Frank set for Spurs while Spalletti exits Italy

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1:41The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

1:51Totally Football Show. Today, Portugal are Nations League champions. Cristiano Ronaldo and Nuno Mendes are the Spain's reign enders. Now, will they be World Cup contenders? Plus, we talk England-Andorra a bit, a Spurs cancelling season three of Ange, post-Postacoglu what awaits, Italy's Spalletti Junction, and much more in this Totally Football Show.

2:25Monday the 9th of June. Hello, listener. Today's show features Jay Harris. Hey, Jay. Hey, Jimbo. You all good? Yeah, I'm very well. Lovely to see you. Great to see you in Hamburg, Sib, Stafford Bloor. Hello back, James Richardson. And a little bit of Adrian Clarke for us today as well. Quite a lot, I'm hoping. Hi, Adrian. I'm here. Yeah, hello. You all right? Yeah, excited to get your take on the Spurs madness, Adrian. And so much more, so much more. Among the topics, naturally, we'll be talking about will be Italy, and their brilliant start to World Cup qualifying. James Horncastle will be along a little bit later on for some of that.

3:11Jay, even as we speak, you've got your brow furrowed, waiting for updates on the ongoing situation in North London. What's the latest? This situation in North London has been ruling my life over this weekend. Obviously, Ange Postakoglu was sacked on Friday. It's a decision that I think a lot of people felt had been coming for a long time, but then there'd just been complete radio silence after that final game of the season. It was two weeks where no one really knew what was going on. Ange Postakoglu was on holiday in Greece. Tottenham's chairman, Daniel Levy, was on holiday as well. And the fan base was just sort of left in limbo.

3:48And then everything's ramped up since Friday. evening the statement came out at 5pm that Postercogl had been sacked and Thomas Frank was the leading contender and then myself and David Ornstein just reported for The Athletic in the last hour or two that Spurs have now made official direct contact with Brentford but there's around a £10m buyout slash compensation fee that they need to pay to get him out of Brentford but it looks like everything's sort of speeding ahead towards that conclusion and Thomas Frank will become the next Spurs head coach. Possibly by the time this drops to listeners, would you say, Jay?

4:22No, no, no. I think we're safe enough to continue recording without being surprised midway through. All right. We'll talk about much more on that and what it means maybe for Spurs shortly. But shall we kick off with this? This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network.

4:58Portuguese commentators celebrating there as Álvaro Morata's spot kick saved by Diogo Costa and boom Portugal are two-time winners of the Nations League beating highly rated Spain crikey who watched this? who was thrilled? at Portugal who's now clocking them up as maybe contenders for next year in North America. They've got to be contenders, haven't they? When you look at the depth of the squad, the quality of the individuals, and the fact that they sort of held into the game against that brilliant, talented Spanish side, they stuck at it, didn't they? And in the end, won on penalties. Look, they've got really good individuals.

5:42I think Nuno Mendes had a terrific tournament. I mean, he was absolutely brilliant. He, for PSG in the Champions League final, he kind of sacrificed himself by staying back and being more of a left-side centre-back. But we saw in the Nations League tournament how effective he is going forward. And yeah, I think the way he nullified Jamal and then scored that goal and then assisted for Ronaldo's equaliser was truly outstanding, really. So yeah, they've got to be contenders. Spain absolutely will be, but they do need to obviously improve on their defending which was a little bit loose I think across those two games Well it's 15 goals conceded in their last six so that's an ongoing issue for the Spanish but Mendes, so much excitement about him and his opposite number at PSG Hakimi going forward but as you say, shutting down Yamal in the big Yamal vs CR7 contest Seb, you're nodding sagely yeah i just it's so to me one of the most interesting trends in modern football is the power that comes from fullback and i was having a conversation with someone the other day about we're talking about um jeremy fringpong um and his defensive abilities of you know in relation to kind of his move to liverpool and it seems like defensive abilities and fullbacks now it's just it's not really the conversation it's the level of thrust and the way that they can change the attacking gears of his side and you'd almost say like particularly with Hakimi if you think about kind of a ranking of of world fullbacks I would say I would make him number one on the right hand side I'm not even sure who number two is that's how clear he feels to the rest of the competition I'm happy to hear entrants and contenders maybe Trent Alexander-Arnold on a very very good day but to have those two that's almost the template for how you have attacking football now is to have players who are exactly like those two.

7:38It's such an amazing privilege. Absolutely. Cristiano Ronaldo we all had a chuckle of him in the Euros but that's eight goals now in his last nine Nations League appearances and he did Cristiano Ronaldo things in both the semi-final and this game here Jay. Yeah it's the age old debate with Ronaldo isn't it? He sometimes just wanders through games. The old age debate actually. He sometimes wanders through games so listlessly, but then when he pops up later on in games and scores, is that enough to sort of ignore what else he does? I actually thought it was quite interesting that when Nuno Mendes scores, he sort of just blows past Ronaldo.

8:20And Ronaldo doesn't really move into the box, which is what you'd want your striker to do. And then he almost looks a bit moody that Mendes didn't pass it to him. So he can still be strange at times, but he will always have that just magnetic ability to get a goal out of nowhere. The way he still attacks the back post and stuff like that, it's timeless. So it seems like he's still going to be there for the World Cup next year. I think this is his third trophy with Portugal now. So fair play to him. Even when we doubt him, he still delivers. Of course, at some point, he will not be Portugal's number nine anymore.

8:55He won't be their starting centre forward, probably in 10 years time when players a lot younger than him have already retired uh but we'll see you can't really rule anything out with him these days do you know do you know um do you remember like in medieval times when an army was was trying to um was attacking i don't remember it personally but do you remember do you remember the anecdotes yes do you remember the anecdotes and you'd kind of wheel a catapult into position and just fire stuff at the castle that's ronaldo now right he's kind of like he can do a lot of damage but you do have to wheel him into position and then just, you know, and hope that there's a lack of mobility around him in response.

