The Post-Guardiola Vacuum: Tactical Shifts, PSR Limits, and Managerial Churn

Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, Emma Payton. Nine of the twenty Premier League clubs have new managers this season. So who will make the biggest splash and who could be in trouble early on? Well here with me in studio today we have the Athletics James Horncastle and Tim Spears, Gents, how are we doing? Good, yeah, this isn't new season eve, almost, where we're going now. We're nearly there aren't we? Excited? Yeah. So yeah. Is that the buzz it's building? Well the post-world cup come down, took a little while to get over but I feel like, you know, a few weeks off. Well because you were both out there as well, weren't you? So you were really in and amongst it? Yeah, the first competitive match I watched, no fact, the first friendly watch was Made to Unvy Wool, which was, which was three days after the World Cup final, as a hella come down. I don't think it's a hell of a game. No. No, no. Okay. No wolf chat today, I'm afraid. Well, not just James and Tim on today's episode, later on, we're going to hear from our new castle correspondent, George Culkin, on their new manager, Matthias Yisler. Newcastle have lost a lot of their touchstones post takeover and so it is just that sense of not really knowing what's going to happen next. So, loads of change in Premier League dugouts this season, nine new managers and a further two in Michael Carrick and Roberto Deserby who weren't in charge of Manchester United and Spurs at the start of the year, James throughout this episode will run through all of that the new faces on this podcast, but overall, I think, especially considering there's no Pep Guardiola this season as well, does it, does it almost feel like a new era in the Premier League? It does because we have often defined the Premier League by rivalries between cultures, different personality, so Cyrilis Ferguson against Darsen Venger, those two against Maurinho and against Rafa Benitez and then for the last decade, it has been about whoever can go up against Pep Guardiola, be that Jürgen Klopp and more recently, you know, kind of pupils turning against the master with our tetra going up against Guardiola and you know, I think it's going to be really interesting now. If we do have big personality clashes in the Premier League, which, frankly, is what podcasts like this are built on, because, you know, our tetra, you know, wander league last year, but who else in the league has done that? You know, Arnie Slot's gone, you know, after one year of a bad title defense, so, you know, we would like to drip a bit of poison into the Premier League bloodstream, it's all very fresh at the moment, I think, but for the excitement generated by someone like Chabielonsa going to Chelsea, it would have maybe taken Louis Enrique to leave Paris San Germante to get everyone excited in the same way as, you know, when Maurinho came to Chelsea or when Guardiola came to City. I think there's maybe a look, there's a lot of freshness, but at the same time, a lot of familiar faces and not big blockbuster coaching personalities, which, you know, we all love to talk about. I think you could say the same for players, actually, I don't know, we're doing podcast about managers here, but the Premier League has lost a lot of star power in the last couple years, you know, you look at Salah, now Roderie going as well, you know, if you sort of look at the top 10 players and managers in World Football right now, how many, how many here in the Premier League, you know, Harland maybe would be, do you sort of superstar, you're only superstar player left really, I'd say, sort of globally and manager wise, you know, how many of the top 10 managers are in there in the world would be in the Premier League, you know, I'll test as the only one that's really won something of serious note, but in the Champions League final, his team had like 24% possession and like two shots. So I don't know, do you call him an elite sort of European manager as well? My point is, there's just not so much sort of star power, new people will emerge. I'm sure in the next couple of years, but it's, yeah, for the biggest and best league in the world, they're lacking in a bit of star power right now. I like what you were saying about just the characters and personality in terms of managers, because we were talking before we were recording this about the Jose documentary that's out at the moment and it's just box office and then it feels like that's what we need in the Premier League at the moment, doesn't it, especially off the back of Pep Guardiola leaving as well, Tim, talking about managers and their personalities, you've been ranking all 20 Premier League managers based on their rock star status. Yeah. Explain. But people haven't read this piece. So there was an