Graeme Le Saux, Fmr Chelsea & Blackburn Player: ‘Big Money Transfers Can Break Players’ (Ep.88)

33:39But the PFA have a huge role to play, don't do a great job. the agents a lot of the agents get involved in a lot of that stuff now that often is a conflict and I think there's a there's a educational part to your point which is absolutely spot on that actually getting people interested in what what they're doing with their money what sits behind it and you can only do that if they're investing in things they're interested in and so bringing those things together and actually protecting players quite often from the people around them is, I think, a part of a duty of care that is still missing. But we're seeing now more and more sports people, you know, investing in startups, investing in brands that then relate to them.

34:26Andy Murray stands out to me as somebody who's always been very, very astute when it comes to his investment strategy around him and his brand. And I think players are getting more savvy in that respect. This is a really important part for you and actually just the general conversation around player education because you had a very unusual start to this. Well, anyway, where you did your A-levels and then went to play football. So you kind of completed, should we say, normal education. And that is a very different type of environment for you to be to then go into a dressing room. And you're different in that sense.

34:59People around you have not done that. You mentioned now it's so different. I mean, let's use Cody Gakpo as an example. And he's done an amazing job. Now, actively, he's on LinkedIn. tin he's posting about his interests he's really keen to let everyone know that he's investing it and guess what everyone supports it the dressing room is behind him they go this is amazing this is fantastic that experience was not the same for you was it no and and it was it was a much one much more sort of one size fits all mentality and and if you were different you was not you were seen as not being a team player or from in from my point of view or in my case i should say i was seen as somebody that I wouldn't say was a threat but was like you're trying to be different and and therefore you're judging us the rest of the group whereas obviously I wasn't I think I was always very confident in my own identity who I was what I liked what I didn't like and I was always very good at saying no if I didn't want to do something I'd say no I'd do my own thing and and And a big part of my sort of success on the pitch was based on being able to do my own thing off the pitch and get away from it.

36:11I couldn't because I was so intense about my football. I had to have all the distractions. When I moved to London, it was all about getting to know London sort of life and culture and music. I've always been a huge music fan. and I suppose bettering myself off the pitch because that made me feel more secure about life after football, whether that was after one year, two years, 10 years, 15, whereas it turned out to be 18 years of a career. It was all part of growing, but being judged for that I found really hard because I just think it shows the vulnerabilities within the sort of working cultures that existed back then.

36:50Why is it more so than ever today, really? We have, I'm going to get in so much trouble for this, incredibly uneducated, successful footballers in the UK. I mean, people who are scouted at six and almost don't read. but then in Spain in Portugal in other countries Juan Mata has business degrees and cites philosophy and he's not an anomaly it's a very educated class why are we so different yet the quality of football is equal well I think it's it's a big question because I think there's a lot that sits underneath that i think ultimately talent and um education can exhibit itself in lots of different ways can't it so did you have to be academically sort of successful to be considered intelligent or is it your ability to do something at a level that you know so there's different versions of how you value intelligence is is one thing i think secondly i think there there is a cultural sort of handbrake or has been on football in this country that people have not found it as easy to continue their education, to continue their interests without having to sacrifice those at a very young age.

38:12So there's an imbalance, I think, in terms of people funneling into a certain way or a certain set of behaviors to not just to conform but because that's what's expected of them and so you know for me i would never judge somebody based on their academic education to whether i think they're intelligent or i think everyone's got incredible talent superpowers and it's where they find them and and what football players do on the pitch you might not say they're particularly good communicators or they're not academic they didn't go through a school system and get their a levels or do a degree but but what they do on a football pitch is absolutely genius So there's an intelligence there that is beyond recognition in society.

38:54There's so much talent. But I think the key for me is around giving young players the opportunity to develop in the way they want to develop and would develop without football in their life. and so you know I spend a lot of time at lots of different clubs and some clubs are really really good at creating the right environment so if you've got academic kids they can continue the education their education without being judged all the Premier League clubs that I've seen have all run very good programs now Brighton would be one example that are really holistic in the way they approach but Chelsea have got you know they do cookery classes for the for the young players they do they have academics they've got guys doing A-levels they'll offer degrees so that there's all sorts that go on.

