The horseshoe of doom
Handbrake Off: The Athletic FC's Arsenal show
The Athletic
4.6 • 734 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clarke join Ian Stone to discuss Arsenal’s 1-1 draw away to Leverkusen in the Champions League on Wednesday.
The panel reflect on the players potentially being inhibited to improvise, concerns that the attack hasn’t clicked as yet, the fatigue of English teams in general, not moving the ball quick enough, some players looking jaded, getting 'Arsenaled’ by conceding to a set piece, Saka having an off night and what the other results of this round might mean for for Arsenal going forward.
Plus, they look ahead to the match against Everton at the Emirates on Saturday, respond to some listener messages and we hear from John in Penzance, Cornwall in this week’s instalment of ‘Up Your Arsenal’.
If you like the panel’s song choices, check out the ‘Now that’s what I call Handbrake’ playlist on both Spotify and Apple Music and listen to them all there:
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/now-thats-what-i-call-handbrake/pl.u-d2b00jZuDxWk6P
Producer: Robby Williams
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC |
| 0:03.3 | The only way to score is of course to play with a handbreak-off. |
| 0:14.4 | Hello, I'm Ian Stone. |
| 0:16.1 | This is Handbreak-Off, the Arsenal podcast, |
| 0:18.4 | brought to you by The Athletic. |
| 0:20.7 | We're going to be talking about that incredibly exciting 1-1-drawer. Away to Bay, Leibacuzon last night. And we got Everton at the weekend, so I'll have a chat about that. Amy Lawrence and Adrian Clark are here. Good morning. Hi, yeah. Hello, everybody. Hello. I drifted off at one point, yes. oh dear Adrian you were you were commentating so you couldn't right |
| 0:40.6 | No no I Hello. I drifted off at one point, yes. Adrian, you were commentating so you couldn't, right? No, no, I can confirm I didn't. I found myself looking at the laptop, looking at something else. I thought, oh God, they're still on, aren't they? Oh, well. Anyway, one beautiful moment last night when Gabrielle took a shot to the chin. I was wondering if it was the |
| 0:55.1 | chest, but it was the chin. I mean, Adrian, you've had one to the face, haven't you? You said you've had one to the face. Well, yeah, I mean, Gabrielle's the king of the block, isn't he? And you sort of chin slash Adam's apple. I imagine that would have hurt. Yeah, when you put this on the sort plan. I was like, yeah, you won't mind about to say I've got a scar on my lip. So if anyone |
| 1:13.5 | looked closely enough at my plan, I was like, yeah, you won't mind about to say I've got a scar on my lip. |
| 1:13.0 | So if anyone looks closely enough at my lips, which, you know, you might not want to do. |
| 1:16.8 | I understand that. |
| 1:18.2 | If you see, Adrian, have a really close look at one of his lips. |
| 1:22.9 | Because my top lip is basically got mashed in a game. |
| 1:27.3 | I was playing for South End United against |
| 1:28.9 | Plymouth Argyle. There's this little fella. I'm not tall. I'm 5'10. He was about 5, 6. |
| 1:35.7 | And he jumped for a header and he jumped straight into my top lip. And it completely smashed it |
| 1:42.6 | apart. It was disgusting. |
| 1:45.0 | There was blood everywhere. |
| 1:50.0 | I remember walking off and my teammate Nathan Jones is the manager now at Charlton. |
| 1:52.1 | He was just laughing at me. |
| 1:55.2 | Yeah. |
| 1:56.8 | No sympathy whatsoever. |
... |
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