John McKenzie on Tifo Football Podcast: "Arsenal are the best team in the league right now, because they don't worry ...

Hello and welcome to the TFO Football Podcast. I'm Joe Divine and I'm coming to you live from London where I live in the immediate aftermath of the Manchester Derby. What a game that was. What a result. That was. I'm joined by John McKenzie. Hello. Hi, John. How's it going? Good. Yeah, do you want to say some more things? No. No. You wouldn't want to... And listen, Miles Don Donne of the Chat has already noted, John does not sound like John. No. I have. I've been gravely ill this week, Joe. It's really weird. You're not ill now. You've recovered now. But it is actually weirding me out quite a lot and I said to you earlier, you don't really sound ill. You just sound like you have a different voice. And I don't like thinking about what this guy might be. All of the bass parts in my favourite songs because I can, right now. Right. And it won't last forever. It's deeply upsetting with me. Also, Jack Collins is here. Hello, Joe. Hello, John. Yeah, that's what he sounds like. You're sort of in that gravely deep register as well, but you live there. Yeah, sort of. I don't think it's deep. My voice is quite high, I think. Yeah, quite a lot of metal. There's a bit of gravel. You've got high gravel. High gravel. Rare. Rare skill set. It's very rare to have high gravel. Anyway, here we are. We're here after the Manchester Derby. We've got a lot to talk about today. On the agenda, we'll talk through Manchester United, Neil, one Manchester City. We're going to talk more broadly about what it means for both teams and their seasons to come. And we're going to talk about the title race as well as a little bit of Sunland and Arsenal chat too. So lots to get through. And later, someone will add music to this pause. Yes, Manchester United, Neil. One Manchester City, a ten man. Manchester City beating Man United at Old Trafford. The visitors were, of course, reduced to ten players, halfway through the first half. As Michael Oliver, who we noted the ball hit several times. Four, I think. Four times. Yeah, get out of the way, Oliver. Good Lord. Michael Oliver showed a Phil phone and a red card for kicking out of Bruno Fernandez in the first half there. But after Manchester United hit the post, either side of half time, it was actually City who took the lead on the hour mark through an Erling Hall and goal with the finish that TV cameras made look very offside, even though it then apparently wasn't, as we looked at the VAR review of it a little bit later on. We're going to start by talking about the game, before moving on to discuss both teams a little bit more broadly. Within that, we'll talk about Manchester United first. But as a complete starting point, before we get onto why the team, John, we thought it would actually be quite a good idea to remind everyone why you hate red cards so much and or why red cards make analyzing individual football games difficult. I think there's two angles to this. I think one of them is that it's probably less the case now that red cards necessarily make games worse. I think in the past, when the game was much more structural and a team would go into a red card game state and would necessarily just defend the whole time, it just made for fairly boring game and you would see a team just sort of absorbed pressure and the questions would just be off. Shouldn't this team break down a low block better? Where's the whole common to discuss that did not happen? No, but the reason why it's annoying for me is because I do actually plan what I'm doing in the week ahead of the game and you have all of these narrative angles that you want to maybe touch on and as soon as a red card like that happens before anything has really occurred in the game, it's all about the window. You mean it completely changes the way that the game is approached by the team? Because I guess it sort of sets the game up as a bit of an outlier, right? It's you're not going to play many times in those sorts of game states and so there's not really any sense that you can say anything that might carry into the future, although I think what we'll talk about maybe later on in the podcast is how the game is less like that now anyway, and the game is a lot more about finding ways of winning, depending on what conditions are thrown at you. So I think from that point of view, it's actually kind of interesting this game from a red card position. Well, that was a very interesting answer. Thanks, John. Nothing was cut in between those two things. How about that? Now, it's interesting in some ways, isn't it? Because the way that the game actually did play out with the red cards and all, Jack, was sort of the complete opposite of what we may be expected before the game in terms of what the roles that the teams took on. It's funny, isn't it? Because this was, I think before the season began at the very least, the point I would have made was this is the closest we've looked at it and thought, oh, okay, and since maybe the aguero end of season, winning the league, et cetera, et cetera, where it was obviously these two going toe-to-toe. It was the last time that we went into a game between Manchester or a season, where we looked at Manchester United Manchester City and thought, I don't know, who's going to come out of the better of this one. Their records have been relatively similar since character go over at Manchester United. And so it was going to be, oh, how do United deal with the idea of being on the same page? Like, on the same wavelength coming into this game, I don't know what the odds were from the bookmakers, but in terms of how I felt about the season, if you'd looked at that game before a ball was kicked, I think I probably would have had them in relatively similar positions going into this season. Now, maybe the fact that the last couple of weeks has informed that in slightly different ways changes the angle it had, but I was quite intrigued to see how United approached the game and how they went into it, because it wasn't going to be, I didn't think, a sit back and try and hit City on the counter, and thus it proved, right, over the course of it. But it is interesting to see that dynamic change, because we've become so used to seeing United be the team who were like, okay, we'll sit in deep and try and counter over the time where Pep Guardiola has been in charge of Manchester City. So, looking at it from a slightly different angle, I think it was intriguing to see what that looked like, and then obviously United coming into this off the back of a worse start to the season off as Manchester City, I think we can all agree. And then you kind of look at it and go, well, where are they, where is the actual kind of headspace in order how they approach this game? And I think that we saw something very different perhaps, all we were expecting. Yeah, that makes sense. John, you made the point, you know, towards the end of the game, that when you're chasing a game against 10 men, having structures actually maybe somewhat useful. Manchester United, I think, a little bit like that perhaps, you could make the argument that the Red Card sort of made, it was not the worst case scenario for them obviously, but like made the prospect of winning the game a bit more difficult to see the routes towards. Yeah, I guess I would maybe push back on structure, because I think that, obviously, I think Manchester United used certain structures under Michael Carrick. I guess it's just that the conversation that we've been having since he's arrived is that he has introduced a level of, I guess, freedom is the word that is often used to the way that Manchester United players approach the game, right, which is actually there in power to find individual solutions. And I think that's, you know, that can be a really useful way of playing, especially in sort of open game states, but then as soon as you arrive in a scenario where you know, actually, we're probably going to play against a lower block at times. At those moments, that's when sometimes I think maybe a bit more of a sort of structured plan about how you're going to deal with those situations can become quite useful. It's a little bit surprising because I thought in the first half, Manchester United actually found some fairly nice solutions, particularly on the left hand side. They found ways of sort of teasing the Manchester City block apart when they were a little bit lower with both Rashford and Dorgu drifting into particularly the half spaces and finding ways of getting free on that back line and then having the ball in behind, which, you know, they would then able to try and find cutbacks. They did that quite a lot and I assumed that that was maybe that was just a general plan for how they were going