Is there any loyalty in football and how brave is Tuchel?
The Game
The Times
3.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2025
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thomas Tuchel has boldly declared he won’t play Foden, Bellingham and Kane in the same team. The key question is will he be brave enough to stick to his decision?
As Rob Edwards leaves Middlesborough after only ten months in charge to return to Wolves, is there any loyalty in football?
Martin Samuel has met with David Kogan, the new chair of the independent football regulator.
And amid the furore over corners, throw in’s and set pieces, is the Premier League in danger of being boring?
Tom Clarke is joined by Gregor Robertson, Jonathan Northcroft and Martin Samuel.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game. Football podcast from The Times. Does loyalty exist in football? |
| 0:10.0 | Middlesbrough fans and plenty of neutrals certainly think not after Rob Edwards joins Wolves as |
| 0:14.7 | manager, but can he keep them in the Premier League? On today's show, we'll also discuss Thomas |
| 0:19.0 | Tuckel's latest comment about his selection dilemma. return to the debate around football this season, asking if the return |
| 0:25.3 | of long throws is a good thing, and we'll hear about an exclusive interview coming up on |
| 0:29.8 | the Times website this weekend. I'm Tom Clark, and joining me today we have the Chief |
| 0:33.9 | Correspondent for the Times and Sunday Times, Martin Samuel, the football correspondent for the Sunday Times, Johnny Northcroft, and the former football, a turned journalist Gregor Opson. It's here, as usual. Here we are, team, ready for a sprawling Thursday show during an international break. Where will we head? What will we talk about? I've got an announcement to make to start us off. Right. I'm too call out. You're two call out? Two call out. Two call out, okay. Two call out. And I'm going to start us off. Right. I'm Tuchel out. You're Tucle out? Two-Cle-out? Okay. |
| 0:55.5 | Tucle out. |
| 0:56.2 | And I'm going to tell you why. |
| 0:57.7 | Right. |
| 0:58.2 | Forget the big wins, Johnny. |
| 0:59.6 | Forget the big statements. |
| 1:01.3 | Forget the forthright press conferences. |
| 1:03.5 | He's gone too far. |
| 1:05.5 | He's finally said it, Thomas Tuchel. |
| 1:07.4 | He's finally said that Jude Bellingham, Harry Kane and Phil Foden can't all start at the same time. And quite frankly, this is outrageous. Because what on earth |
| 1:16.3 | what on earth is every football podcast, every sports desk and every England fan up and down |
| 1:21.9 | the country in their pubs supposed to talk about for the next seven months, Johnny? |
| 1:25.5 | He also said, I am not a fish yesterday, |
| 1:27.8 | which was one of the great quotes. I just thought myself, I don't know how and when, but that's going to end up in an intro at some point. That'll get pulled from the recess. Some kind of out of his depth or some kind of gagging. Swimming against the tide. You know. I am not a fish, said, Thomas, too. Put it on file. You name it. |
| 1:45.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:45.7 | Put it on file. |
... |
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