Crypto Bro Takeover Rumours & Robertson Confirmed | Micky’s Van Hecke Tap-In & Harry Wilson Debate

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

0:28Jack:Hello everybody, welcome back to Rule the Roots podcast. it might be summer you might say jack there's no tottenham games to talk about but there's still plenty in the world of tottenham hotspur to talk about isn't there mr tom hayward how are you doing mate i'm good mate i'm very good how are you seldom anybody ever puts the question back to me but yeah i'm i'm fine thank you i'm fine um i i say that actually um i did just have a very pleasant chat with ian um ian ian hang on ian ian spur as he's been known um of podden and pod spur um where he spoke to me about doing the pod and all that sort of stuff so check it out wherever you get your pods um yeah how are you how are you feeling tom it's been it's been a while spurs nearly got relegated this year are you uh do you know what can i can i just i'll just give you a little it's not even a peek behind the curtain just in terms of my fluctuating mood about spurs and everything for no real reason whatsoever.

1:27Jack:I just feel a bit annoyed about it again this week. I just kind of, I'm just kind of like, how dare they do that to us? How dare we've been so close to her? Yeah, you know, it's something about it. Something about it. It's kind of ragey, you know. How are you feeling? It is a very, it's very crystallizing, isn't it? None of us really knew how we felt about it until we finally beat Everton. Like a final whistle came with the Everton game. And I think we've talked about it, about that kind of weight being lifted off of you with the weight that you didn't even realize was really there just being lifted immediately but it is very crystallizing every so often to sort of just yeah just sit and think about how close we really came because we did come we were two kicks of a ball away from being relegated this season this wasn't just a bad finish this wasn't just finishing 17th under Ange but being what 20 points clear or whatever it was like we took it to the final day i mean mate you're you're you're like you're very good with the nostalgia stuff and everything you know you've got pretty much i don't know what's the what's the data equivalent of a photographic memory nerd yeah very good at sporkling all that the the reference point we've always had is we had to beat wimbledon to stay up kind of thing actually how bad was that year compared to this one like this is this one is surely the closest we've ever been to relegation from the Premier League, isn't it?

2:51Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we've never taken it to the last day. My memory of that Wimbledon game was it was April, I think, and Klinsmann had been brought back pretty much to save us, I think. It was him alone because the squad was very, very low quality.

3:10Jack:Jürgen Klinsmann, Conor Gallagher. Yeah. There are options. Yeah, yeah, so many parallels. But I think that it was one of the, we did this quite a lot in the 90s from what I remember and a little bit from what I'm told because it was just slightly before my sort of fully live and breathe football and Spurs era, I suppose. But I was conscious enough to know that we were a bad side and my granddad and uncles were very unhappy with everything that was going on at the club that made us a bad side. But I remember after that, it wasn't like, I don't think that Wimbledon game sort of mathematically made us safe, if you know what I mean.

3:49I think it was one of those, oh, we can go away from home and score six goals and Klinsman can get four of them. Mathematically, we're probably going to be fine. But just generally, the whole vibe is that we're going to be absolutely fine now. Think of it like the Villa game this season, but we didn't go on to draw with Leeds and lose to Chelsea and take it to the very final day. It was sewn up a little bit earlier than that. But yeah, this season is the closest we've come by a long, long way. You talk about this on the pod a lot about the 90s being the reference point of bad Spurs and the fact that we're in it.

4:26We are in a reference point right now. Whatever happens in the next 10, 20 years, this will be an era that we can hark back to and talk about how bad it was. Either as a, we didn't realise how bad it was going to get or don't think we really realised how close we were to going down. you'd hope it's the latter but you never know it's a bit like the the thing that quote from the from

4:49Jack:the u.s office isn't it where nobody ever tells you you're you're in the good old days kind of thing yeah yeah this but in total total reverse um but we get to talk about klinsman and i think i think jinela was there i might have been just before he joined i can't quite remember but yeah klinsman is your star player it doesn't matter if he's coming back to save you from the swamp like he's still Jürgen Klinsmann and he's still your hero and he still went away and came back and saved you as you say this year it's hurt even more and it looked so bleak for so long because there's just no heroes in this squad and I would say that the relegation scrap probably made a few heroes which is something that we can take from this season I think of someone like Kinski, Danso, nope that might be it but Palina maybe.