9:3122 touches in the course of the final. That doesn't feel like a lot. I mean, one of them was a key touch. Doesn't matter, does it? Doesn't matter. When you can sort of, you know, knock one into the back and hit on the volley as cleanly as he did, get in the right position at the right time. Doesn't matter. It's a really nice bit of movement from Ronaldo at the back post because he kind of goes one way and then out. Does Cucharella. And so it's not just a tap in. And he's actually manoeuvred himself into that position. So it's that kind of, sorry, I'm going to indulge a horrible cliche, but it's one of those things that you can't, you don't just teach that.

10:04It has it as an instinct. And I suppose that's what allows him to keep playing. Can you not teach that? I mean, it feels like whenever they talk about it in commentary, I think that's the one bit I could manage. But could you, hang on, James Richardson. Hang on, hang on. Like, let's crack back against this burst of ego. but could you do it in the split second that you would need to do it to be effective you could talk about it and we could all talk about it like I reckon you know I could back myself to do that but then in a way that evades a Premier League left back probably not probably not you also have to have to read the game extremely well because you can make that movement but if you're not aware of where the ball is going to land then it's sort of irrelevant if you're just going back and forth so it's that combination of intelligence to see how the play is progressing and then the intelligence to try to trick the defender with the double movement.

10:57You can teach it. I've spent many a training session where coaches are working with strikers on the movements they make inside the box. So it's something that coaches definitely work on but the intuitive knack is what I think Seb's talking about. That probably separates your real goal munchers from your average 10 to 15 a season guys. Yeah, they've just got this unspoken instinct. If Seb had his time again, that is how he would articulate that. Yeah, absolutely. Ronaldo's munched his way to almost 1 ,000 goals now and no doubt looking to add to that next year in the States, but he won't be going along to the Club World Cup this summer, possibly in deference to his advancing years.

11:45just to point out that Jamal who represents the other end of the age spectrum and that clash was built up a lot ahead of this game Jamal's father is younger than Ronaldo. Jamal is only three years older than Ronaldo's eldest son so just crazy just crazy. Anyway, we rate Portugal then. Adrian's bigger than Seb and Jay, you agree or is there still a little bit of Roberto Martinez, I'm not sure of course as we sort of alluded to there's always going to be an element of they'll come a game at some point in a tournament where the smartest decision probably is to drop Ronaldo and whether Martinez does that might prove to be either a big success or a big failure but you just look at that Portugal team and who they brought off the bench you've got Gonzalo Ramos, Rafael Liao, Neves, Diogo Jota that's like some serious strength and depth that the other teams don't possess that quality.

12:42I'd say at the World Cup next year, there's probably maybe only five or six teams who will have a comparable amount of squad depth. So that's what you need in competitions, especially when there's going to be so many games in a short space of time. So yeah, there definitely should be contenders. So Spain need to do defending a bit better and Portugal many congratulations. Jury's still a little bit out as regards next year. We'll be talking about some other teams hoping to make their way to the World Cup, which starts almost exactly in a year's time from today, Monday. A little bit later on, but next up, let's get an update on the breaking news.

13:16Thomas Frank to Tottenham.

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14:44This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kaye and the very best football writers around. All right, Jay, so as you mentioned, on Friday, Spurs showed Ants Pascoglu the door shortly after he'd finally brought them. 16 days, was it, after he bought the Europa League glory? Yep, 16 days. He was, I was excited to read in your piece on theathletic.com, the second longest Spurs manager since Harry Redknapp left in 2012. Good Lord. Yeah, so they all seem to last a similar amount of time.

15:28I think Mourinho and Conte pretty much nearly hit the exact same number of around 60 games. So normally by about 19, 20 months into their time in charge of Spurs, Daniel Levy gets itchy feet and decides he wants to get rid of them. the difference on this occasion was that Spurs had this Europa League carrot dangling in front of them and I think obviously Mourinho got sacked a couple of days before the Carabao Cup final and I just think Spurs also knew that they couldn't really finish a third season in a few years with another caretaker manager it's just an awful look and they decided to go all in on Postacoglu and Postacoglu changed his way of playing in the Europa League they became a bit more it's a bit of a dirty word for Postacoglu but pragmatic it's true they were really defensively disciplined against Eintracht Frankfurt me and Seb were both there in that game we thought Spurs were going to lose produced a really disciplined 1-0 performance Bodo glimped you know they should have beaten comfortably considering the greater resources they have and they did and then they beat Manchester United in the final and I think the outpouring of emotion from players fans everybody after that game did make you sit up and think maybe Postacoglu will go into a third season if any manager deserves to be given a second chance.

16:43Maybe it's him. Then Postacoglumus added to his own mythology by making that joke about the third season's always better than the second, only to then realise that often main characters are killed in the third season of popular television shows. But what I thought would happen is that Spurs would mull over the decision for a week and then sack him. I didn't expect it would take two weeks. I think it's been a bit of a damaging period because, you know, Spurs are looking at their rivals like Manchester United signing Mateus Cunha, going after Brian and Bumo, Chelsea signing Liam De Lapp, Liverpool getting Frimpong, going after Wurtz.

17:24And Spurs have just been in stasis, basically. They're letting all of their rivals who already finished, apart from Manchester United, comfortably ahead of them, get even more ground. But it looks like finally things are heading in the right direction. Thomas Frank, we expect he's going to be appointed now, as I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. And it's going to be interesting to see what his version of Spurs looks like and if he's backed in the transfer market and who he wants to keep in that squad and who he wants to sell in that squad. It seems to be that every two years Spurs do this and they embark on another rebuild and they embark on a new project manager.

18:01Will it work this time? Who knows? Will it work this time, Adrian? I mean first and foremost I do think that Postacoglio had to go they finished 17th it's dreadful and they won a trophy playing a brand of football that he really found pretty grotesque he couldn't have carried on with that style of football he had to surely have reverted back to Angebor which took them to 17th so he had to go Thomas Frank I think has definitely earned his chance pound for pound an excellent manager I think that in terms of performance relative to wages he's top of the league every single year Thomas Frank so that that is to be admired he's shown himself to be a really versatile coach as well I watched his Brentford side in the championship a lot and they were excellent to watch they were a high possession team attack minded side it was you know good football and then he adapted in the Premier League realised I don't have the budget to compete playing that style of football in the Premier League.

