It's time for The Truth!

Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley dive into a topic that opens up some uncomfortable questions about the way that the English league system operates - is it becoming impossible in the modern game for newly-promoted sides to survive in the Premier League?

In 2022/23, Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton Town were promoted from the Championship, and in 2023/24, all three were relegated back there. After six games of the new season, all three of the promoted sides - Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton - find themselves without a Premier League win, and remain the bookies' favourites to return back to the second tier at the end of this campaign.

So is this a foregone conclusion? Does the monetary imbalance between the PL cash cow and the drip-downs that don't drip down mean that it's becoming more and more difficult to make the jump? And is there a blueprint to survival that more teams need to follow to avoid following the same fate? Was last year's three-up-three-down just a blip in the Matrix? Or is this just an overreaction to a singular event that is the exception that proves the rule?

The Truth is somewhere in the middle...

Hosts: Sam Tighe & Dougie Critchley
Production & Editing: Jack Collins
Studio Recording: Footwork Media

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

It's time for Champions League Takeaway, your midnight feast of Champions League content after the main meal was served up on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights by the new 36-team competition.

We start with Tueday's games, opening on Aston Villa's already-famous win over Bayern Munich, where Unai Emery hurt Bayern again, and we saw a repeat scoreline of the 1982 European Cup final, only this time with Jhon Duran the man of the moment. Then we discuss losses for both of the Madrid sides - Real Madrid to Lille for their first loss in 36 games, and Atleti's dismemberment at the hands of a newly-resurgent Benfica.

Next, it's to Anfield to look at Liverpool's 8th win in 9 games under Arne Slot - this time a 2-0 win over a stubborn Bologna, and then on to Germany, where 10-man Juventus proved their mettle with a 3-2 comeback win in Leipzig. We round up the rest of Tuesday's action by peeking at Dinamo Zagreb's 2-2 draw with Monaco, Christos Tzolis' stunner leading Club Brugge to a 1-0 win over Sturm Graz, an absolutely ludicrous encounter between Girona and Feyenoord that ended 3-2 to the visitors, and Atalanta's comfortable win over Shakhtar Donetsk.

Then in Part Two, we're onto Tuesday's action, which begins with a look at Arsenal's weirdly comfortable 2-0 win over a very pedestrian PSG at the Emirates, then onto Dortmund's 7-1 dismantling of Celtic and their early optimism in the competition, Leverkusen's hard-nosed 1-0 win over AC Milan at the BayArena, and Barcelona's almost picture-perfect night as they beat Young Boys 5-0 in Catalunya.

We finish with a roundup of the rest of the Tuesday games - Manchester City going to Slovakia and strolling to a 4-0 win over Slovan Bratislava that saw their academy players come to the fore, a brilliant game between the Dutch and Portuguese Champions as PSV and Sporting played out a 1-1 draw, Brest's brilliant start continuing with a 4-0 thrashing of Salzburg away from home, Inter's rout of Crvena Zvezda in Milan, and a hard-fought draw between Stuttgart and Sparta Prague.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

In the wake of the injury to Rodri that looks set to keep him out for the majority of the season, it got us thinking about a topic that's been a bit of a Ranks staple down the years - who is the most important player for a variety of teams across Europe?

We start in the Premier League, examining options for Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool, before turning our attention to the continent to discuss the contenders for that crown for PSG, Milan, Inter, Juventus, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Bayern Munich.

There's plenty of debate across almost every club, which is natural for a topic as subjective as this one, but we dive deep into the options as we try and work out not who is the best player at each of these European giants, but who is the one that they simply could not live without.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

It's time for The Truth!

Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley take a look back through the annals of history to analyse the career of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and ask the question - was he a world class striker in the pantheons of the all-time greats, or just an excellent player in his day?

Zlatan has long divided opinion, even in a world before the hyper-sensationalisation of social media that we see today. From dancing through players on his debut, scoring some of the best goals that the game has ever seen, referring to himself exclusively in the third person, needing to be the lightning rod for whichever team he played for, and constant references to lions and gods, there is no denying the man was pure entertainment. But entertaining and being one of the greats are two different things.

So is Zlatan right up there with the greatest ever to play the game? Or was his own perception of himself bigger than his legacy on the pitch?

The Truth is somewhere in the middle...