5:41Jack:I think it's also given me like a newfound appreciation for James Madison perhaps like the amount I think him out it just kind of makes me think like just seeing him come back probably like a third fit James Madison coming in at the end of the season and comfortably looking like our best player was yeah kind of alarming you know. And seemingly being the only one in the squad who was willing to sort of own it for what it was there was a lot of fighting talk from the players but you didn't really see it play out on the pitch and it was just never backed up with anything whereas madison seemed to be the only one in the whole squad that was like this is shit and we're shit and we are in the shit and we need to do something about this and everything postseason has been quite along the same lines of we were close and And I don't think we can't do this again, basically.

6:29And I think those intangibles of someone like Madison are really important to have around. I think Deserby played it quite well with him towards the end of the season. There wasn't loads of pressure on him coming back from a very serious knee injury and being the saviour. But he knew he needed to keep him around on match days. All those times he was named on the bench and he was basically like, he's not going to get a minute because he's not fit enough. But he had to be there and be present, be part of the match day squad to bring what he brings.

6:55Jack:he's uh what is it he said he said he's the the big man at a carvery or a roast dinner yeah sunday roast something like that yeah does that do you feel like he's infringing on your ip yeah yeah yeah how dare he yeah maybe that's why i've not warmed to him fully you've got the football you've got the good looks you've got the millions of pounds leave the carveries to me fella and the hair transplant but if he starts advertising crisps on his youtube channel i'm i'm done i'm out oh that's it i said head head fully fully gone spinning um we've had many good conversations down the years tom both online and offline hello um there's just something about saying we've had conversations online you know um about Enoch, about the ownership and everything like that.

7:49Jack:Obviously now, Daniel Levy's gone. We've got this new era of Peter Charrington, the Succession Kids. How do you feel about their letters, their open letters, Vinay Venkatesham's letter as well, to the fans? Are you believing it a bit? and I know this is a conversation I've already had with a few different people but I am interested to hear how many people feel about that because it's such a big topic for us and then we can talk a little bit about Brooklyn Eric Eric Brooklyn Eric how you pronounce his name and this supposed buyout of Daniel Levy's portion of the club that we're not quite sure if it's legit or not yet I've got a quote from Matt Law as well how are you feeling about the ownership stuff basically I think I probably don't bring anything too unique in terms of my views on the letters and what they're saying.

8:48We know that we're going to have to judge them at the end of the window. And their stock couldn't possibly be lower with fans. We're desperate to see something that proves they ousted someone like Daniel Levy. who I'm not going to rewrite history and say, oh, he had his faults, but he had the best interests at heart and all that. I'm sure that is true, but he lost sight of what the best interests actually were at Spurs. And proof is in the squad and in the team and the decisions that he made. I know he's not the person that's putting the 11 out on the pitch, but he sets the culture behind people like Vinay and Langer and Paratici and all of those who came before him to build that squad.

9:34in essentially in his image because that's how he's built Tottenham Hotspur as an entity and we're unfortunately you know we're paying the price for that now they stopped the bleeding too late and then we were left with a squad that this season was inexperienced imbalanced ineffective lacking in quality lacking in attitude lacking in confidence lacking just in pure numbers like they just didn't build a squad that was capable of playing 2026 football which is four competitions at the highest possible level in a league that is the most competitive in the world and so I have some sympathy for those people that are now in charge of not just trying to undo that or rather not just sort of taking the reins and acting acting as good owners should as in spending money big money and big money well but they're trying to undo probably five or six years straight of poor decisions and as I say poor culture setting basically it's no secret everyone from inside the club all the leaks you get are around how how much of a joke it became under it just became too big for him alone so they've got a big job on their hands and I hope that the letters are a sign of them showing that they understand the size of it but at the same time these are still the same people that let this season happen and by this season you can only judge them on what's happened since Levy went but they sacked Levy after a transfer window The bold facts of it are, if they were really that genuinely upset about how Daniel Levy had run the football club for this long and had serious concerns about how he was building the squad, you wouldn't sack him after he's just managed one of the worst windows that we've had, both reputationally and net spend and any other metric that you want to put to it.

