Wolves Draw Frustrations | Spurs’ Creativity Issues & Bodo/Glimt Preview

20:20Jack:Yeah, of course. I'm prone to it myself. There will be times when I'm just like, get Vicario out of the club, and I'm like, he's all right, really. He does frustrate me sometimes, but at the same time, it's not. Well, listen.

20:33Joel:Listen. I'm a Vic fan. I'm still a Vic fan, but I'll tell you this. I'm just going to say, just bookmark this. I would not be surprised if he loses that position before the end of this season. Yeah. So we're not there yet. But I would not be shocked because I feel like his value is very dependent on him stopping shots because we've seen him be a complete mess with his feet. And his command of the box is also a little shaky. I feel like he's also really benefiting from the fact that Kinski is young and probably not completely ready yet. Because that might have already happened. But just keep an eye on that.

21:18Joel:Let's see how that develops over the course of this year. Because there was that moment, wasn't it?

21:24Jack:Did Kinski make his debut against, who did he make it? Was it against Liverpool?

21:28Joel:I think it was that the game that we won, the Bergvall winner in the League Cup semis.

21:35Jack:we've got our new number one and then over the next few games you're all like okay yeah let's yeah he's got a bit to learn he's got a bit to learn but i don't know he it's his kicking and distribution isn't it it's just it's so key it's so key in football now and it for all the reasons that you've cited vicario frustrates me the lack of command of his box the i mean his shot stopping is unbelievable at times like his reflex saves and everything are absolutely astonishing but it's just his ability to switch off is so it's so reminiscent of her Elio Gomez for me

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23:33Jack:Who was, again, a keeper who was absolutely, ludicrously good on his day. And I'm thinking about games like the North London Derby when we beat them en route to finishing in the top four for the first time. He was just an absolute wall that day. You know, nothing was getting past him whatsoever. and then there were just days like the Fulham match at Craven Cottage where where I think a ball that bobbled from the halfway line and it looked like he just had drifted off he just wasn't paying attention to the to the game at all and the ball just went past him and whatever you know we're talking about Vicario here and

24:07Joel:well you know what though it sounds it sounds very similar to a conversation we were having not too long ago about Hugo right like it was it was the whole conversation of the game's changing he's a great shot stopper but we need someone who can play with their feet who can pass the ball and he's just not cutting it anymore and now it feels like we're having the exact same conversation about a completely different keeper so it's just it's kind of funny the way that that works out but um yeah I mean I I think the same that was true then is the same is the same that's true now like the game has changed and just being able to stop shots isn't really enough when you you're relying on that back line to be able to to play out and and we've seen the value that that's had even with Romero's passing which you know arguably you know probably our best passer on some days between him and Porro I don't know if that's great that our defenders are our best passers um but like you you see the value of that in the way that the game is played now.

25:12Joel:And so like, I don't know, it hasn't completely bit us yet, but I, some of the, some of those, uh, and he gets rushed to when, when teams press him and you can see his body language is just so flustered. And that makes you nervous as a fan watching the game. Like, Oh, this guy doesn't look like he's too sure of himself.

25:31Jack:He's just, he's also got that kind of just on a, on a human level. He's got that Hoybeer thing about him where if he messes up, there's always somebody else to blame and he's always he's always shouting at people he's always pointing at people remember that remember that weird thing he did with Bergvall last season when he like grabbed his head and was like kind of like talking in his face post game and I just thought get off him what are you doing why are you so annoying um but I don't well you can pull that

26:00Joel:off with a 19 year old because you know he's not gonna like haul off yeah yeah swing on you exactly

26:03Jack:Yeah. How are you, where are you at on Xavi Simmonds? Because he sort of, I mean, the lineup graphics and stuff would tell you that he played out on the left. But it seems as though he was drifting inside. He was playing a sort of de facto number 10 to a degree. Frank tried to re-emphasize that after the game when people were asking him, why aren't you playing him as a number 10? And he kind of was like, yeah, I mean, he was playing as a number 10 today. and it didn't really work out for him. Are you feeling like this is... He's like a victim of circumstance because you said earlier at the top that we actually don't really have a true left winger right now.

26:49Jack:Xavi is kind of like our closest thing to that, but I think we'd all prefer to see him play in that more orthodox number 10 just through the middle role, right? Because we definitely lack that creative spark in the final third.

27:00Joel:I mean, look... Yeah, 100%. Just up front, you know,

27:03Jack:I'm really impressed with him as a young player who is not only adapting to a new country, but adapting to a new team, a new style of playing, a new league. I think he's been just fine. And, you know, again, I don't see this as a need for a big existential conversation, but, you know, how are you feeling?