19:04So I'll go to something different. So I don't think we should judge him on the sort of direct style that he's implemented in West London. So, yeah, I think he ticks a lot of boxes. It's just, there are two question marks. Can he handle the sort of bigger earner players? You know, because he's a sort of quite holistic guy. You know, I think he's quite a charismatic, nice person. In these bigger dressing rooms, you get less nice people sometimes. So how will he handle that? And also is a very methodical tactician, in my opinion, someone that has really thrived on having a whole week to prepare against teams that have had European football.

19:46And he's got a very good record in those big games. He's obviously going to have quick turnarounds, two, three days to get those game plans right. And that's something he's just not used to. So there's a couple of question marks, but he definitely deserves a shot at a bigger club. and, you know, in the Champions League, you know, it's really exciting. And look, the only way is up, surely. Spurs can't finish 17th again, can they? So I think it's a good time to take over Tottenham. OK, cut and clip that, Prusa Charlie. Date marked June 9th, 2025. Seb, you've seen a lot of Spurs in your time. Thumbs up or thumbs down on this?

20:27The decision to sack Ange, the decision, if so, it proves, to go with Thomas Frank? I've got some thumbs up with conditions. The only thing I've got to add to what Jay and Aide said is that I do hope that Spurs know what they're appointing or at least understand why it's worked so well at Brentford. Because I think when you talk about Brentford, you think of probably one of the smartest football clubs in Europe in terms of its ability to use its resources well. I don't think you say the same thing about Tottenham. And so the evaluation is not just, is Thomas Frank a good coach? Is he an adaptable coach?

21:00Does he work well with players? and can he make the most of what resources he has? Clearly the answer to all of those questions is yes. It's can Spurs replicate that at a higher scale? That's the question I have. And so if they are, then absolutely a thumbs up. But if they're not, it's just another one day Ramos if they can't. So let's see. What's the big difference at Spurs then to Brentford in terms of how that's going to impact on Thomas Frank's work? I would say executive alignment. So everybody pulling in the same direction, everybody understanding what their role is within the system. also appointments making sense in terms of who is in control of other departments so for instance um at spurs sporting director johan lang um short a very data-led person we've seen that with some of his signings before very low noise person as well doesn't celebrate his own job performance in the way that other people in that job can um but then of course on top of him um having seen Scott Munn leave the club earlier this summer Fabio Paratici is supposedly coming back Paratici is not a data guy Paratici is a relationships connections deals guy so how do you reconcile that coach with that sort of ideological direction maybe it works perfectly but that would be a concern that I have broadly though this does sound like good news for Spurs after what Michael Cox described as the worst managerial performance of all time in the Premier League, finishing 17th by a manager who'd been in charge for a full season.

22:26To bring in one of the brightest prospects, certainly in this league. Yeah, I'm just going to follow up on something Seb said about executive alignment. Thomas Frank's been at Brentford for nine years nearly. Two as an assistant coach to Dean Smith and then nearly seven as his head coach. So he's had the same people working above him for pretty much all of that time. Phil Giles, the director of football, Matthew Benham, the owner, and they all get on extremely well. And I did a piece to celebrate Phil Giles' 10th anniversary at Brentford last month. And a lot of people spoke about how he's very good at separating his feelings or the emotional aspect of football from what the stats and what the facts are telling you.

23:06And the perfect example of that is, I think it was in 2015, Brentford hired someone called Marina Steickhausen and it went terribly wrong. hired him in June and he was sacked by September because what they were seeing on the training ground and the underlying numbers was awful. Thomas Frank loses eight of his first 10 games as Brentford head coach. Many other clubs would have pulled the plug, but they saw that the underlying data was good. They knew that the squad had a really good relationship with Thomas Frank and they kept him. If Thomas Frank loses eight of his first 10 games at Spurs, he won't last long.

23:39He also didn't win any of his first eight games when he was in charge of Brondby. So he doesn't always get off to the best possible start. And because of the difficult emotions involved in sacking Posta Koglu, he really needs a quick start to get the Spurs fan base on side as quickly as possible. So it's a very tricky situation that he's going to have to navigate. And then what Adrian said about the step up in the Champions League, playing twice a week. I think Brentford played maybe 42 games last season and Spurs were on 60. so it's a massive step up in in terms of demands and people will hear all the time now one of Thomas Frank's favorite phrases which is um the 24-hour rule so whether Brentford win or lose they have 24 hours to process their emotions and their feelings after a game and I just think I don't know if you can do that if you're playing on a Sunday um against Liverpool for example at half four and you've got an away game in the Champions League on Wednesday as much as I love that idea I just don't think it will will work in principle and and sorry to keep rambling on but I think one of the really good things Frank did at Brentford was he sort of weaponized this idea that they were an underdog you know he spoke about they didn't have they had a no heads policy he always told the the squad to be confident but humble and I think that was reflected in the players that they were signing they were signing players who are undervalued by other teams or not wanted by other teams and they were sort of all growing organically on this magical journey it's very different at Spurs you're going to go are you saying there are d**kheads at Spurs I'm not saying I'm not saying that I'm saying there's a completely different pressure at Spurs if if they lose five of his first 10 games he can't really turn around and say oh you know this is a bit of a journey people are going to want to see progress immediately and expect that and how he deals with that will be very intriguing okay I think one of my hopes is that the club have all the intelligence to recognize what Jay has just said in that the situation he's inheriting is quite difficult emotionally a lot of people are going to be with Postacoglu and are going to are going to hold on to that for a while and so that means that he's got to be given enough time to prepare his team for the new season you can't have a situation where the club are trying to do decisive business in the last you know in August you've got to recognize that he's someone that needs preparation time he's someone that's going to need a lot of players to be able to kind of produce his best to replicate the kind of the time on the training ground that he had at Brentford when you're still on a Champions League schedule and you've got to give him a chance to kind of compete with that that Ange hangover for want of a better expression you've got to be fair to him because at the moment Tottenham are in a kind of situation where it's almost like when Chelsea managers used to fail it didn't really reflect on them you can have that argument at Postacogli if you like but there's certainly um there's certainly mitigation for some of the things that happen in terms of the way that squad was equipped last year i'm not saying that he's not complicit in the injuries and all that kind of stuff but clearly one of the kind of the threads that binds all of these tottenham coaches and their success and failure is were they supported in the right way and the answer has been no on quite a few occasions so that has to be rectified too and it's not just about changing a coach and think it's all going to go better because it won't be like that.

