Gab and Juls: Chelsea sack Liam Rosenior

23:09I think it's ridiculous that optics should still matter in this way. And I don't know how he should have acted. I don't know if he should have gone out there and burped and just dropped the Gs at the end of his words, like another former Chelsea manager who we both know very well does to appear more working class. But this is the reality of the situation.

23:28Julien Laurens:Yeah, I'm just saying it's unfair. I know it's the reality, but that was really unfair. And even after sake, I think some of the people justifying the sake in the way they did was really intense.

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24:44Just one part that makes O 'Reilly stand apart. The professional parts people. Oh, oh, oh, O 'Reilly. Auto Parts. All right, enough Chelsea. how about it's that time the gab and jules draft this is an annual tradition we've been doing this for the last five years on the day of the nfl draft because we're both uh nfl fans yeah we try to pick the best players by birth year right so these are guys who had they gone to us had they gone through the college system college sports they would all more or less be seniors this year yes exactly uh in the past we've had some spectacular misses but some great picks as well Yeah, let's be honest.

25:30It's a legit difficult thing to do. I'll have a piece up. You can go see how the past ones have done and stuff like that. Jules, I think it's fair to say. You're beating me over the years. Hopefully, I'll turn it around. So let's get the show on the road. These are players born in 2004.

25:48Julien Laurens:Jules, you have the first pick. Yeah, that's right, Gabi. And after a long, long thought, because there was, I think, a couple of contenders, maybe three, I went with Joaneves the PSG and Portugal midfielder I think at 21 the maturity that he showed lately since he arrived at PSG his performances on the pitch as well the football IQ that for me is the highest of this whole generation and already higher than a lot of players currently in the game it had to be Joaneves I think every manager in any top club anywhere in the world would love to have a player like him in the squad Alright I get the next two picks at number two I am going with Nico Pass I think another obvious one he's lighting it up at como he's got physicality he's got quality and uh he's got work rate uh and he's at number 10 which i think is uh is pretty special and number three i went for a guy who's had some really difficult times he was a starter for barcelona at 17 at 18 years old then he's been unlucky with injury but he's still young and i'm hoping he can come back and so i think he's got a really high ceiling a bit of a gamble if you want if you want it is a bit i'm gonna go with I love Gavi.

26:55Julien Laurens:He's so injury prone. That's all I would say. I love Gavi. We all love Gavi. I know. We hope so. Jules, you got the number four pick. Yeah, and number four because I've been really impressed with him all season at Bayern Munich. It's Alexander Pavlovich. I think he's a monster of a defensive midfielder or even an eight. I think he could evolve in a lot of different things because he's great technically. He's really strong. 1.88m. He runs forever. He's good and confident on the ball and calm and composed. So 44 games already this season for Bayern at 21 years old. I think he's impressive. So Pavlovic for me was undoubtedly a top five member.

27:31Julien Laurens:Your picker number five? Yeah, and I picked another kind of defensive midfielder, if you want, in Adam Wharton at Crystal Palace. I just love his composure on the ball. I love his left foot. I love his first pass. I love the way he scans and dictates the pace of the game. I think he's got an amazing future ahead of him. He will move to a big, big club in the summer. for a lot of money and i think that would be completely deserved for somebody who was in the championship that obviously palace scouted took over to the premier league he's done incredibly well and again i think he has a chance to go to the world cup as well like pretty much every other member bar gavi that we mentioned so far yeah um i don't think one of my italian picks later is going to go to the world cup to be fair uh at number six i'm going for another guy who said i'm looking for value picks a guy who's hit up okay because not not on form yeah not this season I don't care about form.

28:20I don't care about form. He's in a bad season. But Carlos, it's Carlos Baleba. A year ago, he was monstering the Premier League. He was maybe the best guy in that position other than Moises Caicedo. Had a difficult time. I don't know if it's Herzl or whatever. But I think that the value's there, the quality's there. He was linked to the club a year ago. He's going to come around. And at number seven, I go for a guy who I like because he's a guy who's been hyped. That's number seven, yeah? Sorry, Baleba was number six. Yeah, so that's your number seven. Who is your number seven? My number seven is Mateus Fernandez.

28:51Bruno Fernandez, you mean? No.

28:53Julien Laurens:Who? That's your seventh pick? Yes, from West Ham. From West Ham, relegation West Ham. Relegation West Ham. And if they stay up, a big part of it is going to be up in the end. Ah, come on! He's been hyped from a very young age. A long time ago. Southampton spent a ton of money on it. Yeah, yeah. And he was Southampton. He had a chance to develop. He moved for a lot of money to West Ham. He's still very young. I think the maturity, the leadership, the creativity that he's shown, on the season. He's got to be up there. Guys, I put him in your picks with, you know, Broja, Mudrik. These picks coming up are not exactly Messi and Cristiano.

29:31They're better than Mateus Fernandes. Okay, who you got

29:34Julien Laurens:at number eight? Valentin Barco. Oh, of course. Valentin Barco. One of the best players in Ligue 1. A player who plays for Argentina. A player who I think big clubs are looking at. I mean, Chelsea especially because he belongs to them already. but incredible forget about the left back that you you know that brighton sign and that you might see a little bit nice a midfielder that has been really really impressive not just in france but in europe as well with trasbourg and after that i went for somebody who i thought to be fair more seriously now because i was obviously joking with fernandez but i put kusanov in my number nine pick and i think now looking at it again he probably deserves to be a bit higher up the first defender picked yeah true but he's having a great united city it's good to see him the way he's evolved between when he arrived and had that shocking debut against Chelsea to a year on, a bit more than a year on now, really establishing himself as one of the best centre-backs in the Premier League.

