"The atmosphere was absolutely brilliant!" | Morning Papers: Shels and Rovers share a point, Evan Ferguson's injury, Robbie Keane's future job & West Ham overcome Brentford on Penalties | OFF THE BALL BREAKFAST

Oh, the ball.

Rock B.

Like a Marlow that needs being great for the game, he brings in energy, and I couldn't

believe it on Saturday night, I came home, my son was wearing all the white, and he had

like tape, like a polypatter and a flag, so I was like, what's happening here?

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In the meantime, Vinny, good morning, how are you?

Good morning, how are we doing?

I'm actually not well today.

Oh, no.

Let's just go back to this.

Um, this is a new thing, I think, as you get older.

I went out for a run on Sunday, and I had to do the walk, a shame, I've called it.

It pulled something.

I've had a bit of a problem in hip flexor and lute, and you ever have to walk home in

your running gear?

It feels like everybody's looking at you.

Well, I'm coming to walk a shame from your 20s.

Yeah, I was like, I was heartbroken.

You know, every time I went past, I was gone there judging me.

Yeah.

Because you're no longer running.

You're limping.

Yeah, and you're in the wrong gear.

And it looks like they're gone.

He's just failed.

He just failed, right?

Yeah.

I got about a clamped on a half.

It was a good 10 minute walk back.

A busy road.

Yeah.

Do not go gently into the good nights, rage, rage against the dying of the lights.

That was your doing?

Yeah.

Did you try and keep going or did you just...

Oh, I did, yeah.

No, I'm not.

Like, making it worse.

I've had this injury.

I've had the...

I don't think the fix that was, you know, that dry needle, and I tried that and I fixed

it.

And was...

What was it?

Yeah, you know, like...

Like a puncture.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Dry needle, it was really good.

And I just felt it and I wasn't at the start.

I was too far in and I was like, oh, no.

And then you try and run it off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're committed to this fitness look, Malarkey.

Not really.

Like...

The best way to explain to you is I used to...

When...

Like, all the athletes that come in here, they...

They sort of easily can train at their maximum.

That's the modern nutritionist we're telling you now.

So now I try and so we can eat.

So Stevens is there on the 7K run, but then I point to everyone that I'm calories

on.

I'll put everyone that I'm calories on to within a play.

So it's just to stay level.

Yeah, that's all.

Strike in the balance.

Yeah.

Just to stay level.

And Wolf tells you your age.

I don't know if you have a...

No, don't have Wolf.

Similar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can call him shy.

As far as I'm concerned.

In terms of the age thing.

Well, it's sort of just calculates.

You're actually...

You're actually...

How do you do it?

It overindexes for a strength training, which viewers of the show know I do none.

So...

Do they?

Yeah.

Anyway.

Okay.

So...

But looking after yourself when particularly ex-athletes as well, or an athlete or semi-professor

and people, it's amazing that the force for you is people go to like, you just blow

up and then you've got your brain kicks in and it's like that thing of when you're over

on...

Say you're on 5K in 26 minutes, all of a sudden you want to do 25 and a half.

And then you just...

You just get touched.

Yeah.

And then it becomes a thing.

You're doing stuff on your own.

Would you, as somebody who comes from a team sport, not benefit from being in a group

or...

Yeah, you...

And it's...

It's probably the biggest thing.

It's probably the biggest thing I would say that...

Yeah.

That's what...

I was chatting to Elad, James Kelly, I don't think he'd mind me saying play league

on Shalborn, really decorated player.

He's coached in a...

And it was after Shamak were overs and...

Derry, the game dude, he was working with Derry radio and we were working, news talk.

And the two of us just said, you know, we were chatting about the game and the things.

And the last time we said to each other, yeah, they missed this...

I missed the dress now.

Bolt was the same thing, you met...

It's that...

And it's the same thing as training.

When you do like a class, maybe we're a group of people, it doesn't matter, they can

be all sizes, ages, different things, it's that thing.

And probably don't do enough classes, actually, or structured stuff to keep yourself gone.

So training on your own is...

It's not the same, but that's what you do, miss...

