
About this episode
Arsenal and Man City are still in all four competitions after reaching the last eight of the FA Cup.
It's the latest two sides have ever still been in the hunt of the quadruple in English football history.
So could we see one of those sides win the lot?
Host: Ayo Akinwolere
With: Oliver Kay and Duncan Alexander
Executive Producer: Adey Moorhead
Producers: Guy Clarke and Paul Iliffe
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The Athletic FC Podcast — Can Arsenal or Man City win the quadruple?. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
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Oli, look, it's the first time in English football history we've got into March, and there are two sides still in all competitions with the possibility of completing the quadruple. Just how big a task is it ahead for both Arsenal and Manchester City? It's clearly very difficult. I mean, you could say that Arsenal, for example, might be favourites for all four of those competitions, but then you look at the probability of winning all four. It's still very difficult. I'm sure the bookies odds will reflect that clearly, at the start of every season, that there are odds offered on teams winning the lot, and they're normally very long odds. Now, I would imagine in Arsenal's case, they've come down and down and down, but it's still a long shot. I remember when reporting on Manchester United in the 2000s and early 2010s, every year we would ask Alex Fogs, could you win the lot this season? Is that a realistic target? Or sometimes could Arsenal win the lot? Could Chelsea win the lot?
And his answer was always no. He always felt, Manchester United had won the treble in 1999, but he always felt it required everything to fall into place and basically a clean bill of health in the final weeks of the season, so that you've got that squad strength and able to rotate games from perhaps as it used to be an FA Cup final on a Saturday to a Champions League final on the Wednesday. He felt that everything was in place for 1999 and never really after that. So his view was that it wasn't possible. It's probably never been more possible than in the 21st century where it's generally only a small cluster of teams winning everything, but I think in order, you know, the chances of winning the lot remain very slim. Yeah, Duncan will Devon to that a little later on, but let's just focus on these two teams because also Arsenal and Manchester City are the only Premier League sides currently to score over 100 goals in all competitions this season. When you look at both these squads, which do you think
is more equipped to go the furthest? It's an interesting question that because I think if you go back a few months, you'd have probably definitely said Arsenal after their recruitment last summer. Where you know, the Super are going to lot of players and basically have two world class players or very good players reach position. But I think in the last sort of month or so, CIS have really come back into it. And if you look at players like Kusenoff, who they signed last January, Trance or Window, they obviously strengthened again in the summer. Players like Donna rumours, obviously made a really big impact, but someone like Ryan Aignori, who has had a slow start, but he's starting to come into his own a little bit as well. And then obviously they went again and filled some gaps this January with Mark Gay and Antoine Semenio. It's quite a 1990s sort of move that very Manchester United in the 90s have sort of going to a Premier League rival and sort of picking off two of the best players to help your squad. And I think it's working. I think City are kind of, you know, they're not the favourites to win the Premier League or the Champions League, but it's pretty much a coin toss for the caribou cut final. And I do actually
think that game will have quite a big say in how these teams get out of the rest of season, because I think if City beat Arsenal, then you'd imagine there could be some mental issues for Arsenal going into the other competitions, whereas I think if Arsenal win it is really sort of, you know, I didn't won the league cup since 1993, which is sort of ridiculous in itself. But if they can get this first trophy over the line, we saw with Chelsea and Damirino in his first season that it really kind of helped. And I think we could see the same again. Okay, well, before we go any further, let's hear from Manchester City writer Sam Lee. Here's what he makes of either City or Arsenal's chances and whether a quadruple is even possible. Personally, I just don't see, well, I don't think either of these teams win in it because there have been better teams in the past, very recent past, the haven't been able to do it. A lot of the City teams, but all of the City teams that have won trophies in the last few years are better than this City team, they're better than Arsenal at the moment. I live up all as well, you know, in 2022, they came relatively close to doing it,