30:28And finally, rounding up the top 10, I went for Yankouba Mente. He's a phenomenal athlete. He's a phenomenal dribbler. He's at the right place to go, I think, to grow, I think, in terms of Brighton. Can he add some productivity to his game? Sure, but he's still very young. I think he can be close to unplayable if it all comes together. I'm extremely excited about him. If you've ever wanted real energy without choking down something that tastes like regret, Bucked Up is the answer. The flavor is the thing people keep coming back for. Insanely delicious, which is not a phrase usually associated with energy drinks, and they're built on real science-backed ingredients.

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31:48Plus, their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions. And because Grainger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, clickgrainger.com, or just stop by. All right, Joes, let's keep going with the Gavin Joes class. At number 11 from Porto, I am picking the artist formerly known as Samu O'Morodion, now known as Samu Agahoa. I think there's a very good chance he would have been Spain's center forward at the World Cup if he had not suffered this terrible cruciate injury in February.

32:27Players come back from cruciate injuries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's still very young. He scored a ton of goals. he was scoring nearly a goal a game or close to that for Porto who were leading in the Portuguese League of course before that he has the pedigree from Atletico Madrid he's big, he's strong he's athletic and he's decent with his feet because he's Spanish so for me no brainer and he's the first centre forward we've picked so far.

32:57Julien Laurens:Yeah, no great generation maybe for centre forwards at number 12 My next pick is Lamine Kamara at Monaco, the box-to-box midfielder who again has been very impressive this season. I mean, remember when Baliba moved from Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 to Brighton, for example, or Papé Matassar to some extent too. I think he's the next one to get that move. I think he will go in the summer in Monaco, selling club anyway. So he will move. I think he's made for the Premier League. He's got just everything. Think Baliba, similar but right-footed. he's been really impressive in the midfield for Monaco. And then in 13th, because I've got also the next pick, I went for another Equatorian defender.

33:39Julien Laurens:And we know of Pacho. We know of Hincapier, for example. And this one is Joel Odenyes, who plays in Belgium at Bruges, who almost got a massive move last summer. He'll get one this summer too, especially if he does well at the World Cup. Strong, can play right back, right centre back, good on the ball. smart, has space. I just think he's got everything to be a very, very good center back for a big European club coming up. I think he's a very physical player. Similar to Paco, really. Who are you up next? I'm up next, and with the 14th pick, I went for Ernest Poku from Bayer Leverkusen. Again, another winger type.

34:24What I like about Poku is that he can also, he's been used further deeper as a wingback. He's been used on the right. He's been used occasionally on the left. He's not quite two-footed, but I think he's a very, very smart player. And we've seen Bayer Leverkusen develop these types of players in the past. And I'm kind of, I feel good about this pick. This next pick perhaps a bit sentimental. Ah, come on. Please. I gotta have.

34:52Julien Laurens:You don't. You don't have to have. I don't have a French guy yet, so you don't have to have an Italian because you're Italian. Maybe you have enough French-adjacent people. All right, Niccolò Pizzilli for Roma in that midfield with Manu Cone, with Pellegrini. You know a lot of listeners who say like, who? Yeah, okay, whatever. I'm just there. He's played for Italy. Yeah, yeah. It's a ha-ha-ha-ha. But he's played big games. He's started. He's gotten minutes, which is, again, there's a lot of competition in that midfield for Roma. And I think, I look forward to watching him at the World Cup in 2030 at this point.

35:31Julien Laurens:Charles, you're up next. Yeah, I went for the second number nine in our list. We said after Samu and that's Santiago Castro. The Punisher, yes. The Punisher, Bologna. And I know he's still probably a beat role, although I think there's a great finisher there, as we can see. 11 goals in three assists this season, 10 in seven last season. For a team like Bologna, who's obviously not... It's a very attacking team, but you feel like there's so much more to come from him. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I'm really curious to see if he gets a move at some point and where and in which league because I think there's great potential there as a goal scorer and a clinical and consistent goal scorer with big numbers, I think, coming up.

36:12His technique is so clean. He never miss hits the ball. It's weird.

36:16Julien Laurens:Yeah, really good. So I think there's a good potential, big potential there. Like in my number, my next pick, number 17, in Noah Sadiqi as Sunderland. I was really, really interested to see how he would move from Belgium to the Premier League. And I think he's adapted very quickly in what is a very good season for Sunderland and for him, even with going to AFCON in the middle of it. I think very quickly he could move from Sunderland to a big English club because I think he's exactly the kind of profile that those top English clubs are looking for in front of their back four in terms of work rate and recovering the ball and physicality and running and effort and all of that.