26:54Need to war chest. I hear you say it. Well, in a second then, amid a busy time for player transfers, let's have a chat about who he might be welcoming to Spurs, if indeed he does become manager, and all the other hot transfer news.

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30:11This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. And Bomo, Niso Ekes in the middle, Damsgaard on the edge of the area, and Bomo! So Jay, Brian and Bomo want to leave Brentford and go to Man United, but Man United so far haven't got enough money to make that happen. Is this situation impacted by the fact that Bruno Fernandes hasn't gone to Saudi Arabia? So, has that limited United's means? Don't think so. I think they've liked Mbwema for a long time anyways Firstly, this is sort of bad timing for Brentford really, isn't it? They've had a mental two weeks at the start of this window when you think about it Their first-choice goalkeeper, Mark Flecken has already moved to Bayer Leverkusen and they've signed Kavine Kelleher from Liverpool Their best player last season and someone who's been an incredible player for the last six years and Brian Mbwema wants to leave and is probably going to go to Manchester United and their head coach is being poached So it's probably, I'm glad I'm not their director of football at this point in time, because it's probably a bit relentless.

31:15I think Brentford are well within their rights to hold out for as much money as possible with the Buomo. He's got a year left on his contract, but there's a 12-month option. So he's basically got two years left. They've got control over that. He's just scored 20 goals in the Premier League the season before. I think he got 11 goals in the league, but he was out injured with ankle ligament damage for three months. but otherwise his trajectory was he was going to finish the season really strongly then as well. So you've got an incredible performer, goalscorer, who can play in multiple positions.

31:45He can play centrally, he can play on the right wing. I've even seen him as a right wing back, which does make me slightly worried Man United will turn him into an auxiliary right wing back. So I think Brentford, yeah, they have to demand a club record sale. Is there any way that a Thomas Frank-led Spurs could maybe step in? I'm not totally convinced by that. I also think, to give you all a little bit of background, Thomas Rank will inherit Brennan Johnson at Spurs. And Thomas Rank really likes Brennan Johnson, tried to sign him at Brentford on quite a few occasions. And I do wonder if he'll quite enjoy working with Brennan Johnson on the right wing.

32:24And I think bringing Inge Mbwema would just sort of muddy the waters a little bit and it'd be a little bit confusing. Look, I'm sure he wouldn't turn it down, but he also knows that he's getting someone in Brendan Johnson that he likes and he values anyways. Is he a good fit for Manchester United's system? Because we know that's not changing. You see, I like Kunja as a fit because all of his best work... I mean, I've heard Man U fans saying Kunja's going to play out front. For me, no. He does all of his best work as a left 10. If you look at everything he did for Wolves, it's when he played in a left number 10 position.

32:57He's a perfect fit there for me. I don't like his attitude. I think they might have made a mistake on that. But stylistically, he's a great fit. And Burma, I don't know, because that right side, number 10, that's not really him. He likes to fly down from wider areas or drive in from wider. And that's not really where Amarim uses that player. For me, Ahmed Diallo is the perfect guy to play as the right side, number 10, not Brian and Burma. you know if they're looking at him as the striker then that's a risk because he hasn't really played that many games as a lone striker it's often as a two with Joanne Wisser so I don't see it as a natural fit, I really don't I think there are other clubs out there that would be miles better for Brian and Bromo but you know it's up to him, he's obviously been seduced Newcastle United was the one which made total sense I know Jacob Murphy's had a fantastic season but I think they've been after him for a long time and you could see that working it's a club that's on an upwards trajectory um whereas Manchester United I completely agree I'm just like I said my my worry is that you take someone who's become such a creative and attacking force and you put him at right wing back and you get him tracking you know Noni Madweke or who or whoever's playing at left wing Jeremy Doku that's my nightmare scenario I don't want to see his talent stalled by United but hey maybe he'll take them to new heights maybe so Adrian what do you make of the other moves going on for example Chelsea who have now confirmed Liam De Lappe joining them as their new number nine I really like Liam De Lappe and he he kind of suits Chelsea's model or the model that they've had when they've had successful teams of having a sort of strong number nine but but I don't in the here and now I don't think Nicholas Jackson is as bad as some people kind of paint him out to be like I think he can he might start as number two behind Nicholas Jackson I think that's a that's up for debate basically you know because he's a good player Liam De Laap he carries the ball beautifully he can finish he can score different types of goals but it's a heck of a step up isn't it to be Chelsea's first choice centre forward and and for me Nicholas Jackson really stretched opponents fantastically and yeah his finishing is really erratic but but Jackson's link-up play with Palmer is actually pretty good so I think that those two would just have competition and that and that's really good for Chelsea I think what's really interesting is that Mareska basically hoovering up all the players he worked with at Manchester City um you know because he didn't work with I think he worked with Palmer at Manchester City um Lavia Palmer and De Lapp played yeah De Lapp was there wasn't he yeah and then there's talk of Jamie Gittins coming in the guy from Dortmund I think that's Seb is that agreed now?

35:50Yeah there's an agreement between player and Chelsea but there's no agreement between Chelsea and Dortmund as of yet I think that happens but there's still a little bit of a way to go hope that maybe he joins Chelsea for the Club World Cup but yeah we'll see still a bit of a growing to do Isn't it quite funny how that 15 years ago was considered tapping up and now it's just par for the course like everybody does it like we don't even consider it capping up anymore but back in the day that's exactly what it was yeah i think i think it's kind of a way of reducing time wasting if you can't if you're not going to be able to make an agreement with the player don't even bother and i think it's a way of moving through the market a little bit more efficiently so that you can um so you know what's available so you know what's realistic so you can just go and do it but i think he's um i think he's a wonderful player like i know jamie gittins had um a bit of a tough time in the second half of the season in the bundesliga but he was asked to be a first team regular for the first time in his career, suffered a little bit with the physical requirement of having to play Bundesliga, Champions League, and be kind of the focus of Dortmund's attack, and the focus of an attack within a team that wasn't particularly stable under Nira Shaheen.

