Forest Game Starts Crucial Period of the Season

28:27I mean, I think the big thing is that I'm constantly impressed with Rice. And I think that's something, you know, you kind of came in when he's at West Ham. It's like, oh, he's a world-class DM to be able to do all of those types of things, you know, play deeper, you know, disrupt the game, you know, really kind of, you know, be able to give you a little bit of box to box kind of stuff. But I don't think I had it in my, you know, bingo card that he's going to turn into what he's turned into for Arsenal. And I think, again, like you get kind of pigeonholed into like certain stereotypes that kind of go with a player.

28:59You see a guy that, you know, it's kind of that classic English bulldog and you kind of don't associate that with a technical level. And some of the ball striking that he has is up there with the best, right? Like the delivery that he can put on not just a set play, but some of the long passes, the switches, these are not kind of like, I always remember Wayne Rooney loved to do a big switch, but the main Wayne Rooney switch was this high floated ball. And it looked pretty. You got the applause from the crowd and everything like that. But the fullback was able to get over pretty quickly and it really wasn't that effective.

29:37That Wayne Rooney was shit, mate. But when Declan Rice does it, man, that ball is delivered like a laser and that ball is out there and he gives his winger a chance to get that step early on his you know his man out there and i think that's one of the things i think like you don't really expect that from when you're thinking about like the stereotype of what declan rice kind of is and what you kind of build that into right oh this guy's a former center back you know you moved into dm and it's like no this this guy is just an all-around great footballer and what he's able to do and i don't know i'm constantly re-evaluating and kind of changing what i'm seeing after what he's able to do on the field um overall right i think something that's really kind of improved and i think this is something that you see in a lot of great players is that you know after a summer you kind of start to see changes you can see exactly what they worked on that summer to get better for the coming season and this is something that you know you kind of see a lot in basketball you know young players all right i'm gonna i'm gonna go work on these skills and they transfer it over.

30:43I think there's something very similar with that with Rice. I think, you know, the summer before, you know, the 23, 24 to 24, 25 season, really kind of concentrating on, you know, the work that he's doing in and around the box. And you could see those instincts start to become a little bit more natural to be able to kind of understand the spaces he's needing to be in. He still has the great ability to cover acres of space and to be able to do it. And he's really just evolving into just an all-around really good midfielder. Yeah, and what makes him special, obviously, is the ability to play in any zone of the pitch and influence it in a positive way, which is a really unique trait that he has, and I'm sure one that Mikel Arteta is very happy to have, and we're very lucky to have him.

31:29I think it is natural when you have elite talent to want to constantly be reinventing. You've been doing it with Saka, right? Where can they influence? Saka could move to eight. He could move inside. And then we could play Nani on the right. And that kind of mentality is natural. I think it's a FIFA mindset because I'll admit I don't play FIFA as much as I once did. But when I did, how would I set my lineup? I'd put all the fun players on. I'd have every attacking player on and no defenders. And that worked just as well in FIFA as it would in real football. let's um let's shift gears to the to the forest game though i think we want to put the international break in the rearview mirror and we'll talk about the run to the next international break after we specifically talk about the forest game but clive this this is an interesting one just to set the stage forest have not gotten off to a good season they've sacked their manager they've brought in a manager that people probably have some big doubts about themselves his style as scott referenced could not be more diametrically opposed to the style of the manager they just got rid of and the talent that they currently have.

32:31Oleksandr Zinchenko will not be able to play. He's barred from playing because of the loan. Although it'd be fine if they want to play him at fullback against not even Dwight, candidly. I think we have some sense of how that could go. Can we get a special disposition to waive that rule? We'll just waive it for this one game. Elanga is no longer there, a player that used to obviously cause a lot of havoc in the past. This is a club in a really weird state, and they come to the Emirates at a time when, And I think everybody will be hoping for a big performance to kick off another big run of fixtures.

33:03So what are your thoughts leading into this game and Forrest's situation as they arrive at the Emirates?

33:09Elliot:Yeah, the West Ham game, we've had to talk about Liverpool for two weeks. That was a 1-0 defeat of an 81st minute long shot, right? We can debate it. It was heavy, but to lose 3-0 at home to West Ham, that's quite traumatic. at West Ham that were not in a great place. And West Ham scored three quite late goals and beat them well. Imagine losing at home to West Ham. Like that, you can't do that. Yeah, yeah. That's going to get clipped up, isn't it? And so, but the way they lost was quite bad. And where West Ham are in their confidence. So what are they at the moment? So they were very, very direct under Nuno.

33:54Elliot:Nuno, I'm a fan of him, always have been. I thought Tottenham treated him badly. I don't know, he's gone to Forrest. Forrest are now seen to treat him badly. I think data-wise, I read somewhere, Scott, that maybe Forrest were not quite as good as what people thought they were, you know? And so we get excited about what they, you know, because they've got great home ground performances there and they've got good atmosphere and our press like that, you know, that environment, etc. And they lean into it, something new in the Premier League. And they spent a lot of money and they're showing people how to stay up.

34:21Elliot:And they stayed up despite having points deducted, etc so very interesting club we're a very interesting owner and i think that ownership has caused a problem potentially with um with eddie arriving in that upward management relationship so what are we going to get so we walk into the unknown really you know but you sometimes i've heard you use the word earlier well i had tim use it as well the word disruptor i think they're a disruptor for the premier league and i think sometimes when that happens you just have to sit back and say, okay, how are they doing this? What are they doing? This guy's got different ambitions to what maybe we're used to.

