it was a different time in radio obviously, you know. Uh, but that could, we could do a whole show if you ever want to deviate, uh, from the content and maybe do a special show, um, just to talk about music. That would be, that would be cool. I know it's not our our forte, but I think it'd be neat.

Yeah, so, uh, there you go, extended music intro. But yeah, well, music's always been a part of this podcast since we started, and, uh, we've kind of— I've kind of gone away from those long, um, descriptions of songs and things like that, but it just— it'll be cyclical. It's, it's kind of up and down, whatever I feel like doing. Moves to the beat of jazz. Yeah.

All right, let's talk some sports, shall we? I want to kick it off with F1, uh, Singapore Grand Prix, uh, another street race, uh, after we of course had Baku 2 weeks prior, thus ending the, uh the stretch of races being at the worst times ever to watch. So I'm hoping we can maybe do some, some live viewing, uh, as they head to Austin next. So that'll of course be watchable. Uh, but Singapore, the plot thickens a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, the takeaway from this is all McLaren and I guess it depends on how you want to rank it. But let's face it, Verstappen has his mojo back. Yeah. And he's, he's running quite well.

Um, a few, just very few notes on this race because it's such a hard track to do anything on. But the big story was the start and the McLaren cars and Piastri ends up behind Norris. There was some contact there. And then Piastri cries like a bitch for 3 laps that he should give the spot back. And I, listen, wasn't okay.

Wasn't, uh, very team-like from him. Right. Or something like that. And this, I know this is all part of the Formula 1 picture. Um, and I certainly don't have a lot of the aptitude that people who have been watching the series for 30 years do or following it for 30 years.

Um, to me, in any other form of racing, this would be laughable. It would just be laughable. I mean, if you get— you lose your position, you lose your position. Here's the thing, there's just no— it's a fool's errand to compare F1 to any other race. Oh, that's true.

And we've— I guess we've talked about that before.

This ends up being a George Russell getaway train at some, at most points of this race. There was strategy, pit strategy played a huge role as it always does. Fortunately, I believe there wasn't any real foibles in the pit. There was one long stop. I'm trying to think.

I know I wrote it down. Piastri had a 5.6-second stop, but it didn't actually matter. Mean anything. Yeah. Because the, by that point, the track position battle had sussed out enough to where there was such large gaps that it didn't really matter.

Yeah. I mean, you know, so the, my takeaway from this race is Max is still very much in this championship fight. So you're right. You are declaring that it's a 3-way battle now. The way he drove, I have to say that yes.

And anything, you know, 6 rounds left, 6 rounds left.

This is, I believe this is going to be, it's going to come down to the end and which is the way it's supposed to be. I mean, this is supposed to be competitive and supposed to be fun to watch all the way through November. It's hard to believe they still— we still have 6 to go. Uh, very spread out season. 2 of them in the US, which, you know, I have a soft spot for the Vegas race.

I think it's been great since they— this is their 3rd attempt. Uh, it always brings a lot of, um, excitement. Uh, it is a series. It is, uh, such a unique event. Not to go on a huge tangent, but There is something so— and I think maybe it's because I associate watching it drunk after parties because it's at 1 AM— but there is something so just on brand for a Vegas race to start at 10 PM local time and you're watching it in the middle of the night and it's, I don't know, yeah, it's like a rave.

I've— well, I've, I've— you've never watched it? I've never watched it live. Maybe do it this year just for fun. Yeah. Yeah, it is.

It's on a Saturday, right? Sunday morning. It's early Sunday morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The key is prepping to stay up that long.

Coffee or something. Yeah. But yeah, uh, getting back into this race, uh, yes, first lap incident pretty much defined this one. You had Russell on pole, which he went wire to wire. Verstappen in 2nd, he finishes in 2nd.

So not a whole lot to report there. Norris is on the brakes trying to not hit Verstappen, uh, and I think he actually makes contact because his end plate gets all jacked up. Makes contact with Verstappen, kind of does the jerks the wheel thing. Which happens to brush Piastri. And then to Piastri's credit, I suppose, um, when you're in a race environment, all he knows is that Norris ran him wide.

