Tottenham's Transfer Shift with James Maw | Gallagher In, Johnson Out, Paratici’s Exit & Xabi Alonso (Q&A)

27:31Maybe there is a bit more clarity in some of the messaging, but like, like bigger picture stuff, it still feels, you know, people have said this before, but we kind of assume this club is kind of taking a bit of a backward step in terms of like signing younger players for the most part and kind of rebuilding this team. and maybe there's a sense in the building that they're not going to be in a Champions League this season, next season or the season after but then from then on they'll be in a really good position and that might be the case but like they haven't said to the fans no one has kind of got this past this vision on to the supporters to say this is the aim, this is the plan

28:09it does kind of feel like we haven't heard anything at all from the Lewis's since they've been more prominently more kind of front and centre and for all Benoît Ben-Katesham said when he came into the club that he'd be speaking regularly I mean he's done like I think like one or two club interviews but nothing with anybody else and you know it's kind of left us in a situation where the only person at the club already speaking is the manager which I think is probably a thing he doesn't need to have on his plate at the moment like all that extra kind of pressure on scrutiny and questioning on and kind of other club policy issues that aren't really his concern.

28:48I mean, it's not quite... The thing I always think of is when Ryan Mason was first caretaker manager, first time around, because he took over the same week that the Super League thing happened, the only person at Spurs that was talking about the Super League was Ryan Mason. Like, his 31-year-old caretaker manager with no experience of press conferences or the kind of machinations of how a club like that is run, really, is having to kind of front up and not answer questions about the massive, like the biggest kind of controversy in club football in the last like 15 years or whatever, just because Daniel Levy didn't want to talk about it.

29:30Jack:What was it Liam Rosini said about you journalists like a few days ago to ingratiate himself to the press pack and called you all liars, didn't he, or something? Yeah, I mean, yeah. he's gonna be uh he's gonna be a good source of good source of uh memes at least for a few for a few months i reckon yeah yeah he's got a real kind of brenton rogers vibe hasn't he about big time like big time um it's fun it's fun seeing chelsea also kind of be a bit of a mess as well so you know you take what you can get don't you um fabio peratici you're at all asked about that one james he's got well he's going at the end of the window isn't he so you know i am really fascinating to know how's that going to work.

30:09Jack:Chance to sabotage us a bit more before you guys? Right, I mean, yeah, how is he going to how motivated is he going to be to bring in good signings and work? Is he surely he's going to be thinking about like Fiorentina and what deals they need to be doing and whatever else? It does seem a bit odd, doesn't it?

30:29The longer it's gone on I feel like the worst his kind of record has looked. Like, you know, when he first came in, like that first window there was at least Romero who felt like a good signing. And then that first winter, there was Kuliszewski and Ben Sinker. And you're kind of looking at that and then suddenly thinking, oh, this guy's transformed this team with good signings. He's used his contacts to improve this team. But then obviously, he's had to leave the club. And as we kind of peeled back from those two windows, those signings have felt less and less impressive, as you know as big a role as they played in Bilbao and whatever else it does kind of feel like within the context of his whole work with Spurs actually like that proposed free signings maybe don't elevate it into legend status it's just kind of would you put him any higher than a kind of Connelly or whoever like I'm not I'm not really sure he's kind of above anyone like that in terms of like the output we've seen from the signings I know people go on about that Brian Hill Lamela I think all the time It's pretty bad, isn't it?

31:40It's abysmal, isn't it? You've paid£20 million and a semi-regular first-team player for a kid who's barely played for Spurs and barely really played for anyone else, which he will. I mean, it's a pretty dreadful deal, probably on the face of it one of the worst I've ever done, really.

31:59Jack:I'm just really trying to think about... Who is his best signing? I guess Christian Romero, isn't it? Do we give him Christian Romero? Yeah, we do, don't we? Yeah, I mean, Romero, Kuliszewski, obviously we kind of, having seen Zylian of the Kuliszewski in the last, what, seven or eight months, sort of easy to be get. And Benton Kerr was really good under Conte in that Champions League qualifying season, and then has played his role in the European League success. But yeah, it's not, is there anyone else? Because it's like kind of Emerson Royal, he wouldn't have signed Heuberg, would he? He gave us a nice summer of being linked with Gattuso.

