Arsenal Relief & Summer Rebuild | The Van Hecke Bid, Senesi, Robertson & The Alex Scott Dilemma (feat. Jon Bass)

0:00Jack:This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

0:28Jack:Hello everyone, welcome back to Rule the Roost podcast. Big John Bass welcome back brother how are you doing good mate good nice to be

0:36Jon Bass:here thanks for having me back it's always a pleasure now thank you thank

0:39Jack:you for for making the time I wanted to I wanted to sort of talk to you I was inspired I mean I always want to talk to you but I was inspired to talk to you especially this time after listen to the latest episode of the Big John Bass show when you led a pretty much impassioned opening segment on why you hate us why you were happy that they lost but but i kind of i felt it so much um because like i know i do go on about them on here but it always leads to the stop talking about us or stuff it's like it's so it's so entrenched within the spurs supporter experience i don't think you can like in good faith be like just ignore them it's like well it's that's not gonna happen is it it's not going to happen but i mean just how good does it feel that they lost that champions league final

1:30Jon Bass:mate you know yeah it's really good i mean look with the arse of stuff it's like imagine talking about like the allies and all their efforts in world war ii and not mentioning the nazis right you've got you've got to talk about the valleys as well um i was it's funny because when i was writing the running order for the show i was like i don't want to talk about them like no one wants to hear about them and then as i just i was like you know just a quick you know thought about these lot and then just went on a tirade about them but yeah look for me it's like the focus has been on us staying up first and foremost right so this isn't a sort of a purely focused on them the opposite actually I've been really engaged in Spurs the second half of the season because I felt like it was almost like my duty to try and in any way I could support the club bring some vibes you know get involved go to go to more games than I was previously able to go to so I was like right I'm going to try and go more because i want to try and you know sing a bit louder and get involved and do whatever i can and so that's been my focus so seeing them lock sort of you know heading towards a title probably wasn't as bad as if we were sort of almost competing with them in that sense yeah yeah and there's also this sort of compounding effect of like you know they've been second for like three years in a row or whatever it is i just kind of felt like it's just law of average like eventually it's gonna happen and so in a weird way i kind of already come to terms with it because for the last three years I've been going oh they're going to win it they're going to win it they're going to win it so I've sort of gone through those emotions of oh this is horrible and when it's arrived nobody cares no one cares and it's not a it's not even a Spurs thing like nobody cares everyone's just so over it and so sort of done with them and as I said in that sort of opening on the show like the way it's been done is so underwhelming yeah and so just like okay yeah fair enough you've just stuck in there long enough you've just waited for everyone around you to die and then you've just slogged your way you've been given a massive helping hand with a load of var mistakes and pga mol fuck-ups you haven't been given any red cards and you haven't been given any penalties to be honest if you didn't win it what are you doing right you've literally stoke with money mate yeah money so yeah i don't care it doesn't know but it's it's

3:43Jack:Bang on, because I've been talking about this to some of my other Spurs friends as well. If they'd have like barnstormed their way to the title, if it was like Jurgen Klopp's geg and press, rock and roll football, Liverpool, or if it was, even if it was the old winger, the old sort of one touch can just ping, ping, ping a ball through an opposition team and score a goal, Thierry Henry smashing teams left, right and centre. You know, those chastening, painful days of seeing Arsenal be just a magnificent football team and by far one of the best teams in the world, right? Now you kind of look at this slovenly, miserable, and again, like you said, I'm not just saying this because I'm a Spurs fan, this sort of like nasty vibe they have about them.

4:27Jack:And it's not even like funny nasty. It's not like crazy gang Wimbledon back in the 90s sort of thing, right? This is just shithouses, you know? It's like nobody likes you and you care, you know? That's it. That's the thing. And there's been so much of that out the back of this that I'm just, like as a Spurs fan, I'm obviously so relieved. But just as like as a fan of football, I know Flav was saying it to rile people on Twitter, but when Gabriel missed a penalty, I think he just tweeted like football has won this evening, you know?

