Will The Players Respect De Zerbi? | The Kinsky Conundrum & Flav's Tottenham Team Talk

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0:51What was that? Oh, shit. Sorry. Sorry. it is it's Skepta actually I'm calm I've got a devil in my palm is it the one he's done with Fred again

1:03Jack:no where are you at with Fred again I like him I think he's amazing I know he's posh and all that type of stuff but I don't really care you know I think he's brilliant yeah I don't care what you think about not you Jack obviously because I asked you directly but I don't care if you don't like him I don't care if you're critical how many just one I don't know if this is the best place actually I'm not going to start here I'm not going to start with that but you're not starting with class warfare right now it was less more race warfare actually yeah let's let's let's pivot away from that one shall we I can see Easter the grass has grown a bit around Easter time Gail are you obviously this is Flav from the Fighting Cock Flav thank you for joining me on Rotheridge's podcast it's been nice having a bit of time off from Spurs hasn't it yeah yeah yeah yeah it's flown by actually it's a free week so I was like what are we going to do and I'm like actually be able to record podcasts with no jeopardy with no misery um lean into some of these sort of subjects like you know the five pillars that will fix Tottenham Artsperh and you're recording these podcasts and you're like this wouldn't fix Tottenham Artsperh I did a podcast with Ben I did a podcast with a lab with Ben White who is a lovely guy um knows a lot about sort of finance and the way things work and that works in kind of mergers and acquisitions and shit like that so um and i got to the end of the podcast i'm like we just a lot of this is just hot air i think like we it none none of that they're never no one's going to be able to put any of this in place and even if they did it probably would have worked such as the the craziness of this this um this club that we followed but yeah it's been nice i've enjoyed the uh i've enjoyed the easter break murders and executions so i always think of you know Did you say?

2:46Jack:Yeah. I said mergers and acquisitions. It's brilliant. What film? They're remaking it with... Don't. Why? What's his name? You know, the one everyone fancies now. You fancy him, especially. Gosling? No. All right. No, obviously, I don't fancy Gosling. What's... Do you know what age I am now? I am... I don't know anyone's name now. I'm not... You know her off the telly, the one that sings the song. Timothee Chamele, that guy. No, no. The other one, the... He played Elvis in something. He was in the Bike Riders with Tom Hardy. Oh, these were the gruff voice. Yeah, kind of. He was in the Air, Air, Air.

3:26You think about the Pacific in the Air. Binder Brothers in the Air, yeah. That accent's forced, isn't it? Is it Brandon?

3:32Jack:Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon? I actually think Chamulé would be better than him because he's just so pristine. He was in Dune 2. Yeah, yeah. What's his name? Austin Butler. Ah, there we go. That's it. He's got a really deep voice, isn't he? And all the women, like, fucking swoon over him. All right. I mean, I don't know why go, but if you want to just go back and watch the original, it's magnificent. Should we talk about it? I think we should probably talk about Spurs, shouldn't we? There's been a... I don't really want to. I don't want to do it. It's fine. Everything's fine. We're fixed.

4:05Jack:Roberto De Zerbe's in. It was, you know, it was a bit of a decision to sack Igor Tudor. Obviously, there was a lot going on in his personal life, so I imagine that played into it. it's apparently a mutual parting of ways. Do you think it was the right thing to do though, really? Yes. The whole fucking thing was a disaster, wasn't it? From minute one. It was a bit. Yeah, yeah. I think it was clear. If you look at the last three games that he had, you had a decent performance against Liverpool, a really good performance against Atletico and a just complete capitulation against Forrest, which is the most important one of the lot.

4:38So it just, it was clear that it wasn't working. and he was trying to do too much and strange formations. Well, not strange, ones that certainly didn't fit the profile of the player we had. I just didn't understand. Tinkered a lot, didn't he? Tinkered. Didn't understand why he just didn't give himself the best shot by playing the players in their correct positions. Soza's lining up on the right-hand side of a 4-4-2. He never played there in his life. He's 19. He's just come from... Anyway, he needed someone. He didn't do too badly, actually. So yeah, it was time for him to go. I wasn't bothered at all, but I was more bothered that the club wouldn't be able to bring in someone

5:12Jack:that could keep us up. I was mostly bothered that the club didn't get rid of Thomas Frank sooner. I think that's the main pivot of this season for me. It obviously depends where it's going. I do think there's a moment. I can't think about what game it is, but it's before Christmas. And I feel like before Christmas time, I feel like we'd all seen enough. Anyone that's watched football for whatever length of time knew that it wasn't working, knew he was not the guy. Because it was, you know this, mate, it was press conference after press conference of him saying, well, we're good for 20 minutes.