32:40Jack:You know, that was set pulses racing, didn't it? You know, that was something. Yeah, got it. Were you noted Gattuso to use the hashtag of it? I don't use hashtags, generally speaking. A bit beneath me, all that. But I wasn't fond of the idea of Gattuso. I definitely wasn't fond of the idea of Igor Tudor stepping in to save us from Thomas Frank, to be honest with you. So, you know, maybe... Maybe you need an indication that, yeah, maybe it wasn't the worst thing in the world that this guy was leaving. That would be it. Maybe the Don's magic has worn off, Domes. Let's put it at that. But, you know, he's got a task on his hands now, Fiorentina, by the looks of things.

33:23Jack:I was just having a little look through their squad. They are awful. so you know Ed Ingeco still playing for them look at that there's an Ian Wright meme for you if ever you wanted one you know looking for his old school teacher this is a bit of a name drop I was talking to James Horncastle about this just last night he was insisting that they would be fined so there you go nice one let's do some more questions Peter Edmonds at Peter Bix 80 says did Harry Kane make us a big six club to me Daniel Levy dash Enoch had nothing to do with it ever since we didn't back potch it's been downhill that's yeah that's quite an interesting one that James where do you stand yeah I would agree with that sorry I'm having like a really bad like coughing fit now and I appreciate you kind of manfully kind of going on without me um yeah that felt like that's how the sliding doors were i mean isn't it i think that one summer uh they didn't sign anyone and from there it's kind of felt like they've always been playing catch up they had like they had like an established clearly very very strong team uh and just didn't build on it and once you let that kind of rope slip through your fingers in football like you're immediately back around the other side of playing catch up again and then short enough within what like two years Pochettino's gone Marina's in the building and we're suddenly wondering what's happened where were the good times how the vibes have changed so drastically but they just didn't they didn't really build from a position of strength they waited for the whole thing to completely fall apart before kind of even trying to rebuild it again and yeah we just haven't really come from that as a football club at all I think like I was saying before vibes around everything else are kind of dictated by what's happening on the pitch, however we might like to paint it.

35:26And when you decline from being a Champions League finalist, sort of title contender-ish to this, moods are going to be fairly low.

35:41Jack:I think it was actually you that said on View for the Lane, or at least posed the question, as opposed to made a statement, whether or not Enoch have actually purposefully ever really made a good managerial appointment. If you consider that Pochettino probably ended up being way better than anybody thought he was going to be. Redknapp was a bit of a break glass in case of emergency. Right. And Yarl was back up to Jacques Santini. I mean, he was literally his number two. Most other, yeah, when you consider like that, say like a Villas-Boas or Juan de Ramos or anything, Any of the other managers that they've seemingly proactively gone out to get to make a difference have usually all been catastrophes, haven't they?

36:25Jack:I mean, catastrophes is maybe a bit harsh, but still. Yeah, well, I think there was this kind of stat going around about how many managers they'd appointed in the summer had been – I can't think what it was now. They'd kind of appointed three managers in a row that they were going to sack within a season that they'd appointed in the summer or what. I mean, yeah, the decision-making clearly has been quite bad.

36:52I mean, when was the last good manager appointment they made? I know, let's not get into the post-ocopie thing now. But if you're kind of taking the fact that that's such a heated debate as a suggestion that it probably wasn't a universally popular decision and entirely correct decision, like how far back do you have to go? Is Potsitin over the last definitively good hire they make? If, say, that's like 12 years. I mean, yeah. I'm sure that they're all good managers, probably.

37:32But they seem incapable of finding the right fit. And it feels really obvious now with Frank. Well, that is the case, isn't it?