to approach the game anyway and they sort of brought it into the low block approach. Interestingly, it felt like they didn't do that as much in the second half. It almost felt as though they went back to the sort of standard way of trying to break down a low block, which seems to be, you spread your players across the full length width of the pitch and you try and pull it apart and find your root in. As a result, they didn't seem quite as dangerous to me as they did in the first 15 minutes of the of the red card situation. So maybe that's what happened, maybe a half time they went in and that was the plan that they came up with, but I actually thought it worked better in the first half where they were finding these roots in. Alternatively, it could just be the Mereska sort of fixed that side of the pitch a little bit. One thing he did do was he took off Ryan Cherky playing the right way. Which might have fixed that side of the pitch. Yeah, I think to an extent, and you know, some of the situations I was talking about, they were definitely generated by Ryan Cherky, clearly not really knowing how he should be defending those kind of moments or maybe letting his player go and then that player just sitting unmarked in the last line. Yeah, okay. Well, should we talk about the first 20 minutes then before that's before the red card? So taking into consideration that caveat about how red cards changed the way that we analysed the game, we did have that first 20 minutes before the red card occurred. Similarly, although the overall game played out and perhaps a way that we wouldn't have expected, the first 20 minutes kind of did the same. Man United, they weren't sitting deep like everybody thought that they might do, or in the way that we've, you know, come to expect to see them play over the last few seasons. What were they doing? And why was it actually making it a bit tricky for Mereska? I think it's important to make a distinction between a team sitting deep because they want to and a team being sitting deep because they're sort of forced to. And I think a lot of the time over the last decade or so when when Guardiola has been at Manchester City, the reason why those games have ended up with Man United sitting deeper and having to counter is because City are able to control the game in such a way as to be able to force those conditions and then force the low block and then break it down. And what I thought was so interesting from the first 20 minutes is that under Carrick, Manchester United were clearly trying to find ways of stopping that kind of situation from occurring. They clearly understood what was at stake in Mereska's approach to the game. And as a result, it felt as though they were able to be a bit more aggressive. They were able to step up. They were able to make it so that the opponent didn't necessarily have the full control that they wanted. And I, you know, I think that's testament to what Carrick has done that, you know, he can implement a plan like that. And, you know, there's nothing to say that if the game stayed changed to stay the same and it hadn't been a red card that actually Manchester United might have competed here because I think it did those conditions do suit Manchester United, having the ability to maybe hit in more transition moments through the middle in space because because City are more willing to open out space is going to make their life a lot easier. And then as soon as the red card happens and City then are a little bit more reluctant to open that space out, it becomes much more difficult for Manchester United. So, but I think for the first 20 minutes, it was interesting seeing rather than just saying, okay, fine, we're not going to be able to control this game without the ball, we'll just sink deeper and deeper and deeper and allow the other team to control the game. That was itself indicative of a slight shift maybe under Carrick. Just on that, is it worth, you know, exploring a little bit more about the idea that we've talked about United and their kind of best moments in the last five, six years, which, you know, have been not necessarily few involved during, that's the wrong phrase, but have at the very least been in games like this where it's like, okay, cool, United have been very, very good in transition. We talked about only going to Solshon. I'm sure that there'll be plenty of people making that comparison to Michael Carrick now off the back of this, but it always felt like United as much as they could have good moments in those situations felt like they were never going to be able to bring themselves up to a level of competing consistently at the top end of the table again, until they sorted out being able to actually impose themselves upon a game a little bit more, and it's one thing being like, okay, we know they're going to have to have the ball and we can sit off and hang in transition because we're good at it. It's another thing being able to sort that out against teams in the bottom half of the table, teams in mid-table. And so that first 20 minutes, I imagine, despite the fact that United have come up at the back of this and, you know, obviously be a frustrating defeat in so many different ways, the fact that they actually took that first 20 minutes and were kind of aggressive in the way that they went about their approach, I think suggests that the very least that they understand the assignment. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess it's also worth pushing back and saying in that 20 minute period, they didn't really generate anything either, right? So the game was a lot more controlled, they didn't give up much, they didn't generate much. And these are the sorts of tactical trade-offs that managers have to discuss the whole time, right? Do you want to be a team who is going to sit deep and maybe absorb a lot of pressure and you run the risk of a team like City being able to score from playing against the low block because they have the players and the quality to do that? Versus that actually will open out a lot of space for you to attack into with players who are going to be great in those moments like Bruno Fernandez, like Brian and Burma, like Mateus Cunier. That's the trade-off that you have to sort of work with and who knows, maybe as the game went on, maybe Carrick would have switched things up to try and work it in his favour if he felt as though he wasn't getting any kind of upside. But I still thought that Manchester United created a few moments. I thought the way they used Marcus Rashford as well in that first 20 minutes was kind of interesting because he was definitely driving inside towards the goal and causing problems for City. And again, with Patrick Dorgu being on that side as the fallback, again, there was time when he was drifting into the inside space as well. So having guys who can carry the ball directly towards the goal, I think there was probably a plan there as well that they recognise that the City maybe have trouble actually defending that side of the pitch. And let's think about it, you've got Ryan Jerky, you've got Phil Foden on that side of the pitch. That is potentially a side of the pitch where you could have some joy if you can get in behind. So yeah, I think that was probably the plan. The plan was probably to generate some kind of direct attack through the middle of the pitch from the left hand side. But rather than wanting to do that by just giving up control and possession, they wanted to try and do it with the ball as well. And I think that's an important move because for too long Manchester United have fallen into that short-termism of being like, well, let's just do the thing we're good at. And it means that you have some good games against top six sides, big six sides, I should say. But then you can't be anyone else. So they've definitely introduced a little bit more tactical variation, I would say, into their approach under Carrick. Okay. The chat very clear that Man United failed and were bad. I don't know. I mean, it's maybe worth a note like they've not had a good start to the season. I feel like we should talk about what success looks like for them because it does seem as no they're behind where maybe our expectations for them would have been on the basis of how well they performed on the character was the end of last season. It's not great, Jack, is it? No, it's very much not great. And I think the point about United failing there is it's completely fair enough, right? I think that actually you look up to half time. I think that there were things you could pick out and jump, you know, point out rightly that they were better at finding those spaces towards the end of the first half. And it felt like after half time they lost a level of intensity, I think, in terms of the performance that you need to