Wednesday's Newsround | More UCL Action, Spurs' Woes Continues, Cheltenham Day 2

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The news round on off the ball.

This is news talk.

Good evening and welcome along to Wednesday nights off the ball.

It's on here with you till 10 o'clock tonight.

Coming up, we're going to be speaking to John Doggan, who is at Cheltenham from half past seven.

There's been success for Willie Mullins, and there has been beef between the Jockeys.

At Cheltenham today, a very dramatic day too.

At the festival, from 8 o'clock, Rhino Driscoll is going to join us in studio to look

ahead to Super Saturday in the six nations.

And then between 9 and 10, as always, the football show is coming your way.

Karen Doggan will be with us in studio for the evening to watch the Champions League action unfold.

And we're also going to get David Ford up on the line to talk about the plight of the goalkeeper.

And the wake of what happens to Kinski last night for Tottenham Hotspur.

Our number is 087918180 if you want to send us a WhatsApp message.

We have two of Slagos finest here in studio.

Karl Malani is in studio. Hello, Karl.

Hey, Lads.

Arthur O.D. is also here.

Hey Arthur.

That's correct.

Do you guys know each other?

I mean, is this like a sort of sleigh over you?

Have you guys been on air together before?

Or what's the...

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You've got a good one.

You've exchanged pleasantries and all that before.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Arthur, Karl, Karl, Arthur, I have to have you both here.

And now we're in the clock here in this game that we're watching

between Bayern, Leverkusen and Arsenal.

It was nila all at halftime.

Richard Dunon, Virgin Media said,

it's terrible what Arsenal are doing.

They may have won this competition in June.

They may well win this competition in June.

But no one will know because we're all asleep.

Damien Delaney said,

because of Sake's suffering.

And then it got a hell of a lot worse

because they conceded within a couple of minutes

of the restart.

There was a big chance for a Bayern Leverkusen,

which they actually nearly missed on Virgin.

The scoreboard hadn't even come back up

and the top left of the screen

and really went over a couple of seconds later.

But they just about caught that.

David Ryan made an amazing save

and then from that subsequent corner.

At Bayern Leverkusen scored.

It was Andrich, the centre-back who scored.

So at set-piece FC tonight seems to be Bayern Leverkusen,

as I say, just over an hour and a clock.

And as the comments from the pontants

which suggests this has been a really, really poor evening

from Arsenal.

I don't know how this now works for them.

I did a sort of team that one day down

they tend to come out of their shells a little bit more

because they seem to remain

in their shells whenever they're one day low.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think a lot of the criticism is a bit overblown.

I think it's a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy

at this stage.

Arsenal are on.

It must be crap.

And then it's up to them almost to do something spectacular

to shake that narrative first.

I don't know if last night's game,

like we were watching here at Leverkusen,

and Liverpool Galatasaray last night.

That was no cracker.

And it was no amazing for us Liverpool.

But I don't think they get tired

of quite the same brush

as Arsenal do.

Almost irrespective of what happens.

Like if they lose tonight,

it'll be seen in some big kind of thought.

This is it.

This is where you see they can't do it.

They can't do it in Europe.

They can't mix up where it's like it's reality.

It's not.

It's perfectly fine.

What's happening here?

It's a two-legged affair.

It's a situation not that this is the final form of Arsenal.

And this is them at their peak or closer to their peak,

whereas this Liverpool team is having an offseason.

And there's some sort of acceptance for that.

I don't know.

Like is it?

Like Liverpool are going to play in a similar sort of way.

And so far as they've changed a little bit from that high octane style

that they had under a club to more possession-based under a slot.

And that probably makes them a little bit more like Arsenal.

In terms of the games, they're not as exciting.

Yeah.

You know, it's I think Richard John's criticism at halftime

was very accurate because Arsenal just,

they didn't really do anything in that first half.

They didn't join a kind of adventure or ambition

to really, you know, take control of that tie at all.

And Liverpool have probably fallen into that this year as well,

under some where they've just kept a lot of possession,

but they haven't really done a whole lot with it.

And it's not great to watch for it with them.

But probably the fact that Liverpool aren't getting as much criticism,

they're not top of the league.

I sort of got there playing stuff that hasn't been terribly exciting all the way through.

Yeah, this is what Arsenal want to do,

whereas it feels that Liverpool are just having a bit of a moment.

It's a season-long moment, but it's not a good place that they're in.

And I don't think it's necessarily where slot wants a team to be.

And so maybe in terms of style.

Where is the...

I'm always interested though on the dynamics of this thing.

Like, it's the same thing with, you know, like I suppose,

Gaelic football and the Nazis.