11:23you wouldn't just let him have that transfer window and then sack him in the first week of September but that's really that was a massive red flag for all of us and as much as we were rejoicing in Daniel Levy finally going I think it pointed to a slightly bigger problem within the club of the decision makers just don't seem smart enough to do the right thing at the right time so we've got no choice but to be hopeful and positive about the words that they've said they're owning it and it's quite unusual to have the end of season where who is it our owners our ceo and i mean the fact that the lewis family have even come out and and made this their statements like they've never done anything publicly at all we have no choice but to take it as a positive sign and give them this window to just show some willingness to reverse what's been going wrong for so long but there will always be that nagging thing at the back of my mind the fact that nobody has been sacked for last season you know it may not be Langer's fault solely and it isn't Langer's fault solely but you'd think as a or even if just as a human sacrifice for last season to show the club take this seriously and we can't let it slide that we ended the season with a front three of Richarlison, Jed Spence and Kolo Mawani in the biggest Premier League game in a decade maybe more for Tottenham that was probably probably ever yeah realistically probably ever yeah and so for them not to make a decision that just again even if it was just a sort of sacrificial lamb to show the supporters we don't accept this we aren't willing to just sit back and accept these standards maybe it would have been harsh on someone like Langer but he's the easy target and I think would have been the first sign of actions rather than words.

13:12So, yeah, ask me again in two months, see what we've done during and after the World Cup. Early signs are good. I don't know what you think about the window and I'm sure we're going to talk about individual players, but to get Robertson and Snessy over the line now is good and is very unbelievable. Is Snessy done now?

13:32Jack:Is he on the website and all that? I don't know about the... Yeah, not sure about that actually, but I think we got the... I'll say for whatever a here we go means anymore after Gibbs White and Eze last season, but I think so. I think it's as good as... It's not on toplamhotspur.com yet. I'm just saying that. Okay, fine, fine. That's, yeah, that's a... But let's consider it done. I like the way that we've gone about getting those deals over the line, but the only thing I would say so far is that they are both extremely Daniel Levy deals, both free from another Premier League club. Yeah, probably an area of the pitch that we could do with some depth, but doesn't really address the serious gaping wound in our squad.

14:17Just, yeah, that's the only downside to what business we've done so far. I would hope that all of this is with a window to doing more later in the window, which is what those letters are alluding to. But I just worry that they're starting to write checks that they can't cash figuratively, of course. I just think if you end this window and we've got yet another statement at the end of it about how difficult the market is and how the World Cup was in the way and how tricky it is to do it and we're not the financial behemoth that we're painted out to be. If we're getting all that again, then it's meant nothing, those letters.

14:56So we've just got to wait and see.

14:58Jack:There's that bit of me with Langer. I wonder if right now he's going through that. It's almost like a public humiliation ritual where they seem to be quite publicly courting a number of different sporting directors or directors of football, whatever it is. And he's going to, I don't know, be sort of demoted, if you like, back to the post he seemed to originally have, which was being the data nerd that could find us Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray and whatever. you know that that that type of figure it feels like he got his opportunity last season to step up and be the football guy at the club and has failed spectacularly um but the idea of getting this other this joints um dookie friedman or whatever yeah i don't mind the names that have been thrown out because i'm sort of at the point where you think that maybe it is time to just try and roll the dice a bit it's more this again piratachi leaves of his own accord we don't have to make a decision there he leaves for another club lang has overseen one of the worst squad builds you'll ever you'll ever see in the premier league ever not just from spurs from any club certainly with the resources that we've got you have an opportunity to get rid of him and just say we want one single director of football person who sets the tone the culture the technical ceiling everything they set it alone but we've insisted on trailing this line about joint directors of football and how Lange will have to work with them and they'll be level.

16:27Like, what other club has two directors of football, man? And you've been given this opportunity to clean house with it and start that structure again.