interview in the Athletic with the Newcastle. I think CEO who called Mattace Jisler, he called him a rock star. He's like, you guys are going to love him like, it was a bit of a cringe, I thought. He's like, yeah, he's a rock star manager. So you know, German Austrian rock, leather pants, white vest, yeah, exactly, yeah, I don't quite see it. But I get tasked with all the sort of hybrid articles at the Athletic. You know, yeah, I see that, yeah. So they asked me to sort of assess each Premier League manager on their sort of rock star abilities. But there are too many, you know, so yeah, I did a sort of a comparison for each one. So I'll just pick a couple out. But you gave them a rating as well, right? Yeah, rating out of five. So the only one who got five was, was Deserby. And in terms of a comparison, I thought, you know, someone, he's obviously very eccentric. He's quite experimental and sort of creative, you know, a good looking guy as well, but very sort of combustible and a bit nuts. So he's Prince, I think. Yeah. Thoughts. He has a tattoo of an Italian rock star. He got called Vasco Rossi. I'm not sure he's a Prince man. That guy. He's more, I mean, Vasco is sort of like a Bruce Springsteen kind of kind guy, yeah, yeah. And he's got a tattoo of it. Yeah. And he goes, he goes and watches this guy with his daughter at the end of every season. Wow. That's sort of a hardcore fan. Yeah. He's, he's, yeah, big style. He's never actually wanted to meet Vasco. You know, this is a tangent. He's never wanted to meet him because he doesn't want, you know, they say he never meet you here. Yes. And he's very much, he's quite protective of that. So he's, he's been offered many times, you know, do you want to go have dinner with this guy? And he's like, oh, I'll leave that. So. Yeah. I get it. Exactly. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. I have quite limited rock knowledge. So, but I liked it. Not my genre, but I, I understood Michael Carrick and Michael Booblay. Which I think works quite well. I don't think, I don't think that needed any other words. No, no, I didn't. That's not my point. Yeah. Right. Let's move on from rock analogies. So five of the big six then have newer or relatively new managers, Liverpool City, Chelsea Spurs and Manchester United. We actually ran a poll over on our YouTube community, asking which of the new bosses will have the biggest impacts. And I don't know if this will surprise you to, or maybe it won't at all, but Javier Lonso won it pretty comfortably. So what was a percentage, 58% of people thought that Javier Lonso would have the biggest impact this season. Agree with that. I mean, I think from where they finished last season, 10th, there's a lot of room for improvement isn't there? Yeah. There's a lot of big board players in like Malcolm Rogers and also board experience as well. And I maybe there's a hope as well that some of their current players are like to call Parma who who underperform last season will get firing once again. Yeah. I mean, Chelsea have spent in excess of I think 400 million euro. It's kind of like what Liverpool did last season and integrating all of those players to real challenge for any coach because there's just so much churn. Javier Lonso in the preseason tour, he was talking about, you know, you all focus on tactics, you know, how the team's going to look on the pitch, but for me, the biggest job is creating some kind of spirit, culture, ultimately the rest follows from that. I think it becomes the first Chelsea coach under this management structure to be named manager, rather than coach. So he should have more of an influence and input than maybe some of his predecessors. You know, perhaps it will be successful because of that, but at the same time, Javier Lonso seems to be like the Premier League's boyfriend or boy next door, you know, for the years we've had so many Premier League clubs and so many Liverpool fans who are projecting we really want Javier to be the guy who replaces Jürgen Klopp or replaces Arnie Slott. A lot of people have this image of Javier Lonso in their head as being not only this great looking, elegant former football player, but someone who's coaching tree, if you like, is unmatched, you know, working with Ancielotti, Pepp, Marinho, Del Bosque, all of these greats. The work he did at Biolevercuse and been quite patient in his development as a coach, doing what many thought was unthinkable, ending Bians, run at dominance there, undefeated season, but then Real Madrid, you would have thought he would be almost the perfect person to go in there and take an extremely talented group of players and mold them into a team. And instead we saw he struggled unextrepectedly there, but I think it's how you manage the personalities in the dressing room. And you know, we saw Rossini last year actually struggle with