🎙️ Football Social Daily •August 24, 2026 •⏱️ 38 min

Man United mauled by the Tigers and spenny Spurs smashed on the opening day

1. Executive Overview: Core Theses & Key Revelations

The opening weekend of the Premier League season delivered far more than mere scorelines; it provided a stark diagnostic checkpoint for the economic and operational state of elite European football. In a landmark episode of Football Social Daily, hosts Nile, Marley Anderson, and Joel Tudor engaged in an unsparing critique of the financial, tactical, and institutional realities governing the modern game. Their conversation transcended conventional matchday punditry, exposing deep structural fractures within financial regulation, squad construction, and global ownership frameworks.

At the center of this editorial breakdown are four interconnected theses that summarize the current state of top-flight football:

  • The Failure of Financial Regulation as an Equalizer: Financial Fair Play (FFP) and Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), originally instituted to prevent ruinous club insolvency, have metastasized into an oligopolistic protection mechanism. Rather than fostering competitive balance, these regulations entrench legacy "Big Six" institutions while penalizing ambitious mid-tier clubs that attempt to bridge the financial divide through organic owner investment.
  • Manchester United's "Offcut Economy" and Institutional Decay: Manchester United's persistent operational decline stems from a decade-long failure in recruitment strategy. By systematically overpaying for declining stars discarded by elite European rivals—the "offcut economy"—and pairing them with high-cost, unproven youth prospects devoid of a coherent developmental infrastructure, the club has surrendered its historical position as an industry leader in scouting and talent identification.
  • Capital Hyper-Inflation vs. Operational Efficiency: Tottenham Hotspur's £300 million summer transfer spend, culminating in a humiliating 3-0 opening-day defeat to a stable, low-chaos Brentford side, demonstrates the severe diminishing returns of unanchored spending. In modern football, capital deployment without structural alignment, tactical continuity, and squad integration yields friction rather than dominance.
  • The Erosion of Cultural Identity via Multi-Club Networks: The rapid expansion of multi-club ownership (MCO) models represents a fundamental threat to the authenticity and competitive integrity of global football. By demoting historic clubs into satellite franchises designed to stockpile assets and circumnavigate domestic financial rules, the MCO framework alienates traditional supporter bases and distorts market dynamics.

This feature essay deconstructs the podcast's key revelations, situating the hosts' raw insights within broader macroeconomic, tactical, and regulatory frameworks shaping the future of global football.

2. Context & Background: The Landscape Leading to This Conversation

To fully appreciate the weight of the conclusions reached on Football Social Daily, one must examine the macroeconomic and technical forces that have reshaped the Premier League over the past decade. The contemporary football landscape is defined by two converging pressures: the strict enforcement of domestic and continental financial regulations, and the rapid democratization of advanced sports analytics.

Following the 2008 global financial crisis and historic domestic club collapses—most notably Portsmouth's administration, as referenced by Marley Anderson—UEFA and domestic leagues introduced financial governance frameworks. In the Premier League, Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) set a hard ceiling on allowable financial losses over a rolling three-year window. While designed with noble intentions, the mathematical reality of PSR indexing expenditure caps directly to generated revenue created an inadvertent structural bias. Clubs with massive historical commercial revenues—such as Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool—retained immense spending capacity regardless of pitch performance or managerial ineptitude. Conversely, clubs backed by ambitious owners seeking to ascend the footballing pyramid, such as Aston Villa and Newcastle United, hit hard regulatory ceilings, forcing them to sell core assets like Ezri Konsa, Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali, and Bruno Guimarães simply to comply with financial metrics.

Simultaneously, the competitive landscape underwent a tactical and analytical revolution. The era when marquee clubs could dominate scouting simply by dispatching talent spotters to peripheral leagues ended. Proprietary quantitative modeling—pioneered by entities like Brighton & Hove Albion through Tony Bloom's Starlizard engine and Brentford via Matthew Benham's Smartodds algorithms—democratized talent identification. These mid-tier organizations began identifying positional replacements, evaluating expected metrics, and capitalizing on market asymmetries with mathematical precision long before traditional powers recognized the shift.

Against this backdrop, the opening weekend of the season presented a stark contrast. Tottenham Hotspur, having finished 17th in consecutive campaigns, responded by pouring over £300 million into squad overhauls, bringing in five new starters. Yet, when faced with a Brentford team operating with operational stability under Keith Andrews following Thomas Frank's departure, Spurs collapsed. Meanwhile, Manchester United entered the season exhibiting the same tactical vulnerabilities that have plagued them for years, fielding an uncoordinated midfield structure featuring Youri Tielemans alongside legacy defensive patterns, culminating in a shocking defeat to Hull City ("the Tigers"). These events provided the empirical catalyst for the deep analytical debate on Football Social Daily.

3. Deep-Dive Thematic Breakdown

3.1 The FFP Hegemony: Oligopolistic Protection vs. Competitive Mobility

The primary structural critique raised during the podcast focuses on the unintended consequences of Financial Fair Play and PSR. Joel Tudor's public concession—admitting that after years of defending FFP, he must acknowledge that the current system ring-fences the elite—reflects a watershed moment in public football discourse.

Financial regulation in its current iteration ties spending limits to turnover. In practice, this creates a protected class of clubs whose commercial scale shields them from the consequences of gross operational failure. A legacy institution can finish in the bottom half of the table, misallocate hundreds of millions of pounds on unintegrated transfers, and yet retain the financial bandwidth to repeat the process the following summer. In stark contrast, non-legacy clubs that achieve temporary pitch success through intelligent management are immediately forced into asset liquidation to avoid point deductions.

Club Classification Primary Revenue Engine Regulatory Impact (PSR/FFP) Operational Outcome & Market Behavior
Protected Legacy Elite
(e.g., Man Utd, Spurs)		 Global Commercial Brand & Heritage Broadcast Revenue High Loss Allowances & Massive Expenditure Caps Can absorb massive capital misallocation (£300m+ spend) with zero risk of structural displacement.
Challenging Mid-Tier
(e.g., Aston Villa, Newcastle)		 Domestic Revenue & Organic Owner Capital Strict Loss Ceiling Indexing Revenue Forced to liquidate top talent (Konsa, Gordon, Bruno) to comply with arbitrary loss thresholds.
Algorithmic Operators
(e.g., Brighton, Brentford)		 Model-Driven Player Trading & Value Arbitrage Net-Positive Financial Balances Achieve sustained pitch competitiveness by replacing departed stars with undervalued data matches.