have. And as the game went on and on and obviously in city find that breakthrough, you know, there needs to be some sort of response. And there absolutely wasn't. There was nowhere enough, you know, without sounding, you know, completely down the cliches route. There wasn't enough aggression in terms of the way that they went about what they were trying to do. There was not enough structure in the spaces in those final moments where it just felt like United went for chaos and broke. I don't think that's a cliche. It's just to be clear. I think I've never heard anyone say that before. You're always hearing that down the parlor. Yeah, it wasn't enough structure in the space. That's the thing. It was the aggression point, right? They were angry enough. They didn't want it. They didn't want it. Oh, you were, you were, you were cleverly reframing. They didn't want it enough. You got me. There you go. You didn't, you didn't either call it a cliche. Very impressive. They're like, you know, I think in terms of, you know, you can look at that second half. And I think that second half is fundamentally just not good enough. And, and you know, we can look at why that is and all of the things in it. And yes, coming up against 10 is hard in particular situations, etc. And since you're in exceptionally talented football team, but you have to have enough to be able to go out of the other derby and people like, yeah, you know what, at the very least, they give us everything they had. And I don't think there will be a single United Fern that feels like that off the back of the game. And it is not particularly, you know, in depth analysis. But there is a level of, of kind of, let's look at it from the basics first and work our way down. And that's why I think that we're looking at that United team and thinking, what's that? Like, what is that second half? And that's why I think there will be so much anger within the fan base. And yes, there will be people talking about is, you know, is Enzo interfering with play with Harland, etc, etc. That on the face of it, all of those arguments matter far more if you've given like a good account of yourselves over the course of that second half, when you're up a man at home, against your big rivals, an opportunity to really kickstart your season. And they have just not taken any of those opportunities and not taken those moments in order to, to give themselves a launch pad. And to your point there, it leaves you in that conversation of what to success look like. I think a season similar to last season, the Premier League, where they're in that conversation for the Champions League. There is some sort of hunt for domestic silver and they get to the knockout stages, quarterfinals, etc. of the Champions League would have looked like a real kind of trajectory on an upward level because it shows you can compete across multiple fronts. You can still be in those comes out. I think to say that you're not going to be in a title race this year felt premature from where I was sitting at the very least, especially with the squad not necessarily filled out to the depth that it will need to be. But I think that when we're looking at where they are and what this star has been, clearly not good enough in terms of where they've been. And look, we talk about where crisis clubs are at. If United, and for what it's worth as a full and fun, I don't think this will happen. But if United were to lose to full and next weekend going to that international break, the discussion will be united other crisis club of the Premier League again for that three week international break. And that's where we will be in terms of the narrative. Now, let's have that conversation because I feel as though there's always a crisis club going into the international break, we thought it was going to be Jack's Fulham and my Fulham, of course. Of course. I've should have said that first. I've been a Fulham fan my whole life. I thought it would be my Fulham and Jack's Fulham. There's also the possibility it could be spurs still haven't scored a goal. We'll talk about them on tomorrow's podcast. I thought it could have been ever done after their transfer window, but it doesn't seem likely that it will be. I mean, I guess it could be United. I don't think they quite qualify as the crisis club going into the international break. But what do you think, John? Yeah, I don't think this is crisis moment. I think the reason why we were positive about Manchester United for the first 20 minutes is because there are signs of growth and there are signs of improvement. And I do think that we're not saying that Manchester United need to come out and be Manchester City anytime soon. But we are expecting to introduce those levels of tactical versatility into the team. And that's what happened. And they could consider themselves a little bit unlucky that what's happened here is that they've been sort of thrust into a game state that doesn't really suit them. We've talked about this length before. This team is not a team that is built to break down a low block. And they're not going to be expected to break down low blocks much this season. We've already seen them struggle against heart also doing exactly the same thing. So we know that this is going to be a bit of a Achilles heel for them. But for the most part, it isn't going to be an issue because they aren't going to come up against these situations very often until they come up against side two. Now I guess we'll say, well, you know, if we're the outright underdogs here, we'll force these low blocks and see if we can get anything from it. So I think it's tempting to just say, oh, you know, it's again, it's a loss against 10 men. That's poor. But I think this is always going to be a longer term project for Manchester United of turning things around. And you know, they in many respects, the way that I look at their recent trajectory is that they sort of brought in a raised level of profile in the front line. They've tried to raise the profile of the level of them in field with on a budget seemingly. I don't think this is something that was going to be fixed over night. And I just don't think that you should take a, you know, a level of performance against a 10 men, a city team who, you know, still very good players, even down to 10 and the conditions kind of suited Manchester City from that point onwards. I just don't think you should take that as as being too indicative. I think if we get to the end of the season and we're still seeing these kind of performances where you feel as though actually we should be seeing much more, then maybe you have the conversation. But I just don't think that crisis counts as the first five or four games of the season we should say. That's the modern Premier League, John. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. But again, I think what's really interesting with the international break that we're talking about is that a lot of teams, I think, have been in a sort of pretty open position. A lot of teams kind of have looked a little bit like they're trying to just get through these first five weeks to then have, because they're going to have something like 20 days off or something, which is longer than most of these players have had over the summer, essentially. So I think we're going to see a lot of teams go through that international break and treat it almost as a, as a preseason, particularly teams further down the table where they maybe have fewer internationals going away. So we will probably see quite a different set of teams coming out after that break as well. So again, I don't think the club will be too worried. I think I'll just treat this as, okay, we'll get through this and then we'll head into the future. It's fair to say fans after the game very upset. Yeah. So here's a couple of comments I want to read. This is from the Domian in the chat, losing to 10 men at home in a derby game with the aspirations they had going into season is inexcusable and embarrassing. I guess that they they're indicating that person perhaps not a fan and then Ben Hoyle says there was a mentality shift for city after the red. They thought they were hard done by many United got complacent. And there was mistakes made, I think. So for example, for Carrick, like you took him forever to bring on Cheshko and I think in these sorts of situations, it's always just more useful to have a box threat in a block because they become a point of gravity, right? They draw players towards them. They open out spaces and I think without having someone like that in the box, not only did Manchester United play the ball into the box to no one that you would necessarily expect to be good at heading the ball. But also you just make it much easier for the opposition team to spread their players out because they know