Tottenham vs Man City 2-2: Rangers Close Gap on Hearts

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Podcasting from Studio 2520, somewhere near Akron, Ohio, bringing you all the latest talk in motorsport and soccer. This is Tackling the Chicane.

All right, so here we are gathering on a Snowy February Thursday evening. We are in the crux of it. Hmm, I suppose. Yes, uh, the light is at the end of the tunnel though, in terms of getting out of this winter offseason, if you're more inclined for the motorsports programming. Uh, there, there is, you know, races in sight.

We are less than a month away from the IndyCar campaign taking off in St. Petersburg, Florida, uh, first weekend in March. We're also not very far away from F1 getting back as well. And then, if you're inclined as well, NASCAR is back on track, uh, after their preseason event, The Clash, took place, uh, yesterday as we record because of weather in North Carolina, uh, snow in North Carolina. That was, uh, supposed to be a Sunday event And then it was the Monday event, and then it became a Wednesday event in the rain with some rain. So a bit of a disaster.

It seems like anytime NASCAR tries to do any event, Mother Nature gets in the way in some form. Uh, Indy— or not the Indy, Jesus Christ— Daytona 500 is coming up in about 10 days' time. Uh, we'll see what kind of weather that brings. That recently has been a bit of a shit show trying to get that race going. Um, they had, uh, well, so Florida had 30s, which isn't— it's not super odd for that to happen, but we would like to see, um, something a little bit warmer for the 500, I would think.

You know, and that's a week, you said, out? Like 10 days. Okay. So the weekend after next. We're getting, yeah, we're getting into it.

I'm assuming that here shortly we'll have our predictions for this season for F1. As soon as Lawrence Barreto releases that information. Um, and then we'll probably have an IndyCar preview show at some point before that race kicks off in March. First weekend in March. Yeah.

So it's going to come pretty fast and furiously here at TTC. So, um, I didn't know, I know we have, uh, A couple of matches that you wanted to talk about. Dundee versus Hearts and then Spurs versus Man City.

Williams released their livery this week. Super attractive car. I've always liked that blue-black.

It looks great. It looks even better than it did last year.

That's my underdog root for team. You know, Haas obviously is the team that I root for through and through. Now we'll see what this Cadillac team brings into the mix, but I would love to see Williams be a contender again, only because it's, it's one of the few teams that I remember from my first forays into F1 25 years ago. Yeah, um, yeah, um, they're just a very likable team for a number of different reasons. Um, don't have that, that sort of— they're— it's one of the last sort of old-school F1 teams where it's just a family, a family with, you know, obviously some, some wealth, but deciding to, to go racing, you know, it's not bankrolled by, uh, McLaren or Mercedes or whatever, or big oil.

And frankly, one of the most likable team principals that you'll find. He's not pretentious. He's not an asshole, you know? So, um, other than that, F1, uh, let me see if this is going to work and it might not be worth it, but No, I guess it's not going to. What, what is it?

They had put a quiz out, 10-question quiz with multiple choice answers that I was going to roll through here. But for some reason it's timed and I looked at it this afternoon and it's still timing the look that I gave it this afternoon. So it's not letting me go backwards to the first question. I'll just pull it up right now, which I have already done. Oh, you did it?

No, I, I haven't done the quiz. I pulled it up. Mercedes held their launch event on Monday. What is their new car called? AMG 2026, AMG W17, W17, or M17?

I'm gonna say AMG W17. That's my answer. We are incorrect. It is just the W17. Okay, semantics.

Which driver was announced as Mercedes' 3rd driver on Monday? Mick Schumacher, Zhou Guanyu, Frederic Vesti— raced in the 24 Hours of Daytona— or Felipe Drugovich? I knew this one. I have no idea. Frederic Vesti.

Okay, 99% sure, and I am correct. Uh, Mercedes also announced their development drivers on Monday. They are Dorianne Pinn, who is a woman, just throwing that out there, from the F1 Academy series. Joshua Dirksen and Felipe Dragovic. Anthony Davidson.

