'Deja Vu' Chelsea Women's FanCast #2

0:00This podcast is proud to be part of the TalkSport fan network. TalkSport. Powered by fans. In a world where AI is changing every role and every industry, knowing who actually has deep expertise matters more than ever, Upwork connects you with the highly skilled freelance professionals with proven track records, so you can hire with confidence. Upwork gives your business fast access to highly skilled specialists with deep expertise, so you can fill critical skill gaps, launch projects faster, and scale support up or down without committing to full-time headcount. With Business Plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. AI-powered shortlisting delivers a curated shortlist of top freelancers matched to your goals, and under six hours. No endless searching required. Thousands of growing businesses already trust Upwork to hire highly skilled freelance professionals for everything from one-off projects to ongoing support. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free.

1:02That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's UPWORK.com. Upwork.com. Well, I can begin AI to production. Our competitors are already on their key data suit here. AWS AI cuts through the noise. Ready to use agents and the broadest set of AI tools. Stop overthinking. Start building. AWS AI is how. MUSIC Hello and welcome to the Chelsea Women's Fancast episode two. Podcast for the Chelsea Women's team made all the fans by the fans. I'm your host Kate Miven.

2:02Today's pod is entitled Desjardves. After our disappointing home draw on Saturday against Ascent Villa. The day was a continuation of last season's inability to kill off teams. We were dominated and our fragility in defence was once more evident. Having produced a club record 35 shots on goal. To only score one was disappointing. And Villa take their first ever point against us. After Lauren James scored 11 minutes, we were expecting an easy afternoon against what was a resilient ultimately poor Villa side. We were wrong. Total domination and a lack of an important set of goal allowed Villa to equalise it will be from a fortunate own goal. So in part one of the show, we will concentrate on the Villa game. And ask whether the criticism of the manager is fair and to be honest, it's going to be a therapy session. For me anyway, in part two, we will discuss the Champions League after draw was made.

3:07I'm also talk about two games against rail, so see you dad. To help me with this, I'm delighted to welcome back my guests. First of all, good evening Sophie. Good evening, Clayton. Good evening, other guests. Thank you for having me on again. Very, very welcome. And it's our load to Courtney. Good evening. Good to be back on. Very glad to you're on. And finally, but not least, is Rich, heavey Rich. Hi there, Clayton. Hi there, other Sophie and Courtney. Okay, so, we're just going to have a little outbreak and then we will be back. Losing weight can feel like a roller coaster, full of ups, downs, and being thrown for loops. Like when someone brings donuts into the office, or your kids' dino nuggets start giving you that look again. That's why there's noom. They combine GLP ones to quiet the food noise with healthy habits that help you keep it quiet,

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5:11for everything from one-off projects to ongoing support. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's UPWORK.com. Upwork.com. Welcome to part one of the show. So Saturday was an historic day for the club, as the move from Kingsmeadow to Stamford Bridge became reality. A crowd of 7,900 greeted the players. We have a difference of opinion on whether that was a healthy crowd and we'll come onto that. The team lined up as follows. Hampton, Carpenter, Boomer, Bronze, McCabe, Walsh, Nuskin and Captain, with the only substitute coming off the captain being Baltimore in the 82nd minute. James, Thompson and Bebe Jones. The unused substitutes, Peng, Spencer, Gourmer,

6:13Gregoni, Lass, Amano, Buchanan, Potterns, are we? So let's get the basic stats out the way first. Possession, we have 64.8, Possession, Villa had 35.2. Shots, we have 35, Villa had 7. Shots on target, we had 9, Villa had 3. I don't normally do this statistic, but I thought it sort of summed everything up quite nicely. Total touches inside the opposition box. Chelsea 58, Astamila 4. Gourky per save, Chelsea 3, Villa 9, and Corners, we have 13, and they had none. So this isn't on the original script, but I just wanted to ask Sophie and Rich, perhaps she'll start us off because I'm not sure whether you're going to have the zip off in a second. What did you think the atmosphere at the bridge was like? And although I thought the drum was very arsenal, I thought it generated a sort of good buzz in

7:19the crowd. Yeah, so my perspective of being in the shed and being near the drum is I wasn't a fan of the drum when it was basically first sort of all mentured as an idea, but having seen it like three times now, I do think it helps quite a lot, and the atmosphere generally speaking and the shed's pretty good, or has been pretty good when we've had it in there. So yeah, I'm a fan of it, so we go Sophie? Yeah, I was in the West Lower, so we sort of heard it, but not really loudly, it was sort of there. It definitely generated chance. There's obviously the standard clap, clap, clap, Chelsea chant. That seems to be the one that everybody gets involved in. There wasn't a lot else going on in the West Lower apart from a lot of chatting, but that's what you sort of expect in that part of the ground, I think, really. But yeah, overall, it felt like there were more than 7,900 in the ground to me, which is a positive.

