Howler Magazine

Nate Scott of For the Win and USA Today sits in for Caley and talks Fulham soccer, off ball movement and the dangers of playing pretty football at the bottom of the Premier League table with the remaining Mike. Make sure to also check out Nate's true crime podcast, The Sneak, about an armored car heist and the once great athlete who committed it."For more on The Sneak, see here: https://wondery.com/shows/the-sneak/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

This week at patreon.com/doublepivot we've got a continuation of last week's player pod with discussions of players around Europe including among others Achraf Hakimi, Fede Valverde, Christopher Nkunku and, uh, Messi.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Halfway through the season, we've seen enough of key players at every club to make some observations. The two Mikes point out a player or two from nine EPL clubs (Arsenal, Brighton, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Norwich City, Sheffield United, Newcastle, Palace) that you should be noticing, and not always for good reasons. Part 2 (and the other 11 clubs) follows on Patreon.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Spurs and United won on Boxing Day while Chelsea lost, and all of the sudden, Frank Lampard's squad looks more wobbly than they did a month ago.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Analytics seem to be missing something about Liverpool. Or at least, that's how it seems to a lot of people trying to understand the club's run of dominance. The two Mikes take a closer look and explore a few theories, and use Tuesday's Dortmund-Leipzig match as a perfect jumping-off point for the discussion.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

The two Mikes explain why Everton should stick with Duncan Ferguson in perpetuity (full disclosure: this misleading and completely incorrect statement was written by a Liverpool fan), and then move on to the Manchester Derby, which may have killed the title race. The only hope for that title race may now lie with Leicester City, who have figured out some things.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

There's a new manager at Arsenal, the very early returns weren't different. Will we see something different? How will it affect the top four race, if there even is a race? Leicester, Chelsea, United, Spurs, Wolves, Arsenal, is anything gonna happen?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Mourinho is managing Tottenham, they won two games and look, it's not our fault this is objectively interesting. It is! So we've got a podcast on it, and also City-Chelsea.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

There are so many reasons why the marriage of Tottenham Hotspur and Jose Mourinho is bound to end in an ugly divorce, but for now, the two Mikes imagine a world where it just might work. Before that, they take a quick look at the biggest match in England this weekend: Manchester City vs. Chelsea.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Liverpool put some distance between themselves and Manchester City (and Chelsea!) with a big win, and while the teams performed relatively evenly in the match, the two Mikes spotted some tactical issues that made things tough for Pep Guardiola's squad. As previously mentioned, Chelsea is pretty dang good, while Leicester vs. Arsenal perfectly encapsulated both squads.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

As Liverpool grow more heavily reliant on fullbacks attacking, and Manchester City deal with injuries and inconsistency on the backline, it creates some odd possibilities for the squads' clash this weekend. Outside of the title race, the race for top 4 is shaping up to not be much of a race at all if nothing changes, and the same could be said for the relegation places. But as usual, the numbers suggest otherwise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the ...

The latest edition of Liverpool vs. Spurs contained multitudes and the two Mikes are here to break it down, but not before a quick look at Burnley vs. Chelsea, which was super weird in its own right.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Welcome to the 2019-20 Premier League season, where even the teams fighting for the top spots in the league are doing so in the most uninspiring fashion imaginable. If you like goals and you like shots, well, this isn't the place to find them. The two Mikes attempt to figure out what the heck is going on.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Mike and Michael are at the Statsbomb conference in London. They talk through some of the highlights of last weekend's matches in the Premier League and then discuss what they saw at the conference and the new key concept in soccer analytics introduced by Thom Lawrence, "The Valley of Meh" and what it means for understanding the game.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

A Manchester United - Arsenal match seemed to confirm every one of our priors about these two teams. But is something wrong with City? Why are Liverpool a bit less good than they seem? My god what is happening with Spurs? Mike and Michael start to reconsider Spurs and Chelsea while holding the line on the rest. Plus more of the same questions from La Liga, while Real and Barcelona continue not to whelm us.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Teams outside the top two in the Premier League may just be mailing it in and playing the kids this season. Chelsea vs. Liverpool was an interesting watch, and Leicester City showed its best lineup against Spurs, Other things are happening, too! This is just part one!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

