Historic Celebration Follows Moment of Anguish

27:39Elliot:But it was definitely, it was a really good experience and really, really uplifting for me, really uplifting. Let's do a bit on the game here. So first things first, any comment on the lineup? I mean, obviously a couple of big points, a couple of big calls he had to make. Could Timber start? He didn't. I wonder if Mikel would have tried to push him knowing how things played out, although I thought Mascara was good until the penalty. he went with Kai over Yorchores obviously rewarded at least initially with that he decided to leave Ezeza on the bench and go with Odegaard so any thoughts on the lineup I mean obviously for about an hour things were playing out the way he needed them to yeah so let's think this back right so in my mind preparing for this game how we're going to approach it you look at the two PSG games the knockout games last year and you think okay in those games we were quite not saying we were in the game we were in the game we had the ball we created chances i think we had five xg over the two games and i may be wrong earlier and we just scored one goal from those big chances that we created so it wasn't enough in the time we could explain it away with injury and a few players missing and a center mid playing up front But I felt going into this game, I did not think we would be so off the ball.

29:02Elliot:So Team Sheet comes out. When Califre wasn't there, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't really work it out because I was around the ground. I wasn't sure if he was injured or not, but I was a bit disappointed because I think he gives a lot of on-ball personality. And I'll go into that a little bit more. And when Scara played, I thought, fine, that's fine. I think he's really improving. as a player. I think it's massively improving. And I sometimes feel when you have an injured player that may not last, you should start them and then get them out. Because the risk is if you bring them on and they don't last, you're in a bit of trouble.

29:41Elliot:Do you see what I mean? So I would have gone that way around personally. And obviously, Califuri would have played. We played the final without our best two full-backs, really, didn't we? That's the key miss for us. and the key thing for me is going forward is making sure that our injuries which we are second in the league table for injuries would you believe it in the Premier League get better because if we do that we're going to have our better players for these big games a bit unfortunate with Timbers injury and Califiori we don't know what story is there so I was a bit disappointed I thought okay we better press them then we better be aggressive because we can't play through but what happened was we seemed to half press them and get the goal and I think that sort of that changed everything.

30:23Elliot:I don't know how it felt in the ground area, but it changed everything. We decided to mid-low block them and didn't play. And what... If you look back to the games last year when we had a lot more chances against them, the difference was they scored. So they owned the game state. So they could wait, sit, wait, and we could create chances. And maybe in my mind, I fell for that a little bit, thinking we'd create and play through them, no problem. because now we've scored and what happens? We then drop. You know one of my lines, Elliot? Why do we drop away and can't get out? When we compress our lines and we don't have the depth, we can't play through.

31:05Elliot:So then we have to then go long. And if we don't get that first pass down and that exit and we can't beat the referee who we couldn't beat in the second half, then I think our game plan falls down and we then have to sit. and it's about bravery, about connecting to get our lines. You know when I talk about the four or five lines you need to have to pass up the stairs, Calafiore helps create another line. He sees offensive connections really quickly and early and he gets there, creates an extra pass. You get to three, four passes and you're out. Hinkapi's a much better defender, but he doesn't see that connection offensively quickly enough to support the midfielders, the attacking midfielders, the wingers, to create an extra pass to allow us to exit.

31:49Elliot:I thought, Elliot, a big part of this game plan, obviously Timber does the same on the other side. Mosquera's more a defender. So we lacked lines. Our attacking mid didn't really get on the ball enough. So we lacked three, four passes. So we went long. For me, Elliot, the key part of the game for me was just before halftime. So we scored a goal. We're cruising, mate. Cigar's out. I didn't see any danger. We go to take a throw in, and the referee books Mosquera, I believe, for time wasting. and then we get do a bit of play Havertz has a great little chance for halftime lovely third man run comes in big touch off his right foot if that touch was smaller I think he passes it into the corner or lifts it into Rufin there and we tune it up and we are you're still out there mate do you know what I mean you're still out there he even still took a good block a really good block I mean that may have been creeping into the near post absolutely you're still out there you're on the streets you're on the streets waiting to be found by somebody right so um and and then we go to take a corner and the referee just blows up and i'm thinking mate what's going on you can't do that and this to me was the moment earlier i think the referee was pre-warned about the time we take on resorts and he wanted to make a moment there are some new rules coming out for the World Cup where they're really focusing on time taken for restarts and the goalkeeper's going down and I feel, honestly I feel we were the poster child there we are the sack is doing his normal walk over to take the corner, in any walk of football, no one ever stops you taking a corner before the whistle goes and he just did that and I felt from that moment we lost him we lost the referee can i i just want to say something on that too because i i think there is another perspective and i know some people that were sat closer to where so we were the opposite end of that corner yeah um we attacked the corner we attacked the goal further from us in the first half i was sat in the corner flag you know down by the arsenal end and from the people i know that were at that end they said you know saka sauntered over to it he took some time to look around the crowd he kind of pushed the ball away and looked looked up again and you know i think you made a comment maybe it was in a text us or something that we said on the phone i can't remember the days blur together at this point but sort of that we played the referee wrong and i do think setting aside the possibility of naked corruption which is always possible when psg are involved like i think the time wasting i think the mascara throw thing i think sack is sauntering over to take the corner and coming out slow at halftime like i think the ref kind of to use one of your phrases got the hump with us and sort of was like you guys are shit housing and i'm sick of it and in the second half what really changed for me because the funny thing is i don't think he got any of the major decisions wrong against us really the nonny one i think it should be a penalty but i can live with it not being 50 50 but but sack his handball i mean we got away with one there We did.

35:01Definitely, definitely. And their penalty is a penalty. But what I will say that really changed the game in the second half dramatically is that we would have exits. Yeah. And those exits would be won with a duel. And he gave everything that was 50-50 a foul to PSG. And there was obviously the timber one where he spins away and he goes down holding his face. There were a couple with Kai where Kai won duels well, but instead he gave it the other way. And I think in a game where you're under the cosh and you're not playing through and you have 28 % of the ball, When you do go long, when you do have an exit, and you win a duel and you're away, those are important moments.

35:36And the referee nullified those moments, and I think he nullified a lot of 50-50 moments that could have gone a different way. So that was where I think, you know, if I'm going to take issue with the referee, I think in the second half, he really tipped the scales so that PSG could keep the pressure on us because our exits became fouls.

35:55Elliot:Exactly. And when we were fouled, we didn't get it. The moment we responded, they got it. And I felt, I said this at the West Ham game, I felt West Ham lost the referee towards the end of that game. And it benefited us. And I thought we lost the referee for whatever happened. And I think at halftime, someone got in his ear about what we were doing. But the thing is, I don't particularly think we waste a massive amount of time on restart. What we do is we take our time to crank up the psychological pressure on that event. And we make people think, due to how good we are, you've got something coming.