8:20Obviously being in the West Lower couldn't see how full it was, but it felt pretty full around where I was. I know some people dotted around, the shed lower look full, and other people dotted around the Matthew Harding lower. So yeah. I'll come on to Courtney in a second, but from my perspective, because I know we are on our WhatsApp group, I thought it was a decent crowd, you were a little disappointed. I mean, I think all bar the area in the lower West stand next to the shed lower was seen full. As you say, the shed lower seen full, one of the sections in the East stand seen full as well. I have no idea whether that was a children's area or a hospitality area. I don't know what that was, but that was seen a bit weird. But I thought it was, I thought it was a decent crowd. Courtney, did you watch it and what did the atmosphere seem like on Telly if you did

9:21watch it? It's hard. I mean, I watched it. It's hard. You don't hear the chance as clearly on when the games at Sanford Bridge versus when they were at Kings Meadow, the ones that come through the Chelsea, the clapping, the blue army one, which I think bezel leads. And then I heard some match rings of Nuskenschant and we got my cave and that was it. I didn't really hear the drum at all on the feed. But otherwise, like, it looked fit. When I heard only 7,000 five hundred rows of surprises, it looked a little more than that on the feed, but I think it was a decent showing for the first match. Yeah, I mean, considering who the opponents were as well. Okay, so sadly, we have to now talk about the match. There's a lot to discuss, but part from the obvious of scoring was there anything else that we could have done better on the day?

10:26I'm going to start off by saying that I think our build-up players too slow and when the ball finds its way to Halle, we seem to take an age to get going. Rich, how long is the season string? What could we have done better? Yeah, I mean, I think we had enough chances, enough good chances to score more than one goal in this game. But I think like the confidence in front of Goat for like a few of the players, it's just pretty low right now. This just seems to be an issue that I've kind of been going on about this basically since January 2025, like our goals per game's gone below two and it was pretty much around three before that and the seasons before that. It just feels like we're just less ruthless in front of Goat than we used to be and that isn't even down to Sam Kerr. There's a year where she's not in the team and we're still scoring three goals

11:30again under the end of Hayes plus the first half of Sonja's first season. So like I don't think it's all down to the centre forwards, it seems to be, you know, multiple, you know, players that basically not as confident in front of Goat. I think that anxiety when we don't get the second goal spreads the longer the game goes on and it basically infiltrates the defence and they get a little bit panicky in their own box, which is basically how the equaliser up and really. So, Sophie, you're going to now tell me you thought we were brilliant and we shouldn't, we weren't about anything. Is that right? I'm trying to be measured today when I was at the game and walking out the ground, I was absolutely liabied. I was so frustrated, I had a apology to my friends because I was not a nice person to be around. I killed my weekend. I didn't let it kill my weekend, by the time I'd walked to Ells Court Station, I'd chat to my friends about other stuff, I was in

12:33a much better place and then I've calmed down since then. This game for me felt slightly different in the keeper pooled off two or three very good saves. I don't think last season there were many keepers that pulled off very good saves to stop us scoring. It felt like we were missing the chances. Yeah, okay, Everton was maybe one. But for me, we play the same way, we get the ball, we go try and look out wide, we then try and look out wide, try and get the player up the pitch, put a cross in. But either there's not enough people in the box, the defence are already back there so therefore they're the first back to the box. I said it last season, I think the crossing from Thompson and Carpenter is absolutely shocking. Either don't beat the first player, or if they beat the first player, it goes all the way to the back post. Now whether that's because there's so many

13:36defenders in the box or what I don't know. So I think to change it up, do we need to do more vertical passing? Do we instead of just looking out wide, do we need to go up? I know we're going to talk about the sausage dad games later in the show, but I think that's what we did when Mellard came on the pitch in the home game. Well, I was going to interrupt for one second because I thought in that game in the sausage dad game Carpenter's crossing, we're fantastic and we scored two brilliant goals from her crosses. Yeah. So I get what you say because I think on Saturday, she couldn't, I don't know what was wrong on Saturday. No, if Mellard had been available and come on the pitch, would that have changed it up? Would we have got those second and third goals we didn't get? I don't know, is it as simple as something like that? It's really difficult to know.

