The Premier League Transfer Matrix: Baleba, Konsa, and the Over-30 Renaissance

Hello and welcome to Athletic FC Podcast with me, Emma Payton, with just two days to go until the brand new Premier League season starts, or Manchester United have made their move for Brighton's Carlos Believer. They're in contract talks over a new deal for Captain Bruno Fernandez as well, and elsewhere, the promoted clubs have spent £330 million between them, so is that the key to survival? Well, here with me in the studio from the Athletic, we have Jay Harris and Karrist Jones, and our Manchester United correspondent Laurie Whitwell is here as well, Laurie Brilliant to see you. We want to get straight into it because this morning, David Ornstein exclusively revealed that Manchester United are closing in on a deal for Brighton's Carlos Believer. You know, they've held this interest in him for some time, of course, heavily linked to him last summer, but tell us the details of this deal. Yeah, it's one that has been a long time in the making because we reported last summer about United figuring out whether or not they could afford him. Brighton were insisting on a big transfer fee, we're thinking north of £100 million, United just couldn't afford that at that moment, but always like the player kept tracking him. It a pretty bad season for Brighton, and I think that made a lot of people think, is the kind of player that United should be going for. I think he got subbed off before half time on like four occasions, 15 times, taken off it in total. But I think there are reasons for that in terms of, you know, the United pursuit turning his head perhaps, you know, having that mentality of thinking that you're going to join a club of United Stature and then having to read just back with Brighton, also a couple of injury niggles as well. United kept tracking him. We got to the Afcon, where he played with Cameroon, United watched him there, like what they saw, like the underlying data. Which brought me to a report that I did in April to say that they were, you know, looking at signing him this summer again, highly plausible at that moment, and it would have been a lot lower transfer fee than they were talking last summer. Now, it's taken a little bit of time for them to get to this point, and I think at certain moments in the summer, it might have been the case that they wouldn't have necessarily gone for him because they'd signed Andre Santos and Yuri Telemans in that midfield. But certain circumstances have arisen to make them go for him now, and I think they've got a good deal when it looks like sort of 60 million, 65 million, it's probably going to be a guarantee then add on to get to that total. But that's obviously a lot lower fee than what Brighton were wanting last summer. And so I think for the combined cost of sort of maybe £105 million, they've got two players in Andre Santos and Colors Belieber, that when you look at what Tottenham has spent on Sandra Tanale, or what Ellie Anderson went for to Man City, I think United will be satisfied at getting that kind of deal across the line. You say maybe they wouldn't have done that earlier on in this summer. Why now then? Yeah, good question. I mean, I think maybe you've got a little bit of wanting to see what Brighton will come down to. So, wait, wait, wait, because clearly Belieber wanted to join United, I think that's sort of well established. And so if you've got that kind of leverage as it gets towards deadline, then I think the selling club probably have to accept certain terms that the buyers would want to propose. And then also just how the midfield is shaping up. So, I mean, it looked at one point that Michael Carrick would be satisfied, you know, intrigued by the prospects of Mason Mount being in that sort of deeper midfield role. And we're yet to sort of ascertain exactly his absence from the team. He's missed the last couple of preseason friendlies, and I sort of wonder if that had a little bit of an impact in sort of framing where United were going to put them on the next. Because, you know, left back is a big topic of discussion, you know, they do need a left back. It had been put to mean recent sort of days and weeks that could they have a kind of hybrid midfielder. So, Mausley was scally. That's why I think he appealed to United when he was offered by intermediaries, Capcom of England was another name that was mentioned, but really you look at Belieber and you do think with his left footedness, if times are needed, could he sort of slot into that left back role? A little bit like Moises Keisato did for Brighton when he was sort of right back at times for them before, you know, going on to Chelsea, obviously. So yeah, I mean, I still think they're looking the market for a left back personally, but I suppose if you have Belieber in that left midfield position, then the defensive issues that you might get, we've having to look sure there, you know, more consistently that we saw against A Simalan, he could come across and cover. I think that's sort of what they're thinking there in that regard. We'll get back to the left back situation at the moment, but Keis, I want to ask you because you're working alongside Laurie as one of our Manchester United writers this season. How significant do you feel this is for United's midfield, and is this assigning that's going to excite Manchester United fans? I think it's a massive boost. I think as Laurie sort of alluded to, a lot of Manchester United fans might have a bit of reservation over the fact that Belieber's formed dropped off a lot last season. I think that's fair to say after the interest in him last summer, we then saw his form drop pretty dramatically, but that has obviously had an impact on what Brighton can ask for him, which is a huge boost. It was a major area of focus going into this summer, that defensive midfield position with Casamero, leaving Manuel Agarte, then getting injured, that spot's