36:34Elliot:And you can't stop this. And choreograph our, I mean, no organizer choreography, because we're very choreographed side. You've got something coming. And they all know it. And they start hopping and dancing. And they think, can we get this away? Can we get this away? And that is part of what we do. You know? And it's half time, for God's sake. It's not the end of the game. We're about to put the ball in. no one does that right so i and you'll see the rules coming out they're just coming out i've had rules about restarts gonna be in the world cup yeah honestly mate we fell foul of that we as a detail we lost we lost the referee you're spot on about the the opportunities we had to create momentum we were unable to do it and because of that i felt we almost needed we did speak about this before the game the game sometimes moves towards certain players and moves away from certain players and we almost need another target man up there yeah so we have two options to hit and then we can get territory we get territory we're fine so you can get those three four passes going we're good we made the change to do that we sort of worked didn't quite but i could see what we were doing and we're just a bit unfortunate we were just a touch touch away from being the best team in europe we're not quite there yet we're really really honest and the psg are an amazing squad of talented players who play a thousand minutes in their league and are at the peak of their physical capacity you know hakimi who supposedly might not make the game went 120 minutes and hit and scored a penalty in the shootout like yeah you know they they had everybody they needed what i will say too though is there's been a lot of focus on oh we only had 28 of the ball we didn't play i mean game state if the shoe was on the other well certainly game state and i'm going to talk about this a little more in my section with tim because it was when kai scored that the game started to feel very scary, which it hadn't until that moment.

38:22But I do think the 29 % possession thing, whatever you want to say, if the shoe was on the other foot, people would be saying sterile domination. We have been on the other side of that where we have all the ball, but we are creating no threat and we're going around the horseshoe. And I do think we had PSG just enough at arms. Like, do I think we played enough of the ball? No. Do I think the accordion could have expanded quicker. It was quick to contract, but not quick to expand. I do think so. I don't think it helped that. I mean, clearly we don't have a Bakayo Saka at the level we need him right now.

38:58So in those key high leverage moments where you look to get the ball at the feet of your best player, and that player is going to make the right decision. He didn't. There were a number of times where Saka could have played someone in. And I think the weight of responsibility he feels understandably is that he has to win a game for us. He took some bad shots into legs, one that led to a counter where Saliba misjudged the ball and it nearly turned into disaster, but that came from poor decision-making in the final third. I mean, fundamentally, I think every Arsenal fan I've talked to has said this same phrase at some point.

39:28If we don't give them a penalty, I don't think they score. They don't score. And I think it was reaching that point of the game, and we saw this in the second leg against Atleti too, where they were just starting to take some pot shots from distance and starting to lose a little patience and starting to lose a little of their composure. but what they do, and they do it so well in all three phases of play, is first-time passes, one-twos, little movements off each other. When the game kicked off, we pressed them, and within about 30 seconds, I turned to Andrew and I said, damn, they're really good because our press looks really good.

39:59We're on top of them, and they just ping, ping, ping, ping, and they were out. And the goal comes from, again, the penalty from a one-two in small spaces, just perfectly executed, and Mascara makes a bad decision.

40:10Elliot:We missed it, right? So this is a key technical detail of the game. So obviously we score our goal. Beautiful goal. Everyone's celebrating, probably going crazy in that ground. But then they did something that was actually quite wrong in the first half. They kept too many people behind the ball. So remember the Carabao Cup, we had six players behind the ball and four ahead? So it's four ahead into Man City, six. and City had four attackers against our defensive six. And so it's a numbers game. We didn't build past the four and then we did go long. We were at a disadvantage. They would win the backboard, win it, go to Rodri and Bernardo Silva and the ball kept coming back.

40:56Elliot:And what PSG did, because there are different football matches earlier. There's Fulham and West Ham, right? There's Man City away. Then there's PSG in a final with a billion people watching. This is not a normal football match. So wipe your brain and think about what's at stake here. And PSG did not push on. They kept six people behind the ball. And let's be honest, it was comfortable at halftime. It was comfortable because they weren't attacking the box with enough sprinting speed and gusto, and they didn't commit enough people forward. In the second half, they only dialed it up a bit. It wasn't a lot.

41:33Elliot:They got the one-two. I thought, I need to see it properly. but I thought there was a runner there that Declan went with, maybe he should have gone to the ball. And then when he turned and faced, he did a one-two and it slipped between him and Mosguera. Mosguera obviously used to stay on his feet. There you go. Bit of coaching there. Stay on your feet, son. Don't give the penalty away. Not really hard to spot. He thought, I've got to win it and Carrasquilla threw himself in front of him. Definite penalty. And that's part of the game. You've got your pocket picked. You've got your pocket picked.

42:01Elliot:But it wasn't down to any of that. It wasn't down to them flooding us. it was one move that went well we didn't quite counter it where we were playing in the second half you could say well we deserved it because we were a little bit too deep but i was not concerned by them at all what did catch me out in it if i'm honest with you i thought we'd get fitter as the game went on but actually you could see their freshness could you feel it in the stadium could you feel it i felt their freshness and i thought all those stories about minutes played that they really matter. Really matter. Yeah, I felt the freshness.

42:36I also felt that little edge of having won it last season and maybe not feeling that crushing pressure as the game wore on. There were a few things. There were a few nearly moments. There were a few missed opportunities. One of my biggest regrets in terms of substitution patterns is just that, and he must not be fit, because all the way back in October, we were talking about this. If there's a player that I want on the pitch in the high leverage, high pressure, critical moments, I want to find a way to get Mikel Marino out there. I want him out there for penalties, first of all. I want him out there for the out ball.

43:18I love Ebrecha Eze, and he did create a couple of little one-twos late in the game. There was one where Nani was just not on the same wavelength and kind of overran it. Nani did have one great moment where he got to the byline and obviously the moment where I think he should have been given a penalty, but it's not one that I'm going to scream about. I think he should have been given it but I was disappointed that Marino didn't come on and one thing I did just want to ask you about Clive in terms of Mikel's learning curve as a manager this is his first Champions League final obviously he hasn't had that many cup finals to manage I mean he's had an FA Cup final he won he had a League Cup final he didn't but did he make a mistake not thinking about who would be on the pitch for penalties?

44:02Did he focus too much on winning the game while there was time to win it and not enough on who was on the pitch for penalties? Because at the point at which you have a centre-back taking your fifth penalty, you have to at least wonder, could I have oriented my substitutions around the penalty shootout more?

