What do Tottenham Hotspur do now?

0:22Musa Okwonga: Hello and welcome back to the Studio Podcast. I'm Musa Okwonga.

0:25Ryan Hunn: I'm Ryan Hunn. Ryan, how are you doing? Doing alright, thanks man. How are you?

0:30Musa Okwonga: I'm good, I'm good. Yes, just creaking through the days. Is he ever coming back? Who knows, who knows? I must tell you, every time I look back at Europe, I'm like, oh my God. It's like looking through your fingers. What's happening there now? Yeah, I'm good. I'm all good.

0:48Ryan Hunn: Well, we hope everyone else is staying safe and well, wherever you are. A couple of quick bits of admin. The initial pre-order for the Stadio merch is only available for another few days. It will be available again. but this initial run, if you want to get it quick, link is in the podcast notes. Also, final 24 hours, if you want to go and sign up for the Stadio, 30 % off your first month on Patreon, get all the podcasts ad-free info, or you can join up to the Stadio Social Club, get access to the Stadio Discord, where we have hangouts and all kinds of stuff. You also get some merch discount. We had a great hangout on Saturday with the Stadio Social Club.

1:25Ryan Hunn: It was very cool. Yeah, so go patreon.com forward slash stadio. another shout out for our kickback soccer partnership there was a St Paulie video went up last week on the Stadio Instagram if you want to go and follow us on Instagram, Stadio Football on Instagram and you'll see it so shout out to the kickback soccer crew and yeah so today we are going to talk about Tottenham Hotspur who parted company with Igor Tudor over the weekend we're going to talk about that and then we'll wrap up a couple of bits at the end so I reckon we get straight into it yes so not surprising but news broke over the weekend that Spurs had parted ways mutual parting of ways with Igor Tudor as their interim head coach who was supposed to take charge until the end of the season after the Nottingham Forest defeat at home on the final match day before the men's international break the sad news came out that Igor Tudor's father had suddenly passed away and he'd gone back to Croatia.

2:32Ryan Hunn: So, I mean, a really, really horrible time for him and his family, understandably. And I think we mentioned it at the time, but it does put football into perspective. I think this feels like the best thing for both parties, to be honest. Yes, very much so. I feel like it gives him... chance to space to go and kind of be with his family and you know deal with that passing and you know the actual kind of football side of it wasn't particularly working at Spurs either No, no Just before I throw it to you I went back and listened to our podcast when he was announced as Spurs manager and also I went back and listened to the episode that Seb and I did, Seb Stafford Blore when we were talking about the spiral.

3:25Ryan Hunn: It's interesting that we said at the time that we could see the logic. I think you could see the logic in some of the reasoning behind bringing him in. It's clearly not worked, and I'm interested in maybe kind of getting into why we think it hasn't worked. But what's your initial thoughts about all of this? I think first thought is it's sad all round.

3:51Musa Okwonga: The next thing is, in relation to the appointment, I thought it was a good shout, actually, at the time, given Tudor's track record in situations of this type, superficially at least. I think the deeper problem is, Ryan, this is probably the biggest mess he's walked into, if that makes sense. I think the problem is Tudor before, the situations he's gone into have had one or two variables wrong. But Spurs, I think all the variables are wrong. And I think he underestimated the scale of the job. I think the scale of the rock came unexpected. And it led him to make, because you know, it's interesting.

4:37Musa Okwonga: When you see a manager as experienced as Tudor make the kind of apparently rookie errors, like you know the Kinski thing for example the Kinski start yeah that was bad I think was the

4:47Ryan Hunn: worst that was the single worst thing he'd he did as a Spurs manager I think I agree but here's the

4:53Musa Okwonga: funny thing about it Ryan and I completely agree I think it was a really poor decision I also think it's the kind of thing that if he'd if he'd spoken to him three months before getting the Spurs job and he'd said oh you're going to do this in four months he'll be like no way there's no way i would make a choice like that i think that the chaos of the space made him make decisions that he could never imagine making before going through the door does that make sense i just think that the i think whatever is having the thing about spurs and i i was thinking about this the other day it is the worst season they've endured a very long time and it was also many years in the making and the accumulation of factors just mean that that club is no club is uncoachable but any person that coaches it right now that succeeds that perseveres whatever the goals are will have to do so as the beneficiary of a huge amount of luck that you've got the injury list the need to shuffle players around the lack of confidence the fact that arsenal is searching in the league and in like the three remaining tournaments they're in you have the fact that the club basically tasted glory in 2019 but has never recovered fully from that the failure the refusal to invest the loss of club legends for in my opinion still a pretty meager tournament you know a trophy return if you look at the quality of players spurs have had in the last few years musad and bele son kane a single trophy in that time it's not enough ryan you know to me so i i just i just think for the quality of what spurs have produced in the last 10 years they haven't had a fair return on investment and yes tudor it ended it was disastrous pretty much from start to finish but it would also be disastrous for almost anyone i think is what i

