Tactical Revisionism, Financial FFP Audits, and the Evolution of Modern Player Leverage

Arsenal and Liverpool winners in the Champions League last night maintaining Premier League clubs 100% start at European football's top table and Arsenal scoring goals from open play whisper it quietly, have they changed a little bit this season and we've only seen a few games. We'll talk about that on today's show. We'll also talk about the other side of North London from 10 years ago, because the American head coach Maurizio Pocciotino says that Spurs should be retrospectively crowned Premier League Champions. We'll get stuck into that shortly. My name's Nile joining me today, Marley Anderson. Good morning, Marley. Good morning. Now then, I think we should be retrospectively awarded the Soccer 6's, the side trophy from two or three years ago, where we heartbreakingly crashed out the semifinal stage. Ah, mate. And I love how it's still raw on you. I just have good memories of being in a team meetup of Emadil, um, substars, basically. On the Holly Oaks, wasn't it? Good to be Emadil, because they were too scared to enter. So we had to beat Holly Oaks instead with the fellow who was in the jungle a couple of years ago. He's built like a brick shit house. Yeah, there was two of them. There was Owen Warner and Nick Picard, and I only know their names, because I've literally just Googled it whilst you were talking. And you know that meme of Leonardo DiCaprio, where he's clicking his fingers, looking at the TV. Is that from Wolf of Wall Street? I can't remember what film that's from. No, um, oh, maybe yeah, yeah, yeah, Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah. That was me when they went into the jungle. I was like, hang on a sec. We fucking smoked them at six aside. What are you doing in there? But they're still devastated by it, man. Still devastated. We, what do we tune it up? Lost three, too? Yeah, tune it up. Lost three, too. I partially blame myself because I was warming up the goalkeeper. I were on goalkeeper. It was quite good, um, before the, um, second game, something like that. I smashed a shot at him and he, you saved it, but I hit it so hard that it really hurt his wrist. And I was like, oh shit. He okay. And he was like, oh, my wrist. And I was like, oh, I know I've just injured out only goalkeeper for the, for the game. So, uh, yeah, maybe we should have kept the ball away from him a little bit more, but I, I scored, I scored both our two goals in that, in that, uh, in that game. So I couldn't have done any more of myself. I just think it was you being fat and useless to let us down. It wasn't me. I mean, who provided the goals for you, man? I think you've been getting that bit, aren't you? Classic greedy forward. I can't remember who provided for him. Yeah. Well, let me tell you who it was. It was fucking yours, truly. Was it? Well, this is why Michael Owens isn't a bit assist, you know, because he's such a greedy bastard that he just remembers the, the finishing aspect of every move, which was always him on the end of it. That's why he had to assist. Maybe I'm more like Michael Owens than I think. I blame the management on the day. Yeah. We were cruising the game to an illness and pretty suspect substitutions were made. Jim's got a lot to account for with that. Yeah, a long time listeners will remember Jim, but, um, yeah, he's certainly not, um, Josie Merino, Jim's in Merino. Do you know what I do remember about that day is we had never seen Joel play football before, me and you. And Joel was giving it the big one in the group chat me and like, I'll add some going to score 15 goals. I'm going to be the main man at five aside. I mean, you know, this is my manner. And he turned up and the first 10 minutes warming up. He was absolutely shocking. His shots were being sprayed all over the place. And then first game, he pops up and scores an absolute banger. Like, what the fuck? Where did you pull this from? You're actually dreadful in the warm-up and you just pulled out a screamer from nowhere. That was a guy. I think that was against the Holyoke's boys, actually. Yeah, it might have been. Yeah, I think you got the first one against them. Michael, I think you might have got two in that game, but. No, I've got another one. Did you get the other one? Again, you're fucking taking it away from me again. You're literally Maurizio Pochettino. I knew I didn't score in that one. That's all. Your Maurizio Pochettino, which is what we're going to get into now, who wants to strip Chelsea of the 2016-17 Premier League title. Of course, Pochettino is the manager of Spurs at the time. It's now the manager of the USA national team. We saw him at the home world cup in America during the summer, but Chelsea were fined almost 11 million pounds back in March after being charged by the Premier League for breaches of competition rules from when Roman Abramovich was the owner of the club. It was to do with basically backhanders, nearly 50 million quids worth of secret payments to unregistered agents when it comes to transfers. And when you think of some of the players that Chelsea signed during that period, Edin Azar, et cetera, et cetera, those players were influential in Chelsea winning the league that season. 