Who follows Ange Postecoglou and are England going backwards?

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1:55Hello and welcome to the Game Podcast from The Times. Ange Postacoglu ended Tottenham Hotspur's 17-year wait for a trophy, but barely 17 days later, he was gone. Despite lifting the Europa League trophy last month, the Australian head coach was sacked on Friday, having ultimately paid the price for a 17th place Premier League finish, the club's worst in the top flight since 1976-77. A club's statement said that whilst winning the Europa League this season ranks as one of the club's greatest moments, we cannot base our decision on emotions aligned to this triumph. So, did Ange deserve better? Does Daniel Levy's decision reveal where the Tottenham chairman's priorities lie?

2:31Or was Levy right to be unmoved by one glorious night in Bilbao? We'll be debating all of that and discussing what the early favourite, Brentford's Thomas Frank, would bring to North London. Also on the show, Andorra 0 England 1. Was Saturday's snoozefest England's worst ever win? Thomas Tuchel scolded his players for their attitude, energy levels and lack of seriousness after England laboured to victory over a team of part-timers ranked 173 in the world. Three games into the Tuchel era and a year out from the World Cup, we'll be asking, are England going backwards? I'm Gregor Robertson and alongside me today are the former Chelsea and Aston Villa striker Tony Cascarino, the sports data journalist of the year Hamza Khaliq Lunat and the football reporter covering Tottenham and England, who's had a very busy weekend, Tom Alnott.

3:19It's good to have you. Tom in particular, I hope you don't nod off on the desk this morning. I got back yesterday and Neil, producer Neil messaged me and said, you know you're on the podcast tomorrow. Oh my God. So what happens when the news lands? I mean, you probably, tell us, give us a bit of insight into how this unfolded for you on Friday. You probably had something prepared, right? Well, to be fair, it was one of those stories that it's fair to say you prepare as a journalist, right? I think we've known for a few weeks or even months that Andrew's position has been, let's say, uncertain.

3:55And then obviously, I mean, I actually went on holiday for a week after the end of the season and I sort of had that piece prepared for that week, you know, and then I came back and we had another week where it didn't happen. So I had time. I had time to have something ready. but I was sitting in the RCDE stadium in Barcelona for the England game, the press conference before and it's just one of those classic journaling situations where you're in one place to do something but you actually end up doing something completely different to where you're actually meant to be, so you're meant to be in this place where you're covering England against Andorra and you end up writing all about Spurs and Postacoglu but yeah we've been expecting it haven't we for a few days I think at least It was 12 days since the end of the season, 16, I think, since the Europa League final.

4:42And I think to some extent, you know, the final and the parade and the sort of joyous celebrations down the high road at Spurs definitely made it a difficult decision, you know, for Levy. I mean, I think he said in a statement, it was, you know, the club said anyway, Levy didn't even mention anything from Levy in the statement, which I thought was noteworthy. But it was definitely one of the toughest decisions he's had, you know. I mean, you think about the Pochettino sacking, obviously, but in terms of the timing and the drama, I think Postacogli was a really difficult person to sack because he's so brilliant with his words and with his command of the narrative.

5:14And he knew exactly how to tug at the heartstrings of the Spurs supporters and bottom liners. He delivered a brilliant, brilliant achievement to win that trophy. That would be one of the best nights of many Tottenham fans' lives. And I think it's fair to say that the supporters were pretty split. You know, it's always hard, I think, to know, you know, exactly where the kind of the sort of, you know, the rhythm is of the fans. But I think overall, it was probably 70-30 in favour of keeping Ange, you know, for another season. You know, and that was a tough call for Levy. Let's say, I mean, this was the hard decision, wasn't it?

5:47The easy decision would have been to have kept him after that. But they made the hard one. And I personally think when you look at all the evidence over the last couple of years, I think it was probably the smart decision. I think it was the right one. Your piece is very balanced, actually. Lianz Postelkooglu lived on the edge, failure to listen pushed him over, it was the headline. And as you say, it kind of outlined, you know, 22 defeats in the league, worst finish. And he sort of, we've talked about this for so long, haven't we? The sort of, the conflict between his style of play and how much sort of joy that I brought in the early weeks and the sort of nagging sense that it was never really going to be enough to make Tottenham successful on a consistent basis.

6:30So you feel it was the right decision, personally. I always think with Ange, everything was about extremes. Yeah, exactly. All the way through, it was all about, is this guy a complete genius who's come from Australia and Japan and Scotland, or is he a complete imposter who hasn't got a clue what he's doing? He's from Australia and he works in Japan and Scotland. His tactics were always sort of high stakes, high why. They could either blow away Manchester City 4-0, or they could lose to Ipswich Town at home. Everything about him was in extremes. And I think part of that was the Postacoglu way.

7:00It was his rhetoric. It was the way he played. But actually, I think this was quite a nuanced thing. I don't think it was 100 % disaster or 100 % success. And I wonder if the kind of legacy of Ange would actually be slightly more nuanced. And I wrote in the piece that maybe in a few years' time we'll look back on it and say, actually, from the kind of Conte Mourinho era, he brought in a necessary sort of transition in style to a more modern style of play. In terms of the squad, it's very easy to forget. The squad he inherited was still very much a Pochettino squad almost. You know, the Lloris, Dier, Kane, that kind of axis.

7:35That's all gone now. It's a new team. It's a new squad with new youngsters. And of course, you know, psychologically with the trophy, you know, there's that psychological step that they've taken. But with his era, it's, you know, you can lean on whatever you want. You know, you can say they finished 17th in the league and 22 defeats, worst ever season. You know, how on earth could you keep this guy? Equally, you can say, look how spurs he is to sack the guy when they've just won the trophy. I personally think there's a middle ground there where I think Ange will realise, he'll recognise that he got quite a lot wrong.

8:07And I think when you take away all the noise and stuff, what it came down to was the injuries. It came down to both seasons. But even that's nuance, because some people, there's an argument to say that his style of play led to some of the injuries. Yeah, and I personally think that that's pretty clear. Like I think when you look at the hamstring statistics for Spurs, you match them up with the kind of lights out sprint stats for Spurs as well. You talk to physios and doctors in the game, they all say that the correlation between sprints and hamstring and muscle injuries is there. It's incredibly strong.

8:46That was the Bielsa one as well, wasn't it? Exactly. That was exactly the same argument. Yeah. And it wasn't just that. You talk to people at Spurs who work with Ange in the kind of medical department, and there was always this sense that he rolled the dice too often. And that's a difficult thing because I think with coaches and medical and doctors, there's always this balancing act where every decision is a bit of a risk and reward. It's never black and white. So it's easy perhaps to say in hindsight, and Ange would say that. You're Mr. Hindsight saying, yeah, you got injured, therefore it was the wrong decision.