14:37I also think I wonder if when we play the ball around, we play in the ball around and it's easy, and I just wonder if because it's easy, players aren't needing to play at their maximum, and therefore when it comes to shooting, to scoring in front of goal, there in maybe a two-bid of too much for a relaxed mindset, is that, I don't know if that's a possibility? That's why the the balls aren't being hit properly, they're not being hit hard enough. We're not shooting in the right place, we're just shooting at the goal or at the goalie or either side. It's, I don't know, there seems to be so many things that it could be, but equal, it's not like we're not creating chances. If we'd come out of that game when we hadn't created stupidly large numbers of chances and had 50 H touches in the opposition box, I think I'd be slightly more concerned by Am. However, teams will defend like that against us and unless we improve our creativity against those sort

15:38of teams, which is what we've said before, then are we going to have the same thing again and again and again? That goes onto another, but CapTimes is not creative enough for me, and when you've got Hermano and Drugoni on the bench, why didn't they come on? Why not change it up? Why not try something different? That was frustrating as well. About Sonja in a minute, so Courtney, do you think that the rest of the league are basically just sussed out Sonja and are finding it very easy, not very easy because we're a good side, but are finding it easy to sort of shut us down? I don't know, because I thought in the first half, maybe, in the first 40 minutes that we well, I didn't really have anything and then we dropped off a bit and then we started the second half strong and then fall asleep for 20 minutes and then they scored and then we woke up a little bit

16:43at the end. So I think teams know that they can get chances in the second half against us if they can weather the first half and then they start to put pressure on us when they see that our players are starting to get tired, but so I think the league is better as a whole, all the teams are improving. They're starting to get more staff in as well, which is another thing that we perhaps haven't talked about. They're getting more backroom staff, more analysts who are taking the time to pick apart our weaknesses. So yeah, the league has figured us out a bit. Yeah, I think that's a very fair point. I wanted to get Erin into the conversation because she's been made captain, so I just wanted to get her in because, congrats to her. I don't think we have

17:48any idea when she's going to come back, but Rich, would she have made much of a difference on Saturday? I'm kind of tall on this. I think maybe she could have given us a bit of a spark. I'm not really sure. I don't think last season was the best season and she is recovering from an e-injury. So obviously didn't want to rush up, wouldn't have wanted to rush her back, but yeah, I'm not sure she would have been made maybe the individual difference to get that second goal. Obviously she can shoot from distance. She's proving that in the past, but yeah, I'm a little bit torn. I think maybe there was, we used to have a player, Australian striker who perhaps, if she was still at the club, could have scored the second goal. But yeah.

18:49Yeah, I'm thinking so few more of, I know that we now have a lot of quotes leaders on the pitch, but I didn't see anybody pick that game up when we really needed it and basically start giving it the urgency that it required because as Courtney said, we seem to drift off. And I think we mentioned it again in our WhatsApp group, sorry listeners, to sort of be boring about that. But I think we mentioned complacency. And I think that yes, Courtney's right that a lot of teams are improving, but I thought Asdenville were dreadful. I thought they were absolutely certainly the first stuff. They were awful. Yeah, no, I agree. If you look at, I mean, Rich alluded to it earlier when he said about, sort of like since January 2025, if you look at the pattern of play since Sonia comes in, I meant to do some analysis on this, but I just didn't get chance.

19:50We are intense and we are on it for the first 20, 25 minutes. If we can get two or three goals in that 20, 25 minutes, then we'll go on and win the game. My theory is that most of the games that we've won, the goals that win us the games come in the first 20, 25, 30 minutes. After that team sort of work us out or we drop back or whatever, but if we haven't scored those goals in those first third of the game, we're not scoring goals at any other point in the game. Again, Real Sociedad 5, 2 is the exception and maybe Mallod is the answer. But it seems to me from memory and watching games is that if we don't score enough goals in that first bit, we're not scoring any more goals at the rest of the game to win us those games. The end of the season we went on visible was a slight change in that and that we did score a few late goals, but definitely not last season from what I could remember.

20:56It was all early goals or nothing and I think that's why we're struggling. We're creating the chances in those first 10, 15, 20, 25 minutes, but we're not putting them away. It's been the same story for over a year now and that's the concerning thing for me. On the preseason sort of port I was very up, we're saying it's Sonja's team. Hopefully now we've got some new players in, we can get changes but it's still the same issues and that's what's worrying me. It's only one game. We get a good result against Manu at the weekend and suddenly all of this looks a bit different, but I'm less optimistic now and there wasn't a preseason preview. I know it's just after one game, but it's one game that the same failings keep coming back. I've seen a quote from Counter-PressedPod. I haven't listened to it and they said it's like moving the deck chairs around the Titanic. I don't know if I just think that's, I'm not quite there yet, but give us another three or four games in the same situation. I can definitely see that analogy.

22:04Courtney, can we talk about Agibibi Jones? She's looking lost as a main striker. She'd be playing in a two. Or should she not be playing at all? I mean we obviously haven't got any other strikers at the moment and the whole remeerous thing is just fascicle. I don't know where she is. I don't know that she can't be quotes rushed back, but I can't understand how she can't give us 10-15 minutes at the end of games. I mean obviously she's not fair. I don't. Agibibi has had a bit of an issue with the off-side line recently. Although to be fair, I think I saw a post on Twitter which I quite liked the analysis of the off-side goal. Agibibi did score.