44:19Elliot:You could say that, Elliot. It's a fine detail that went wrong. You know, at this level, there's a lot of emotion involved was an extra time i don't know how the penalty takers were selected i'm not going to pretend i know all i can tell you is how my heart felt when gabriel was coming up for that last penalty how did your heart feel all of us yeah i mean it it was not it was not ideal no it was and you saw that happening are you thinking this guy is a warrior he's probably volunteered for it which he did and these things happen and i don't think you can let emotion come into these things but hey, look, today I'm in celebratory mode.

44:53Elliot:I'm just not here to dig out certain people and their performances. I just don't feel it yet. I don't think it's beneficial. We had a major, major once-in-a-lifetime event around this football club that even someone who's done a few laps like myself has completely stunned me. I just can't be bothered to dig people out around this. We were unfortunate in that scenario. you know and but we've been fortunate a lot in many other times this season right where things where last season didn't go for us now the season we should have won this should be our second league title this year that's what it should be but we've got it done now so now we can progress I think I loved fair enough this was a Mikel Moreno game this was a Mikel Moreno game but we know we're not going to drop our captain for the European Cup final right so Ian Farrino was fit if he was two weeks fit I wonder the way the game transpired.

45:46Elliot:Hindsight, we score in six, seven minutes and suddenly we need people who can receive it and hold and pin a guy down and turn around and also press. It's a Marino Havers-Jokeres type game. It's a big game. It's an exit pass down the sides. You take your choice which one you want to do. So I said to you before in our pre-chat, I don't think Eze is good off the bench. I'll be honest with you, I don't. I thought he was okay in this game. much like everybody else was okay in the attacking mid-period. You need a different profile for this game, what we were trying to achieve, and the game status that was on offer.

46:21Elliot:So once you make your choice, it was hard for the manager to leave out anybody in the biggest game ever, right? And I think it's really difficult. If anything, what PSG have an advantage with, there's a lot of emotional energy for a big game like this. And I thought we drained a little bit towards the end. and I thought PSG maybe have more experience of being in a final and you know that emotional energy, that nervous energy that can take your legs? I felt that's where their experience was because they've done it before and I think if we do this again, I think we'll be better for it. Yeah, my regret, I mean, maybe if he had it to do all over again, maybe Mikael would line it up totally differently and substitute totally differently also because PSG ended with no Kvart Scali on the pitch, no Dembele on the pitch, no Vatina on the pitch.

47:14They did not have their strongest group out there for the last hour of that game. And we did not exploit what I think was an exploitable group as the game wore on as much as we could have. I thought Jokras had a reasonable cameo. He had a shot that was blocked that I'm told was headed in. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and pretend We played sensational football. But what I will say is when you have a lead in a final, your job is to get it over the line any way you can. And ultimately, styles make fights. I don't think you beat PSG by trying to out-PSG them. Just ask Bayern Munich, who saw five goals go past them in one game.

47:53I think you beat PSG by giving them a different problem to solve than the one that they're most comfortable with. And I do think we tried to do that and maybe just didn't do enough to hit them the other way and probably didn't have our best players at their best moment to do it. As a last point on the penalty shootout, I'll say two things. One, I think their keeper was very nervous. And my reason for saying that, not that we tested him much, is he had five or six goal kicks and he put them all out for throw-ins. So he wasn't at the top of his game. And you don't want to go out of a penalty shootout where their keeper has not had to make a save.

48:29That is a regret. And I do think if I look at Gabby taking the penalty, I have huge admiration for him stepping up and raising his hand. He was absolutely imperious. He was phenomenal. He was the best player probably for us on the pitch. Him and Declan Rice, maybe they were both sensational. And Capier was great. And I get that he had the courage to raise his hand and say, I'll take one. Obviously, I would have liked Nani Meduake to do it instead as a forward. But the person that I really thought would take one is Zubamendi.

49:01Elliot:Now, maybe… I had the same thought. but we don't know the score, do we? We don't know what's happened in training. And Zubimendi hasn't been playing much and when he's been playing, he hasn't looked at the top of his emotional game. We don't know the score. Maybe Gabriel's sticking him in the top corner in training the whole time. I think Mikel said he was not designated to really be a penalty taker traditionally but that he raised his hand and said he felt he could do it. And like I said, my regret isn't that he took one. It's just, that's a nervy moment for a keeper. Just pick a side and put it center mass if you have to and hope he guesses the wrong way.

49:34You know, you give yourself 50-50 chance at that point.

49:36Elliot:Nervous energy. You can see by the contact he got on the ball. The ball flew a million miles. That's just nervous energy. That's somebody with a desperate desire to score that's kicked the ball too hard. It's football, mate. Honestly, have you ever take a penalty and missed one? What happened there? How's that ball flowing there? I looked at Eze's penalties. Someone posted that comp of all Eze's penalties. He takes them all exactly the same way. the same start step, the same delay, and then he slots it. And what did he do? Start step, delay, slots it past the post. He's probably wondering today, what the hell?

50:11Elliot:I'm the best ball striker in the bloody team, and I couldn't strike past the ball into a net in the biggest game of my life. And he's wondering. He's got the technique, and the technique failed him under the highest pressure. This is why you've just got to take it. You've got to take it. these guys are the top top top level and we just didn't quite execute and so here's the last thing i'll say just about the feeling of a shootout and this is the best way i can summarize it and everybody felt it so they know this but in any football match there's a spectrum of joy and sorrow in a regular match the joy might be kind of high and the potential sorrow might be kind of low but it's not the highest it's not the lowest in the final obviously it's the highest and lows.

50:59But the thing about that spectrum is, as the game wears on, you move across the spectrum. What I mean by that is, let's say you're winning 1-0, you're kind of high up the spectrum, and then they equalize. Now you're sort of back in the middle of the spectrum. Then they take the lead. You start to slide down the spectrum. And as the game wears on, and the minutes tick away, you slide down the spectrum further to whatever that bottom is, and it's full-time and you lose. And you have time to move across the spectrum. the problem with a shootout is before gabby takes his penalty i'm still thinking we're going to win the champions league final and i'm at the top of the spectrum the minute he strikes the bomb at the bottom of the spectrum it's instantaneous it is the single most instant transformation of all of your emotional energy that you can experience and i mean the same thing like with with the kai havert school it's that instantaneous explosion of emotion that just makes it so hard so i'll talk a little bit more with tim about that i think we should let you go so i can bring tim in we're like i said we're sort of surgery surgery doing surgery on a podcast here to try to get one out to you while i'm trying to catch a flight home from copenagan and clive's heading into the city and tim's just becoming available we'll do more on this game and obviously like i said we'll have uh director of football episodes we'll have um this this season summary we're gonna go month by month lots of good stuff to go so clive final point there yeah i just want

52:21Elliot:to say I have a different perspective to this game how I feel right now I should not be feeling this good after losing the Champions League final two days ago I shouldn't be but I can't tell you how healing the parade was I can't tell you how healing is to be among different people I've spoken to people in Budapest and they're still hurting because you have something that I didn't have you had proximity to the players you could see the pain on in the individuals when the camera wasn't on them you can look around you very very close and see the pain on people around you when you have that proximity to the pitch it feels different you feel as though you were touching a moment in history that's been taken away i have that feeling but it's through a video screen and and then you can walk away and i'm in the streets that i already know and people are already recovering and then you come back the next day there's a million people around you and you think yourself i can't below.