that there's not as much risk from Kunya as an aerial attacker than than there would be from Cheshko as well. So little things like that, I always think that the best coaches in those scenarios are the ones who are proactive. They make the changes and say, let's let's turn this situation to our advantage as soon as possible and make something happen. And that didn't. Okay, well, there we go. We're going to have a quick break. And when we come back, we will be discussing Manchester City. We'll talk about Arsenal and Sunderland as well in the title west. But before all that, there'll be a rondo. We'll be right back. What a fun break that was! The live chat note just how fun it was in real life. Now, before we carry on talking about Manchester City, producer Nathan, I believe you have a rondo for us today. That is correct. Just the one goal scorer today. But what I would like. Just the one though. Just the one though. Yeah. What I would like from you is every man just a derby scorer since Ferguson retired. There are over 30 possible answers. Okay. Okay. Who do we start? We're going to start with you because this is obviously such a hard subject for you person. Elling Holland. It's your first team, yeah. Both teams. So I should say before we get started, here's how the rondo works for anyone who's new and joining us. We get a lovely category like the one that we just got from producer Nathan there. So for today is every goal scorer in the Manchester Derby since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement. Premier League only. Premier League only. Okay. Well, that's going to trip us up, of course. I can remember the specifics of the different cup tour. And then we go around in a circle. We give correct answers. If we give incorrect answers, we're out of the rondo. And the final person standing is named Rondo Del Rey. My first answer, producer Nathan is Elling Holland. That's still correct. Yes. I'm going to say Phil Foden. Yes. Okay. Yeah. We've got a yes for John. Marcus Rashford. Yes. I should have been thinking while I wasn't talking. That to you. I should have been thinking. Okay. I think that Luke Shaw must be one of them. Yes. Yeah. Luke Shaw. He's so good for a goal. He even scored in the Euro's final for England. I don't know if you know that, John. But it's your turn to go now. I'm going to say it'll kind of go under one because he scored in the FA Cup final. Right. Yeah. Oh, we should also. Premier League. Okay. Well, no, but he probably did score. And you submitted a name. So I'm sure that is correct. Yeah. And he also scored in the Premier League. I'm pretty sure. Oh, okay. They'll give you answers. Oh, I don't, I don't care. Okay. I'm going to say Paul Pogba. Yes. Oh, that's a good one. Okay. What about? No, that's too risky. Don't say that, Joe. Don't say. Don't say. Why can't you think of anyone else's name? Think of one of the name. Don't say that. Think of one of the name. I can't think of any of the names. Adnan Yanasai. Just looking like a nut. That's correct. That was going to be absolutely furious. I can't think of any other names. They'll all be obvious. Now, okay. I'm out of the rondo. John over to you. Since Ferguson, Sergio Aguero. Yes. I'm going to say Kevin DeBroiner. Yes. You're out. I'm out, John. Yes. Raheem Sterling. That's a good one. Oh, there's a delay. Surely Raheem Sterling scored in the Darby. He's not come up in my list. Faliable. Wow. You know what? I'm now I'm starting to remember there was there was a thing where he never scored against Manchester United. I think I remember that being the case. Let me just check. Did Raheem Sterling score in the Manchester Darby? Let's have a quick look. Wow. The 24-year-old has never scored against City's rivals in 16 attempts. This was published in 2020, so I guess around the time you left, but the forward revealed he had no concerns ahead of the game. That was before the end, but I think that's the case. He must have never scored. So that means you're also there. Jack, if you can get a correct answer, you'll be named Rondo Del Rey. Oh, that would be nice. Rondo Del Sunday. Oh, nice. Now we're now really cooking. I'm going to say Bruno Finange. Obviously. Yes. Oh, yeah. He would have been better than Edna. I was thinking. I didn't want to add. He wanted to say was the Leroy Sane. Yeah. That's the one I was would have been right. Sane is correct. That's where I wanted to go. Finange scored that really long one. Do you remember when they won 2-1 and they had two shots or so? If Sterling had been correct, that would have said Sane. That just does an immediate back-to-back. Top-5 in the chance saying, Sterling never scored against Man United even while at Liverpool as well. So there you go. How about that? How about that? Well, thank you, producer Nathan. Good Rondo. A silent thumbs up. That's Ireland thumbs up from off camera there. Thank you. Congratulations, Jack. You are your name, Rondo Del Rey. How does it feel? Fantastic. Terrific. Would you want to ask me how it feels to be so wrong? There's better, so wrong, though. I can't believe the only way you could think of from Manchester City and Manchester United. Yeah. Was that Daniela? Since Alex Spurger. Oh, I could have thought of men's city players as well. Yeah, but also, even if you did just come with... Go on, try one now. Try another one now. Yeah. David Silver. Surely. Oh, no. Oh, yes. Both of us. Both Silver's are in there. Yeah, so there you go. That was my mistake. I was only thinking about one team. Adnan Yannis, I've just got deep ball knowledge. It's just that when you go really deep and then you lose all the shallow. Yeah. So I'm sort of as deep as you go in the crevice, Adnan Yannis, but he was wrong all the time. He's trying to go by the way they're called high-hanging freaks. I buried it in the wrong direction. I buried in the wrong direction. Anyway, there we go. Now that's the end of the rondo and now let's let's let's carry on talking about Manchester City, a team that I forgot existed moments ago because they've got a perfect record so far this season. Victories over born, Muth Palace, Coventry now, Man United, 100% for City, of course, in the league, but 100% for Enzo Moresca as well, which I think is very important for him this early on. He's shown early in his tenure, his desire to continue with Pep Guardiola's approach at Manchester City, which has become an interesting talking point for us, observing the kind of shifting tactical landscapes of the league and maybe we'll come on to talk about that in a moment. As a starting point, though, this was our second game I think where we really got to see the new midfield balance that Manchester City have. What did you think about it, Jack? It's a funny one, isn't it? Because there was three big kind of signings in the summer and we could talk about what that means for United City in those kind of lights, but they signed Iboide, they signed Enzo Fernandez, they signed Elliott Anderson now, Elliott Anderson phenomenal, like everywhere on the pitch today, he was absolutely excellent. We discussed that he was defending Maguire for the final United attacking board. What can't he do, as opposed to the question market at this point? But the question was always going to be, well, is that going to be a three in midfield? Is that going to be because actually they're quite nice complimentary profiles in some ways, or is it going to be two in that double pivot with Ryan Shurkey giving the kind of keys to the castle, if you will, in the number 10? And so far, it has very much been with the number 10 in front. And there was sort of this interesting question that was posed, actually two Enzo Mariska ahead of the game. He said, did you think about putting a midfield three in place of Boardi and Anderson with maybe Enzo pushed a little bit further forward, which is obviously something he did, a fair bit of Chelsea in the latter days of that as he tried to get the best out of Enzo. And he obviously never really tried answer as you do before a game, he's like, we have many players who can play in many positions to do many things, like a fair enough. But I think my skills from my previous job would apply, and we're transition here as well. And I could show you various different examples of when I've used them in the past, you know? I mean, I think what it did to you, especially when they were done to turn, was it meant that Elliott Anderson had to effectively become Superman today in the middle of the park. Which he is. And he was, and therefore, City won the game. He was absolutely brilliant, as we say. But the question, I suppose, is maybe what does City look like as we go through the season? Do we start to see a little bit of a change in there? Because as much as I thought Enzo was pretty good today, and I'm quite high on that signing, I