Martinelli’s Big Moment, Alex Scott and Bruno Guimaraes Linked

0:00Music

0:16It's Rice. What a goal! Declan Rice with an absolute rocket with a free kick. Arsenal lead 1-0. Cut inside, Saka! Sublime finish! He's back with a bang for Kiyosaka, 1-0! Unbelievable!

0:54second of all of their games going well about to face bosnia herzegovina um we all become glory hunters for the world cup don't we um so i'm stepping into the host chair for today and with me actually i think for the first time since the end of the season uh that i've been on a podcast with clive palmer clive how are you doing hello hello yeah i mean we haven't really properly celebrated a title yet or nothing like that i mean i think we might have been there for the the game after palace maybe did a pod then and then when i said i remember i uttered the words for you i sort of know the sort of day you had at palace but i've been watching all the all the films since i thought that was so conceited you could never have pictured that day because it just got better and better all the times i watched it so um yeah that was a wrong thing to say and well we we are recording we are you know a little bit uh kind of behind the curtain first off apologies of a fly has come into the room it's quite warm in england this week we put a fly trap out last week which has largely worked but obviously the second i've hit record one of the little buggers has come in so it buzzes past the microphone that will be it but we're recording not to let you too much behind the curtain but just after brazil have beaten japan and just before germany are about to play paraguay obviously some arsenal interest in both of those games and clive some big arsenal interest in the brazil game because gabriel martinelli has come off the bench uh something we've become familiar with certainly in the champions league this season and scored a stoppage time winner for brazil um neymar had a bit of a face like a smacked ass on the sideline that it wasn't him coming on first um gabriel martinelli coming on as a left central midfielder but but very much scoring a striker's goal and elliot did uh message me just before this podcast to say tell everyone i think martinelli is our striker yeah but we've we've had we've had you know some flashes here and there from arsenal players in this tournament but fair to say we haven't had a massive moment from an arsenal player in this tournament and obviously the knockouts have only just started but huge huge moment I think for Gabriel Martinelli and listen scoring a last minute winner in a World Cup knockout game for Brazil it doesn't get much bigger than that.

3:20Mate you'll never have to buy a drink again will he that's for sure I think well you know what Tim I learned this from you remember when you said when Jesus was younger he went to World Cup and he didn't quite do it remember in those early days and it affected him I think it still affects him you know that he didn't quite do it for his country and the flip side to that coin isn't there that you can grow confidence you can grow something from being you know someone that does something like this and this is a big goal in recent brazil history you know better than i so from that angle we see a young man do what he did left his country very very young to go and apply his trade in europe go to waltz as an under 21 gets into the first team and done what he's done with saka he's probably been one of the through lines through michael arteta's project hasn't he and um even though i get frustrated about his finishing on occasions and sometimes when his brain's not switched on his story is a beautiful story isn't it it really is you know it's a beautiful story and um and he's an arteta player works the system beautifully you know as we all sit in here right we all want to evolve our attack but we love all the players that we don't want to sell any of them so uh yeah leo trossard getting two for belgium against new zealand you know and that's how we can't sell him can't sell him only guys getting assist captain norway can't sell him you know so this evolution of attack it's going to be so interesting when all the same players rock up right next season and then we can uh we just we can just rerun the podcast of last season so uh it's gonna be a challenge in this seriously though it's a challenge evolution is sometimes painful and how do we do it and how do we select it and as we record and right now Morgan Rogers price has gone up to 130 million and I bet everybody's thinking sod this let's just let's just keep what we have you know because that's just ridiculous isn't it so yeah it is and what's interesting for Martinelli as well I was on the Askast last week and I said that I felt that Martinelli could get a place in this Brazil starting 11 because what they've done because it's a Carlo team right he's gone who's our best player Vinicius Junior is our best player if you're being unkind you'd probably say he's their only top class player and so Ancelotti naturally his question is how do I platform him and he's playing him very centrally basically in a bit of a 4-4-2 with Vinicius kind of coming off the left but really doing that Thierry Henry thing where really he's kind of the centre forward and so what they've been doing is they've been playing Lucas Paqueta on the kind of left wing as a bit of a left-sided central midfielder who goes over into that space and i think there's two problems with that one is that lucas pacote is quite an average player like he's playing for flamengo at the moment right he he's quite average for this level and he's being asked quite a big job he's being asked to cover a lot of space and he's kind of being asked to do that almost you get this with creative players sometimes what's the name of the argentina player is it rodrigo de paul yes who's who's basically his job for argentina is to run around behind messi yeah and almost be like his nfl style blocker is like you don't worry about running i'll do your running for you type thing and you get that sometimes and lucas pacotard even at his best is not that player and i said to andrew i felt if brazil are going to play a 4-4-2 just put martinelli on the left wing like there is no trouble with him going back in the other direction you don't have to worry about that and obviously pacatar went off injured um in this game i really think martinelli is going to start the next game for brazil as a left winger um in a 4-4-2 and that could be an interesting thing for arteta to look at as well yeah i think well he can definitely do the left winger at 4-4-2 that's no doubt because he's been schooled to run up and down that line and if he lets a man go off his shoulder by one yard then and he knows what's going to happen when he goes to the dressing room.

