Making Sense of an Active and Unusual Transfer Window

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0:39Trousa Urnigaard, White Everything's going right Arsenal are so good, they're soaring by mistake

0:54What's the easiest way to ensure the Gilchrist deal finally gets over the line? Record the Arsenal Vision Podcast on a Sunday. This is the Arsenal Vision Postmates Podcast. My name's Elliot Svindic, Blackman, Twitter, Inc. Hello, everybody, and welcome to a bit of a unique episode. We are recording the Monday pod on a Sunday. And normally, that wouldn't give me too much pause, except it is almost a certainty that by doing that today, we will wind up with all kinds of transfer announcements Jokrish and Izak and Eze will all be announced Monday morning UK time and Mascara of course but there's not much I can do about it because in roughly four hours or so I will be on a flight to Singapore I'm extremely excited to be out there if you're out there if you are part of the supporters group there just traveling out there there'll be stuff to do hopefully we'll see each other at games but I believe there is a fan event on the 22nd at Molly Malone's at 7 p.m.

1:47local time Singapore. And I'm pretty sure that the local supporters group will have all the information about that. And that's something we definitely plan to be at. So hope to see you there. We did a Friday night Clive, which is a new feature on Patreon where I did the most sensible thing I could think, which is schedule a weekly podcast with Clive where he's in his cups a little bit and we get the real unfiltered Clive. And so that was very, very fun. Really enjoyed it. also did a pod with Matt Giant Gunner that discussed the Medueke deal in a little more detail, the Yokresh move, all kinds of transfer stuff as a special sort of finance-oriented transfer daily.

2:26There's been huge demand for him to do deeper dive finance pods. And all that proves is that, yeah, I don't know anything about our audience, basically. But there's lots of stuff going on over there. Transfer dailies continue to happen. And if you want to join for 50 % off the first month for just a couple of bucks and check it out. You can use code AVP50 when you sign up and we would love to have you over there because as I say repeatedly, we love you. We love you so, so much and there are so many ways we can show you. Many of them in audio form and many of them need to be negotiated individually but we're not here to do that.

2:56We're here to do this and to do this, I need someone on the pod and the person I have on the pod is a man who has done podcasts before and that makes him qualified to do it again and that is Tim. Hello, Tim. Hello there. Tim, super quick, do you have any thoughts on women's euros i saw what i think might be the worst penalty shootout i've ever watched but england got through so i'm sure you're happy any quick quick stuff on that we can't get you on the pod and not have you at least say a little something about that yeah yeah well last night in the um in the well saturday evening i should say because most people are on monday the germany france penalty shootout was quite a bit better um it's always interesting when i say interesting frustrating when something like that happens because like england sweden for a lot of people that might even be the first time they've ever watched a women's football game.

3:41And a lot of people, how can I say this, are a bit dumb. And they do things like, oh, I have watched one game. This is what every single game must be like. And they start pining on things like smaller goals and all of that stuff. Because there were a couple of bad penalties taken. Yeah, yeah. Which we've never seen in the men's game, by the way. Well, indeed. Indeed. And if it had been like nine all and everyone scored, and everyone would have just said, those same people just said, oh, the goalkeepers must be rubbish and just all of that. But anyway, yeah, it's a really interesting tournament because of the way the draw came out.

4:16The draw was exceptionally lopsided. So you had two, because of the Switzerland being seeded, which they wouldn't be if they weren't hosts, had quite a weak group A and then group B, everyone below Spain was kind of quite middling. So you were going to get a side of the draw that had that. And then you had like England, Netherlands and France, all in the same group, all of whom have credentials to win the tournament. Like England and Netherlands have won the last two. And France, I mean, France have got the bottle gene very, very hard in women's football, but they have the talent to go and win a tournament like they're exceptionally talented teams.

4:54So got this weird lopsided draw. But having been drawn in the kind of group of death, now England have got quite a favourable semifinal against Italy. Italy, a really good, well-drilled team. but England should win that. And it's like Italy would not have got out of England's group, basically. So it's kind of strange that England probably had harder group games than this. However, Italy do have a number of threats. I think most people felt it was going to be an England-Spain final. That's probably what the betting would have right now, but Germany coming through against France when they went down to 10 and conceded a penalty very early, getting all the way through to penalties and winning on penalties.