36:58And then when Nijka Karvac comes in in February, he's not really in the best place physically, his confidence has been dented, and also Karvac prefers a sort of slightly more centre-based running player. in Adeyemi and wanted a player who was a kind of a slightly different stage of his development because the situation was so dire at the club and yeah he was kind of a bit of a man at a time but none of that should distract from just how talented he is just such a direct attacking player is he a better player than Nani Maduweke said because I've got to be honest I'm not a Maduweke fan well I like he played well for England the other day but yeah yeah he did I mean I think there's more to Jamie Gittin's game I think you can beat a defender off the left and right foot I think the release of his shots is quicker I think there's a great amount of power that you can generate in small space in the penalty box I think as a kind of a left to right touchline to penalty box player he's incredibly dangerous when he's confident only caveat he needs the right player behind him because he's not a defensive player yet he hasn't built that side of his game so he needs to be supported in a way that he probably wasn't at Dortmund last season so um you know there's potential to tap but he's uh he's very very exciting very talented Chelsea also look like they're bringing in Mike Mignon according to uh sources in Italy who's a terrific goalkeeper and quite possibly an upgrade on their current situation between not quite possibly also heading out of San Siro to Gianni Reindeers who's going to Man City who've been pretty busy.

38:33Ryan Aitnori heading in from Wolves. Ryan Cherky perhaps most exciting. We didn't really talk about what he did for France in that extraordinary semi-final with Spain of the Nations League when Spain were what? 4-0 up when he came on? 4-1? Magical play. And extraordinary performance when he sort of strolled on and thought well they're having a kick around I'll join in three goals later. Not all of them scored by him but he certainly played a par. Anyway I guess the The worry with this is given how Pep stroke Man City have affected this kind of freewheeling talent in the past, what do you make?

39:09This is a question actually Andrew Turmer asks, how will Pep handle a team full of soloists after his greedish experience? Cherki, Doku, Marmouche, Savinia, Rangers and Haaland, all very fun, but offer nothing without the ball. Don't agree with that. Nothing's a bit harsh. Certainly on Marmouche, I think that's very, very harsh on Marmouche. I think he is a fun player, but he's also he's become a very hardworking, talented player in both directions. What about the pep impact on their playing style? Yeah, there's that habit of kind of sawing off all the kind of the fun frilly bits. But I don't necessarily think that kind of Grealish should be the model for what happens with Ryan Shirky.

39:47I think there are other factors there. I think there's a little bit of a personality issue, clearly. And I don't know. I think it can go the other way, too. I think you can kind of distill all of that essence into a really, really fun, attractive player. I mean, look at what he did with Bernardo Silva. David Silva played some wonderful football under Guardiola too before he left. So go one with the other. I mean, there is a slight cultural jarring to it because you kind of want to see Scherke play in like a very, very flawed team where he's the sort of the Regalme-like genius in the middle of it who just walks around the pitch and does whatever he wants with the ball.

40:24But he's going to Manchester City for a reason, I'm sure. He's a brilliant player to watch. What I love about him, James, is he plays with personality. Like he plays with real... He's an individual, isn't he? He would just be free and do what he wants to do when the ball is with him. When he, though? Well, this is the issue I have with anyone that Pep signs that's an attacker because he's so intense in terms of what he requires from the players positionally. He fills them with so much information. Now, some players can handle that and still be free and go and do their thing. I'd say that Doku and Mahmou should be two good examples of that.

41:00But there are certain players that it overloads them and they suddenly feel that they can't play with the same freedom as before. So that's the only sort of question mark I'd have over it. I mean, talent-wise, he's definitely good enough, Cherky, to thrive for City. Is he robust enough for the Premier League? Probably. but some people would have it down as a minor question mark as well but it's a really exciting signing an absolute bargain fee by the way I know that Leon is sort of having to offload but City getting a very clear run at a player of immense talent for very little money I think It's one of those anomalies isn't it because it was almost to the point where he was available for so little money that you thought something must be wrong with him because I remember Dortmund tried to sign him in January and that went right to the end of the window Dortmund quite confident And John Texter went on French TV and said, hey, he's not going to Dortmund.

41:53And it was kind of, I think Dortmund had assumed there was some kind of, not necessarily release clause, but some kind of mechanism in that contract that Texter said no. I'm not sure of the ins and outs of that situation. But it seemed like something has happened in the space of a couple of months where people have either been convinced or, you know, the trajectory of his career has completely changed. Interesting. It is going to be interesting to see how he gets on. uh Dortmund by the way have now signed have they Joe Billingham yes indeed yeah that's completed yeah yeah yeah okay he's following in his brother's footsteps there well that was that's it that's an interesting situation in itself because obviously one of the arguments for him not going to Borussia Dortmund is that well that's a hard act to follow but Dortmund Dortmund threw the kitchen sink at it so Niko Kovac Sebastian Kiel and Lars Ricken all went over to talk to him Hans-Joachim Vazka CEO met with the player and then in a last ditch attempt to kind of to stave off Eintracht Frankfurt's interest Sebastian Kiel went over to Ibiza where the Bellingham family were on holiday to have another chat and he chose to go there and and sure I mean Eintracht's quite a difficult club to turn down at the moment if you're a player of that age and profile because I would say in Germany nobody has a better reputation for accelerating talent and you know giving players that step up but um yeah he's embraced the challenger following his brother which is um but as hard as it's gonna get i think but i think i i think as long as people appreciate that there is a slightly different profile to job they're not the same footballer he's a very good player in his own right he might what's the difference seb i think job is a little bit more of a conservative player um i always thought jude bellingham's best position at dortmund was to be free to be almost kind of like a free roaming 10 to just be given license to to do impact games in whatever way he wanted to but with a restriction of not trying to be every midfield position at the same time, like not be a 6 8 and a 10 all in one game, if he was just a 10 or an attacking 8, great whereas I think Bellingham's junior plays at a you know, with a little bit more reservation Yeah, I've got slight reservations about Joe Bellingham for that fee I've got to say, well I've seen a fair bit of him in the Championship with Sunderland and he is a really good player but he plays quite slow and he can take the extra touches.

