How good are Villa and who is the best midfielder in the world?
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Villa cement their place in the top three just how good are they? Do they have the squad depth to last the course? Is their star midfielder Morgan Rogers now elevating himself to world level?
David Moyes thinks Declan Rice is the best midfielder in the world. Is he…and if not, then who is?
Dominic Calvert-Lewin has found form and fitness at Leeds how far could it take him and his club?
Spurs lost at home again and had two men sent off but seem to have received some credit in the process. Lastly, are Wolves in danger of breaking Derby’s lowest ever Premier League points total?
Tom Clarke is joined by Gregor Robertson, Tony Cascarino and tom Allnutt
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game football podcast from The Times. So just how good is Morgan Rogers? |
| 0:10.6 | That's the question on the cover of the game supplement in The Times today and it's the question |
| 0:14.6 | we'll be trying to answer on this show. Has Rogers had the best 2025 of any player in the Premier League |
| 0:20.7 | and are Villa really entitled contention? |
| 0:23.9 | There's loads more to debate on this show too as David Moyes, Hales, Declan Rice as the world's best midfielder, |
| 0:29.2 | and Wolves fans start to worry that they might be worse than the Derby County side of 2007-8. |
| 0:35.1 | We'll also discuss Tottenham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Chelsea and Dominic Calvert |
| 0:38.7 | Lewin. And I'm Tom Clark. And today, I'm joined by the former football league legend |
| 0:43.7 | Gregor Robertson. I started with you mixing it up. Hey? You can be a football league legend on |
| 0:49.4 | here. What's wrong with that? You're upset with that? Should I do that? No, I'll take it all day. |
| 0:53.4 | Okay. We've got the former island legend, Tony Cascarino, and we've got the former pub drinking legend, Tom Olnup. I'll take it, to be fair. Yeah, I'll take that. Fresh from a long session yesterday. I thought I'd give you the big build-up like that, you see. that's what I was going for. Legends around the table. Legends of drinking. No hangover to speak of from Tom Ornott. |
| 1:13.2 | Fantastic effort. |
| 1:13.9 | Yeah, a bit scratch looks, you know, but it looks, it looks, it doesn't it? I'm not hungover, that's the other thing, yeah, bit of Lergy, bit of Lincoln hangover from Saturday, but yeah. Yeah, we've got to put him under pressure today, didn't we? See if we can deal with it, Tom. See if he can handle it. |
| 1:28.6 | It's about delivering, isn't it? |
| 1:29.6 | When you're not, you're free-flying best. |
| 1:31.2 | That's what's the way. We've got to put him under pressure today, didn't we? See if we can deal with it, Tom. See if we handle it. |
| 1:28.6 | It's about delivering, isn't it? |
| 1:29.6 | When you're not, you're free-floin best. |
| 1:31.2 | It's what the best podders do. They get the result. Steve to Spurs reporter. Just thought I'd set it up like that as well. Spursy. And if you get through this, Tony Cascarino has offered to buy you a Guinness after the show. |
| 1:42.4 | I think Tony just wants to go to the pub, |
| 1:44.2 | which just had the pre-show pre-show pre-t talking about Tom's day at the pub, |
| 1:47.6 | and Tony now is just... Tony Cascarino has offered to buy you a Guinness after the show. I think Tony just wants to go to the pub. |
... |
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