think that there was a couple of things made out in the discussion. And I know that Price is a mad at the moment, right? And we're all talking about the transfer window in the light of these kind of inflated fees, if you will. But I still think that that's a good addition on top of being, you know, an excellent player, Enzo Fernandez. And I know he's not exactly tall, a toast to the town right now in terms of how much he is liked, but he's a wonderful football player. And he's someone that ends up in the Marisca, obviously knows trust and can transmit messages through in terms of dressing room. He's done it before. We saw Ken and Jusbury Hall go in at Chelsea with him, you know, Jorginio went with Sally, et cetera. There are plenty of managers that kind of bring a player with them to help them kind of get their message across. But I thought that maybe today, once he went down to 10, he might have made that change. He didn't until much later on when Nico Riley came on for Enzo Fernandez. But I think going forward, it's going to be very interesting to see if Marisca kind of tweaks this midfield for different games, as opposed to obviously we saw Board in the Champions League, that felt more kind of, let's get him a run out and make sure that he kind of fits with everyone else as opposed to, oh, okay, how do these particular midfield setups, if you are going to play with two in there, how do they actually affect how city are going to play? And I think that that is going to be a storyline going forwards. Yeah. Okay. Jon, you said halfway through the second half, you said, quote, it was incredible to see them playing a diamond in front of Anderson with Cherokee, Enzo, and Foden, the quote, flimsiest three in front of the one. Yeah. So you think you thought it was kind of mad, the lineup? Yeah. And I think in the context of the history, right, where we've gone from Guadiala playing very aggressively with his midfielders, with, you know, Debrauiner, Silver, in similar kind of advanced positions with one behind them. To then bring it back in the modern game, when we've gone through that timeline of being like, oh, you can't play like this anymore, maybe, and maybe it's just that I'm too close-minded in terms of what is possible, but it feels to me that in the modern game now, teams can hurt you with a lineup like this from a position of particularly transition attacking. And, you know, we saw this against Porto midweek, where Porto are actually able to play through the lines quite quite comfortably against City and a number of occasions. Now, the argument will be, well, they didn't generate many chances from it, but I think there was caveats there, they were missing quite a few players who probably could, of course, have more problems. And this is what tactical upside is all about, right? You have to always balance the possibility that, if a team is consistently playing through your lines early on, and you're able to stop them from causing any problems later down the line, you have to consider the possibility that that won't happen. So, the more concerning thing is the sustainability of getting through the front lines into attacking the back line and whether or not your back line can consistently hold out against that kind of thing. I think that's going to become an issue for this City team this season. I think there will be games where they are caught out in those transition moments. And I guess in that respect, I find it quite funny that people are saying, oh, you know, he's obviously the continuity candidate. I mean, in some senses, yes, he's the continuity candidate, but if you were going back to Pep Guardiola in 1718 rather than Pep Guardiola in 2526. So, yeah, I'm still kind of interested to see how this plays out. And I'm kind of interested to see how Maresca responds to it because I just feel as though inevitably he's going to have to go through that same evolution that the Guardiola went through in the last few seasons if things continue the way they are. Now, it could be the case that they are able to just keep flying on scoring goals through Erling Holland and Ryan Cherokee just having those moments of magic. But I just, you know, I just think the league is too good. There's too many teams. You can just pick a goal out and then just sit deep and maybe that will work well for them and they'll still be able to win in those conditions. But I do think that what I've seen from them so far that I think has been good has been when they've got into leading game states, usually not through tactical ideas, but through having great players. So the Palace game is a great example of that. I thought they were exceptional in the Palace game, but for the first, you know, for the first 20 minutes, Palace actually had some really nice chances where they played through them. They had to rely on Erling Holland with just a fantastic header from across swung into the box. And then a really nice finish from Ryan Cherokee that got them into that sort of leading game state. And then when they were in that scenario, City could suddenly do all of the possession control stuff, but they were doing much deeper in the field because they didn't need to worry about actually putting pressure on Palace to try and generate a goal. So, and with a team like Palace where they aren't going to necessarily be aggressive pressing, it just gives you a lot more space to do that. So again, these are the sorts of things you have to think about when you're analysing things from a tactical point of view. Like, why do they look so good in these sorts of scenarios? Did they get into these sorts of scenarios by implementing tactical ideas that are going to be repeatable across other games, etc? And at this point, I'm still a little bit not skeptical, but I'm just I'm expecting something to happen where we say, oh, these same sort of transition moments that we've talked about all the way through the end of Pepp's time at City will will start reappearing if they keep playing a midfield like this. Yeah, okay. Well, something connected to that as well is is wingers. We talked about that bit during the game today. Yeah. You were maybe of the of the opinion Jack that Jeremy Doc who's absence was quite a big deal for them today. I think what's interesting is that, you know, and and John made the point that if we if it ends up and others come into this team to effectively allow them to bring while players into play and kind of direct one-on-one situations, etc. We talk a lot about the kind of key players in the in the city system and obviously we talk about Erling Holland and there's always that question that's going to hang over it of what happens if something happens to Erling Holland because there is no natural backup within the squad and they'll have to find different solutions. We're not going to find that out unless it happens and hopefully he stays healthy as we hope for every player, right? But in terms of what it looks like wide, we talk about, you know, Enzo and his defenders, we talk about Elly Anderson who is already, I think, becoming a bit of a linchpin of how this all works and from what we saw today is going to be absolutely crucial to all of the good things about City. But if you aren't going to play with effectively asking your your wingers to get into these situations to be a man to open up spaces, Jeremy Doc who's absence becomes massive because they don't really have a bunch of players in the same kind of mold and sometimes the menu wants space to run into and trying to get in behind. He sort of drifts into those central areas. Maybe he's the central answer if all and does get injured. But what it looks like right now, Phil Foden is not a natural winger. You're looking at it and thinking, Doc who is really the only proful in their books that gets them into those situations and is willing to get around the outside or the inside of his man who is going to kind of directly run at those players. And if that's what you're trying to do and fill to chances out in those wide areas, Doc who becomes increasingly important because no one else is capable of doing exactly what he does one or one against fullback. Yeah, you also said John on Cementio halfway through the game, he said, I'm not sure that he's going to suit this city system. Yeah, again, because I think if so much of your your perceived threat is developed by having those matchups in the wide areas. And so if you're trying to basically spread the the opposition bat lineup by having one V1 specialists and either side. And those one V1 specialists, for example, in this game with Cementio and Foden or maybe Mateus Noons if Foden's coming inside. I think that impacts the, you know, this is a positional idea, right, which is that you're using the positions of your players to influence the opposition players