5:42And actually, that's really good practice for them because they've got Spain next. So Germany kind of got defensive injuries. They're a bit dodgy defensively. But what happened against France? They went down to 10 early. They lost another defender to a red card. And you know how sometimes that can just focus you and go, actually, we just need like, eight at the back here and magically you defend better when you're not worrying about pushing your fullbacks on and stuff like that and that's probably a good practice session for what the spain game is going to be like because you know germany have had two red cards in the tournaments they might get another one but essentially when you play spain you play like you're playing with 10 players because they'll pin you back so like two very good semi-finals coming up um italy wouldn't normally be a semi-finalist, but not a huge surprise given the side of the draw that they were on.

6:39Well, that tournament carries on, but the really important business of preseason for Arsenal is about to kick off. So obviously, as this is the Arsenal Vision podcast, we will have to cover that. I think we can talk about the squad that was announced to be on the plane and some thoughts about those players and who we want to see and who it's a really important preseason for. But, you know, we got to do some numbers. And nothing does numbers like transfer talk, so we might as well. Tim, we live in a very conspiratorial moment right now, right? So it is natural to want to see more behind the news than just what is reported.

7:14I find myself trying to row against conspiratorial thinking and yet being roped into it a bit in the Victor Yokeres saga. There's Occam's razor, right, which dictates the thing that's the simplest explanation is most likely true, which is that Sporting's president, Verandas, is really difficult to deal with. He's been difficult to deal with in all kinds of negotiations. You can look at the Bruno Fernandes deal as an example of that. You can look at other deals he's done. He's hard to deal with and that he's just being hard to deal with. He doesn't like how Gilchrist behaved, so he's putting Arsenal through a little extra pain, messing with our preseason plans and making the final stages of this more difficult.

7:49That's the Occam's razor answer. It's also not interesting. So, you know, do you have a more interesting take? I mean there's these machinations machinations in my head where it's like well Liverpool are lining up what looks like a final move to get Eketike this means there might still be a clear run at Ezek the Yokores deal seems like it could have been over the line ages ago if we were just willing to agree on the last details of add-ons I mean that's the thing we're not talking about we're 10 million apart we're talking about whether the last few million will be you know he's got to score 12 goals no he's got to score 18 goals and we're haggling over that and all the while he's not getting on the plane in Asia, which is something we would have wanted.

8:28I mean, all the reporting was Mikel Arteta wanted the striker in before preseason. So if Berta's going to be this tough a negotiator and potentially risk Mikel being annoyed that his striker's not there, there's a part of me on the conspiratorial thinking side that wants to say maybe there's something going on that's causing us to hesitate. Am I just wearing the tinfoil hat here? Are you with me i i think that could be it it wouldn't massively surprise me i i probably wouldn't bet on it but it doesn't really add up does it that like we're here for a week about add-ons and i think the sporting president has been um it's quite clear that he'd be willing to say something to the press if arsenal were really playing hardball maybe not i i think probably you're right, the Occam's razor explanation is that it's not a massive deal and he doesn't need to, and he doesn't need to risk the deal falling through by shooting his mouth off.

9:27But at the same time, if Arsenal were being difficult about that, I think there is a line of argument that he probably would be in Obala and publications like that, banging his fists on the table and putting quotes out. So it does seem a bit weird. It does seem a bit weird that it's all tied into, at the same time that Newcastle and Liverpool are going on this kind of Eketike-Ezac dance. But the other thing that's really interesting, I think has actually been surprisingly underplayed, is that Ezek was left out of Newcastle's first friendly on Saturday against Celtic. And Eddie Howe said specifically it was because of the speculation.