He doesn't know that Norris was basically trying not to slam into the back of Verstappen. So I can see Oscar's initial frustration, but he does continue to bring it up throughout the race. And you— all his radio messages for the rest of the race were very, uh, I don't know, just pouty, sort of. Yeah. So, so to your point, that's why the debrief is so important, because when they do the debrief, they're looking at all the angles They're looking at exactly that.

Here's how the contact happened. Here's— it wasn't raw contact. It wasn't he ran you wide. He hit the other— he hit the Red Bull car, and in— can, you know, because of that, he ended up striking your vehicle. Now, they can argue— they can argue that shit with headphones on all they want.

But it's a long GP when this stuff goes down on the first race or on the first lap, and there's nothing you can do but just try to coax your driver to drive. Yeah, until we do the debrief, and then when we do the debrief, we'll break it down. As a fan watching it on TV, we're lucky because we get to see immediate— yeah, immediate angles. The drivers don't get to see that, so So I'm, you know, I think Piastri could have done a little better to maybe forget about that, but I'm not gonna blame him for being mad. I mean, this title race is going to get there, and they talked about it on the broadcast.

There will come a point, and maybe this was that point, where you kind of just, the friendship thing is gonna have to be put aside for a while with those two. Uh, they've, they've been pretty civil throughout the whole year, but I do think the gloves come off at some point on track. And, um, I think maybe this was, uh, the teaser to what could come between those 2. Yeah, and I'm— you saying that triggered something.

If there is a way that we can Bluetooth, if my phone is connected to this console. What I would love to do is, um, I'd love to bring Jimmy Hill in just for a segment, for like a 10-minute segment. So when we have these kinds of conversations, because what he knows about is '90s F1, early 2000s F1, when the, the drivers, it was even, it was way worse. So even though you were on the same team, it was you were ultimate enemies, you know. Now they try to make it all like, well, we're— I mean, buddies and all that.

It's played down. But to be fair, the last time there was a huge teammate battle for a championship, 2016, Nico Rosberg wins the Drivers' Championship with McLaren, beats Lewis Hamilton. Those guys hated each other. So I think it's more so that We just have not seen a true teammate battle since because Hamilton was a lot better than Bottas all those years they dominated. We know Verstappen was way better than whoever else was in his seat, in the other seat for Red Bull.

This is the first time that we've had 2 guys on the same team that you can point to and go, either one of those can 100% win a championship. Um, so I think, I think we are going to see a lot more, um, feistiness in the last 6 rounds. Yeah. So 22 points is the delta between Piastri and Norris. And then, uh, Verstappen is just, um, 73, 27, and 14.

So 30, 41 points between Norris and Verstappen. But when a victory is 25, and if something bad happens to either any one of these 3 people, um, they're then You know, and we've seen it, although we haven't seen it quite so much this year, but we've— no, in the past we've seen like weird things. So here's what I'll say to that is I, I'm not in the camp that I, I don't think Verstappen's legitimately in this title race, at least as we record with 6 rounds left. But what I will say is the broadcast, again, the F1 TV broadcast made it seem as if 22 points was somehow light years apart. 22 points is Piastri DNFs and Verstappen— and Norris wins a race, and all of a sudden Norris is leading the championship.

Yeah, that's so— that's not— that's one mistake and a one good day, and all of a sudden this is flipped on its head. Mind you, We also have 3 sprint races left. Yeah, so I'm not trying to be like the F1, anything can happen, but at least it seems like this year, since we've started this podcast, it seems like this has probably been one of the most compelling campaigns. From a driver's championship battle, yes. Not from a constructor's.

Well, definitely not that. I was gonna say not necessarily from on-track, racing, but the championship battle is compelling. Yeah. And the other point to look at is if we go down past the top 3, you know, we've got Antonelli in 7th place, first-year F1 driver. There's Alexander Albon for Williams in 8th place as a driver.

