Mikel Speaks, Preseason Starts, Bruno and Vini Rumors Rage On

33:37It's going to be a fitness exercise the first game and just a kind of a vibes thing. Like there is a goldfish element to football, both for people like if we're on a good run in the season and we lose a game, we're like, we can't remember that we had a really good run before that and like that one game is like 90 of what you can see through your your front window and i think that same thing happens in pre-season with these players like ethan may come into pre-season not really being sure about this that and the other and blah blah but you have one good pre-season game and suddenly you feel much better about yourself and you're expressing yourself and you can put all the caveats you like about the opposition and you know how much space you were given to play but a game or two of feeling your game and enjoying football and having fun again lifts them lifts us and can like pre-seasons can turn around the trajectory we've seen it before especially with younger players pre-season can turn around the trajectory of what their season is just because just because that's where we needed somebody in the first few games and that's where they were live and happening and it was kicking for them and it takes them into the season and they maintain that momentum so yeah it's even cruel though yeah i i think an interesting point that comes to mind for me then is if you think about it some of the big clubs you know whether it's city liverpool united chelsea whatever it is well chelsea have 47 47 players so that's a little different but like may have very disrupted pre-season some of the smaller clubs that maybe don't have as many full internationals may have more efficient and productive preseasons.

35:24It may be the case actually that the early part of the season throws up some very unexpected results because you've got some smaller clubs that had a really good preseason, got all their players in, understand their system very well, are in full shape, have been playing at near full level through late July and early August, and they're ready to hit the ground running and the big clubs don't hit their stride until you know October um or late September so that's something to keep an eye on do the do the clubs that didn't have teams at the World Cup have a much stronger start to the season than you know the clubs that had disrupted pre-seasons I'll be interested to to track that so sure I mean I think there's two groups of clubs the ones with continuity of manager.

36:12So they'll tweak their systems maybe with a new player or two coming in, but they're not going to wholesale flip them. And then there's the clubs with new managers who preseason's essential for, and it's really all about the system and their way of playing, whether they have the players or not. Like Alonso at Chelsea is going to be trying to bed in a new system. I mean, he's going to be trying to communicate to players, look, we're not playing the way you used to play. We're playing this way. Whether it feels like it's working or not, whether it feels good or not, this is the system. This is how we play.

36:49It seems like he's playing with four of the back, but however he switches between three of the back and four of the back or whatever his system would be is going to be the system. De Zerbe is going to do, like, I would not think that De Zerbe, the way he played last season, to get a few results at the end is going to be how he wants to play this season. And they may have interesting starts to their seasons if you can play them early before they bet in. Yeah, it's an interesting point. I mean, I would guess like a Maresca, for example, will come in and probably leave the Pep system largely untouched, whereas Liverpool and Chelsea are going to be a reconfiguration of what they do and they're going to have to learn those things.

37:31And like, in particular, I think, Iriola's pressing system and in-possession system is so good and I hate that but I would imagine it takes time on the training ground because as we saw with Mikel these complex pressing systems and positional football systems like they require a really deep understanding of role and rotation and interact interconnectedness of positioning that's not something you get right away and so if you're standing in the wrong place you know what happens to a positional system a pressing system if you're standing in the wrong place it looks really bad you give up a lot of really cheap goals you make really silly mistakes so be all very interesting things to track look i think we should at least talk a bit about bruno and vinny so that people listen to the pod they can look in the chapter list they can see when we started talking about that and they can just fast forward to that section so that's coming up now but let's talk about brands uh so salie salie is an e-sim and and i have to say like there are certain products that i am not as familiar with and then when i become familiar with them i'm like isn't this how it should have always worked an e-sim replaces one of the worst experiences you had with cell phones when you travel the world which was popping out a little like piece of the side of your expensive smartphone taking a chip out of it having to keep track of that chip and that little piece and that little piece that pops the piece out going to some train station kiosk and buying some chip from you know some dodgy place and popping that in your phone having to keep track of all the loose parts put the parts back together then you can use the phone there Then if you go to another place, I'm going to do it again.

39:03And then, oops, I lost the cover. And now the phone is getting dust in it. And it doesn't work. I have to get a new phone. Anyway, not great. eSIM is just an app. You get the sale app. You sign up. You say, I want this plan. And you use your phone around the world. And it's as if you had popped in a new little side chip, except no side chip was needed. So you don't have to open your phone up. And it has ad blocking. It's from the people at NordVPN. So it has ad blocking. And that means you're not using your data plan on ads. It gives you a fraction of the cost of using your phone when you travel.

39:32versus other services. Plus, you could have another number and things like that, which maybe you're running a business or something like that, so you want to have access to another number. There are lots of good benefits. Go to Saley. Use code Arsenal Vision in the app when you check out, and you save 15%. So let me give you an example. That means it's 15 % less than if you don't use the code. The code is Arsenal Vision. Saley is the app. Get it. Do it now. Paul, is that enough of that? Indeed. Nailed it. Eddie Howe is gone. Yeah. It's all coming apart at Newcastle. And now the Bruno deal looks like it is advancing.

40:03And I wouldn't be surprised if it's announced sooner rather than later. Any thoughts on how going just quickly? Well, I think he's going because he's super stressed. I'm sure it was like, no, you can't have Denali. They sell Denali. You can't have X. No, they sell X. You can't have Anthony Gordon. No, they sell Anthony Gordon. And he says, but all right, but if you take Bruno Gimoresh from me, that's it, guys. I'm going to do it. I will walk. And I think they're taking Bruno Gimoresh from him and selling him. Yeah, I think that is happening. And look, I mean, ultimately, I think Eddie Howe did a good job stewarding Newcastle through one of their more successful periods in recent history.

40:52Fundamentally, I don't know that I think Eddie Howe is a great manager. I think he's a good manager that can take the talent he's given and get roughly what you should get with that talent. But it looks like they're going for a German guy coming from the Saudi League. And, right, is that the reporting? Yep. You know, it's all kind of just happening as we talk about it. Matthias Jaisel, I guess, is his name. I'm going to go with Jaisel. Jaisel, okay. Do you have any concern whatsoever that this new manager coming in is going to be like, look i'll take the job but you got to leave me one of my load-bearing walls here and that's no no the opposite which is okay i get it i'm coming into a totally new project and it is what it is here's some budget here's a clean sheet of paper uh you know i know nothing about the guy but i read a few tweets and like he's won the saturday league a couple of times he has a system and he has a way of playing and I think he gets some budget.

41:57Okay, they took the Ezek money and blew it on Alanga and Wissa. I think, you know, to your point on Eddie Howe, I think he's really good at organizing a team. What he never got to demonstrate was they could be the protagonist and like from what I understood, he was behind the choices they made last summer when they spent the money and he has been able to translate it into a more attacking, dominant style of play. And so, yeah, I mean, look, as a manager, you're going to want Bruno Gimoresh in your team, but you also want some money to get the players that you have in mind to take the Bruno money and spread it around your squad so that you can get the kinds of players that make your system tick rather than having it tied up in one player so of course they've also got other monies in the door this this summer from their sales but like you're going to want budget so you can get your and the other thing is you if you come in and there's a very dominant player which Bruno is in your dressing room you don't control the dressing room like everybody plays ball with you for the first three four five games as a manager but then things don't go well and strong opinion strong players have strong opinions about what they what you were doing and how you're making them look i think he'll want a bit of a clear out from from players who have a particular view and a particular center of gravity within the dressing room so it may just simply suit him is my theory.

43:47Yeah. Give him some money. Let him buy players he likes that he's had his eye on. He's probably been fantasizing about this. They've probably been warming him up to this idea for a while. I mean, he works for a team owned by the PIF who own Newcastle. This is very Liam Ross in your, hopefully all the way. Yeah. Not that we care too much how it turns out. No, I think having a worse Newcastle is always helpful. Like going to St. James's Park is not a fun experience. And I think if they're bad, that's helpful.

44:22The reality is that I think Bruno will get done. It looks like it's going to be just north of 70. Wouldn't surprise me if it lands at 70 plus five with some kinds of incentives or 75, you know, all in. I mean, I think this happens. I think it is a good deal for us. I think it is obviously an opportunity to get a player in his prime who can walk into the midfield and just start games at a high level right away. I think it creates a pretty interesting set of choices for Arsenal about what the construction of the midfield looks like and what we expect that to be. I think we have a lot of players who like to have the ball at their feet a lot.

45:02Like to touch the ball. Like to feel the ball. Come for the ball. Get the ball. Bring the ball. Bruno wore the cape a lot at Newcastle. He was the captain there. He doesn't necessarily need to do that at Arsenal. But I think the best version of Arsenal is the version where Declan Rice touches the ball the most because I think he's our best player in that area of the pitch. I think there are people that would say our best version of Arsenal is when Odegaard does that. There will be some people that will now say our best version will be if Bruno does that. But there's only one ball. I don't think it's the end of the world if you have a lot of players that touch the ball a lot.

45:30But I think you can only have two of those is my thought. I don't think you can play three of those. I think if you look, you know, and invoking PSG gets tiring and I think it's intellectually lazy, but the PSG midfield is the one people look at because I think it is currently the one that probably is the most dominant in football. And they have two guys in John Eves and Vitinho who are comfortable being on the ball a ton. And then the third guy I think can float a bit like Fabian Ruiz does. They have a guy in Dembele who comes into the midfield. So that changes the dynamic a bit. But I don't know if I think Bruno, Rice, and Odegaard as a midfield three, in my mind, is the right combination of dynamics.

46:10But I could have that wildly wrong until you see it. You don't know. And by the way, versatility and the ability to put loads of different profiles on the pitch is very exciting. Do you have a preference for what a midfield three looks like if Bruno and Rice are in it? and what that third quality should be that will get the most out of the other two? I do. So I disagree with you slightly, just to try and make it interesting. Please, yeah. In that. Because I don't know that I'm even that, like, I'm not saying it with my whole chest. I don't know this. I sort of feel it maybe, you know? I think the best version of Declan Rice we'll ever see is the one where he has the second most touches.

46:49Maybe not by much. Just by a little bit because he's not a super high-touch player. Rodri is like 100 touches per game, 105. If Declan Rice tries to get up near those numbers, I don't think that suits him because he's not a super, look, he does everything well, but he's not a super high volume, super tight spaces, spinning around, kind of short little triangles. That's not, he's ordinary at that. Good ordinary, but ordinary. The best version of Declan Rice is when he's in a kind of super flexible double pivot with another player who can do similar but different kinds of things. And that to me is Bruno G.

47:34I think the two of them are going to have real fun. And the superpower of that pivot is that they can both play left, right, up a bit, down a bit, and will give Guimaraes the opportunity to move up the pitch into pockets and into the box. And, like, Rice can arrive in the box, but I think Guimaraes is even more natural at doing that. And I think they're going to find just an absolute league-smashing balance between the two of them. That's exciting. Where they move around, where either one could switch to the left or right and they won't care. In fact, it'll be part of what they do to create separation from their man markers.

48:21Like the whole thing at the moment is one-to-one, jumping to one-to-one pressing. And if you've got Rice and Guimaraes and they're both feeling it, you're going to have a job because they're going to move around on you and they're going to create spaces and move into pockets and into spaces and they're going to enjoy it and they both enjoy a little space to run into with the ball and Guimaraes in particular I think is a little bit of a tighter game in terms of control I think Declan likes a little more space to carry and run into to use his athleticism and to be able to cover when Bruno goes forward I think they're just going to find a delicious bounce.

49:02To your point, the real question is, who's the third player, right? And is it Odegaard? Is it Eze? Is it maybe a little bit of Ethan? But it really comes down to the, is it Kai? Is it Marino in certain games? To your point, it might be horses for courses. I continue to have, what I really want to see from Eze this season is just being more of a presence in a game. He can be brilliant. He can do great things two, three times in a game. But you need more. I think you need to really put your stamp on a game and really feel like you got the game by the scruff of the neck. And Odegaard's a much more, like he might infuriate some people, but there are many games in which he's high touch, like the game starts to be around him.

49:59And we might see, what I'd love to see, is a stronger Odegaard coming into the season where his position's a little clearer, his role's a little clearer. He's not, Bruno's going to give us, here's what I think Bruno gives us that we don't have, progressive passing from deeper. He currently rates higher than that. Scott put some data comps together, and he currently does that more than Rice, Zubamendi, or Odegaard. yeah almost twice the levels of rice and zubimendi and if we're missing saliba for a period of the season and like you shouldn't be using your center back to make up for what you're not getting in midfield no but saliba's been our six in some ways from an on-ball standpoint for a long time yeah but that that's a part-time job for him and it only works in certain games other games he's got way too much on his plate to be your progressive passer so bruno's a i think bruno becomes clearly a fixture and a progressive passer not necessarily from deep all the time but from wherever he is and don't knock Odegaard dropping in and doing some progressive passing too you've got three then have three super intelligent midfielders who can move around and make choices and find their own balance there's a lot I like about Odegaard and then as a super talented player but he's got to I think put his mark on games more and be more of a presence and look he he he he appeared into the squad last season kind of backwards through a bush and tried to find himself during the season so it's fully understandable he hadn't found his place in the squad and now he's had that he's he's a Premier League champion like everybody else there he's going to have this pre-season and we could see a much more confident Eze this season, leaving his mark on games, becoming higher.

51:54Like, he needs to be higher touch. These guys need to, we need a midfield who can dominate and we need three players who are all high touch. And that means more from Eze in terms of touches, passes, being more decisive and just generally carrying himself as I'm the guy who's going to open up that lower or mid block. yeah i you know my honest answer to that i don't know if you're right but i i don't know if you're wrong either like i i know that's not a feel squeamish on that one um i don't know if i think that role has to be a high touch role i mean i got higher yeah no no like just so we're clear right I'm not saying Paul you're wrong and I disagree I'm saying my instinct is that it may not have to be but the impact has to be there I'm kind of I'm kind of undercutting my own point I agree with you that it needs to impact games more I think you can do that while not being super high touch I mean I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe this is the better way to say it I don't think you don't want him having 14 touches game that's not my point right I don't think he has to drop deeper and come get the ball so if anything we need someone who goes and stands away from the ball and stands between the lines so then the question becomes we've always said Paul we have not been great if you wanted to pick nits with the Arteta system you could say we've not been great at passing inside the block that we like to go around the block and out to the wide players and like that's what we do we do it because we don't want to lose the ball in the central areas because if you lose a ball in central areas there, you lead to counterattacks, you're vulnerable, blah, blah, blah.

53:38As it turns out, by the way, Bruno, of the four midfielders, Zuby, Odegaard, Rice, Bruno, he has the most turnovers. He loses the ball the most of them. Okay? He has the lowest pass percentage, right? I believe of all of them. He has the lowest pass efficiency based on Scott's numbers, right? What that means essentially, right? Which means one of two things, right? It means he's either bad at football, or he takes more risk. No, the data shows what it means. It means he's more risky with what he does. because he's second only to Rice in expected threat with his passing. He has the most progressive passes per 90, right?

54:12He's doing the things that you want to see someone trying to do with the ball. He's very direct. He receives it, turns, gives it forward, next pass, right? Tries to split lines, tries to break lines with his progressive passing. Great. But what I'm trying to say is that may actually mean that Ezza comes into the game more. How does the ball get to the guys standing between the lines? Is it a system issue? Is it an EZA issue? Is it a service issue? I want to be clear that I'm asking the questions because I don't have an answer I feel strongly about. But I do think that the other thing you have to wonder is the center forward's role in this.

54:52Like if you look at a PSG, for example, they play with four midfielders, right? They play with Neves, Vettinha, Fabian Ruiz, and Dembele. Because Dembele drops in like crazy. We've seen it. We've played against it. We know it. He sometimes is at the halfway line, sometimes in his own half. It's nightmare fuel for defenders to know where to follow him, and it's how they help build play, put people out of position. Because what do their fullbacks do? They play like wingers. They tear ass up the pitch, right? That's a different system. That's not what we do. I get it. Maybe it's Talafiore coming in or Timber coming in, and that alleviates the need for the center forward to drop in.

55:27But that connectivity has to be there inside the block. and I think if you're going to look at Eze's role improving in its influence there has to be a willingness and ability to get in the ball inside the block between the lines like do you see where I'm going this it's like I don't want Eze to be more involved by dropping deeper to come get it we got too many players that want to do that Bruno will want to do that Odegaard wants to do it Rice wants to do it someone's got to go stand between those guys and the forwards and I think Eze is a guy who can do that Marino can do that by the way as well Ethan Winery if we're willing to give him the chance could be devastating if you get him the ball between the lines and he can start dribbling people and taking it forward there are ways to do it but i don't think what you want is three guys who all want to drop right back onto gabby's toes and take the ball off you know what i'm saying yeah though though i don't think i was trying to imply that the way he should get his yeah but these players all like to do that bruno likes to come get it rice likes to come get it Odegaard likes to come get it.

56:23Yeah, and like if he's 14 or 20 touches, I want him to be 21 or 30 touches and just not completely change the nature of his game. Just be the guy that we're finding more in the spots inside the block, to your point, in the left eight channel, in a little bit of space, popping out, popping in, up the pitch. We don't need three guys in the two-person pivot space. Like a bit of interchange, great. Bruno goes up forward and Ezza drops in a little bit, but that's not how he used to get his touches. To get his touches doing Ezza thing in Ezza spots and to feel it and for the patterns of play to keep finding him and for somebody with more progressive passing, Bruno, to find Eze and as a honeypot trap to get Vinicius Jr.

57:20on board on the left wing, giving him the confidence to come to Arsenal because now he's got a guy he knows can feed him in Bruno. And now we're starting to get players who will get into spots and feel confident and feel good about themselves. But Eze's a player that Bruno can find in terms of his riskier passing. And Rice can lean into the fact that, hey, Bruno may take a risk here and may spill the ball here, but I got him a little bit covered here. He'll cover me when I go charging up the pitch with an aggressive carry. And now you're getting more options and more changes and like Zubimendi, maybe not making a starting lineup or two, starts to rethink that he needs to be more aggressive in how he looks up the pitch and finds players.

58:11And now we're a more progressive team, finding Odegaard, you know, 70, 20 minutes between the two of them, depending on the game. And we start moving who's got which side and which game and let the best man win in terms of who nails down the starting spot. Yeah. And look, I'm guilty of doing this sometimes, falling into tropes. I mean, I say Fabian Ruiz is the third in the PSG midfield. He doesn't need all those touches. I mean, he's in the 98th percentile for touches, right? Like he's getting a ton of touches too. PSG just dominate on the ball. So one area where I think we can agree, Ebrecha Eze is in the 29th percentile for touches.

58:50That's not where we want him. And you could say it's because he doesn't get served. You can always defend why a player is performing a certain way. He's trying to stand between the lines and the service isn't coming to him. And I think that there's something to that. But I think he's got to find a way to get more touches than to be in 28th percentile. And Victor Jokeres is in the 26th percentile for touches. So if you have a Yokoress in the 26th percentile for touches and an Eza in the 29th percentile for touches, those are two players in the center of your pitch not getting the ball enough and not allowing you to attack in central spaces.

59:22And if you want to say that's our system, that's how we're set up to play, I don't know. I mean, I'm sympathetic to that to some degree, but I'd be willing to bet that Odegaard and Kai Havertz don't look that way in the data, right? So something has to happen with how we get the ball into central spaces for our attack to look better. Will Vinny Jr. help? Maybe. Will Bruno Gimareich help? Certainly. But if you think the third midfielder should still be Ezza in a Bruno and Rice in Ezza midfield three, Ezza's got to show that he can get closer to the 70th, 80th, 90th percentile for touches, not the 30th percentile.

59:56I agree with that, you know? Yeah, because if you know the ball's always going to be at the feet of Rice and Gimareich in midfield, it makes it a lot easier to press them. You absolutely need the third player to be buzzing in around and picking up the ball and causing that bit of chaos. I mean, as you say, PSG can default to four midfielders. We don't want to be having four midfielders just so three of them can get on the ball enough to move it around. So, yeah, it's something I'm really hoping to see this season with Deza, that he's feeling it, that he wants the ball, that he asks for it, and it's not just one or two great things he does in a match, but he does one or two great things and he starts to dictate the flow through and around him in the attacking third of the pitch and certainly Odegaard we've seen Odegaard do that in the past maybe the last season and a half hasn't been the showcase for how he can control and dominate a game in the attacking third but we've certainly seen him do it we've seen him dominate touches in the attacking third and become a hub and Eze needs a bit of that.

1:01:08So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and by the way, I think this is always going to be the difficulty talking about Arsenal, especially Arsenal on the heels of winning the Premier League. We want to get better. We want to get more opportunities for our players to improve. We want to improve in everything we do. Mikel Arteta said he wants to improve in everything we do. So I think diagnosing where there's opportunity to get better is interesting. And the great news, you know what I think is great news, Paul? I don't think we were great the second half of last season. I think Mikel Arteta is so damn good and our players are so damn good that they found a way to get it done despite not having access to some of their best players, some of our best players not being fit, and some of the system just not working quite as cleanly as we'd like.

1:01:49The reason that excites me is there's huge opportunity to improve on the team that just won the Premier League. I think Bruno does that. I think Vinny obviously does that. I think Solis could do that. Like, I'm excited to see him. And I think tweaks and more time together will do that. The shame of it is that there won't be a preseason to really work on a lot of these new things, but we'll see. So, look, I think Bruno is going to happen. I think it will be really exciting to see him integrated. I think it means that we can not play Zubimendi into the ground. We can bring Miles along carefully and develop him.

1:02:20I think it reinvigorates Odegaard. It gives Eza an opportunity to maybe have a midfield dynamic that works with him. You could play Marino there and have a very interesting midfield. lots of fun options but the news that everybody is desperately wanting to hear an update on is the vinny jr stuff and the latest state of play is sky went big that he's not moving everybody seems to agree now that they went too big with that news and that the relationship between vinny and madrid is tenuous in terms of what he's asking for from a wage demand standpoint and what the club's willing to give him this is so complicated paul no player who is at real madrid is desperate to leave Real Madrid to come to Arsenal.

1:03:03That's not a realistic expectation. I know we all live in an Arsenal bubble and we think we're the best and we're the biggest and we certainly are, of course. But that's just not how this works. Vinny is going to have a team, not a team of two or three, a team of a hundred consultants trying to find him the best landing spot. What will be good for his marketing? Where will his brand be biggest? Where can he play the type of football that he will succeed at? Is the Arsenal system good for him? Fundamentally, I think if Vinny moves, he'll come to Arsenal. I do believe that. I also believe in my bones that Vinny would probably prefer to stay at Madrid.

1:03:31I also believe in my bones that Madrid would probably prefer for him to leave, but cannot be seen preferring that. And so this will be a very interesting dance where Madrid hold out a contract offer to Vinny that is a bit less than what his team wants with the understanding that they may be able to sell him for big money if he says no to that. But maybe he will say yes to that. So it's a game theory situation in a way, I think. It's not just like the Bruno situation where Bruno wants to come to Arsenal. Arsenal want Bruno. Newcastle will budge if we hit the right number. That's a very traditional transfer dynamic.

1:04:07This feels more game theory to me. Yeah. So here's my Vinny case. Like, I still think probabilistically he's at Real Madrid and they like to keep their Galacticos and all that kind of stuff. and nobody ever leaves Real Madrid willingly. Yada, yada, yada. Here's why this is different. Here's my case. He'll always be the number two at Real Madrid behind Mbappe. And system-wise, like I think he's a very Mourinho player. Mourinho would absolutely love to have Vinny as his left wing in the kind of Ronaldo spot, in the Hazard spot. Like, I think that's a very Mourinho thing. But he's got Mbappe. And Mourinho doesn't tend to like to have two luxury players.

1:05:08And those would both be luxury players. So he has a little overload there. And you look at it from Vinny Jr.'s standpoint, what's he care about most on the planet well probably loves a bit of money and status but he's assuming he's getting that one way or the other he wants the brazil team he wants to be the neymar right he wants that team to be built around him and he wants brazil to be the vinny show and therefore he needs to be in the team in which he's the guy the system is built around and we're playing chess everybody else is playing checkers Elliot we get Bruno Guimaraes we get Gabriel Magliash we get who knows but we build a team that feeds the machine of Vinny Jr.

1:06:06in the Premier League the it's not Real Madrid but it is the best league on the planet with the most eyeballs and suddenly what we're doing is replicating at arsenal to enough of a degree a a structure a system that says to brazil and the brazilian people and the fans and the world cup and the everything coming off in the future that vinnie's the man vinnie's tearing it up in the Premier League here's how you feed him here's how it work he starts he starts feeling his vibe and he lays out his template for how he plays and I think that will have significant attraction for him is it enough I don't know um but I think it's not just oh he would get to be the star in our team oh he would get to play in the Premier League oh we'd play him a lot I think he's always going to have the challenge with Mbappe in the team that he's not what it's all about.

1:07:12And he may not fancy the Jan Diamande thing coming up over his shoulder and the fact that Jan has said he prefers playing on the left than on the right. And it's all getting a little crowded for the Vinny show. And will it be the Vinny show? Whereas Arsenal will be the Vinny show. It'll be all about feeding him. Saka is a very creative player and will enjoy the fact that players are getting pulled to the other side so he has a little more space. He'll enjoy creating for Vinny and for everybody else. And I think it just makes a lot of sense. If we get Bruno G, it makes all sorts of kind of sense.

1:07:52I still think it's less likely than likely. But the club apparently thinks this is doable. Now, why do they think it's doable apart from we could throw some money at it? So what? Well, look, I think, first of all, Ornstein doesn't go public with something unless he has actual information. So the actual information that the club are trying, I think, is real. They can be like, well, what does trying even mean? Trying doesn't mean they sat in a boardroom and thought, wouldn't it be fun to sign Vinny? That's not trying. Trying means there's been some kind of communication with Roc Nation or, you know, which is Vinny's agency.

1:08:22I've also seen the word focus, right? It's not just a Hail Mary long shot of it. Like, there's focus on Vinny. Look, Paul, if you're trying to sign a Vinny Jr., you have to be focused. This isn't trying to sign Solis where you can send, you know, Berta out in the morning and back in the afternoon and the deal is done. So I agree with you. I think my bigger point is this isn't just Arsenal sat around a boardroom saying, wouldn't it be fun to sign Vinny? I am sure that a proposal of how this would look has been made to Roc Nation. A sales pitch. Because this is the kind of player you have to sell on coming to you.

1:08:55Here's the size of our club. Here's our social media research showing what we reach. here's what we see in in shirt sales here's how big we are in these various markets here's pictures of our title celebrations around the world here's what we think you can be here's the modeling of your image rights value with us because Real Madrid takes 50 percent of your image rights we'll take zero percent of your image rights so here's what we think that's worth here's what we think we can provide to you as a wage opportunity we have London one of the great global cities in the world to live in the Premier League is the happening league right now all of the they've made that pitch.

1:09:29Fundamentally, though, if Vinny is willing to sign the offer that Real Madrid make to him, he'll stay at Real Madrid. So no matter how hard we're trying, that's what it comes down to. Now, if Real Madrid are willing to match what Vinny wants, he will stay at Real Madrid. I don't believe they will do that. I don't believe that. And I think the reporting that Real Madrid are not going to take him to Mbappe money is right. Should Arsenal go to that level. You can make a real argument that as great as Vinny Jr. is, there are great footballers out there that we can acquire at a much more reasonable and non-wage structure breaking, non-budget breaking amount that are worth going for.

1:10:08But I think this would be the biggest transfer into the Premier League in history. This would be the biggest football brand that moves this summer. And it will fundamentally change the focus and size of Arsenal Football Club. that has to be matched by what Arsenal does on the pitch but it is a monumental move following a World Cup that always sees an influx of people you know it's interesting I look back Paul we signed Mesut Ozil right after the Premier League and NBC signed their deal so basically when NBC started broadcasting in the US for the first time ever the Premier League and it was the first time Americans were able to watch all Premier League games.

1:10:52It was a huge sea change moment for football going more global in the U.S., right? We signed Ozil that window. I bet there were a lot of people who for the first time said, oh, Premier League's on in the U.S. Maybe I'll start watching that. Oh, Mesut Ozil, I know that name. I've seen him in Germany. He played for Real Madrid. Maybe that's a team I watch. There's something to be said about capitalizing on momentum and the growth of the sport and having something that makes you the destination for new eyeballs. Now, all of us doing this pod and listening to this pod obsess about Arsenal so much that that is not a thing we think about.

1:11:26We couldn't give a shit about casuals coming and caring about Arsenal. But Arsenal are looking at how they make the pie bigger, right? Because people like us, if Arsenal finished 14th last season, we'd still be doing this pod and you'd still be listening to it. So you see what I'm saying, Paul? I think that the timing makes sense. the pitch will have been well crafted and orchestrated to to convince vinny but fundamentally what arsenal don't control is whether vinny is ultimately willing to say i'll take the offer that's on the table from madrid i think madrid might and this is me just reading tea leaves and and writing a little bit of fan fiction might be thinking maybe next summer it's holland and mbappe moves to the left and we've got yandiamande can play off the right and we're you You know, we got Jude Bellingham, who's also playing through center.

1:12:11We got stars. We've got stars. We want to anchor this around. We want to bring in a new Galactico because they haven't had a new Galactico in a while. Who's their new Galactico? Maybe it's an Erling Haaland. They saw how popular he was during the World Cup. His social media feed blowing up. And so maybe they say, look, instead of contributing 600 grand a week to Vinny for the next four years or five years, maybe we cash in now and we build for the next Galactico that's coming in. And I don't think that's an impossibility. So I'm putting two and two together and getting 22, but I think there's something there.

1:12:45You know, that's my whole conspiracy theory on where this is. I do. I agree with all of that. I think there's a reasonable chance Madrid see this as an opportunity. For us to focus on this at a critical point in a transfer window makes me think Arsenal see more than the possibility they can pull the numbers together. I think they see that there's a winning formula here. And I think the winning formula for Vinny, I mean, okay, great. He could go for the money or he could run down his contract or he could look elsewhere. That still doesn't mean he moves to Arsenal. And I think the reason he can look at Arsenal is, A, we can afford something in the range of what he's looking at.

1:13:31And B, we can structure the template for how he wants to play that translates to the Brazil national team, which must be pretty much up there alongside the money thing. I mean, we all like to say it's all about the money. It feels cool to be so cynical about it's all about the money. it is mostly about the money but another thing that's close to the money is how these players view themselves on the global scene which impacts the money right and he wants to be the guy for brazil and he wants that to be a winning formula and we can replicate we can we can basically simulate a version of how he would want to play it for brazil and that's not necessarily the case at Madrid.

1:14:21It won't all be about him at Madrid. If it happens to be him playing on the left and getting fed is good for Madrid and Mbappe and anybody else they bring in and Mourinho's system, great. But there's no guarantees that it's anything like the Vinny show. And that's not the case at Arsenal. I think we're better structured to replicate that than pretty much any club on the planet who's going to be available for him, who can pay for him. And like a critical piece of that would be Bruno G. Yeah. Well, I mean, that is an interesting point. I think there is a nice Brazilian contingent at Arsenal that can encourage.

1:15:07Yeah, but it's more than that. It's Bruno G. It's not just a Brazilian component. It's like the guy who feeds the progressive passes who makes a team tick. Like, okay, we have a different reality about how we see Arsenal, but if you're Vinny, you're like, holy shit, they got Bruno G, the guy who can find me, who can feed me. Now we got people who speak my language of how I play for Brazil. yeah yeah i mean very interesting the it's it's it's tough because i think the club can do everything right they can make all the right preparations to try to execute on this deal and not get it done because to the point we've been making this would be the biggest transfer into the premier league in history galacticos tend not to leave madrid when they're still sort of at the peak of their powers and the the peak of their marketing so it would be a surprise to see it happen i i do want to just quickly ask you one more thing and then we can wrap this up which is if you presume that the odds are that it doesn't happen and i'm not saying that anybody has to presume that but let's presume that for the sake of argument yeah do you have concerns about not seeing a lot of fallback plans that is going to satisfy the fan base or maybe even mikhail from the standpoint of adding the level of quality the caliber of quality that we need to strengthen the left-hand side yeah that's why i'm sure it's going to happen but okay but but if it doesn't like this matters but yeah i'm like sam on the pod we did yesterday said you know what like you could scoff at it but marcus rashford is still throwing up crazy numbers and he's dirt cheap for the standards of the player he is i mean his wage is huge but like he knows saka and eza and rice and he's familiar with everybody and he's familiar with the premier league you'd have a point to prove he's still only what 28 like i think he's roughly the same age that we're bringing a bruno guimaraish in like you know that could be a fallback plan some people will say well we raheem sterling said we were going to see the best of him and he was only 28 or 29 whatever like i'm not saying i love that but the options get pretty thin pretty quick if it's not vinny there's not a lot of that high-end, exciting forward talent out there that you would say, well, if it's not Vinny, just go get this guy.

1:17:27This guy isn't really out there. Now, Kruppi has a broken foot. He's not going anywhere. Is it Julian Alvarez? I mean, he's not really going to play off the left, so you're still probably looking at Martinelli and Solis as your left-hand side. What do you think? There's a guy I've been researching, a young guy called Bradley Barcola. He's going to Liverpool, man. Well, he's not there yet. No, he's not. and yes he's like they're always going somewhere to till or not and I know it's 170 million or 150 million depending on your currency price too by the way like I like Barcola I really rate his talent but I don't think he's sure I don't think he's as good as I mean there's Nico Williams but again you're starting to get into that rough around the edges kind of player who's exciting has some exciting physical traits but you wonder about their execution you know their their their decision making in the final third like all the things that make vinnie so special you know you're you're trading that in just for some exciting raw physical traits you know yeah yeah but but you asked me right yeah that's fair and i'm going to stick with it for a bit which is sure he's on his way to liverpool probably but liverpool don't want to come up with the kind of money that p and psg sell well and they don't need to sell but we can come up with the kind of money and it may not be 170 or 150 but it may not be the hundred that liverpool want to spend and yeah otherwise you fall back on a plan b or plan c and you marcus rashford it and i won't be super stoked about that he'll be brilliant in one game and do absolutely bugger all in the next two games and i i find him frustrating and he doesn't even play for me um and i don't think he's the answer and he'll be expensive and you know does he does he do the work i mean the work the trossard and martinelli get through on the left wing you're not going to get you're going to get that intermittently he's going to be like there's going to be clips of him doing it in one game and the next game he's going to fall asleep and like there's a lot of fixer plans out there there's only a couple of players where you say okay they're really good i think barcola is still one of those and yes he's going to liverpool but that's because we're not chasing him and why aren't we chasing him maybe he's not the perfect fit for him us and we're not crazy about it but i don't know he's really bloody good and he can score into both sides of the net from the left hand side and he's an absolute factor.

1:20:15Exceptional. Is he the perfect fit? Is he worth that money? Well, maybe that money ain't that money. Maybe Liverpool have a very strong view of what they want to spend on him and we're willing to do 10 million more than Liverpool and suddenly it's not necessarily all about Liverpool. So we'll see. Yeah, well, look, at the end of the day, the thing that makes transfer chat hard is that the news changes so quickly. And to your point, Barkle at Liverpool is not done. It could feel done. It could not be done. I mean, Rodgers to Arsenal felt - I mean, they're not remotely close on money. No, Rodgers to Arsenal felt done.

1:20:58And then suddenly Rodgers to Chelsea was done. So I get it. And these sagas just, they take twists and turns. you have to try to find a way to deal with it without causing yourself emotional damage. What I try to do, and I'm not saying everyone should be like me, but just a little word of advice, read whatever the latest update is and invest 100 % of your emotional energy in that. Like all of it, 100 % of it. So if it says a deal is not happening, like rend your flesh, pull out your hair, scream, cry. If it says it is happening, tears of joy, like really invest in every update is the best way to manage it, I think.

1:21:36Paul, we got to leave it there. I think we'll have a Friday Night Clive tomorrow. By the way, the new code for the Patreon, if you want to do it for just a couple of quid and give it a try is Champions. Champions 50. Now you might say, why 50? Because it's 50 % off. Could have gone Champions 26. But I went Champions 50 is the code. And by the way, in the app, you can see that too. Is that case sensitive? I know this doesn't matter, but it's good if you have a conversation about it because it sticks in the listeners. I think it is case sensitive, but you know, you know, what's great is there's a link in the app where you can just say, use the code and you just click it and it just, it applies it, which is cool.

1:22:10You can even gift a Patreon membership right from the app. Look, we, we are going to leave it there as I promised, as people are hoping we would do. And now we will do Paul. Thank you. Thanks everybody. We will continue to breathlessly update you on transfer news with no additional insight available to offer. It's what you're here for. And we don't want to let you down. We love you. and we will talk you know what let's do it because we're both back we love you and we will talk to you after arsenal 10's your own and now

1:22:55We'll see you next time.

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