that. Rossini didn't have the kind of credibility that Javier Lonso brings, but there are so many intangible challenges to being the Chelsea manager that it doesn't necessarily make Javier Lonso a slam dunk as a coaching appointment. Nine percent of people thought that Enzo Morescar would have the biggest impact. This was done as well, the poll before the community shield game, by the way. I just wonder, Tim, how hard is it to replace a legend as well, the fact that he's coming off? Or maybe one of the biggest legends we've ever seen in terms of Premier League management in Pep Guardiola, because we've seen it before, haven't we? David Moise following Sir Alex Ferguson on a slot post the Eugen Klopp era, Unai Emmeri coming into to Arsenal after Arsenal Venga, and they struggle to live up to what are extremely high expectations. So what is the key for Enzo Morescar? I mean, if you're asking who's going to make a big impact, then yeah, he might have a huge impact just in the wrong direction. But yeah, no, look, I mean, on a slot sort of broke the mold by not changing much, you know. He sort of allowed a very senior dressing room that I think could sort of run itself with the lights of Andike and Robertson and Alison, et cetera, and he didn't change the style too much. We saw in fact in his second season when he tried to change the style of more that Liverpool encountered, you know, lots of problems. But I'm not sure city can quite work in that way, because it was obviously, Pep did everything, you know, the demands he put on his players and the sort of plethora of instructions, and almost too much information. I mean, Mark Gay joined in January, he was just like, he was like, wow, there's so much to take on and so much to learn, and obviously that takes that takes time. So you take that out and you put a new manager in, that's so much he's going to change. He's an advantage in that he obviously knows the club and some of the players know him. His style isn't wildly dissimilar from Pep Guardiola style either. And he has had success. I think he slightly underrated. He did really well at Leicester, and you know, one of a couple of trophies at Chelsea, and they were fifth when he was sacked last winter. You know, they took a massive nose dive after he left. But the biggest problem for him, Maresca, is not just changing the manager, they're changing the team. They've lost Roderie, Bernardo Silva, two incredibly intelligent footballers who can run a game on their own. They're going to bring in maybe Boadi, but he's a kid basically, and Anderson will need time to adjust to a new club. So I think expectations will be important. He's not going to, I don't know, he's going to necessarily win the league in his first season. If you can do what Pep did last year, sort of challenge for the title and have a decent run in the domestic cup, so I think that would be a success. Can he do that? You think he can do that? I mean, remains to be seen. But the team is obviously, he's ridiculously good. They've got probably the best striker in European football. They bought a little Anderson, you know, a tremendous midfielder. They've got Shurkey, they've got Foden, it's a ridiculous team. So yeah, as we've seen in the past, when a new manager comes in and replaces a legend, it's normally pretty difficult. I don't know, I mean, I look at the squad building that they've done over the last couple of years, and I think they've made a lot of mistakes. They tried to over-correct what 18 months ago in that January were Pep for the first time. They struggled, and many of those players at this time, it's not just Kusanoff, are not first in regulars, Nico Gonzalez, they spent 60 million on. And I think they have been shortcomings in the kind of rebuild, and its team that has, for the last two years, been in the kind of 70 point bracket, not in the 80 or 90. And so, and that's with Pep Guardiola as your coach. So I think Maresca could be a very promising guy, you know, sort of whose face should fit at City because of his education working with Manuel Pellegrini, then working with the Elite Development Squad, then being part of Pep Staff when they won the treble. But I think beyond the few sort of headline names like, you know, Harland having an extraordinary woke up, there's a lot to do there. Let's talk about another familiar face, then, because Andoni Eriola, of course, not a new face in the Premier League, got born with European football for the first time in their history last season. In the deal sheet, the athletics are weakly inciting to what's happening in the transfer window. Well, James Pearson, Greg Evans say that Liverpool are still no closer to signing. Most Salas replacement, that is despite Bradley Barclay being their top target. How much of a worry is that their, their inability to sign a, a Salah successor? Yeah. I