They have to be thrilled with both their constructors standings and their driver standings as, as, um, as Williams. Yeah. Um, you know, and I'm just going to say it. If I, if we, if we had the option of pushing a button and grenading a team to go the fuck away, it would be Aston Martin. Because Alonso just creates DRS trains and who the hell knows what Lance Stroll does.

I don't know. I just, I can't imagine that Alonso is going to be driving for them next year. Pretty sure he's inked for next year. So I don't know. He just seems like a pain in the ass.

Like he just hangs around, you know? I don't, I don't agree with your Alonso takes. I mean, I'm not saying that he's not a great driver, but I think he is driving a piece of shit to points. Well, that's to your point. Yes.

He creates DRS trains. Not, no one does it to be annoying, but it, that's a credit to him that he does that. Um, and I appreciate his very, um, honest radio calls. Yeah. Um, he didn't have one.

Oh yeah, yeah, he did. It was, uh, his engineer was like, 30 laps to go or whatever, blah blah blah. And he's like, if you keep, uh, talking to me every lap, I'm gonna disconnect the radio. Yeah. Because he doesn't, he knows what lap he's on.

Yeah. Here's the thing. Like, what the hell are you telling Fernando Alonso during a race other than like, if something drastic changes in strategy or someone blows up? Well, when cars are not in 17th position, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. A lot of engineers constantly calling in adjustments, you know, move this weight checker, do this, change this bias, move this fuel mapping.

When that's not the case, the guy's probably just like silence for 30 seconds and then, okay, 31 to go, 31 to go. Yeah, it, it, I do like to watch the driver cams sometimes and engineers are, some of them are more vocal than others. You, I'll pop into a camera, watch for 5 minutes, and not hear anything, or maybe hear one thing. And then some, some of them are a lot more vocal. So, um, but I just feel like, you know, Fernando Alonso has run 1,000 F1 races at this point.

Yeah, I'm just— it's not me saying that he stinks or anything, but, um, I don't know, I'm just not— I don't think Aston Martin can take themselves 100% seriously as a competitive outfit with Lance Stroll in a seat, and I'm not sure how much longer that continues. I think there does come a point where you have to just say, for the love of God, like, this just— we can't continue doing this. But Papa supplies the money. I also heard that the Aston Martin shtick is not going to be around for much longer either because that's pretty much just a billboard. Yeah.

Yeah, they're, they're gonna be picked up or go the way of another constructor at some point. Um, that's a whole nother conversation. But yeah, looking at this table, I think the shock— not shocking, but interesting thing to note is let me just throw some names out here to you.

Kimi Antonelli, Alexander Albon, Isaac Hadjar, Nico Hulkenberg, Liam Lawson, Esteban Ocon, and Pierre Gasly are all drivers who are ahead of Yuki Tsunoda. Hmm. Yeah. So this guy, either he's gonna be— he needs to go to RB next year or be gone completely. He's not gonna have a seat next year.

I will tell you that right now, and I'm 90% sure I'll be right. He will not have a seat next year. Um, the 2nd Red Bull seat is cursed. I'll just go out and say it. I don't give a fuck if you put Jesus Christ in the 2nd seat because he's not gonna be as good as Max Verstappen.

Sorry, Grandma. It's true. Uh, Sergio Perez was the best thing they had as that 2nd seat since Danny Ric back in the Stone Age at this point. Um, and even then he would start the season well and then fall off a cliff every single year. Start the season well, grab a couple wins, fall off a cliff to the point where they could not justify that anymore.

So you put in Liam Lawson, he fucks it up. You give him 2 races, which is stupid, but he's not good. Put in Yuki Tsunoda knowing he's not going to be good. He isn't good. Before that, Alex Albon could not maintain that seat.

That is a driver who is probably better than Williams, if I'm being, you know, candid. And Pierre Gasly, who is also a race winner and multi-time podium finisher in F1, could not handle that Red Bull seat either. There has to be some sort of philosophy that changes at that team at some point to where you go, we cannot build a car that is 100% only for Max Verstappen because it will continue to be Max Verstappen And then the other car, which is a mile off him in pace. Yeah. I mean, my only point to maybe counter that is with the money that these teams have and the amount of engineering that goes into these cars, how do you not adjust for the other driver?

