Danish Love-in

0:00Welcome back to Rule the Roost. Yes, it's one of those annoying ad read type things at the top of a podcast you're looking forward to listening to. Thanks for tuning in. Just a quick request before I start. If you want to help support the show this season, please leave me a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can drop me a follow on Instagram at Ted Trunk or if you really fancy, head over to patreon.com slash RTR pod for extra episodes and access to the Discord community. All of these things really help the podcast to get discovered by more Spurs fans, and it keeps the show growing for the new campaign.

0:34Thanks 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 CalShee app and use code CUP26 to get$10 when you trade 10. K-A-L-S-H-I, CalShee. Trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply.

1:07Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calshee.com slash regulatory.

1:31hello everybody welcome back to rule the roost podcast i'm not going to do a big rambling introduction this time i'm going to say mark nesbitt as i just said to you off air how is your danish excitement um right now what the level's at well my erection status is still fully fully wrecked um so that's a good start isn't it um yeah i'm um still yeah the thing is jack um it's been a it's been a whirlwind of emotion for me um so not to give you my life story but obviously it's a big deal it's a huge deal that uh you know a dane from our tiny little Danish community back in Daneland of five or so million people is now the manager of our football club um but you know we've also got a Danish technical director we've we've we've had great Danish players all the time so it's not a totally uncommon feeling but it's different to have won as a league cup you know Ellen Nilsen did yeah he's bonkers now by the way it's quite funny oh really he's yeah he's gone off the rails a little bit it's quite funny um anyway that's story for another day um yeah no it like i'm still like i'm super proud of it and also because it's like it's him like he's he's an actually like great guy and a really good manager i think he'll do great with us um but i i did have to like duck out a little bit quite shortly after it happened because it was it was um you know when when the rumors first started circulating that we were sort of you know we were interested in frank and all that sort of stuff every you know obviously everyone and and in Denmark it went stratospheric obviously so I've been on a few Danish pods and all that sort of stuff as well but it did get a little bit like oh my god and obviously I was bigging him up um and I sort of had to like just I don't know almost go into hiatus for a few weeks when it sort of start first started kicking off because it went a bit nuts like everyone's um not not with not we're not with me like it's not like I was inundated like it's not like the BBC came knocking right but it was it was almost like you know I was I had to just be careful not to be too hype and not to go around you know spunking and my my bacon and Lego spunk on everyone um but that's a great image but um but yeah no it was spunking Legos I mean that's gonna hurt it'd be painful bacon as well um but no yeah it was it's been it's been great um i'm really excited for him um i mean hiding is it because like people say for example very people were being nasty about it for sure there's there's pro-anch people it was still very raw like there's a lot of people go oh fuck it it's fucking you know all that like frank the tank or like um what's it what's if what's that fucking thing thomas the frank engine thomas the frank engine and it was all got a little bit like yeah but it's all a bit like you know people started taking the piss out of it and i was a bit like it's a bit disrespectful um and you know it's just banter and all that sort of stuff but and that but that's my point is like i'm because i'm emotionally involved and attached to like not to i don't know the guy right but like i you know i could go i could i could genuinely go back to denmark now and i could fucking walk into any old shop and there'd be someone who knew someone who knew someone who knew his sister or something because that's how small Denmark is Denmark is fucking tiny but it's half the population of London so it is like it is a special thing for a small nation when something like this happens how do you think I felt when we had a chubby emotional argy well I mean exactly and this is the thing you still mate I still rip the piss out of you for pot and and you know and and i had to be a bit like fuck do i like not like do i want this again i'm like i'm genuinely nobody but more for myself no flake now is that what it is am i too emotional am i am i gonna go cry um but yeah no it was um but yeah it's brilliant i'm just i think what i'm seeing now is a lot of people are like oh fuck you know after a few interviews have come out after we've made a few moves in the transfer market and after we've heard from a few ITKs about what's going on in the training ground.

5:52I think people are starting to see what the potential is here. I'm not saying this will be, I'm not saying it won't win the league next season, but what the potential could be here. And just the difference in tone and feel around the club is going to be. because this, you know, for all intents and purposes, and what I think is starting to kind of come out from the club now is that people didn't actually like Ange. He just, he was very, very stubborn. We saw that in press conferences, but he was like that internally as well. And I think towards the end, I think he robbed a lot of players of the wrong way.