5:43Jack:And if we can carry that across into whatever game, you know, while you've got Van de Ven and Spence sort of shrugging him off, walking past him on the pitch after not even half a season, it's, you know, it's not good. And I know that doesn't reflect well on those players either. However, what I would say before we start talking about him, they won't be doing that with Roberto De Zerbe, you know? That's kind of the way I look at it. they wouldn't have done that with Pochettino. You know, they wouldn't have, they wouldn't have even done that with Ange, I don't think, you know. It just shows you how badly Frank was for Tottenham with the, you know, asset of hindsight.

6:21But it was clear actually in the moment as well that it was a bad appointment and not, you know, the club was too big for him, the players were too big for him. And, you know, you can be critical of the players because, you know, be respectful regardless. You're being paid a lot of money, but I don't even think the money side of things comes into their mind. I think they were genuinely frustrated what was happening at the club. And they probably tried to grin and bear it for almost all of Frank's tenureship. And it just comes to a point where their emotions boil over in terms of Spence and Van der Beeren and all the stuff.

6:56The part of Frank's tenureship that I was genuinely worried about when I looked at it and I thought, oh my God, this is never going to work. It's the Arsenal game away. I've seen us get handedly beat by Arsenal more times than I care to even recall. But that was so passive and meek that it was just not acceptable. So I think, you know, it was fine. You know, you probably should have sacked him earlier, but Deservey turned the job down before Tudor, so they're probably devoid of options, really. The Tudor appointment was so strange and came out of nowhere. I wouldn't have called that. You could have given me a year to list.

7:36as many possible managers as I possibly could take that Spurs off and I would never have said him.

7:41Jack:Well, it was just, it was just, they'd lost Perattici. He was arguably one of the only sort of uniquely footballing minds in the building. Yeah. And he's somebody who'd been going on about it for ages, hadn't he? So they were just like, well, let's get him in because Fabio vouched for him. So that's what we can do. But I mean, that just as a side note, that also, I'm sorry, that puts Fabio Perattici on fraud watch for me. as well you know the fact he wanted Igor Chieger to be like our permanent manager over Frank even is yeah I mean we don't really have to think about him ever again but but I think I think probably and I'm guilty of this as well is that we probably give more credit to Pratachi because of the penting core and Kulosevsi signings in that in that summer winter transfer window that then meant that we went kicked into gear under Conte and finished fourth above Arsenal that was such a lovely moment following Spurs that all of he got he gained so much credit in that moment perhaps she came in we've got problems being in begging to call kulisevsky get conté to sign the club turned around in a very short amount of time um so yeah we give him huge amounts of credit but yeah largely probably neutral average performance as a sporting director so when deserve he's first linked to us and it seemed to be the case that he would be coming even even though there were things to iron out there were just certain noises around the deal that seemed to suggest, yeah, De Zerbi is probably going to be Tottenham's manager.

9:04Jack:How did you feel about that? Because, you know, I'll be honest. I wasn't overjoyed with the idea of it. I know there is obviously there's all the baggage of his Mason Greenwood and stuff like that at Marseille, but in the purely footballing sense, this is a guy that's hot-headed. You know, we've seen him at Spurs losing his rag with Stellini before over nothing, nothing like comments really. He mugged him off in an interview. he said something like oh you know De Zerbi's done a good job but he picked up where Graham Potter left off or something yeah something like that wasn't it yeah you know he lost his ass he went all you know I know I know about it didn't it it was a bit silly um you know and he's kind of he lost his ass at Bryan he's lost his ass at Marseille already and I just kind of thought you know if we're a keg of dynamite he's a match and it's you know it's dodgy that's my immediate feeling as well.

9:57The 18 months from now, we'll be looking for a new manager because he's exploded. You look into the reasons why he left Brighton. It wasn't that you mentioned saying losing his arse. It was more, it was never going to work because Brighton were never going to be able to move away from the structure that they'd created and that served them so well and Deserby wanted to bring in his own players. He felt in order to kick on, he could only do that if he identifies the players and for good reason, Brighton and said, well, that's never going to happen. You're going to have to find a new club. And they left.

10:28So in any sense, that makes sense. Especially now that he's come to Spurs and he's been given pretty much, if the reports are correct, been given carte blanche to make decisions because we have no one at the football club strong enough to make these decisions. They've really sort of handed over the keys to the Zerbi and said, right. Alex Ferguson. That's what they're saying in Italy. Yeah. Well, Alex Ferguson, I think Pochettino would have commanded something similar if he would have come back. Different energy, obviously. but Spurs are one of the few clubs, top flight clubs, certainly in the Premier League now, that will have a system that is more closely aligned to the way football clubs used to be run before they were modernised.