Paul Diresta. That's not right. No. Former F1 driver, or Alex Dunn? I don't know.

I'm gonna go Dragovic. No, this is development driver. Dragovic might be in Formula E now. Uh, Alex Dunn is gonna be my guess.

Oop. Uh, I guess we don't know. A little glitchy. Adrian Newey's first Aston Martin car. Hit the track for the first time at the end of last week.

Who was first to drive it? Adrian Newey's first Aston Martin car. Who was the first to drive it? Your answers: Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso, Stoffel Vandoorne, or Jack Crawford. Uh, I'll say Fernando Alonso.

Okay, I don't really have like a answer, so I'm just gonna guess yours. And, um, yeah, we don't know. Oh, so what are they— they're gonna give you your results at the end? Might be broke. No, it was giving me the, the actual answers.

Yeah, sometimes Red Bull ran their power unit— okay, because it's time— power unit for the very first time last week in Barcelona. What power unit did the team run in their very first F1 season? Ferrari, Renault, Honda, or Cosworth? You need to pick like now. Cosworth.

Correct. Okay, moving on. The promoters of which Grand Prix won the Promoter of the Year Award for 2025 last week? Miami, Las Vegas, Abu Dhabi, or Bahrain? Vegas.

It was Abu Dhabi. Ah, who could have thought? Who would have thought that? There's no money in Abu Dhabi, is there? Friday was the last day of running at the preseason shakedown.

Where's the first official preseason test being held? Paul Richel, Barcelona or Bahrain? I'll say Bahrain. I think it's usually Barcelona. I'm gonna go Barcelona.

It is Bahrain. Son of a bitch. And it's Barth Alona. Which world champion did Aston Martin sign as a team ambassador this week? Team ambassador: Jenson Button, Damon Hill, Sir Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell.

Um, Jenson Button. Yeah, it feels the most right. It is Jensen Button. Jackie Stewart's like 99 years old. Who have Haas— who have Haas signed up as their reserve driver for this year?

Mick Schumacher, Jack Crawford, Logan Sargeant, or Jack Doohan? I know this answer. Jack Doohan. It is Jack Doohan.

Mick Schumacher running for ROL in IndyCar. So he's a little busy. Williams revealed their new livery on Tuesday. Which bank's logo can be seen on the new car? Santander, Standard Chartered, Barclays, or HSBC?

I'll say HSBC. Yeah, I don't have an answer, so we'll go with yours. And it is Barclays. Not bad. It's not a bad sponsor.

We got— we're 4 out of 10. 4 out of 10. Not a back marker, but you could do better. Have another debrief with your race engineer. Okay, that was, that was kind of fun.

Yeah. Formula 1 quizzes, obscure knowledge. Now I'm on a different page. This will be— we won't be good at this at all. Formula 1 race winners 2000s.

Trying to see if maybe there's— what's my country Formula 1 drivers? Could be.

That could be difficult for people like me who are geographically challenged. Challenged. Um, all right, well, maybe for another time. Sure. Anything else in the world of— I don't think so.

We're, we're in that kind of purgatory of automotive racing right now. So everything's getting ready to kick off. Nothing's really kicked off. Yeah. Um, but soon enough.

All right. Well, if that is the case, then let's go ahead and transition into the ever, uh, evolving world of soccer. We are past the January transfer window, which came to a close on Monday, which means in my estimation we're officially at the business end of the season. No one can make signings anymore, at least not from other clubs. So what you have is what you're stuck with until the end.

Celtic made, uh, 3, uh, last day signings. Uh, apologies, I don't have them pulled up in front of me, but they are all loans. Uh, I think 2 of them have an option to buy. Uh, 2 wingers and a center-back, I know that. And we signed our striker Thomas Schwantra earlier in the window, who scored against Falkirk over the weekend in a 2-nil win.

