The End of Dominance: Xabi Alonso, Pep’s Legacy, and Premier League Tactical Chaos

Hello and welcome to the TFO Football Podcast. I'm Joe Devine and we're coming to you live from the Athletics offices in London. On a Sunday evening after an afternoon of lovely football. Now Chelsea beat Brighton 4-3 today with three goals before half-time to give new managers Javier Lanzo a victory in his first official match at Stanford Bridge. But they did so with, according to Daniel's story on Twitter, they did so with the lowest possession they've had at Stanford Bridge in 15 years, which is pretty shocking. And it fits a theme that we've been discussing here on TFO Football Podcasts for the last few weeks. Have we entered a new tactical era? Well that's what we are talking about today and to do that I'm joined by John McKenzie. Hello. And Kaya Kina. Hey Joe. All right. Incidentally it's worth saying on tomorrow or Tuesday morning's podcast I'll be joined by Tom Harris, Colin Miller, Rubin Pender. We're going to talk about Man United's 5-2 victory over Ipswich and other results from the weekend as well. But today we'll be dedicated to Chelsea and talking about the new tactical era. Okay, let's begin now. As I said in the intro there, John, Chelsea had 26% possession today at Stanford Bridge against Brighton, which I think in any other season would be sort of shocking, although it's not really in this one. Here's the first question. Is the broad consensus that Pep Guardiola's domination, possession, domination, style of football is the way that elite teams should play? Is that broad consensus now broken in this new era? Yeah, there's a lot of nuance to this question I think because on the one hand Pep Guardiola is no longer the manager of Manchester City. And you could probably make the argument that he was the guy who persuaded everyone that they should try and get high possession in order to dominate games in that way. And he's not there anymore. So was anyone else actually doing that outside of him? Is that really going to be there? But I do think there's a few interesting things that we can talk about here. One of the things is something that I noticed at the end of last season, and it's a trend that's been happening over a number of seasons now, two seasons really. You can see, if you actually put the spread of all the teams in the Premier League, per possession share across all of their games, into a sort of scatter plot across a line to show the ones with the most possession at the top and the ones with the least possession at the bottom, you generally end up over the last decade with the best teams having, you know, 60 to 70% possession across all of their games on average. And the relegation teams usually being the ones that have, you know, 30%. And what we've seen over the last couple of seasons, largely true across all top five European leagues, right? Maybe to a greater or lesser extent in some of them. Yeah, absolutely. But that was true of football at the elite level, as opposed to just specifically for me. Yeah, exactly. And what we've started to see over the last couple of seasons is that narrowing down. So the teams at the top having less possession, the teams at the bottom having more. So the teams at the bottom finding a way of, I've actually breaking that possession dominance a little bit. And, you know, the way that the league has headed this season suggests that that narrowing down will, will continue further. The other thing to say is that when we're talking about that, that quadriola consensus, which is, actually, if you can possess the ball well enough, you can control games well enough to dominate them. You know, that's, that's something that we're just not seeing as much anymore. There's very few teams where, where that's actually happening. And, you know, people will point to, maybe Man City this season as an example of a team where they are still getting high possession. But I was at the game at, at, at Celter's Park at the weekend. What was so interesting for me about that was that, actually, at the beginning, it felt as though, you know, City weren't necessarily dominating possession in the, in the way that you would expect, which is territorial domination, like forcing the opponent really deep into a low block, which they then broke down. The game was, was, was sort of on a level of parity until Erling Harlan scored the first goal. And then we got Ryan Cherkis scoring the second goal. Then it changed the, once I got that two-goal buffer, it started allowing City to do something quite different to what Guardiola did, which was possess the ball deeper in the field. So they're still trying to possess the ball, but rather than trying to possess it high up the pitch, they were happier, in part because Palace weren't pressing out to, to hold it deeper in the field as well. So there's still going to be some kind of possession is still going to be important to an extent, I think. But it talks about this idea also that, you know, tactical diversity in terms of the different styles of approaches is maybe, you know, the thing that will win the day, as opposed to this thing that Guardiola did is now, is now entirely dead. This may be more, the thing that's maybe dead is that this is the only way to play. Yeah, absolutely. So I have a section in my book called The Death of Domino. You've got a book. I've got a book. And the, yeah, the audio version is available. We've not mentioned it yet, but you, you've, yeah, it's read by Ronald Kerman. Right. Yeah. It's nice. It's read by Joe. It's read by me. In a duck jack. But it is now available on Spotify and. Audible. Audible. Yeah. And the internet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a section in my book titled The Death of Dominance. Yeah. The idea is that, actually, Guardiola had this sort of one size fits all way of playing, which he could force opponents into and then control games in that way. That's probably now gone. That doesn't mean that it's not still a useful way of playing. It just means that other ways are, it's not the value way of playing. Yeah, it's not the way of playing. And so what's really interesting about the Premier League right now is that we're starting to see that at the elite sides. So a good example, Arsenal in their community shield, again, they deservedly won. They had 40% possession, which usually in a game between City and Arsenal, if one of the teams had 40%, you'd probably be like, oh, they don't deserve to win this game. They've not really dominated. So we're starting to see a shift of what that domination looks like. It doesn't have to look like possession domination. It can be domination of chances or creating chances in ways that don't require a huge amount of possession on the ball. And actually, I think all of this coincides with the fact that the Premier League is now full of very, very good players to the extent that you can sort of just have an excursion into the opposition box or the opposition half and create a chance and score it. And that's enough. And we're seeing, I think, game state as a result becoming really quite important. A lot of teams, if they can get into a positive game state, then that becomes the point at which they can then start worrying a bit more about possession or less about possession and defend deeper and potentially and not have to worry too much about controlling the game in other ways as well. So yeah, I think we're in a really interesting juncture right now. A fruitful juncture. I think so. Could I just read one quote from Artheter as well? This is from Mickael Artheter. Yeah, so this is from Artheter. Who's the Arsenal manager? We should make sure that everyone knows who that is. You could always read a quote from Mickael Artheter. Yeah, that's good. This is from Artheter, Russia's piece recently talking about how Artheter has evolved three times. We should have Kaya read the quote. Yeah, let's do that. And then because Artheter is closest to Kaya. That's true. And then you can... Not in terms of height. I think I'm closer to Artheter. What did you say, Kaya? He said, I said, the game plan, the macro structure, how we pass the ball or position ourselves no longer matters. Today, you depend on that one player who can make a game-defining action. That's the difference, like in tennis, where they play five sets for five hours, but it's decided by three games. It's easy this reason. Is that part of the page thing? That was very well... I thought that was very... That was good. That was good, yeah. You're giving Ronald Kermen a run for money. But what I love about this quote is the ninja. Yeah, so he starts off by saying, the plan, they used to be so important for a manager like Guardiola, which is, how do we dominate using our in and out of possession structures? When we have the ball, we keep the ball, we generate chances, when we lose the ball, we use our structure to win it back. Everyone is doing that sort of stuff now, I think, to a very high level. And so what you're ending up with a lot of the time is the stalemates, like both teams kind of cancelling each other out. So what is making the difference is those few games in five sets, as he talks about tennis later on, where if you manage to go ahead in a game, you can maybe hold on and use the game conditions in order to help yourself win. So maybe Manchester United versus whole school from a set piece, and then that allows them to just sit a bit deeper and absorb pressure, get up the pitch score, another goal from a set piece. Those kind of things are winning