23:06She was setting up to be in a position that if Walsh had passed the ball to James and not McCabe, she probably would have been on-side. But because Walsh is very good at not giving away who she's passing to. Agibi guessed wrong and was ended up in the wrong position. But it's not the only example of her being on the wrong side of the off-side line. So that's the big issue. But I also don't know if she's obviously not the most physically imposing player, but I feel like she just lets herself get moved into the wrong areas too easily. The defenders can just shape it into a place where she is disadvantaged in the box. And I think that's something she has to work on especially if she wants to be England's starting striker because she's not going to be given space.

24:07She has to make the space herself. And right now she's not doing that. So I hope that's something that she can work on in the future. But in the meantime, I just hope one of Mallard or Ramirez is pretty sharpish. Rich, I mentioned the slow buildup. You think that's potentially one of the reasons why Agibis off-side such a lot because she goes. And the ball eventually gets to her, but when it's too late and she might be making intelligent runs that are just not being picked up by her colleagues because that's not the way that we're set out to play. Yeah, I guess I can't say that I notice like sort of the runs she's making when there's charts of a transition or something like that. I guess what I was noticing more on Saturday was the kind of box movement or the kind of lack of it when we were getting down the sides.

25:12And you know, the problem is we've all seen Sam Kerr play for us for about five seasons and she could basically make space in the box and almost like, you know, help her team makes out, you know, because you know, she'd be sort of an in area or a dangerous area to, you know, to head in or shoot or what. And it just doesn't feel like those same types of charts is for Aggie's way. And I think, you know, obviously, Sophie did mention the crossing from Ellie and Alyssa. And yes, it was terrible. There were parts or there what I do remember there was an attack in the first half where Ellie was expecting Aggie to basically make a run of, you know, across the front post. And she didn't she stayed put basically the cross got intercepted. I could see sort of any basically say, you know, why haven't you basically made that near post run. So I do think there's a little bit of, you know, she, I think Aggie basically needs to, you know, help out a teammates in the box. And yeah, I can't say I notice more of the stuff of the running in behind.

26:17But yeah, that's kind of it's more the box stuff that I know this. I just wonder if if we've got a similar situation to Col Parmer in the men's team in that actually slow build up football doesn't suit her style of play. Because when she scored all of her goals, it was running with the ball or running over the top running behind the defense. And we don't play that style of football. And whereas Col Parmer struggled with it in the men's game, he's looked a lot better play under Alonzo women playing a bit more counter attacking a bit more quick passing. I wonder if that's a problem. But as Courtney said, if Aggie wants to be a main striker for Chelsea in for England, she's going to have to learn how to play this style of football, whether that's being able to hold the ball up, which she had been getting better at. Whether that's being able to, as Rich said, move better in the box to find the space to create those chances she's going to have to learn how to do that. Otherwise, she's going to be a very good player for a lesser team because they're the teams that will play the sort of football that she's very good at playing unless Sonja suddenly has a change of heart and decides to play slightly differently.

27:36Yeah, I mean, I think it'd be really sad to lose it. I mean, we've obviously just offered a new contract, which is signed, which is great. I just don't think that there are enough players close to her. I mean, that's she she needs she needs more help. I did have something in the script about the defense, but I'm not going to read. I'm not going to go there because I just, you know, the whole Lucy bronze in playing a sender half just hacks us all off. So I'm not going to talk about it. We didn't actually needed defense. So I'm going to go on. Just just to say that what really annoyed me is we and it may be because she's being eased back into it, but we have one of the best defenders in the world. We're playing the bench and we're playing two fullbacks that send it back. Even in the back in the back three, even in the back three. That's that's that frustrating. You're right. We didn't need it. We don't know what different that would have made in the buildup play or conceding the goal or other elements of the game as well. It just it slaves me that that.

28:38Brilliant. Yes, she's rusty and maybe it should they don't want to play twice a week at the moment. Maybe that's why she didn't start, but surely you start her. You don't start against saucy dad, then when we've got a three goal lead and you start against filler, I don't get what's going on there. It just baffles me. It's weird, isn't it? It's. It's like they're shoe horning you're in and I don't I don't know why it's not even I don't even think bronze played badly on Saturday. It's just an optics thing. I just I just see it then I'm like why we've got no me go up or could he should be carrying on the bench. But instead we're playing the fullback at center back in the back four. Well, no, we're playing a back three. Yeah, okay. Yeah, we're playing two fullbacks of center backs. So it's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this is just what they're being told the medical department is telling them to do the statistics, the minutes played, et cetera.