36:56Julien Laurens:Plus, he's decent on the ball as well. So I think he deserves to be in the top 20. You think his ceiling is that high? Yeah, I think. And a lot of scouts and coaches and sporting directors agree as well. It's funny because draft time, just as an aside, right? People always talk about, you know, how high is his floor? In other words, what has he already shown that we know he's guaranteed for and how high is his ceiling? Because some players, you know, from some of the guys I picked, maybe haven't done that much thus far but it's also hard to predict you know I know they're 21 22 it's still hard to predict what would happen in 5 or 6 years time yeah it's the Kendry Paz factor right exactly so with my pick at 18 I've gone for the magnificent Wilson Audubon Paris Born and Bread of course one of your people see now Spurs have had I thought he was really good on a bad Burnley team a bad Burnley team that stayed up by the way but he showed flashes and again I'm going for ceiling this guy has technical ability he has intelligence he has finishing and he's an athletic winger and I think there's always a value in that he didn't show it this year at Spurs because then he got injured in February and there's all the chaos and Thomas Frank and Tudor and all this nonsense but he ain't going away he's still very young and I think he's got a future in front of him.

38:22Okay, my next pick.

38:23Julien Laurens:I cannot wait. I cannot wait. You can still change if you want. You can still. Look. Even bring somebody from the year below or the year above. You pick me instead if you want. I'm 45. Oh, really? I can bring a guy from future years? Okay, then I pick Lamin Yamal who's not going to be eligible for this for what? For another two years or three years. Ten years, yeah. No, my next pick is Alejandro Garnaccio. What happened? What happened there? Did you owe him something? Like, why is he in your list? Can I explain my logic? Okay. Alejandro Garnaccio, for better or not, or worse, a lot of very smart scouts believed in him from a very, very young age because he has that direct running, which not everybody has.

39:07Julien Laurens:That, for sure, he runs straight. And that hasn't changed. It hasn't changed even as he underperformed. It hasn't changed through his contract issues. Okay. He moves to Chelsea. Not good at Chelsea, but he moves to Chelsea for a lot of money. For whatever reason, people like him. So it can mean one of two things.

39:29Either the scouts are all right, and this tremendous mix of talent, which I genuinely see only intermittently, but is there and is difficult to play against when it's on. Either that will come to fruition, he'll get it consistently, and he'll be a great player. Or he has the best agent in the world, and so he'll keep moving for a lot of money to different clubs, and his valuation of transfer market will continue to rise, which is one of the benchmarks that we used thus far. So yes, Garnaccio is a gamble, but we thought he had a high ceiling before. I know we've seen a lot, so maybe the ceiling should come down a little bit.

40:02But at this stage, and this is a pretty meager group of players compared to other years, 2004. Yes, that's true. As evidence, I suspect, I'm really curious who you got your next pick, because I think we're going to get another retread, another person,

40:15Julien Laurens:oh, let's make a lot of excuses for why he hasn't been good no no no i don't think so although i have to be honest here my last pick was going to be wilson odober but you picked it before me so then i had my next choice which was uh andre santos and okay the andre santos are chelsea maybe not so much although i think at times he's been good when he played with kay cedo next to him look at the andre santos for brazil and certainly the one at strasbourg who was one of the best players in ligand last season and i think there's a real player there that maybe the context and the structure at chelsea hasn't really worked out for him just yet.

40:47Julien Laurens:But I think he's a really, really good talent. And I think we will see that very soon if you are not convinced yet by what you've seen so far. He couldn't get on the pitch the first time he was at Chelsea. Then he goes to Strasbourg, rips it up and then can't really get on the pitch the second time he's at Chelsea. Let's see what happens with him. The second time. I think he played enough minutes and he was good. With the manager who got sucked after losing a bunch of games. I think there's a really good player in there. It's interesting. I take it as red now because when you're talking about this one, you've described both him and Barco as one of the best players in Ligue 1.

41:19I'm assuming you make an exception and you exclude all the Paris Saint-Germain players from that.

41:23Julien Laurens:Even with the PSG players. But again, it's the same story for a lot of those boys here. Can you make the step up to a top, top club? It's as simple as that. Some will, others won't. Can Nico Pass play for Real Madrid next season as a starter regularly? Some think so, others don't believe so. Other think that he needs a bit more time, maybe a como or before making that step up. It's the beauty of all those lists and the future of those players at 21-22. Yeah. And look, you can feel free to agree, to disagree. I just want to tell you again, this is not based on achievements in their last year. No, exactly.

42:02It's not performances. This is not the Ballon d 'Or. It's not the Bravo Award where you're a voter on, incidentally, right? What's the Bravo Award? Isn't that what it's called? No, the Golden Boy Award. Golden Boy. Yeah, Golden Boy Awards. that um we're picking on where we think this what this guy's gonna achieve in the next 10 years uh you can go i'll have a piece up like i said you can look at our past drafts you can make fun of some of the big swings and misses mostly mostly misses on my end i have to say although one season i destroyed you but the other seasons you tended to get the better of me and uh look i we were talking about fear before i have it here on my phone but these are some of the players we did not pick.

42:43Yeah. And we're going to show them. We got nothing to hide. You think you can do better? Then, you know, send them in and then we'll talk in about five or ten years time and we'll see who's done better. See if you've done better than we are. But, you know, from the going back from our draft of players born in 2000.

42:57Julien Laurens:That was five years ago. So think about those players that Gab will mention where they were five years ago. So one of them being Vitinha, for example. Yeah. Five years ago was not the Vitinha that is obviously right now at PSG, you know, European champion kind. Yeah, that's right. Also, we missed out on Dominic Sabaslai. Yeah. On Julian Alvarez, who I think was back in Argentina at the time before City. Antoine Semenya was probably at Bristol. Yeah, Marguerite was a kid at Chelsea back then, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not getting minutes. So that's the 01 generation. No. That is the 2000 generation.