16:35Jack:Cozy traditions feel good, especially this time of year. And that includes changing up your makeup look for fall. From lashes for days with the Viral Liquid Lash Extension Mascara to enhancing a smoky eye with your favorite shade of Brilliant Eye Brightener. Thrive Cosmetics is your go-to for completing every fall look. Whether you want a simple just-gotta-get-out-the-door routine or fall glam that wows from the office to all your favorite fall festivities, you'll always look and feel radiant with Thrive Cosmetics. Plus, every product is 100 % vegan, cruelty-free, and made with clean-skin-loving ingredients.

17:08Jack:And for every product purchased, Thrive Cosmetics donates to help communities thrive. So every time you use your favorite Thrive Cosmetics product, you're helping communities you care about, too. Complete your fall look. Go to thrivecosmetics.com slash cozy for an exclusive offer of 20 % off your first order. That's Thrive Cosmetics, C-A-U-S-E-M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash cozy. And I don't know if I'm just looking at it through sort of negative eyes, but I just struggle. That feels like a really basic decision that they're failing to grasp. And that is a slight small red flag for possible bigger red flags later on in the window.

17:48Again, these are the same people that oversaw this season and saw it fit to not sack Frank before February and appoint, oh my God, what was it? Tudor. And only bring in Gallagher in January, stuff like that. These are the same people and they're still making the same, possibly the same decisions this time around that won't really lead us anywhere good. But yeah, maybe that's just me being a bit overly negative.

18:16Jack:Just my only feeling, the only thing I'm sort of wondering is if there's some sort of, because I don't disagree. The thing is, I don't disagree. What I'm trying to do is I'm not even trying to be a contrarian. I'm trying to, for once, I'm trying to see an angle on this other than the ownership being incompetent, right? Because I don't really want to just sort of wallow in that. I want to at least feel, and I guess maybe it's a type of copium, right? I want to feel that the club is moving in a direction that is a positive one, that we're not dwelling on the sort of the failures of last season. And there's just that part of me that's just wondering, maybe, just maybe, they are somehow seeing us as still in a mode of crisis, right?

19:13Jack:that the season has come to an end but like you say we were a couple of kicks away from Tottenham actually getting relegated thus the whole building everything about the place the institution is probably still on the high alert and I wonder if right now they want to calm things down a bit with just a level of continuity to stuff like that's that's that's all I can think of and with somebody like Lange who is as as seems to be the case one of the few football people in the building right now maybe maybe he is just required to fulfill a function at the at the club that they they you know they may be fighting fires elsewhere um I mean like you say it's it's a lot of fires caused by Johan Lange and I'm not here to fight his battles for him at all quite the opposite like I'm just trying I'm just trying to get a grip on it I'm just trying to sort of understand it in these early stages but you know things are early it's early on into the season it's pre-world cup i dare say there's going to be a lot of movement um behind the scenes at least you know it seemed to be from i can't remember whose letter it was but one of them was explicitly referencing the fact that there's going to be new faces coming in um we are in the midst of recruiting various different new people as part of this backroom rebuild this shuffle whatever it is so you know maybe there's there's there's going to be more stuff to come that will make everything make a bit more sense in a in a few weeks time um you know i did sort of start this by talking about brooklyn eric um on friday there was some sort of i don't think it did well there was definitely no official announcement from the club and there didn't seem to be even like there was an official announcement from the stock markets or anything like that which i guess that's what they have to do don't they when there's a a significant amount of purchasing going on in a in a i don't know i don't understand that wild i might just be saying anything there but still there was there was some talk that daniel levy or the daniel levy trust something like that had sold their share of the club which is i think it's roughly about a quarter isn't it their shares in enic or the club i can't remember which one it is um to a to a third party turns out the third party um is brooklyn eric the the crypto bro that had been well has been linked at various different points um down the down the past couple of years just to quickly note on this if anybody's not listened to flav's lab pod with the athletics matt slater it's definitely interesting on on this theme um he talks about amanda staveley for one um i think the excitement that a lot of fans felt for somebody like amanda staveley coming in and rescuing us or something is really put to the sword in this in this podcast i won't i won't steal all of flab's material but it's definitely worth listening to it's quite chastening um quite a chastening account of you know her reputation within the game and the people she associates with um so anyway the news is around brooklyn eric matt law said over the weekend that if you were to buy levy's steak it carries with it no voting rights um doesn't have a place on the board or a position of influence at tottenham it would not give the holder first refusal or even a preferred bidder status if the club was ever to be sold.