6:40Ryan Hunn: take from it yeah i mean i said that to seb when we had that conversation when we were talking about who next and i was saying that i'm not entirely sure if someone like a deitch would even work at the moment i think this is the point that it's quite alarming when you get to the point where the profile of coach that you need to get in even on a temporarily on a temporary basis isn't clear and i think that's the issue that spares have because of a number of reasons that you know have been discussed by numerous people by us by in that conversation seven i had and i think that was one of the things that I highlight or I spoke to Seb and I spoke about then which I'm going to repeat for the purpose of this conversation is that you essentially have these all of these things that are like they act as guardrails at a football club right in terms of but you know you have the players and you have the infrastructure and you have the coaching staff and you have the executive level I think what's happened with Spurs is that so many of these have failed over a period of time that has led to this point and you then have levy leaving which is quite a seismic thing for spurs and it's a change and then there's a bit of a vacuum at executive level which is like it's something that that ironically like one of the person in there in the person one of the people in there now vinay ben kantasham is a former arsenal executive who was actually at arsenal at a similar point when there was a bit of a vacuum taking in place post-Wenger.

8:12Ryan Hunn: And it took Arsenal a long time to figure that out. And I think the problem that Spurs have got is that they are alarmingly close to a situation that it feels like the kind of first of its kind in the modern Premier League, I think. Like if Spurs go down, it's like a turbo highest foul going down in terms of...

8:32Musa Okwonga: It's extraordinary, yeah. The new stadium, the new stadium, the recent trophy, I mean, highest foul went down, but it was a long time since their glory days when they went down, right? Spurs, the decline is so accelerated and the dysfunctions are so systemic, so deep-rooted that any one manager can't solve that. And if you look at the kind of managers, well, the manager they've been linked with, the coach they've been linked with, Deserby, you're bringing someone, shall I say, let me say this gently, somebody not famed for their temperate nature, someone someone not famed for their temperate nature someone not famed for their ability to work well with an executive level and i just didn't can i be very cynical i feel like there's a thing at spurs where they're putting a lot on the coach and there's like a scapegoat energy to some of these appointments where it's like the coach is the face the coach does it or doesn't do it and that's on them and all we'll just keep doing is swapping people out until we get it right and that's an excuse not to make the deeper changes that are really needed which are at executive level and frankly at this point probably even at ownership level if we're going to go there

9:45Ryan Hunn: i think that's a key thing here i think that's bigger than any managerial change is the ownership structure yes i think something massive needs to change at spurs and my gut feeling is from a you know this is not an Arsenal fan talking here by any means but my gut feeling is that I kind of don't think it matters if they go down or not to some degree I'm not entirely sure that this group of this group of people who are overseeing the management of the football club are fully equipped in order to take this club forward and maximise its potential considering the circumstances that it's got it is it is in one of the prime positions for a football club to set itself up for the future here and I remember something Seb said on that episode where you know there comes a point when you can pretend that you're being a big club but you actually have to go and be a big club and I think that Spurs have tried for too long to project the image of being quite like a huge club but have not necessarily had some of the essentials that a big club needs in order to to take that next step and that is personnel yes yes yes if you take the expenditure that they've spent since they were in the Champions League final.

11:32Ryan Hunn: Which was what? 2018? So if you take from that window after. This is on transfer marked. Income and expenditure. So the income this is in Euros. Can I get it in pounds or should we keep it in Euros? Let's keep it in Euros. So Chelsea are top for expenditure. Right. They're also top for income though. but Manchester City Manchester United Arsenal and then Spurs so Spurs have had the fifth highest transfer expenditure since they were in the Champions League final and so since they've moved into their new stadium they've been the fifth but if you look at their wage bill it's consistently it's consistently lowered out and I think that there's a point where you can only really get the players that you need to completely take your step, unless you have just an otherworldly coach who is going to be there for the long term.

12:31Musa Okwonga: Yeah.

12:33Ryan Hunn: Or you might have a year here and there where you pop into the Champions League. You need the personnel. And I think that's what, if you look at other clubs as their income has gone up in terms of, I think, general commercial income, match day revenue, whatever, award money, prize money. You tend to see that when, as well as the transfer spend going up it's the wage bill that get increases because you need to pack out that squad with better quality players and the better quality players need paying more spurs haven't

13:05Musa Okwonga: done that the thing i think you've nailed it with the wages right so put it this way right let's say you bid for a a certain player let's say a florian vitz and you've got three or four clubs that match the asking price right so let's say spurs are in that conversation they're matching the asking price for the player the player then talks to their team and it's like okay well what the wage what's the wage package and it's okay well they're offering 120 they're offering 140 a week or whatever it is and spurs are offering 70 and no one's going to say yes to that no one's going to say yes to the 70 and then this has been happening time after time transfer target of the transfer target and the cumulative effect is not only that you don't get those big players it's that then players turn down spurs and this is the really this is the this is the rot for Spurs.