34:58He's got a multi-club model.

35:00Elliot:How's that going to affect what he's doing here? I think it's interesting, that club. You know, I don't put them into a place like we do sometimes here in England. Well, they're just bad. They're a club we should hate. There are problems with Crystal Palace and Europa League versus Europa Conference League. They are here. And they don't intend to go away. you know and they're going to build their infrastructure build their ground no doubt and they're going to do things so i find them interesting and how they go about it i think this summer has not been great from my eye for a player but the things i can talk about quite hopefully cogently is about players and i watched in gun 21s in the summer trying to fit in amari hutchinson mackatee wanieri harvey elliott all these little lefties had to fit i mean they couldn't feel me.

35:50Elliot:Hutchison had to go to the left wing, he even had to go to the bench, and eventually found a balance. I don't expect a team to buy two of those players in Hutchison and McAdee when there are other players like El Canoos available, which Nuno wanted, wasn't allowed to get, which would have given them a left-right balance. When I start to see that stuff, you wonder who's in charge. Who's in charge? Who's making these decisions? As soon as you get that situation, mate, you might as well sit down in a room, speak to the agent, speak to club and say how much money am i going to get because it's time to go do you know i mean and that seems to knows what happened and within 24 hours angie's there you look at this and you think look at their relationship with the owner maranakis and it's just it's football mate i know it really is and so it comes so we now have the new manager bounce syndrome on saturday morning i'm hoping we just deal with them really really quickly and um they can go on and reshape themselves going forward and Angel will hopefully be focusing on the Europa League trophy, which is his own now.

36:53Yeah, I want to get in the lineup and how we play and our expectations, but just one final thing, Scott, because you referenced it and I think it is relevant. The new manager bounce concept. I get it because it's usually a team that's in the doldrums, losing an unpopular manager, feeling like a weight's been lifted and now they can, you know, show their stuff to the new manager and it reinvigorates everyone. But like, I don't get the sense the players didn't like Nuno. That's not really what I get transmitted. that I get the sense that it's a club in crisis, that Edu's come and swung a wrecking ball and brought Kia in, and the owner creates a really challenging environment and threatening environment for everyone.

37:25He doesn't let players make moves, who I think candidly wanted to make moves, and then they have to show up to the media and say, no, I never wanted to move. And it was a very weird environment. And so I think that their challenges are based on, first of all, just a little reversion to the mean, so to speak, because the data, as Clive referenced, showed that they weren't an elite team last season. They somewhat outperformed with their counterattacking style. They've lost some of the keys to being able to counterattack as effectively as they did. I think Galanga was really, really important for that, for what it's worth, with his speed to turn defense into attack very quickly.

37:57This isn't a case where I think, oh, you get rid of a manager the players hated and they're reinvigorated. I think this is a case of a club that's in a bit of a mess, and now they get a manager who's going to want them to do things that are totally different and unnatural. So it could be famous last words, but it doesn't feel like new manager bounce territory, especially going away from home in a very big game, coming off an international break, where candidly they will have had, I guess, more players back to train than big clubs do. But I think I've read somewhere they had like still 14 guys out on international break.

38:26So it's still a pretty healthy amount. So players coming back to a new guy they don't know, to a chaotic situation, to go away to a tough ground. And I think this is the thing. You get a 1-0 lead and you win this 7-0. Because this is a team that I think, if they feel like their tails are up, maybe they'll think it's a new era for us. But with the chaos that's going on around them, if they feel like they're already behind, I could see them kind of throwing in the towel. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Do you see a new manager bounce situation developing here? I think a lot of like just being very cold calculating on this.

38:58A lot of what I see as a new manager bounce is that when a manager tends to get fired, it's usually after a situation where they probably played poorly. But you also will see a team perform worse than kind of their underlying numbers are. right that's usually when you kind of pull the plug like this has become untenable to be able to do it so like just changing a manager can be a situation to it sometimes it's noise sometimes it's randomness but it just bring you back to you know your kind of level so like just you know having a little bit of that general reversion to the mean kind of thing but i'm not sure that's necessarily the case here with nottingham forest like you pointed out like this isn't a team that is playing poorly per se to be able to do it or that is not the reason that incited why this change is made right it seems like this is a kind of a battle of kind of super agents uh you know is a jorge mendez guy uh you know kia and then we have kia drapkin which is you know tied with edu and that maybe is kind of it there's a weird kind of feud you know with marinakis and you know his comments on him earlier were not something that you normally hear from a manager overall to be able to see and I think then there's also the the thoughts on you know Forrest like how they're viewed they went from I think kind of underrated at the start of last season you kind of looked at you know the end of the 23-24 season and they were on a nice upward trajectory really kind of starting to come together quite well.

40:30And I was pretty high on them coming into last season, actually made a few bets on that to be able to kind of get ahead of that. And then it kind of, as they moved further and further at the table, went from underrated to overrated. And yeah, that's the one where I think now they are in that overrated spot. But that doesn't mean that they didn't improve under Nuno. They went from a team that I thought was borderline relegation candidate level to pretty solidly like upper mid table right if they if they had kind of like maybe performed you know maybe not so hot at the very beginning and like the the results were a little bit more spread out you know versus the the collapse kind of at the end like i think somewhere between seventh and ninth would have been absolutely fair for them and that is a really good kind of view for a team that not too long ago was right on the cusp of battling out relegation That is quite a bit of improvement overall for them.

