It is a full house this week as Susanna, Graham and Georgia all join the show to discuss another wild week of WSL action. The team look over the shock results of the weekend as West Ham topple Arsenal and ask - just what is happening in North London this year? One former Lionesses tipped Frank Lampard as a surprise choice to take over from Emma Hayes in the summer - but do we agree?
Plus we deep dive on Brighton's sacking of Mel Phillips and ask if it was the right choice.
Plus we deep dive on Brighton's sacking of Mel Phillips and ask if it was the right choice.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 [music] Welcome back to the Dalias Alshow. We spoke
00:08 before the break about Chelsea running away with the title and hopefully, well, not hopefully,
00:12 depends on your preference, but for Emma, here's a swan song whether they're going to
00:16 go and buy all the trophies possible. Now, many of you may have seen that there has been
00:23 one name branded about as a potential replacement, which I think the three of us have decided
00:29 we find baffling. Georgia, Frank Lampard as the new Chelsea manager, your thoughts, please.
00:39 I saw it originally and it said he'd been tipped and I thought it'd come from the bookies.
00:43 I was like, "Where's the--" In a nutshell, Izzy Christensen has said that's a name she
00:49 thinks could be a good shout, basically. She's getting a lot of pile on, which I don't agree
00:55 with. She's a pundit. She's there to give her opinion. That's her opinion. She's worked
00:59 with Frank during her time at Everton, so she knows what he's like as a coach. I don't
01:05 think his credentials-- In a nutshell, his credentials don't warrant a space in the women's
01:09 Super League. We've seen managers come in with no women's experience. Phil Neville is
01:14 the best example. That was just an awful time for all involved, I think, putting it as nicely
01:21 as possible. I don't agree with-- Let me just get her quote up. She said, "He's somebody
01:31 who knows the club inside out. From my experience at Everton, listening to him speak, he's the
01:35 right type of character." This is Frank Lampard. Yes, he does. He's Chelsea through and through.
01:40 He's a club legend. Great, but club legend status doesn't warrant being given the role
01:47 as the women's manager, especially after what Emma Hayes has done. We were saying a couple
01:52 of shows ago, I was saying anyway, I don't know who, if I was a Chelsea fan, who I'd
01:56 want personally, because who's going to step up to Emma's legacy? It's definitely not Frank
02:01 Lampard, sorry. It's definitely not any other men's manager who's never coached in the women's
02:06 game. I feel we need to step away from-- It's not a jolly. It's not a day out. It's not
02:13 a learning curve. Give this job to someone who wants it, who thinks they can improve
02:20 or keep the ship going, and who can actually do the job. It really gets under my skin.
02:29 I know it annoys a lot of other people as well, because there are so many other candidates
02:33 who have the experience. Then there's names being thrown about who have never even stepped
02:38 foot in the women's game before. Actually, that's a good segue into another point that
02:43 we were discussing just before recording. Before we come back to Frank Lampard, it was
02:48 announced that Mikey Harris was going to be the interim Brighton manager. We're saying
02:57 that not only does he not have any experience necessarily within the women's game, but he
03:01 doesn't actually have any first team professional experience. He says, "This isn't a bit of
03:10 an adventure for me. I don't know how else to describe it." He could be there for a week,
03:17 depending whether they find a replacement. He could be there for six months. I'm not
03:20 really sure.
03:21 Graham, to have that sort of-- This is Brighton. They've been in the WSL for a while. They've
03:29 been a firm hold. They've been holding these positions. They're competing with best of
03:35 the best. Then suddenly, you've got someone coming in who not only has never coached in
03:41 WSL or Women's Championship, but hasn't actually coached in the EFL at top team level. What
03:49 is that? What does that show for the rest of the leagues, the fans, the players?
03:56 I think first and foremost, I was really surprised that Melissa Phillips got the boot. That shocked
04:01 me quite a bit. I know they're 11th, second bottom if you prefer. If you look at the table,
04:05 they're on 11 points, same as Everton, same as West Ham, two points behind Villa. Carla
04:11 Ward had a difficult start of the season. She's below probably where Villa would expect
04:15 to be. Everton are probably below where they would expect to be. Leicester are having a
04:20 slightly better season than they would expect to have alongside Spurs and Liverpool, who
04:25 are having very good seasons so far. It's tight. I know we talked about the six-point
04:32 gap before at the top, but you're talking like there's no gap between 11th and 9th.
04:38 There's a two-point gap between 11th and 7th. If Brighton were to finish 7th, I think that's
04:43 a real big achievement for what Brighton have been like over the past few years.
04:48 I've seen the comments from David Weir, the great David Weir. I'm a big fan of him personally,
04:54 but he did say that he wanted, or the club had decided they wanted more. For me, I don't
05:01 know what more would be. They could easily finish 7th, they were getting points against
05:06 Man United, the top four teams, they were competing in almost every game with the occasional
05:12 disappointing defeat. I think they pulled it back really late against Bristol City to
05:16 win 3-2 in the 95th minute. Turland's playing really, really well. She's been like the other
05:22 clubs and they're still fresh in that period of time where Melissa Phillips has brought
05:27 those players in. I didn't really understand her being sacked.