Um, the thing is, there's been, there's been a midweek match day since we, uh, recorded last, so there's actually 2 match days to get into. But we'll start with, with this one here in Scotland. We got Dundee United taking on the high-flying Hearts of Edinburgh. And, uh, it felt maybe like it could be a bit of a trap game for Hearts, which we will get into after this discussion. But for this particular match, um, honestly, it ended up being kind of fairly straightforward.

And that was because in the 24th minute Dundee United went down to 10 men because Amar Fatah was given his marching orders on a pretty— I wouldn't say nasty challenge, but his studs basically destroyed the ankle of a Hearts player. The, the Hearts player was fine, but, uh, he didn't get any of the ball. And was sent off. And really, you know, from that point on, Hearts kind of just sailed away. Um, got things going early in the 11th minute.

Uh, but what would— what was your read on, on, on this one? Um, so I'm trying to go through my notes here. The first— so that first, the, the Fata card came. I have it the 17th, but it doesn't really matter.

Well, clearly, I mean, they showed there was a shot in the replay where he was, you know, clearly the, they had made contact and they were, the pitch was really rough in this game. Pitch was a bit of an issue. So I'm sure that the boots were Yeah, they probably had some pretty nasty shit on the bottom of those boots. Um, so yeah, I— what do you— what say you? I mean, clearly it was a foul, right?

Yeah, I think it was a rightful red card. Got none of the ball, studs on the ankle. That's pretty standard procedure red card there, and that wouldn't be the last one for Dundee United. Yeah, this one got off to a fairly ripping start as far as just action goes. Yeah.

So down Hearts or Dundee down to 9 quickly. And then in the 27th, we had a VAR check for contact penalty to Hearts.

Kizaridis. Pretty close. Kizaridis. Okay. Well, I'll take that.

Put that away. That actually made it 2-0. Hearts got off to a flyer with, uh, within 15 minutes. It was, uh, Pierre-Landry Kaboré. A ripper.

Yeah, good goal, well taken in the 11th minute. Uh, a backup striker to Lawrence Shankland, who you'll remember is, is hurt for a while, not going to be back until mid-March by the latest estimates, and he's sort of their talisman striker. So Kaboré really stepped up in this one, scoring in the 11th minute, making it 1-0. Then, as you mentioned, the penalty incident to make it 2-0. And by then, you know, Dundee United are down to 10.

It was sort of, that was that in a competitive sense for this match. But Kizaridis' first goal scored since October of last year. And guess who that was versus? Oh, that definitely would have been against Celtic. Correct.

Yeah, I remember that match. Uh, we got our asses handed to us. Um, go ahead. Yeah, no, I mean, after that, uh, +4 added to this one, a yellow to, uh, Milne. Yeah, Milne might just be Milne.

Yeah, yellow to Milne and then the half. But fairly furious first half in this. And I'll say it again, the condition of the pitch was very rough in this match. Yeah, it was a bit of— it was pretty muddy. It's certainly not a Premier League pitch by any means.

This is sort of what you get in Scotland when it rains for 4 months consecutively. Yeah, I would take— I don't know if I would take that over what we have personally. I, I've thought about that before, just going on a slight tangent here. I actually think I'd take the rain more just because it doesn't really affect driving that much. Like, you don't— the thing with snow is you're always like, well, how are the roads?

And if the roads are shit, you're not going anywhere. Yeah. And that would just, it just pissed me off. In this particular winter that we have now, we're gonna see this shit. We're gonna see piles of this shit until April, probably.

I mean, possibly May, because what I saw piled up, the banks are gigantic at some of the, um, like parking lots and stuff. They're 20 feet high. Yeah. That, that shit, that's going to take a little bit of time to go away. Yeah.

Even outside of the studio here, we have 6 or 8 feet high piles of snow that are going to take a while to go away. So, um, rain. Yeah. And then rain, as you said, not to— this is not a weather podcast, but apparently a little bit more to come here tomorrow, possibly. So producer's giving you 10 seconds to wrap up the weather.

Segment. He's in my ear. Yeah. Okay. So enough of that.

So we go to the half, then 60th minute I have playing on. So not a whole lot happening.