6:34And I don't think we would have got rid of him in the same way if that hadn't been the case. if they'd all universally loved him. I know there was a very public outpouring of emotions afterwards, but I think like, you know, like Redknapp came out and said, it's just football. That's what they all do. I think they were sick and tired of him, if I'm honest with you. And Frank will be different. He'll bring something different in that. Have you got ITK on that, Mark, or is that just your gut feeling? I don't know if it's IT. It's a mixture. I've got a few people, you know, but anyway. I'm just but it also it does explain a lot though if you think about it we were all sitting here for the last two three months of his tenure going well like everyone's back now and like but they still don't look like they really want to play for him oh they're just tired yeah yeah no they're just tired they are playing for him I said on so many posts like I don't think they're not playing for him you know but it looks that way but it just I think it genuinely was that way he was just they were just tired of him There was no, you know, and it makes sense.

7:39It would grate on the players. If you're being told in training, when you know as a player that you don't have the personnel available to play the way he wants to play, to still play that way and make yourself, you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot, right? And the players still want to win games. I've just got to say in the interest of balance. So I don't entirely disagree with a lot of what you're saying. But just in the interest of balance, one might say there's a slight whiplash effect there. And I'm referencing the film whiplash of just kind of, because he got the job done at the end of the day, didn't he?

8:13He said, I always win something in my second season. And he didn't, I don't know, has enough time passed? Is there enough water under the bridge? Probably not. I don't mind the burn coming from this. Listen, what I go back to, he didn't, like, managers set the team up it's what happens on that and look every manager out there is quick enough to come back and say this when they lose games oh i can only do so much and setting them up what happens on the pitch is up to them like that goes the other way as well i like yeah anyway i just think we've got a fantastic bunch of players this what i was going to say is that i think it's best we we look at the head let's look ahead yeah right i want to know what the because you were saying you know you've done a few of the the hurdy-gurdy as you call it pods yes what's the general vibe like there do you have any you know because i'm not i'm not assuming that everybody is by default a sort of you know a tub thumping nationalist like you are um are there any sort of danish skeptics out there are there any people that aren't aren't so kind of up on up on uh tom or are they just like no let's let's have it no you no that's a fair question and there's not many, but there are a few who are...

9:37So fans abroad are not always super loyal, right? Like they'll often have, I mean, sometimes they'll have two Premier League teams. Oh, I like this team. I like that team. And there are a few of the kind of fans who I've just seen on Twitter and stuff like that, but who I don't know personally, but maybe saying similar to what you've seen English fans say like other you know this isn't this isn't um what's the word like um it's a bit underwhelming you know I've heard that which I think is strange myself but um I've heard that from from Danish fans um who don't necessarily to your point they don't care that much that he's Danish and all that sort of stuff and and um but my opinion is that they haven't looked into it enough i think that's biased underwhelming feels like a harsh word to use and i don't know if that's exactly what i'd say but i guess when we did announce it and as i've said on here i wasn't like wasn't like buzzing about it but i think as you say now that some time has passed and i've seen i've heard more from him and I've actually taken the time to look a bit more into the stuff he was doing at Brentford, the behind the scenes at Brentford, all that type of stuff.

10:56I have actually grown to sort of have that feeling of like, no pressure, Thomas, but I sort of have that feeling of like, I'm not saying it's definitely going to go that way, but he could be our Klopp. Like this guy could be, he seems like a serious manager. and what I didn't fully realize actually what just completely passed me by with him is that Liverpool have apparently been like keeping tabs on him for a long time as potentially the guy to step in after Klopp goes and City see also City with Pep Guardiola as well and it feels like in some ways it feels like that there was a bit of a I guess as far as Spurs were concerned a bit of a perfect storm in that Ange did win the Europa League but let's I mean to call the league forming different is to probably be complimentary of it last season and with say potentially bigger fish circling around Thomas Frank them thinking this is this is the time this is when we've got to do it because if he has another good season with Brentford slot has an off year after winning the league i think he's probably got a bit more time than that but if say pep is just a bit burnt out now then maybe maybe city will fancy at the end of this season going for it and we're not going to win in a two-horse race against manchester we're just not i mean that's not being negative that's not being a negative spurs fan let's be real like we simply wouldn't like any manager would choose to go to the manchester city project overalls it's just it's just just how it goes so it feels like we've we've kind of gotten him in and like you say it's made me step back and reflect somewhat on the fact that it's not perfect it is still a work in progress but we've got a lot of raw materials and and fully completed materials don't get me wrong within this squad that we were punching way below our weight last year and we this whole i don't know just a conversation that like well you know we we've got a squad that could get us into maybe the top 10 i don't know about that like i think this is a this is a squad thus far we'll get on to get on to gibbs white in a minute um but we've got a squad thus far especially of the addition of kudos as well that i think still can be knocking on the door of the top five i don't i don't see why that shouldn't be our ambition And I don't get the feeling from Thomas Frank that he's this person that's coming in.