but they couldn't, they're better than these two teams at the moment as well. But also, if you look at the Spanish league, the French league, the Portuguese league, they're rearranging fixtures or postponing fixtures to make it easier for their teams. You don't get that in England, so the deck is kind of stacked against the English clubs in that respect as well. Also, the English league has always been more physical than other leagues, but it's even more so now. There's a reason it's never been done before, winning the quadruple. Four different trophies, I'm managing those. It's never been done, I don't think it will be done in the next 150 years, or if it is, it'll be done once. But basically, two physically demanding, all the players have played so much football over the last few years, they're basically a breaking point anyway. Other leagues, they try and offset that physical disparity by giving their players a bit of rest before Champions League games, and just the fact that City and Arsenal will be going up against each other, makes it more likely that one team might win there, so the other team wins that. And then there's just the fact that these two teams, they're not as good as previous teams that have come close. Yeah, super interesting there from Sam Oli. He mentions intensity, also mentions
the amount of games that teams have to play. Look, Pep Guardiola won two troubles in his time at Manchester City in 2019 and 2023. Surely the quadruple is the last thing left for him to take off. Yeah, and particularly as we're talking about the possibility of him moving on at the end of the season, that's gone very quiet on that front, but I think there's still that possibility. He will want to, absolutely, I mean, he's made history so many times with Barcelona and with City in particular, but it is so much easier said than done. And I think in the case of Arsenal, I think you're almost talking about, can they win the quadruple? I mean, we're talking about a team a club that hasn't won a trophy since 2020. And I'm not saying that to knock them down by any means. It's just just to win that first loop, that link up in that final against Manchester City in a couple of weeks time. That is huge for them to win the Premier League again after what will be 22 years is huge for them. I don't think either of these teams is going to be judged on whether or
not they do the quadruple. Obviously, if they achieve it, they certainly will, but it's not any kind of failure if you win two of those trophies, for example. And I think just go back to Liverpool in 2022. So Liverpool were still in with a shout of the quadruple going into into May. They'd won the league cup. They were through to the Champions League final. They then played the FA Cup final. So I think, yeah, even going into the final week of the season, don't remember the shout. Well, they're the final 10 minutes of the league game. It was in Villa Cane. Yeah. And then Manchester City came from 2-0 down to beat. As in Villa, 3-2 in that strangely overlooked, strangely forgotten last day, drama. And then Liverpool played really well in the Champions League final, but were beaten by Tuba Courtawira and Real Madrid. So it's just, it's so difficult. Well, it's disagree slightly with Sam Papson. I think you can look at Europe at the moment and say that
that Sam was saying that, you know, this isn't a great Manchester City team. This isn't a great, you know, he felt that this Arsenal team isn't up there with the Liverpool of Manchester City teams, the recent person. I would probably agree with that. But I also feel there's a bit of a gap at the top of European football at the moment. So even if, you know, I don't think Real Madrid and Barcelona and Bayern are at the level that they were a decade ago or more recently than that. So I do feel that even if you were saying Arsenal aren't as good as those teams in the past, I think they are. I think they've been the best team in Europe this season. So they have got as good a chance as anybody, but it's so difficult. And no, they won't do it. Now I'm with you. I mean, but Duncan, I mean, Olli makes a really good point actually because I was, you know, we talk about the quadruple here. I mean, Arsenal, I haven't won a trophy in absolutely ages and even the Premier League alone or even a League Cup alone will be a notch,
you know, higher than they've achieved over the last how many years, right? But also, I do look at this squad that Arsenal do have at their disposal and it's a squad technically built to play with different game states, different types of styles, different types of teams. We probably haven't seen that from this squad. I would say this season, but they do have that depth inevitably. So if they are going to go ahead and do this, they kind of do have a squad that can achieve it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think Arsenal's best display of the season and I think maybe the best team performance I've seen this season was Arsenal beaten Bayern in the in the league stage of the Champions League earlier in the in the autumn. And they completely other than maybe, you know, five minutes here and there, they completely dominated Bayern. Bayern hadn't even dropped a point in either competition at that point. So I think this Arsenal team, particularly as we'll come on to talk about with the draw they've got in the Champions League, I think that's a pretty, it's going to, it's surely one of their best opportunities to win a Champions League ever in their history. I mean, to all its point about Liverpool in 2021-22, you know, not all parts of
