The Unthinkable Romero Rumour, Tottenham's Attacking Shortages & Folarin Balogun Links

0:00Jack:Welcome 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.

0:34Jack:Thanks for the support, and now, on with the show. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

0:51Jack:Richarlison. Oh, it's a great run and finish. and in the end, Conor Gallagher did not give it up. The kind of run you want to see him make in that position for Spurs, linking up with Rajalison. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Rule the Roost podcast. Ian of PODN and PODSPUR fame. Welcome back, sir. Thank you for joining me once again. How are you getting on? I've been all right. It's been a weird summer, hasn't it, with the World Cup and Spurs nearly getting obliterated at the end of last season. So we're in this weird, I don't know, I almost think of it of a fugue state now, though, after the shock and awe of the early transfer window.

1:32Well, that's it, isn't it?

1:33Jack:It's kind of Spurs have gone from nearly getting relegated, then we kind of had a World Cup, then Spurs went and spent like 250 mil thereof thereabouts on a load of players, and then there's kind of been a lot of quiet. So much so that people are starting to kind of get a bit worried right now, but we'll dive into that one in a bit. I was just interested because obviously for anybody that doesn't know, So Poddenham Podspur is Ian's general roundup of the Tottenham podcasting space. Think about like, for UK listeners, think about like the iPaper. You know, like the iPaper, how it gives you all the headlines from all of the different kind of newspapers and consolidates it all into one sort of space.

2:10Jack:That's kind of what Ian does. But you are starting to branch out a bit now. You've interviewed a few of the podcasters and everything like that, which are really fun. I've really enjoyed your latest one with Brendan from The Cheese Room. Really, really good. You spoke to some other guy a few weeks ago as well, didn't you? I did, but I wouldn't listen to you. It was a bit of a knob. Some elephant bloke? Some sort of, yeah. But look, how have you found the summary and how have you found the pods? It's been refreshing. There hasn't been a time when I've been running Pod and Pods, but we haven't been in this panic mode.

2:49um i almost don't know what to do with it i've taken a little bit of a break just because of the world cup and it was so difficult to keep pace with the changes at the start of the window like we were just talking about yeah but but just to hear people expressing joy has been incredible i went back for my next episode i'm going to do a bit of a squad audit audit so i'm going to go back and listen to what people were saying about who should stay who should go and see what you know where we need to improve the squad and um it it was really really cool to hear just how happy people were and but also this expression of worry that enic weren't going to follow through with what they were saying and so it's been nice to go back and look back on that that period and say actually maybe maybe maybe it was just you know like the ptsd of the previous 25 years maybe we have turned a corner um but that's maybe with my uh with my happy clapper glasses on but it's been good and we've hit this state now where i think people are getting a little stir crazy between the romero news and hearing week in week out about savinho i don't know like leaving a google maps review of the tottenham hotspur stadium or some other no he hasn't done that but you know he's getting to that point okay okay yeah yeah yeah yelp reviews stuff like that maps and all that yeah exactly yeah he's uh yeah going onto the facebook page and he's now can't you know we'll start seeing him do that so i think people are getting a little stir crazy i mean i'm not