9:16Fine. But actually, if you look at the weight of the evidence over the two seasons, the first season, they got to November, they were top of the league. They lost Madison, Van der Ven, Bentancur to injuries, to muscle strains. The whole season fell off. Second season, between November and February, they always had at least five or six players out. In January and February, they had 12 players out. They were hitting sort of about 15, 20 % above the league average in terms of hamstring strains. The way Ange sort of dealt with recovery times, the way he listened to players' opinions more than I think most clubs would, all these things played into this thing where actually, ironically, I think the Postacoglu kind of downfall was not because he was too cavalier and too sort of attacking.

10:01And it was actually because he was too demanding, you know. It wasn't, and I think there was always this kind of debate, wasn't there, with Ange, you know. Are they too fun? Are they too, you know, all about the style and no substance? And there was a bit of that, of course. But actually, I think it was, he wanted them to run really hard, you know. And that was always his thing as well, wasn't it? The Ange mantra is we never stop. You know, we never stop. And someone said at halftime team talk and that incredible, almost iconic game against Chelsea in his first season when they were down to nine men.

10:30And he said at halftime, even if we've got five or six men, we never stop running. But the problem was they had to stop running because the medics came on and everyone got injured. You know, that was the thing. But can I just ask you a question, Tom, on that? Because I watched them at Brentford away at the end of the season, which they won. And they clearly had gone away from Ange ball. And you could make that argument in the final as well against Manchester United. They hadn't quite done that hard running, every position, chase you down, close you down. It had been gone for a while, hadn't it?

11:00It hasn't. It hasn't. No one sort of said, well, he did actually, he said he never would, but he did go away from manageable. And he also got a couple of very important results, like at Brentford that particular day. And in the Europa League, you know, not just the final, but in the semifinal against Bodo Glimt also in the quarterfinal against I-Train Frankfurt to be honest that you know the crunch matches in that competition all came from what people now call the Ange Wall not Ange Ball you know and that's a fair point and we asked him a couple of times we said you know why didn't there's nothing wrong with that why didn't they do this in the Premier League you know in January February time when they were just throwing away matches you know and they were still playing this high line with kind of Gray and Davis at the back and if they just picked up you know three or four more wins even in that time you know and if Spurs had finished 11th or 12th you know rather than 17 I think Ange would you know quite possibly still be in a job now you know and he always said he always had this strange theory which I never I just never really understood where he said it's different in cup competitions he said in cup competitions there's the stakes are higher one mistake and you know you're out kind of thing and it was almost like as if the league you can afford to lose a match here and there you know like you can afford to lose a goal and be 1-1 instead of 1-0 you know and I never bought that in the Premier League you can't it's the same isn't it every single match you have to win You can't afford to throw away two or three games on the trot.

12:17And then we've got Amzer here, who's massive on the data side, which is brilliant stuff and all that. And I'm going to give my little piece of data. First of all is he got nearly half his points in the Premier League against three teams. Man United done the double over. Brentford done the double over. Southampton. That nearly got them half of their points in the Premier League. They got, you know, obviously the points say it was 38 at the end. But, you know, you look at them three, six, 18 of them points were against them three teams. Then you'd go, well, what was an owner or chairman going to look at over the course of a season?

12:58You might go, most important game for them in the season. Who was that? It's going to be Arsenal, isn't it? Arsenal done the double over them. Who would be the next most important one? Chelsea. Chelsea done the double over them. Then you look at games like Liverpool have won the title and you go, we lost 6-3 to them at home. We lost 5-0 away. You know, these sort of things sit with these guys at the top. They go, have we progressed that much? Who is Tottenham's player of the season? You might have gone, at the start of the season, Kulis Chesky was on fire by the end of the season. And you couldn't say injuries again.

13:31But I would have said Archie Gray. His form dropped alarmingly. But many others. What happened to Son? Why was he so poor this year? and we'd go oh well he's getting on now he's lost half a yard there was it was really hard to I always judge a team by who was their player of the year and you can go some clubs you go there's three or four of them in that particular side at Tottenham I find it out who was Tottenham's player of the year well it might have been Bergvau I don't know Bergvau had a good shout probably but you're right it's a sign of a poor season it's not it's not I don't know actually I'm not sure but do you know what I mean oh yeah to back that up as well the line that it was quite pointed in their statement and sort of jarred with me was following a positive start in the 2023-24 Premier League season we recorded 78 points from the last 66 Premier League games.

14:18It's quite hard to defend that isn't it Hamza? Yeah I mean that's the point that we made a few weeks ago right we said even if Postacoglu does win the Europa League which he did we have like 3 ,000, 3 ,500 minutes worth of action where the evidence is really poor and if you just whack on 90 minutes on the end of that and you have 3 ,590 or whatever, you go, oh, yeah, the overwhelming evidence is still really bad. The thing is, though, and I think he mentioned this a few times, was that the mistake was in pre-season, he believed the mistake was in pre-season with fitness. The issue is that once you make that mistake, it's baked in.

14:55You can't learn from that mistake and act upon it mid-season because the players are unprepared, you've got loads of players who are injured, let's say your first two, your first choice centre-back pairing are injured, which happened, right? That means the third and fourth guys are in and these third and fourth guys haven't had their load managed from the start of the season because they weren't expected to play a lot. So then they come in and they get injured because they weren't expected to play. So you then have to deal with this knowing that you've made a mistake but you literally can't rectify it until the guys are back.

15:24So everything that follows from that is a consequence of that problem and you can't really prove that you are learning or improving because of that. So maybe next season if he was in the job, he would have learned and I think his first experience in the in a top European league with the Premier League in particular which is every team is almost every team is fantastic so you have to really really work harder than than you would in other leagues where let's say you have a few freebie or gimme teams where you go oh yeah home and away guaranteed six points so I think maybe that also would have fed into it and he would have improved next season but either way I think he will be better for it but to return to your original point no, that was not acceptable there are some mitigating circumstances but at some point the board will just go okay, even if he wants to improve next season is there a manager out there that would be a safer bet that would give us higher returns on the squad and it looks like they're looking at one, right Tom?

16:26Yeah, I mean and I think that's I mean, we're interested to see what Potskoo does next because in a way will another Premier League club take a chance on Ange now? You know, that's what, in a way, that I think is quite instructive as well. You think no? I think if you're a mid-table team in the Premier League, you know, think about teams like Palace, Bournemouth, Fulham, you know, the stakes are too high, aren't they? You know, if you think where Spurs dropped almost 30 points, you know, this season, 28 points off the top five. If you lose 28 points in your Fulham, then you're going down. You know, that's the thing.