11:07Like, De Zerbe would never end up going to, I can't, maybe the Arsenal job because Arteta has that level of influence there. But in terms of that model, I don't know who else. And the reason why Arteta has that influence is because he's got to a position where obviously he demands it. And Arsenal continue to get better. so you why wouldn't you give him that that much uh freedom to make decisions right um but so so yeah i mean it is quite a unique position we find ourselves in you know he waited to the point where he could demand whatever he wants i was um and i'm okay with it because if it isn't he understands football and every decision he'll make regarding transfers type of contracts being offered the type of players being appropriate will be about what goes on in the pitch and we just haven't had that for a long for a long time it may be that it implodes and they go well we gave the Zerbi what he wanted it implodes his fault it's not our fault I'm sure there's some he's shielding the the owners to a certain extent but that will always happen especially if he's given freedom to make these decisions so um but we yeah he is the most football centric person at the club of for obvious reasons but he's making decisions above what a head coach would make I I think that could be a good thing.

12:23And Langer's the other guy who just feels like he's just so weak and meek and just lacking the charisma needed in order to create a culture at a football club. Can you imagine in any way De Zerbi backing down to Langer's authority?

12:36Jack:Not a chance. Do you think we might be seeing a sort of an era where football begins to pivot back to this a bit? I'm not saying the director of football age is dead, but we might be coming to a place where there's more of a compromise between this because it does feel like for quite some time we've been, I think, somewhat browbeaten into the understanding that, of course, it's better to have a director of football. Of course, it's better to have somebody that sets the tone of a football club who is appointing managers who can fit into that overall vision for a club and all that type of thing, right?

13:11Jack:As opposed to having a manager who has his own direct style of play, who brings in all the players he wants that match that style of play, And when said manager goes, that means everything's up shit creek. However, it feels like we've sort of had this era of managers that don't really have true power, that they're given a load of players that they don't particularly want to work with. And I think the most acute example we have of that at Tottenham is with Antonio Conte, who really didn't give many fucks and would just sit there and say, this is a club signing of players like Jed Spence. It feels to me, just as a gut feeling, maybe it's a bit proper football man, but this feels like a healthier approach it feels like a healthier approach overall for a manager to have more control over who comes in who goes out really I don't know I think you've got a better shot at success going that way I think in terms of how do you best spend your money probably the more modern structure is is better because if a head coach is sacked and you bring another one in who has a similar playing style or similar approach and philosophy to football, that in theory, those players that have been amassed previously would be then able to be used by the new head coach.

14:24With our scenario, if he leaves and he's bought players based on specifically his system and a new manager with new ideas or a new style of play comes in, who is different from him, he, in theory, would have a bunch of players that aren't fit for purpose. But I don't think it necessarily ever works like that anyway. like Michael Carrick is completely different from Amrim like Man United are a good example of this like before the ideal structure was um it was obviously the owners about like Ratcliffe and the Glazers or Ratcliffe in terms of footballing decisions then you had Omar Bereda who's the CEO which is our effectively our Venkatesham and then you had a sporting director and a technical director so Dan Ashworth was but he's left but it was someone like Javis Ilk who runs a football club and then you got jason wilcox who's a technical director who essentially would determine the style of play for the football club the players coming in the uh the youth team and with this kind of through way to bring in young players in who understand the way the first team player and all that sort of stuff and then obviously got recruitment and whatnot and then you've got the head coach so that's in theory like this in the modern era the kind of best way to get the most out of the money you spend.

15:37Jack:There's no guarantee of all that. How do you know all those names? Are you just reeling off all those names? Making me look fucking silly here. I'm sitting here saying, this is good. That's not very good, is it? What do you think about that? Do you think I'm a gammon? Blah. You're there giving us this fucking detailed breakdown of Manchester United's backroom stuff. I can't take... I'm not taking full credit for this, but there is a... You know, I do the lab, and we've got a guy called Anatole, and he often wants to talk about structure of a football club. So I've had this discussion before. I'm not just reeling this off.

16:09And I had to Google the names who were in roles while you were speaking. I'll be completely honest, all right? That's what happened.

16:15Jack:I'll let you off. I guess the point as well here is that if Spurs are trying to be a more modern progressive club using these structures, they're not doing it very well and they haven't been doing it very well for quite some time. If you consider the fact that both Thomas Frank and Roberto Dezerbi with two names that were high up on this supposed list of people to take us over. Once again, you know, that sort of flip-flopping approach that Spurs always do. I'm not saying that perhaps in an ideal situation, the way they play football is entirely different. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. But at least the way in which they get there, right?

