Brentford Reality Check, De Zerbi's Message & Man City Double Swoop (feat. Windy)

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0:34Jack:Thanks for the support, and now, on with the show. Before the season even kicks off, soccer fans are already making predictions. Who wins the league? Who qualifies for Europe? And who's lifting the trophy at season's end? On Calci, America's number one prediction market platform, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. For a limited time, download the CalShe app and use code CUP26 to get$10 when you trade 10. K-A-L-S-H-I, CalShe. Trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply.

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2:41Jack:Hello everybody, welcome back to Rule the Roche podcast. Welcome back, Mr. Chris or is it windy still? I think you probably feel more comfortable according to me, windy. because I don't think you've ever called me Chris. No, no, I don't know if I have. Maybe it's the sort of thing I feel like I would say if I was angry with you, which I can't actually imagine being angry with Wendy. But, you know, Christopher, how are you? Is it a somber day? Is it a somber Monday morning, Wendy? Do you know, not really, to be honest. I mean, I don't love that this is what's happened at the start of our season.

3:18It's not what I had in mind. It's a bit annoying, isn't it? It's annoying is the word. It's annoying. And the thing is, it's because of Arsenal fans, basically. I had a couple of... Well, I had worse than me having a message yesterday. I had a message through my wife. One of her friends is an Arsenal fan. He's like, oh, how's hubby doing this morning after the football? I was like, fuck off, mate. Fuck off, mate.

3:41Jack:There's no need. There's no need. It's so smarmy, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And that did annoy me, I will say that. but you know I think Brentford scored so early that I just resigned myself and also they just blew us away in the first 10 minutes you could tell almost immediately that this is a really intense team and then Spurs just looked well deservedly said it himself basically we were all prepared and it was so clear that you just kind of resigned yourself to it from 10 minutes in 5.30 on a Saturday so the showpiece fixture Alan Smith on comms oh god yeah from the off Brentford just going for us the crowd are well up for it i think they'd beaten someone mental hadn't they like they'd beaten like a frankfurt or a leverkusen or someone like 7-0 the week before or something potty like they're clearly a team that are flying and you just sort of sat there like oh yeah yeah oh yeah it's one of those days it's one of those like you i made the mistake of one of my like old old friends who we sort of like what's that with every now and again a group of my old mates he was kind of like you know he's an Arsenal fan and he was like oh you know what does Mr.

4:48Jack:Tottenham podcaster think about Tottenham's chances this this season and I was kind of bullshit I was like you know I think we've I think we've spent pretty well I think De Zerbe's good I can see it as kind of you know I can see it as pushing for the top five at least top eight and everything and it's like straight after the game I guess yeah how's that prediction working out it's one game it's one game one game and that's I think that that's the that's the thing we have to cling on to, right? You put out a particularly good thread on this Windy Post game, which I think encapsulated it all very nicely.

5:24Jack:The themes of a squad in progress on our side versus one that is very well established, that hasn't faced any significant losses this summer and has actually added fairly significantly to it. I think as a wider picture as well, it's once upon a time right you look at going to Brentford away and you think you know Spurs should win that kind of thing the point I keep kind of making is that I think probably since 2020 onwards you don't really have fixtures like that in the Premier League anymore do you? Absolutely yeah it's a very very competitive league and because the style of football has changed so dramatically it's almost like well firstly the money situation has changed things dramatically even historically kind of financial minnows can afford to buy 30 40 million pound players so the premier league immediately has a massive advantage over other leagues in europe because that's not the case across the board and then the type of football being played like a lot of transitional football which in some senses favors the teams that aren't going to have the ball and i think that's when you compare brentford and spurs that's the kind of the most obvious immediate tactical consideration.

6:38You've got one team that wants to have the ball, albeit will create some artificial transitions, but Brentford just want to play on the counter. They want this to be a basketball match, basically, with a lot of duels, a lot of ball being contested, a lot of long balls. And so, yeah, that is something that we're going to have to get used to and adapt to because it is the norm now.