27:22Joel:Yeah, I agree with you about that. I mean, he's very clearly more comfortable in the middle of the pitch like you can you can just see it and I think the lack of chemistry also hurts him on the wing because it just feels very disjointed when he's playing with either Spence or Yudogi like they don't really seem to have that chemistry the same way that we're seeing on the right with Kudus and Poro so it just it feels like folks are kind of getting in each other's way he's trying to make passes but they're going too far ahead of guys or too too far behind guys there's a few plays yesterday where he was trying to make switches to the right and they just ball just drifted out of bounds and it just feels like he's not very comfortable opposed to when he can kind of pick his spots and I think when he's in the middle he has a little bit more flexibility to to get around players without being so close to the touchline where sometimes he can get too easily squeezed by defenders but again it like you said it's it's it's all really relatively new i think that chemistry just needs to be built over time and you know you made the point earlier that like we don't even really know what our best 11 is right now and so that's the other question is like who do we really want him building that chemistry with i don't know that we have the answer to that um but yeah I think ultimately you would like to see by the end of the season if not sooner him really taking command more centrally but again because of the injuries because of some of the inconsistencies Frank I think has some tough difficult choices to make in terms of how do I best utilize the skills of the players that are available to me in a way that can kind of mix people around because if he's too rigid and he says oh I'm only going to play him here at the 10 then that might create a problem somewhere else on the pitch and you know you're also seeing him like playing Spence on the left and the right or doing different things with Brennan Johnson so with players that can play in multiple positions I think right now is the time where he's like well let me see how this plays out and if we see that guys are just unable to unable to to play in multiple positions we'll have that intel to be able to make more thoughtful decisions later on in the season but again like it's game six so you kind of have to make mistakes so to speak quote unquote to like kind of know like all right that's something i don't want to do but if he never tries it then we would be asking the other question right

30:10Jack:Do you think there's too much pressure at Spurs, given our position, our standing, the fact that we, perhaps not last season, but still overall, let's say, we are generally the best of the rest. We're that team that is not quite as good as, say, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, but we're as good as, if not better than most of the team's partners. And that is gradually changing as Newcastle grow in dominance. Villa were knocking on the door for a bit, but they've obviously disappeared. But my point is as such that Spurs were always looking for that player, that manager who will have that ability to take us to the next level, who can get us firmly back in that conversation.

30:54Jack:We had that taste of it under Pochettino and it's sort of slipped away from that point. I mean, I think we would say that most of our big signings really after Pochettino and so in the tail end of Pochettino, if we think about Ndombele and Lo Celso, and most of them after that point, have all struggled to live up to expectations to a degree. and I'm not saying this of Xavi Simmonds, definitely not right now but I just wonder how much time we afford players that we've signed for a significant figure to fail, to get used to things are we too expectant and then does that in turn create this, I look at somebody like Mathis Tell for example this is a 20 year old guy 20-year-old guy who has come into a pretty, let's say, a fractious team set up last season.

31:59Jack:That's generous.

32:00Joel:Yeah, exactly.

32:01Jack:And somebody who's, again, adapting to a new league, adapting to a new country, trying to settle into this place. And already you've got people saying, he's never going to make it. No, he's not good enough. He's 20 years old. He's played for Bayern Munich. We've just signed him this summer. And he was actually pretty instrumental in our equaliser yesterday. He was really positive in all that he was doing. If you look at what he does on international duties, you can see he's clearly a very talented player. Yet the jury seems to be out for a lot of people already that, no, he's never going to make it.

32:32Jack:And I just sort of start to worry. I'm just sort of seeing, and I think this is only from a very, this is from a minority of people who are probably particularly impatient. But I'm seeing already a few people start to question, is Xavi Simmonds actually any good? And I think, come on, let's just take this down a notch because ultimately this isn't good for anybody. This isn't in the best interest of Spurs at all if we start letting this stuff bleed onto the pitch. And from what I understand, because I spoke about kind of the toxicity around Tell and somebody checked me after my post-match saying actually in the stadium, I think in the Doncaster game, he got like a an overwhelmingly positive reception he got a massive round of applause from everybody in the stadium when he was exiting the pitch and everything and if that's the case then you know apologies you know i'm just saying i'm mostly going on what i see online and there seems to

