You're listening to the Footglitch Podcast.
Love football, learn English.
How much does Wes Hamm's 5-0 defeat to Liverpool hurt for fans?
Is Lucas Paqueta's betting scandal affecting his performance?
Will Vladimir Tsofal extend his contract at Wes Hamm?
And what are modal verbs for speculation and how are they used in English?
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Footglitch Podcast.
If this is your first time listening, then I should probably explain what this podcast is about.
This is a podcast where we combine football and learning English.
My name is Denik Lucas, I'm an English teacher and I love football.
Teachers teach English, so I hope it explains it.
Today I'm talking to a Wes Hamm fan, Tony, who has his own YouTube channel about Wes Hamm and other football related stuff.
Is this correct, Tony?
It is indeed, yes.
Your channel is called Early Doors Football TV.
That's correct.
Early Doors is what we tend to use in Sunday football, amateur football.
Try to get in early doors, get the result, get the win, get a goal.
That's what it's all about.
Wes Hamm United is a team, as my listeners know, that I have a soft spot for.
I quite like the team.
I'm wearing your shirt today.
There is a YouTube channel as well where the listeners of this podcast can watch this too.
It's called Teachers Denik.
My reason for liking Wes Hamm is the Czech players.
There's a connection, but it's not just the current Czech players Tomáš Soček and Vladimir Sofal.
It's also the former Wes Hamm.
There have been a lot of players at Wes Hamm from the Czech Republic in the past.
Do you remember any of them?
The main one that stands out for me, and we saw him yesterday, and that's Ludwig McClosko.
I remember when he first signed for us.
He couldn't speak any English at that stage.
The fans were chanting his name and asking him what the score was.
I don't think he knew first of all.
I think it was only the second or third game in that he realised what the chant meant.
So he had put his hand up and said what the score was, and then it went on from there.
But of course we heard the sad news that, obviously, with the cancer, he's battling cancer.
Obviously, he's not going to have any more treatment.
It seems to be more detrimental to his life if he had the treatment.
So he stopped it altogether just to live life as best as he can.
And it's quite sad because, as we know, most people have been affected by someone with cancer.
It's a very sad, sickening disease.
And you wouldn't wish it upon anyone, really?
No, especially those of us who really do have some experience with it in the family.
And I think there are more of us than you can imagine.
That's true.
So this is really sad news because he's a West Ham legend, we could say.
I think there's even a song about him, right?
Yes, there is, yes.
We can't say too much on the air, but yes.
I mean, the other one, I'll mention it, I'll just make sure he was.
Another one I felt very close to, and he was Thomas Repke.
Oh, no.
This is the most sort of bizarre thing here.
The West Ham fans love him, but in the Czech Republic, he divides everyone, right?
Because he's such a controversial figure.
Yeah.
I think that's... I do get that side of things.
I think the good thing is, from a West Ham fan's point of view, is he understood the club.
He understood what it meant wearing that badge and wearing the shirt.
And when he had to leave, we were at a soft spot because, I mean, you could see the tears in his eyes, the emotion,
he didn't want to leave, but he had no choice.
And players like that, it really hits the heartstrings.
And it makes a West Ham person say he's one of our own.
And I think...
He doesn't make his Czech, he's one of our own.
And didn't he also stay through a relegation season as well?
I think he did.
I think that's a big thing when a player who is on a good contract does that, especially a foreign player.
I think that means something for the fans.
And they remember.
I agree on that.
Tomáš Repká is a guy that now has his own YouTube channel as well in the Czech Republic.
And it has got some popularity, definitely more popular than my YouTube channel, that's for sure.
And it's called Red Card.
How appropriate.
Yes, exactly.
And I don't know if you heard, but he had also been to prison for about one year or two years.
Oh, really?
I didn't hear that.
I don't know exactly what it was.
Some fraud or something?
I don't know.
And again, it didn't surprise anyone in the Czech Republic.
It happened to him.
He once hit a cameraman as well, as he was walking off the pitch after receiving a red card.
He hit the cameraman.
Controversial, but in a good way.
I think Sparta Prague fans also cherish him.
I think so, yeah.
OK, but of course, we are not here to talk about only Tomáš Repká.
I don't think I would approve of that.
But I need to ask you.