53:15Elliot:I've got to be here to support the players and those players have had a moment in their life and we go again. This is not done as the man said. Now we need to do our work to make sure this continues on the right trajectory. For those of you listening who are not at this match, I hope you never experienced what I'm about to describe. But we were a wall of sound. A wall of sound. And to be fair, the steepled other end of the pushkiss was a wall of sound too. And that experience when your wall of sound turns off and theirs goes to 10 is literally like daggers flying across the stadium into your face it's it is a horrible feeling because traditionally you know if you're not in the final there's some away fans and we've all had that experience where the away fans are going nuts and you hate it but like when it's split that way and you've got a whole wall of sound coming at you from the other end and yours turns off and theirs turns on that's not a feeling you want to experience.

54:12Anyway, I'm going to bring Tim in before I do.

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55:40Obviously, what we really want to do is thrive. And one way you can do that is, I think, to try to explore those things that are standing in your way, those ways you're chasing the wrong goals, the way that you're in the wrong headspace. I sat next to a really interesting guy named AB who does an interview show on the flight to Copenhagen. And he was just talking about the people he meets and the people that are thriving that he talks to and the way they really have a deep sense of themselves. And I think when you do therapy, one of the things you do is you just learn yourself better. When I did therapy, it just really helped me get me out of the way, so to speak, because I am someone who worries.

56:17I am someone who's anxious. I am someone who worries what others are thinking and if I'm doing the right thing or the wrong thing. And it's important to have that self-awareness, but I think it's really important also in order to thrive to give yourself some grace and find a way to that grace, that path to acceptance of yourself. And therapy is a great way to find that. So I would say, if that's something you want to do, if you want to go from sort of surviving to thriving, therapy is a way to do it. And BetterHelp makes it easy, accessible, instantaneous. You don't have to get in a car. You don't have to drive there.

56:50You don't have to say yes to everything this summer. Find support in therapy. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash vision. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash vision. Do it now, Clyde. Is that enough of that? Indeed. Nailed it. And Clive, you nailed this podcast, and I look forward to talking to you soon. A very, very happy birthday to you tomorrow, my dear friend, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you very much. All right, Tim's coming up. And now, thankfully, I am joined by Tim. Hello, Tim. Hello there. Hi. So, super quick, anything from the parade that stood out to you that you wanted to mention?

57:26I mean, I don't think either of us, obviously, well, I know I didn't make it. You did not. We were in Budapest, and it was very, very tricky to get back to do both if you were trying to do that. Very ambitious. So, any regrets? um no not really um i i have friends who booked like the 2am flights and the 5am flights to get back and went back with no sleep and none of them regretted it they all said that they that they loved it and i and i think um maybe you already said this in the first half it felt really necessary to me though to almost like purge saturday evening like straight away for everyone and particularly for the players and the team to kind of see that off the back of such a big disappointment but I was never going to make it parades aren't really my thing I've only ever been to one before um I don't mean this to sound snobby I mean this to sound like um I don't know if inclusive is the right word but I've always considered them probably more of an opportunity people who aren't fortunate enough to go for myriad reasons to really go and show their love for the team I know it doesn't you know like I say I've got friends who go to every single game who went so i know it's the there's not that clear a dividing line but it was just i i just really enjoyed particularly because i had a pretty long and arduous journey back from budapest and i'm still online yeah yeah yeah and train from vienna stood for the whole three hours um so you know the the the legs were were feeling it so it was just really nice to see that content i actually quite enjoyed seeing it from afar and my wife and my daughter were there and and a lot of my friends who couldn't be in Budapest as well were there.

59:01And it just felt like a big hug, I think, for the Arsenal family. And for the players too. Yeah, we used the word family a lot in the first half. And look, it was lovely to see you in Budapest. I will say, obviously, you've been going for so many years and you have such a great crew of people you go with, that you have your crew. And I always feel like when we're in the same place, I feel like I'm going to spend more time with you than I wind up doing. But you've got such an established thing, and I'm such a newbie that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. and I'm flitting around trying to see everybody and do everything.

59:31But it was so great to see you. I want to get to just the Budapest experience in a minute. But the first thing I want to ask you is just how you were feeling and how you still are feeling. Because here's the one hard part about this podcast. And this is the part maybe people want to fast forward through. The parade was beautiful. We're champions of England. We won the league. It's a successful season. I love the players. I love the manager. It hurt me so bad, Tim. It hurt me so much worse than I was expecting it to. Maybe because we scored and I thought we were going to do it. Maybe because being there and the vibes were so good and the people were so loving and the fan base was so united that I wanted it for everybody so bad.

1:00:12And I'm the guy who stays out till the sun comes up. I'm the guy who wants to see everybody. I called it a night relatively early Saturday night because I didn't want to be the person bringing people down. I know Andrew was out for a long time just laughing and cleansing the vibes. and I couldn't get there. And even today, the desperation I have for this club to get the European Cup, the desperation I have is still there. And I do not want to bring anybody down, so I apologize. But I'm wondering, are you where I am at at all? Because it really, really hurt me. Yeah, of course, because it was such a good chance.

1:00:49And obviously, in one respect, I do think we'll do it. I do. I think this team and this manager will do it. not be next you can't you can't like with something like the champions league can't say oh next year we'll do it there's so many good teams like you know you can't kind of bank on that but i do think this group will will do it and in many ways it's i i mean in one respect it was quite a good run to the final and the stars aligned in that respect but i don't feel sour about that because we ended up playing the best team in Europe in the final anyway. And so there's a little bit of me that's like, God, why can't we have got Inter or that year Borussia Dortmund got to the final?

1:01:32Why couldn't we get to the final that year? Why did we have to play Barcelona and peak PSG? But I can't complain with really the run to the final. I did. It does hurt. And I was the same as you on saturday evening i had one drink and i went back to my hotel because um i'm i'm a bit more like paul i know paul says this he's a like you know curl up in a corner and cry and and i'm the same like i'm an introvert at heart really you know so i there's kind of in my experience one or two ways people deal with this they go hard and heavy and let's just like let's have a million drinks and go and dance and and all of that and a few of my friends did do that but i was just like I have one drink and I was like, you know what, I'm going to get something to eat and I'm just going to go back to my hotel and go to bed.