10:07And Liverpool are about to complete the Eketike signing by the looks of it. So something's not adding up there. Do you know what I mean? Like it feels like Liverpool have moved on to another target. There's talk of, you know, Newcastle and Wissa, and it looks like Mbumo to United is finally done after weeks and weeks and weeks. And so like dominoes are starting to fall. I wouldn't be surprised if Arsenal did kind of say, and actually I think I'd endorse it if they just went, okay let's just take a beat here and let's see what happens over over the next week and if we can if we can go and get isak maybe then yeah maybe maybe we can and yeah i won't go on too long a monologue i was going to say something else there but i think it will naturally come out um a bit later in the pod fair enough so so tim i have weird conflicting thoughts here because all the while the golden goose is has been izak right the the absolute prize of any potential transfer window is izak the best possible player at the position we potentially most need who even theoretically could move if you ask me whether 120 million pounds for izak or 65 ish or 60 ish for Yoke, Yokeresh, I'm not going to call him Yoke, Yokeresh.

11:33There's so many egg jokes you can start making though. For Yokeresh, like plus Eze at another 60. I'm not 100 % sure that Izak, with some of the history of injury, at 120 million is definitely the right move for an Arsenal that needs a striker, yes, but really could use a left-sided upgrade and creative wing fielder upgrade too. And if you could give me Jokeresh plus Eze plus all the pieces we already have, or just Ezek, there is a world where I just don't take Ezek in that scenario. And maybe that is crazy. Maybe I've galaxy brained it. And the way you get better is you buy the best possible player imaginable.

12:16So I accept that there are people that are going to massively disagree, but I would bet that a poll on that, and I might put a poll out on that, would divide opinion a bit. So before I get to my next concern about the Gilchrist deal. Where do you fall on that theory? The theory of Gilchrist plus an Eze actually helps us be better in all the ways we need to be better than just Ezek or Ezekiel. I think that's where I am. But I have got time for the other argument because again, I look at Liverpool and actually all the pieces Liverpool have bought to replace Mane and Firmino haven't been that good.

12:54like Nunez it looks like they're open to selling Diaz all right they've not back a bid but it doesn't look like they're giving him a new contract either it looks like they'd be willing to part with both those players Gakpo's been good it's been good you know um good player so um in fact I mean really the only player I think Liverpool bought an attack in recent years who really was pretty much an unqualified success was Jota um and so but Liverpool's level hasn't really dropped because because Salah basically like Salah's been good enough that the fact that they haven't really properly replaced Mane and Firmino with equal talent has has actually not quite neither been here nor there maybe they'd have done a bit better last season when Salah was offer African nations but then Mane would have been there as well and actually Mane and Firmino kind of aging out a little bit but you know I don't think anyone's noticed a massive drop-off in the way they attack and actually two of their they're really really generationally good front three have gone and it's just Salah who's held them up so I guess my doubts over that you know is isak that level like salah is in the conversation for like the best premier league player ever he's in that conversation he might not be it but he's in that conversation he's in the conversation for best premier league attacker ever yeah non-tieri on redivision well yeah of course yeah um whereas whereas isak isak's a really good player but i don't think he's there and also of course Izak's had injury issues and I'm not entirely convinced they've gone away I do think you know he was missing for some games last season and maybe last season Newcastle didn't have Champions League and that was a little a little bit less intense on him I think there's a lot of a lot of hand-wringing about us not going for him in the first place but his first two seasons at Newcastle were very injury hit I think if we'd made that move everyone would be going why did we buy this croc kind of thing so you know there are some things to balance up there i think i'd come down on the if you say ese for example alongside your crest yeah that's the side i'm coming down on if you say like javi simmons for example then that might give me a little bit more pause for thought yeah so just quickly on the injury thing with the exact like I don't want to say it's catastrophic stuff because it clearly is not that um it is I would say just enough to be wary of and so if you if you look at the injury stuff um since he came over to Newcastle his first season there 22-23 18 games missed thigh problems 23-24 two separate groin injuries that kept him out eight games then four games last season you know sort of the breakout season he did have a broken toe where he missed seven games for Newcastle and Sweden and by the way these these games missed include Sweden games so they're inflated a bit he had a hamstring injury where he missed one game and a groin injury where he missed one game those are both last season and you know you don't know that could literally have been game management and they were just resting him and they said oh he's got a bit of a groin thing or a bit of a hamstring thing but if you look at the injuries it's thigh hamstring groin hamstring groin it's the kind of stuff that you don't say oh well he had this one thing where you know he broke his ankle and he got over it and he hasn't been injured again these are soft tissue type things that would give you a bit of pause look i want to be clear if there's any player i can have in the market that has any chance of moving it's probably izak the question for me was more is two better than one in this situation for us.