I'm sorry, Tony, but I have to talk to you about the recent game that you had against Liverpool, which was a home game.
Actually, you are quite brave to come on after this thrashing home 0-5 defeat.
Well, I did actually did a watch along for the game.
Yes, yes.
Not only did I watch it, but I had to speak to it as well.
Yes, I enjoyed the whole 93 minutes of seeing us.
Well, I think for me, the first 20 minutes, we kind of held our own.
We looked OK in certain parts.
But I mean, when they got the first goal, Kudas sort of equalized, but hit the post.
He hit the post, yeah.
So, you know, one all who knows.
I don't think it would have changed the result.
That's for sure, but to actually get one pass Liverpool, that would have been a feat in itself.
So it would have been nice to have done that.
But at the moment, yeah, we're not even though we've won four, we've, you know, we've kept four, got four wins.
I say four wins, but with consecutive kind of results.
Right. I think I think you were unbeaten in four games in a row.
Yeah, in that, you know, so but it's the fact that when you know you've got Liverpool coming up, you know, full well, it's going to end at some point.
And Liverpool top of the league for a reason.
And it was clearly shown yesterday.
Why?
Even though they didn't they they they could have gone as hardcore, as I say. But really, once they got there was four nil up.
They ease back. They treat it as a training session.
And unfortunately, West End couldn't even deal with that.
So did you go to the stadium? Do you have a season ticket or?
No, no, I used to have a season ticket and then you had Manuel Pendergrini managing the team.
And that was enough for me to give my season ticket up.
Plus the fact you could see the way the club was going.
So I wasn't going to really do my money with them because, yeah, we can see what's happening now.
If you did have a season ticket, would you have walked away from the game like some fans do?
No, I wouldn't have walked away.
I think regardless of the result, you still stick out.
You stick it out. You know, I mean, when you look at last season with the six nil against Arsenal, then I think it was five nil with Fulham.
You don't walk away at the end of the day. If you're a fan, you stay there till the end.
I was there when we got beat by Nottingham Forest at Aston Villa's ground.
When we got beat by them and the difference being was even though we was four nil down,
we're singing at Billy Bonds, Claret Blue Army and droned out the Forest fans.
That's how passionate we were, even though we was losing.
And that was the difference.
And even that song, Forever Blowing Bubbles, the bubble song, I think that's such a great song that you can sing when you're winning and when you're losing because it's kind of melancholic.
It is, yes.
And it has the lyrics which go like this.
Fortune's always hiding and it's kind of it has this melancholy in it.
I like to listen to it.
And when you're losing, I think your fans can it can be like a solace for them, right, to sing that song.
Yeah, yeah, very much so.
Very much so.
You know, you said fortune's always hiding.
I go everywhere.
I'm forever blowing bubbles.
So regardless, win or lose, you'll go to those games.
Exactly.
Yeah, I think this defeat, I think it's about the manner of the defeat more than anything.
I think if you had lost, I don't know, by one, two, even three goals, it's nothing unusual these days.
Liverpool can get several goals past anyone.
You know, so let alone a struggling, struggling West Ham United team, which unfortunately you are.
But is there a consolation in the fact that you're not the only ones?
Because if you look at the table, Manchester United are below you, one point below you.
And I don't know if you know this, but they are currently losing at home to Newcastle United 2-0 in the 50th minute.
Wow. We think we've got it bad as well.
I mean, yeah, you've got to look at, you know, Newcastle, sorry, Manchester United.
You've even got to look at in certain respects Tottenham Hotspur.
Yes, they're in the same position.
But when you look at the funny, the interesting part is we had we talked to Ameren.
It wasn't long. It was only about 20 minutes meeting the manager.
You had some interest in him.
Yeah, before, apparently we were going to get Lopetegui, but nothing.
And he's got a, I mean, we think Lopetegui's got a hard time at West Ham.
Ameren is not just climbing a mountain.
He's also going over the Alps, the Grand Canyon, the whole works to get this club back to how it used to play.
And yeah, I mean, we're bad enough. We're in a mess. Man United are atrocious.
You are not Man United. That's basically if you are Man United, you can't be where you are.
If you are West Ham, it can happen to you.
I think you can have a year like that.
Just stay in the league and there will be better days. That's for sure.
Like you have some great players.