7:22So that's not a problem. I think in this game, tell me if I'm wrong, I think the way they deployed him was almost like a left inside midfielder, as a left 10. And I'm thinking, so during the game, I was frustrated with Vinicius, so I'm thinking, come on, get yourself in the middle. But actually, that's where the crowd scene is. And so by putting Martinelli in there as a decode that you have to watch and standing between two players, and they're thinking, who's got him? And you've got Vinicius on the outside, who's got him? and so he sort of froze that side of the pitch defensively for Japan Tom Yasuo's in there whenever back five sometimes with numbers you feel like someone else is there for you and I thought they used Martinelli very cleverly to pin to allow a clear path to Vinicius to receive it and then he can get into his running I thought it was all wrong you know but then you see Vinicius make that beautiful chance that dribble and then he hits opposed I'm thinking if I'm Vinicius get yourself in the mixer son come on get in the middle get in the middle to have the discipline to stay wide knowing that you've got Martinelli to fix people so you can receive I think that's genius coaching I really do none of us would play Martinelli as a left midfielder we wouldn't right not with Nisus is there right we wouldn't do it and he did it and Martinelli of course he can sniff out a chance and although I've just about got over Forrest away Tim that chance he missed not that I've ever mentioned it on the podcast before I think girl and I think I got over it tonight because I'm pleased for him because he's really he's really earned that yeah definitely and and you're right I think it says a lot about Ancelotti's experience because everyone would have been saying bring Neymar on bring Neymar on bring Neymar on and and actually um I just find the selection of him incredibly strange and there's something a little bit off about that yeah having not selected him for two years and he's not even fit anyway exactly pedro's on his holidays now he must be thinking what's this all about yeah yeah that that's not a meritocracy and i wouldn't mind betting there's there's a story to come out about that but anyway yeah like to your point japan are playing a back five so brazil have basically gone all right we'll put five forwards on against your back five we'll match you five for five and martinelli he will buzz around um and you know the goal he scores it's a real centre forwards goal i mean do you still not to reignite talking points from 2021 but do you still you know let's throw elliot's little hand grenade in there do you see him in any scenario as a striker um for arsenal i think if we're having discussions right now and i've had these thoughts myself right so um so the two sort of second strikers that we sort of like, well, we, I say we based on rumours, you know, Kruppi and Alvarez, you're looking at, if you're looking at comps, you're looking at probably them two, a second striker player that needs somebody else to play.

10:20So, Endric was playing centre-forward in this game. So, he wasn't playing striker. Endric was playing striker. And so, Alvarez has, is it, Soorloth or Griezmann with him, next to him, right? And so, and Kruppi has, I want to say, Evan Ilsen up front, isn't he, for Bournemouth? And so, that second striker role that's right that free player that's not a 10 it's not a nine but buzzes around and he's a sharpshooter he can do that remember we did it first before a year or so ago didn't he for a little while when erd guard was out exactly we went into into our pairs you know really distinct pairs we'd have that sort of thing and i and he can definitely do that he can definitely be a four for two wide man he's the one that you know i want to sell them all sometimes you know what I'm like and getting new players in but he's the one that I did read something I just thought it was really sensible that they may renegotiate his contract and say look you're now a squad player you're not the soccer player we thought you were going to be extended but maybe lower the wage if that happened I would not be disappointed because I just think there's a player in there that knows us and we know him and there's so many games now it's just and he's quite robust you know and so I know I'm going to be a bit bit of a softy there but um i do get annoyed when i when he lacks iq you know but i also remember the times when he's buried himself to make sure we win a game you know on countless occasions so that'd be a hard one to um if he would accept that i would accept it um but as a center forward i've just never seen that in our system because we tend to want somebody bigger stronger if you go force 90 it's like merino you know someone with a stature because we're playing the english premier league but there's no there's no doubt when he comes out to inter-central areas he looks like a center forward isn't he but his starting position needs to be slightly off for somebody else in my opinion yeah i completely agree and and just to wrap up just because we were just watching the brazil game right and gabriel comes out with an assist as well for casemiro i mean this is probably how arsenal pilled i am clive but brazil have got gabriel and to be fair they've got casemiro who i think scored seven or eight headed goals this season they have probably got the two biggest set piece threats from the premier league which let's face it became the set piece league am i going mad was i have i just been too arsenal pilled that the corners that they were taking made me want to rip my arm off and throw it at the tv and i guess like what does it show as well about i don't want to go too much into what idiots on the internet say but like the delivery of rice and saka is just such an enormous part of of the the story that's not really told i think honestly we take it for granted tim and you know i know where you sit at the ground but let me tell you where i sit i sit over the corner flag and north bank end so i see rice's corner second half mate he is unbelievable the quality of those i i see them i see the bend on them i just expect it now if he hits the first man who's been i'll be throwing my season ticket back over the side you know it's like uh it's um and when you see other teams you just realize this ain't so this ain't easy this the ball's flying up in the air going like it's just it's We just take it for granted.