33:26Joel:be a lot of toxicity around tell right now it's it's unclear whether he was being clapped off or if everyone was on their feet cheering because the 16 year old was coming on um but i guess we can we We can give the credit to Tell if we'd like to. Yeah, I don't know. I'm probably going to contradict myself a little bit because I've been so positive thus far. But I'm not huge on Tell. I thought that signing was really strange. I've been getting a lot of grief in my DC Spurs group chat because people are also basically saying that I'm being impatient. I just thought This is Like you said a 20 year old, 19 year old Kid who's really Not from what I've seen Ready for the prem right now And if we're saying that this is someone Who we're signing for the future Or someone who we're hoping to develop I think that Makes sense I guess, but we also have Other players that we are of Similar age who are not ready who we've loaned out players that are not with the club right now you look at um some of the guys from our own academy and so I'm like what is it is it simply because he came from Bayern that we're treating this player differently um I feel like there's a lot of growth there um I mean I mean we can say that for a number of other players on on the team that probably aren't like you know tearing up roots but like I don't know I I have not seen what everyone else seems to see from him that is just like oh this kid has like so much potential I'm like I don't I must have missed that match I don't I don't remember seeing it um but yeah like I I hope that he proves me wrong um but I think to the original question like you think about who's the player on Spurs right now that like hey we are down and out uh we have 10 minutes left and we need to get something from this game who's the player that you're like we want the ball at his feet so that he can make something happen well we had harry and it just so happens that at the same time we also had son who were like the two players that were able to do that for the past decade and so you know we we just lost uh the last of the two of them right son just left this past summer and so like was the expectation that we would then have like the replacement for this club legend immediately are we expecting that Simmons is going to become that player are we expecting that from I don't know Solanke who we also spent like 60 million dollars on like or pounds um I don't know like I I I look at it right now our best player is probably Romero and he's not a goal scorer so yeah I I don't see that player right now but I don't know that that doesn't mean I mean I don't think people would have said that about harry kane when he first started playing for spurs right like things can develop i also feel like knock on wood if you were able to stay healthy that could very well be koulis evsky like i see him being like you know what screw this give me the ball i'm gonna make sure we win this game like he's got that dog in him um and i feel like he could be that player if we're able to kind of see him back at his healthiest and he remains invested and actually wants to stay here.

36:54Jack:What do you think worries? Because it's quite interesting what you say about Tal because I don't watch him and I think like, oh, it's all perfect. Everything's great about him. But I don't know. There's just something about the way he... It's hard. I'll give him that. Yeah. I can't remember which one of the podcasts of it was. One of the podcasts was saying about they felt like his ball striking was quite poor. whereas I sort of tend to think it's actually really good. I sort of think it's one of the better parts of his game. Maybe his accuracy isn't quite there yet. Yeah, yeah. I agree with that.

37:29Jack:His technique, there was that, I keep going on about it, but there was that volley near the start of the season that just edged wide. I think it was the Bournemouth game actually and he came on. And as you say, you know, in terms of those players that can come on in the last 10 minutes, this is how I would quantify it with telling that seeing him come on in the last few minutes there when we really wanted a goal just my gut reaction to it was that's good you know I there's something there's still something about him that I trust I guess where I kind of feel like I think he just needs a moment I think he just kind of needs needs to click because I get it like I do watch him I do think a lot of what he's trying to do sometimes is overthought I think he's sort of in his own head a bit um but I think it's also

38:17Joel:like the whole context of like I came from Bayern they came in for me I was on loan they spent money to keep me here the fans are undecided about how I feel I mean how good I am and you know it's a confidence thing so I think when he does get his opportunities it's like I have to do something in this game I have to make something work I have to and then you end up whiffing the ball and not even connecting or you end up mistiming a pass because you're like trying a little bit too hard. But I think that makes perfect sense given the situation, given his age, given his experience. I just, I don't know that like chucking him in Premier League games is going to improve that, you know, and just so happens that you like to be able to use like these Carabao Cup games to be able to build some of that confidence.

39:12Joel:He had a true stinker against Donkis there. And then next round, congratulations, you got a Premier League team and you got to go play at St. James Park. So it's not like, you know, I feel like now we're going to have to play a strong lineup in the next round of the cup where we probably wouldn't have wanted to. So I don't know. I don't know where his opportunities are going to come, but it's a long season and we're going to have hopefully a lot of matches so for the way i see it everybody's going to have to contribute that's really the only way because you know you have to you have to rotate and we've seen we've seen the downside of not doing that in the past i think it's uh

39:55Jack:and it is one of those trite observations but i do feel that the pace and just the intensity of the Premier League is something that can catch players off guard. Florian Wirtz has talked about that this season already. People are kind of saying he's had a stuttering start. You look at Sesko as well, and he just got his first goal for United the other day. These are all players coming from the Bundesliga who... I don't know if there's... Because it does seem to be a pattern of this, right?

40:26Joel:We had a striker from the Bundesliga too. I think last season. Someone named Werner or something like that? I don't know. Something like that. Yeah, I can't remember. Was he a strike? Apparently a strike. Who knows? He did something.

40:38Jack:Yeah, something, right?

40:39Joel:Still trying to figure out exactly what it is that he did.

40:42Jack:I mean, other than Haaland, I'm trying to think. I guess De Bruyne. I'm trying to think of how many truly great players have come across from the Bundesliga. Sonny came from Bundesliga, didn't he? Of course, yeah. Come on. Come on. Come on. Sapping myself on the head there. I don't know. I just think the Bundesliga is often like it's renowned for being a league that's sort of like Premier League light. You know, it's got a similar level of intensity, a similar level of speed to it and everything. But I'm not even saying this in like a little Englander sense as like whatever. I'm simply saying the Premier League is just a pretty, you know, it's a pretty wild league.