Maybe it's not exactly clicking right now under the manager.
Personally, I think David Moyes was great for you.
I know it didn't end well. The fans kind of got him out.
Yeah, I mean, to interrupt you there, I think the way I see it like this, if he knew he wasn't going to,
and I still say this to this day, I think it's the case of if he knew his contract wasn't going to be renewed.
For me, I think David Moyes thought, you know what? OK, I'll do the job.
I'll see my contract out, but I'll just do my job.
I won't go above. OK, I won't go below. I'll just ride it out.
Do what I can. This is what happened, you think?
Then that's what I think, because you've got Sullivan saying that he had a contract in front of him.
I ripped it up, didn't give him a new one.
He said no, and we parted ways.
But I think the decision was already made that they were going to change the manager.
But Tony, even if you have a manager who has this sort of mindset, which is kind of what do you call it?
Kind of sulking, right? Or what's the expression? Something like that.
He's bitter about it.
Even if you have a manager like that, then they're the players, right?
And if the players are good, they should still be able to perform better than they were and than they are currently.
They should do.
Again, when you look at what Lopetegui is doing, the biggest problem, I think, with Lopetegui is we've not had a consistent team week in, week out.
He's always been changing it.
We refer to the Liverpool game, he put Kudos in his preferred position out on the right and we saw a better game from Kudos.
He was great. He was the best player.
The start of the second half is then out on the left.
And it's a case of he was working perfectly fine on the right.
Why is he suddenly now there?
It's time to invent a wheel or something.
Basically, it's a lot of chaos. That's your point.
Yeah. And this is the problem.
So, unfortunately, even with the bad season we had with that last season with Moiris, we still in certain respects had an identity.
You could understand the style of play that we had. With this current team at the moment, there is no identity.
There is no structure.
Well, we saw that in the second half yesterday where literally the team's formation shape.
Do you think it's the manager's fault?
Do you think he's just not clear enough with his instructions or he's sort of all over the place with what he wants from the players?
He's changing everything all the time so the players don't know what they're supposed to be doing?
Do you think that's the problem?
I think that's the main problem.
Obviously, unfortunately, being the manager, the buck stops with him, as they say.
He makes the decisions, he picks a team and also expects them to go out and win the game.
Unfortunately, we all know he was the wrong choice.
We know it was David Sullivan that actually brought him in.
Which is your owner.
The owner of the club. He was the one that favored him. He wanted him.
And apparently, when they had the interview, he interviewed well.
What does that mean?
So basically, David asked the questions.
He answered the way David was hoping to hear.
And it's the case of you must be the man then because you've answered how I wanted it to be said.
That's weird. He should be answering in a way that he's a good manager.
And you want to hire that guy because he shows something that you think will lift the club or that will make the club better, right?
Absolutely. And unfortunately, that's not the case.
When the preseason started, the signs were there.
This is not looking good.
I was on a show the other day and we mentioned it.
Lewis Gilherme, the kid from Brazil.
25 million pounds we paid for this player.
He's like 18 years old.
He's paying for the academy now, right?
For the youth team.
Not even doing that.
He just sits on the bench.
It's literally that.
He's not really featured with the academy.
He's mainly sat on the bench.
Yesterday was the first time we've actually seen him come on in a Premier League game.
Tony, I could do that.
Exactly.
It's a case of, as you said, he's 18.
So, yes, put him in the academy.
Let me kind of learn our way of football and so forth and blend in.
But the fact you've got the kids virtually every single game sitting on the bench and we're watching the 15 games in and this is the first time he's actually got some time.
It was only 15 minutes.
Yeah, not enough.
Not enough.
But there was potential.
He was unlucky.
His shot hit the post.
His first shot he had, it hit the post.
But why have we got someone we've spent all that money on?
OK, in the grand scheme of things, it's a small amount.
But we've got someone sitting on the bench that's not doing nothing.
Not being given the opportunity.
I think you could say the same about Somerville, which is a player.
I think that West Ham fans seem to like a lot.
Absolutely.
I can see that this player is really growing on you guys.
And I think from what I understood watching some of the West Ham United fan YouTube channels, it seems like you're really unhappy with the fact that Lopetegui seems to be putting him on the bench all the time.
Yeah.
And you can see the players getting frustrated as well.