43:32The top pick that year, of course, was Erling Haaland. Yeah. No argument there. Some of the picks that haven't worked out. We only picked 10 players that year, to be fair to us. Maybe some of the picks that haven't worked out, Anthony and Sven Bautman. Both your picks, Jules. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, in 2001, guys, we missed out on. Again, total humility. I think we did a lot better, but William Pacho, who ironically would go on to become so important for Paris Saint-Germain, we missed out on him. I mean, he was in Belgium at the time,

44:02Julien Laurens:not even in the Bundesliga, I think. Mickey van der Veen, who, I don't know if he was in Belgium before going also. I don't know he was in the Netherlands, but he was playing, yeah, like reserve football, I think, at the time, or for Heron Wien or something like that. Anthony Gordon, again, not the player he is now. Okay, Igor Thiago, I think nobody would have got. Definitely not. Joel Pedro, another one we missed out on. The top pick in that draft, by me, was Bukayo Saka. By the way, that draft, I think, a lot deeper than this one. Among my picks, Bukayo Saka, Enzo Fernandes, William Saliba, Gonzalo Ramos.

44:35among your picks, Kvarshalia, Rodrigo, Moises Caicedo, Jurian Timber, Kefren Turam. So yeah, much, much better draft. Yeah, very good this. 2002 draft, where the top pick was, plays for Real Madrid, Eduardo Camavinga. Yes. Again, not the greatest draft, but some of the players we missed out on. These were big misses, I think. Ugo Ekitike, Morgan Rodgers, Elliot Anderson. Yeah. The magnificent Magnus Akliusz. Yeah. and of course Ahmad Diallo and from the 2003 draft which is just a year ago but already we can point to some misses Not too bad though, I think The top pick in that draft by the way, just to give you a sense between last year and this year top pick in that draft was for me, Florian Wurtz you went second and third you went with Jamal Musial and Jude Bellingham you can already see it's a different standard to Nico Pass and Pavlovich and those guys guys we missed out on arguably avaro carreras wesley matthias sulle so yeah not that bad but again only a year some of these guys could develop into something and yeah and then we'll look silly so anyway here it is let us know what you think hey sports fans the espn app has all of espn all in one place the espn app is your home to thousands of live events espn shows and originals across every espn network And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional cost.

46:07Visit activate.espn.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN, all in one place. Sign up or activate now. All right, enough draft. How about some quick hits? Let's go, God. Manchester City are top of the Premier League with the slimmest of margins after beating Burnley 1-0. Burnley, by the way, now relegated. Jules, level on points, level on goal difference. Only goals scored, keeping them ahead of Arsenal. And it seemed to me like last night they were very aware of this because they kept piling on and piling on and trying to score more.

46:46Julien Laurens:Yeah, they did. And there are chances, to be fair, they could have scored more. They were lacking a bit of efficiency. Nico Reilly should have scored. Maybe Haaland another one as well. Shurky unlucky. Yeah, Shurky unlucky too. Although Pep explained after that the game against Arsenal on Sunday was so tough that he could tell that the team was not really performing well. And I think you could see that on television easily as well. The most important was to win, although I think they would have liked to get ahead a bit more in goal difference, because that's what it might go down to at the end of the season.

47:15They be careful. There's two times Fleming broke the press and came through. And that's another dude up there he might have scored. Yeah.

47:21Julien Laurens:Gab, City have the FA Cup semi-final this weekend and he's on ESPN by the way as well when Arsenal host Newcastle at the M-Rez then Arsenal play again on May 2nd still at home against Fulham while City's next Premier League game isn't before May 4th away at Everton so is this a bit weird to you the fact that Arsenal can play two home games before City's next Premier League game? Yeah, so basically the upshot here is Arsenal, if they win those two games it could be six points clear Now, is that an advantage? Is it a disadvantage? I don't know. I think whatever happens, people are going to say, oh, look, it was an advantage, or oh, look, it was a disadvantage.

47:59I think as a fan, as a spectacle, it seems weird. We have this head-to-head race. We want to see them playing at around the same time in the same competition. Ironically, City will be playing their FA Cup game as Arsenal play their Premier League game. It's a scheduling quirk. We're used to it here. It's just, I don't like it. I want the excitement week on week.

48:20Julien Laurens:I agree. La Minna Mal wins a penalty, converts the penalty, and immediately goes off in Barcelona's 1-0 win over Salta Vigo. Joe's undergoing scans today. We're not going to speculate until we get the results of it, but it didn't look good when, certainly the way he came off. I was sad that Ferran Torres' goal was disallowed correctly, but it was a nice goal. But another three points, they're closer to the title. Yeah, they are. And they had to respond to Real Madrid, obviously, who won the night before or two nights before, which was important for them to go back to the gap between them and Real Madrid.

48:58Julien Laurens:It looked like Lamine hurt his armstring, which, you know, again, we don't know could be a bit serious, could be not too serious. 18 days before the Clásico, obviously, which could still play a part, I guess, to some extent in this title race. So they certainly will have to do without him for the weekend. I can't see him being ready for that game. So it'd be very interesting. And Celta are a good team. They play good football. They're very much in the fight for other European positions outside of the Champions League. And they are more expected goals than Barcelona, for example, last night. Yeah, definitely understated from Barcelona, but perhaps understandable.

