Injuries And Rogers Move To Chelsea Means New Questions For Arsenal

0:00Hey, World Cup fans. If you want proper analysis, honest opinions, and plenty of laughs along the way, give The Rest is Football a listen. Gary Lineker is joined by Alan Shearer and Micah Richards throughout the tournament as they break down all the big games, the biggest moments, and everything happening on and off the pitch. They'll also be chatting with some brilliant guests along the way. Whether you've watched soccer your whole life or you're just getting into it, they'll help make sense of the drama, the tactics, the joy, and the heartbreak of the World Cup. Listen to The Rest is Football wherever you get your podcasts.

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1:21It's Rice. What a goal! Declan Rice with an absolute rocket with a free kick. Arsenal League 1-0. He's cut inside. Saka! Sublime finish. He's back with a bang with Bukayo Saka. 1-0. Unbelievable. Hello and welcome to the Arsenal Vision Postmatch Podcast with me, Tim Stillman, in the hosting chair for today. Elliot is on his holidays. That hasn't stopped him recording 17 other podcasts while in this family, including a Patreon podcast that he did with Clive on Sunday. I believe really looking in depth at the news around Morgan Rogers and things like that. And we'll touch on that again today. We will not leave that stone unturned.

2:04But Elliot will be back from his holiday tomorrow and will be back in the hosting chair after that. But for today, you're stuck with me as host and you're also stuck with Mr. Clive Palmer. Clive, how are you doing? Hello, hello. We've gone pure England a day, Tim. Pure England. We have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think on that note, I mean, we're recording. It's around eight or nine minutes since the news broke that Kevin Keegan has died. you know I think this was expected there was there was news about his health that kind of sadly made this seem like a matter of time but Clive I think this is one of the biggest figures that has ever existed in English football I think Kevin Keegan one of the best English players of all time a two-time Ballon d 'Or winner obviously he managed England a huge part of the Premier League story as well those kind of early title uh title races with Manchester United at a time that you know I say happened at a time when the Premier League was beginning to explode but was responsible I think a little bit for that explosion but um you're older than I am as I'm not I'm not amiss to reminding you but obviously you know when you were growing up Kevin Keegan was you know a massive massive player at liverpool before he went to hamburg i mean this is let's focus on the player first because this is um this is a huge figure we've lost in english football today yeah growing up in the 70s you know you have a you watch your football on bbc and you have sports night on a wednesday night davy coleman and now you get a lot of liverpool coming at you and there was a big period of toshak and key and right that was a big thing a big man little man and Lilpa had obviously had a great period in that time and won the European Cups, etc.

3:57And then Keegan did something that was unheard of. He went abroad. He went abroad to Hamburg. I think he won the European Player of the Year at Hamburg. And so he was a world-renowned figure. He went abroad. I think he came back and played against Lilpa Lafrosse in one game. And he was so different. He had adverts. He was commercially viable. and so yeah he was like the Beckham of the day you know with the long hair and so yeah what a what a hero he was to many different many people and um and then of course he then flipped into into management and he's a very much a heart-on-the-sleeve type player and he was very much a heart-on-the-sleeve type manager and the Premier League has had many eras you know Arsenal Man United was one era but Ken Keegas Newcastle was definitely an era that people will never forget you know particularly those in newcastle and um he had that whole area i think he brought him by sir john hall into that space and he had that whole area of newcastle eating out of his hands and he produced a team which really represented the environment and the people pure attacking team and should have won the league that one year and they tried to do it and they brought a spiller in in the january and messed up their system slightly and um and he showed his heart on the sleeve and And some of those clips were still played today as Newcastle fell away.

5:21And then he went into the England management role. I'm not sure of this. I got my timeline straight. I know you're right. 1999. We were laughing. We were sort of chatting beforehand. And the way my brain works, a little bit like unstructured. His brain is very, very structured. So when I start talking dates, I need to make sure that he keeps me honest. And then he went into the England role. and again he he felt he wasn't quite good enough to he said that yeah he said that in as many words and i think that that showed clive a real vulnerability to him that people really related to in his management career so you know that i obviously his i would love it rant has become absolutely you know at epoch making in terms of the premier league particularly as a television product particularly at a time when speaking to the camera speaking to the media is becoming more and more important and mind games and stuff like that we'd only really seen that in england between clough and revy i suppose now it's all it's all part of the set set menu isn't it the kind of the mind game side but i think there was a vulnerability people really related to because when he resigned from the england position he essentially did it on camera after england lost to germany and he came out for the post-match interview and actually England had another game on the Wednesday night people people don't necessarily remember that but he just said essentially he said that this job was just too big for me I wasn't up to it and and I think Clive you know you talked about heart and sleeve player heart and sleeve person he was one of Ian Wright's heroes growing up I think you could see that as a player and as a person but someone who you know a massive massive part of the growth of the premier league as well even if he didn't ultimately win it as a manager absolutely i mean i heard that he resigned basically just outside the toilets at wembley yep i did interview there and and so if you're thinking you're sitting there thinking for those a bit younger thing what's clive and tim banging on about this guy for well we just come out of a world cup and kevin keenan has won the ballon d 'or twice and i'm trying to think about I think Michael Owen may have got it one year.