really been up for grabs. I think Andrei Santos coming in is a player that I like a lot. I think he's really kind of really intelligent, really switched on. He's impressed me in preseason, but his game, the two elements, first of all, his game is much more passing based than kind of ball carrying ground coverage. So I think Belieber adds that element that he maybe didn't. The also very obvious point is that Santos only had one season in the Premier League with Chelsea, and it was quite like stop start. He didn't. He wasn't a consistent starter by any means, which is as much part of kind of the competition he had from Reese James, Enzo Fernandez, Moiser's Kai Saydo, but still he's not physically been tested to the level that he would have been had he kind of finished the the window as United's only real holding midfield signing. So I think from a depth point of view, it's a positive to have another option there. And also the fact Santos has had preseason and has bedded in a bit. We know that Belieber has been out with this ankle ligament injury. I highly doubt that he would be, you know, expected or already to start the season against Holon the weekend. So they've got Santos who can start who's already built up a bit of a rapport with his teammates and then Belieber can come in as well. And there's two different options that give you different profiles there. But I do think, you know, Laurie's mentioned it already and I'll throw back to him on sort of the left back situation because that's an area that Man United fans are really kind of looking at as well, particularly after that last preseason friendly against Milan. Does paying sort of potentially quite a hefty fee for Belieber? How does that affect the possibility of them bringing a left back in? Because I think like you said, the idea was that potentially they'd look at a player that could do both, can he really do both? Do we think that the United is still going to pursue a kind of outright left back now that they've done this? Yeah. It's the big question really. I thought left back was going to be the next area that they addressed to be honest. And so, you know, this is a slight deviation from that, although as you say, you know, maybe it's cover for Luke Shaw. I think it's suggest that if they do make a signing in that left back role, which I still would anticipate to be honest, it would probably be at the lower end cost scale. So, I mean, for example, Hey, it's Jorge Salinas has been looked at by United, Rassing Santander. He's got a police cause in his contract about 16 million euros. So he's only 19, but you could see him perhaps then being of greater appeal. Because yeah, the United have got money to spend, obviously, that they're spending, you know, sort of 65 million pounds here, but I don't think it's a limitless part where you're going to go and then see them go and sign Lewis Hall, for example. I think that one is looking less likely. And then I suppose if you do sign a player that's a developing player for lower cost now, then you could perhaps revisit the Lewis Hall one next summer, because he certainly a player that United admire going to be going to be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of weeks, isn't it? Jay, just to bring it back to Carlos Bolíba, Spurs, obviously, beat Manchester United to Fernandez and Tanali as well, but this deal is valued a lot lower than those two. I say beat them. Obviously, they paid a lot of money for those players. Does it almost feel like United have actually benefited from from biting their time this summer? Well, I've got a quick fact for you first. For everybody, who do you think Carlos Bolíba's footballing idol is? I should probably know. They shouldn't have given it. It's been a transfer that's trailed. I should have done more research here. It's relevant. It's relevant. It's not someone that currently plays Manchester United, is it? No, but in recent years has. Oh, is it Michael Carrick then? It's not Michael Carrick. Come on. Not Casamero, I presume. Not Casamero. Slightly further back than that. Fred? In the last five, ten years. Pogba? Oh, Pogba. Poor Pogba. Poor Pogba. Fred, should have given that five seconds. Oops. No, he said that in an interview with our colleague Liam Tom. Liam interviewed him before Afcon, so December last year. Strangely, normally at this stage of a window, you'd actually expect the price to go up. But I think as these guys have already alluded to, Bolíba's form really dropped off last season. I actually happened to be at Brighton 2, spurs 2 last September when Hurtzeler hooked him at half time and he got asked about it. And he was basically talking about how a player at that age when they're so young, development's not always linear. They're going to have ups and downs. And I think Hurtzeler did directly reference the Manchester United interest and said, yeah, you know, it's not a massive surprise that he's been linked with a life-changing move. And maybe it's turned his head a little bit. But just for context, last season, he started 23 games. Like Laurie said, he got substituted off at half time, four times, zero goals, zero assists. The year before we started 31 games, three goals on one assist. You can clearly see that his importance to Brighton sort of slightly waned last year. But I still think he's a fantastic footballer. And what always impresses me when I watch him is, firstly, he's a left footed tantrum in fielder. Gives you slightly different possibilities and angles. But also that combination of technical skill but just physicality as well. He's a powerful ball carrier. But he's also so nimble and agile in tight spaces. One thing which I'm quite intrigued is that from my perspective, Laurie can correct me if I'm wrong. But last summer, he would have been a really marquee central midfield signing coming in at a massive price point of a hundred million pounds. That's what Brighton wanted. Whereas I think it actually suits him