16:58And I think they would look at that and think, we can't risk that. You know, even, even with the style and the charisma and everything. I wonder if there's a... I could see Anja, you know, an old romantic European club, by the way, like a Benfica or PSV or something, fine. But I also think, like, you know, maybe a team coming up, you know, possibly, where it's slightly more of a free hit, you know, like maybe a lead, you know, almost. Like, you could see someone with a big fan base and a great tradition. But in terms of those sort of teams in the middle of the league, I just think they'll look at it and think it's a bit of a risk, which I actually think is a shame because I look at it now and I wonder, If the Postacoglu step was perhaps to go to one of those teams, rather than going to a team like Spurs who have European football, a lot of pressure every week, a lot of voices around the club, maybe somewhere like a Brighton or something, or where there was a little bit less pressure with European football and you can play great style and things are slightly better worked out around the club, maybe that would have been a good step for him.

18:01But did you make the point that Brighton did look at Ange and they sort of thought he was possibly going to be a bit too spiky and there might be some problems down the line? Yeah, they looked into him because I think after Potter, he was very high on their list. For all the reasons that we know, Ange produces great teams and plays great football and he always comes up well in the kind of data tables. But they did look at his personality and they did actually came up that the way he deals with the media and things that could be a problem in the Premier League where the scrutiny would be even more intense.

18:32And I think the conditioning thing is, it's so relevant now. That is the thing, isn't it? More than ever, you know, it's not something where clubs can go, well, let's just see, you know, let's hope for the best. And injuries are a bit, you know, a bit like penalty shootouts. It's a lucky thing. It's not like that anymore. I think Johnny did a great piece where he said that Liverpool, when they looked at slot, you know, they said, look at his injury record. It's absolutely squeaky clean, wherever he's been, you know, he's exactly how to manage his squad. the rotation is excellent you know you look at the schedules now and everything we know about how teams run and the demands on players all the teams that did well last season in the Premier League were the ones who avoided you know really bad injury crisis look at Arsenal you know their season fell off because of their injuries Spurs of course you know and I mean even Amirim actually comes up very well in terms of injury record it is arguably the one thing that he's done quite well at United you know the injuries have been okay so So I think Spurs, with a fully fit team, playing with the best players every week, playing Ange ball when the sun is shining, could be a top four team in the Premier League.

19:38Brilliant to watch. But that's not the game now. The game is you've got to manage the squad. You've got to adapt to different teams. And I think, crucially, I think there's a lot of emphasis on they prioritised the Europa League, and in January and February we gave up in the Premier League, which I think sort of suits Ange more than maybe the reality suggests. But the bottom line is, even if the Europa League didn't exist, Spurs would have finished mid-table last season. At best, if they'd gone out in the quarterfinals, they would have finished maybe 11th, 10th. That's a sackable offence for Spurs, isn't it?

20:09Even with that. Okay, about the point, and this is for all of you really, is that could you make the argument that... Because I'm not convinced that Ange improves players. So that's how I look at it as well. I look at that side and I think, how many of them are better players than where they were previously? If you look at Jed Spence, who came into the team, initially done really well by the end of the season, he's getting left out again. Poro. Poro. Poro. In that sphere. Poro, maybe, yeah. Has Solanke improved since he was at Bournemouth? Has Solanke improved during the course of the season at Tottenham?

20:46No, I'd probably say no. I think Maddison, hard one, because I'm never even that convinced that Postacoglu was the biggest fan of Maddison. I think at times he had to play him because they had some poor results and he fitted into certain matches. I just don't see. I think Van der Ven, even though he's had lots of injuries, again, and we can associate injury, but he didn't quite look at the defender when he got fit again. And, OK, might need more games. He's a big lad. And there's very few. I'm not convinced about the goalkeeper. I think their goalkeeper is one of the poorest Vicario everyone keeps saying he's a great shot stopper I said well he picks the ball out of the back of the net quite often just look at the numbers so he ain't that good of a shot stopper and maybe it's me maybe I'm being really harsh on the improvement of players I mean what I will say and I do think because I feel like we've been justifying the ange you know why Spurs made the right decision and I put that in that is true but it it is I mean winning a trophy for Spurs is a huge thing I was going to say you should pan out as well and say like look at the board what does it say about Spurs too what does it say about their priorities what does it say about how kind of cold and ruthless and you know should we expect this or is this was this still really really harsh yeah and I mean and Ange was always saying in the last few weeks you know that when he came his three big jobs was to change the style tick change the squad tick win a trophy tick you know and he will go to his next club in his interview and he would say this is what I was told to do and this is what we did.

22:21There was another one I think where it was sort of unite the club more develop a better culture with the fans and he probably just about did that at the end. And the start when they were singing Robbie Williams songs about Ange and saying we've got our Tottenham back. And he said the stadium was like a nightclub. He said we've got our Tottenham back at one stage, didn't he? Do you know what the funniest conversation I've had about this all and I had it on radio at the weekend is hypothetical if Tottenham lose is 100 % everyone's okay him leaving? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's really... That's a 90-minute decision.

22:54That's really an argument to support the decision, isn't it? Yeah. Because he shouldn't base a decision on one 90 minutes, despite what, you know, was there the tangible benefit of that 90 minutes. That's fair to say, isn't it? And they lost Harry Kane, of course, didn't they? You know? I mean, that's a huge thing. You know, Ant did have to deal with a lot. He did have to deal with a lot. He lost a lot of very key players, a lot of leaders in the dressing room. Lloris, for example, club captain, you know? And he did have to handle a really big transition, you know, to go from Conte's style to his style was a big sea change as well.

23:24And as I say, you know, I think he'll always go down as one of the, I don't know, the best, but one of the sort of favourite almost, most memorable, you know, Spurs managers. A little bit like Ozzy Ardiles is Tottenham and, you know, really exciting at times. And I mean, he was great to watch. I watched him a few times and come, I thought, that was great today. And then other days... They probably lost, though. Well, no. No, they beat West Ham 4-1 at Tottenham Stadium. First half, 1-1. I don't know if it was you there that day, that was it with me? Was you there at Tottenham? Anyway, it doesn't matter if you weren't.

23:57But I just remember watching the second half and thinking, cool, when they're good, they can be really good. There wasn't a better team to watch in the league when Spurs were on form. I mean, you know, we haven't seen it for a long time, but when they were at their kind of peak under Bostokoglu, they were one of the best teams to watch in the league. And, you know, you talk about zooming out, Gregor like it's this constant balancing act at Tottenham isn't it they're asking managers I don't know perform miracles is an exaggeration but certainly to overperform all the time you know and what Pochettino did was he managed to kind of do this dance where the transfer fees were not super high the wages were pretty middling and yet you know take them to kind of the elite in Europe to a Champions League final challenging for Premier League titles but you look at all the kind of financial numbers that Spurs post that's not really where that's not really how they spend their money.

