The Attrition Era: PSG's Decay, UCL Paradigm Shifts & Europe's New Order

The Athletic FC Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimolero. PSD dominated club football last season, finally winning the Champions League as well, but this year they've not hit the same heights, so can they step up to defend their European title? Right, joining us today in the studio we've got Tom Williams, we've also got Karl Anker as well, good to have you with us, Jens. All right, so ahead of PSG's match against Chelsea in the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday, we thought we'd talk about their current form. They lost a Monaco in league last Friday, meaning their lead has been reduced to just one point. And of course Monaco are also the team, they narrowly beat in the Champions League playoffs as well. So Tom, this is not the PSG we're used to seeing is it? It's not, it hasn't been for a little while and I think the expectation in recent weeks has been that at some point things would click into place and they would become the PSG that we got used to seeing last season, the one that laid waste to the European elite and finally claimed the Champions League, finally scaled the Everest that the club had been trying to conquer ever since the arrival of their Caterione is in 2011. And as the weeks have gone on, you've started to think maybe that just isn't going to happen. Like I personally have been sitting down to watch PSG and thinking, surely at some point we're going to see some sign that this team is getting close to what it was last season. And if anything, it's been the opposite, the more that time has gone on, the further away from that level they have got. And so now you find them approaching this game against Chelsea and this tie against Chelsea with a sense that if they are going to go through, it's not going to be playing to sort of swashbuckling all action football that became their trademark last season. They are just going to have to grind out results in the hope that that form still returns. The fact it's the same coach, the fact it's the same player, the fact it's the same general idea makes you think that things could click at some point. But recent evidence does not suggest that that is about to happen anytime soon. How the French media treating this? It was interesting the coverage of the defeat at Monaco, the defeat against Monaco rather on Friday that you mentioned, Le Keeps report said, you know, PSG are on the brink of crisis and it is time that we abandoned this idea that they are the same team they were last season. They are showing week after week that they are not capable of producing that performance level. And, you know, we saw that towards the end of the league phase. I mean, the best football that PSG have produced this season has tended to be in the Champions league. In the early weeks of the competition, they were fantastic in their opening game against Atalanta, four-neil winners, won away at Barcelona with a second choice attack, put seven goals passed by Elevacuson and were really flying. And then they finished the group phase by taking two points from a possible nine, drawing away at Attic Bilbao, losing away at sporting, and then drawing at home to Newcastle. And what would basically, you know, what felt like a must-wing game if they were to avoid going into the playoff round and they weren't capable of raising their level. And so I think the feeling in France is that, you know, we need to perhaps come to terms with the fact that PSG are just at a different phase in their revolution now. They're not kind of on the launch pad. They are just sort of muddling around desperately trying to find some semblance of form to cling to. And so I think most people would still have them as favourites going into this tie against Chelsea as the defending champions with all the fantastic players and the fantastic coach they've got. But there's very little certainty at PSG at the moment. Yeah, Carl, not many teams hold on to the Champions League other than the name Real Madrid, of course. And you remember the dismantling of Inter Milan in the Champions League final, there's a lot of things that they do, they're doing what they do best, you know, a kind of a kids from PSG scoring late winners as well. This is a very different outfit. I rewatched the Spurs match just before this podcast at PSG Beat Spurs, but they kind of made a meal of it. Are you surprised to see the PSG from last season, not really replicating the same kind of swashbuckling kind of football in the Champions League this season? A little bit. In January, I messaged my friend, Jerry Tackle, who works with PLP, I was simply watching at PSG going, what's going on, and Jerry, who supports PSG, offered his points to me, and one thing he made very clear to me was something I think quite a few of us over look, the club walk up in that, the PSG team that we saw defeat, even defeat, dismantle Inter Milan in that Champions League final, and the one thing that sticks out to me about that Champions League final, yes, the goals, yes, the