7:37I'm not sure if any other English players have had it in recent times. So that's the level of individual that we're talking about. So yeah, I think he's mid-70s, 75, something like that. I think that's no age, mate. So yeah, what a great person for the English game. And top to bottom, coming up from Scunthorpe to Liverpool, all the way through into Europe. What he did for England on the pitch, what he did for England as a manager. this is a very very very very serious football man yeah absolutely and i think the fact that he i think he came from doncaster originally but he really um one of liverpool's best ever players has that city one of newcastle's greatest ever managers has that city those are two massive football cities in this country and kevin keegan is one of the biggest figures in both of them and I think that that says a lot so obviously very sad news I think for English football and obviously for Kevin Keegan's family let's let's kind of move on then because it's the day after the World Cup final very kind of neat dividing line in this episode we're going to go World Cup first half obviously with an Arsenal tinge and then we'll go into the Arsenal transfer stuff centre-back Morgan Rodgers Solis that's all to come we'll do that in the second half but we'll do the the kind of world cup bit of a wash up i guess and then we probably won't talk about it after this ever again yeah ever again that's the thing i'm at that age now where people are like is this the best world cup ever is it the worst ever is it and like for me i've now reached that age where they all blend into one and i won't remember any of this in a few years just because like i've seen too many of them but what we can do is analyze before we talk about i guess the game I don't think there's much to talk about I think everyone saw it and saw what was happening and what one team was trying to do and what the other team was trying to do but Clive I think Spain the right winners of this game the right winners of this tournament they got the golden glove the young player of the tournament the player of the tournament yeah there's just no doubt that the right team won this world cup yeah and some I'm so glad they did win it I mean because there needs to be a point in time where how you play football and the football lures matter more than everything else.

10:05Because the one thing about this World Cup for me is I think it's the most covered World Cup from a media perspective. And I'm talking social media as well as the media. The amount of shows around every single game, every single day just felt like a lot. And then you're watching a game and then you're watching the way the soul of the game has changed you know the timings of the game halftime shows pre-game i'm just i'm just looking at this and where are the footballers where are they you know and i like hey look i don't expect everyone to watch a game through the same eyes as i have but i love to look at the game and see how it's maturing and evolving particularly tackling and see what's what's happening you get all of these 48 countries in one place, more or less, and different coaches, different identities, different DNAs.

10:53It's, well, let's see how this all messes together. And we got some of that. Let's not pretend we didn't get some of that. We got some of that, and it was really quite good. Then we got a lot of the other stuff. And when the bad stuff happens, it gets really magnified, and it gets really magnified around the world. And it leaves a little bit of a taste, right? So watching the World Cup final, you know, half-hour break at halftime, I'm thinking, well, mate, I'm old. I've forgotten what happened in the first half. if you you take me away from something for half hour mate i've moved on to something else the ipad's out and i'm on twitter you know so um who is who is your favorite performer at halftime justin bieber bts big fan of bts yeah um madonna well you felt like you were at university because every time the camera flashes somewhere in the crowd i'm thinking who is that look at my son and daughter in the house who is that who is that oh it's asap rocky this is that i'm thinking flipping hell i don't know all these people and neither do the commentators i'm afraid so yeah you felt like you in some sort of celebrity university and to understand what's going on and hey look i know the game is changing the game is really extrapolating full value from its commercial side of things to be associated to a football team is really quite good for your own personal brand and to be associated to football we saw what happened with us in the last season also the club and will continue to explode no doubt with people align themselves to us because we're quite successful so you've got to be careful what you what you're saying what you wish for but i'm so glad spain won because when it comes down to it i'm a football man first and foremost and i just love to see them play what they did how they control spaces how they how they moved the ball up the pitch with the opposite movement to create angle to cut back against the move the other side i just love it how they were patient and they did their work they they just spirited argentina they took the spirit away from them and Argentina knew they were inferior and I enjoyed the death by a thousand cuts I wish it would have been sooner but um and then the only the only fear I had Tim was the fear of the wrong team winning that's the fear I had so when they won I was quite relieved you know quite relieved for the game um it's not to say I hate everything that Argentina stand for because they have their style their identity but for me you didn't want them to be the premier team in the world to be remembered for how they played that particular final and so I'm glad Spain got there what's your thoughts when you're watching it yeah I think one of the things um that's really interesting to me about Spain winning it Clive is we talked we did an episode a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about like Netherlands haven't done anything in a World Cup in a while and for my age your age I know they've never won it but I always remember Netherlands making a mark on tournaments they haven't for a while germany haven't really since they won it and brazil haven't in a long time and we were talking about like people younger than us what are they going to think of those teams like is that mythology and that history going to carry over or if you're like 24 years old at the moment do you care that brazil have won five world cups when they've they've never done it on your watch or is it a bit like you know for us like uruguay Uruguay have won a couple of World Cups, but they happened long before we were both born.