13:35As I was saying, when we first brought him in, he's going to be this guy that's going to raise the floor. Maybe we'll get into the top sort of 10, top eight with him. I don't feel like that's where his vision is set at all. I think he's in here to try and win the league or whatever, as Daniel Levy didn't just allude to, outright went and said in his little weird bromance video thing with Vinay Venkateshin. Is that sort of what you feel he could be capable of? Yeah, I mean, for sure. I think the question, there's still some squad building there. Does he have, to your point, you mentioned things like seriousness, which he brings in bundles.

14:22I think, and I totally agree with you. This squad massively underachieved. I mean, certainly last season, even with all the injuries. I think there's loads more here to come. I don't see, I mean, I think, you know, when the Premier League is incredibly difficult, but you need a lot of things to happen for you at the same time, positive things, and a lot of them are out of your reach. you know, Liverpool benefited from a really poor overall quality of the season, last season. So, you know, would they have won it in the 15-16 or 17-18? Probably not. I mean, certainly not with that point at all, right?

15:09But, you know, that might be a little bit. But do I think he can take us to those heights or certainly outperform some of our better seasons? I definitely think he can. I mean, I think he has what you need to succeed as a coach today, which is number one, to be a great man manager. You just have to be today. People are way more complex today, especially when you're talking about younger people. And we have a lot of those in our team. We don't have many super egos. but we have a lot of other players who still are incredibly serious and I guess, what's it called, ambitious individuals at a very, very young age.

15:55I mean, we have some incredible young players who we haven't really seen that many of before. So I think that's a challenge on its own. I think Frank is the perfect guy to do that. he gets a lot out of players he develops players you only have to look at Brentford and the players that have come through there Watkins, Tony Mbumo, Wizza Christian Nurgor is 31 years and was sold to Arsenal there's some insane track record there yes he hasn't won the Premier League or a major trophy but he has got experience of winning and he has got experience of setting up a squad and crucially making them consistently perform.

16:41I mean, there's one blip, you know, on his tenure where he didn't manage to win the promotion at his first try from the championship, but came back the season after and got it then at a canter. You know, and deals with injury. Hey, by minutes injured last season, they had more minutes injured than we did. They had more injuries. So, you know, and they performed way better than us with a squad on paper that's far below us. So, yeah, look, I think if you're aiming to win the Premier League next season, I think that's probably from where we were. From 17th to win the league is probably ambitious.

17:24But 100 % he will take us into comfortably, I'd say, the top eight. And I mean, I could easily see us finish top six. That's where we need to start heading again. This last season was just outside of the Europa League. It was just atrocious and we should never go. The only reason we have some pride left of last season where we lost 22 games is that Europa League, which came down to a very poor final. So, yeah. Let's dive in. We'll talk about Mamak Kudus in a bit, but I think we can't avoid the fact that so what whirlwind essentially, the tail end of last week was where basically Kudus was done on the Wednesday.

18:14We knew he was in at Hotspur Way on the Thursday and then completely out of nowhere, we hear that Morgan Gibbs White is somebody that Tottenham are interested in and then within about 20 minutes we heard from basically all the reliable ITKs it's a here we go Spurs have met the met the release clause the player wants to move he's going in for the medical on Friday obviously since that point we've had Maranakis' tantrum, some quibbling over the legality of the move. And it's all going to be quiet for now. I think it's Tom Barkley who broke the news today that Nottingham Forest do fully intend to, I guess, follow up on the legalities of what it is that Tottenham have done here.