4:20Jack:at all asking you to name and shame i'm just intrigued because you know you listen to a vast array of top and podcasts how would you say that the the news of like i mean fernandez seemed to be met with overall delight from everybody the tonali deal is one that seems to have split opinion a bit more do you still feel like did the overall sort of sentiment come through from podcasts let me that was such a an appalling sentence was the overall sentiment from podcasts a positive one about tonali or were there some interestingly nuanced discussions about it i think it was difficult to un-tease or tease out the difference between the excitement of a brand new player for such a large amount of money so quickly after fernandes you know we saw last season when we went back to back oh my god we're getting morgan gibbs white oh my gosh you know as is coming but we but we have that done over again essentially it was within a week of each other i think in the end so i think it was difficult to people to tease that out depending on the podcast some people really leaned into the excitement i think of tenali coming in seeing the upside and others were just saying but we already have an army of number eights what's he you know in that position in that midfield what's he going to bring and I think we've seen exactly what he's going to bring in preseason he's been tremendous yeah he's there's just I know this is kind of slipping into proper football manisms a bit but there's just something about him where he he exudes the type of aura of a top player I felt that I mean look if we if we take it down to less sort of intangibles I think most of what he's been doing has been very crisp it's been very clean that's kind of the way I would look at it the way I know it sounds really like a really reductive way of looking at it but even just things like the way he traps the ball and just moves the ball on quite quickly is something that sounds minor but it feels like something we've really lacked in that in that midfield um well the heart of midfield you know who he reminds me of I was just watching comps of him there's something about him that just reminds me of when Edgar David came in and you saw that difference between the midfield before and after that tenacity to win the ball back i think david's was maybe a little bit more willing to get forward um and really push the ball and play palacios as well do you remember when palacios first came in and we were suddenly like well hang on hang on we've suddenly got a midfielder with a bit of bite in there and then not long after that sandro came along it's like okay he's got the bite and he can pass as well which is uh super handy um and it kind of feels i feel i personally feel like anyway look and i I know I'm not a tactico, if you like, but I do feel like the Tonali can't pass thing was hugely overstated because everything I've seen, he looks like a technically very, very accomplished player.

7:04Jack:I appreciate it's only a couple of preseason games, but still. I think that he was alongside Brudo Gimoresh. So maybe it was just by comparison. But he comes in, he can pass probably better than any of our starting midfielders last season. So that just raises the floor of the team. We'll see. I think he's quality. He kind of like really, again, to sort of break it down a bit, but to me, he kind of just feels like a huge upgrade on Ben Tanker. Sort of a similar-ish type of player, but with just like a bit more in all directions than Ben Tanker has. And then perhaps a bit more physically as well.

7:39Jack:I feel like he's a bit more nimble than, I mean, pre-injury Ben Tanker was a pretty nice sort of agile player who, I think his sort of frame and everything, his gait, which is something people like to talk about a lot now, isn't it? But his gait was kind of beguiling because he's quite a tall, slender guy. You almost feel like they're sort of ungainly like players that look like that. But Benteke was actually quite nippy. He was actually quite nimble on the ball, I feel. But he's definitely, I mean, look, it's a massive, what was it, I think he's had an ACL or has he had two ACLs in the time since we signed him?

8:13Mate, he's had an ACL, a BCL and a CCL. He's racking them up.

8:18Jack:it's uh i just you know i feel kind of i feel kind of bad for him um but also you know it just feels like it's one of those players where by this point anyway had he not had the injuries he'd probably i mean how old is benton car now he's got to be in his 30s now isn't he no he must be i think he's late 20s isn't he 28 29 rodrigo benton car 29 years old so he's to be fair he's not actually i always had him down as i if you'd have asked me off the top of my head right now i'd have said he was 32 on the verge of 33 which they just smokes 20 a day well i mean he might do he might do but kind of wild kind of wild um what's uh what's the feeling like now in you back in the sort of the the the pod and pod spurs space how are people starting to get a bit worried about the transfer window like you were saying that sort of stir craziness Yeah, I think so.

9:11The preseason games have really highlighted just how shallow we are up top, going in with what, two fit, possibly first choice strikers, or forwards in Tell and maybe Richarlison. It's not comfortable, is it? Based upon what we think we need. He's just gone.