14:06So it's like, how does that mythology carry? But what interests me with Spain is this is a real dynasty, it looks like to me. And that's difficult to do in international football because you only get a chance to win it once every two years. And Spain, they are the Women's World Cup holders, the Men's Euros, the Men's World Cup. They were a penalty shoot away. They lost the Women's Euros final on penalties to England. You look in the age groups, they're right up there. We saw them win back-to-back 2008 to 2012, but it can be quite easy at international level sometimes to get a one-off generation.

14:48You go, oh, but when Xavi, Iniesta, Busch gets, when they're all gone, this won't carry over. And all right, there's been a little bit of a gap there, but all of a sudden they've got Rodri and they've got Petri and they've got Gavi and they've got Ruiz, Ruiz who's won two Champions League's Euros, World Cup in the last two years, 50 Spain caps, hasn't lost the game for his country. And then like Lamin-Yemal turned 19 during this tournament. Like there's something they're doing at a very, very deep level that is not what England are doing. like so England for example have you know they've done their kind of England DNA and all of that but really what they did is they paid a lot of money for a big coach and hoped that that would get them through and in the end it didn't there's something Spain have done and are continuing to do that just means this stuff they have like a style and a philosophy that everyone knows that just kind of bleeds through these generations and this is coming on 20 years now 18 years since they won euro 2008 there's something they're doing that is very long lasting and meaningful which doesn't usually happen at international level usually you get a generation even france 98 2000 obviously they're still a really good team but i haven't seen this before where a team for over a decade when the players will change, nothing changes.

16:20You know, Tim, that's really well said. And I think a lot of it comes from coaching because we haven't even mentioned the fact that, you know, the PSG major is Spanish, the Arsenal major is Spanish. You know, and so, you know, Pep Guardiola, you know, we can go on, can't we? And how they're, you know, giving us coaches around the league and around the world, you know, and what Spain have done, I feel, have invested in coaches. They have more pro-licensed coaches than any other country in Europe, I believe, way more than we do. The cost of coaching is much better. The cost for coaching in the UK is really prohibitive.

17:00And with coaching, you can develop a way of playing, and not everyone likes how Spain play. And I'm sure there's going to be loads of think pieces saying we should play like Spain. There are aspects of Spain's game that I really, really like. there are other aspects that I don't like as much you know and um but that's fine that's just how I look at it but I do admire what they do I do admire how they picture the pitch and how they support each other they have created a way and identity which is you know it's unique and I was reading an interview from their manager talk about when Mickie Marino was injured and he sort of said you know I'll wait for him and if he can't walk I'll drive into the World Cup I'm paraphrasing, something like that, you know?

17:44Because he knew his value. He knew his role. I'm just choosing one example. He said before, I've got two best number sixes in the world. And they support each other. They know their roles, right? And Roger, how good has he been, by the way? And I'm so glad he wasn't that fit in January because we'd all be in a bit of trouble, wouldn't we? And so, yeah, I love what they're doing. but I still would prefer you know England to work out what they are good at and what their identity is and we're Arsenal men right and we sat there and watched our team this year some good days some bad days some really ugly days some really pretty days that people just brush off but one thing we do have is identity that we are very very good off the ball and if that's your identity that's what comes to your manager and that's what you define yourself on then you build your on the ball principles I love that because whether you like half a lot, you can see what we stand for.

18:38You can see our identity. I don't see any reason why England can't follow something like that. We may not have the Patriots in our team, but we are very good off the ball. Have we got pace up front? Yes, we have. Could we be that type of team that is really structured off the ball to win quick transitions? We could be that identity. We haven't got to be Spain. We haven't got to be the old Holland, total footballers. But our defenders can pass it these days. We've got fullbacks that are quite aggressive and quite fit and fast and we got fast forwards now they cut up but i've got me in the groove now team but while and we have a superstar in dude bellingham which can do anything that he wants right and people are going to follow him what we have got to work out for me is what our center forward looks like and i'm going to say something it could be quite controversial because i think harry kane is a fantastic player but i think he's a blessing and he's a curse because he's a fantastic goal scorer.

19:36But come the time where you need to pressure teams from the front, he can't do it. And there's been a consistent theme that we've dropped away and we dropped away as Harry Kane's legs dropped away. If you look at Spain, they've got Alathapal and Dani Almo and they can press all day long. They press, they keep people back. We've done something similar with Havertz and Odegaard. We've got energy up front to keep people where you want to keep them, put their entry passes into our team. under pressure and forget forget the player if you like players or not think about what we do off the ball spain can do it off the ball and they can do it on the ball and that's why they're getting the results they're getting they have even got a truly world-class center forward but as a unit they're letting one goal over the tournament that tells you off the ball is really important do not focus so much on the ball because it will come from your off the ball dominance and then what you can do when you do have possessions.