this summer that Manchester United have made other signings in midfield. So he's not going to come in with that same pressure and expectation to hit the ground running. He's going to be allowed time to settle in. He can learn from tealiments. He can learn from Fernandez. And then maybe towards the second half of the season, he'll start to grow an importance and influence. And then further down the line, he'll take over as the main man. But for now, he's not coming in to be number one straight away. Whereas to me, it felt like last summer, that was what was being pushed on him. Yeah, very good point. Laurie, just last one before we let you go. This isn't the only news that we've got regarding Manchester United's midfield at the moment because you and David Ornstein reported on the deal sheet in the athletic that Manchester United are in contract talks with Bruno Fernandez. And this is off the back of Galatasaray having made a really big offer. What's the latest on that? Yeah, it's really fascinating sort of plot to this transfer window as well. Bruno Fernandez is future. Always seems to come up each summer. And the kind of the sharper point to it is that you've got Galatasaray that have made a big money offer. I mean, like the Saudi offers last summer for Bruno, I suppose that focuses minds on whether he should be getting a new contract to United. He earns well at United, but he's not the top owner, which when you've got Marcus Rashford there, for example. And when you're as important as you are as Bruno is to the team, I think United are aware that perhaps fresh terms just to make sure that he's satisfied and that kind of keeps him at the club for longer are worked towards. Let's see, it feels like it's a perhaps a delicately poised situation at the moment. I think he wants to stay at United. I think United want him to stay. He's 32 later this year. So it's a guess a little bit of a balance of how much do you give a player like that? What length of terms do you give a player like that? Giving years so special, so important to the team. But also so important to the club. I mean, I was away in Poland and he was there signing autographs for ages for fans. He's always willing to give his time to supporters. Also to academy players, he takes them aside and chats to them, knows their name. Just little touches like that that whenever I speak to people that are around United, just rave about Fernandez for that kind of approach. And so whatever his age might be, he still won the F2B way play of the year last season, broke the assist record in a season in the Premier League. So I think he's certainly worth United sorting out and making sure he's happy. But I guess it's just a little bit of a balance between, he's age and what they might still get from him on the playing pitch. Yeah, absolutely vital to United. Laurie, thank you so much for jumping on. I'm sure you've got busy day ahead. We'll chat to you again soon. Thanks for having me, cheers guys. It feels like a day already of breaking news and a lot of it's coming from David Ornstein because he's also broken the news today that Arsenal are closing in on a deal for Aston Villa's Esri concert. Kerris, let's start by talking about the Arsenal perspective. We know that obviously William Celeber is out for an extended period. But it feels like, in Esri Conzer, this is an experienced Premier League player who may be, I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't get the credit he deserves. Yeah, absolutely. I think what this really shows from Arsenal is that the discussion, I think James McNeil has touched on this on a piece after the community shield. There's the attacking quality that they want to add to kind of raise the ceiling. But there's also this element of securing the floor. Like, and I think that's what this concert signing is. Like, it'll be interesting to see when Celeber comes back. If concert does join, like, where does the pecking order then fall? But for the minute, they are just so unwilling to let anything kind of like derail that defensive solidity and structure that they have that proved so important for the last season. I think that's, it's very shrewd of them to not be willing to let an injury like that derail the start of the season. But it, you know, it needs to be with a view. So what then happens when all these guys are fit? Like, what is your pecking order? How do you keep everybody happy? So it's a really good potential deal for Arsenal. I worry about the knock on effect on Villa massively, though. Yeah, yeah. What a Villa fan's thinking right now. Well, I'm just more thinking, Arsenal have so many centerbacks at Canplay at right back. Where does it stop? Because they've got Ben White, Moscaira, Timber, and now concerts, it seems a bit greedy. Maybe it's a very simplistic way of looking at it, but Unai Emery has consistently overperformed and sort of beaten expectations that I sort of expect him to find a way to deal with losing all of these senior players. Like, they have that awful start last season and so many other managers wouldn't have been able to come back and turn the situation around from that and he did it and they had an accident. You know, I'm beaten run for a long time. So I think they'll be fine. I just want to add one more thing on Arsenal because it's just popped up that their CEO, Richard Garlic, has said that they would consider selling Ethan Wanyeri and Mars Lewis Kelly, but are not actively looking for a move. So it suggests that there could be movement with those two as well. So maybe that is slightly linked to the Manchester United left-back situation that Laurie mentioned earlier. Okay, time now for our discussion of the day sponsored by Threads. And last night, we asked our Threads followers who is the best value signing in Premier League history? We've got a few classic answers, but I'll get to those in a moment. Any jump out to you? I've gone very straight down the middle with this