39:42I wonder, I do wonder whether it's sort of sometimes there's family expectation as well. You know, so you talk about Spain or your different cultures, whether there's a different expectation around what you need to do as well as be a football player. And so, and you can do, you can do it all. You know, it takes maybe a bit more effort, but you don't have to sacrifice everything just to be one, you know, to be good at one thing. it's the minimum standard clubs should offer their players as they're developing them is that in an ideal world you should be able to take that player put him into a football environment and if he doesn't succeed or she doesn't succeed that they're able to go back the same point they would have reached if they hadn't have had football in their lives and that building that around a player as they're developing I think is really important and something the sport can do a lot better that was I remember we had Chris Smalling on And he had a very different approach, well, a very different entry into football where he was either going to get signed by Maidstone, I think it was, or take up his place at university.

40:44And he actually said the fact that it wasn't all about football made his trial 10 times better because if he didn't get it, he wasn't that bothered. He was really up for going to university. But what I found really interesting about that was that, again, he was just talking about that being so different to anyone else. Absolutely. And I think ultimately, your student, whether you're a student of academia or you're a student of football, the ability to learn is a skill. And, you know, being able to take information from a coach, adapt, learn, and then perform better because of it. It's part of a, you know, it's a necessity of developing.

41:24developing so whether that's academically whether that's on the football pitch they they share the same sort of base that you've got to have that ability to take information and and adapt and learn and then the best players are the ones that can then adapt within game you know where they're they're able to make decisions based on everything that's going on around them and the chaos they're able to still see clarity and change something either the way they play the way their team plays you know so that in-game management by players I think is really important as well so so bringing all those things together but you know Chris saying that was absolutely how I felt it was my having a broader sort of base of interests gave me sort of much more confidence in my life after football and and we're all insecure of course because your career can end very quick it can end in one training session one game if you get injured or the 99 % of players that never make it to the top level.

42:20When you had that pushback in the dressing room, did you ever, and you know, you're up against people then who are so very different, making you feel different. Did you ever have that moment where you were almost like, maybe I will conform? Or were you always strong with your principles? I never, never conformed in that sense. I never, I never changed my way. I could have made it easier for myself by maybe blending in or fitting in a bit. I could have made that slightly easier, I suppose. But hindsight, you know, what do you do? I mean, I, I'm so, that's probably the thing I'm most proud of in many ways is that I stuck to my principles I stuck to my values I stuck to who I was I didn't shy from that and I stood up and had to fight over it you know literally physically had to fight sometimes in in situations because because it was a challenge to some of those people in the dressing room that just just didn't like it and because I wasn't I didn't represent them they didn't see themselves when they looked at me and and and like I said very easy for people to sort of think that you're giving the impression that you're better than them and i'm not better than anyone but i'm also not worse than anyone when you look at the players that graduated in your cohort with you who are now not playing i think it's very often documented the downfall of players that get fat they lose their money it all goes to shit what are the commonalities in those that work post playing and those that don't that's a it's a tough question i think because it's very hard to sort of it's very hard to generalize so from my experience the the transition from playing to not playing is a shock for anyone at some point.

44:04You can't say when, you know, it could be very soon. It could be years later, but there's a, there's a shock at some point because you're so invested in, in the, the, the group that you're with, the players, the routines, the institutionalizing of, of, of your, your sort of day-to-day routine that, that at some point that's going to catch up with you. Okay. So you better have other stuff going on in your life that gives you purpose, gives you, the emotional connections that you need, the relationships, the, for me, sport, having sport because I need to exercise. So all of those things were vital for me to sort of get through those bumpy periods of coming out of the institution that is football.

44:52So, you know, for other people, you know, some people have more addictive personalities. Some people have lifestyles that they got away with when they were playing football that obviously as soon as you stop, you can't sustain, because the sport is covering up, I suppose, a lot of the underlying sort of habits. So that's quite a general answer. But certainly from my point of view, where I struggled was that there's a point when you realise that you actually, it sounds awful, but it's almost like, well, I'm irrelevant because I'm not playing anymore and the team carries on, you know, Chelsea carried on.