mean, they've got Federico Keiser. How long, how long has the club, I don't know whether it's going to be fit or not, I don't know. But yeah, there's certainly an expectation that they need to sign somebody who can represent a future for Liverpool in that position. I think the sunny side up, look at Eriola is this is a guy who's always improved what he's got. You know, he's gone to Bournemouth where, yeah, frankly, last summer, they sold so many players because of their PSR needs that you thought, I'm just going to struggle. And yet, he can reinvent players, he can make players better. And I think certainly Liverpool be looking to Eriola to make more of the cohort of players that they spent so much money on last year. And most of those players flopped, you know, beyond Eckertike before his injury. So you know, I think this year's window is kind of last year's window. It has to make more of that. And you mentioned he got Bournemouth into Europe for the first time. Eriola, at least in the Premier League, has never had to deal with competing in Europe, competing in multiple fronts. And if you look at when sort of Bournemouth have had ups and downs, you know, it's usually when they've been in the caribou or they've been in the FA Cup. So his style is very attritional, very intense on players. And it'll be really interesting to see if he can do that at a higher level, at a club that's expected to compete in four competitions and get to sort of May and maybe be in an FA Cup Final, caribou Final, Champions League Final. So he's an interesting one because, you know, whilst there's this link with Richard Hughes, the sporting director who had him have Bournemouth. If you look at the other clubs that were in for Eriola, some of the biggest clubs in the world should have been in for him, given the job that he did at Bournemouth. The other clubs were Krista Palace, Leverkuzin, an AC Milan, get it, not City, not. And I think that's quite interesting because there was always this feeling that he's quite an introverted character who only wants to focus on coaching, he's, we've talked about the marina of documentary. He's not interested in making this big impression in press conferences and that sort of thing. So it was almost like he felt he needed the intermediary step before going to a club like Liverpool. So I think seeing how he navigates this will be, will be fascinating too. Yeah. A little reminder, by the way, that David Ornstein will be with us on tomorrow's show. So that's on Wednesday. But in the meantime, you can check out the deal sheet over on the athletic for the latest in the summer transfer market. This is the athletic FC podcast with Emma Payton. So we have talked about some of the new managers that we're going to be seeing in the Premier League this season. We have also got Matthias Yisler in at Newcastle to replace Eddie Howe. We've got Alvaro Arbeloa in at Fulham, Gary O'Neill at Ipswich. Oliver Glasner has switched Palace for Forest, PSR has replaced Glasner at Selhurst Park and then Marco Rosa in four and Doni Eriola at Bournemouth. So with all of that in mind, it's time for our discussion of the day sponsored by Threads and last night we asked our Threads followers, which new manager this season won't be in his position at Christmas. Now a lot of people, Tim, said Enzo Moresca. Okay. Okay. Well, we've talked about him a little bit already. Yeah. I mean, the obvious one that springs to mind with the club that had four managers last season and, you know, sacked some without much justification and they've hired a guy who, you know, has a history of not really getting on with owners, a slash chairman or, you know, falling out with them. I don't know if you've heard of, of course, owner in his reputation, but he doesn't tend to... He doesn't tend to get on to our managers. So because, you know, Threads, Glasner's a great fit for Forest and should do good things this season, but they'll find a way, I'm sure. And like, I think my hot take would be that, you know, Chelsea's team looks great and they've got a great manager, but we just have to throw in, you know, the XC expected Chelsea factor of, like, of madness, like this basket case of a club will find a way to get rid of. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They'll get rid of a long zone for Christmas. On your point about Glasner, Julian, as opposed to saying, Glasner at Forest looks like a powder keg just dropped in a pool of gasoline. It's good. Which is an interesting analogy, but all of it, Glasner, he's not, he's not afraid to speak his mind, is he? I think we definitely saw that, certainly last season at Crystal Palace. Yeah. And I think he did that from a position of power at Palace because, you know, he just to deliver an FA Cup. So, you know, he doesn't have that cachet, if you like, at Forest. So, you know, maybe he'll keep his council until he develops some credit at the bank. If he's given a chance to develop any credit in the bank, but I'd be surprised if bookmakers are even taking bets on that, sort of, who gets through their manager first, given Marin Accuses sort of behavior over the last few years. And then just lastly, one for you, James, we've had another post as well, saying Rubin A and a sort of emoji where you're covering your mouth. So, maybe from a Manchester United fan, but Rubin Amaruma at Milan, how do you see that going? The moment. It was a quick answer. Well, look, I mean, he beat United in a friendly last week and, you know, I think he enjoyed that. He enjoyed it. Yeah. His team played good football at the end. The third goal that Milan scored against United was a wonderful kind of sweeping goal. And he's got, I think, the kind of control that he felt he was lacking towards the end of his time at United's in locks that with Milan's owner, Jerry Cardinal and the recording recruitment team there. So, look, I mean, it can't go any worse from Milan's point of view than last year where they fell out of the Champions League places on the final day. So, I'm actually quite optimistic about Rubin. I think he's learned some of the lessons from his time at United. And, you know, he's not going in there in sort of November time, as he did when he first took over at United with a squad that didn't suit him. So, you know, Milan played the way that Amarin plays last year on his predecessor, sort of three at the back. He wants to put more attacking accent on it. I think we might see a revival for Amarin. Okay. A Rubin revive. All right. Positive vibes. For your chance to be featured in the next discussion of the day, feature head over to Threads and follow at the Athletic FC and please do join in the conversation. All right. Onto Newcastle now after another turbulent summer in our predictions piece that went out over the weekend. I said that Matthias Yisler has arrived to conduct an orchestra that has just sold its string section because, of course, we've had Gordon, Tanali, Bruno, O'Leave, ESAG, actually as well gone. If you look at the last 12 months at the club, it has been such a tough period up in the Northeast. Let's welcome our Newcastle correspondent, George Culkin now. George, really good to see you. Thanks for jumping on today. I mean, from what you've seen and what you've made of the manager so far, it's a hell of a job that he's got on his hands, isn't it? It certainly is. And he's only been in the job for two weeks. It's, you know, there's the context around the team and the club. As you mentioned, losing there for best players over the space of 12 months or so, but also coming in so soon before the start of the season and with still a lot of work to do in the window, I think. Newcastle have lost a lot of their touchstones post take over. And so it is just that sense of not really knowing what's going to happen next. Yisler so far has been very measured. He hasn't given a lot of way. He hasn't said very much. I think it'll be a different story on the touch line against Liverpool on Sunday. I think we'll see a very different side to his personality then. It's just so difficult to make any judgment calls at this point. George, how has Yisler got on in pre-season so far if they won any games? They beat Valencia in his first match, but that was only a couple of days after he officially joined, but they have lost three in a row if you include the defeat on penalties to Strasbourg at the weekend. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sort of seeing a lot really, apart from, yes, the introduction of some young players who clearly have a lot of potential, but also we're still seeing a lot of the same old problems from from last season. Where will the goals come from? Are they giving too many goals away at the back? Where is the experience? Where's the leadership? I don't want to make it all sound negative because it's not that there is very much a sense of this being a fresh start in an interview with the athletic recently, David Hopkins and the CEO talked about this being Newcastle United 2.0. There is definitely a sense that things had grown stale last season. That's partially because there's been a kind of boom and bust in terms of their recruitment, either not signing anybody or signing too many players or not signing good enough players as they did last summer. And this is definitely something different. But as I said, it's that sort of loss of touchstones. You knew exactly what you were going to get from Eddie Howe, Win or Lose. He was always going to be very measured. Bruno Guamareche, of course, was the engine, the heartbeat of the team, Kiran Tripia, who also left on a free. This summer was very much the standard bearer. Tanali, a player at his best of supreme