James Richardson

I think we were talking about it prior to the draw being made, or I think when we were still in the Europa League, and I said that it will either be someone decent to get into the Conference League, and or once we're in the Conference League, there'll be a good chance to get a scalp.

Monaco, maybe? I know they're top of the league, got Ligue 1, beat PSG recently, but it was interesting, I was listening to, they've gone completely off topic here, but I was listening to the European Football Show podcast with James Richardson, James Horcastle, etc.

And the French expert, Tom Williams, was talking about how Basically, Monaco barely got any money just because there's a lot of clubs in France.

Don't know if it's with the TV deal.

Lovely to see you.

Hello, James.

It's been a while.

It has been a while.

But a lot of this game had me thinking, oh, if Moises Caicedo was in midfield, there'd be a lot more control here-

Right

... as opposed to Reece James and Romeo Lavia, one of whom is desperately trying to stay fit, and the other one is being repurposed as a, as a central midfielder.

So, so that felt big, but I mean, Arsenal were unlucky not to score before they did, and they absolutely battered Chelsea for half an hour before they got the equalizer.

We have in the studio Tom Williams.

Hello, James.

Hi, Tom.

On the big screen, Daniel Storey.

Good afternoon, James.

How are you?

Good aft- Yeah, very well.

Mm.

It had like little sketches.

James Richardson even himself was a very eccentric host.

He still is.

He does the podcast at the Atlantic now, but he was just brilliantly weird in a way that is acceptable to Italian football because Italian football does weird things to people.

I maybe zoned out.

Yeah, you weren't listening 'cause it was me, James.

Yeah.

Um.

So you sit there in your pyjamas, you know, with your breakfast cereal, you know, your sugar puffs or whatever.

And then you're watching James Richardson doing his thing.

What was the kind of stadium do you think that attracted you the most? Was it like the northern Italian stadiums, you know, the likes of San Siro, Stadio degli Alpi, stuff like that? Or was it more like Napoli or Bari or sort of Foggia even, even back in the day, you know, those kind of more southern towns where a little bit more like Mediterranean style setting?

Yeah, to be honest, I think I was always attracted by AC Milan at that time, you know, but it was, All Italian sides, you know, there's some just top, top footballers.

[laughs]

... uh, James Richardson and myself, we are available, so.

[laughs]

Um, but no, fantastic news because I think what's really important for leagues that are not the Premier League is for them to get as many eyeballs on them as possible, and I think that's only possible when they're on terrestrial TV because it's so expensive already to watch the Premier League split, atomized across, uh, lots of different satellite packages.

That's a massive English influence, Jules, isn't it, at, at Inter?

Yeah, back in the '90s, you know, James was...

You were mentioning Football Italia and James Richardson and the coffee and the iconic scenes that you used to see here on, on, on UK television.

That's...