Hosts: Sam Tighe & Dougie Critchley
Production & Editing: Jack Collins
Studio Recording: Footwork Media

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

We're going on a bit of a trip down memory lane in today's episode, but one grounded in a very recent occasion - the game between Manchester City and Arsenal at the weekend, which had many of the hallmarks of the beginning of a new rivalry reaching its simmering point at the top of the division.

With that in mind, we take a look at the game and the narratives surrounding it, before walking back through the rest of the Premier League's most memorable battles for supremacy: Pep's Manchester City vs Klopp's Liverpool; the noisy neighbours affair as City and United wrested for bragging rights in both Manchester and the League at the end of Sir Alex Ferguson's tenure; Jose Mourinho's scraps as Chelsea boss against Sir Alex's United and Benitez's Liverpool; the legendary Wenger vs Ferguson era of Arsenal and Manchester United; and even to the formative days of the new Premier League where Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United tried to challenge United's early dominance.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

It's time for The Truth!

Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley sit down to discuss a topic that's been circulating across social media, broadcast radio and YouTube for quite some time - the idea that Pep Guardiola has somehow ruined the game that we love, in the process of changing it amidst his dominance of Europe.

We explore the ideas that are often used to berate Pep - that he is responsible for the death of long-distance strikes and flair players; that physicality and ball retention have become so commonplace; the sheer number of copycat managers who have attempted to transplant Guardiola's style onto teams with less technical ability; and the concept that he has made football boring by the pure dominance of his Manchester City team.

Is there credence to these suggestions? Or are people just angry about the fact that Pep's City just feel inevitable in their quest to stack up trophies?

The Truth is somewhere in the middle...

Hosts: Sam Tighe & Dougie Critchley
Production & Editing: Jack Collins
Studio Recording: Footwork Media

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

You heard the music, and we're back in Champions League mode as the newest era of the competition gets underway with the new Swiss League stage replacing the old group stages. This is Part Two of your Takeaways from this week, looking back at the action from Wednesday and Thursday night.

We start with Arsenal's trip to Bergamo, where David Raya's heroics meant that Arsenal came away with a hard-earned point against Europa League Champions Atalanta; before looking back at 10-man Barcelona's 2-1 loss to Monaco, Atleti's late winner as they beat Leipzig 2-1, and Leverkusen's return to thumping form as they dismantled Feyenoord 4-0 in Rotterdam.

Our first part ends with a few thoughts on Benfica's nervy win in Belgrade over Crvena Zvezda, and Brest's wonderful 2-1 win over Sturm Graz which was sadly not in their own stadium.

Then in Part Two, we're onto Wednesday's action, which begins with a look at the 0-0 stalemate between two of Europe's best sides in Manchester City and Inter Milan - a game for the coaches, not the players, in many ways. Popping over to Paris, we examine PSG's (somewhat) lucky win over Girona, head to Belgium to discuss Jamie Gittens' game-changing cameo as Borussia Dortmund beat Club Brugge 3-0, and give some love to a rampant Celtic who dismantled Slovan Bratislava 5-1 at Paradise.

Rounding things off, we briefly talk about Bologna returning to the competition after 60 years away with a 0-0 draw against Shakhtar Donetsk, and Sparta Prague's hard-nosed 3-0 win against a very youthful RB Salzburg.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Hello Rank Squad!

You heard the music, and we're back in Champions League mode as the newest era of the competition gets underway with the new Swiss League stage replacing the old group stages. The first day brought us plenty of goals, and plenty of talking points, and Jack and Dean are here to discuss all of them with you after the first six games of this matchweek.

We start with Liverpool's trip to Milan, where Arne Slot's Reds were able to put the ghosts of Nottingham Forest behind them on the way to what was a comprehensive and important win at San Siro; before moving onwards to discuss the 9-2 hammering that Bayern Munich handed out to Dinamo Zagreb, and the game between Sporting CP and Lille OSC in Lisbon.

In Part Two, we start with Real Madrid's 3-1 victory over VfB Stuttgart, which was very much not as easy on the Bernabeu pitch as it looked on paper, before discussing Aston Villa's successful trip to Bern, where they beat Young Boys 3-0 despite an artificial surface, and Juventus' crucial 3-1 win over PSV Eindhoven, which might have been the best performance of the season yet from Thiago Motta's new-look Bianconeri!

We'll be back on Thursday to wrap up the action from the next two days of UCL action, so we'll see you very soon.

It's Ranks!

And remember, if you’d like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?