Marcel Desailly

You've got to give them their props.

I don't like my Chelsea players, but you've got, you know, Marcel Desailly back in the day.

You know, I just, you know, I thought it was funny because we had years of, you know, Mikel Pulis, Paella Pulis and, you know, all this other stuff.

And I thought, well, Andoni Allardyce isn't doing great at the moment either.

You know, Zola, Gus Poirier, who scored a consolation goal to make it 4-1 by the end of the game.

Desailly, Le Boeuf.

It was a good side, but they just absolutely bullied us that day.

And the atmosphere was absolutely electric.

they know where I am

but no I wasn't it was just as far as I could tell their coverage was just James he did a talk for the show and he spoke during half time spoke to Marcel Desailly as well but the commentary I believe was the world feed which was very great Patrick Kendrick leads that very well but it was fun it was fun seeing it on the BBC it was fun that they did a bit of a call back to football Italia on Channel 4 with the intro and stuff but yeah it was nice seeing it on the BBC

But quite interesting that I don't know if that is a plan that Serie A has to do more games.

I think there's some games shown in Scotland, aren't there, because of the number of Scottish players, you know, on the BBC, BBC Alba, isn't it? But this idea that actually it could be quite a sensible thing for some foreign leagues to put it free to air in the UK and just see how many viewers you get and see if that, I don't know how that helps grow the league in some way.

Villa Fulham is certainly not the draw that the Milan derby is.

I think there was a lot of people of, dare I say, my age that were getting a little bit nostalgic with James Richardson, you know, hosting, you know, like the likes of Marcel Desailly was on there at the start talking.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's great.

Yeah.

And there's one player that can like, Terry benefited from learning from Desailly.

Yeah.

Xhaka by the time Van Dijk's gone Xhaka physically he'll be bigger mentally he'll be there and I just think you've got another one like Xhaka Xhaka next Van Dijk it works I think the fullback areas it's horrendous yeah we like Araujo

1997-98.

Wouldn't be Desailly.

No. Wouldn't be Poirier.

No.

back six, actually back seven, because you're still going with a back four and three central midfielders, right? You have the core, l'ossature of that France 98 squad.

It's Barthez, Thuram, Desailly, Blanc, Lizarazu, Deschamps, Petit.

They're there already.

yet where we see the changes are the dynamism of viera coming into midfield and

the game, you're

right.

Between the players, considering some of the assaults that are committed... on the pitch Desailly comes off two footed off the floor lands on Ricosta's ankle Ricosta I think is in genuine pain but just lies on the floor and then gets up and then they sort of you know have a small handshake a short handshake and actually you see that throughout the game is you have really heavy tackles but I think all players understand and appreciate the importance of the game, but also that there's no real desire to actually hurt the other player.

It's, it's just a, this is how football is.

He...

Talking about Jānis, I was talking to, um, just drop this name, Marcel Desailly.

Oh, were you?

Close friend of mine.

So turn them round in three, two, one.

So Jeff's Jamie Carragher, Dan is Yap Stan, and Josh is Marcel Desailly.

So we'll start with you, Josh.

Yeah, absolute powerhouse of a defender.