Satchford nearly heads a big opportunity, nearly heads in goal at the 64th, but well defended. Yeah. And then A bit of pinball in the 67th. Good saves by the Dundee keeper, Maynard Brewer. Yeah, took a few shots.

When I say pinball, it's just that. It's boom, I saved it. Boom, I saved it again. So yeah, that was Kaboré again. He could have actually gotten a hat trick in this match.

This, this competitively speaking was pretty much wrapped up after halftime. Just when Dundee goes down to 10 men, down 2 goals, you can pretty much kiss it goodbye. Um, and Kaboré puts the game on ice in the 81st minute to make it 3-0. Smooth sailing for Hearts in this particular match. Yes, and I'll back up a bit.

There was another red card given, 75th minute to Dundee. So now down to 9, and then a red to the manager as well. Yeah, so, uh, the assistant manager was sent off for probably some unpleasantness towards the referee, and he was actually given a warning or, uh, you know, a yellow, and then yeah, he was sent packing. Yeah. And I don't know if you saw, but he was actually watching the game in the stands.

Yeah, I did. I did see that. Rather forlornly.

But yeah, this was an entertaining match to watch, even though it ended up 3-0. There was quite a bit of action on the pitch.

Dundee, I felt, played a quality— to the best of their ability, minus the penalties, they played a pretty quality match. Um, against this Hearts team who is sitting number 1 on the table right now, um, 3 points ahead of Rangers, 6 points ahead of our beloved Celtic team. Yes, but let's, let's get into that because we have witnessed a pretty— what I think could be a very huge shift in this title race. There's midweek action, and being once-a-week show, we can only really do so much in terms of covering this. So, uh, don't— I don't have— well, I can talk about it a little bit, but Hearts went away to St. Mirren on Tuesday and lost 1-0.

Um, their— I think their 3rd match where a player was sent off in maybe 4 or 5 attempts. So they have continued to sort of nerf themselves, and they were getting wins regardless before, but now that is, uh, a huge blow in their, in their title hopes. Not saying it's by any means over, but a 1-0 loss away to St. Mirren. Meanwhile, Rangers, who drew to Hibernian on, um, Sunday, nil-nil. They ended up smashing Kilmarnock in the midweek, 5-1.

Um, so now their advantage— Hearts, that is— is just 3 points. Celtic's match against Aberdeen was postponed due to a flooded pitch, so they did not play. So that, that isn't really a true 6-point gap. To Hearts. It could be 3 if they win that game in hand, and that game will be made up at some point.

Yeah, I think the makeup date is March 4th. Um, but yeah, huge shift in, in what I would say is the momentum of this title race. Not saying Hearts are, are down and out. I mean, they're still top of the league, uh, but their advantage was slashed in half this midweek. Um, and Rangers have not lost in the league in months at this point.

Let's remember, this, this team started off— I saw a table from the 8th or like the 5th of October. Rangers were in 8th place. They, they have drawn 9 matches. Remember, they drew like their first 5 matches of this season. It was their worst start to a season since the '70s, and since then they've actually been pretty much lights out.

They haven't lost in the league since losing to Hearts December 21st. So, and they actually play, uh, next week, uh, so that'll be a really crucial game. I think that if Rangers go on to beat Hearts you have to say that they're in the driver's seat for the title. Um, but if on the same side of the coin, or I guess different side of the same coin, Hearts, if they win that, are feeling pretty good about themselves. So there's a lot to sort of unpack here as we get down to the, like I've said, the business end of this season.

I still think any 3 of these teams could win the title. I think Celtic have probably, um, uh, more work to do than Rangers to get that done, um, but it's not impossible. Meanwhile, Motherwell, uh, are having one of their best seasons in, in a long time, sitting on 43 points in 4th place. So there's still a lot to, to get settled here in Scotland, but I, I really do feel like it might be Rangers who have the best shot now. I don't, I don't know how long Hearts keep this going.