to create spaces that can be exploited or create scenarios where you can have advantages. Those rely on the individuals you have in those positions, right? So it almost felt today like actually what Manchester United did really well in the first 20 minutes is they recognize, well, we're happy to have sort of Foden and Cementio as being those wide one V1 options against fullbacks. We're going to block out the middle to make sure that because if you, you know, if you overload on the wide areas that you're then opening out the middle, right? So if you double up on, let's say it's Doku. Doku always gets doubled up on because he's probably the best one V1 player right now in, in, well, football. Give or take, you know, a couple. That means that you'll be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even still, right? I think even just at that, the ability to actually generate separation against a marker, there's very few as good as him right now. You've not seen me play, but apart from, yeah, of course, you. If you double up them with two players, what you're doing is you're necessarily opening out spaces inside, right? Which is why when Doku was playing last season, we would constantly see Niko a Riley drift into that half space right next to him because it causes a problem for the opponents because usually the second marker would be marking Niko a Riley and suddenly you have a free player. If you're not so worried about those wide plays, you can simply commit one marker to them and then you can protect those spaces inside as well. And I think Manchester United did that quite well today, whether they recognize that what they're trying to do is open out these spaces to play the direct balls through the middle. We're going to stop those from happening and we'll take our chances in those wide areas if the ball gets to vote or, or, or some any of you. And I think it was quite clear that neither of those two was necessarily going to cause a lot of problems, fronting up a fallback and going round them. And so that's a massive issue, I think, for this system. It's why Guardiola has always had incredible wingers because you need to, because if there's no either you want to go one-by-one and go around, or cut inside, or if they're doubled up on, you then, I mean, I guess if they're doubled up on, then they're solving problems for you, right? That's the balance of the Jack Relish question, right? Which is if you're good enough to pull an opponent across, then it doesn't matter what you actually achieve on the ball, you're still achieving what you're partly, what you're expected to do in that system. Ah, the Jack Relish question. It's stumped academics for years, isn't it? How to deal with that one? Now, let's take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll answer the Jack Relish question. Question. The Jack Relish question, a question. You sort of, I sound a bit like Sean Connery in there. Okay. Hey, we're back from the break now. Let's talk a little bit about the title race now. Specifically, Sunderland, Neil, two Manchester United, no, no, no, two Arsenal. Just have to read what's written in front of me. Now, reading from the athletic, let's see how this goes, reading what's in front of me. Arsenal maintained their 100% record in dramatic fashion as they defeated a Sunderland side to Neil. This is actually not technically what's written there, but I realised halfway through that I'd done a little typo there, and I added something in, I took something out, and what I ended up saying wasn't really a complete full sentence, but do you think anyone noticed? I don't think so. You think anyone noticed? I don't think they did. Great, fantastic, okay. Tell you tell them. In two pivotal minutes, David Ryer saved a penalty in Brunergame, oh, superb goal for the cup. A little humble brag here. I actually wasn't able to watch this game at the time. I was doing something else, but I had a quick free minute. I saw from some text messages that there was going to be a penalty kick for Sunderland, turned on the TV. I saw the save and then the goal, and then I turned off again, and it sounds like I saw the whole game. That's the main thing that happened. Of course, apart from Bacayasaka, who added a stoppage time penalty to add gloss to the win. Now, this result, plus Manchester City's results today, they leave both teams on 12 points for ahead of the next best team. Who are? Who's in third? Hull. It's Hull, Hull. It's on eight points. Fantastic news. Look at something on the spot there. How about I did, and it's a live stream as well. Yeah, I know. But don't worry, I already looked really stupid from before. You're fine. Now, John, let me come back to you. Man City presenting as Arsenal's best competition, of course, so far. We assume that Arsenal are in pole position to win on the basis that they are champions. They look, perhaps, to have the strongest squad overall. They've been somewhat imperious in games this season. Was that the case against Sunderland as well? Well, they were imperious in terms of having those moments where they turned the game around. They were imperious in terms of winning. Yeah, yeah. That's the age-old argument is champions, the teams who can win despite the game may be not suiting them or the performance not being top notch. There's an element of that with this game, I think. First half, I think Arsenal were comfortably the better team. The second half, Sunderland came out and they were aggressive and they were brave. They obviously won the penalty. If that penalty goes in, probably a very different kind of game emerges. But instead, we had those two moments of just world-class football where David Raya saved a penalty that was bottom corner. It's got amazing. Yeah, a really good save. Such a good save. This is David Raya, who we don't talk about David Raya as being a good penalty. If anything, the narrative after the Champions League final was that he's not very good at saving penalty. It's been a narrative. It's true. Yeah, it's true. But they really sort of came to the fore in that game, because you feel as though you're a little bit behind, but then pulled off that incredible save. That's the moment that the game is won, really, I think. Obviously, Bruno Gimmerich then takes that incredible shot. They get a penalty at the end last minute to make the scoreline look a little bit more respectable, but it was very much arsenal in the same guys as last season, where in certain games, when they get into a winning game state, they do sort of lean. They do crank the needle towards risk aversion a little bit more, and rely on the fact that they're an incredibly good defensive side. But yeah, I don't want to be critical, because it's worked out for them, but the conversations that people have been having at the beginning of the season have always seemed to revolve around this idea of like, oh, I'm not going to be fun now, because they've won the league. They've got all of this pressure off their back, and that's just going to give them a word that people always use as swagger. And I just think that's the wrong way of looking at it. People have been saying to me all the time, oh, you know, this is it, they're going to be good. That's not how football managers think about it. I don't think Mikhail Otheto is sitting down with his coaching staff being like, well, we've won the league now, so how can we look like we've got more swagger? The conversations they're having is how we're going to win the next game. And I think we're going to talk a little bit more about this, but this idea of a team consistently winning games in a sort of entertaining fashion, I just don't think necessarily exists anymore, because I think the teams who are good now are good, because they find solutions in individual games to the opponents as they're facing them. And that will mean that in some games, Arsenal will look very good. So, you know, against Chelsea, which was a very open game, Arsenal looked quite fun, and it was, you know, it was quite a gregarious game in the games against Villa and against Sondland, you know, a lot of the time they spent with our eye, they're trying to break down a sort of mid-low block or sitting on a lead and sort of absorbing pressure. That's going to happen all the way through the season. I don't think we're going to see this Arsenal team just sort of at some point like steam roller towards the title, I think, and I think that's what you get from Mikhail Otheto. I think that's why Arsenal are the best team in the league right now, because they don't worry about looking good. They worry about winning, and they find ways of doing it, and they evolve to make sure that they're going to have the best chances of winning in certain games. And, you know, you can make the argument in both the Villa game and the