22:52Jack:The Lewis family insists that the club is not for sale and are due to inject more capital in the coming weeks. So I guess this begs the question Tom and I'm pretty sure you're of a similar disposition to me when it comes to the city and finance and stuff but if we're to muddle through this what on earth do you reckon all this is about then? Somebody giving what I don't know close to a billion pounds let's speculate around that amount of money for something that they will not be able to control that it were because i could understand it right if it's like you're buying a quarter of the club let's say and that also entitles you to first refusal if the if the lewis family ever want to sell the club understandable that gets you front of the queue right but if it's not even that we're playing at and if you've got that much money going around give me a bit at least become a patron you know patreon.com slash rtrpod top tier it's yeah i think you know you are absolutely right i have no real idea of what i'm talking about when it comes to the ins and outs of something like this it's um it goes way above my head and there was people far more qualified that you've had on here that can talk about it to great length um i think it's one of those things of he's he's been floating around for a good couple of years and i think that i think when it first surfaced levy was still around and i seem to remember it being given very short shrift in it was on one of the sort of few times that the club had leaked a sort of information around the ownership of the club not just sort of speculation and it was there was seen to be a level of almost embarrassment of being of having associations with this guy because he wasn't he walking around the stadium and posting he'd basically done the stadium tour this guy this brooklyn guy and he was posting a load on his stories around about the same time and it's why can't we just get somebody serious you know but you know i think people were trying to build their own narrative a little bit at the time and i think it was like you know this guy okay he's a bit of a you know newfound wealth crypto bro whatever but he's he's a spurs fan and look he's on the tour he's done this that and the other who's been to this game and this game um and so it it's quite interesting there does seem to be something happening between levy and the lewis family and like i say it wasn't just football related reasons seemingly why levy was binned off in september last year there seemed to have been a real rift between the two parties and so you just wonder is levy is this is this going to someone who as you say has no voting rights has no real power not even really soft power on the board just so he can sort of stick it to the lewises one final time by giving over a quarter of the his the quarter of the club and all of his shares to some yeah some bloke in a baseball cap who can be a little bit obnoxious uh on social media every three months it seems um i don't know i i really don't i don't have enough insight into this to be able to give you any sort of uh detailed answer but it certainly feels like there's some politics going on behind the scenes isn't it yeah i mean so on the bbc so this is simon stone the chief football news reporter from the bbc says and this is on the 5th of june at least anyway the former tottenham Hotspur executive Daniel Levy has sold a 24.99 % stake in the club's parent company Enoch to eight sports capital the sports investment group has claimed um that that move would still leave Levy with a 4.89 % stake in Enoch um and Enoch says however neither the company nor Tottenham are aware of any sale by Levy.