41:29I just come into this match and I'm like, what is going to happen here? So I pulled up a metric and I'm going to tweet it out later. Just it's what I call the style kind of comparison here. And it kind of looks at things that are really kind of tied to how teams play. So you're going to look at, you know, like the speed towards play and, you know, how many passes they're going to have per possession and where on the field they're playing and how they get into the box and being able to do it. And I compared Forest and Spurs. And it is really like, it's hard to like overstate this, but it's like, there are not two teams that are absolutely different in how they played overall last year.

42:05Even Spurs not being good last year under Ange still were massively different. So like the difference in possession. Forest were by far the lowest possession team. They had the lowest passing volume. They really were the fastest directly up the field. And I think that really kind of matches and, you know, kind of thought about how they built their team. You know, the defenders. Match the eye test. Right. Sat back and it's one, two passes and we're in your box. We're trying to attack you. And that is not the way that Ange plays. Ange is much more of a, we're going to build from the back. We're trying to draw you out.

42:39We're trying to get that. We want to control the ball. Much more, I guess, of like, you know, the big club kind of view of how you play. And like, is he going to try to lean into that now? Like, can he get his players to do that after what, two, three training sessions to be able to do that? Does he have the players that like, this is more of a talent advantage type of system overall. And I mean, Nottingham Forest have invested quite a bit, but I don't think that for the vast majority of their matches, they're going to have that big talent advantage to where maybe the strategy plays out. And I'm just really interested to see if he changes to suit the talent or if he tries to make the talent suit his, you know, his view of how football should be played.

43:23If he hits the it's just who we are, mate approach again, they're going to get slaughtered a lot. And it's going to be such an interesting litmus test on Ange as a manager capable of growth and development, because there may be a future where Forrest can play his style of football. But that future isn't today. And I am praying to whatever you want to pray to that he tries to get them to do a little more of his thing after two training sessions, because it'll be a very easy day for us. I do want to switch the focus to us, though. I want to switch the focus to our lineup, to our tactics, to our injuries, to availability, and then to the period that's coming up between now and the West Ham game, because obviously a very crucial point acquisition period we are going to enter, not to mention the Cups are starting to come around.

44:10It would be weird to talk about the lineup, not just weird, I think it would be a dereliction of duty. And I do not want to be derelict in my duty. If we talked about lineups without talking about your e-commerce store, what would even be the point? Oh, talk about lineups. You haven't told me one thing about how to build an e-commerce store. See, that wouldn't be right. But we're not going to do that because we're going to tell you about Shopify. Shopify is the platform where you can build the perfect professional e-commerce site that makes people want to buy the things you love and make and want to share with the world.

44:44And that's the whole thing, right? You don't want to be an expert in e-commerce and web design and engineering. I mean, maybe if you're like Scott, you might want to, but most people don't want to. And that holds them back to say, I could never start a business because I don't know anything about e-commerce. With Shopify, you don't have to know. Fortune 500 companies use Shopify to build their e-commerce. It is click and drag, simple. You write a description of your product, you post a picture and you set the price. That's it. Now, what about cart optimization or taxes or shipping? It takes care of that.

45:10How do I also sell on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok? It takes care of that. So you've got the product. That's the thing you love and you care about. Let Shopify take care of the rest. And how does this sound? A$1 per month trial period. Well, you can get that. Established in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your$1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Arsenal Vision, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash Arsenal Vision, all lowercase, to start selling on Shopify today. Shopify.com slash Arsenal Vision, all lowercase. to an hour and this is an advertisement from BetterHelp.

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49:07Elliot:Indeed. And again, apologies for the authentic sincerity in the midst of all that nonsense, but I think every once in a while it's good to stop and let people know that we're all human beings. we all care about each other because it doesn't always feel that way all the time um clive lineup who starts who plays what are the injuries how many will we lose to injury in this very game um three four seven eleven um yeah what would you do and let's assume we haven't seen saka in training we haven't seen saliba in training let's assume this game comes too soon for them how do you want the manager to line up and what do you think he'll do yeah so three game week um I know Scott doesn't like that term.

49:51Elliot:How many games can you play in a week? I've got to find the right term. I've just got to stop you for a second, Clive. I'm sorry. I got to. Look this up if you've never come in contact with it. How many workouts in a seven-day period? John Boyce, I think is his name, did a video about it, but there's multiple videos. There was a thread on a chat room for muscle-bound fitness people. What was it called? I think it's bodybuilding.com. from way back in the foreign days. Yeah, yeah, on bodybuilding.com there was a chat where people got into like a 48-hour fight about how many workouts can actually be fit into a seven-day period based on if you worked out every other day or something like that, or four days a week.

50:28It is absolutely hilarious. It by far exceeds that he's 28 until he's 29 or he's 29 until he's 30. That's how this works. So please look it up. You will be glad you did. Maybe you have to link the video. You know what? I'll put a link to the video, the YouTube video that is, in my mind, an absolute instant classic. So Clive, that's probably more important than what you were going to say, but please, back to you.

