Hello and welcome to the Cynic Weekly on Thursday the 20th of November 2025. I'm your host, Barry Galaher. And as always, I'm joined by Stuart Dugan. Stuart, how are you? I'm good, Barry. Thank you for having me. There is lots to get through. It's not all pleasant, but I look forward to piecing it all together with you.

I'm also joined by Scott Fleming. Scott, how's things with you?

Aye, alright. I was in Manchester last weekend and then had one of those horrible at 72 other hangovers. And now I'm just about feeling like a functional human being again. I'm ready to

do it all again this week.

Yeah, basically, aye. But no, it's obviously a really big run of fixtures coming up, even though

with all the issues going on in the background we haven't, doesn't, almost doesn't seem like the most important thing,

but lots to talk about definitely. Yeah, just before we get into the opening question, I think Stuart Scott says there,

I think I saw something today that the next international break isn't until

kind of towards the end of March and there's something like 30 games, I think

Kean Tierney mentioned that, there's like 30 games, I think roughly,

maybe just shorter 30 games but in that sort of ballpark,

it seemed an awful lot, doesn't it?

But that's where things I won and lost, I would guess, I would suggest.

That does seem like a lot.

You've shocked me and alarmed me with that news.

But yeah, the return of the football feels weird because maybe at the start of the window

actually felt quite excited and positive about where we'd be at the end of this international break

and now I'm kind of dreading come back to it and almost feels more chaotic than ever.

But you would hope that maybe over the next

couple of weeks we're going to get some stability and some

excitement and then start to generate some momentum

and maybe by the time you have another

...