As Marley Anderson highlighted, Aston Villa's necessity to sell foundational players like Konsa, alongside Newcastle's squad disassembly, demonstrates how PSR functions as a regulatory barrier to competitive mobility. The regulations do not prevent bankruptcy; they prevent competition. When rules dictate that financial expenditure must mirror existing revenue streams, historical advantage is codified into permanent hierarchy.

3.2 The Offcut Economy: Manchester United’s Recruitment Pathology

Manchester United's performance against Hull City exposed the underlying failure of the club's recruitment architecture. Marley Anderson's categorization of United as a consumer of elite European football's "offcuts" identifies a core pathology in the club's talent acquisition strategy since 2013.

For over a decade, Manchester United has routinely acquired high-wage, marquee names whose parent clubs—specifically Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain, and Bayern Munich—were willing to sanction their departures. Signings such as Casemiro, Raphaël Varane, Edinson Cavani, Zlatan Ibrahimović, and Angel Di Maria reflect an operational pattern: United purchasing elite talent at the tail end of their physical peak or after their tactical utility has begun to decline. Elite organizations rarely sell primary assets during their prime performance window unless advanced diagnostic data indicates structural deceleration or physical vulnerability. By acting as the secondary buyer for these high-profile players, United has repeatedly tied up immense wage resources while failing to build an enduring core.

This issue is compounded by United's handling of young talent acquisitions. The purchase of 18-year-old defender Leny Yoro for £60 million from Lille, alongside previous signings like Facundo Pellistri (£8 million) and academy striker acquisitions, reflects a naive evaluation of player development. Joel Tudor noted that United management appears to view player growth as linear—assuming that an 18-year-old purchased for a premium fee will automatically mature into a world-class operator at 28. In reality, young talent requires a stable tactical framework, clear positional identity, and elite veteran leadership to thrive. In an unstable environment, raw prospects deteriorate or plateau, leading to massive capital depreciation.

On the pitch, this recruitment defect produces immediate tactical dysfunction. The debut of Youri Tielemans showcased United's structural vulnerability: while Tielemans possesses exceptional vision in final-third distribution, his lack of lateral mobility leaves expansive central corridors exposed during transitional phases. When paired with static defensive line behaviors—illustrated by Harry Maguire's spatial collision with Mazraoui on Hull's goal—United's midfield reverts to the defensive frailty characteristic of the "McFred" era.

3.3 Inflation Without Efficiency: Tottenham’s £300M Spending Paradox

Tottenham Hotspur's opening-day 3-0 defeat to Brentford highlights the growing divide between transfer market expenditure and structural pitch effectiveness. Despite investing over £300 million in squad reinforcement—including an £85 million fee for Brazilian winger Savinho and significant expenditure on Omar Marmoush—Spurs exhibited the same structural fragility that caused them to finish 17th in back-to-back seasons.

Nile's commentary regarding the comedic contrast between spending £300 million and suffering a heavy defeat to Brentford captures a vital analytical truth: unanchored capital deployment often creates tactical instability. Introducing five new starters into a starting lineup breaks established operational patterns. Brentford, conversely, maintained total tactical continuity. Despite losing manager Thomas Frank to Tottenham in the previous cycle, Brentford under Keith Andrews operated with complete spatial clarity, systematically dismantling Tottenham's disorganized pressing structure.

Tottenham's summer window exemplifies market inflation driven by asset scarcity rather than verified tactical fit. Signing Savinho for £85 million—a player who registered just two goals across his previous two seasons—demonstrates how legacy clubs pay premium fees based on speculative potential rather than proven, repeatable underlying output. When high-fee acquisitions fail to deliver immediate structural balance, team morale drops and tactical friction increases, perpetuating a cycle of underperformance.

3.4 Data Asymmetry: The Algorithmic Divide in Modern Scouting

Underpinning the discussions on Football Social Daily is an implicit recognition of the quantitative divide separating modern football clubs. The era of evaluating players based on subjective intuition, traditional scouting reports, or agent recommendations has been superseded by predictive data architecture.

Clubs like Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford have decoupled on-field success from gross financial expenditure by establishing proprietary data pipelines. These frameworks process millions of quantitative data points—evaluating expected threat (xT), line-breaking efficiency, deceleration recovery metrics, and press-resistance ratings under high physical stress. Consequently, when these clubs sell key starters for premium fees, their internal algorithms identify immediate, cost-effective replacements who slot directly into their tactical schemes with zero performance lag.

In contrast, legacy institutions like Manchester United have struggled to adapt. Historically accustomed to outbidding rivals for top talent, United's recruitment infrastructure has lagged behind mid-table analytics departments. As Marley Anderson observed, even mid-tier organizations now deploy teams of data scientists who outperform traditional scouting setups. United's failure to build a world-class internal data pipeline leaves them vulnerable to inflated transfer fees, high agent commissions, and squad misalignment.

3.5 Franchise Realism and Multi-Club Ownership Networks

Joel Tudor voiced a scathing critique of Multi-Club Ownership (MCO) networks, identifying them as the most unsustainable structural threat in contemporary football. The proliferation of MCO models—wherein single corporate entities acquire controlling stakes in multiple clubs globally—threatens to dismantle the foundational integrity of competitive football.

Under the MCO model, historic football institutions are demoted to satellite franchises within a broader corporate portfolio. These secondary clubs are systematically stripped of independent ambition, serving primarily to absorb excess wage burdens, circumvent domestic PSR limits via non-market internal transfers, or act as staging grounds for young prospects destined for the flagship club. Tudor's assertion that "it feels like you're a club and then you've got franchises in other countries" captures the deep sense of alienation felt by traditional supporters. When a local community institution is reduced to an asset-hedging vehicle for an international consortium, the cultural contract between club and fan base is severed.

Furthermore, MCO structures create profound market distortion. By shifting assets across international borders within the same corporate network at artificial valuations, multi-club operators exploit regulatory loopholes that single-club entities cannot access, further tilting the competitive landscape in favor of capital conglomerates.

4. Speaker Perspectives & Analytical Contrast

The debate on Football Social Daily derives its authority from the contrasting backgrounds, fan experiences, and analytical approaches of its hosts. The interaction between Nile, Marley Anderson, and Joel Tudor creates a rich multi-dimensional breakdown of the sport's current crises.

Host / Analyst Primary Lens & Perspective Ideological Stance on Governance Core Tactical & Operational Takeaways
Nile Operational Moderator & Pitch Realist Pragmatic Reformer Emphasizes organizational stability; highlights the contrast between Brentford's tactical continuity and Tottenham's £300m failure.
Marley Anderson Systemic Critic & Non-Big Six Advocate Radical FFP Skeptic Focuses on structural economic inequality; decries the Big Six ring-fencing and United's reliance on elite club offcuts.
Joel Tudor Disillusioned Manchester United Insider Converted Governance Cynic Traces United's cultural decline post-Ferguson; publicly recants support for FFP after recognizing its oligopolistic nature.

