645: Kings of Anglia: Hello from Berlin!

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0:39Ross Halls:hello everybody it's me roscoe and welcome to the latest flagship kings of anglia podcast here in berlin we're here outside the union berlin i will not try to pronounce the stadium aj my friend let people know welcome to the stadion and the alten Fulston Forresterai, which is the stadium of the Old Forester. I like it, I like it. But yes, of course, we're here to look ahead to the game tomorrow, but also talk about some sexy stuff, because a lot's happened since we last recorded. There's been a game to do the last flagship show, Stu. Rayo Vallecano, of course. How are you, my friend, as we're here standing outside the ground?

1:15Ross Halls:It's hot.

1:16Stuart Watson:Yeah, I have a rather sweaty back at the moment. We've just had a half-an-hour walk from the team hotel to the ground, where Ipswich are going to play tomorrow. Bagged up a few interviews with players this morning, which has been nice. And it's going to be a hot one tomorrow, Scorcio. So, yeah, not far away from the final warm-up game ahead of the big Premier League kick-off. It felt like miles away, and now suddenly it's here. And plenty of us, plenty of news to get our teeth into today.

1:49Ross Halls:Indeed. I know there's a lot of town fans coming over to watch this one as well. So, good to talk to all of you. big shout out of course to our sponsors Meleclia UK get 10 % off at KOA10 for your next order AJ, how are you like Berlin so far we're going to explore the city a bit more later on today a nice little stroll from the team hotel and to the stadium here we're going to be going inside very shortly so check the behind the scene video out when that drops but yeah, Berlin yeah, we're doing loads of content from an amazing city we've done a little bit around where we're staying yesterday and then later today we're going to have a bit of an explore obviously we're going to go into the stadium but I mean Berlin is what it is it's one of the major cities in in Europe it's so historic and you can kind of feel a lot of it and you can also feel a lot of the football culture I feel when you walk down the streets like how many Union Berlin stickers did we see on a 30 minute walk to the stadium every lamppost is covered so yeah nice to be nice we've got really good weather for it I don't want it to get much hotter is going to get hotter tomorrow uh during the game uh we're looking 35 to 36 been told so really gonna feel that but uh yeah really like this so far it's a brilliant place to be and um for this to be kind of like the main trip for town fans to make in pre-season i think it's it's probably one of the best ones could have asked for definitely mate well um we've been talking about the weather which has been hot but transfer sexy stuff's due it's hotting up uh town of course done a lot of business already splashing the cash it look like they're going to splash a bit more let us know a

3:21Stuart Watson:little bit what you know my friend yeah 10 signings if we're including Kipre and Akpom in that so far in excess of 100 million pounds I haven't got the exact figure to hand depends if you want to include add-ons and total fees of deals but I think you've probably seen enough social media accounts saying they've outspent Barcelona and various top European clubs so far this summer I would argue it's a necessity as a newly promoted team you're up against teams that have spent far beyond that sort of money over several transfer windows so to bridge that gap that sort of money is required it may well surpass I think Sunderland was the record spend for a newly promoted club last summer could well exceed that because as Gary O 'Neill said after the Le Havre game where after the Lukic signing there's plenty more to come spoke to Mark Ashton for an exclusive interview which hopefully you've read where he's talked about the owners are urging him to push to the very limits of financial fair play and that is what they're planning to do so still several positions on the shopping list to bring you up to speed the two that will be next in the door is Julio Nciso and Abdul Watara from Strasbourg.

4:40Stuart Watson:A little bit vague on the fees on that one at the moment, but NCISO will be another club record. So that will exceed the£24 million spent on Emerson at the start of this window. Pocket change. Yeah, reports in the region of£30 million. I don't think he's far off for that. And Watara, eight-figure fee is the only kind of steer we've been given on that one. So a double deal, somewhere in the region of£40m, and they won't be the only ones, Ross. There's a few more links for us to discuss.

5:10Ross Halls:Yes, but I want to get AJ's thoughts, because, yeah, we've already smashed the transfer record for the club with Emerson. They're going to do it again in the same bloody window. Thoughts on the two players? And, of course, Gary O 'Neill, we were always expecting him to maybe sign a few players from France or Trasborg, and he's doing it. I love the fact that when this gets done, if this gets done, whatever, that the highest transfer fees Ipsa should pay to both be for South Americans. That's great. A Brazilian and a Paraguayan, isn't it? Julio Nciso, and he's the star. I mean, we've seen him before.

