Can De Zerbi turn Tottenham around?

24:54Aaron Paul:But what about, Chris, the winning nature and the fact that Andy Robertson has come in having won pretty much everything out there? What will that do for the dressing room? Well, first and foremost, it's a no-brainer. And this is a quality full-back that has won things that is not 34, 35 years of age. This is somebody, particularly in that full-back area, that's still capable, having saw the team play at the weekend, still making them sort of marauding runs, set up one of the goals. So I think as regards his level of quality, he still has that. So perfect timing, particularly because Udogi, who I think is a good player, good structure about him, good left foot, but of course has missed too many games over this last couple of seasons.

25:47And so I think what you've got is you've got somebody that you know you can rely on. But I think also he was brought in for what he's going to give the changing room. And so I've heard so far he's already having an impact, particularly with the younger players. And I say somebody with huge experience.

26:06Aaron Paul:Flav, just on those purchases, what is the feeling from the fan base on the money they've spent and the experience they've brought in? Yeah, I think there's no issue with the money spent. because we should have been doing this for a long, long time, not least the transfer wages, sorry, the transfer fees, which we have been kind of competing with other football clubs, but it's the wages that entice a player like Robertson to come in in the tail end of his career, to come and offer a kind of leadership and quality that he could offer many clubs. And the fact that he's come to Spurs and is a part of our playing staff, but a massive influence in the dressing room is massive.

26:46Yeah, so Sanessi on a free as well, which has been, you know, he was excellent. He had a bad injury, I think a leg break or something similar in Bournemouth side when they'd brought in Dean Housen as well. So it sort of took his position over. But when those players left Bournemouth, he came back into the forum, played brilliantly last season. So, yeah, I was really, really happy with him as well. But moreover, the shift in the experience in the first 11 is massive. And Gallagher was a part of the start of that in January, bringing Robertson in. Madison will be playing in the dressing room as well.

27:27So I think the experience in the Spurs dressing room has been ameliorated massively since you know a year ago where we were a lot of young players trying to find a way in the game

27:43Aaron Paul:it's felt just in terms of the recruitment it's felt very lumpy very scattergun in places sometimes at some at one point last summer you sat there and you're wondering what are spurs doing because it felt like they were in for everyone but also in for no one and and you look at the the manner in which they signed players it was it was peculiar it was it was strange there hasn't been again I use that word strategy there hasn't been a defined strategy but right now it feels there doesn't we we've seen it as well with regards to the departures from the football club a real sort of shedding of some of the old guard and Christian Romero leads the queue at the exit yeah um I guess a year ago he he signed a new contract which it was insane so I thought he was out the door and And then for him to become, not only has he signed a new contract, but become the club captain, I just thought that maybe we are moving in the right direction.

28:41And maybe Thomas Frank will be excellent and everything's just going to work out. A year later, it's the polar opposite. And Andros, I wanted to ask you a question about Romero, given the fact that you've spent so much time in many dressing rooms. But from a fan base, it looked really bad. when at the end of the season he decided to go back to Argentina and watch his boyhood club win the league while Spurs are potentially getting relegated while being club captain. It seemed bad from our perspective, but as a player, do you think that there was truth in that reality? How would you have responded if your club captain had decided to not be there in such a clutch moment?

29:20I think, Flav, it's difficult because we don't know the ins and outs of it. But I go back to one of the last times I was in a relegation battle at Everton And we had a captain like Seamus Coleman, who was injured towards the end of the season. But the role he played off the pitch in galvanising the players, in calling team meetings, in telling players when they've done well, giving players a kick up the backside when they didn't do so well. He was so instrumental to Everton surviving that season, even though he couldn't play a part towards the end of the season. So to have your club captain, again, we don't know the ins and outs of it, but to have your club captain out of the country in those crucial moments, to me, it doesn't sit well with me.

30:01I know it didn't sit well with you guys as the fans, but your captain needs to be held to a higher standard than that.