20:33So once we get a chance to really sit back and think about what happened with England, for example, and we stop blaming just the manager for making a couple of dodgy substitutions, I think these conversations will be really, really fruitful if we're allowed to have them and we stop blaming individuals for taking away a big Sunday from you, really. That's what we really lost, really, wasn't it? A big Sunday day out against Spain. we probably would have lost but we would have done better in argentina you know so yeah there were points during the final where i was thinking yeah probably better off not in this to be honest um yeah like the way they just push you back and um i think also the the other thing they've developed that's so impressive is obviously in the center and you you referenced it with the kind of false nine um i'm gonna butcher the pronunciation of his name or yath the bell thank you way better than me mate um but but even that like kind of works because it's like another midfielder and then like with yamal and they didn't even have like nico williams fit in this but they can kill you down the sides both fullbacks kukurea and poro um not guys i like to be honest but both of them hugely impressive in this tournament and all in the center it's rondos you will not get the ball you will not get the ball and then we'll kill you down the sides um basically and it's this it's a very irresistible combination and you know i'm not sure how good a goalkeeper unai simon is um and and i say that because he's basically not called into action looks a good sweeper keeper um you know uh is it a kubasi got young player of the tournament yeah fantastic absolutely fine like i'm not i'm not questioning that decision but again like watching the games i think their defense i well i say their defense didn't come under pressure they don't defend in the like traditional way you might like the damn burn heading missiles out the penalty area it's spacing control possession and spain are just they're so so good at that their women's team mate is exactly the same it is exactly the same all of the players you can pick them and put like they play in exactly the same way with exactly the same reference points which shows you again that it's a very distinct kind of national philosophy a lot of it um kind of comes from barcelona uh as well again you look at the women's national team there's six or seven players play together every week for Barcelona they've obviously done a lot of things right one element they did have in the in the tournament Clive who really really helped them is one of our players Mikel Marino you mentioned him a minute ago and obviously you know winning goals in the in the round of 16 and the quarterfinal he could have scored he could and should have scored the winner in this game but um you know with a header I think his head in a different way he rescued an equaliser when he took that uh lino messi shot um right in his face um you know i i think a really really strong tournament for him and i think it really shows i mean obviously the way spain used him particularly because they don't have like a dominant center forward type of player when he comes on for spain that's basic it's kind of what he does right is like he's not actually the nine but the second they progress the ball out to one of their wide players he's a nine when when those crosses are coming in he's your number nine and he can do the stuff that Oyathabal can't do and it was a really interesting to see him have such a defined role as a finisher in both senses of the word of this Spain team I think his role for Arsenal particularly over more games is going to be a bit more than that but did you feel like you learned anything about this player we have and I think I thought this at the time at the end of last season Clyde we missed this player we talked about it a little bit in dispatches I think we really missed him but I think at the beginning of next season when we're perhaps going to have to be a bit careful about how we use some of our big players this has been a useful tournament for him he didn't play a lot he didn't play any football really after february hasn't played loads here this should be a nice tuner for him i think he's going to be a really important player particularly at the beginning of next season and i was delighted to see him have such a good tournament yeah with my arsehole hat on he's had you know he's due to have three weeks off but you know i'd say to him mate michael can you make that just two weeks you know once you have a couple of drinks after the parade can you just get back a week early icing his black eye with a bottle of beer i love that picture as you get back a week earlier because you haven't had a lot of football in 2026 and this is the time to really leverage what you've done and to stay around the group.

25:36And so there's a phrase out there, if you watch the game through Busquets, you can see the game, etc. But I watched a game, a lot of the games through him and he does something to him. When the ball's building up on the right-hand side, what he does is he goes to the right but he's not really interested in the build-up all the time. But when the ball switches the point of the attack to the left, he's on the opposite side and he's normally unmarked and he can then go in and create late movements into the box and you watch him consistently does this gets himself onto the side of the build-up either helps or he's not that interested but then when it goes to the opposite side he's there on the back post on the center spot ready to go to make his movements he is incredibly incredibly smart how he stays away from the crosses so he can be there and then you see him in the box you think how come he's there again and he would have scored in the final if he got his stride pattern wrong just a little bit wrong otherwise he's heading that straight in goal one nil go that would be the end of it right so um pleased to see him do so well funny enough he's not aesthetically pleasing he's not super athlete he's just super intelligent yeah and he's got an awareness full 360 awareness turns into the ball protects it by his valves really does well in Europe, international game, he does really well.

26:54And he's grown on a lot of people, hasn't he? You know, I think we've all, I sort of learned through him a little bit, you know, what the game needs, what he requires, and he just seems to know what it needs. And he's been a bit unlucky at Arsenal, you know. Remember he rocked up with a shoulder injury first training session, and then he took a while to get fit. Then he got fit when he went to centre forward when we needed him. And his fitness grew, and he really had a strong season. even in the season after some of our best play remember Bayern Munich games and maybe the first Spurs game I think he played in centre forward role and some of our best best play was there and I do like false nine Arsenal you know double false nine Arsenal I like it I like to say myself okay we may not have the best forwards in the world but we've got a structure and we've got build-up players and we can look after it and we can attack the box late I like false nine Arsenal until we need a center forward did I want that guy to run him behind right so and so yeah in really good player and we probably missed him more than we realize you know if he was there from January we wouldn't have been so nervy towards the end so hopefully he has a good season this year yeah definitely he's really that kind of second striker type guy and those are the guys that break the games open I think the late arrivers into the box if you're playing a low block usually there's three players around your centre forward I thought what was really interesting obviously someone watching this through a massively Arsenal lens which sometimes we do when we watch national teams we just watch them it's a bit like um if you play FIFA sometimes and you just want a certain player to score and you just keep giving them the ball like sometimes we'll watch a national team if there's an Arsenal player we're and we do it with England as well but someone um with the Spain goal which obviously is across to the back post and this is another area spain are very very good with their crosses and it's nico williams who gets on it but someone uh did like a screen grab and there's three players on merino when that cross comes in wow i didn't see that great and because they obviously talked about it oh well of course they did but you know of course argentina like when he comes on do not let him get a free header in the box they let him have one And they didn't let him have another one, but it left another guy free.