5:41He doesn't need much of an introduction. I think he gave that over a handful of appearances, mainly at Goodison Park, with that absolute screamer against Everton. And, yeah, we all know what he is, what he'll bring. We know what his position is. We know how he likes to play. He's gone over to France and had a really good season there. There have been talks of him getting integrated over into Chelsea's team. That hasn't happened and now looks like he's going to come to Ipswich. And in a team that feels like it's been built around creating a solid experience side, and you've seen that with Lukic, with Issa Diop, with Florentino, even with players like Maedo, maybe coming with a bit more experience, a bit more pedigree and age.

6:23This is one that I think has that kind of X-factor feeling. You need that. It has to be a balance. with Emerson you've got that kind of raw talent with Abdul Fattah who is similar obviously the experience but still young and you're getting kind of a similar profile, you need that in attack that kind of X-factor edge and that's what they'll get and in Wattara I have no idea, I genuinely don't I don't know what his strongest position is going to be, he can play wide right he can play midfield, he can play 10 he can play right back we'll obviously have to ask at some point Gary O 'Neill what is he going to be?

6:55He's going to be your Swiss army knife, my friend. Sorry, Don Ball. He's been described as a Swiss army knife already in French media. I know that Gary Neal has spoken very highly of him. He's had a fascinating background. I won't go too much on it because we'll do some bits on that when he signs. And we'll do some stuff on that next week. He used to play as a striker. He's scored well over 100 goals in seven months at youth level. Yeah, plenty to dissect with him. But at the moment, I don't really know, which is part of the fun, I think, isn't it?

7:22Stuart Watson:Where did the most of his minutes come under O 'Neal? do we know is it wide right to be honest so could he be extra cover there he kind of is known as a bit more of a natural centre mid but he doesn't really suit the kind of defensive double pivot he's more of kind of a a proper centre mid than a deep liar so does he then suit the 10 role I think we're going to see him in a lot of different positions and I don't know necessarily if he's going to be nailed down to one does that mean that he might be more of a squad player than someone who we're going to see in the starting lineup week in week out maybe if there's an injury on the right right back in midfield that he can step in there and you'll have those opportunities off the bench in a team that should be very fluid and flexible and different formations and different things like that maybe that's exactly what Ipswich need um I will do my research on him as I stand here right now on Friday afternoon I don't really know what he's going to bring which I think is part of

8:15Ross Halls:the fun definitely and Cesar of course Stu he wanted an X-factor player and he will bring that weren't he? And we saw a little bit of that when he was last time on loan from Brighton, but this time around he's our player and he's going to hopefully bring those X-Factor moments.

8:30Stuart Watson:Yeah, I think vital piece of the jigsaw for the reasons that you've, I'll give your arm a rest, the reasons that you've just discussed. I think this is a squad, rightly so, that's been built around experience and a team of grafters really, and I include the attacking players in that. that Dizem Maida is someone that runs and runs and presses and presses. Emerson, I think, is going to be cut from the same cloth. Are they technically top-class players? From what I've seen and read, not so sure at the moment. Hopefully, in Emerson's case, that will come. He's young. But they needed a sprinkling of stardust.

9:08Stuart Watson:We don't know what's going to happen with Jadon Filagene. He's out here in Germany. some slightly cryptic sort of reposting of former Ipswich Town celebrations is that hinting towards a kind of a reintegration after being out injured during all this noise about him leaving I don't know but without Philogene if Philogene were to leave you start to look at it and go where where's the those little moments of magic going to come from and you know as we've seen and CISO can certainly provide that my hope is that they're getting a better mature version of Julio and CISO this time around. It felt like that was a bit of a shop window loan.

9:44Stuart Watson:Last time, someone who wanted to come in and improve his highlights, reels. But if they can make him into a proper team player, he can be a real threat. And from what I gather, Gary O 'Neill has played a huge role in him wanting to come to Ipswich Town. So yeah, I think he'll almost certainly play in that sort of number 10 role. He can obviously play wide as well. so yeah exciting times for Ipswich we're talking about casually dropping 10 million plus on a squad player and a club record fee for a project striker that's where Ipswich are at we do have to keep reminding ourselves you know of the not so dim and distant past

10:25Ross Halls:indeed what we're going to do is we're going to have a little pause because our good friend Jacob who is the English social media for Union Berlin is behind us and he's ready to give us a tour around the stadium so what we're going to do we're going to pause the podcast here and we'll come back hopefully in this spot again to discuss more sexy stuff and more town let's go and we're back after doing a bit of a tour around union berlin stadium which was very impressive big shout out to jacob who is the union berlin english social media man also a town fan born in philixstow born in itch hospital you know went and watched it many times but now he lives in union berlin or in berlin not union berlin it's not a place it's a country team stew save me that was great wasn't Are we sticking with this take?