50:52Elliot:Well, we have a three-game week and the first one is probably... There, there you go. The first one is is for us on a Saturday morning and then we go to Bilbao and then we've got Man City. So you can't help but start to look at games in threes now. You would do, wouldn't you? And if there's an issue with a player, you're going to think, okay, I'm not going to risk him because I've got another one a couple of days later. So the Forest team, if I can, if I name this team, just name it, probably everyone's going to agree, right? So it's going to be Timber, Calafuri, Mosquera, Gabriel, Rice, Supermendi, Odegaard, Radweke, Jokarez, Eze.

51:31Elliot:That's the fan team, right? That's the team we all want to see. But I wonder what Mikel will do, given the fact we have got Bubell and we've got a good start, and we've got Man City. So you have to think about three games. I had to think about what people have done during the international break. Nonny's had two strong games. I'm not saying they're the hardest games in the world, but he's played for England a couple of times. So I think he should ride the wave for me, particularly as Saka's coming back quite quickly, hopefully, maybe for the City. Sleba potentially for City as well. So maybe even in the week, you just don't know where they are.

52:05Elliot:Ben White back in the group without help a lot because Timbers at the moment looks like a 75-minute player at the moment. and it'd be great if it's gonna be the rotation there to make sure they last the same at left back situation just because Califure he seemed to have a few games in a row let's remember who he is he's only a slip away from being out for three months right so um and so to make sure we share the time there and by the way we have a new left back to think about right who we haven't even seen a training picture yet as we're in time of recording but no doubt will be released shortly and there's some comps of his international duty yes from this week i'd say he can play football this is somebody that's known to many people isn't a surprise he can play he's sharp he's aggressive he's quick looks after the ball fighting is quite dynamic bounces into the last third all the stuff that we all like and we all know also depending now we need people comfortable man for man right on their own not bothered you know so um so he fits what we we're used to so we've got four lefties four righties we're looking really good back there aren't we really good so we're interested to see how he divvies up the games and this is going to be the challenge in this first phase of the season but that's the team i'd pick elliot you know i don't like first devons but if i don't see that when i go into the game on saturday morning there'd be riots yeah fair totally totally fair um and by the way you know scott we didn't mention it in an international break section at the top of the pod because we talked about it at length, which I know you were frustrated by, on the, I think it was the Monday pod.

53:36No harm, no foul. But that's Mikel Marino, who did have a hat trick for Spain, who has looked good for Spain, who was picked to start against Liverpool. And Clive and I talked about this on the rewatch. There's a small little teeny tiny part of me that thinks Martin Odegaard could have started at Liverpool. That was a pain tolerance injury, not a how-you-can-play injury. You get the injection, you can play. If you can play for 25 minutes on a shoulder that hurts, you can play 70 minutes, in my view. So maybe it was a case that Mikel Marino was picked because he thought he was the best option for that game.

54:10But I wonder, Mikel Marino coming off the performance he just had, is he going to be a player that Mikel looks at and says, I want those goals on the pitch? Does he have a shout for getting into this lineup, or is that overthinking? I mean, so I talked about, I mean, before the Liverpool game, I kind of like, you know, kind of offhandedly, but kind of seriously, you know, said that this kind of seemed like a Mikel Marino game. You kind of looked at what Liverpool had struggled with in the two matches preceding playing Arsenal. And it was some of the physicality in midfield. and to be able to do that.

54:45I think the option of being able to have his dual winning, especially considering that, you know, Jokeresh is not, you know, the greatest kind of holdup player to be able to do that, to have an option if Liverpool came on to us to play over their press to be able to do that. I think that is a type of thing that suited Mikel Marino. And I think that was kind of my thought for why you might choose him for this game, especially the addition of, right, yeah, he does have a i don't always love his game in the middle third but i'm really impressed with some of his play in the final third it's it's kind of crazy that a player that you know has such great kind of combination and like a you know a deft touch like kind of like on the edge of the box can kind of look so kind of slow when he's like in the defensive third or the middle third and it's a similar kind of thing right he receives kind of back to goal but sometimes his turning in the middle third isn't nearly as good as kind of what you would hope it to be and I think that that is something that when you're going to play a team like Liverpool maybe suits his strength a little bit more so I think this is a game where again like if this was a Nuno game or a Nuno was the manager here I think it's very clearly this is a you know Martin Odegaard we need a little bit more of the creativity we need to unpick the lock to be able to do it even with Ange maybe right it's a player we need who can play that through ball to be able to kind of see it to be able to get onto our players um yes I kind of lean that I do think it is probably Odegaard, but I like the option and seeing him, right?

56:16He played on the right-hand side again for Spain to be able to maybe kind of come into this as an option. And again, playing three times this week, being able to think about, all right, maybe Odegaard gives us 60, 70 minutes here and, you know, maybe then we can, you know, rest, rotate to be able to do it. Because looking at the schedule, this is something that I think that Arteta is going to have to be more mindful of because if Arsenal advance in the League Cup, which I think we all expect to do with our overall squad size and quality and depth for it, it's going to be twice a week all the way through Christmas Eve.