41:27Jack:And I think a lot of players are on record saying that, that it does surprise them. And I think that's just the... I think we can do our bit as fans and just sort of let the lads adjust. But I agree with you because it is an interesting point, the fact that we look at something like the Carabao Cup, the League Cup, as our opportunity to give players like Taylor a chance to grow and a chance to breathe with a bit less pressure and a bit less expectation. and then we just get one of our most stinky, horrible Premier League ties in the next round of that competition. It's just, it's not, you know, the cookie has not crumbled very favourably for Tottenham or Mathis Tell in that instance.

42:10Jack:But this could be, you know, this could be the game in which he is a hero and that kickstarts a legendary career for him at Tottenham Hotspur. Because again, you know, we shouldn't forget that Sonny had a fairly stuttering start to his to his Tottenham career but he was still even when you look back on it you're like he was still really good you know I don't know what we were thinking back then yeah we were saying that he was struggling because I sort of look at some of the goals he scored like on his debut and stuff I'm like man he was always unbelievable you know

42:41Joel:and that's the thing it's like you get these guys that come around once every 20 30 40 years in Harry's case at least and Sonny's case too probably but like I don't know if it's fair to look at any of the players on our team now and be like alright well now your turn, go do what Son did for the past 10 years, go do what Harry Kane did, the second all time leading scorer in Premier League history alright, maybe we just have to figure out how we're going to win the next game and then worry about the rest of it later but But I don't know. We'll see what happens with Kulisevsky because I also feel like the club has been really cagey about that whole injury.

43:25Joel:And I'm not even clear when he's coming back, how far along he is. It feels like they're not really telling us the whole story about him or Solanke, to be clear. Because we don't really know what's going on with him either. We thought he'd be back by now, and he's not.

43:47Jack:I'm sure you saw Harry Kane obviously getting his 100 goals fastest man in the 21st century to get 100 goals for a new club

43:59Jack:around the noise of him potentially coming back to Spurs would you take him back or are you a never go back kind of person

44:08Joel:100 % I'd take him back what are we even talking about here exactly i i i fail to understand especially i mean we just started the podcast by talking about the fact that our forwards aren't scoring goals so like harry kane is a guy that can score goals in the premier league we've seen that um yeah i don't i don't understand any reason why we wouldn't want him to come back um you know i think there's still some sour grapes about the way that he left and him pushing for the move to city and all that stuff but like i don't know man um we've seen players come back to spurs and have good careers uh i'm still actually really upset about the way that Bale's return worked out.

45:00Joel:I still haven't forgiven Jose Mourinho for that. I know. Because we could have been watching him and Kane and Sonny play week in and week out, and we barely saw the three of them on the pitch together. So I'm still... Pure fan fiction. It's like, it's... It's really a shame. It's really a shame. If we had any other coach, maybe. But it just so happened that we had the bus parker. but yeah I think even if he comes back for a couple years you know we're probably not going to see him pressing the way Richarlison presses or but he's he's probably going to put in a lot of goals that we see Richarlison miss um I don't know I don't I don't see why we wouldn't want someone who literally scores goals for fun come back to our team especially if he's coming back to a team that has the defensive structure that maybe wasn't there when he left it seems like a

45:58Jack:no-brainer to me i just yes the thing about the thing about kane isn't like let's say the people who advise him i can just i can so see him i can so see him going to manchester united it's it's i don't know for me it's just it's one of those things oh yeah i could see that too do you know I can see it so clearly. I can already see his interviews about a proud historic club like Manchester United and then them continuing to do what they've been doing for the past decade now. Well, that's the thing too, though.

46:32Joel:Manchester United is not good anymore. I don't know why people have been so hesitant to just come to terms with that. They haven't been good for a long time now. And so they continue to make signings somehow. but they haven't really seemed to make any difference and so it's like okay if you want to come back and go play for that team that's really like a dumpster fire you'll probably break the record scoring goals but then you'll be miserable losing all the time so like and get totally blamed for it oh 100 and then it's going to be like oh this is of course he came back to the Premier League and he couldn't win.

47:13Joel:He could only do it in Germany. Now he's back and he's blowing it the same way he always blew it when he was at Spurs. And it's just like, dude, why? And the fans will throw you on the bus too because they don't even see you as one of their own. So now you got the whole country mad at you. You better do something next summer for England, but that's a whole other conversation. So yeah, I think that would be actually like a really bad idea because he could come to Spurs and not win anything and I think he'd still get all the love and adoration of being like the boy who grew up in the area, who came back and would be like this kind of homecoming.

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49:31Jack:I just sort of feel like he I don't know He sort of resents us And that's me projecting I get that No that's completely possible

49:38Joel:And I think a lot of that Had to do with like This whole back and forth With him and Levy And like the whole Gentleman's agreement thing And so You could argue that Maybe some of that Dissipates a bit With Levy not being At the club anymore Maybe But you know There's also a chance that he doesn't come back at all so we don't really know but i if it was if it was up to me i'd be like hell yeah let's do it and i think it is worth having these because i don't think these are just sort of fanciful conversations if if enic or tavistock whatever you know moniker

50:20Jack:they're going by now if they are as serious as they've sort of suggested they're going to be given that we have an option on Harry Kane and it's a so supposedly the option is he would be available for 56 million euros I think it is if he signals a desire to leave ahead of next January's transfer window so there would be there would be some sort of release clause there but he would actively have to basically make a transfer request and so I feel like if if Tavistock are serious and if they really want to, you know, inspire and if they want to get fans back on side, there's not many better ways to do that than by signing somebody like Harry Kane, get bringing him back into the fold.