24:48They are a sort of fifth, sixth kind of team. I mean, across Andrew's years, they were fourth for transfer fees. In terms of wages, they're still, you know, we talked in the middle of the year about how they're one of the, I think they're bottom of the Premier League in terms of the percentage of revenue they actually invest on wages. So they're always asking their coaches to do something that really the club aren't quite supporting, you know, and that'll be the same for the next one. You know, Thomas Frank, whoever it is, will be asked to come in and they'll say, look, we'll give you this amount of transfer fees.

25:17You're not going to get as much as City. You're not going to get as much as Chelsea. You're not going to get as much as Liverpool or Arsenal or Newcastle. But we want you to finish above two or three of those teams, by the way. We want you to get into the latter stage of the Champions League, even though you're not paying the same wages as the other big European clubs. So that's always the thing that you're being tasked with. Ange couldn't do it overall. They finished fifth in the first season. But what are your trophies, actually? You know, as you said, it's not the kind of priority for the board and the club, but for the fans, that'll be something they'll never forget.

25:46Hamza, Thomas Frank then, I mean, he has overperformed. I think they have the 19th highest wage bill and they finish 10th. So really, is that basically what Daniel Levy's looking at and thinking, this is what this club needs? I think, yeah. And a bit more of the kind of shift that Alison wrote a piece about kind of going from a purist to a pragmatist. Yeah, I mean, just on a pure tactical base, When people watched Thomas Frank's Brentford in the championship, you saw this fantastic attacking team. And they are promoted to the Premier League. And like you said, you've got really sort of limited wage base.

26:20And you've got these superstar teams. So they play in a very pragmatic, defensive, counterattacking, a lot of long stuff first season. Then they slightly tweak it the following season. And they mix it up just a bit more. and you see the speed at which they play the ball forward, which was really high, and the amount of passes that they attempt per sequence, which is quite low, then begin to increase. So the speed at which they put the ball forward dropped and the passes per sequence increased. Then that happened again and you see their possession numbers then begin to tick up and then you see how they shift from games, let's say if they play a big team, a quote-unquote big team, they'll play with a 5-3-2.

27:04pretty normal formation, robust, solid in the middle, not much space that wide. Then against teams that are slightly closer to their level, they'll shift to a four at the back and they'll be a lot more attacking. They'll have the two wingers playing in the sort of 4-3-3. And then this season you've got a team that genuinely mixes it up. So you'll have games where they play long, direct, low possession football, and you'll have other matches where they are trying to play possession-based football, use intelligent rotations and passing sequences and breaks and combinations to get field and attack.

27:36And then you've got all the set piece stuff as well. This is a really, really well-oiled machine where every component slots in really well. And you can see how those pieces have evolved over time. So when you think about what Tony mentioned about improvement, you see that with the team. A team that could do something in the championship, doing something different in Premier League, and then changing how they do that. Yeah, and he did that on a limited budget. And that's what makes him so impressive. but I guess also that ability to be compartmentalised, right? To say, okay, I'm not dealing with transfers, which is pretty normal for most managers nowadays or head coaches nowadays.

28:12That's the board of the sporting director's job and also saying, okay, the set pieces, that's a set piece coach thing. The fitness stuff, that's a fitness coach thing. And I think that's going to be more and more important when we think about someone like Poster Coglu or his successor, how clubs think about compartmentalising their roles and saying, okay, you are literally responsible for player management. You are a man manager because you're a fantastic leader, which Thomas Frank also seemingly is, just the way that he speaks and how his players respect him and all that sort of stuff. And then also, okay, you're going to leave the fitness stuff to the fitness guys.

28:46You're going to liaise with them, obviously. You're in charge, but you're going to let them oversee that department and make sure that the players are fit so they're available to you and then transfers all that sort of stuff. See, I think when you look at someone like Frank, you see someone who's able to take a quite limited squad and get a lot more out of them. The degree to which you can do that changes, right? It depends on the league. It depends on... No, I'm going to jump in because you said a lot of great stuff. But there's something else that none of us are even really thinking about and I think it's really relevant.

29:20We talked about injuries at Tottenham. Brentford had a lot of injuries. Think about Rico Lewis being out for so long. Think about Aaron Hickey being out and others. They've had a lot of injuries. Ben Mee was out for a long time. And I think, again, they were serious injuries. They weren't hamstrings. These were really bad injuries. But he had a lot of them. And he also, I mentioned the point of, you know, picking player of the season at clubs. I mean, that might sound trivial. But look at Brentford. You can argue four or five of them. Damsgaard's been brilliant for Brentford. Him and Nogai in midfield, and you talked about passing and doing some things, them two pass the ball for fun.

29:58They're great. Damsgaard's been incredible. From a lad that looked weak when he first got in and looked like he could get muscled out of every game, he was controlling things for Brentford most of the season. And I think that overachievement with managing the injuries as well because there was a lot. If you go through Brentford, Brentford had a real bad injury list, but mainly really serious injuries because the boy Icky, how long has the boy Icky been out? Over a year? maybe more Rico Emery more than a year out of injury they're the two wing backs they're important Fingham players who have done well Vizzer's done brilliant his goal record this year and Bumo again another great season Kevin Sharder coming does fantastic then the midfield boy Nathan Collins at the back you know you can go through half the Brentford team and go a lot of them played well but it's still it's still be the question of the step it's a big step there'll be a lot of goodwill for Thomas Frank wouldn't there and you're someone who's covered in Tottenham it seems to be like it's going to happen he also has a link with Lang the director of football who he coached for a team in Denmark many years ago so it seems like this is going to happen is that right?

31:05Yeah I mean he's in the driving seat at the moment I think I suppose it took a couple of weeks to kind of get the Postacoglu decision done and I think the idea was to maybe get a few ducks in a row as well before that I think the win with Frank because my one doubt is that transition from a club where everything is quite, you know, perfectly arranged. A lot of the things the guys were talking about there are actually Brentford. They're Brentford rather than Frank. He's a part of that whole puzzle. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, you look at Potter and how it went from Brighton to Chelsea. Maybe it's an unfair comparison.

31:41But, you know, when you take someone out of those clubs who are very good coaches, very good managers perhaps, but actually everything around them is sort of set in stone, isn't it? And then the next coach comes in and they also do a really good job because the club is so well run and all the departments function so seamlessly. If you take the coach out and put it in a club like Tottenham or Chelsea where things are slightly more kind of in flux, let's say, can they make that transition? I'm not saying they can or they can't, but I think it's a question mark, isn't it? And also, I guess, in terms of the pragmatism, We know that Frank likes to play the five at the back against the teams higher up the league.