For subscribers at patreon.com/doublepivot we have a two-part (p)review, where we cover our eight Champions League groups, by way of discussing the matches in the first round on Tuesday and Wednesday, and what to expect in the groups over the next few months.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Yeah so Man City lost to Norwich City. We get into what happened and what it could mean as we survey the weekend's results in the Premier League and ask if the table is already shaking out about the way we expected? Leicester, Wolves, Spurs, Norwich, City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea all covered.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Mike and Michael are joined by the New York Times' Astead Herndon, a national political reporter and Tottenham Hotspur fan. The conversation winds from Americans finding their Premier League team to polling analytics and diversity in media, back around to why Michael and Astead still feel good about Tottenham this season.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

The North London derby provided all the insanity it normally does, and weird come-from-behind results echoed the sentiment around the league. That all leads the two Mikes to ask what we really know about the Premier League this season after four matches. Then, their attention turns to all the giants having a hell of a hard time getting going in La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

A chronological tour of the weekend's Premier League matches. There were many things to talk about, it was a chance to expand from our top six discussion of last week to look also at the middle of the table and below and see what we're expecting from everyone after a few weeks of matches.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

City vs. Spurs was weird, Wolves vs. United was boring, Chelsea vs. Leicester was confusing, and Liverpool vs. Arsenal could get wild. To close the episode out as a teaser to Serie A talk on the premium side, the two Mikes pen their usual love letter to Atalanta.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Is Chelsea in crisis? Is Mancheter United great now? Are Liverpool and City running away with the league? We pump the brakes a lot, it's the first week. We have questions about Chelsea but they weren't 0-4 awful. We still don't know what United's midfield is, and Liverpool and City were weirdly not their best. Then Caley takes you on a tour of Broadway musicals and ancient feminist hymns.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

We covered the action from Deadline Day for our subscribers (as well as those 10 other PL teams in the second part of the preview) and this is the teaser about it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

The two Mikes reunite to kick off the season with a mega preview. They cover 10 teams in this episode, and the other 10 over on the subscriber side. Here, they'll touch on Liverpool's lack of movement in the transfer window, Leicester's best case scenario post-Maguire, Everton's looks-can-be-deceiving moves, whether Norwich can stay up, and much more.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

In the first of a series of interviews with people we think are cool who also happen to be soccer fans, I talk to Brandon West (@btwest) the president of New Kings Democrats, about grassroots organizing in Brooklyn, the county committee and Democratic Party reform, and his theories of politics. And also we talk about Liverpool's preseason and Adam Lallana at the 6!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Salacious gossip correspondent Joel Wertheimer (@wertwhile) returns and we give your our best attempt to explain all the drama around Mauro Icardi. There is so much drama. It all starts with an affair. We give you dramatic readings. There are instagram influencers, plural. A "soccer gossip" show called Tiki Taka. And then we talk about Spurs some. The Wanda Derby: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/apr/14/maxi-lopez-sampdoria-wanda-derby-interThe tattoo: https://www.dailymail.co.u...

Goodman is back from paternity, briefly, to fill in this week for a Lost Podcast (which will be re-done soon). We talk about West Ham, Chelsea, Bayern, Dortmund and you know, a bunch of the transfers that have happened.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

With Goodman on paternity leave, Caley has been lining up guests. This week features SB Nation writer, advice columnist and man-about-Twitter Zito Madu (@_Zeets) for a conversation about the confusing (but also not actually bad yet) summer transfer windows of Arsenal and Barcelona, with a little bonus advice at the end.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) goes deep on Megan Rapinoe and the meanings and contexts of her activism, in particular her advocacy for racial justice causes as a gay white woman. Meg calls in the big guns for this pod, joined by a scholar of theology studying racial justice movements, Marjorie Corbman, who also happens to be Meg's wife. That's right y'all, it's a wifepod. Oh and also it's about the World Cup final and stuff.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSup...

We got together this weekend to talk about the US game, how Meg's wife jump-started one of the best news stories of the week, the disappointing Germans, the ehhhhhh Dutch, the sad story of France, and everything else we could jam into a pod.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

When a topic arises too important, too pressing to wait for our normal recording schedule, we bring you the emergency pod you need. Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) is in France, joined by Allison McCann (@atmccann) of the New York Times, to talk about Marta's bold lip and the topic of makeup at the World Cup. It's a good one.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Special Double Pivot World Cup host Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) lined up a great interview with USWNT legend and broadcaster Julie Foudy, and she also recaps the action from the Cup and looks forward to the US' potential lineup issues in the knockouts and against Sweden.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Double Pivot guest host Meg Linehan is joined by Steph Yang to break down the first round of games from France, from the US's impressive victory to Australia's disappointing defeat and all the games in between. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Over at patreon.com/doublepivot, we've got a special transferpod, going into depth on the moves Real Madrid have made, what this means for their team next season, and how this affects some key Premier League sides, especially Spurs, United and Chelsea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