You can also see the players getting frustrated as well.
And he was Leeds best player last season.
And we are putting this kid on the bench.
Same thing.
We know the potential.
Yeah.
And when he came on yesterday, within the first five minutes, he'd done more than what Paqueta and Salah did.
I need to ask you about Paqueta.
So obviously, I know in this game, there were some other issues that a few players were suspended, including my countryman Tomas Socek.
But I need to ask you about this player Paqueta, because obviously he's involved in a betting scandal, right?
It's match fixing.
Do you think this is the main reason he's playing so poorly this season?
Do you think so?
I think it could be playing on his mind, the betting scandal.
But at the same point, it could be another one where he's not liking what this man is doing and he is just doing enough.
I mean, yesterday's game, I think he fell on the floor four or five times.
And it's a case of if it's a foul, then it's a clear and obvious.
But when you're just falling on the ground hoping you're going to get a free kick, to me, that just says that you're not interested.
He's not working hard enough.
Yeah.
He was better under Mois, you could say, right?
He was better under Mois.
I mean, I think if you look at this season so far, he's played him.
He did well against Newcastle and I think the other game, I think, was in the Leicester game when he played…
He scored a penalty as well.
Yes, he did.
But he played him deeper and we saw a better Piqueta.
He's a Brazilian international, so obviously him not playing well, I think it has a huge, huge impact, a negative impact on your team and your team's performances.
Because, OK, Tomáš Socek, I think you know what you're getting from him.
He's more like a workhorse, right?
You get occasional goals from him and stuff.
So he's consistent in what you get from him.
But Piqueta, when he's at his best, on his best game, then he can do miracles almost.
Yeah. If he wants to, that's the problem. Yeah.
I agree.
OK, well, I can also ask you about your captain, Jared Bowen.
Do you think he's living up to his role or how is he doing?
I think he's grown more into it.
When he was first given the captaincy, it seemed to be the right choice because obviously he's very pro-West Ham.
But what we saw was it became a hindrance to him.
Yeah.
And his style of football, his energy was way off what we normally see him play.
For me, I think what the turning point was is when he got his goal for England, when he played for England, he got the goal.
And then he came back and you could see the difference in his style.
We kind of got more out of him.
He's coming a bit more vocal as a captain, but to me, I still say he's not the obvious choice as captain.
If anything, it should have gone to Max Kilmann.
OK, well, he was a new player. That's unusual to give it to a new player.
OK, it's an interesting choice.
And so you also have this German international, Nicolas Volkruh, who remind me, please, where he came from.
I can't remember. Was it Dortmund, Borussia?
I think it was Dortmund, I do believe. Yeah, I think it was Dortmund.
Again, German international, he scored, I think we saw him score some goals at the Euros.
So obviously he got injured very early into the season.
But even despite that, it does seem a bit underwhelming as a signing, doesn't he?
Yeah, for the age and what we paid for him, yes, it is very much underwhelming.
OK, he got the goal against Leicester.
But the fact he got injured early, as you mentioned, I think it was in August.
He then went to Germany to have treatment, appeared on a kids TV show.
And went to Oktoberfest, right?
No, I'm making this up, by the way. It's not.
No, it's probably true as well.
He put it past him.
But then, of course, we kept hearing, he's back for this game.
Oh, no, he's not. He's back for this game. Oh, no, he's not. He's back for this game.
No, he's not.
A lot of misinformation.
I think these days the internet is also such a crazy medium.
It is.
A lot of people are making stuff up. Now we have AI to contribute.
This is true.
You can literally have Fulcruk saying to you something in any language in the world you can imagine now, right?
Fulcruk can speak Czech or with perfect British accent and nobody will know.
It's crazy what's happening these days.
He's, yeah, unfortunately, you know, he's been getting some game time now, obviously, because of what happened to Antonio.
Yeah, Antonio, we need to remind our listeners had a very serious accident.
Actually, it's unbelievable that he survived it.
Yes.
After we saw his car.
And I think his season is done.
And we don't know if he returns to football because I think they need to sort of reassess the extent of his injuries.
I think he had an operation, right?
And also one thing that is a contributing factor is his age.
I think he is like 34 or something.
34. So, yeah, so it'd be 35.
They reckon it'd be a year out.