It's just...

The social aspect, is it?

Yeah, it's still...

It's like team environment, particularly full-time.

I was sitting at...

No matter what ground it is, but last Sunday week I was at Forest and Brighton, and I'm sitting there

and I'm watching the players, because it wasn't really early.

And I'm sitting there watching Forest players come out, and they're all chatting on the pitch.

And you're thinking to yourself, they've been together since the night before in a hotel.

They probably trained on Saturday morning, went down on the bus, went to a hotel,

pre-all meals together, grew up at their breakfast together,

and they're still laughing and joking on the pitch.

And when you take that away from anybody,

it's like, it's bloody tough for people, and some people will deal with a lot easier than other.

Ruby's obviously so much better at dealing with that stuff, but the soccer don't absolutely not.

I think rugby isn't as good now as it was even 10 years ago.

Yeah, yeah.

I talked to somebody who was with the team, recent name, was very surprised

at how little of the stuff that this group were doing compared with previous groups

and all that work experience that they would have done.

And you had some of that as a manager, but it's not the same, or you were a team...

Yeah, you were a part of your team, which was much smaller.

My coach was a system manager, so that's the Holy Grail for me.

But depending on what your total manager have, that's the Holy Grail, where you're still...

You're the interface between...

Yeah, I'm like character and people.

Remember, Dave Massey got left at one time, we're doing a warm-up,

and I walked over to my front of every moment.

If I was the referee, we'd be playing today.

Everybody laughs, it's a joke.

Dave and then goes, yeah, he was like, so...

He didn't get it wasn't laughing.

No, yeah.

So there's a moment for all of them things, where you can be the sort of the rod and stuff like that.

So that's probably the happy medium, yeah.

But it's the same I have when I speak to players or any team or culture.

And it's hard to say, it's like an old fart saying to you, like, enjoy school, like, go away.

Leave me alone, I hate school, but then when you stop, but it's the same thing.

When the lights go out for anybody that's played sport, particularly at decent level,

it is tough, like it's really tough.

Yeah, we actually have a new series that...

Or just because I was doing, coming up soon enough about the difficulties that people

have integrating back into civilian life from elite sport.

And sorry, and before you move on, what people don't get is those little jokes that you

think are funny, because 20 lads on a bus together or 20 lads in a hotel together or on

a plane, you're even your family don't think they're funny, your good mates don't think

they're family.

Because they're not in on the joke.

You know, the thing of going out when you were younger, like your mates on the way to college,

and you don't only have XM on the tour around, the tour around, you go, well, we're a team

of footballers and you might spend a tenor, you might go to the next week and drop 300 quid,

because everybody's just, we're in this together to the mentality and the strange that when

that goes on for 10 or 12 or 20 years, your life, it did a more case when it stops then you're gone.

My last thing that sometimes all that togetherness is really important, but about the fitness

aspect of it, I do often wonder if it's actually the coaching that you miss the most, that it's not

just the fact that there's a group of you all doing the same thing, there's somebody telling you

what to do, you need to go and do this, and I'm monitoring your level of fitness specifically.

And there's an element of, you just need a personal trainer, there's an element of a lot of

young people need that structure in their life, so where are I going, I've gone on a few

rounds here, I'm not going to do it now again, I've done enough of them, where I can stand in

the field and tell it now, and I can see, for example, I can see Robbie Kane's house, right,

I can see Richard Dawn's house, I can see Stephen Bradley's house, I'm going to say I can see

him as in the football, Stephen Kenny's, my own house, some of my grand garland, I can see the

Highland Brothers boxers, I can see people who've, and I can also see people who I went to

school, who are now all the different things grown up, who are now longer around, for different

reasons, who are probably in, who are locked up on different things, see people with problems,

and that's where I see the, I see sport as it, as such as an opportunity as a social issue to fix

these things, so when people get to a really good level that may have tendencies to be

something else, the structure of football, the structure of you've got to be an antenna

clock in the morning, you've got to be sober, you've got to be all of these things,

is huge for them, and that's why when I stand in that field or drive past that field,

what actually draws me off the chart, mental is, there's still zero facilities in that field,

so one stage with the oil and manager, Jim Crawford, I can see health from there, the oil and