30:08Aaron Paul:What about the rumours that he was potentially heading to Arsenal? There was interest from Arsenal. I mean, the line I got from someone who's close to Spurs is that he was not for sale at any price to them, but it could have been a Sol Campbell 2.0 situation, Flav. No, no. I mean, there will never be that situation ever again. I don't even, I'm not even going to say his name. It's Romero, if there was a world where Romero joined Arsenal, it would have been a completely different circumstance. However, given the way that the ownership at Tottenham are kind of, you know it's football first now they understand that the relationship with the supporters is really important and if if there was any world where they sanctioned a transfer for our club captain again to join them um i think it would have been a write-off in terms of of the outgoings we're going to talk spending in a moment or so with uh with kira maguire football finance expert but on on vuscovic who's got the better end of the deal here spurs with van hecke or Brighton with one of Europe's best centre-half prospects.

31:15Aaron Paul:And I ask that because Tony Bloom is someone who loves a gamble. We know that. He's a very smart cookie. He would have done his homework on him. He would have done his homework on it, but it's, from both clubs' point of view, it's the needs of now. And I've got no doubt that the only reason why he's been allowed to go is because the head coach, De Zerbe, wanted a player for now. And there was an opportunity to bring Van Hecker in. He can only play two centre-halves at one given time. And I think Tony Blum and Brighton saw an opportunity. They will develop him, this I'm quite sure. And I'm quite sure also that there's perhaps something in the package there that doesn't damage Tottenham too much.

32:11But I expect Brighton to develop him. They don't tend to make too many wrong decisions. They have a head coach that's done an incredible job the last couple of seasons he's been there. But I think it's very much Tottenham Hotspur for now and Van Hecker was the choice.

32:29Aaron Paul:Football finance expert Kieran Maguire joins us. Kieran, good evening. Evening, guys. £228 million spent by Spurs so far this window. Yes, they've recouped some money as well. They're second in the league, though, in terms of spending behind Chelsea. The question so many will have is that after consecutive 17th place finishes, how are the club affording to spend as much as they are? And I have a feeling the answer may lie heavily in that thing called the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That's right. I think what Spurs have done is that they future-proofed the ability of the club to be competitive, regardless of whether they're successful on the pitch or not.

33:09So if you take a look at their commercial income, that's quadrupled since the move from the old White Hart Lane. If you take a look at their matchday income, that's tripled. And those are the figures we've got for 24-25 when the club was only playing in the Europa League. And you'll be able to go and charge much higher prices. So it doesn't matter to Taylor Swift. It doesn't matter to Anthony Joshua. It doesn't matter to Chris Eubank Jr. where Spurs are in the table. They are wanting to play at the stadium because it brings, it's a fantastic venue. It's built for commercial activities. And I think it was quite visionary of Daniel Levy to go down that route.

33:51Now, I appreciate there are footballing issues, which are outside of my remit, which he could be criticised about. But in the case of being 21st century, I don't think there's a better example of a club that has really thought things through. And that means that problems on the pitch and poor finishes in the table, and it costs you£3 million a place. So let's say that Spurs would have normally expected to finish fifth or sixth. It's cost them£30 million down in terms of prize money from the Premier League. But on the plus side, they've got another sort of£300 million coming in from ticket sales and commercial.

34:29Aaron Paul:I mean, I don't think you could ever deny Daniel Levy was always a thinker. he was very very prudent in what he's done does this sort of stadium revenue and you look at the figures commercial revenue gone from 73 million pounds to 277 million pounds match day revenue from 45 to 126 million does this really sort of you know put in the groundwork and the foundations for what will spurs fan spurs fans will hope will be inevitable success in in the future well it gives them the ability to be successful. Now, making the right decisions in terms of recruitment, that comes down to the recruitment team, that comes down to the relationship between the director of football, the sports science people and Roberto Di Serbi.

35:15And that might work, it might not work. But you can't do that unless you have a budget to do so. And I'm looking at the numbers here. And yes, seven years or eight years out of the last nine, Spurs have spent more than£100 million in a single season on player recruitment. So it's not necessarily the amount of money that's been spent, it's how well it's been spent. And has there been a structure? Has there been a strategy for player recruitment? And again, yeah, that's outside of my remit. But the money has been spent. At the same time, they've got no problems whatsoever in terms of compliance with the cost control rules, because they're only spending 45 % of their revenue on wages.