Well, and with all of that being said, um, this has been a pretty interesting campaign, uh, in the premiership of Scotland. And I would rather— I, I don't want to say I would rather see it be like this, I— but it's, it's been a little refreshing to see sort of the battle, a bit of a battle. Yeah, right. I mean, we've, so we've waltzed to the type, the title the last at least 2 Yeah. 3 years even.

So anything can happen at this point and we'll just have to see how it plays out. That Hearts-Rangers game you said is coming up this week? Next, next, not this weekend, the weekend after. Okay. But there's another midweek, midweek mania in Scotland that is going to be huge.

Again, Hearts play Hibernian. That's an Edinburgh derby. Their fiercest rivals. I'm sure Hibs would love nothing more than to spoil their season. Um, I'm trying to— let me pull up the, uh, fixtures here.

Celtic have Livingston at home, which you would think would be pretty easy, easy win. Livingston are god-awful. And that— see, here's the thing, Rangers are away to Motherwell, and Motherwell are on the best form in the league currently. So that, that is certainly not a gimme for Rangers. So I don't know what the table will look like next time we record, but I'm sure there will be plenty to discuss on that front.

All right, let's keep her rolling here. We're gonna go into the Premier League. Let's pause. I'm seeing a pause. Yeah, quickly.

All right, so shifting into the English Premier League, which continues to have its topsy-turvy season of its own, right? Um, the match we're going to be focusing on was the 2-all draw between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. Uh, Arsenal took care of business, uh, very easily on Saturday. That was actually happening when we recorded our last episode, taking down Leeds 4-0. So they still have, uh, their advantage at the top of the table, which they extended this past weekend.

Liverpool put the belt to Newcastle 4-1. Chelsea beat West Ham 3-2. West Ham are still in that bottom 3. Wolves lost again, so they're still trying not to make history as the worst team ever in the Premier League. And Sunderland beat Burnley on Monday 3-0 to take them up to 8th place, tied on points with Brentford in 7th.

So Let's get into this Spurs v Man City match. Now, just a, a quick look at the table will tell you that Spurs are not doing well this season. We haven't checked in on them in a while, uh, but under new manager for this season, Thomas Frank, who left, uh, Brentford for this role, uh, life has not really improved for Tottenham. Who sit in 14th place on 29 points. Now string a few wins together and they could be looking into the top half pretty easily, but as of right now they only actually sit 9 points above the relegation zone.

Um, I'll remind you that Ange Postecoglou last season lost his job, uh, for Spurs finishing in 17th. Uh, but he did win that Europa League with them, and the new guy isn't doing really all that much better. So Spurs continue to be a very odd case in this Premier League. Meanwhile, Manchester City are trying to claw back their lost title, um, and they just have no consistency right right now. And that is why we have 2 clubs here that played out a draw, an entertaining one at that, but, uh, certainly not Spurs or City particularly in their finest form at the moment.

Yeah, Man City just looked flat in this game. Um, Harland was a non-issue. And he, if he's not on and striking, then that seems to kind of be a boat anchor for Man City. And I think that was the case.

There was an early goal in the 11th minute for Man City. Shirkey. Ryan Shirkey. Yes, indeed. And he goes on to, um, score, I believe, 2 in this match.

Uh, he had one— he had 2 good attempts. One of them was not a goal. Scores in the 11th minute, uh, a brilliant sort of, uh, solo effort there. Um, he's, he's an interesting character, uh, deployed at right winger for Man City, came from Lyon in France. This past summer, just 22 years of age, which is definitely on HGH because he looks about 32.

Um, but he's been a bright spot in an otherwise not all that fantastic Man City team this year. I think what really is the— what is the damning evidence that I don't think Man City win this title this year is that I've seen a number of times they'll get out to a great start, but they will let a team come back like no problem. And that is exactly what they did in this one. Yeah, I didn't expect, um, I didn't expect the outcome of this one to be a draw, uh, especially after the first half, uh, 2-0, uh, Semenyo. Yes.

Semenyo scores in the late moments of the first half. Cartwheel and backflip. Yeah. Hell of a celebration. Didn't land it though.