21 manager, League of Ireland, winner manager and Stephen Bradley, as I said, don't,

those people, older players have played the premiership, living in that same facility,

and there's still nothing there after all them years, there's still nothing like, there's,

there has to be something wrong with society, if nobody has realized that sport,

not for everyone, is an opportunity to change society in areas like that, and for people to know,

that's a field in Tallah, and it's just bizarre, the amount of money that's been wasted on

other things, where there's still not a proper assortof pitch in that facility,

and it's probably 60 acres of grass, you could stand on, we must go out there one day and

actually put a photograph to this, but you can see these people's houses,

talking to people who have changed their life, like they've changed,

I grew up in Killing Ireland, I've said this before, like 80s, early 90s, and heroin ripped

through, me and my mates, when I've gone down that route, but it doesn't, like people, it did,

yeah, and like the likes of Richie and Robbie, don't it, not because of what was there,

they don't have the sport, what was there, you know, Bradley, I said Graham Garrett and Jason

Gavin played Middleton in the Premier, there's so many players, so I'd take that to a really

extreme level, if we went around to all the skills in that area tomorrow and went, we'd take

the best under eight, nine, ten year olds, and we got 20 of them every year on a bus only met

in a central location, we got a little bit of food, a bit of homework, and we went, they went from

eight to nine to ten to, all the way up, I would say I would end 20 players, 10 to 15 would play

League of Orn, and three or four of them would be ours under 17, 18, 19 internationals,

and if you repeated that true, the way Robbie has done that with their skills structure,

it's, it's easy, and it's an opportunity to try and change 20 people's lives as well.

Well, then all their families and their water families and their inspiration to the community,

and the community come to watch the games, and all of a sudden, and, you know, that's there.

And I think that's replicated in a lot of these type of areas, you go into in a city,

you don't even try parakelly, Harrington, you know, you can replicate this true Chris Foresters,

they're all within reason of each other, and it's, it's sport is, I know we're on a sport show,

but the next time I come in here, and I see one in ministers for sport or something,

I'm just going to put my headlock and just drag them in here, and have the discussion,

because they give you, they don't give you the answer you need, or they give you a little bit

of tokenism, but it is so easy to do, and it's not, it's not an expensive fix, like,

like that, that field, honestly, boys, that field, I'm talking about what who feels,

hasn't had like, as a swimmer pill, great facility, grand, but it should be

hopped for sport, has to be, yeah.

You see the campaign to save the pitch in Sheriff's trees, and that's great, but like,

it needs, it needs a campaign, you know, it needs an Olympic gold medal winner, it needs

our most famous striker at the moment to, to back it open it, and I don't know why we

haven't quite gotten down to this. I wonder is it because sports organizations are

pitted against each other, that it's a zero-sum game, that there's only a settlement of money,

so I'm going to take that, and I'm going to take that as opposed to, actually, if we just

all work together here, we, we, we'd make the case for more money for everybody. I don't know.

But do you look at, does it place near the next ball called Carradostown, and I think the

council, it was all wasteland, put two astroturf pitches on it. I know people who coach soccer teams,

guard teams around it, you cannot get a bookend under, because it's so busy, so busy. Yeah, so

build it and it'll come. But what you're also seeing then is from five o'clock in the winter when

everything is off, from five o'clock till half ten, eleven o'clock at night, you're seeing 40 and

50 and 60 and 80 kids out and about down stuff. So it's the land from that. Yeah, and that has to

be replicated, particularly in the areas of, particularly in the areas where, and I'm allowed

to say, because I'm from there, areas of disadvantage, disadvantage, where I mean, that field,

I'm talking about, everyone will know the story. I can also see the little that people went and

destroyed. Now, when I go against the grain, I don't believe just because it's not to do, it's okay

to destroy the little that time, but I'm just making the point. There is opportunities there, and

I'm areas to do the wrong things, and people will still do them. Yeah, but create, create an

environment of, of do it a way where people can do elsewhere in sports, brilliant for that.