56:55That is the first time that Arsenal will not play twice a week, not counting the international breaks. So we are needing to use the full squad. We are going to have to see these players. We're going to have to see sharing of minutes. We're going to have to see, be comfortable seeing you know three or four changes um kind of coming in and out from the champions league and you're going to see a bit of what Mikel prioritizes by the lineups he picked weekdays versus weekends and how he thinks about how he wants to use what's available to him Clive it's it's a I think a winnable midweek game one against an opponent we know from preseason although preseason is not the real season but an opponent that I think we can handle so I don't think we have to pick this lineup with an eye towards midweek, but I do think we might have an eye towards what follows, which is Manchester City and then Newcastle away.

57:48I think this is a game where you pick a lineup to get into form with the lineup that you're going to want to use in those two games. That's my thought. We need to feel really good about our ability to play with this group. Now, obviously Saliba you'd want in the group against City and you'd want sack in the group against city but do you agree that you've got to pick the strongest group available for this game because you really want to start to get into some kind of rhythm and form with that group for those two games ahead yeah absolutely because when you lose a game next game

58:23Elliot:is the most important thing next game is always the most important thing but it certainly is when you lose away in front of the world this is the big game in the league it's way too early for both teams by the way but it's a big game in the league and we lost right so we've had two weeks of national team now we've got a home game so we can almost more or less kick off the premier league weekend mate dropping points in this game is not an option right it is not an option and so you don't look ahead you take this game on and you maybe change things towards the end of the game if you if you're able to do so midweek is still champion league with money points important right So you've got more options to recover, but you need to start well.

59:03Elliot:Then we have a bit of time. I think City, for some strange reason, they play on the Thursday. They play Napoli at home on the Thursday. Scott's nodding. I always like the Scott song because I get confirmation. This is what we had with the Inter before we played them, right? We played the Thursday game before we had to go. Yeah, so it's a nice advantage. And we have the Tuesday early game. So we have a few even more extra hours. Exactly. Get your legs up after that. get back early and we can sit there and watch them on Thursday and then they've got to come back and then come to us on on the uh on the Sunday so I think this getting this forest game done sets us up for a week if we can get we can get three wins that's really really positive because then I've got Newcastle in my eyes really you know we'll see Port Vale in the week midweek after that but Newcastle's in my eyes that's the one and it's in my Old Trafford was my big game so far this season because I thought if we if we win that whatever happens at Anfield I was sort of all right if we took the pressure off do you see what I mean we could approach that game I'm not sure if we quite approached it correctly but who cares now we've got we're over it but now we've dropped all the points at Anfield we dropped all the points at Newcastle last year we've got to get something there we've got to make some sort of correction to me and to get the points at Anfield back I'm looking at Newcastle and I think that that's a that's the big one for me really is big you know so if we can get there and get something out of there in good health which i think we're in much better health by then hopefully that's what i'm looking at from my eyes are drawing towards earlier clive i'll stay with you just for a second tactically you expect to see a lot of the same stuff we've seen so far i mean it's weird because we played away at old trafford which is just always a tough game for us for one reason or another we played away at anfield tough game for anybody a very tactical cagey battle against leeds we just absolutely bullied them that's the best way I can put it we bullied them but I wouldn't say we were free-flowing and uh dynamic in the way we attacked so that this will be sort of an interesting chance to see again what we are when we're not in that real high tension cagey big big club rivalry match what do you expect tactically to see from us yeah so bring it back a touch in national breaks now I look at them completely differently given what we seem to play a lot you know every few days we pay a lot but and so in national break you play literally two games in two weeks right so the players get a chance to be in their own environment different environments obviously sometimes further away than normal but they get a chance to train differently and rest you know and I think that's really important in national breaks now I look forward to them right so so then then we come back into this and what I'm thinking about Elliot to be honest is in wide areas we're going to have some real personality out there if Eze and Madweke play and they're going to, for different reasons, they're going to want to show up.

1:01:56Elliot:You know, really want to show up. Eze is his home debut. Maduweke, fresh off being man of the match for England. Everyone's talking about him positively. He's not a shy little flower. He's going to want to show up. He's going to want to play. You know, he's got a real ambition. I really like his attitude. And they've got character and they're going to play. And I think it's going to be quite exciting for us to see a confident Maduweke, you know, and a new signing. I think that will lift everybody else. I think it lifts the central players to really go and deliver. So on the Far East side of things, they've got two defenders there, Murillo.

1:02:30Elliot:I can't remember the other guy's name. But they are, for me, I don't think they're high line defenders. Do you see what I mean? And so I'm wondering, I often talk about line height. Because line height dictates the space by which you play in. And for us, you have quite a low line height normally. I think it suits Murillo. I think it suits their big center back. the right milenkoviches who played against west ham thank you that's the guy's name thank you and they for me remind me so much of leicester's back line where it's just drop deep when they won the league and then spring out from there that's the sort of style they have and they're quite solid in the box if they step out a little bit this isn't van de ven and romero who can run this is not them i mean marino can move right but you do it four or five times hamstring time right so he's a power defender in collision so let me tell you what we do but i don't think it matters I think we've got the wide men.

1:03:21Elliot:I'm a big believer in our wide men. I love the fact that we now have wide player options. Because if we're a team that doesn't attack in number 10 too much, we roll outside the block, we go to wide areas, and then we run around that player and get cutbacks and chips for backpaw. If that's who we are, then invest in it. You know, that's it for me. Invest in who we are. Right now, you know one of the things I'm looking for development-wise? I want Nani Malaweke to learn how to take corners from the right-hand side. because if Saka's not playing, we need to develop that. These are development opportunities.