45:37But I learned that when I got injured. It happens very quickly in terms of, you know, I was being called a veteran at 30, you know, and I was talking about my pension in my 20s and I had my mortgage in 21. So I always say as a sportsman or woman, you're on a fast forward button. Your life is on a fast forward button because you're through it by your mid-30s. And then you've got to say, right, that was one life. What does my next life look like? And I was always very good at sort of picking things up along the way. And I was always engaged with things. I was always interested. I was always thinking about what I could do, not necessarily from a business point of view, but what interested me.

46:19How do I better? How do I grow as a person? And it doesn't mean you don't suffer the same sort of psychological issues, but it's just that I was able to get through those maybe a bit quicker. The other thing is the whole celebrity being in the spotlight and being known. You know, if you believe that for one minute, that that's actually important, then I think you're in trouble. Did you never believe that? No, I mean, I enjoyed it. I got invited to all sorts of premieres for movies and invited on to things like this, but they weren't called podcast then. It was called radio. This is way better, isn't it?

47:02So much better. So that whole sort of acknowledging it, enjoying if you enjoy that sort of thing, fine. But don't believe for one moment that is real because when it goes, or if and when it goes, it would be so distressing, I think, if you really invested in thinking that was important. And for me, it's never been important enough to distract me and think. Because now, I'd even compound the fact that Chelsea didn't fall apart when I left. Blackburn didn't fall apart when I left. You know, there were better players than I was. The game's moved on. And so, and also the other thing is, fortunately for me, I achieved enough within the game that people do still come and say hello.

47:53You know, even the Arsenal fans and the Tottenham fans are polite to me now and say, you weren't a bad player. But it's so funny because people sort of say, you know, the common questions are, who's the best football player you ever played with? And then the other thing is, do you miss it? And you sort of go, well, what, being in my mid-20s, playing in front of 50 ,000 people, being well paid for it, being at the top of my sporting prowess. Of course I don't miss it. What's not to miss? No, but it's not a case of missing it. It's a case of appreciating it. And what I've learned from, I was so privileged, what I learned from football, I was so lucky to have played at the very highest level for the national team in those six years, the Chelsea team that second team and obviously for Blackburn what we what I saw what I was part of you know not many people get to experience and therefore that will always be I think the the golden thread for me in the rest of my life because that gives you an opportunity I think to to see things in a way that not many people have had the chance to to see or or be part of.

49:03What did playing for England at that time do for your, let's just call it celebrity, but for the profile? I think it did a lot in many ways. I think winning the league obviously was huge. Coming back to Chelsea in 97 was huge. And in between that, 94, I made my England debut to Venables' first game. And then I missed Euro 96 because I had a horrific injury. And again, that's a lesson. That's a lesson in life. You know, football goes on without you. And I literally cried every game, England game. I was at the games and I couldn't, I had so much trauma from the injury, from missing that. It was like losing a family member and seeing the team playing and not being part of it and watching it literally brought me to tears every game.

49:49And that's how invested you are. But to your question about how it sort of helped my career, absolutely. It puts you in a category of people that I suppose of players that people do remember, you know, for good and for bad. You know, the World Cup in 98, that game against Argentina was one of the biggest moments in England football. It was massive. I didn't appreciate it at the time, and I don't think I would have wanted to have appreciated it at the time. You know it's a massive game from your perspective because you're playing against Argentina, you're in the World Cup, they're an amazing team, and we should have won.

50:28And we didn't, we got knocked out on penalty. But we came home really with our heads held high, and it's only with hindsight, and when you look back through the history of England and the history of championships and then the history of World Cups, that game stands out for many, many reasons. Michael Owen's goal, David Beckham getting sent off, the refereeing decisions, Sol Campbell scoring a goal in extra time when we had 10 men, the heroics of that group of players, and we still lost on penalties. So I had everything in one match against Argentina. You can go back to one game in your career and change something.