05:32 On Harris, I'm not going to comment on the guy's coaching ability because everyone has
05:38 to start somewhere and he might be a very, very good coach and end up doing a really,
05:43 really good job. I echo what George has said before in the sense that this is a really
05:50 good opportunity. The WSL is not a jolly, not a top-tier women's football. I just think,
05:57 I don't know, it depends how long he's there. He could be there two weeks and if he's there
06:01 two weeks, whatever, that's fine. Someone's got to steady the ship and look after something
06:04 for the time being. If that's the case, then that's the case. I'm sure it won't be a problem
06:09 we'll probably forget about and we'll probably maybe even microanalyse it too much. I don't
06:12 know.
06:13 If he's there until the end of the season and you've sacked Melissa Phillips, there's
06:16 someone who's a risk at the best. I don't really get it. It's a bit like, I think you
06:25 see it a lot in football, don't you? In men's football, women's football, where people talk
06:29 about, "We've made this decision that surprises a lot of people." And then it's sort of said
06:38 that, "Well, we did this because the results weren't where we want it to be. We want to
06:41 be in X, Y, or Z." And you think, "Well, okay. Well, you must've had a succession plan then.
06:45 You must've thought we'll have this next manager to come in and steer the ship and take us
06:50 to the next step." Because if you sack Melissa Phillips, then a point like Emma Hayes, you
06:53 go, "Oh, right. Okay. That makes sense." You know what I mean? That's not going to happen,
06:57 but you get my point. If you're getting an improvement on Melissa Phillips, it makes
07:00 sense.
07:02 If they've got someone who's in interim charge at the moment who doesn't have experience
07:05 in WSL, let alone experience elsewhere, that alone to me strikes us like the sack and didn't
07:13 really have a plan behind it. And that would always concern me as part of... My men's club
07:21 recently did that. It terrified me. It doesn't work. I think if you're going to sack someone,
07:27 you've got to know what to do next. You can't just sack someone and go, "Right. Let's see
07:29 what's available. Brilliant." It's like selling your house and being like, "Right. Don't have
07:33 anyone at Illiv at the moment, but let's see what's on the market. And hopefully we'll
07:37 get this house that we have never seen or don't know really what it's like in about
07:42 three weeks time. And hopefully, I won't, I don't know, suffer over the next few weeks.
07:48 But of course I'm going to, you know what I mean? I just, I don't get Melissa Phillips
07:54 sacking. I don't understand it. And I understand it even less. The fact that it appears there's
08:00 no one ready made to come straight in.
08:01 Yeah. Well, so with the bringing in of these news, and obviously as we've pointed out,
08:08 the Frank Lampard mentioned has just been sort of one person commenting that it could
08:12 be a good idea. But now suddenly got the ball rolling and we're all like, if Frank Lampard,
08:17 who famously failed at his previous clubs, can come in for the top tier.
08:27 Did he fail because he became very memeable? He became very memeable. So is that a success
08:34 in a way?
08:35 At Edmonton, I don't think you could call him successful.
08:37 But if you create your own meme, I think that's a level of success. Maybe not on the pitch
08:45 or off the pitch, but it's kind of a success being memeable.
08:48 I don't want my next Chelsea manager to be successful in a memeable context. I would
08:56 prefer them to be successful. I'm not a Chelsea fan, but I'm just saying for the women's Super
09:00 League. But does that mean that then, you know, we had all these comments before and
09:05 we were saying just in the break there how, you know, he can come in, but say Emma Hayes
09:12 couldn't go to Wimbledon. So Georgia, what is that sort of like? It's almost, you could
09:18 say, a double standard, you know? How is that reflecting?
09:24 It's irritating because I think your average football fan will see a women's manager to
09:30 a men's club and think they couldn't possibly make that step. Men's football's elite, different
09:35 sport, all this absolute nonsense. But then the other side, it's the same argument but
09:41 reversed. So it's like, well, he needs a job. And what better way to do it than to walk
09:47 into the women's league? Like it's just such a backwards attitude to have. But I genuinely
09:53 think that your average fan thinks that way. This isn't tying to like what Izzy Christian
09:58 has said because I see where she is coming from and she has insight that we don't and
10:04 fans don't. But I just think as a whole, it needs to, I don't know why these are kind
10:13 of conversations that are being had because the pool of women's coaches is big and it's
10:18 great. I don't know why we need to string out and look at men's league coaches who have
10:25 either been out of work for a while or as we said with Harris, hasn't ever coached a
10:31 senior team professionally. He was doing the men's academy at Brighton and then they've
10:37 gone, "Oh, do you fancy a bit of work experience with Brighton women?" is basically how I've
10:42 read it. And I've read his interview and I think some of it's come across wrong. I do
10:47 see in his comments, he likes this and I'm going to use challenge loosely because I am
10:53 giving him the benefit of the doubt. I think how he's worded it has come across wrong and
10:57 I hope he's not taking it as work experience, but that's just how it's come across to me.
11:03 I just hope that people start listening to what fans want and bring in genuine qualified
11:08 coaches.
11:09 Well, that remains to be seen. But on that note, that is plenty from us this week. There
11:16 is a break in the SSL this weekend, but we'll be back to discuss potentially whether Wayne
11:21 Rooney will suddenly come and join.
11:23 Before we go, I just want to say that I disagree with Izzy on the Lampard shout, but she once
11:33 gave me some candy at Manchester City and her choice of candy was very, very good. So
11:39 while I don't agree with her Lampard shout, I 100% agree with her choice of sweets.
11:44 Well, thank you very much. So please head to www.shortstv.com to catch up on all the
11:51 latest episodes or head to Freeview channel 276 to find out more about candy.