The Quadruple Illusion: Squad Fatigue, Calendar Friction, and Football's Holy Grail

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimolero. Our song and Manchester City are still in all four competitions after reaching the last eight of the FA Cup. So could we see one of these two sides complete the quadruple? Alright, in with us today we have Oli K. We've also got Duncan Alexander as well. Oli, look, it's the first time in English football history we've got in to 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 City in the 2000s and early 2010s, every year we would ask Alex Foes now, 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, you know, Manchester City had won the treble in 1999, but he always felt it required everything to fall into place and it 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 25th 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, don't come all devin 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 support in a 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, Sissi have really come back into it. And if you look at players like Kusunov, 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 to answer some menu, I think probably, you know, it's quite a 1990s sort of move that a very Manchester United in the 90s is 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 off 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, they haven'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 the Marine in his first season that it really kind of helped. And I think we could see the same again. OK, well, before we go any further, let's hear from our Manchester City writer Sam Lee. He'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. If there's a reason it's never been done before winning the quadruple, four different trophies and managing those, it's never been done. I don't think it'll 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 this and 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 hit, 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 that 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 of you 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 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, they'll come with a shout. The final 10 minutes of the league game was in Villa Cane. Yeah. And then Manchester City came from 2-0 down to beat Asad Villa 3-2 in that strangely sort of overlooked, strangely forgotten last day drama. And then Liverpool played really well in the Champions League final, but were beaten by Tuba, Courtois and Real Madrid. So it's just, it's so difficult. But what's this disagree slightly with Sam Papson? I think you can look at Europe at the moment and say 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 in the recent past, and 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, sort of, 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, Oli makes a really good point, actually, because I was, you know, we talk about the quadruple here. I mean, Arsenal 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 beating Bayern in the league stage of the Champions League earlier 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. So 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 is probably looked on as a bit of a wasted opportunity now, you know, yes, they won the league up on 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, they're 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 has 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 up coming 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 hotel, it's a one-point league table. So I think it's still alive there. I mean, obviously, per various Supercomputers, Arsenal have strong favourites, but yeah, that's a long way to go. This is the Athletic FC podcast with I.O. Akimolera. Ahead of the weekend, on the Athletic Dan Scheldon wrote a piece looking back at the historic attempts to complete a quadruple in English football. Olli, 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 Manchester City's co-tails 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 1-0 down and then 2-0 down. That felt like that was going to be one of the most 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. 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 defeating 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 with one of 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 Devitt, and 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 matches to City Squad now, and say that they've got, they're even deeper than those squads of the late 2000s, but there aren't too many sort of no disrespect, you know, Federico Mercaded, 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 the 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 know, we've spoken about Pepp's team Liverpool, 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 the 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 relentlessness I think really drives teams on at the stage of the season. So I mean just on the point of Ferguson and League Cups as well, I think we can credit Joseph Merino, who obviously came sort of close, did a Liverpool 21-22 in 0607 with Chelsea won both domestic cups, second in the in the Premier League and lost in the semi's to Liverpool and Champions League. But Merino kind of reinvigorated top clubs interest in the League Cup because it's easy to forget that sort from the mid to late 93 to the mid 2000s, Vanguil Ferguson just used the League Cup as a sort of training exercise for their up and coming players, and that really kind of removed any chance of quadruple, really. So Merino kind of brought that back, and it was interesting, obviously, as we just talked about, that United did land the League Cup 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 quarterfinals, 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 Portvels 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 don't. Could I just ask though, you know, we talk about Joe Sembrino and his winning ways and sort of bringing more sort of emphasis back onto the League Cup 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 their respects, 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 League 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 performances 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, I think almost, as mad as 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 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 asked an alert 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, that face from 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 while not able to get, you know, basically not able to get a cornerpast 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 and 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 of zone and just the different ways of playing and being good at it in the squad that they have significant things in their favour. You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with IOWAC in Malaria. One of the things we've spoken about is obviously Liverpool coming closest to a quadruple in recent years, but is it a one-off? I think Sam at the top said it's almost impossible to win the quadruple Oli, but I'm just thinking about the resources available to Premier League clubs right now, even from the days of Manchester United when Alex Ferguson was going for it, you know, the depth in squads, but not just the depth and talking recruitment, not just on the pitch, but in terms of staff as well, you know, 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 guess I don't get the same in an era where the double, the double, just running the league in FA Cup was just mythologised as an achievement and I think it, you know, it happened twice in the late 19th century then spurs that it in 1961, Arsenal 71, Liverpool 86, many United, then three times in the 90s and then it's just there's been a succession of doubles since since the 1990s, many United Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, so much so that people have almost 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, 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 season after 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's 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 take 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 Cup de la Ligue, 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 his point about 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, etc. 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 my young brain, all this sounds fun. And then you know, you learnt those dates in your 71, 61 and then the the Villa and the Preston one should point out Preston rotated their goalkeepers in 1888 in modern. But I mean, I think football 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 the lock of the draw, you know, he's 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 some 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 Conor O'Neill, which is 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, it's also three or four, 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're winning. Arsenal 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 mist chance. Just before we started, I just looked 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, the second most it's ever been searched for. And the high by far 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. There's all search engines on that. After the Easter. 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 Arsenal beat Chelsea in the caribou semi-final second 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, 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, 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 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 88th minute, tune it up. So, you know, pretty, pretty safely to 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, tune it up. It does prove that it can be indeed be quite a dangerous score line. Yeah, but it shouldn't be dangerous for a couple of minutes left, should it, Duncan, it's a bit careless. 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 a tune in a league? I remember, Manchester City, tune it up at home to Liverpool, those at that game, reporting on that game, late 2000s. Yeah, there was a one quite recently, ever to tune up at home to Bournemouth, and into the 87th minute, so the Bolton Wicken 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 point you 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 2L, 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 for any way. But it is what it is. Let's leave it there, Jens. Always, I 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 with Guy Clarke, Mike Stavroup, 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