51:05What game do you go back to and change? that's a good question because intuitively i would say from a selfish point of view that that middlesbrough game when i broke my ankle and literally my ankle was facing the wrong way you know and i've got seven screws and a plate in my leg thanks to that um if i could take that that moment away i would have played in euro 96 you know unfortunately stewart pierce wouldn't but he scored that amazing penalty so i was really you know stewart and i are very good friends and he's an amazing guy I was so scared of him when I got called up ahead of him but he was so nice he just came and said to me straight away went you deserve this you'll you you earned that shirt and I was thinking please don't hit me um but he's a he's a tremendous guy so so you know every every sort of negative there's a there's an equal and opposite positive in a way so I was very pleased for him coming back and and doing what he did in the euros but if if I didn't have that injury there was that you know what if moment you know how would i have contributed to the euros but i might have been might have made a horrific mistake and cost us a quarter final you never know so and then the other thing i think would be yeah would be that game you know if if david hadn't got sent off i'm convinced we'd have won that game because we'd have been 11 against 11 for the last 20 minutes and we were playing better than argentina and then what would have happened after that who knows but ultimately i'm i've never ever looked back and tried to change anything because it's just a waste of energy it's not you you know i've had enough experiences in my life to to sort of know from a very young age that you've got to live looking forwards not looking back and so the really dull answer would be i you know there's nothing to change because i'm very happy with how everything went no you gave it blame back him the title of the show blame back him if it wasn't for him we just under the circumstances as well it was like the sending off was so was so poor it wasn't a red card it shouldn't have been a red card simeone the way we i still you know we i still think about that so if we'd finished that game with 11 men i just i just think it would have been such a an achievement in that and it was an amazing it It was the hardest game I think I've ever played in, you know, in terms of physically, mentally.

53:26It was all happening so quickly. Both teams playing at the highest level. So I don't blame David. I blame the referee. But it would have been, it was gladiatorial in that sense. And it would have been an amazing, if we'd lost that game 11 v 11, I would have been, you know, I would have felt sort of closure. the fact we lost with 10 men and then we we didn't get that goal that sort of what if what was the dressing room like after that oh it was yeah we were broken yeah we were really just exhausted absolutely exhausted it was it was it was emotional overload in terms of the game itself it's hard to explain but when you're in those those games that are at such high level your brain is processing so much information and and your senses are alert beyond anything that's normal it's all sort of happening in a different at a different speed not necessarily faster but it's just it's all coming in you're and so afterwards you're you're you know you're so exhausted on every everything physically and mentally is shattered but you can't sleep because your brain's still you know whizzing at a thousand miles an hour so it's this really really weird conflict between exhaustion and and being wired you look at what came out of that and obviously the media pressures that was one example but it happened loads for players then as well but now we look at players and they have the added challenge of social media how do you reckon that's influenced players in this age well there's two sides to it one is i think it gives you gives a player much more control in many way they can they can they have the right to respond instantly and they can control that message.

55:05They don't have to wait to get a retraction from a newspaper and a tiny apology just below the crossword answers on page 82. There's a sort of an opportunity, I think, for players to own the output that didn't exist when we were playing. But also there's a barrage of attack because you're inviting people into your living room, effectively, if you've got your phone on and you're looking at it. But I would hope that most players now and the exposure that they've had to social media and also the car crashes that we've seen on social media over the years, that most of them have very well-managed accounts.

55:44It doesn't mean it's not them and their voice, but actually they're protected from, you know, the front end of the timeline because the sort of stuff that comes through is appalling. I was just saying from a monetization potential, like, you know, you're just able to build a personality that resonates with different brands. You're able to monetize independently of clubs. From a freedom perspective, financially, I think it's an unbelievable tool for players. But isn't that the point of social media? The friction is there because you're making more noise. It comes back to that point you were talking about earlier when you were speaking with Leedix and you're asking about, you know, why managers maybe bed players in more slowly.

56:19Well, it's because last night, lo and behold, I'm on X and someone's tweeting Alexander Isak first half, zero shots, zero take-ons, zero this. What a waste of money. The guys have 45 minutes in a Liverpool shirt and a Champions League game adapting to a new environment. Yeah. Immediately, one of the big accounts that I'm not a Liverpool fan, I see it. So it's not even just a club account. That's now forming opinions of players based on a circumstance that is completely unrealistic. How much was he paid? 125 mil. Yeah. 125 minutes. He didn't have any impact in 45 minutes. Eddie Howe has to stop using his phone during games then, doesn't he?