performance, yes, there's right, do it. But also, the referee blew exactly on 90 minutes, it was like, this is done. It's like a boxing match, just like, stop it, stop it, I'm plugging things, just wrapping up this wire on a stereo like, this is over, you don't need to do this anymore. And then it happened again into, with the other matches in PSG, early in this season. But also, they had to go to United States, they had to play in a club walk up, they went to the final, they lost to Enzo Maresco's Chelsea in the final, and one thing that Chelsea fans like to remind people was the gap between the club walk up final and Chelsea's first match of the Premier League season was something around 35 days, a very, very short turnaround. Now Chelsea can two degree stomach that quick turnaround a bit more, because they have a very, very deep squad, they have a large amount of players, and I'm not going to make a joke about that, Chelsea have a big squad. So they can rotate a little bit more than a PSG team that for manager reasons, Lewis Enrique doesn't like working with a particularly large squad because he wants to have more contact time with a lot of his players. So this PSG team came into the new season quite tired, they had to play the super cup game as well, so another short turnaround. And also, there's been two or three against Tom Hotsper, which, I mean, they were, Tom went to know up, and you think, and this is, Tom was frank, they get a trophy in his first season, and then they go to the penalty success, and it's just, but then it's, while it's the same players, there are two or three changes, I think, moving on, don't remember, bring on Lucas Turevelia is a big change because even, yes, PSG were fantastic in that Champions League run, but there were two or three matches and two or three opportunities where, I want to say Liverpool had a chance, I want to say Arsenal had a chance, and Donna rumour had to do big things, I've kept saying it, Donna rumour when he's playing at English club is, his eyeballs get big, he just finds an extra five percent, and he's just breaking your heart, and he's been doing it since the year of 2020 final, where Chevalier and Tom, you can correct me here if I get any players' pronunciation wrong, my French is quite bad. Absolutely spotless, so far. Thank you very much. Chevalier was picked because he's good with his feet. I did a piece ahead of the new season about Manchester United, and about the goalkeepers Manchester United might need to replace Andre, or Nana, and in the piece I wrote about Chevalier, I said, this is a Pep Guardiola goalkeeper hiding in plain sight. He's not necessarily someone who can make himself super big and get you something out of nothing to make a huge save, and therefore the team, I think PSG defensively, has probably lost five percent just by that goalkeeper swap. I think Marquinhos, you know, father time is caught up with Marquinhos as well, and he's not the same centre back that he used to be. So that's another five, ten percent off their defence too. Hakimi has been injured and he's gone to Afcon, and he's just not been the same player that he was last season. This is a player that for the last three or four years was regarded the best right back in the world, and now there's a conversation as to other right backs being in there. So three members of that back five are not the players they used to be. Then you add then the injuries to Danbele, Dessert Duets, but it's been on and off. So you've got a slightly smaller squad that played a ridiculous amount of football games last season, including the club World Cup. They all come back for a brand new season, two or three changes at a back, two or three players who are a bit older and or absent and or injured, and all of a sudden the team that many, many people were reloading as the one great team in European football all of a sudden is good-ish. And I think this is something that might continue to happen in this new expanded format of the Champions League, where there's no parodies and quite the word. There are fewer times where I'm going, that is a great team and more times I'm going, that is a good team with a goal scorer, you might go supernova for ten minutes. I think what happened last season for PSG is that all the planets aligned. Luis Enrique found this way of playing and he didn't come across it prior to the start of the season. We go back to the first part of last season. PSG were very underwhelming. They would very frequently dominate matches, but not score the goals that their domination of both possession and territory suggested they should. And then he starts playing with this Mandambale as a false nine halfway through December, things fall into place. In the second half of that season, no one got injured. He was able to rotate players freely because in Liga there was no real challenge. They had a big, they went into the year 2025 with a ten-point lead at the top of the table. And he was able to work with, as Karl says, a very small squad and even within that, 12 or 13 key players, by the time