No, not quite. No land. I always think like, oh my God, you're going to blow out your ACL doing that or some shit. But I mean, that has happened in the past. A player, you know, gets a little crazy with the celebration and there goes the hammy, but he was all right.

Antoine Semenyo, uh, signed for Manchester City in early January from Bournemouth and has been tearing it up since then. He has 12 goals this season across both of those teams. He already has 4 goals for Man City since signing. Uh, just about a month ago. So he's, he's really been a, a true bright spot in that team.

Um, I didn't really expect Man City to blow a 2-0 lead necessarily. It seemed like it was pretty much smooth sailing at halftime for them, and given how frankly bad this Spurs team has been this season, um, I didn't see them coming back, but Obviously, that was the case in this one. What'd you make of the second half? 51st, Udogie rips a really smart strike, saved by Man City.

53rd, Solanke. Solanke, Dominic Solanke scores. For Spurs, 2-1. And then Solanke in the 70th scores again, which brings us to our draw. You'll recall the, the second goal from Solanke was that sort of scorpion heel kick that went in.

Um, that's going to be the goal of the season. That's not getting topped. He was midair. And flipped the ball in from like a scorpion kick basically from, from his, his heel. I don't actually really know how he pulled it off.

Man City really looked out of gas in the second half of this game. They, they could not stay with Spurs defensively for the almost the entire second half. And now possession might tell you otherwise.

Well, both of these teams, I was going to make the case that Man City are dealing with injuries, which is true, especially defensively. Possession-wise, it was 60-40 in favor of Man City.

6 shots on target for Spurs compared to City's 13. 3, uh, 2 big chances each. Expected goals were 1.05 to Spurs and 2.08 to Man City. Spurs, that wonder goal is why that xG is so low. But really, the, the injury argument doesn't hold up all that well when you look at how many players of huge importance to Tottenham are injured.

Micky van de Ven, Ben Davies, Pedro Porro, Kulusevski, James Maddison, Mohamed Kudus, Richarlison, all on the injured reserve currently. Now Man City have basically their entire backline, uh, first choice backline, and Jeremy Doku, is injured as well. Um, so I mean, both of these teams are banged up, so you can understand why Man City were probably coasting on fumes in the late stages of this game. But even, you know, that equalizer for Spurs goes in in the 70th minute, and in the 20 minutes that followed, never really felt like Man City were gonna do anything dangerous again. Perhaps we should, um, start monitoring the success rate of the black kit.

Hmm. You think that's, that's a reason why they, they lost? I, as I said, um, let's, let's keep an eye on that because this did not look like the Man City team that I know. No. Certainly not visually.

Not visually. And on the pitch, at least. Uh, +9, so you have, you know, almost 9 minutes of extra time, and to not be able to capitalize on that, um, in this match, this should have, in my estimation, this should have been a Man City victory, but it did not play out that way. Yeah, especially just stack these 2 teams up on paper. I mean, you're picking Man City to win this 7 times out of 10, the other 3 being draws, honestly, right now the way these 2 teams are.

But I really just, you know, I have a lot of off-air discussions about the Premier League with friends and stuff. And my one friend, uh, Cody, big Liverpool fan, and he— we've seen Arsenal in this, in this spot a couple of times since this show has started. Lead the league for ages and then blow it at the end. That's sort of the Arsenal way recently. Um, and it still could happen, don't get me wrong.

But what Arsenal aren't dealing with this year is a really, really truly a great Manchester City team. This Man City team is not the team that we have known the past decade or so. It's— it— they are not ruthless like they, they used to be. They truly are in, I think, a bit of a transitional phase, um, getting some of the old guard out and slowly replacing them with the new guys. I mean, Semenyo, I think, is he's going to be a player that will be a huge difference maker for City in years to come.