9:29Jack:I think Yang Min-hyuk has just gone today as well on loan, hasn't he, to Westerloin? Yeah, Westerloin. Are they Dutch or Belgian? Belgian. Belgian, aren't they? Belgian. yeah same difference yeah we're kind of yeah i mean chips sorry mayonnaise or alienating your uh your your what's it low country i forget what they're called there my flemish listeners yeah um but yeah i mean look there's not not an awful lot of options there anymore um so you think people are are they losing their backsides a bit i think so is it even losing backside i don't know i think it's a legitimate concern yeah exactly and i think i think the the names that we've been linked to live are also concerning folks like Gakpo people seem to be split about Savino there's this whole question about if he's any good actually um and then there's a few tantalizing options which obviously are much more appealing to people like Usherman um which and there are things I think in that forward line you need a bit of star power you need a bit of quality and um I don't know I feel like uh the names that we've mostly been linked to haven't filled me with, they haven't sparked joy.

10:37And I think that's probably true of a fair number of people on podcasts. But at a certain point, we just want somebody to come in as a fresh body. That seems to be the way I get the sense that some people are going. It's been so long that a lot of people have filled the space with their fantasy signings. And no matter what, it's just not going to live up to the dream.

10:58Jack:Would you... I'll pose you this one now. so there's a lot of talk that we were after Kruppi right and he's done I think he's done his metatarsal or something like that he's had to have surgery he's going to be out for a few months a lot of people have floated the idea that we just take advantage of the situation we offer a decent amount of money for him now so we don't care that he's injured and then we know that we have him we get ahead of whoever it might be a Barcelona or a PSG who have been kind of tenuously linked with him I think Liverpool as well or do you think that's just too much I mean I'm sort of in the in the mindset that like as exciting and as brilliant as I'm sure he is spending 100 mil on a player who is injured for a considerable amount of time we don't know how he's going to come back from that injury given how a recent record with players just represents too much of a risk for me but am I just being a coward I think it depends on the other transfers we make for me if we bring in a couple wingers and we decide to take a risk with creepy could pay off depends what we get him for north of 100 million for a dude with a broken foot i don't know that's um that's like i don't know that's that's that's a bit that's a bit risky however maybe we maybe we just don't stand a chance in january okay that's a really that's a really interesting question and uh it's a bit of a not a sophie's choice but it depends on your tolerance for risk uh good player but if we're going to spend that money why not just pump it in dulcet man just give him a big signing on fee anyway i should stop pushing that because it was probably just a bit of a stupid transfer rumour kicked up by...

12:29Well, it does kind of feel like

12:32Jack:it was maybe that, but then at the same time, I also feel like it kind of, it went into that no smoke without fire kind of box, didn't it? We manifested it. Yeah, but I feel like there was maybe at least, I mean, this could just be complete fanfic, which I'm prone to, but I feel like at least it's probably one of those things where Spurs were like, you want to come to the Premier League? we're not going to pay 650k would you take 250 300k and he's probably said no i wouldn't thus ends the kind of conversation to him i you know and i look i i think like i understand how people get people you know have their thoughts on osseman and his maybe like his will to succeed and everything like that but i think when you're earning nearly a million pounds a week it's very hard to turn down when you actually it's not like Galatasaray are bums either like you're playing for a decent club that regularly plays in the Champions League that often challenges and wins domestic honours massive fan base, huge stadium I imagine it's pretty cool like to be honest I imagine it's pretty cool then coming to Spurs and maybe finishing in the top four or something right?

13:50Turkey's Delight Farmers League i don't know yeah but coming about the creepy because that was your original question i don't know if i i still he had such a good half season but 100 mil for a half season it it i don't know it feels like one of those spur signings like an ender belly that could just blow up in our face there's just not enough data there to make that kind of transfer i'm well i'm very much with you