We just have some difficulties with the, the sound on a couple of our platforms. I'm not sure if

it's actually working on the, on the app or not, but certainly on YouTube, people are complaining

with sound. So we will try and get that fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, last night,

you were at the Talkapark two-all draw between shells and rovers. So you missed what was going on

in the FA Cup. An equal two-all draw after extra time, goes to penalties, commentators, cars,

like, oh, queven colors of the man, he's the greatest penalty saver in the history of Liverpool

football club. So this is his time to shine, and he did go the right direction for all the penalties

he faced, but unfortunately nobody kicked it right at him in the way that Wattara did

against West Germany, tried to pinnank, and it was, you know, terrible pinnanker. Yeah, what's

it? Well, like, all pinnankers at the keeper say exactly, but yeah, some of them have a bit,

a bit more pace on them. His would have looked really nice if it went in. Like, it was a,

I think even keeper had dived. It was so slow that he still would have the opportunity to jump

back up and catch it. But anyway, obviously, it was a bizarre decision, considering

Ariel had chosen to stand earlier in the game for the penalty, which went in anyway, but he had

stayed in the middle, and Tiago had hit it in the middle, but he could put the power on it. So

it was a bit of a bizarre decision to go and do that again, knowing that there's a decent chance

that he will just stand there, boss. Yeah, I mean, they're knocked out, Bradford, but it doesn't feel

like a really bad thing for Bradford. Like, maybe they got to focus on the penalty a bit more

now, but yeah, if I could final was opened up for the play last night, yeah, with the draws at

the opening of for teams a little bit, city Liverpool, you've avoided city Liverpool and Arsenal

in the next round. I think, I think Keith would have seen that as an opportunity of leads at home,

leads at home. It's not even if it was leads away, you'd be like, it just, it doesn't need to do

this season, I suppose. That's the thing. Like, there's no pressure at all. Like, obviously,

it would have been great, but, you know, I think that's the point, isn't it? Next season,

there will be pressure, and he won't be able to pick a team. Yeah, so that, this is

an interesting one. Like, I mentioned, Everton there last week on the show, the only three points

behind him. It's a little bit like, is Keith's pressure going to come on them next season for me?

Like, how do you finish a season, can sometimes drag into next year for teams? I'm not suggesting

he's under pressure, he's just got no contract, etc. But something like winning an FA Cup, I get to

a final, might have just helped you to start a next season of things, didn't go really well,

because at that level, you're always on the edge of your halfway to something and nothing

it feels like. So, I just hope they finish the season really well for him. I noticed it

in where seven, but you could just easily be 12 to 14 come the end of the season, which is still

success for him in the grand scheme of things. Yeah. There was criticism of Marco Silva yesterday,

which I totally understand of, you're not going to do, it's unlikely you're going to qualify for

Europe. It's not that unlikely, I suppose, that they were going to run in the league. They could

easily finish in a place, depending on, you know, five, six, seven, get confidence in football.

But I wonder if people look at the palace and go and, I don't want, we pretend that we want

European football, but we get European football. Our best players get taken, we can't actually replace

them. And then next season, there's a relegation struggle. Is there a world in which Marco Silva

doesn't actually want to win the FA Cup? That's, he'll be bonus more on Premier League finishing

anyway. I think, I think as, as, as, like, Tottenham fans, did he enjoy winning the European Trophy

that day? Yeah. The fans, yeah. So, but the fans aren't picking the teams. I like, like, yeah,

like, the Tottenham manager lost his job after winning the trophy, the European Trophy. Yeah.

Obviously, the fans want to win, right? I get that. But I do think that the managers are like,

this is more hassle than it's worth it. But I felt palace had had an opportunity to build on the

cup. And I thought you were about to. Yeah. But something else is going on, run on there. And

it seems to be in the internal, like, Blasner's doesn't want to be there or most of the, he wants

the club to spend more than maybe they can. And, you know, palace can they really take on the

moites of, of the sort of top six, seven, eight probably can't really when it comes to just

still you've got to cash in with your best players. Totally. He'll have to kept as a and kept

Michael Alise. I think that they could be in the Champions League fifth. They could be in the race

for fifth now. But obviously, the club decided they didn't want to do that. And at that stage,

their club ownership was a bit of a mess. And we'll come back to Stephen Bradley and Joey

Brian a little bit later on, because I know you're at the game. The atmosphere sounded amazing

from my back garden last night. I was like, oh, shit, I should have gone to this.