I don't know. I mean, I don't think you can. I suppose you can't do that from the point of here's the under the under panel that we're running. Here's the aero that we're running here. They're not going to change that.

And maybe that's everything. I don't know. I think so much of it is setup. Yeah. That's shit you can adjust.

Yeah. Drivers have gone on record saying it's set up for Max Verstappen. Right. And so they're not going to bespoke set up the other car because that creates all kinds of problems with, with, um, your telemetry and your pit stops and how long are the tires going to last and how much fuel are you going to use. So they're trying to make parity between the 2 cars.

Well, it— I mean, that's fine, but have fun finishing 300 points off McLaren for a few more years. Well, that, so there, there is the, some of the genius with this McLaren team is how closely these 2 drivers can compete with each other. Yeah. Yeah. So well done.

I don't know how they do that, to be honest. I've never seen anything like that. Um, the, you know, I, I mentioned 2016 Mercedes where that was a battle between 2 teammates that went down to the wire. But we haven't really seen that in a long time, so kudos to them. I will say, you know, maybe they've gotten a little lackadaisical in recent rounds.

3rd and 4th here, they haven't— they didn't win Azerbaijan either. Uh, they didn't win before that either. Hasn't Verstappen— he won 2 in a row and then George Russell won this, so it's been a while. Yeah, so they've been at the top step. They did of course clinch the Constructors Championship, uh, which we knew was coming for about 4 months now.

But, uh, kudos to them. And, um, yeah, that's, that's, that's what I have for Singapore. Yeah, uh, and that's pretty much F1 for this week. Um, we don't— we've got a week off before the, uh, USGP Uh, happy to have the series back here in the States and— or North America, I suppose. Uh, yeah, so 17th of October is, uh, COTA, which is Texas, I believe.

Um, and then, uh, just for shits and giggles, we go to Mexico. And then do we go to Vegas after Mexico, or— I believe it is as follows: Texas, uh, Mexico, Brazil, Interlagos, um, and then Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi. All right, so 6 rounds. The good thing is, as the weather turns shitty here in Northeast Ohio, we still have something to do until at least Thanksgiving. That'll go into December.

Yeah, uh, first weekend maybe. So that's the joy of F1 is our other series has ended and will have been over for a while and then we still have some stuff to watch.

So yes. All right. Off to the world of footy and I'm going to get another Guinness or possibly something else. So first, Uh, in this segment we're gonna travel north of the border into Scotland. We've got, uh, fairly breaking news.

We, uh, with a heavy heart have to say that Rangers Football Club have sadly parted ways with their statistically worst manager of all time, Russell Martin. Is it? I should have had something queued up for that. Is it that heavy? Are you?

Is your heart that heavy? It's a sad day for Celtic fans around the world. As you know, someone who takes a decent amount of pleasure in the fact that Rangers are horrible, he will get sacked with the following. Record in the league after 7 matches, 8 points collected. That'll, uh, tally 1 win, 5 draws, and a loss.

Uh, they drew with Falkirk on Sunday in heartbreaking fashion where they held the lead for 73 minutes roughly— sorry, 40 minutes And, uh, were sadly, uh, handed a game-tying goal. Oh, Scotland the Brave, continue to speak. So yes, I mean, it, it is a little bit of a sad, sad day. Rangers sit 8th place in the league. They are currently in a relegation scrap.

Uh, Russell Martin was the shortest-tenured Rangers manager in their 153-year history. He lasted 128 days.

I— well, who, uh, so who's gonna take his place? Well, they don't know yet. Rumor has it it'll be A glorious return of Steven Gerrard. Steven Gerrard is a football legend, most notably for Liverpool Football Club back in the 2000s and 2010s. He took over Rangers in 2017 as boss, I believe, or around then, and actually led them to a title in 2021, the COVID year.

Uh, where they tallied 102 points and did not lose a game. Uh, so actually, I mean, he has a decent amount of, uh, pedigree, uh, history with Rangers. That's the rumor mill, is that he's coming back. He left Rangers in 2021, late 2021, for Aston Villa, which didn't really work out, and then he's kind of bounced around since then. Um, but yes, uh, so sad news north of the border.