5:04Jon Bass:Yeah, it was glorious. It does feel that way, doesn't it? Definitely. Someone asked me a question like, which did you prefer? Polina's goal to keep us in the league or Gabriel's miss? And I was like, look, I was in the ground and it was the noise after that Polina goal. That's the loudest noise I've ever heard in that stadium. It went off and it went off for ages. It was like a sustained siren of joy. It was incredible. That was an incredible moment. So that was better. but the instant explosion because in the scenario of gabriel's missed penalty it's like if he misses over done like officially there's no no var no nothing because it's a penalty if he if he misses it's done so when he smashed it over the explosion it was like old school being able to celebrate a goal in football right which we've been denied for so long because of var i honestly just leapt up and i was just absolutely screaming c-bombs at the at the tv i opened the window and i was like I loved it, mate.

6:00Jon Bass:I absolutely loved it. So it was incredible. It was him.

6:04Jack:Eze does that stupid little prattling about penalty thing, misses, let that all work out, mate. And then Gabriel, fucking hell, man. Is there a more dislikable footballer right now than him?

6:17Jon Bass:And now as well, it's been really funny seeing like the clip. There's one clip where the ball gets played into the box and Raya basically like puts his hand on the back of Gabriel. There's no one around him. Gabriel throws himself to the ground then is appealing to the ref like he's been fouled and he doesn't realise it's just Raya. And it's just like, this is the thing for me is there's been teams who have been really defensively solid. Like the Chelsea team, they've got that clean sheet record where they've only conceded like three goals in a season or whatever. It's a mental number. And, you know, every season, John Terry, it's quite funny.

6:48Jon Bass:He just brings out like a glass of nice red and celebrates when teams like obviously concede that goal and go past it. But it's an incredible defensive record, right? So it's not even as if they can go, well, we've won the league with the best defence ever. And you'd go, yeah, okay, fair enough. Like that sort of historic in itself, you can kind of appreciate that. But they haven't even got that. So they're basically, in no way, they didn't get the golden boot winner. They haven't got the best assists. They haven't got, you know, they haven't broken Chelsea's clean sheet record. They got less points than we did when, you know, we finished with Poc.

7:20Jon Bass:16-17, yep. So it's just an unremarkable team. If we won it unremarkably, you still won it. Fair enough. Go and enjoy that. What I can't bear, and the reason that I think people find it really annoying, is it's the constant, they can't just have the win. They want everything else as well. They want all the adulation. This will be the best team that's ever done it in this way. And they'll make up some weird. It's like, just shut up and take it. Remember when Liverpool won that title under slot? They just won it. now they knew that that was basically klopp's team and was a sort of weird end of a cycle type win no one was going that's the best liverpool team we've ever seen that's one of the best premier league sides we've ever seen one they just went he's done a really good job to win the league they were a really solid side well done and that was it liverpool fans weren't giving it loads about this is the best ever side they sort of knew we've done really well to see this over the line but also just want more and more and more and that's the bit that winds everyone up i mean even with the champions league right they were already saying things like oh we'd be the unbeatables because we went a whole thing i'm being who cares that's irrelevant no one cares about that but they've got to add this extra thing well we'd got we'd have gotten a golden trophy what the

8:32Jack:fuck are you on about who cares it's just so mental isn't it it's weird it's so mental i mean there's i don't i don't know if it was true or not i wouldn't be surprised of arteta but there was that uh there was a thing wasn't there going around on twitter saying that like they had to change the wrap on the bus last minute because they put champions of europe on it as well which i would imagine is probably the internet doing its thing but let's remember this is a team that gave itself a gold trim on its kit thinking they were going to win the league what was that two seasons ago or so they put a gold trim on their kit for the next year and they said oh no actually it's a it's a commemoration of when we moved to highbrief and woolwich or whatever you know they made something up they retrofitted whatever but um yeah it's just it's just glorious man i think do you know what one of the things when i talk about like the the nastiness and the sort of strangeness that i find from their from their fan base as well is there was a real like as you as as is fair enough as our rivals but there was a real reveling in us maybe getting relegated and the sort of talk about Spurs fans or football fans in general having a bit more grace with them they've had a heroic season now you know they've lost in a showpiece fixture and that's hard to stomach maybe we should have a bit more grace of them how much grace would we have gotten if we'd have been relegated this season you know like people so you know Koundy and O 'Hara were dancing around in PSG shirts and that seems to have got on the ruffled the feathers of some of the more sort of should we say you know stiff upper lip commentariat football commentariat who was saying oh i think this is a bit beyond the pale and as was pointed out last night by somebody on spurs twitter for an entire season you've had kundi wearing that andrew postocoglu mask yeah taking the piss out of spurs saying they're going to get relegated nobody's batted an eyelid at all and whatever like that's that's part of it that's what you get from that the kundi and ahara thing that's kind of part of their shtick that's like the fun of it but like you say it's this exceptionalism with Arsenal all the time this like good old Arsenal but look you know I can I can go down a sort of rabbit hole here mate with establishment clubs and why certain clubs are protected and and whatever but I just come back to the point where I'm like they won the Premier League fine as you say they were going to do that at some point if they were going to do it I'd like them to do it in this way where nobody is really giving them their flowers.