49:30Julien Laurens:Inter advance to the Coppa Italia final, but they need to come from two goals down at home in the final. 21 minutes against Como to beat Cesc Fabregas' team. more price for Inter or you blame Como and Cesc? You know what? I hold Como to a higher standard at this stage. So I'm going to put, I think, some blame on them. Because you're 2-0 up in the second half. You have to see the game out. You've got all these ballers. You can keep the ball. You can move the ball around. The thing is, Hakan Chalanoglu, you know, part man, part machine. Looks like he will get a new contract now as well. He ended up very much turning the game for Inter.

50:08it's a wake-up call Inter could win the double like Bayern could win the double in Germany like Manchester City could win the double in England like Lens could win the double absolutely perhaps the least likely of the four

50:22Julien Laurens:but that happened in the league as well remember that 4-3 win for Inter against Como Como clearly didn't learn from that yeah I think Como was so awkward to play against yeah yeah yeah but still Luis Enrique mixes mixes it up again to some degree albeit less than at the weekend and Paris Saint-Germain go four points clear of Lund's with a 3-0 win over second bottom Nantes. This was always part of Lucho's plan, right? Play the real B team at the weekend, mix it up, start bringing some players back, and just beat up on Nantes. Six of the players who started against Nantes didn't play against Lyon the weekend before, three days earlier, and he said he's going to keep doing that, so I wouldn't be surprised against Angers this weekend coming.

51:03Julien Laurens:If he does the same again, so the ones who started yesterday, half of them won't start against danger but the ones we didn't start yesterday would start this time like you know patro for example or barcola and people like that so it'd be very interesting to to see why it was it worked two outstanding goals especially the duet one is wonderful the second class kelly one is very special as well so um a really good win another four points clear duet by the way i yeah it was showtime in this game yeah yeah watch the highlights if you can buy and do it again gab they beat by a level cousin away two nil to advance to the german cup final the first one in six years by the way so it's it's it's rarer than we think session is with injury that would keep him out of the world cup men that we saw jamal mustiala start with the a team how did he look uh i thought he looked really really good uh i thought you know obviously he's been eased and he has started games since returning from his injury but you know bion have rotated a lot never really with kind of this setup with olise with luis diaz and uh and to Harry Kane.

52:05I mean, look, if you can get arrested, Moussiala just kind of hitting his face at this stage of the season. You can deal with Gabri's absence. I mean, these are the riches that they have. I saw Bayer Leverkusen were hugely disappointing. Bayer's second goal came in garbage time. They were only 1-0 up and maybe that was the game plan. You know, the do nothing and then see if you can sneak second thing at the end from Leverkusen. But Bayer could have scored three or four easily. easily kill him and bop and vinicius jr score as real madrid beat out of s21 jules how did they look

52:37Julien Laurens:not great again i think up first the stadium was not full which is quite rare rare enough to be mentioned they were booed uh before at the end of the game as well in that kind of narrowing against the team that is really not good in all of this and bap's goal is a deflected shot from outside of the box yeah and he felt bad vini didn't celebrate much either although he's good he's He was a lot better. He was a lot better. But still, there's still long strikes. You know, there was not much really into this game in that 4-4-2 that Arbeloa has now. I don't see, I can't see how they can come back on Barcelona.

53:13Julien Laurens:Everything is possible, especially if Flamini is out for a certain amount of time. But yeah, that was not very reassuring, to be fair. Ibrahim Alconati has confirmed that he and Liverpool are close to signing a new long-term contract that will keep him at the club until 2030 or 2031. Gab, he's 27. Does that make sense to you? So, this is a long time at the club. He's going to be there until he's 32. You have to be pretty confident that he's going to maintain the productivity. He's, you know, it all depends on the number. The number that we've seen does feel pretty high. I can also understand that you don't want to be in a situation where you have to effectively bring in two centerbacks because they have the guy coming over from France, but he's coming off.

53:54Jaquet, yeah. Yeah, M. Jaquet's son. but he's coming off was it a cruce or a bad injury they have Leone also coming back from a long injury and of course Van Dijk's got a year left it does remove some of the uncertainty I guess it's a big call to make, put it that way Chagolmada gets sent off after half an hour in Atletico Madrid fall away to Elche 3-2 I know this wasn't exactly a priority and he played the B team, this was kind of disappointing except for that bit of Nico Magic.

54:28Julien Laurens:Yeah, Nico Magic, that's pretty much all, to be fair. I thought some of the kids who played, because there was a lot of kids in that athletic team, had a good chance to show what they could do and in the end it was disappointing because it was a poor performance. I thought overall, it doesn't help when you play an hour with 10 men and Thiago Almada should know better, really, because he's not a kid anymore. So stupid. They won't care. So stupid. But they were ready, they are getting ready for next week, the Champions League, but still have another game coming up in the league as well and that was a bad defeat against Elche.

54:59Julien Laurens:21-year-old backup keeper Eduardo Mota saves four spots kicks and Lazio advanced past Atalanta on penalties and into the Coppa Italia final to play against Inter. Gab, was this a smash and grab? And will Lazio fans, who as we know because we mentioned on the show, have been on strike, are they going to show up for the final? I think Atalanta are really unlucky. There's better chances. I think they definitely got dropped on the disallowed goal, I think from from ederson when the ball was a judge to have been kicked out of malta's hand and there might have even been a penalty on gila in the same play um in terms of the final they're protesting they're going to decide whether they're going to show up it would be so weird if they didn't show up but it would also be coherent with what they've done all season probably not what you want to hear but and our boys joseph ogurlion are on track to the double jewels they destroyed to lose 4-1 and are through to the french cup final and yeah by the way that toven penalty Yeah, I mean, it was an amazing performance from them.