In other Scottish football news, you know, uh, we actually— I'm not gonna say it's a title race yet because last year you'll remember that Aberdeen sort of famously started the season very, very well up until about November and then fell off a complete cliff. But Hearts are top of the league. Yeah. With 19 points. I'm seeing that.

Just a couple ahead of our, our team. The boys at Celtic are just a few points behind there at 17.

7 matches played each team. 1 win differential. Yeah, I think, uh, the draw, maybe 2 draws for Celtic, 1 draw for Hearts. Yes. Uh, what do you, what do you think about this Kilmarnock team in 3rd place?

Is that something to be paying attention to or? Uh, they appear to be rock solid. I will say, uh, I think it's going to be one of those years again where this is, you know, it's going to be strange. I really do. Wonder, um, if this is the year that someone breaks up the Celtic-Rangers 1-2.

And that would have to be Hearts at this point, um, because 7 matches in, Rangers are 9 points behind Celtic and 10 points— sorry, 11 points behind Hearts. Now that's not like an insane gap necessarily, but that, I mean, that would take time to to get back into, especially if the top 2 teams keep up, you know, good form. So I did sort of, uh, famously predict last season that Hearts could finish 2nd, and then they were not good at all. So maybe I was just a season early, but I felt something in the wind. All right, so, and what is the total number of matches played Okay.

So it's early. True. But I mean, this gives us a bit of a forecast.

I mean, we've got 6 wins for Hearts, 5 wins for Celtic, and then it drops significantly.

Yeah. It is odd to see Rangers. Down there in, yeah, place. And I mean, they're, they're barely holding their own against Livingston and Falkirk. Yeah, it's, it's actually been a pretty dire year, uh, in Scottish football so far.

Rangers and Celtic both have just been so stinking it up in Europe. Are you more— and this is a loaded question because you, are you more interested in the Premier League at this point or not so much? You think these teams are going to come around here in the Scottish Premier League? I, history just shows that eventually Rangers will come around and probably eventually Hearts will taper. That's just, we have 40 years at this point of history that would back that up.

But it just— I'm waiting for Rangers to turn the corner, and it's only October, but there's no evidence that they are going to do that. Yeah, well, we do, we do have 4 flags. Yeah, yeah, in the pub. And if we have to take a year off, I don't— no one, no one likes to do that. I don't think that's gonna happen either.

As horrible as— I mean, Celtic are a mind-fucking-numbing watch right now. And there, there is sort of a reason why we haven't gone in depth about them for a while, and it's because I take no pleasure in watching them right now. Yeah, and I don't disagree with, with that. I mean, we could sit here and I'll take a page from, uh, KNR, the, the local Cleveland ESPN station who wants to break down Browns football for 6 days a week. I don't care to do that if you stink.

Yeah. So like I watch, I still watch the matches. I just, I, I struggle with it and I, they're just, they're, they're genuinely not interesting enough to talk about. I'd rather spend time talking about teams that are interesting, like Hearts in Scotland. Like Rangers are interesting maybe for the wrong reasons, but they're still interesting.

With that being said, um, obviously this weekend is a wash, but we— whatever match is going to be at McIntyre's in the next 3 weeks or so, we should get up there to put our finger on the pulse of the club. Yeah, I actually would be interested to see what they think. The atmosphere around Celtic right now is actually insanely toxic. Well, and I think what we should do is if we're going to go up there, either approach some of those fans as somebody who talks about the team on a podcast and, and ask opinions, right? I think that'd be a good thing to do.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to kind of report back. Findings. The ultimate thing would be to record, take mics up there and record a podcast. I don't know if we're embedded like that. No, my plan is your buddy there might get you there.

My buddy Jimmy? Oh yeah, my plan is to move close so I can just go every weekend. Yeah, but anyways, tangentially speaking, uh, this actually sets up a pretty insane clash Sunday, October 26th. Something to keep in your diaries. Hearts at home against Celtic.