So you're seeing that team getting phased out and refreshed, but while that happens, it's a, it's a pretty bumpy road for them. You look at their last 5 matches, it's draw, draw, loss, win, draw. And their next match is against Liverpool, who are also not in amazing for him either, but I don't really know if I favor Man City to win that. Um, and Arsenal, you know, have been a little bumpy the past couple weeks, but their, their moments of, of inconsistency don't last nearly as long as Man City says. I just, I don't really see Man City reverse engineering 6-point gap, not this City team.

So I, I think it's once again Arsenal's title to lose in the Premier League, and I don't see evidence of that happening, at least at this moment. So again, that, that is a fluid situation, but that's my estimation of it. So, okay, so yeah, um, I don't disagree with you at all on that. Um, I will be keeping a close eye on the, what I am going to call the black kit conspiracy theory. Good to know.

Um, and let's, uh, sort of monitor that situation. So if a team's in black, it hurts their chances to win is kind of what you're saying? Well, in this particular instance, uh, it could be a factor. Okay. So I, I guess that would be— see if we could pull data on City's success in black compared to their traditional sky blue.

Um, but as the table looks now, where we've got Arsenal at the top, 6-point advantage over Man City, who's in second on 47 points, Aston Villa in third, 46 points.

Manchester United 4th, 41 points. Chelsea in 5th on 40. 6th place is Liverpool on 39. And then you jump down another 3 points and it's Brentford and Sunderland tied. Uh, Fulham, Everton rounding out the top 10.

Everton— I don't know why I said it like that. And the bottom 3 it is still Wolves rooted to the bottom, uh, 8 points, 7 points behind Burnley in 19th, who are also up shit's creek. Uh, I think both of those teams have been dead and buried for a while now. West Ham United on 20 points, serious, serious danger of being relegated. That is a huge club to be playing in the Championship.

That would be interesting to say the least. A 60,000-seater arena in the second tier would be quite a sight, but they also look like they might be out for dead in 18th place. So all of those things you kind of want to keep in mind as we march into the business end of this season. Um, I would say the fixture of the weekend has to be Liverpool-Man City. That's Sunday, uh, at 11:30 AM.

Super Bowl Sunday is how that's known here. And we do have a little bit of extra time given that we didn't have much of a motorsports segment, so I'm just gonna ask for a cheeky prediction from you out of the Super Bowl. Reminder, it is the Seattle Seahawks Representing the NFC, and those dastardly New England Patriots are back from the AFC. So are you looking for a score or whatever you want? Winner, score?

I'm going to say Seattle will win this by 7. 7. I also think Seattle's going to get it done. I'm not a huge NFL guy, but it's— it— the, the narrative is that the, the Patriots, who they did have a very easy regular season schedule but have been favorable throughout the playoffs matchup-wise— remember, they, they played a, a Broncos team without their starting quarterback, which is kind of a big deal. So did he— he got injured or— yeah.

Uh, did something with fractured his ankle or something like that. But, um, I was just pulling up, uh, we've got Charlie Puth performing our national anthem, and the over-under for that is set at 119.5 seconds. So that's just at the 2-minute mark. Do you think he goes over Or under Charlie Puth? He's going to go over 2, but not by much.

It's going to be the last stanza where he is going to bring that one over 2. That's my prediction.

Patriots with 6 Super Bowl rings.

And I'm going to digress a bit here because there was some talk. In Cincinnati when we were down there a few weeks ago about how the Steelers are NFL royalty. Yeah. But have not really performed as such since I was learning how to do basic addition in kindergarten. Yeah.

So that is a huge narrative of the game. If the Patriots win, they will be the first franchise to reach the magic 7th Lombardi. The Patriots and Steelers are tied on 6, and then the Niners and Cowboys have 5. There's a couple teams with 4 and 3, but— and the Browns have— the Browns, no championships in the Super Bowl era. And fresh hiring of their new head coach who comes out of Baltimore as a defensive coordinator, Todd Bowles.

Monken, which is his name, Todd. There was much call on the social medias for Haslam to sell the team because clearly he is not a football-centric owner. Well, he thinks he is, but he's not very smart, it would seem. I don't see how you hire a defensive coordinator as a head coach.