35:59So that gives them the capacity to recruit players on better deals this season and still maintain their position within the rules, even though they're not competing in Europe. Flav, Daniel Leeds had a lot of criticism for the commercialisation of that stadium and off the field issues. But do summer windows like this, where, like Kieran said, Spurs are able to still compete with the top sides in this country, even though they just avoided relegation. Do summers like this really start to turn the fans' opinion a little bit on the Daniel Levy era and the foundations he was able to set up for the future?

36:35Yeah, yeah, almost certainly. I think he did an interview with Gary Neville for the Stick to Football podcast. And Daniel Levy said that they'll perhaps remember me fondly when I'm gone. And there's no doubt, as Kieran has clearly explained, that we are set up to be able to financially compete, even if we finish 17th. So I think from some sections of the fan base, they were frustrated with what Daniel Levy had done previously and that we weren't ambitious and made us more into an entertainment company than a football-first focusing football club. And so it was always that frustration. And I said earlier on that the irony of us being able to spend what we do based on Daniel Levy's work would be that if he was still in charge he wouldn't have spent the money and I think that's I think that the Enoch and the Lewis family probably made the right decision time will tell but made the right decision to remove him and so they could be more proactive in bringing players in that can return success because the reality is that Tottenham Hotspur fans have been made to pay the most expensive season tickets in Britain and probably in Europe maybe the world and the return was to 17th place finishes.

37:57So the frustration was justified. However, you have to respect the work that Daniel Levy put in. Sure.

38:03Aaron Paul:Kieran, I want to ask you about PSR sort of, you know, being out the door and this sort of, you know, new framework coming in as well. But just on a wider question about the Premier League, are other clubs looking at Spurs, what they've done with the stadium, what they've achieved and thinking if we are to dine at the top table, we're going to have to do something with the money we're making on the other five to six days a week that the stadium is empty. I mean, you look at Aston Villa redeveloping the North Stand. There's been talks of a new stadium for Newcastle United as well. Is this the method now that clubs are looking into?

38:37Absolutely. I think Spurs have set a gold standard in how it should be done. Anybody that goes to the stadium as an away fan, as a home fan in hospitality, comes away with the first time you go there, your jaw genuinely drops to the floor. It is a magnificent piece of architecture. It's significant spending. There's not been corners cut anywhere, as you've seen historically with some of the grounds. And the downside of that, of course, is that the fans are expected to pay top tier prices for a top tier stadium. and therefore they expect a top-tier return from what they see on the pitch. But I can assure you that every time I talk to clubs or people connected to clubs or fan groups, it's how can we increase revenues?

39:21Because there's been a complete mindset now under the new squad cost ratio rules, which came into play on the 1st of July. All fans now, everybody connected with the club knows, for every extra million pounds that you bring in, you can spend£850 ,000 on player costs. Now, whether that's wages, whether that's transfer fees, whether that's agent fees, but it all goes into that same pot. So so turning clubs and football, football is a dumb business in many ways. What other businesses do you know that are open 20 to 25 days a year? Well, Spurs have shown that through conferencing, through having other sporting facilities, other activities, that you can make it a multifunction, multisport entertainment complex of which the football club is the focal point.

40:06and the football club is the beneficiary of all of this additional revenues, then it has to be spent well. And then that comes down to the football side of the club to do that.

40:16Aaron Paul:Tell us about this new sort of, you know, this financial framework that we're going to see coming this year. Right. Well, you've got, the way that it works, every£100 you bring in, you can spend 85 % of that if you're a non-European competing club. And if you're playing in UEFA, you're down to 70%. So more money in means more money spent on players. Kieran, thank you so much as ever. Kieran Maguire, football finance expert with us on Five Live Sport this evening. Now, before we finish, let's look at Spurs' forward options. It's been a great window, but attacking reinforcements are perhaps one area where we haven't seen as much action through the door.