7:02Jack:So I haven't read John McKenzie's book, but do you blame Pep? Like, you know, he's sort of written this book, hasn't he? Essentially, Pep has this, it's literally called The Spectre of Pep, how Guardiola haunts modern football tactics. Are you in that school that sort of blames, you know, people look at the Premier League years and all that type of thing and say, look at what we lost, look at how dynamic it was, how end to end it was. And now, as you say, there is this more kind of, I don't know, stifled approach to games, I guess. I wouldn't say, I mean, You know, John would have considered this deeply and I wouldn't want to just like throw around a big opinion when he's spent months researching this book, like the patient academic he is.

7:42Yeah. I mean, it's a big question, isn't it? I think there's probably a number of reasons why the style of football in the Premier League has become more homogenous, arguably, over time. And in this current phase, I think it is probably less aesthetically pleasing as well. I wouldn't necessarily say that is a reaction entirely to Pep, I think it probably could be argued that it's perhaps a reaction to how hard it is to produce really high quality technical footballers. And so there's like a dampening of that in favour of the kind of athletic profile, which I think is easier to achieve and to scout, maybe.

8:20Jack:I mean, on Spurs, so I think we can definitely rationally break this down to, as we've already said like Tottenham a team with lots of debutants without the summer business completely being finished you know Savini and Mamouche were not available to us at that point I think it's the world's worst kept secret we're probably going to be probably by the time I publish this mate we're going to have you know actually unveiled the pair of them and you know so we can I think we can pretty comfortably talk about them as if they're Spurs players now um so we weren't we were lacking them but still I think there is there is an emotional response to be had to this game and I don't want to police that too much and this is going to be one of those interesting things I do think people are getting a bit wild right now I think we need to bear in mind that Deserby has saved Tottenham from near certain relegation I think he deserves a bit more than one game with a fairly half-baked squad.

9:19Jack:But I think at least a nagging concern for some people, which I share to a degree, is the manner of that defeat. It could have been 4-0, really. It could have been 5 or 6, really, at certain points when you look at that game. I mean, do you see this as an issue with De Zerbi, the way he set up? And we can go into some of the decisions he made. but there seemed to be an air of cutting off his nose to spite his face potentially if we're to speculate or on the flip side does this sort of hint at still a cultural rot at the club that he is still working hard to get rid of you know we can't forget this is a team that's finished 17th twice in a row even though there are many parts to it which are new i i think he has taken great steps on that second point in essentially just gutting the squad of players who are good like this we've lost some good players this summer but I think the turnover needed to be huge because otherwise like you say the rock can set in I think he already had last year and I think he had to do something about that so I um I certainly don't think that he's kind of part of the problem there in allowing this to continue I think he's very decisively sort of said I'm drawing a line under this we cannot carry on like this and if that means we have to sacrifice good players then so be it um you know if we're five games down the down the line and we've lost all of them then maybe i'll revise that and say that there is a bigger cultural problem that's going to take longer to to turn around um but i i i'm pretty sure this is just one game having said that i think there's loads of context like you've just said the transfer business wasn't done and to be honest i think it's a bit of a joke that the transfer window is still open when the season started and I think that should be addressed to be honest also we're in a really weird position with our injuries like we've got some of our best players still out not quite ready but ready enough that you don't want to risk signing their replacement so that's a sort of strange position to be in specifically Kudis and Madison you know they're so close to returning but they're not back yet so I think that's a strange one and then I do think he probably has to take responsibility for a couple of decisions he made in relation to this game specifically uh a few of the decisions actually so again like this isn't a final judgment but i think there's a question mark over kinski and to be honest i've had a question mark over kinski for quite a while i thought he was to pack it away haven't you yeah because i was really pleased to him it's a lovely story on the surface I mean, the mental resilience, the toughness that he has displayed is almost unparalleled in the world of Spurs.

12:02Yeah, it's an immense turnaround. And he did perform well at the end of last season. And he made one save in particular, which was utterly incredible. But he didn't face many shots at the end of last season. We did a really good job of shoring up midfield and defense and protecting him. And he didn't face many shots. And so I've had the question mark over Kinski even after the narrative turnaround.

12:26Jack:Before the season even kicks off, soccer fans are already making predictions. Who wins the league? Who qualifies for Europe? And who's lifting the trophy at season's end? On Calci, America's number one prediction market platform, you're trading against peers in a live market, meaning there's no house. And as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. For a limited time, download the Calci app and use code CUP26 to get$10 when you trade 10. K-A-L-S-H-I, CalShe. Trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors.