26:46Jack:So yeah, 8 Sports Capital Limited is a sports investment company owned by Triller. Is that somebody's surname? Let me see. It sounds like a YouTuber, doesn't it? Yeah, fine. An American entertainment and technology company. There you go. That is owned by WingFi and Richard Sy. um brook eight sports capital chief executive is american tech entrepreneur brooklyn eric who headed up a consortium that is said uh was prepared to buy the club last september but at the time topnam unequivocally rejected the informal expression of interest it's the sort of thing that's going to rumble on um the lewises seem determined to hold on to this um again look you know it's not to nick everything from flav's pod but it seems to be that one of the big fallouts between the two was a sense that levy will was open to selling the club and was actively basically sticking it on the market behind closed doors which it sounds like wasn't fully approved by everybody it should have been approved by um i think that the sort of the sense that we all picked up from our side of the curtain that daniel levy had become a bit of a megalomaniac seems to be a feeling that was shared behind the scenes as well and you know i mean i think the most thing is that we talk about with a lot of this stuff tom throughout the entirety of this conversation is it's just quite validating as a fan isn't it it's quite validating that you know you i many others have been sort of debating a lot of this stuff talking about levy the way he's moved the signals he's putting out there for the past few years and you're met with varying degrees of being called an idiot right by various different people and when you see things play out in this way you're like there you know it's it's not it's not as like complex as people make out it's not fanfic yeah exactly sure sure there's certain levers as as as we've been quite open about here yeah sure we don't know the full ins and outs of how the city operates and everything like that but in a layman's sense there was a guy in charge of the club that owned a small part of the club that acted like he owned the whole club and then sooner or later the people that earn more of the club were like see you later mate you've gone a bit weird and yeah it's this is kind of where we're at now but whether or not this this geezer whether or not this group have bought a part of the club or not other than there being a bit of noise about it at this stage it just seems like something of no real consequence to top right now yeah yeah and that's that's at the moment that's not really what we want to hear is it like we what i really think spurs lost in the last few years and what levy really lost that was really prevalent in his first so when did he 2001 i'd say in his first probably up till red now he he brought a level of aspiration to tottenham and i think that's underrated as part of his legacy when he first came in the squad that we had at an average age of like 32 or something it was the sullivan sheringham poiet era you know we had veterans that we were giving to hoddle in the hope that he would um make something out of it and it was a club decision to focus more on youth on like British young British players from lower leagues think of Dawson and Reid from Forrest Defoe from West Ham uh Keane from Leeds um onwards to Lennon Genas yeah these were the idea was to buy a young build them up and I know that it always led to if they become a superstar we'll sell them but that in itself for a club of Tottenham's size at that point was aspirational for us to have two or three superstars in our squad because we took the plunge on a couple of players bought them in trained them up and they became the world names they are think Bale and Modric so that is an aspiration in itself and I just think I think Levy tried to get away with it for as long as possible and in the last few years I think he just lost sight of what aspirational actually looked like.

31:08You know, he wasn't taking those same risks and punts on that strategy. And so all of this, yeah, bringing someone in who doesn't have any sort of power over the board, it's always a risk, but you want someone coming in and being like, why don't we try this? Why don't we look at this fresh way of doing things, this fresh direction that we can take that, But it doesn't maybe put us in the upper echelons with the Real Madrid's and Barca's and Man City's and whoever, but puts us in our own tier that we can sort of own and belong to and that can be ours in our position right now so that we can become the massive club that we think that we deserve to be.

31:49That's what Levy's final, that's what his end game was. And it sort of felt like he, once the stadium opened, that was him considering it done rather than that being the sort of middle piece that we needed to springboard us. This is all conversations we've had so many times before. But yeah, for me, it doesn't really matter who it is. A crypto bro, boring finance guy, you know, social media owner, whatever. Just bring a little bit of aspiration to us again. Something that we can cling to that makes us feel as if the next five years are going to be genuinely, really exciting. Even if there's ups and downs.

32:23This is the thing at the moment. I just don't really know what... We've been starved of it, haven't we? Absolutely starved of it. Massively. And losing Cain and Sarn and all of these. all of these yeah like the as i say the heroes that we've had and and even the sort of the end of lorise for example like the guy was a world cup winning captain and our captain for a really long time and it ended with him going off at halftime in a 6-1 humiliation at newcastle like it's not just him but it just all of that aspiration just sort of just eroded away from us we weren't doing those sort of deals again and it just felt yeah it's all gone a A little bit flat and stuff.

32:59Jack:Like a disgraced BBC presenter, isn't it? A much beloved household. Yeah, under the coats, into the cab. It's always a cream mac, isn't it? Always. Who said it? I'm pretty sure I've seen you post it before. The geezer walking into court that time and he's got like just a plastic bag over his head because he obviously hasn't had a coat to cover his face. That was... It's like the middle of summer, isn't it? so he's got he hasn't got a coat with him or something i'm not even sure it is it's probably somebody horrific but it's funny it's one of those one of those funny images isn't it um oh that's tickled me a bit now thinking about it um andy andy robertson dundale he's in he said he sent us a wee video um from the scotland camp i don't know if you saw deserve he say a legume I'm not going to keep doing accents.

33:57Jack:Come on, it's not a 1970s variety show.