we got to the knockout phase of the Champions League last season, you knew pretty much exactly which team was going to start. The only query between games was, is it going to be dizzy, how do I do it, or is it going to be Bradley Bakkola? Every other player was guaranteed to start. And PSG produced a spectacular but quite complicated football, a very intense, very minutely coordinated press without the ball that involves every single player on the pitch, positional interchanging, that involves every player on the pitch. And because he was able to rest players in domestic games, and because none of his players were injured, it meant that he could work with that very small group of players, week after week after week, and ended up producing this extremely well-drilled kind of football. And this season, because of the injuries, but also because of the domestic challenge from Larsen Liga, which I know we're going to go on to talk about, he can't rotate, the players aren't fit, and so everything that was working last season is no longer working this season. And that very, that very finely calibrated style of football is just currently beyond them. And I think, you know, those are all key factors in explaining why that is. This is the Appetta KFC podcast with I.O. Akimolera. Well, let's move on to the Chelsea match on Wednesday, because we did mention, there'll be playing Chelsea in the Champions League, Liam Rossinier, has a decent record versus PSG as we know that from his time at Strasbourg, so one win, one draw and one loss. Now, how have previous meetings gone with these two sides? Because I'd like to think Rossinier is coming into this. There I say it with a much bigger squad carl, and feeling possibly a little bit more confident than he probably would under Strasbourg in Liga. Yes, but also we spoke to the way that explained about taking on PSG. He was like, well, go for it. Yeah, I think in football, it's one of those sports where you can play really, really well, and you don't always win, and you can play really well, and you can lose. The way I gauge my team is always on performance, and in terms of our performance and our bravery, and the players engagement, enthusiasm and energy, as a manager, you can't ask for anymore. So even if we'd lost the game, the way that the players conducted themselves in the way that I wanted us to play, now I was so proud. I was one of the proudest moments of my career, but hopefully there's many more to come as well. These are the games you want to manage. These are the games you want to be a football player, and that was Liam's entire approach. He talked about his history playing for Hall, playing for Brighton, and playing for some of the smaller teams that, when they finally got to go to Anne Fyodor when they got to Old Trafford, and he explained his own frustration about playing the bigger teams, and not really touching the ball, because everyone sort of, the game plan was about sitting in deep, and I was like, oh, well, this is the pinnacle in my career, and I've just stood there looking up, watching balls just go over my head, because we're playing a long ball. I believe when we spoke to him, Strasbourg had just drawn three-three with PSG, after being two goals up at the start, and Strasbourg pressed very, very high, which you can do that when you're the Strasbourg coach, because you've got very, very young players. But also, I think you can do that more against this PSG team, because, as Tom has explained, the very, very precise footballing machine has been disrupted in two or three phases. Fabian Rousse does not look the same player in 2026, that he was in 2025. There's been an injury to Jal Nevers, who, I mean, that kid is scary. Especially, isn't he? If Pep Guardiola signs Jal Nevers, we're all in trouble. And I mean, as the greatest compliment, Jal Nevers, he's five foot nine-ish, and his ability to predict where the ball is going to land, when it's been up in the air, is the only player I've seen with that sort of size, who's that good in predicting the flight of a ball is in Galicante. Like, he's brilliant. Vettinia, sometimes Vettinia is a nine-hour turn, sometimes he's a seven-hour turn, but Vettinia can't do everything. He's exceptional in the first phase, Fabian Rousse takes, Fabian Rousse, and Jal Nevers takes things in the second phase. And this is it, in that PSG have a lot of good players, but there may turn into great players, because their weaknesses are hidden very often by the other football players next to them. It's very good Scott building, when everyone is fit, and everyone's fit, and everyone's fit, and everyone's doing well, when they're not, that's the interesting bit. And the fact that Leon is a little bit more competitive now, and the fact that you've got a manager in the Emersonio, who has already, I'm not going to say profit, too. Profit maybe isn't the word when it's a 3-3 draw, but has dented PSG in the past, I think is... I think there's a psychological edge here. I think there's not going to be no fear when he's going through his training