The women's world cup kicks off on Friday! We have a special expert guest Meg Linehan who will be leading the podcast during the World Cup. Here, Meg walks us through the groups and gives her picks for a tournament that looks as wide open as any World Cup has been in a while. She's also got a few favorite underdogs and a few players to watch, and we've got stats! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Breaking down what to expect in a fascinating game. We come at the tactics through the lineups, how different tweaks to personnel could support different approaches by Spurs and Liverpool.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Mike and Michael get into the final day of the Serie A season -- late Sunday matches are the ones to watch -- and then for the FA Cup. But it's not a game recap, and there's not much to recap. Why has everyone gotten mad at Manchester City suddenly? What must we as fans confront when we think and talk about the sportwashing ownership model practiced by the United Arab Emirates and Qatar?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Who was the best player for each of the Premier League clubs this season? Some teams, like Liverpool and Manchester City, have so many key players it's tough to make a call. Others, like Huddersfield and Cardiff, make this decision harder than it needs to be. The two Mikes try anyway in the first half of this mega show. The other half is over on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

We're not wasting time here on bits or "league" matches. This Double Pivot gets to the point. We go a full episode on just Spurs-Ajax. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

All across Europe last weekend, teams in Top 4 and title races (outside the top two in England and a hot little potato of an Italian club named Atalanta) fell all over themselves in pursuit of glory. Heck, some of them seemed downright apathetic. Others, like Manchester United, seem unaware of what the points are worth and how many games remain to get more of them. The two Mikes break down all the stumbling and bumbling down the stretch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone....

Four huge matches and they're all previewed for you in depth on the subscriber side. All our takes on Spurs-Ajax, Liverpool-Barcelona, Arsenal-Valencia and Frankfurt-Chelsea, over at patreon.com/doublepivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

After floundering performances by Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, are we sure any of them actually want to play in the Champions League next year? The two Mikes go through the recent run of results for those clubs, and also touch on Everton, Wolves, Watford and Leicester City battling for that 7th league spot. Also, did you SEE Atalanta's result last weekend?!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

There really was a lot to analyze here. It's just a little weird to reset your brain to thinking after it was blasted into a thousand tiny pieces. Juventus-Ajax and City-Spurs both offered us an array of content to analyze, from key substitutions to unusual player roles to styles of ball progression, not to mention a soupcon of VAR controversies, and we got into it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

In their final match of the season against a Top 6 opponent, Liverpool passed a big test to remain in the title hunt. A crafty goal kept Arsenal alive away to 10-man Watford. Cardiff City kept the relegation fight going with a big win over Brighton. It may feel like the Premier League fixtures were an eternity ago, but the two Mikes take a look back with the context of the Top 4 and relegation race in the mix. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Everton vs. Arsenal was wild, Deulofeu was unreal, Liverpool keeps winning despite some surprising rotation moves, Chelsea torched West Ham, and Barca buried Atletico to all but wrap up La Liga. All football club analysis is welcome in this episode of Deep Blue Something.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

The two Mikes are here to tell you why it was a good week to be a member of either the Pochettino or OGS fan clubs, why Liverpool's approach vs. Spurs was interesting (and why Spurs' plan was even more interesting and weird), and why Jadon Sancho won't be enough to fix what ails United. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

From Fulham's disastrous season to Watford's surprising top half of the table run to Andre Gomes being — pretty good! — there's plenty to reconsider from predictions and assessments made late last summer. The two Mikes hit those topics, plus David Brooks, James Maddison, Wolves, Dortmund, Alvaro Morata and the stark difference between Joe Hart and Tom Heaton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Thanks to a strict policy of never caring about international breaks that involve inconsequential matches, the two Mikes have nothing to talk about. That's where you saved the day with your questions. From Tyler Adams' meteor-like emergence in Germany to better understanding SPI, you brought the heat and the guys took their swings. (A baseball reference on a soccer podcast!)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show

Spurs, United, Arsenal and Chelsea are in a bit of a scrum for the final two Champions League spots, so who's best positioned, and who's playing well at the right time? The two Mikes dive in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show