16:50Jack:The way in which they cross the bridge is completely different. You know, Thomas Frank would devise many different ways and many different whatever ways to cross a bridge, whereas De Zerbe would be probably screaming at them telling them to get their ass over to the other side sort of thing. It's two people with two very different temperaments, two very different approaches to man management, I would imagine at the very least, which again sort of hints at that lack of joined up thinking at the club. And look, you know, there's only so many conversations we can have about Langer, Venkatesham and everything like that.

17:22Jack:I guess to like bring it more to a sort of a question out the back of just the stuff we talk about all the time, do you expect to see them in post next season do you do you think if we stay up and deserve he hits the ground running and we start smashing it that will be enough to save them do you reckon this is their hell mary i'll do with them you tell yourself no one wants your college era band tees but on depop people are searching for exactly what you've got you once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands now a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Depop.

17:59Jack:Just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste would be a money-making machine? Your style can make you cash. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste. No, I think Vecchio-Cutession stays regardless. To suggest that he isn't fit for purpose based on what this year has thrown at him as the CEO, I think it would be foolish of us to just replace with another one um i know that's an unpopular you know opinion but um a ceo's job the impact of his role it might be seen over three to five years not in transfer windows that's not a ceo's job necessarily to be judged by how many players you sign in this in the summer now and that kind of energy might come from the ceo but the job of that in that instance was piratichi and langer They're the ones that failed to identify the players.

18:53So I think Langer's position is under massive threat. And so it should be. I don't think we are served in any way by removing Venkateshian as the middleman between the Lewis's and the footballing aspects of the body, unless he has no authority, right? If it's true that the Lewis family decided to sack Frank against Venkateshian's wishes, then that's a massive issue. Then he has no authority. what really needs to happen is he just needs to be left alone to get on with his job and as long as that relationship with De Zerbi is a positive one then he will be able to and if you look at what Venkateson did with Arteta was just give him time and position and patience to get things right now there's a worry that he might give managers in our instance too much patience like he wanted to do for Frank that was that was something that was thrown at him that because arteta worked by being given patients and so so might frank so there is that i guess but no i think i think langers won't be long for the world i mean tottenham world and uh

20:03yeah i don't mean the planet i mean i'm very cold to be very successful this mortal coil but yeah so what there's been talk about about um the birds did deserve he choosing the next director of football which is the most ass about face away to go about this as you possibly can do but he needs somebody can get on with especially i mean especially him you know he you we you can see what type of personality he is you

20:32Jack:can see he's a difficult character to Zabi that he's a very particular man who whatever so and the thing is you know I'm I'm sort of of the opinion that sometimes as fans and I know this is rich given that we both do podcasts and talk about football all the time we probably go on about that sort of stuff a bit too much you know like like you say I'm there's probably so much that happens behind the scenes that we couldn't even begin to comprehend that we're just projecting more of like a gut feeling based upon like a team's performances on the pitch really which of course of course is a reflection of the work that they're doing behind the scenes but also you know i like a lot of people the thing is a lot of people getting very excited about the idea of doogie friedman being our like director of football but i was like but why why like what do you what do you actually know about him like what do you actually know about him the way he operates how he'd work with Spurs how he'd work with the people at Spurs we don't have a clue we really don't have a clue I mean like you know Paul O 'Keefe when he was on here before told me he was basically like in no uncertain terms Pochettino won't come back he will not come back to the club because there are significant people at the club who don't want him back the only person that ever wanted him back was Daniel Levy there is no appetite at the club and I was like yeah okay maybe but you know the fans all want him they want him and I think I think personally speaking for me I know the World Cup was a bit of a curveball and everything.

21:57Jack:But I think this is the clearest indicator. Giving Roberto De Zerbe a five-year contract is the clearest indicator that they aren't entertaining the idea of Pochettino. I don't understand that at all. I just cannot get my head around it. Someone mentioned this. I think it was Ricky. We did the pod, the fine court yesterday. They were saying it was kind of like too closely aligned to Daniel Levy. They wouldn't leave the Levy era in the past. But I couldn't give a shit what they want, right? What we want is a feel-good factor. what we need is the feel good factor. We need to bring him home so that he can continue his work.

22:30He's constantly talking about delivering trophies for Tottenham Hotspur. If you cannot see that, if your own ego or your infatuation with Daniel Levy's is so strong that you can't even see the value in bringing him back, then you're a massive issue. That said, it's dead in the water now.