11:04Jack:Everyone's saying, fine, you won it. In that sort of come dine with me way, isn't it? Fine, enjoy your little Premier League. Now get off my property. You know, that's it. They've done that. They didn't win the Champions League, which would have been a historic achievement. Their first huge European trophy would have given them definitely, you know, a leg up in terms of European superiority over us, which we still have over them that I love. But they didn't do that. And as that has lifted, now I'm suddenly like, I'm just really buzzing for next season. Yeah. You know, and I did a little video to this effect because, you know, Robertson, it hasn't been like officially announced yet, but it seems to be the world's worst kept secret.

11:48Jack:I think it's fairly certain we're going to get it. And I know there's a lot of discourse about him, about what does this mean going forwards? Is this the Lewis is already reneging on their promises to make Spurs better and this and that. And I'm kind of like, you know what, right now, lads, look, you do you ultimately. If that's what you want to do, if that's, you know, not even if it's like the content you make, if it's just the way you want to chat about football, you don't like the idea of assigning Andy Robertson, fine. I'm not here to sort of police that. But I'm just simply saying from my own perspective now, I'm just letting the clouds lift.

12:23Jack:I'm letting Roberta De Zerbe take over now. And I also get that people are saying, Well, we're still trying to sign the same players that we were before De Zerbi came along. But equally, I would imagine, right, if you're offering Andy Robertson to Thomas Frank, he's going to say, well, yes, this is a guy that's won two Premier Leagues, a Champions League, has been probably one of the greatest left backs in Premier League history. Yep, I'll definitely have him. You offer the same deal to Roberto De Zerbi. We've made some inroads with Andy Robertson. He is leaving on a free, we can get him on a free transfer.

12:56Jack:Do you fancy adding him to the project? I would imagine he's probably like yeah definitely so I don't think it entirely means that like we're completely ignoring to Zerbi right and I mean to the point I just I just kind of want to like go with it for a bit now because this season has been so fraught hasn't it yeah mate this to

13:16Jon Bass:me this was um this was why it was so important to stay up because the beauty of football is when the season ends just just starts again just restarts afresh and you don't know what's going to happen and you could be you could be challenging for Europe you could be in a relegation battle you could be wherever right but if you're an optimistic person you're always going right well we want to go up the table right and there's every possibility is available to us in this moment that's why for me it was so important to stay up and after the game you know a few of us went to have you know a few like tinnies in the street and sort of debrief the game and everyone was buzzing everyone's always if we can just get you know get a couple of deals in early then see who's at the world cup pick this player up pick that you know a few outs few wins they'll be really excited and i was like this is what football's all about right this is what it's all about it's the dreaming aspect i know you talk about it all the time like as a fan base we get told we're deluded but i think people misconstrue just being dreamers being excited looking looking at what could happen right and wishing that those good things could happen and that to me is what's like really exciting about it and look just thinking about it logically if you look at the sort of rumors and the transfers that are happening.

14:21Jon Bass:There's not really that much activity that's being spoken about at this moment in time, mainly because we're on the cusp of a World Cup. But the conversations that are happening are about players that are available on a free. So it just feels like we're pushing deals forward that we think we can get done. Those players, I think their contracts don't officially run out for a little while. So we have to kind of wait before we can announce them. I don't really understand the hate for Robertson as what would essentially be a cover, a backup rotation option for most likely Udogi next season. He's a very, even in these sort of latter years of his career, he's a very like steady, solid player.