34:04Jack:Roberto De Zerbi said he likes him. He likes Scottish players. He likes Scottish footballers. What do you make of it all, mate? There's obviously a lot of discourse around this one. As there always is. I was pro it in January. And to be honest, I'm still pro it now. I think to be honest it's sort of slightly contradictory to what I've just said around being the aspirational club that takes a punt on the young footballers to develop but what I will say is that we what we what we did do that with is Destinu Doggy yeah we definitely did that and I think we've given him a lot of time to try and establish himself as sort of number one left back and I do think I think he still is but we've got we've got a massive gap out there at left back that is is really exposed when you've got a player as injury prone as Udagi is and as much as we can applaud Spence's development into him becoming the player that he is now and as as sort of adaptable and flexible as he is he's not a left back and it's really painful seeing him play at left back so definitely in a struggling team like we were in the second half of last season He just killed everything down the left-hand side, especially when what was ahead of him was pretty poor as well.

35:23So I'm supportive of the Robertson transfer as long as it is sort of used as a bit of a springboard to give Udogi the rest his body clearly needs. Maybe the shot in the arm that his attitude needs. I've heard very vague rumours about Udogi, about how poor he is at looking after himself outside of football. He gets a lot of muscle injuries and from what I hear, which take with a pinch of salt, but he doesn't sort of dedicate himself to athleticism in the way that the best players do. so it might be contributing towards his um his numerous injuries that he's getting over the what three years that he's been here so i just think it makes sense doesn't it is it and the experience that he brings the character that he brings all the things that we lacked last season he's a good player he's 32 i think as well he's not he's not ancient he's not at his best but then at the same time neither are spurs like we're not at the level to think that we're above signing andy robertson i don't think and yeah if it can mean that we we balance the squad out and bulk the squad up in

36:40Jack:areas where we're light i don't see the downside personally a lot of this because i do i definitely take on board a lot of the stuff that people are saying and i i agree with a lot of it as well that like you were saying at the top in that in the sense that we want to be progressive we want to be more like a you know let's say a bigger version of a Brighton or a Bournemouth why aren't we plucking out your Ryans and players like that why are we still going back in for as I've moaned about Andy Robertson a household name type thing but I think it's not I just don't think it's as binary as that either you know and I think there's there's clearly a lot of stuff that we hear about anecdotally behind the scenes about a lack of leaders a lack of personality a lack of you know experience and such um which i know people want to scoff at and i know people still kind of reduced to being a proper football man type take on things but even having you know mate i never played football to any sort it won't surprise you to learn i never play football to any sort of level whatsoever but even when you're playing football like in small teams that you even organized amongst mates and stuff like that there were always certain characters that fulfilled certain roles even at that very basest level of football and if it is felt that we don't have those sort of personalities here then you know I just the only the the point I keep arriving back at is one I made at the top is that Spurs just because the the line has been drawn in the season now right spurs have stayed up lines been drawn and that's it that's the end of the 25 26 season it doesn't mean that we can't the issues that we face this year can't bleed over into the next one as they did do from last season into this one we obviously are trying to stop the rot we're trying to stop the rot as quickly as possible um and as cost effectively as possible signing players like Andy Robertson on a free we'll get we'll get to Harry Wilson in a minute but signing players like Andy Robertson on a free I just I see it as a fairly low stakes gamble you know it's like you say I think the upside is enormous the downside is well he's got probably he's probably been paid 200 grand a week or something like that I would imagine 150 200 grand a week fine ain't my money yeah it's not my money it's not your money like if it works out we've got a guy who is probably one of the best premier league players in this position of all time having a nice swan song at our career where he might be able to and look again i keep saying it but again could have that neighbor effect on a young player like a doggy yeah on a player like souza you know forces them to give their head a wobble, makes them kind of expand their game, turn them into a better player, fine.

39:41Jack:Just tell them what you've done. It's worth losing sleepover, is it? No, no, not at all. And the whole idea of us acting or behaving differently as a club, some of that is not only about bringing players in. If the concern is that Andy Robertson is going to be bloating up our squad in a year's time because we've got Udogi playing 30 games a season and Souza's really proved himself in the cup games or something like that, then fine. The whole idea should be, you know, rising tides lifts all boats. You should be bringing these players in and when they've served their purpose, you get rid. And it sounds harsh and it sounds a bit, it sounds ruthless, but that's what the big clubs do.