40:56Aaron Paul:Just looking at the forwards in the squad, Richarlison, Solanke, Scarlett, Kudus, Mikey Moore, Odderbeer, Tell. We know Xavi Simmons is out with an ACL injury. James Madison has experienced injury problems. Are we seeing Roberto De Zerbi, Chris, putting down a marker and saying Dominic Solanke is going to be his main man this coming season because they're not in the market for an out-and-out forward? Or are they? Well, I don't know. I think we all know the problem with Dominic Solanke is not the ability that he's got. it's playing games on a regular basis and he missed so much of last season. For me personally, if he was somebody that you could rely on being physically fit, he's somebody that would score goals.

41:45From the games that I've seen so far this pre-season, there's been certainly a lot of efforts that have gone in from the flanks. Robert, I think in the last game, the weekend game, I think all three goals were designed from wide areas and crosses from wide areas. Richarlison getting on the end of one of them. And I think if that's a way of playing, we tonight spoke about a way of playing, breaking through midfield, fast through midfield, but the efforts were from wide areas and we need to be more prolific in them areas. And I think it's just a question of having somebody that's durable enough.

42:25And if that happens to be the case with Solanke, then I think he's a really good option. A really good option.

42:32Aaron Paul:Flav, looking at the options you've got in there, there's plenty. There's a lot of talk about Mikey Moore with Kudus still being injured. Can he come in and sort of, you know, stake a claim for a first-team place? What about Will Lancashire, though? Because, I mean, covering the EFL, he is probably the most talked-about player in the Championship right now. Forget anyone else. It's the fact that Middlesbrough have been able to bag him and that he looks quality. Why did it not work for him at Spurs? It didn't work for him because he was young and probably wasn't at the level to play for the first team.

43:07He spent big money on Solanke and Richarlison still there. There's just no route through. It was like when we had Harry Kane, there was no chance to buy a backup striker that knew that he wasn't going to pay. Perhaps Llorente was the best example of that. And Lanxier had to move in order to get football. he had a great season with Oxford last year their fans loved him and Middlesbrough have spent big money on bringing in a player to play in the championship it was 10 million but if they get promoted it's going to be upwards of upwards towards 20 million so um I mean I just I love that I love the fact that he's going to he's gone to the championship and he's scoring goals and he's being effective it was just I don't think it was ever going to work I mean he's 21 years old Fernandes is also 21 years old you're either good enough at that level or you've got to be lucky and I just think it was the right time for him to move I don't have any issue with that at all really But I also think that there doesn't need to be such a reliant on a number 9 if you've got a Javi Simmons fit a Madison fit a Kudas fit an Odebert who broke into the side last season and I thought started really well in that wide area And I think if you've got them options around your nine, then I think there's not the pressure and the obvious need to have that number nine that's as prolific as what you'd want it to be.

44:33Chris you just touched on on it there but my question is going to be you said you can't rely on a Dominic Solanke for his fitness what about a Richarlison because for me I played him in and I watched him last season for Spurs he does absolutely everything right he's all energy he chases loose balls he's always running in behind he starts to press very well but for a top side if you as the manager is his lack of goals a worry would you be worried about that relying on Richarlison for his lack of goals? Yeah, I think it would be a worry, depending if you said to me, well, my two number nines are going to be a fit Solanke and a fit Richarlison with the options around that I said, a kudos in the wide area at Madison, then I think there's some really good offensive options then.