Sondland game, they probably, you know, could easily have drawn those two games, which is why if you look at some of the expected points tables, they're four points over expected, because they probably should have drawn those two games, or could have drawn those games according to the numbers, but they didn't, they won. And that's got them top of the league on 12 points rather than, you know, near the top of the league on eight points. Yeah, there's an interesting comment in the chat here from Patrick who said, I feel like John is quick to dismiss the psychological aspect of the game, which I want to pick up because I think it relates to what you're saying now. That's not what, just to be clear, that isn't what's happening. Like, John doesn't dismiss the psychological element of the game. John opens bottles very loudly on live streams, but he doesn't dismiss the psychological element of the game. It's just that what we're doing here is mostly analysis, and you can't really analyze the psychological element of somebody's play, because you've got no idea what's happening in their head. So as a football fan, and as someone who watches it, you don't discount it. As you just said that there are, you know, some of these games that happened with Arsenal could have been draws, could have been wins, could have been whatever, if like one little element has changed. At the point, there's more, you can only, you can only talk about what's in front of you and what's measured. Yeah, right. And I think it's well with the psychology, like you can only talk about that over long periods, right? So I think Arsenal now, you look at Arsenal, and they clearly are a team that have a really good psychology, and it's because of the way that Arthetta set them up. As soon as we start talking about, did you hear that? Did you hear that he deliberately destroyed the plans? Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's really enjoyable to watch. I think that if Arsenal, you know, it's now just for the sake of people who were listening, who didn't hear that, that there was a story that came out that said that Arthetta had deliberately disrupted Arsenal's plans in pre-season. Change your rooms too hard. Change your moving massage beds around to make them uncomfortable and, you know, to try to create the circumstances. It's a bit like tactical periodization in your home, you know, but now they want, now they want a league, I think Arsenal fans can be like, oh, that's fun and quick. Up to that point, I think everyone was like, please stop. Like, just, just can we get get over the line? It's, it's worth it, right? Yeah, and, and you know, you watch that Arsenal team play and they're all committed. They're all committed to the team plan and they all fight and they all put all that you will never see an Arsenal player shirking their responsibilities. That's, that's psychology. When it comes to individual games, I don't, like, I don't want to say that David Ryder's incredible psychology and or Bruno Gimerej's incredible psychology led to those things. I don't think that's what's happened, though. I think sure. David Ryder's practiced a lot. He's one of the best goalkeepers, you know, in the world, if not the best right now. And that's what happens when you're at the top of your game and you're working really hard, same with Bruno Gimerej. I think what happens when you start talking about psychology, when you're talking about individuals in individual games is you just start just to find the ends by the, the means by the ends and you say, well, they won. So this must have been psychology. I don't find it very interesting at all. But yeah, I'm happy to say that Arsenal, I think, have a fantastic mentality. That's what coaching is, right? It's, it's not just telling people how they should play. And in many respects, like that, that comes quite far down. The list of what coach has to do. It reminds me of that Jürgen Jürgen Nagelsmann. Yeah. It reminds me of that Julian, Julian, and Danielle, as I quote, when he said, I'm the best player at Real Sociedad. It reminds me of that Julian Nagelsmann quote, one that we've talked about loads and loads over the years, which is where he says, he says, you football is 30% tactics, 70% social competence. Although you, you hear other coaches argue that it's, the tactics is much less than 30%. It's just the measurable bit. It's just the bit that we feel more confident talking about. Or at the very least, it's the bit that coaches would feel comfortable measuring because they are the people who are issuing the instructions to the place. They know exactly what they've asked them to try and do. They don't know what's happened in their head when, you know, wherever they've tried to do has or hasn't worked. But anyway, it's interesting. But just on that, I think Jürgen Jürgen makes a really good point there about what you notice when you watch Arsenal, especially in games that are a little bit more end to end. And I thought this was entertaining in a different way. And I've got to point them out fluidity that I want to get to in a second. But before that, the way Arsenal work back, the way that this team goes changed, and actually I thought they were weirdly open for parts of this game. And Sondland found, you know, we talked about transition and counterattack earlier. Sondland found opportunities to get Arsenal. And you suddenly see like 10 red shirts hairing backwards. That's, I think, the bit you can put down to ecology. That's the bit. I think you can put down to mentality elements because that is just, wow, this is a cohesive group who are, you know, willing to put themselves on line for each other. And that's not to say that that doesn't exist everywhere else, but it's a very obvious place where you can find it. And it raises the level of the team as well, right? It takes them from being a very good team to being like an exceptional team, I think. But I also think the other thing that we've seen this season, and we didn't see last year, and Arsenal fans have made this point before, but early guards have a sack of playing together. And again, it's the whole, you can't call them all new signings, right? But once they are back and playing together, they're like one and a half new signings. I think that's why I landed on. But in terms of where they are, the fact that they are playing together and they have those connections and there is a fluidity to the way that they're playing. We talked last week about, I have us drifting out into those right-hand channels and picking up spaces. Suddenly you were looking at that and thinking, well, Arsenal are going to have ways maybe to break down, get, break into games early, to jailbreak into situations. And if they go one day up, they're an incredibly good team managing what's in front of them. And that's something we've seen in a pretty much across the course of it. We joked last week that maybe we should make Arsenal starting a negative game to take us, they go out and they blitz. But the fact is that when those players are on the floor, I'm sorry, I'm just joking. We did that at a live show together. I did hear you. It was the talk of the town. I just think that they're going to be more fun because those players are available. And that's really simple sometimes. It's also worth saying as well. The thing that I'm sure city fans will be here saying that I'm being miserable about them with respect to defensive transition. But I still think that Arsenal's tendency to put the handbrake on once they're in winning game states in certain games, in certain tactical matchups is going to be the thing that means they will drop points at times this season. Which is ironic, of course, because the athletics very good Arsenal podcast is called handbrake on. Yeah. Yeah. But I didn't get them to change their name just for just for those game weeks when they put it on. And again, you know, we talked we talked before about how how they're probably running a little bit hotter than their performances suggest. And the sign of a great team is that, you know, they would they get wins in those kind of games. That happens. Also, don't be surprised if some of those games they do drop points in as well. That's that's the extra point. This is your overall point, isn't it? We were what I found very interesting about a conversation we had earlier during the game was that for you, one key difference between Manchester City and an Arsenal is that as you've said in Arsenal's case, perhaps under Artette, they're able to approach games with the kind of tactical diversity, you know, that we're seeing from lots of, you know, lots of teams attempt this season by which I mean, of course, approaching games in different ways, having different styles of play. Whereas Manchester City, and perhaps this is just a, you know, a