Joel Tudor's contribution is defined by an ideological shift regarding financial regulation. As a dedicated Manchester United supporter who historically defended FFP as a necessary safeguard against fiscal recklessness, Tudor's admission that FFP has failed football's meritocratic principles represents a pivotal moment. His raw frustration with United's recruitment incompetence—contrasting Sir Alex Ferguson's iron discipline with the current era's status-symbol culture—highlights the emotional and operational toll of institutional drift.

Marley Anderson provides a sharp, structural counterweight. Viewing the Premier League through the lens of lower-league sustainability and non-Big Six realities (as a Portsmouth supporter), Anderson approaches the elite hierarchy with unvarnished skepticism. His critique of United's "offcut" sourcing strategy and his indignation over Aston Villa and Newcastle being forced to sell core players while Spurs spend £300 million with impunity cut to the heart of football's systemic inequality.

Nile functions as the analytical anchor, balancing emotional fan reactions with rigorous operational scrutiny. By directing focus toward Brentford's structural integrity under Keith Andrews, Nile illustrates that tactical clarity and organizational coherence remain the ultimate currencies in professional football.

5. Strategic & Industry Implications

The structural failures and economic distortions detailed in this podcast episode carry far-reaching implications for the future governance, financial management, and competitive balance of professional football.

First, the current PSR model in the Premier League is unsustainable in its present form. The growing public recognition that existing rules protect established brands while punishing ambitious challengers will compel regulatory bodies to restructure financial controls. The impending transition toward UEFA's squad cost ratio model—capping spend on wages, transfers, and agent fees at a fixed percentage of revenue (moving toward 70%)—alongside proposed domestic anchoring mechanisms, represents an attempt to restore balance. However, unless these reform models address the massive disparity in baseline commercial revenues, legacy clubs will continue to enjoy a permanent spending advantage.

Second, the failure of unanchored spending at clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United will accelerate the industry-wide adoption of predictive data systems. As mid-tier clubs like Brighton and Brentford continue to outperform high-spending rivals relative to budget size, legacy organizations will be forced to overhaul their recruitment departments. Capital availability alone is no longer sufficient to secure top-four qualification; squad construction must be guided by algorithmic precision, physical tracking data, and positional compatibility models.

Third, the expanding footprint of Multi-Club Ownership will force FIFA and continental confederations to institute stricter governance controls. Without rigorous enforcement of fair market value assessments for intra-network transfers and strict limitations on multi-club player sharing, the competitive integrity of international tournaments will be compromised, leading to increased legal challenges from independent single-club entities.

6. Looking Ahead: Unresolved Questions & Next Milestones

As the Premier League season progresses, several critical metrics and industry developments will determine whether the structural crises highlighted on Football Social Daily deepen or begin to resolve:

  • Regulatory Reform Implementation: Will the Premier League adopt real-time financial anchoring or squad cost ratios before the next financial cycle, and will these reforms afford non-legacy clubs a genuine pathway to compete?
  • Manchester United's Operational Restructuring: Can United's leadership abandon their reliance on high-wage, secondary assets from European rivals and construct a modern, data-driven recruitment framework?
  • Tottenham's Capital Yield Efficiency: Will Tottenham's £300 million squad overhaul develop tactical cohesion under pressure, or will high-fee acquisitions like Savinho continue to deliver low return on investment?
  • The Analytics Gap in Talent Trading: Will data-fluent operators like Brighton and Brentford sustain their competitive advantage, or will legacy giants acquire rival analytics staff to neutralize the quantitative divide?
  • Governance Frameworks for Multi-Club Networks: Will UEFA and FIFA establish enforceable boundaries against multi-club player movement and artificial transfer valuations to protect global competitive integrity?

Monitoring these milestones will reveal whether professional football can restore competitive equity and operational discipline, or whether the economic distortions identified by Nile, Marley Anderson, and Joel Tudor will permanently define the sport's modern era.

💬 Key Quotes & Speaker Breakdown

Tottenham Hotspur spending

"There is nothing funnier than spending 300 million and getting twatted by Brentford. That is honestly so funny. It's peak Spurs."

— Nile

Financial Fair Play (FFP)

"As much as I've been a big believer in FFP, I think I might have to hold my hands up now and say that is not what football is meant to be. The elite is ring-fenced."

— Joel Tudor

Manchester United transfer strategy

"Every single time a player leaves Man United, go and see where they play and it's just the same every single time. But you're getting their offcuts."

— Marley Anderson

Premier League financial disparity

"How is a club allowed to spend that much money? The disparity in big six versus everyone else is a complete joke."

— Marley Anderson

Multi-club ownership

"I think the most unsustainable thing is the multi-club ownership model. I can't stand it. It feels like you're a club and then you've got franchises in other countries."

— Joel Tudor

Manchester United recruitment

"I just bought 100 million pounds worth of midfielders. I'm sorry, it was so turgid. I feel like we've been saying this for years."

— Marley Anderson

"The recruitment since [Sir Alex Ferguson]... how bad do you cock it up? It just seems like every single time, I mean, I had to feel like they made a clever pinch... it goes to the rent's majority of the time. It never happens."

— Joel Tudor

"Man United are not market leaders when it comes to the recruitment area anymore, which is a damn shame, because they were the pioneers of it in a sense in the early 2000s."

— Joel Tudor

Manchester United performance

"I think my favourite tweet of the weekend was we signed Christian Ericsson after he had died and he was still more mobile than Youri Tielemans was."

— Joel Tudor

State-owned football clubs

"What's not sustainable about a sovereign fund taking over a club? It's probably the most sustainable thing you could ever ask for."

