After their recent exploration of the Peruvian second division Lee, Mike, Ollie & Russ return, and they’ve brought with them special guest Andy. Replenished by the amazonian offerings the gang are ready to contemplate life, the universe & Tony Pulis. Also, Stoke, Troy Deeney, and the very nature of football fandom itself is discussed. Heavy stuff. Pour yourself a Pisco Sour, sit back and drink the football chats in…
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The gang are actually back! They’ve crossed deserts, sailed sea’s and conquered the skies, all to bring you another podcast about football. This week Mike, Ollie & Russ talk England and their success in World Cup qualification, the greatest video game all star eleven, and mourn the loss of Diego Costa’s bastardry. All of this and more that’s not quite as interesting, and all for free. You get what you pay for, so…
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This weeks show contains everything you need to survive a nuclear holocaust, which are; loads of England chat, Wayne Rooney’s misdemeanours, alternative transfer payment methods, Snap Chat filters, and of course, James Milner. All your footballing essentials. Sit back, relax, and let our soothing tones bathe you in football nonsense.
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The gang are back with a brand new show. Super Agent’s, Mesut Ozil, and and a big juicy dollop of treacle covered Premier League are all dicussed. All that plus Transfer Round Up, Fantasy Football and a solar eclipse, and it lasts longer than a Jack Wilshire under 23’s appearance. what more can you ask for. Give it a listen.
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Hold the phone, the Cleanpairofshorts podcast is back this season and at the bottom of this post is only the first bloody episode. Lee, Mike Ollie & Russ chow down on Neymar, Pep & Mou’s credibility, all the transfer comings and goings, as well as Paul. Paul? The gang feel good to be back so open up your lug holes and pour them in…
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Oh my days… just like Aragorn, Jon Snow, or the big JC, we are back! Your favourite Premier League podcast is returning to an ear hole near you.
And this time, not just the Premier League, but all things football (but mainly the Premier League). It’s just like before, but a bit different. Each fortnight the gang will dissect the hottest footballing topics for your audible pleasure. Unlike before, the show will now be every two weeks and posting on a Friday. But fear not. The gang are just as unprepared and ill informed as ever. So expect all the usual drivel you’ve come to know and love.
So listen in, get in touch, and enjoy the show. And who knows, maybe this season there may be a few sneaky surprises along the way too. Get listening…
RG
The gang@cleanpairofshirts.com @cleanpairshorts
Would you believe it we’ve actually gone and done a Podcast. The gang are back for one night only (possibly) and not only that, but the wonderful, magical, Lee Partridge is back. Fun time. We look back on a half season of football, give some predictions for the future, and generally arse about a bit. No change then. Enjoy the holiday season with a below average podcast. Hurrah!
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The controversy over Joe Hart’s position at Manchester City is all a bit baffling. Not the fact he’s been dropped, it’s the controversy bit that’s baffling. No player should have a divine right to start for a team regardless of their attachment or history with the club. In every instance it should be earned through ability, form and application.
Harts performances over the last few seasons have been a mixed bag. For City and for England, Hart always has a potential mistake in his game and all too often that potential has come to fruition. Unforced errors in the recent euros against Wales and Iceland highlighted this fact so it makes it all the more confusing as to why there is so much shock to the fact he’s been dropped from Cities starting berth. Directly after that competition there were many calling for his head, but now the injustice of someone losing their place to another footballer in better form could not be more egregious.
It’s clear that with the appointment of Guardiola Manchester Cities ambitions have out grown the level that Joe Hart currently resides. Also, it’s not unusual for a new manger to come in a make sweeping changes, modelling the squad to the team he wants them to be rather than the team that they were. Someone such as Pep is not shy of bruising ego’s to fashion a team to his current ideology. Ask Zlatan, Toure and Gomez.
But all of this is not to say Hart is a bad keeper. He isn’t. It’s just his occasional slip ups are to frequent to put him shoulder to shoulder with the league’s elite goal keepers like Lloris or Courtois. There‘s room for a keeper of Harts quality at the top end of the table and just such a club who started the season in fine goal conceding form is Liverpool. Mignolet is another keeper in patchy form. A reliable shot stopper but that’s where it really ends. Hart would at least bring a commanding presence to Liverpool’s shaky back line and maybe feeling wanted again, at a massive and storied club such as Liverpool, could bring back the confidence to weed out the clearly psychologically driven errors.
Whether Hart’s future is at Man City or at pastures new remains to be seen. Either way, England’s number one has work to do.
RG
It is with heavy heart and a tearful eye that we begrudgingly announce the CPOS Podcast is on hiatus.
Sadly, despite the elaborate facade and spin, this isn’t our day job and things in real life have prevented Mike, Ollie, and Russ from continuing with the Podcast in the immediate future. Stupid real life, always getting in the way.
We can only apologise for the gaping void now left in your Wednesday’s. No more ill researched ‘facts’. No more expert analysis of games we haven’t watched. No more players heights used as method to measure ability. No more shit jokes about Steve Bruce. Only sorrow remains.
But all is not lost. This very website will still be a hive of activity. Expect more written content on the site than ever before. More things about players heights, games we haven’t watched, and Steve Bruce. And fear not. One day soon the podcast will return like a rising Pheonix. And once again you’ll here our angelic voices like golden ambrosia in your ear holes.
Until that day, keep coming back here to the site to see and here our football opinions for yourself. What more joy could be had.
CPOS
It would be easy to dismiss Sam Allardyce’s appointment as the new England manager as a little bit ‘Mike Bassett’, but that doesn’t nearly do justice to the career of a progressive and vastly experience head coach.
A stoic advocate of Sports Science and data analysis based coaching it seems reductive to point the long ball finger at Big Sam. Customarily he does favour a more direct style of football but this is more a tactical preference than just ‘lump it up field because we don’t know what else to do’. Big Sam’s tactical apptitude often goes over looked, as Arsene Wenger well knows, with the long and direct element only part of a larger structure. Fittingly, England were desperate for a more direct approach during the Euro 2016 when a lack of ideas in possession was apparent.
For all his merits, their are limitations to his talents. True he is no Guardiola, or Bielsa, but he is competent and has brought stability and re- established foundations to most clubs under his stewardship. Again this is something the England team desperately need with bland unfocused football recently the norm, a refreshed identity for the national team would be encouraging . And what more fitting identity than powerful, direct, pacey football. The staple of English league football for many years.
Sam is also lauded for his man management skills. Another aspect missing from the England set up. His bold, brash, occasional arrogant persona could benefit the mollycoddled, precious players he now has access too. This attitude could also address the ‘Culture of fear’ that FA cheif Martin Glenn believes is instilled in the national squad. The FA are concerned that pressure from the media and exposure on social media could be affecting performances on the pitch. True or not, Big Sam’s thick skinned, speak your mind, sometimes tactless, attitude could be an antidote to toughen up fragile ego’s.
Allardyce’s appointment is not the glamorous, exciting appointment that most England fans probably have on the their wish lists. Given Englands current status in world footbal it is the appropriate one, and probably a sensible one. The FA’s failure at international football is endemic (as we stated here) and it is entirely unlikely that one man can rectify that, but the pragmatic appointment of Sam Allardyce may just be enough to restore the England teams focus, identity, and maybe even a little pride.
RG
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