with Eric Antonov, which I can see some people on Threads have mentioned as well around about a million pounds from arrival in the United, four Premier League titles adored by fans, one of the best players of his generation. Obviously, Padd has had his moments as well. We won't glaze over that, but in terms of value, he's got to be right up there. Yeah, Christoph Daniel has posted that saying, canton, R1.5 million pounds. So definitely one of the more memorable ones. What about you, Jay? Well, I've gone for a player co-incidentally, I'm writing about at the moment in Andy Robertson. I'm not talking about his move from Liverpool to Spurs, I'm talking about his move back in the day for I think up to 10 million pounds from whole city to Liverpool. A whole city side who had just been relegated and I think a couple of people raised that eyebrows while Liverpool making that signing, but just nearly a decade later, two Premier League titles, Champions League, lots of other trophies. And I think one of the reasons I went for Robertson was because he just massively surpassed expectations. So not only was he great value, he achieved the way more than anybody expected back in the day. He's also Scotland captain, so I don't think anybody expected that at the time. That's a really good pick. Paul has got in touch saying, shame is Coleman, 60,000 pounds, 374 appearances, that's 161 pounds a game. Good maths, good maths. No trophies, but in pure value and service, it is hard to beat. I mean, he's been at what a servant for Everton. Darren has also posted saying, Coutinho in for 8 million out for 142 million. I mean, he was brilliant at Liverpool, wasn't he? And then we've also got another post as well, saying a Nelker to Arsenal, £500,000 sold for 23 million. We bought a new training ground and bought Onri with the money. Some brilliant responses there, if you want more or if you do want to get involved, head over to Threads, follow at the Athletic FC and do join in the conversation. And now Ipswich and Coventry sits second and fourth respectively in the net spend table, having each spent more than £100 million each. The arrivals of Julio and Ciso and Abdel Wattara from Strasbourg took Spenny at Portman Road past the £150 million mark. Joining us now to dig deeper into the spending habits of the promoted sides is the Athletic's football finance writer, Chris Weatherspoon. Chris, Ipswich and Coventry sits second and fourth respectively in the Premier League net spend table this summer. I think some people are finding that massively surprising. It sounds astonishing when you do look at that stare. Just how are they affording it? I mean, I guess it's the same as any Premier League. They come into a lot more money than they've been used to. You know, in the championship clubs, pretty much wholly reliant on owners put in money in over the last decade, championship clubs have lost about 3.1 billion and club owners have put in 3.2 billion. So you can see the most of the money from the owners has just gone on from the losses. And obviously when you get forward to the Premier League, the money goes up quite a lot. Like we talk about the player final now being worth over £200 million to clubs. And for club by Coventry to spend a long time out of the Premier League, it's really stark the difference because they've gone from having, you know, relatively low revenues, I think around the mid 20 millions. To now they're going to be just from TV money alone. They're going to be close to 120 million this coming season. So you know, there's that. They've also certainly in the case of, I mean, a Coventry as well. The owner has put a lot of money in since he's come in. You know, he helped them buy the ground back. They've invested in the squad. At Ipswich, the ownership since they took over in League One, they've put a lot of money in and owners can still put in money now. A little bit more restricted under the new rules regime. But ultimately, it comes back to that that clubs are all of a sudden they've got access to a lot more funds. And also there's the kind of necessity case, you know, I mean, I think we've seen in the recent past that any club that comes up from the championship that doesn't make a big change to their squad almost certainly is going to struggle. We'll get on to that in just a moment. Carey's question for you, though. I don't know if it has surprised you the spending of some of these clubs, maybe less so Ipswich, more so Coventry, though, on their return to the Premier League. I think so, but also I think Coventry, this feels like such a massive opportunity for them after how long 25 years away. They've been waiting for this moment for so long that came so close a couple of years ago. It feels that they've got a manager that the fan base are now really behind in Frank Lampard. And while they did extremely well in the championship, I'd spend a little bit of time watching them for a longer piece on Lampard. And they look very cohesive, very energetic. You know, the championship is obviously a longer season, but in terms of the actual physical intensity of the Premier League, I think it's about adding depth and also adding those individual qualities. And they've worked to sort of solidify the spine of their team a little bit. I do still think they need to add more goals. I'm not surprised to see them spending big in terms of the need and the desire to stay up because I think they've seen how difficult it is for teams to do that. In terms of how these teams are affording such massive spends, it's a question that I have to just listen to Chris. Well, that's why we've got Chris on. Chris Sunderland set a transfer record for a promoted side last summer. And we certainly saw the benefits of that. Is that now becoming the blueprint for these promoted sides? I think so. I think, I mean, I guess there is a caveat in that Sunderland came up with an extremely cheap squad. You know, they came with a very young