11:07Stuart Watson:Yeah, go on. A bit of uses now. Yeah, OK. This is great, this stadium. It's sitting amongst the Forest, as the name suggests. Incredible history with the kind of the East-West divide here. And a club massively on the up that has come from sort of the lower divisions that's reached the Bundesliga, that's got plans to double the capacity from 22 to 40-odd going forwards. new training facilities so some comparisons with Ipswich in many ways might not have the same rich history but certainly feels like a club that's you know risen and as you know the sky seems to be the limit exciting times so yeah I think Ipswich fans are going to really enjoy their experience of this ground because as Alex says it's somewhere that people come on a bit of a pilgrimage but getting a ticket normally is is nigh on impossible so yes this is a good good

12:01Ross Halls:fixture yeah it was a nice little personal tour wasn't it aj like jake just took us everywhere tell us a lot of history and you know you could probably charge a decent wedge for that to actually give people doors and um yeah just great that will be sending us an invoice oh damn it but yeah this is this has been fantastic i mean just to be able to see all of it and i i mentioned it as kind of a um traditional german club and i get that in a way but also it's so unique as well i mean the journey they've been on but they've got such a strong fan culture here, such a strong working-class culture and it's from the way that the fans built this stadium basically, it's one of the things that stuck with me from that, the way that when they needed to go and do all this work to turn it into a proper ground the fans came in and put in over a hundred thousand hours of work collectively just doing whatever they could do to turn it from what was a small pretty rubbish little ground into somewhere that has hosted European football that has become kind of the home place of one of the an established Bundesliga team in the capital a capital that hasn't also really had a dominant football team either you think back to like Madrid or London Paris what you're seeing Berlin doesn't really have that kind of huge football club in the same way and you can see that Union Berlin are definitely taking those strides on the pitch of course with what they've been able to do in the Champions League, in the Bundesliga and off the pitch as well, that they've come along really well and it was such a great tour just to be able to get a proper insight into all of that.

13:31Ross Halls:Definitely, and check out the behind the scenes diary from day two, which will be available I think when you listen to this, so go and check that out, we sort of showed you, people behind the curtain or everything like that, we actually went through the tunnel where the players will be walking out, which is a very different tunnel to normal, you have to go up some stairs and then you lead into the pitch, so I like that we went to the away end the ultras end went in the gantry which was a bit shaky a bit worried about that um but that was great and um we'll talk a little bit more on the next podcast about our day covering itch's town at union berlin but we've got to talk about sexy stuff that's what people want to hear more about stew spoke about you know some record signings two places dragsborgs but now let's talk about a man who won a world cup with argentina take away what do you know about this one yeah

14:12Stuart Watson:we're talking about uh ezikul palacios whose first name i've been struggling with all day Yeah, just a World Cup winner with Argentina, who was part of their squad that reached the final this summer. My understanding of this one, there's been a lot of conflicting reports from Germany. He's placed for Bayer Leverkusen, of course, as to the level of Ipswich Town's interest. My understanding is it was a kind of test-the-water bid of€15 million. So that's less in pounds. so I'll let you do the working out. 12-ish? Yeah. Around 12-13, which feels like quite a low amount considering the prices that we've been talking about.

14:59Stuart Watson:But I think he's got a slightly checkered injury pass. You look at the amount of games he's played season on season. He had an adductor injury that limited his minutes last season. It feels like Leverkusen have kind of made it known that he's available, which put in the bid accordingly. it's quickly been knocked back. There's talk of them valuing them at 30 to 40 million euros, which I think Ipswich have bulked at. And now we find ourselves in a bit of a kind of standoff position. Ipswich have called their Jets. It will be up to Leverkusen maybe to see if other interest comes in, whether they'll dial down on the price.

15:38Stuart Watson:We'll see. But a few reports that there's been second bids from Ipswich. I understand that not to be the case. It's just that one bid that's gone in been knocked back um and we'll see where we go from there yes and um because what's next aj in

15:52Ross Halls:terms of position wise it's midfield probably an extra midfielder with of course lukic coming in but it's what other positions yeah midfield is going to be the main one i think and it's interesting actually when you look at in my mind i think that it will go into the season with lukic and florentino especially when matt see was out as kind of the two starters then if you went to go get Palacios, how does that work? Because you'd imagine Lukic wouldn't want to be a substitute. I don't think that Lukic and Palacios is maybe the midfield balance that you'd want. You need someone who's going to have the Matasiwa, Morsi, you know, that kind of deep-lying, pick-the-ball-up-from-deep, anchor-style midfielder, and that's not either of those players.