— Marley Anderson
📜 View Full Episode Verbatim Transcript 43,199 characters
This is Football Social Daily, Premier League Podcast. The Premier League returned this weekend and we're returning to discuss all of the big talking points on the podcast that was once daily but isn't anymore. And as I keep saying, we just can't get rid of the name. It's here to stay. And hopefully you are too. If this is your first ever podcast listening to us, thank you very much. We are Football Social Daily, an award winning Premier League Podcast. My name is Nile, joined today by Marley Anderson and Joel Tudor and with the Premier League returning there are some big talking points to knock off. No silence from us, we're not Unai Emery and we'll talk about Aston Villa later on this week because today the focus is on Manchester United getting more by the Tigers and Spenny Spurs having egg on their face. Lots to come on today's podcast. Hit subscribe or follow now and that way you'll never miss an episode. The first weekend of the season and it didn't disappoint. I'll be honest with you, I didn't think that Marley would be the happier of the two of you. Yeah. On Friday we did our podcast looking ahead to the weekend, Joel. You're getting more by the Tigers, more by the Tigers. That's one point for Liverpool and he's had some fucking Jupiter, more like Nile. Nile, you were more optimistic than me for my own team when we did the predictions. Let's not forget that. For me when I was watching it unfold, it was like watching a cut, if you ever seen Final Destination where they have premonitions about something that's a disaster about to happen, that was my Final Destination moment. I saw it, I could see it at all. I knew it was going to come. That's why I'm out of vision of carrot being run over by a bus or something did you or listen, you could test my pulse during the game. It'll be level. I'll be almost dead. I could see it coming. It was the most obvious thing ever, ever. I don't know why. I don't know why any man you know how to find would have gone into that game thinking or can't wait for us to mall the Tigers where it's not going to happen because it was just so obvious. So obviously we have McFreddy midfield. I felt like as I'm flashbacks, then I was going forward to premonitions and then I came back to the present day and realised how shy it's everything is right now. I think my favourite tweet of the weekend was we signed Christian Ericsson after he had died and he was still more mobile than Yuri Telemont's was. I also also looked at our telegram group at the Ashton Villa fan doing the little meme of Telemont's looking at you and I am his picture and then fast forward three hours. Look like he needed Telemont in the midfield and he got battered by Brighton Fornill so this swings around. It's never over until the whistle's gone on the weekend, never give it out until it's over on the weekend. So yeah, Marley's probably, I mean obviously Portsmouth you guys got a win, didn't you, but yeah, in terms of the Premier League, yeah. Not just a win, Joe, three screamers, three, we only score screamers, we scored four goals this season. They have all been screamers, not as much of a screamer as Balard scored for Bristol City like boys. Did you see that? That back heel goal into the top corner. I did not, but I've heard it being a... You haven't seen it. No. Wow. You need to see it. It's ridiculous. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to watch it live as you as you talk about it. I'm going to try and find it on Twitter while you wax lyrical about it. Whilst you do that, Marley, you spoke about Friday's episode, Joe, I think between us, we hit the nail on the head. You were more pessimistic about Manchester United than I was, so admittedly I hold my hands up and say I got that one wrong. We also said that we thought commentary were in for a rude awayking on Friday night. What a goal that is. That is to be. Sorry, I've just seen it interrupted. That is a beauty. He'll never score a goal like that in his life. That is a screamer. I thought, now I was going to go, I'm just coming into Marley because he's been a goal. I was like, is there a game? I'm in the mode. I will see all red cards. I'm not Chris Carrara. I'll see it. Give me that gig. Right. Now, go and watch the three Portsmouth goals away at Lincoln. Any of which could have won goal of the weekend, but we've been upstaged by that because I don't think we'll see a better goal than that all season. It's only the second weekend of the championship campaign. Anyway, we said commentary on Friday might be in for a rude awayking in Joel. That proved to be the case with Arsenal, the champions flexing their muscles. I said that I thought Spurs had one of the toughest starts of the Premier League season away at Brentford. That proved to be the case. Yeah. Although, if we're going to go on Spurs to begin with, if I'm a Spurs fan or I'm deservedly and I'm thinking we've spent 200 of million, the field would fat to surely back and then we get slammed back down to earth like I'd undertake a choke slam back onto your early grave again, basically starting off the way you finished the season. I'd be so nervous. I mean, I know they've just gone and agreed the double D of a Savino and Mahmouche, which probably does add a little bit of that well needed. I was going to say clinical touch. Savino's got two goals in the last two seasons, which warrants 85 million. God knows how, but that's how the market's gone this time. But I don't even know where to begin, but I don't know what the problem is at Spurs. Is it something mental there from last season, but then how is it when you've got five new plays in the start and 11? Does it make sense? And I'm thinking what's the fact that Brent's like, why, how can they not carry that? Tell you why they can't carry on because it's Brentford away and Brentford away is a difficult game because as I mentioned on Friday's pod, Brentford are one of the only teams in the Premier League that have had no chaos this summer. That will happen last year with Thomas Frank ironically, leaving to go to Spurs. Everything else since then has been pretty plain sailing and Keith Andrews has done a brilliant job and I actually tip Brentford to get relegated last season and here they are, knocking lumps out of Spurs on the opening weekend. I think that Brentford away, as I mentioned before, is perhaps the toughest start you could ask for if you were Tottenham and yes, you could say what about asking a way that never happens on the opening day. So Brentford away in terms of all of the teams in the Premier League, think of Fullham, New Manager, Palace, New Manager, Newcastle, New Manager. There have been so many changes all around the Premier League. Brentford have kind of stayed cocooned in their little bubble and everything seems to be fine over there. So I think that that's why it was such a difficult start. Well, it's it's almost as hard as whole city away, isn't it? But you know, it's one of those things. Marley, you can't hurt me in this episode. I've already been trying to hurt you. I'm just trying to amuse myself. I put a dagger in my back as well. It's when I'll said that we were going to be good this season. I'm immune. I'm really immune. I'm numb. I'm numb to it all. Listen, it's been one game. I don't know what I'm going to do. The first game of the season, what we can do is we can all just laugh at Spurs because let me tell you, there is nothing funnier than spending 300 million and getting twatted by Brentford. That is honestly so funny. It's peak Spurs. We all could have seen it coming. Spurs can't win because if they spend 300 million and they do crap, everyone says they spent 300 million. They should be doing far better than this. If they do well, everyone says, well, they spent 300 million. Of course, they're going to do well. They spent loads of money. This is a team that has finished 17th twice in a row. And last season, we were in the same position boys where we sat on the pod and we said, our Spurs won't be that bad this year. It's not going to happen again. I know they've signed new players, which is something they didn't do last summer, not to this extent anyway. But we didn't see it come in 12 months ago. So, why are we changing our mind now? Brentford, away, they've lost their first game. It's a little bit early to start writing teams off, don't you think? Well, I will be hoping they lose at least 30 of them because this is the thing with football