On this week’s episode Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Jill Scott and Ian Wright look back on a big week of football as they react to Manchester United’s victory at Arsenal and discuss the growing pressure on Mikel Arteta’s side. The panel also debate Michael Carrick’s future in management, examine the increasing scrutiny on Tottenham’s manager, and turn their attention to Liverpool amid ongoing questions around their managerial direction.
00:00: Intro
10:38: United’s Victory at Arsenal
27:52: Is there too much pressure on Arsenal?
33:09: Manchester United’s Turnaround
37:36: Debating Michael Carrick’s Future
58:27: Michael’s Appointment at Man United
01:00:39: Super 6
01:07:39: Tottenham’s Managerial Pressure
01:11:05: Liverpool’s Managerial Debate
01:18:13: Best Players Without International Caps
01:20:31 Greatest January Transfers
Key Quotes:
Panel on Arsenal’s chances of winning the league…
Scholes: ‘Four points now, it’s January, and Arsenal look a bit… Wait till it gets to March and April, and it’s only four points. But then City are still having their days against United. I don’t think City are right, but I think they’ve got players coming back as well.’
Wright: I’m quite confident in the fact that whatever happened in the dressing room afterwards, something’s going to change. Something has to change. Otherwise, it will peter out for us. Something has to change, and this is what it’s surely about, winning the league. You’re meant to be on a journey. You’re meant to say, ‘oh my God, I remember when we lost that United game out of the blue. We couldn’t beat Liverpool. We didn’t beat Forest, and then Liverpool.’
Neville: ‘You have Arsenal Football Club one of the greatest clubs in this country and in Europe and you basically got to get back to winning titles. You haven’t won one for 20 years and it’s there in front of you. You must have a mentality of we have to win this league this year. You have to.’
Neville: ‘Everybody wants to win the title. Everybody hopes to win the title. Arsenal need to win the title this year. They need to win it this year. This is their year. City have dropped. Liverpool have gone. This is it. The door’s open. Don’t start being half-hearted. My point is, the language coming out of the club, the language coming out of the fan base should be, look, yeah, I get it. We’ve lost games. We’re going to lose games in a season. But this is it. We’re winning it this year and we’re going to get through this.’
Panel on Carrick making an immediate impact at Manchester United…
Neville: ‘I’m absolutely startled at the turnaround. We saw a change of manager with Ruben Amorim to go to Darren Fletcher and there was not much difference in terms of energy and strength. Then all of a sudden from Michael Carrick in those two or three days. I can’t believe it. I genuinely can’t believe what I’m seeing.’
‘Michael Carrick was just about to go into the City game. None of us could have ever imagined that what we’ve seen we were going to see, surely. No one could have ever imagined that. Nobody would have thought he’d win them first two games.’
Panel on Manchester United’s recent transformation…
Keane: ‘There’s definitely an energy, a new energy about the team. We weren’t seeing the energy at weekends. The last week or two, you look and go, there’s definitely an energy about them. It’s got nice energy as well. Nice energy about them. I think the timing was perfect. The players were probably ready for a new voice. It’s not necessarily on the new manager. They’re probably just glad to see the last manager go. Training might be a bit more intense. It might be shorter. It’ll be all these little tweaks in training. Players are back available. We brought Maguire back in. You want to have a [Steve] Holland, he’s worked with in England. This group of players still haven’t got the trust from me anyway to go, yeah, I expect them to win loads of games over the next one, two, three, four, five seasons competing. So get that balance right.’
Panel on Kobbie Mainoo’s journey back into United’s XI:
Neville: ‘I must admit. I never liked the handling of Mainoo. I think we talked about that a lot on this show. I never liked the handling of that. When he (Ruben) said at the start of the season that it was him or Bruno, I never agreed with that. It killed him. It killed him, publicly. And then he never put him in the team at all, apart from Grimsby. When you watch Kobbie now in the two games, that was nearly pushing a talented player out of the club before he’d even really had a chance to perform. You look at him now in these two matches.’
Panel on Micheal Carrick continuing as manager…
Wright: ‘His job within the last week or two was to get results at Man United. If you become a manager, you have to start looking at the structure, the scouting. I think he’ll do that.’
Keane: ‘I’m not saying Michael Carrick can’t be a top manager, but you’re talking about timing of Man Utd. I think the timing for Carrick to be manager of Man Utd in the summer, I don’t see it. And if he goes in and proves me wrong and starts competing and winning titles, I’ll tell you what, unbelievable.That’s where Man United have to be. But the next step is they have to get back in the Champions League next year. If Carrick can do that job, you go, I’ll take that off them. And I guarantee you if he doesn’t take the job, some other big manager might come and go, I’d like you to work alongside me.’
Neville: ‘We’re not going to turn on Michael Carrick. It’s not a jealousy point. Michael shouldn’t get the job at the end of the season in my opinion. I’m saying this really unemotionally. It’s nothing to do with what two weeks ago where to be fair, I agree with Roy that no one would have mentioned Michael for the job. If you’re going to earn your stripes and manage one of the biggest clubs in the world and handle the pressure that’s going to be thrown at you, I think you have to have that years of experience personally.’
Carragher on Liverpool sacking Arne Slot…
‘I’ve been taken aback by how quickly people have turned, I just think you can’t change a manager who’s won the league a year ago. You have to obviously assess it at the end of the season so I am a bit taken aback I think if you win the league and you spend that type of money it’s not just on him but other people. Liverpool have never been in this position in this social media age where everyone’s got an opinion. Klopp came about 10 years ago and they obviously had one of the best managers in the world so it was never really up for debate. I have been taken aback with the feelings concerning the manager.’
