REACTION: SYDNEY FC 1-1 SPURS - Penalty joy for De Zerbi's men

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 rtrpod 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.

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2:10Here we are. Here we are. A brand new season. Brand new look. How's everyone feeling? is everyone, UK people, lunch break kind of tone right, that's how I'm managing to swing this one. As you can imagine, it's a pre-season for the players, it's a pre-season for me as well. It's been a while since I've done one of these, and the last few of these have been probably a bit different in tone to hopefully the way this season is going to go. But here we are, here we are, here we are. Tottenham Hotspur back we've got Deserby we're playing in Australia look I know people aren't very happy about that and I kind of understand that I imagine a lot of the Australian fans that go into these games are probably quite happy about that but look Spurs are playing games we can roll our eyes at pre-season as much as we want we can all say that it doesn't really matter but we're all still watching it aren't we we're all still interested in what happens who started who's playing where what young players look good there's something to be said isn't that like you know minutes and the minutes in the legs minutes in the legs is the main is the main part of all of this i think we all know that however i mean there isn't really a however to that no i'm rusty all right look this is as i say this is pre-season for me as well i need to get these ones out the way so i'm fresh i'm ready i'm firing i'm you know limbering up the vocal cords ahead of the new season and allowing everybody to sort of see you know my nice new camera setup and everything that's gonna make this year this year on rule the roost podcast all a bit more exciting there's video on spotify there's other stuff coming one thing you can do before we start talking about this one properly.

4:10One thing you can do for me this year that would be massively, massively appreciated. I know I go on about it at the end of the podcast all the time. I'm going to say this up front. If you could please like and subscribe. So leave me ratings on Spotify, on Apple, what is it now? Apple podcasts, subscribe onto YouTube, like, share, all that type of thing. If you particularly want to support the show, if you really do enjoy it, patreon.com slash RTR pod 25 20 or 25 % off annual memberships now up until the start of the season so if you want to come on please do I've got a lot of exciting for me anyway stuff planned for this season ahead it's not all just going to be these post match I know people like the post match stuff and all that especially when it was a bit more raw especially when it was a bit more you know Spurs are going to get relegated aren't they we all need to talk about that and be really serious about it hopefully it's going to be a bit more fun in a footballing sense and you know we can share this experience together talk about it you can see me actually being a bit more jolly um for once and not kind of having loads of thumbnails of me holding my head in my hands and stuff but let's let's not get ahead of ourselves shall we but there is going to be other stuff i am planning to make other things this year um so what's the space subscribe all that type of stuff.

5:35Tell people, tell your friends, tell your family who are Spurs fans. Come, watch this melt, talk about Tottenham. Should we get on with it? Let's get on with this. Tottenham, Tottenham Hotspur versus Sydney FC. It's a win. Win's a win. Might have been on penalties, might have been hard fought, but you know, a win is a win. I always forget the whole uh australian summer winter divide with the northern hemisphere thing as you know we sort of sat here i think i think it's going to touch about 34 today in the uk which i know you don't let's not start the whole culture war of you know i i go out wearing a woolly jumper in 34 mate that's my that's my aussie accent i'm allowed i'm allowed to do aussie accents all right just let's let's not start let's not start the sort of year on a on a culture and everything like that that's sideways punching it's all good okay i think we've established that but let's not start a culture war about this and that it's just look it's my point is it's hot in the uk it's hot in england right now and so when you cut to australia a place that we always associate with being way hotter than we are there's people sat there in scarves i mean probably is 34 and they're sat there in hats and scarves and all that to be fair um as much as i joke about it but it's weird that's just that's just a small observation um looks like a pretty nice stadium pretty empty and it also seemed to be which isn't really a massive surprise to be honest but it also seemed to be that it felt like spurs were the home team um considering we are playing in Sydney.

7:16I know the A-League isn't that loved really in Australia. What's the league? I'm sorry, Jonathan, if you are watching or listening. So the league that like Ange and everybody, basically like the immigrant league. I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure that's the terminology, isn't it? Like, you know, the league where most of the kind of like Hungarian, Greeks, Greeks, Italians, so on and so forth, Croatians. What's that league? Because that's the league that's more popular than the A-League, right? The A-League and that there's a lot of political establishment versus the People's League type wrangling between the two of them, if I stand corrected.