And obviously, it got so kind of that, like, if you want to ask,

was the main agenda setter has been the threes from the game panelist,

like they had the biggest platform then to kind of set the tone.

And that became the tone, like, that these teams all are mad to run.

These are two, these are terrible teams.

What, these are killing football.

And that all then kind of gets latched on.

It was subsequently what does happen.

It's like, football does end up in a pretty direct place.

But it's not, you know, the hyperbola at that time and all that,

everyone couldn't jump quick enough to say how bad this was.

And this is an offense to Gaelic games, everything else.

And I just feel there's a little bit of that, like that all of a stay,

when the Champions League and June, no one and Oaks are awake or they're asleep.

So, right.

So, like, you know, I tell us all about last year's Champions League.

Tell us all about, like, what do you remember from the different teams that got it?

I just, I'm not, well, I'm explaining it to the best tree,

but I just think there's a degree here where it's like,

with another vandal analysis, it's almost always the easiest storyline here.

Okay, let's pound it.

Let's go further with it again.

Let's keep going with it.

Let's just keep hammering this.

I don't not say that's a concerted effort to slag off Arsenal,

but I just feel at this stage it's kind of like, it's jumped the shark away a bit.

They're not that bad to watch, like, they're just not.

They're like, it's not great, but they're not,

it's not peak, like, watching PSG or whoever last year.

Grand is not that, but it's not also, like,

it's not terrible football.

Like, it's just not, like, I don't know.

Like, maybe, maybe, maybe I'm alone in that, like,

but I don't find it, like...

Well, the ultimate judge of how they're doing is they're still in the race for

how many trophies right now or...

It's effective, yeah.

Patrick is going to start to say, getting knocked out of Europe might not be the worst thing

for Arsenal, which I wouldn't necessarily agree with.

I think there is a case we made that Arsenal are...

Like, I agree with you on your point about the sort of the movement around

the criticism of Arsenal, and this is very much

invoked right now to say that this is bad for football.

But I actually think that one of the big points that we missed is that in the trajectory

of how attractive or otherwise Arsenal are.

I think they might have plateaued or come back a little bit in terms of

how they are as a team to watch it.

If you're a neutral, like, you talk about the Champions League last season.

And one of the highlights of that last year was the way in which Arsenal played against

Real Madrid. Now, ironically, it was a couple of dead balls that stick out from those games

against Real Madrid. The Declan rise free kicks.

But the way in which Arsenal approached those games outside of those dead balls,

it was really, really good.

And then what Champions League brought last season was...

two phenomenally attractive teams in Paris and Germain and Barcelona.

And obviously, we didn't get that final in Turmalan.

Got past Barcelona in the semi-final.

And if you're comparing that, this sort of imagined fixture of PSG versus Barcelona,

which unfortunately we never got last year versus say this Arsenal team winning the Champions League

this year, then you can see the point that Don is making about, you know, where European

football has gone into space of 12 months.

Kind of, but like, that final did finish 5-0, right?

And you can look at that and kind of go like, that is an event, right?

And it's spectacular in a sense.

But I wouldn't necessarily say that's great for football.

If you know what I mean, like, it's a great, it was a great night.

It was kind of, it was amazing to watch.

And you know, this PSG team, there was electric, incredible.

But like, it wasn't...

Would it have been a better final if Arsenal had beaten PSG to get to the final?

And then has snuck by in Turmalan with a step piece.

When more nil bit worse, tension ratcheted up all through after the 90 minute.

You've rather have tension than a kick walk, like...

I would.

Yeah, like, I don't know, like, I don't know what it is.

I'm not sure what this ideal we hold football to,

where it's like, because it's completely subjective.

Arsenal fans don't care what's happening now.

And in the same way, like, with Ireland, when we play, when we're in Chechi or whatever,

like, that we have no concern whatsoever with how we go about winning that game.

Absolutely not.

Zero.

So it's completely subjective.

So this idea that football has to be played a certain way or whatever, like, it kind of depends.

Is there a greater burden of responsibility on the team

that are leading the Premier League out of the champion?

Sorry, not so much in terms of how they should behave,

but in terms of the discourse around them,

like, as you look at them as the North Star of where football is at.

The leaders of the Premier League or maybe the leaders of LaLiga

and the best team in the Champions League,

the way that team is playing football is probably a sign of where football is at in general.

And Arsenal have topped the Champions League,

topped the Premier League, and therefore, people are extrapolating this point

that this is the way football is headed.

The way Arsenal are playing football is the way football in general is headed.

That's interesting.

That's an interesting theory.

It's cyclical though, isn't it?