And then, of course, West Ham's got the option to extend his contract for another year because apparently we're paying his wages still.
But the problem is he's then still got to kind of get back into training.
So by that stage, he'd be 36.
Yeah, it doesn't look good, does it?
No, I doubt very much he would return.
It's a sad ending really to his fantastic West Ham career where he became one of the top goalscorers for you of all time, right?
Exactly.
Yeah.
But I think the main thing is, you know, touch wood, he's alive.
The recovery is going pretty well.
So that's good.
The operation went very well.
But he's very, very lucky to still be here.
Yeah, lucky boy, lucky boy.
OK, I don't know if you still have time, but I also want to ask you about Vladimir Tsofal because obviously he stopped playing because Van Bissaka is so good.
I think everyone can see even Vlad would admit it himself that Van Bissaka is just another level.
Yeah.
But obviously, Vladimir Tsofal is not getting any game time.
So do you think that's it for him or is there any chance he could extend for one year or something?
I think there's a chance for him to still extend for one year because we do need cover.
I think the... I don't know if his head was turned because he was doing very well.
But then we start seeing some mistakes.
I think he got injured at one point and sometimes injuries you don't always fully recover or you don't come back the same player.
So I think this is the reason why we looked at getting in.
We looked at quite a few choices, but we managed to get... and even that took a while.
Van Bissaka over the line and...
From United, right? He was playing for Manchester United.
Yeah.
Why are they letting a player like this go?
They're still losing in the 73rd minute against Newcastle at home.
And it's a mad league.
I think they were looking for a replacement for some reason.
He wasn't favored by Ten Hag.
And of course, they went for Maserati, which we looked at.
And he turned us down and signed for Man United.
And yeah.
Can I tell you one more thing before we end this podcast?
Of course you can.
85th minute. Ipswich down to Chelsea nil.
Chelsea.
Every team has their blip and it seems now this will be the second loss for Chelsea now.
Back to back.
Okay. And I'm done with fantasy football because I made Cole Palmer my captain.
So I'm done with this.
I'm not playing this game anymore.
Wow.
But this I think it was Ipswich time to win.
But it's Chelsea's opportunity to cement theirself back in second place.
And they were at one point contenders of probably toppling Liverpool at the top.
Yeah. Yeah.
But now they are now if this happens, they're in the fourth place with Arsenal and Liverpool having one game in hand.
Nottingham, Nottingham for us in the second place.
Forrest doing very well. But yeah, Ipswich. Wow.
Unbelievable. Thank you, Tony.
Thank you very much for talking to me about West Ham.
You're welcome.
What wonderful stuff.
And once again, your channel is called Early Doors Football TV.
That's correct.
Thanks a lot and take care and all the best to your team West Ham United.
Thank you. Thank you for the invite and your time as well. Thank you.
No worries. Take care, man. Take care. Bye bye.
Welcome back to the language corner.
As always in this part of the show, I'm going to do my job.
I'm an English teacher and it's grammar time.
We don't always talk about grammar here, do we?
On this podcast, usually it's vocabulary.
And that's because it is my firm belief as an English teacher that vocabulary is far more important than grammar for communication.
Yes, I think in a lot of countries in the world and I have lived and worked as a teacher in a lot of countries now,
I think grammar is overrated. It's given too much importance.
That's why I don't talk about it much.
But occasionally I have to say that it's useful, especially if you study grammar in context.
Here is the context.
I asked Tony the following question.
It was a question about the player Lucas Paqueta.
I asked, is the betting scandal the reason he's playing this poorly this season?
And here is what Tony responded with.
I think it could be playing on his mind, this betting scandal.
If something is playing on your mind, it means it's sort of affecting you.
It's affecting your confidence. It's affecting your mindset.
It's affecting your performance, right?
But I'm looking here at the phrase it could be, right?
Could is a verb. It's a modal verb.
A modal verb is a type of verb which we use in English for different things.
But here we use this specific modal verb could for speculating.
We have a certain number of modal verbs which are used for speculating,
especially when we are not sure about something.
And it shows the level of certainty that we have about something.
How sure are we about something?
How likely is something based on our opinion?
So if something is a fact, we just say, I don't know, Paqueta is a West Ham player.