37:38Jack:Yeah. I mean, I know you said let's not fire it off now, but I think it is relevant. JB at JackBassy10 says, in hindsight, do you believe sacking Ange Postacoglu was a mistake? And this, I mean, this one isn't going away, mate. I think it's a fair and good question. To kind of rotate that question 90 degrees slightly, do I think Spurs would be doing better this season with Postacoglu and they would be with Frank? I am it's kind of hard to see if they'd be doing any worse so I suspect possibly yes probably yes but would that put them in any better position to kind of be properly competitive in the way we want them to be next season this season after that I suspect possibly not like I just don't that kind of felt like it kind of run out of road that whole thing and it kind of ended in the best possible way for everybody obviously but I don't agree with Ang Postacogli's prognosis that the third season would have been the best one I think it would have been probably the worst I think we'd probably be having a lot of the same kind of conversations about who he takes over now that we are having now as we had a year ago as well I think I would also look at it on the level though if we're talking about still fan infighting perhaps a certain level of toxicity that has grown in the in the past few weeks and I'm not saying this is all just people who like Ange Bostokoglu or people who don't like Thomas Frank or whatever but I do feel that after that Europa win I look I wanted him out going into that but then after the parade after the scenes all that type of stuff I'll be honest I did just think on an emotional level, you probably can't get rid of this bloke.

39:37Jack:I don't think it's, you know, my gut feeling on it was that it wouldn't have been a healthy move for the club to sack a bloke that's just won something. You know, the narratives are all there, right? Tottenham are so afraid of winning that they sack the first bloke that wins something for them in nearly two decades. And as such, you know, we see... It's nuts when you look at it now, isn't it? like you've done that yeah you've won that trophy and then you replace him with like john the pragmatist as he says right yeah it's it is completely marginally like that when i mean i by the way and i know there are people that were listening to this who say we actually didn't need the distance and i'm just about fair enough but it is crazy to like look at it now with like six months or however long having passed to see if they made it so it doesn't it makes sense on so few levels like i mean you kind of have to separate the two things right that getting rid of poster cookler and bringing in frank like they're obviously better linked but they are two separate decisions but the idea that you would do those two things kind of in unison but either one summer it's just like it's completely bonkers well i mean this is exactly where i'm at because i feel like you know he he has by sheer virtue of the fact that he's won that trophy probably earned himself at least what half a season earned himself until Christmas to see if he could pick up that league form uh turn Spurs into a more sort of functional cohesive team or whatever fine fair enough but it's also as you say it's the fact that we got rid of him and still had a bit of a kind of scramble about and you know whatever Vinay Venkates says about having 20 um different names on a list and all that type of things for Thomas Frank to be at the top of that is kind of worrying, I think.

41:30Jack:You know, we haven't gone out there and brought in a Xavi Alonso or somebody like that. I think people would have even felt that maybe Iriola was a more progressive higher than somebody like Thomas Frank. But yeah, to get rid of Ange Postacoglu, who, yeah, I moaned about a lot last season, but I did say after we'd won the Europa, I don't think you can get rid of him now. To get rid of him, then bring in Thomas Frank, I don't even think in hindsight it was a mistake. I think at the time a lot of people had raised eyebrows about it. Even if, like you say, James, I think that's the right way of looking at it.

42:06Jack:Would we be doing miles better now under Possocoglu? I doubt it. And I really do doubt it. I think probably, again, my gut, I can't say exactly what would have happened, but my gut says he probably would have been gone by Christmas. But I feel that he earned that right to maybe get there. So, you know, I don't know. the people would have still argued about it we would have still had vince ragari taking pot shots at the club and everything you know whenever we got rid of angie postocoglu so i'm not saying it would have gotten rid of all toxicity or all noise around the club but you know i mean we are where we are now aren't we and we'll sort of see how how things kick on from here um mjb hotspur says is averaging roughly 0.5 through balls a game in the league a problem with the players or is it a coaching issue.

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43:26Jack:Marvel Television's Wonder Man, an eight-episode series now streaming on Disney+. A superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar-winning director. Action! Simon Williams, audition for Wonder Man. I'm gonna need you to sign this, assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again if anyone found out. My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming only on Disney+. I mean, this is probably quite a kind of boring, cowardly answer, but I would be amazed if it wasn't a bit of both. I mean, it clearly is a choice to not play those kind of passes, right?