That's Sunday, October 26th. That I think will give us a much stronger indication of how these 2 teams stack up against each other. Perhaps we should— that should be the match. Yeah, probably. Um, but that'll be, that'll be a big one.

Uh, and I'm looking forward to it. We have an international break this weekend, so there, you know, it's a wash. There's nothing to talk about. But interesting, interesting times in Scotland. So I figured, uh, give everyone, uh, some of the latest news out of there, uh, and I'll talk more Celtic, uh, and the situation going on with them next, next show, uh, because we won't have any games to talk about.

But, uh, let's get into the Prem. If you feel so obliged. We have had a change at the top of the table, just saying. Liverpool lost again. They've now lost 2 league matches in a row, uh, sandwiched between a Champions League loss, so 3 on the trot, uh, for them.

Arsenal now sit top. With their win. So, you know, it's Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur— 16, 15, and 14 points respectively. Also on 14 points, Bournemouth, uh, sitting 4th place, and then Man City, 13 points in 5th. But our match of, uh, of interest that we have in-depth analysis about Uh, last week we did the thing where you just randomly selected a game based off a number 1 through 10.

We had talked Crystal Palace last week anyways, and it so happened to be that you landed on that match for us to discuss. So number one, if we, if we're gonna do the randomizer, you need to give me something on paper that says what that match is. Um, but yes, I— we did end up watching, uh, this. I watched this one, you watched it for the second time. Um, but yeah, this was, this was, uh, it was a, it was quite entertaining.

There was a lot of stuff to, to note of this one, I think. I don't know if you feel the same way. Yeah. I think there's some good storylines going into it with, you know, Crystal Palace had the big unbeaten run. Everton in their new flashy stadium.

Yeah. And they're actually playing well this year to couple with the new stadium. I, okay. So I'll just kick it off here through the first 15 minutes or 20 minutes or so. Crystal Palace is paying— is playing a very pesky defense, not letting this team do a whole lot, in my opinion.

I don't know if you feel the same way about that. And, you know, just speed of the ball, moving the ball. They were, they were dealing with Everton. Yeah. Crystal Palace, part of their unbeaten run is that they were very defensively solid throughout.

Which sounds obvious, but some teams can just outscore other teams. Crystal Palace has never really been like that. It starts with defensive solidity. Uh, interesting shape, talked about it when we were watching, but it actually changed based off of if they had the ball and if they didn't. They didn't have the ball, their back 3 would become more of a back 4 or 5 even.

And then once they got the ball, they sprung numbers up the field. So they're really trying to counter-attack more often than not, or move quickly with possession. Um, yeah, the first 40-odd minutes I think is more Everton getting stuck in, 2 teams kind of feeling each other out. Uh, some— a few shouts for a foul here and there, a couple saves here and there, but really the, the match kind of kickstarts with Munoz's goal in the 37th minute. Yeah, from Sarr, um, I believe was the feed there.

And then we have a 1-0 Crystal Palace goal. And I guess, yeah, you had to have been watching this match because you could just feel, even from the TV, you could feel the fact that Everton was so excited about having this this place to play in. Yeah, I think this was probably their first real challenge. Yeah, of the table. So probably the, the best team they had faced at the, the new stadium.

Obviously the first match there was a huge event, but it did feel like they were kind of up for it. Yeah, this one. So this, that pretty much is the first half. Everton was really flat. They were very flatly playing.

Uh, Crystal Palace had most of, most of the possession, most of the dominance of the first half. Uh, it was all Crystal Palace in the first half is what I have written down.

Um, do you disagree? No, I, I don't. Uh, I think, I mean, speed of ball speed of moving around, they definitely had the advantage on, on Everton. Yeah, I— this, this was a tale— this is a classic tale of two halves match because really Crystal Palace, like you said, in control for the first 45, and then you, you line out for the second half and it just changed completely immediately. First kick, second half, Everton on the gas, 100%.