32:23I guess with Spurs, how often will he do that? Do they play five at the back against Arsenal at home, for example? Do they play five at the back away at Bournemouth? I wonder where's that line because obviously there is this expectation, rightly or wrongly, at Spurs that they play on the front foot. you know and Postacoglu let's say you know played on two front feet but there will be this kind of balancing act of when to sort of be pragmatic or when not to be but I think I think Frank deserves his chance doesn't he it's great to see the time is right now isn't it as well I think for him as well at Brentford he might think that the time is right for him to kind of try something new and even for the club maybe you know as well so I would like to you know these kind of coaches who are currently we all you know sing their praises all the time during the season it's kind of the more sort of middle classes if you like of the Premier League I think it's great to see them get their chance at some of the bigger clubs as well Well, fascinating to see how quickly that one moves I'm sure Tom, if you're not going on holiday again you'll have more work ahead to me You need an holiday After the break we'll be talking about England and before the break it means it's quiz time Who am I talking about when I say a former footballer who played for Arsenal, Blackburn and Tottenham and was cut seven times by England.

33:43Find out after the break.

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36:20welcome back to the game podcast from the times i'm gregor robertson alongside tom allnut hamza Khalid Luna and Tony Cascarino before the break I asked a quiz question and the answer is Tom David Bentley straight in there yes and we just had a quite interesting discussion about his early retirement his views about football he's got a bar in Marbella or something now yeah during the break you know I listened to him on a radio show one day and I was laughing my socks off because he actually openly admitted you know I had my time in football and I was quite happy to finish and I went up and sat at my bar in Spain and you know I enjoyed life and he was really upbeat about it.

36:57He wasn't like, I shouldn't have done that. He played his best football at Blackburn. He was a young lad at Arsenal, yeah, before he sort of got that move and Tottenham was probably the nightmare experience. The Celtic one for me. Well, it was a nightmare one for England, wasn't it, Tom? Andorra, nil, England won and England lacked seriousness and quality, says Furious Tuchel, was the headline in your piece from Barcelona. Was it the worst win? It sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, the worst England win. But that's what a lot of the coverage was hinting at afterwards. It was pretty bad, wasn't it?

37:37It was pretty bad, I guess, if you kind of throw everything into the mix, sort of half-empty stadium, end of the season, the way they played, just the kind of sense that none of the players really wanted to be there, the kind of lack of energy and urgency. I mean, I can think of worse England results, I have to say, you know, the Iceland one sticks out, you know, in terms of major tournaments. Win, worst win. Mistakes. Yeah. Yeah, okay, okay, worst win. Yeah, that's why it sounds strange. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that Jonathan who said that, Jonathan? Yeah, yeah. The worst win. I remember laughing at that line.

38:05Yeah. I mean, well, I've never thought about that. Yeah, Johnny's intro was about, like, I don't know, watching paint dry and counting screws in a toolbox, things like that. Do the grout in your bathroom. Yeah, that's it, yeah. So, yeah, it's clearly a good fun one to be at in the press box. Yeah, I have some, I sort of have, I don't know if I'm, it's too generous, but I have some sympathy with the players. I don't know what you think, Tony, but I think at the end of a season like this, I can't think of anything worse, you know, than putting your kind of your boots away at the end of a Premier League season and thinking, you know, next week we've got to go to, you know, play Andorra away and everyone's going to think we should win 6 or 7-0 and play brilliantly and, you know, play with verve and speed and they want to see us play attacking, exciting football and, but actually they're, you know, they're exhausted, right, physically and mentally, you know.

38:52So I have some sympathy. I guess it's that thing where if they'd won, you know, even 2-3-0, people probably would have just been like, OK, let's move on and forget about it. And, you know, that's fine. But winning 1-0, last kind of 25 minutes, even Andorra sort of had one or two attacks where you sort of thought, blimey, you know, they might even nick a goal here. And I think particularly Tuchel, you know, the way he is as a coach, he's so meticulous about details and sort of application, and he doesn't like the players doing what they want to do. He wants them to do the plan always. And he sort of said, first 25 minutes, it was good.

39:26We stuck to the plan, the movements were correct. And then he sort of said, actually, once we didn't score, everyone started to kind of freestyle, I think he said. There was no movement. Everyone started to play the ball to feet and everyone was trying to kind of get frustrated. And he said, we got stuck. And I thought that was true, but is there a little bit, in my head I was thinking is this like a club coach talking where they're so used to having the training every single day and drilling the players so perfectly to their kind of plans and actually in international football you get so little time with them that maybe you have to accept there's a little bit more spontaneity and I wonder are we seeing a little bit early signs of Tuchel kind of having that frustration where he wants to see them doing exactly what he does on the training ground but they only had a few days in Girona and they were doing Pilates and in the swimming pool they were having a bonding session They weren't really into his kind of big tactics, you know.

40:18I suppose the question then as well is reaction. I'm laughing to myself. You know, as Tom said, I'm laughing to myself because I'm thinking and I mention him way too often. But we always used to arrive in Dublin on a Sunday for international duty. And we'd get there. Jack Charlton wouldn't be there. He's gone fishing. Right. So the lads would go, what are we doing? We'd go, oh, we'd go, give me his in Manahide. We'd go down there for a couple of hours. I never saw Jack Charlton Monday afternoon we were meant to train Monday morning he'd cancel it because the lads are still in bed and say right afternoon we're training in the afternoon then you're going to pictures we're going to go to the cinema you know like all this and I laugh because you know when you when you join up and Tom said the question of you know you join up you've had it it got to the end of the season you're playing in years gone by we'd have World Cup qualifiers in June like England have played obviously Nations League game so they're big matches in themselves but when we got there that you sort of the lads have all arrived fit everybody's fit you don't need to really do much training because the season's just ended so you turn up and you want to try to make it a little bit light hearted because you're going to get in by the time they get to the game you've done very little training you know and sitting there doing mind-boggling training session after training and I feel for Tuchel because it's hard to get the message over I wonder and I don't know I can't prove this but when he was speaking in his meetings were some of the players looking out the window.

41:47You know what I mean, Gregor? It's a really tough one for him as well. To be fair, Johnny wrote a piece about it and it's probably England were doing in the last week a lot of the kind of modern football version of what you guys were doing there which was going to the pub. They were doing a lot of the things that were team bonding stuff. They were going for a cycle together. They were going to the swimming pool. Yeah, golf. So that is what he's kind of trying to do. It's like trying to create a bit of team spirit. Well, you sort of have to do that. I mean, I'm not suggesting anyone goes to the pub, by the way, Gregor, as an example, but he has very little time.