15:01Jon Bass:He doesn't make tons of mistakes. He's not what he was, you know, three or four years ago, but he's still really good. He's still better than most left-backs in the league. And you're getting this huge upside of his personality, which again, if you speak to most Liverpool fans or people that follow Liverpool and kind of know about the squad and you hear from other players that have played with him. His mentality is like an elite mentality. And that is something that we know that we need because that's been something that's been mentioned a few times about lack of leadership in the dressing room.

15:31Jon Bass:And so for me, that's like just an added benefit. And Sanessi, another top quality player that's been performing at a really high standard in the league for a while, that we can get in on a free. So at the moment, I'm like, look, these are two good additions. Now, if we get to the end of the summer, Jack, and they're the only two signings we've made, then I'll be absolutely fuming. But why do we need to, and this is my phrase I use a lot, why are we getting pre-annoyed? Like nothing's happened yet. Like we haven't, we're not at the end of the window. So it doesn't matter. Like, yes, we've all been burnt by Enoch and Enoch are still there.

16:03Jon Bass:The Lewis family are Enoch and Enoch are the Lewis family. It's the same thing. So I get that and people are completely entitled to be like cautious and they're, you know, don't expect much to change. I completely get that. and that might well be the case. But at this moment in time, I prefer to look on the bright side and think, okay, they've said they're going to change way more explicitly than has ever been said before. That doesn't mean they're going to do it, but that does give me a feeling like, right, well, I'm just going to take what I'm hearing from them at the moment on face value. Let's see if it happens.

16:35Jon Bass:And so I'm looking forward to seeing what we do in the rest of this transfer window because I want to see what they're saying they're going to do, right? I want to see big change. I want to see a complete overhaul of that squad. A lot of players out. And I want to see a lot of new players that lift the ceiling, not just raise the floor. I want to see some big sign-ins that will really turn us into a side that can move ourselves up the league. And it doesn't necessarily need to be, and I think this is the thing that I've been guilty of, is I keep thinking, like, we need to find a way to challenge for the league.

17:07Jon Bass:It's like, no. At this moment in time, we've been finishing 17th the last two seasons. we need to find a way like best case scenarios if we can just break into european places that should be like an aim for us as with our resources and our size of club to swing that way and then once you get into back into europe then you can start to every transfer window add quality add quality add quality and we should be targeting to try and challenge for the league again over the next three to four years that's what we should be thinking about doing and we need to take good steps to do that now and sign some quality players so i'm excited mate i'm really looking forward to next season under De Zerbe.

17:42Jon Bass:I think there's so much to look forward to and yeah until otherwise I'm not going to get pretty annoyed about stuff that hasn't happened.

17:48Jack:I guess like on that you know they you you spoke about it on your pod and it really it it struck a chord with me mate that I know I know this isn't popular and whatever and it's seen as a bit naive but I know the Lewis's I know Enoch and stuff have let us down a lot in the past consistently to this point however i don't i can't even quantify it mate maybe it's just blind optimism maybe it's just hope but i do feel like there might be something a bit different about the the various letters they've put out this year um flav did a good episode of the lab yesterday with a a journalist from the athletic i can't remember his name apologies um and he was just sort of talking all about the inner machinations of the club i'd really recommend going and listening to it if you haven't done already um but you know it seems like the appetite is there for the lewises to stay you know it's by all the counts all the noises that they are making is that you know i'm not fucking leaving you know they they they don't want to go anywhere they don't want to sell the club they do want to make tottenham a success as in they care about it they actually care about tottenham being a success and i mean look again like you say it remains to be seen if that's true or not but i guess sort of tying into my earlier point i just want to maybe live in a world where i can believe that there is just a possibility that these people now have seen the error in their ways because look i mean look i just i don't i don't think we can just gloss over the fact that they literally sacked Daniel Levy like that is pretty monumental so if we're talking about things never changing that is a pretty monumental change and you would imagine at this level of things with the Premier League being as competitive as it is it is going to take time and you are going to be prone to things like this season happening and you can only hope that their severe and stark learning from this season is we don't have time like you don't have time to roll out a five-year plan in the Premier League anymore you have to be competitive from the off and if the story's about today about you know Van Hecker has been sat down with Brighton to discuss this tip we can talk about the pros and cons of the player but we're talking about Spurs acting quickly trying to take one of Brighton's best players probably before the World Cup so that's not going to be an excuse that is acting quickly isn't it that is kind of what we've wanted from them whether whether people like the player or not we're talking about them backing roberto to serbi buying a technical we've got sanessi in fingers crossed through the door we're backing him again buying a ball playing technical center back who can operate in the way that he wants to that can have the pressure invited onto him play his way out of danger offload it effectively to players further up the pitch who can cause damage to the opposition team you know this i'm not going to sit here and say that i think enic are all good and that you know that i don't have concerns about them or anything but equally like i i'm not just going to sit here and say no anyhow that's it it's done i'm never going to get on board with any of this because then you know i don't look mate like you say i don't want to live in a cage of my own creation i don't want to sit there and actively say i'm not going to be optimistic i'm not going to be hopeful about anything whatsoever to do with spurs because i've nailed my colors to the master i don't like this ownership and thus anything that they do i'm going to treat with skepticism and i'm going to treat with hostility yeah yeah mate