It's going to come back through.

Definitely.

I do another way again in five years time.

And if you look at where Arsenal ran, say a couple of seasons ago,

Arsenal would have been very focused on set pieces more than other teams in the Premier League.

Virtually every team is like that now.

So teams have kind of come around into the way that Arsenal ever approached it in the last

few years.

And data maybe is playing such a key partner in football, isn't it?

And people are looking at what's the most effective way to go about your business,

and maybe Arsenal figured it out a little bit earlier than everybody else.

So they've played like that maybe for a little while longer than everybody else.

But who cares if you're an Arsenal fan, you're top of the Premier League,

you're in the Champions League.

Could be the best season ever.

Absolutely.

It'll be so funny if they were to go on and win the quadruple.

And like, you know, break ground that like really and truly

is shouldn't even be considered like a crazy thing.

For example, does anyone think about how you know you've played in 1999?

No, of course.

In terms of their style, it's just in the in the books that they they completed the travel.

So I don't think.

But I always take these things as slightly kind of disingenuous insofar as like people

think back, oh, those Liverpool city seasons, like those Liverpool city seasons,

they were amazing.

It's one of football was amazing, right?

But it also like, it's not like it was a widespread celebration at the time that

everyone loved this.

And it was like, Jesus, this is class.

Everyone's kind of joined it.

Like there are, I feel like the the bonds and the biases become a bit more diffuse

with time or it's like, you're going to look back at it fondly.

But even this now, like it's, I just, yeah, I think we have to do in that.

We just have a overexaggerating those things that it's, it's, it's not great now.

But as you're saying, like it wasn't, what are the healthy in days for this?

Like the, the noughties and stuff and you'd Chessie Winley with 95 points,

like a crazy total at the time in 05.

And you're like, it was a pretty dogging style of play.

But they had, I tell you what it comes down to.

If Miguel Artera had the charisma of Joe Zemarino or could sell the project to the public

a bit better, I don't think we'd be in this spot.

I think it comes down to his lack of, yeah, he's not, he's not, he doesn't fulfill that.

He doesn't have that, I don't know.

Imagine, imagine, he doesn't have there is.

Doesn't have the aura.

Imagine though they, like the, the world might actually end of our slim and all four trophies.

And Miguel Artera is sitting there with all four around him.

Imagine they're like the, the, the entire ponder class would spontaneously combust,

I suspect.

Yeah, because it's very far from just that, which we don't, Dylan's been in touch.

It is terrible football, being to the Emirates several times this season.

Arsenal fandom, they are shite to watch.

L.O.I.

matches far more enjoyable.

Artera has sacrificed style of play for potential success.

But if no success, people surely won't put up with an unbelievable squad being wasted

of no trophies delivered.

I think he's right on the fact that Artera now has a higher bar.

He absolutely has to win one of the two major trophies this season, I think,

for this season to be considered a success.

And if it's not a success, I think there will be knives out for Miguel Artera from the fans.

Carl, let's get to some stories.

You are starting with Champions League tonight.

Yeah, let's just update that score.

We've now played 72 minutes.

They're still by Alevra Kuzumon, Arsenal, Dylan, their last 16 tie.

Alevra Kuzumon, as you say, on just scoring just after half time through a header from a corner

from Robert Andresch.

Three games underway from eight.

Bottle glimps.

Who's sporting PSG are up against Chelsea in Paris.

And then Real Madrid entertain Manchester City.

Some of the team line-ups are in City.

Lining out as follows against Madrid.

The seeding down a Roman goal.

Kusanov Rubin Diaz Gahey and Arraile across the back for Rodri and Bernardo Silvan

in front of them.

Then a Savinio, Semenio and Docku with Harland's up front for City tonight.

And then the Chelsea team in as well.

They take on PSG, Jorgensen and Gold Gusto,

Fafana, Shalaba and Kokareya across the back for James and Kaisedo in front of them.

Palmer, Enzo Fernandez and Pedro Netto.

And then on front, Joe Pedro, the formation that you wafer have sent out.

All right, then let's talk about Tottenham last night.

Yeah, Tottenham and their manager, Igor Tudor, insisting his decision to start.

Antonin Kinsky in goal last night against Atlético

was the right decision.

The 22-year-old was handed a starting role at the Metropolitan of

Madrid, who made two high-profile errors early on leading to goals early in their 5-2 defeats.

He was substituted after just 70 minutes.

But Tudor says he has no regrets about his team selection.

I'm coaching 15 years and I never do that.

I think it was necessary to preserve the guy, preserve the team.

Incredible situation, nothing to comment, you will see.