I, is there some stats of defensive coordinator success as a head coach? You know, I couldn't tell you. I really couldn't. But I just think it's another lame duck guy who's going to come in. He's going to get, it seems like defeated mentally.

Seems odd. It seems odd, but I, I don't know. It's the, it's the Browns. Yeah, who knows. Uh, just so you're aware, uh, last year's anthem was at 2:05.

The year before that was, uh— oh, sorry, last year's anthem was 2 minutes on the dot. The over-under was set at 2:05. The year before that it was 201. The year before that it was 152, 217, 149, 20. So they all kind of float around 2.

Seems like a snappier one is more 145 and a longer one's more like 215-ish. I think what we should use as our, um, sort of litmus test or barometer of the amount of time that it takes to sing that song would be a Simpsons episode where Bleeding Gums Murphy, who's a saxophone player, sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. And I would like to see what the time of that performance was. I, I don't know. I do remember, um, it was a Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit one year— this is probably 10 years ago— and it was Aretha Franklin.

Her anthem, I swear to God, was over 5 minutes long. That was like the one of the worst anthems I've ever seen. Now obviously that's, that's not taking anything away from Aretha Franklin as a recording artist, but that particular rendition was genuinely a shocking performance of the national anthem. I think it was actually at, uh, a baseball game now that I'm looking at the, uh, YouTubes. But, uh, the clip is 1:06, so apparently it was not over 2.

But that's something that the, uh, collective audience should go back and watch because it is a Stellar performance. All right, here's a question for you. What is the first Super Bowl you remember watching? Um, brush off your memories. I remember when they were in the teens.

Okay, so that would have been the '70s, probably late '70s, early '80s. Uh, possibly a Dallas Cowboy matchup of some kind. Okay. I don't recall who they were playing against, but, um, this was a much different, uh, NFL back then.

Yes. The Super Bowl wasn't quite, um— How about '78 against the Broncos? There you go. That would put you at 7 years young. Yeah.

It seemed more pure back then. This is just a lot of pomp and circumstance now. It feels like a bit.

But I don't know.

My interest in the NFL has waned as I reach my mid-50s.

And maybe the youth of today still look at it like I did back then, but, um, just kind of a little bit too much, uh, 12-hour coverage. I, I don't care for it all that much. I do follow the Browns pretty closely just because it's kind of hard. It's like looking away from a car. It's hard to look away from a car accident.

That's kind of how I am. The Browns, and I want them to be good, but, uh, that probably won't happen in my life. So the, uh, yeah, I'm not a huge NFL guy. I get sort of invested in the playoffs and obviously watch the Super Bowl, but I'm not like I used to be on that end of things. But so if you, if you went to YouTube and searched National Anthem by Bleeding Gums Murphy.

Would it play over the soundboard here? Yeah, do you want me to do that? Let's, let's give it a shot here. Okay, Bleeding Gums Murphy, Bleeding Gums Murphy National Anthem. And we'll probably get mad, so I'm gonna mute and We did get an ad, but, uh, get that sorted for you.

And here we go.

Oh, say, can you— I'm asking, can you see By the dawn's early light, and the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

And the home of the brave.

Weeding Gums Murphy. Yes. So there is a little bit of— they must have, uh, cut a few of those verses, or maybe that was just the way they did it, the way they did in the show. But that is basically what that Aretha Franklin one I was talking— it was 5 and a half minutes. Yeah, I, I remember the shoot 'em out, pop and whip portion of that.

It's pretty good. Simpsons never, never disappoints. Yes indeed. All right, that'll be all for this edition of Tackling the Chicane. Join us next time for, uh, well, we'll definitely have some talk about Liverpool-Man City and the, the all of the action from the Scottish Premiership next time out.

Actually, yeah, yeah, we will. It's a Scottish Cup weekend, but there's a midweek, uh, match day as well, so you then. All right, well, we'll get going here with a little John Rundfeldt.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka. This has been Tackling the Chicane, Studio 2520, copyright 2026. We'll see you next time.