42:18When do you get time as an international manager to say, I'm going to have a week with a squad? You only get that week or two prior to a tournament. Well, the interesting thing then is his reaction, because he's not sugarcoated after every game, in fact. He's been quite critical, hasn't he, to the media, and he says, everything I say here, I'm saying in the changing room as well. But first of all, Hamza, does that threaten the kind of good vibes that he's been trying to create in the last week. And more broadly, when you're calling out your players' attitude and stuff in your third game, is there any sort of threat to how they will see the manager?

42:53Yeah, but this was clear from the very first press conference that he did that he was not going to... You could see if this works, brilliant. And everyone will see, just like with Serena Vigman, this guy set out exactly what he wanted from his players. They knew what they were going to get. And if England win, you go, it was perfect. See, he didn't care who was going to upset because he was so clear with them in the first place. But you could also go, oh, if it doesn't quite go right or if it does go wrong, we can see where the seeds of the problems are going to be. Because, for example, at the start, last international window, he just said, yeah, I'm going to choose who I want to choose.

43:32I don't really care too much about the clubs. and he sort of set himself on a sort of war footing with other managers. Then a few weeks ago, Arna Slott mentioned how Alexander-Arnold was training at the start of the season. It was put to Thomas Tuchel and he goes, yeah, if he doesn't take his defending seriously, it's going to cost us the World Cup. We're to that effect. And you go, okay, this can be a wake-up call for some players. It can also be, oh my God, I don't want to play for you, for others. it's up to the manager to decide which players to deploy those tactics to and who's going to respond to those so you don't know if it is going to work or if it isn't but what you can say is he has chosen his path and it is a fine line that he walks and we'll find out if he walks it correctly but I think it's bold and I respect it for the boldness and I think most of the top managers as well have their own bold styles that they stick to and it's what served them well in the first place and deviating from that is not going to lead to...

44:35A step change from Southgate. I was going to say, I mean, Tuchel, Hamza says that Tuchel had chosen this path, which is true, but the FA have chosen this path. You know, I mean, we all know what Tuchel is and the FA knew that as well. You know, throughout his whole career, this is how he's been, uncompromising, you know, ruthless. If you wanted this sort of, you know, diplomacy of Southgate, then you just keep Southgate. You know, this is what they wanted, right? They wanted, in inverted commas, the winner, the guy who's going to take the big players over the line and those marginal details not allow them to be lethargic even in the last 20 minutes away at Andorra.

45:07The whole thing has been, and Johnny wrote a great piece in the build-up to this game about how they're basically trying to recreate tournament conditions in all ways, even in the build-up of the schedule and everything is almost exactly the same, so the rhythm is exactly the same. So you can't then complain when Tuchel comes out after a poor performance and says it how it is. That's what he's like. I agree with Hamza and, you know, let's see, you know, how the players react to that. Because I think there is a, there is a different rhythm about international football where you have to almost bring the players in with you, don't you?

45:40Because it's not as easy as in a club where there's togetherness and everyone is there every single morning and you have to sort of make people want to come. And that is the one thing that Southgate managed to do. You know, it's easy to forget that when he arrived, no one wanted to join up with England. There was always a bit of a chore. It was hard to get them to come. Wasn't it? Exactly. Was it? Was it? Okay. It was, wouldn't we say that Tuchel's line-up was quite experimental, though? Yeah. You know, because to me, obviously, Curtis Jones playing in a sort of right-back position at times, where he's James left-back, then you'd go three number 10s in the line-up.

46:12I mean, he's not going to do that at a tournament. So that's not recreating a World Cup finals like next summer, because there was no way on earth he'll play three number 10s. Well, maybe against a team like... Yeah, so this level, but a tournament will be different. Of course, but again, the World Cup has expanded, so you're going to have some teams that aren't France-Germany level. I thought it was, he mentioned in the week that lots of teams play in the Premier League with a three and then a two when they build up, or a four, then a one. And he pretty much said, everyone does it apart from Liverpool and Newcastle.

46:47And he was essentially getting at, from what I could understand from reading it, that it was a bit boring, a bit too structured, and you should actually be a bit more provocative and daring with the way that you build up. So you build up with a 3-1-2-2-2, which I'd not seen before. And then the team was sort of clustering to one side when they build up. So if they're built up on the left side, most of the team would orient themselves to the left. So I thought there were interesting things in those first 20 minutes. I know it wasn't particularly exciting to watch, but I thought there were interesting things there that you might see at the World Cup.

47:19And again, if you're going to dominate possession, let's say you go up against a team such as, no sorry you're trailing to a team such as France right you know you're going to have a lot of the ball because they're going to sit back and try and counter attack so what do you do you've got to think about how do we attack them how do we break down how do we break them down how do we get between the lines if we're going to have loads of the ball do we really need a conventional defender in the back line or could we put a midfielder there because they're going to be acting like a midfielder most of the time anyway like Curtis Jones was I'm not necessarily saying I agree with whatever but I thought it was interesting to try it out It didn't look great, but I thought there were things that we learned from it that he made take forward.

47:58I agree with him in the experiment. I agree trying to look at things. I'm just replicating a tournament. I'm not so sure about that at this time of year. There's a lot of space between now and next summer. And I look at England, and there is an incredible depth of talent that's there for everybody to see, and they're exciting talent as well. So he's got blessed with a great group. He really has. And there's other players. Madiwaki was a shining light on the day. Thought he's in behind fullbacks. And I give a lot of credit to them because I thought they worked their socks off. I know it's as much as it takes.

48:36But Andorra were literally tracking everybody in every position. So, you know, I talked about Lichtenstein, didn't I, in a piece this morning about playing Lichtenstein. I remember thinking, again, we can't get past them. And they were, you know, all different jobs. Painter, one was a painter, one was this. and they'd done a lap of honour at the end of the game after we got a 0-0 draw of him. That was in a Euro 96 qualifier, you said? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else happened after that? Tell us a bit more about your preparations in that one, Tony. This was a great call. I advise anyone to read it.

49:05We went for a Harry Ramson challenge which was basically fish and chips before we played Austria at home. I have to admit, I did once do that and got the certificate. Yeah, and I did. I got a, yeah, and we all blamed the Harry Ramson. Not 24 hours before the game though. Yeah, 24 hours. It was the day before, and it was all the lads were literally, why are we in Harry Ramson's? We're going to have a pre-match. Well, not pre-match because it's not the day of the game, but the day before. And I ordered a place in chips. It was the biggest place I've ever seen. It was like, look at him, I can't eat all this.

