Hey everyone, Darrell here with a quick note about today's Total Soccer show.

I just want to give you a heads up that I closed today's episode by accidentally lying to you.

That's because I closed the episode by saying, we'll talk to you again very soon.

Because, well, that's what I always say, right?

Because we're almost always back again the next day.

But I was wrong this time because we're

actually taking a few days off for Christmas, giving ourselves a nice little Christmas break

and a well-earned one, I might add, especially on Taylor's part because he's picked up more

than his fair share of My Slack this year. So we're taking a few days off after this episode

and we'll be back on Monday, December 30th. That's Monday,

December 30th. That'll be Taylor and Ryan with a weekend review show, followed by a show on

December 31st with our very specific predictions for the year 2020. Until then, here's our

Christmas special.

Music Until then, here's our Christmas special. Hello and welcome to the Total Soccer show. My name is Darrell Grove and I'm joined by a man who may or may not be Santa Claus. His name is Taylor Rockwell. Hello. Hello. You've never seen this in the same place, have you? I have not. And I do get a giant belly and a gray beard just the day before Christmas. So if you're with me tomorrow, you'll find out. And then you work a long day. Yes. Always. Always. You have. I'm assuming that there are no kids listening to this, who are at this party, but you have been Santa Claus, right? I mean, I'm hoping they're not listening. I have been, what I would say was a Santa helper. A Santa helper. I facilitate a Santa's job by making an appearance when he didn't have time. I see you filled in. You filled in for Santa. Yes. Of course. And then when you're not being Santa, you can also be Nuno. I can. That's my backup plan. It's a less requested impression and, like, costume. But some costumes stores around Richmond do have the Nuno, a Spirit Su Santo, uh, costume. It's just a bald cap and a big beard. And then you have to whisper talk. And a winning record. But I, I, I don't want to jump ahead. I do have a semi-Nuno themed Christmas gifts potentially. So this is, it might not be very popular. This is what we're doing today. This is our Christmas Eve special. Yeah. Total soccer show. And as is the tradition, I think we do this every year, we are giving gifts to soccer people. Yeah, I'm excited to do it. Soccer people of all shapes and sizes. Yes. Because it might be some players. It might be some coaches. It might be some media figures. Oh. we shall see. I know what's happened. I know what's happened there. All right. Should we get going? Now I'm wondering what you think has happened. Well, you tipped off air that you were going to talk about a certain thing. Oh, I see. I see. I see. I'm going to invite you to go first then, Taylor. What is the first gift you're giving and who you're giving it to? It's going to be tough to get the shipping done,

but I'm going to buy an industrial strength creative ibuprofen for every Premier League manager over the next 20 days or so. That's where I'm going to start. The festive period is coming. Yeah, I really do feel so bad for so many different Premier League managers because you hear this all the time. I'm like, oh, fix your congestion. it's so difficult, it's so difficult, but this is the time of the year when it really is.

It's almost for me too much when I, like, oh, fix your congestion. It's so difficult, it's so difficult. But this is the time of the year when it really is.

It's almost for me too much when I'm like, they're still soccer on TV, and they're the ones who have to plan for it and coach and work through it. So people who don't know in England, they keep going. They play every Saturday in the Premier League just like they normally would. and then you add in a full fixture list on boxing day,

December 26th, and on New Year's Day, January 1st. So it is just multiple, multiple games. And in between, for example, Liverpool have one in between those two dates. Yeah. They've got one on Boxing Day, one on the 29th against Wolves, one on January 2nd against Sheffield, an F.A. Cup game on the 5th, and then at Tottenham on the 11th.

Yeah. Busy times. Busy times. And this is, I think, maybe making up the game in hand that they have. But it's still, for most clubs, you're going to see this amount of fixtures in this short time period. And for clubs like Everton, Arsenal, who just changed over their managers, we'll see how that plays out. but it's a lot of headaches and a lot of stress. Welcome to the club.

You've got a game every headaches and a lot of stress.

Welcome to the club.

You've got a game every other day for the next couple weeks. Not much could be worse than what they saw this past weekend. So at least that's their kind of jumping off point. They know what to expect. I will say that's probably good for Ancelotti at Everton and Artetta at Arsenal. Right.

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