13:53To be fair to Casimir, it's all those people deleting tweets when he got run about in the first half. And then he stays on the pitch, gets off just in time at the end with rigor mortis in the lower part of his body. But he gets the equaliser and the way he shaped his body was just a goal, wasn't it? Just a goal. Yeah, football mate, just hold them tweets sometimes, right? You never know. Rio Ferdinand was criticising Gabriel for not closing down the first goal and everyone else has retired Casemiro in the first half second half what happens Gabriel sweeps into the back post like Dele Spur camp and Casemiro heads it in and that's football right just hold your tweets back hold them back yeah I've always had this theory about players who get on the end of crosses or like to get on the end of crosses usually make good crosses I used to think about Ian Wright if you go back and look at there's a goal Bergkamp scores in North London derby November 96 it's quite a famous goal where he gets the ball on the back post and he coits it back yeah yeah touches inside yeah and it's it's Ian Wright who delivers that cross and and Wright he could cross a ball because he knew what he wanted you know what that is so that is so typical of you right because I was at that game and I remember the the touch and the shot and it's an important goal I remember the celebration but Tim Stillman remembers the bloke who crossed it a fair play yeah yeah yeah but um yeah yeah and i think um just like on arsenal set piece delivery it reminds me of something i think billy carpenter tweeted last week and he was talking about the way harry kane strikes a ball and he's saying there are loads of players well not loads but there are some players who can strike the ball as well as him yeah but it's the consistency with which the contact is close to perfect and I think the same about Rice in particular from corners Saka from corners like I don't think they're the only players in the Premier League that can do that but they're the only players that do it like dead on basically every single time you know I actually got involved with Billy in that conversation he didn't ask me but I just got involved anyway and because I watch the training videos of England as well religiously right because Because what you see, you see the elite players in the country playing against each other.

16:18So when you like your player, then you see him in that environment. The rondos. They reveal all. They reveal all. So I've seen Smith-Rowe maybe struggle in England training. And I could see it. I've seen Cobby Manu struggle in England training about two years ago. I've also seen Harry Kane shooting drills when Ramsdale was in goal. I'm not joking to him. He wasn't even diving, mate. he wasn't even diving you know when a shot's so good you just wave it in and that was happening to all the goalkeepers and I'm thinking Jesus and I want to hate him do you know what I mean I want to hate him but you can't it's just like pure pure technique and striking he's doing it with like he's got a cigarette in his hand honestly it's just perfect and these top players really got top top skills top yeah and I mean speaking of top players and top skills and all of that I mean we haven't really had a chance to catch up about the World Cup so far just in general like how have you know I've very much the group stage been a bit pick and mix for me I've not really been watching any of the games that are on early hours of the morning in the UK and that's kind of been fine with me to be honest first of all I think it's really the first World Cup I can remember the time zone being like genuinely just not great for the uk that's not a complaint observation because i remember the 94 world cup and most of the game almost all of the games were actually i mean obviously there are far fewer games to fit in but they were all at about 9 p.m english time i really remember that then there was france japan and south korea they were on in the morning but not like early hours it was like 7 8 a.m and then pretty much everything has been pretty kind to a kind of to a western european audience but i'm kind of i've been fine with that as well clive because you know the first world cup game was 10 days after the champions league final i was a bit footballed out yeah i wasn't there was no run-up to the world cup i didn't really get a chance to get excited before for it because it started before i'd even really thought about it So I've kind of been okay with treating the group stage a bit like, I'll watch one game a day and that will do me.

18:38But how has your experience of watching the World Cup been so far? Yeah, I've been trying to keep my head down really online as much as I can because I feel quite similar. I feel like my heart is full. It's full of joy. It's full of reaching the mountaintop with Arsenal after many, many years. I hadn't even realized it was that many years. and you're just watching the arse of the world explode. And that sort of feeling does not leave you in two minutes, right? It's a life moment, right? And life memories with people that you've, particularly you've traveled around the country with, you know, for many, many years, traveled around Europe with, you know?

19:16And so, yeah, that's really had an impact on me. And I'm still working my way through that emotionally. The World Cup comes along. I don't almost want to hold back some thoughts. you know you have the political run-up to the whole tournament and you think it's just really negative actually what it's shown me is um and everybody else um 48 countries in a tournament in a in three countries hosting with very disparate diverse communities and you just have the world in one place that's what it feels like and when you have the world in one place over one game, you see some beautiful things, you know, and you're seeing communities come together, you're seeing countries come together, and that's what sport can do.

20:02And I've looked at it, not with my analytical head on so much, but much more on what football can do for people, you know, and what it can do for their well-being, their health, how they feel about themselves, how they feel about their country, how they feel about their players, and just watching people enjoy themselves. You know, what is the Scottish fans absolutely turned Boston into part of Scotland, you know? And that's just an unbelievable thing that you're seeing. And because now we have such a greater view with our phones and social media, et cetera, we can see so much more. And that's really, really joyous.

20:37So it's been a joyous time from a football fan's perspective. I'm trying to ignore some of the quality of the games. I'm trying to ignore some of the teams and who the players are playing for, you know, because I just don't want to go there, you know? So football can give you a lot more than just analysing it like we do when it's for something that we are obsessed about. And so by not being obsessive, you can see the game in different ways and you can just see the trends where the game is going, how each country views international football. Then there's the FIFA angle of how they are almost creating a product which is FIFA aligned, which doesn't align to the European game.