13:51Musa Okwonga: Players aren't just turning down Spurs because the money isn't good enough. They're turning down Spurs because the ambition isn't good enough. When you sell a company to like a bigger company, there's a thing called goodwill, which is the thing that you pay. You kind of pay for the, it's above the actual like paper value of the company. It's like you're almost paying for the aura basically. And Spurs lost their aura a very long time ago. They did have it. Of course, they did had under poch in particular and that aura unfortunately even once spurs start being competitive for wages the aura is going to be so hard to regain and they threw that away ryan players aren't as greedy as they're often made out in the media right they go for a mixture of reasons they go for like obviously wages to like feed their families feed themselves but there's also the element of like ambition there's the element of like wanting to win trophies and unfortunately like once your club is a huge club well spurs is a huge club historically but once people start seeing your club as a stepping stone once they start seeing as a secondary option a tertiary option and don't get me wrong you're always going to have remod with barcelona but i think funnily enough the premier league has supplanted those to such an extent with its amount of money that i don't think that actually barca and real are the gold and gleaming prizes they once were in terms of a player destination.

15:06Musa Okwonga: But the problem that Spurs have is I feel like some of the players who've arrived there in recent years see it as a stepping stone. It's like, oh, I'm in the Premier League. Now I'm in the shop window for another Premier League club. And that is like a terminal place to be for them. It's a terminal place to be. And I was looking actually at their last seven fixtures of the season, Ryan, and it's not obvious where the wins come from in that context it's not obvious because it just feels like everything is broken

15:37Ryan Hunn: seven i kind of did a lot of that on the spurs spiral episode and i think that we've talked about this a few times before so i'm just wary of us repeating ourselves yeah of course so what

15:47Musa Okwonga: do spurs do now oh okay what do they do now okay they have to appoint a new manager a new coach sorry obviously um they can't change any other the moving parts you know the executive level all that stuff. None of that can really change till the end of the season. Well, I suppose, actually, no, technically it can. I suppose they could always just like sack some board members and get an interim board members. They could potentially do that. Let's be radical about it. I do think, I do think they almost need to attack their way out of trouble, actually. Football-wise or? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they need goals.

16:22Musa Okwonga: So I understand the thinking behind appointing an attacking coach actually i do understand that i think they're kind of thinking they're thinking of like well we tried the defensive stuff didn't work let's get some players back from injury and let's just play we'll try and play with freedom play ourselves out of trouble so i think that's the kind of thing i think i think it's almost like training ground where are the goals in our squad let's let's just do that and let's get the most brilliant attacking we can together and let's go for it i just think that's almost it really yeah i'm i'm

16:58Ryan Hunn: actually at a point where i don't know i genuinely don't know what the right move is here because i think i'm struggling to see who would energize that squad right now unless it's someone like literally like like literally like carlo angelotti is one of the only people i can imagine coming in there or like Zenedine Zidane. Seriously, I'm at that point where unless it is an absolute all-time legend, unless it's someone like that, I genuinely don't know what the move is. I don't know.

17:33Musa Okwonga: Do you know what it is? Just bring Claudio Ranieri out of retirement.

17:37Ryan Hunn: I genuinely don't think that's going to be it, honestly. I think I'm struggling to see there is a lot wrong with that squad and there's a lot wrong with the general vibe where you've had three very different managers now in the space of three appointments i mean four if you want to go back early in that five you can the list is endless but the the crop the crop like the main collection of players here have played under two or three managers at spurs potentially four yeah there was a there was a sense of when thomas frank was there that this guy's not gonna be around that long and yeah same thing happened with tudor and you get to a point where i think we've talked about this before if you know that the power doesn't actually lie with the person who's telling you to do stuff, then that squad has to be extremely well put together in order to avoid any potential lack of motivation or downing tools.

18:35Ryan Hunn: There's not anyone there that really feels like Spurs is a permanent thing for them now. Even like Christian Romero, who's the club captain.