2016-17 Spurs finished second. Pochettino has now come out and said Chelsea have admitted that they've broken the rules, and so therefore the title should be for the team that finished second. That team was Spurs. These kind of conversations, I don't know, they never feel like solid, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I think it is proof that Riso Pochettino is Spurs through and through because he's clamoring for something that happened in the past. I get that he's aggrieved by it, and rightly so. But it's very Spurs, it's very spursy to come out and go, well, we should be given that one because we finished second and they should have had this and that and that. And we all know that there's no, there's what you're going to do, you're going to have a title parade around North London for something that happened 10 years ago and bring back Christian Ericsson and, whoever else was in your team at that point. And also Pochettino is now a former Chelsea manager as well. So it feels even more Blasey kind of going against another one of his former clubs who were implicitly involved in the situation. But you're right, football's all about the present. Once the moment's gone, it's gone, isn't it? And that's the nature of football, it's well done, you've won the league, moving on. Yeah, I mean, I still got to enjoy the fruits of their labor for what was it? A couple of days and then they lost the Champions League final and then they got to have the title parade and they got to live, live off that for a couple of weeks and then they all went to the World Cup. And by the time, like, you don't get much chance to sort of bask in your success. So it's sort of thing. And Pochettino as well, you raised it there, he was Chelsea manager and I'll never forget that he joined Chelsea and he said something which I just called out on the podcast at the time and I just said, he said Chelsea is the best team, the greatest team in the world. And that baffled me after spending so long at Spurs and the bit arrivals and all that. You never say that if somebody went to, you know, if Eddie Howe went to Sunderland this season and said they're the greatest team in the Northeast, I'd warning said on a stick. So you really kneel your colors to the mass there and now he's going back against Chelsea. And I know you say nice things about who pays you, you know, your paycheck at the end of every month. And I understand that. But also, you can easily not say things that can come back to bite you now talking against your former employer in favor of your previous former employer, because you think that there's a chance in the future that you might go back to Spurs because there is. I know that I know that Pochettino wants that Spurs job back when he's done with the US national team. Pochettino even went on to say, I'm not scared to say the truth. The Chelsea fans will be upset because I'm saying this, but if we were at Tottenham and broke the rules, I'd admit the same. I'm sorry, Maritso, no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. You keep your mouth shut because you're Argentinian, not even because he's Argentinian, but that's what football managers do. Why would you do that? Why would you say, yeah, do you know what, strip the title from us? Why would you do that? Nobody would do that. And I don't know why he's claiming to be holy now and that if the shoe was on the other foot, he would have accepted that Spurs deserved to be stripped of the title. It's just nonsense. I don't know what Pochettino's going on about there because nobody in their right mind with the competitive bone in their body, despite the fact it might be the thing to do with the most integrity, is going to openly admit that they deserve to be stripped of and accolade. It's just not going to happen. Certainly not in modern football. He says that if Tottenham had played by the same rules as Chelsea, they could have signed some better players to score some more goals. If my auntie had a cock, she would be my uncle. You know, it's that same thing, isn't it? Yeah. If McGranny had wheels, she'd be a bicycle and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, yeah, it's just one of the things that you say. If it was me at the time, I'd have I'd have owned up like no, you know, you just wouldn't because it's just one of the things you say because you know it has no chance of becoming. It's physically impossible for it to happen. You know, you can't go back in time. AI has not gone that far that they've created time travel yet. Maybe by the end of the end of the decade, we might have time travel in Purchaseano can put his put his money where his mouth is and go back in time and do that. But we're not going ahead there yet. I've asked ChatGPT to take me back in time to 1995, 1996 when Newcastle fucked up a Premier League title from 12 points clear with five games to go, whatever it was. Unfortunately, it just cannot compete with your request. But yeah, it's just a bit of sour grips. It's it's sort of on brand for spurs to like a spurs sort of modern day legend to to come back and like, well, we should have had it then because that was our best team and yeah, I totally agree though. It is very spursy. If Purchaseano says this and it happens, imagine spurs get retrospectively