44:11I mean, you just kind of tell from what's it. The fact that it's so low compared to, like, the kind of teams we think Spurs should be kind of similar to in terms of, like, the level you know Villas and Newcastle or whoever I mean that is pretty damning in terms of like the coaching and the playing side and whatever I just don't see that it can be just like just on the players but also like if you look at the players that have been playing in midfield without Madison or season without Kulisevski or season you can kind of see that you know had one or other of those players been available in more or less every game I suspect it would seem quite add up more through balls or whatever.

44:53And also, how does Swank keep you playing up front? You don't really play through balls through a chance, do you? It kind of does make sense. But it really does illustrate how bad the football has been this season. And I think that's probably the most telling thing. Spurs are, what, 14th in the Premier League. And I think people are complaining more about the style of play than the results still like people you know there's more kind of boring boring Tottenham than there is just kind of this flat out abuse I don't think there's been other than that joining in with you getting sacked in the morning thing during that billy game there hasn't been any like explicit kind of we want Frank Hound charting or whatever it's just been like bullying which I think is more about approach rather than outcomes like and I think that I've sort of been quite taken aback by that actually this season like that this kind of you know this thing we've always said about Spurs like the style I played is kind of paramount has actually kind of been proven to maybe almost be true like you know they're trying at least to play good football last season and the manager survived the whole season despite the fact they were doing terribly and finished 17 obviously when they won the trophy he was great and now they're playing like absolutely atrocious football, doing better, not a lot better.

46:25And there doesn't really seem to be quite, there's like a kind of acceptance that there's a feeling he will be sacked, but I don't think there's like this big drive to get him sacked, if you don't, only from the fans. Like it feels like.

46:36Jack:Because I also feel it's who comes in, you know, that's where the question invariably always leads to, isn't it? Like who comes in? Pochettino in summer, is it? Well, I mean, not everybody's sold on that. And will he actually really come back? But, you know, there's overheads to that, aren't there, that don't make it just a straightforward thing. Can we lose Xavi Alonso in now? I mean, I'd like to think we can. I feel that Spurs have the foundation, at least, to be able to make an attractive offer to somebody like that. The reality is he's probably going to have one eye on Liverpool, isn't he, really, realistically speaking?

47:11Jack:Manchester United jobs may be there. Chelsea jobs may be there. maybe even the Man City jobs there you know don't really know so I doubt Chevy Alonso is going to be jumping into bed with Spurs at the first opportunity is he really he's done the Leverkusen thing already so I don't know if he fancies it and I guess the other point as well on it that we've already touched on is that a lot of the fan base still as unhappy as we are with Frank I think still are now at least pretty aware of the fact that a lot of this is down to the ownership as well isn't it and the lack of strategy, the lack of vision, the lack of stability really that has been bred into the club for, as you say, what, a decade now?

47:55Jack:If not their entire... No, I don't think that's fair. I think the early days of Enoch when we were seeing the plan, where we were going, we were going to build a stadium, we were signing players like Huddleston, Lennon, Dawson, all that type of thing, you know, that core of young English, exciting talent from the lower leagues and stuff. That felt like something. That felt significant. It suddenly felt like we were leaving behind Alan Sugar and all that kind of mess that the club had been for quite some time. But then the wheels just sort of came off it, didn't they? When it felt like Hena could actually reach the destination they were trying to get to, which was establishing Spurs as a top four team in a big stadium.