It was really good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Particularly the first 25 minutes, 25 minutes was brilliant

game. And it probably both teams and managers said, whoa, I had enough of this, you know,

you know, tighten up a little bit. It was an element of that. I thought it was a winner for

somebody. And that would have sent either end. Wild like, there was a, there was a thousand

rovers, rovers fans. And I think, wrong. Talistadian can be a little bit quiet at times,

I guess, stick for saying that, but the away fans were brilliant. And the are brilliant.

It's often the way the same when you go to any game. Yeah. And they make it really nearly,

sometimes Tal is nearly too big for certain games. It's very open. It feels very open when you're

there. Whereas, you know, every other park in the league world is just on top of your on top of

each other. So when the big games come, it is. But the difference, the difference we say,

a daily mount or a Richmond park or talk it now. And they've just, they've just almost got the

sign off to open up the all stand, which used to hold their sort of all trips for once,

the better word. That would make a huge difference at back of the ground. But I was very

last night. Yes, really, really for a Monday night. And they've very next Monday night. So they've

started another dairy on Friday and then they bowed in Monday. So it's a much needed point for

them here. Yeah. When they were doing it, a little bit like, okay, they might actually be able to

clean them in the title race here. Anyway, I want to play it this because Henry Winter was on

yesterday. And we were obviously spending it in a spur situation, which we'll speak with down the

Kilpatrick about at around about 10 past nine this morning. And we were making the point to him

that, you know, somewhat facetiously, Harry Redden up might win the goal cup on Friday and then

be in the dugout by the time Sunday rolls around. And who better than Robbie Keen to be alongside

them? Here's what Henry Winter had to say. This is slightly crazy. But I did think that I was joking

earlier that Harry wins the goal cup on Friday and is in the dugout by Sunday afternoon.

Maybe the international break is the bit where you get Harry in and you say, okay,

but we bring somebody in with them who will actually be the manager if we get relegated. But

Harry is installed. Well, I was thinking more Robbie Keen. The Harry and Robbie Keen got on

very well. That like Robbie comes and is his second in command until the end of the season. And

then if they sail, whatever happens happens. But if they go down that Robbie takes them

next season in the championship. And everybody's relatively happy with that managerial plan while

the boards suddenly face the appropriate from the fans. But this is a very arrogant English

Premier League approach, which you've been sucked into that we can immediately play chess with

other people's chessboards. And for and far, I think might have a word to say about that.

Wouldn't surprise me if Robbie Keen was head coach at Tottenham Hotspur at the start of next

season. So that was Henry Winter yesterday, right? You got sucked into that English

mischief. I did, yeah. The arrogance of them playing chess with the French virus.

No, you do look at the next manager odds, right? And check policies, Joe. Yeah, but Robbie Keen

is coming up next. Next spurs manager. Puch Tina was the favorite. Robbie Keen is the second

favorite. But when it comes to Crystal Palace, favorite is Robbie Keen at 7 to 4. Thomas Frank

is four to one that I think he'll he'll recover and come back. Sean Dodge is five to one.

Garza gets 12 to one. But Robbie is a short price. Yes, favorite. That's not a million miles away

from the same price that Michael Carrick is at the moment. So we if I mentioned this bloody

pro license one more time on the show, but don't be pro license with Robbie as well as part of that

gang. And he's gone off and done the hard yards, but are people like it? No, I know. I know

there was this stuff around Stephen Kenny took over when you're still being paid by the FEO.

And just two sides said, I think his side is basically got no communication from the FEO.

Nobody reached out to him. None of your shape or form. And it became a mess that nobody wanted

to fix. So I don't think that I think that annoy the certain amount of the soccer community.