29:07And yeah, I really liked that setup last season where he was a false nine. In fact, I think he was like a withdrawn striker. And we almost put like Ezer, Trossard, Saka like ahead of him. Because I think he's really underrated in like technically in possession. What you say is right. Like even this game when Spain go 1-0 up, he's not just a like wall of meat. You stick in the area. when they go 1-0 up and he needs to drop and you need to control the game through possession he does that as well like you say, gets the ball on his left foot gets his shoulder out, gets his foul draws players to him I think he's just one of those players who's like that old saying about Teddy Sheringham the first yards in his head type thing I think Marino's like that as well I think his appreciation of space is excellent if we're looking at, and we'll talk about this a little bit, probably more in the second half about how we think some Arsenal players are going to come back.

30:08What kind of rest do they need? What kind of recuperation do they need? Declan Rice, there's clearly a question over him. I think this is a player we can and should be using, perhaps front-loading him a little bit, just saying, okay, you didn't do 65 games last season. It was a foot injury as well, which you know um shouldn't have impacted like it's not a muscular injury right so there's still physical work you can do when you've got a foot injury so i think this is going to be a really important player for the whole of next season but definitely at the beginning he's one of the ones i'm looking at almost like those guys that didn't go to the world cup i'm looking at coming back into training today as we're recording um all looking nice and suntanned um you know looking nice and relaxed um i'm sure they're kind of um probably as we're recording about 4 p.m on friday afternoon i'm sure they're they're all probably like vomiting at the moment after doing after doing like double runs around no i'm sure they don't do that anymore not on day one they have all these physical tests and they blood tests and things like that i think they've saved up a day two yeah yeah yeah yeah running up and down the steps of highbury um and all of that i mean as As we kind of close out this half looking at the World Cup, I mean, a lot of Arsenal players there, a lot of Arsenal players went quite deep.

31:33I'm personally, I'm really glad we didn't have anyone who lost the final. I think that's another like small underappreciated angle. So obviously we're going to have some players who will be hurting but haven't had that real dagger of losing the World Cup final. But I mean, as you look very broadly at some of our players that were in this tournament, Are there any kind of individual kind of player highlights, anything you learned, anything that was confirmed for you during this tournament? I mean, for me, the fact that William Saliba is definitely in the conversation for best centre-back in the world, that jumped out at me, particularly when he went off for France.

32:14and you look at where that second Spain goal comes from, I mean, I think he's a player. I was thinking when that semi-final kicked off, I was like, if France do this, he should be in the conversation for the Ballon d 'Or. But I wondered if there are any more general Arsenal points or things that jumped out for you in this tournament. Well, I'd definitely agree with you on Saliba. I think Big Gabby maybe potentially was a little bit cooked energy-wise towards the end there. He needed his holiday. They have the same structures around him. And we know that him and Sliver, we don't want them changed.

32:49We just want them healthy and protected. And I think the England boys are the ones that probably bring the most conversation, really. So, you know, the last few years, we've been England Player of the Year. I've been Saka two or three times. And I think Bellingham is the England Player of the Year this year. And then you look at England from 20 ,000 feet, you're probably looking at three or four players that are majorly talented. They're going to bring the team forward. we're maybe a bit biased but rice sacker bellingham came let's just say that for now right and um i think rice is the next captain isn't he yeah he's a boy the on band in the third place playoff and i think that tells you quite a bit exactly so those four players talk about those four players so sacker had he was managed going into the tournament and he seemed to have reduced the pain around his achilles now which is really promising we don't need hope we don't need an operation there get to the semi-final and he doesn't play a minute and that's a miss that's the game taking over your plan I think he had a plan he blinked and veered away from it and I bet he's thinking that I should have stayed in my first plan which was to get Saka and Rashford on that he was fixing his mistakes wasn't he he made some bad subs and then he had to go and make some other subs to make up for the bad subs and I think that's why we don't see Saka yeah I'm it's very difficult when you're coaching on the sideline and the game is going on around you and people say yeah that's what he's paid for yeah i know when you look at the players he spent six seven weeks with you can see them dying on the pitch which was actually happening they were physically finished on the pitch i don't think england as a team got their logistics right there's too much flying and they had some tough physical games in altitude and real strong heat and they did not recover in time and i think he was trying to manage that but we're sitting home last settees and we're thinking get the strikers on because we're getting pushed back and and that's why i think he said he doesn't regret it because he's trying to help his team but he just helped them in the wrong way and he went one way and and even when he brought dan burn on he brings him on left center half and argentina doing lots of crossing from the right where dan burn is he's there at the front post but not on the back post and we didn't even get the benefit of having dan burn in that game sometimes you make a change and everything goes wrong and i i look he's always a collective but he's taking he's taking some heat there and saka does not play in that same file which he maybe should have done particularly for the last third of that game and then rocks up in the third place playoff and plays like a dream cruising around the pitch as if there's no problem at all scores a hat-trick and he's sitting there three goals three assists for the tournament he's only started two or three games right so So he must have regrets there.