these days. How is a club allowed to spend that much money? Like how the disparity in big six versus everyone else is a fucking complete joke? Look at what Aston Villa is doing now. They've had to sell all the best players this summer. Consus gone. What kinds is going? The sold others in previous years as well. Newcastle have had the heart ripped out with Gordon, Tanali, Bruno, all leaving. And there's Spurs finishing 17th back to back and just pissing money up the wall as if they can just afford it. It's just raining money there in Tottenham. I get that they've done well over the past 20 years in comparison to other teams they're trying to break in. Newcastle Villa being two of them. But look, as long as they throw in money at everyone and then losing games three and ill away at Brentford and could have been four if he got to Yago. It's a lot of that penalty way. It's fucking hilarious that they're losing. It's honestly, it's making my season. I'm loving it because they don't deserve, you don't deserve to keep spending money and failing and it's just, it's just funny. It's fucking honestly. I'm loving it. As I said a couple of times already, we'll focus on Aston Villa in more detail later on this week on FSD because of the fact that they're selling players, the comments that Unite Emery has made, the embarrassing defeats are bright and that they had at the weekend. But off the back of what you've said, I was always and have been up till very recently a big FFP advocate because I've seen what financial mismanagement can do to a football club. I've witnessed it first hand with my own team. However, this is not what FFP is for and I don't think some of the big Premier League clubs are at risk of financial mismanagement in the same way that a smaller team like A. Portsmouth was and so as much as I've been a big believer in FFP, I think I might have to hold my hands up now and say that is not what football is meant to be. The elite is ring-fenced. If I bought a car, I should be able to modify it any which way I want. Within reason, as long as it's road legal, but I can paint it right purple if I want. You can do whatever you want, you can have massive tires on it, you can change the suspension, you can change the exhaust. For some reason, and it's because football clubs are community assets and I do believe in protecting that and protecting what is essentially a big part of the culture of this country, I've always been in the camp of let's defend ourselves and our institutions as best we can. But FFP might not necessarily be the way to do that. What I don't want is to see foreign owners coming in and leveraging debt against the club. Then all of a sudden decided that they've had enough of playing with that toy and they're going to go and buy a different sports team and then kind of throwing their ambition with a football team on the scrap people in the bin and leaving it to rot and we've seen that across football in this country over the last few years and that's what I'm scared of. I don't think there'll ever be a problem with that when it comes to teams like Villa. So therefore, should we be an FFP? I don't know, it's a conversation, a wider conversation to have later down the line. The biggest question I have is and whether you disagree or agree with where money comes from, whether it's a sovereign fund or a tycoon billionaire from a certain country, what's not sustainable about a sovereign fund taking over a club? It's probably the most sustainable thing you could ever ask for because it's back to Villa country. So the rules are just completely top of the food chain, haven't you? You've reached the top of the food chain that there is no bigger wealth than that. Newcastle aren't going to go bust anytime soon now. You can't Saudi Arabia runs out of oil, we're all right. You're sustainable. The thing I have, which is a really big issue with it and it's all very positive. Is it sustainable because Newcastle is selling all their players and the Saudis have pulled their funding in live golf. They're not interested, are they? I mean, the rules of it all because I don't like it, first of all, because you're punishing an owner for wanting to invest in his club. So if an owner takes over, for example, let's say with Newcastle situation, I don't massively agree with the sovereign fund taking over a club, but objectively speaking, Mike actually mis-run Newcastle big time. I don't think he's on the other side. No, but let me let me let me let my point though, he comes in and mismanages Newcastle in terms of the finances, leaves it to the next owner even for years, but no, but they're punished by that for the fact that they can't spend much because they've been having money extracted. They've not got much of a revenue. It does have to be stuck around Newcastle. You can go to any other club that's been taken over. They're punished by the previous owner. The biggest thing with Mike Ashley was that was the commercial, the way we stood still in commercial because he used the club as an advertising board for his own business. We were called the sports director in a few months, so they're all punished for it. The thing that's just so contradictory to it all was that 15 years ago, it was an open free for all of who came in, who invested in whatever you had, you could put into your club. So now the drawbridge is up and now no one's allowed to gain. And the issue when it comes to revenues is that, yeah, sure, you basically have to earn what, 600 million revenue to be able to spend like the top six do. By the time that these clubs, let's say, Villa get to 600 million in revenue, what happens to the world? The other top six, they're around 900 to a billion revenue. So there's always going to be a gap. There's always going to be a gap. There's a food chain. There's a food chain. And this is the situation that I think some people find difficult to digest, whether people agree with it or not as up to them, but a team like Brighton, who have just hammered Villa, sell their best players every season, for big money, basuma, kukureia, moises, kaisada, callos belabor to Manchester United. There have been loads of examples. And Brighton are able to finish in the top 10, and Brentford are able to finish in the top 10 by being smartly run, but they know their place. Because Brighton could finish fourth, and if Manchester United or Spurs who finish 17th, come knocking, those players are going to want to move to those clubs. Because of from before that drawbridge was pulled up, Joel, if you give clubs agency to spend whatever they want, does the league become more competitive? That's a question worth asking. And ultimately, if you have asked in Villa where they don't need to sell Morgan Rogers or T. Illumans, and they get to add to that, do they still stay? Yeah, because they'll be able to offer better wages, and they'll be able to invest in that one. Is that what it is then? It's got to be able to look at the reason why Tinal has gone down to Tottenham. If Newcastle could match the wages that Tottenham were doing, I'm more inclined to believe that it'll probably have stayed. Same way in which Bruno Gamar has probably looked at the situation and thought, well, are you going to invest or not? Because I'm seeing all the best players having to be sold. So then why would I stay? It becomes a basically, give me a reason. There's no real reason apart from the fact that they have to sell, or they want to, they have to sell for the fact that these bigger clubs out there that can offer them more in terms of finances and in terms of outlook for the future. So it's difficult to break into that top six kind of analogy. But I just think it's really unfair how clubs wear our owners, they've got money ready to spend, but they're capped because of either former ownership that's badly mismanaged the club, which means they can't spend anyway. Or the Premier League deems it is not sustainable. If you can prove that you've got sustainable funds, well, then by all means. And I'm not saying if a Saudi fund should come in and spend a billion in a summer like, you know, it's straight man saw came because I definitely don't think that's the same one. That's almost like going around monopoly and passing go 500 times and everyone who spent time building their revenue historically are basically trumped by the new guy who comes on the board and has a billion in the bank. I don't agree with it to that extent. Well, then there needs to be a middle ground because I don't