Choose to be excited
Handbrake Off: The Athletic FC's Arsenal show
The Athletic
4.6 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy Lawrence and James McNicholas join Ian Stone to discuss all things Arsenal and look ahead to the match against Newcastle this weekend.
The panel reflect on the finance regulations in the Premier League, the rule-bending by clubs to boost their finances, the divisions forming in the Arsenal fanbase and Bukayo Saka’s importance in light of his injury.
Plus, they respond to listener messages and look ahead to the run-in.
If you like the panel’s song choices, check out the ‘Now that’s what I call Handbrake’ playlist on both Spotify and Apple Music and listen to them all there:
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/now-thats-what-i-call-handbrake/pl.u-d2b00jZuDxWk6P
Producer: Robby Williams
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC |
| 0:03.3 | The only way to score is of course to play |
| 0:10.0 | with a handbreak-off |
| 0:11.9 | Hello I'm Ian Stone |
| 0:15.8 | This is Handbreak-Off the Arsenal podcast |
| 0:17.6 | Brought to you by The Athletic |
| 0:19.5 | We did have a pod |
| 0:20.7 | I'm prepared If you know, Burnley got a last minute equaliser or winner or something, this would be a completely different pod. But this is the first pod we've done since August, where we're not on top of the league. So, you know, take that in. Anyway, today we're going to look it to Newcastle and chat about some other bits and pieces. |
| 0:39.7 | I'm joined by James McNicholas and Amy Lawrence. Good morning. Hello. Hello, man. Hello. Nice to see you guys. |
| 0:45.4 | Do you see the story? Well, I'm saying this like you didn't. Amy, you were the one who told me. |
| 0:51.0 | Did you see the story? |
| 0:52.7 | What story? I don't know if you heard this. |
| 0:56.5 | Aston Villa sold a building they've recently erected called the warehouse, spell W-H-E-R-E, |
| 1:04.0 | warehouse, right? |
| 1:05.2 | Which is a matchday fan zone for 55 million quid to, you'll never believe it, the owners of Ashton Villa. I mean, |
| 1:13.8 | who knows they found someone? It was amazing. What a miracle to meet that valuation. Any parts |
| 1:19.8 | of Arsenal Football Club that they should sell to themselves for a billion quid? I did say |
| 1:24.1 | to Amy yesterday, the Five Aside bit, what's it, the Arsenal Hub? |
| 1:28.5 | Is that right? |
| 1:29.8 | Oh, yeah. |
| 1:37.6 | Where they play Five Aside, that's got to be worth a few quid. You can hire that out from, say, seven in the morning till ten at night. You can make the money back pretty quickly. Half a billion pounds. Is it a billion? No. |
| 1:40.9 | That's prime London real estate with respect to the warehouse |
... |
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