16:35So how does that work? I don't know. Ipswich do need to go get some depth in there. what's next exits to be honest I think is going to be a big thing is treading trimming sorry some of the I don't want to call it deadwood that feels really bad but you know players on the fringes of the squad it's a very bloated squad still and players do need to be moved on I think they need an experienced striker and once that's done I think it's going to be looking at the defense and how to kind of go about that do we need some extra cover at left back probably what's the situation at right back does Watara fill in there maybe but I think that they could do with maybe it's kind of a specialist nailed on starter right back do you go and get a left-footed centre-back to go and compete with Jacob Greaves as Gary O 'Neill said even though they've spent so much money and signed so many players it still feels like that there's the scope at least for them to go and do more whether they're going to go and strengthen all of those positions remains to be seen probably hinges on some exits as well but they're definitely all areas I think Ipswich could strengthen before the window shuts.

17:36Ross Halls:What a window by the way the amount of money they're spending we already said that already but let's do there's a few other names out there do you want to just sort of chuck them out just to cover all bases? Not really because I can't remember them off the top of my head to be honest.

17:47Stuart Watson:Go online there's a transfer room a roundup loads of names knocking about loads of different sources as as usual consider where it's come from put a little verdict on each of them on there. So yeah, I think Stryker is the top priority now. I think it would be unfair, as I've said a few times, to put the burden of goal-scoring responsibility on young Emerson's shoulders in his first season in English football. Another midfielder of a different mould. There's a lot of combative players in there, defensive-minded players, although I think Lukic is a bit more box-to-box than the others, but maybe an out-and-out technician, playmaker required.

18:30Stuart Watson:I don't know about the full-back positions, to be honest. Wattaro, as we say, is a bit of an unknown at the moment. Is he a kind of cover-both-sides player? Is he a starting right wing-back in mind? I mean, we've not seen an awful lot of wing-back systems in pre-season so far, but there will be times that he plays it. So we'll see. And I think centre-half is definitely, from what I understand, And another area on the shopping list. They've got four there at the moment in Diop, O'Shea, Greaves and Kipre. They're going to play back three at times. You probably want more than four. Furlong could probably play right side of a back three.

19:08Stuart Watson:But is it wise to get another one? Probably. Yeah, Jumba Bar at Manchester City is a name that's come up. He's a big boy. Six foot five from Sierra Leone. They're all big boys. Man City brought him in. he hasn't played for City yet, he's had a couple of loan spells in France, again the Gary O 'Neill connection to Liga, so yeah, it feels like there's going to be a significant amount of movement in this last fortnight, both inns and, as AJ says, outs, because to stay within that 25-man squad limit, there's going to be a few that need to make way. Stu, can I put a question to you? Here you go. What is the profile of the striker then?

19:48Because I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on the pod, I like the idea of Chris Wood, But there's no denying that it's probably a more short-term view. He's 34, 35 in that view. So you wouldn't get more than a couple of seasons out of Chris Wood. Do they need to go down the route of going really experienced head, target man kind of thing like a Chris Wood? Do you go down the route of saying, let's go and get 25 million and get a 27-year-old who's bagging loads of goals in France, in Germany, something like that? What is the kind of profile you would say for a number nine to compete with Emerson?

20:18Good question. Good question.

20:20Stuart Watson:I'd like to see them be as ambitious as possible. And I think strikers is what everyone wants. They cost the big bucks for a reason. They tend to happen later in the window for a reason because there's that bit of a, you know, who flinches first in terms of fees and availability. One I chucked out there in a piece recently was Tammy Abraham. And this might be a reach given his profile and his age and he's been at Roma, etc. but anything kind of seems possible at the moment with the money that we're talking about. Talk that Villa are going to bring another striker in, Nicholas Jackson they've been mentioned with, Abraham is probably sort of on the fringes already.

21:05Stuart Watson:Can they be creative with a deal? You know, it's a loan with an obligation to buy if you stay up, something like that. I don't think... They haven't gone down that route yet, have they? Loaning players yet, have they? So it could be a market they may look at. Two Premier League loan slots that are available to them. That would feel ambitious. But, you know, age, knows the Premier League, proven in terms of sort of goals at stages in his career. Something of that mould. I don't know how many others fall into the bracket. But I'd like to see them sort of push and do, you know, push themselves as far as they can.