routines, and when he's doing things on the whiteboard, I also think increasingly now, when we are watching Champions League football, or Europa League football, the physicality of the Premier League now is coming to the fore. In that, I mean, Tottenham Hartzberg in a relegation battle, and yet they were finished the league phase fourth, because even the smaller fishers in the Premier League are able to hurt and run with an intensity that a lot of teams outside of, in Europe's other top five leagues, cannot quite manage. So if you're a Chelsea player, like, if you're more like this, say it all, go at them, and I'm sure one of the Chelsea coaches is telling him words to that effect, well, far more complicated instructions, and just go at them. But yeah, I'm really, really interested to see how Premier League combativeness works against a PSG team that can be very, very good at using possession as a defensive tool, as well. Yeah, and Karl talks about going at them at your own peril, because we've also seen PSG this season absolutely obliterate teams. You look at the Marseille 5-0 in league, ah, you look at that leal game with Dembele doing what Dembele does, you know, that chip. That graceful drag back and then chip over the keeper. You know, this is still a stack team, you spoke about Vittinia there, you know, the Tottenham game. Vittinia's first career, Hattrick against Tottenham, rescuing his team from a possible defeat, you know, against Tottenham Hotspur. This is still a stack team, let's not forget them. Yeah, it's the exact same team as last season on paper with the one difference being in goal, as Karl said, and, you know, clearly replacing last season's outstanding goalkeeper, Jean-Louis Jadona-Rumour, the current holder of the Yashin trofe with Lukashavaliye, who then lost his place to his Russian understudy, Matvei Safanov, who's basically a goalkeeper with a similar profile to Dona-Rumour, but multiple levels below him has not been a success. But it is all the same players, and we have seen glimpses, and that's one of the great frustrations with PSG is that you do see these glimpses, and Dembele's form since the start of the year has been one of the few bright spots, because he has had multiple injury problems. It was a hamstring problem in the first part of the season. Since Christmas, it's been carfish shoes. It was the carfish shoe that forced him off in the first leg of the playoff round tie against Monaco. He came on for last half an hour against Monaco on Friday, looked relatively sharp, but there again, you know, is it, would it be a risk to start him, given that there is now that vulnerability, but he has shown with that, you know, that fantastic brace against Leo, that impossibly delicate laugh-foot-chip brace that you scored against Marseille as well. And they need that because you watch PSG attack when he isn't on the pitch, and they look to him even when he isn't there, they're used to him dropping in and dragging centre backs around and creating space for the wide players to attack in the centre midfield as to attack, you know, and that doesn't happen when he's not there. It's been interesting that in the last few weeks, Lewis and Ricke has been trying Bradley Bakola as a false knight, very much not his natural position, but he's scored three in three in Liga and has shown some signs that he, you know, he might occasionally be a serviceable understudy to Dembele in that role, but yeah, it's not quite the same thing. So, yeah, talent-wise, you know, there is, there can be no disputing how good this PSG team is, but I think the fundamental issue is that physically, they, you know, they are not capable, or they do not seem capable of playing the kind of, you know, very high octane, that smothering football that they did last season, and that's with and without the ball. And as you say, you know, when you get a team that attacks them as naively as Marseilles, that team can find themselves in big trouble, but if you get a team who do it a bit more intelligently, a Monaco have done that very well in recent weeks, obviously, that the winning league on, but even in the two matches of the playoff round, when both teams had 11 men on the pitch, Monaco actually won that tie, which shows how much PSG struggled to bait them down and how Monaco, you know, were able to exploit some of the weaknesses in PSG's play when they did have the ball. So, yeah, you know, on paper, there can be no contesting the talent, but the sad reality for PSG is that it's been several weeks now where what you see on paper hasn't quite translated to what you see out on the pitch. Let's move our attention to League on briefly, Carl. I think since 2012, PSG have pretty much won League, I think only Leo and also Monaco, only other teams that have won it. I mean, Carlo Ancelotti finally bringing League on back to PSG under his reign. I mean, for the product, I don't know, PSG could still go ahead and win this for the product, though. If lawns win this, this is great. This is wonderful. The mighty PSG can be toppled. Yes. Yes. Look, German