22:45Jack:I'm not sure who said it, but it was apparently Viv Lewis as well, who is the one leading the anti-charge on that. Why? I saw that flow. For that stuff you said, for the for the dan is to they want a whole new era and everything like that and well you know what they make don't even write decisions they won't be a new era but when i shelve the emotional stuff mate i i kind of look i think one of the main things one of the positions i fell into and you know how much i love pochettino and everything but i did fall into this place where i thought they don't actually deserve i know we do i know we want him back but i don't think they deserve the sticking plaster of after of after how bad these two seasons have been and i know bill bow happened but it was an aberration and i keep saying that it was an amazing great thing that happened but cup wins happen you know cup wins happen and anj postacoglu pretty much you know led the charge on that one it wasn't really a reflection of the work being done at the club at all yeah they've guided us close to relegation we might actually we might actually get relegated from the premier league this season i hate having to keep talking about that but that might happen And even if we don't, this has been two disastrous domestic seasons.

23:53Jack:It's been two seasons fraught with chaotic recruitment, too many sort of negative headlines that we just shouldn't be having. Stuff like the Ezzedil happening, stuff like the Morgan Gibbs-White stuff happening. And I know we've got kind of Maranakis, we've got Parrish, these sort of other antagonists involved in all of this. But the fact that this stuff keeps happening to Spurs is indicative of the fact that things just aren't happening properly at the club. Things aren't moving in the right direction. And I think to just bring in Pochettino and have us all be very happy about it and have us all be excited about him, continue his great work and everything like that, I just don't think would be right.

24:31Jack:And I know that sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face, but I don't think anybody could convince me that they wouldn't then say, I don't think they would have backed Pochettino in the way that they are going to have to to Zerbi. And I imagine the way they would have promised they will to get him in. They would have said to Pochettino, you've got Gray here, you've got a doggy, you've got Bergvau, these sort of young players. You did it before, do it again. And we'd have probably another season or another couple of seasons of them not properly investing and again just coasting on the goodwill that bringing Pochettino back would have...

25:07Jack:I mean, look, this is all the straw, man. This is all just me inventing this, but that was my feeling on it. I don't mind... If the position is, we're not sure Pochettino is right, going back to the manager that you've had before previously? Should you ever go back second time is generally not as good as the first? Are you sort of, you're not confronting the main issues at the football club? Like you said, it's a sticking plaster. If those were the reasons for not bringing him back, then I can kind of understand it. But what we're hearing is that isn't the reason why he wasn't brought back. And it is about them just not wanting someone who was so closely aligned with Daniel Levy.

25:43And that, for me, is a bigger issue. But it's done now. You know, that dream of waiting until the end of the season and using the interim manager to keep us up and then having our choice of managers is done and we had to go to Deserby. By Langer's comments, it was always Deserby. It was 100 % our number one choice, which then, again, just throws back to a wider issue here about a lack of culture in a football club. Because Langer is the man who's supposed to be creating this, this idea about this is the type of club we're at. and I've said this so many times but when he was interviewed by Dan Kilpatrick he said in no uncertain terms that we are building something here where the head coach is a part of it but not the be all and end all so if it isn't Postacoglu it's someone else who comes in but you look at the appointments and it's just nonsense it's just either he doesn't believe it or he's lying or he just doesn't have any power so it's like you've gone from Frank sorry you've gone from before this is Langer to be fair this is a wider symptomatic of the football club in fact if you can go all the way back to Martin Yol, Wande Ramos, different styles.

26:48Harry Redknapp, completely different. Phyllis Boas, completely different. Tino, great period of time, five years. Then we go to Mourinho, to Santo. The only consistency really there is this, is this bit, this bit of, this run here. Mourinho, Nuno Espirito, Santo and Conte. And then we pivot to Posta Gogli. Then we pivot to Thomas Frank and now we've pivoted to De Zerbe. So we're just pissing in the wind basically and hoping things might work. I've got a good feeling about this.

27:12Jack:Club needs to get sold ultimately. That's like, my bottom line on it now is I'm not, I'm not sat here thinking Enoch are going to be the ones to, to lead us to anything. If it happens by chance, great. But you know, I just, I've had enough of them. Like you say, you've got a good feeling. Am I just fickle gal? Or were you also a little bit, a little bit encouraged by the training video they put out the other day? We all were. What a training video. What a training video. Do you know what I mean? You'll never see that. I don't know. Yeah, I think it's propaganda, right? We know what it is, but that's fine because we want to feel good.