Igor Tudor & Spurs Part Ways

28:20Look at the space Duram has to get the goal. Pulls off Davison Sanchez, and it's Munoz, Crystal Palace full-back. He has topped in, but it's not even a contest. I mean, it's just keeper is a bit, well, comes out. Goes on his holidays a bit, doesn't get there. And then France with the opportunity to make it 3-0 here. The ball finds its way to Douay, who gets his second of the game. Colombia just cannot afford to give the ball away as cheaply as they did in midfield. Even against this version of France, we keep saying this is a second team for France and they were completely dominant. Ball into Turam, he knows exactly where Douay is.

29:03Great ball to Douay, no problem with the finish. Colombia would get one back here. A little bit of a scramble to get there, but it's a lovely finish. Yeah, a little bit of a spirited finish from the Colombians right in the last 10 or 15 minutes. Big Colombian crowd there as you can see, so a lot of support for them. Really good finish. I mean, just watch this strike, almost like a knuckleball here.

29:29Mbappe would come on later on, Iketike as well, Elise, but in the end it was the second team who were given a run out overall and it was the second string side that beat Colombia by three goals to one. Frank, what did you like about today? Well, the fact that the second side, as you call it, you know, is one of the best in the world. That's what it is. I find it a little bit pejorative, you know, to call it the second side when I see what they can do against Colombia and all Colombia fans, they maybe thought that it would be possible to maybe go to the semi-final, maybe win a World Cup. Well, that was a statement today.

30:12Even the second side is capable of giving you, you know, kind of a lesson of football. And that's insane. And that makes me very being optimistic about the World Cup. Because when I see that, I don't see a second side. I see a group of players being able to show their strength. And I liked Lacroix for the first time as he started. It was absolutely good. Kante for his birthday did the job and of course at France, don't make a mistake don't lose the ball in the middle of the park against France, you're going to be punished, the one side the first side or the second side they're going to punish you and it happened today with of course Chakir, Turam, Douai Akliush and after Mbappé and when they came on, that's insane what we have at France, it's simply insane, so Mbappé today I'm happy with the group of players that DJ Deschamps put on and the chemistry that we found with players who are not used to playing together.

31:17I wonder if Zinedine Zidane wants France to win the World Cup. Oh, that's a good question. Put your love. That's another debate. No, because obviously he's really going to be taken over World Cup. He's mates with Deschamps. He's not mates with Frank. Yeah. Frank has been left unread for many years. Yeah, Frank's out. I'm friends with nobody. Not even you anymore, Craig. You're out of that group now. No, I'm only kidding. But, you know, for him, if Deschamps wins the World Cup for a second time, is that right? Would it be? Yes. Yes. You know, that's, you know, all of a sudden, why am I taking, why?

31:51I don't know why I'm going down this road. But all of a sudden. I want to see what would you go down. Yeah, well, Xenadine's in and stepping in. I think it's even more pressure for him, you know what I mean? Stepping into that job. because this is a fantastic squad of players. Think about how it's evolved from Paul Pogba been in there, from Antoine Griezmann, from Olivier Giroud and many, many others. It's just evolved. This conveyor belt of players that have come through in France that are now playing either in France or around the rest of the world is quite incredible. And it's also quite incredible that with all this talent, they're still not favourites to win the World Cup.

32:27What's more incredible is England are ahead of them, according to the bookies. You understand? Absolutely. Which is even more ridiculous. Managusto, of course, played for France in that match against the Brazil. Didn't feature today. However, he did speak to Alexis yesterday, in particular, about what's going on at Chelsea at the moment. From a player's perspective, because it's hard from the outside looking in to understand, but where do you feel like you guys have struggled the most this season? In Chelsea? Mm-hmm.

33:02It was a bit complicated for us in the middle of the season. Enzo Marecka was a new coach coming up. It was a big changement for the team. Everyone was surprised to be honest. But in football that can happen, so we just have to adapt. That's what we tried to do before the international break. It was a tough few weeks for us in terms of results because that wasn't what we expected. Against PSG, there were a few games in the Premier League, Newcastle and Everton as well that we lost. But I think this international break will be good to refresh a little bit and to come back stronger because we know that we have the quality for the top and that's what we will try to do.

34:04We have the FA Cup as well that we have to compete for. So yeah, I can't wait to play this type of game for the rest of the season and show my best. As you said, it's a young squad, but you also have a young manager too in Leomar Sr. He does things differently, a lot of philosophical stuff too that I think a lot of the media does criticize. But for you guys as players, does it work well with you? Do you feel like he deserves a bit more respect in that regard? Yeah, of course. I think he's a top coach. I saw that a lot of people criticize him. Do you understand why? Not really. I mean, I work with him a lot since he joined Chelsea.