29:39But as like you say, why play here against sociodad when you didn't need to. And you could have played her on Saturday. Let's talk about Sonja. I mean, I basically asked the question how much is she to blame for what's going on. Persona makes his two cautious. Using the men's analogy, I think she's turned Thompson into Jack Greenish where Pep stifled a talented player. They were virtually no take on. She's now constantly looking to pass back rather than be her player. Sonja basically said after the game in football, some of these things are also about mentality and mindset when it comes to being ruthless, being critical in the box. The best teams don't need to have many opportunities. So that's something we need to work on and find solutions for.

30:39Courtney, is she saying that we are what we're all thinking that we're no longer one of the best teams. I think she's. She's not denying, but she's also not like she's she's saying it in the he or she's speaking the fact that we have a scoring problem. And that. When it started, you could have put it down to just it being, you know, horrible form striking every strike at once, but it's been so long it has to be something going on in the training that's leading to this. Because when we are striking at goal, it's going straight to the keeper. And there's only two two or well three three opportunities that we had that I remember against Assembler. Where it looked like the player hitting the ball actually wanted to score.

31:44And that was James's first goal. Walsh was hitting the crossbow, which was damn unlucky to bounce off because of her gone in we'd be having a different conversation. And the excellent save on James's last shot. And those were the only times I thought that the player striking the ball actually, you know, was aiming for the goal. Say what you will, but the struggles at Walsh, but that we've had since Walsh destroyed, but she right now I think she's the one player, apart from James, who is more confident in front of goal. Then she was before because she is the one pulling up the worldies and some of the other players who you might expect them to come from are just shooting straight at the keeper. And I don't know why it's it is a mentality thing, but that it's coming from the coaching stuff at this point.

32:48There is something and I'm not like I've seen some commentary to say that they think it's honest to afraid to drop players who aren't performing. And that the players who are then starting are too comfortable. And I think maybe there's some truth to that because I cannot understand why you don't bring her mono or drop going on at 55, 60 minutes. I just can't that's not a defendable decision to me. Rich, are we being too harsh on Sonia on the basis of how many chances we are creating? I guess I'm going to bring up the group chat again. What Dane forwarded after the game pretty much summarized how I felt, which is we have these types of games way too often where we create a load of chances and we can't score the second goal and then we end up getting punished.

33:56And I know people might roll their eyes at XG, but 99 times 100 Sonia is probably coaching a win there. You know, we had about free XG to 0.5 in our favor, but there's too many of these sort of one times out of 100. Well, the maths one will be wrong, but yeah, type of things happening. And yeah, it's just like I think like I think Sonia is pretty good at setting up teams from the start. But when you can kind of feel a game kind of drifting and I kind of felt that that game was a bit drifting from basically the sort of 60th minute on with us looking to Sonia thinking, yeah, can you put on some subs now when it's 65 can you put some subs on now and this is I think villa put all five subs on before we made one. And we only make one after we've conceded the goal and I just don't get that we played in Europe on Wednesday.

34:56So I think there was obviously a few players who would have played you know in both, you know, started in both games. You know, and that you know, it's less than two days basically, but the two or less than three days basically between the full game. So at some point you got to make those sub, you know, the substitution or substitutions and we just don't and that game just drifted and it just felt like that even though villa were basically not in that game at all that felt inevitable. That equalizer felt inevitable to me because it just yeah, it just we just couldn't score the second and the game just drifted and Sonia was pretty in act was inactive and yeah, I'm I'm getting pretty sick. Of the kind of the same things I don't think she's a great substitute. I feel like there's times where she should be making subs where she's not and yeah, it's getting quite annoying to me.

35:56Any honest with you? So fair enough. So, I mean, I agree with with everything that caught me. I believe that she should say, I made the point about the fact that I think that when Alyssa Thompson joined she was lightning fast down the wings and now she's lightning fast and stopping and passing back. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, it's really not a good thing to be able to say about that. But I just I just to me, it seems a waste of which mentioned the substitution point again, but you know, just looking at that bench. In midfield, but interestingly, no strikers on the bench, no, you know,

36:56have we have the sporting directors let us down? I mean, I know the mallard injury is unfortunate, but it's still for a top club, just basically have no strikers on their bench on the on the first game of the season is just wrong. Thompson, for me, last season when she started teams didn't know what to expect. So she was pretty much left alone. So she got the ball. She ran at players because she had the space to run into. Now when she gets the ball, she's got one or two defenders in front of her. So I think it's harder for her to be the player. She was last season because she's being defended against. I think the reason she's then stopping and passing back is to keep the ball. Because chances are she tries to take the player on. We lose the ball. Then we're at risk of the counterattack against us with half the players higher up the pitch. We're passing back and passing it in field or backwards. We're keeping the ball.