Renato Sanchez. Yes. Renato Sanchez, player, young player of the tournament at Euro 2016, at Benfica, goes to Bayern Munich, gets loads of injuries to Bayern Munich, has an unsuccessful low in sports. Swansea ends up at Leo. It's part of that Leo League on winning side. And now, every time someone goes, oh, Renato Sanchez didn't do much. One French League title for someone that wasn't PSG. He then eventually went to PSG and didn't quite work out, and they went to Roma, etc, etc. But I am now fast becoming of the opinion that if you can win the French League title for someone that isn't PSG, that is a heavier medal. So, French football is in a really interesting position in that the broadcast deal, and the most recent broadcast that I want to say lost to a three have been terrible. And they have, the French League has been quite honest about how the recent days have been terrible, and trying to package up a new subscription style package for anyone interested. And we've got the wonderful Alex Barker at the Ateccus, a huge proponent and a huge fan of French football, and he's constantly telling all of us about how cheap it is to watch all the French League games and how he wanted to be doing this as well. So you've got that. And increasingly for leagues, if your broadcast deal is terrible, you're just going to suffer. You're going to find it really, really hard to get people to watch your games in addition to the matches they're already going to watch. Domestically, it's a lot harder to get hold of the flow and narratives of your league outside of Champions League games. So I mean, the majority of the time I'm watching PSG, I want to say 95% of the time I'm watching PSG, it is a Champions League match. So I'm only watching them X amount of times. And also there's a problem of the Premier League is just an all-encompassing, devouring beast in that where Manchester United played Vian in the Europa League last season. I had the great joy of talking to a scout for a Premier League club and they were based in France. And they explain it to me in that the French League makes good players all the time. The French League finds it increasingly hard to produce good teams because the moment two or three good players emerge at someone that isn't PSG, a Premier League club goes, oh, thanks mate. Oh, you get cherry picked. So if there is ever a season where the stars align, where PSG is having a down period and another club is having a good period and perhaps they've got a good academy class or perhaps they've got a good coach or perhaps one of their strikers goes supernova and you can get a winning run. Absolutely. Fantastic. Good for the product because it gets more eyeballs on there. And if you've got, now the French League is slightly improving their broadcast deals. It is now easier to tune in. I want to watch Monaco this season because they got Paul Pogba and Nancy Fatty and two or three other players and I went, well, I want to see how this works out. So I paid a sort of trial subscription for you and I've been watching Monaco games two or three times, right? Long. Not much of Paul Pogba. Yes. Unfortunately not. I'm not going to see much of Paul Pogba. But this, I think this is the thing now in that increasingly in the not, if you're not the Premier League, leagues are now having to think very, very smartly about how do we get the quote unquote casual viewer or the, I'm going to watch you once in a month viewer and the French, the French League have now got a streaming service and online offering that makes it very, very straightforward. And if you can do that, that means in times like this where there is a genuine competitor to PSG, you can get more eyeballs onto your product. And then hopefully those eyeballs can stick, providing those competitors can stay together. I remember speaking to Jose Fonte after, again, after Leo won the league. He was a Leo, yeah. He was a Leo and he used to play for Southampton. So when I was a Southampton reporter, I had a conversation with him two or three times. When he won the league, I sort of sent my message after the victory thinking, well, you know, he's just going to league title. He's not going to want to respond to me. And he eventually did. And I was just chuffed a bit and he explained what it meant to him to be a French league champion. And yeah, you can really, really see how much it means to win a league title when you're not at PSG. And also quite frankly, if you're a manager at PSG and you don't win the league, I'm looking at you with sideways eyes going, you want me? So like, Pochettino didn't win in his first season. A Carlo Ancelotti did not win in his first season. And Tom, you can correct me here. I believe Ancelotti came in midway through in his first season and PSG came in. He had like a sign now. He came in at Christmas time. And I'm pretty sure PSG had like a six plus points lead at the top and they didn't win it. So you do need a unique alchemy for PSG to not get it done. But when it does happen, it's absolutely worth watching every single week or at least in highlight