56:54If he's tweeting that.

56:59God, these bot accounts are everywhere, aren't they? But this is, on a serious note, though, it is so easy to manipulate social media. I mean, it's such a, it's so not representative of all of sentiment or the reality a lot of the time. It's like there's a trend that sort of catches. It's harder to, there's the psychology behind saying something nice about someone. It's much easier to say something horrible. So there's a weighting there that you've got to maybe factor in, make yourself feel even better. It's funny because, you know, playing, when I played, I was always, I always got a lot of attention when I was playing from opposition fans.

57:34A lot of stick, a lot of, you know, abuse from the sidelines and what have you. And it was like, it was the sort of, you know, the social media equivalent. But I just saw it as energy and thinking, well, it's, you know, they're noticing me. They don't like it, but they're noticing me. So I'm going to make you notice me even more because I'm going to do something really good and help my team beat your team and then prove to you that whatever you say to me actually makes me play better rather than worse. And I was able to do that nearly every game I played. It's hard sometimes when you're having a hard time yourself personally.

58:07but actually being able to sort of put the armor on and go out and play and then deliver performance that was all because I just used negativity and the positive fan engagement as energy to perform better. And I think you can do that with, you can look at social media in that sense. In some ways you can look at it in the same way and just say, well, you know, I'm getting their attention. And if that's what you want, if you want attention, then you're doing a good job, even if it's negative comments. You now do lots in the media. Do you still get that? Do you find that scrutiny has followed you through to media where people analyse your performance now on a microphone?

58:43Yeah, totally. Because they don't want you criticising their team. They don't want you, you know, they want to be able to sort of accuse you of being biased because you played for a certain team and you say something negative about their team. you know the best ones are when you get criticized from so I commentated on Arsenal Spurs done that quite a few times obviously two teams that Chelsea don't have the best relationship with in terms of the fan base and the best the beauty of it and I suppose this is this is some social media up when you're being accused by both Arsenal fans and Tottenham fans in the same game that you're being biased against them that's a win surely that means you're doing your job really well when both are accusing you of not liking their team.

59:23What's it like doing the US broadcast work with Premier League football? It's great. 12 years now. This is our 13th year. NBC have had the rights to the Premier League domestic American market. Do you find you talk about it in a different way? No. Because of the audience? No, I don't. And there's an authenticity about what we do and we've always done that we set out from day one. And NBC were absolutely fantastic. The first time I met my boss, Pierre, when he asked me about working with them. He set out the sort of the MBC values and what we do do and what we don't do around sport. We don't speculate.

1:00:01We don't talk about we when it's the team you've played for because there's two sides to it. So they sort of have a very professional way of dealing with their sports properties. And I think that's been a really good discipline for us over here. And actually, I think where I feel we've done our job is that we've brought an audience along with us. So there is, it's not education, but there's a new group of fans that we've brought on board and have started. And they've got a real thirst to learn. Do you buy the MLS? There's an incredible appetite from the Americans for English football. Do you buy the MLS?

1:00:46It's building its own identity. It's got a long way to go, I think. And it depends where it sits within the football pyramid, you know, the international global football pyramid. So you've obviously got the World Cup there next year. So the MLS is absolutely vital. It's a vital pipeline for US players, but also some of the South American players that are playing out there that are going to play in the World Cup. How they build that into the post-World Cup legacy, should we say, for the MLS is really important. But what they have done over the last, I mean, I've been aware of American football since the early 90s.

1:01:21And you see how it's sort of had little peaks and troughs and peaks and troughs. And it never really established itself. It's established itself now. Better coaches, fantastic stadia, some good young players coming through. Now, the pipeline for me for MLS is all those domestic players that are playing in MLS, how you get those into the top six leagues in Europe. You know, that's got to be part of the development of MLS football. That's the problem, right? The biggest success of the MLS is to be a feeder league, not to be the league where Erling Haaland wants to go to. At this point, absolutely.