8:01Like my pal Jonathan is a big Sydney Olympic fan and I see sort of like scenes of fervent support which often looks, you know, quite like, not even like British European, like continental European ultras, flares, that type of thing. Versus the A-League, which seems to be, again, sorry, but a more sort of sanitized attempt at creating like a top tier league experience, much like the MLS, where I'm guessing there's something of a template set by La Liga, the Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga, so on and so forth, right? The point I was sort of trying to drive at, and look, if you're new to this, you'll get used to this.

8:53If I haven't scared you off already, the point is here, and then I generally go around and then get back to the point I was at. Sometimes I forget the point I was initially making, and I end up on a tangent, what am I like? but I say that I think I have sort of forgotten the point Tottenham right Tottenham seemed to be the home team it felt like we were better supported and that doesn't come as a massive surprise like before sort of you know when I was growing up I am in my 40s now right and when I was younger basically the biggest international fan bases were Norwegians and Australians I think that's and Irish yeah okay I'm not gonna again I'm not gonna start open up another rabbit hole I suppose very well supported in Ireland but outside of say Ireland and the British Isles so it's been Norway and uh and Australia the sort of the two fan bases I've really associated with being like having huge kind of um a Tottenham presence if you like and it has steadily grown in America we got we're starting to get a really really big presence in the States now as well I think we've always had one in New York, for example.

10:09And dare I say there's something of a Jewish connection and stuff there that's perhaps partly ushered that in. But yeah, it felt like we were massive out there. I don't know what Sydney FC's following is like. Guessing it's not like massive. And Spurs probably have a lot of fans there. So, yeah, it was interesting to sort of be playing like a tour and away game, if you like, and still being the sort of the more supported team. Decent looking stadium, quite nice. Looked like the conditions were quite good. And yeah, it was interesting to see that first half lineup. up I mean when the team sheet was dropped obviously I was immediately looking for Fernandez's name there was the big scare last night um the talk that Fernandez had picked up like a season ending knee injury I don't know what type of like whispers had led to that point um but it seemed to permeate there were a lot of people who were suddenly starting to worry about it um I think Paul O 'Keefe came out and said he'd not heard anything.

11:21And Alistair Gold, today UK time, said that there was no truth as far as he was aware to the fact that Fernandes had been injured. More that De Zerbe was saving minutes for senior players, basically for the game against Chelsea. He'd been training them hard. They are tired. And he needs to sort of manage everybody's minutes accordingly. didn't stop me didn't stop me from having that bit of panic I'm not going to lie when you know I'm sort of you're looking at the start in 11 first one you're like okay right okay so yeah look Van Hecker's not there Van Deven's not there so whatever you know fine Tonali's not there but it's Tonali's on the bench who else is Fernandes oh god what's going on but as was pointed out a few of those names I listed there were also not on the bench either So it seems to be very much this was a type of development squad type approach.

12:22Again, with all due respect to Sydney FC and everything like that, but you would still probably expect players who are of a Premier League standard to be able to cope with that, even if they are academy players, to be able to cope with a league opposition. Imagine buying your kid a toy only to find the batteries aren't included or buying furniture but missing the tools to build it. Frustrating, right? Now imagine the exact same feeling but you're paying way more. That is what buying business software usually feels like. Fragmented, disconnected, and incredibly expensive. Odoo completely changes that.

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14:29I would imagine it's comparable to and please correct me if I'm wrong any Australian viewers I'm not saying this to be snobby or anything but I would say probably for a Premier League side this is comparable to playing a mid to lower end championship side if not a high end League One side it's the sort of team you might see Spurs playing an early round of an FA Cup in terms of our start in XI and bench. Sort of squad you might see Spurs playing in an early, early stage of an FA Cup or a League Cup or something like that. So it's putting confidence into a lot of those young players. And there were a few of them who were particularly exciting.