21:32Jon Bass:100 agree i think this is the thing right it's like it's very easy to get kind of uh wrapped up in this idea that we in some way have control as well right like again i spoke about this a little bit on my pod yesterday which is like unless you're going to actively get involved and if you want to i'd encourage you to get involved in like change for tottenham and you know work with those guys on on doing something about it but if you're not and again there's no judgment because i'm not like i would like us to to do lots of things and i don't actively go and protest or whatever right If you're not going to, you're basically, you can decide which way you want to interpret it.

22:10Jon Bass:You can either be really frustrated and annoyed and go, they're going to let us down and then absorb all of that negativity. Or you can decide to be like, well, I'm just going to wait and see and hope for the best. Because in either of those scenarios, you're not affecting the outcome in any way. They're going to do what they're going to do. And right now, me, you, anyone that's listened to this, we don't know what they're actually going to do. We know what they've said they're going to do. and what they've said they're going to do, I like the sound off and I'm on board with. So that's all I personally I'm going to base it on.

22:39Jon Bass:If you decide that you're going to go, well, I don't believe them and therefore I'm going to be annoyed now, that's fair enough. But that's just a difference in like how you see the world basically. I'm just not prepared to live miserably for something I can't control. So I'd rather just be happy about it and excited about what could be. And then if it gets proved that, you know, it is the same as before, then fair enough. You've still always got the option to get involved in a Change for Tottenham type protest and demand change. And that's the only way that anything will actually happen, right?

23:09Jon Bass:You and I bleating about it here, tweeting about it, you know, talking to your mates about it, that doesn't do anything. The only thing that really changes is actual protest and there's really only a few, you know, people that are putting stuff together to facilitate that at scale. And so I would urge anyone who wants to moan about that stuff, get involved in something. Otherwise, it's not really making any change at all.

23:32Jack:How do you feel about Van Hecker, John? David Ornstein's saying that Brighton have a£70 million valuation. He's in the last year of his contract. They don't want to budge on that. Spurs have made an offer, though, and a serious offer below that valuation. So they've turned it away. To me, it has the sort of feeling that it's one of those deals that is probably going to happen. De Zerbe really likes him. I think they've got a very good relationship.

24:03Jon Bass:you you're optimistic about that one well look it's one of those if you've worked with the player and you've got a good relationship and you're like he's the guy I need then and that's what De Zerbi wants then from that perspective I'm like let's trust De Zerbi right because he has way more information than I do I don't understand it personally and this is I'll be happy if we sign him just to be clear this isn't our like we shouldn't sign him because these reasons but had we not been linked with him I wouldn't have gone we need to sign Van Hecker because we've got Vuscovic and I sort of feel like Vuscovic is like a young ball-playing centre-back who everybody's excited about we've already spent money on him and he wants to play and he's this you know incredible exciting talent now I get the argument of like yeah but it's doing it in Germany and he's playing for a low block team it's very different playing for Spurs and all the rest of it yeah I get that but this this kid is not like normal this kid is supposed to be like literally like a Rio Ferdinand once in a generation centre-back ridiculous player I'm like bring him in right again the expectations are slightly lower we're not in we're not in the Champions League right we're going to be playing Premier League football in the main with the odd cup game here and there that there'll be enough minutes for him to play him alongside van de Ven you've got Danso and Sonesi that's a pretty good four as your like rotation options between you if we sign van Hecker for let's say 50, 60 million and then we don't sign a striker or an attacking midfield player then I think that that's a very odd decision.