1:01:58At this point in their journey, because they're a young, they're in a mature market in that sense. But you've got – now what they've done is they're underpinning the MLS with the USL, I think it's called, underneath that. You've got the development, the academies. The big difference is in the US, if your child wants to play football in the US, it costs a lot of money. It's expensive. The football camps are expensive. So how do you counter that by providing access to the talent and not excluding talent because of a cost? Last one before a quickfire. You can invest in Saudi League or the MLS. Which one's going to be bigger in five years' time?

1:02:37That's a great question. I think the MLS. I think over time, I think it will. I mean, you're not going to get a return on it as quickly. But I think over time, I think it's here to stay, I think, the MLS. And I think the talent that they have access to, I think, is absolutely huge. So I wouldn't be looking to invest to then think, you know, I've got to cash my chips in in five years. But I think there's a sustainable, successful model there that could do really well. But you just brought up a really good point of if you reduce the cost of entry for soccer in the US, would you then see a difference in the type of athlete that was keen to feed into soccer, not into the other US sports that now dominate a lot of that?

1:03:28that could be quite interesting because who knows football is the global sport and america's been so keen to do it to have that barrier as a young kid and as you said for a parent looking to get your child into it now that's actually you know it's a massive a massive problem for them if they really want to make this a national sport where everyone's got access almost the opposite here right where it's the it's the sport of all access um but i said you look at athlete generation i mean just you know the athletes that america creates if you can put that into football compared to saudi you're probably going from athlete generation from from that you're you're going to back the talent that comes out of the US yeah the scalability in the US plus the you know the the existing sort of um pyramid and it's how you fill those those those gaps in the pyramid and ultimately you know there'll be the national team is always going to be um the the sort of the the tip of that iceberg of how they're judged, which is why certainly for the next 10 years, you're going to need the best talent to go and play in the best leagues and then come back and help build the next generation.

1:04:34So you need that sort of aspirational element. You need the, I suppose, the sports business case for the athlete as well, not to go into other sports. But you've also got, there's more and more challenges around American football now where the head injuries and the physicality of American football, a lot of people, anecdotally, it feels to me that people are sort of rowing back a bit on that. I think U.S. football in the next 10 years, certainly, I think will really prove itself to be a valuable part of the global football chain. We're going to do a quick fire. Oh, no. Yeah, this is going to be great.

1:05:18So who's the best manager that you've worked under? Terry Venables. Him and Kenny Dugleash, but Terry in the sense that he gave me my first England cap. He gave me so much insight into my specific position, the way he helped me adapt to international football. He improved me. And he obviously wasn't a day-to-day coach for me. but both on and off the pitch he he got the best out of me and made me feel the best about myself as a player and a person and he was always there so even though he was England manager he would contact me during certain points in my career when something you know some I you know something happened to me and he would be first one of the first people on the phone checking in making sure that I was okay, making sure that I was focused.

1:06:12He just had a brilliant ability, empathy, incredible talent as a coach and experience. And you put those two things together. I think he got the best out of me at a point in my career where I really was developing as well. So that combination, I would say him. I give you Richard Master's job for one day. What did you change in the Premier League? That's, I mean, the big challenge, I think, for the Premier League is around understanding the opportunities and the risks around promotion relegation, I would say. Because we can't have a league that continuously relegates the three that have just come up.

1:07:04We've had that in the last two seasons. I think that's a challenge. so I would be looking at that trying to figure out how to you know bridge that that gap and understand what that gap is okay so I'm going to extend that as a cheat code but really then what we're talking about that's financial better financial regulations maybe greater payments down the pyramid to be able to balance a little bit of that gap between the clubs do you think a football regulator is going to help the situation I don't think it's just financial I think I think there's a whole piece of work to understand what championship football is and what premier league football is and how you know the the quality i think there's lots of factors in there that are more than just financial although obviously you know the financial lever is is that is the obvious one in terms of um regulator i think i think oversight is important i think i think some some oversight to understand what healthy clubs look like and how they continue to to to to i suppose thrive um is really important um and i think that there's you know this is what we've done with our business machine football we're looking at efficiency and accountability within clubs that's part of our model is how do we make clubs more efficient so that they spend better and make them more accountable internally around the decisions that they're making so that you've actually got good processes that you follow.