15:18I mean, Mathis Tell's... Let's start on Mathis Tell. I mean, and except regardless of the opposition, the technique to hit the free kick in the way that he did was truly exceptional a wonderful wonderful free kick wonderful effort we've seen harry kane try and do that for the last 10-15 years to no avail really um sonny we saw do it fairly routinely at international level but didn't seem to get much of an opportunity to do that at club level with kane there um so yeah nice to see nice to see kind of tell be able to bang that one top bins um nice curl on it really good goal and again regardless of the opposition the technique to be able to hit it like that is lovely i'm not saying this off the back of the free kick um and anybody that's listened to this pod for a while will know that i've always you know i've always had a bit of a soft spot for tell i've always quite liked telling i'm not saying he's perfect and i'm not saying that all of the criticisms of Tell are unjust or unfair.

16:20I think a lot of the criticisms that I hear of Tell are often quite fair. But I think like with most things, right, like with most things in life, but let's say in football in general, there are criticisms to be had of basically any player, of any team, of any player. And there's always going to be pros. There's generally always going to be pros there. Um, pros, I don't mean poetry or anything, but maybe that too. But I just mean pros, pros to the cons, if you like. And a lot of the time, it's just kind of this something about players that you personally take a liking to, right? And I mean this, look, obviously everybody will take a liking to a Harry Kane or a Son Hyun Min or something like that.

17:08But I'm talking about those players always on the periphery. We've always got our kind of favorites that we find difficult to really justify or fully define why. There's just something about them that I quite like. I think I've always admired the fact that Tell has always tried his best. I think that's such a participation award type praise to give to a player. I kind of get why people might roll their eyes at that sort of thing. But I do feel like when Spurs have been particularly up against it, when we've had sort of pretty unpleasant times in the past couple of years, Tellezord is always somebody that's been kind of front-footed.

17:50He's always been somebody that's been trying to make the best of it, to be positive, to shoot on sight, to run at players, to try and exploit space, to always kind of look to be on the end of things. These are qualities that have been missing from a lot of Spurs' play, a lot of the pluck, a lot of the fight that he's shown in the last couple of years. And I just found it refreshing to see that he wasn't kind of overawed by the occasion. He wasn't a young player that was afraid to come on and make a mistake because Spurs were on the brink of relegation or something. I always enjoyed the fact that he would come on and try to do something I personally so I'm in the process of recording a pre-season predictions pod with many of the sort of the the favorite voices that you'll hear on Roller Roost during the week um I would let's say the you the Roller the Roller Roost universe right and I'm getting everybody's predictions ahead of the season and one of those is like the hot take ahead of the year.

19:05And I will say that my hot take ahead of the year is that Mathis Tell is going to... I think he's going to win over De Zerbe and I think he's going to win over a lot. Or, because you're never going to do that, but I think he's going to win over a portion of the detractors this year. I just, I kind of feel like he is going to perform well in the opportunities that he's given. And I think De Zerbi is going to like that. I think he's been threatening to, Mathis Tell, this is not Roberto De Zerbi. I think Tell has been threatening to explode at Spurs for a while. I think there's, you know, he's been one of those players where you think he just needs a few things to go right for him.

19:53and then the momentum will carry him on. I just feel like he is going to be seen as... I'm not saying he's going to go on and be like a golden boot winner and be the best team in the squad or anything like that. But my point is, I think there's going to be less... This time next year, I think there's going to be less of a question mark over him. And he is going to be considered more one of the players who is a first team regular there or thereabouts. At least a very important member of the squad and not only just by default because he's one of the only fit players. So that's kind of how I feel about that one.

20:33Malachi Hardy is one of those names I've seen, like your Lily White Roses, people like Nathan A. Clark, people like Kish, talk about a lot, Harry Brooks, the sort of people that are more invested in youth team players. I'm pretty sure I've seen that name bandied about for a couple of years now. I've, you know, I'm not going to sit and I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to pretend I watch youth team football or that I know a lot about it. Other than kind of like the piecemeal little bits and pieces, I've probably seen of Hardy when I think he has come on in the past. I've never really like actively paid attention to him.

21:15I did so today because I've seen more and more talk about him. he's very impressive. He's a very impressive young player. We obviously also have Jani Byfield, who I'm guessing, I believe, is injured. That seems to be the sort of the talk around it right now. He's injured, hence why he's not on this tour as well. Byfield, and I know this is kind of like a basic way of cutting it, but still, Byfield has featured in a lot of the early season promo stuff. A lot of the stuff with Nike. You would imagine that he is very well rated and very highly thought of at the club. I'm fairly certain I've seen stuff to that effect, probably from those names.

