High tension squared
Handbrake Off: The Athletic FC's Arsenal show
The Athletic
4.6 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clarke join Ian Stone to discuss Arsenal’s 2-1 win against Chelsea at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
The panel reflect on the game being a painful watch, struggling to see out the final minutes, the lack of ruthlessness, the hurdles to overcome when trying to get over the line for the first time, needing the courage to continue to attack when defending a lead, whether Rice and Zubimendi need a rest, missing Odegaard’s security on the ball, Hincapie continuing to improve and Raya’s magnificent performance to ensure victory.
Plus, they look ahead to Brighton away on Wednesday, chat about the Champions League draw and respond to some listener messages.
If you like the panel’s song choices, check out the ‘Now that’s what I call Handbrake’ playlist on Spotify and listen to them all here:
Producer: Robby Williams
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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. |
| 0:14.7 | Hello, I'm Ian Stone. |
| 0:16.0 | This is Handbreak-off, the Arsenal podcast, |
| 0:17.8 | brought to you by The Athletic. |
| 0:19.4 | We're going to be chatting about the 2-1 win. I'm to Chelsea. Look ahead to Brighton away on Wednesday evening. To do that, I'm joined by Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clark. Good morning. Hello. Hi, yeah. Hi, how's your heart rate? Just as a general question. Yeah, all right. Listen, we'll get into that. Before we talk about the pain, the current pain of every game that we watch, let's just have a moment. It is a belated St Totteringham's Day that we're celebrating. Happy St Totteringham's Day. Not that I really care that much, but if you know, it's the yesterday we become mathematically impossible for Tottenham |
| 0:54.6 | to catch us in the league. Yesterday was the earliest it's ever been celebrated. The previous |
| 0:59.9 | eldest was March the 9th, 2008, don't you know. Adrian, you got any Tottenham mates? You got any |
| 1:05.1 | mates? You got any mates who have? Yeah, yeah, have, yeah. Like proper mates, though. I mean, |
| 1:09.4 | mates are you would let babysit, that sort of mates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. Like proper mates, though. I mean, mates that you would let babysit, that sort of mates. |
| 1:11.3 | Yeah, yeah, yeah, good mates. |
| 1:12.5 | We don't live local, so the babysitting would be an issue. But, yeah, one of my oldest mates is a Spurs fan. And every year he used to try and do a pre-season bet about who would finish above who. And then he went bankrupt, didn't he? Well, for a few years, it was not good. |
| 1:28.7 | You know, I lacked a bit of interest in taking that better. finish above who. And then he went bankrupt, didn't he? Well, for a few years, |
| 1:27.6 | it was not good. |
| 1:28.7 | You know, I lacked a bit of interest in taking that bad. Yeah. But these days, he doesn't even offer it up. And yeah, I did check in on him the other day after the North London Derby and just say, just checking in to see, see if you're right, mate. did you? |
| 1:43.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:44.4 | Why did you do that? |
| 1:45.8 | Give me his phone number. |
| 1:47.0 | I'll like to call him. just checking in to see if you're right, mate. Did you? Yeah. |
| 2:00.8 | Why did you do that? Give me his phone number. I'd like to call him. You got any, by the way, Amy, you got any type of mates? Like proper mates? Well, I mean, I'd say, you know, I know a few. Yeah. But not necessarily in the inner circle. No, that's right. because it's hard to talk to him, |
| 2:01.1 | isn't it? |
... |
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