Wastes of money, most versatile player and who's lost their swagger?
The Game
The Times
3.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 February 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It was a weekend of two halves - Chelsea, Spurs and Fulham all came back from two goals down at half time...only Fulham didn't hang on. As Man City wobbled they looked to have lost their swagger - Gregor Robertson thinks it is clear why. Chelsea came back to win, but why did they make so many changes in the first place?
There was plenty of moaning about VAR but if it was taken away would fans be accepting or would the referee abuse just get worse?
Alyson Rudd thinks Alexander Isak could be a waste of money, as Wirtz and Ekitike shine, can they really play all three?
Lastly who is the Premier League's most versatile player?
Tom Clarke is joined by Alyson Rudd, Gregor Robertson and Pete Rutzler
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the game. |
| 0:06.0 | Football podcast from The Times and Sunday Times. |
| 0:08.8 | Arsenal's lead at the top of the Premier League is back to six points, |
| 0:12.6 | and it's all thanks to Tottenham and Dominic Selanky |
| 0:15.0 | as he inspires a comeback against Manchester City. |
| 0:18.2 | Manchester United kept their winning run going under Michael Carrick, but in controversial circumstances, |
| 0:23.2 | as full-manager Marco Silver labels the refereeing decisions. |
| 0:26.1 | Horrendous! |
| 0:27.3 | And on today's show, we'll also discuss |
| 0:29.1 | impressive victories for Brentford, Chelsea, Liverpool, |
| 0:31.8 | and much, much more. |
| 0:33.8 | I'm Tom Clark, and joining me today, |
| 0:35.3 | we for a packed, packed show, |
| 0:37.4 | we have the senior sports writer and Sunday Times columnist Alison Rudd, the football reporter who covers clubs in the south of England with a focus on Chelsea is Peter Rutzler and the former footballer turned journalist Gregor Robinson is with me as usual team, there's absolutely loads to get stuck into it It's deadline day. Pete's phones on the table. |
| 0:55.2 | It's going all the time. |
| 0:56.4 | From an airplane, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You need to keep checking. We can have live |
| 1:00.3 | reaction in the studio. But before we get into all the refereeing decisions, managerial pressure, |
| 1:06.8 | title ramifications, let's just take a moment, shall we, to start on a high and talk about a brilliant |
| 1:12.7 | goal by Dominic Solanke. Across behind him, the flicked leg, ball dropping into the corner of the net |
| 1:20.3 | just over Donoruma after he got a hand on it. Magical stuff, Alison, you were there to watch it. |
| 1:25.4 | Wasn't it wonderful? Yeah, real time, you think, what did he do there? What did he actually do there? And then, like, the rest of the stadium, because they have massive screens at the Top of the Marcospoor Stadium, the biggest in the world. And they played it again and again. And it was, I'm not sure. I can't remember ever being in a stadium and this happening |
| 1:46.2 | they show the girl and everyone goes ooh and then they show it again they go ah it's like |
... |
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