35:26Declan Rice now, same old thing. We lose a game and suddenly Declan Rice can't play football anymore. He's got to play like the Spanish players. And again, he's played too much football over 5 ,000 minutes. He's just too much. You know, and he can't be sustained. Everyone's got a petrol tank and he's ran out at certain periods. Nani Madweke doesn't convince everybody, but the coaches seem to like him. And he's a classic role player. you know and you know like tim in the women's game where you use chloe kelly to come on in certain roles in certain games for certain scenarios he's a role player to support the player which is saka if you see him like that then you'll see him differently and so yeah i think it's been a little bit mixed as a for me has had a interesting tournament and what i'm seeing from him is also positional change happening live in front of us you know he's with england cosmo Rodgers and Bellingham is there they're using him slightly deeper and he's doing he's doing okay that's gonna be an interesting thing thing what happens this season is his position going to change or do we need him higher to be to be confirmed but I my mind is open to that now because he can really see the game from deep you know and so that's an interesting one so there'll be regrets to that England group without a doubt there'll be regrets and um you decide who you want to blame but when we have finished the blame there are conversations to hand about how we want to play and i mean you know you talk about bakayo there getting his hat trick um i don't know if you saw his instagram post not smiling sitting there with the match ball and the player of the match trophy no caption which which i think tells you where his head is at um with regards to what happened do the talking yeah exactly in the semi-final and you know as much as sometimes we consider these guys like nice guys and all of that like you don't get to that level without having that kind of you know i want to play i don't care about the caveats i don't care about game state i don't get like i want to play and you made a mistake by not playing me how do I mean, let me position the question like this.

37:43I was furious that Declan Rice and Bakayo Saka played that whole game. Absolutely furious. I wanted Thomas Tuchel's head on a platter. My head was spinning at that. I've probably calmed down about it since, not least because it doesn't look like either of them were actually injured or anything. Particularly when Harry Kane, who, let's face it, at Bayern, If things get really scary in the Bundesliga, they might have to wait till April till they win it next year. And they have no League Cup. And Harry Kane gets to sit down for the whole game. But like I said, we are all guilty of watching national teams through the prism of our own club interests.

38:28I was really angry about that with Tuchel. I thought that was disrespectful. Listen, I don't actually know the conversation he might have had with Mikel Arteta. Arsenal might be okay with it I don't know how did you feel about them both playing the full game I wasn't saying because you by the sound of it I like to see them play I'm actually hey look if you look at say Saliba Rice and Saka in particular I'm just pleased it looks like they might not need operations you know so I'm coming at it from that perspective and they just need time on the beach and so if I just took I trusted them and say if they're playing they're not injured um i thought rice would maybe not play the whole game but he did he'll skip her of course you you sort of frame the armband and say you up for it of course you're going to say yes you know and and um and saka played with vengeance in the he was a bit vexed and he played to show everybody that he can still play and everyone now regretting what happened in the previous game so i wasn't super angry but maybe i know what happened and we saw good performances from both of them in hindsight and they've re-established themselves and reminded everybody they can play the game of football and they're Arsenal players and when we have our best Arsenal players available we're quite good and that's where I looked at it from so I was worried we'd lose both of them to operations you know and if we do then please delete this podcast and we'll have another emergency one because if they made their injuries worse in the third place game then And, you know, they seem as though they're on the way back a little bit sooner than hopefully I was expecting.

40:07I thought we wouldn't see him till October, you know. So let's see what happens from there on in. Yeah, hopefully. Let's take a break there and let Elliot tell you about some brands. And in the second half, we will talk much more about Arsenal transfers, Morgan Rodgers, what do we do at centre-back, etc., etc., etc. Right after this. I have to reflect my deep love and admiration for this community by telling you what brands to care about. And of course, one of the primary brands we care about is NordVPN. Gosh, I see all the best people in football telling you about NordVPN. So James Gunterbog talking about it on the whistle.

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42:49That's betterhelp.com. Is that enough, Clive? Is that enough of that? Indeed. Okay, welcome back to part two of the Arsenal Vision post-batch podcast with Tim Stillman and Clive Palmer. That's the World Cup away. My England shirt is in the drawer for another two years. That will not see the light of day. It'll probably be moth-eaten by the time I put it on again. And the World Cup, very much over, bought my community shield tickets this morning that's a very neat dividing line on on pre-season and we're playing and the the players are back well some of the players are back for for pre-season my my mind's on Girona August the 1st now I'm looking around for local non-league friendlies uh what are Welling United doing what are Cray Valley doing what are Dartford doing um I'm I'm kind of I feel like I'm ready not necessarily for the season but I'm ready to I'll fully focus on pre-season.