quality. Anthony Gordon led the press and replacing them. Yeah, as I say, sort of young players who clearly got a lot of potential. They're very excited about them at the club. But only a couple of those signings are 24 or over. And so it's asking a lot for them to come straight into the team and deliver in their first season. Tell us a little bit more about some of those then. Because I think Basu Manitore is their sort of big money at attacking signing who's come in from Hoffenheim. Like you say, I mean, young relatively inexperienced so far. But is he one for the fans to be really excited about? There've been flashes so far, I would say, that he looks very, very direct. Yeah, plays on the wing. Wants to get forward really quickly. That's that's Yisler's sort of a speciality. Vertical football, he calls it aggressive front foot. The problem that I've seen so far is that he's done those things. And then got the ball into the area. And there's been no one there to sort of get on to get on the end of it. Other players that they're very excited about. Someone like Sean Sturk. We've seen quite a lot of him in in pre-season signed from Ajax. He's got all of that sort of Ajax. Loves the ball. What is already sort of directing people around? But he's only 18. He was signed as somebody who in an ideal world might have been looking to replace Bruno a couple of years from now. That obviously isn't going to happen now. They desperately need some more experience in midfield. But he's someone I think that they've got very, very high hopes for moving forward. But is he ready now? That's the question. What are the realistic expectations and the season? Having finished 12 last season, it felt like things started to turn a little bit sour towards the end. What are fans really expecting the season? Yeah, I mean, to put that a different way, it would have been very difficult, I think, for Eddie Howe to have led this reset. And obviously, he's come to a similar conclusion. I think the difficulty for him, yes, things did turn a bit last season. But also, everything would have been referred back to what he's already achieved at the club, winning a trophy, the Champions League twice. And I think asking him to then effectively start all over again would have been very, very difficult. I just don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I mean, it's like I don't look at the team and feel like I know what I'm going to get. Listed all those players before that they've had really good players, really important players to in the dressing room. And I'm just looking at it now and I don't know. And there is some excitement about that. It's like that sort of step into the unknown. You can flip that and say that with all those knowns that they had last season, it didn't exactly serve them brilliantly in the Premier League. They obviously did pretty well in the Champions League and cup competitions. I just don't know what to expect. It feels very new. It feels very different. And I couldn't tell you what's going to happen. It could be good. It could be terrible. George, what's the mood in the fan base like? Because I imagine you and Newcastle fans more generally will give the benefit of the doubt. You know, he's coming in preseason. You've listed all of the shortcomings of the squad or recruitment so far. Still another fortnight of the transfer window to go so let's see what they do. But it's their kind of building frustration with the ownership or the running of the football club. And do you anticipate that this season we could see that manifests itself in the stands? Maybe not in protest form. But kind of growing exesperation with everyone expected Newcastle to kick on. And that hasn't quite happened. Be it PSR reasons or what. But what do you think the mood at the stadium will be like if things don't take off in the way that everyone would like up there? Yeah, it's a good question. And of course, again, it's difficult to answer without sort of knowing what's going to happen. I mean, I can guarantee that the atmosphere in the mood will be incredible for this first game of the season against Liverpool. Because you've got a, it's a huge game. It's a huge game because it's ESAP coming back. All of that sort of baggage between the two clubs, you know, going back to that very contentious move last summer. There is also going to be all the heightened emotion around Kevin Keegan. There'll be big, big display of kind of emotion and love and affection for him. So it'll be, it'll be a brilliant atmosphere. I think Newcastle fans need something to hang their hat on. They think they need something to get behind. Now this identity of new, young, fresh people who want to be there is, is important. Because I think over the past couple of years, we've increasingly seen players want to kind of find their way out of St James's Park. Do