know if you've been paying any attention to the women's super league. London City Lionesses, a relatively new club, have got Michelle Kang as their owner and she has gone and splashed the cash because there aren't rules against this in the WSL. So they've gone and signed Mary Earps, they've gone and signed Alexia Putea, who's potentially the best women's player on the planet. And they have just absolutely stockpiled the talent clearly going to be title contenders this year. Challenge the status quo I suppose and it's ruffled a few feathers in women's football because that's just not something that's been done before. You look at the Chelsea acquisition from the early 2000s where they've gone from having good players to world class players and a world class manager because an extremely wealthy person, Roman Abramovich bought the club. There weren't any rules back then in 2003. Are we going to go back to that? I agree with what you say about there needs to be mitigation, but where does that come in? Like where do you draw the line? Well, they've come up with some kind of formula when it comes to squad to cost ratio and wages. Surely you can do something along the lines of when a new owner comes in, okay, that where the money's coming from, that everything, don't let him leverage against debt, but allow them to do some kind of percentage wear for the first few years. They have a little bit of flexibility of what they can invest, at least allow them to say, you know what, this is my club. Let me try and further them. Let me try and push the revenues a little bit because if you're not, then you're basically just kind of going along with what the rest happened before you even came in. Surely there's some kind of equation they can find which makes it sustainable, manageable, but also allows you to invest. They have got the European wage cap and stuff out there, where it's 70% in Europe and 85% of the Premier League. So straight away as soon as you qualify for the Champions League, you've got 15% less to play with. As the Villa have done absolutely everything they can in their power to pay as much as they can. Villa's wage to turn over ratio was 96%, it's usually hovering between 45 and 60 across the Premier League. Villa's at 96%, basically they're spending every bit of money they have, every penny they have on paying Watkins Rodgers as much as they physically can. And that's where they've got to this situation in the summer and gone, we're just screwed. We're just powerless to, we can't pay them any more money because of the squad cost and everyone's kicking up a fuss and wanting to go to Saudi and Rodgers' wanting to go to Chelsea and stuff like that. We've been saying for years that the players get paid too much. It's not their fault. If someone offered me 400,000 pounds a week, I'm not going to say no, it's not the players fault. PFA aren't going to turn around and go, yep, we're being paid too much. Here's some money back into the football ecosystems, not going to happen. Of course it's not, but we've reached a point where, as you've been saying for years now on this show, that the game is eating itself from the inside out. And I think that what you said before, Joel, about state wealth and state backed clubs being sustainable. I agree because it's not like the Saudi public investment fund who own Newcastle are going to run out of money. But what they might run out of is interest. Saudi Arabia, we've seen them, invest in Newcastle heavily, invest in live golf heavily, invest in boxing heavily, invest in WWE wrestling heavily. But we've also seen in the last two or three months then pull money out of golf, sell players at Newcastle United, the managers gone. If they lose interest, what happens then to Newcastle? Because they're in a similar situation to where they were under Mike Ashley with a known that wasn't really interested and the difference between Ashley and the Saudi Arabians is that Ashley could sell the club to someone above him in the food chain. There is nowhere else to go from the Saudis. Who do they sell Newcastle to and for how much? Because you've reached the ceiling. There's a lot of rich people who will buy it because it's a way to funnel funds. Yeah, there's a lot of people who would want that. Look how quickly Chelsea got sold. When a brand of it was given them sanctions, look how quickly Todd Bowley came to the stadium. Any NFL team owned by, I don't know, Doug Smith or whatever they called, could easily expand their portfolio. It's a way of Americans getting into football. It's not ideal, of course, it's not. But it would be a buyer. There wouldn't be a problem with selling Newcastle. It would just come down to whether the Saudis are still interested. What it's worth, I've been trying to sort of say this for a while on the podcast, but there's always rumours about, well, the Saudis lead to interest because of the golf and stuff like that. I don't think they'll lose interest because of the future plans that they're putting in place at the club, new training grounds, new sort of visions of the future, new stadium on the horizon. That takes minimum five, six, seven years to build, probably 10 when everything's said and done. I still think we're in that. I also think it's important for the Saudis geopolitically to have money in the UK. I think football is always going to be one of their biggest investments. Golf, let's be honest, golf's absolutely shit. Boring people play golf. I tried to make live golf sexy. That was always going to have a timeline on it because it's a fucking boring sport. It also split the sport in half by all the fallout of creating live golf. So yeah, I don't think we're at that point. You know, before all this, the thing I hate the most, I don't know, going down a bit of a rabbit hole, sure you can have wealth funds and whatever else taken over your club. I think the most unsustainable thing is the multi club ownership model. I can't stand it. I really can't stand it. I think Halis got done for it. Didn't I? The multi club ownership rules and stuff. It feels like you're a club and then you've got franchises in other countries and then you're earning money and benefiting from that. I mean, look at Strasbourg. I would love to go and interview a Strasbourg fan who has been a fan of the club for years and is now basically just the proxy for Chelsea, where you want to play it? Okay, we'll give him your guys training as well. They hate it. Their fans hate it because they're just the bitch basically. They can't do anything about it, can they? That's the difficulty and we're talking about it again, this geopolitical, the financial side of football that games gone. You know, you know, I've been in the biggest issues become now more than ever. Football owning a football club has now become a status symbol and we're seeing that more and more way. If you probably looked at a spreadsheet with the amount of foreign famous owners, look at all the championship clubs that have been bought by actors, sports stars anywhere in the world. It's because now the rich have got no other way. It's a great way to differentiate yourself from your friends because having money when you've got 100 million is not a differentiator owning a football club in another country and fans love you is a differentiator. Same way, if you have a Rolex deal and you're in a group of your football friends in a club, that is a differentiator to you all in and 150 grand a year. And otherwise just becoming, it's almost like an accessory for this. It's like I'm in a yacht. Yeah, it's a fashion accessory because nobody else can get it. I have the money in the funds. So what happens when a fashion moves on and people lose interest? It won't ever move on though because football's too big. It won't die. I understand that. But this is what I mean about football changing and the food chain changing when it comes to who owns football clubs. It's not the local businessman done good anymore whose passion is blackburn rovers or crew Alexandra or Plymouth Argyle. It's not. It's not the local guy. It's someone who really, if they lose interest, nothing connects them to the club apart from the investment that they make. You know, people say all the owners fall in in love with the club. Okay, do you believe that? Do you believe that Angela's Marinakis, if things went belly up in his businesses, do you think he would give two hoots about Nottingham Forests? It's a big belly. There's a gravitational pull around her Marinakis. Absolutely. Yeah. I