48:36But that's exactly it. Like they had direction when they were leaning towards their kind of target. and their target wasn't, I don't think, and this is kind of my reading of it. And I think their target was explicitly to make Spurs like a trophy-winning club. It was to make Spurs a big club, to have this big stadium, to get 60 ,000 people in every week, to be part of this kind of semi-official group of the biggest teams in the country who kind of get to dictate the way the whole thing is run. you know they had direction for as long as they were striving to get there and that kind of all coincided with the stadium and the Champions League final and whatever else and then since then like they haven't really had there hasn't been a clear plan there hasn't really been like kind of spread as a model there hasn't really been like kind of identity on the pitch other than maybe for a few months on the post of Koglu like it's all just kind of been a bit of a mishmash of like decisions made because we think this is what a big club would do and it just kind of it just hasn't worked for spurs at all like it you know but it feels completely man now but spurs were like and this is quite a widely held like opinion 10 years ago spurs were the best run club in the premier league people like everyone thought that and they've gone from that to this and that isn't because it's a shambles isn't it really i mean

50:00Jack:that seems to be the general perception of the club is that nobody there has an absolute clue what's going on I think it was Marcus Buckland that said the other day you know he's you know somebody very close to the club or whatever that uh says the noises coming out of it aren't good and you know tenuous kind of ITK or whatever aside as you said before you know the results are there on the pitch you can see that really nothing is really going that well for Spurs at the moment and it's you know that is obviously echoed into the performances in the way that the the club performs in the most you know publicly visual side of it which is on the on a match day where you know we're again i hate to be overly dramatic about it but we're we're a few bad games away from all west ham not being so terrible from being in a real sort of relegation scrap probably by the type of form that we've had which you shouldn't be saying was it six or seven years now after being in the Champions League final.

50:57Jack:It's, I don't know, it's mental to me. It's mental that that's where we're at. Justin Ford on Blue Sky says, with no European football next season, likely, I mean, anyway, does this give Pochettino longer weeks he needs on the training ground with the team to make as a force again? Meaning that the last seven years become some sort of Bobby Ewing, one for the teenagers, trippy ride that we can wipe from our memories aside for Bilbao? That question really feels like it skips one big step there.

51:35Whoever the manager is next season, I suspect they would benefit from those three midweeks. Egan and Manchester United, who are clearly still pretty terrible, I think could benefit from not playing those extra whatever it would have been, seven or eight games. They're going to have this 40-game season now and I wouldn't actually be massively surprised if I ended up like scraping into the Champions League despite being awful. I just think like when you're kind of trying to do something new, it is massively beneficial to actually be able to kind of do that work through a season on the training ground.

52:06So yeah, whether or not it's positino is a different question, but I do kind of see the point there. that being said in his first his first first season Pochettino I think used the Europa League to play like sort of Harry Kane or whatever and that obviously did work quite well in the end so I think you can kind of take the wins where you see them there either way like I think this season would be totally different if they'd been I said when they won the Europa League I'd prefer them to be in the Europa League this season not just because I wanted them to defend their trophy but I felt like in terms of where the club were at it was the better level of football to be playing.

52:57Imagine like being in this season but having the Europa League still there as a possibility to win.

53:01Jack:Yeah. It feels totally different. It feels so different. Because the Champions League is just... It's just like... It kind of feels like a thing you're doing by duty but you don't really want to be doing, right? It's just... The magic of it is kind of gone because you've been on it so many times. We know we're not going to win it. We're probably not going to get that far. This feels like a bit of a chore. Whereas if you were in the Europa League, that would feel exciting to me. Maybe I'm completely wrong there, but that's how I feel. I kind of know what you mean. I mean, I do love seeing Spurs in the Champions League and we might not see us in the Champions League again for a very long time.

53:38Jack:I don't know. But as you say, it feels so... we just feel so off the pace of it this year it doesn't even feel like one of those you know in previous years when we've at least had some exciting talent that we can take into it and think oh it'd be quite nice to see how Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen do against Real Madrid for example you know we probably won't beat them but it'll be fun to see how this Pochettino team performs against them be fun to see how the Redknapp team performs in the competition I think we're all pretty aware of how this Tottenham team's going to perform in the competition and we don't really fancy seeing us get another battering from somebody like a Bayern Munich or something like that because, yeah, I don't know.