awarded to 16, 17 Premier League title. It's the most spursy thing ever, isn't it? It's you didn't really win it. Yeah, it's like the biggest asterisk that has ever asterisked, if that's even a word, you know what I mean? It's like going back and and giving Justin Gatlin a gold medal cause he came second to use in bolts or as of a power or something like that. They don't really want it because he weren't there in the at the time. They were second in the race, whatever happened. And also they've they've already like missed out on the fruit of their labor. Like use in bolts are a household name because he won the gold medals in such fashion. If you then went back and said, oh, he's on drugs, the guy who came second, he's missed out on all the the sponsorships that followed that. He doesn't get on the personal advert like use in bolties. Now all the endorsements, all the the you know, little perks that come with it. And Chelsea with the same, you know, they sand these players, everyone breaks the rules everywhere all over the place. Most of the time we don't know what goes on behind closed doors and it's all washing and all the rest of it. But it just it just is unfortunate. It's just one of those things footballs dirty game. You know, if use same bolt was found to be a drugs cheat, that's on you same bolt. The same with Lance Armstrong in the cycling was a major drugs cheat and all of his titles got stripped because that's an individual. It's easy to pin the blame on the individual. And this is what I've said all along when we've discussed. If Manchester City found guilty of these 115 plus charges, I don't think they should be stripped of the titles. The reason I say that is because it's not the players fault. You know, it's not the Chelsea players who were signed with illegal backhanders to agents. It's not their fault because they probably didn't know about it. They'll certainly claim they didn't know about it. Well, of course, exactly. Exactly like Potschino has done. And they'll go, whoa, really? Didn't know anything about that. You can't tell me that because some of the stuff that's been done illegally, which players almost certainly don't know about it. And like you said, they would turn a blind eye, even if they did. You can't say that that's Edna as our fault because he was signed illegally because that's someone else's responsibility, not his responsibility. His job is to be a player on the pitch. The same reason that, you know, if Manchester City found guilty, can you take titles away from Kevin De Bruyne? Can you take titles away from Sergio Aguero, etc? People say, well, they wouldn't have won the league without those players, but those players won the league. So is it the players fault? Is it the clubs fault? And then you open yourself up to the massive can of worms of those players suing the club because they thought they were planning good faith for an organisation that kept by the rules that didn't. And you're just in such murky water. And then all of a sudden, the game becomes even more of a financial mud bath than it already is. Pandora's Box, isn't it? You know, you live a little night and everything comes flying out. Like, do England get awarded the 1986 World Cup? Or do we replay the final? Do we get Gary Steven on and tell him to sort of, Gary Steven, Trevor Steven, back on the podcast and say, Gary Steven was in the squad as well, we can get him. Who else do we get? Where do we stop? Do we get him to replay the game? Maradona's dead, so I might have a bit of a chance, might have a few problems there. But England might win if if there's a coffin up front for Argentina. And we've got Trevor Steven running down the right wing looking the right way and looking at the fucking football this time. And Glenn Hoddle and people like that, where do we stop? Do you know what I mean? It's just, yeah. How do you think things are built, everything's built on on dodgy deals and stuff. Everything in the world is... If that happens, you do know that Maradona's bony skeletal fingers will punch a hole in the top of his coffin and find a way to knock the ball in the back of the net. Just so spite. Peter Shilton, I'll tell you what happens before that. Peter Shilton will put a hole in his coffin because he still hasn't forgiven him to punch a hole straight through the top of it. He'll go for him. From one side in North London, in spurs, who aren't going to be retrospectively awarded the 2017 Premier League title, let's face it, Arsenal, winners of the Premier League last season for the first time in years and after years of trying. They also came close in the Champions League one skyd penalty from Gabrielle, the difference in the end, as they lose out in the European Cup final just a couple of months ago. And they've got the European campaign after winning start this time around away at Napoli, which we always say is not an easy place to go. Napoli now have players, such as Kevin De Bruyne, but it was another creative midfield player who really shone last night. Martin Erdogard, who missed portions of last season, the Arsenal captain due to injury, but he's come back and he looks to me better. I think he looks a little bit more physical. I think he looks a little bit more confident. He is one of the main characters