37:59Which is the sort of football that. This team is playing it's playing possession football. It's not the most interesting to watch. But when it works, it works really well. I don't think she's ever been a player like Baltimore or James, it's going to run at players and take them on like that. I think she takes players on with her pace when she knows she's got the beating of them. When you've got two defenders in front of you, that's really difficult to do. And it's also really difficult to them put a cross in from that situation. So I get your point and I grew your point. She is stopping, but I just wonder if it's. She's wanting to keep hold of the ball rather than take a risk and losing the ball. And I'm not sure. Which is better because arguably she's passing in field and we're still creating some sort of chance from it. At the moment, the out ball is Ellie teams will work that out and then I think Thompson will start getting space again or LJ will get space in the middle because they can't mark all three areas of the pitch.

39:01I think it's all of the time. So it's just a case of at the moment Ellie's getting the ball. She needs to be better with the ball when Thompson gets her chance she then needs to be better with the ball. That's my take on it. But I don't know. It may just be that yeah, you're right. She's been told not to take them on. I don't know. And I completely lost what your other point was then. Oh, the strikers. There was a lot of striking options around in the summer in the transfer window. So I think we kept hold of Ramirez. How effective that a proof of she she's fit or not who knows we signed mallard, which is you know what I feel like about mallard mallard picked up a knocking training. If she hadn't picked up that knocking training. She would have been on the bench or I would have been in the bench as she would have started. I don't think you're ever going to have. You might have two other strikers on the bench, but normally it's only one. So I think if those three strikers or two of those three strikers are fit for every game. That's good enough.

40:09Are we just unlucky or is there something in the training that means that strikers or players aren't fit. I mean, we don't know what's going on with Monaco either. She was she flew out to saucy a dad. She was locking about with LJ at the end of the game. She was at the game yesterday. Whether it's a fitness thing, whether it's something else. We don't know. Yeah, it's. I don't know if there's a training element. I mean, the interesting thing for me is if Germa goes back to the States, then comes back injured again. Because I think there's something in the pitch differences between the States and Europe. And I just wonder if that's why some of these players are getting injured when they go away with international, especially the American American players and coming back. Ramirez isn't robust and she was playing in a less robust league in Spain. And that's that's probably why she wasn't all these injuries weren't. As obvious then she's come to the WSL and she's she's not playing robust. I think if we can get 20 minutes out of her for most of the season every game, then I think it's a good season for I don't think she's ever going to be a player where we're going to be able to get 70, 80 minutes out of her for most of the season.

41:18Whether that's something to address next summer when she's eventually fit and we can sell her and we get somebody else in and that that's all even in January, that's probably something to look at. Right. I. Yeah, I mean, it's very frustrating. And maybe it's frustrating for Sonja as well. I don't know, you know, that they give her the benefit of the doubt. We have massively overrun on the first part of the show, but understandably so, you know, and it's all good stuff. I've got one more question. We're going to have to actually go through this really quickly, but ridiculous question. And this is why I was really upset the weekend. But how big a blow is this result to our title hopes? It's a stupid question at this time of the season. But does it make next week's game gates man, you know, it must win. Okay. Courtney, quick answer. Yes. And I have to load you think this is dropping two points to probably going to go down.

42:23City lost their first game last year, so I don't think it's. That's fair point. I don't think it's irreparable damage, but it does put us a bit on the back foot. So I would say United must win. Rich. Yes, it's a must win against Mani knight. I think the margin for air in the league is pretty small given the historic precedent and especially when it's a drop points at home. I think if this was a way, I would be a little bit more relaxed about it. But no, I think I think it is a pretty big blow to draw at home to the sideline villa. Emma Hayes once said you don't win the title in the first few games of the season, but you can lose the title in the first few games of the season. Yeah, that makes Mani a must win for me. Yeah, I agree.

43:24Right, we're going to go to part two in a second. Just want to say that our friend Simon, his King's meadow independent sportless club. His mindset, Timbers, Raffle prize is a bucket hat donated by the football shop online to enter just donate five pounds by their just giving page and you'll find that on all social media. Franky, who again, friend of the show, I asked her to send me something. I know if you go to her going to Chelsea on social media, I know that she's doing some sort of charity walk. I should pick up my message today. So go and hunt that out and if you can support it, please do so. Anyway, we're going to take a quick break and after we come back, we will speak about Champions League. In a world where AI is changing every role in every industry, knowing who actually has deep expertise matters more than ever, Upwork connects you with the highly skilled freelance professionals with proven track records so you can hire with confidence.

44:30Upwork gives your business fast access to highly skilled specialists with deep expertise so you can fill critical skill gaps, launch projects faster and scale support up or down without committing to full time headcount. With Business Plus, you can access the top 1% of talent on Upwork. AI-powered shortlisting delivers a curated shortlist of top freelancers match to your goals in under six hours. No endless searching required. Thousands of growing businesses already trust Upwork to hire highly skilled freelance professionals for everything from one-off projects to ongoing support. It's free to sign up and posting a job is easy. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free. That is Upwork.com to connect with top talent ready to help your business grow. That's UPWORK.com. Upwork.com. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to my guests. Courtney Rich and Sophie. So we'd be real size to your dad. I went to home and one meal away to seal our place in the group stages. I was at Plow Lane and I said hello Sophie. Plow Lane.