1:02:21And I'm really glad I did that because the journey back, I'm glad I wasn't hung over for that. That would have been seriously difficult to manage. And actually I wasn't, I was really determined as well, not to, um, you know, not to hammer it too much, even on the Friday night, we, we stayed out quite late, but I stopped, uh, you know about like 2am or whatever having not really started till about 9 because I was like I don't want to be hung over for the final I don't want to be hung over going back I want to I want to you know really really kind of experience this but I think also there's a there's a cruelty and a brutality to losing to a penalty you miss as well because it's so instant it's not like we're 1-0 down we're chasing the game and you start to adjust to the feeling you might not do it or even if even if PSG had had to score the penalty you know the run-up you get the chance to go okay if they score this it's over there's something so brutal about you've missed it's over um and yeah it's it it hurts and I don't think there's any personally I don't think there's any point in hiding from that.

1:03:33It is the weirdest sensation of your arms are wrapped as tightly as possible around your mates and you're clinging to each other and you might win the European Cup and that dream is in you and an instant later, the season's over. It's gone, yeah. And the trophy's gone and the wall of sound travels across the pitch and you're silent. Yeah, just, it really punched me in the gut and I want Arsenal to have the Champions League because I think similar to how there was this sort of accusation that, well, if we don't win the league this season, are we Pochettino's Spurs under our tena? And we're not.

1:04:09We are champions of England. We never were, in my view. I don't think that would have been a fair accusation, but point is it's gone now. It's irrelevant. I don't want to be the biggest club to have never won it. I want this on our resume and I wanted it for this group because I do think if they had done the double, suddenly the pantheon they go into is rarefied. And I still think what they've done is incredible. I don't want anyone to read this as me taking away or diminishing the accomplishment. But the proximity I had to that pain is not something that's as easy to wipe away, especially given the distance I had to the celebration the next day.

1:04:45I will say the scenes of the celebration helped. Yeah. And listen, I've said many times, you know, that hypothetical, we all get posed, League or Champions League. You know what I've always said, that I just want to do it once. I just want that monkey off the back. I want to be able to die happy knowing that I've seen that. But this season I would have said league, to be fair, just because of the circumstances around the second place. I completely understand that. It's almost like circumstantial, right? Next season, I bet you'll say Champions League. I bet most people would say that having kind of now won the league after so long, I think a lot of people would be like, okay, next year, let's both preferably, bleep, but you know, let's, let's go and get the big, we should do both.

1:05:28Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Um, so to, just to, to put the contrast into a clear or higher relief, like if that gut punch was instantaneous, I'll tell you what, a lot of people do a lot of different types of drugs, drink a lot of different types of alcohol, do a lot of different things to try to create and fail to create what it felt like when Kai Havertz scored. The, you know, I don't think, I was at the Reese Nelson game. And so, I mean, obviously, extraordinary, extraordinary. I've been fortunate enough to be in the ground for a few pretty extraordinary moments. But there was something so visceral and intense about the limbs when Havertz scored and the way you were suddenly in the embrace of strangers and dear friends.

1:06:19um that is that is why we do i mean there's a lot of reasons we do this the family the connection the relationship the sport just the fun of sport but if you get that it's kind of like a lot of people will say with golf well once you hit one pure shot you're hooked on golf forever well i don't know about that so much but i know that once you get a pure moment like how it felt when kai scored you're hooked forever you want that forever yeah absolutely and one one thing because i i've plenty of criticism for uafer about a lot of things particularly their events um the uafer app logging me out the second i got to the turnstile it did that for everyone a piece of stress i could not deal with because then you have to get a code emailed to you and there's no reception so yeah it was doing that for everyone it was crazy yeah and which is just an absurd way to manage things but one bit of credit I will give them is you had the ability to link your bookings with other groups so you could go up to six so me and five of my friends sat together but then another two groups we we linked our bookings together and we all ended up like behind each other in a big row so I was surrounded by like 18 um of my friends so yeah when that Havertz goal went in I mean there weren't any strangers around me it was just like my nearest and dearest and yeah I think I thought you know I think back to some of the goals that have had really visceral celebrations this season Gabrielle away at Newcastle Trossard away at West Ham is one of the hardest I've ever celebrated a goal that there's nothing like this because even when we took the lead in 2006 honestly we were down to 10 men and so it it felt a bit more precarious still whereas on this occasion don't get me wrong in the sixth minute you're not like oh we're gonna do it but I think I might have said this to you before the game like my kind of where I felt this game would really be lost as if PSG took an early lead like because and I'm sure we'll go on to this I I felt we'd be much better geared up for a final half an hour or extra time than they are because they play a lot of testimonials.

1:08:33They have more quality in attack, headline quality in attack, than we do, but I think we have a deeper squad. And so I always felt that we were more geared up to take this the distance and to protect a lead, whereas I felt if PSG got in front, I couldn't see a world where we could really get that back. Like I said, maybe we'll go on to this. I think in the end, and this thought did flash through my mind at the time, there's never a bad time to take the lead in any game, let alone a Champions League final. But I did feel like maybe it was too early. Yeah. So this is the part I wanted to go to because I wanted to see how you felt about this.

1:09:15Andrew was in really good spirits. I'm there with my friend Killen and Patrick. and there's people around and we're all in good spirits.

1:09:24I think Andrew was talking himself into this maybe more than I was, but it doesn't feel that stressful. It's fine. And the moment the Haberts goal went in, the stress hit. There was the 30 seconds of pure joy and the minute that pure joy faded just a bit, it was replaced by pure terror. And you look at the clock and you go, you knew what was coming. I cannot describe how much we knew what was coming. It was going to be 87, 91 minutes of clock watching, of every ticky-tacky foul being screamed about, of every single moment, you know, trying to kick every ball with the players. Like, it was sheer terror.

1:10:06And, like, there is a part of me that thinks the game might play out differently if we don't score that early, just in terms of how we approach the game. I think you have to approach it differently. I also don't find myself particularly critical of how we played with the lead because I think at the end of a long grueling season, when you've been so good defensively, what you don't want to do is you don't want to be the player who trying to play a little one twos past them makes the mistake that gives them the gift in. And so I think we were more conservative about how we played instead of trying to be a little bit more progressive, a little bit more first time intricate.