your sort of edge case games in a set of tennis, where actually you hold the service game, hold the service game, hold the service game, and it's just that one game in the set that changes the outcome. Would these all also, it's worth saying before we go on to talk about Chelsea specifically, that the changes that you're talking about here are resulting in new trends in the league. But maybe we're starting to see already, or that we anticipated to see. So I heard Liam Farm on an episode of the Athletic FC podcast the other day. He was asked, does he have any predictions for trends of the upcoming season? And here's was that we might see more same-sided wingers. So wingers playing on the left that are left-footed. In fact, we saw Cody Gakpo playing on the right for Liverpool, potentially for the last time. Let's see what happens before Deadline Day. And he created maybe Liverpool's two best chances in that game by crossing it in with his right foot, which is something I feel like we haven't really seen for 15 years. There's a few of these sorts of changes that might result as a result of, you know, Pep Guardiola's style of domination sort of falling by the wayside. I think direct play is just going to become so much more important. So one of the things I've been talking about endlessly in the last couple of game weeks in the Premier League is how many teams are sort of trying to exploit space in behind, or at least they're creating the conditions to do that. So Ryan Mason on Sky Sports yesterday made a big point of how Newcastle were finding a way of getting San Jo Tanali isolated against Anthony Alanga, I think it was. And then in that sort of situation, you just want to play the ball into the channel because you know that Alanga with his pace is going to be able to win that foot race. And then generate chances in that way. And we saw also the, I guess a couple of Newcastle's best chances coming from a dead itch they're right back running into that space and then playing the ball back across as well. What's been so interesting to me is that, you know, there's teams who are not doing it as well in the first half as they are in the second half when clearly the coaches are coming out and being like, we're creating these great conditions. You've just got to go direct in some of these scenarios. Because again, we're so used to this idea that we need to keep possession or costs because if we don't do that, we aren't able to dominate games. Actually, teams are finding ways of just going more direct and it causing more problems for opponents than when they keep the ball for a long period. Personally, I'm kind of happy about it because it's so far it seems to have resulted in a couple of games that have had many goals. And I mean, Brighton have now been involved in two themselves. So maybe it will result in a higher scoring premier league. Let's, we'll have to wait and see. Let's apply this specifically to Chelsea though. If that's the new tactical era that we're stepping into, one which may be favours tactical diversity, there's different approaches you can take to the game to win as opposed to just having to do it the way that Pep Guardiola does with high possession. Then what specifically did we see from Chelsea today that fits within that new context? Yeah, it was a weird game to watch this Chelsea Brighton game or to give it its full title. The Danny Welbeck, Mark O'Carrere, Moises Kaiseido, Valentin Barcos, Rob Pedro, if I can do one another, leave I call Will, Billy Gilmore, Tarek Lamtey, Robert Sanchez, Graeme Potter, Wayne Bridge and Steve Sidwell Derby. What about Bruno Salto as well? Bruno Salto, yeah, Paul Winstanley, we could keep going. I'm sure there'll be more that people can mention. But yeah, it was a weird one because I felt Chelsea, obviously we've talked a lot about how they had low possession, but it didn't really feel like a typical game where we've seen loads of games, man city games, for example, where they've had 78% of the ball and the opposition's had 20 and it's felt like they've never got out and they've just been camped in their own box for the entire match. This wasn't that, this wasn't that at all because it felt like we were watching it in the office with some colleagues and they kept saying that every time they looked up at the TV, it felt like Chelsea were coming forward because they adapted to the game. And Jabi Lanzo, quite interesting, he was sort of asked about it after the game and he said, I don't tell the team, we need 60 or 20% possession, that's not the approach. It's about preparing well and being able to adapt and be competitive in different moments of the game. So finding solutions on the pitch to figure out what works. And I think Chelsea did that really well where they realised that Brighton weren't really causing them too many problems early doors with their holding loads of possession, they were as they didn't need the ball to win the game. There will be games probably across the course of the season where Chelsea do need the ball a bit more to win the game. It's interesting because this is kind of, it felt like a blessing on a curse for Chelsea within the same game because it's what allowed them to race into a three-go lead within the first half an hour of the match. But then the reason the game became as hectic as it did as we went on is because they didn't have control of the ball. So they surrendered possession, which was great for them, but also surrounding possession was terrible for them. So it's going to be that yin and yang, that balance between the two. And you mentioned my closeness to Michael Arteta then. It's not because I follow him around a lot, although I just moved out recently and a friend of mine said that I lived near a cafe, well just above a cafe and a friend of mine spotting Michael Arteta in that cafe. Oh my god, that's why he's moved. That's quite exciting. That's why he's gone there. Yeah, it's nothing to do with that I promise, because if you're planning on going back to that cafe. But something he said, so my old job I used to cover Arsenal and I used to go to his press conferences. And I remember a few years ago, there's a get press conference sticks with me and Arsenal beat Watford 3-2. And they were 3-1 up in the game and they had about half an hour to go and they should have controlled it and they were obviously the way better team. But they didn't. And the game, obviously. And the game becomes, I thought I said that, a lot more hectic. And, and Arteta said in his post match, when that happens, we need to control the game with 100,000 passes. We need to pass them into submission essentially and keep the ball so that they can't do anything. What he's saying here, and the quote that I read out earlier as Michael Arteta suggests that that has gone and Chelsea today suggests that is going and all gone even. And it's really interesting because it makes, as you said, the games are a lot more hectic. It means that there's no real sustained periods of possession. The games are a lot more unpredictable and Bryson came back into it today. And if they'd taken a few of their chances than the first half, it could easily have been four or five four. But then if Chelsea had taken some more of their counter attacking chances, it could have been even more. So it makes the game so much more exciting. They're a lot more stretched. They're a lot more fun. Because I think last season, a lot of us felt maybe they got a bit stale at times, whereas this season, the early weeks at least, have been a lot more entertaining, I think. So yeah, it's interesting. They're different. They're not the typical sort of, you look at these stats and you think the game was a certain way. There's so much more to analyse from the first few weeks, the Premier League at least so far. Okay, let's have a quick break. And when we come back, we will continue talking. Okay, there we are. We're back from that break. I think it's very interesting what what what Kaira was saying there. The key point for me, John, is this idea of control. And there've been various different approaches to football over the years, right, that I would say in the era that we've just emerged from, the idea of control is very synonymous with having the ball. Everyone believes that in order to control a game, you have to have the ball. There are outliers to that. There are coaches like Jose Mourinho, for example, who's managed teams and said we can control the game without the ball. Yergen clopped to a certain extent with his gig and pressing has done the same thing. So it's not a completely new concept to us. But the flip side of the positive side of the coin, as you might imagine, is the negative side of the coin. Kaira, Kaira, just referred to it there. Perhaps the same thing that allowed Chelsea all of this space in behind a brighten that we're controlling the ball in order to score three goals in 30 minutes was arguably the same thing that then enabled brighten to score three goals in the very same game and create this sort of bizarre fixture that was quite difficult to analyse overall. I guess this is just the downside of that style of play, right? It may be Chelsea need to learn to control the game better without the ball. Yeah, I like to describe this phenomenon as football being a relative game, which means that you're constantly in one of two states, right, with, you know, if you are outlier instances, but you're either in possession of the ball, or you're out of possession of the ball. And if you're out of possession of the ball, then the