19:13but at least from where I'm from where I'm standing on this matter it feels like petulance. It feels like a chairman who we know is prone to these sort of antics essentially just really salty about the fact he gave one of the best players in the Premier League a nothing release clause and he's really quite annoyed that we've triggered it and we're going to take him out of the club it seemed to be the ITK out of Forest was saying that they are building the team around him and he's such a big part of everything that they want to do and feels like the rug's been swept out from underneath them but that's just life isn't it that's just football, that's what's happened to us plenty of times and I feel for the Forest fans kicking off about it, they've got every right to do that, I get it, they're going to call us names, that's their prerogative, we've done it to Man United to Real Madrid, to other clubs that have come in and taken our best players I don't really care about that.

20:12I can't really be asked for all this Maranacus stuff. I can't really be bothered for it. Just get in the bin, mate. Like I refuse to believe that a club is risk averse as Tottenham. And we are risk averse to the degree that like, we don't even like, you know, we don't even do like shirt promos ahead of time until they're all like signed, sealed and delivered and make sure that everything is kind of in the right place and all that type of stuff. I can't believe for a second that Tottenham Hotspur Football Club have gone into this balls out for want of a better expression, thrown caution to the wind and done this.

20:51Let's just stop delaying the inevitable and let's get him in. I say this partly motivated by the fact that I am ridiculously excited about the idea of signing this. that I personally, people might think I'm overdoing it, but I think Spurs signing him is a major coup. I think he is. I think he's a seriously talented player. And I was absolutely buzzing that we got him because I was certain of the fact that he's a Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal bound player, you know? And the fact we've gone in there and gotten that done, hopefully, fingers crossed, is a massive statement of intent and a huge piece of business.

21:31I mean, where's your head at with all of it, mate? Yeah, I agree with most of that. I'm ridiculously excited about Morgan Gibbs-White. He is. It's not just that he's an individual game changer and someone who will step up and take charge. He's a huge character. And he's what, you know, there's such a big difference, such a grave difference in our team when we play Madison or if we don't. And Gibbs-White has that. he has that that main character aura as the kids say um he will he doesn't give up it's like all his character traits are everything that we need like he wants to be a leader he wants to ball and he can back it up with technical and creative ability he's not as i would say he's probably not as creative as madison is his his some of his stats don't completely line up um but i mean he's he's unreal in so many other elements of the game.

22:28And, you know, a lot of, I saw people and, you know, it's the internet. So I want to, I need to take him with a pinch of salt. But they're like, oh, where's he going to play? And like, do we need him? Like what? He's an unreal, he's an elite player. It is, it's like you said, it's, it's such, it's baffling how he's not been snapped up yet. But I, you know, that's our luck. and he just needs a chance at a bigger club to show what he's worth. He's unreal. He's going to be so, so, so good for us. I'm 99.9 % sure it's going to go over the line. Apparently there is a legal complaint that's now been filed.

23:04I think it was filed today. But yeah, all sorts of reports of even inside Nottingham Forest, they're resigned to the fact that he's going. It's just a question of time. there's only really three outcomes all of which um he either comes or it's likely that he comes um you know so so yeah i don't think i mean you know the pfa are just waiting to get involved because he's already said to the club that he wants to be a spurs player as well i think the only thing the only worst case the worst case scenario is that he somehow for whatever reason because he doesn't need to but for whatever reason he decides to agree to a uh contract extension at nottingham forest they might put in a higher release clause um and we might end up paying a bit more than the 60 odd million that's been um that his release clause is but you know i'm sure we'll we'll match that they wouldn't double it because he wouldn't sign that and it would be something that would um and you know he would probably discuss it with his agent who'd probably have a whatsapp message with whoever's handling our age our end um maybe we have maybe we haven't I think one of the potential sticking points I've seen, maybe one of the things that Spurs didn't fully have a grasp on is that