1:10:43We were just a little bit more, I mean, not agricultural, but just, just a little safer. you know we went long when we could have tried to play short and i get it but i just i'm curious how you guys were experiencing that because it felt like the clock started ticking backwards and it was the goal as joyful as it was that i think once you realize holy shit we could win the champions league we're winning the champions league final it was replaced by terror fairly quickly yeah yeah i mean i i think the comparison i'd use here really is last season in the women's champions league final which was a very similar very similar kind of um objective really the difference is they scored on i think 77 minutes and that's different you know because then it's like oh my god it's really in sight whereas after six minutes it's like it's kind of in sight but there's a hell of a lot to do before it is and it's like can we do and and obviously what it did was exaggerated the game plan exaggerated what the game was always going to be but i don't think i don't think if we if it's nil nil at half time for example i don't think the possessions like 78 22 or whatever the hell it was i think i'm not saying it'd be 50 50 but i think it'd be closer to 60 40 it exaggerated the game plan and obviously like for psg as well it's not the goal wasn't late enough for them to lose hope if you know what i mean and again in the women's champions league final that's what happened arsenal took the lead and barca lost hope because they didn't have much time whereas psg i think it's more like okay this isn't going to be easy and we defended unbelievably like for 120 minutes they didn't create very much at all and that is incredible like nobody has done that to psg look at nil no they certainly created next to nothing yeah you know anything they did create were some errors of us pushing up to try to win the game as well when it had gotten back to one one yeah yeah exactly so um but it but it it did kind of exaggerate things quite a bit and there were things i think there were things we kind of did in the starting lineup that maybe we lost as well because like i mean it's kind of got lost obviously in the result but the decision to start Myles Lewis Skelly which I think was the right one I wanted that in advance and his ability we saw it a couple of times but one of the reasons I really wanted it is because he just has that ability to change gears and the way he carries the ball I think it's a profile we don't have and I think we got too stodgy really with Rice and Zubimendi kind of sideways passing whereas Miles has that ability to go bang I'm past three of you and all of a sudden we're on the edge of the box that's so so valuable and maybe we'd have seen more of that if it had been more of a counter-attacking game rather than an attack v defence game albeit Miles was massively a part of that effort I mean it's his block isn't it when uh Carichvillier hits the post I think it's Miles who gets back and gets his foot on it and makes and you know that's that's a crucial defensive intervention but you know the fact we picked Erdegaard as well and obviously that's partly about the pressing and everything but I think that was probably part of the plan was when we get the ball let's try and keep it for a bit let's perhaps do a bit of that sideways passing for a little while and all of that I don't want to say went out the window because you know we're making it sound like a bad thing that we went one nil up but just some of those slight intricacies in the game plan i think became super exaggerated and it really became attack v defense but also at the same time elliot i look at it and i think that did kind of work like we didn't we didn't lose the game um you know we lost the shootout we didn't lose the game um i suppose the question is could we have scored another um if if the game hadn't been like that and i think that's a fair question to ask byron went toe-to-toe with psg playing their game and they shipped five goals in the first leg of a of a champions league quarterfinal like uh pardon me semi-final and they have harry kane and musiala and elise like the reality is and i think you saw this in arteta's post-match what we've all known and all seen all season we don't have that we don't have Dembele we don't have Kane we don't have Elise say it's it was a different task and I was really pleased with Arteta's post-match because I don't doubt it for a second but I think he he knows as we all know like where that where the level raising really has to happen if Kai Havertz takes one slightly cleaner closer to his body touch at the end of the first half when Odegaard plays him in he's scoring there you know and then we're in dreamland and then I think it's over I do think Mikael was readying Timber just before Mascara gave the penalty away and you know if we're going to be wise after the fact I think you start Timber and you let him go till he can you know that that was something I didn't understand even though I thought Mascara up until that moment had been playing quite well so I yeah I thought Timber would start um but i wasn't that fussed because the way i looked at it is like they basically they're kind of doing our reach i did think extra time was was quite likely in this game i just wondered whether they do timber for the first 60 and then maybe on 55 minutes he accidentally gets booked you know like a kind of like yeah um when it gets close to 60 minutes maybe just trip him up and we'll take you off.

1:16:29And I always thought, regardless of the levels of fitness, I kind of think you have to do a bit of game sharing there. But then again, we didn't do it at left back, did we? No, but as it turns out, right? And I think if Mikel knew this, he might have made a different choice. Vart Skellia comes off, Dembele comes off, Fetina comes off. I think if he had to pick which part of the game Mosquera is on for, he would have picked the way the game ended in terms of who PSG ended with. And if I have any criticism really of our performance, it's that given who was on the pitch at the end for PSG, I think there was an opportunity to maybe be more in the game and more effective late.

1:17:10But you look and you're like, well, we finished the game with that Nani Martinelli and Yolkras front three. And it's like, you know, it's not like we finished with the three Ballon d 'Or winners up front. So I don't think, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say also, So if you really want to take it down to the finite details, which I think for a Champions League final is worth doing, I think you probably have to look at maybe not the penalty takers we had, but some of the penalty takers we lost. Like we've been really successful at shootouts under Arteta and that's usually because Odegaard, Saka and Havertz are on the pitch.

1:17:46You know, so I don't want to go too big on that really, but like I kind of, if you'd offered me Gabrielle's going to take the fifth penalty, I'd be a bit like, not because I'm necessarily convinced he'll miss or anything, but it's like, yeah, I want, like we had Jokeres on, fine. Like that's our best penalty taker, brilliant. And like Martinelli took a great one. Declan Rice, yeah, I want him taking one. But I kind of feel like at least one of Erdegaard, Havertz or Saka, like those are the guys that tend to bag for us in shootouts. And I think it may be left us with, because with Arsenal penalty shootouts, you don't often feel like you're scratching around.

1:18:32I feel like we've got four or five guys who are more than happy taking penalties, whereas it felt a bit like who feels like taking one, you know? And maybe it's unavoidable, but maybe that scenario should have been planned better. I can only imagine that both Calafiore and McElmarino were not fit enough to play in this game. Otherwise, I assume they might have made it on. I mean, Incappier finished the game crocked, so that wasn't me. He was great. One thing that... He was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. One thing that I can't really articulate, and I imagine you'll do a better job of is, you know, I've never been to a World Cup final.

1:19:12I've never been to a Super Bowl. I've never been to one of those types of things. the game felt big the event felt big in a way i can't articulate you felt that you were at a thing that was the center of the sporting universe there's just a way that it transmits and that's part of the emotion of it too one of the reasons it hurts so much not to win it is i felt how big it was yeah um you know you got the killers doing mr bright side before the game you got you know just, you know, I've been to enough football matches now that you know the people are going to see wandering around football stadiums.

1:19:50Like you're seeing celebrities and footballers and influencers. It's like, it's a different kind of crowd. And I mean, of course there's your people there as well, but it's just, there's something about the event, even just the march up to the ground and the whole thing that felt weighty. And, and that adds to the nervousness and also the desire to win it. So did you, did you get that sense of it, the sense of occasion and scale? Yeah, hugely. And I think particularly because I'm used to doing European aways. I must have done over 100 in my life. And obviously, it's really distinct because the whole experience of traveling there and stuff like that is kind of the same.