43:47But, you know, a bit of, shall we say, World Cup residue that we have to consider, Clive, and we touched on it a little bit in the first half, is how some of these players are going to come back for the season. We already know, you know, when William Saliba sat down, you know, I think we all knew what had happened there. My French is not as good as it used to be, but I got the gist of what he was saying when he sat down. Julian Laurence very kindly translated it quite directly but you know I think we all knew what had happened there obviously we talked about Saka and Rice Declan Rice has been having injections because of neural pain Saka's Achilles hasn't really cleared up we gave him a bit of rest for a month or so at the end of last season brought him back for the run in that didn't seem to clear it up it does really feel like and I hate to be a bit of a doom monger here Clive you were talking about the third place playoff It does really feel like one game on, one game off for Saka at the moment.

44:46Like that Fulham game last season, you think, ah, here he is. And then the next game, you know, it looks like he's got a permanent limp again. So I guess. And then we've got the World Cup winners, right? We talked about Mourinho. This has probably been a nice tune-up for him. David Raya didn't play at all. Zubimendi comes on in the final. And by the way, like again, just Spain's strength in depth. like Rodri comes off the golden ball winner and they bring Zubimendi on and no problem they're just doing exactly the same thing you know just stupendous depth really but I guess how do you see some of these players coming back and you said in the first half that maybe some of your concerns around Rice and Saka and Saliba was having a little chat with Rice after the third place playoff as well so you know how do you see some of these players coming back how likely do you think it is that some of them might sneak into the squad for the Coventry game yeah I'm not so sure for Coventry game but maybe the squad maybe but I think like everybody else you're watching these games go on for the last five six weeks and you're looking at your team you're thinking oh we're getting we're getting weaker and weaker here with our players getting more and more minutes at Champions League finals straight to play for their various countries and then you're looking at your phone and everyone's buying these fresh players who are not going to World Cup you think you know we're going to be under a bit of pressure and then we're not quite closing our deals until we come on to that a little bit later and you're sitting there you worry right so hence why the third place game became a little bit of hope that we could be in a slightly better place.

46:34But I do think sometimes, Tim, we forget. And we forget about the potential improvements we can get from our own team. You know, and so forget whether you rate players or not, but we're going to have a better Kai Havertz this season. You know, because we lost him on the very first game last season. And lost him for four or five months. That player alone changed his things. Martin Odegaard, he's seen in this game I can always tell with him when he's focused because he's off the ball plays better. He even went into a headbutt with a player into a game, you know, head on head, because he was that focused playing for Norway.

47:13So that player we've seen far more tentative playing for Arsenal, particularly off the ball. On the ball, he's top class, but off the ball was not prepared to commit in the same way. So potentially he's feeling better about himself. Victor Jokeres, for example, He is a player that started last year, really under a cloud, really, after a broken pre-season. Looks really fit, looks strong. Not sure if he's playing that well for Sweden, but he's a lot fitter. He's end of the season fitter. There could be a level of improvement there after adaption. Myles Lewis-Gelly, another one, end of the season quite strongly.

47:52We could see a step forward from him. there's a few players in there that i feel we lost uvmendi for a while for example hopefully he's got his legs coming back and so he'll do fine and so yeah i i think there's a level of improvement to have for certain players who were maybe carrying injuries for example end of last season but hopefully a little bit fitter and i think it can make a difference but let's be honest right we all want to see new shiny toys coming into the club that's what we want to see so we can debate if we're stronger or not. And we need to make sales because we didn't make many sales last year.

48:28You see Reece Nelson rocking up for pre-season training again this year. I mean, Craigie, he might have been an arsehole for longer than the time I've been supporting him, you know? And so it's time for a change there. Cabal Jesus, you know, there's a few things to do to create room for us to get stronger. And I think we may be overlooking that side of it. It's not just to buy this at sales as well. yeah definitely I mean you spent a lot of money last summer and I think um I think there is something people are kind of overlooking when you know we'll come on to like Morgan Rogers and all that in a little bit but you know they're kind of oh why don't we just pay it and then it's like well okay but are you happy then with that being the only signing of the summer because we don't really know what the overall budget is and um one of the interesting things I don't know if you saw this kind of buried in a hand of arsenal tweet he did like a little bit of an update um and one of his bullet points was Martinelli's for sale yeah um which which is which is quite interesting like I don't know if he meant to express it like that kind of plainly but or is is that he is for sale or is that we'd be interested in an offer if it came in which I think has probably been the like how for sale is he do you know what I mean is it like well we'd be open to an offer or is it we are really actively looking to move this guy because we want Alvarez and Bruno Guimaraes and that's going to cost 200 million and we need to sell someone and and and kind of all of this and and a big part of that picture as well Clive is we're talking about William Saliba and all these reports coming out about interest in Esri Konza which actually that's not the first time he's been mentioned um in dispatches in connection with us I I think this back injury of William Saliba's has probably been there for quite a while yeah i mean he missed it was like three years ago when he when he missed the run and that was a back injury so that suggests this is uh long-standing um sorry about the unintentional pun there um but i mean in terms of like in terms of kind of going for someone like esri conser who cost a lot of money there's you know there's um rooms about Lacroix at Crystal Palace even John Stones who's a free agent at the moment I mean it seems like Arsenal feel like they need to be active there how do you see that kind of replacing not replacing Saliba but you know the the fact that it looks like Arsenal really really feel like they've got to go and spend some money um to kind of amend for this absence which should only be short term reasonably?