18:45Musa Okwonga: I think it's Archie Gray. I think Archie Gray is the closest. I know he didn't come through the system, but he is the closest one. When I look at him, I just go, that guy has basically played everywhere in the short time he's been there, done everything, and just gets it. If you're going to really look at a basic level of someone that just rallies it, I mean, he's a kid, like he's a kid. But I think that's where Spurs are, unfortunately, Ryan. Does that make sense? They're building on such a shallow base. and sorry to jump in but your point your point is so accurate about who feels like they really

19:18Ryan Hunn: are spurs at this point who feels yeah and if you look yeah who who is like you not really got you haven't got a homegrown core like it feels like this is a question about identity isn't it yeah yeah completely yeah spurs and what are spurs now yeah and i know it sounds a bit of weird but it's

19:34Musa Okwonga: like they've lost control of the entire conversation in quite an alarming way if you consider they were the most exciting team in my opinion in the mid-2010s in English football they were the standard setters right and how the hell do you burn through all of that how do you lose all of that and how do you rebuild I think you start with first of all I mean just on a basic level you're just trying to point someone to help you stay up but I think there's almost something deeper going on Ryan which is like prepare to go down like what does it I think almost maybe maybe the conversation about spurs staying up is the wrong conversation to have maybe actually you appoint someone who you can imagine being there for the rebuild which is why i think which is why i think deserve he's not the guy i think he's a poor choice because whoever is doing decisions at spurs is panicking about relegation right but actually what they need to be thinking about is who can we appoint who will see the club go down and will be there to help us find ourselves again that's almost the kind of coaching appointment they need to make and it's quite enlightened to coach like that but I think if you do that if you almost be counterintuitive and go look there's a very good chance we go down but if we go down who do we want to bring us back up?

20:46Musa Okwonga: And that I think if you ask that question and football's not very good at asking those questions if you ask that question then I think you get to a healthier place.

20:58Ryan Hunn: Yeah I I think that's a very tricky situation to be in though because you're essentially asking You're asking a manager to come in and keep you up, but be prepared to go down.

21:11Musa Okwonga: I think that's it though. I think you have to be like that.

21:14Ryan Hunn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But who... I think the problem is, seven games to go, who looks at that job and is just like, yeah, I'll do that? Who's going to do that at the moment?

21:25Musa Okwonga: I think it's someone who goes, I see huge potential in this club over the next four years and I want to basically reconstruct it. But that's the thing though.

21:33Ryan Hunn: Genuine question. Who do you think... feels that at the moment that's having looked at what's happened at Spurs in the last 18 months specifically

21:42Musa Okwonga: I think a young coach a young coach who fully backs themselves I think it almost needs to be a level of like it doesn't matter but this is why the strong executive team comes in it's like a lot of these people don't want to be the next year anyway right like I think it's almost this is where the strong executive team comes in it's like people are not going to like this and that's fine because the people that don't like this person didn't buy into the previous people anyway they didn't buy to Ange they didn't buy into Frank they didn't buy into Tudor and they were checked out anyway so it really becomes about this is not about you anymore in the short term it's about Spurs and the rebuilds I just think it's that actually I think it's and that sounds like that sounds like a really weird counterintuitive thing to say but it's actually not about the players in the dressing room right now because a bunch of them are going to be gone.

22:38Musa Okwonga: Is this making sense at all?

22:39Ryan Hunn: Yeah, I think it does and it doesn't and that's not because of anything you're saying. I think it's because of the situation. I genuinely can't remember a situation like this because there have been big clubs that have gone down. That's not a new thing in England but I think a club that has made that move into this was a club that was going to go to the Super League. this is a super league club who has moved into arguably the finest new football stadium definitely club wise built in Europe yeah won the Europa League like less than a year ago and is facing relegation from the top tier it's it's almost unprecedented yeah it's kind of wild to me it feels it feels completely wild to me and I think that I'm really stumbling in terms of trying to identify what the way out of it is because it feels so I cannot imagine what Spurs fans are feeling like because it's kind of overwhelming how much this isn't football manager right this isn't something where you're like oh I'm going to set myself a challenge and let Spurs get relegated and see if I can build a squad and a new club that can get them back into the Premier League and then can set them up for long-term success.

24:03Ryan Hunn: You can't get that in the moment with a manager. But I'm not entirely sure that the ownership are ready to go down. No, I think, yeah, right, right. I just think that there is a combination of things at play there that are like, right, well, I don't think there's really a plan for any scenario. And that's the most worrying thing, I think.

24:25Musa Okwonga: Yeah, yeah. I think Spurs, honestly, Spurs could go through another coach before the end of the season. Genuinely, they could. Genuinely, Spurs could appoint someone and they could lose three games on the bounce, like three thrashings, and they could be like, we're looking for somebody else. And they get an interim. That is how bad things are. It's genuinely that level of dysfunction. function. And in terms of the results that they get, like there's an argument for appointing even an interim coach and then saying to the players, look, you have to play yourself out of trouble because the types of coaches, I think there are coaches who are brilliant enough to do a rebuild job at Spurs, right?