1:20:31And so it's like, obviously, you know, it's not like a European away, like a group game or something. But you kind of travel with the same people, blah, blah, blah. and then what happens on a typical european away there might only be a thousand of you there might be 1500 or something like that and you know there'll be a couple of bars that are a bit arsenal we tend not to do that we tend to like to go um you know we're proper beer drinkers we like you know we like the places that do proper like craft beer and all of that yeah that that's not my thing no no but then you don't get the sense that like this whole city is geared towards this game you know you go somewhere like milan or lisbon or whatever like you know really really nice cities and you'll see some fans dotted around and you know you go for something to eat but everyone's going about their lives particularly because it's usually midweek as well Whereas you land for a European final and it's like the actual members allocation is 17 ,500.

1:21:37And then obviously you've got massive neutral allocations, which I think were mainly Arsenal as well. Oh, absolutely. I reckon you've got minimum 40 ,000 Arsenal fans. And it's just so, it's obviously, it's a statement in the obvious, but like clearly you've got like European away times like 40 basically. And it's just people all over the place. Like we were out on the Friday night and we tried to go to this bar that was completely overwhelmed. And I don't want to go big on this because it's not really that important, but Budapest was a bit too small. I think lovely city though it is, it just wasn't quite big enough to hold an event like this.

1:22:18But people on the Friday night, people were literally just spilling out into the streets, not out of an act of aggression or anything, because there was no space. So people are just getting beers and just going into the road and they just had to shut a road because there's so many people. So clearly, yes, and everyone. Like you said, the vibes were really good before the game. You're kind of marching to the game. There's just Gunnasaurus randomly next to you. Got a really good photo of my mate Sam walking to the ground. He's next to Gunnasaurus. He kind of looks like Gunnasaurus's bodyguard. It's a very amusing picture.

1:22:57But yeah, and obviously everyone is so up for it. And what I just love as well was that, like you say, the tension hits inside the stadium, but before the game, everyone's just having a good time. everyone's just determined to enjoy it everyone understands how lucky and privileged they are to be there and it's just it's unbeatable it's unbeatable it is absolutely unbeatable um to the point about beer though by the way uh this is funny so i don't i don't drink beer very much it just doesn't agree with me so i have my spirits of choice but i i have had a few beers on this trip just because it becomes impossible to avoid and there was a really really nice guy sitting just the row behind us you know liked the pod liked andrew's pod and wanted to get people beers we're just really in the right mood and so right as the game is starting he's like before it really gets going i'm gonna run and get us some beers now that the queues have died down because you can bring beers to your seats which is not a thing i've ever experienced at football and so he runs and he gets these like beer holders like six beers and he's hand hands me a beer this beer never touched my lips because it was rocketed to the floor at 300 miles an hour within 15 seconds of being put in my hand because Kai Havertz scored.

1:24:10And that beer went from full in my hand to full on the ground in about four seconds. So that was one beer I didn't have to drink. So a couple of things I'll say, first of all, I loved Budapest. Like I really, really loved it. I really want to go back like as a tourist, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I think first of all, the people were incredibly welcoming. They just did a nice job as a city in terms of some of the stuff I've heard about some of the cities that have hosted finals and the way the police have treated people, stuff like that. no negative experience. And to be fair, some of that is due to, I think the Arsenal fans being lovely and not causing trouble and not being what I think English football fans are sometimes lampooned for, you know, or, or stereotyped, I should say for being, because it wasn't that remotely.

1:24:59So, so good natured, so just supportive and wonderful. And I really enjoyed the city. I really had a great time there. it does feel like family but for me the moment that'll stay with me is just the sea of arsenal fans streaming from the fan park to the yeah to the ground um that was i think the apex of the vibes so to speak you know and i think to your point everyone just feeling privileged to be there everybody feeling so excited for what it could be everybody feeling so good about what the season has been and looking forward to to seeing the players because really unless you were at palace away this was going to be the first time for most of these people going to the final yeah really clap our players since winning the title to see them and and and be and be with them so it was just a that was a really beautiful moment and it look it never hurts when a city is sunny in 25 or whatever it was every single day so the weather was amazing it just like wasn't too hot as well it was like just beautiful all the just perfect um just as some some final thoughts on this i mean you mentioned the word privilege it is a privilege to be here but it is not something that we want to be another 20-year wait no um i think you can learn lessons from this but if i want to be really harsh what i would say is we are going to have to evolve to where we can be not only in these games but potentially the better footballing side in these games and i know there's a lot of focus on well that we just need these better attackers and i certainly think that as part of it, yes.

1:26:36But you have the three best forwards in the world. That doesn't get the ball through midfield, and it doesn't give you 78 % possession. I know a lot of that's game state. You know, and I love Declan Rice. I think he's one of the best footballers in the world, if not one of the two or three best footballers in the world. I thought Miles was good. You know, Odegaard didn't get in the game, really. I do think when you look at a Vatinha, that mold, that player who can play 115, 120 passes at 98 % and just keep it. What did Mikel Arteta did in our midfield once upon a time? What did Jorginho did even, you know, in a later stage of his career?

1:27:10There's a lot of focus on the attack, but would you agree that, and maybe the whole second half of this season we've seen it, this Arsenal team needs to be able to just be a little bit more dominant on the ball than we've shown the second half of the season and certainly than we showed the final? Yeah, definitely. I think that's definitely true. and obviously some of that is a symptom of what we did last summer, where we added, I'm not saying we were wrong to do this, take this as a description, not pejorative, but we kind of added some off-ball players, some strong players, some chaotic players, Eza, low touch, but high impact, Maduweke, bit of chaos, Yokarez, bit of muscle.

1:27:58like they've all added something to the squad and you know I'm going to ape Clive here we don't win the league without those players whatever we've thought about VFM or whether they were the right signings like that that's what wins us the league I know I've used this analogy before this season but we don't have a bazooka but we've now got an armful of rocks and a slingshot and that's that's kind of how we tried to win this and you can see both the strengths and the limitations of that but But yes, I think the technical level overall does need to come up a little bit wherever that happens. And maybe it's a wide player, maybe a younger Trossard.

1:28:41You know the way Trossard's been kind of coming infield and he does that really, really well. I guess on-ball profile is what I'd be looking at this summer for sure. I do wonder whether Myles Lewis Skelly might have saved us 60, 70 million pounds somewhere, to be honest. I think he's certainly finished Christian Norgard's Arsenal career, quite frankly, which is no disrespect to Christian Norgard. But I think it's clear that he's going to be a non-playing member of the squad. He's got a Premier League winner's medal, so congratulations to him. And that's like, that's, that's made the move more than justifiable for him.