14:15Jack:on that one mate and i've kind of sort of tried to float that a little bit just tenuously on twitter and it's not gone down very well it's been very like are you an idiot are you thick it's like well i'm not saying the kids well yeah that but i'm not saying the kids useless but also like it's a hell of a lot of money for a player that's relatively unproven but i guess the flip side of that that's that people have said is that sometimes you just have to take a risk on that that that could be the the next on real whatever but i just kind of feel like just he's a young french striker it's a lot to call somebody the next Henri like Henri was I hate to say it but he was really really really good um and it depends on who you drop and what team you drop him into Henri was being dropped you know he was in a very good forward line for the for that lot for us is if we spent all that money on Kruppi would we spend the money to build the players around him would he be working with Conor Gallagher um who maybe isn't the most progressive passer into him I that that's it's part of a coherent approach to building a forward line so croupy in isolation bit risky croupy plus a few other signings that all profile and work well together maybe it's not the risk i think it is i mean there's this there's also part of me though that kind of feels like croupy's great but like in terms of like young french kind of forwards mathis tell has looked incredible this pre-season and as the point i've seen it wasn't me that made it originally i can't remember who made it apologies might have been john bass or somebody said that had we bought tell this summer and he'd had this pre-season we'd be buzzing like people would be really really excited but it feels like i don't know there's a lack of general excitement about tell and i i don't think it's totally unfounded but i do feel that like he is being unfairly judged somewhat because he's viewed through the prism of failure of the last few years he's sort of associated with late stage ang frank um and just everything in between that whereas you know if we if we're to make that omri comparison if we want to compare all young french forwards to thierry omri for reasons thierry omri started i mean i'm pretty sure he played for monaco first got signed by juventus and was all right i think and i think i i think when arsler signed him it was fairly similar to us signing talon that he was seen as like a decent kind of young winger forward that might do a bit of a job um and i think he i think he from what i remember i don't think he immediately hit the ground running at arsenal but it didn't it didn't take long i think it's more like son's tottenham career but obviously a few levels above that i think he was kind of all right and then suddenly exploded and went on but i guess the point is that like look you know in a more settled team with a manager that prioritizes attacking patterns general patterns of play as well really there's nothing to say that Tel can't continue to grow and improve within this Tottenham team to the point that you know you're saying I know Krupe is perhaps more of an out and out center forward but still you know we've we've gone through this whole thing haven't we of having Gray and Bergvau two young promising players who were trying to develop at the same time who have very kind of similar skill sets and probably ultimately it's just seen neither of them develop as much as their talent probably should have done thus far um so i think like i don't know i don't know if it like you say if it did come down to if i was offered osman or creepy i would say osman every day like if it was a straight up option between the two of them i i would be saying osman for top them right now but maybe maybe that's the type of thing that will come back to bite me um this is uh i didn't think i didn't think we'd be back here ian you know you're you're a similar age to me so i'm sure you remember who i'm not i'm not afraid to say something of a of a boyhood hero of mine when he decided to uh become one of the biggest judases the biggest judai in um in tottenham's history who could you be talking about wow yes and it feels like we might be having another captain that might be crossing the divide if you like um again this feels like one of those where there's fire to the smoke um paulo keith as well as a few others have said that romero is very open to the arsenal deal i think there's varying degrees of information on this as to who initiated it was it him his camp going out to arsenal saying we'd play for you or was it also putting the feelers out and him being receptive to it either way it sounds as though Romero is not against the idea of signing for Arsenal it feels as though the Inter deal the Atletico deal just doesn't seem to be progressing at all it doesn't seem to be progressing whether that's Romero's wage demands whether that's Tottenham's idea of how much the player is valued at there seems to be sort of varying figures 30 mil 35 mil um to sell him to the continent somebody obviously having to pick up his I would imagine 220 230 grand a week wages that he's on at Spurs it's a lot of money it's money that Spurs want off the uh off the books but obviously with Saliba looking like he's going to be out for a season Arsenal need cover and probably need cover of a certain quality so you can see how that deal works for them knowing that Spurs want this player off the books he wants out there's an air of opportunism about it but it's a hugely hugely contentious and difficult and painful deal i mean how do before we start going into any sort of scenarios how do you feel about this mate how did you feel when you first heard the news i love romero i he's one of those players that splits the fan base.