squad. They came up with a squad that wasn't being paid particularly highly, the bridge bill looks high, but that included promotion bonuses. And there was nowhere near as high as the likes of kind of leads and Burnley and other teams that had come up in recent years. So there is that. They were starting from a low base. I mean, a whole certainly doing that. Covered you out to an extent. Ipswich less so obviously because Ipswich have gone up, come back down and now we're going back up. But I think the answer is still yes, because really the gulf between even the 17th players team and the Premier League and the teams at the top of the championship is absolutely enormous. And we also see this on the flip side in that every year now, whenever clubs go down into the championship, the championship is always a league that makes net sales. So they sell more than they buy, but the vast majority of those sales are concentrated in the three clubs that have just come down. And that's because of the quality gap. Like we've seen West Ham, for example, have sold 150 million pounds with the players this summer, which is 40% of the sales in the championship at one club. And that's because they've got players like Matthias Fernandez who've shown themselves to be capable in the Premier League. They pass that test. And you know, one of the good contrasts is evidence signed Hayden Hackney for Middlesbrough for five times less than what West Ham have just sold Fernandez for. Now I'm not saying they're the same player and people will say Fernandez is better player and they're probably right, but the reason the West Ham could command five times more than Middlesbrough could is they've got evidence of him playing in the Premier League. And again, if we flip that back around, this is why the clubs that are coming up need to spend so much money because the quality gap is sold fast. I mean, Chris, even Hull have actually spent a fair bit, which surprised me, 76 million pounds or already this window. Just how risky is it for these promoted sides to be spending this huge amount of money? Yeah, that's the tricky question. Because I mean, as I said before, in the championship clubs are, they're wholly reliant on their owners plugging gap. So I went, Trevor Wednesday, went around administration. It was because the owner who'd put in over 100 million pounds, by the way, had either lost the appetite or the ability to plug those funding gaps. So really the risk is, you know, the issue these clubs have is that they come down and I mean, obviously they don't want to come down in the first place, but the issue that they have is that they come down and then they're lumbered with the players that they bought for big sums and are paying sizeable Premier League wages. That's the risk. Obviously they get parachute payments, but that might change. And when we talk about the Sunland Example, Sunland largely stuck to the model that it got them promoted and that they invested in use. And I think that was a bit of a hedge against getting relegated because they thought, well, you know what, if we go down, the chances are at least a couple of these new players are going to have acquitted themselves well and we can sell them for good money. And you know, we've seen like, you know, Coventry have signed a mix, really with Coventry's record signing, has come in from Norway and he's only 20. So you can kind of see a resemblance there. I think the risk is that they spend a lot of money on players who just really don't put it at all and then they get stuck with them. And also as well, you know, if they were to come back down and they want to go back up, you know, we're seeing now the clubs at the top and the championship recurring ever higher wage bills. Again, that goes back to the owners need to be able to fund it. Now based on the evidence we have, Ipswiches owners have a lot of appetite for funding. Doug King at Coventry so far appears to have at a lower level, I don't know how long that would continue for. I think the concerning one might well be whole because we've seen a whole of running to difficulties while in the championship and it does almost feel like them getting promoted came at exactly the time that the ownership and the regime needed, because I'm not sure what sort of position they might have been in otherwise. That might also, I mean, let you see, they've spent over 70, about 75, 76 million pounds already, which is hardly pennies down the back of a set E, but perhaps that's why we're seeing that at a slightly lower level, half the level of Ipswich currently. Chris, thank you so much for coming on some brilliant insight there. Jay, you of course covered Brentford when they came up to the Premier League and they didn't necessarily opt to bring in proven Premier League players did they, what was it that worked so well for them? I remember a pretty crazy statistic about that time and there were only two players in the Brentford squad who'd ever played in the Premier League before and it was Sergei Kanos and Ivan Tony and there were a couple of substitute appearances for Norwich and Newcastle, so it's easy to say in hindsight now but Brentford's recruitment over a period of time was absolutely phenomenal. Even before they got into the Premier League, they obviously developed Watkins inside Ben Rama who then went on to play really well for Aston Villa and West Ham respectively anyway. So there were always ahead of the curve and that team had Ivan Tony in it, Brian and Bumo in it, David Rear, they're all senior internationals now who are on an incredible level. So I think Brentford were very smart at getting players in before they sort of developed and hit their, maximized their potential. They also sort of changed, I'm not necessarily changed, but challenged perspectives on what is experienced. So for example, they had Pontish Janssen within their squad. He'd never played in the Premier League before but he was a Sweden international