1:29:26But yeah, I think just a little bit more poise, a little bit more technique, a little bit more, like I say, on ball profile. I'm pretty certain that's where we're going to go as well. Because one thing learned kind of doing these podcasts over the last few years, when we see something, Mikel Arteta has seen it. And if anything, we'll over address it in the summer. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he addressed the problems that kept us from winning the Premier League until we finally won the Premier League. I have no doubt he'll do the same with the Champions League and the next time we get to a final, I don't just think we'll win it.

1:30:00I think we'll be the clear better side. My final prevailing thought is just pride. I think the boys did everything they could do under the circumstances and it's hard to lose on a penalty shootout. There's little details that I'm sure even Mikel will be wondering, could I have played this guy? Should this guy have taken a penalty? Should I have gotten this guy on? At the end of the day, PSG probably still just about the best team in Europe. But I think you saw our identities because for some reason, there's a lot of pundits that don't want to acknowledge that defending is important or that it's talent or that it's skill or that it's tactically elite.

1:30:35I don't think PSG hurt us until we gave them the penalty. So very proud. Very proud of the team. Very proud of the manager. Very thankful for them. Very thankful to be champions. Very excited, proud, and joyous to be champions. probably need a little time to fully shed the regret and the sadness of not winning this. But I do have to say, and it's important that I say, not just the privilege of being at that game, but the privilege of meeting so many wonderful people who are so gracious and kind and generous with their hugs and their kisses and their love and their support. I mean, I kissed and hugged a lot of strangers.

1:31:11I would have done more yet, Tim. like that walk to the, to the stadium was just, it felt like being carried on a wave of, of pure love. And when that gets into your skin, when that gets into your, into, into you in the way it does, when you're around Arsenal people, there's no going back. And, you know, I go home to a group of, I mean, my family obviously are the dearest people in my life, but the people around me in, in Minnesota who's, Oh, you're, your sports ball team lost a game of sports ball. How was that? You know, like you just, it doesn't feel like anybody can get you, but Arsenal people and the way they get you and the way they understand what you've been through and what you go through and what it means to you.

1:31:50It is a privilege of a lifetime to travel with Arsenal people. It's just, just an absolutely unforgettable couple of days for me. Yeah, definitely. It's got like, I feel like I've been to Woodstock or something, you know, like, yeah, just met so many. And obviously, you know, a good like 20 odd of my friends kind of came out, you know, as well as you and Andrew and like just didn't have time to see. I know. Or spend as much time with as many people as I'd have liked. But just the amount of people who kind of approached with kind of kind words and stuff this weekend just is kind of overwhelming.

1:32:32But in like the nicest way, you know. even after we'd lost the final. And that's a difficult time to kind of do that and kind of extend that love and companionship. And I think, listen, I'm not one generally for like classy touch type thing, but I also think it's worth mentioning Marquinhos. At the end, I'd like to mention that, that in a moment of absolute ecstasy, He saw his international teammate who he's going to play alongside in central defense this summer. And by the way, don't write Brazil off because those are their fucking center backs, quite frankly. But, you know, like I say, I wouldn't, if Marquinhos had run past Gabriel to celebrate, like I don't think anyone would have raised an eye, but like for him to go up to him at the end, I think kind of fair play for that.

1:33:28But yeah, just like a lot of love across the weekend. And it's so weird. Like when I came back last night, I was like, God, I only went out like Friday midday and Friday feels like a hundred years ago. Yes. Yes. On Friday night feels like a different trip. It felt like every day. And then the Saturday felt like a completely different away trip. And then coming back felt like it feels like I've had three completely separate different kind of days. They don't all feel like they've been part of the same experience. And that's because it's been so enormous. It's almost your brain has to chunk it up that way.

1:34:08Yeah, you go through so much psychologically in such a short period of time. You have to break it into sections. Look, we draw a line under the season now. It's time to start doing transfer stuff, which is fun. We'll do a season review show. We'll do all transfer stuff, director of football episodes, all that. um a tremendously successful and rewarding season though and a tremendous way to go out with that with that parade and that celebration and wherever you are i hope you had a chance to spend some time with some people that love arsenal the way you do because there's nothing like it and if you didn't then i hope you know you you're part of that with us you know yeah yeah we're all part of it together I'll say as well my wife took my daughter to the screening as well and like my daughter's like five right so we we we've been like um not hyper focused but we're like we want her to remember some of this stuff which is a bit why like my wife took her to the screening and to the parade it's like hopefully like some memories burrow in there um but people were just really nice to both of them as well like there was a point where they were kind of struggling a little bit with the heat and someone just bought my daughter, like complete stranger bought.

1:35:24This sentence is going to sound wrong. I'm going to articulate it, but I mean it in like a really, really nice way. Like a complete stranger just came with like a bag of sweets and just gave them to my wife to give to my daughter. You know, like it felt like that type of weekend. It felt like very community. And when I was getting the train back from Heathrow last night, I live in Kent, like, so I don't live in North London. like honestly the train and this was a half 8 p.m and like 40 percent of the people on the train were wearing arsenal shirts it's like it was a complete takeover yeah i'll end the pod the way i started it then and i'll see you with the joke i said at the very beginning and i'll end it this way which is last few days whether you were in budapest whether you're at the parade whether you're at the emirates on the tuesday when the league was won or the sunday when the trophy was lifted a great reminder to push back against narratives and digital spaces that do not reflect the world you see around you because the world you see around you these last few days is loving supportive caring kind arsenal people that do it the right way that hold each other up that look all different ways and believe all different things and come from all different places but come together because they love the club and they love each other and it it's a chance before we all gets sucked right back into the digital narratives and that world to just cling on to this visceral feeling a little bit longer.

1:36:43So love you everybody for being a part of this, for this wonderful ride we went on this season, for this triumphant ride we went on. And I think it can honestly get better from here even. So we'll leave it there because my phone has just told me that Delta looks forward to welcoming him on a flight shortly. And I'm sitting in a hotel room recording a podcast. So Tim, love you, man. Sorry we didn't get more time in Budapest, but it was great to see you. And I Look forward to seeing you maybe even in Dublin for the preseason. We'll have an event there. So we'll be talking more about that as time comes.

1:37:10Thanks, man. Excellent. My pleasure as always. And yeah, thanks everyone. Been a great season. One of my favorites following Arsenal. And enjoyed experiencing it with all of you. Well said. Totally agree. And for the first time of many this summer, I will tell you we love you. And we will talk to you after Arsenal 10. We'll be right back.

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