1:03:52Or Odegaard can take them.

1:03:53Elliot:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think, yeah. But that's, we might not be on the pits. And we found out, didn't we, in the last game? And it cost. And people say, oh, Clive, we're not a set piece. I don't care. Everything you have, bring it. You know? Development's going to be a big part of this year for us. Player development, individual development, Ethan training on, Miles training on, Califuri delivering after an extraordinary year opposed to Euros last season and coming to Arsenal and not really being able to put a consistent string of games together. We need these guys to train on. Jokic has got to develop on, got to sharpen up.

1:04:29Elliot:So our future is in player development, player health, player fitness, sharpening. That's where it is because we all have these dreams. We all look at the names on the squad sheet. We have all the depth charts in the world. But they don't develop on and they platter like we did last year. Odegaard, a good example. Martin Neely, maybe a good example. you know ben white struggle for injury and probably over playing when he was injured and he plateaued a little bit and that so we've got to get those up up escalators back again you know and that's what i want to see and that's where i think our season is i really do yeah i well just on the midfield for a second scott you know the thing with forest is i think there is a sense in the arsenal fan base just sort of canvassing online sentiment whatsapp sentiment things like that is that this is a game we can kind of cruise through, right?

1:05:17There's no cruise through games in the Premier League, but you start to look at these teams that you expect to beat and you say, Elliot Anderson getting celebrated for his England performances, this international break, Morgan Gibbs-White, a player who I think his future is at a very big club, and now Douglas Louise is there, a player who we wanted once upon a time if they don't go with Singare over him. That's a midfield that can handle itself, that can cause some problems if they want to have any of the ball and play in midfield. And we regard midfield as a space we dominate. So that battle feels pretty important to me.

1:05:50And I'm wondering if you think that could be more of a contest than we might expect. I mean, I still like Arsenal's chances against that midfield, but yeah, that is definitely not a pushover midfield. And I think that is something that I really like Elid Anderson. And I think that maybe the fee that they kind of paid to Newcastle was maybe a little bit too much, But I think overall, they've gotten a pretty solid player overall from that. Douglas Luiz is, I think, someone that we're familiar with, right? We spent a lot of time looking at him to be able to do it. And I think that the opinion on him is that he is a good player overall for that, right?

1:06:26He went to, you know, Juve. I think he was part of some really good Aston Villa teams to be able to do that. So I think that might be a player that if there's one major change that you kind of will see from what we saw from Nuno going to Ange, I think that's probably the one that I think could be the player that's there. I think he's got a little bit more range in his passing potentially to do that. And if they want to kind of invite pressure on, I think he's a guy that's maybe a little bit more comfortable doing that. so i think that might be the one change in the lineup that would be tied to perhaps the different tactics overall for it and yeah i think it's going to be really interesting to to kind of see i'm still just i i'm really i think there's there's two things i'm interested is well one how much change is there just drastically in after like the two to three standing sessions and i'm really interested in the direct matchup between murillo and yokoresh because like clive said like Murillo is a beast of a unit right he is a very physical um really kind of athletic right especially like I think he's kind of bursty right he's really good kind of over those short uh distances to be able to do that and he's going to be a full handful and this is potentially the kind of physical matchup that you know potentially worries you with Yoko Resh and can he withstand that and I think this is one of those that I'm going to be looking at pretty closely as a kind of a barometer of because there's a lot of teams in this middle of the premier league that have kind of that caliber of player and i think this is something that could potentially give you a hint of what's to come and what kind of the expectations are because right i'm not reading too much into you know cannot say and van dyke because you know you're not gonna run into those guys all the time but a middle level player you are gonna see that pretty often and if he's able to get the best of it withstand some of the physical balance it kind of what he did against i'm interested united where I thought he did quite well overall, right?

1:08:22He won some, he lost some. But I think if he can do something similar there, be able to find some space, take him into spaces that maybe he's uncomfortable with, I think that's going to be something that I'm going to be watching pretty closely here. That's why the style of their play is going to matter a lot. Because if Ang pushes that line a little bit higher up and Yokozis can run Murillo, then Murillo's dead, I think. But if they do sit deeper and they're able to get compact and he has to just be battling away shoulder to shoulder all game there, that could be difficult. And it's where I think almost we could use a baseboard type center forward.

1:08:52You know, the guy who can put his back into someone and play in the wingers against their weak wide defenders. And that's where you wish he had Kai. And it almost makes me wonder, would Mikel consider playing Marino there if he thinks it's going to be a low block type game, Clive?

1:09:07Elliot:Yeah, I'm not sure what game it's going to be, to be honest. We don't know. Honestly, I don't know. The first five minutes is going to be interesting to see everyone standing in the game. and we'll all be watching closely and everyone will be tweeting out five i hope we're seeing ang on the touchline waving his players up the pitch that if we see that i'm going to feel a lot better but i just heard you talk about your cred and scott spot on there and if i was ever speaking to him i'd actually say to him make it a non-contact game make it don't get involved with these shoulders right now just concentrate on your movement and your angles and your timing make it non-contact start to move them around you know and then because he's a player i think his strength is to actually repeat sprint and uh and to keep going relentlessly so play the long game play the long game keep moving wear them down then get more physical as the game goes on you know so but movement understanding your movement making movements move them around i think that's really important for us i think with as a just watching with everyone seeing i'm not the only person to say this but obviously watching him with mateta he like he likes to pass to somebody that sprints away from him, shows his shorts.