a quadruple are made equal, are they? I mean, you know, that, I think that season for Liverpool fans has probably looked on as a bit of a wasted opportunity now. You know, yes, they won the, the League Cup and the FA Cup, which for fans of many teams up and down the country would be an incredible, greatest season ever, but I think to come that close to winning the league. I think even they're probably Liverpool fans who probably swap, you know, both of those cups for just the league or just the Champions League. So yeah, I think for Arsenal it is important, as you say, to get that first trophy for a long time under the belt, but yeah, I think the league's going to be the hardest bit of that for Arsenal, even with their advantage. We've had a few seasons that we recently were the sort of, the running's been a little bit over by this point or, you know, at last season, we're kind of new Liverpool, we're going to win the league. So I'm really sort of relishing the drama that we've got upcoming in the next couple of months. So you don't think it's a one-horse race for Arsenal? No, I think if City win the game in hand and be Arsenal at the edge, it's a one point league table. So I think it's still alive there. I mean, obviously per various
super computers are some of strong favourites, but yeah, that's a long way to go. This is the Athertic FC podcast with I.O. Akima-Leire. This episode of the Athertic FC podcast is sponsored by Pebble. Now one thing no one tells you about hiring globally is how unclear the cost can be. It looks simple at first, but then the fees start stacking up, while Pebble brings clarity with up front all the in hiring costs and enables you to hire the world. Pebble is an AI-powered global human resources platform built for founders, HR leaders and operators who are hiring and supporting teams worldwide. Pebble helps you hire, pay and manage talent in over 185 countries with fast onboarding that can be done in minutes. Instead of juggling separate tools for contracts, payroll, benefits and compliance, Pebble brings everything together with built-in guidance and local expertise to support you, which is especially helpful at your managing teams internationally or planning to grow. The fastest growing companies in the world use Pebble to stay organized and reduce risk, and founders use it to scale faster without feeling like they need to become HR or compliance
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attempts to complete a quadruple in English football. Ollie, we've already referenced Liverpool in 2022. Is that an achievement remembered as well as it could have been, given they missed out on the two biggest trophies? Yeah, I was at Anfield for that final game against Wolves in 2022, and obviously they'd won the FA Cup a week earlier, and they were on matches, cities, sort of coattails, going into the final league game, they needed things to go their way, and honestly, the atmosphere as it sort of spread around Anfield that Man City had gone one down, and then two no down, that felt like that was going to be one of the most sort of dramatic final days, and there was this incredible opportunity there for Liverpool who at that time were being held by Wolves, and the sort of eruption in the ground when Mo Salah, I think, put Liverpool ahead in that game, was enormous, but then people realised that Man City had actually
turned it around at the Etihad, which as I said before, is strangely overlooked in the sort of pantheon of great Premier League drama, it just doesn't seem to be talked about that, incredible come back on the last day. So yeah, I mean, as Duncan said, that was a season of near misses in the end for Liverpool, that it's probably remembered more for falling just narrowly short in the league, and the defeat in the Champions League than for the two that they won, but one thing which I think is a real illustration of how hard it is, is when you see when the fixtures come, and for example, when the FA Cup semi-finals are normally scheduled in April, that is normally when you've got Champions League semi-finals around the same time, so I remember in 2009, I just United would won the league cup, they were well equipped, well, very well placed to win the league, they were through to the FA Cup semi-finals against clear favourites for that, but they were still battling through Champions League water finals