form. I'm not sure if they were that far clear, but you're right. It was nevertheless a fairly enormous surprise, particularly given they lost the league to Montpellier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking at these about Montpellier that I read the other day. And it was the best for him to live here. J'aroute. J'aroute, yeah. You know, and referred to in this piece that I read as, you know, France's luster city in terms of the probability of that title in and talk to me about, along the possibility of them winning league. Tom, I don't think they've won the top tier since the 90s. I imagine like 1998, I mean, come on. This has been amazing, considering the riches that exist that PSG and the plethora of talent they have at their disposal. There are so many levels to this. I could literally talk about, about lawns for. Oh, this is your time, Tom. First of all, the fact that any club other than PSG might win Liga is remarkable. But the fact that it's lost this very traditional club for the North of France with this fantastic boxy English style stadium that has been sold out for something like 81 Liga and home games in a row. This club that has had to sell so many of its best players in recent years, you go back to January last year. And Abdul Qadir, Kusanat of going to Manchester City, Kevin Dancer going to Tottenham. They lost their starting goalkeeper, Boris Sombo, went to Ren at the same time. There's just been this constant churn. And then here we are this season with a new head coach in PSG. He was sacked at Leon and in a manner that a lot of people both at Leon and elsewhere felt was very unfair. And with this really interesting, Hodgepodge collection of players, players whose careers were drifting, players who looked like they reached a dead end, who've just been picked up and put into this fantastically coached team, playing very uncomplicated, quite direct, but extremely effective football, flying wingbacks, Florian Tuva, who came in from Udinese last summer, playing just of Odson Eduard, whose career looked like it had completely come off the rails in England. And these players just kind of picked up seemingly from nowhere, who've now proven themselves as being among the very best players in Liga. And it is a classic case of halves and have nots. They are, I mean, Leo winning the title in 2021 was remarkable and comparable to this. Monaco likewise, albeit Monaco, have always had money behind them. But this is a proper underdog story. And so it's, yeah, it's the halves and the have nots. And there was a feeling up until, I'd say, even last weekend that lawns chance have probably been and gone in that prior to last weekend, they were four points behind PSG. They'd lost unexpectedly at home to Monaco. I haven't been too near up. They'd played well, but then drawn away. It's Tazborg and PSG had won. And you're, okay, we know the drill. PSG just going to move through the gears, lawns are going to encounter turbulence and then this dream sadly will die. But then PSG lose at home to Monaco, lawns, brushersides, mets who are the bottom club in Liga. And suddenly the title race is back on. And if you look at lawns running, they've got nine fixes remaining. Most of them are winnable. There are some key games. There's a trip to Lille in the WDNR, which is always a game that matters. A huge amount in that part of the world. It's a huge area there. It's a huge area up there as well, of course. And then the following weekend, we kind of 12 from 13th of April, I think it is lawns at home to PSG. I think the home for everyone who follows French football is that they are still within touching distance at that point. Because if, you know, if lawns go into that game knowing that if they win, they'll go top or they'll put distance between themselves and PSG, then it will be, it will be fully on. And yeah, if anyone hasn't yet had a chance to watch lawns this season, I would strongly recommend it is the most fantastic, feel good story. Stadiums always fall super noisy, super colorful. They play really exciting football. There are so many, you know, little subplots and storylines. And, hopefully, you know, for the good of, for the good of French football, it will be great if they can, you know, if they can push PSG all the way at the very least. You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with IOWAC in Malayare. All right, let's move on to the Champions League once more, Carl, because this week Liverpool versus Galatasaray kicks off on Tuesday, you know, a lot of pressure on this game, considering the league form of Liverpool, big one for Anna Slot. Absolutely. Big one, as we are now increasingly heading towards a summer of managerial Marygo rounds. And Anna Slot now not only needs to get some momentum together to make sure Liverpool qualify for next season's Champions League, but also needs to show some sort of convincing style of play, some convincing style of attacking open play to suggest that he should be the man next season. One thing that unfortunately, you know, an unfortunate, unforeseen