45:21But I think, as you just alluded to, if you are relying just on Richarlison for goals, you know that he's not going to get you them that volume of goals he's he's talismanic he's a bit of

45:34Aaron Paul:a nomad isn't he for Charleston he he likes to be the man and and to drive them forward but but what about the players they've been rumored to be bringing in Andros Cody Gakpo and this Savino talk it just does not go away I think they're both probably short-term options because especially on the right-hand side you look at Savino he'll bring a lot to Spurs don't get me wrong but you've still got Kudos to come back Kulosevsky is he going to come back anytime soon is he going to get up to speed and then on the left-hand side you've got Xavi Simmons at some point this season hopefully he'll come back Madison's going to look to come back he might play in a 10 or he might play off the left you've got Tell so I don't think I think Cody Gakpo probably the only one who can bring something different to those guys whereas Savino yes he'll get joy in the early parts of the season but once everyone's fit is he still number one choice I don't know I don't know Flav just finally on transfers where are your priorities going into the last what 10-12 days of the window I mean Savino's been sort of linked for so long it's interesting to hear Andrew's thoughts on that because Gakpo's probably less popular in coming in as Savino is it's the number nine for me I think Solanke's not fit if he isn't fit if he can play if he can if you get 40 games out of him obviously there's no problem right we've got a number nine who's easily good enough to to lead the line in the premier league um if he isn't fit and it's for charlison and then no one then the number nine situation looks problematic the issue though is you look across the market and we've we discussed this earlier on the podcast is that what what number nine is is out there earlier on in the season there was uh in in the summer that we were linked with crew peas broken his foot so it's not going to be that so I think it's going to be a challenge and I don't know we had a conversation about who would you keep from this perspective from this moment if you had to sell one Richarlison or Solanke who would it be and we kind of plumped for not in terms of quality but in terms of reliability Richarlison we just we want Solanke to be back but we just can't trust him to be.

47:42Aaron Paul:Just to bring it round let's have some final season predictions first question is what what would constitute success for Spurs this season? Andros, come to you first. I think the business they've done in the summer and the manager and the fact they've got no European football, I don't see why we can't be aiming for a Champions League place and going far in the cup competitions. I don't think the last two seasons should put us off. I think Champions League should be the aim still. I would see chasing Europe. I'm not sure I see Champions League after the last couple of seasons and of course with the injuries.

48:14Some of the injuries are still there, but the club have spent big money and they've got a coach that's incredibly ambitious. If Michael Carrick can take a Man United side that was floundering and not improve him and improve him the way that he did, then Zerbe, given the money we spent, can definitely finish third or fourth this season.

48:33Aaron Paul:Right. I wanted a prediction. You said third or fourth. Andros? I'm going to say fifth, but Champions League players. Well, I would say probably fifth or sixth, I would say. the touching on Champions League but maybe you're over just finally very quickly Flav your chance to ask Chris one about the 84 UEFA Cup win go go go I didn't think I'd get a chance to do this let's put you on the spot no no it's not it's me and my dad when I was a kid and he would put on the VHS of that night and I just wanted to ask you about the moment because it was against Anderlecht UEFA Cup final and Danny Thomas missed the penalty and my dad described this and you played in this game my dad described it as the greatest atmosphere he's ever experienced at Wighter Lane when the Spurs fan base got behind Danny Thomas as he missed the penalty and you heard one Danny Thomas echo around Wighter Lane I just wondered if you had any memories of that No, it was it was it was an incredible moment and one of course we felt for Danny because he not only was a very good player but he was a very popular player but of course that moment only lasted for a moment and of course Tony Parks then got us out of trouble as such.

49:49But for me an incredible night because now of course that final is a one-legged final and to play that final, a two-legged final and the second leg at White Hart Lane when the club of course had been devoid of a European trophy for a few years was something and probably, if I look at my moments at the club, particularly at the old stadium, that would be, for me, the one that I would remember the most.

50:20Aaron Paul:There you go, Chris Andros Flav. Thank you so much for joining us.

50:28So much sport today and all the goals as they go in up and down the league. This is Five Live Sports. It's all eyes of the lights and foot and applause. To bowl him! It's knocked his stopper. Everyone standing around the 18th green. Overhead kick! That is sensational! He shows to the centre. And Daryl to it!

50:48Aaron Paul:Oh, the right hand and former champion is down. It's extraordinary stuff. They've done a show for us tonight. He gets on his knees and kisses the turf. Five Live Sports. The home of the world's greatest sporting events. This is the full-time whistle. Listen on BBC Sounds.