55:57Julien Laurens:They had beaten Toulouse. We mentioned that in the previous show in the league at the weekend, 3-2, despite being two goals down very early on. This time there was just not even a scare or anything. Even when Toulouse came back from 2-0 down to 2-1, there was only one team on the pitch in an incredible atmosphere like at the Stade Bollard, something like maybe one of the greatest games in terms of atmosphere in their history. They will be in the final against Nice, who beat Strasbourg. We will talk about that a bit later. But really, they are, for me, I know PSG are not hitting the form and the peak and everything you want.

56:33Julien Laurens:But overall, Launce have been the best team in the country by a mile this season. They're also like, I'm not saying this is a benchmark, but in terms of players who are marketable and cool because of the way they look or the way they play. I mean, we mentioned but the Saint-Maximin goal and the celebration afterwards, there's just a lot there. Yeah, they've done really well. I hope the most deserving team wins Ligue 1, but I also hope this goes down to the wire, and I hope when they play Paris Saint-Germain, it'll mean something. Crystal Palace and West Ham battle to a nil-nil draw Monday night in the Premier League.

57:10Julien Laurens:Was this a point gain or two drop for the Hammers as they fight to avoid relegation? I would have normally said it's two points drop because I don't see what Crystal Palace are playing for. But it is a London derby. And given the way this game panned out, I think it is a point gain. I think it's a fair result. I think it keeps the sticks moving on Tottenham Hotspur. And that's kind of what they wanted. I still so touch and go with this relegation battle. I think it's just going to go down to the wire. Not a good week for Blueco, Jules. Strasbourg lose to Nice 2-0, which means wise old Claude Puel.

57:50And older, but probably less wise, Jim Ratcliffe are in the final. Yeah, in the final.

57:55Julien Laurens:Do you think he knows? To play last. I'm sure he knows because... Do you think he's been told? This is good news for him as he's trying badly to sell the club, desperately to sell the club. And I guess if they win the French Cup, which would be another title for them, obviously, and qualify them for the Champions League as they are fighting not to go down to Ligue 1 in the league. I guess you could maybe add another 10 million euros on the price you want to get for Nice, where already he's dropped the price massively. It looks like every week he's dropping the price because nobody wants to buy it off him.

58:26But they won't be playing in the Champions League, though, because Manchester United will be playing in that.

58:30Julien Laurens:No, it'll be the Europa League anyway if you win the French Cup. So, yeah. So, really good, I think, for Puel and Eli Wai as well, Paris-Bornebred, Eli Wai, of course, to score the two goals in that for strasbourg it's a big blow as they still have the conference league semi-final to play against rayo vallecano and then potentially a final but they also wanted to win this french cup so it's a bit of a blow for um gary o 'neill and and and blue crow and the the whole squad and the whole stuff but odds of gary neil being the next chelsea match no i won't go i'm trolling i'm trolling i'm all he's done leicester city have officially been relegated to league one gab 10 years ago they were winning the premier league yeah they were in the premier League and it's not like, by the way, they won the Premier League and then just returned to being bad relegation candidates straight away.

59:14They qualify for the Champions League, I think, twice after that or certainly once anyway. They had a really good stint under Brendan Rodgers. But guess what? You need accountants. You need people to make the right decisions and you need people to run the club. And if you overspend, then you are breaking the rules. Which is what they did and why they were behind. And now they've piled more bad decisions on top of them, which is why they keep sliding down. And, you know, as grateful as everybody was to Top and his friend and all this stuff, when they won the league, you've got to take the good with the bad.

59:46They've made some really bad decisions since then, and that's why they're paying the price. Wild stuff in Bournemouth, Jules. Sean Longstaff's equalizer deep in injury time gives Leeds a 2-2 draw on the South Coast. More bad news for Spurs. This may be the point that keeps them up.

1:00:02Julien Laurens:Yeah, I think so, and they were very resilient. They kept going because Bournemouth, I thought, were good and created enough chances to win this game at home. They've been unbeaten for 14 games at Bournemouth and they're doing well and they might even qualify for Europa. They've been unbeaten since Semenyo left. So clearly Semenyo was the problem. Well, maybe not the problem. Joking, joking. Not the solution. Correlation, causation. Well done to Leeds. I mean, I think Spurs were not even fighting with Leeds anymore. It was more Forest and certainly West Ham. So I'm not sure if that is really bad news for Spurs because I don't think they would have been able to catch Leeds anywhere.

1:00:36Julien Laurens:But for Leeds, you're right. They can now focus fully on their FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea on Sunday at Wembley on ESPN as well. And hope for not just staying up, but also having an FA Cup final to look forward to. The Times report that Roman Abramovich has gone to the European Court to human rights, claiming that a criminal investigation into his finances, including the nearly$2 billion that he got from the side of Chelsea, is unfair and abusive, Gab. Yes, it's been ongoing. I think to some degree he might even have a, it just feels weird, a billionaire going saying his human rights are being violated, but it's been a four-year investigation, which he hasn't been charged.