51:08Jack:I think, I mean, I think they'll, they'll carry a lot of favor if they bring Savino in, if they follow up on that and they bring Savino in, in January. I know January is historically not a very good month for making big signings and everything like that, But it's not like he's been sort of, you know, overplayed at Manchester City at the moment right now. Yeah, I don't know what he's doing.

51:32Joel:But yeah, I wonder, I kind of wanted to ask you, like, what are your expectations for January? Because we know that it's not typically the same as the summer. But this is their first opportunity post-Levy to kind of state their intention in a transfer window. So like what would be – what are you expecting or what would even be like an ideal stamp to show their intention based on what we know about Januaries? I think for me it's not so much about like big price tags and things like that in January.

52:10Jack:I think for me, the big marquee signing stuff, I understand why that's done in summer. And I understand why clubs maybe don't want to lose their key players, if you like, in January. Halfway through a season, very hard to get somebody else across the line. So in terms of when we're talking about like, you know, if we want Spurs to sign a£80 million player or something like that, that's more likely to happen in summer. in January though I would like to see I just don't think we have enough strength and depth don't think we have enough creative players and look I'm not a talent scout but I'm certain when you look at clubs like Brighton you look at clubs like Brentford the way in which they are able to recruit consistently quality players for not astonishingly high price tags we've supposedly got people at this club Langer I mean look To be fair, he's done that with Bergvall.

53:10Jack:Archie Gray is, you know, I think there's definitely a player there, but he's perhaps a bit further behind somebody like Lucas Bergvall. But what I would like to see us do in January is at least sign a player who is not in that arc of their career, who is ready to go now. For example, here we go. I'm not saying him as a player, but I look at a player like Trossard, who Arsenal signed. not a huge marquee signing for them or anything like that but is more often than not one of their most consistent performers is a really solid strong performing premier league player and you don't need to start him every week exactly if we if we can pick up a couple of players like that somebody for that left-hand side somebody who is perhaps a more just nailed on orthodox number eight type player who can slot into the team.

54:04Jack:Ben Tanker, you know, are we going to extend that contract? I don't know. I'm not sure there's really great value in Spurs doing that. But again, it's up to the people who run the club, I guess, to make that decision. But the fact remains, either way, if you do want to keep Ben Tanker or not, he can basically only manage half a game of football now, I think. And I don't think that's unfair to say. So I think we need somebody with a bit more experience to play in that position. Bissouma seems to be just completely out of favour now at Spurs. Seems to be that he will be out the door in January, if not in summer, but I don't think he is remotely in Thomas Frank's plan.

54:44Jack:So I think we need somebody else a bit more, we need a bit more quality and a bit more experience in that midfield. We definitely need somebody out on the left. And we need somebody that can just bring a bit of creativity. But we say Kulisevsky is apparently, apparently going to be back before Christmas but as you were saying and it's very true it's still always a sort of a nebulous claim isn't it it's still always a very vague hazy idea of where he's at in his recovery process we see him sort of quite defiantly posting on Instagram from time to time don't we about I mean other than that did you see that yeah yeah the surgery I I mean, it was like, Deki, man, come on, please.

55:27Jack:This is a family show. So I think that's it for me. Bring in kind of players. Who they are, I don't know. But surely there must be players who will cost 20 million pounds or so. Who, yeah, they're not going to be a superstar, but they can add a bit more solidity to the team. They can add a bit of experience and a bit of quality when we need it. Who aren't, as you say, you know, if we do go and end up signing like a marquee, a big player. the reason why I say I think Savino could be a bit of an outlier here because as much as I think he would be a marquee signing for Spurs I don't think it would be a marquee loss no and City

56:05Joel:if you get what I mean they're barely playing him and one thing we know about Guardiola is that if you tell him you want to leave he's going to be like all right I'll help you go so to me it comes down to the player and it's like is he comfortable riding the bench at City or does he wanted to try to make something shake at Tottenham because if he goes to Spurs he's a bang on starter like there really isn't anyone right now that's gonna based on what we've seen so far anyway um really gonna compete with him for that position so it's like I'm a little confused as to why he didn't want to leave over the summer but maybe after another four months of riding the bench maybe he changes his mind in January um you know the the 10 spot is is very tricky I think because you have Xavi there who you know ideally would be the bang on starter for the 10 spot and then if Kulicevsky's back before the January window you can kind of play with him either there or on the wing um Madison probably doesn't play at all this season but then like if you sign somebody to play in the midfield and what are you doing with him when he does recover next summer um so i don't know but i i do think that left wing position like really is going to need to be addressed um unless we see something amazing from you know tell and odabare over the next three months we we didn't really talk too much about him specifically but i i'm curious what your thoughts are currently on Odebeir because I feel like he still really hasn't played that much but yeah I don't know I I've I'm having a harder time drawing conclusions on him and I'm just I'm curious what you think of him I like my feeling towards him is overall positive