34:51I think he's a top person, first of all, a top manager as well. And as you say, he's young. So, of course, I think there is a lot of things for him, for the future that will come in. But yeah, me, I mean, I trust him always. If he is the Chelsea manager, it's because he has the talent for this. but as I said before for us as a player, as a team we just have to believe in to believe on the way we play, to stick to our plan and yeah, see how it goes Gab, that's another player expressing surprise that Enzo Muresko has sacked Yeah, I mean I think most people were surprised especially at the way it happened I mean on New Year's Eve just a few ticks ahead of midnight, you know, the news coming out.

35:50I think Malagusto kind of weighed his words a little bit there. And, you know, I think it speaks to some of the concerns around Chelsea. And people are focusing on Roscinor respecting the ball and then the no passing and whatever. But there's one undeniable question. He's changed kind of the setup here by adding another central midfielder, pushing Ainslow into the hole, or further forward anyway, and pushing Cole Palmer right. And, you know, for a team that added no fewer than three wingers in the summer, in Garnacho, Gittens, and Estaval Willian, and a manager who was committed to and told that this was the way forward, we're going to play with wingers and whatnot.

36:40now all of a sudden Rosini is going in a different direction. It raises questions. Does he have the blessing of the club? Does he see it as a necessity? And he says, I'm going to do this, which maybe Maneska might have considered doing but didn't have the courage to do, to balance out the squad. What does it mean for Cole Palmer moving from 10 to a wide area where maybe he's a little more marginalized in terms of the team? What's it going to mean when it's the Valwillian, the bright young thing when he's fit again well that's the position he plays so I think there's a lot of turmoil a lot of questions and these international breaks simply lead to more questions because you know poor Rosinia knows he's not going to get a shot at answering some of those questions until they play again and that's not going to happen for another week how safe is he yeah

37:31well I mean in terms of between now and the end of the season I would assume 100 % he's he's safe come what may um but i think it's very obvious uh he's going to be judged on whether he can get chelsea into the champions league places i think that's uh the you know the minimum objective but i think also how the team and how the side progresses under him remember there's a whole business model here at chelsea about attracting young players helping them grow uh and and choosing to invest in certain positions because you see value there and that's why they blew all that money and I go back to this.

38:08I mean, Estaval, obviously, they've locked up before and he's very young, but I mean, Giddens and Garnaccio, that's in excess of$100 million you spent on two guys who are really quite a ways down the pecking order right now when you actually think about it. And so, how does that fit into Chelsea's business model? Where does Nico Jackson fit in? How are they going to fit in? A lot of these players, they've got performance-related bonuses that are predicated on being in the Champions League. Well, if they go down, are they going to say, you know what, I have this long-term contract, sure, but my wages aren't that high, especially without the Champions League bonus.

38:45Might they want to go elsewhere? So I think there's a ton of questions here. They do have effectively five sporting directors, not one, not two, not three, not four, but five sporting directors and Badagipali making these decisions. And sure, the manager, whether it's Mareska before where Senior Now is going to be part of it, but there's always going to be larger considerations, and I think that speaks to the unease at the club. I mean, you're talking about all those players that, you know, millions and millions are on the way out. You didn't even get to. Mihaila Mudric, who they spent a fortune on, and he's out in the wilderness for reasons that are legal.

39:27But, I mean, five sporting directors, I mean, can you imagine? You can't have clarity in which direction you want to go when there's that many people involved. You just can't. In some sense, they've just thrown Rosinha in and get on with it. It's a big job. It's a huge job trying to get in there, trying to make sure they're in the Champions League, trying to make sure they're hitting the ground running. You're dealing with a lot of egos in there as well. I don't think he's handled it particularly well with all the sort of stuff that he's talked about. And he can look at himself for that, but it's not his fault that they've put him in that job.

40:07And he's not ready for it. I mean, it's a big job to go into. But you just feel that this lot running the club... I said a few days ago to me, they kind of reminded me a little bit of... They're the Manchester United of the South in the last couple of years. They've just gone from pillar to post with their decision-making in terms of managers and where they're going and this, that, and the next thing. It's not breeding any kind of continuity. We've had recently players coming out voicing their opinions about the sacking of Maresca. We've had Enzo Fernandes talking about where he might want to be next year.

40:43Cole Palmer and one or two others because they're seeing that there's a lack of clarity. I think, for want of a better terminology, there's a lack of clarity in which way they want to go. All right, they're buying youngsters and giving them long contracts. That's the one thing that we do know. But where are they within the structure of what they're building and bringing in a manager and who's having the final decisions? Am I working for a manager that's only coaching? So he's basically a head coach and everybody else is making decisions. Or am I working for a manager that has also got his finger on the pulse of what's happened at the football club and he's very involved in all the big decision makings as well.