who'd played in Serie A. So that's still experienced just because it's not Premier League, doesn't mean it's not transferable. There were other players in the squad who played in La Liga or the Danish top flight. They had experience of playing at the top level, just maybe not the Premier League. So they did things very differently. I think they only spent just under 40 million pounds. That's summer, believe it or not. And interestingly, one of the players they signed, Frank Onyeka, has now gone to Coventry City. LAUGHTER Keres, you nailed your colours to the Master on Monday show. I am going to bring this up. I'm predicting that all the promoted sides would struggle this season. You don't see any surviving. So despite spending all this money, they're still not going to stay up. I think the problem, and I would point out, I think J said that last week, because what's going to come back to that? I think we've probably all said that. I think this is for two reasons. Number one is that I don't see anyone else struggling enough to really open up a gap for them to jump into. I think if you sort of look back at the Premier League table two years ago, look at West Ham, look at Wolves, and how low they were and how much they benefited from the three teams that got relegated last that season being so poor, the writing was sort of on the wall. It doesn't necessarily feel that way with the other sides who were in and around the relegation zone, but didn't end up in it this year. I think the amount of money Spurs have spent probably takes them out of that equation and so on, hopefully. But then the other element to it is you can't just throw money at you, you have to do it wisely. So Burnley, for instance, did actually spend a lot last summer, I think, according to Chris's lovely graphic in the deal sheet this week, £114 million, which was the sixth highest spend for a club following promotion. But you have to spread the money where it's needed most and they didn't add enough goals you had. Amanda Broher, you had the unflemming coming in. Neither of them have proven Premier League goal scorers. It's easier said than done to get that sort of player into a promoted side. But it comes back to that broader point of, you know, chucking money at your team, going for perhaps a lot of quantity and a lot of potential. It's not necessarily enough. The spend doesn't translate if you don't have it in the right areas of the pitch. I think there's an increasing trend of promoted teams may be looking at solidifying their defence and like the spine of their team when they come up, which is completely understandable. But I think teams are increasingly struggling to survive that way without bringing in the firepower as well. Agreed with that. I mean, I guess it makes it that the first point as well about trying to see which sides could slip below these teams. And maybe that's the issue. That's why I've struggled to kind of see which of these sides could actually survive this coming season. I think to go to the free promoted teams, whole transversivity doesn't inspire me. I was going to be a brutal with it. You know, picked up Matt Targit, Joe Goharts. And guys who have experienced a Premier League, but you wouldn't say that they were amazing performers in the Premier League. They signed Lucas Herrington, 18-year-old Centreback, Australia International. It's been an incredible journey for him over the last few months. But is he really going to make a significant difference to a team competing in the Premier League for the first time in a long time? Not too sure. Marito, who they've picked up from sporting Lisbon, I'm quite intrigued by Japanese International. And the noble Mendi, a Centreback they've got from Reva L'Accano. So there's some interesting bits, but not enough, which makes me think they're going to close their gap on. Nottingham Forest, for example, who've gone out and signed Dio Monday and other players. In terms of ones who I think could slip through the gap, I look at Palace because they've lost Glazno, who is so influential. PSR has just come in and there's been a few bits of change there. For them as well. Because of our Alvaro Alvaro are below are coming in. And Marcos are believing after doing such a tremendous job for so long. But there's still a lot of quality in that film school. They still got Calvin Bassi, Alex Awobi, and Mill Smith Row. So I just think could commentary in it, which may be catch up to one of them? Possibly, but I'm just not totally convinced they'll have enough to get over the line. And like Kara said, firepower is a massive part of it. A commentary going to survive with Harji right up front. Maybe, maybe not. I think they've got some fantastic players in Jack Rodonian, Brandon, Thomas Assante, but you need a little bit more than that. And you also need a little bit of luck. But yeah, they're my reasons for being savage, basically. But you don't know, because you talk about maybe some teams struggling because of their sort of new circumstances this season. You mentioned the likes of, you know, Palace have got a new manager, Forest, Fuller, Newcastle, Sunderland, who was so impressive last season, them alongside Brighton Bournemouth. They've got European football to juggle now as well. So it's almost like relying on, you say, a little bit of luck, but, you know, relying on some of these teams to struggle. Sunderland is a good point, because I don't want to go all day to guru. I will leave that to the professionals, but I'm pretty certain that underlying metrics for quite bad last season. Obviously, it was a fantastic season, and what Regina Bredid was really impressive. But actually, if you sort of lifted up the hood that maybe they did over-perform compared to expectations, they've achieved Europe probably quicker than they expected and having that pressure on is going to be intriguing. And they've not spent too much in the window this summer. But then they did so much last