58:01Jack:I think really what what goes against him is that he came with a pretty hefty price tag and we signed him at a time when we wanted players who were ready to go. I think if we choose to ignore things like that, if we choose to ignore the price tag, if we choose to ignore the fact there's a bit of hype around him considering that he's sort of in the French national team set up and stuff. I think as a young player, coming to terms with the Premier League and everything, I think he's overall positive. there are certain times where I'd like to see him be a bit more decisive in his actions I think that he can sometimes dwell in possession a bit and we saw that I mean there was there was a perfect example of this yesterday when we got the equalizer and we were just the crowd were like being like get forwards get the ball forwards get the ball forwards and Odebo received it out wide and just kind of held on to the ball on the touchline instead of like just instead of just going for it and I think that is stuff that will hopefully come with experience I know some people will argue that it should be instinctive that a player at any level should just be going going going but I don't I'm not looking for Oduber to come in and be like a guaranteed starter for us straight away and I think naturally this will bring up conversations about like why are we spending 30 million pounds whatever it was on a player like Odeberg when we have a youth academy who should be sort of birthing players of a comparable quality um and I think that's a different conversation I think that is a fair conversation to be had but that could be its own podcast listen exactly I mean exactly but if we're taking it on the value that well we have the decision was made to sign him he was identified as a talented very promising player I'm more than happy with where he's at right now and that's not to say I would like to see more from him I would like to see him

1:00:06Jack:I'm sort of hesitant to use this word but it's the only one that comes to mind is just be a bit more brave sometimes on the pitch but I think he's a good player and I feel again I feel positively towards him, is what I would say. I mean, where are you at with him?

1:00:28Joel:I've really found it hard to draw conclusions on him. I think last year he played very, very little. And, you know, the whole excitement was like, we finally got our dribbly winger, like, yes. And then he, like, immediately got hurt. So this year I feel like he's had a couple of pretty strong performances. but then a few where he looked very hesitant and unsure of himself. And so I think this is a part of a larger conflict that we have as a club right now, which is where do we actually see ourselves in the grand scheme of things? Are we in the midst of an alleged rebuild, the same rebuild that Pochettino asked for six years ago?

1:01:19Joel:Or are we really like pushing to be in that elite top four conversation? I think winning the trophy last year and getting into Champions League actually made that question more confusing than it would have otherwise been. And so we're in this position where we have players like Vandavan and Romero and Paulinho who are like, they're ready to go. And then half the team is like under the age of 24. and they're all kind of like i don't know i don't know if i want to use the word project but they're they are kind of like projects in a sense where they haven't really found their full form yet we're relying on thomas frank based on his history and his ability to be able to groom and grow players to be able to do that with the likes of the tells and the odabars and the sars and the Bergwals and everyone else.

1:02:15Joel:And so it's like, well, you know, Odebeer is a perfect example of someone where ideally if you want the player to grow and to get better, well, that means he's going to have to get playing time and he's going to have to play through some of his mistakes. But if we're saying, hey, we actually need to finish top four, then do you go out in January and buy someone to take that position, which means less playing time for Odebeer, which means less growth right so then it's like what is the actual priority for the club is it are we in win now mode or are we not and i think our roster is very confusing to like really answer that question

1:02:55Jack:i think that's i think that's spot on really and this it's these sort of questions it's this sort of clarity that we will hopefully get pretty soon um i'm not expecting it just in january but definitely January and the summer transfer like next summer. Next summer is huge. This is it. And this is when I feel that, and I don't think it's knee-jerk to say, I think this is when we will have the clarity and the sense as to just how serious Tavistock are. I mean, that is if we haven't already sold it to Brooklyn, Eric, is it? Right. Yeah. This guy. Him or any other,

1:03:34Joel:you know, billionaire that, that comes along, who knows? exactly but

1:03:40Jack:yeah I don't know but it's interesting and it's I think that's the thing I think and that's what I guess foments so much of this frustration that comes to a head pretty quickly be it with players be it with the manager be it with Spurs in general six games in and like I say we're having these pretty heavy conversations and I think a lot of that comes from as you say there this sense that we just don't really know what we are. There is an identity crisis at Spurs. Let's put it that way. As you say, are we a team that aspires to win the Premier League? And let's put it in those plain terms, that wants to win the Premier League, that wants to win the Champions League, or are we a team that, it feels as though we were under Daniel Levy's stewardship anyway, a team that was happy to exist around the conversation?