49:38And the lads thought it was hilariously funny, and then we got beaten 3-1 by the end. And it was like the Harry Ramson story was everywhere, you know, the Harry Ramson challenge. But we drew against Liechtenstein as well. which we ended up playing a playoff game against the Netherlands at Anfield, which we lost 2-0. So it sort of cost us our campaign. Maybe Pilates is better than the pub. You mentioned that you would go and have a drink before when you joined up. How important is that too? Because these guys had the F1 and then they had the Life Golf Resort and all that sort of stuff. How important is it actually when you come to a tournament that you're actually looking forward to it and you get to spend some time with your mates?

50:20Our manager, he felt it was really important that we absolutely had fun to a degree and gelled and not be around each other 24-7. He would go fishing, randomly go fishing. John Aldridge would go with him. John Aldridge would come back and tell us the team. It was always fun. There was always stories going on and we'd be laughing. And Aldridge would go, well, you're not playing. You're not playing. I mean, it would be sort of funny because Jack wouldn't say a thing. He didn't particularly like being around the players. He sort of indulged them for a little while. Then he'd go off in his own little world.

50:59And then he'd come back and say, I've just had an earner. I've got some prezzies. And he'd show us his presence he's been given, his jacket or a shirt. You know, he was a funny character. So we always were laughing. But he really liked the idea of us bonding. Remember, we went 88 euros, which was we only just got knocked out by a late goal by the Netherlands. then we went World Cup 90 and then World Cup 94 and we just missed out in 92 by Gary Lineker scoring a late goal. So we'd had this four tournament period where we were hugely successful for a team that hadn't qualified. So everyone went along with it until the team aged until the times as well in football where you can't be doing that.

51:40Teams are way fitter than we were. Greg, we know that. But it's still fun to, it's still important to have that fun. It was amazing. Do you know why I'd say that we'd run through brick walls and that's a cliche but we'd run through brick walls for each other. You'd say even more so now too considering all the things we've been talking about about there's no end to the schedule. Like a lot of these guys are going to go to the Club World Cup. You've got to have something to take your mind off. You have to let your air down in some ways. You know, you just have to. And look, it was going over the line isn't there?

52:07Going too far, one step too far which we did at times. But I sort of understand as well that every now and again then you have to go, let's just get away from that. Because some of the conversations you have having a drink, you know, having a few pints with somebody, it's not the same as sitting around here and chatting what's going right and wrong. It can be funny and it can be crazy. You know, people start arguing of whose fault it was. And, you know, I look at some of the happiest times of my career, them periods of just being with the lads. But also I've got to remind myself, we had a bloody good team.

52:43We had a lot of great players. and Jack would always say you turn up fit and you'll go back fit. One final thing Tom you kind of focused on the defence actually. You thought that although this wasn't a game where it was tested enormously that's probably England's toughest where the most decisions to be made and the most uncertainty. I think if the World Cup was tomorrow that would be the in my opinion would be England's biggest weakness. Like I think that you know we all talk a lot about Bellingham and Palmer and Foden how to fit them all in and is Kane kind of, you know, the same Kane as he was before and obviously the central midfield issue I think is still absolutely there.

53:22You know, who plays next to Rice in midfield? Obviously Henderson has sort of been revived but we don't think Henderson's going to play every game in a World Cup, do we? But I think if you look at the back four, who do we think is going to play in those positions? I mean, I don't think any of those positions are nailed on, you know, a year out. I think what Southgate did, didn't he, He didn't have the kind of juggernauts of his predecessors, the Ferdinands and the Terries, etc. But he did kind of develop a pretty settled back line. And I think that's a challenge for Tuchel is to basically land on who he thinks is going to play, presumably ahead of Pickford in that back four.

53:58Because you think at left back, Lewis Skelly, we think, is possibly a great prospect, could make that position his own. Also Lewis Hall. But in the centre, I mean, Byrne is there right now. I personally think, you know, the really highest level in a crunch World Cup semi against Lamin-Yemal? Would you want Dan Byrne? Not sure if that's ideal. Brantthwaite, Mings, Colwell could all play in there on the right side. Gahey will play. Gahey, haven't you? But he likes Concer. Concer's played, I think, all three games. And obviously at right back where we used to have this kind of wealth of options, there's quite a lot of question marks there now.

54:33Ben White, is he going to play? Is Walker going to get back to his best? Is Rhys James going to stay fit? Do we think Alexander Under-Arnold was ever going to play in a two-call team at right back? I personally think probably not. And the question marks are there, and maybe next season, you know, two or three of these players have excellent seasons, and it becomes kind of obvious. But I think it's really key that they find those connections, you know, quite quickly. Because we know that Southgate, you know, looked at France and looked at Portugal now. They won these tournaments, and he basically came up with this idea that to win an international tournament, you have to be solid at the back.

55:03We know when Tuchel won with Chelsea, the Champions League, they conceded, I think, one goal in the seven knockout matches they played that season. So you've got two managers who clearly think defence is going to be key in knockout football. But England's defence at the moment, you know, is at best uncertain. It's not good enough to win a tournament, that's for sure. And it's, you know, actually quite ropey, isn't it, in a way? So are they going backwards? Are England going backwards? Is that a bit too early to say that? Have they been going backwards for a while now, actually, when you think about how the last tournament kind of panned out, despite them getting to the final?

55:33I think the nature of the year between tournaments is always, you could see it as going backwards but I don't necessarily think it is it's just lots of things are in flux some players are unavailable some things you try out yeah I mean look at Brazil the team that Ancelotti named you wouldn't necessarily think the guys that are in that team are like oh yeah there's some older guys not that good sorry when I say not that good I mean older guys whose best years are probably behind them is a better way of saying it it's not particularly correct stupid phrase they're international players of course they're all good but yeah you look at those and then you think is that what the team is going to look like in a year's time and the truth is it rarely ever is I mean you could look back at the previous tournament for any team you could look at Brazil you could look at England and then go back to the previous tournament before that and you'd go let's say you take that tournament and go to the end and go okay look at these players who are the sort of players that are always going to be here and you'd pretty much always pick out seven seven guys that are going to be there in the next year or the next World Cup.

56:38And it comes around to it, it's only three or four. And that's just the nature of football. You'll have players that you think are brilliant at one particular moment. And because of injuries, because of development, because of new players coming in, because of things that are often outside of their control, that changes, right? So the truth is we can't make that judgment yet without having that wider lens view. We've only had three matches. So it might look like they're going backwards, but I don't know if we can say that yet. And in terms of the defence specifically, I mean you know you look at people just time moved on isn't it you know you look at Walker for example Maguire, Stones who you know has a problem with injuries that's what happens is a team grows old and I think in a way Southgate's team did get to that point didn't it where it sort of needed to be refreshed but I think there are more questions and answers at the moment when you look at the kind of Tuchel starting XI as to who will be will be playing in a year's time Okay finally Hamza you've been you're going to Slovakia to cover England's under-21s and you've been at St George's Park this week.