complication on the Slot's Liverpool career is the fact that Javier Lanzo is available now. And I think we're all sort of like, oh, hang on, wasn't you meant to be at Real Madrid for ages? So Javier Lanzo is left, but also Javier Lanzo left for reasons that he can convincingly say, to not my fault, that's more to do with Real Madrid being Real Madrid. So big game for Liverpool they played Galatasaray earlier in the league phase, I believe, where Victor Oshman just gave him absolute hell because that's what Victor Oshman does. There's no harm, no foul. He's just one of the best strikers in the world. And then going to Galatasaray, never leave people easy place to go. This is the quote-unquote early Champions League game kickoff. It is tonight. Yeah, as we're recording it. I don't know, I days anymore. You can tell I'm a reporter for a club that's not in the Champions League anymore. So it's the quote-unquote early game. And I'm interested to see if that's going to play into Liverpool's favour or not, in that playing at Galatasaray, playing in Istanbul slightly earlier in the day, that doesn't quite play into the welcome to hell into a date atmosphere. And indeed Liverpool are, well, they're acquainted with that sort of atmosphere too. So very, very interested in there. I think the fact that Andrew Robinson played on Friday against all Hampton Wondrous was interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if you played again. We'll start it again today just to give him that a little bit of veteran now and to keep two or three players online or like switched on for the first 20 minutes. Be really, really interesting today. I'm also going to be reading to see how Ryan Gravenberg plays there too, because I think he's a supremely talented football player. He's just signed a brand new six-year contract there. But he needs to be a little bit more defensively resilient, particularly in these trickier circumstances, because if he vacates the space too much, there's going to be a very angry person flooding into the space and Liverpool could be vulnerable. We need to talk about athletic armoured vs. spurs, athleticity obviously, doing what I'd like to do in La Liga, but spurs are at a point where they are eyeing relegation, or at least that zone, isn't that strange in terms of when we talk about the riches available to certain clubs. And, you know, Premier League clubs in particular, you're looking at a team facing relegation and you're looking at a team in a decent position in La Liga. Yeah, it's maddening. Again, I think it speaks to, you know, the enormous firepower of the Premier League that you could have all the Premier League clubs still in contention in the Champions League. And that includes one of the most feeble Tottenham Hotspur teams. I think any of us can remember seeing. I mean, yes, they, you know, they had a relatively climate draw in the league phase, but they never, the last produced convincing performances, they beat decent teams. And, yeah, quite I think the qualified in fourth place, didn't I, which is, I mean, didn't make the play. Absolutely remarkable. And, I mean, they were able to successfully switch between domestic difficulties and continental assignments during the league phase. Are they still capable of doing that? And, you know, we saw how that group of players, albeit with a different coach, were able to compartmentalise what they were doing domestically, and what they're doing very badly domestically last season. And European objectives in the way that they, you know, slid down towards a finishing position of 17th in the Premier League. At the same time as they were grinding their way towards glory in the Europa League, will they prove capable of doing the same thing again? I mean, I've had to go, are a sort of very interesting phase in their, in their evolution under Diego Simeone, in that they are quite unsimionally like in the sense that they're, you know, quite an attacking team these days. They score an awful lot of goals. Absolutely. You know, put four unanswered goals, past Barcelona in the semifers leg of their Copadal race, semi-final. That's the thing like the Copadal race. My God. Second, I mean, yes, they were clinging on in the second act. This is, this is true. But it's, I mean, yeah, we know what to expect from Tottenham in, in domestic football is generally just quite bad, but when it comes to gone to London football, but I've no idea. It would feel like simultaneously, extremely Tottenham, if they were to go out, having lost 10-0 on aggregate, but also if they were to somehow to go through. And be athletic, yeah, it's very spicy. So Simeone uses pretty much press conference to say Tottenham had the favourites for that. And I'm pin on the face going, is this, is this gamesmanship? Are you doing the dark arts, or do you genuinely believe Tottenham are the favourites? And Tom's absolutely right, the financial wealth of the Premier League means Tottenham hospital now are the ninth richest football club in World Football. They have the seventh highest wage bill in the Premier