1:04:32and were we to do something miraculous one season,

1:04:36Jack:it would have been great and nice to have, obviously, but that was never really the aim. The aim was always to maintain a level of relevance, say a year-on, year-off approach to being in the Champions League and we were sort of happy. As long as the business was going all right and the football was okay, I think the sense was that we were doing well. But I think really what we want as fans is we want to see the club go into uncharted waters. is we want to see the club in these sort of conversations with teams like Liverpool and Arsenal. We want to be up there again because there was a time when we were so close to being that team.

1:05:11Jack:We were just a whisker away from being a team that won everything, that was close to going immortal, you know?

1:05:21Joel:That was a real missed opportunity because that team just needed a few extra players. And to go, was it two or three windows? I don't know if it was two or three, but two in main even is just ridiculous that you go that many windows and not add anything. I think obviously the goal for us, now that we've tasted it, it's like, all right, let's go. We want more trophies. We want to be able to win the league, win European trophies, and so on and so forth. I think the big question is like, are we ready to do that now? is our team currently constructed in a way where we expect to be no less than fourth and that is kind of what I think the question mark is next summer is huge because whatever we do next summer needs to set us up to be able to compete because I I don't think we can go much more than that especially looking at some of the players that we have that are already in their mid to late 20s like we're gonna have to really push for it next summer but this season I think it's unclear exactly what our goal is for this year and I think that's the part that I'm not really sure on and like as a fan I'm not even really sure what what should I really be expecting right now because this to me is not a roster that's built to win the league um but we but we need to set ourselves up in a way where we can probably do that next season and so like how are we utilizing this season to set us up to do that?

1:06:58Joel:And then those are big existential questions that the club has to answer, but then Frank is going to have to figure out as well. And it doesn't seem like the fan base is really even on the same page about the answer to that question either.

1:07:15Jack:No, no, definitely not. But we're one thing if not consistent, mate that's the thing you know so that's right we're never gonna agree on everything um let's just quickly sort of to tomorrow night when this pod goes out we will be facing voodoo glimped once again in european competition and you know when we when we played top of the table top of the champions league table um on track frankfurt last season voodoo glimped last season i think we were all told as spurs fans they were all farmers and plumbers and everything like that and of course You don't get that type of quality in the Champions League.

1:07:53Jack:Yet here we are once again, going out to the Arctic Circle, playing against Buda Glimt, which is, you know, I don't know, quite a weird one. But as you said, you know, we maybe had one eye on the competition this weekend and took our foot off the gas in the Premier League, which we shouldn't do, but that's a learning for everybody. I would be expecting us to once again beat Buda Glimt, right? Who are you starting there? Is it perhaps our first name on the team sheet, as he is for me?

1:08:27Joel:Yeah, he's definitely been one of our best players this season, and he seems to be a player that Thomas Frank absolutely loves. I mean, he spent the entire preseason raving about Sar. so yeah I think I think you do want to do something a little bit different there and this should be a much more hostile environment than playing wolves at home and so I think you you really want to assert your dominance especially considering you know we had kind of a ugly muck it up win in the first match against uh it was Villarreal I believe so like you know it would be nice to really put an imprint on this competition but again when you're playing tournament football or really any football I guess you know if you win it doesn't matter how you do it but yeah I do think you probably want to go that midfield's tough.

1:09:33Joel:Maybe you do Polina, Sar, Xavi. I don't know. Well, that's the other thing. It's like I think that's the bigger question is do you go Xavi or do you go Bergvold in the midfield? I think that's I think that's the question that I'm not sure I have a really good answer to. Do you think like

1:09:55Jack:so it would be Xavi which would be out left or centrally basically?

1:09:59Joel:Well, I mean do you play him as the 10? Because if you do, then Bergvold probably doesn't start. So, you know, how do you balance those things? And we both agree that he's better in the middle of the park. So you play both of them, that means you're kind of taking away some of what makes him a great player.

1:10:19Jack:But I don't mind that so much with Bergvold. Like, I really, I love Bergvold. Again, I think he's been one of the shining lights of the season. And I do think sometimes, you know, I do remind myself that he is 19 years old. And I think that does sometimes show. So I wouldn't mind him being rotated out of a starting berth in the Champions League and maybe brought into things in the latter part of the second half or something like that. So, I mean, for me, I just want to see... I think it's imperative that Xavi settles and he feels important to this team. Yeah, that's a good point. and he's just given every opportunity, he's given every platform to shine and I think for the sense of him being a franchise player and stuff, it's just not a good look for him to not be starting a Champions League game, even if it is but a glimpse away and I don't want to take them for granted either, I'm probably being a bit cocky, I'm being a bit dismissive when I speak about them they are still a talented team I don't think that's going to be an easy game, actually.

1:11:26Jack:No.

1:11:28Joel:So that's kind of the part of my thinking is like, that lineup is going to have to be pretty strong because I think if you screw around, you might end up with an L.