45:40Which is very nice. Rich, I don't think you were there that night. No, I wasn't there that night. Sophie, I'm going to let you hog this. One, what did you think of Plow Lane as a venue and two? What was it like in social media? Okay, so let's do one. Let's do me an order. I like Plow Lane as a stadium. For me, it's just a bugger to get to if you'll excuse the language. So therefore it felt like a trek there and a trek back. But yeah, it's a nice little ground wasn't helped by the mock up and the miscommunication between the two clubs at the start when they closed the South stand. And then we were just told to go and get seats in the east stand wherever we could. And then it turns out that actually we're sat in people seats that they've bought. So we had to move. And then they decided to open the South stand five minutes into the half, but we were already disturbed enough people around us. So we decided to stay put because we found some seats that hadn't been claimed.

46:42So that didn't help, but yeah, I've apparently that I emailed the club about it and they're going to try and give me a call tomorrow. So I'll be interested to see what they say about that situation. But yeah, it's a lovely venue. I felt like we created quite a good atmosphere there for that sausage dad game. It felt very full on that the middle part of the the stand. And I think we was looking at a very similar game to the sausage dad away game in the villa game until malad came on and she just seemed to make all the difference. And we scored from the myriad of corners we had that game, which we hadn't managed to do in the villa game again. If we'd managed to get a couple of those corners, right, it could have been a different different catfish that sauce out away, fantastic trip. I spent two days in Bilbao and then got the bus out to Santa Bastion, which is where sausage dad play. The ground was the top of the hill, which you didn't realize because we got a cab to the game. But we got in the stadium, it was one big stand or one big stand, one stand and it's sort of like in the side of the hills. So when you look out, you've got all these beautiful hills around you with sort of pitches down below and pitches around you.

47:57It's a really nice little ground. Slightly overfishing, stewing, making sure the flag, Nicole's flag wasn't covering the advertising hoardings. Chelsea subs lined up, warmed up in front of us. So we, Basil was leading a chorus of player songs to all the fans. And I'm sure you've seen the pictures on social media. He got a handshake from Katie McCabe. So I thought that was quite, quite good and see laughing and smiling about her song as well. There are about 30 of us out there. So not too many, but a nice sort of nice number. We tried to make some noise, whether it sort of came across on the TV, I don't know. But yeah, great trip. We definitely go back to Bilbao and Santa, so I'll say dad again, Santa Bastion again if we ever play either of those two teams again. Yeah, and I'm very jealous. I've sort of been to Bilbao a couple of years ago and it's lovely. And I've never been Santa Bastion, which I would have liked to gone.

48:58I'm not going to do too much on the performances because I think they were like a pre-season training session. I thought we were very rusty in the first half at Wimwarden, but played really well in the second half. I think it was a great, really rich or caught me if you got any observations on either game. I mean, the second game was just so boring. Yeah, I was traveling back from work and I further sleep a little in the last half. Yeah, basically, the only thing I got to say is once we worked out their highlight in the second half of the first leg, that was basically it for them. They were playing this highlight, obviously, trying to be aggressive, but it worked for a bit. And then once we worked out, basically, to push, you know, get the runners in behind in particularly Carbiter and obviously Mallard, which you came on, it was pretty easy.

50:03That 5-2 could have been even more before the second leg. And yeah, the second legs just needed to get the job done and it was done. So, yeah, no sort of nothing sort of to add with that. Just with the second game, because I didn't see some complaints. I really do not mind, do not care if we, like, if a game like that is boring. We had a three goal lead going into it. That's just a concern of energy for the season. You know, play some of the kids. Maybe score a goal, which we did and not get any injuries. So in that case, that's a successful job. That's a very, very practical logical and sensible thing to say, which is obviously never going to come out of my lips. Right. Moving on to the Champions League. So the draw opponents, we've got Austria Vienna, who are the reigning Austrian Champions.

51:11Olympic Leonates, who are the reigning French Champions. We have AS Roma, the reigning Italian Champions. We have VK Hacker, the reigning Swedish Champions. We have PSG, who are not the Champions. And we have 0-8-11, or Luben, that I don't know, the correct pronunciation, who are the Belgium Champions. So we've basically got the reigning domestic Champions of five countries. Is that one of the toughest groups on paper, or is it deceptively a tough group because the leagues certainly in some of the countries aren't particularly strong? We've avoided both Barca and Bayern, which obviously is good news. But coming in the top four last time didn't do us any favour. So it's arguable. I'm going to start with you, Sophie. Is there anybody there that you're looking for on the plane, not looking for on the plane?