summer, maybe they've actually been sensible and just being a little bit calmer this year. But you're completely right to point out that Bournemouth have Europe. But they've still got so much quality, even that squad, I still think they'll do enough to be fine. A way from Manchester United and those promoted sides, then there is plenty more happening in the transfer window. What's really stood out in terms of whether we're talking about clubs or certain players this season? Because over on the athletic at the moment, there's a brilliant graphic that shows you the net-spend of all the clubs from top to bottom, Chelsea at the top end of that. And then you've got some established Premier League sides at the bottom and the likes of Newcastle, the likes of Ashton Villa as well. There's two things that I'm going to say about this. There's two things that really stand out to me. Number one is the traditional Big Six clubs who have spent pretty heavily without selling particularly well so far. So I would put Chelsea in that camp. There's been a couple of sales like Mark who career, but I think you can see from the amount of players in their squad that they need to do far more. Manchester City, I know they've got a couple of maybe sales that they're looking at, but they're not there yet. Manchester United, I think, are consistently quite poor at moving people on at the moment. Spurs, likewise, have spent an awful lot of money so that I think this dynamic continues of those traditional powerhouses being just having spending power completely outsized to everyone else and using that to pick on other teams. We've seen Spurs taking Mateusz Fernandez, Sandra Tanali, we've seen Arsenal taking Bruno Gimmaris from Newcastle, so that trend continues. A sort of more niche one that I'm just really intrigued by is Bournemouth's business or kind of lack of sales. I suppose we've seen them be really good at selling their best players, getting great value for them and replacing them really well. And this summer they seem pretty determined to hang on to those players who have got them into Europe. It feels like they're trying to make a little bit of a transition from being a selling club into being a club that keeps these players who have helped and reached these achievements and want to continue that journey rid them, rather than being kind of a stepping stone on that journey, which is a really difficult balance to strike. We've seen Newcastle, I think, really struggled to strike that balance, so I've been really intrigued by that and how that's been for them. Probably an obvious one, but the experience thing, you know, people over the age of 30 are back invoking them, which is the news for me. I don't mind it. It is the news for me. Chelsea are the obvious ones with Henderson and Wellbeck, but I think Man United signing Teedermans, who's 29 years old, I think that's another example. Spurs signing Andy Robertson, Martin DeBravcro is a backup goalkeeper from Burnley. Over the last few years, we sort of seen if I may be so bold to use this word, but almost at the fetishization of signing players under the age of 23 and signing potential. And I think some clubs have now realised it's no point signing talented young players if they're not put in a stable environment who have consistent role models and leaders around them. And I think clubs have maybe started to address that. Chelsea, a big one, who have obviously done that this summer and they are the big spenders of the window. Do you feel like obviously you covered them last season? That was inevitable. I think to an extent, yes, after the season that they had last season, that their player model is all about volume, right? It's about a lot of sales and a lot of buying. They've done a lot of buying. They're probably not... They've not been afraid to spend the big sums on the more proven names like Morgan Rogers being the obvious example. I think, you know, Jay's touched on it already, but this swing to not being terrified of people over 30 is really entertaining to see them sort of, you know, they took the signing potential trend to quite the extreme and now they have taken the experience things are quite another extreme as well. So I think it was inevitable that they would be very active. I have been probably a bit surprised by how much they've led into those experienced signings. I mean, I remember writing a piece when it looked like there might be that sort of strategy coming in going, you know, the example would be Jordan Henderson. That's not to say that they would sign Jordan. And then they did it again. But I think what is still a little bit surprising to me is that they still have so many players that they do need to sell that are not part of the manager's plans. They are very good sellers, Chelsea. They've done a pretty good job of getting people off the books, but they have a lot of work to do in that department. And obviously there is the other element to all of this as well that they have been in breach of UEFA rules. They need to be really aware of their financial situation and how they are spending this much, not selling quite so much, while having that settlement agreement in place with UEFA is I think a really interesting situation that they're betting on themselves. At a club that have actually done pretty well in terms of outgoing as this season is supposed, I think, because the onus and the headlines have been about the players that they've brought in, but talk to us about their outgoing business. Times have changed basically. In previous years, I think Daniel Levy, when he was charged, would sort of haggle to the bitter end of the window and try and get an absolute maximum out of a deal. And I think, I suppose his current hierarchy, so Chief Executive Officer Vinay Venkateshim, Sporting Director, Johan Langeron, Director of Football Operations, Rafael Morrison, just realized sometimes it's just more important to just get players out, refresh the