opponent are necessarily in possession of the ball. And so you have to sort of try and balance off the pros and cons of those two approaches. So, as Kaira said, for a team like Chelsea, where they've got players who are going to be very good in transition moments, which, you know, largely is true for all elite sides, right? Like, if you've got elite players, they're going to be better if they've got space to transition into. That's great, but the problem is is that for the most part, if you're allowing the opponent to open out that space, you're doing it by allowing them to have the ball, right? So you're giving them the initiative with the ball, and you then have to be very good defensively in order to stop them from, from creating chances. And for the most part, they will have more of the ball there for more chances. Those chances may be lower than the ones that you create, but you've got to get that balance right between, you know, feeling as though you're getting the good attempts to counter attack when, when they're arriving. And I think, you know, Chelsea will argue today, we did that, right? If you look at the XG run, they'll say we got, we got the higher, we got the higher chance quality. So we're happy to, to live in that balance. I mean, the game did end up being 4-3, so it's maybe a bit close, close to a comfort. But it's rough had record of scored another goal. Yeah, maybe maybe two. Yeah, exactly. And then obviously, the flip side of that is that if you possess the ball, then, and again, you can make the argument that the, that the Brighton were on the, on the, on the negative side in this sense, because if you're trying to break down a, a bit of a lower block, you are leaving a lot of space in behind you. It's hard to break down the block. And if you lose the ball, which they did in a few occasions against the team like Chelsea, they are going to find ways of causing you problems there as well. So there's, there's pros and cons to both approaches. And I think what's so interesting about, um, about this game is that, you know, as we're saying, like with the team like Chelsea, they usually err on the side of will possess the ball too much and make it harder for ourselves in that way, make it harder to break down the opponent and leave and make it harder for us to defend those transitions. And I guess the question that I'm interested for us to talk about here is how much of that is, is a conscious decision by Javier Lonzo on the basis of the players that he has available to him. Yeah. Um, so on the one hand, we're going to talk about that from three, um, of, of whatever they call it now, JP Morgan, as well Pedro, um, Cole Palmer and, um, and JP Morgan, JP Morgan. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Um, Morgan Morgan Rodgers, Morgan Morgan Rodgers, Morgan Rodgers and Chase. Yeah. Um, but then we're, we can talk about the back line as well, because I think at times we've seen in the last few seasons, Chelsea have really struggled to try and play in that more elite way, where they possess the ball out of the pitch, because they are getting caught out in transition. They rely very heavily on Moises Kaiseido, who came on today late and then went straight off. Yeah. Um, so those are the sorts of things that determine what your tactical approach should be, the players at your disposal, because if you were going to play, um, you know, high possession, football, high up the pitch and you're playing. So in the, in the game against Fulham, they had, um, who did they have in midfield in that game? Reese James and Romeo Lavia. And then in this game, they had Romeo Lavia and Malogusto, like neither of those two, those sets of players are large space players. These were things also in, in the live chat. Aditya Aredi has said, uh, Chelsea were playing with a midfield of Lavia and Gusto, this low possession might not be how they play long term. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that's, that's where I want this discussion to end up. But I, I do think it's kind of interesting to talk about what this, this version of Chelsea looks like, because we've seen it before. We've seen it under Mauricio Pochettino. We've seen it under Maresca as well. So with Pochettino, he developed that direct style of play. And Cole Palmer had his best season, for example, under Mauricio Pochettino at Chelsea, where that was the season that everyone was excited about. He then, um, was replaced with Pochettino by Maresca, Maresca played in that more direct style initially. But then was too worried, I think about the, the, the problems that were created going in the opposite direction. So he started trying to implement more of a possession control model. Right. And as a result, Cole Palmer everyone started being very negative about him because it felt as though he wasn't, he wasn't performing to the same level. I, I would suggest that that, that's because Cole Palmer is just going to look much better against, uh, against, you know, in transition attacking moments. So again, I think it's very interesting that everyone is super excited about Cole Palmer this season. And it's been a season where they've played essentially low block and counter football, which really suits his game style as well. So he's already scored and assisted in the first game. He scored today. Maybe he assisted as well. I'm not sure there's so many goals. It's hard for him. But it seems to be going well. So, right. And that's, you know, it's very easy for us to then say, well, obviously, Alonzo isn't going to want to play like this long term. But if you, you've got to get that balance right between how do we get the most out of someone like Cole Palmer, as well as like how do we make it easier for the defense to, to deal with the conditions that we create for them as well? Well, I mean, should we talk, should we start with the defense then? Because we're like, I think that you're saying like really what we want to know here is how much is the decision to play in this way, which you have to say is purposeful, right? There's no way that Chelsea have their lowest possession at Stanford Bridge for 15 years and it's not deliberately dictated by the coach. You know, obviously, I understand that there's a certain extent to which the players are able to make decisions on the pitch. But based on how Brighton actually looks at quite vulnerable Pazali in their 4-0 victory over Villa in the first weekend, it feels like it was an obviously deliberate ploy on the part of it. Well, we noticed in the first half that when Brighton were just building up from the back that Chelsea didn't even try and engage them in their opposition half, right? They just said, he'd go, come on, come on to half way. I mean, they let that into their own half, right? Yeah, so it's very purposeful. Okay, so going backwards then, in the case of defending deeper, that presumably is about the fact that they've had struggles in defensive transition. Yeah, I think so. In terms of, so when you're wanting to do the Gwadiola thing of possessing the ball high at the pitch, territory advantage, and the idea behind that is that if you lose the ball, you're a long way away from the goal. So it should be harder for the opponent to actually get to your goal. In theory, or the Premier League isn't really sure. Well, yeah, and that's part of the reason I think the Pep consensus is collapsed slightly. But what you also have in your disposal is the concept of rest defense, which is this idea that actually you can structure your players who aren't attacking. In such a way, when you have the ball, if you do lose it, one, they're a well-positioned counter press to try and win the ball back and prevent a counter attack from appearing. But even if that does happen, you're then well positioned to defend the players who are going to cause you problems there. And I think that was the area under Maresco that they really struggle with Chelsea, because they just didn't have many players who were particularly good in those. So their structures would always be really good. But there were certain players who just weren't very good at defending those large spaces, often one V1, where you have an opponent you have to deal with. And so as a result, there were times... I remember there was a goal at Fullham School at the beginning of last season that ended up getting disallowed from Josh King, but there was plenty of examples of certain players making poor decisions. And then you could see the players around them. So Moise's Kaisedo clearly feels like he has a lot of responsibility to sort out problems, because he's quite good in those moments. So he's then covering for someone like Tossin Adderabio, or you'd have Trevor Chalibur just jumping into challenges, because he knew if he didn't have it, it was going to be Badi Ashil, who'd be doing the covering as well. And I think that's something that Alonzo will have at the back of his mind, which is, you know, we've not... Yes, they've got Levi Colwell back, but they're still playing with a lot of the same players. They've got Josh Atchimpong as well, who I think is a brilliant player as well. But I think he's just got that in the back of his mind. We don't want to start putting the players under that amount of pressure this early in my tenure, because those situations have like a real quality of just looking very clown car if you get them wrong. So by avoiding having high possession, you're avoiding putting those players under that kind of pressure, and you're saying, okay, we'll do like block defending. There's