25:09Musa Okwonga: Of course there are. But again, those types of coaches, like let's say an Iriola, those types of coaches will not go to Spurs at this point. Like that's the thing. I think someone at Iriola is a genius right I think he could actually do it I think he's such a good coach he's so thoughtful so expansive maximizes resources he's the type of coach that could go in there and be given a bit if he's given a bit of brief and backing he could have that team absolutely cooking again that squad cooking especially with with a pre-season with some rest and ready to and some investment I think he's absolutely the kind of guy that could do it but I don't think you get him I think you get a younger version of him I do think the thing about players not listening to the manager I'm slightly as much as I defend players making the right commercial choices for themselves professional choices I'm a bit more skeptical of players kind of folding their arms when someone arrives on the scene who's not at the level that they think I know it's a thing that happens in football I mean you're seeing it with Resenia over at Chelsea already you're seeing some worrying noises coming out of there but i think those are situations where you back the coach over some of the players actually and i think there's also an issue of player power in specific cases not overall but in specific cases for spurs right now look the thing that worries me most is that deserve is the clear choice and the reason i say that is because in a situation like that you actually need to have four or five doors that you're knocking on you don't need to have this kind of savior figure narrative and look again we're going to say i'm ridiculous if deserve he goes in there and has them win four in the bounce

26:52Ryan Hunn: and it's rocking again yeah i mean it might happen for sure but that's the thing like it's everything is such a massive gamble at the moment it's so it's so like i don't know i'm not seen i'm not seen deserve in that situation before either but then again we have seen Igor Tudor in that situation before and it didn't work and I get it

27:14Musa Okwonga: from a purely tactical point of view all out attack they've tried sensible they've tried

27:22Ryan Hunn: they'd get cooked if they went all like they cannot they cannot like the defences

27:30Musa Okwonga: again I'm just spitballing here I mean literally I don't I don't see a straightforward solution for this.

27:38Ryan Hunn: Their fixtures until the end of the season are Sunderland away, Brighton at home, Wolves away, Villa away, Leeds at home, Chelsea away, Everton at home on the last day of the season. Those are horrible fixtures. It's not good.

27:53Musa Okwonga: They're horrible. If those are fixtures, look, I know the table's tight as it is, but those are not fixtures you want to be playing if you're trying to get out of trouble. I'm not sure that, to be honest, I'm not sure that any fixtures are particularly delightful for them at this point. But let's say swap out. You'd rather play Crystal Palace than Chelsea. Not much more, but you'd rather play them because I think the historic grudge that Chelsea have against Spurs and the fact they would actually actively enjoy sending them down, you'd rather have that. So there are some teams you'd rather swap out.

28:24Musa Okwonga: There are some teams that won't have much to play for. Let's say you might swap out Fulham for one of those games, for example. for one of those so there are some matches that Spurs would rather play going into the last few games of the season but dude it's just and again I'm conscious of I'm not saying this so Spurs fans can feel like I'm piling on I say this is genuine affection particularly for the work that Poch and Ange did because of some of the best football I've seen at the club actually at its best points but it just it just saddens me I hope I can only hope they get a couple of key players back from injury or at least back to match fitness in those last few games.

29:05Musa Okwonga: But short of that, I just don't see how they're going to... They've got to just pray that West Ham plummet. This is really going to be one of those weird things where you're relying on the poor form of those who are trying to survive around you. Obviously, Leeds and Forest include it in that. But when you're relying on other teams to get bad results or worse results than you, it's it's already so far advanced man but yeah that's a I'm trying to extract positives from it but I'm not I'm not seeing them I'm not seeing them

29:39Ryan Hunn: yeah it's got to a point where there hasn't just been one identifiable point of failure and there isn't anyone really there who has a track record of solving or fixing anything at the club really anymore you've got quite a new sporting team you've got a fairly new executive team you don't have any long-standing like I mentioned like a kind of like a solid stalwart core really yeah and I think a number of players there are looking at leaving in the summer anyway and they're looking at Spurs as very much like either like a stepping stone or just like hey look this is you know I got to play in the Champions League and I got paid there's not much fully resembling a football club that's gonna get out of trouble yeah and it's quite alarming because you know i i'm kind of feel like i'm repeating a little bit with what i said to seb or what seb and i spoke about a couple of weeks ago but forget all the banter and stuff like that which i know that everyone you know loves to do which is fine yeah yeah i think like it's quite alarming and quite sad for for fans of that club that something like this is even possible yeah yeah and it should be and it should be a complete warning and wake-up call to literally any club maybe not in europe but definitely in the premier league that this is what malaise or focusing on the books and creating a really really good financial structure and being kind of okay with that without yeah pushing football as the forefront of it and then take it to the next level and it's you've seen clubs do that before and it's taken them a while before they've realized oh actually we need to get the football stuff in gear again i feel like those clubs though yeah majesty united have done it arsenal have done it clubs have done it i think