41:23And then we have clarity about which way we're going. And then it's down to the manager. if things go awry. But it just feels that there's too many people, and this goes back to, allegedly, the sports scientists get involved as well and telling managers and coaches who can and can't play, when and where. That's too many people involved in making big decisions on the football front. And it just becomes a mess and very difficult to manage and very difficult to get results. And that's shown recently in Chelsea's form. Frank, wrap this one up for us. Just I want to be optimistic because remember, when we were debating about Manchester United or Chelsea, which club was the worst?

42:09And we all agreed that it was more difficult about Manchester United. And before Michael Carrick stepped up, I really thought that it was worse than Manchester United. But one coach came and it was possible to do something. But if I want to be optimistic and it's possible maybe to find a coach at Chelsea See, one day we're going to do that. The problem is you have five sporting directors. So who do you talk to? How do you make decisions? How it works? So as Craig mentioned, it's possible to get better, but how it can be better with five sporting directors? You have to make sure that it's already hard to talk to one guy when you ever want to make a decision, you want to talk about something.

42:48If you have five guys, you want to maybe have five different decisions. So it's going to be hard. It's not going to be easy. Malagusto was very nice and it's always hard to ask a question because a player is not going to say oh you know my new coach is crap you know he doesn't understand anything and the last one was even worse so it's impossible so of course you're not going to say anything you're not going to say what the coach wants you to say in the club so it's fair but it seems to be hard to find a solution for that club to be more settled and hopefully it's going to come soon but I don't have the idea how it's going to work hopefully soon The sooner the better because everybody wants to see Chelsea having better results.

43:29Frank, where are you before we let you go? What the heck is going on? I'm in a lobby hotel, closed ramps. I was on stage this afternoon, so we are at the hotel. So they allowed me to come to that beautiful wallpaper, you know, at a lobby hotel. That's real. It's not green street. It looks like I'm in tropics, you know. Yeah. Whatever. Very nice, Frank. We'll let you go. Much appreciated. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Gab will be back with us on a very special edition of Extra Time. You can catch that on our YouTube channel.

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45:03Try Maintain X for free. Control the daily operations of your business and transform your maintenance program. Go to maintainx.com slash sports. That's maintain and the letter X dot com slash sports. That is it. That brings us to the end of today's show. Gab returns to Extra Time. Craig and Shaka with us. You'll find out. You'll find out why. I'm intrigued now. I see. There you are. Hang around. Yeah, I'll hang around now. It'll be an anti-climax. Don't worry.

45:37Welcome in to the latest edition of Extra Time. Craig and Shaka are with us. As is Gab. Gab shouting about food is one of my favourite things. So I asked you for your food questions for Gab for extra time and people have written in quite a lot actually. It's good. Who is shouting about food? Gab always gets angry about food. Yeah, well, he's got standards. Well, let's see. Gab, in your imminent deployment to the US for the World Cup, would you rate the best spots where the pizza is better than in Italy? Look, all right, a couple of things here, right? Pizza is from Naples. I am not from Naples.

46:14I'm from the other end of Italy. So when you ask me about pizza, you could be asking me about sushi, about Mexican food. Not my culture, okay? So having that out of the way, I think pizza in the U.S. is different than the pizza in Naples. Is it better? I think people have taken... It comes down to what you like. I mean, that's like saying, like, you know, is a steak better than ice cream? I don't know. What do you like, Gab? What would you have, a Naples pizza or a U.S. pizza? Which one are you choosing? What? Are you stupid? No, why am I stupid? Naples, Italy, pizza. Yes. Versus a pizza in the US.

46:54Yes. You are stupid. Why am I stupid? Because it would be Italy. This is the whole debate. He's saying it's not because it's different. Yeah, well, yeah, it's all about taste. Look, I think you can appreciate different things. If you go to different pizza places, even in different parts of Italy, you know you're going to get a neapolitan saying no but the real neapolitan pizza has to be like this and here's the mother yeast that was passed down through 10 billion generations and you know we only put a tiny bit of cheese some people like different things that there's no i don't think again maybe if i were neapolitan i'd feel different about this but to me they're all different iterations of the same foreign food to me not florida not florida pizza florida oh pizza's pizza.