Fine. Robbie's obviously like, I mean the skulls and what he'd done as a player for was was

huge. But he went off like at that time when we're doing the pro license, he was the system manager

Jonathan Woodgate at Midlisper. He went all over there and spent some time there. You could tell

he's doing the hard yards. He was living away from home. He was obviously Ireland assistant or

coach, whatever the right would just previously there. And he then he done some work at Leeds as well

as a system manager, but then went to Israel. We know that that's upset another sentiment of people.

But on the football pitch and someone has to say the facts on the football pitch,

done a really good job there. They had a little bit of success in Europe, one big title.

He's gone to Faire and Faire and Faire and Faire just about got it out. He's done really really

well there. He's had a lot of good success in Europe. And from English eyes, they would see

his progression. They would see he's done hard yards. They would see he's ticked a lot of boxes.

He's won trophies. And Robbie would say Robbie's definitely going to manage in the

premiership next year. And I've already had to place one of those bets like I was a palace,

I expect them to be in charge of a club next year. And when the people like are not, he deserves

this crack at it because he's done the hard yards. He's done. I mean, we speak so highly here

locally about say someone like Duffer. But in English eyes, what Duffer's done compared to Robbie

is not the same. No, but the people like that. And that's the fact. So there will be some noise

around Robbie and probably online. People listen to us. We'll have a problem with certain things.

But I hope he gets a crack over a premiership club and I look forward to seeing it. I expect them

to be in charge of someone like Palace at the start next year. If you were in his inner circle,

would you be suggesting that now is the time to try and get on the spurs radar or

and because that's first job, somebody's going to make a success. But this is the interesting thing

that when we sit here and we speculate about someone might say, you're better off taking a

way for spurs and take it the right time. We just never come. That's it. Yeah. You miss your

window. And you're always believing yourself as well. Whether it's, whether it's whatever you do

in life, you think you can make a difference. If spurs come up, it would be, it feels like,

like spurs player for player have better players than Palace. So it's like, and yeah,

financially, they will be better in the long run. So there's a possibility the spurs go down.

Right. But in three seasons, they'll still be bigger than Palace are because they're not going

to go down again. They're going to find the championship relatively straightforward to come back up.

And then there's a bit of success. I can only say one in sports would think

so in Robby's too big of a jump. We need somebody a little bit more. Yeah. I understand that.

They did take a chance on Patrick's era that time as well. Like he wasn't really Palace. Yeah,

like he wasn't a hugely proven artist. Yeah. No, sorry. There's a lot of stuff between Palace

and Robby that would link each other together in terms of the connections there. And people might say

Paddy McCarty. No, not Paddy McCarty, but agencies, people, you work with people. So there's a lot

of stuff I would say, but when it comes to spurs, I think there's a lot of people in spurs,

probably feel they need a bigger name at the moment to start out the club. And he may not have,

like if he'd a good year of Palace, you could see him in the spurs, but that's the advantage of

Robby and went well at Palace. Yeah. But if Bolton came along at the exact same time and he

took contracts on either side of the table, it would be hard for anybody with a football background

to 20 down spurs. Yeah. But you actually do think that this is a realistic, not just realistic,

but more likely than not likely. I think Robby will manage it in the premiership over the next 12

months, absolutely. I actually hadn't noticed over the last few weeks that it drifted into being

the short price favorite for the palace. I didn't know that put out. I expect a palace. There you go.

Palace for me, need a new manager. Robby's done all the hard yards. And

there's section of Irish soccer. I would have a view of Robby. I think they're wrong. I know

within reason, personally, some of his family, he's done the hard yards. Like, why do these people,

like, deserve being all of these people, come on, people's radars. It's not what they do.

It's what they do. A club's lesser than, yeah, bright and lesser than

a TV was eclectic to say. So, and Robby's gone to lesser leagues. Yes, but he's gone and been

successful with him. He knows how to win trophies. He's proved that he's done okay in Europe.

For them, he's been very successful in English football terms. He's just done okay. But

yeah, he deserves a cracker. Off the ball breakfast.

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