21:18do I get upset about that or accept that FIFA are now going to have this going forward because they've got their deals with their TV companies etc etc and so we're almost creating another sport that's appearing in here and then we have to decide as fans and fans are trying to brew this out particularly when we talk about playing in four quarters are we going to accept the change to a sport like this you know are we affecting the soul of the game technology is affected the soul of the game as we know now we're changing the timing of a game could you imagine if we had the basketball world championships over here and we decided we're not going to play 12 minute quarters we're going to play 24 minute halves you know could you just imagine it and what people would do they would just go crazy wouldn't they you know and and this is what we're doing by stealth and um it's a concern but it's not a concern long as we don't do it in the premier league but i think that's where my head is at the moment just trying to enjoy the whole community angle of it and try not to get too angry about the obvious changes which are occurring you know yeah i was i was going to come on to that actually the uh the impact of the ad breaks i'm not going to call them hydration breaks because i think that insults people's intelligence to call it that um it's quite orwellian language um from fifa to say that they're ad breaks and i think um um everyone's adult enough to realize that and i think i think first off it's worth stating that um i think in some quarters this has been mischaracterized as like an american thing and i don't think it is it's a fifa thing and i think the local public the locals are telling you what they think of it um as well and you know i i i had there was a really good discussion on libero podcast about this they were talking about first of all you know the four quarters that we've got now with the ad breaks but also they were talking about some of the impacts of the format now meaning you get these weird situations where scotland have to wait four days to see if they've gone out and actually in the group stages you lose particularly in the first few groups you lose that immediate emotional payoff where a team finishes a game and they don't know whether they're through for another three days and add that to like the ad breaks and they were talking they described it as the VARification of football like delaying everything build it you know instead of having instant emotional payoff delaying everything having suspense and and that's if I'm going to describe it charitably um because you know you get that counter argument sometimes about var saying you know people like me would say it takes the drama and the emotion out of the moment people would counter that i don't think it's a ridiculous point at all to say well actually it adds a bit to the drama because you know maybe you get to celebrate the goal twice or maybe like we experienced at west ham you think you've conceded a goal and you haven't and it adds to the drama well yeah yeah uh once i once i got off the defibrillator um but but you're right i think there's something fundamental here about changing the sport yeah you know having var having quite complicated permutations where we don't actually know what's happened for a few days having these kind of ad breaks built in i mean i think you're right there's quite a few things that are changing but the thing i'm quite interested in is i feel like the whole ad break thing went over our heads a little bit when it was first announced it was like oh that because initially clive i kind of thought yeah it probably is going to be about 30 35 degrees or something it's probably an ad break by the back door but it will probably be needed so fair enough but actually we've seen pretty mild weather to this point um in the world cup and it's really exposed the fact that you know these aren't really hydration breaks fifa you know they've kind of said well actually we don't benefit from this financially not true um but they were you know kind of saying well actually we've kind of got to do it for all of the games or none of the games i mean i what kind of impact do you think you've seen from these ad breaks and did i guess from a coach's point of view as well let's not get into the kind of complaining about it because i sense i think people will be able to guess my views on it but yeah what about the impact on the actual game well i think the game itself needs to be stronger but obviously this is fifa's game right so there needs to be red lines that you just hold to and i think that how long a game lasts and and its construct has been in place my mate you're the historian as long as i can remember we paid 45 minute halves right so um and so now we're not really doing that right so if we have introduced a break for drinks it's been because of extreme weather which everyone's agreed with i think we did it in covid i remember in kobe we did it i don't know the exact reasons but we did in kobe just and it and what we did then i remember it people started to get upset with it because arteta was brilliant at the ad break i saw the the breaks the hydration breaks then yeah and um because every time we came out after a drinks break we turned the game around they almost wanted to stop it remember i remember thinking and i have had discussions in the past about coaches influence sometimes i like to see coaches have more influence particularly around use of var maybe have a challenge or things like that but i'm not expecting a three four minute gap in middle of a game which is scheduled regardless of the weather i think england played one game and it was 19 degrees and raining and the and alan shirer's looking for a jacket because he was cold you know and we got on a hydration break on so come on what are we doing you know so um so yeah there should be red lines but it's going to be interesting to see how ueva acts now and the european game acts and the premier league and games act i think you said something i think it was you tim that said that some parts of south america are already doing this anyway you know having breaks in the game so we are starting to see different types of game my feeling is right now i'm holding i'm holding back sort of any sort of anger because i need to save my anger for when one of us sent a misdump past the ball to another player who plays for us a football club and then we lose a game that really matters to us that we're not top of the league i need to save my anger for that that's what really matters and this we have to realize is a little bit over there you know it's a bit over there and it's the it's the coming of the new game with var technology was always coming and technology's improving it's getting quicker and the the ai pictures of off-site look beautiful and they're going to get better and better and better and we're going to look back in a few years time and wonder how the hell did we start like this you know we are it's going to get sharper and quicker and that's just technology it gets better all the time you know and um so that's we can't stop that we can't stop it how it's implemented and where it's used it's only going to grow but this changing the game into four cores is something we can stop and it needs to stop it really does yeah definitely and um yeah i i think it's what you said there about i wonder what uefa will do well at the moment the relationship between uefa and fifa is very you know like if you ask mum and she says no and you go and ask dad uefa's like dad at the moment like so uefa for example they did the fans first prices for the Champions League final my Champions League final ticket cost about 40 % of what my home tickets cost for Champions League knockout ties it was like 60 euros and that was a bit of good PR because you know there was loads of bad PR about FIFA's World Cup prices so UEFA just went we'll do a nice cheap price and then you know what have they done for the Super Cup final the Somalian referee that was denied entry to the US.