It was before the game, right choose to do, right choice to do.

In the moment like we are, with pressure on Bicario, another competition.

Tony is very good goalkeeper, so it was for me right decision.

Yeah, we'll be talking to David Ford a little bit later on this.

I don't know, it was a bad decision to start this guy in the first place.

You realize that you've made a mistake in game.

You reverse your decision.

Exactly, that surely says there was the wrong decision if you're taking someone off after

70 minutes. Sure.

Yeah, I think it takes a big manager to realize the error of his base and overturn it, though,

especially when you're a manager who has been under the caution ever since you've set

flush in North London. The guys doomed, I mean, I don't know what.

Igor Tudor, I don't know what we're hearing today in terms of his future call,

but you'd be surprised if he gets another game.

Yeah, there were some reports emerging today, but whether he would attend the

pretty much press conference, either their game against Liverpool or the weekend,

but he will, is the word from Tottenham.

So that would suggest that he will be in charge at the weekend at the very least.

Now then, we did night and last night on the show around Iran and kind of exploring

the possibility of them either being kicked out or them not participating at this year's

World Cup, and we've got clarity on that today.

Yeah, Iran's sports minister Amid Don Yamali has stated his nation won't take part in this

summer's World Cup in the US, Canada, and Mexico. That's after the joint United States,

Israeli attacks, which killed the country's supreme leader Ayatalla Ali Hamani.

Iran are due to face New Zealand and Belgium and Los Angeles in June, and then they play Egypt

in the same month in Seattle in their group stage matches.

Don Yamali statement came after the FIFA Bosnian in Fontino claim, the US President Donald Trump

assured him that the Iranian team would be welcome to compete in this summer's tournament.

Yeah, so kind of exploring this over the last 24 hours or so, it's kind of hard to know what

we were thinking would actually happen here.

Our item last night, kind of the conclusion on that was that there would be widespread protests

at the games. There would be a lot of Iranian people who have either our first generation,

second generation, people who have migrated to the United States, particularly when it comes to that

fixture in Seattle, that there would be a lot of protests around that, and potentially those

protests would have been used by the US regime, by the Israeli regime, to say, listen,

look at all these people celebrating and around that we are trying to liberate right now,

that this false dichotomy being presented to the public. So maybe that influences this decision

from the sports minister in Iran just as much as the idea around safety and the logistics of

getting footballers into the United States.

Yeah, yeah, it's impossible, I suppose that it doesn't become a tool of propaganda

willingly or otherwise, but it's incredibly, if it goes that way, it's just saying,

it's incredibly sad. It's incredibly sad for those players involved more and anyone else

and for those, as we kind of discovered last night, it was talking to Dr. Fuzuni,

that like, I completely not appreciated quite how significant or all football played in Iranian

society, like that it is so important for both the men's and women's side, that something like

this, I suppose you can only imagine it from your own perspective, but like, it's a difficult

thing to do, but I don't think we could even entertain that notion here, you couldn't imagine it,

not being able to participate, like it's not like, yeah, it's just, it's incredibly difficult,

and it's, look, the reality of this comes back to, I think what the president has been set by

FIFA, which requires this world, particularly, and the relationship with Donald Trump, it's made

them seem incapable of kind of holding an impartial role in this and seeming like fair brokers

in trying to make, in allowing even the facade of sport to transcend the political, which is

where it's now, it's just like, you know, the peace prize and what not, it's just, you know,

it's not, you have no faith in them to help along with that. We should say it is just the sports

minister saying this is not conclusive that around won't take part this summer, but that is the

view of the government there. Let's move on to the racing, as I say, John Duggan will be with us

in around 10 minutes, time call, but plenty of drama, I shall tell them. Yeah, busy day again,

at the Cheltenham Festival, Owen and Willie Mullins enjoyed another major victory on day two of

the festival with ill at a tom, taking the honors in the champion chase. Paul Tenan was on board

the age-rolled and enjoyed a comprehensive success and a race where the pre-race favourite

Majbra finished in seventh. Mullins also claimed two wins earlier in the day with King Rascal

Gray, the winner of the Noves's hurdle, while Kitzball won the Noves's chase. The Gavin Cromwell

trained final orders took victory in the cross-country chase while Noel Mead and Colin King combined

during the champion bumper with the Morn Rambler. And today's other races, Martitore was the winner

of the Grand Annual Chase, while Jinco Blue won the Coral Cup. You mentioned controversy on as

well, there was some attachment to the start of the opening race of the day, the Noves's hurdle.