20:27He's, you know, a bit like one of those raw shark ink plot tests where you look at him and you either see him as a, as a great player with flaws or a, or a liability that has the occasional good game. Um, I think that, I think he's more of the former for me, possibly colored by that Europa League run and final especially, but I think it's time for him to go. That's, you know, I don't think that's in, I just think that's up for debate. And there's very few people on podcasts for example coming back to my meta analysis of the uh of the landscape who wouldn't want to see him go there's a little bit of imagine if we had him him and his clone in van hecker going into the season but as for a deal i would much prefer to see him go to atletico for the obvious reasons but more than anything else i just don't want i don't like seeing spurs players especially our best players sold within the premier league and coming up against us and because I'm such a doomsayer, such a negative Nancy, is I always expect them to come back and score a goal against us or put in a shift and take off points.

21:29I think that coming back to the minutiae of this deal and what it could look like, I think it comes down to the fact that if Atletico were offering us £30 million, then for Arsenal the quote is£130, quite honestly. For us to have to do that deal, you've got to make the fans look at it and go, yeah, all right, fine i don't like it but at least we're coming out with the money to be able to invest in a forward a proper forward but i think it's i think it just shows how arsenal view this rivalry i think that this they just don't i just don't i think they fully get it still i think they hate us in the in the sense of the word because they have to but i this this should be a non-starter for them

22:12Jack:unless they're just trying to embarrass us of course i mean i'd never rule that part out there There's a definite air of this that I think is them being bastards. You know what? More power to them. It's a moment of weakness for us and maybe getting one over a rival. So fair play, I guess. But I also just wonder if they have, and this is to your point, that maybe they don't view the rivalry the same way. You look at kind of how cosy their arrangement has been with Chelsea over the past few years. And this is two teams that, okay, the rivalry has never been as fiery as it is with Chelsea or Arsenal and Tottenham in equal measures.

22:47Jack:really almost but there's still been a london rivalry there they've still kind of been competing for the top honors in a similar space although actually to be fair chelsea sort of title wins and arsenal's periods of being good have never actually really overlapped so maybe there isn't much of a of a fire there if you like um but still you know they've they've kind of been quite civil anyway at least for two say large london clubs clubs that share a city um so i I just wonder if there's a part of them that wonders if Spurs might be in a place where we're not bothered about being like, you know, the little brother or food chain or anything like that.

23:26Jack:And I just can be pragmatic about it. It sounds as though Tottenham aren't going to sanction any more deals until Romero's wages are off the books. Nick Bouchner, I think it is. the guy basically that is kind of on the auxiliary of the Lewis family who lives in Florida, who's sort of in charge of a lot of this stuff, is essentially saying by all accounts that, no, there will be no more big money deals until Romero has gone, until that sizable sort of chunk of wages is off the books.

24:00Jack:And so my kind of hear me out on all this is, if it just means Spurs not being rattled by Arsenal, not concerning ourselves with them and what they might do and how this looks and about them having cheap digs on social media about us being food chained or anything like that, we took another one of your captains. If we just have enough confidence in ourselves to know that we want rid of this guy, number one. He's not being taken against our will. It's a completely different scenario to the Campbell one. He's been a player that has been, look, it's a very difficult relationship with Christian Romero.

24:38Jack:He is, as I've said on here before, he is possibly quite uniquely the most frustrating player I've ever seen play for Tottenham. Just because it's impossible to hate him. I find anyway, I find it impossible to hate him because he irritates the life out of me. His rashness, although I think it's overstated by Gary Neville and the like, I also think he doesn't help himself. I think this is nothing new. This is not a new conversation to be had. The fact he has this pull to Argentina, to national team duty, is frustrating as a Tottenham fan. It is frustrating, I guess, his almost callous disregard of the club at times.