at that stage, and that the FA Cup semi-final against Everton felt straight after the Champions League quarterfinals, and this big intense run of games and Ferguson in the FA Cup semi-final against all expectations, basically, fielded a reserve team almost, because he felt so many players were kind of completely on the edge, and they still took Everton to penalties, but Everton won on penalties, so as desperate as he was to win the quadruple and win the lot that season, he felt that something had to give, and I think maybe you could look at this Arsenal squad now, or even the Manchester City squad now and say that they've got, they're even deeper than those squads of off the late 2000s, but there aren't too many sort of no disrespect, you know, Ferdinand Gary Gibson types coming in and team, it's a higher level of squad, but it's still so difficult, when those fixtures fall, so I've just looked at the FA Cup semi-finals, asked scheduled just before the Champions League semi-final first leg, so if Arsenal could have
Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final, Manchester City could have Liverpool or PSG or Chelsea in a semi-final, I think if they've got an FA Cup semi-final a few days later, they'll be resting a lot of the big guns, so that's another thing to take into account. Luck of the draw naturally will come into that later on at Duncan, but I also think about whether you do need a team that goes toe-to-toe with you, you know, we've spoken about Pepp's team, Liverpool were obviously on their coattails, obviously this time around Arsenal, Manchester City on their coattails as well, just to drive you for that level of perfection really, as you're aiming to achieve the unachievable. Yeah, I think that's a really good point, I think we saw Liverpool last season that they kind of just peed it out towards the end because there was not much to play for, and this kind of relentless ness I think really, really drives teams on at this stage of the season, so I mean just on the point of Ferguson and Lee Cups as well, I think we can credit Josie Mourinho obviously came sort of close, did a Liverpool 21-22 in O607 with Chelsea won both domestic cups, second in the Premier League
and lost in the semis to Liverpool and Champions League, but Mourinho kind of reinvigorated top clubs interest in the Lee Cups because it's easy to forget that sort of from the mid to late 93 to the mid 2000s, Venger and Ferguson just used the Lee Cups as a sort of training exercise for their up and coming players, and that really kind of removed any chance of quadruple really, so Mourinho kind of brought that back, and it was interesting obviously as we just talked about that United did land the Lee Cups in that season, but yeah, decided to rotate for the FA Cup, so yeah, I think obviously we are in a pretty unique situation here where City and Arsenal both are still in that position, we were recording this before the draw for the FA Cup quarter finals, but there's some big teams in there, there could be a very tricky tie for these teams, there's also some, shall we say, favorable routes to the semis or the final at least, so yeah, it's interesting to see what comes out the heart later.
I think the name Port Vells probably what you're thinking there Duncan, no problem, I see what you're saying. It's good, so they're on the way back, John Brady's doing a good job, but yeah, I am. Can I just ask though, you know, we talk about Jose Mourinho and his winning ways and sort of bringing more sort of emphasis back onto the Lee Cups because the trophy is still a trophy, but I'm just looking at this current Arsenal side, and you know, some of the complaints some people have of them being anti-footballing in any respect, Duncan, winning by any means necessary, not necessarily through style and pizzazz, do you see any similarities here? I think you can see a determination in mechalatetta and a manager who plots each game on its own merits, you know, they had a specific plan for Mansfield at the weekend, and why wouldn't you, because you know, even Lee One teams are incredibly well prepared in this day and age. I think the kind of set piece stuff is slightly overblown. I mean, some of Arsenal's preferences in the Champions League, the season where teams don't set up like Premier League teams do against them. They've looked a really, really good football team. I think almost,
as a matter of fact, it sounds, the Champions League is almost like the kind of the fun free hit bit of Arsenal season, because everyone in England is so determined to sit deep and, you know, play the the lowest of blocks against them, whereas in Europe that doesn't happen. So, you know, they have got a favorable pathway, and I think they'll probably enjoy that. I've Arsenal learned to play a bit differently if they are going to achieve the quadruple, Olli, having to maybe play differently amidst this low blocks and but also able to express themselves in the competition like the Champions League. Yeah, and I think they will find themselves up against low blocks in the Champions League. I suspect any team who's watched the way they play will be probably better prepared to face them than some of the teams were facing the league phase. I think teams in the Champions League have looked nothing like as well prepared against set pieces. You look even, you know, Liverpool was scoring loads from set pieces in the Champions League earlier in the competition, well, not able to get basically not able to get a corner past the first man in the Premier League.