League. This is why they've had these back-to-back bottom half finishes for Tottenham are so strange. This is shocking on the performance for the amount of money spent, and yet because of the wealth of the Premier League, because the amount, the comparative amount of wages they can spend, right? Connor Gallagher has gone from athletic home with George to Tottenham, and Connor Gallagher Gallagher now is Tottenham's, well apparently Tottenham's highest paid player. I'd be really interested to get him in the mix zone, get him talking about how these two clubs compare right now. And Tom's absolutely right about how disathetical Madrid team just aren't very simione in that when you think about their two triumphs in La Liga, the centre-backs, just the way they looked, it's night and day to their current centre-back pairing in that they're not as stocky. I'm sorry, I can't say that in a more intelligent way. They're a really, really fun team to watch this at their legal team, and I would like them to win a trophy, one more trophy for my constant ongoing argument that simione is one of the best managers of the 21st century. I don't know if it's going to be Champions League. Right, still plenty more actually to look to look out for in the Champions League Newcastle versus Barcelona, Atlanta versus Bayern, Liverpool's in versus Arsenal, obviously Bordeaux Glippes still doing what Bordeaux Glippes do versus sporting, and Real Madrid versus Manchester City once again in the Champions League. All right, Jens, it's probably a tough one to call right now, Tom, have you got to win the Champions League? I might just put my hat out to buy in on this one. Yeah, I was going to say buy in as well. All right, yeah, partly because I think there is, I can't think of many more pleasing forward lines in the recent history of European football than Michael Alise, Jamal Mucialla, Luis Diaz and Harry Kane. I think it would be a wonderful thing for that team to become European champions when they beat PSG before Christmas, despite having Luis Diaz sent off midway through the game. I remember thinking, and okay, this was at a time when we didn't realise quite how far off the levels of last season, PSG were, but that was very impressive. I think they're the team that have probably impressed me the most in the Champions League so far. So yeah, I think if I had to pick one, I'd go for buying. Yeah, I was salivating at that front line car. Incredible. Michael Alise says, form this season has been exceptional. It's ridiculous you got to possibly win the Champions League. I am steadily preparing myself for Arsenal to win the Champions League. Okay. You look at that bracket, and I think this is another thing about the Champions League now, in that the bracket and the knockout bracket means just as much as how good you are, and Arsenal have a very, very, very favourable route to the final. I text one of my friends saying, if Arsenal don't make the Champions League final minimum, I think that would be classes at this appointment. You're pulling a face now because you're annoyed that you weren't that friend I text. No, I think Arsenal's squad building is best equipped for this new era of football. I think the league phase and its current construction and the fact that brackets are up in the certain way, and if you finish a certain place in the league phase, you can have a more favourable draw. Again, it's less about being great and more about do you have, are you good and do you have depth in your squad in a way that you perhaps didn't have to consider in the 2000s or the 90s? I was born in 1991, so I was born in the era of 442, and top teams having four strikers, whereas now it is now appears that you need six centrebacks to get through a campaign. And the way MacArthur's composed things is that you couldn't have an injury to Califurie, or to have Califurie go off with some sort of complaint, and you can bring on a player as good as Hinkappa. I think that's really, really good. The fact that they rested Declan Risons with a Mendy is really, really important, and if they can have more matches where they could do that, and they don't have to play 90 minutes running up and down, they should get things done. Yep, okay. I do have some question marks over how they're going to score goals in open play, because Jocqueray hasn't been the football player that we thought he might be, but if Arsenal don't get to the final, I'd be surprised, and if they don't get to the semi-final, someone else on that side of bracket would have had to go supernova to get it done. So I think Arsenal won in the Premier League, and I'm slowly preparing myself for Arsenal to win the Champions League too. Have fun. I'm not going to be in North London where it happens. Still well-cleared. Anyway, let's see if they're just thoroughly enjoyed that. Karl, Tom, appreciate your time, and also thank you guys for joining us as well. We'll catch you soon. You'll also find us on YouTube at the Athletic FC Podcast, so make sure you subscribe. The Athletic FC Podcast is an Athletic Media Company production.