51:12Yeah, I've been thinking this through like I'm sure many people have and we have our four right footy defenders and our four left footy defenders start up last season so let's just take we have eight defenders right? And one of those lefties include Miles who maybe now feels he's a midfield so we're down to seven straight away. We have Sliba and Gabriel we know they played way too much football last season and we maybe brought in Cappy as a left centre back that can play left back but he seems to be a left back that can play centre back now so really is he a true centre back take out for left hand side I think we've got two great left backs I think we've got two great right backs two great right backs both had well Ben White's got a little knee problem which he's coming out of now said today that he's fit and which is great Steven may have had a little bit of a going procedure but he's been training and he's going to be fit for the start of the season but we know that both of those players are have been injured in the past and maybe we need to make sure he got cover for them and so the way i look at it now i actually think mascara is more of a gabriel type player and when he plays in the sleeve position we ask him to be great on the ball which he isn't and so but he's a good defender so i think he can play left center back he goes to the left hand side of the unit now with miles coming out and so to build up the unit again you need to get a right foot defender that right foot defender should be multi-positional so some people say get a right back maybe use timbre as a centre back or put ben white inside if we need to but we need to for me a right foot defender that can play centre back and right back and that's why the cons are rumours are quite light it's quite clear that he's part of the arsenal brotherhood shall we say even though he's a spurs fan yeah so but i think i think he's a hackney boy actually by by birth so i think you know he's a london boy and i think that to me just feels right and i think that means that stuff is invaluable when people want to be there and and so i know some people look in the world cup and they're trying to judge people in the world cup alone when he's good he's very very good concert really good player and again came back to arsenal's identity there was a period last season that we barely gave up a shot on target and that was my favorite period of the season you know and that's who we are so we've got to make sure we've got defensive depth and so i like the idea of that obviously i think we want to be around 40 villa want 60 i'm hoping for 50 but villa are not ones giving out bargains and they've been proven correct with morgan rogers so let's see what happens there 28 i quite like that you know that's 20 that's 25 for a midfielder if you know i mean 28 for a central defender i quite like that so i'm not against that idea to make sure that we can protect william sleeper's career and this is what i'm really this is why i fight the nonny cause so much because without him we're not going to get the best from our best player in the team we need people that can do this lucadini has gone to psg and he's going to play behind mendez who is the best left back in the world but lucadini is incredibly important to PSG to allow Mendes to be the best left back in the world when they need him to be and that's how we've got to look at the game differently now we've got to make sure we have people that can do the job for us to allow us not to ruin Sliber's career because he's had his back since he was 16 that's what I read this week and so we have a duty of care to his career and so this is we've got to make sure we have people that we are comfortable with to step in and concert played in europe last year he understands every three-day routine plays for his country so he's robust and he can play off he can play right back players in the back that's how you invest in your generational players by giving them people behind them that can support them and so yeah it may not be exciting for some people but i definitely can understand the methodology behind that type of selection i'm going to say something that's going to make people hate me which is great um i you know there were there was i don't know how much stock there actually is in i i'm sure i'm sure it's on the list but you know john stones is a free agent yeah and there was some suggestion that that was something that arsenal would would look at perhaps if the number for esri conser is too high yeah i actually like the sound of that and i'm going to tell you why i like the sound of it i know there are lots of issues over injuries with john stones and i guess what we're looking at you know you're talking about looking after william saliba's career what we want to make sure is that when he's 31 years old we're not letting him go on a bosman because he can't play anymore exactly um you know and john stone's had to this point a remarkable career as well so i definitely understand that like oh you want to replace an injured defender with a guy who's like barely played but i think there are a couple of reasons i like it and one is I'm not just looking at the defender William Saliba people talk about you know to your point people have talked about Declan Rice having a go at him because he's not Xavi which it's remarkable to me that's that's not his job that's not what he's there for you might as well have a go at him for not scoring 25 goals a season Saliba's our deep line playmaker I think that's the thing i think he is he is almost like that number six yeah basically he is the one who really sets our tempo keeps us really in check and when we're in possession i mean again a lot of people get arsenal very very wrong generally speaking they're just so unbelievably wrong it makes me tear my hair out about what type of team we actually are in possession we're massively aggressive both those center halves are on the edge of the opposition area and Saliba is the one who has a lot of the ball carrying and John Stones can do that we know he can do that he literally has played in midfield for Manchester City now obviously there are physical concerns over it but I also think we do have Mosquera there as well and for me I'm not saying it's the absolute gold-plated this is the perfect solution but i could definitely see a solution where maybe we job share where we get who knows whether we could get johnstone again i wouldn't commit to like a long contract for him but you know this is a guy arteta's worked with um i think we would really slot in for saliba and i could see a solution being we job share between mascara and johnstones we don't commit John Stones to three games a week.