PAM: Welcome back to The LOL Football Daily. I'm Pam.

PETE: And I'm Pete, and I have a proposal that will save football.

PAM: [SIGHS] It's been four seconds.

PETE: Abolish the offside rule.

PAM: No.

PETE: Hear me out. HEAR ME OUT.

PAM: Pete, the offside rule is fundamental to the structure of football. Without it, you'd just have people standing next to the goalkeeper waiting for a long ball.

PETE: And what is wrong with that? Entertainment, Pam. Pure entertainment. Imagine the chaos. Imagine ten players camped on the six-yard box and the goalkeeper just... surrounded. Like a nature documentary where the wildebeest finally turns on the lion.

PAM: That is not how football works. Or nature documentaries.

PETE: Every time VAR draws those ridiculous lines to check if someone's armpit is offside, a fan dies inside. I am speaking spiritually. You abolish offside, you abolish VAR. Two problems solved with one policy change.

PAM: [PAUSE] The VAR point is... not entirely without merit. Andy Keys would agree with you there.

PETE: Andy and I are aligned on this. A rare moment of unity. Football's version of a ceasefire.

PAM: Andy wants to go back to 1996. You want to go forward to a sport that doesn't exist yet. These are not the same thing.

PETE: Progress and nostalgia are the same emotion viewed from different angles, Pam.

PAM: That is... I don't know what that is. Moving on. Big match this weekend. Boffin has the stats: Liverpool have won 73% of their home matches this season. Their press intensity is in the 95th percentile.

PETE: Stats don't win football matches, Pam.

PAM: They literally measure who wins football matches.

PETE: I said what I said.

PAM: [LAUGHS] OK. Pete's Prediction of the Week. What have you got?

PETE: A manager will be sacked this weekend who nobody expects.

PAM: Which manager?

PETE: If I told you, you'd expect it. And then my prediction would be wrong. This is the paradox of prediction, Pam. The moment you name the thing, the universe changes course.

PAM: That's not a prediction. That's a horoscope. I'm giving it a 2 out of 10.

PETE: A 2 is higher than a 1, and last week I got a 1. That is 100% improvement. I am the most improved predictor on this podcast.

PAM: You are the only predictor on this podcast. Thank you for listening. I'm Pam.

PETE: And I'm Pete. If a manager gets sacked this weekend, I expect a full written apology.

PAM: Goodnight.