40:22That's what the massive clubs do. If you don't need a player anymore and they're not bringing you anything to the squad, but you lose a bit of money because you brought them in for a year or you can't register him for a certain squad or something like that because your numbers are too high. Who cares? I really couldn't give a shit. Really could not give a shit. It doesn't matter. None of this is harming Spurs in any way if you behave and act accordingly in the market by getting these players out as quickly as you've got them in. So yeah, really doesn't seem like one that should be causing this much discord.

40:56But it bodes well for the rest of the summer, doesn't it? when you think that that's one of the most, as you say, one of the best left backs in Premier League history, a complete freebie, 32, still got legs, good experience, played under the best managers in the world, good competition, and yet he's causing some divides. I think we've got some very tiring conversations coming up when it comes to addressing the issues of the squads that we really do need.

41:21Jack:And overall, you know, we are, even if you think it's an average signing, we are below average. at the moment average is an improvement you know that's but that's the reality that's the reality as you keep saying right who do we think we are right now you know yeah back-to-back 17th placed finishes it's back-to-back seasons of looking like we don't have a fucking clue what we're doing on the football pitch yeah we somehow somehow by some force of will stumbled over the line in the Europa league fine that was great but it doesn't mask at all quite how terrible we've been for for the past years and a lot of it a lot of it comes down to the players that we had available to us yeah um i mean let's talk let's talk about harry wilson at this point as well because he's somebody that's been heavily linked out of contract as well i believe this summer so it would be another free transfer um from fulham again like not a player that's gonna set the world delight it's not a Jurgen Klinsmann or anything like that right but again it's kind of a player who is competent looks all right in the Premier League and in the most important thing as I've been sort of saying on Twitter when I've gotten into this discussion with people is he pretty much occupies a position where we have Kulisevsky, Kudus, Odeber and even Tell to a degree maybe Madison if he fancies it maybe Xavi Siemens if he fancies it a large number of those players who are mostly all exceptional really in varying degrees but still are all very good players but the majority of those names they're listed are either heavily injured or not close to fitness for me somebody like Harry Wilson coming in to do a job in that sort of position of the pitch is simply that he's a free transfer that they know can do a job for a bit until basically any of those players listed are back and fully firing and are ready to take that position back off of him again like it to me it like it makes sense yeah it doesn't set the world alight but another big part of the reason like we all we want to talk about this being like poor squad building that has gotten us into this position in the last two years i kind of don't fully agree with that like poor squad building for my money anyway has seen spurs go from a team that was on the brink of doing what arsenal did this year actually realizing it and going on and winning something right it's seen spurs go from a team that was always finishing in the top four to suddenly being a team that finishes more in the top six that suddenly looks like a team that's going to finish more like sixth to eighth place that's what average squad building has done for us and i concede that but i think that the 217th place finishes really and getting as close to relegation as we did this year is largely about the amount of injuries we have is the amount of players that we have missing um and so if we need to add extra bodies in by again in a cost-effective fashion if we we're not going to spend 50 60 mil on a on a position where we are going to have a number of players who are worth around that amount of money who are all getting paid quite a bit of money now to step in in maybe a month two months into the season i just i again it's another one of these where it's like i'm not yeah i'm not i'm not sat here defending harry wilson thinking he's amazing thinking he's like the best player that spurs can possibly attract but i'm also looking at it in the respect that he's just there to do a job for a bit until one of the players that we already have can step back in and i'm repeating myself but do you get what i mean i just i don't get the i don't get the consternation around yeah you named you named like five players there that would play in a similar position you know there's 10 knees there and at the moment only six of them are working across those players right if even that right if that we don't we have no idea on kulezewski and i know that we're seeing a lot of stuff about him training and he's posting stories and whatever but you know madison madison came back to what two months ago you know and by the Everton game he'd had four or five games even if it was only 20 minutes here and there he's going to be rusty for a really long time and he's going to need the full pre-season and even then in August he's only going to be just past a year when the injury happened so we don't know what he's going to look like Kulazeski is behind even Madison so we don't know what he's going to look like he could be closer to Christmas until he's up and running literally.