think the tides turn when he turns around like that. I know he's middle is money in the port and stuff, but you ought to go from side to side when he walked down them. Yeah, it's, it's that thing in it of like, oh, you know, the X club is getting bought by whatever, like Tom Brady being sort of one of the head honchos at Birmingham City. You can't tell me that Tom Brady grew up watching Christophe Dugaree in, you know, Birmingham in Norway and going, oh, he's classing. And then he goes into that meeting with Rooney and starts questioning Rooney's capabilities. And I just thought, you know what, mate, I don't care how many Super Bowl rings you've got. Fuck off. He was right, though. He was right. Rooney was a toss manager. That's why he's doing podcasting on match of the day every week now. We've spent a lot of time talking about the finances of the Premier League and spending and selling and that's all come off the back of Spurs, spending that big money and asked him to be there getting whooped and who I am, right? Seeing his ass about everything that's going on. But let's talk about Manchester United. I know you've been itching to Marley, more so than Joel, who was hoping that we'd get to the end of the show without mentioning it. Take it away, Marley. Take it away. Just funny, weren't it? Funny. Now, you just, I just honestly thought, like, member of a couple of weeks ago, we talked about, man, I didn't lead in Dublin. And there was that game where it just felt a bit like a friendly. I felt, obviously it felt like what it was. It felt like a season that will be sharper when it comes round. And I just thought you approached it the same. Like, the energy levels were the same, quite lethargic, quite passive. And whole, you know, every promoted side you go to is going to be on absolute just off the reds in terms of energy and how much they want to win. Like, Olima Bernie looked like the best striker to have ever lived. And Olima Bernie's had a Premier League experience and been dog shit in every pretty, every season. But you, you lot made him look like a reincarnation of Louis Suarez. He was unbelievable, like dribbling the ball. There was one point where he took on your entire midfield and passed it out to the left. And I was thinking, wow, this is, this is, this is pretty poor from, from money and I, but yeah, it's, um, yeah, work to do in it, it's was. You know, you know, when I watched that clip, just that isolated clip of Olima Bernie, what was going on in my mind was sometimes we get really distracted with the money that's being spent, the big names, the agents, blah, blah, blah, tactics. Sometimes everyone just forgets that it's a really simple sport. And sometimes it only comes down to having a bit of grit, a bit of determination in a game and taking it back to Sunday league or basically, have you got a bit more desire than the other person to go and win the ball or to go and drive through the defense? And he showed that, you know, I just bought 100 million pounds worth of midfielders. That's a lot. I mooked thread against them. I'm sorry, it was so turgid. I feel like we've been saying this for years. Do you think Manchester United turned up expecting to win? Newly promoted team, first said the season. Probably the team is going to finish bottom of the table. Do you think that they turned up thinking we're going to smoke these? I think all turned up expecting to win. You really do. That's interesting because having not seen the game admittedly, I've only watched the highlights. That is just me kind of plucking a theory out of thin air without having watched it. So I have to be honest with that. Did you not see it that way? It was a case of these players that are clearly better than whole's players, turning up expecting to get a comfy win on the first day of the season. And they've been given a rude awakening. Or was it just a case of whole wanted to win more than Manchester United did? Yeah, it is so cliche, but it just goes off on Marley said, if anyone watched Manu United, it's last two preseason games, especially the one against Milan. Everyone was saying after that game, that kind of performance better just be a preseason performance because if you go into the league against the team that has just been promoted, you're going to get found out quick. And I know it sounds very cliche of the world more than you. They had more passion genuinely. It was that case where a whole came in and I think they looked like they were going to win as in like the expected to win the Manu United team looked 10 years back in terms of possession in terms of pace in terms of just general desire. And it was it was quite worrying and after the game and I'm not the type of guy to be very reactionary. But what the fuck was that midfield about? I mean, well, I've been saying throughout this whole summer, right? And there's a lot of inos supporters out there that I've noticed in the Manu United ranks of the fan base where they can't do any wrong. I see quite through that and I look at it pretty objectively. I don't support the ownership. I spot the team and I support the club. And that's it in terms of the actual plays and the staff. When you buying Santos and Teleamonds and everyone saying, what clever piece of business? 85 million. You've really saved some money there. First of all, I don't care about the money. For me, it's not going in my butt pocket. I'm not spending it. Going by the best place for the team. For me, looking at those two and I really hope they prove me wrong. But the minute they were signed, I've said throughout the summer, I'm underwhelmed. It's not really moved me. The decent sign is put at the juries out with them both. When I watch that game, part of me just feels like they were fourth, fifth choices. And this is what we get for that. And again, I'm not ruling them out. And I'm not saying that they were poor signings. But sometimes you have to go out and get your best choice midfielder, which is your first decision in choice rather than four. Joe, you said you don't want to be reactionary. Teleamonds has just finished fourth twice in three seasons with Aston Villa. He's won them the Europa League. He's been in the Premier League for years now. He won the FA Cup with Leicester. He finished fifth twice with Leicester, played European campaigns with them. He's a Belgium international and has played for Belgium. He must be nearing on 100 caps for Belgium now. You cannot tell me that Yuri Teleamonds is not good enough to play for Manchester United. He's been in a better team than Manchester United. I don't know. He's definitely not. His jury being out is fair. I mean, he's had a bad debut on the first day of the season. Oh, the jury. No, the jury has to be out on any money that he's signing. Don't get a free pass. And Yuri Teleamonds, I think he is so slow in the transition. He's great when it comes to picking the final third pass, but if he doesn't have someone with a lettuism next to him to clean up, he gets found out on the counter attack really badly, which is why I'd love to see him when we get Belieber, who's someone who can pick up his loose passes or on the transition. He can go backwards a lot quicker than Teleamonds, but we cannot have two types of similar profiles in there. It's just dangerous for the team. And the fact that our defence is the same defence as four years ago is worrying. I mean, did you see the clip where McGuire was holding on to Mazrawi for their goal? He did a really good job of holding Mazrawi from putting the ball into his own empty net there. I'll tell you, I was going to discuss you with the money out of Fanny Estey and I told him that my thought was crap in the money out of the team. It in heaven. Where's it come from? Where is he starting games for you? He's not that good. He's young, potentially. He has a lot of mistakes in him. He's got no one else. He's not the most imposing defender. You've got a lot of centre backs at the club, a few obviously aren't fit to Litton and whatever, but I just think, how is this guy? Where's Lenny Yorrow, by the way? He's injured. Because he was the greatest thing since his life's bread when he signed him. Oh, his 50 million is 18. He's going to be the future. We've got him instead of Real Madrid or whatever, whoever was trying to sign him. Can I be dog shit? Like what, the recruitment since saying, how bad do you cock it up? Yeah, the profile, the profile, with the money united, it's strange with the profiling, with the, you