44:12He can be quite laborious, maybe. I don't know, it's a bit harsh maybe to say that, but he can be a little bit slow on the ball. And maybe that's why he's avoided the Premier League because I think that that would find you out. So maybe it's the right stepping stone for him to just continue his development in a league that's maybe slightly less intense. But I think he will have to sharpen up because the Bundesliga will ask different questions of him. So before we leave the transfer section of this podcast, what's the latest on Florian Wirtz to Liverpool? Yeah, so Liverpool have made two bids for him.

44:49Both have been turned down, but there's an expectation now that this gets done. Florian Wirtz certainly wants to play for Liverpool. I think he'd be a great fit for Liverpool. I have no problem with the fee. I know people are kind of lolling and laugh, cry, emojuring online, but the talent is the talent, Jimbo. you pay the price for it and he's among the very best players I've seen live that's a list that includes Luka Modric so it's a pretty esteemed company and yeah I expect it will get done also remember that whilst for certain clubs there's a little bit of time pressure because they want to get everything done before the Club World Cup Liverpool are in no rush nor are Leverkusen either like it's relationship between the two clubs seems to be pretty good the negotiations will just progress and I'm sure next time 10 10 10 instead of sober sly yeah i think so aid because i think like his habit is to play as a 10 he is he has a tendency to drift to kind of the shallow left positions and play from there um but he is just i i think the best way of describing him is a kind of a is an attacking pivot in that area um so much goes through him that's what he wants he wants the involvement he wants the license to be aggressive and ambitious with the ball you put him in the middle of the pitch in the middle of a team and allow a lot of the attacking work to go through him and I have no concerns about him at Liverpool or in the Premier League.

46:08Sounds terrific. He's a brilliant player. Sounds a very exciting prospect for Liverpool fans. Man City we hear beefing up their line up ahead of the next run at the title. Other teams are going to be facing a bit of competition. Hey Adrian. Anyway, we'll move on because there's loads to go in the transfer window. Next up, let's hear about what happened to Italy away in Oslo last Friday night.

46:38This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC Podcast Network. On Wednesday, it's going to be exactly one year until the World Cup begins in Mexico City. Big congratulations to Uzbekistan, Jordan and South Korea, who qualified last week. It's the 12th time the Koreans have made it to the big show. First time for Uzbekistan and Jordan, so that's going to be exciting. Are Italy going to be there, though? Will the Azuri make it to a World Cup after quite literally missing out on the last two? Their qualifying hasn't started well on Friday night. They went to Oslo and got beaten 3-0.

47:31It's the combination we love to see. Our two superstars and we're down with three against Italy. James Horncastle joins us. James, first of all, there's 3-0 in Oslo on Friday. I mean, this is the best Norway ever, though, isn't it? This is a Norway team that's going to beat a lot of teams. Yeah, probably the best since the 90s, certainly the early 90s, when Italy played them at the World Cup in the US. Um, so yeah, I mean, look, this, this game was always going to be tricky, um, because of this generation of Norwegian players that they've got. Um, it was made trickier by kind of preparations for Italy because they had a number of injuries.

48:17So yeah, Moisey Ken, who was, you know, had the best season of his life, scored more than 20 goals in all competitions. He was ruled out through injury. You had a couple of the big centre-backs like Riccardo Calafiore, who this time last year really turned heads at the Euros with his performances. He was ruled out, as was Alessandro Bongiorno, who won the league title with Napoli. and then you had Spalletti being Spalletti which is falling out with someone um on the on the eve of the game so um basically he he told Francesco Acerbi the inter-center back that he wanted him to be in the squad um and then in his first press conference accused Acerbi of ghosting him um and saying that you know he had not responded and so then Acerbi did respond by basically going on social media and saying in no uncertain terms that he didn't really get on with Spalletti and yeah it was nothing to do with the national team loves playing for Italy but he wasn't going to play for the national team as long as Spalletti was in charge which turns out wasn't for much longer yeah indeed not interesting that Roberto Mangini chose to like a chair of his post yeah again which you know having had this kind of introductory press conference to this round the qualifiers where Spalletti immediately kind of went on the attack against the Ceredubi.

49:39You then have this sort of pre-match flash interview with Sky in Italy where, you know, he'd noticed his predecessor, Roberto Mancini, had liked the Ceredubi's post and then just sort of said, well, I hope that Mancini's phone has been hacked. You know, I wouldn't want to believe that my predecessor would be doing this. And yeah, so all of that. Look, yesterday when Spalletti did a press conference, even though he'd already been sacked, he did say, look, I have no problems with the players. I haven't lost the dressing room here. And got really kind of antsy, as is his kind of default, when a journalist kind of said, have you lost the dressing room?

50:25And he said, come on, men, names, surnames, you know which players have I lost but the the the wisdom of taking on a player like a chaired bee when you know most of the kind of leadership group of that Italy team are interplayers so teammates of a chaired bee you'd question uh the wisdom of doing that uh before such a big game so issues with this happening off the field what about Italy's performance on it well they were three nil down at half time which you know I mean it's one thing to lose a game like this 3-0 but to be down and out so quickly um was yeah unacceptable i would say you know what there have been so many extremes you've kind of seen like uh spiletti uh his italy team kind of reflect the kind of own his own kind of worst febrile kind of character really because um there have been some moments where you could really get behind this italy and believe in them um you know like for example sort of last september when uh they beat france 3-1 in paris first time they won in in france in 70 years and you know if you wanted to be optimistic you could have said oh that was the beginning of spoletti's italy because let's not forget how he got the job um he got the job because roberto mancini kind of came up with an excuse to leave um and then a few days later signed with Saudi Arabia and that was halfway through the qualifiers for the Euros England were already far and away out in front and we're going to top the group and so there was a lot of kind of tension already for Spalletti you know who you know first first international break that he took uh took over um all the fans were saying you need to drop Gio Donnarumma um second international get-together he had police basically came into his training ground to talk to sandra tenali and nicolo fagioli about betting on football and they were both banned and then third international get-together was uh you have to play ukraine if you lose this game you're not going to the euros so i have some sympathy for him not having a lot of time and that's why i was kind of behind the decision not to sack him at the euros last year after they lost to switzerland but um it does now feel like this is has definitely kind of run its course The feeling that he was never really a manager Though hugely gifted, suited to running a national team With the limited involvement with the players that that involves And the huge emphasis on personal relationships Not his strong point from what I'm hearing A tense situation when he took over Not a great one for whoever comes in now Italy currently lying fourth in the group Although admittedly they have several games in hand They are fully nine points though Behind group leaders Norway who's it going to be who takes over the reins well at the moment it's between claudio ranieri and stefano pioli our favorite is claudio ranieri um you know ranieri had an incredible um seven or eight months after coming out of retirement to bail out his old club roma um you know i mean poor claudio no one will let him retire um you know i mean he was supposed to be just like sort of looking after the grandkids um going on cruises with his wife uh and then roma were like you're the only guy before that caliary was one last job no i'll do one last job at caliary yeah he gave them up roma okay i'll do one last job of roma italy and um and so yeah i mean and there was this kind of quite nice thing like last week where uh he did formally move upstairs at roma where he was like, I'm hiring Giampiero Gasparini as my replacement.