29:25He's refereeing the Super Cup final. So UEFA do seem to have this kind of little bit of a PR war with FIFA. So I wouldn't mind betting that the lack of popularity of this means UEFA for certain... They will announce that they're not doing it for a bit of PR. And I imagine, I mean, with the Premier League as well, how would you sell a hydration break in December that leads away? It's not going to fly, is it really? So I'm reasonably optimistic that it won't happen. And I'm really happy that the fans in the stadiums have made their feelings known about it, particularly in such a compressed timeline like a World Cup.

30:09Because that happened with VAR. Fans began to, you know, the FVAR chants. And you don't hear those anymore. um i'd still join in with them but it's been like seven years like yeah you know that that anger dissipates whereas in a world cup there's a really unique kind of it's three weeks we're going to keep booing this for three weeks so that it never infects our game um why don't we take a little bit of a hydration break there which we do not uh benefit from financially we do we have adverts. So we're going to stop for a word from our sponsor. And in the second half, we're going to talk a little bit about the links with Bruno Guimaraes and a little bit about some of the behind the scenes changes at Arsenal around sports science and medicine.

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32:13Okay, welcome back from our hydration break, which we in no way financially benefit from. Here with Tim Stillman and Clive Palmer doing a little bit of World Cup chat, a little bit of Arsenal chat, a little bit of transfer chat. It's still relatively thin gruel Arsenal-wise, but some stuff has come out in the last few days, Clive, for us to get our teeth into. and one of them are links with we were talking about Brazil earlier well the guy who passed the ball quite nicely to Gabriel Martinelli in the last minute against Japan Bruno Guimaraes a player I think it's fair to say Arsenal have admired for a long time about six years yeah when he was in Brazil I think Edu really wanted to bring him to the club when he was at Lyon we were very heavily linked you know the very very substantial stories it really looks like the interest is there whether there is a mutually agreeable price point you know maybe that's a little bit more up in the air but I think the quality of the player isn't in doubt Clive but are you surprised given that um he's nearly 29 years old that that this is the player we're looking at I think Tim at the moment I'm looking at all the rumors I've learned from last year that Berta the way he operates he gets loads of people into our into our timelines and then he picks the one and we all say yeah i knew he's gonna go for that one and uh but then you look at the player and i'll still have a question with the center means what question are we trying to answer all right so are we trying to ensure that when declan rice's back breaks we've got somebody else with a personality that can be in our midfield are we really trying to develop four midfielders maybe lose one four midfielders of top quality to play the 63 games that we need to play are we trying to add another personality into the team because i think we lack a little bit of on ball personality and he definitely is not shy he's got a lot of that and potentially and it depends what you read there could be a little bit of clause in there if he's not in the champions league that keeps it around a price which feels reasonable at the moment given how every other price is just doubling as we speak and so if the price is right the player's right to be honest him you know despite my natural hatred for Newcastle and players like him charging around trying to kick our players let's just close your eyes and dismiss that for a second he plays our football doesn't he you know and that's the truth of it and he wants and where we've lacked potentially and that's from all of our midfielders is that passing to the last line being the thing that you are judged on and he really does it without fear you know and I think I could change a little bit how we play so i think for me it's something i've been thinking about man and when you're climbing a mountain to try to reach a goal what's really interesting me more than almost the players we're linked to is how we're going to reset how are we going to reset and say to ourselves how are we going to do this again how are we going to what face we're going to show you know what margins are left for us what size of club are we now given the fact i read something from someone prominent twitter that we both know and one day i think you made 11 million pounds and one day i'm retail alone from the shop come on mate this is something we've been about me and you right we've seen a few things this is not something we've seen before you know this club is exploding and the real details of that have not been realized yet so what do you do when you reached this crossroads do you say do i continue to be who we've been and buy an 18 year old sent a minute and make our own superstars and say hold on a minute we're already a superstar club we can now maybe go up a few steps in the ladder and really stay there and this is our moment to really do that i think this is the most interesting summer strategically and how we position ourselves that we've ever had and we've never done this right even when we were the best team in the world in 2004 we should have won the european cup that year you know it tim and we were undefeated at no point was i thinking we should just go and get everybody and we're going to be i'm just going to continue i just thought this would be awesome we just because we just keep going until we lost a few of those players kept a few too long and ended up with a financial situation with new ground and we had to set a play every single season for the next eight years right so we blew our moment right some of it was things that we committed to financially but we blew our moment we've got another moment here right now where let's be honest if we're not in the same file or the final champions league next year we're all gonna be gutted right the madrid madrid flights will be out soon you know and so this is where we are so this i mean how have you thought about this this moment in our history i think is huge about what we do next where's your head where's your head yeah yeah no i'm with you i i think it's it's something historically arsenal have pretty much always failed to do which is win the league and go right well actually to be fair if i really look at it historically i think that was maybe a slight failing of of some of the wenger teams whereas when I look back like 1991 what do we do after we win the league in 1991 we sign Ian Wright you know pretty aggressive move we broke the British transfer record actually if you go back to 71 we signed Alan Ball after winning the double in 71 now that actually really unbalanced the team he was a superb player probably the best English midfielder it just it just didn't work for who Arsenal were at that moment in time but it was an aggressive move they went out and bought one of the best players in the country so they kind of have but I feel like the last few times like the summer of 98 there are a couple of players like we nearly got Cliver we wouldn't go to the salary we nearly got the De Boer twins we wouldn't go to the salary you know that kind of thing and you look back and we we lost the league by one point the next season and you just think yeah if you'd have just gone to cliver salary we'd probably win it and united never win the treble and stuff like that so i think you're right i think um you know there's been a lot of talk which which i think was reasonably obvious for arsenal fans but um was it james and the athletic they wrote that piece about like arsenal were very much working towards this being their window yeah the kind of post-clop post-pep yeah 24 to 27 i think he wrote was a three-year window to win yeah absolutely and you look at it at the moment and yeah like all of our rivals are in some level and listen mareska could be brilliant at city iraola could be immediately brilliant at liverpool alonso could be brilliant at chelsea there's some unknowns there but I mean we don't control that but I'd be looking at it and I'd say we've got a group of players between 25 and 28 and potentially potentially we haven't got like a like a peps city who could go to 9500 points or Klopp's Liverpool who could do the same if if one of those teams emerges fair enough but at the moment they're not there so I think we're right to be aggressive in this moment and I think whether we get Bruno or not Clive what that tells me is we want a midfielder yeah and I think there's not there's not too much I look at in this squad because it's a big squad and I like pretty much all of the players to differing extents there's very few I look at and go you're an absolute clown I don't want you or sell immediately or or anything like that the lot I was on with Elliot last week I ended up defending Jokeres I wouldn't get rid I've become a new man it's funny what the Premier League trophy does to your opinions on these things but I do think if you're looking at a couple of positions obviously can we bring the quality level of the forward line up I think that's probably the biggest question but if you're looking for a little weakness somewhere there aren't many but it does feel like that midfield you know listen it was all right at the end because we put miles in that that could have bombed yeah like we had we had no real way of knowing we could have put miles in he could have completely sank he didn't and reasonably fortunate but you know we played supermendy into the ground i i think a lot of that was down to marino being injured as well i think that was a big miss in our squad but that that is a place i think you look at in midfield and go we're good but we're not we're very far from perfect there so whether it's Bruno or not what that tells me Clive is they're looking to strengthen in that area yeah I think we need we need to offer something else in there just a different personality in there I think personality is the word to him you know people say that oh got to play a bit more personality there was a brilliant clip actually when Clarence Seedorf was talking about Declan Rice and he sort of said I really like him I really like him but sometimes he's he can be a bit timid and i went bingo you know none of us gonna swap him right he's 27 and he's improving by them by the week right and anything the only issue with him is he probably plays too many games right so um but the next level for him is to not be timid right and whether you like bruno or not he's not timid and zubomendi is a highly technical quality player that's got a lot of bounce and drive when he's tired he's timid you know what did we like about miles when he came in he showed a bit of personality didn't he he came in and he showed a bit of personality and go forward i think if we look at that area that's what we need we need a bit more people that say give me that freaking ball right i'm gonna take care of it now that's i actually don't think that's too difficult and when you see the link you think that makes a lot of sense.