in this Arsenal team. And when it comes to the criticisms of the gunners from last season, it was all about how they scored goals. Lots of set pieces, Marley. Well, they scored a goal from Openplay last night and it was a good one. And Erdogard looks like a man who is ready to kick on, try and keep himself fit, and change the perception around Arsenal this season, particularly about their style of play. Yeah, absolutely. He's hit top form really early in the season. He's getting, I don't know how many goals he's got exactly this season. I think it's about five now already, which is off the top of me. I just went on to more than they got on the entire last season. And to the point of during Arsenal's running, they were going without him. They were picking Isaiah over him and and happy to leave him out. The squad, Michele Reno was coming in and things like that. And he looked almost like an expendable part of Arsenal's squad, which is bizarre, because he's captain and we all know what he can do. But he's nailed it this season so far, as he's been great. And that's what I like Erdogard as a player, I like watching him play, because he's one of them players who's just, when he's on his game, he's above everyone else on the pitch. Mentally, he sees things that other players don't see. And he's really good to watch. Obviously it was, we didn't see that last season. And it's good for Arsenal that he's that he's doing that as well. And I think part of it is Arsenal now knowing that they've won the Premier League and they know they can open the tabs a bit. And I think they, you know, they got a bit of criticism last season for almost like being set piece FC and whatever you want to call it. But yeah, I do think they, they can just say, right, well, the pressure's kind of off now. In this, in the first few league games, we can, we can try and flex our muscles a bit. We've got a new, you know, a new attacking options as well, with Solace on the left. We've got have it back for the full season, who looks, who looks really good and made a, made a really good start to the season. So yeah, they're not quite as, I mean, they're still insufferable with their, their little fowls and I have to have patrolling there, like literally being on the touch line right in front of the fourth official's eyes every, every week. But it until that sort of comes to like gets snuffed out, you know, you can just say, well, Arsenal are doing it on the pitch. So yeah, good start to season for them. Has to stay fit though, right? Martin Erdogard, we know how good he is. I mean, you don't get signed for Real Madrid as a 15 year old, which is what happened to him earlier on in his career, unless you're a very, very good prospect. 27 now, and as I say, last season spent a lot of time on the sidelines. It's clear how creative Arsenal can be with him and the team. Look how good he was in the community shield as well. Again, it's Manchester City. That last goal he scored was just to touch a class, but he has to stay fit. Because if he gets injured again for six months, you then start to get questions. We know how good Erdogard is, but you can't stay fit. So therefore, does he become a burden? Because Arsenal are going to have two games a week for the whole season like they did last season, and they're going to need their players, their best players to be available. Yeah, but also I think Arsenal got the squad depth now where if all the guy doesn't play, every as they comes in to the team and looks unbelievable, he's never put a foot wrong for Arsenal so far. And I think that's true, but they've also been off the Android roster. They've been off Gabrielle Martin, Ellie. Yeah, but they've still got two players for every position, really. You look at Giocharest and Havitt of the strikers. The number 10's are Ezre and Erdogard, Merino, can play 10 as well and striker, so that they cover them positions too. You've got Solis on the wing, Saka, Madawake, Dauman. Well, Merino can play in about four different positions. Yeah, absolutely. They're covered with that. I think they've got enough. They're definitely the ones to be early in the season and going away to Napoli, which is a horrible atmosphere in terms of being in a way player there. It's hard to play there. It's hard to not get overroared by the emotion and everything that's going into that game, so it's even on Napoli and not the greatest team that they have been in the past 10, 12 years. They're still stern up position and they've put them away relatively easily, not conceded as a goal, scored a banger, got away with a 1-0 win, back to Premier League action at the weekend. If you look at the fixtures that Arsenal have got in the Champions League, next up it's Leal, then it's Bayern away and they always get a Tonking by Bayern, but this is a different look Arsenal, so things might be different. Slavia Prague, Dortmund at home, Real Madrid at home, and Betis away. I don't think they're the easiest of Champions League fixtures. They've also got Sabba, the team that Manchester United are playing on Thursday night, so they'll beat them. Shabbar, yeah, Ali G's team. I don't think Arsenal has struggled to qualify through to the next round. I think they'll be fine, but they might not finish top, like they did last year because they're some tough games, and if they do finish top, then Channeling might in a micro low in here, then they will thoroughly have deserved it. Yeah, stay in the obvious there, but yeah, they'll be fine. I think Leal and Betis are good teams. They played a good game on Tuesday night, where I think Leal were ahead twice and lost three, two, and yeah, Leal now managed by Davide and Chalotte. Carlos is Son, which is funny because it's kind of like, it's a little bit of neptism, but also why would you not hire Carlo and Chalotte's son? Carlos and Chalotte is what he's called on Pro-Evo. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, memories that. Love all school Pro-Evo. But yeah, they've started, well, Betis beat Real Madrid at the weekend, Troy Parrot scoring goals, for them after his summer move from SE20, I think it was. Yeah, so there's some nice tests there, Betis and Leal, nice tests, then you get your glametised by Real Madrid, and yeah, piss easy ones like Sabah. Speaking of tests, a bit like Pro-Evo, there used to be a cricket game on the PlayStation, Brian Lara Cricket, and they had the rights for ICC competitions like the World Cup and the Champions trophy. So the players you'd use in those competitions on the game would be the actual players like Shane Warren or Ricky Ponzing or Andrew Flinsoff. But when you played test matches on there, they didn't have the rights for the test matches. So the names were all fake names, like Missy, it's a bit like Pro-Evo, but they were so brazen with it. It's a little bit like, you know, when you go into Aldi and you see a rip off of a brand, it's just like Clive, the caterpillar instead of calling the caterpillar or whatever. It's just so blatantly obvious. Brian Lara Cricket was the same. It wasn't, instead of Andrew Flinsoff, it was Andrew Flontis. It's the level of Pro-Evo, like, where's they got around it? Like, the Ronaldo was runner-aid and Revaldo was ravildo and stuff like that. Yeah, Revaldo. I remember the ones they didn't have, they didn't have the licenses, it was Bazaar, I can't remember which Pro-Evo it was, but they didn't have the licenses for Dutch players. So the Dutch players would be called Orange and then a number. So like Vandessau would be Orange, number one. And then number ten, like, Orange, number ten would be Dennis Bergkamp and Orange, number nine would be Rude Van Nistelroy and it's like, I don't know. So you get Arsenal with, like, Lungberg Perez-Vierre on Reem in the team and then up front with on Rees, it's Orange, ten. And then there's Orange, 14 on the bench. Now, it turns out to be Mark Ofermas. It's like, you had to match up the club to the Dutchman, it was Bazaar. But yeah, love it. Love, love, love, they're both good Pro-Evo. Lastly on the pod, I wanted to talk about Alexis McAllister who's come out in the media following Liverpool's win in the Champions League yesterday and said he's upset with the club for not offering him fresh terms. We've seen a lot of conversations about player power over the years. Is this another example of player power or is this actually a player refreshingly coming out and speaking his mind and saying, listen, this is what I want. But this seems to happen a lot at Liverpool. It happened with Mo Salah where he spoke to the press and said, I've not been offered a new deal. I don't know what's going on and fired shots at the hierarchy at the club. Is this a similar situation with Alexis McAllister or do you think that if he's earned a new contract because I thought he was pretty useless last season, to be honest with you, then he'll get offered one. Yeah, I thought this was a bit strange because I didn't, I didn't see what led up to him saying that headline line. Well, he scored last night, didn't he? Against, let's kind of dread in the Champions League. And it was a good goal and the celebration probably told us what we needed to know, which was the grabbing of the badge and the pounding of the chest and celebrating in front of the Liverpool fans in the court. I mean, that kind of gave you an indication of perhaps what he wants, which is to stay at the club. Yeah, I thought it was potentially a bit of a bad move when he said it in the build-ups of the game when we said, like, Shabbos line, Grieven, but you've got a new contract or whoever it was. And I sat there thinking, yeah, because they, why did they play? Because you were useless last season, Alexis. Yeah, you can't have a Liverpool team without Shabbos line in it because he's class and he played right back and he played DM, he played 8, he played 10, he played everywhere and he played pretty much every game. He scored goals and he was class. The, the rally of it is three doesn't go into two. You've got two positions there really to pick from. And McAllister was the one who got, you know, nudged out of the team at times for, for larger periods last season. So yeah, I don't really think it's, it's not a shock that he wants to stay. Obviously, it's the biggest contract you'll ever get. Probably his next one in his career because it'll take him to over the age of 30, but if he signs a new four-year deal or whatever, he will be sort of 31 if he signs a new four-year deal like this somewhere, for example. So yeah, it's understandable