54:15And, you know, kind of showed Gasparini around the training ground. And certainly people within Roma felt that Ranieri would be a kind of really good influence on Gasparini, who a little bit like Spalletti, has a very combustible character and is very fiery with the media. And now they're sort of negotiating with him to like can you please stay on as an executive whilst you do um this national team role so that's it but you know remember how discredited uh Ranieri was when he took a national team job the last time which was you know he was in charge of Greece didn't last long I think they lost to the Faroe Islands lost to the Faroe Islands Faroe Islands not in this group though so there's that and then Gary Lineker kind of was like this guy should never be near the Leicester job I'm probably putting words in Gary Lineker's mouth fair, but there was certainly some consternation that Ranieri got that Leicester job and then obviously the greatest story ever told in Premier League history was Leicester winning the title.

55:17So I feel bad at James that he's taking this job because this job has made fools out of very, very good managers recently. And Claudio's age, having already retired, does he really need the inevitable hassle that will come with this job? Let's see. It's Moldova this evening as we record. Italy's second game in qualifying. Italy basically need to win all their remaining games and win them by many, many goals to boost their goal difference before they take on Norway at the end of qualifying. We shall see. It was kind of weird that Spalletti himself was the one who announced that he'd been fired.

55:57Isn't that normally what the Italian FA would have done? Yeah, I think this just shows what a state the Italian Football Federation is in, because, you know, a lot of people online are kind of saying, ah, come on, Spalletti, what, you know, he's completely inadequate for this job. You know, we've seen all the worst sides of his character. You know, I mean, ultimately, the Italian Football Federation has been, yeah, the president of it has been in charge for when they last failed to get into the World Cup in 2022. two um they're up against it now um and you know sort of he did his own media appearance um the morning of sunday and kind of said oh spalletti what an extraordinary guy such a gentleman a real noble soul um and then just wasn't there for spalletti doing his own press conference where um by then it kind of already got out that spalletti was leaving and he was like well no I'm not leaving I've been sacked um which was but he's still going to do Monday night's game yeah and I think an element of that is he didn't want to go out on uh a 3-0 defeat to Norway and sort of like look I'll be the grown-up here I'll be very professional um it's too too late in the day for the under 21 coach to step into the fray here um and I wouldn't mind going out on a win James did he also you know after wanting to be the bigger man storm out of the press conference afterwards?

57:31He did he did specifically after being asked do you feel like you've been betrayed and he was He just left Yeah he was he was already kind of getting weary about some of the questioning because he unrealistically wanted some questions about the game and the lineup and so after like two or three brutal questions questions someone said do you reckon ricardo orselini can do a job as a false nine against moldova and he yeah he's like well yeah but no the last question was about do you feel betrayed and he he kind of said no and then he started to thank executives in the italian football federation and then seemed to almost choke up and then got up and left so rather it'd be like a fit of peak It was kind of almost like he was emotional and he was applauded out.

58:26He was applauded out of the press conference, which was... Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Steve Malanga has a question. He says Spalletti deserves some blame, but is this Italian roster not mostly unimpressive? How much better could he have done with these players, do you think, James? So he held his hands up and thinks that he could have done better. And he felt that he was under par. and as a consequence of that, all of the players won't depart. And, you know, look, when people analyse, you know, the kind of shortcomings of the Italian national team, they often just point to the 90s and say, but Baggio, but Totti, but Del Piero.

59:07And yes, they don't have players who could all get into the top 10 of the Ballon d 'Or like they did then, but they do have still some very talented players. and he has been unlucky going into this game against Norway injuries to all of his centre-backs aside from the one he fell out with. It's very curious how people focus on Italy failing to qualify for World Cups which is obviously a big deal because so much of the legend of the Italian national team is about winning World Cups but you have this Jekyll and Hyde kind of relationship where if you ignore what happened last summer Italy have over the last 10 years done really well in the Euros.

59:47Yeah, that team that won the Euros four years ago, people do not appreciate how much change there has been. You know, Chiellini's retired, Bonucci's gone, Spinazzola, yes, he won the league this year, but not really been the same player. Verratti's 32, he's playing in Qatar, smoking all the time. Yeah, Jorginho's just gone to Flamengo, Insigne Bernadeschi in Canada, Immobile in Turkey. and then you've got Chiesa who just sort of, you know, hangs around Merseyside waiting for a game every now and again. So, you know, that's a lot of change for a manager to have to deal with. And, yeah, I still think they're good enough players for Italy to be more competitive than been.

1:00:33The big disappointment, as he said, Spalletti himself, is, you know, I know what I'm capable of and the football my teams are capable of playing but for that game against France in September, we never got near it.

1:00:5010th of June, quite possibly as you hear this, listener. On this day, in which case, in 1984, what happened, Adrian? John Barnes scored a phenomenal solo goal at the Marricanar. Now can he take Leandro, John Barnes now. It might go all the way for England, Barnes!

1:01:14as a winger and i was a winger back in the day it was like whoa okay an english winger can score this kind of goal against the mighty brazil in brazil that that's what made it so special when you look at it i would advise anyone young enough not to know what we're talking about here to look on youtube look at the pitch look at the pitch the grass is long it's is proper bobbly and he just glides past three, four, five players, including the goalkeeper, and just knocks it into the goal. It's a thing of beauty. So, yeah, one of England national teams' greatest ever goals, no doubt about that. Yeah.