But if we don't know which team Paqueta plays for,
maybe you are not a West Ham fan and you are a fan from another country
and you have never really heard about Paqueta,
but you think that it's possible that he plays for West Ham,
then you could say something like, he could be a West Ham player, right?
So this is about your certainty about something.
And like I said, we have several modal verbs which we can use in English
to talk about this or to speculate about something.
These modal verbs are must, could, might, may and can't.
And look at it as a scale, as a scale of certainty.
If you are pretty sure about something, then you would use must.
So for example, Tony, he could have said, it must be playing on his mind, this betting scandal.
But because he wasn't so sure, instead he went for could.
Could means you are much less sure about something.
Must could be like 99% certainty.
Could is maybe, I don't know, 30% certainty or 40% certainty.
Then we have might, which is very similar.
Some people say it's slightly less sure than could and may is similar to could.
So you could say, it could be playing on his mind, it might be playing on his mind,
it may be playing on his mind and it would mean pretty much the same thing.
But if you are sure something isn't true, then you would use this final modal verb can't
and then you would say something, it can't be playing on his mind.
For example, you could say that Paqueta is a professional footballer, he has played football all his life.
He can't have just forgotten how to play football even under these circumstances.
He can't, it can't be playing on his mind, if you believe so.
Right. So sometimes I wonder how many listeners of this podcast there truly are.
I do have some stats, I do have a number of downloads, but I don't know how reliable these numbers are
and how much I can really trust these numbers.
So sometimes I wonder how many listeners of the Footgrish podcast there are.
And I could say something, there must be at least 100 listeners of the Footgrish podcast if we also add the YouTube channel.
There must be over 100.
I could say there could be around 150 listeners of the Footgrish podcast.
There might be 200 listeners of the Footgrish podcast.
There may be 127 listeners of the Footgrish podcast.
That is a very specific number.
And you could also say there can't be over 1000.
There can't be over 1000.
I'm sure there are not 1000 listeners or more.
I'm pretty sure about that.
So I say there can't be.
But I'm not 100% sure, right?
Because it's not a fact.
It's just my belief.
It's my speculation.
So these modal verbs are pretty useful to talk about something you're not sure about.
And it shows how sure you actually are.
Okay.
Two more things I want to mention.
We talked about Jared Bowen on this episode of the Footgrish podcast.
And by the time we recorded this episode,
we didn't know that Jared Bowen has actually sustained a fractured foot injury
in the Sunday's Premier League fixture against Liverpool.
Unfortunately, the club released the statement after the recording.
And also, unfortunately, this really happened because Jared Bowen is the captain.
He's really the main guy at West Ham.
So this is a disaster.
Losing Antonio, losing Jared Bowen,
it really leaves West Ham and Julen Lopetegui with only a few options up front.
So now he can play Fulcruk, who is the only striker as far as I know.
But he's not match fit.
He's out of form.
I think West Ham have no choice but to shell out money for an emergency signing.
They need some kind of emergency striker.
Oh, I forgot they also have...
What's his name?
Danny Inks, of course.
It took me some time, but I've remembered in the end.
They also have Danny Inks, so maybe it's his time to shine.
Okay, guys, and one more thing.
I've got something for you.
If you want, you can become a member of my group for high level English learners,
as long as you are at least B2 level, which is upper intermediate,
upper intermediate, advanced or proficient.
So if you're at these levels, then you could check out my website,
teachesdenek.com, and fill out the form there that you find in the Achievers' Chamber section.
Achievers' Chamber is the group that I'm offering to you,
because from this month on, every Sunday at 7 p.m. Central European Time,
I will be hosting an event in which you can talk to me about football.
It's a private group. It's nothing.
It's not YouTube. It's not online. It's not live.
It's just me and a few members, and I can give you a one-month trial.
You can get the January for free just to test it out, try it out.
All I need you to do is to fill out that form you will find there
and add the code FUTGLISH in there,
because this offer is for the listeners of the FUTGLISH podcast.
If you like the group, if you enjoy talking to me about football,
then of course you can then pay for the membership in February and the following months,
but that's up to you. I'm giving you the option to try this service out.
I think it's a pretty good deal.
That's it for today. Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the FUTGLISH podcast,
and Happy New Year to you.
Take care, everyone, and see you next time. Bye-bye.