that he wants one. Of course he wants one. He wants to stay at the top level. He doesn't want to leave. And he obviously feels like he can, he can do something and, you know, contribute and he can absolutely because he's a quality player. But it doesn't, it doesn't always work out like that. So you know what I mean, it's like, it's not that hard to understand why the club might look at him and say, we're not sure about your new contract yet because you didn't play much this season. We'll see how it is next season under a new manager and then we'll cross that in January, maybe when you've got 18 months left on your deal and you can, you can have a look, maybe by January, you might know that I like to go on a grid, won't you? Do you know what I mean? Like something might just tickle your, tickle your eye and then you can, you can get sold to play a first-team football and we can move on without you. Or if you're in the team and you play in and you contribute in, you get a new contract. Now it's not a given that you get a new contract and it's not a strange thing to work out that you don't get a new contract coming off the back of a season where you didn't contribute as much as you did in the previous two years that you'd been at the club. It's not really rocket science, it's just kind of, it felt like a bit of sour grips to me like, well, they got one, but I didn't. It's like, yeah, well, you just weren't as good as them last season, that's the black and white of it. I grew up in the era of Gerard and Lamparl and Skoles and even Roy Keane would pop up and score a decent handful of goals every season. He's played over a hundred games in the Premier League for Liverpool. He's only got 12 goals. I guess, like I say, I'm spoiled with what I grew up on, particularly Frank Lampard, who was one of my favourite players who was just a freak when it comes to scoring from midfield. Do you think he should be scoring more goals? He was a good goal he scored last night, but he scored more goals for Brighton in fewer games, for example. I mean, if we're taking stats and putting them side by side. I think that's because he played slightly more forward. He was slightly more free. If you've put him in Liverpool's team now, he's one of the pivots, the two defensive midfield roles in that team, because Viet plays number 10, so... And it's not his job to score goals, which is what I tried to caveat. It depends what is manager one's doing. I think he contributes enough. He puts a tackle in. He's quite physical, free size, and he's not sort of overroared by that, and he's neat and tidy in possession. So there's other things he brings to teams. I just think in this Liverpool team, I think he is thoroughly a number eight, and Liverpool don't play four, three, three. They play four, two, three, one now to try and get the best out of Florian Verts, and if Verts doesn't play 10, Shobba's lie would probably play 10, and then McCullister would be a number six behind him. So there's probably... He's probably not at the best club to play his best football every week, but he is at the best club in terms of wages and stature as a player. He's not going to go up from Liverpool. He might go level to it to a club like Liverpool across Europe, maybe a, like I said, not that letico Madrid or someone like that, but he's probably not going to go to Ray Alba, so buy in PSG, those types of clubs. So that's why he wants to say Liverpool, I think. Do you know what having just assessed some of the stats? Maybe I'm being a little bit harsh on Alexis McCallister when it comes to scoring goals, because he's got a very similar goal record in terms of goals per game in the Premier League, two Dominic Shobba's lie, and maybe he did just have a bad season. Last season. Yeah, maybe. Well, if he gets four goals in his next two games, then he can slap his hand down on the table and see it right. If he gets a new contract sort of I, because our records are identical, but yeah, who knows? Right, that's it for today's football social. Daily remember, if you don't want to miss any episodes, then subscribe or follow is what you need to hit. And it will look different on whichever podcast platform you use, it might be a subscribe button, it might be a follow button, doesn't cost you anything to do, and it helps the podcast to grow and we really need your support in helping the podcast not just to grow, but long story short, to stay operational, to stay afloat. It's difficult in the world of podcasting right now to keep things ticking over, so any support you can give us whether that be hitting follow or subscribe if you come back, even a couple of times a week or once a week or even once every fortnight to listen to a pod, hitting subscribe really does help us. More than I can tell you, so do that, tell your friends about the show if they're just getting into Premier League football and they need a recommendation of a football podcast to listen to, anything like that, even just follow us on social media, and if you really want to help support, you can become a subscriber to FSD, extra time for a small fee link is in the description, it would really help us keep the podcast going. Thank you so much, as always, for all of your support, we'll be back next time, we'll see you there.