1:01:53Mark Hately scored the other in this game, but no one ever talks about that one. Moving on, on the 10th of June 1997, do you know what happened, Joe? Tournoir? Yes. It was the last time that England won a trophy. Le Tournoir, ahead of the 1998 World Cup in France, this dress rehearsal a year before, featured England and Brazil and France. Who was the other team? Italy? Italy. Italy. Of course, Roberto Carlos scored that free kick and England lifted the trophy. It was a magnificent trophy as well. It was a kind of black and white ball on a bit of wood. The precursor to the Nations League then, wasn't it?

1:02:35I suppose. Yeah. And by the way, we didn't talk about it earlier, but look at what it meant to the players to win the Nations League. It took me back a little bit. I was like, whoa, these guys, this means something huge to them. And I think maybe we, as English people, maybe need to start embracing this competition and seeing it as a little bit more important because to the rest of Europe, it seems to matter massively. You're representing your country after all. I feel if England had made the last four, had made the semifinals, it would have suddenly become very, very important. July the 19th, 2026.

1:03:14Could England be lifting something pretty special that day? What do you think? We've seen a third match. This was last week, Saturday, was it not? A third match under Thomas Tuchel. Endura, with the opponents, 1-0 the scoreline. You'll have seen this, perhaps, listener, if you had nothing better to do. some pretty damning appraisers of England's performance, not least from manager Thomas Tuchel himself. But next up on Tuesday, there's a friendly with Senegal at the city ground in Nottingham. Adrian, what was your take? I'm going to the game against Senegal, so looking forward to that. Are you?

1:03:52Yeah. I don't think... Senegal are exciting. They've got your Nicholas Jackson in there. It will be a better game. It will be a better game because I think they'll bring a little bit of flair. they'll go for it they'll try to score goals and and that'll probably help England I don't think we should take too much from the Andorra game it's not going to be like anything England experience at the World Cup but yeah it was it was pretty miserable it was it was it was yeah slow and non-inventive I think what we saw what we've seen under Tuchel that from a tactical point of view that that is interesting is the inverted fullbacks okay so he seems really keen on that he did it with Myles Lewis-Skelly, didn't he, in the first two games.

1:04:30It worked brilliantly. Here, I had no problem with him trying it with Curtis Jones, who obviously played a big part in the goal. So he's looked at him in that position. He knows that Trent Alexander-Arnold can do that in that position. And I don't have an issue with the inverted full-back, but what I think England do lack is someone to fly down the side and have that real pace and dynamism down the side. We talked about Nuno Mendes earlier, Hakimi, guys like this. They are the kind of players that can stretch and make things happen in tight matches. And I do think that maybe this England squad lacks that at the moment.

1:05:11So, yeah, that's where I think a Gordon or a Rodgers have probably quite an important part to play under Tuchel. Because we are going to need pacey players. Because we haven't got one at striker. so you're going to have to find somewhere else in the team to burst past people for want of a better expression so yeah that's what I think England need to work on between now and the World Cup there's a lot to work on but that's one aspect for sure I think that's one of the interesting aspects of Gittin's move to Chelsea, potential move to Chelsea because like the absence of that kind of one-on-one player that just is raw ambition, like technical ability, speed, that's kind of what he represents and there's a way to go um clearly there's some development there's some sort of reputation bolstering that needs to happen but you could see a year further down the track him potentially being that kind of player in the England setup I think I could say it.

1:06:06Jerry what would you like to see happen to England after the Andorra game? Well I was going to say is Madweke not speedy and with dynamism but Adrian I think I've realized you're not the biggest fan of him are you? Well it's just because I don't think he's I think he's a little bit greedy and and yeah like I don't know about his end product really and and and I certainly don't think he works hard enough when he doesn't have the ball like it's just just a personal thing I just don't really rate him that highly but but I think there are like I would prefer Gordon in that position even though he played fine in that game Maduaka I prefer Gordon or even a Rogers obviously you've got Saka on the right who will add a bit of that 1v1 quality but On the left, it's definitely up for grabs.

1:06:47I kind of prefer Maduaki off the right too. I feel like he's a bit better. That's where he plays for Chelsea. But I was just going to say, I feel like it always happens every qualification campaign. There'll be some result where England don't play particularly well. They get hammered by everybody and we have to turn it into a big deal because otherwise there's no jeopardy whatsoever in England qualifying campaigns. And I also think, you know, you look at that lineup, a lot of those players have never played with each other before in that type of system. So it's always going to take a little bit of time.

1:07:18Still, I'm quite excited by the attacking talent at Tuchel's disposal. It just needs to work out what the best line-up for them is. And that's sort of the point of this qualifying campaign. If this was happening a month before the World Cup, I'd be a bit more worried, but it's a year away. We should stop televising post-season international friendlies. No, really, because it would save us all so much trouble. you just you just you print the print the result on the paper you know digitally if you want to and then you just move on it's done they won in Andorra nobody has to have any any any any conclusions they don't need to have any opinions about it it's just done on we go I think it's an opinion that would be really popular in Italy as well yeah state of affairs all right then well on that note let's park the England chap they'll be playing Senegal Tuesday night Thursday we'll We'll be back with another pod and we can have a discussion on what comes out of that match and the latest transfer stories and what's happened with Thomas Frank and all the other things we've been touching on and loads of new things as well, including, this is exciting, on Thursday we're going to be having the draw for this year's InterTotally Cup.

1:08:29Oof. Oof. So, plenty to look forward to then. Do hope you'll join us for that, listener. for today. It's many thanks to James Horncastle, to Seb Stafford-Bloor, Jay Harris, Adrian Clarke and producer Charlie and also video producer Liam. Remember our show is very much a visual feast as well over on our YouTube channel. And thanks to you, listener. Be back with you on Thursday. Hope you join us then. For now from all of us here, it's goodbye.

1:09:00You've been listening to The Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. For more great football podcasts like this one, including The Athletic FC, and our six dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify, and all the usual places. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

1:09:23The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

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