much less pressure on you, because your teammates are much closer to you, and you're sort of forcing the opponent to have to move the ball around you more than hit the space run and make sure you don't make any mistakes. Have you noticed John started saying clown car? Yeah, I'm enjoying it. What is this about? What do you talk about? I just mean, you know, when funny things happen. No, I know, I know what, you watch the many night games which game we saw a few of those. I know what it means, I'm just wondering where you've picked it up. Sometimes I think of you as sort of like a teenage son, you know, you come home, and one day after school, he just started saying clown car. And I don't know, is this what all the kids are saying at school? Is this just something that you've read in a book from 60 years ago, and you've just said, where did you pick this up? I don't know. That's a good question. Is it from the Scorsese film you watched last night? That's right, yeah. The silence that you watched last night. Yeah, there's a few clown car moments in that zone, let me tell you. But I don't know, when you talk about tactics a lot, I always just have go-to concepts, which is sort of easy to throw in those. Maybe it's maybe I'm lazy in that respect. No, no, I'm sorry for offending you both. You haven't offended us at all, I just like, you're a little magpie for tactics. And I just, he's, he's, he's, John's got more Gen Z, uh, uh, I don't think clown physiology. I don't think clown car is a Gen Z. No, I think it's like my, my dad's, it's Boomer, it's Boomer, he's done cops kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. I wasn't sure if it had been taken up again, you know, but like how in the 90s people started saying wicked to mean good. I'm a trendsetter, Joe, that's, that's all I can say. Yeah, all the kids will be saying clown car moments soon. Remember Bozo moments? I did that for a while. Yeah, yeah, you still think Bozo moments. No, it's clown car. I feel, I don't know, I feel, yeah, I feel bad about saying Bozo moments because usually I can individuals made a mistake and I like, you know, I'm not really that interested in, like, tracking the next trend in terms of those negative, no, no, no, no. I'll think what's coming back found. Well, I guess, you know, he's, he's taking individual elements of a circus, which we have, you know, is, is a football cliche, isn't it? It's a circus, though. Yeah. So, uh, juggling kind of. I don't think juggling has negative comments. Omar little in the chat. Yes, I also noticed John saying clown car. Oh, great. Omar little. Let's get in his head, guys. We're in his head. Okay, there we go. So it is possible, as we say, that Javier Lanzo is doing this deliberately as a result of his defensive, personnel struggling, defensive transition. Kaya, at the other end of the field, though, it, I mean, it's much more obvious that it's working really well for that attacking triumphant of JP Morgan. Yeah. JP Morgan don't want to be breaking down low blocks. They want to get found. They want to get bailed out by the US government. Exactly. I'm sure they did get bailed out. I don't know if they did. Yeah, they did. Did they? I can't remember. Are they US bank? Yeah. The big short about five times, I still don't quite understand what happened. Sure, sure. I'll do some research. I think Ryan Gosling was in it. Yeah, he was, he was, he was, uh, so let's say Cole Palmer is Ryan Gosling. Yeah. Jal Pedro is Steve Carell. Yeah. And then name one more person Christian bail from the film. Yeah, Christian. Yeah, that works. Yeah. I think Cole Palmer's clearly the Christian bail character. That's true. He sees things that other people don't. Exactly. He's ahead of the trend. Exactly. He saw clown car before it. JP Morgan receives a 25 billion dollar government bailout. Yeah, he goes. She had to be a long-term tactics in this matter. You know what? As far as legal statements go, it's pretty safe to say that a big bang has been bailed out by a government at some point, isn't it? At some point. Anyway, as we discovered on last Thursday's podcast, we are the podcast that supports the big banks. There you go. That's true. Apparently, that's the case. Okay. What were we saying? Tell me about them when he's going forward and have fun. Steve Hanky is messaging me to say, he's not even here. He's messaging me to say, stop talking about big banks. Okay. Actually, it may be only 12 billion dollar bailout according to the New York Times. Very important to get that right. Not my area of expertise. And everyone hands up. So all a bit clown car over here. Sorry. Now, what are we talking about? Going forward is fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be faced up against load blocks where everything is slow and plotting in deliberate. And who better to tell us about how to tell you all about it? Sometimes it's not that fun. Sometimes it's fun to just let rip and go forward. And yeah, do it quickly and be off the cuff and just. I get a corner and score from the corner. Exactly. Well, just to add to what you were saying before, actually, about the Brighton things. I'll go back to my offensive point, but in my defensive point. Chelsea will feel that they're sitting back and defending a bit deeper is actually kind of justified in the sense that Brighton's three goals basically came from set pieces. Like the first goal is a quick throw. Second goal is a corner, second phase. And the third goal is a long throw in the last minute of the game. So I think in terms of cutting out those defensive mistakes and the clown car defending that Chelsea were bad at last season. It's probably not a bad tactic to get the best out of that part of the squad. And then allowing the front part of the squad to go back to the offensive bit, the extra space and the time to run into is the best way, I think, to get the best out of those players, like John was saying, Colt Palmer's best season at Chelsea still was his first season in the Maurizio Potschino when they were a lot more transitional. And they're probably a lot more fun. I think like Chelsea fans are singing Jabbie Alonzo's name today in his first game in charge. I don't think they ever did that with Enzo Morasca because the football was it was effective, but it was a little bit boring a lot of the time, whereas this is a lot more fun, a lot more transitional, a lot more off the cuff. And you're going to see them concede stupid goals, but you're going to see them score a lot of fun goals as well. And I think that's kind of what fans want to see, like if you're going to be in the position where Chelsea are on the table, like you might as well just have a bit of fun doing it right? Especially when you have those players too, I think I understand why coaches want to have control because I think over a long period that works itself out, right? The Guadiola got 70% win ratio pretty much throughout his whole career until towards the end. That's enough to win you the league pretty much in any top European league. And then you sort of take your chances in knockout tournaments. I guess the problem is is that when you get to a point where everyone is so stacked with talent and you feel as though that talent is being squeezed into a more control approach, then there's always that frustration of like, well, why can't we get cold karma just running an opponent? And it's not as simple as that, but I think for fans, like in the 90 minutes is largely what matters. And it's very easy for us to come out of a game and be like, yeah, you know, that's how we should do it all the time. It's hard for you to say, okay, well, over what about over a 10 game period where if you play with control, you're going to win seven of your games and then maybe drop points in the others. That's what happened with Merezka, right? He decided that actually playing direct was starting to harm them too much going in the other direction. So it will be interesting to see how that works itself out in the wash. I think on that basis as well, the thing that's the most interesting to me about Chelsea right now is the same as the thing that's interesting to me about Newcastle, who I think I've also started the league season really well. It's been fascinating to watch Matthias Yisler's team so far, but they've performed very well against Spurs firstly, well, secondly, I guess away from home and against Liverpool. Where they have 40 percent possession. Where they have 40 percent possession. Okay, you say what you want about Spurs being an elite team that nearly got relegated, but when you go away to Tottenham Hot Spurs stadium and they've spent 400 million pounds, you expect to play a team that wants to dominate the ball, or at least you would in a previous season, and a team that wants to try and take the initiative and win the game. Newcastle have looked fantastic in both of those games, and I'm really excited about them to see how they do this season. I'm very excited to see them play a team that doesn't play in that way. That's going to come pretty soon. I think they play the relegated teams, or a couple of them in their first five or six games. They're nearly promoted to be relegated to be relegated to be relegated to be relegated. Yeah, they're newly promoted teams. They play them pretty soon. So I'm really interested to see what Newcastle Matthias Yisler's Newcastle will look like when they play a team that doesn't want the initiative that does sit off more. To the same extent, can we apply that to Chelsea because their first two games, they're played against Fullham, are below us Fullham, who we don't really know what they are yet, but they want the initiative. I think it's clear to say, based on the transfers that they've made, they're not going to sit totally deep. And also Brighton, who, as we said, I think that 4-0 game against Villa was the best game of the opening we can. But the scoreline did disguise some vulnerabilities in their very aggressive approach as well. So I'm not sure that there are that many more teams that are in that category. There are other elite teams for whom it would be harder for Chelsea to play against. But I'm not sure there's that many other mid-tier teams, or mid-to-upper tier teams in the case of Brighton, who do want to take the initiative, perhaps dominate the ball, who are willing to play into Chelsea's hands in that way. So what do you think on the basis of what we've seen so far? We would be likely to see where they to play against Hull with what they did against Man United in the first year. Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think you can also use it the other direction as well. What happens when they come up against the team like Arsenal, where, you know, if you give Arsenal 75% possession, they probably will beat you. If you give them 75% possession, they'll beat you. If you give them 70 million euros, you can take Gabrielle Martin. That's true. And they're still fleeting. And they're still fleeting. Yeah, they're still getting fleeting. No, someone's getting fleeting. I can't remember. But yeah, I think that's for me, that's kind of the interesting thing, because maybe these two teams are in their sweet spot, right? It's, you're going to give them a lot of possession. They're going to take that possession, but they're not going to cause you too many problems with it. Whereas, you know, if you come up against a Hull who were very happy doing the same thing to Manchester United, where they just sat deep off the ball and made themselves very hard to break down and got their set-piece goals when they needed them, if that's going to be a very different tactical approach that is required from Chelsea. And, you know, I believe that Chelsea will be more than up to the task of doing that. But then I believe that Man United were more than up to the task of doing that to Hull and they couldn't find that way through. So, yeah, that will be interesting. And then, yeah, for me, those are the two, the extreme examples. What happens when they come up against a city and you give city that amount of space and time on the ball, you allow them to progress the ball down the field, no problem. And then suddenly, they're just finding ways into the box and eventually will break you down. Again, you can win games in that way. We've seen it happen. Manchester United did it a lot of times to teams in the big six last season. There's no reason why Chelsea couldn't do that. But I think you're then relying on your team having to have very sharp neat moments when you have your forays into the opposition half. And you're going to have to be very good at defending in a block for a large percentage of the game as well. Okay. No, no going kind of. I think that there are a lot of teams I think actually who are going to play the way Brighton played today and the way full and played last week, because I think the Premier League, because of the money that all the teams have now, is so much better in terms of quality, that the type of challenge that whole face, whole sorry, provided Manchester United in the open day of the season, I don't think you're going to get that too often anymore in the Premier League. I don't think you're going to get teams just coming and sitting deep and low blocking for. Well, Ipswich didn't do that again. Exactly. Ipswich went for it. Coventry will probably go for it. The next newly promoted team. Leaves will go for it. I'm just going through the looking at the Premier League table now like Newcastle Brentford. They'll go for it a little bit. And I think that there's very few teams who will provide the kind of challenge that Chelsea with the kind of low block football will come up again. So I think certainly in the first half of the season as well, I think what ends up generally happening is that a team becomes so good at playing in that way that the people that the opponents are like, well fine. Given you, of course, there's so many problems when we tried to have the possession. We'll not give you as much. Exactly. And this is what are Tether and London and his post-match press conference are talking about in terms of needing that diversity. You don't need sledgehammers to win the Premier League anymore. You need Swiss Army knives to kind of break through the different challenges that you get provided. No, these are the clown cars. Swiss Army knives. How do you do? Every team, if you want to win the Premier League, needs a Swiss Army knife squad. You can't just have one single way of playing. Tactical diversity. Exactly. Exactly. And I'm trying to find it. I'm finding it hard to make a serious tactical point. It's just laughing in my face. No, I'm sorry. Welcome to my life. Yeah. Yeah. It is ever ridiculed. It was just a little magical. I'm nothing just because I popped a little pole in the live in the live channel to say it's gab martinelli worth 17 million years. 26% of the all 27% of the audience. The Arsenal fans. Yeah, say yes. Wow. As you did that before I could vote. So I know it's flipping now. Could it go 70-30? No, it can't. It's gone the other way. I'll end the poll there. 70% of the audience. That's a snowball. That is the case. There we go. Okay, fine. Listen, let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we are going to going to talk more a little bit more about their squad, Chelsea, and players that they might need in order to play this more, transitional stuff. Because we know that they have some midfield issues that's called of that. We're also going to talk a little bit about what shall be illustrated at Lavercose. And to see if there's anything we can learn from the past about what might happen in the future. And then we've got an incredibly hot dripping wet take from Kyle. Well, listen, you don't grimace. It's your take. It's my take, but I want to disown it now after that. That'll be framed around the question. Can Chelsea win the league? Can Chelsea win the league? Okay, when we'll get there, we'll get there. Here's a break first, though. Yeah, we're back. What a delightful break that was. Okay, now we've talked about Chelsea's defence. We've talked about Chelsea's attack. Let's talk about the middle of the field, and the sort of players that they might need in order to continue playing this more transitional style. Or indeed, develop their tactical diversity. As we speak, it is Sunday the 30th of August. We have two remaining days, not including today, of the transfer window before it slams shut on Tuesday evening. We're still hearing that it is possible that Enzo Fernandez will leave before the window closes, despite that deadline that was set by Chelsea, the very effective deadline set a couple of weeks ago. So question, I guess the question we should be framed around, if Fernandez does leave, are they short in midfield, given the players that they started with today, and also given the fact that, sadly, Moisés Caycello did come on today as a substitute, but then went off injured and went straight down the tunnel. We don't have an update on what that is at the moment, but it didn't look great. Yeah, and I think if Chabielonzo is willing to start midfields that have Reese James and Romeo Lavier and Romeo Lavier and Malogosto in, then it's clear that he doesn't trust the players who might be more suited to large space coverage out of possession. Who are? Well, I'm trying to think now. Dario Asugo, I guess, would be a player like that. Well, so I'm on the Chelsea website, but their squad list, rather unhelpfully, isn't split into midfielders, defenders and attackers, he kind of have to really pay attention. They've got Barco, Fernandez Still, Jordan Barco is not like. No, he's not a big space player, is he really? Fernandez, Jordan Henderson, who we keep forgetting about. Dario Asugo, Moisés Caycello, Reggie Watson, and then that's it. Do you have any quender? Do you have any quenders or wingers? I'm just reading someone who's in the midfields. Yeah, it's confusing, but they don't really have anyone who is able to do that. So again, this is a problem that we're seeing across a lot of big six sides, I think. There's questions about Liverpool, to midfield and whether or not they're able to play the way that you're all wants them to do. We've had endless conversations about Manchester United, all window about whether or not they could go into the window without a bigger space player until Carlos Blabor turned up and sort of solved that one for them. And so again, this is what we are talking about. If you don't have those players to cover large spaces, you can't allow those large spaces to open out. So you're naturally going to not commit as high forward in the press, for example. So, yeah, as things stand, it looks very much like if Chelsea are going to want to have a more aggressive high press, where they try and force opponents to give the ball away more than they have been doing, then they're going to have to have a different profile of player in there. There's lots of rumours flying around about players they could get. Rumours. Well, yeah, I don't know if we've reported on them, but what we have reported on an