42:33And I see a Scott graph, and I see a progressive graph, progressive passes line, and I'm sold, right? So suddenly he's not 29, he's like 22. But there is, I saw Tom wrote a great article today about the ages of some of our centimids. But then again, at the moment in time, Tim, we've got a massive target on our back. And I'm thinking to myself, mate, come on, stand up and front up for what's coming. So I think the centimid will take care of itself. But the area where we really all need to improve is in the forward areas. And we have a Gabriel Jesus. We have a very, very good trossard coming in their 30s, you know, 30 age.

43:15And if you've got 28 and 29-year-old midfielders, you have to have youthfulness up front, you know. But Kai Saka is looking about 32 at the moment until he has a rest. and so we we we just re-found Kai we just re-found Jokerez I think they're fine but I see I want to see two younger players coming to the forward line that really give us some punch and fear factor right you can choose who you want and um and we have to be prepared to evolve and it's really tough right you know um if Bruno Gimaraes comes in full of personality and give me the ball that maybe takes a little bit away from Martin Odegaard, who was the previous guy that says, give me the ball with a bit of personality.

43:58Is that something people are comfortable with? Not everyone is, right? Not everyone's comfortable with selling Gabri Martinelli tonight. Absolutely no chance, right? Trossard, he's been the best Belgian player in the World Cup. I don't want to see him go anywhere. Can we keep him and maybe let him go on the free? And you're caught in his 50-50 position, but if we're serious and we're looking around our competitive landscape, they are starting to stack up with players. and none of them want to see Arsenal have a period of domination. No chance, mate. Alonso's looking, if he's going to go to a back-free system, he's looking at centre-backs and wing-backs and the ones he's getting I really like.

44:33I think flipping out, he's not being stupid. Suddenly Chelsea are changing their strategy and buying people over the age of 14. This isn't good. Only offering 8 million quid for him, but it's not good, is it? And so I'm so looking forward to the Arteta first interview when he comes back. And he really lays out the mission statement if you're listening closely. I want to hear the mission statement, what we're trying to do. I want to hear the reset messages because I think it's something that any high-performance team model, this is the moment in your time, in your growth cycle that you really need to focus on to reset people's minds about what we want to achieve next because we've all been in the same place.

45:19We've all been aligned. now you've achieved it now what you know what do we do now i think this is a really important time tim yeah it's it's a little bit to use a love island analogy it's a little bit you know a new blonde has entered the villa like sometimes sometimes you've got to keep people on their toes after after they've after they've done something but i think the other thing i like about the bruno links as well is that one of it it's almost addressing a problem that hasn't come up yet which is what on earth would we look like without Declan Rice for a month, two months? Because we had like the odd game.

