Mourinho's return and Chelsea's identity, Wirtz will be fine and more from the Champions League

0:22Mayowa Quadri: Hi everyone, welcome back to Stadio, a Thursday Stadio. I'm Ryan Hunt. No Musa today, Musa's poorly he's resting up so get well soon musa but uh going to be joined by seb staffer blort and mayoa quadri to talk about some champions league stuff quick bit of admin if you listen to this on the free feed and you want to listen to every single stadio ad free in full go to patreon.com forward slash stadio the podcast membership you get every single podcast ad free in full or if you want to join the social club you get all the podcast access to the discord loads of other perks you can join that membership you get 15 % off both memberships if you sign up for a year go to patreon.com forward slash stadio and another reminder about our London live show at the Southbank Centre December 4th tickets are on sale now and they are moving quick so if you want to go and get them check the link in the description but yeah other than that hope everyone's staying safe and well today Seb Stafford-Bloor is going to join to talk about Florian Wirtz because there's been a little bit of chat about Florian Wirtz this comes in the aftermath of Liverpool's defeat away at Galatasaray.

1:26We're going to talk a little bit about Dortmund, Karim Adeyemi.

1:32Mayowa Quadri: We'll touch a little bit on some of the Champions League stuff from the week. And then Maioa Quadri is going to join to talk about Chelsea. Maioa was at the Chelsea game against Benfica on Tuesday for Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge. He's also a Chelsea fan. So we're going to talk about what it was like having Mourinho back at this specific time And just a little bit about Chelsea in general. So we'll get on to that in part two. So yeah, let's get on to the show. And first up, we've got Seb Stafford-Blur. Back-to-back stadios for Seb. How are you, mate? I'm good, mate. Thanks for coming back on.

2:05Mayowa Quadri: You're very welcome. Anything stand out from this round of Champions League games for you?

2:09Ryan: Well, last night I was watching... I tend to watch the games on conference, on the conference channel.

2:14Mayowa Quadri: I think that's the best, especially at this stage, it's the best way.

2:16Ryan: it's it is the best way but at the same time it's like it's so much football that you're not watching football at all yeah and stuff happens that you're not really ready for so i was watching quite late last night and then you know elf meter in monaco and there's eric dyer still on the penalty spot earning monaco a point against man city which is great but you know what i i think a couple of things stood out um i was very very impressed with brittier dortmund as i have been for a few weeks i know we're going to talk about that um you and i were um having a discourse about by leverkusen summer during the game um so i was delighted to be proven right by uh psv's late equalizer this vindication right what else bion excellent again um yeah very good time for eintracht frankfurt tough time for spurs as well i watched i watched their game i am on a separate screen on Tuesday night and that was very, very tricky and not very impressive, I may say.

3:14Mayowa Quadri: Yeah, they could have, but a glimpse could have been out of sight. Well, they could have been.

3:19Seb Stafford-Bloor: Which is a weird sentence to say. It's a very strange sentence to say, but they also missed a penalty, obviously. They played very well. Second penalty miss in two Champions League games, right? Yeah, yeah.

3:30Ryan: I also watched, before the conference yesterday, I watched Newcastle against Unus De Soto-Drois, which was a really strange game because, Sanchez-Wiles played pretty well. And especially in the first half at 1-0, they were kind of all over Newcastle. But then, you know, Newcastle's recovery was very impressive. And in the end, it's as good a Newcastle performance as I've seen this season, actually. They were great. It was very professional. It was, it was. And it was good to see Nick Voltamade continuing to do well.

4:01Seb Stafford-Bloor: A little sort of... He seems like he slotted in and made himself right at home.

4:08Ryan: yeah and I just think I think it also helps just to score a couple of goals get the initial conversation and pressure off your back and then people can start to appreciate your dimensions as a footballer a little bit more because it just gives you a little bit of breathing space and he's done that really well and I'm happy for him I like Nick Fulton everybody I speak to about him says what a great guy he is so good

4:27Mayowa Quadri: the first topic that I think we should probably talk about is Florian Vietz Liverpool losing 1-0 away at Galatasaray which in itself in isolation I don't think is a bad result I think coming off the back of the weekend's defeat to Palace starts to get a bit and also I think in the context of the overall Liverpool performances this season which haven't, I think the results have masked that. There's been a lot of talk about Florian Wirt and well put it this way, we had a question in our Stadio Discord actually which I'm going to read to you. It's from Duda who says, quick question for the pod, many Liverpool fans seem to be running out of patience with Wietz, which is crazy to say considering it's only in October.

5:10Mayowa Quadri: What do you both think of Wietz's current state of play? I think he needs time and it drives me crazy when people and pundits do this sort of thing.