1:08:39And I think that's a really important piece of work for football, not just for a club. So regulation is, I think, there's a danger that it could go off in the wrong direction. So I think it has to be very well thought through. But absolutely, the different viewpoints of how we look at the game, I think is important. And also how we compare ourselves to other leagues, because it's not just the Premier League. It's not just the Premier League down to League Two. It's the football pyramid in England compared to, you've just been speaking about the US. You know, the football pyramids in Spain, there's two divisions in Spain, professional divisions.

1:09:23So within England, we're already supporting a pyramid that has four. And that's something to be celebrated. but comparing different leagues I think is important as well so it'd be a lot of work to do in one day but that's definitely I said I cheated that was an extension but it's definitely something I'm really keen to to sort of understand final one from me what do you do if you're Jim Ratcliffe and what happens to Man U great financials performance shite they've got yeah they've got a lot of problems in the sense that big understatement that Graham it's your wisdom we brought you for me it was so clear and i've got email evidence of this that even christmas last year i was talking about how ruben amarin for all that he did at sporting with the group of players the team the way they played their identity their formation the players the individual personnel and within that team and you overlay that and compare it to manchester United you couldn't have two teams more opposite than those two teams.

1:10:31So there were three solutions at that point and I don't know if those solutions have changed. One, the manager adapts and changes the way he plays to fit the players that he's got. We know, I knew then and I know now that he's not for changing. That's his system and he acknowledges that on a weekly basis that he's not changing. Two, you throw a load of money at it and you You buy in players that fit the profile of the players he needs to get the best out of that system. That takes three, four windows. And the financial restraints that United had were huge. Or you change the manager. So watch this space.

1:11:15I don't see the results changing. They'll win games because they've got very good players. You fire him, who do you bring in? I think you have to get somebody that is more pragmatic, obviously, because now you've got a team that's got, I would say, two identities in a way. You've got the previous identity, which is a back four structured team and players that have been brought in to play that way. You've now got a hybrid, which is his 3-4-3 or version of that, which puts everyone in slightly different positions and they change the profile of the players. so now you've got to bring someone in who can understand what both of those look like and find a route to getting out of it.

1:11:55Sean Dutch I think they should have brought in Thomas Frank that was what I thought at the time. Well again I think there's a way of looking at it that could help solve the problem you can then sort of have a discussion about and actually go well we're looking at this type of coach are we acknowledging that the team has lost its identity and is in between two identities Yes or no? Okay, we agree yes on that. Okay, so who's best at taking that group and restoring a strong identity based on the talent they have? Okay, we can all argue about whether it's Ranieri, whether it's Sean Dyche, whether it's Thomas Frank.

1:12:31Then are they available? Thomas isn't, but the other two might be. But again, there's a process there that I don't think is that hard to follow. But you've got to be prepared to look at it in the right way and not panic and say, you know, who's the biggest available manager, the biggest name? Because that doesn't work. We've seen that doesn't work. But I just worry for Manchester United in the sense that, and I genuinely want them to do well. You know, they're such an important club. They're, you know, globally enormous. But the impact they have on NBC when they play and they're out in the US for the summer series, You know, they bring, they put bums on seats and they're massive and we need them to be successful.

1:13:17And the club just, it sort of lurches from a little bit of hope to, oh, here we go again and then repeat the cycle. And I don't know, I can't see that change. I just can't see that changing between, you know, because the pressure of playing and that sort of weird thing that we call momentum is, It's hard to shake off when it's going in the wrong way. You can see the players suffering. You can really see them suffering because they feel like they're out there on their own, I think, at the moment. Graham, this has been such a joy to do. And you've been fantastic. Thank you very much. A massive thank you, as always, to Graham for joining us.

1:14:01As I said at the beginning, the stories he tells alongside the contextualisation and application of them to modern-day football made it a privilege to record. His points around conformity and player education were particularly poignant, and they resonate strongly with the developing world of football today, but still highlight how far the game has to go as it becomes a mature industry. And it's hard to believe the fact that 5.5 million used to be a lot of money in football. Anyway, as always, his honesty and enthusiasm for this made it a lot of fun to do, and I hope you enjoyed the show. Now, if you want to hear more from today's show, you can do so by going to YouTube and typing in Business of Sport.

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