31:32Musa Okwonga: the thing with those two though and you could say we missed that on club let me jump in there we missed that on club look there's there's many like club club incredible coach and everyone knew that wherever clock went they become incredible right everyone knew because that guy could elevate any squad and he came and looked around united and he actually well he had he looked at the job opportunity and he wasn't convinced the club's priority was football i've never forgotten the world quote just just wasn't convinced wasn't convinced that it was football that was uh football focused and he was like no thanks this is how you lose out on elite talent like at the coaching level on the playing level you get people who are there for the paycheck and i'm not saying these players are and not these specific players just in terms of a trend right over time you get people and this is cumulative you get people that don't really fight for the shirt and it doesn't matter where people come from in the world to fight for the shirt i'm not saying that everyone on the team has to be like you know born within 20 kilometers of the stadium it's not 20 miles the stadium i'm not saying that it's more like over time that approach of spurs is fundamentally a business enterprise and everything else comes second has filtered down through all the different strata of the club that situation where like ang got furious he was like there are people that would rather lose the arsenal and have sit the night you know whatever that that thing about the derby when ang came out and said it people hated it and ang was like what are we doing here and he got a lot of hell for that at the time he caught a lot of like and i can see him doing that interview with the overlap felt like sort of settling some scores to an extent because i think he felt like he couldn't say fully what he wanted to say when he was at that club but he must have looked around and been incredulous like if you look at everywhere ang has been winning has been the priority and everything else comes after that and to suddenly turn up a place where that's not the priority and people don't i mean i've said this before i've been to football clubs before and i've gone there and i came back and said to you like ryan i don't think this club actually

33:29Ryan Hunn: wants to be any higher than a certain point in the table i think they hate being big i think

33:34Musa Okwonga: there's certain and this is this is not about spurs but it's an experience i had in germany where I went to a club and I was like, everything they do, every decision they make, every appointment from the head of comms, from the sporting director, from even the fact they've got this amazing third kit that you can't actually buy in club stores. The marketing department. Yeah, there was one club that had an incredible third kit and you couldn't buy it anywhere. And I was like, but it should be a hoodie. It should be a thing you get everywhere. It should be a thing like a fashion item. And I was like, oh, this club doesn't want to market itself.

34:05Musa Okwonga: it's comfortable being in its own little pocket of the universe and it doesn't want any bigger than that and it wasn't it was not union berlin by the way sounds like us

34:21Ryan Hunn: is he describing his own podcast

34:26Musa Okwonga: they got us they got us yeah but do you know but do you know i mean it's really this thing of um like I think Spurs cumulatively made choices that stopped them being what they should have been and that's gutting to me like yeah I hate to think about this right but like and this is I don't mean to sort of pile it on for Spurs fans for example is there an alternate universe like if all the decisions are made properly from 2016 onwards where Harry Kane is still at Spurs

34:53Ryan Hunn: maybe if they win that Champions

34:54Musa Okwonga: League Ryan he's only 32 yeah he's 32 and he's having maybe the season of his life and that has followed two of the previous seasons of his life

35:05Ryan Hunn: I think sometimes a player just needs a new a new challenge, a new environment a new you know a new league or something like that I think Kane going to Bayern when he went to Bayern felt like the most perfectly timed transfer for club and for player and I think it maybe didn't help it obviously didn't help Ange Postacoglu much but I think that Spurs had an opportunity Spurs also cashed in on it and they got a lot of money for Harry Kane and especially a player at that point in his career with however long he had left and I think that there was a good opportunity there to to create like a new future which they pulled the plug on quite quickly because I think that I don't know I think I've just got this thing in my head that to me it should be okay to have a bad season every now and again in football.

36:02Ryan Hunn: There are so many variables that play within football that sometimes it should be okay to have a fairly bad season. Now, if your bad season involved winning the Europa League, which it did at the time for Spurs, I think that should be enough for someone to keep their job, personally. Unless there was something hugely, hugely wrong behind the scenes, which I don't think there was. I'm sure not everyone loved Ange and I can get that I can probably imagine why just because player and coach friction is quite normal but I think I've said this a few times I think just optics wise it's like look we are sticking with the guy who won us the Europa League that creates a focal point and a person of authority that lets the players know oh actually yeah this is the guy yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah whereas if you take that guy away and i said this to sev like you take that guy away and then it creates a culture there where you're like well it doesn't matter like really you know they'll get rid of the guy and they won't get rid of us and it's just a weird it's a weird psychological thing to get through um i thought i know that we're kind of starting to repeat ourselves a little bit here so maybe we should wrap it up but if there's any risk you