52:17Not really looking for to plane Leon, especially after Saturday. That's the one European game, or way game on, I'm actually definitely going to. I don't think I'll be able to, I might not be able to make the other two for work reasons. So it's a nice ground, it's a nice strip, but I'm not looking forward to the game, I must admit. Although I'd be good to see the striker, I really wanted it, Jels, who would just do morning, be good to see her play. The other ones, I think they're all winnable games. They should all be winnable games. If we play like we didn't say Saturday, then maybe not. But if we win them all apart from the Leon game, then I think we've probably sent a good chance of finishing top four. Rich, what are your views? Are you going to be able to get to any of the games? No, I don't think I'll be able to do any of the ways more likely to sort of the home games I'll be able to go to. I mean, I did Leon in 2023, when Guru Rai and Skorda, we won one, Neel, in the first leg of the quarterfinal.

53:20And the ground sold Desparados, and I don't remember much of the game. Just to update, it's to play in the next day, because I'll be schedule my flight as soon as I landed in Leon another day of the game. Anyway, yeah, so yeah, Leon's a good city. And yeah, if I remember right, there's a tram that you can get to the park area of where it is. We played the Champions of Austria last year, which was some part one, and we beat them pretty easily. PSG, I am going to foolishly in public label them as rubbish right here right now. I think we should beat them, especially at home. Hacken, obviously, we played them. I also went to Hacken in 2020. Four. Four, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was no one three three one. It was Sanca's last goals before she did. She got the knee injury in the in the warm weather training.

54:25Yeah, we won three one there. Yeah, Goffinburg's good as a city. But they sold their best player to Real Madrid, who we were also after Alicia Skorda. So, yeah, obviously don't know if they've got a replacement striker. Roma, we beat last year, didn't we, in the group stage. And I think we beat them pretty well, if I remember correctly. No, isn't that. Yeah, I think we haven't them. And then Lovyn, Lovyn's the one place I haven't been to in Belgium. Don't know much about them, but I'll just patch them pretty easily when they had their playoff rounds last year. I mean, in a hole, obviously Leon the ways the one game weekend points and say, OK, that's going to be the most challenging. We should win five games. And that should be enough for top four. Where will we do or not based on Saturday is another question. Are we going to mess up somewhere because we messed up. We did draw away at 20 last season and nobody sort of expected that to happen.

55:29And that made us, it made it very difficult and it may meant we had to win in Wallsburg and luckily we did, but still it made it an uphill task. So I think we should win five. But you know, football is weird at times and yeah, sometimes you don't win games you expect to. Courtney, what are your overall thoughts about the opponents? Leon, potentially problematic. Heckin. We had that horrible no no draw. I do not want to see a replay of that against them. And they've it's away and they've got that artificial pitch, which is a psych concern in my mind. And then Lurven. England have a pretty terrible record at that stage. So let's just hope that Chelsea don't fall victim to it is my thoughts.

56:35OK. Yeah, just so basically I didn't say so just to confirm we've got Austria Vienna home. We got a S Roma at home and we got PSG at home, which means we got Leon away, Roma, heckin away and Lurven away. So yeah, I'd be interesting to see games come pretty thick and fast. We got two games this month, 23rd and 30th and only one in October, two in November and one in December. So obviously we are in the lead cup this year. So yeah, I think it's. It's going to be interesting to see I think. How the season goes will pretty much depend, I think on how we get on against Manchester United, because if we get another bad result against Manchester United, we're going to be limping into these pictures, which isn't good.

57:36And I'm not sure that there's any sort of truth in the conspiracy that, you know, we're saving it all for the Champions League, because I thought we were doing that last year that didn't really work out very well either. I don't think you can turn it on and off either. You can't turn it on. You can't turn for more and you can't turn for you can certainly lose for him, but you can't suddenly turn it on for certain games. You've got to be playing well across all games to be able to play well. Okay, that was a quick breeze through the Champions League, which we will win one day, whether I will be alive will be interesting to find out, but hopefully we will. Anyway, that's it for this evening. Thanks everyone for listening to the show and taking the troubles to download it. Thank you to my guests Courtney Rich and Sophie for a very interesting and very therapeutic evening. So you may recall in our first episode that I said that we'd actually been banned from Twitter before,

58:40and actually posted anything, which was maybe a world record. Anyway, we are now on there. We are CFCW fancasts. We're also on Blue Sky on CW fancasts. So please give us a follow and let us know your thoughts on the show. Honestly, the words all views welcome. So on that note, I'm so goodbye and thanks for listening and keeping on with socials for the next show. uenuenuenuenuenuenuenuenuenuenuenuenN Frastrated with spending hours on AI outputs that don't feel like your brand, Active Intelligence 2.8 from I active campaign keeps you from sounding like everyone else.

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