The Athletic

Hello, welcome everybody to The View from the Lane, the Top of the Montsburg podcast from The Athletic.

I'm Danny Kelly. I'm joined today on this special episode by the Athletics Jack Pittbrook and James Moore.

This is our final show of the year, so we'll be bringing you the View from the lame Christmas quiz as Jack and James go head to head in what going to be described as a battle

to the death. That's coming up later in the podcast, but first we need to react to the Carabar Cup

quarter final against West Ham last night and the subsequent draw. What are we making a game

a game of two halves, I think it's fair to say last night, James? Yeah, but maybe not in the traditional sense. I don't think the kind of balance that a game necessarily swung as much as maybe was being made out, but it was like a more open game in the first half, wasn't it? I had to confess, I did have kind of ominous flashbacks to some of the darker days of the Marino era in that last kind of 15, 20 minutes where it did seem like that they sat in quite deep.

I mean, it was like a sort of competent defensive performance.

As worried as I was, as anxious as I was, I think that was more down to kind of the scars of the past rather than like an expectation that these players in current form would mess it up. But I mean, did West Ham have many good chances towards the end? I'm not sure we really did, did they? No, it's weird, isn't it? West Ham had extraordinary possession figures in the second half, but it didn't force Hugo Loris to make

too many saves. The first half, when the game was back and forth, Lorreys had to play very well. The problem is, James, that Spurs had one touch in the opposition penalty area in the second half. We can't go back to that. I don't want that. And I know in the modern world, the results are all. but if you keep playing like that with five,

playing approximately level with the penalty spot

in your own penalty area, you will lose the... know in the modern world the results are all but if you keep playing like that with five playing

approximately level with the penalty spot in your own penalty area you will lose the football

matches by and large i would agree with that i mean i don't think there should be policy going

forward i mean obviously it's quite different to what we saw against liverpool on sunday i do wonder

whether in mitigation the after effects of so many players having had COVID over the last two weeks,

maybe is a factor in a slightly sluggish performance. So maybe that is to be expected to a

degree. But yeah, I would certainly say, I don't think that should be like a conscious effort

to play like that on a regular basis. It's a decent performance in the first half,

and there was a lot of purring about how well West Hamer played on Sky in the first half, but actually, I think Spurth probably had just about the better chances, and we're playing quite well on a counter-attack. Obviously, he scored two goals. But, yeah, I would be concerned if that was a regular thing, but I don't think it was really anything to suggest that it will be. Now Jack, I noticed that in the Times of London, this podcast was this week described as the

only podcast where you'll hear the actual truth about football.

So congratulations to all three of us there.

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