1:11:42Jack:Well, because I think, funnily enough, in quite an ironic way, really, I actually feel like they, last season, I think they actually, I think they took for granted actually quite how good we are, really. I think maybe they got a little bit high on their own noise. I think a lot of people were kind of talking them up, saying they were going to be the dark horses to win the Europa League last season. There was a lot of talk about Spurs, about Ange Postacoglu, about how we were faltering. They obviously came to North London and gave a really good account of themselves to a degree. So I sort of feel like they maybe took for granted the size of the opposition.

1:12:22Jack:And I don't want for that to sound arrogant, but we're still a big Premier League team a season now, Champions League outfit. So I wonder if they'll be bringing a different energy. I'm not saying they're going to be motivated by some sense of revenge or something, but maybe they will sort of realise actually, head screwed on, let's be serious about this and let's give Tottenham a proper game. I agree with you. I probably was being a bit too dismissive of them at the start of this conversation, but I don't see it being an easy game for Spurs whatsoever. I'm imagining it's pretty cold out there now, actually.

1:12:57Jack:Let me just double-check that.

1:12:58Joel:I mean, yeah, the stadium's in the middle of nowhere, so that's also a big part of it, right? We've even seen, not to bring up all this PTSD, But we've seen situations in even domestic cup competitions where we play away and just look completely out of sorts because, you know, the pitch is choppy or we have a small, tight little dressing room and the players just look out of sorts. And again, that's also probably also a result of us like rotating the side too heavily, which is a conversation we've already had. But I think that's another intimidating factor that they have in their favor is people don't come up here to play football very often.

1:13:44Joel:And so it'll be a weird atmosphere where we're going to have to go in with a lot of focus, especially in that first 20 minutes.

1:13:54Jack:and this is this is it isn't it it's i think in these early stages of these competitions when you don't have the i guess the jeopardy of this being a knockout stage of the competition this is where people can slip up oh yeah big clubs can slip up we've seen real madrid lose to fc sheriff and stuff in these early stages of a competition before it happens i mean we've seen we've seen a real madrid that's gone on to win the champions league get battered by tottenham at Wembley. So, you know, I'm not saying we're the booted glimpse to Real Madrid's Tottenham, but still, things can happen. But overall, I do still expect us to win.

1:14:35Jack:And I've still got this feeling, Joel, that we are going to make a good fist of the Champions League. This is the one, you know, you were sort of talking about like, I don't really know what the expectations are for Spurs and I totally agree with that. But one of them for me is I just, I sort of feel that buoyed by having won the Europa League last season, I sort of feel like we're going to fancy ourselves to go on a good run in the Champions League this year. So that's where I'm investing a lot of my energy. But look, I've taken a lot of your time today, and I really appreciate that. Please tell everybody who's listening a bit about Koyser Ross, where we can listen to you and what you've got coming up in the next weeks or so.

1:15:19Joel:Yeah, so Coys R Us was something that I kicked around with some friends. We had this idea of like, hey, we always talk Spurs. Maybe we should start a podcast. And we talked about it for a while, and we finally decided like, you know what? Let's do this. So it's me and three of my friends who are all American, hence the U.S. in Coys R Us. And we all live in different American cities, and we basically talk Spurs. And what we've done is instead of kind of having the weekly podcast where we recap games, we've tried to take a more spread out approach where we usually record maybe once or twice a month and really try to look at things happening around Spurs from a more wide lens.

1:16:08Joel:what are some of the themes that we're seeing from the games what are the things that we need to focus on how are we feeling about the a batch of games instead of just one performance and so just trying to kind of differentiate ourselves from all of the game recap uh pods like you know yourself so we're not like a indirect competition here uh but um and then And I'm also on the board for DC Spurs, which is the OSC in Washington, D.C. So I had to shout them out as well. So, yeah, it's been great fun. And we're trying to think about ways to just have a little bit more of our American fan base, which has just exploded over the years, to kind of have some of that fan voice out there.

1:16:53Joel:So we'll probably also be looking this year to talk to some more folks from other American supporters clubs and have them come on the show. Awesome, man.

1:17:05Jack:And we can listen to Coisa R Us wherever we get our podcasts. Yes, that's right. Amazing. Really appreciate your time today, Joel. I hope you've enjoyed it. I've really enjoyed talking to you, mate. Same, same. Thanks a lot.

1:17:25Joel:It's a Season 2 playoff race with TGL presented by SoFi Sunday at 9 p.m. Eastern, Jupiter Lynx versus Boston Common Golf. Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern, Los Angeles Golf Club versus New York Golf Club. Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern, the Bay Golf Club versus Jupiter Lynx.

1:17:39Jack:Keep up, it's golf. Watch on ESPN, ESPN2, and the ESPN app.

1:17:45Joel:Let's be real. Whether you're filming for TikTok, YouTube, or that one client who thinks viral means vertical, you don't have time to dig for decent stock footage. Storyblocks gives you unlimited royalty-free video, audio, and templates that actually look good. 4K quality. No surprise fees. No copyright drama. Just drag, drop, done. Go to storyblocks.com slash Spotify and make your life easier.