result of the teams that they've played so far, the games that they've played in, and to Mereska appears to seemingly stick more dogmatically to one style of play. And for people who haven't read your book, it's worth it, it's worth saying what it's called again, because I don't think you've ever said that on the internet before. What's it called? It's called The Spectre of Harry Potter and The Spectre of Pep. That's what it's called. The Spectre of Pep, how Guaradiola Horns, Monopopoul. It's it's it's worth reading on this topic, because I would say like one of the one of the main kind of a conceits of the book is to suggest that what what Pep Guaradiola was doing with Manchester City and with Barcelona and with Biamunik was the dominant tactical approach to the game for a period of 10 to 15 years. And not just a really good one, but the one that everybody that wanted to be successful would try and play as a result of the style of football that came before. And there's more specifics to that in the book that you can read about in terms of zonal marking. We won't bother doing that now. The point point is that we're at a point with the Premier League now, at the very least, where it's not to say that playing in that way isn't a good thing to do anymore. It's just that it's not the only thing to do anymore. And so therefore you've seen other teams, other elite teams try and play in different ways. So far, just four games in the league, Enza Moreska has done the same thing in most of those games today. It's a little different because of the bookers of a red card. And so you're up. Well, the point that you made earlier, John, was that the key difference between the two teams is that Arsenal have tactical diversity on show, Manchester City may be done, and that for you, maybe that's why one team Arsenal is more likely to win the league than the other man city. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that's true. It's kind of very crooked. Yeah, sorry. I didn't know that's okay. I thought that the longer I talked the more I thought the more it would warm into my voice, but I think the very much the opposite. Yes. I actually made your point better than you could have ever could anyway. Sure. You don't really need to say anything. I guess, you know, that there's always going to be flexibility within within approaches. And you know, Enza Moreska will still have flexible ways of approaching, but I think the overall strategy will largely be the same. Whereas with Arsenal, I think, Martetta has bought into this idea that, you know, in certain games will play this way, in other games will play this way, depending on what the opponent is doing. And I think in my in my book, I argue that Gwadiola went through that phase, right? He went through that evolutionary phase where he realized that he couldn't just have this one size fits all approach that he could force opponents to sort of acquiesce to. He was going to have to evolve as well. And it feels almost odd that the Moreska, we're seeing a city now who are sort of like, no, it's the kids who are wrong or whatever the meme is. Am I out of touch? No, it's the kids who are wrong. I think I think I thought you were just raving about kids. Yeah, no, no, no. There's a meat. It's a Simpson's meme, right? Right. Yeah. Got it. That young person's show that it all gives us. Yeah. How's it going, fellow kids? That's not meant to Simpson's meme. No, but I do feel as though we probably will have to see Moreska evolve if he wants to consistently compete at the top. Because yeah, I think that there will be some games where there will struggle against certain opponents. I mean, we've already seen it right against Arsenal in the community shield, which maybe that's not a particularly representative game, but I thought what we saw in that game was an Arsenal who were able to have 40% possession against city having 60%, which is what Moreska wants. And Arsenal was still able to get the win there. In a significant way. Yeah, whereas Arsenal. Yeah, them apart, right? Yeah. No, I think it's interesting like how where Moreska is at and to that point, John, and kind of on a fog, more kind of bigger scale. The idea that Moreska has come in having learned from Peppa Quadiola effectively is like his main tutor, if you will, inverted commas. But is the idea of having someone who is tutored by one of the greats? Actually, kind of a little bit of a pale imitation. We don't know the answers to this question yet, but we compose it because of the idea that where city are at and where Moreska is at is that he's been informed by one style of question, whereas because Quadiola was the one kind of at the cutting edge of that, he was forced to adapt as he went, whereas you kind of learned dogmatism from someone above you to the dream. Yeah, I'd describe it sometimes as like paint by numbers, positional approach. And I guess the idea there is that if you, you know, there's plenty of people who can do a passable representation of the Mona Lisa or something to just take a most cliché artwork as an example, there's a difference between Leonardo Da Vinci and he said, nearly Leonardo DiCaprio. There's a difference between Da Vinci. There is a difference between him. There is a Caprio. Him painting that and coming up with that and setting the scene for that, then someone then copying it. I think that's the impression I sometimes get when I watch Moreska is that when you watched Quadiola's team's play, you could see that there was a deeper understanding to what they were doing with the players. The players understood the principles and that gave them the ability to be flexible on the pitch. So players like Rodri, for example, or Bernardo Silver, two players who I think have an insane ability to actually solve problems on the field within the context of... Oh, your wire fell off, didn't it? There you go. Within the context of the game, just put it back up. Yeah, and then you're done with it now. Yeah, and I think maybe sometimes when I watch Moreska's teams now, it just sort of feels a little bit more formulaic. It's kind of like, we do this, we get the wingers wide, we try and hit the these sort of direct passes through the middle and go from there. There's a little bit of flexibility in like, or maybe it's a diamond midfield, maybe it's a box midfield, depending on what the opponent is doing and where you want your overloads to be. But sometimes it does feel a little bit more formulaic and maybe a little bit more rigid than we saw with Guadiolabic again. It shouldn't take away though, and I think on that note, it shouldn't take away from city being very, very good today in difficult states, right? We can talk and we can kind of think about what it looks like and actually weirdly with 10 men, there's maybe less to think about. You have to just do your jobs and actually sit in a brilliant job of that, and it was phenomenal as we said. There was so many players who stood out there and actually that back line looked very comfortable having to do the kind of defensive back to the wall work in a way that maybe we wouldn't have seen a couple of years ago. So you should take nothing away from city today, but I don't know if that kind of was forced upon them by the situation in the game. I've got them to win. You've got them to win. I've predicted them in my points of add season long overall table prediction order. I've predicted them to win just on the basis of how much money they've spent and how good their midfield looks now, you know? Alas, who knows? Anyway, there we go. Now, a couple of comments before we've finished. Here's one from Beniole that says after this match as a city fan, I can say, with 100% certainty that we are in a serious title race with Arsenal. We are currently. 100% certainty, 100% sincerity and other, what else? 100% seriousness. 100% seriousness too. And of course, 100%, well, the city fan, of course they think that, but that's true. Now, here's another one, from Dank desu. If Sunderland took their chances and United weren't this bad, we could have had Hull on top. What a sight that would have been. Technically not true. Hull would have needed to beat Chelsea in order to beat up because there's a four point gap currently between the top two teams and Hull, but it's nice to know that Hull will be chasing a champion's league position for the rest of the season. On the basis of what we've seen, with 100% certainty and 100% seriousness and sincerity. On the basis of what we've seen so far, absolutely no reason why that's not the case. Do you still have Arsenal to win? I do. Do you? Yeah. Well, it's just me then. It's just me and Beniole. And Adnan Yenazai. And Adnan Yenazai. There we go. Okay, Jack, thank you. Thank you very much. John, thank you. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no