54:20Jack:I mean, look, on this one, Matt Tate has said, if we somehow get into the Champions League knockouts but remain garbage in the league, who would you most want for a Di Matteo-esque interim shot at glory? We were talking about this at The Athletic the other day at work and I don't like Spurs don't really have in the way that Manchester United have brought in I mean obviously I know Michael Carrick played for Spurs as well but they had Fletcher before that they kind of had their pick of former players as interims they've actually had a decision to make because they had Solskjaer in the mix too like Spurs I just don't think we have quite the same kind of alumni in terms of like ex-players who have gone into coaching or management that we can just pick up the phone to and say you get it can you come and do this for six months.

55:10I can't really think... Robbie Keane is obviously a manager, but would he realistically been off... Maybe it's his daughter. Maybe he would. Would he been off to come and be spousin to him for six months?

55:23Jack:I reckon he'd jump at it, don't you? Maybe he would. Or he'd do it like a little forward rather than a little... Maybe it's just him then. If you take it, then it's Robbie Keane. I'm trying to think of anybody anyone at all who... But there's not really... Like Carrick... I think maybe I would go to Carrick, because there's something quite like kind of... Carrick feels like the kind of bloke who would become an interim manager and win the Champions League. Do you know what I mean? He just has that kind of like standing of like a guy who would have like a kind of inexplicably short and spectacular managerial career at the highest level.

56:01I know he was at Melbourne before.

56:07yeah I mean there was a point where I wanted Jan Vertonghen to become Tottenham manager but I don't get the impression like he's bothered about like coaching and stuff as far as I'm aware no I think he's just happy he hates like drinking wine and sitting about isn't he yeah he wouldn't want to do all of the kind of pressure and all of that stuff so I just think that might be nice to put him off to be honest but like who else in that team because that's kind of where you're looking isn't it like the Potts team but it's not really an obvious candidate there is it

56:38Jack:I was just saying because I saw that Maurizio Tarrico because he'd been like he'd been sort of in the Brighton coaching setup for a while hadn't he and I've just seen he's been sacked from his job in Korea for being a racist yeah yeah okay that's not it's probably the other one you want is it no I was sort of shy away from that one Gus Poyot has done a bit of management isn't he? I mean maybe maybe you could get him back he was Gus Poyot's assistant manager so there you go you know whatever that's you know like there aren't really that many Spurs pundits it feels like a similar sort of like similar issue that for whatever reason and maybe it ties to that thing that you talk about sometimes that like people leave Spurs and then they just don't care about Spurs anymore there aren't really that many Spurs pundits compared to other clubs there's Jamie O 'Hara and Michael Dawson you're not going to give any either of them the manager's trouble are you I have found it quite funny though of late really I don't know if it's just a bit of distance and his career coming to an end he's been able to reflect on things considering he left in such a cold fashion I find that Gareth Bale is actually quite warm about Spurs nowadays he seems to I almost feel like there's a part of him that thinks yeah that's kind of where I was most loved probably despite everything that he won for Madrid they were still waving fucking hankies at him every other week weren't they and stuff.

58:08Yeah exactly like I don't get the impression like playing for Real Madrid in that era was like huge fun despite you know winning it was like four Champions Leagues or whatever he won like I don't think like playing in the shadow of Cristiano Ronaldo with all these other highly competitive sportsmen let's call them would have been a great laugh. Whereas, you know, rocking up at Spurs and hanging out with you, you don't know what Asu O 'Kota or whoever. They're probably quite a different vibe.

58:38Jack:Still COVID, still robbed us of that, didn't it? Yeah, I enjoyed it. Still robbed us of that. Yeah, never forget that one. I'll ask you this one last, and it kind of ties into what we've been talking about already, James. But Man About Town says, if we could get Alonso in the next few weeks, a big if, he says. And regardless of results in the next few games, would you think he's a decent long-term manager over, say, Pochettino potentially in summer? I mean, yeah, definitely surely right. Isn't Xavi Alonso him, Nagelsmann, they're kind of like the North Star for a club like Spurs, aren't they? That's a real kind of head versus heart, that, isn't it?

59:21Alonso versus Pochettino. Yeah.