It was like they transformed themselves into a different team. It just, and it lulled a bit in the middle of the second half, but for most of the first 10 minutes or so, it was very high speed, very high passing. Uh, it was— there was a lot more action going on on the Everton offense than there was in the first half. Yeah, they did a good job pinning Crystal Palace deep a little bit, and I think Palace had trouble responding to that. One of the big storylines throughout this one was Palace's missed opportunities.

Uh, the glaring miss that Mateta had where he probably Should have tucked one away. Sarr had an opportunity to shoot, I think, on a breakaway and then opted not to. He passes to Mateta, who then sort of inexplicably doesn't even get it on frame. Yeah, that definitely— yeah, so I mean, that was, that was a ticker moment for both of those, um, 64th-ish or so. On both of those.

I mean, it was within a few minutes of each other. And then we'll advance a few minutes here and talk about the PK for Everton, which you can talk technically about why he was able to take this penalty kick. Yeah. So actually a pretty cut-and-dry penalty here. Lacroix of Crystal Palace defense, uh, goes in on a challenge.

I think it was on N'Diaye, but don't quote me on that. Or maybe Barry, maybe it was Tierno Barry, the Everton striker. Either way, um, Everton had broken, uh, away and Lacroix was sort of the last ditch effort to prevent a goal-scoring chance. He bundles over Everton attacker. Really, there's not a whole lot else to say.

It was pretty cut and dry. And, and N'Diaye was the, the, the taker, the taker of the kick and good. So now we're at 1-1. Yeah. Nice penalty.

And N'Diaye has been Damn good for Everton. If that's you know some a player to keep an eye on from that team, a takeaway there. Ilman in in Jai. I'm trying my best with the it's the African. It's in Jai.

I have you on this one. Okay, in Jai because I wrote it down phonetically. Oh nice. Yeah, so twenty-five-year-old right winger. Represents Senegal internationally.

Um, he has really torn it up so far this season. He's been sort of a— if you, if you play fantasy, he's been big in that department. 3 goals and an assist so far in 7 matches. Um, Everton have a, a real nice attack going right now. Maybe not a, not a big-name striker that you could point to, but on either wing in Njie and, uh, Jack Grealish.

That's a pretty solid winger options there, at least to start. So, uh, look for Everton to maybe be a team of, of interest throughout this campaign. But, um, to get back to this match, of course that penalty makes it 1-1, and that's where the tone of it, of this match, really started to shift and it felt like Crystal Palace, who are playing European football for the first time, group stage football for the first time ever, uh, have that midweek fixture, sort of looked like they had run out of gas. They, yeah, obviously their energy was spent. They were still trying, but what we ended up with was a bunch of ridiculous challenges.

And, you know, we went +8 on the stoppage on this game where in the 93rd, uh, N'Diaye deflected to Grealish and sealed the deal for at 2-1. And then I was, I was so excited that we might be finished. I shouldn't say that, but when you watch a replay on a went Tuesday night and you missed some of the excitement of watching it live. Yeah. Sunday morning is one thing or whatever it was.

Yeah.

Anyhow, I cannot believe how far out they stretched the stoppage time of this game. Yeah. Completely unnecessary. 12 minutes. Oh, 100%.

100%. One of my biggest gripes with the Premier League is that they— who? And it's the one guy, right? One guy has the call. Yeah, he keeps the time on his watch.

Okay, well, he must have effed up, well, terribly. New international, uh, code law, uh, they've been a bit more strict on time wasting and adding proper amounts of stoppage time to try and counteract. I honestly thought even with the injury, it was still— no, no, no, no, it was still way too much because no, there wasn't 12 minutes of stoppage. No, I, I didn't even think there was 8. That's the way the game is headed in the Premier League.

Fucking loves a stoppage time equalizer or winner. Yeah, I, I'm not this isn't a tinfoil hat comment. This is just— this is how the Premier League is. There's always late magic. And, um, you know, when you continue to have your games, uh, have 10 minutes at the end of it as a bonus, you're just creating opportunities for these magic moments.