1:01:15I don't know the implication for this money, which of course is the money, which was supposed to go into the charity and blah, blah, blah. Sitting there in Jersey. And this speaks to a broader thing, which is this money's not at a British bank. It's in Jersey, which for those who don't know is a channel Island and kind of like a fiscal don't ask, don't tell type paradise. and people always complain, oh, but rich people can put stash money there. There's different rules. Yeah, it's because the government allows it. It's as simple as that. You got an issue with it, take it up with the government.

1:01:44Championship clubs look poised to reject any and all forms of VAR, including the lightweight version. Football video support where each coach gets one challenge per half. Jules, Football League says, well, the fans don't want it. They like the fact that the championship or the lower divisions are different.

1:02:03Julien Laurens:Yeah, I think their point was more that it would take a long time. It would take a long time for the coach to challenge, to go and see. We see in the NBA, for example, I don't think it takes that long. It depends as well of the moment, the incident, that you want to get reviewed. It's already being used in lower leagues. We saw it in the 20th World Cup. It doesn't really take a long time. I don't think so. Certainly not. You know, if you're... I think, again, I don't really believe the fans like it the way it is. I think if your team gets harshly done by a bad decision for a referee, that happens regularly.

1:02:36Julien Laurens:You want it to be challenged. Yeah, exactly. And I think you should have the right. So I was a bit surprised, to be fair. I don't know if they tried to be different, to not do like the Premier League or like the others, or follow some sort of trend, but I thought that was a nice opportunity that they missed, because I think their game in the championship would have been fairer. Yeah. Also, the thing to point out with football video support is it's designed to be cheaper and less complicated than VAR. Yeah, they can't afford VAR. So that basically the only things you can look at are the TV pictures and there's essentially a guy looking at the TV pictures.

1:03:04It's not like the whole truck and blah, blah, blah.

1:03:06Julien Laurens:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No lines drawn. But they will keep the goal line technology, however. So, yeah. Chelsea will reportedly play all women's Super League home games at Stamford Bridge next season. Galveston will set the trend this season. That's what they do. But how do you see this going? Well, it's interesting. So Chelsea are kind of stuck because they play most of their home games at a place called Kings Meadow, which is in Kingston, which is sort of like almost like a de facto outer London, let's say. But that stadium only holds, I think, around 4 ,850 people, and Chelsea regularly sell that out.

1:03:42Ideally, you'd have something intermediate because when they've played at Stamford Bridge, yeah, sometimes they've had 30 ,000, 35 ,000, but that's because they only play the big games there. So I don't know. You play week in, week out. Is it going to be weird even if you get 7 ,000 or 8 ,000? Is that going to be unusual? Is that going to be weird? Is it easier for Chelsea fans actually to get to Kingston if more of the Chelsea women's fans are suburban? I'm assuming they've done

1:04:06Julien Laurens:all this research. How do you think it's worked out for Arsenal? Well, obviously some games would only attract 10 ,000 to 15 ,000 which is already a lot for the women's game but in a 60 ,000-seater stadium it looks really, really empty. And there's obviously more costs associated with this, but 10, 15 ,000, you can still cover the costs, right? Just about. I think you might still lose a bit of money on those games. However, when it's the Northern Derby against Perth, when you play Chelsea there or United or City, especially if the time of the games work out well, then yeah, you will get 35, 40, sometimes even more.

1:04:42Julien Laurens:It'd be interesting because we have the Women's Champions League semifinal coming up and at the Emirates on Sunday, Arsenal will play O.L. Lyon, which is on Disney +, if you want to watch it. And it'd be interesting to see on a Sunday afternoon like that, while you still have a lot of, not the men's, the men's will play on a Saturday at the Emirates. But it'd be interesting to see how many tickets they sell, for example, for that game. So back-to-back game, there's no issues with the pitch? Clearly not. No. I mean, to be fair, there was no other, it was Arsenal were at home for their semifinal first leg.

1:05:14Julien Laurens:there was nowhere the men were not going to play at home to Newcastle or not play that weekend so they had to find a solution and clearly where Arsenal used to play before the league game the WSL and sometimes played in a group stage of the Champions League there at middle lane it was not big enough for a game of this caliber so they had to play at the MLS so they had no choice really than play the men on Saturday and the women on the Sunday. I remember the year there used to be the awards the groundskeeper of the year yeah it still exists i think no the arsenal guy seemed to win it every single year so presumably yeah it should be fine but it does feel like a challenge 24 hours later yeah tottenham hotspur are advertising to hire professional psychologists to support the players they want someone quote embedded with the team in quote a high impact role unquote to develop a quote psychologically informed performance culture unquote jules sports psychologists have been around for, I think, 60 years.

1:06:15Brazil famously, I think they were among the first. They had them when they were winning World Cups in the 60s. But it just seems they kind of come back in vogue and they go out of vogue. Now it feels like you've got a number of players who have mental coaches, kind of work individually. Inevitably, this coming out now, people are going to joke about it and say,

1:06:33Julien Laurens:well, it's too late. I mean, I have to say, I can't believe they didn't have that kind of structure in place already before the last few years. I think they will be one of the very few clubs in the Premier League not to have already a psychologist on site every day for the players or the staff or whoever at the training ground. He needs this kind of help or rapport, whatever way you want to put it, because it's not always negative. You can talk to a psychologist about really positive things as well. It doesn't have to be some sort of trauma that you have since you were a kid or something like that.