know, the young players, like, dream of a polystery when they got in from Yorrow's penneural and they paid 8 million Yorrow's for him. Or you got Yorrow, they paid 60 million pounds for him. They didn't have any, they paid a big amount in compensation. It just seems like every time, or the, oh be the really tall striker, they got from Arsenal, he's still in the academy now. They paid a good amount for him as well, nearly 10 million pounds. It just seems like every single time, I mean, I had to feel like they made a clever pinch, you know, a young 18-year-old that's going to be the next big thing. It goes to the rent's majority of the time. It never happens. Yeah, I don't really get it. Is it the wages to get in? Is it the fact that they're just not good enough quality? Because when Chelsea or a city, or even, you know, I'd extend it out, even a Newcastle, even a, who else has had really good signings, maybe a Liverpool, and they've got, remind me again, if they're a winger, they've got, he's bloody amazing from, I'm going to know. Oh, I'm going to. Yeah. Yeah. Like when these teams make those young signings, you just know that they can have an impact very quickly. When men unite to do it, it just seems like it's all really ill-informed, like they're not getting the full story of how good of a player they actually are. I know they're investing in the future, but for, you know, you know, Euro, they paid 60 million from, and Leo's got a great academy. Why is he the only one that's not pushed on? And Jeremy Jacque for Liverpool, he'll probably end up becoming twice the play, why? Like, why is it that the United isn't making informed transfers with young players? I don't get it. So, man, you're not going to think that potential is lineal because he's 18 and he's this good. He's going to be, he's going to be sick when he's 28. Like, at the minute, recently, last few weeks, I've started playing FIFA 17, and it's, it's really funny because 10 years ago, you're looking at names that are just sort of around. So you look at like potential there, and it's like, Delhi Ali is one of the best players. Where's Delhi Ali now? He's practically retired. You see people like, remember, Reece Oxford at Weston. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was meant to be the Arsenal that disappeared. It meant to be amazing. I think he's in Germany still now at Freiberg or something like that, and it's a stark reminder of how the players that had potential at that point, they're just nowhere, then they're nowhere near where you'd expect them to be, and that's potential, like, making the wrong move too early is, is, you know, bad for your career. I think a lot of players get to my aid and go, fuck me, I've made it. Look at all this money. I've got a GWAC and an M19. Like, Garnatch was a great example. He was hungry until he got into the first team, then he's got a bicycle kick and went, I'm the best player to ever kick the poor. And he just, isn't that not the same with most junks that's going to these top clubs now? They can all afford that. Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. I actually agree. I just think it affects Manchester United more than other clubs, because you spoke about status symbols earlier on Jule, a footballer playing for Manchester United, because they are one-off if not the biggest club in the world for some people. It is a status symbol for them, and the difference is, when the boss, as all the former players call him, Sir Alex Ferguson, was in charge, you couldn't get away with that attitude. Games were you done. If Fergie was in this day and ear now, you just wouldn't have the same effect. No, I agree. You hated agents, didn't you? He hated Minoriola, called him a shipbag and all that sort of stuff. He would be left behind. He'd probably be in prison with him out of stuff he would have said about them. He'd had court cases coming out of his ears. Maybe it's the fact that football has just moved on, because let's not forget, in the mid-2000s in general, Manu and I were market leaders when it came to identifying those young talents from abroad, Patrice Everett and Manu Vidditch. Let's go on and on and on, where they come in, and then they end up becoming really top players. I can't remember the last time Manu and I had a brother in a young player and he lit the place on fire. I'm trying to think- Rashford from the academy. But he's the important thing. He lit it from down the road. Yeah, exactly. It's ironic, isn't it? He was on our cards. In terms of going and plucking players apart from maybe Guy Nacho, which, I mean, you can't really say, he was a huge success. He made a profit on him, yeah, but I don't think in terms of the player he's becoming, it's the success. But, you know, there's not been a player that's coming and made his name in the team for years and years and years. You have to question the last player. Who was the last player that Manchester United sold to one of the clubs that might perceive it would be bigger than the Barcelona or Real Madrid? Rashford went on loan to Barcelona. This is a different Barcelona to what we're used to seeing because of their financial concerns. But in terms of United, selling a player to one of the other two big teams, they'll never sell to Liverpool. So let's not worry about them. But if we're talking about the biggest clubs in Europe, United are in that mix. When was the last time they sold a player to Real Madrid or Barcelona, the two other huge clubs that you could put United in the mix with? Ronaldo. I think Marley's right. It probably is Ronaldo. Yeah, or even maybe De Maria when he went to PSG. That's, I mean, that's a stretch. It doesn't even sell in players to PSG, are they? No, it's, you know, like we always say, no, Josie's always got great quotes, but he made, he said it, he said it himself best. Every single time a player leaves Man United, go and see where they play and it's just the same every single time. But you're getting their offcuts. And I'm not saying Casamera was a bad sign in, but he was served as requirements at Real Madrid. Varan the same. Cavani was excellent for PSG, but he got him at the end of the career. Ibrahimovic the same. You're getting elite teams offcuts. I think a lot of Man United fans are always, are almost willing for that era to come back, but that era is dead and buried. And that's purely because even mid table teams in the Premier League have access to great data now. They have their own systems. It's not like in the early 2000s, where you know, a wigan would have three scouts in Spain. And that's it. Now they've got probably teams of data scientists, right? And I mean, I'd love to see what Brighton's data team looks like right now. They're market leaders now. Man United are not market leaders when it comes to the recruitment area anymore, which is a damn shame, because they were, they were the, the pioneers of it in a sense in the early 2000s bringing players in football has moved on with them. It's the same in any industry. Look at the iPhone, killed the Blackberry. It's almost like that. Sometimes you just got to say, did we keep up or did we let ourselves drift? And I think that is the case. It might take a while before Man United the campaign is again, and start to keep up with the reality of the market. There we go. First Monday reaction pod of the new Premier League season done and dusted. And those of you that have been listening for a long time might be thinking, well, hang on a sec, boys, you haven't done getting the C. Well, time for you to mark your cards, because we're going to do something different for the new season. Tuesday will be dedicated. Get in the C day. So make sure you remember that. And why not even better hit subscribe or follow wherever you listen to podcasts, because that way you won't miss an episode, whether that be of the Monday reaction or Tuesdays now, get in the C day. So hopefully you can join us tomorrow for more Premier League discussion on football social daily. We are going to try and tinker with a few things on the pod. And as we were saying last week, we are now open to sponsorship as well. So if you have a company and you want to be heard, then get in touch with us. If you'd like to sponsor the pod and help support the journey of three lads, just talking about Premier League football basically. Digging the piss out of my United. Why do I do it to myself? That's it for today's FSD. We will speak to you tomorrow on Get in the C. Tuesday. Catch you there.