That's changed a bit more recently, but it's yeah, I feel Arsenal have got a real variety and a real variety of options they've got. Sometimes you don't see much variety in their performance within a game or in their style within a game, but they do have different ways that they can set up in different ways they can set up to win a game. So yeah, I think they do have the depth to certainly win more than one trophy this season. I wouldn't say quadruple is a realistic goal at all, but it's, you know, they do have a real resilience and winning mentality, which I think they are not given credit for, be the various weapons that they are certainly sort of recognised in terms of the set pieces and so on and just the different ways of playing and being good at sitting in the squad that they have significant things in their favour. Hi, this is Pablo Torei from Pablo Torei finds out and today I want to talk to you about
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even from the days of Manchester United, when Alex Ferguson was going for it. The depth in squads, but not just the depth and talking recruitment, not just on the pitch, but in terms of staff as well, data and all those kind of things. Is it inevitably just one of the hardest things to achieve based on that alone? I'm old enough to have grown up and I dare say don't get the same. In an era where the double, just running the League in FA Cup was just mythologised as an achievement. I think it happened twice in the late 19th century, then spurs that in 1961, Arsenal 71, Liverpool 86, then three times in the 90s, and then it's just there's been a succession of doubles since since the 1990s, Manuited Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, so much so that people have all lost track of what the double is because it's sort of seen as something that just happened. Then it turns to can anyone do the treble, then it's can anyone do the Quadruple? In fact, that we're talking about it as a realistic
possibility for two teams. It just shows how, and the fact that we're talking about it sees enough to season really. It shows that how concentrated the financial resources, the playing resources, talent, etc. are now within a really small group of teams. So it is the same teams generally in competition for the prizes, season after season. That is a 21st century phenomenon. It seems far more achievable now than it ever did in the 80s, 90s, for example, but it's still a really tall order, and particularly I think in the Premier League where just winning that is just takes such a monumental effort for anybody. Yeah, I mean, we should point out that even doing a Quadruple is pretty much limited to England alone because we're still foolish enough to have two domestic cup competitions. France had the coup de la league, but they got rid of that. But yeah, I mean, still, if you look at trebles, if we take the treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European cup slash champions league, it's only ever been done 11 times, which to all
these point them up doubles, that's still a very, very hard thing to do. Obviously, only City and United have done it here, Barcelona have done it a couple of times, but it's a very, very hard thing to do. So yeah, the fact we're even talking about a quadruple is slightly ridiculous, and yes, it does come down to squad strength and team strength and league strength and financial strength, et cetera. But it's also as someone, to Ollie's point, who my first, everyone remembers the first cup fun I saw, the first one I remember was 1986, and I remember all the, all the, this is the double, and you know, my young brain being all this sounds fun. And then you know, you learned those dates in your 71, 61, and then the Villa and the Preston one should point out Preston rotated their goalkeepers in 1888, modern. But I mean, I think that we'll fans are kind of like hardwired to find these sort of little things interesting, and that's why it is fun to have this conjecture about whether City or Arsenal can do it this season, because these are the kind of achievements that are still legendary, even if maybe the style of football to do it, you know,
that'll get forgotten in years to come. The trophies won't. Yeah, I mean, I want to touch on just before we wrap this up about the quadruple, you know, something you've spoken about already, Duncan is the lock of the draw, you know, you've spoken about a favourable FA Cup draw. If Arsenal ended up winning the Carobo Cup, Beat Manchester City perhaps that could kickstart something for them in terms of how they see themselves as quadruple contenders. You know, the Champions League draw could also have a massive, massive impact on that as well. Arsenal might say look to be on the more favourable side of the draw in many respects. So why don't let them dream? Yeah, I mean, we've got a piece coming on the athletic on Tuesday by Conroneale, which was like kind of a big day to dive on on, you know, strength of draws and pathways in Champions League. And historically, if we take the Champions League since O304, which is when it moves into its post second group stage format that no one lamented, Arsenal had the second toughest last 16 draws historically in that period. So they kind of earned
a good side of the draw, but the fact is that it still came down to luck this time because Basie Bayern and Arsenal got drawn to see which half of the draw they were in. I also could easily be on the Bayern half with along with City and Chelsea and PSG and Liverpool. So it does feel, in that sense, that the card is sort of falling for them this season. And a bit like in O304, where they lost to Chelsea in the quarterfinals of the Champions League and really probably should have won the Champions League that season. They were the best team in Europe by some distance. You just wonder whether if they don't get across the line in one or several competitions this year, whether they will see this as another really big mistrust. Just before we started, I'd just look because I was fascinated by the idea that this is being talked about. And I just looked on where you can look on Google Trends and see what, when certain words have been searched. And in the UK, the word quadruple is currently at its second most, it's ever been searched for.