1:10:17Elliot:So do that. Odegaard likes runners. So Madweke's got to go the other direction. Do you see what I mean? He has to go the other direction. So that constant moving, I think, is key. We mustn't get fixated. When I saw Jokic put De Ligt on the floor, I thought, he's going to be fine this season. As soon as he finds De Ligt, because De Ligt's massive. So if you can do that, you're going to be fine. Canate couldn't really move him. He was on the edge, Canate, but we couldn't really move him. If we had Kai in that game, and he had two center fours to play against, I think we'd have done him. You know, but we couldn't quite move.

1:10:47Elliot:We wouldn't quite fit enough. But don't focus on that. Focus on movement and being available for the passers. That'll be my message. Because, mate, his movement is good. And his shooting is really good. We just haven't seen enough of it yet. Yeah. Well, there's going to be a lot of fun stuff to talk about after this game. And one of the fun things about having such a big squad with so much talent is we get to see Eze, see how he fits in. we get to see Jokeres again in a game where we should be more the dominant force in it but maybe we see Ethan, maybe we see Max maybe we see some of the you know, the different fullback options Ben White was in training, you know, there's changes we can make at fullback and Cappie is here now, Cal Fiore has been great, Mazou Eskele is still here by the way, Leo still exists, Martinelli still exists, you know, there is always the outside chance Saka or Saliba are fit, I don't expect them to be fit for this game, so lots and lots of options of ways we can set up and it'll be interesting to see Norgaard's back in training, you know, so someone that we can alternate and if we do have a lead late maybe we do see him come in for Zubimendi who I think we need to be a little bit cautious about him playing all the minutes all the time.

1:11:57So some very very fun things to analyze and of course at full time we'll have the instant reaction over on Patreon and Apple where you can watch us and Clive will give his, I love what Clive does, Clive gives us his halftime and his full time thoughts from the ground, which is really cool because it's as instant as it gets and we do a live stream but also recording um with a with a full breakdown we do headlines stock rising stock falling from the game so you can join us for that last thought here clive i'll stay with you just for a second every game is important and you do fall into this this narrative trap of being like well this is an important run and then you you kind of have to be like well what's not an important run you know what i mean what would be an example of not important run but right now from now to the international break, home to Forest, away to Athletic Club, home to City, away to Port Vale, away to Newcastle, home to Olympiacos, home to West Ham.

1:12:44And as I look at that, I think we've gotten a bit lucky that it's Port Vale away between City and United, that we have the timing advantage that Scott referenced in our Champions League tie, and then Olympiacos at home between Newcastle away and West Ham. All of those things feel manageable from a squad standpoint and maybe an ability to be a little different but i i do recognize that we have a bad history with olympiacos so that's one to rectify um do you have a number in mind is this simple it's 12 points and it has to be 12 points and that's all there is to it what's your take on this run and and how crucial it is for us

1:13:22Elliot:overall this first phase of season for me to stay in contact i think lil paul are really good front runners i think when they won the titles both times they've done it from the front i think they They find the size of their badge when they are in the lead. They remember who they are and they get comfortable with it. I think they manage distress better than some. Particularly in the media narrative world, they handle it well. They protect their club and their players and their city with everything they've got. And they don't break apart. Well, every fan group breaks apart, but it doesn't feel that visible to me.

1:13:57And so we want to stay close to them.

1:14:00Elliot:because one thing from last season, we just didn't pressure them enough. And I don't think they're great under pressure, but we never got to see it. The one time they nearly cracked Everton in the home game, sorry, the away game at Goodison when they got the last minute equaliser, they were starting to crack. I think we messed up the next game and that was that. They don't do well when people are close, but we've got to stay close. You know, that's really key. And having three wins from three while not playing well and adding Izak, and I watch these training videos, it's not too encouraging, Elliot.

1:14:30Elliot:he was literally finishing with his eyes shut, right? So it was incredible. And so we have to deal with that. So just staying close is key. But I can say, Newcastle won in my mind. Just keep it close. Keep it close. But don't get any more injuries because we're sitting there, 5-0 home win. Sun is shining. New signing walks on the pitch. 15-year-old playing. Eight to 18-year-old playing in midfield. And we lose our best player and lose our captain. and I don't care what happens that cost us in Anfield right because them two play in Anfield we don't lose that game it's clear to me we don't lose that game so we just need our people on the pitch that's the key thing can we just get three points and not have to give something back do you know what I mean that's what I want to see just take the three points and walk away and go to the pub and we're going to be in another one of those really really interesting moments at the end of this run before the next international break So this international break kicked off with Arsenal-Liverpool, the two title rivals going head-to-head and all the narrative based on that result.

1:15:35The next international break kicks off with Liverpool versus Chelsea. And if Chelsea stay in contact over this period, because they are currently sitting second, that's going to be the narrative discussion based on the outcome there. And Liverpool have a bit of a tricky run because they go into that game. They have Palace away, Galatasaray away, which even if you don't think that's a tough game, they go to Turkey, it's a tough environment, to Chelsea away. If we can navigate this period, maybe there's a banana skin there for Liverpool. I mean, they also have Everton and Burnley in this run. But Everton, even though it's at Anfield, that's a war, right?