25:20Jack:I do think there is a kind of an unacceptable selfishness to Romero at times, I think. I don't think he does right by the club. I don't think he is very fair to a club that has stood by him through quite a lot, really. Injuries, through lengthy layoffs, being very understanding of his affection for the national team and what it means to him and all that type of thing. And I don't think he's often extended a great deal of courtesy to the club. So on one hand, there is that part of me that thinks I could easily, in my head, I could succumb to the dark side and be like, you know what, I don't care.

25:59Jack:I don't like Romero anyway. He's been a shit to the club. Let him go. Let him go and be. Do you know what? Maybe it'd be quite fun again in a North London derby to have another arch villain. Maybe having that spice in a North London derby will actually be kind of exciting and it'll be great and it will mean that all these things that we project onto Romero will be completely vindicated and we can say that we hate him. But on a less emotional level, if this allows Spurs to build the best possible team going into next year, do we want to cut off our noses to spite our face. I don't know. Like, I don't know.

26:31Jack:Like, this is, and I've been talking a lot with a lot of my mates and stuff on WhatsApp about this and the majority of them are like, what are you going on about? Like, we cannot sell another captain to Arsenal. We cannot do that. The optics of that are just terrible. You know how this gets twisted. You know what Neville says. All these things. Like, it's like, yes, I get it. I know my rational brain tells me exactly. This is a season of Spurs being told, patted on the head. This is Tottenham. they're not a serious club, they sell their best player, their captain to their biggest rivals. That's not a serious club, that's not a serious team.

27:05Jack:But there is just that, there's that nagging feeling somewhere for me in where I'm like, does he become Arsenal's problem and we can just get on with our lives and build the best possible version of Tottenham Hotspur ahead of this season? And I can't escape from that feeling, mate. Like, I can't in good conscience say that I'm sat here being like, I absolutely will not in any way entertain Romero going to Arsenal because for the reasons I've just stated, I can kind of see why it makes sense for Spurs as well. And I know that's probably some kind of thought crime. But, you know, I'm just... It's just what I'm here to do, mate, just to be edgy, you know, just to raise those uncomfortable questions.

27:49Yeah, just speaking truth to power, the power being Spurs fans. anyway like what do we tell our kids when you encounter a bully or a rude kid i don't want to call arsenal bullies so much i mean i know that's going to rankle some people listening i don't mean in the sense i'm just trying to use a crude analogy but you don't show them that you're bothered you know romero was a captain purely because we had a complete lack of any other options quite frankly um sunny was was either injured or not first choice at the time romero came in for a season i didn't think anybody really thought that he was you know he's not gonna be make his way into anybody's top 10 top them captains anytime soon so you know what yeah you say if you're gonna go that route you're gonna sell him you get good money for him um you tell him he's a nightmare you better hope that it's all plain sailing for him and what you're gonna do when saliba comes back is he gonna be is he gonna be willing to kind of sit back and possibly be second choice I think that would be a bit of a ticking time bomb that you know what maybe we let them maybe we let that lot deal with it but he is a very good player and I do worry that some of his some of his darker instincts which I think are possibly amazing and we need a bit more a bit more of what was it intelligent C words Mourinho always said we needed to be try not to you know demelitize you with that one and then but I'm worried that Arsenal might get away with it because we've seen it so often he might be tailor-made to get away with some of the stuff he does some of those tackles where he picks up a yellow or a red i i do i don't i don't know the part of me worries that he could you could turbo charge that for them we'll have to see how the referees handle them this year i mean

29:36Jack:that i mean that's the sort of that's the horrific the really vile really smelly thing about this deal aside for it being arsenal is and that is a very big aside i get that um it's just you know It's just, well, it's Arteta getting his hands on Romero. If he brought the best out of it. If he got Argentina Romero at Arsenal, that's a hideous prospect. It's a hideous, and that would be pretty painful. For all my kind of blasé-ness, that would be painful. It would be painful to see him suddenly, I don't know, turned on by the idea of winning the league with Arsenal and showing more willing than he ever did at Tottenham.