59:28would you have poch back in summer

59:29Jack:James

59:34it's such a horrible question that I mean it's been the thing that I've talked about and we've talked about a view for the name I think you and I have probably talked about like every single time this conversation comes around about a current Spurs manager and potentially anything to change and I suppose the answer has always been yes but like it is kind of it's almost like the difference between the dream and reality like it the reality of watch the t-net coming back like what are the chances that it works like what are the chances it's horrible and terrible and we have to sack you really quickly and i just i don't know i kind of feel like the risk is almost is almost bigger than the reward in terms of like tarnishing that legacy on well but at the same time i do kind of think we need to get out of our system because we're just going to have this conversation every single time until it happens, right?

1:00:28Jack:I wouldn't expect, I said this a few weeks ago, but I wouldn't expect him to come in and really replicate what it is that he'd done the first time around. But I do feel like he could maybe be a bit of a martignol for us, drag us out of the doldrums, put us on a decent kind of footing again and just bring a bit of love back around the place, get people a bit happier again. That's kind of what I'd want from Potch, you know? That's a good comparison, actually, because that's what I think the fan base needs more than anything else, actually. We've had the trophy. We can go out of that 15 or 16 years without another trophy now.

1:01:01We know we can survive that. But I think fans need to feel that sense of community and love and it being reciprocated and that we're all on the same team. We're not being set up to be at each other's throats. It's kind of felt a bit like it has been the case this season and for parts of the last couple of seasons. So yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe that is more important than what happens on the pitch. I think you probably are right. My reading of it really still, it's really, really impractical to bring in a manager after a major tournament. But we don't know. I mean, despite being employed indirectly by the New York Times, I don't imagine the US, they're rubbish, aren't they?

1:01:49He's done a pretty good job there. they seem to have improved quite a lot but i no they're not going to last in the world cup too long but you can't plan to bring in the manager of the usa for pre-season when you know i don't know when they're going on tour but you're probably like two days after that final i know the usa i'm going to give you to the final but in terms of planning you kind of have to assume the worst right i just don't it feels really impractical and look maybe strange things have happened mate

1:02:15Jack:They could make a semi, you know? Well, it's not – yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've seen that in host nations before, right? I mean, you know, and it's FIFA in the USA. I mean, I only think that – I just think it kind of feels a bit – I don't know. There's something about that. The alignment doesn't quite work. I know people have kind of got it into their heads that that's the perfect time to do it. They all want to quit. I'm just not I'm certainly no more convinced that this is a good time than any other time it's been brought up I just don't something about it doesn't sit quite right in terms of how that would work Ange Bostocoglu you're bringing him back I mean I'm amazed by how many people have if you were starting to promange the whole way through then fine I get it but fair enough I can see why you would want him to come back I'm amazed that people who wanted him gone and have kind of come to the conclusion that it was never going to work, are now saying bring back Andrew Posse Coglu.

1:03:21I mean, clearly we've seen the other side of football in this season and it's been really, really horrible. We've probably come to the conclusion that it's been worse. But that doesn't mean you go back to the other bad thing just because this bad thing has been bad. It's like a happy medium. There are plenty of managers in between there who will kind of strike the right balance for this club in a way that we work up an over a longer season. I mean, the thing is actually, I guess, if they're not in Europe next season, you can bring Antwerp because there's only one game a week. So maybe actually they're wrong and they should just do that.

1:03:56Jack:Maybe we can bring Conte back. Who knows? Maybe he'll fancy it again now. That's true, actually. He could do. He did all right for us, didn't he? He seemingly had a lot of warmth and affection for the club. He loved the club. Absolutely couldn't get enough of us, could he? Right, James, I appreciate that, mate. Is there anything we should... I mean, obviously, aside for listening to View From The Lane, the award-winning podcast, does Danny Kelly like to keep ramming down our throats? Yeah, just like subscribe to the Athletico guests and listen to View From The Lane. Is that okay? Is that specific enough?

1:04:33Jack:Yeah, fine. You know, if that's fine by you, mate, that's, you know, it's your plug. So, you know, we're good. Thanks for coming on. Thank you.

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