1:16:11That's an attritional game for them, even if they want to win it comfortably. So this will be a period where I think we come through it and the narrative will be set, first of all, on Chelsea, our Chelsea in the title race, right? Because if they beat Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, that's going to be the narrative. Or they're going to fall away. They're going to lose to Liverpool or, you know, not get the points against Liverpool and they're pretenders. But for us, I think we have to, as Clive says, be in striking distance. It's a long season and there are going to be people listening to this saying, we don't have to do anything.

1:16:40It's going to be September. And I get that. I think we want a happy home. We want a quiet environment. We don't want too much tumult around our group. And as long as we're in contact, as long as we're close, that's fine. If we slip away and we have a lot to catch up, it just gets a little more stressful and anxious. And none of us need that in our life. So Scott, final thoughts on this run, what we need from it, what you expect from it? I find these kinds of questions really interesting. And one of the things that I wanted to do to be able to better like kind of answer this like what is it that we're actually targeting here what is realistic expectations and how does that change the ramifications for the title hunt that we're in so I did make some tweaks to be able to give myself more information so I run a simulation you know twice a week and you know it goes through all that stuff and so I put some more granularity to see how the individual matches change things so going through to the next international break when Arsenal win the title we get somewhere between eight and nine points from this run.

1:17:43Oh, interesting. I think that's pretty realistic, right? That's less, though, that I think... That's great to hear, Scott, because I think if we got eight points from this run, I think you'd hear a lot of frustration. Two wins and two draws? I think that's, you know, it depends on, again, who the draws are to, right? If it's a draw to City, draw to Newcastle, you know, I think we're okay with that. We take it. But, you know, if we drop points somewhere else, that's probably, you know, again, the sequencing of things matters. but I think three wins is really my target here. Come into this 15 points, I think we're going to be in really good shape to be able to do it.

1:18:16And yeah, I think this is a situation where you're going to learn a lot about Chelsea. You're going to learn a lot about Liverpool because this is the tough run for them as well overall. So yeah, I think you're right. Stay within touching distance. Eight, nine points is where I'm targeting. Yeah, that's what I like about using the data, right? Because what you're saying is you ran the simulation 10 ,000 times, and in the simulations where we win the title, we needed eight to nine points in this run. That's the opposite, right? There's obviously, you know, more is better, but yeah. More helps, of course, yeah.

1:18:48But I think that's interesting because, again, this is just my perception. I think if we drop any points, the anxiety is going to be through the roof. I just don't think that we... We may just not have the constitution right now for the title race. We need to develop it. But that's why I think the Forest game feels so pivotal in a way because I don't know that anyone totally knows who we are yet. And that's a byproduct also playing without Saka and playing without Odegaard and Saliba missing for half a game. And we're still going to have some of that. But Eze not having been really integrated, I think people want to see it now.

1:19:21They want to see Yokorest sprinting away from forest defenders and slotting. They want to see Eze dripping some magic on the ball and finding a pass no one saw or scoring from 19 yards with a beautiful curler. I watched Martinelli against, was it Chile, I think? and he had one really bad move to the outside that looked very much like an Arsenal move where he ran it out for a corner. He was lucky to get the corner. But then he had a good move where he split defenders and shot just past the near post. But that move was when he went to his stronger foot. And as we watched in the Liverpool rewatch, I just feel like for some reason he's not going to the inside.

1:19:57He's not going to his stronger foot as much. And so having a left winger who wants to get it on his right and do something with it, I think that's going to change the angles for some of our runners, for Rice, for Yocrest. It'll be fun to see. I am so excited for this game, though, because I think that we are very, very good, and people haven't totally bought into that. I think the scars of last season, playing with so many players missing, has undermined the degree to which we trust the group we have. I think we have a lot of talent. We're very deep, and we're built to go the distance. And the Leeds game was actually encouraging to me in the one respect that, no, we didn't play scintillating flowing football the whole way through.

1:20:34But even still, they could not last the marathon of the match with us. We bullied them in the submission. And without even playing it in fifth gear, it was 5-0. And I think we have a unique ability through set pieces, through our midfield power, through our running power, to just wear teams to dust. That first half against Liverpool, our press, even against one of the best teams in the league, the best team potentially, they were really, really struggling to live with it. And I don't think Forrest have a prayer, if they're going to try to play through us, of living with it. And I hope they do try that.

1:21:06So we'll see. We'll have a Friday night club tomorrow. We'll have an instant reaction to that game. And then it's marathon time. I'm talking instant reactions three days a week. Can there be three days, three games in a week? You decide. I'm talking rewatches. We're talking about power rankings episodes. We're going to have opposition guests on sometimes. Not for the teams we really hate. We're going to have all kinds of fun stuff. Maybe Stats Guy and Civilian. If Paul and Scott get off their butts and do one of those, we'll have all kinds of fun stuff. We'd love to have you there. V50 is the code, and you can get it for a couple of quid the first month and see what you think.

1:21:39Okay, let's leave it there. Scott, this was a blast. Thanks for coming on, and we'll be talking to you soon, I have no doubt. Yeah, yeehaw, I'm ready to strap in. Okay, in is the critical word there. You'd give a different word there, and we've got a whole different kind of party that we're throwing. Clive, thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'm playing the Paul role today. My name's Alex Smith. We love you, and we will absolutely talk to you after Arsenal 10 for us now.

1:22:18I'll see you next time.