squad, give the manager what he wants. So Romero is probably the prime example of that. He's 28 years old, he's the captain, he's just played for Argentina and the World Cup final, his suspension record, everybody knows it's not good, his injury records also not particularly great. Some people we raise in the eyebrows that they've let him go for four million euros, but actually, if he was to stick around, he just would have been a distraction, get him out of the door, get it done before the start of the season, and I think it puts everyone in a better place. Judge Pence is slightly different. His versatility was such a valuable option for Spurs and England, but Spence had never been first choice during his time at Spurs. He'd had a really complicated four years there, spent the first two years basically on loan permanently. And I think it was good for him to go seek a new challenge. They've also moved on from Vicario, who's joined Juventus on loan. So I think Spurs had just realized they needed to refresh replenish the squad. They've had four different head coaches in the last 18 months, two years, whatever it is. They've got to deserve you on a lucrative five-year contract now. I think they felt like we need to put all of the pieces in place for him to succeed, but we do have to sort of tip a hat to them for finally getting some money through the door. And they've done really well at selling their younger players as well. So Lucas Bergval, could he still be? I don't really know what's going to happen with Lucas Bergval at this point, because he's arguably been their best player during preseason, which sort of took me by surprise, because at the beginning of the summer, as David Ornstein reported on multiple times, he'd sort of expressed the preference to move on this summer. There'd been an office from Nottingham Forest in Newcastle United, but I was at the game where they played Hoffenheim on Saturday, and he was exceptional, and it was the exact same during their preseason tour of Australia and New Zealand. The way he's reacted to that interest makes me wonder if he's done enough to convince Roberta DeZerby, actually, I should be one of your most trusted central midfielders. The caveat to that is that Mattias Fernandez barely played during the preseason tour, because he was injured. So as soon as Fernandez is fit again, which he is now, is it going to be Tanali and Fernandez as your first choice, sent him midfielders and Bergval back on the bench? So that's something that Bergval and the club need to consider. I think that's probably, I was probably a bit harsh earlier, lumping Spurs in with the other teams, they've sold really well, but that's what's setting them apart, in terms of, it feels like a load of the big six have been really strong and aggressive in the market. I think it's proactive of Spurs to go out and like Vuskovich was the one that really stood out to make a divided opinion, right? He was seen as such a promising prospect, but the fee that they got for him, that they've now been able to reinvest in areas of the squad that were more of a priority. Like that's the sort of pragmatism and brutal kind of edge that they're going to need. And Spurs, you're completely right, lots of people feel bittersweet about the Vuskovich situation, such a talented 19 year off defender who ended up never playing a single game for Spurs, but it sort of protected themselves in the event that he fulfills his potential and in two, three years time joins Barcelona around Madrid because I think it's a 20% sell-on clause that's included in that deal to Brighton and they have matching rights. If they wanted to, they could bring it back. But he'd never played in the Premier League before. You've got Mickey Vanderman as your first choice, left-sided centre-back, Marco Sinese who's coming of free, Van Hecker and Dancer on the other side, he wasn't going to play. If they'd kept him, his value might have gone down, he might do exceptionally well at Brighton, in which case they'll rake in the cash in two years' time when he joins whatever European giant it is. And if he doesn't quite fulfill his potential, then Spurs sort of made the right call and sending him when his value was at his highest. Feels like there's a real optimism around Spurs heading into the new season. I mean, you've got to say the pure contrast, obviously, to how it ended last season. Well, I've covered Spurs for two years and I've finished 17th, both times, which was not... It's you, yeah. Maybe it was not what I bargained for when I moved over from Brentford. I was looking forward to European campaigns. And that has happened, although not this year, I think they're just in a much better place now. Big decisions that had maybe been delayed for a period of time have been made. Deserby, it is just such an exciting and risky style of play, but I think the fans have just bought into it. And I think they've over-corrected this summer from years of not spending the money that they should have done. If you take last summer as an example, and you look back on it now and it was just silly how many plays they missed out on. They didn't get in Bumo, Semeno, Eze, Morgan Gibbs White. You know, they're brought in Javi Simons at the very end of the window. Their business was just a bit all over the place. So people are saying they spent too much on tonight. They spent too much on Fernandez. They sort of had to do it because for too many years, they hadn't done it. And if you get the right player in, does it really matter that much? If you overpay by 5, 10 million pounds or whatever it is. So yes, there's much more optimism that I'm going to see more wins than losses this year. Well, we'll hold out some hope. Thank you, both of you. Brilliant to have your company this morning. Thanks to Laurie and to Chris for joining us as well. Remember to keep across the athletic for all the build-up to the new Premier League season. And we'll catch you soon.