Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times.

Two weeks ago, Tottenham were doomed and Arsenal were about to be knocked off top spot.

But after two wins in two, Spurs are out of the relegation zone and Arsenal are six points clear again.

Make sense of that, eh? Well, we'll give it a go.

On today's show, we'll discuss the top and bottom of the Premier League table. Manchester United's 3-2 win against Liverpool. Ask whether Keith Andrews should be manager of the season and we'll look ahead to another massive week of action in Europe. I'm Tom Clark and joining me today. We have the senior sports writer and Sunday Times columnist Alison Rudd, the football reporter and tactical analyst Hamza Khalik Loonat, and the former footballer, turn journalist Gregor Robertson, is alongside me as usual. Team, hello, how are we doing? Hello, Tom. Thank you very much for coming in to work on a bank holiday Monday. Top professionals as ever, but there is so much to discuss. I think we have to start with Tottenham,

don't we? Alison, I know you're at Arsenal. I mentioned them both in my own show, but we have to

start with Tottenham. I was on the editing desk last night at the times and quite frankly could

not believe what I was seeing. It was like a different team. It's like a different team. We'll get on

to Aspen Villa being completely toilet in a minute. But I mean, Tottenham, Gregor. We talked last week with Tom Alder, and we were all going, you know, Tom, being the Spurs man for the times was saying, listen, you know, let's not rule them out, let's not write them off. But you in particular, and all of us, I think, were going, God, they're just scrape past walls, they've got no players. This was an amazing performance. Yeah. I mean, yeah, just did not see it coming. And I wasn't alone in that, I don't think, but I made it very clear. I didn't have any faith in talking to going to Villa, putting in a performance like this, never mind getting the result.

And I thought they were brilliant.

I thought, you know, I thought how they were without the ball was the most important thing.

They packed the centre of the pitch because anyone who's watch Villa at all in UNAMRI's time as manager

knows how well they attack through the spine of the pitch.

They came up with really incisive passes and getting players, particularly white players, coming inside and getting on the half turn. And like, they just packed the centre of the pitch and pressed really high, and he could not deal with it. And there was, they started to resemble Roberto de Zerbe team, like Brighton teams. There was a lot of kind of cat and mouse

pressing. He always did that. The forwards were kind of, you know, even the goalkeeper, Martinez

is coming out with it, just step by step, and forwards are kind of pretending to go, and then

they'd eventually go. And like individual players, like, performances as well, Conor Gallagher

was a man possessed. Yeah. Ja Connor Gallica was a man possessed.

Jao Polina was a man possessed.

I thought even telling Colomouani, although they're in-products not always there, they were a real threat.

Yeah.

Richarlison.

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