37:17Musa Okwonga: know i just there's a part of me that's still and i said this as a united fan right i cannot believe it's come to this i cannot believe it's come to this i don't mean that like i don't mean in the kind of like i get it i see the the level of the types of decisions have been made over the course of seasons the appointments they've got wrong the signings they've got wrong and i still think that there's more quality in that squad than is being shown but that's always the case with teams that go down they always say like oh so and so is too good to go down but there's there's other issues at play you know there's the medical staff there's going to be questions about why are these players getting injuries like this they can't all be like if you look at a certain what's the word trend i i just think with that many injuries you start having questions about are they doing again there's different training this is the problem so many different coaches with different training regimes and the bodies aren't adjusting does that make sense there's so much else going wrong there's so little it's coordinated at a top level i can't believe it's come to this because if you look at where spurs were in terms of the chasing pack being just on the shoulder not at the level of man city but like certainly one of the clubs that city would look at and be and pep would look at and be like they're going to be a real problem for years to come i'm just and i say this like as a football fan primarily i am gutted at the scale of the drop off yeah i think it's yeah it's alarming yeah yeah so if i if i am repeating myself it's almost from a place of like shock and disappointment actually it's shock and disappointment we shouldn't be having this conversation about this club and yet we are it's happening

39:03Ryan Hunn: i mean we'll see who they appoint and what the next move is and we'll touch on it on the next episode but yeah just cannot really I can't yeah don't have any answers which is why I do a podcast yeah I don't run a football club haha yeah me too all right man let's touch on some other stuff quickly before we get out of here yeah the NWSL attendance record was broken this weekend yes it was at the Denver summits home debut 63 ,004 at the Empower field in the previous record they broke was 40 ,091 set by Bay FC last year at Oracle Park so they've gone 50 % past it which is quite wild. They went big yeah yeah.

39:55Ryan Hunn: They did go big. It was against Washington Spirit and it was a nil nil draw but.

40:01Musa Okwonga: Dude the first goal that goes in there is going to go off Yeah. It's going to go absolutely wild. Yeah. Cannot wait. Cannot wait.

40:10Ryan Hunn: In the WSL, there was another, there was a North London derby this weekend. It was. And more, more Spurs angst as they fell to their third defeat in a row in the league. 5-2 against Arsenal at Emirates Stadium. A hat-trick for Alessio Russo. They're now up to third because Manchester United lost to Manchester City in the derby. 3-0. They have two games in hand on Chelsea, who are two points ahead of them. They got a late win against Villa. They won 4-3. And if Arsenal win their two games in hand, they go five points behind Manchester City. But it looks like it is Manchester City's title, as we mentioned a little while ago.

40:53Musa Okwonga: Yes, yes.

40:54Ryan Hunn: In the Frauenbundersieger very quickly. A brilliant point for Union. Unión, three all away at Wolfsburg. And they could have had all three.

41:07Musa Okwonga: Yeah, it could have been even better. Very, very late, late equaliser for Wolfsburg. They've survived. They've survived. Yeah. Yeah. So Essen, basically, the team, Essen are basically the team that is highest in the drop zone. Unión are on 27, Essen are on 12, and there are four games to go of that season. So Unión have survived in their first season, which was probably the main objective and they've done that comfortably. So yeah, huge congratulations to them. Huge congratulations.

41:37Ryan Hunn: Absolutely. And at the top of the league, Bayern beat Nürnberg, just cruising. Barcelona, meanwhile, they beat Real Madrid for the second time in a matter of days, this time 3-0 away. After 24 games, they have a goal difference of plus 100.

42:00Musa Okwonga: absolutely wild absolutely they've scored 106 goals and conceded six in 24 games it's it's a level yeah yeah it's barcelona doing barcelona things i i feel for them a little um but well it sounds like a strange thing to say i i feel for elmwood fans a little bit in terms of the way this rivalry is talked about because some might say well look it's Barca are so far ahead. There is a weird thing that happens though in cup competitions sometimes with, it's almost like, because obviously like remember they're quite close in the league, right? But there's a weird thing that happens specifically in cup competitions.

42:37Musa Okwonga: It's almost like Barcelona reminding Real that they're just really quite far away from them. So that's a kind of, I suppose a slight sort of corrective. I was surprised by the scale of the margin in the actual Women's Champions League, but there you go. um elsewhere uh dipping across the men's game a shout for senegal who celebrated celebrating the afghan title oh dear senegal at this point are basically the wakanda of football like good luck good luck getting that trophy back good luck getting that trophy back parading it in um the uh in the Stade de France before their latest friendly and basically like yeah this is our trophy and we don't care what the kind of what the rulings say I mean technically technically they're wrong maybe spiritually they're entirely correct but yeah such is life.