47:40People get too excited about pizza. You can eat any pizza and it's fine. Well, we've wasted too much time in the pizza. No, no, that's true. That's nonsense, Dan. Let's say, no, no, no, no. Honestly, every pizza's fine. It's not every pizza's fine. It is. No, they're not all the same. They're different. You still eat it. It's disgusting. You're not like, oh, this pizza's horrible. You eat it. No, it's pizza. Six out of ten pizza's fine. It's not. You're wrong. It's not. It is. It has to be proper thin cut. Oh, my God. You're into this kid's pizza. What's funny? But it's still fine. You still eat a kid's pizza.

48:17It's not fine. You would still have it. No. Dan. Dan. Dan. You'll eat anything if you're hungry, right? But how can you say pizza's pizza when less than an hour away from where you are recording a show right now are people in New Haven who are so proud of their pizza and how different it is from pizza in New York. I'm not queuing an hour for a pizza. A pizza's a pizza. No, it's not a pizza because you're very low standards. You can't say they're the same. Say again? They're different. Don't you put a pineapple on a pizza? Yeah, I have a pineapple on a pizza. So you should never, ever again get into a discussion about pizza.

48:53I just don't get the fuss. Would you queue an hour for a pizza? No, no, no. I won't queue an hour for a pizza, but I'm not going to a pizzeria to eat or get a takeaway from one that's not a decent pizza. No, it's not. soggy, too thick, all that sort of nonsense. No. You weren't the right person to ask this question. Why? No, you're not. You just said a 6 out of 10 pizzas. All right, you can't say a 6 out of 10 pizzas as good as a 10 out of 10 pizza. That just makes no sense. You'd still eat it, is my point. That's not the point. It is the point. You would still eat the pizza. So therefore, because I eat them both, they're the same.

49:33Because I eat them both, they're the same. So that's like saying you go for a pint. You can't drink now. You are not the right pistachios. You can't drink. I honestly don't get this fast. You can't drink now, so I rub this in. Right, thank you. Good. Appreciate it. You got two pints of beer. Yes. The same lager. Yes. One's got a head on it and a bit of liveless about it, and the other one's flat as a pancake. Yes. Is a beer just a beer? No, but then it tastes horrible. Yes. But you drink it. But you drink it. A bad pizza doesn't taste horrible. But you drink it. No. Oh, boy. Listen. No. Shut up or I'm gone.

50:05those odds for the next six birds. Gab, oh, this isn't food. Will Chelsea be selling, well, they're going to talk. Will Chelsea be selling Parma in the summer? Reports he's not happy and he wants to go back up north.

50:21I don't, I mean, I think it would have to be like a ton of money for Chelsea to consider moving him on. Obviously, he's extended his contract he got a bump so you know that's gonna factor into it as well when you talk about you know going on north you ask yourself well who needs a player like Cole Palmer who would want a guy who plays a net number 10 position and if you look at the big clubs up north potentially with money spade Liverpool have a number 10 Manchester United have a number 10 you know, Manchester City a little bit different. We don't know what the situation is going to be there next season, but I think it would need to be a stretch.

51:06It would need to be another big player moving on to create a spot and to create the resources for somebody to make a really big offer to Chelsea and then for Chelsea to consider it. But I'll tell you what, if I were Cole Palmer and I was saying like, oh, your job next season is going to just, you know, start in the right wing position and pay no attention to that Estaval will you and who everybody likes and who's three or four years younger than you. I wouldn't be too happy. To put the next question into context, we're out with Gab in Italy and he forbade anyone to order lasagna. Gab, can you find better lasagna in Italy or the US?

51:45Yes.

51:49Lasagna is something you make at home. You don't go looking for it. If you're fortunate enough to have an Italian mom or an Italian grandmother, or even somebody in your family who can cook or you're a good cook, then by all means make your lasagna. Look, I'm not going to be a stickler about this. Some people like lasagna with bechamel. That's more from Bologna. Others do it without bechamel. That's more in the south of Italy. is whatever way you like it. But to go order plain lasagna in a restaurant when you're over the age of 12, for Dan Thomas, yeah, I am not to say. That wasn't me. I'm sure that wasn't me.

52:24No, I wouldn't have ordered lasagna. I've never been, and I've been to a lot of Italian restaurants, and my friend in London, in North London, is actually from Naples. Ooh, Italian friend. Yes, and we used to go out all the time, gold as green, and around London to Italy, and I've never, ever seen him or myself order a lasagna. There you go. But I can imagine you doing it. No, I don't order a lasagna. That's not, I wouldn't do it. Put a pineapple on top of it or something. Lasagna in a red. Kids, yeah, I can get the kids doing it. Yeah, kids are allowed a lasagna. Well, I often have a kids menu.