45:57He's been out and that's it. And I watched England play without him the other night. How did it feel? And he stuck out like a sore thumb, didn't it? He'd been running about after the ball, wouldn't he? Yeah, exactly. Big spaces everywhere. Elliot Anderson didn't look so surreal. Like I saw, you know, his hair was out of place. Suddenly he's scrambling around after the ball. sprinting to the side everyone's sprinting left and right and I'm thinking Declan stops all of that stuff before it starts crunch over and we've got the ball going the other way and what a player we have mate what a player we have yeah absolutely and it would be scary hours without him I think he's one of those players in the squad same for England like there there aren't many of those players and so you know bringing another really high quality midfield are in um i think makes a lot of sense it's the one area where if you kind of discount nor guards it's it's probably numbers wise where we could do with a bit of a boost by one i'm going to finish on some changes that have happened behind the scenes so we've already seen club doctor um they gave him they gave him the champions league final they gave him the parade did you enjoy the open top bus got your medal here's your p45 off you go i'm into the office monday morning for a quick little catch-up yes suddenly nothing urgent give you a cardboard box 4 30 p.m and uh your car parking space has gone and you've been called into the office um but you know like club doctor's gone we've heard that they're going to bring in really interesting a rehab specialist from Real Betis and today news has emerged that Tom Allen who was I believe our head of sports science and has been around for quite a long time at the club but that he's gonna go as well that's all kind of emerged uh what is the day today Monday day of recording and so again not that I think any of us were in any doubt about how seriously Arteta and co were gonna treat the you know like we're talking about what how can we fix things on the pitch in the transfer market but if we bought nobody clive but we had a really good injury record next season i think we'd go and win it again yeah basically that's kind of where i am so what have you made of um the the changes behind the scenes and obviously we only know so much about that stuff but i hesitate to say the brutality of it or the ruthlessness of it because it's just business but it it it seems like again not a surprise that this this feels like you know as much as transfers this feels like something Arsenal really really want to try and address ahead of next season and future seasons yeah absolutely and if you look at I said earlier about what are our margins this is one of our margins isn't it you know and i think we were second in the injury table last year after spurs and look what spurs was 17th and we managed to win it and we all know we were all watching games sometimes we were struggling with players getting through warm-ups for goodness sake you know and and so this is an area of improvement look i'm no doctor i don't want to say this person is bad this person is bad but if you're looking at the club from 30 000 feet we have an area where we need to have the very very best in the world back to my point earlier on you have to ask yourself where are the margins you want to get better what habits have we previously done that we need to improve on because we need to get better you know is our mission statement we want to be the best team in the world if it is then we have to look at all the areas where we can improve and this one's staring you in the face and i just think it's time for us to have that thought process and I think reviewing things like this is so key we've had operations on hamstrings we had 3-1 season that cost us the league let's be honest we would have been the best team for the last two years that cost us the league we had no continuity and our best players were just not there sometimes injuries are unfortunate particularly the bone breaks on feet etc and Kai Havertz's knee the bang at Old Trafford a bit unfortunate you know, but there's something here, isn't there?

50:24And the first time I realised, not the first time, but when Aaron Ramsdell went, remember? And they brought Raya in, sorry, and Ramsdell was demoted. I'm thinking, come on, man, that's a bit, that's a bit harsh, you know, a bit harsh. And their message is coming out of the club saying, but we want to get better in everything that we do. And it was like, okay, they're serious. and even someone they love if they can find something better they're going to do it it's the same for this i think they just want to get better there are rumors of a little bit of a lack of alignment between the doctors and that and the head of sports science about our recovery strategies etc i've read that before historically and but to see them both go tells you this is a true root and branch review so the head of sports science is gone the lead doctor's gone the head of performance sam wilson also gone which we all know him don't we and he's the sort of player that goes over to spain with players and helps someone get fit etc etc these are well-known faces in the club and they've gone to you know to do things elsewhere and these are people with good quality cvs you know so so we're doing we look at the margins team we're looking at this we're looking to get better and i'll be so interested to see what we end up doing you know with the academy is another angle we're looking to do work there with the young players coming in there's potential new head of academy coming out the blue co world you know and so yeah we can't if you look at your business from afar and you have pillars that you want to do well by strength and conditioning medical would be one pillar wouldn't it you know and um your academy would be another and you you've got to look at this and say if you want to maintain this you have to look at everything and like i say i mean i'm in this mode at the moment much more in my leadership organizational excellence mode back in my corporate life because i think that's what we need to do we can't mess about and uh it's a bit sad for because we recognize the faces but i'm glad we're not resting on our laurels right because old habits won't get you anywhere right yeah definitely in sam's report it says the departures arrive as part of a review involving external medical expert joaquin asedo who has a relationship with manager michael arteta originating back to when the pair worked together at Everton.

52:55I always find it fascinating with Arteta as well how far he's prepared to go back in his playing career. Even people like when Steve Round was on the staff and Albert Stoy, clearly he was thinking about his coaching career so, so many years before it happened. And Gabriel Ainser and people like that that he knew from his playing days. But the fact that they brought in someone to do an external review, albeit, you know, someone who's close to Arteta. But again, that strikes me as the mature thing to do because maybe Arteta, maybe he's getting frustrated, maybe he has opinions, but he's not a medical expert, really.