43:40Musa Okwonga: Any other shouts while I'm here I just want to give a quick shout out Kosovo Kosovo beating Slovakia 4-3 to go through to the final of their leg of the playoff they'll face Turkey which is a tough ask, Turkey beating Romania 1-0, an incredible assist from Arda Goulet, Cadio Goulet's winner but yeah a superb win for Kosovo who on paper were outmatched by Slovakia but they absolutely brought it, they won 4-3 but they were actually 4-2 up until the very final minutes of that encounter and were very good value for the win, so yeah huge shout to them they're probably the standout also elsewhere shout for bolivia overcoming surinam 2-1 in their semi-final and jamaica beating new caledonia 1-0 so yeah those are probably the biggest shouts in terms of the playoffs from me in the rest of the uefa ones we've got but bosnian

44:31Ryan Hunn: hurts their governor against italy ceccia knocked out ireland after penalties after coming from two the island were 2-0 up which was they were kind of cruising and they gave away a silly penalty they'll face Denmark and Sweden will face Poland yeah unlucky Northern Ireland and Wales I think Northern Ireland

44:52Musa Okwonga: Italy were just such good value for that because they were just dominant I think throughout I think the heartbreakers have to be Bosnia, Wales I mean huge congratulations to Bosnia Ed and Dzeko scoring like 4 minutes from the end a very familiar outcome to all United fans will be familiar with what Dzeko can do later on games but he was hanging tough in that game but yeah that's a tough tough loss for wales and ireland because i feel like of the two teams that went out they're the ones that probably will look at and be yeah we should have got the job done we should have got the job done but yeah uh just a

45:25Ryan Hunn: quick shout did you what did you happen to see florian verts absolutely cooking for germany

45:29Musa Okwonga: against no i heard about i've not seen the games yet but i've heard he he was incredible

45:35Ryan Hunn: his first goal was absolutely unbelievable you know i love about this when viets

45:40Musa Okwonga: what I love I love that the Germany national team is there to show and remind people what happens when Wietz has a team that gets exactly what he's doing and where he feels an integral part of the system I still feel like he's in transition I feel like he's going to show the Germany form at some point consistently for Liverpool I'm really really gutted for him that it's been such a tough start but I think he's going to absolutely cook there it's Wietz we're talking about yeah

46:10Ryan Hunn: all right and quickly before we go um it happened last week we didn't really talk about it but uh the ipswich town chairman i'm taking this from an athletic piece by dan kilpatrick the chairman and chief executive of ipswich town has apologized quote unreservedly hurt pain and frustration caused to have by a visit to the club stadium from nigel farage yeah super interesting actually

46:37Musa Okwonga: on this very quickly can i just say so this is just reading from the bbc report um that came out a couple days ago just to read this out nigel farage was invited to an ipswich town meeting this week despite the club claiming otherwise the bbc understands the reform yeah yeah yeah the championship club initially denied knowledge and claimed it was part of a private tour it later said it was apolitical and did not support or endorse any individual party and this this last bit i continue messages seen by the bbc suggest that club consultant james pierce reached out to farage seemingly on behalf of club chairman ashton to arrange a meeting the club declined to comment here's the thing you cannot extend an invitation on the understanding of the bbc to nigel farage a politician a political figure and then say afterwards you are a political and do not support or endorse any individual party so i would just say to the ownership or to the leadership whatever order we put it in to the leadership of that club own it like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar do you know what i mean it's as simple as that i don't think it's that deep it's like if this is who you are and it's who you stand for as individuals that run that club stand on business stand on business like don't we're not clowns in this so just own it that's all i'm saying and actually in the process grow up like mistakes were made harm was caused no you caused harm you caused harm and that's the end of it really let's not use this passive voice let's be adults about this so yeah that's all um that's all i've got to say about that i just feel sorry for fans man because

48:18Ryan Hunn: like that's just just a wild wild thing to have to navigate yeah and look don't get me wrong

48:24Musa Okwonga: there'll be some fans there'll be members of that constituency that maybe they're quite keen on the visit but if you look at ipswich as a club historically and the players it's brought in and what it stood for historically both on and off the field i don't feel like a visit like that is aligned with the club's values and maybe look i've not been there for a while so maybe i'm just spitballing but i don't feel like the presence of a guy like that in the club is a good cultural fit and let's see how that conversation plays out over the coming months yep god man weird decisions so weird so weird uh all right man is there anything else we want to hit

49:03Ryan Hunn: today or shall we leave it there and save it let's save it let's save it there's only gonna be one more show this week we're gonna do it on friday just just because of some travel and the dish stick stuff so we're gonna do one episode on friday and it'll be with you hopefully friday afternoon um but yeah until then don't forget to check the stadio archers players on spotify speaking of which playing out on m &m theme by crazy k anything you would like to add nothing further all right everyone much love have a great week back with you on friday see you then

49:48Thank you.

50:18Thank you.

50:48Thank you.

51:18Thank you.