That opening race started a few minutes later than advertised after efforts to get all 21 runners

into a suitable order at the start. Nico De Boinville and Declan Quilly clashed then as they

fought for position close to the tapes. After the race, then the jockeys making their way in,

and Declan Quilly and Nico De Boinville both stopped to speak with ITV about the race,

and Quilly who was on board, I'll sort that, had some choice where it's for De Boinville,

who finished second with Act of Innocence, they were both speaking with Matt Chapman of ITV.

Horrific. Nico De Boinville, second on Act of Innocence, Nico, you'll be pleased,

yeah? Yeah, very happy, frustrated. A bit frustrated, a few things were not against us,

but happy in my... Declan Quilly just said the start was a bit iffy, did you feel it was a bit iffy?

Maybe you should look in the mirror. Yeah, this was discussed on ITV shortly afterwards,

AP Nocoy, Ruby Walshwell, very good on this, Ruby Walsh, his conclusion was that maybe De Boinville

should look in the mirror himself after his behavior that they're both as entitled to be jockeying

for position where they were. It does open up a kind of worms in regards to the starts at

Cheltenham and in National Hunt Racing in general, although I did find it interesting just doing a

bit of digging into this, that De Boinville had been on the record about this before the festival,

so on Cheltenham Festival starts in the racing post, he said, we're racing all the time and we're

trying to protect the sport. The problem is an amalgamation of some of the Irish lads coming in

and the amateurs who, and there is no other way of putting it, just don't care. So there's been

the sense of there being maybe a cultural difference in terms of how the starts are approached at

Cheltenham and it's going to be something that we really explore, John Doggan deceiving that there's

reports since then that there's been accusations of racism in the middle of all of this as well

from Quilly's standpoint towards De Boinville. So that process is currently playing out at the

moment on the Cheltenham race course. So that's a developing story this evening, as I say, John

will provide us with some clarity this evening in about five to ten minutes. We are turning our

attention to the rugby. Yeah, the Ireland's coach Andrew Goodman Field Scotland have earned the

right to be confident ahead of Saturday's six nations meeting between the size of the Scottish

Winger Darcy Graham Plamed earlier this week that Ireland are there for the taking in the game

that will take place at the Aviva Stadium at the weekend. Saturday's clash is a triple-crowned

insider in Goodman Fields. The visitors are coming into the game in fine four. They've earned the right

to be confident from the way they've played to put 50 points on a French team that were flying high

and around with Sang as unbeatable in this competition. They've earned the right to have confidence

and belief in the game. So let's say our job to make sure they come here and

don't get to play their brand of rugby at our home ground. Let's say our challenge.

And we then have some fixed news for future international windows.

Yeah, so Ireland set to meet South Africa at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, November the 21st,

as part of the inaugural nations championship. That will be proceeded by the visit of Argentina

on the sixth of November. That's a Friday. Fiji came to Dublin on November the 14th. Ireland will

begin their campaign in July. They've got away matches against Australia and Sydney. And then

they're at Eden Park for meeting with New Zealand. The summer schedule also will feature a meeting

with Japan and then you get to be confirmed for them much. Right, then we have some basketball.

Yeah, the Irishman's basketball side in action this evening in their latest Eurobasket

qualifier. They're playing away against Luxembourg tonight. They're into the third quarter there.

Now, an Ireland trailing at the moment by 63 points to 51. Ireland ahead of that game were third in

the Group A table. They're all set to face Bosnia, Herzegovina in this international windows.

There'll be an action there in the coming days. And then just to finish up, we have some

Gaelic games and some golf. Yeah, that's right. So let her Kenny, O'Donnell Park and let her

Kenny has been chosen as the venue for the start of Donnie Goals, Senior Football Championship

campaign in Ulster this year. Balebofe is out of action due to refurbishment work, but they will

play down now at O'Donnell Park and let her Kenny on the 26th of April. And then in golf, the PGA

Tour CEO Brian Rillap says no decisions have been taken around the future of the tour.

As discussions continue between all the stakeholders, the future competition committee,

which is chaired by Tiger Woods, has been exploring potential changes around six key themes,

including promotion and relegation from the PGA Tour, but speaking. And if this week's

players championship at Soulgrass rollup says more information will emerge about their future plans

later on this calendar year. Paul Melani, thank you very much for tonight's news round

Arthur. Thank you loads to come over the course of the next hour or so. We're going to have John

Dougan live from Cheltenham to bring us up to speed and everything that happens a great day

for Willie Mullins and he let go and bring us the latest on that controversy at the race course

Brian Adreskel in studio after eight o'clock and then Karen Dougan and David Ford joining us

on the football show after nine o'clock. The news round is brought to you by Viagra Connect,

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