22:01Lily White Rose, somebody like that. Down the years, I mean, down the years, he's 17 years old. Hardy is 18. You're going to see this a lot, by the way. For anybody watching this, my microphone has disappeared. It kind of, you know, green screen teething issues. But, you know, it's a quirk. It's something, there you go, something fun, isn't it, for the season ahead. But, yeah, Byfield, Hardy, I don't want to go too big on it. I don't want to go too big on it. But the only thing I would say, right, to a lot of the point I've been making about Luka Vyskovic in the respect that he is a very talented player, and I'm not going to take away from that.

22:45He's clearly a very talented young player. He's just played a whole season of Bundesliga football. He started in the World Cup. He's a Croatian international. He is a young player with a hell of a lot of experience, a hell of a lot of talent, but there is still a long road to go for any young player, for any young player playing at this level, playing at Premier League level, right? There is nothing... okay I can't say there's nothing to suggest but there is there is there is there is a small sample size thus far in the grand scheme of things there's a small sample size to suggest that Luka Vyskovic is going to go on and have a better career than Hardy or Byfield however they are all incredibly young players and I would imagine that people at the club are thinking we already have two of these players who are particularly talented i think we've also got is it tyrese hall as well i'm not sure if he's i'm not sure if he's a center back or if he's a fullback but i i believe there's a crop of particularly talented young defenders at the club right now and i just wonder if that factors into the decision to let somebody like vizcovic go if Voscovic isn't happy to sit and you know I've spoken about all this plenty of times but if he's a young player who and fair enough to him wants to start playing now wants to be playing regular first team football and that immediate pathway isn't there at Spurs he doesn't want to go out on loan again he wants to be settled somewhere if the opportunity to go to somewhere like Brighton comes along for him as it has done where he's promised first team football where he knows they have a good emphasis on developing players with a view to selling them, more often than not, if he wants to get that move ultimately to a Bayern, to a Madrid, to a Barcelona, something like that, I'm sure he can probably be quite comfortable at a club like Brighton knowing that he's going to take that step up.

24:55From Spurs' perspective, I just wonder if the conversations internally are, Look, he's not going to be anywhere near the first team for at least three, four years, as De Serbi said. We have a handful of other young defenders who in three or four years, we project could be Premier League ready, very talented first team players. We now have the opportunity in a summer where we want to rebuild substantially to balance the books and Selvuskovic at a huge, huge profit for a huge amount of money and get some sell-on from it. I'm just saying, you know, I'm not trying to exactly say that Byfield and Hardy are going to go on and be way better than Voskovic.

25:48I'm simply saying, I wonder if that has factored into the decision ultimately to sell Voskovic, along with several other factors, right? It's kind of interesting.

26:03who else particularly is Sean? Who else particularly stood out? Um,

26:12nobody really, which is kind of damning from a Tottenham perspective. Um,

26:21Archie Gray is solid. Let's say that you kind of, it's easy to forget quite how young Archie Gray is, um, and quite how mature and solid he looks to be as a player. So he's good and he's somebody that I'm very happy with going forwards. I've spoken a lot about Bergvall this week and people aren't particularly happy about it. Again, for me, I would say this is another example of Grade just looking a bit better than Bergvall. But Bergvall's just been at a World Cup. Bergvall isn't happy here by all accounts. So look, let's not make a direct comparison on the basis of this game alone. I can't really be bothered to do all that one at the moment.

27:08Connor Gallagher, fairly lively, but it's just a bit Connor Gallagher, isn't he? You know, and look, I want to be positive. I want to be optimistic about the season ahead, right? I've said that on some of the midweek pods thus far, if you've been listening across the summer. I do want to be positive I do want to go into this new year thinking that Spurs can achieve anything with somebody like Deserby at the helm with the sort of money we're spending with the buzz around the club you know I want to believe that there's an opportunity there with no European football for Spurs to do something mad and to build build you know the club that the Lewis's that Ledley King has said this week that the Lewis's want to do a club that competes on all fronts that is a serious and established club again, much like it was under Maurizio Pochettino.