24:26apparently just because we've met the release clause, Nottingham Forest aren't obliged to accept it in installments or anything like that. They can demand the full fee up front, which Spurs aren't going to do. So I mean, maybe we are, maybe we've gone into this fully knowing that's the deal. if not you can see it maybe being all parties win forest say look push the deal up to 70 mil performance-based things you can pay it off in installments they get the win by saying you know we add spurs over we got another 10 mil out of them and we're happy because like we say we've got this elite level baller as uh as people say yeah and that's and you're right and that that's you know I don't know the ins and the outs I don't know if that I would imagine that with contracts of this kind of value that they would have most things covered in there but um I um you know if if if there isn't a clause in there Nottingham Forest come out and say we want it all up front but that isn't specifically stipulated inside his in his contract then it will be a legal matter between the club and his uh and the player um if nottingham forest still refuse and and and we we can lodge a you know well i don't know if we can lodge anything legal but but we you know the player can certainly can it sounds like he probably will and why would why would nottingham forest do that then all of a sudden they're just going to have a player who's going to run down his contract um it doesn't really serve anyone so i think you're right and i think that's the way to play marianakis as well as make him it's like dealing with trump isn't it like these megalomaniacs you just got to make them feel like they've won and you've just got you've just got to egg them on and just got to play up to their ego a little bit and then you'll get what you want to know my worry is he does seem like the type of knob that would just let the player rot in the reserves he's got enough money he doesn't care do you know what i mean he just he doesn't really because this this this whole thing honestly the whole thing feels like it's just come from him who feels like he's lost face because he's just been outmaneuvered by a release clause which is a fairly standard thing in football I don't know I I find him a I didn't like at all I didn't like at all that whole marching onto the pitch and basically squaring up to Nuno crazy I just people make you know you want a guy that's got passion there's ways to show passion man and that that isn't it not not to not to like demean your manager in that fashion in such a physical and confrontational wow i thought it was despicable i i really actually did and there's a lot of talk about um there's a lot of talk about ang potentially taking over at forest i think i honestly i just smack him in the face if he did that to him on a on a match day i genuinely think he would you saw how triggered ang would get if people would shout stuff at him from the stands yeah i think if a chairman came down and started pointing in his face like that i think i think i think there'd be i mean that'd be that'd be an almighty tear up wouldn't it those two yeah yeah yeah yeah better than the game that would probably just happen so i'd be like wwe yeah absolutely god big like big swinging hair that's just like clumps yeah taking clubs out now they're refusing to go down just pure haymakers but you're right it's got Maranakis' fingerprints all over it which is bizarre because he's supposed to not be even involved in the running of the club anymore isn't he because of all that drama about multi-club ownership and all that sort of stuff but yeah it's definitely it's definitely that I do like and I I see your concern, but I think he, I don't think he will have, I think he has enough weight because he still owns the club.

28:22I think he has enough weight to say to them. Definitely got enough of that, mate. Do this, we'll wait. Hey, who's doing the body shaming now? I'm around you, basically.

28:35Anyway, but yeah, I don't think he'll be able to go as far. I think there'll be people around him to say, now you need to we're not going to completely not um we're not going to completely just refuse this we're not going to stick him we're not going to mouth all the play i just i can't see it not their best but can you imagine the revolt from their fans who already are pretty peeved about him in general about that way the way this has come about i mean what they bought him i saw i apparently i don't know if this is true but they bought him for what 48 million or so and there's a there's a sell on some of that value some of the sell-on will go to wolves 15 or 16 and then they put a release clause in for 60 million like what where's the sense in that i mean they've kind of landed themselves in this this whole mess if you pay a player if you pay that much for a player you know that he's quality so don't put a 60 million power release clause in but anyway that's our luck um Mohamed Kudus yes you happy about that oh I'm ecstatic are you are you being sarcastic no I am I genuinely am I think he's he's an excellent player and he's getting underrated yeah well this is the reason why I ask that is sure because a lot of people are like severely underwhelmed by it dash not happy at all and others seem to be buzzing so yeah it's kind of wise I'm buzzing I'm definitely in the buzzing camp I've I've actually, and you know, so Kourus came through the Danish league.

30:06He played in a club called FC Norsiland, which is not far from where I grew up. And yeah, he came through an organization called Right to Dream, I believe. Essentially, it's like an academy. They have academies all over Africa, and they promote African players, obviously, and they bring them through. A ton of the big African player names in the Premier League have come through right to dream. I've got a good friend of mine who's quite senior within their organization. So he is, you know, unequivocal about Kudus that he's a world breaker. World breaker? World beater. Whatever the word is. so yeah even just seeing him at West Ham he was usually by far the best player on the pitch but certainly in the West Ham team I think he has another set of qualities that we do need one man-on-man dribbling ability that again the main man aura which I love our play I generally love most of our players to bits, but there aren't many of them, you know, the Romeros, the Madisons, that there aren't that many of them sons on the, on the fade, isn't it?