ideal sheet was that if Fernandez goes, then it's likely that Chelsea will go for a midfield of a different profile is the phrase of a different profile to Fernandez. To Fernandez, yeah. So that would suggest that they would go for someone a bit more in that large space covering profile. Well, there are several mentions of Adam Warton in the chat, not linking him, but you know, people saying, oh, do they need him, do they not? I'm sort of thinking, I agree with King, no, no way, Palace sell water at this late stage of the window, particularly given how poorly they see the season has been. Yeah, and Warton isn't going to solve that problem for them. I don't think, again, like you could play Warton, he would be fantastic in that midfield. If you've got someone like Moisés Caiseido next to him, I wouldn't like to go into another game with, you know, Reese James and Adam Warton, I think that would be quite open. A lot of people are asking about Lamine Camara. Yeah, he seems to be the one that everyone is talking about. I don't know how official that approach has been, but yeah, perfect example of a, I think a midfielder who has the ability to cover large spaces, but also has the requisite ability on the board as well. So someone like him would be fantastic. I think Alex Scott is another one that people talk about a lot. Again, he's in the sort of Warton camp of, it would be unlikely that Bournemouth would let him go at this point in the window and they've said he's absolutely not going. But again, he's another kind of, he's got that balance of ability to cover space, but also a fantastic onboard guy too. Okay, but it does seem like they probably would need, I mean, particularly offensive and enders leaves, but maybe even if he doesn't, doesn't necessarily seem like they have the perfect squad. If you're a Chelsea fan, you might be thinking, well, maybe we could dip back in before the end of Tuesday. Yeah, yes, I know, because they're obviously a team without European football, right? So they don't have as many games as a lot of other teams are the truth. They can do one a week and they can maybe manage players like Reese James, who haven't been able to maintain fitness for long periods and see if they can get him to play in central field. Because I don't think he really, I don't think you can play him at right wing back in 2026. I don't think his hamstrings could take that. Maybe right center back. Maybe right center back, but then I think for Farners kind of start the season okay there and they've got more options there. So if he's to play regularly in this team, which obviously he will because he's the captain, central field is kind of where I see him. Yeah, in an ideal world, I think they probably could do with another one, but I think their squad's kind of, it could survive once, you know, I can't believe I'm saying this once, John Henderson is back, their squad will be a bit more deep. It's a weird center set, but yeah, I don't know who that option is, that long-term solution is because Chelsea, particularly in that position, you expect them to buy maybe a younger player, given that the profile, I mean, I say there's kind of PK attendance at the upper end of the age spectrum. I mean, that's what we're putting it I'm also at the upper end of the age spectrum, I think. Maybe they'll sign you, John. Maybe you're the solution, but yeah, they could do with one, but I wouldn't be, I don't think it's catastrophic if they get another one in. I think it will be all right. Just to be self-indulgent for one, one second is my birthday soon. Yes. And I'm about to turn 36. And I've never had an age wobble before. I have 36 years of one. But I'm having an age wobble. I remember that, I think, because you realize that you're letting your 30s go. I'm having existential grises. I'm like, what have I done? Yeah, exactly. Well, 36 years old. Your 30s are great, right? Because your 30s are your 20s, but you're actually able to enjoy them properly. And people think, oh, when you're 20, oh, 30, so old, but actually 20s is largely like whatever nightmare, but then when you get to 30s, you do that again, but with more understanding. I hear confidently that people in their 40s also say they say it's better than the 30s, but I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that's true. That's because you like playing football. That's better than a side football. Yeah, I mean, that's true. That's largely touched any 11-side aspirations I have. But like, I don't know, I felt turning 40 was way worse than turning 30. And I think turning 36, I also had that wobble, where I was like, I'm over the hill now of my 30s. Yeah. I have to suck the marrow out of life. And I don't feel the same. I did, Joe. I don't think you've got plenty of marrow. You have, it's a lot of football-shaped marrow. Yeah, I'll give you that. But it's the marrow of your bones, not like a marrow. No, I understand, but you're lacking marrow in other areas. One dimension. You're feasting on a big football boat. That's true. Yeah, well done to you. Anyway, that's a difficult question. Can I just mention the bat line as well? Yeah, because I think there's been, again, in terms of what we were talking about before with not wanting to put that bat line, I expose that bat line, but obviously they signed Max Osloquah. And that means that he has to play basically in the middle of that three if they're playing a three. And that forces Lever Coal out wide. And I think in many respects, it feels, I think we may mention this on one of the podcasts, but it feels like he naturally should be good on that side of the pitch, but I think you end up with this scenario where you're actually moving him out of what would be his better position, which would be in the middle of a back of a back three. And then maybe playing someone like Joral Hatto as the outside centreback on the left-hand side. So there's certain decisions that they made as well in the recruitment where I sort of feel as though maybe they could bring someone in as a centreback that would really just shore up that bat line and give them a bit more flexibility as well, whether or not they do that, I don't know, but that's just, I just thought it would be worth mentioning, given that we're talking about why they, what things that might cause them problems if they do try and play a little bit more of a possession style. That's for enough. Well, one thing to add from Dexter in the chat, Joe Ronaldo's second United's spell began at 36, so it's not that old. Well, that does make me think I'm going to start to be a tactical problem of work. A little bit concerned about that. We do carry you the best of times. So we do. Okay, let's talk a little bit about Javier Lanzo's Lever Coosan, because I don't know loads about it, but the thing I do know is that across the course of, what was he there for, he was there for at least for two seasons, right? There's sort of three and most of another. Three and he comes in after Gerard, but there are two distinct eras, right? And the first era is the one where he solves their defensive problems and gets them into, they become all the solid team. And the second era is where he then starts to evolve them on from there. So I'm wondering, looking at this Chelsea team, not having the ball, wondering, is this, is this being mirrored? Are we seeing him try to create something which is defensively more stable, which would be interesting given how open they are? But I don't know, what do you think? I think we can learn from it. I think it's a really interesting question, right? Because one of the things we know about coaches coming in is that if you don't come in and have like an immediate impact in terms of wins, generally, at a big six club, then the fans immediately get on your back, right? So we've seen that from, you know, all of us, we've seen that from Roberta to Serbia. And, you know, the big question is, are they going to be there long enough to actually implement their changes that they want to implement? And so what I think is really interesting about someone like Alonso is that, and we've seen this, I think, both of the big clubs, he's worked with so far, is that he tries to put himself in a situation where he's going to get the most out of those players immediately to then afford himself the time to make the sort of tweaks that he needs to get the team to the level that they're at. So that first season, at Lavercuse, and they played a very different style of football from what they ended up playing. And, you know, I watched a lot of that Lavercuse in season, and was very much, you know, largely unimpressed with it, because it just, I think the phrase that I was touching to Seb Stafford Blower about this just before we came on air, and he was saying that, yeah, he's just well known for like a lot of horseshoeing, so not giving away too much. And obviously, like, didn't have the benefits of having, you know, the front three that he has at Chelsea. And so, maybe it didn't necessarily result in like the most attractive football, but he came in when Lavercuse were in danger of relegation, and he carried them up to seventh place, sixth place in the table, I think it was at the end in that first season, and he did it by just being very solid and getting the results that they needed. And then in the second season, they had like a really, really good recruitment brought in sort of the players to play the way that that famous Lavercuse and team played, which was incidentally very similar structurally to what we've seen from Chelsea, as well. So, does that then lead us to believe that we might not either, we just don't require that first step, because Chelsea aren't languishing near the bottom of the table, and or we maybe skipped it. Yeah, and the player base that he has is just much better. I know we can complain all we like about Chelsea's recruitment, but yeah, and it's still patchy squad, but the players they have there, like that front three is just incredible. It's probably the best front three in the league. Probably, I'm not really thought about that, but probably, let's think about it now, it's the best front three in the league. I think so. Okay, well, so we're saying it's better than in Burma, Cunier, just go whatever you find. Yeah, I think so, fine. Harland, Harland, Stagnier, Docu, Stamenu, Gacper in there as well now. Yeah, potentially. I mean, on a level that, I think Harland carries that slightly higher, maybe than, but I'm not a fan of Docuper. What about Barcola, Isaac, and whoever they play in the other side, whoever they play in the other side. What can I throw there as a sort of, you know, I mean, you're just trying to, you're just trying to generate, I'm trying to destroy the narrative. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I still think we're seriously not going to mention the Arsenal front line at all. 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, 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 Well, I think what we should be aware of with with Shabby Alonso is that he has evolved during his times at other clubs as well. So we should expect that to happen here. I suspect that regardless of what we say about the tactical landscape as it is, 25% possession is not enough. No. And he'll know that and he'll think, yeah, we need to change things. Here's worth mentioning Game State as well because I think a lot of people bring up Game State in this sort of context because against Fulham they scored in like two, three minutes against, yeah, it was very quick. And then against Brighton they were scoring in what, like, seventh, eighth minutes, was it around them? I think it was. Was it even, yeah, okay. Either way, they scored quite early. Now Fulham did get back into the game so that does sort of change things a little bit. But it is worth addressing this, I think, because again, in the past, Man City have gone ahead in games very early. And their attitude wouldn't be, oh, we're going to sit back and defend now. We now have the conditions to possess the ball better. Which is easier for us to put aside of the call and talking about. Right. Exactly. So the fact that we're seeing teams now getting into positive Game States and then being a little bit more conservative with what they're doing, some of them like, for example, Arsenal being quite happy to have periods where they sit deeper and allow the opponent to have the ball because they know they're so good out of possession that they can almost rest in those situations. And they can sort of regenerate a bit of energy. And in those scenarios, I think Arsenal are really good at working out when things are dangerous and when they're not. So they'll allow the opponent to have the ball. And then if they feel as though they're getting to a situation where it's too dangerous, they have ways of getting out of that low block and causing them problems as well. So this isn't just me saying, you know, Arsenal a low block in country now. I think what we're talking about is, is teams finding ways of using out of possession as a way of sort of even just periodising their game so they're not running the whole time, right? Because that's one of the hardest things to do when you're in winning game states like, how do you control a game? Because some teams are just better at attacking. And so you kind of think, well, if we're in a winning situation and we're best when we're attacking, doesn't that just mean we should keep attacking? I mean, this is the problem that Eureola's Bournemouth had, which was, you know, they were very aggressive and intense when they were in drawing or losing game states. But as soon as they got into winning game states, it was kind of like, we're just going to knacker ourselves if we just continue at the same intensity. So you have to find ways of controlling your teams like the physical aspects as well. So yeah, I think it's going to be, it's going to be really interesting. And I forgot where we started from, but yeah. Where did we start for this one? Don't worry. He's got a lot to say. Yeah, sorry. No, it's fine. It's good. I like it. Now we're going to move on though. We're just going to say, there are some things to learn from Leverkusen and they were in what you said there. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Some, somewhere in there. Now I'm excited about this part of the show because this is that this is the, no, don't make the face. It's the kayak dripping. No, no, no, no, no, it's sad now because we made fun, we didn't encourage that. I was nice about Arsenal then, though. Oh, yeah, no, I've got that. Well, I still think apart of him as one famous one, famously move on quickly. We don't hold on to the thing. Listen, I'm not about to make fun of you. Okay. I'm looking forward to hearing that for us. Hearing this exciting take, you know, you've got to take, you had it earlier, you said to me, what about this? I said, oh, that's interesting. Now, what is it? What is it? Okay. Well, this has been built up in a way. That's going to make me what's your, what's your massive mass? What's your most important idea to date? To date. No, it's this. Just read it out. Okay. It's the idea that for years and years, Chelsea had been building towards something, right? The whole project since Bluco took over and all the money it's been spent, transfer window after transfer end after transfer end, they've been among the top spenders. Net spend I know is a bit lower, but they've been among the top spenders every single time and lots of investment in a squad that is building towards something. And every single season, we've kind of given them a pass for not being in the title conversation or not being higher up the league than they probably should have been. So like, last season, it was managerial turmoil and defensive issues and in previous seasons, it's been, they didn't have a striker in, I think it was Andy Amreska's first season and then they fixed that and then then it filled us a bit of a problem because they had injuries all the time and didn't have a left back for a while when Kokare was injured and they'd have a right back on reach James, get getting injured and they, it feels like they've now solved those and the final piece of the jigsaw probably was goalkeeper and Robert Sanchez, as we saw in the full of game, what a problem for them and they needed to upgrade on that and now Emmy Masters is a much better goalkeeper and should in theory fix that problem for them. So I just started to think particularly with no Europe this season, what excuses are left for Chelsea not to be involved in a title race? The one that springs to mind obviously is it's a London's first season, but beyond that and we're all talking about him being a great manager, which I think he is and they're adapting to the tactical method that's shifting and they look really good and really exciting, but I think and this will sound harsh, but if Chelsea finished lower than second place, I think there's an argument that that's actually a bit of a disappointment for them this season. Could you argue third because I mean, so far. Depends on Amreska's man city of looks. Yeah, Depends on, given the amount of transition going on at Chelsea, sorry, at city and the issues that are there in their squad where we don't quite know what they're going to do going forward. Their midfield is completely new. Chelsea don't really have that going on. They're kind of the big new position is goalkeeper. I know Morgan Rogers has come in, but that's sort of cherry on the cake territory in there. He's not goalkeeper though, right? He isn't the goalkeeper. If they played him in goal, that wouldn't have solved the solution now. I mean, I think this is for some agreement in the chat that this is dripping wet by the way. That's a hot dripping wet. I was just going to go completely off piece and say like for a team, let's say Arsenal win the league. Who do you reckon is a player in their squad who they could actually play in goal and still win the league? Or do you think there's no one exists? Question. If you're both of your goal, I know they have provisions to bring a new goalkeeper's if you lose too many of them. Gabrielle, surely. Stick Gabrielle in goal. I mean, if you put him there, then you won't score any goals from corners. That's the downside. But you send him up for corners just to have another outfield play. He'd probably be better than Kepa to be fair. So your take is we should expect them to be in a title challenge given whether. And I think if they're not in the title conversation at any point this season, then that is disappointing for Chelsea. I think that's not unreasonable. Given the amount of money that's been spent on them and the lack of problem areas in their squad now, I don't think it's unfair to say we do have to start expecting something at some point from this Chelsea team. They can't just be in transition and building and building. Eventually you have to get to the final destination where you're trying to get to. And I think now is kind of the time where we can start to expect that. I'm not saying they