16:53And I do regard Kai as a good player. I think some of this is a Rorschach test on what you think of Kai. If you told me we're going to buy Jokeres and Kai was still going to start 30 games, but we'd have Eze on the left. Like I'd probably be fine with that. Or if you say we're going to get Izak and Martinelli is going to start on the left, the reality is I'd probably be fine with that too. We are creating more of a single point of failure in our transfer business that way though. And I think it still leaves us in that sort of single point of failure with Odegaard from a creative midfielder standpoint too, unless you really believe Ethan's going to play that role this season, which he might.

17:22The other point I wanted to make here, though, Tim, there is a part of how you do transfers that impacts your ability to do future transfers. And I think you and I, I would assume, are sort of simpatico on this. It's just like Jokeres wants Arsenal. He's fallen out with his club over that move. He's pushing for that move. He's on strike. He's got lawyers involved. It's really ugly. it it does strike me that if we were to not do that deal and pivot to another player it becomes a really bad message to other players that we encourage to push for a move to arsenal you know it says hey push for move to arsenal but you could get massively hung out to dry here now look it's a cutthroat business and if you can get izak instead of yokres you may have to do that i understand that but tim i do think andrea burda walking into an agent's office if we screw over gilchoresh here is going to be a really tough sell from that moment forward you know what i mean yeah yeah it really could do it really could do and i and and actually a lot of the kind of people who tend to know stuff are kind of saying the gilchoresh thing is like too far down the line for can i just stop you for a second by the way if you're listening to this pod and it's already done and you're laughing at us like fair fair play this is what happens when you give us give us our dues give us our credit for that yeah um yeah and so yeah like that that's that's definitely a factor and what like the stuff we've heard is about some of the deals we've done this summer so brentford that's a club we've dealt with before and we have some of their former staff members and real sociedad you know good relations played paid a bit over the release clause chelsea i mean the thing i know people roll their eyes at the chelsea thing but i had a really really good point actually maybe on an athletic podcast that was saying like chelsea aren't just good for arsenal to deal with chelsea are like a i would say garage sale you would say garage sale like they are set up to do business like a massive part of their whole philosophy is selling players so they are very easy to deal with because they've got hundreds of players and they're happy to sell nearly all of them maybe other than Cole Palmer so actually they're quite easy for anyone to deal with quite frankly to your point by the way apparently according to Hand of Arsenal we were offered Nico Jackson too while we were shopping for Nani Madueke and we turned that down but it is I think you had two good points there about Chelsea which is one Chelsea accumulate a lot of players with the goal of selling them on so fine they've become the the supermarket where you go shop.

20:00But secondly, they don't seem to have a particularly good feel for who to sell and who to keep. Or if you want to be more cynical, they don't actually care because they're not trying to compete sporting-wise. They're just looking to move players around. Because you could argue that Nico Jackson and Nani Medueke are better than Gittins and Jao Pedro. Like, I have time for that viewpoint. So the players that they're looking to move on this summer may be no better or, in fact, I mean, maybe better, in fact, than the players they've added. Anyway, sorry, Karen. Yeah, but they'll probably move them on at a profit.

20:31There you go. Yeah, so there's that. But I think as well with this specific case with Izak, I thought you and Clive had a very interesting conversation about it on Friday night in terms of like Izak's what, 26? And he's going to be looking now and thinking, okay, I'm coming into my prime years now. People are going to hit you with it. He's 25 until he's 26. He turns 26 in September. sorry okay all right well and and it's very much going to be like uh newcastle like good club big resources all of that are they going to win the league are they are they really going to go and try and win the league in the next couple of years while he's in his prime or does he see i don't want to say a shortcut because i think he's that level of player who probably belongs in a title challenging team or is he going do you know what i think it's more likely that arsenal or Liverpool are going to win the Premier League before I'm 30.

