Ranks FC - A Football Podcast

It's time for The Truth! With Mikel Arteta starting to get some real heat on social media for Arsenal's recent performances and their lack of goal threat, Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley take a deep dive into what's making Gunners fans so upset about the way that their team have played recently under their former player.  The biggest question that's being asked is whether Arteta is being too defens...

Hello Rank Squad! It's time for Champions League Takeaway, your midnight feast of Champions League content - after one of the wildest weeks we have seen in the competition in recent times.  We start for a change, with Tuesday's games, opening with Sporting's huge 4-1 win over Manchester City - a parting gift from Ruben Amorim to the Jose Alvalade as City were cut open in transition again. Was it a...

Hello Rank Squad! Something a little bit different this week, a little bit more out of the old school B/R Football Ranks playbook, as we do a live ranking of the world's footballing superstars in the current day and age - based on both their star power, their influence on their teams, and their form so far in this season.  The first debate is what makes a 'superstar' - shirt sales? Goal and assist...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley take a deep dive on a transfer that stunned many observers last summer, when Chelsea spent £115, a British record fee, to sign Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion. Caicedo had been one of the Premier League's revelations the season before, but it took a while for him to get his feet under the table at Stamford Bridge.  Many were quick...

Hello Rank Squad! We're dialling in today on the big news that broke this week - Manchester United's sacking of Erik ten Hag and their approach to replace him with Sporting CP's Rúben Amorim - which at the time of recording looks very close to being completed.  First of all, Dean walks us through the ins and outs of how the Manchester United backroom came to the conclusion that they were going to...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley discuss a topic that continues to divide fans across world football - whether Arsenal's leading man Kai Havertz is now an elite striker worthy of being included in the pantheon of the planet's best. Havertz exploded onto the scene for Bayer Leverkusen in 2016, and by 2018 he was making waves at his boyhood club, becoming the youngest player t...

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 third round of our new 36-team competition. We start with Tuesday's games, opening with Barcelona's 4-1 dismantling of Bayern Munich that saw them lay recent demons to rest against their most regular scourge, the na...

Hello Rank Squad!  We're just over two months from the January Transfer Window opening, and whilst that seems like some time, it'll roll round fast - so the backroom staff across a number of teams are hard at work in working out what they're going to do when the curtain rises. Today, we're taking a look at the big questions facing a number of Premier League teams in the mid-season shuffle, from do...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley deep dive into Barcelona's famed academy, La Masia, which produced a golden generation during the early 2000's that spawned Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, and a whole lot more who contributed to Barca conquering the world.  A fallow period for academy graduates follo...

Hello Rank Squad!  October has crept up on us quietly, and there's less than a fortnight now until we find out who will claim the coveted Ballon d'Or Trophy - the little golden ball that signifies the best player in the world over the previous season.  So, with that in mind, we've put together our own thoughts on who deserves football's most prestigious individual honour. Jack is joined by Dougie...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley take a look into the career of Paul Pogba, the reasons he ended up in a four-year-ban from the game, and what the future holds for him now that the ban has been reduced to 18 months - meaning he can return to football in March 2025. We look at the traits that made Pogba such a joyful experience to watch on the pitch, as well as those which fr...

Hello Rank Squad! It's tough out there as a manager. You can be winning trophies and be the designated Chosen One one minute, and then on the verge of losing your job the next. It's brutal, but it's the way football works, so we wanted to revisit an old staple and take a look at some of the managers under the cosh this season, and what the future holds for them. We start with the big discussion po...

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 re...

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 fina...

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 t...

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....

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, be...

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...

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...

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 tri...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley sit down to discuss one of the burning questions of the international break - whether Erik ten Hag is the man who can guide Manchester United back to where they want to be, challenging for league titles and competing consistently in the Champions League.  United's summer was a chaotic one, starting with the new INEOS-backed ownership flutteri...

Hello Rank Squad! The window is shut, there's been a few games to see how teams look, and it's time to finalise our long-term predictions for this season, which can only mean one thing here on Ranks - it's time for 5x5! And, as has become tradition for this episode, the Rank God Sam Tighe is back in the building to share the microphone with Dean and Jack. The concept is simple - we each pick how w...

It's time for The Truth! Sam Tighe and Dougie Critchley sit down to discuss the hottest topic in the world of football right now - whether Chelsea's transfer strategy is a 4D Chess plan that will leave others in the dust, or a chaotic playground of excess that's destined to struggle for some time.  Chelsea's additions of João Felix, Jadon Sancho, Pedro Neto, Tosin Adarabioyo, Marc Guiu, Kiernan De...

Hello Rank Squad! There's a new show starting on the Channel from this Friday, and it heralds the return of Rank God Sam Tighe to Ranks FC. Sam's new podcast, which he's co-hosting with the brilliant Dougie Critchley, who you might know from Sky Sports and Football Daily - as well as being on Ranks a few times in the past!  The podcast is called The Truth, and Sam's here to explain the concept, in...

Hello Rank Squad!  It's time for us to take our previewing over to Italy, where we've seen an intriguing first couple of weeks in Serie A - where 14 of the 20 clubs changed managers this summer. We start by analysing those we think will be challenging for the title - starting with reigning Scudetto Champions Inter, moving on to Juventus and their new manager Thiago Motta, taking a look at Napoli u...