Can Chelsea topple red-hot Villa? Can Man Utd function without Bruno?
The Totally Football Show with James Richardson
The Athletic
4.5 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 December 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jimbo, Duncan Alexander, Art De Roché and more bring you the final Totally Football Show before Christmas.
Man United and Newcastle contest the only Boxing Day fixture with the Red Devils having to do without the injured Bruno Fernandes.
The headline fixture of the weekend sees Aston Villa aiming for an 11th win in a row as they travel to Chelsea. Jacob Tanswell tells us about a seven day spell that could really cement Villa’s status as title-challengers.
Arsenal will look to take more points against Brighton than they did last season while Man City travel to the City Ground, where it all began for the Haalands in English football.
Elsewhere, there are fixtures between Sunderland & Leeds and Burnley & Everton with greater historical significance than you might realise.
Plus Maher Mezahi joins us from Morocco to recap the first two days of AFCON, filled with sensational overhead kicks and catastrophic back flips.
Produced by Charlie Jones
RUNNING ORDER:
• PART 1: Forgettable Fulham Forest and Football Manager (02.30)
• PART 2a: Man United v Newcastle preview (09.00)
• PART 2b: Nottingham Forest v Man City preview (15.30)
• PART 2c: Chelsea v Aston Villa preview with Jacob Tanswell (18.30)
• PART 2d: Arsenal v Brighton preview (29.00)
• PART 3a: Liverpool v Wolves preview (33.00)
• PART 3b: Sunderland v Leeds preview (36.00)
• PART 3c: The rest of the Premier League weekend (40.00)
• PART 4: AFCON latest with Maher Mezahi (44.00)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC. |
| 0:09.3 | Totally football show. |
| 0:11.2 | Today, counting down to a busy boxing day and beyond in the beautiful game. |
| 0:15.9 | There's a Cup of Nations with Mo Salah making a winning start and call him Air Carby, |
| 0:21.1 | the Moroccan star scoring another stunner. |
| 0:23.6 | There's Aston Villa and the two trips to the capital that may soon tell |
| 0:27.1 | if we really have a three-way title race. |
| 0:29.7 | And there's Premier League Match Day 18. |
| 0:32.1 | Man United without Bruno against Newcastle, wolves not without a hope, perhaps, though, at Anfield. |
| 0:37.6 | Plus, fun facts regarding Sean Dysian, James Milner for you to amaze friends and family with |
| 0:42.3 | in awkward yule-tide moments, all that and more in this totally football show. |
| 0:50.5 | Unbelievable, unbelievable this. |
| 0:53.4 | Hello there, it's December the 23rd, excitingly enough. We've got a small but elite |
| 0:58.1 | crew here in Totally Studio 1 with Art de Rochei joining us. Hello, Art. Hello. Good morning. Thanks |
| 1:05.4 | having me. I've given your saying a bit too much. No, it's fine. You should hear Iyo say it. It's |
| 1:10.6 | unbelievable. How does he say? |
| 1:11.9 | I'm not going to, I'm not going to do an impression, but he gives it a lot of flair, basically. |
| 1:16.6 | All right. Yeah. Duncan Alexander. You can't do much with that. |
| 1:21.5 | You know, yeah. Lovely to see you anyway, see you both. We will also have the thoughts of Maheamazahi, who's out in Morocco on the opening days of Afcon. |
| 1:32.0 | That'll be a little bit later on. |
| 1:33.2 | Also, Jacob Townswell will be dialing in from the second city to discuss Ashton Villa. |
| 1:40.9 | Astin Villa, team of the moment. |
... |
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