21:27So do I want to go there? And it also kind of sounds like there's a contractual part to this, which I think is the main thing and which is why I think he's getting left out of pre-season friendlies because him and his agents are – it's one where you can see both sides where Newcastle are a bit like, well, you've got another three years on your deal. We stood by you through some injuries. And on his side, he's going, well, actually, I'm probably your best player. Maybe it's time to pay up a little bit for that. and it sounds a bit more like to me that it's a bit of a contract situation. Otherwise, I just don't think Liverpool, because within days it's gone from Liverpool in quiet and now Liverpool have bought someone else entirely different.

22:07And don't get me wrong, that might have been a tactic to getting to Ektike in the first place, but they're paying loads of money for him as well. Frankfurt are in the Champions League. They don't need the money. I remember at the beginning of the summer, maybe Seb Stafford-Bloor, who covers German football for the Athletic, kind of saying, take a lot of money to get him out of there because Frankfurt qualified for the Champions League. They don't have a need to sell. And maybe that's why his name wasn't in the Arsenal conversation. So I don't know. I do think the Occam's razor is. If Isak was really on the market this summer, I don't think Liverpool would have kind of given up on it this easily.

22:48yeah it's it's a difficult one um if it weren't for the him being left out and anyhow saying it's because of transfer speculation i'd say izak's just not moving they're back in the champions league um they have no need to sell financially and with three years left on his deal if they want to cash in on him they could probably do it next summer honestly when they were in for ekatike that also made me think i don't think eketike is coming into backup izak maybe izak is going to liverpool but with liverpool going for eketike and newcastle more linked with like a wissa joan wissa isn't your starting striker at newcastle in the champions league kind of level he is more of a replace callum wilson and backup izak improvement right so it all to me points to him staying except for the weird thing of anyhow being like i left him out because of the transfer speculation yeah and you know sometimes players get left out because you'll be like i'm leaving him out because his head's somewhere else blah blah blah but like transfer speculation isn't even something izak can control so it must to me mean that how feels izak is maybe agitating for it or encouraging it right because if it was literally just like itk is speculating about a transfer you're not gonna send your player home you send your player home because there's something you see in the players camp or agent so anyway there's just enough smoke around all of this that it feels like there could be fire somewhere.

24:09I will say I rate Hugo Eketike really highly. I obviously hope he fails at Liverpool. It does look like that's where he's going to wind up. It's another big, big splash of cash for Liverpool. And this is the one thing that has changed about the transfer market. Once upon a time, the reason you went for the exciting, but maybe still developing 23 year old is because you could get that guy at a discount versus the more established player with the more predictable output. But Liverpool are paying full fare for Eketike. They're paying for him basically like he's a guy who's a sure thing. They're paying for him like he's doing in the Bundesliga what Erling Haaland did in the Bundesliga.

24:50And that's just not the case. So no matter how much I rate him, Tim, it's a big outlay on potential, even if I think he has a lot of it. Yeah. I mean, I think probably the next, well, I was going to say, player, next individual that will probably come up in the transfer market it is whoever the hell frankfurt sporting director is because they've they've had some real hits um over the last couple of years so um which again is kind of another reason they don't they don't massively need to sell here so i i am kind of surprised by it it does make me wonder how close liverpool are to selling someone like diaz or nunez i'd imagine diaz because there's been an offer for him but then again barcelona are going for rashford now so does that mean that they're not interested in Diaz or they've been told he's definitely not for sale it's it kind of sounds like it almost sounds like our Martinelli trossard situation with Nunez and Diaz where they probably really do actually just want to get rid of Nunez whereas with Diaz it's probably more their Martinelli where it's like well we're not really going to offer him a contract but we think we want to keep him but if it's too good to be true maybe we won't so it's very similar to us in terms of potentially Arsenal adding that other attacker.

26:09It does really feel like, well, yeah, one of Martinelli or Trossard's going to have to go for that to happen. It really does kind of sound like to me that Liverpool would get a sale there. But again, it feels trite to mention it, but obviously Liverpool have lost a very good attacker this summer in very, very tragic circumstances. So they kind of have to do something about that as well and how much that's changed their plans in the market, I guess, remains to be seen. But it is a bit Arsenal coded. It does feel like you've kind of just got to wait for where all the pieces are going to fall. That doesn't feel quite clear yet.