25:37Jon Bass:Looking on optimistically if we sign Van Hecker for 60 million and we go and sign like 100 million pound centre forward I'll be like wow okay we are really just gonna up every position. I've got no issue with Van Hecker he looks like a really decent player every time I've seen him play I'm always like kind of impressed by him if I'm honest. So it just depends, doesn't it? It will either show a real sign of intent, which is like, we don't give a shit if he's in the last year of his contract. We want him. We're Spurs. We're having him. You can have your 70 million. We don't care. Like, it's a good, it shows a lot of intent in that way.

26:07Jon Bass:But it just concerns me that we've got a lot of work to do on the rest of the squad. And that's quite a big chunk of money for a player that I'm like, we've already got a player that wants to play. So I have to always side with De Zerbe in this scenario. And so if he wants him, then he's got my blessing and I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that. There's a decent thread on Twitter today from someone called Enya Collins,

26:33Jack:at Enya Collins, who she's sort of broken down the strengths, weaknesses of Van Hecker. And he seems to be a very similar in profile player to Christian Romero and also to Sanessi as well. So we're talking kind of lesser on the physical end of things, perhaps not your quickest centre-backs, but very, very technically proficient, very, very high on the progressive passes sort of players. So I guess signing like two of those type of players, signing Sanessi and Van Hecker, if it goes through, as I was saying a couple of minutes ago, that really is just a doubling down on Deserby ball, isn't it? and giving De Zerbi exactly what he wants.

27:19Jack:These defenders that can knock the ball about. There's just, I don't know if you know what I mean. I do have, there's just that little bit of me. There's that little bit of me seeing us do so much defensive recruitment and maybe just call it an intrusive thought, but I wonder if Van Der Ven and Romero go this summer. There's just that little bit of me that's just wondering it. I can see entirely why he would want to hold onto of van der Ven especially if Mickey like tears it up at the World Cup playing left back which people are assuming he is going to play for the Netherlands maybe we'll give that a go maybe we'll want more physical beasts to compensate for say less physical centre backs we need to somehow be able to make up for their deficiencies balance that out across the team right but I don't know it just it is quite interesting to me that we're seemingly straight up going going right after defenders because look we've still got big Kevin Danso there as well who is a more than competent player I know not everybody's a sold on him but like you I really like him um I think he's a really really talented player um it's just it's just it's quite interesting isn't it mate it's quite interesting that like you say this is kind of what we're we're going big on right now um is the defenders but look I guess it's such a it's such a cornerstone of Deserby's style of football, isn't it?

28:49Jack:Deserby ball, invite the pressure, knock the ball about, frustrate the opposition, draw them into, you know, breaking their own lines, breaking their own system, and then play through that, score goals. You know, it's a commitment to that, isn't it? It is a commitment to that.

29:04Jon Bass:And that's why I think we've got to, to a certain extent, we've got to trust. We were told that Deserby had all the leverage in the negotiation, and that part of what he wanted to sign for us was more control and more influence and more say over transfers so until i hear otherwise i'm going to assume that he has a lot more control influence over transfers and so if he's in there going you got to get me van hecker that's what i need like get him for me then i'm on i'm on board because that that's again is all i've got is i've seen what he's done with essentially limited resources in a short space of time i've seen what he's done when he's implemented his style at brighton with, in theory, lesser quality players.

29:45Jon Bass:Give him what he needs to be successful and we could be a better version of what he created at Brighton. That's very basic, simple, it won't really go like that logic. But that's what you've invested in. When you've given him that contract and he said, this is what I want, and a lot of clubs I think have been interested in De Zerbi for that exact reason, you know what you're potentially getting from him. And I think the reason you can look back on his career and say, you know, that things haven't worked out. It's because they haven't really doubled down on giving him what he needs or they're not capable, right, from a revenue, you know, commercial point of view.