21:41Ross Halls:Yes, and we could stand here all day talking about transfers and the sexy stuff, but we're not going to do that. But I hope you've enjoyed listening so far. Let's just briefly talk about Union Berlin, the game tomorrow, because we've just done a great, well, doing a great preview video, which will be available on our channel, so check that out if you haven't already. But yeah, AJ, this is the last game before the big kick-off against Sunderland, so we'll see a strong line-up and hopefully not make too many changes. Yeah, it's going to be treated like a proper fixture. It's not going to be a two-squad split over 45 minutes, anything like that.

22:14It has to be treated as close to a league game as possible because this now is the warm-up. It's the final one ahead of... The shopping trolley gets pulled along. It's the final one ahead of the big kick-off against Sunderland. So, yeah, this now needs to be the point where, obviously, everything has kind of built to this point through fitness, getting back up to speed. Players have gone away. They've celebrated promotion. Others have been signed. They've had to get used to a new manager, new tactics, new training approaches. so many different things and that is hard and it takes time and you need to kind of build up everything that goes into the legs in particular um and that isn't easy but with where we are in the season now we need to start to see that complete picture of what this team is going to look like and obviously it will take a bit more time after this more players will come in and see so watara plenty of others i'm sure but uh yeah that's why and the results never matter in pre-season they never matter but you want to see a really competitive performance that gives you confidence and will crucially give those players confidence you know we've taken on a really good Bundesliga side put in a great performance hopefully got a good result and that's going to put us in a really good position to raise that confidence level going into the Sunderland game

23:29Ross Halls:next weekend yeah I'm looking forward to tomorrow it's going to be great I'm looking forward to seeing the away end for the town fans who there could be a few fans seeing it's just town abroad for the first time, which will be great. Stuart, what are you looking forward to most? Of course, Sacha Lukic will make his first appearance. You just spoke to him in an exclusive interview, so good to see him in action, a few other players, just to get up to speed a bit more.

23:48Stuart Watson:Yeah, I think the team that started against Valicano last weekend, as things stand, looks like pretty much the team that will start against Sunderland. Obviously, once in CISO signs, that could change things at the top end of the pitch. But we haven't seen Lukic yet, And I think Lukic is a nailed on starter. I think it will be, as things stand, him and Florentino opening day. I think it will be him and Florentino in midfield tomorrow. And I can't wait to see Lukic in action for the first time. I think he's... Do you get booked? Well, yeah. Sam Moore's got booked in pre-season once. Yeah, was it 20-plus bookings over the last two seasons for Fulham?

24:28Stuart Watson:He's combative. As you say, I spoke to him this morning at the team hotel. He's a serious guy. He's driven, he's got that sort of Serbian hardness, steeliness about him I would say. He's come here and he's serious about being a leader in this team and using his experience in the Premier League. The top-end signings, Brazilian strikers, club record deals in CISO, they're the ones that excite people. But Lukic and Diop, both coming from a solid mid-table Premier League side in Fulham, I think are really smart bits of business and I'm looking forward to seeing more of those two.

25:09Ross Halls:Yes, well, bring it on. Of course, follow our coverage on Kings of Anglia, the app and everything. AJ and Stu will be doing their normal stick and I'll be, of course, bringing you game day, the photos, something to snap the course. And I want to give a shout out to Stu, by the way. I don't think we've mentioned it on this podcast, but you, of course, did a fantastic work in terms of how we filmed the podcast today with your what? I think it's your internet capable, isn't it? Ethernet. Infinite, infinite. No. Ethernet. Ethernet cable, anyway. So actually, well currently there's a fence here and Stu's held it up here, looking good.

25:41Ross Halls:So if you're actually listening, go and watch the video version. You can sort of see the view of us and everything like that. We've put a bit in behind the scenes where I've done a little scan round so you can see how this yellow cable is currently holding up the camera that is filming us right now, which we've had described as proper East Berlin, proper East Germany, yeah. I like it because I didn't have room for the tripod for my bag so it's worked though it's worked it's been really good because we've got we've got a doctor here so very good anyway boys let's head into the city thanks everyone for listening to the latest Kings of Anglia podcast as I said follow all the coverage on kingsofanglia.com the app of course we've got our new offer £2.99 a month or£29 for the year is it£29.99?