26:47And I think what is becoming clear, though, Elliot, is who's on the market and who's not. So like Semenyo signed a new deal with Bournemouth very early in the summer, which I think probably means he'll go next summer if there's a good price um you know and bumo looks like it's going to happen now and but the other thing that kind of gave me pause on the you know our arsenal just holding fire on giocarez a little bit because if you do that you obviously have to take the risk that you end up with neither player you know if if arsenal are doing that and entertain that that kind of okay we're going to drop the giocarez thing and then our izak doesn't happen then you've got to look at what else is on the market if like both those fall away and then it's a kind of there's been a lot of talk of Watkins but like do you then revisit a Nicholas Jackson do you do you visit Nunez or something like that like there are strikers on the market and I'm not saying they're world class but then there is the kind of question like is there a massive difference between Nico Jackson and Giochrez I don't really know the answer to that because I haven't seen enough of Giochrez but it just seems to me there are a lot of strikers like good strikers on the market you know um and perhaps izak is the only one who if he became on the market would be like an excellent striker so there's there's just i think because the market's really kicked off now and we can really see pieces moving you know i think we always underestimate how interrelational markets are not just football markets like what what your competitors do what other assets if you want to say that what other players move the prices they move at as well because that sets other prices doesn't it when we were trying to get Madrid and it was like well Anthony went for this much money and it's like come on you can't use Manchester United as a barometer for the market that's that's like absolutely ridiculous that's that's like that's way over that end of the spectrum over there so yeah it just feels like the markets kind of come to life a little bit yeah and you know there might be people that are like well i don't understand why we're able to get medueke done so quickly but yokres were negotiating down to the last penny you know these are the the challenging things with transfer reports you only know so much i mean the the medueke negotiations broke late so they had it sounds like they'd been ongoing before we really knew about them but also with midweek you have a willing seller who wants to negotiate who wants to find a solution and in sporting you have someone in verandas who clearly is annoyed with how the player behaved and the approach and the price coming down and has decided he's going to make it difficult um it might also be a symptom of well was like you know i'm reading a lot of this and i'm thinking giocres's agent failed him miserably like get it in writing get it in writing but I guess I still think that's sloppy work don't get me wrong I guess in fairness they probably didn't think this would happen you know they probably you know I think every player at a certain level should be planning for that but this has probably come as a bit of a surprise when they negotiate that contract with Sporting maybe they didn't think he'd get as many goals as he has and it was a bit like oh yeah well if I it almost reminds me a bit of the Norgaard kind of thing where clearly there was an agreement of some kind when he signed his Brentford contract.

30:19You know, if Arsenal, Man City, Bayern, Barca, if they come in for me. And I bet Brentford were like, yeah, okay, but none of those are coming in for you. Yeah, yeah, 9 million, fine, whatever. And then it actually happens. It kind of, this strikes me a little bit like that, that maybe they just weren't planning on Arsenal being interested at the age of 27. Yeah, yeah, I mean... I guess we'll find out, like, this is why, though, negotiations are also hard to predict. One of the reasons maybe you pay the 50 million, 52 million, whatever, for Maduike quickly is to avoid Chelsea saying, well, Mbuma was 71 million.

30:58You know what I mean? You want to beat the market to being reset because Manchester United are always willing to overpay. It looks like they've overpaid again massively, in my mind, for Mbuma. And then that resets the market. Now suddenly people are going to quote you different prices. What's funny to me, Tim, going into this summer, I think I was like, Like, I don't know if there's any striker I really rate enough to say that's the guy who's going to be on the market. Izak aside, because I didn't think he'd be on the market. And now I look around and it's like, Jokoresh, Sesko, even Nico Jackson.

31:26You know, there's strikers out there that are going to move. Hugo Akitike, they're all very expensive. They're all players I'd be reasonably excited if they came to Arsenal and want to watch them. I mean, Nico Jackson, I think, is probably misunderstood by a lot of people. To me, there's a bit of a Darwin Nunez thing there. He's incredibly paced. He's incredibly strong. his output from underlying metric standpoint is phenomenal. He just has that gene where when he gets on the ball in the final third, he and us have no idea what he is going to do. And it's chaotic and chaos can be exciting and it can be very, very frustrating.