28:02We kind of want to get back to those heights and go past that point this time, don't we?

28:10But equally, when I say Conor Gallagher is a bit Conor Gallagher, I think you all know what I mean, you know? It's not all bad, but it's certainly by no means particularly great. but again it's a pre-season friendly um they have flown to the other side of the world I need to extend to him the same courtesy as I would anybody else and I don't really want to drive any kind of agendas about players in our shirt to be honest I just sort of want to get into a zone of getting behind them um and creating more of a positive vibe around the place because I sort of joked about it at the top, but the past couple of years have been particularly miserable, haven't they?

28:57I think everybody right now just wants to sort of enjoy Spurs again, be hopeful, be optimistic about what it is that we can achieve. And, you know, I think we all sort of have a part to play in doing that, don't we? I don't think it's too kind of kumbaya to suggest that, is it? I don't know. second half, Luka Williams-Barnett, I mean, a lot of the time the lad speaks for himself, doesn't he, right? I know people get very excited about young players and then the conversation naturally drifts over to don't get too excited, don't put too much pressure on them. But he does seem to be one of those players where it's a bit different.

29:41I know that he's only 17. I know that there's a potential long road ahead of him. But he looks incredibly talented doesn't he like he looks incredibly talented he looks like a player that if we can't guarantee i would say fairly significant first team minutes this year and i mean that genuinely i know he's 17 years old but if we can't guarantee him fairly significant first team minutes i think he needs to get a proper loan he looks too good he looks too develop to be playing sort of whatever it is under 21s is that like reserves now under 21s football um he needs to have that opportunity to play and develop playing alongside sort of grown men and all that type of thing at a level with a bit more intensity because he's clearly very very very good right every single time he comes onto a pitch for spurs he immediately lifts the level a bit.

30:47I like the fact that he tries a lot of shots and I know people will say, you know, it shows a level of immaturity to his game. Maybe, but also I don't really care about that, to be honest, you know? Throwing back a bit, you know, early Wayne Rooney versus latter days Wayne Rooney when the sort of the exuberance and the joy and the mercurial talent was almost stamped out of him to become more of a system player that wasn't as hot-headed and all this type of thing. It wasn't, you know, he was still exceptional because Wayne Rooney was an exceptional footballer, but it was just not that fun. So there's time for that sort of thing to be sapped out of a player, right?

31:31When he's 17 years old and he wants to make a bit of a name for himself, he's desperate to stake a case to be playing first-team football for Tottenham. I don't care about him having a few snapshots from outside the box, right? Range finders. It's all helpful. Clearly, clearly a very, very talented player. I'm really interested to see what happens with him this year. Whether he does get that big loan or whether he does play football. Because, you know, I can't imagine, with the sort of concerns around the pathway to the first team at Tottenham, as we've sort of heard in rumors, in whispers at least.

32:14I think when you're a player with his amount of ability, he's not going to stick around for long. He's not going to stick around for long and be playing under-21s football when he's as good as he clearly knows that he is. And I would say, as many of the first teamers know that he is, you will often see them commenting on his posts on Instagram and all that type of stuff, which means something. You know, we can sort of roll our eyes again at that type of thing, you know, social media and all that. But it means something. It's the way in which players, people, young people, especially communicate nowadays.

32:49It just is what it is, isn't it? Good player, very, very talented. I think another one of my sort of hot takes is going to be that Andy Robertson is probably going to make a lot of people eat their words this year. look he might not be able to play with the level of intensity for an entire season that he's shown in the past however he's very very talented when he came onto the pitch for half a game against yes I know Sydney FC he showed a sort of level of ability that really I've not seen at Spurs for quite a while in that type of position and I do include Doggy, Spence and that two players who I do really, really rate.

33:38I am very, very fond of. But Robertson just kind of looked a cut above, didn't he? Chevy is called the heartbeat of America for a reason. With SUVs made to move with your rhythm. The versatile Equinox tackles your entire day. The spacious Traverse fits your crew and your whole weekend. and tracks bring style with value you can count on. All infused with tech that has your back. So your drive always hits the right chord. Chevrolet. Together, let's drive. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto.