Rumor Roundup, Attacking Philosophy, and Arsenal at the World Cup

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. It's a close sack of 1-0. Unbelievable. The World Cup keeps getting in the way of Arsenal chat, except when all the Arsenal players play at the World Cup. This is the Arsenal Vision Post-Match Podcast. Good to see everybody. Just normal intro here at the Arsenal Vision Podcast or World Cup Daily Podcast, whatever the heck it is. I do want to say thanks for everyone for putting up with me. I want to send a big shout-out and some love to Phil because Phil Costa was supposed to host the World Cup Daily.

0:56He is the right man to host the World Cup Daily. He's now doing the World Cup Diary for the Arse blog. And he's doing a brilliant job. But I just wish that he could be hosting the World Cup Daily. Not because Timsey isn't doing an amazing job, but because I know it would have meant a lot to him. It also means, unfortunately, like you're putting up with a lot more of me on it. The plan was for me not to be on it much, except now and then. His knowledge is far superior than mine. It'll surprise no one here. And so I hope you're finding them fun. We're trying to keep them light and keep them moving and give you something every day.

1:24Some are better than others. but it's a heavy lift for a man in myself who is not a true student in the international game. So big love to Phil, miss him. And I know that Timsey and he would have had a phenomenal job and phenomenal time doing that together. So sorry there. Friday, a man who does know a bit about ball, Clive, will be on the Patreon doing some scouting videos again. So if you want to join us for that, Saliba 50 is the code, a couple quid off. And then in July, we're going to get into transfer dailies and Louis Ambrose did director of football episode, like lots of good stuff over there, keeping you on track with all of the rumors.

1:55here with me now is a man who will help us atone for all of the many things we got wrong in the last arsenal vision podcast and that is tim hello tim hello there so it's funny right like i'm doing the world cup daily which means i'm trying to watch all the world cup games and stay abreast of all the things happening the world cup trying to stay on top of the arsenal transfer rumors there's too much football like literally i'm gonna complain like the players forget the players welfare what about our welfare we did a pod the other day where i talked about whether canate could turn it around for Liverpool next season, or whether Casemiro still had another season left, and neither of those players are even at those clubs anymore.

2:28So, like, I apologize. You know, definitely trying to stay on top of everything, but some things, especially when they relate to clubs, I don't follow or care about because they are not in our caliber, slipped through the cracks. So, Tim, I apologize for leading you astray with some of my shocking ball knowledge or lack thereof. No, no, no, not at all. Like, I know what you mean. I think especially because Arsenal went the full distance in the season and it just went immediately from Champions League to World Cup. I think there was 10 days between the final and the first game of the World Cup.

3:02Yes, that's a situation quite unique to us, but that's actually... I don't know. Well, no, I know how much the powers that be care about this stuff, which is not at all. but they're doing a lot of stuff to the game which I do think unless their calculation is just people are addicted to football and they don't care that we're going to make it slightly worse which which might not be um an incorrect calculation but not having like run-ups to things does take something away I've seen it um I see it like in Brazilian football for example where what they used to do they kind of stopped doing this now they used to do like the uh the state championships for three months that all finished then a week later the league season would start so there was never any pre-season and what happened was there was never like that excitement for the beginning of the league season because there'd just been three months of state championships they all end in finals which are all derbies between the big clubs and then the season starts and everyone's like oh it's kind of already started hasn't it and like when you don't get that kind of you know that that kind of little bit of um absence making the heart grow fonder um that little bit of premiumness when it's like on all the time um i don't know like maybe they've made that calculation but it it does it does feel like a lot like even i need a couple of weeks and and actually I've treated the world cup group stage a bit like I don't know watching some repeats of a comedy I like like I I watch a bit I half pay attention like I I think I'll pay more attention when um when we get into the knockouts the kickoff times become a bit more favorable for for me then um but yeah I I I kind of don't think it's a good thing and like the size of this group stage and i was just watching canada switzerland and it's it's just awful it's the it's like it's the last group game and there's there's just feels completely devoid of jeopardy um yeah so but that's the direction we're going in i don't think that's going to change now yeah yeah so be it um i do have to ask you because i know your tender and delicate english flesh is being roasted at present how are you coping with the heat wave and do you want to share any details of that yeah um i mean i've just had a fan on my face all day actually so it's kind of been all right but yeah it's funny isn't it you always get this kind of um never underestimate humans ability to argue with each other like kind of becomes like a transatlantic culture war every summer like why are you guys complaining about this heat it's like that all the time here and it's like um you know i i live with someone who who grew up in like these temperatures pretty much all year round but it's like i live in a house that was built 150 years ago out of concrete bricks like it's it's not very breathable and we're in what one of you know nearly the longest day of the year like we're recording it's half past nine in the evening it's still light outside like it's not a lot of time where the sun isn't out as well like our houses aren't absorbing all of that heat and it's going to be light again in about seven hours time so yeah Yeah, we're not really set up for it.

6:43That's the thing. And my daughter's school has been finishing early all week because her school building is about 150 years old and just isn't ventilated. And yeah, it's difficult, but it's okay. Well, I'm okay anyway. I'm glad you're okay. That's really what matters for the purposes of the podcast. I saw a social post. I don't know how authentic it is. Basically saying that the UK government was thinking of instituting a maximum temperature guideline for offices. essentially we've because we've and this is we're maybe turning this into a different podcast but like we don't have protocols for any of this yeah we have like a minimum temperature protocol we have a if i mean to be fair we don't have winters anything like your winters for example not minnesota that's for sure no but it's like we we just don't have any of that stuff there was something i i live quite near the m25 motorway which is probably the certainly most famous motorway if that's the thing in england and uh renowned for its lanes and its asphalt it's just because it's access to london and uh there was a crash on there um a bad one uh this afternoon and people were stuck in their cars for like five hours which then created an issue where people were having to go to hospital with dehydration and the police are kind of saying well actually it's not our responsibility to distribute water and it's kind of like someone's gonna have to change that there's gonna have to be like a protocol for this stuff there is sort of this meme of americans making fun of europeans being ha you think 25 is hot try 40 but like every american who lives where it's 40 is in a perfectly air-conditioned environment at all times exactly exactly so like where my wife's from for example they do not have carpets yeah it's like the houses are not built from the same material and everything's open and everything's air con so yeah um yeah it's kind of it's not really supposed to happen um but unfortunately um sorry to those that disagree but climate change is the thing and we are dealing with it in real time yeah yeah well i wish you well and i certainly obviously don't want to make light of people who are struggling with health side effects of that um the irony is we were told it was going to be this brutal crushing uh heat and humidity for the world cup largely at least to this point there hasn't been much of that it's all over where you guys are so yeah although there's been storms um and stuff which which i know is quite normal like particularly in a place like orlando um i do watch sometimes last night actually trees down hail the whole thing yeah yeah yeah well actually we had one uh tuesday evening like a like the biggest thunderstorm i've ever seen in this country like we are getting tropical weather it's it's mad but i watch um let's maybe swing this back to football a bit i watch the nwsl which is the the top women's league in america when the time zone allows and like i watch like orlando pride and uh that i think that's one of the world cup stadiums their stadium and and it just happens all the time because when it's in my time zone right it's like orlando in the middle of the day and it's just like yeah kickoff's been delayed for like three hours because there's a storm going on it's just like it's relatively normal there right yeah i i don't want to i don't want to come across as like arrogant or narcissistic but this has got to be one of the best football podcast episodes ever produced we're talking about the weather it's it's this is very this is very british very british conversations is going to feature this episode on their uh on their social timeline or instagram posts whatever it is um okay well there there are some things I want to talk about related to football.

10:25They may be less interesting than people listening, but I'm sorry. That's just what you're getting. The first is just England, not the weather, but the football they played. I don't think they played great. I think the hysteria around England is somewhat unique though. The breathless way England are discussed means that drawing to a resolute and I thought well-organized and pretty effective Ghana team. That's not a bad team. In a game where you have 80 % possession and just can't find the back of the net is a crisis and all the players have to go and all the players who are left at home are the best players i don't think it was great performance but it was certainly the kind of functional world cup performance that can get you a win on another day you know harry kane scores a tap in or a couple of those others find the back of the net and it's no big deal but i'm curious not so much about england but about the arsenal players so nani maduike very nani maduike uh bakayo saka brief but effective cameo eza not super effective rice one of the better players in the game i mean we had a lot of Arsenal players out there including of course future Arsenal player Morgan Rodgers so what do you make of the the Arsenal England contingent yeah so Maduweke is the one where my eye always goes just because like I feel like I do this with players sometimes and it doesn't always happen like I really like will them to like I want obviously I want them all to be amazing and to break out you know what I mean but sometimes they'll just be like an attacker or a player and I just think I can't even fully rationalize it but I really think you've got something but I really think you could be better than this like in terms of where Maduake is concerned is end product like everything else is really really good and there are a couple of times he put a couple of decent crosses in which on another day might have been headed in or whatever we might I've been talking about an assist or two.

12:15But it feels like I remember having that feel. This is an example of a time it did work. I had that feeling about Ramsey when he was younger. And, you know, there were a lot of people who were very, very critical. Like, what does he do? What does he do? And I was like, nah, I just, I feel in my water. There's really, really something in this player. And he can really produce some product. I feel like that about Madueke. But I felt like that about players. I think I felt like that about Oxlade-Chamberlain as well. I don't think that ever really happened. So what I found really interesting, though, was when Tuchel switched him to the left, when I fully expected him to just come off, but he got like an extra 10 minutes on the left wing and immediately put like a really, really good cross in as well.

13:01But, you know, obviously, again, we're talking about no end product. And so it's really, really difficult to gauge with him. Declan Rice did Declan Rice things obviously a little bit of a worry that you know he seemed to pull up on his calf at the end I really hope they don't play him for the final group game they really should be able to find someone else against Panama but yeah Saka you know could have scored decent cameo as well and I guess the other thing that people are talking about is Ezra and Rodgers being on the pitch at the same time because a lot of us are kind of wondering are these kind of the same player is there a way they can kind of fit together and we saw them together and um it's it's too small a sample size and obviously it's england not arsenal and blah blah blah blah blah but i don't think those questions were necessarily answered like i think both of them were maybe a little bit anonymous but then to your point like i looked at ghana and i i couldn't see any gaps there you know sometimes you face a low block and you think uh just play the ball a little bit more quickly or move them around or whatever but I was looking at it and I was just a bit like I can't see it there are just literally nine of them in the penalty area and unless someone and and then they were very good at charging and stopping shots from the edge of the box as well like I just couldn't see really see a way through um to be honest unless like one of those crosses was absolutely inch perfect which in the end it was and Nico O 'Reilly's unlucky to hit the bar but I also think a lot of this game was governed by the fact that in their heart of hearts England knew a draw was fine I think if this was a quarterfinal or a semi-final maybe they just have totally subconscious that extra one two percent to go no no we need to score i kind of think it was a little bit yeah draws probably all right here um type kind of thing yeah i want to get your take on a couple of players in particular so the nani thing i get look nani maduike i think is the player he looks like he is you know sometimes it's actually not that complicated he speeds the game up he's very athletic he takes his man on he's very threatening but more often than not he will not do as well with good positions as you expect and that's that's just who he's going to be and it's interesting in a way because a player that plays within himself who just keeps it careful and goes back to the defender like you notice him less but maybe you sometimes be less frustrated by him because you know he keeps blowing opportunities well Nani keeps blowing opportunities that Nani creates I thought he was one of England's brighter players in the first half he definitely quickens the tempo he's definitely the kind of player the opposition is worried to face you know when you're faced up against him but i just i think he is what he is he's a player who the reason he's not pakao saka the reason he's not you know a superstar but just a good player is because he doesn't do as much with the opportunities he creates because if he did he'd be one of the best players in world football candidly you know that's just who he is yeah and this is the thing as well i i'm surprised that arsenal gave up on him on the left side thing so quickly because England gave it a try for a bit yeah yeah I kind of the reason I'm just really curious about it I don't know like it's because I think part of it in terms of his creativity in end product is obviously he's playing on the right and he's pretty much always going back onto his right foot to cross the ball and I think he does a reasonable job of that but he's off balance like they're not going to be peach of a delivery type thing but also he doesn't really cut in and shoot that often now there is the threat that he will and he's like you know he kind of dips his shoulders enough to like show the fallback I could go I could just cut in here and shoot but it's always like suggestible he very rarely actually ends up doing that um so like it kind of helps him to beat his man but he also doesn't really have the shot on him so maybe on the left it's just too predictable it's like well he's definitely not going to cut in and shoot on his right he's always going to go on the outside but i kind of feel like he's always playing that final ball off balance on his right foot which is actually a very very tricky skill the women's team have something identical with uh caitlin ford She's a very, very similar player, like a big take-on player, but kind of doesn't put up a lot in the goals and assists column.

17:46And a lot of it's that she's a right footer that plays on the left. Very, very similar. She's always like ending up crossing, you know, on her back foot, on her left foot, and it impacts the deliveries. But maybe he'd be too predictable on the left. I don't know. Maybe it's something you only do for 10 minutes. But I do feel like there's something more there if he can be optimised a bit more. I think creatively, probably not in terms of scoring, but I definitely think he just gets in so many good positions and gets balls into the area. And I have to think that there's a way that that can be turned into more assists in particular, if not particularly goals.

18:32Look, I think he could have done it more. One of the reasons we probably didn't see it more for Arsenal, Tim, is simply Saka was so limited and he really had to make his primary role the right wing. Right. I mean, that was really where he was used the most because Saka was so limited. I think the interesting thing about him off the left is I think it kind of depends who the fullback is as well. I think he makes a lot more sense with a Calafiore, for example, than with an Incappier because I like him as the wide winger, right? Holding the touchline. sprinting the touchline trying to drive to the byline and cut it you know cut it back or cross it with his stronger left foot versus if it's an incappier he wants to stay maybe on the outside a bit more in overlap i don't know that him cutting in being in the half space and being in the interior on his weaker foot is as good an idea so some of that's probably fullback related as well you know yeah yeah do you know what it reminded me of as well because england where they were hitting the big switch to him early like he's out on the touchline sometimes pickford even goes straight to him he's right on the touchline rice someone from over there pings it over first time gets him isolated against his fullback nice and early and what the the the comparison there is spain did exactly the same thing um when they played against uh was it iran uh no no no uh cape verde or

19:58uh their first game or the second game second game that they won the second yeah the second game spain beat saudi arabia yeah saudi arabia that's it yeah sorry you're in the right region yeah yeah um yeah so like yeah against saudi arabia and obviously spain they changed a lot of things because they drew nil nil with cape verde and they were doing the horseshoe of death and obviously they didn't have Williams or Yamal for most of that game and obviously they changed a load of things up but the thing they were doing, they were just smashing it straight to Lamin-Yamal. No one in the Spanish team was taking more than two touches and they kept hitting the big diagonal to him in a very, very similar position to Madueke but the thing is about Lamin-Yamal, he cuts in almost every time and sometimes he will go to the corner of the area and whip that cross to the back post and sometimes he's going to shoot but he goes like on the outside and he has that massive massive threat um kind of sorry going on the inside like cutting in either to cross or to shoot and i wonder if there's a world where madueke again can perhaps just get crosses off from a different angle you see you see saka play that type of cross a lot where he gets to the corner of the box and he whips it over um we actually saw a couple of times after he came on and again can he get that position a bit more rather than always kind of just arrowing on his on his weak foot to try and keep the ball in play and get a good crossing at the same time I just I think that because I do think is like we see from his corners right his delivery is decent from you know when he's got time and a bit of space like I have to believe there's a way that his delivery can be maximized a bit because the first left footed cross he did in this game was you know created at that time England's best chance so can I ask you about Ebreche and by the way it's worth mentioning Declan Rice seen in the mix zone leaving the leaving the ground with his calf strapped and limping he went down on his haunches late in the game and he looked like he was hurting and we know the back issue and the hamstring issue the calf worries me because whatever the back issue is if he's playing through pain like that's fine you cannot play through a calf injury you cannot it is a huge risk for your achilles so let's just hope that whatever's going on it was either just some soreness or he took a kick or he's just left out of the game against panama because we cannot have declan rice playing on a calf injury and like knowing his mentality and his mindset tim um you know the the roy of the rovers thing he's just gonna empty the tank for england on that calf and next thing you know it's an achilles and and that's you know not worth contemplating so let's hope it's nothing or he's given time to heal initially i i thought it looked like a contact injury when he first limped i thought he'd just been caught a little bit because he did it running back and you know he was talking wasn't he the other day about he was taken off with 20 minutes to go or so because that's when you obviously really put stress on the muscle england couldn't do that this time and it's like the 88th minute and he's chasing back to his own corner flag winning the ball back and obviously England made substitutions where they took Elliot Anderson off and they left Rice as the lone six and that gives him more space to cover and all of that so at first I thought he'd maybe just been caught a little bit with a with a stray stud or something but yeah having it having it strapped and you definitely can't play with a calf and a hamstring kind of issue nursing both of them at the same time and you know I wouldn't mind betting that they're related anyway that there's probably a fair amount of overcompensation going on I tend to think he probably won't play in the Panama game because England should be able to manage without him and they've got they'll think of themselves as well because there's there's five knockout games in this world cup now it's 32 16 quarter final semi-fight like you know it's it's a lot more games than it used to be and i don't think england will want will want to take that risk themselves to be honest so when it comes to like performances that i think are hard to analyze ever as it wasn't on that long he didn't have that much to do he did create one very good chance he also was botched off the ball for the counter attack that should have been a penalty and potentially have won and gone to the game.

24:30It's an interesting one with Ezza. Ezza had insane highs for us this season, Tim. First of all, he had the high of just being a player we all wanted because he wanted Arsenal, and the story of him not going to Spurs was so wonderful. He scores five goals across two derbies. He scored winning goals when he scored against Palace, against Newcastle. So there were a lot of highs. In between those highs, there were probably some performances that we might suggest are mixed or maybe a little bit subdued and i i have to say everybody knows as it was the player i wanted he's a player i really rate i think from a pure technical level and talent of finding the last pass or taking the shot i i don't think we have anyone better at the club genuinely i don't know that anybody hits the ball better than ever at you as a more consistently having said that that's not the only job when you play in midfield and I wonder what you make of him I mean a bit subdued for England he's it's tough too because sometimes we just our eye is drawn to players that look like they're running and working and if they don't look like they're running and working then what are they doing but like there's more to football than just looking busy there's being I mean he's like the anti-nani in a way right because he doesn't influence the game as frequently but often his influence is decisive so what do you think of his cameo and in general I mean I think it's worth just asking how you evaluate the first season with that.

25:57Have we maybe over-exaggerated at times how influential and how good he was? Do you expect and want to see more from him this second season? Yeah, definitely. I think there are too many games, too many periods of games that have passed him by, to be honest. Actually, if you look in those columns, like goals and assists, it's not outstanding. um obviously scoring seven goals two assists in the league yeah yeah in 1900 minutes and five of those against spurs yeah so if you take out spurs that's two goals and two assists across the rest i don't think that's enough for a player of that quality who plays where he plays and perhaps doesn't have that like with erdegaard like his his output isn't high enough in that respect either but you kind of have the get out excuse explanation delete as appropriate with Odegaard that he's so involved in so many other things in terms of Arsenal's build-up play which Eza doesn't really have and I kind of tend to think if you're going to be a low touch fairly low involvement player it you have you have to score a bit more than that make make more goals than that what I will say is I really thought he was really headed onto that path and then he got in March then he got injured like at that point I was looking and there were some games that you know the 2-0 game against Everton for example the game against Leverkusen he's having six seven eight shots in those games I think he had seven shots against Everton and you know by Leverkusen he actually ends up getting injured because he's trying to go around three players and score and it's like yeah okay and he looks much more involved and then he gets injured and that kind of goes away and I think I interrupted his rhythm a bit but yeah I do think I think if you're going to be a relatively peripheral player you have to really make it count in terms of a bit like Jokeres right like for the criticism we've had of him I've had of him I kind of continue to have of him.

28:14It's funny, isn't it? When you win the league, all your players are brilliant. Yeah. Everyone gets forgiven, which I think is fine. But I still have doubts over Jokeres and his overall game, but he did stick the ball in the net 20-odd times. So that goes a long way to saying, well, okay, what he doesn't do there, he does here. And yeah, I do want to see more. I do want to see more. And I think it's possible. I think it's in the player and he's coming into his prime. And I'm pretty sure Mikel Arteta thinks and knows that as well. it's it's an interesting one i mean i i think you know you look at abracia as a he's going to be 28 years old next week so he's he's very much in his prime he's you know he's sort of i think in the last few years of his absolute best prime and i i think he had to adapt to the arsenal system he played with lots of different players flitting in and out i mean you know yokaris sometimes he didn't really get to play with kai much um saka wasn't on the pitch a ton when he played Odegaard and he didn't get to play together much.

29:19Sometimes it was in Cappier, sometimes it was Cal Fiori. So there wasn't a lot of stability there. I do think that maybe where he likes to operate in the central spaces, in the pockets, we like to go out wide so early. We like to get it out to the wingers early. We like to get it out to the fullbacks early. We don't always go into those central spaces and maybe we just need to find him more and let him dictate play from those central areas. but I think to do that you need more combination play so maybe he would work well with Kai I don't know I mean we do this sometimes when we like a player we say their struggles are because the other players around them weren't enabling them because I fell in love with Gabriel Martinelli as everyone knows and for a long time when Martinelli wasn't maybe kicking on I would say things like well he hasn't had a chance to play well you know first it was Xhaka then it was Declan Rice he hasn't had the right guy on the left or he really works well with Gabriel Jesus who he has and like we do that when we like players but at some point the players have to have to do it you run out of caveats Yeah, yeah, yeah.

30:15It's kind of fine to have one or two, but if after an extended period of time, you're still doing it, you do have to come to a stage and go, well, actually, okay, the problem is probably in a different situation. But I guess also with Ezra as well, I kind of tend to think that Arteta will know and understand all of this stuff. And I have to believe that just because we weren't in a massive rush to sign him last summer. And we must have known from pretty much the get-go from the summer that we could get that player if we wanted to, which we eventually did. but it was the Havertz injury clearly that changed things there otherwise this is a signing I think we could have done in June or July so there has to have been a reason that Arteta was not immediately convinced to go and do it and I think a lot of it is probably around this around kind of is he involved enough you know does he does he press well enough and and all of that I do think he sorted that stuff out, like his kind of defensive contribution, the way he presses.

31:24I think he's gotten much, much better at that, which gives me some optimism that he can iron out some of the other stuff. But as a first season, it really reminds me actually of maybe Freddie Jungberg. When Arsenal first signed Freddie Jungberg, actually his first season was pretty crap. but what he did was he scored against Manchester United on his debut and that bought him 12 months of grace everyone loved him he came on as a sub his second touch for Arsenal he scores against Man United and everyone's like love this guy and actually he didn't really do anything for after that for like over a year and yeah it is it feels a little bit like that to me but listen And Freddie went on and became an amazing player for Arsenal.

32:14So hopefully Eza can do the same. The only player who took more shots per 90 than Eza was Saka. And it's by 0.05 per 90. So basically the same. Havertz after that, Martinelli after that, Leo after that, then Jokeres. I do think if you keep getting Eza three shots per 90, which is roughly where he was, he's going to score a lot of goals. What I'd like to see him have is more players to combine with more ability to play runners in behind. but I just think the talent is too good for it not to show through, and I think it's a fine first season, 1 ,900 minutes. You know, he was influential at times.

32:46His goals were important. He won us games with them, and, you know, I expect to continue to see more. What'll be interesting is if a Rodgers comes in and a left-wide player, maybe a Barkala and a Solis or something like that, what is the Ezzer role? There's a lot of really interesting incoming and outgoing questions to be answered this summer, and I want to talk about that next. So why don't we do this? Why don't we shift gears to the transfer rumor mill and how it fits together? Because I want to talk about how we get the attack to where it needs to be next season. Because that's really the thing.

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35:49So, I want to talk about incomings and outgoings with you. Rogers, the smoke is still there. Alex Scott, there's a little bit. Boati, maybe going a little lighter. Jeremy Manga. Solis, Barcola, João Felix, but I thought this was interesting because Hand of Arsenal gave an update and it's pretty clear at this point that Hand of Arsenal has good info. I think we can kind of agree at this point that when Hand of Arsenal provides an update, it tends to be pretty well sourced. That seems to be the case. And his latest update on Julien Alvarez is basically that after we faced Julien Alvarez in the group stage, he was a top priority for us, that his dream is Barcelona, but that Atleti don't seem to want him to go to Barcelona and he would be opening to joining Arsenal.

36:34That's the theory. It is also the case that Atleti really rate and value Victor Jokeres and that there might be more than just the usual summer nonsense to the idea that one player goes one way and the other player goes the other way. How would you feel if a player of Alvarez's caliber came in, but if it meant an exit for Victor Jokeres? Do you think, as much as we would thank him for a service hugely important in helping us get to the champions league final and winning the league do you think that the ruthless thing is to acknowledge that there's another level we can go above that or is that completely unfair to a player that helped us to our title and is sure to kick on with 30 to 35 goals next season i am fine with the ruthlessness aspect of it i guess my doubt i mean i i guess i don't know the player well enough like is alvarez really a number a nine like atleti do that kind of thing where they play two false nines don't they um well well where they had been argentina start lataro martinez and i certainly don't rate lataro martinez over julian alvarez personally no no but lataro's like he's much more of a you know he's a guy you play up front you can't play him anywhere else but have arsenal thrived most with a nine or has it always sort of been someone who's a nine and a half you know yeah yeah i i think you're probably right i do think the thing is i i do like the option of a player like that i mean psg are the best best attack in the world right and they they play with dembélé he won the golden boot or a ballon door and he yeah he's definitely not a nine you know yeah definitely not but i do think particularly in the premier league as it is at the moment i do think having that type of striker that that Jocarez is is a very very kind of interesting option and someone who's just you know um I'm probably genuflecting Clive here a little bit but like just having someone in the team who who's like I'm going on the pitch to score a goal and everything else is kind of secondary to that um and I don't know maybe there are doubts over Alvarez's fitness record and stuff like that but But I mean, in principle, yeah, I think I would do it.

38:48Like we were, you know, we were in a situation where Havertz and Jesus were our centre forwards. And really that only collapsed because Gabriel Jesus' fitness kind of collapsed. But I tell you who I, I was watching the Senegal game the other day and Nico Jackson plays up front for Senegal. And I was just a bit like, I don't know. I do think the striker market, this is kind of redolent of the fact that the striker market is quite thin. But I've always had that, like with Nico Jackson, that kind of like, I wouldn't mind, you know, the right price. I wouldn't mind having him as an option. You're right back to the Nani Madweke conversation with him, by the way.

39:29Let's just be clear, right? Yeah, yeah. But like, yeah, I just, I'd like that type of player. I'm not saying like build the whole attack around him or he's going to be the, like, you know, when we were trying to sign Benzema and Suarez and players like that like he's not that but I kind of like the idea of having that option so I kind of think when you don't have an absolutely stick-on elite goal scorer that having flexibility and variety is kind of probably what you want up front in lieu of you know Harland we play him all the time no matter what because he's so good he will score against anyone and be damned about style or attributes his attribute is he will put the ball in the net so he plays all the time like in lieu of that player I do think maybe you need to be a bit cute about it and you go a bit horses for courses or like this opponent struggles with this so we'll play this guy perhaps this guy would be better off the bench on this occasion like I do kind of think a job share is maybe better and I just don't know with like Havertz and Alvarez if that if that's divergent enough profile wise maybe I'm wrong about that because I don't know Alvarez as a player intimately I don't think but I think if you put me on the spot my inclination would be to do that deal if that deal were on the table to be honest but I wouldn't do it lightly I have to say as much as I've been critical of Jokeres, I think what I want is a better Jokeres.

41:07I think that's what I'd really like in the squad. But yeah. That's Erling Haaland and maybe nobody else. I mean, the problem is, you know, maybe it was Benjamin Sesko. Like maybe we missed on that. We'll find out because I think this season, if Sesko's going to ever be the guy, it's probably time for him to be that guy now. He's not a kid. He's been at United. He had an easing in period at United. They're going to have more minutes that have to go around. He's going to have to play and he's going to have to play well. So we'll see. You know, maybe it would have been Eketike, but, you know, with the injury he's suffered, unfortunately, he's got a long road back and he's, you know, we know what the story is there.

41:41He can't stay available. I'm going to say contradictory things here because I think it is possible to hold both these ideas in your head. The first thing I'll say will probably be the less popular of the two. And that is, I simply do not think Victor Jokras is an elite player. I think he is a player who is capable of giving you some really good performances that help you win things as is evidenced by what he did this season I don't know that I believe any big club would have Victor Yokores as their main man up front I just, I don't, and you don't have to have a main man but you know what I mean, like one of your nailed on starting attacking players if we decided we wanted to sell Victor Yokores this summer and let's say we made him available for 50 million 40 million he's not going to Madrid he's not going to Barca he's not going to Bayern he's not going to City he's not going to United he's not going to Liverpool right he just isn't and that that may seem unfair I don't think we do enough of this in football acknowledging that quality isn't binary it's not crap and awesome it's a spectrum he's a very good player but he's not at the absolute upper echelon of that spectrum you know he's not where I think of Kaio Saka can go he's not to my mind even where I think a fit Kai Havertz can go no he's not where Declan Rice is right he's not that and as Clive always says don't fall in love with the players kill your darlings like if you can get better get better and it so if we can get a better player than Victor Yocres and there are better players out there then I want the better player and by the way that goes for everyone if there's a better player than Martin Odegaard I want the better player if there's a better player than Leo and Martinelli I want the better player there's almost nobody in the squad I look at and I say, don't even bother trying.

43:21It's our center backs. It's Rice. It's probably Saka if he can get back to his absolute best fitness. And that's probably it. Everybody else, maybe you're Ian Timber, everybody else. I'm open to listening. You know, maybe not Max Downman, but you get the idea. So there's that. Now I'm going to say the contradictory thing though, Tim, which is ignore at your peril having players in your squad who stay fit, who have proven they can do it at your league level at least in a good chunk of the games. Ignore that at your peril. Ignore your peril because you can very well wind up being back in a situation where you have excellent players who play 40 % of the minutes and you've got Eddie Nketiah starting for you 10, 11, 12 games a season and you can't win a title that way.

44:07Now, again, half the games we play in a league season I think Victor Yolkras is good enough for and not only good enough for but can really thrive. Half or maybe a third of them, I don't think he is. And so can we get better enough at that position with keeping him? And would he set, like, there's been this thing we've said, Tim, which is like, well, if Kai Havertz had been fit, it would have been Kai and Jokers, not just Jokers. Would Victor Jokers have seen it that way? Yeah, I'd be very curious to know what that competition looks like. Do you get where I'm going with this? Which is like, you ignore these players who aren't elite, but make an important impact at your peril.

44:47Because if you don't have enough, if you don't have Leos and you don't have Jokresses, right? And you don't have, I mean, I'm trying, in Cappiers and you don't have those kind of players, then at some level, you probably don't win much. And so I value what he gives us, even if I think there's a more elite level we can go to. Yeah, definitely. And that's what the squad, what we did last summer was all about, basically, wasn't it? It was, you know, Jocheres was better this season up front than Marino was last season. Marino did some good stuff. I actually think Marino up front this season looked much, much better than he did last season.

45:27But I think they tweaked it and did it a slightly different way. But that's kind of what it was about, floor raising, right? Jocheres, big floor raiser. And actually, we don't score enough goals. so turning your nose up I think he had like seven penalties right so like his scoring record kind of okay in open play but the other thing like other than injuries what was the other thing that really cost us in 24-25 all those draws and you look at who those draws were against and what's been really interesting about Jocares we had the discussion last summer about you know the concerns were about oh god all his goals in Portugal come against the bottom half teams in Portugal how scalable is that to the Premier League actually it's directly scaled because he's done exactly the same thing in the Premier League if you look at the goals he scored they are I don't want to use the word disproportionately because I'm not saying it as a criticism they are against like the bottom half but that was exactly our problem the season before he arrived like he was scoring goals against like the crap teams and actually we really really needed that like we kept drawing against those teams and so you know he he he really really added something in that respect and I guess like again with Alvarez I guess my doubt about doing this would be how many goals does he score in a season because we'd be taking out 20 odd again maybe take out the penalties or whatever how many are we adding if if we have alvarez there and does that solve what remains even with jokeres an issue for us like we're a low goal scoring champion and i do worry about replacing our best goal scorer with someone who's not likely to replicate that but to your point like about havers ultimately what were the two absolutely enormous games in the last month or two of the season man city away champions league final who started those games like that tells you something as well yeah pardon me for my throat clearing thought i hit it mute there yeah well and because here's the point right the 22 23 season our attack was pretty dynamic and as much as all of us were probably ready to move on from shaka and jesus well we didn't know what to make of him and Zinchenko's a liability get rid of him like we moved on from Zinchenko and Jesus got injured and Shaka moved to Germany and you know we were okay we really were now it took us a bit because you could argue that next season where we went to 89 points we played Eddie up front at first and we weren't really sure how we were going to build the attack and then we landed on that that leo kai saka odegaard rice um georginio i guess during that period and like we went from strength to strength and we scored 91 goals or whatever it was so we were fine um so i don't think you shouldn't be scared i think of turnover but when you're a team that's just gone to the last game in the top european competition and you've won the premier league too much turnover I think can be a risk and and we've had a lot of turnover over the last few seasons and we've written it out I I do think Tim we're at the point now though where if we really want to retain this elite position and go on to become you know what city were for five six seven years or even Liverpool sort of poor man city and just couldn't get past Pep a couple times I think we have to have more elite talent in the attacking third I think we need players that scare the living shit out of the opposition and I think Kaio Sack is a player like that and I think Ebrecha as it can be that player by the way but in a different way I don't think we have that player on the left I don't know that I think we have that player through the middle I think if you're at a certain level you're scared shitless of Yorchores you know he's going to battle you and run at you I think at the highest level center backs maybe feel like they can manage him but I think we just need more of that maybe it's a Barcola maybe it's a Julian Alvarez maybe it's a Kruppi but you know maybe it's a Morgan Rodgers breaking in from midfield I do wonder what has happened to football though because once upon a time I could name you 20 players that would be super exciting to add in the attack maybe it's just a hallmark of how good we've gotten that I'm not sure who those players are so much now where I could say their names definitively.

50:03There's rumors Vinicius Jr. could leave Real Madrid and like, yeah, he certainly qualifies. But then you do get people who are like, Mbappe, Vinny, I don't want their attitude. It's still like, we're always stuck thinking we need, you know, we need guys who work really hard like Martinelli, but they also have to be as talented as Vinny. And it's like, you gotta be willing to roll the dice. And I think this is a summer where we kind of have to roll the dice on some elite talent up front. I mean, Vinny Jr. is a great example. I was actually going to cite, not because I think we can realistically buy him.

50:37I do think in terms of Real Madrid, perhaps hiring Jose Mourinho after what happened very, very recently with Vinicius Jr. against Benfica. Like, that almost looks like you're trying to push him out the door, to be honest. um and could you just refresh people's memories not across it because wasn't it the case that he was racially abused i think and then jose kind of pinned it on vinny a bit yeah or yeah i mean well that's why so people watching the world cup who would have seen uh number 10 paraguay as the as the referee brilliantly uh kind of announced um getting sent off for covering his mouth that rule yeah that that rule was brought in as a direct consequence of of this where a Benfica player said something to Vinicius Junior he covered his mouth which makes it inconclusive but you can see from the footage what Vinicius Junior um heard and Mbappe was nearby and etc etc and Jose Mourinho came out and just defended the player um and actually I think he was critical of Vinicius Junior as well like with celebrating and stuff but even like that like I you know Vinicius Junior I don't think there is anything like necessarily about him attitude wise or anything like that like with Mbappe I think that's like someone I think on BBC before the France game they were flashing up like uh the players who've made the least attempted tackles in like every European league and Mbappe's like fourth bottom on that list or something like that.

52:16Like I think there's an extent to which, you know, when you're the star player and it's like, I don't have to do any defensive work and you're still going to pick me because I'm too important not to. I think it's kind of human nature to perhaps not like really bust a gut at that point. But like I was going to cite Vinny Junior as part of the Brazil game against Morocco, like Brazil were pretty bad against Morocco they were outplayed by a really good Morocco side and but what happened Vinny Jr gets the ball cuts inside smashes it in the top corner like that that's the kind of quality you're looking at right and and that's the kind of player that makes the opposition play differently or do different things I mean to be honest against Arsenal I think we're pretty much like low block all the way so I don't think we're playing too many teams who really push their fullbacks up but perhaps they won't if we have this player I don't see a lot of that when teams play Arsenal but it's under like everyone knows that's that's where the improvement really needs to be that we to will out the phrase we always use we raise the floor we raised the numbers um last summer and that's that's great that's won us the league i think but in terms of to your point sustaining this because there are a few things that few metrics for arsenal this season like quite a low scoring champion um for the piece i've written tomorrow which is actually today uh for those of you listening i looked into like passing numbers and quite crude just like number of passes played.

53:56Arsenal was sixth in the Premier League last season for number of passes played. Only twice before has, so Conte's Chelsea, 2016-17, they were the sixth highest passes in the league and then the season before that Leicester were the 18th. Other than that, the champions tend to be in the top three for that metric or top two. So stuff like that, where we're a bit of an outlier, I do have questions about how sustainable being an outlier in some of those metrics actually is. So I think we all know that's where this needs to go next. But at the same time, I have to be honest, I'm looking at the market and I'm just not sure I see it.