32:00I thought giant gunner actually, Matt on the pod we just did yesterday, made a good point, which is these players who will occasionally kick the ball into Rose ad and do something really stupid looking can wind up being players that are misunderstood by fans because you'll see a clipped up highlight of them missing the ball entirely or firing a pass into the stands or kicking the ball out for a throw in and you laugh at them and say they stink but then you look and you realize like actually their goal numbers are good their assist numbers are good they're really fast they cause a lot of problems for defenses so i don't know i mean it's hard to rate here's here's where i'll sort of wrap this segment is a very long segment but i think yokres is going to happen if it hasn't already by the time you're listening to this and I think that's a perfectly fine outcome for me at the price we're paying if it allows us to get that one more piece and I really still believe Tim and I've said this multiple times so I know people are probably sick of hearing it there is no position in our quote unquote starting 11 and Clive is cringing even hearing that phrase there's no position I think where we can improve as much as off the left in terms of the output we've been getting there and I know it's probably going to take a sale but I do think if we can move a Leo we could get an Eze.

33:11We're also linked to Shabby Simons. Simmons. I've heard it both ways. I'm not sure which way you're going to say it. I'm excited to find out together. Do you have a strong lean between those two? Do you think one of those two might come in or someone off the left? Or are you prepared to believe, as is somewhat reported, that Nani Meduake is going to be our starting left winger and we are going to get a striker and nothing more? Where are you settling on that particular position? I think Arsenal will try to do that. I think they'll try to move maybe Trossard because I'm really still not sure why there were new contracts or pay rise talks to begin with.

33:48But he's changed his representation. That's gone very quiet. It sounds to me like Arsenal aren't hawking him out, but it's a bit we'd listen to a good offer type thing, which I think is absolutely right. um so i think they'll try but maybe maybe that's not as firm as like we must get a number nine you know we must get you know zubomendi we must like we must get another defender to replace tommy asu like and obviously we have to have a backup goalkeeper who is old enough to shave um that was an important thing to do this summer so like those really seem like musts whereas this This one, I wouldn't call it a luxury signing because I agree with you.

34:36I think there's a lot to go there. But I do think it's a kind of we'll try and sell one of those players and make something big happen there. But I do think it's worth discussing what Madueke on the left might look like because tap the mug, I wrote about this this week. But having a left footer on the left side, I have to say I've never really understood why that hasn't happened before under Arteta because the job of the left winger seems to be to hug the touchline. So I've never really understood why that has to be a right footer. It strikes me that we really want our left winger almost going on the outside to the byline.

35:16So I've never quite understood that before. And I think having a left footer there would actually be a really interesting thing. I don't think it would transform what we do too much because that inside left channel, I think, is well taken care of by our left backs and our left eights and all of that. And I have to give credit to Giles on Twitter, who's at Grimondi tweets, I think. He pulled out an interview with Thomas Tuchel when he was Chelsea manager. And he was talking, I don't even know what the game was, but he posted the post-match press conference. and Tuchel was talking about swapping his wingers at halftime and he was talking about having the wingers on their natural sides and he was kind of saying actually in a low block situation every like half second counts.

36:02So the half second a guy spends getting the ball on his stronger foot can actually cost you against the set defence and evidently I can only imagine the context from this was that it works really well and that Chelsea broke them down but it was really interesting how he was talking about But actually having a guy on his, having a left footer out on the left wing really worked for us because it just took half a second less for us to kind of get going and attack. So I do wonder about that angle, about having a left-footed left winger. And I, like a lot of people, I do not believe for one second Maduweke has come solely to play on the right and clean Bakayosaka's boots.

36:41I don't think we'd spend that money. I don't think he'd be convinced to come. I think clearly there is, you know, he's going to play quite a bit on the left. So I wouldn't be massively surprised. We go into the season with the four wingers we've got. And Maduweke, you know, plays a lot of minutes as a left winger. It's a shame. I mean, I understand why he's not going on tour because he played in the Club World Cup. And for his own physical well-being, he needs a holiday. I mean, these players don't get them and they have to take them when they come. But I mean, I liked his interviews, his welcome to Arsenal interviews.