Do Arsenal only win ugly? Are Spurs just ugly?
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's as you were at the top of the table as City and Arsenal both win.
Are Arsenal too reliant on set pieces or do fans and team alike not care so long as they get over the line?
Across north London Spurs have a new boss, but instead of a bounce man do they have an 'arsonist?'
Who is in contention for player of the season?
What does Gtregor make of proposed rule changes...?
Did VAR rob Burnley and who is going to win the race for the Champions League?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:08.4 | Arsenal and Manchester City keep this tense title race going with nervy victories, but it's |
| 0:13.4 | VAR dominating the headlines again this weekend with controversial decisions across the |
| 0:18.4 | Premier League. |
| 0:19.5 | At the bottom of the table, it was a win for Wolves, but five defeats for the struggling teams above as Igor Tudor fails the vibe test and Tottenham lose again. Joining me, Tom Clark, to discuss all of that and so much more, we have the senior sports writer and Sunday Times columnist Alison Rudd, the football reporter who covers clubs in the south of England with a focus on Totnam. It It's Tom Allnut and the former football return journalist. Gregor Robertson is here. As usual, quicker intros team, we've got so much to get in. These days, I might for the rest of the season just go, hello, this is the game. Football, let's go. Let's do it. Because there's absolutely loads to get in to. So let's talk about Arsenal, Chelsea. |
| 0:56.0 | Alison, you were there for this one. |
| 1:00.1 | Goodness me, this was nervy and not very pretty to watch at times, |
| 1:02.2 | but Arsenal getting the victory that they need. |
| 1:05.1 | The theme of your excellent match report on the Times website, though, is can they keep this going in this manner all the way to the end of the season? |
| 1:09.2 | Well, if they do, then that deserves plaudits in itself because it's like, |
| 1:16.1 | it's like someone that goes on a diet and you think, well, why are you doing that to yourself? |
| 1:19.6 | You know, just eat some bread for goodness sake. |
| 1:22.2 | Just enjoy yourself, yeah. |
| 1:23.7 | So it's, I've found this throughout the season, actually, and this was the epitome of my feeling about Arsenal, is they are very capable of playing attractive football. |
| 1:33.5 | They have very talented, creative, intuitive, pacey players. |
| 1:38.9 | They're all the things you need for beautiful football. |
| 1:41.3 | And yet they get so wound up by the fact city had won the day before they it's |
| 1:48.2 | very tense they have to they have to win and when they're in that sort of have to win mentality |
| 1:53.6 | they revert to what they do best which is set pieces and forget about all the rest of it |
| 2:00.4 | and i do believe if they were |
| 2:03.0 | able to just take a breath and remember, they can mix it up a bit sometimes. It might make |
| 2:09.4 | it easier for them and for their supporters to go with it. Because although, for example, |
... |
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