5:19Ryan: I mean, it drives me crazy. I mean, running out of patience, it's the 2nd of October.

5:24Mayowa Quadri: Yeah.

5:25Ryan: If you think about what made Wietz so good at Leverkusen, yeah, his individual abilities and virtues and what he could do on the ball and without it and how well he finds those receiving spaces, but also think about how balanced and harmonised that Leverkusen team was not just in year one the first full season under Alonso when they won the undefeated double but even in season two there was so much balance, there's so much about that side that suited his game, both in the sense of what he had behind him in the field, the type of forward in front of him, the wing backs, the full backs, the variation, the number 10s could play with hoffman could play with teller i sometimes played with fring pong up in that sort of 10 slots when alonso really got experimental and think about how many by comparison how many new parts there are at liverpool and how much adjustment some of the incumbent players have had to make to accommodate new forwards two new fullbacks new midfielder of course he's not going to take the change in stride and be exactly the same player that he was in Leverkusen.

6:31Ryan: And that's before you consider all the realities of, you know, the high standard, even the bad teams in the Premier League are good.

6:38Mayowa Quadri: Yeah.

6:39Seb Stafford-Bloor: I mean, your Tottenham Hotspur won the Europa League last season.

6:41Ryan: There is, there is. You know, the worst team not to be relegated won a European Cup. Which, by the way, as an experience, I have to tell you, is very good. You're not, you know, you don't know what that feels like. I don't. No, you don't. But, it's just to establish that. It was really great. but if you compare for instance right like the amount of money spent by newly promoted teams in the Premier League this season versus what Hartford and Cologne spent when they came up in the Bundesliga that is your difference right

7:11Mayowa Quadri: it's a completely completely different world I think you summed it up perfectly when the Florian Viet sign was happening Moose and I were discussing what Liverpool might look like this season and I actually kind of speculated whether they might move Mo Salah into a more central quote unquote striker role and basically have Mo Salah operating in a very similar position to what he is now but a little more centrally not just not quite so wide allowing Jeremy Frimpong to get the width and then having Florian Vietz almost as that second striker slash number 10 because that to me felt like that's how you accommodate both of these players one of the things that's happening with Liverpool I think in regards to Salah and Vietz is that Vietz was the guy that the ball always ran through at Leverkusen

7:52Ryan: I was looking at that this morning because I knew we were going to talk about this topic and last season across all competitions it's averaged around 80 touches per 90 for Leverkusen now this season the only game in which he's reached that level was the game at Turf Moor against Burnley I think it's like 81 82 everything else I do accept of course that he's he's been subbed off early and he hasn't always played 90 minutes but he's been around the kind of the 40 50 touch mark which is very different as exactly as you say well you know we had Neil Lackinson on on the

8:25Mayowa Quadri: show a couple of weeks ago and we were chatting about are we starting to see what a post Salah Liverpool might look like and I think you're in that in-between phase at the moment where Mo Salah's only recently signed a contract extension so he's not ready to be phased out just yet and also he's he was like had an all-time season last season right so it feels really weird even having that conversation maybe you're not going to get the absolute best out of Florian Vietz or Mo Salah for maybe a year to 18 months until unless they figure it out which they're both really really good players and you can see them doing so to answer the the original question i don't think anyone needs to be worried about florian viz at all it will take a while to click but i think when it clicks it'll really really click he's too good oh yeah he is just way too good he's too good to fail here has there been any observation or talk about him from the german side

9:18Seb Stafford-Bloor: since?

9:18Ryan: No, I think there might have been had the Volta Mardi to Newcastle transfer not happened. But because it did, the usual voices have been kind of directed towards that.

9:29Seb Stafford-Bloor: Do you think that's because people or someone were convinced he was going to go to Bayern if he was going to go anywhere?

9:33Ryan: Yeah, I think so. I think it's also out of necessity. I mean, we know that if you don't, if you have a grievance about the way your club is handling its transfer business, so what, right? What are you going to do? Rage on the internet? I mean, you know, sure but in Germany obviously in a way you can hold decision makers to account because these are clubs um majority controlled by by members still and so when Volta Mare doesn't happen I think the sting of losing two German national team players doesn't matter they went to England but just not signing them just outside of the league yeah yeah and also you have to comment on it and and people who um don't live in germany won't know this but um you know sporting directors or members for sport they pass through the mix zones yeah after games and so they get questioned and i think you know german culture is to be quite blunt and direct and if someone asks you a question you answer it and i think there's a sort of between that and this need to say well here's why we didn't do it and this is why it's a big crazy transfer I think that deal has sort of overshadowed what's happened with it.

10:40Ryan: And I also, people in Germany understand how big a club Liverpool are.