So, uh, again, not trying to say they do that on purpose, but there is a reason why so many times that happens, and that's because the Premier League, more than most other leagues, are— is quite lenient with the stoppage time. Indeed. Uh, in terms of that last goal, pretty horrendous, uh, defense, uh, from Crystal Palace, which I guess is how most goals are scored, but very weakly, uh, uh, cleared on the initial header from Njie, which allowed Grealish to pick up the scraps and make it 2-1 in that one. So overall, a pretty, uh, entertaining match. Crystal Palace's longest unbeaten run in club history unfortunately comes to an end.

Everton is rolling this year, so I mean, Crystal Palace is rolling despite this this hiccup. And this weekend also brought, uh, new leaders at the top of the table in Arsenal. Liverpool with their second, uh, I guess, you know, stumbled over a hurdle for the second week in a row. So the, the plot thickens in the Premier League. Uh, I still think Liverpool are pretty heavy favorites to win the title, but maybe I'm not as gung-ho as I was at the start of the year.

Um, but, uh, that's why you gotta play all 38.

Any chance we'll see, um, the tour that we did here in the States with, you know, the Notre Dame deal? Yeah, I mean, they do that every year with Premier League teams pretty much because they like to cash in. But it doesn't always end up in this area. No, uh, the Premier League Summer Series, as it's called for them, uh, did not hit anywhere close to us. And it was also like Bournemouth and West Ham— nothing against them, but I don't have— I guess if it was like, oh, they're playing in Cleveland, I suppose it was the perfect storm.

Yeah, like, will Celtic show up to Notre Dame anytime soon? No, but That was, that was so much fun. Yeah. And we got to see, and they just so happened to be playing Chelsea, which is a big deal. And all of the top line guys were on the field.

Yeah. For the most part. Well, we saw Celtic a week before their actual season started, so it was basically a dress rehearsal for their first match. So we got to see, hence why they throttled Chelsea. Yeah.

We got to see all the greats, or at least the greats for that year when we were there. I mean, we did well last season. Yeah. So yeah, uh, yeah, I don't know, uh, but the Premier League, that they, they do love their money, so they certainly come to the States a lot. So, uh, you know, that's one of those things that if it was in my backyard, I would go.

I'm not gonna like drive 3+ hours to go see, uh, Southampton. But you know, Indy's a stretch. I mean, that's 4 and a half. No, that was to see Celtic, which is our favorite team, right? Right.

So that's a lot different. Fo' sho'. All right, so there you have it. Uh, international break, uh, this weekend. Will we talk about the US?

Probably. I don't know. Though. Still kind of on my shit list. So I, I might try and watch games and report back what I see, but I, I'm not gonna make it appointment viewing necessarily.

Um, 8 months, 8 months until the World Cup. Well, mark your calendars, it'll come quick. It, it sounds like it's far away, but It's not, it's not, it's really not. And we will be going balls out for that, by the way. So, okay, prepare yourself.

I'm— my thought process is full previews of each team throughout. Of course, we're not gonna do that in one episode, so it's not gonna be like homework project. It's not the point. But interspersing that throughout, uh, May and June, ideally And I know it's 8 months out and I don't even need to be seeing— saying this on air, but whatever. Ideally, if we could do like 2 shows a week as opposed to 1 during the tournament, because that is going on every day, you know.

Well, just as a little roundup, we could give her a shot. Give her a shot, see what happens. It's all up to my, my My co-host. His folks, if you haven't seen his calendar, I mean, he's, he's jetting everywhere. He's off to Michigan tomorrow.

He's busy and he's a wanted man, which is just a very quick flight from Cleveland. It's only about, uh, 30 minutes. Well, luckily we did just install a private airstrip, so with our podcasting money. So yes, off to Detroit, MI. Tomorrow.

But, uh, regardless of that, I think we're more than covered here. Yeah, uh, this is again a tangent, but I just want to see— oh, it's Friday. I was— huh, interesting. I was wondering if the Tigers were— would be in town while you were there, but they're not. And also it's Friday, so whatever.

Anyways, I think that'll do it. All right, uh, so we'll see us out. Yeah, get going here.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka, this has been Tackling the Chicane. Copyright 2025 from Studio 2520. Well, we'll see you next time.