This is The Guardian.

Hi, Pod fans. Max here. Barry's here too.

Barry is not here.

So Burnley and Scott Parker are parting ways by mutual consent.

This obviously happened after we recorded the pod.

It's not enough for an emergency pod.

I respect to Burnley fans, but we apologise.

But we'll talk about it on Monday for a bit, I imagine.

This pod instead begins with the greatest game of all time.

Athlete won, Arsenal One.

Here it is.

Thanks for listening, watching, etc.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. All Square then in Madrid, Athlete and Arsenal weren't going to give us PSG buy-hound, but they gave us a different kind of entertaining. It was tense and it was controversial.

And Artetta and Simeone probably covered more ground than anyone else on the pitch.

It's impossible not to talk about VAR or handball here, so apologies in advance. But get ready to tick off all your favourite phrases. Natural position, 80% chances for scoring a goal. Clear and obvious. I'm boring myself and we haven't even introduced the panel. But a good result for Arsenal, who can go back to stressing about the title race at the weekend, home to Bullen while Man City have to wait until Monday to go to Everton.

Then there's the relegation dog fight, West Hamer, Everton on Saturday. All new injury problems spurs at Villa on Sunday. If they both win, big if, they could drag some others into it. Then there's the EFL permutations, Mudrick's four-year ban. your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Week. On the panel today, Barry Glendan, welcome. Hi, Max. Hello, Nicky Bandini. Morning. Good morning, Lars Sivardson. Hello, Max. Let's start at the Wonder Metropolitano. Spice says, how about some VAR chat for a change? Andy says, there were more

shots in the Athlete Arsenal match than PSG Byron, but I guess that doesn't suit certain narratives,

does it? I think, I think Andy is trying to make the case that this was a better game, and it

wasn't a better game, but, Nikki, with a dog in the fight, I mean, there was real tension,

and there was real drama in this game still. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think if you put this game as it was the night after PSG Byron, of course, you go, huh, that wasn't as good as that one. If you put it next to Arsenal, Newcastle, you think, wow, what a great game of football.

So it's all about where you draw your contrast, isn't it?

PSG Byron was spectacular, brilliant, loved every second of it.

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