1:07:07Julien Laurens:However, I think they help. I think they are a big added value to every single detail that you can improve within your football team and within your dressing room. So I'm amazed that they just are looking for one now if they never had one before. I think the challenge with it is that it's actually, well, one is obviously it is not going to work for everyone. Different people respond to different things. Some don't go and see them at all. But also that's why some people have their own psychologists or mental coaches that they work with. And I think it's time we'll spend. I actually think players should have their own fitness coach as well.

1:07:40Many of them do. But I also imagine you're at a club where you've had three different managers in the course of a season. If the guy's actually embedded there, if he's part of it, especially if the guy's coming in, he's going to be new. There's got to be a give and take because you know how jealous coaches, managers are about kind of their area of the football space. maybe it's difficult to introduce it when you've got such a turnover. It's different if the guy's been there before.

1:08:10Julien Laurens:Yeah, maybe. But I think it's a very different job, I think. And I think, again, some days you will have nobody coming to see you. You might be involved and looking at what's happening and then report to your managers, CEO, sporting director, players, whatever. What do they report to, actually? That's interesting. Yeah, I think it varies, really, from one club to another. I would imagine best practice would be if they report to the coach because fundamentally that psychology is a big part of the coaching job if they report to the director of football or whatever that could get funny and certainly at Spurs will yeah very often they have you know is in a group with the CEO the manager the sporting director an assistant and maybe the head of performance for example and the the psychologist reports to all of them in this kind of group meetings which i think works really well it's no secret that you keep.

1:09:03Julien Laurens:Everybody knows exactly what you've seen or your interpretation of what you're seeing. I think it's a really good added value to it. I can't believe they didn't have one before, really. Researchers at Lovebrook University claim that they can design football that reduce the energy transfer in headers. Gab, the impact of repeated heading of the ball has been linked with brain injury and dementia in football before. Yeah, so this isn't so much the head injury that you get from, like, boom, a big header. There was one in the West Ham game where I think somebody tried to sky the ball. It went up like a million miles into the air, and the player just jumped and headed it.

1:09:45And it came down from, and I'm like, wow, he must have, unless his technique was perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not about that. It's more about, like, kind of the repeated heading, the small micro. So, like, you can have a safer football. We've all heard the stories. Gordon McQueen, Nobby Stiles. There's been a number of these. And there's supposed links to head injury and so on. What I would say, though, is that I think the ball technology has improved. These guys, they had a grant from the FA. And the headline was like, oh, look, we've looked at balls in the past and balls today. and the ball that we've developed has one-fifty-fifth the impact of the balls in the past.

1:10:25Yeah, I can believe that. If you come to me, if you've got a historical ball from 1930, those were like medicine balls. Yes, but I think the relevance is how does it compare to the ball today? But if they can make it safer and they can get it licensed by FIFA, sure. More power to them. Now, we joked about it on here, but truth sometimes is stranger than fiction. There's a man named Paolo Zampoli who is the United States, quote, special envoy for special relationships and the man who introduced Donald Trump to Melania, he told the Financial Times that he suggested to the US president and the FIFA president, Gianni Fantino, that Italy should replace Iran at the World Cup.

1:10:59Jules, I think this is a wonderful idea.

1:11:02Julien Laurens:I mean, I don't even know where to go. Let's just hope Iran can make it to the World Cup, that things will be okay for them to be able to go, because I think they've earned the right to go, and they should go, not Italy. I don't know who that Zampoli guy is, but for me, it's just absolute nonsense. So I don't, like, obviously Iran should go, Iran qualified on the pitch. I don't, I'm just, I'm just having a tiny bit of sympathy, tiny bit for Gianni Infantino that he has to field calls about this nonsense from somebody coming out and saying these things, somebody who's got a different job to do, should not be involved in any of this.

1:11:45supposedly it's part of it's an attempt to bridge the gap the relationship with Italy because of some of the tension between the Pope and Trump bro this is politics stay on it just leave the football side out of it Johnny Fantino's got enough nonsense on his plate many of it of his own making I might add he does not need this

1:12:03Julien Laurens:yeah the 2031 Women's World Cup was supposed to be awarded to the USA Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica in the joint bid later this month since they are the only ones anyway ready to host it and beating. But now the vote has been postponed and it seems that the men are to blame. Yeah, or at least this World Cup. Like in the grand scheme, so basically the reason it's been postponed is that there are certain administrative things that they have to go through and basically some of these administrative guarantees, which would come from the current U.S. government, have not been put in place. Some people, like The Athletic, have speculated that it's because they want FIFA to have a very clear ban on transgender athletes at the Women's World Cup.

1:12:49And FIFA are not going to go and do that right now, certainly. But also, there's host cities trying to get better deals from themselves. They want to get guarantees. They don't want to be burned like they've been this time around, or some of them feel. We've had all the attention, all the transportation, all the fan zones. I just think it's just bad for the women's game that they should have had this in place. FIFA, I think, is an organization. They're like, all right, fine. We'll just approve this post-World Cup. But it's not a good look right now. And I'm just told 2031 is a ways away. There's another Women's World Cup in 2027.

1:13:25Before that, hopefully we'll still have time to prepare. And they'll still have all the infrastructure in place from the Men's World Cup this summer. Charles, this brings us to an end. yes but we got to come back on Monday do this all over again it's the magic of the FA Cup this weekend it's also Arsenal with a tricky away game lots to play for still yeah

1:13:47Julien Laurens:they're at home but yeah still a tricky game against Newcastle right they're doing great right now anyway until then love the game love your neighbour love yourself