57:38You always get good access when you go to cover England's 21s, don't you? You've spoken to Harvey Elliott, Ethan Waniere, been close-proximated to Joe Bellingham, who's obviously followed in his brother's footsteps in making a transfer to Borussia Dortmund. Tell us a bit about your time at St George's Park and England's preparations for the 21s. Yes, so Training Squad was announced a couple of weeks ago and that was a slightly bigger than normal squad because of the Club World Cup basically. So because players that are in that squad could sign for Club World Cup teams, specifically Liam De Lapp and Joe Bellingham, they named a slightly bigger squad knowing that if the clubs wanted to take them, if they moved from Ipswich to Chelsea, then they might not be available.

58:25So they had a slightly bigger than usual squad and in fact a few players such as Rico Lewis, Jamie Gittins were already excluded from that squad because they knew they'd be at the Club World Cup so these guys are regulars for the team so you've had a little bit of turnover which is less than ideal but nonetheless you've got a really exciting group of players still so you still have, a few players are injured as well, so no Adam Wharton sadly he had that concussion in the FA Cup final but you've still got Harvey Elliott, you've still got James McAtee, McAtee's very interesting as well because he was put in this very difficult situation where the club said to him, Manchester City this is, he said, would you like to come with us to the Club World Cup or would you like to go with England to the end of 21 Euros?

59:07And truthfully, that's a really difficult question because... He's captain as well, isn't he? Yeah, he was just named captain. But could you imagine that Pep Guardiola asking you, would you like to come with us, with me, and essentially, would you like your future to be at the club even though you haven't played as much as you would have liked this season? Or do you think, would you like to go away with the national team, the under-21 national team, and then probably think about your future away from the club. And that's a decision he took. And for him and players like him, there could be their own Cole Palmer moment.

59:41And I say this because two years ago, Cole Palmer travelled to Georgia. He was about to move to Chelsea. He had a very good under-21 Euros, broke out, got his minutes after a season where he wasn't playing that much domestically, and then was fantastic. And he took the lead by storm. So there is the potential here. For players like McAtee, Elliot Anderson's in the squad as well. So you've got fantastic depth there. You've got CJ Egan Riley. You've got James Beadle in goal. You don't have Jared Brown, who thinks he's injured. Taylor Hald Bellis, a regular captain, is also injured. But you've got loads of really good talent in this group.

1:00:15They seem to be looking forward to the tournament. Mind you, you mentioned Harvey Elliott. The other day, both he and Tyler Morton, his teammate at Liverpool, seemed a little bit sort of downbeat. and we asked them why and they sort of said essentially this season has been very difficult for them. They've not played as much as they would have liked. They had, Elliot in particular, had lots of minutes a previous season and then only started a few matches in the season that we've just had and he's thinking this is a club that I love but I'm going to have to think about where my future is next season essentially but this is a tournament where they can really sort of put a flare up because they haven't had the minutes domestically and they can say to the other clubs in Europe, come for me, represent the team and get that tournament experience that you think would be very important going into a World Cup as well.

1:01:06If you can take this tournament by storm, put yourself on Thomas Tuchel's radar, then there's a good chance you might be going to the World Cup. But yeah, it's a really exciting team. I'm very excited to see them playing. Lee Carsey's back as manager, obviously. He was manager of the 21s, did the senior team for six matches and has returned. You're a big Carsey fan, aren't you? I am, yes. So we're probably going to see a 4-2-2-2 with lots of rotations and double false nines because Liam Dillap's not in the squad. Yeah. So they've got Stansfield, who most people are familiar with, the Birmingham City striker, but he's more of a sort of, he plays behind the striker for Birmingham City.

1:01:42And I think Kasi sees him more of a sort of left pocket sort of player. So I think, yeah, we're going to have sort of double false nines and rotations that way. It should be really good fun. Just Javier Lea, Only in selfish interest because of Liverpool. 24 years old. It's always a tough one, isn't it? For lads who are in a position they have to go and play. You know, you can see senior guys like Jack Grealish is looking at that. A 29, not playing. Got to probably move away to get game time. This is exactly the same for Harvey Elliott. Probably a little bit more sympathy towards him because, you know.

1:02:20And it's so difficult because you look at the season under Klopp, right, where he played like 36 or so games. He started a lot as well. He had that season, and I remember him saying for a 21s thing as well, he's like, he wanted to go to the Euros. He's like, yeah, I'm putting my hands up. I'm trying my best to be there. And because he hasn't played this season, I mean, he had that moment against PSG as well. And he spoke about that and how it was, he thought that would be his moment. He comes on, scores against PSG, scores, wins the match. And then there's a league match the following, a few days later, he's like, all right, I've done it.

1:02:51I'm going to get in. and he just doesn't and then he's deflated and it's very difficult right because you're trying to do what you can but match intensity training which is to link back to what we started on right so one of the changes that Slott brought in was less intense training to reduce the frequency of injuries from training right which means it's harder to show yourself in those training sessions whether they're not sort of match level training sessions so he said he found that difficult and then when you come on the game's already settled who cares if you score a goal or two if it's 2-0 already, right?

1:03:23You're stat padding, essentially. So then it's hard to really show the manager what you're about in those moments. And more to mention the similar thing as well. People forget about these things as well. You've got to discuss with your family, your friends, your advisors. What's the best thing here? You've got to think about your career, but also being a boyhood fan and then getting your move to the club, getting your minutes and thinking. You would have been thinking last season, I'm going to be the guy for Liverpool for the next half. Nothing worse than seen on benches. matches for the fans why not get that I think Palmer as well was influential in that because there was two or three years ago there was sort of a school of thought where everyone looked at Foden's trajectory and thought the best thing to do if you're a really talented young player you know stick with Guardiola because over time he'll develop you and you'll explode eventually be patient you know just wait your turn but I think now young English players look at Palmer and they think I could be like that you know you give me give me a team where I'm the main man and I play every week I could also suddenly be one of the best players in the world you know so there's a suddenly a new kind of a new example for those young English players you might think actually maybe I should move to play more often OK we'll see if anyone bursts out onto the scene in Slovakia Hamza enjoy Slovakia Tom enjoy your bed or a sleep Tony off to Harry Ramsden's No funny enough I eat far more healthily OK OK we'll be back on Thursday see you then

1:05:15Apple Watch Series 12 Not intended for clinical use or to detect, diagnose, monitor or treat medical conditions. Requires iPhone 11 or later.

1:05:49or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.