53:33So getting someone else to kind of head that review sounds pretty sensible. I mean, we were just talking about midfielders. I literally went on Sammy Mockbell's Twitter feed to find that. and he's saying 11 minutes ago that Arsenal have made an inquiry for Alex Scott from Bournemouth as well which has been rebuffed which again that buttresses the conversation we've just had right in terms of Arsenal are clearly looking for a player there they're clearly looking I think Alex Scott is another player Clive quite different to Bruno maybe but you talk about personality got it that's someone who you watch Bournemouth did you remember that game what you did to us at the Emirates team do you remember that game because you know we watch our team don't we but you couldn't miss him could you mate on that day no no that he's a very give me the ball give me the ball give me the ball type player who who wants lots and lots of touches and so yeah i think um i think all of that um really kind of tracks and and i think we can see that you know probably morgan rogers maybe one of bruno or alex scott i don't anticipate would do a whole lot more than that um in the summer it'd be based on sales but i was going to ask you in closing clive about ethan manieri because he's someone who potentially i mean i think with the interest in someone like morgan rogers i don't really see a place for him we've seen that his little brother emerson is going to leave the club and there's some rumors i don't know how true they are um they they feel speculative i don't know how well informed that perhaps the family are a little bit fed up but yeah yeah i mean a little bit on maybe alex scott and and a little bit on ethan to finish yeah i think the alex scott bruno thing said they're probably the one he's one of the two but again the prices are ridiculous at the moment so let's see what happens there uh i i remember you know watching alex scott bristol actually bristol city and um and he played for the 21s a few times.

55:32I thought he's quite nice. I wasn't sure what he was, if he had 10 or an 8. That's a little step over, but really good player. But the Emirates changed my mind to him completely. Top player, you know, and he's only 22 and he'll be in the England squad going forward. You know, once they finally let Jordan Henderson sit down, he'll be in the England squad next time on the next cycle. I think with Miles, let's go to Miles first. If Miles is now in midfielder team, I think we may need one more defender into the group to make it eight defenders. So I'm interested to see what we do there. Is it a righty or a lefty?

56:04But I think we need to do something there, potentially for me, to make sure. Because we've got some pillars here that are creaking. Sleba's creaking. Yeah, Hand of Arsenal put out a tweet today where he said that they were looking at some situations at centre-back, even someone like Esri Konza. Well, yeah. It does feel a bit like some of those players, we're told, who've gone to the World Cup with some injuries. We seem to be looking at players in their positions. yes exactly Esri Gonsami he's one of Saka's you know Eze's best mates right and that did not surprise me at all because of his contractual situation so that would be an interesting one I think hey look I'd love to get Morgan Rodgers out of Villa but that price just looks stupid at the moment let's see what happens there I love Kruppi at Bournemouth really like him but again let's see what happens there but as for Ethan now the whole family situation that rumor has been out there for quite a while that he's even his last contract it was a little bit of a struggle no the one before the last one was a bit of a struggle when he was really young then the last one he was late there's rumors him going to Germany last summer but he signed stayed on not sure what happened with the January was this a club saying look go and play or was this the player saying I want to go and play I've heard things on both sides so rather not speculate but he's ended up missing out on something special and as soon as he walked out of the dorm marina broke his foot so he must be thinking could I have stayed and really been here at a really special time and he wasn't properly included in that so which is a real shame for him so I'm wondering if the pure profit angle is going to see that one end up somewhere else and again it comes back to evolution we can't just keep spending without selling and I watched Ben White pictures come out he's in Portugal doing a bit on his holidays and as soon as I see him running I'm thinking I don't want him to go why just keep him fumble yeah that also feels a bit like that feels like something players do when maybe they're looking at a move or yeah yeah a little bit like uh the six-pack's still there and I can run the last time you saw me I had a knee brace on forget that I can now run and my tan's tip top you know so um so yeah i think um yeah at the moment in time we're at this stage in our arsenal supporting lives where we love everybody at the moment but we also realize as soon as you see the ball moon across the grass we're going to get back into where can we improve mode we need to evolve to stay ahead of the pack at this moment in time i'm not comfortable with some of those conversations but i know we have to do it and um this isn't playground people want us mate they want to take us apart they want to put us back into the bowl you know i mean literally you know and um and so we've got to be prepared to take the next step and i think we are because um there's not a lot of compassion at the top end of elite sport okay it's not a charity right so um so yeah looking forward to it absolutely and i think that is a good point to finish not least because i've got a little view of my tv uh from here and I can see Germany v Paraguay.

59:25Is that the World Cup we don't care about? Pure Kai Havertz watch. That's all it is. I didn't get my fill last season. We'll leave it there for this episode. Obviously, we'll be back with another episode probably on Thursday. Obviously, do check out our World Cup daily presented by Michael Timms over on Patreon. We'll be doing other Patreon content. We've been doing loads of director of football type content. I've done a history episode I will do some more during the summer Clive we should do a one club very very soon we should because there's lots happening in that world yes I'm expecting some announcements quite soon on players like Georgia Stanway and I think that will create excitement within the Arsenal women community and curiosity I think because I think even if you don't follow the women's game that closely Georgia Stanway players like that are going to be players people have heard of so we'll get together pretty soon and and talk all of that out absolutely so do keep it with us keep it with us here on Patreon but if you don't want to do it on Patreon we will always do our two free shows every week we'll be back with another one on Thursday until then take care of yourselves and we'll talk to you after Arsenal 10 welcome

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