you put all that back on the ownership? I think that's kind of quite difficult. You know, Newcastle are hamstrung by the rules. They had a go at trying to sort of operate at an elite level. You know, they got into the Champions League twice, but it left them with a, with a European sort of wage bill. They've just been fined by UEFA. They've had to sell Anthony Gordon to get back into compliance. That's not the kind of ownership's fault. Those, those, those the rules around football. I think the biggest of existential things are about stuff like infrastructure, stadium training ground. Now, Newcastle fans will roll their eyes when I say that. But we can expect some fairly significant movement on those sort of things soon. And, and, you know, they'll believe it when they say it. But I think that will be very important for people to sort of think that this project to use that horrible word is still alive that there's, you know, that there's still something there. Because the narrative has been about PIF, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, scaling back their foreign investments, focusing back on home. We've seen what's happened with live golf. And it hasn't been the case from day one that kind of PIF have parked their tanks on the Premier League's lawn and kind of forced the issue. They've tried to be good citizens, I suppose, is in the Premier League, but it's left this bit of sort of existential stuff because it has been so, so slow with stadium and training ground stuff like that. I think once there's movement on that, things could feel different. But look, I mean, it does come that it comes down to results, you know, doesn't it? First and foremost, the Iceland will get time. He will, he will get patience. But I think it's this, it's this uncertainty about what this new Newcastle, you know, looks like and feels like even Eddie Howe needed buy in, you know, even Eddie Howe needed buy in right at the start of his time at Newcastle. It took until January, late January for them to win their second game of the season. And there were whispers around the training ground like this guy is great. Training is amazing. But like we're not getting results. What's going on? Every manager needs results. And so, you know, Newcastle need results. The quicker the better. And then I think people will feel a bit more relieved. George, thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming on and for your insight. And we'll talk to you again soon, no doubt. Sounds good. You're listening to the A30KFC podcast with Emma Payton. Right. Well, Yisla, not the only new face in the Premier League, in terms of the other new names that we've touched on earlier. PSSage at Palace, Marco Roser at Bournemouth, are below at Fullham. Who do you fancy to kick on with those clubs, if any? Those three clubs you mentioned, the three managers that have departed, there's an argument for saying that they're all the greatest managers in those clubs' respective histories. You know, Glazner winning the trophies, he did at Palace, Eriola taking Bournemouth to the highest ever position. Marco Silva, I mean, he did a great, didn't win in September, did a great job at Fullham. I think we're about to maybe see how good a job he did at Fullham. So replacing those three is like no easy feat for any of them. Arbelos, probably the most interesting one. The notion of Real Madrid's last two managers going head to head on the opening weekend of the Premier League season was not one. I don't think they can't. I don't think we expect to that. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure how a few months at the Bournemouth managing the most demanding football club in the world, to get from there to Fullham, like probably the sort of least demanding, you know, fan base and in terms of expectations are on growing into a Champions League club. You know, those notions don't really seem to exist at Fullham. So, you know, he did a right at Real Madrid, but he couldn't get hold of a very sort of combustible dressing room. I think Fullham are kind of in the, you know, you fear for them bracket because Marco Silva did a great job, but they've also lost a lot of experience. Well, they've lost their top two goal scorers from last season. In Harry Wilson, around him and there's, but both sort of experience, you know, big sort of dressing room figures. And to bring in a couple of youngsters from Real Madrid, both very sort of full of potential and very talented, you know, César Palacios, an attacking field who kind of came through the youth academy there. And Gonzalo Garcia, who people might remember, had a really good club World Cup like a year ago, but didn't really kick on last season for who remembers the club. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't remember that. So, I think, you know, Shay Charles from Southampton is a good addition. And I think you'd expect like Josh King and Oscar Bob to kick on this season, but really, there were a line on that Real Madrid trio, Arbaloa and the two youngsters they brought in, you know, adapting very quickly. So it feels like a big ask that. Yeah, although as much as we were just mocking the club World Cup, I mean, Gonzalo Garcia is seen as the next big Spain striker. So, you know, that's one of the things. If you hire someone from Real Madrid, as they have done with Arbaloa, you get to tap into an academy there, which, you know, everyone has La Masía Barcelona in their minds, but Madrid, they always produce players, because the best players in Spain, if they're not playing at La Masía, they want to go to Castilla, that academy. And a lot of these guys go out on loan and do very well, and then Madrid buy them back. So, if I were doing fantasy football, I'm not a sicko, so I'm not seeing football. I would have Gonzalo Garcia in my squad. So, it's interesting. He sort of excites me. I think he could be a good signing for Fullham. I think I've been dragged back in, so I'll take that tip from you. Yeah, I'll whack him in later. Just before we go, I want to ask you about Gary O'Neil at Ipswich, because I'm sure you would have followed him at Wolves, but what he did at Wolves and Bournemouth as well, is that set him up well for this time at Ipswich now, and to try and keep them in the Premier League this season. I mean, it's an interesting appointment, probably quite underwhelming for Ipswich fans, you know, going off the back of Kieran McKenna to Gary O'Neil. He did okay at Wolves his first season, you know, he came in in a real crisis, La Pategui, so left them behind dry a week before the start of season, and Gary O'Neil came in and had them like seventh, eighth in March, April, before like the wheels fell off. He was being genuinely been talked about, I remember he was linked with AC Milan, I remember he was linked with Man United, I remember he was talked about as a potential future England manager. This was for a very short period about two months, right? We should have always probably forgotten, but he did a good job at Wolves. I do like their transfer business, you know, they started with a tube act partner at the start of the summer, and I was like, come on guys, like, you know, are you going to be a serious Premier League club? But yeah, they brought the young Brazilian striker Emerson from Toulouse, they bought Fatal Woo from Leicester, most take-ons in English football, last season, very exciting, your player, Florentine Eloise from Burnley, a very good DM, and Julio and Ciso, a bit of a Maverick and Dyson Maida from Celtic. Lots of interesting, exciting sign-ins, the problem that Gary O'Neil had at Wolves was defensive discipline and defend and set pieces, I think Wolves considered like 18 goals from set pieces in this final season. So there's a lot of potential there, and I think of the three promoted clubs I would just about have them as sort of the best bet to stay up just about. Just about. Um, just just quickly, James, before we go, we're done, Sarge and on Marco Rosa as well. How do we see them getting on? I think Sarge will struggle. He would be my pick to be maybe one of the first to go. That's not to diminish him. He's risen very quickly in French football, being sort of into him doing really good at Leon and then second with Lon's last year. I say Lon's over the last five years have been a very well-run club as well, so maybe he's been a little from that. But yeah, Palace have not done really anything in the transfer market. So that's a concern. Marco Rosa, we've seen Irola overperform with this group of players. I think it's a big ask, because much as they got Marco Rosa into so early, um, you know, even before the end of the season, we kind of knew he was going to get the job. Um, I think wherever he's been, he's had some big drops in Germany, at Dortmund and Leipzig. He's never really delivered in a, or overdelivered in those drops. And I, as much as Bournemouth have kept their squad together, I think we'll really, again, find out just how much value Irola added over the last couple of years. So I think they could be dragged down into maybe not a relegation battle, but it could be quite known, particularly with European football for them. Yeah, I think that's given how many Premier League teams and new managers are having to cope with European football. I think that's going to be a real interesting curveball in a lot of seasons. Yeah. Um, Jens, thank you so much for your company. Well, it's good to have you both back in the studio back alongside me. And thanks to George as well for joining us earlier on. Remember to keep across the athletic, but all the build up to the new Premier League season. I'll be back with you tomorrow. See you then.