31:27So we need that. We need players that can step up and take it upon themselves. And his dribbling ability is closed control, his pace, his physicality I think is something that we haven't spoken about a lot as well. He's extremely hard to get the ball off. Which if you talk about other players with similar qualities, like pace and dribbling and stuff like that, you know, brennan johnson mikey moore and odderbear and so on their physicality is not quite there um but could is bringing that in in bundles can play in a couple of different positions um but yeah i i man i'm i'm stoked about him i think he's going to bring a lot to us do you think is he basically taking brennan johnson's place in the team not necessarily i think he's going to play i think he'll play more on the left if i'm I'm honest with you, or centrally.

32:13Yeah, so he could either play, he could play sort of 10, but more with an attacking. Madison, you'll see, will often come quite deep. That's not really Kudas' style. So I could see games where we'd play, if we're, you know, playing Morgan Gibbs-White with Kudas on the left and Kulisevsky on the right, and then possibly even James Madison as well, and then a Benton core or a Saar. To me, obviously, with Solanke up front, that feels like a good balance in terms of one-on-one ability, recoverability, because Gibbs White has a lot of that. He loves dropping deep and sort of connecting, but also taking an active part in defending.

32:56His off-the-ball movements and IQ is really, really high. So, yeah, he just gives us a bit of an edge, gives us another. I think for next season, it's something I think I've been banging the drum for, for a long time. We need to try and get away from this whole, like we only have 11 players and these are the players. Like we need to talk about 25 players almost, because we're going to be, we're going to be in the Champions League next season. We still want to go deeper than Premier League. We want a huge improvement on last season. We've now had a taste of cup glory. So, you know, it'd be nice to have a decent little FA Cup run to talk about as well.

33:34We're going to need more than 11 players. And, you know, I think could us be a starter. Certainly, you know, at the moment on the left wing, it's Son starting, right? But he'll be 32 turning 33 next season. Yeah. Probably one year left. Yeah. You know, I think he's got a good chance of being, I think on the right, you know, Johnson, Kulisevsky are going to be there as well. but um i mean he's saying yeah he's saying all the right stuff isn't he did you see his or whatever it was yeah um he's did you know it's how he just he just when he was like i'm gonna take your heartbeat he just had a he had a moment to think and he was like do i say this is it too cheesy yeah yeah and he went nah fuck it i'm going in yeah um he's obviously just think football fans are simps they'll lap this up you know yeah he knew he knew what he did The announcement video was unbelievable as well.

34:37The club have like seriously upped their game on that side of things. Oh, yeah. But that's been, mate, all of our season though, our social media content last season was A +, it was great. Yeah. Yeah, they're smashing it. I'm intrigued to know, like, because you're sort of talking there about the various different positions in which people are going to play, people are going to need to be more fluid. And I agree with you. I really, one of the things I really can't stand is, where's he going to play? Like we had it with Eze. If we were going to sign Eze, where's he going to play? It's like, just get the good player in first.

35:12It's like, it's the old, it's a nice headache to have. Like, you know, that's an old saying. It's an old adage or adage, whatever it is. I don't know, people always make fun of the way I say that. Adage. I don't know. Adage. It's a place to say it somehow. It's just words, isn't it? Just words. everything's malleable now. Post-true society and all that. Malleable is a good word. Malleable. It's lovely. It's lovely. It's a good word, yeah. Who's going to play where? Like, if, say, if we don't get Wharton in, right? If, say, we have got Basuma, Ben Tanker, are we keeping either of them? Is Bergvall the six?

35:52Is Papsar some sort of weird six? Like, how does this work, do you think, mate, under Frank? No, I think what we need to start to do first of is forget the two years we've just had where we desperately lacked what you would call a six or a destroyer defensive midfielder or whatever because Frank's system is less reliant upon that role. With Ange, you had seven attacking players and three defenders, if you're lucky, and Frank doesn't really set up that way. Not that he goes five at the back consistently, but everyone's slightly less advanced. There's less play along the floor. So it's less like short passes and there is a little bit more focus on playing in transition.

36:46And for that, you need less attacking midfielders and you don't need your centre-backs to be as advanced as they are. So we're not going to see centre-backs. You're not going to see Romero in the penalty box just three or four times a game unless he's up for headers. And all of a sudden, you're going to be relying more as well on probably a double pivot in defense rather than just an out-and-out defensive player in that position. So people will cover space and they'll have a partner. I think that will happen. You'll see that quite a lot. Where before, you always saw gaping gaps in defense. You won't see that so much.