52:57With all of the Arsenal players pulling out of international duty. I thought it was food questions. Yes, but now he's put soccer questions in for some reason. It's a soccer show. Arsenal players pulling out of international duty. Should there be investigational disciplinary action if the players and clubs are found liable? What? Hold on. So, Eze, Gabriel, Saliba, Trossard, Timber, Saka, Rice, Medueke, Hincafie, Avul. If the clubs sign off on it, on their leaving camp, I'm not sure that... This is nothing new, is it? No, it's not. The who sign off for it? Clubs. Not the countries, sorry. If the countries sign off on those players' leaving camp, then I'm not sure...

53:35Yeah, it used to be a lot simpler. Just, you wouldn't show up, and Bob's your uncle. You had a break, but then they circumvented that by you had to turn up and be checked over. Be checked, yeah. Gab, what hurts more in Italy, conceding a last-minute goal that knocks the nation out of the World Cup or someone breaking spaghetti before cooking it?

53:56This is even a serious question. Okay, listen. I do not break my spaghetti. Some people do. Some people even in Italy do. I do. I wouldn't do it. I think it's silly, but surely getting, conceding a goal, getting knocked out of the World Cup hurts a lot. I wouldn't break spaghetti normally, but if I've got, if I'm too lazy and the big pans are in the dishwasher, and I've only got a smaller bowl, I have to break it to get it in. That's the only reason I do it. Okay. But I wouldn't necessarily do it. I'm not a heathen. I'm not like you and Stevie. Stop putting me in this category. A lasagne you're eating breaking spaghetti.

54:33You're morphing into his category. No way. Having only three taste buds in his mouth. Wow. One for mince, one for tarties, and one for anything else with really high cholesterol. Oh, God. Shaq, if you're Pochettino, do you give... You probably outlived the... Wait, wait, we've got to do a soccer one. The lot of the Shaq. Shaq, if you're Pochettino, do you give Turner another start against Portugal? Do you give another keeper a look? I'd play Frisier against Portugal. I don't think Frisier's been Pochettino's preferred number one. I think he would be Pochettino's preferred number one. I feel kind of sorry for Turner.

55:07I thought there wasn't a lot he could do about the goals. One really, really good save he made was callback for handball and Tim Ream and concedes a penalty from there. So it was a tough 90 minutes for Turner, but you've got to get a look in this window. Gab, who would you rather have dinner with, Ancelotti, Conte or Allegri? Ancelotti, I was just even a question. Especially if you're talking dinner, if you're talking food. That's not even on the table. I don't know what cold they eat, but maybe raw meat and raw eggs. But yeah, it would be 100 % Ancelotti. You just feel Allegri would get the salt out and start putting shit.

55:55Yeah, all the tactics. If you had that pizza discussion with Ancelotti, I actually think he'd throw you out the window. Do you think so? Yeah. Do you think that'd be it? And I think that he would be right to do so. This is for Gab. If Italy win on Tuesday against Bosnia, how far can they go? I think the last eight with a bit of luck. I think the last eight will be the goal if they qualify for the World Cup. Again, like, you know, and this applies to Italy, this applies to Germany. You know, I was listening before when you were talking about Pochettino and the US and him talking about the semifinals.

56:31And isn't it silly that he talks about semifinals? But he has no choice, right? He's a hired guy, one World Cup cycle, they're paying him the world. If he says, oh yeah, we'll just try to get as far as we can, of course he has to say semifinals, right? Otherwise, why are we paying you all this money, Poch? But I think with Italy and Germany, once you're in the tournament, the expectation and the players and the World Cup ranking and all this stuff, it all points to the fact the expectation is quarterfinals. What becomes more important is if you play France and the round is 16 and you put up a good fight, fine.

57:06And then France go on to win the tournament. If, you know, you start losing to Korea or Bolivia or countries like that, then, you know, again, before Koreans get angry, I'm not suggesting you've got the same World Cup pedigree as Bolivia. But, you know, you lose to somebody who is not one of the big nations, then that's where you have a problem. Final question, Gab. Is it okay to eat spaghetti with ketchup?

57:36Oh, boy. That's our boy. Why not chips too? Like, I'm sure Craig has told a story about his mate who we all know, who likes to put chips on his, what was it, was it? Penna la la beata, whatever. Penna la beata, manamon, yeah, in front. Why not? That was Macca, wasn't it? Why have the fries here when they're more accessible here? Yeah, that makes sense. I'm going to dive in. There you are. Beautiful. That is it, Gab. Thank you so much, mate. Much appreciated. ESPN FC returns to be much more sensible. Tomorrow, we're in tomorrow. You two are in tomorrow. Oh, yeah. I'm going to have some pizza from Subway.

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