30:17Jack:Well, I mean, look, he showed willing in the Europa League final and arguably was one of the pivotal figures in getting that over the line because that's kind of what he does. That's kind of, I guess, what gets him locked in, gets him on side. And, you know, with Arsenal being the sort of proposition that they are right now. Yeah, like you say, you would have to worry about him bringing the best version of himself there. I mean, it would be, I mean, imagine if he started just shunning Argentina, shunning international friendlies and things, right? He's always been a bit of a selfish player. And what you were saying, the Europa League, he stepped up and really came into his own because he had the glory in front of him.

30:55But maybe, I think, I do wonder if he's regretting a little bit of the hole he's dug for himself because he's come out and yeah, he's got Atleti and he's got Barcelona vying for him. But there isn't the bidding war that you might have expected for a player of his quality. And the money they're saying that they want to spend on him is kind of peanuts in there. It's less than we paid for Matisse Tell. I do wonder if he looks around the squad and thinks, shit.

31:19Jack:You know, Spurs are serious now. Yeah. Yeah. Also looks at Deserby and thinks, wow, this guy is actually kind of the manager I've wanted to play for for a while. And I mean, look, I truly think the same sort of things happen with Van Der Ven. I think Van Der Ven has postured probably a lot, thought he was a bit above Spurs. His dad's probably put the feelers out in Europe. And again, they've not really had an awful lot of interest back. um i you know if we're still going to do hot takes right now i might as well go two-footed again there's there's also there's that part of me that is kind of uncomfortable with us rewarding mickey van der ven for his form and for his behavior last year with this big fat contract that we're giving him um i'm also still not overly convinced by his quality if i'm really honest his athleticism is not in question but his actual technical ability as a defender i still think is up for debate but look, whatever, that's a decision that the managers made and the club have made and, you know, we'll get behind it.

32:16Jack:And Mickey Van Der Ven, I'm not going to pretend is some bum. He's a very, very good player. So I just want to be sort of, you know, excited about. But yeah, I mean, to your point, look, it just feels like Romero's a headstrong guy that has maybe just sort of said like, I want out, you know, I'm done with this kind of thing. And as you say, we're sort of now like, okay, if you don't want in the winning the lot train, Don't worry, we'll leave you behind and you can do whatever. For the first time that I can remember in a while, sorry mate, is that there was never a player in this squad that I looked at and said, we cannot sell him.

32:52Going into this window, there was nobody that I looked at. I was like, we absolutely, there's no sum of money that you can plonk down in front of us that I'll say, yeah, good point. And some of that's tainted by having Sun Hyung-min and Harry Kane in that squad. But it's been a long while, even going back to, I would say, maybe even the 2000s, that I would look at a squad and say, yeah, there's nobody that I wouldn't think that you could sell at the right price and improve the squad. And that's a little depressing. Definitely.

33:20Jack:And it's been, I think one of the main sort of the things that have characterized this squad that, you know, I was going on about last season, but a few people were, is that we no longer have that star player. Spurs have always kind of, be it Ginola, be it Sheringham, be it Klinsman, be it Robbie Keane, be it Dimitar Berbatov, whoever, we've always had that standout player who walks into most teams in the Premier League, right? That's always been, that's always kind of been Tottenham's thing. That's always been Tottenham are shit other than whoever. But we don't, we don't, I mean, we maybe have that now going into this season.

33:56Jack:But I think for a while we've not had that. I mean, I think I have a couple of those in Tonali and Fernandes, to be honest, because I think, yeah, I think they're, like my sort of knee-jerk prediction on that is that they're going to be seen as just an unbelievable midfield pairing. And it's threefold. Sorry, sorry. It's threefold. The benefits of having that marquee player is that they draw players to them. It opens gaps, you know. Obviously, they're going to be match winners, which is, you know, a second big upside. The third one is something that we don't like to admit as fans is that they're incredibly marketable.