37:23There'll be a partner. there'll be someone else to rely on almost constantly. So the two, what that does is it puts less pressure on your pivot, your two central midfielders. One could be a DM, one could be more of a sort of natural eight or centre mid, but both could be centre mids as well. It just depends on where they place themselves and how they move and how they react out of position. so absolutely I could see us playing a three of of Berryville uh Bentoncourt and Madison I could also see us playing a three of Gibbs White Berryville and Madison like because both Gibbs White and Berryville have they have defensive capabilities but also they are they're good at it they have good close control they're good at winning the ball back they're very very high footballing IQ both of them so and that that's what it's about you know like the best defenders throughout history were not out and out brutes who just smashed up people no they were barely ever on the floor like the suit as soon as you start tackling and throwing yourself on the floor you take yourself out of the game like that's not you should it should be about positioning and that's what frank's much more about is is positioning and being clever about where you place yourself um now he will play more in transition like i said so um so we won't need our we won't need all of our centre-backs to be as expansive as they were before.

38:56You'll see more play coming through our full-backs. You'll see more, well, I say more. You'll see a similar amount of overlapping runs as well. He does believe in that quite a bit. But yeah, I think whereas last year we were screaming out for a six and someone who was strong in position and also a very creative passer. I mean, all of a sudden you're talking about two or three abilities that not all sixes have. So where are we finding that player? That's a good hint for a while. We haven't found that player yet. Like outside of your Rodri's or your Kimmich's or whatever. Those guys are hard to find.

39:33So I don't think we should be that upset if that doesn't happen. I think we will find we will cover those holes in other ways. And there simply won't be as many defensive holes to cover as there was last season either. And so that's the long answer, I suppose. But yeah, I don't think it sounds like Bissouma's on the way out. It does feel like we're a little bit stacked in midfield. So we probably need to make a little bit of a change there. So it'd be interesting to see. And we haven't really seen Gray in midfield either. So there's another play, another name to sort of throw into the hat there.

40:13Do you have more insight on him? Because I'll tell you what, mate. whenever i get into these conversations there always seems to be this sort of elephant in the room this kind of like lingering thing that we're all ignoring that we need a certain amount of like club trained and homegrown players within the squad that i i believe we still don't have enough of for next year's champions league um what what do we need to do you know at all what how many we need to add how this all works because i've seen some people say we're going to even need to choose which of our like elite players we register and such that we're not going to be able to take them all and i don't know how this system works essentially i don't understand it mate i'll be completely honest with you i tried to spend a bit of time looking at it a few weeks ago and it just broke my brain and then i think one of my kids woke up and i had to go settle them and i never went back to it but yeah there are i've seen that as well people arguing oh you know we could leave out we could not register kulusevsky because he's just still coming off an injury yeah and then you get another chance in january if you make it that far to change to swap out your squad a little bit to cover for injured players and new purchases and things like that so um so you could do that you could leave out a few of those names now and then see where we are in january um but i'll be i'll be totally honest with you there's club trained and there's homegrown and it's different whether you're in the Premier League or whether you're in it depends on what corporation competition you're in I think um but yeah I'm not totally up on it um it's it's even even when I've read like the athletic articles on it so I'm still I'm just I think I'm old my brain's not working as well so for the so for the Champions League right for the champions league we need to have at least eight homegrown players and four of those eight needs to be club trained and a club trained player is defined as a player who has been registered with their current club for three entire seasons between the ages of 15 and 21 this applies regardless of the player's nationality or where they were born so I guess that's why there's the kind of the talk that we're going to bring back Carl Walker-Peters free transfer club trained bang get him in decent enough player as a squad player but I don't know I don't know who we currently have that fits in with that definition right No, I mean, I could take half an hour out of my day and sit on transfer marketing and list them all for you, but I haven't got that list right now.

43:04But I mean, that... Yeah, I mean, he's... Yeah, but, you know, I think, does Ben Davies even qualify for that? No. I don't know. This is the thing, like, yeah, I'd need to look into that. But, you know, we'll get it over the line somehow. I'm sure there's people who are paid a lot of money to sit and do this. I mean, we're lucky in the respect that we have, and people are going to say, well, we can't rely on that, but we might have to rely on the fact we have talented youth players. We do. We saw that in the Elfsport game in the Europa League this year. They came on and made the difference when it looked like we were kind of in the dying embers of that European campaign.