12:58Jack:Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calshe.com slash regulatory. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Shave ice by the beach. A trip to the state fair. And a throwback flick at the local drive-in. They're more than just items to check off the summer bucket list. There are also opportunities to earn 2 % daily cash back when you use your Apple Card with Apple Pay. Apply for Apple Card now and use in minutes with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval, Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

13:34Jack:Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. And I'm not saying Kinski shouldn't be our number one. And I do think he has got confidence at the moment, which I think is probably one of the most important traits for a goalkeeper beyond being able to do the basics. I think confidence is so important. We've seen keepers lose confidence in what it does to them, Vicario being a great example. But I'd heard at the beginning of the winter that a goalkeeper was a priority for DeZerby.

14:12And so I was kind of a bit surprised when we didn't sign anyone initially and Kinski, the report starts coming out that Kinski had signed a new contract and been made number one. So I'm happy to park that discussion here and like, again, let it play out for another few games. But I do think there's something around this that, you know, there's still an unfinished conversation. Second one is something that Nathan's flagged up several times in our podcast. Seneci and Van Hecker, both outstanding ball-playing centre-backs. Both have a lot of qualities. As a partnership, not sure about that.

14:48Jack:I don't want to overstate it too much, but it was alarming to say the least, wasn't it? That performance from the two of them. It was. And again, I'm not saying they can't play together and that they were awful and that we've downgraded. graded i think it's way too early to make those judgments what i will say is keep an eye on that as a partnership because i'm not 100 sure about it i think that's on the watch list and the final thing is lucas bergval so we have all expected lucas bergval to go this summer he told deserve at the start of the window that he wanted to leave we'd we'd signed tonali and fernandez in at the beginning of july two players that arguably played position he wants to play That doesn't look great for him, right?

15:32Like, where are the minutes going to come from? You've already got Ben Senghor there, you've got Gray, you've got Saar, you've got any other players we signed. You've got, obviously, Madison, Galago competing for those roles as well. That doesn't look great for Bergvau. You completely understand why he would want to try and leverage a move. You know, good player, wants to play every week. Fair enough. And then it sort of became clear that De Zerbe had been working on him to try and get him to stay. and I was wondering okay is this because he genuinely really likes him and really wants him or is it a club thing because of the him becoming club trained in in the UEFA competitions from next season is it that we just haven't had a bid meeting our valuation could it be a combination of all of those things yeah something going on there anyway and then the post-match comments about Bergvall were just a bit baffling to me to be honest I've got them here I'll just read them out quickly.

16:24Yeah, please do.

16:25Jack:He said, I knew before the game, Lukas Bergwald in this type of game, he would suffer more than Rodrigo Bentenker. We need also Archie Gray. We need also Lukas Bergwald or we work for today. And then he said something about it being like the, this is important for our future. Which, I mean, if reading between the lines, it feels somewhat like he was, and this is alluding to my point about cutting off his nose to spite his face earlier. It feels like he was making a point You know, he'd said earlier on in the window, right, that Lucas Bergwahl had almost demanded to play double pivot. And he had told him he's not ready for that yet.

17:04Jack:Is this a baptism of fire? Is this him showing him against a side that are physical, that are imposing, that are big, that will get up in your face, that he's not ready for that yet? because I genuinely don't think it's overstating it to say that out of the litany of appalling performances we've seen across the board in the last two seasons, that was up there with being one of the very worst performances I've seen in the Tottenham shirt for a long time. Honestly, I was calling for him to be substituted after half an hour because he looked completely out of his depth. Disaster. It was a disaster.

17:39And you feel for a young player when they go through that. We've seen it many times before. It's brutal. It was a disaster. Yeah, so what I'd heard was that he trained really well in the week. And the point he was making was that if you train well, you get rewarded with first team appearances. And I'm like, okay, fine. But the drop off from Fernandes to Bergvau is so significant. I don't mind the concept of meritocracy. I don't mind the concept of rewarding good training. but I think you can apply that when you've got two players who are basically on an even keel and you're not quite sure which one to start then fine, pick the one that's trained the best.

18:17When you've got Fernandes who's, I think Fernandes is probably going to be our best midfielder this season. I think he's a really fantastic player. I think Bergvau is a massive work in progress, honestly. I love the way he carries the ball. I love his bravery in possession. He gets up and down the pitch really well. he's got a great engine he presses intensely but out of possession he is basically harry winks he's players run past him like he's not there yeah he doesn't track his man he he like tactically he's got so much work to do um and and and that's on us to do like we that's the coach's job to do that but to throw him in now especially in amongst you know so many baby taunts i don't know i i I thought that was a poor decision in hindsight.

19:07I mean, I thought it was a poor decision when I saw the team line up and I think it got way aged badly like your prediction with your mate. It aged like milk. And I think Deserby needs to reflect on that. We're not a team that can just gamble away points. And look, maybe if Fernandes have played, we still lose because Brentford are clearly better prepared for the season than us. but I don't think it would be such a drubbing.

19:37Jack:How much do you believe? I'm always torn, mate. Like when these conversations always arise, and it's, you know, alarming that this is happening on the first day of the season for Tottenham this time around. But, you know, when people will say, the manager picked that team to make a point to the board, you know, the manager picked that team to show them that they need more of X or they need less of Y kind of thing. And these conversations will always rise to the top. I'll be honest, I'm never actually, I am prone to being tinfoil enough to kind of believe it. But on the flip side, I think I am also like as miserably rational enough to discount it.

20:14Jack:I'm always caught in this sort of battle raging in my head with these type of things. And there is a fair bit here that kind of says to me that, you know, Zerbi could have started, could have made a point to everybody, made a point to the players, made a point to the club. maybe like you say if the club are saying no no let's hold on to Bergvau if he is saying okay well look we have two players here we have Bergvau and we have Fernandes who are pretty much the same age I think Fernandes is a year and a bit older than him who is levels above Bergvau like I don't it's not even a comparison like you say Bergvau as I continue to say on here and it winds people up as I continue to say I think we'll go on and have a very good career whether it's at Spurs or not he's the type of player that you will see playing regular champions league football probably will end up at a club like a Dortmund or somebody like that and be a very very good player that you see on the European stage he will have a good career he's a very talented player is is this the right moment for him to realize his talent talent to flourish in this Tottenham team right now I'm increasingly starting to doubt that so if there is that option there of a 50 60 mil from a Nottingham forest or something i'm kind of opening to rolling the dice on that getting that in and reinvesting in the squad again that's yeah i i think the position we are it it would be so different if we hadn't just had two 17th place finishes finishes and had and had to do the kind of gutting the squad that i mentioned earlier if we were a stable club if we were a normal club that had some stability that had some planning then of course you'd want to keep bergval because you'd get the europa league minutes or the Champions League minutes or whatever it is, whatever competition you're in.

21:55But we're not that club. And we've, you know, we've had to have this massive reset, which has involved spending the sums of money that we've never seen Spurs spend before. And look, I just don't think that the time is now for Bergvau and his development at Spurs. And I think personally, if we don't sell him now, I think it'll be another Sars situation where when we do finally come to sell him he'll be worth about half of what we could have achieved so we're talking 60 million for Bergvau now maybe in a year after let's say 500 minutes or whatever he ends up getting if he stays around the season we might be looking at 30 we might be looking at 25.

22:34Jack:I mean Eric Dier is an almost perfect comparison to this as well right it's a player who burst onto the scene who was not perfect but was encouraging enough that Manchester United won a Dier for 50-60 mil and we turned it away despite probably I think there being a similar level of discourse about Dyer at that point I think we're probably slightly more pro Dyer and I don't think that's like a little Englander thing I think Dyer probably shown a bit more than Bergvall had but I would group them in a fairly similar category in terms of like their trajectory and everything like that and as we've seen I think did we end up I think did Dyer end up going for free yeah I can't even remember if we got a fee if we got a fee for him it would have been tiny but yeah absolutely there's there's an opportunity cost there isn't there and i just think we need we could do with that money to spend elsewhere in the squad to be honest that's that's the key for me we're so well stocked for midfielders and this is i actually you know for my sins and all that i do actually trust enic de lewis's whoever to reinvest that money back in the squad as well now yeah so i kind of get the reservations once upon a time when people would say, oh, we're going to sell these players.

23:44Jack:It's not going to get reinvested anyway. What does it mean to us to have 60 mil if we're not going to buy anybody? But I think we've shown that we will buy players now. We're talking about spending four, 500 million in this window, however much it is. It's totally unprecedented. It's ridiculous. I mean, look, let's talk about Archer Gray at this point because obviously he filled in on the right flank in this game. Pedro Porro was not deemed fit or ready or whatever to start this one I mean let's take this twofold Wendy I'd like you to sort of go into the argument as to why Gray is potentially the project that we've seen worth sticking by as opposed to Bergval because the two of those are often grouped together but let's take it on that next step after this and say how concerned are you though despite Archie Gray's brilliance and I don't know if you agree or not but I really like him I don't think he's best suited to that to that right back position and thus does this again highlight our lack of depth in a pretty important position I mean I would be pretty worried if Pedro Porro had a significant injury this season yeah yeah I've been mulling that over myself actually because I do like on the surface I feel quite comfortable with Gray being the backup right back but that is so so uh based on the fact that Porro has barely missed a game and obviously that can't continue forever he's at some point he's gonna miss games and if if we were to go a spell of 10 games without him uh yeah the drop-off would be really significant as we saw in this game i mean gray is a good player he's not pedro poro pedro poro is like top five right backs in the world easily probably top three probably top two maybe top one like he is so good um gray is a really really really interesting player to talk about i think some people just don't like him or get him and think we have overspent and like this is just English people being biased because he's English um can I just just at this point and also you can't really punch down on Swedish people I'm gonna be honest like you know like let's let's just try to get some perspective on this but still especially like especially like a white blonde male Swedish person but still like okay let's carry on you know yeah fair um yeah i i think i i understand people's concerns about gray because what we've seen of him has come during like dreadful periods of struggle fest where he's had to play at center back and he i thought he really did a good job considering he'd basically never played center back before he's played a right back which you know never really been his position he's either been a right-sided midfielder or a central midfielder in his youth days.

26:22And then when he did play centre-back, I thought, you know, despite the team, sorry, centre midfield, the team played horribly as a collective. He was one of the ones that stood up to be counted and actually showed a bit of something last year. And that's why people voted for him as player of the season. And, you know, it's stuff like actually running ahead of the ball. Like, we don't, we have so few players that run ahead of the ball and make movements to space. I think the thing with Gray is he isn't that aesthetically pleasing on the ball. He hasn't got Bergvall's hip swivel. He just hasn't.

26:54He's not going to receive back to play and do a kind of Dembele-esque hold off a midfielder, swivel and escape them. That is not Archie Gray style. He's so much better when he's facing play and has the whole pitch in front of him. But he is tactically pretty smart. He covers space well. He understands positional discipline. And like I said, he runs ahead of the ball, which I think is another bit of tactical understanding that he's gained through his academy career and exposure to men's football at such a young age. And I do think there's a big upside to Gray and I think there's value in having a player that can cover multiple positions.

27:30I honestly do think that. And when people say, you know, he needs to focus on one position, I don't really agree. I think, you know, it's absolutely fine to be versatile. I think look at Hinshelwood at Brighton. He's benefited under the Zerbe by being versatile and is now reaping the benefits. and also right back in a Deserby system is not that different to central midfield in other systems anyway because you're drifting in. You're kind of doing a lot of the midfield stuff. That said, the drop-off from Poro to Gray is enormous. Absolutely enormous. Probably couldn't be bigger could it, really.

28:02Yeah, and the type of player they are as well, it's so fundamentally different. Poro's such a creative sort of playmaking right back. Passes through the lines, clever movements, crosses. His distribution's so good and you're not going to get that from Gray you know so it's a tricky one and they I understand what does Erby saying he's saying he wants to work with a smaller squad and so he doesn't want bloat he doesn't want to bring players in and then suddenly you've got a whole group that don't have any minutes and again it comes back to we're in a single competition season we haven't got that many minutes to go around in an ideal world yes we would definitely sign another fullback but that's not the situation we're in and unfortunately we're left back heavy So we've got Robertson, Udogi, Davis, arguably Van Der Ven.

28:49Have I missed anyone? They can all play left back. And then Porro and Gray on the right. Sousa. Sousa, yeah. Yeah, so it's a tricky one. I can sort of see it both ways, but let's just pray Porro doesn't get injured because, honestly, such a drop-off.

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30:19We touched on Van Hecker and Sinesse at the top.