should or they will. I'm just thinking it's kind of time for us to say Chelsea need to be in the title conversation. And if they're not at this point, particularly given they've had to experience their squad, that's a disappointment. I think that's fair. And I would also say there's a couple of people in the live chat who are challenging you and saying, isn't this just similar to the idea of a billion dollar bottle job thing? But that's not what you're saying. You're not saying that they won't do it or they will do it. You're simply saying that when you look at the squad as it stands two days before deadline day, there is no reason. I'm the condition that they have very, like they're playing the Premier League on easy mode as we said last year. Because there's no European. There's no obvious narrative reasons why they shouldn't from it being a long-dose first season. Yeah, but I'm a slot did it in his first season. I know there's different conditions there, but I think the billionaire bottle job or whatever the quote was, was that the, that was potatino season in the Liverpool caribou cut fund, right? I thought that was a reference to Arsenal. Haha. They spent a billion and they were spilling bottles. And they've run the league. They've bottled it a few times before that. Gary, Gary Neville also regretted saying it, because it stuck with potatino for a long time. Yeah, it stuck was a bit soundbite. You're right, and also that was a much younger squad with a lot more obvious problem positions that I don't think this Chelsea squad has. A lot of that team has been at the club for two, three seasons now. Yeah, I think it's time to start expecting a little bit more from them, and I don't think kind of finishing in the top four. If they come fourth, but 15, 20 points off the title, I don't think that's good enough for them. I would say, I don't agree with the billion dollar bottle job people, but I do agree with Aisha Idiot, who says intentionally putting pressure on Chelsea to get it off Arsenal, which I think is kind of this real ploy here. Yeah, I think people are probably getting a bit carried away with Chelsea at this point because they've won a couple of games. Are you saying Kair is getting carried away? No, just that I think that this Chelsea team, I don't think are going to be in a title challenge necessarily. They could be, because I think part of the tactical meta shift that we're talking about is that actually the things that matter, you know, going back to the Michelotetta quote, it's like you've got to win those three games in your five sets to get, they have the ability to do that, but will it be a disappointment if they're not? I don't think so. I always disagree with Kair top 10. Well, I think that I think that this is pouring cold water on my hot tank, but I don't think that they are at a level right now where they should be expecting to be in the title challenge. I don't think the performances are missing. Yeah, why not? What's the story here? I think control of some form. I think they're going to come out on the wrong side of some of these games where they are incredibly open, and, you know, for example, in the game today, they go into, I mean, let's do both games. The full-on game, they were ahead in however many seconds, because full-on, you know, they split their centre backs wide, boom the ball into the channel, both centre midfielders evacuated the space. Max once looked while heads the ball takes out eight players, and then they're through, they're then worn ill up and they were into that scenario where you're in a positive game state, and you can control the conditions a little bit more. Same, I think happened today with, like what did they do for that for the first goal? It was a corner that was fumbled, and the goalkeeper probably should have caught it if he, if it wasn't, they might have done it. That's not to say that they wouldn't have gone on in one. It's just that we don't know at this point what happens when they're in a scenario when actually they don't end up in a negative game state. So I just think we need to see way more from them at this point to really know. I mean, I know that's not the point you're, you're not making a tactical point, you're saying the amount of money they spend they should be at a point where they start actually producing something. No, I think I think we're saying that there's no obvious reason why they shouldn't, whereas you're disagreeing and you're saying, no, the obvious reason is the lack of control. Yeah, and I think that it could be the case that they solve that in the course of the season. Or it could be the case that it's not required to win the Premier League this year because as we've just spent the first 20 minutes talking about control is maybe a misnomer. Yeah, no, of course, but I do think that a level of control some way, it doesn't have to necessarily be possession control, and that's why I'm sort of pushing back a little bit because I don't think that they've been defending particularly well or well enough to then be like, well, it's fine that they have low possession because they're very good out of possession. I don't think that's the case. And yeah, does that mean that I think they could win the league? Yeah, I didn't think Liverpool could win the league and they did it. All it takes is for a team like this now to have a really good run for the first half of the season, everything to go right, keep your players fit, have things go in your, in your in your favor, like refereeing decisions, VAR decisions, find ways of being able to keep your players in recover, like good recovery, which is going to be easier for them because they've got no Europe. They could easily come out top of the league and then, you know, random things. I mean, so the issue is going to be, I think, people say Man City and Arsenal, like, how are those two teams going to fail enough for Chelsea to get there? And I think, you know, with City, they are trying to do the possession control thing. Maybe it'll work. Maybe they'll, maybe it'll be fine for them, but I can see a world where they do have a few games where they struggle. I mean, they struggled against Bournemouth last weekend, right? They did manage to get back into that game, but I could see them having a few games where they aren't able to control the games as well as they want to. And yeah, with Arsenal, I don't know, it's hard to see Arsenal not winning the league, but I guess my point is we're beyond the point now with this Chelsea project where, in my opinion, at least, where it's kind of okay to expect that other teams fail for them to win. In terms of money spent, not just in terms of money spent, if in terms of the squad itself and the way it's built now, it's a really good squad, I think. I agree. And I think there's not excuses anymore for them to be 10-15 points off the top. Would you put them in the same bracket as City and Arsenal? Because that's what for me is just holding it down. Yeah, and actually it's worth saying also that like NDTC in the chat is framing it a slightly different way of saying it's the difference here being better or worse than Man United Liverpool, you know, between City and Arsenal and Man United and the Liverpool. Yeah, so I think they should definitely be expecting to be way better than Man United and Liverpool this season, sorry. I always say I'm very sorry. Man United and Liverpool should be a long way behind Chelsea in terms of the transitions they're going through, the flaws that you guys will talk about in tomorrow, tomorrow, or choose their show, sorry. I think Chelsea should be in that conversation with Arsenal and City and I don't think given the circumstances around them where they don't have European football just season and they have quite a lot of squad depth like for a team who are going to potentially play just for, well, 41 games this season, they've got a lot of players. So I think, yeah, I think they should be in the conversation in regards to City and Arsenal. I think City are going through a lot of transition that means I wouldn't be surprised if they tell off of it this season. I think we said already Joe and I both said we had them around fourth in our predictions. And the chat also asking should City be in the same bracket as Arsenal, I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that's a fair question. Yeah. So Kai, there you go. Kai, he's, he's predicting that Arsenal will win the Premier League. He's saying there's no reason why they shouldn't or Chelsea. Yeah, there we go. We're sort of rounding up. I think I will say we've learned a lot today. Haven't we? We've learned that Javier Lonzo will use different techniques in order to win games of football. We've learned that the Premier League could be won by anyone at this stage and the possession means nothing. And we've learned that Gabrielle Martinelli is not worth 70 million euros. Kai, Kai, Nick, thank you. Disagree. You disagree with it. Thank you, me too. Both things. And Joe McKenzie, thank you. Thank you. Oh, producers, James, thank you. There he goes. And we will be back, as I said, on Tuesday, I've got Tom and Connor and Ruben. We'll talk about Man United then. We'll talk about Liverpool as well. We'll talk about Newcastle. We'll talk about all the other teams. And then we're back later in the week on Thursday. John, you're returning. I think we've got JPB that day. And we've got James as well. So there you go. Plenty to look forward to. But until then, farewell. Stay safe and Horde food like the government is telling you.