And the high by far is was in May 2022, which is that Liverpool period we're talking about. Now, I'm not saying that nobody was talking about it back in the late 2000s when I just started going for it, but maybe they were using that. They're probably an ass jives. Exactly, you've stolen them. There's all search engines on that. Yeah, so it's something that has barely been a worthwhile piece of narrative or also for many of the recent years. But yeah, that spike in 2022 says that either a lot of fans were interested in it or a lot of people like me were writing about the possibility and googling it a lot. But yeah, the high point in terms of searches over the past three months for the word quadruple came fourth of February, which I think was after the Arsenal beat Chelsea in the caribou 72nd leg. So yeah, that tells you that people are suddenly talking about this and suddenly thinking about it. And I'm sure if they get past leather cues on which I expect them to and then particularly
if they beat Manchester City in the caribou Cup Final, then it is going to be something that people talk about more and more. Before we finish Duncan, we've got to talk about sides trying to achieve the impossible. And you know what I'm going to be talking about right now. If you witness something incredible at the weekend following your side of Wickham Wanderers, tell us more. Yes, I was at the tough sheet community stadium to see Wickham who climbed into the top six in midweek, take on third place Bolton. So you know, big game, two teams in form. Wickham proceeded to dominate the first 70 minutes, played really well, tune it up and then got to the 18th minute, tune it up. So, you know, pretty, pretty safe, you know, thought and then three Bolton substitutes scored in the space of seven or eight minutes. And yeah, I've never seen that happen before. So as someone who enjoys, as we've just talked about unique events in football, then I guess I should be happy, but I probably wasn't that happy at five o'clock. Put it that way. Yeah, Ollie, I mean, too little. It does prove that it can be indeed be quite a dangerous scoreline.
Yeah, but it shouldn't be dangerous for a couple of minutes left, should it, Duncan? It's a bit careless. Do you know, I mean, with your stats data head on, what's the latest anyone's, for example, in the Premier League, what's the latest anyone's squandered, attuned in a lead? I remember Manchester City, tune it up at home to Liverpool. I was at that game, reporting on that game, late 2000s. Yeah, there was a one quite recently ever to tune up at home to Bournemouth. Oh, gosh, yeah. Into the 87th minute. So the bowl and wicking game lasted one minute longer. But yeah, in options records, it is the latest in the EFL that they've got for sure. I mean, a few people kind of message me on social media at the weekend and sort of pointed out there's what Tram Air Blue won even worse in the National League a few years ago. So it does happen, but it's quite an existential moment where you're a big ground, a big club. There's a lot of fans that over 20,000 fans there grumbling, very disappointed at their team about to lose 2-0 and then seeing that sort
of hope rise and then the noise, the explosion of noise at 3-2 was, it is quite an experience when you see that. It's just not very pleasant when it's your team at the front. But it is what it is. Let's leave it there, Jens. Always appreciate your time, Duncan Oli. Thanks for joining us too, and also thank you guys for joining us as well. We'll catch you soon. You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers would guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beale, with editing by Paul Eiliff and Nick Thompson. The executive producer is 80 more ahead. To listen to other great Athletic Podcasts for free, including our dedicated club shows, search for the Athletic wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC Podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC Podcast is an Athletic Media Company production.
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