Football Daily - Euro Leagues: De Zerbi leaves Marseille & Gael Clichy is in the dugout

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Steve Crossman is joined by ESPN’s Julien Laurens, Rafa Honegstein and, The Athletic’s James Horncastle. The team discuss Roberto De Zerbi’s departure from Marseille after less than two years in charge of the French side. The Italian leaves them 4th in Ligue 1, 12 points off leaders PSG who thrashed them 5-0 in De Zerbi’s last game and, out of the Champions League.Could he be a good fit for the vacant job at Tottenham? Meanwhile Marseille are now being linked with former Newcastle defender Habib Beye, who was recently sacked by Stade Rennais.Staying in France and former Arsenal and Manchester City defender Gaël Clichy joins the team just over a month into his first managerial job with third division Caen. The club is owned by Kylian Mbappe who brought a majority stake in the club in 2024.TIME CODES 00:00 De Zerbi departs Marseille 20:00 Gael Clichy has his first managerial job5 Live / BBC Sounds commentaries: Fri 1945 Hull v Chelsea, Sat 1215 Burton v West Ham, Sat 1745 Villa v Newcastle, Sat 2000 Liverpool v Brighton, Sun 1200 Birmingham v Leeds, Sun 1330 Grimsby v Wolves, Sun 1630 Rangers v Hearts, Mon 1930 Macclesfield v Brentford.

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From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. The Football Daily Podcast, the Euroleaks with Steve Crosman. Hello there, welcome to the Euroleagues. Coming up, we're going to be talking Roberto Deserbie,

who has left Marseille. We'll ask what's next for them, what's next for him as well. We've got a brilliant special guest on later as well. The new head coach at Con, former Arsenal, France and Manchester City defender, Gail. Clichy is going to join us with us for the whole show. ESPN's Julian Leone, Raffaughn, and the Athletics, James Horncastle. Let's start with Marseille.

It is finally over. Roberto Deserby has left. They were thumped 5-0 by Paris Saint-German on Sunday. They are fourth in league and they are 12 points off the top and they were also obviously dumped out of the Champions League. I did enjoy Jules the statement from Marseilles, which said this. Olympica de Marseille and Roberto Deserbe, coach of the first team, have announced the end of their collaboration by mutual agreement,

almost like sort of a bad B-side, which nobody listened to and we'll never talk about again. Yeah, although they put also a video out for him later, like a few hours after the statement. That was really nice, kind of remembering all the really good moments because that's the thing. They have been really good moments for him in there. And we've said many times on the show, haven't we, that it was just the perfect match between a city that just is so intense

about its football and leaves and breath and eats football. And the manager that is exactly the same. and when two of the same kind of mixes up, obviously sometimes you'll have clashes, you will have highs, super highs, where you go really, really high, probably a bit too much, and some lows where you go too low, that probably doesn't deserve to be that low, but still because you're so emotionally involved and committed and almost kind of attracted to each other. That's what happens, and that's exactly the story of Marseille and Deserbe, which could have been an amazing story.

And at times, really was, because they really connected to the core that I've rarely seen a manager connecting like this with Marseille as a city of football. And then at other times, it was more difficult. But it's also what we expected from the start. Because as Horny and I have just said many, many times, the problem is they were too similar in a way to last longer than what we've seen in 18 months. And maybe the most fascinating for me in all this story, okay, there's the defeat in Paris. that's fine. It can happen the way they lost and got... I bet you won't say that at the time when PSG beat them out.

No, that's fine. No, because five months earlier, they beat PSG in the league as well at the Velodrome. So it can go very quickly both ways. We know that. The way they were knocked out of the Champions League in the league phase, losing away at Bruce 3-0 and then Benfica with that last minute goal against Ramadry,

knocking them out, all of that was really tough to take. But after the PhD game, for him, the Zerbi, to say, I don't understand how my team, my players, the team I pick in the formation that I choose, the system that I choose, those players that I coach every day, can be so good one day and so bad another day. And for him to almost admit publicly,

his own failure in the sense that he could not make sense of how his team could be so inconsistent from one week to another, I think it was too much for him. And at the end, he was drained, he was really exhausted by all of this, and took responsibility for it in a way, but also really struggle to put his finger on what went wrong, when he went wrong.

Do you know, Raff, I actually think that of all of the things that Deserby said, those two words that Jules just mentioned in his statement, it's exhausting. Sum it up. That's just Roberto Deserby's time in charge of most clubs, isn't it? For everybody, and not only in a bad way, but it is exhausting. Yeah, I think highly strong is probably the way I would describe him. And when so much volatility meets the most volatile club, probably at this level in European football, it's even going to be fireworks or an implosion.

And I think towards the letter spell of his time there, it was very much the latter. It didn't really look like a team that still understood what he was trying to do. I find it hard jewels and you would have seen more of my say than me but to understand how somebody who especially is seen as one of the tacticians of the modern game finds a way or can set up a team

in a way that the team don't seem to understand what his ideas were anymore some games the team look completely lost and that is something that is I think hard to explain and I wonder if it was slightly self-serving to say I don't understand my team because it almost suggests to me that you know I've done everything but somehow the team are really strange. Tuchel said similar things when he had really inconsistent performances at Bayern he would always say oh we trained so well I don't understand how we're not playing well we did

everything in in preparation so it sounds a little bit like that to me but I don't know if you've seen or heard more from how the players related to him that maybe might explain why we saw just a total breakdown at the end. Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I think there were times maybe where it was a bit too complicated for maybe the players that he had and what he wanted to do. I think he felt some really, he felt they had some really good relationship with some of them

and also some very difficult ones with others. Mason Greenwood is one of them, of course. somebody like Benjamin Pavar, for example, who arrived with one of the main signings in the summer from Inter Milan, where Marse Poo, a lot of effort to go and get a 2018 World Cup winner back home, basically, and he hasn't really worked out for him. Hoiberg will always be the kind of player that managers like the Zerbi likes just for the football IQ in itself. But you're right, it never really got, I think, the full attention of the whole squad and the whole dressing women, maybe because it's difficult to work with Roberto Zerbi.

As we've said, he's a hard, it's a guy hard to follow at times. He's a guy that's hard to work with for players, for sporting directors, and CEOs, owners, people above, all of that. But there's also where I don't think he was helped very much by the club, is that Marseille, because that's what happened since Pablo Longoria has been the CEO, and it's not me having a dig at him. This is the way he works. But every summer, every winter, in every transfer window,

is 12 or 15 players are, 12 and 15 players in. This is what they do. They do a lot of trading in and out all the time. And I think it must be very difficult for whoever is the manager to get a bit of stability and consistency when every six months, basically half of your squad changes. James, what does Roberto Deserbe want, do you think? What does he want?

Like, what is the ideal set up for him to thrive in? Because I wonder if he's a bit like Bielsa in that the level of clubs that he manages are on a certain level, right? And they're not the very, very top clubs. Is it possible for Roberto Deserbie to exist in one of those environments? Or is what he wants not really getable at the very top? Look, I think it's very interesting what Jules was saying about this being a kind of marriage made in heaven on one level, in terms of two very passionate entities coming together. There was the famous sort of dressing room speech

that the Zedby gave after they lost to Ozzyr in his first season where he showed the players the contract offer from Manchester United that he claimed to have got. And he said, I'm here because I'm passionate about you. I'm passionate about coaching this club in this city. I put this above money, okay? and that is ultimately, I think,

Roberto is a football romantic, but in terms of what he wants, he wants to win. He does not want to be typecast as a philosopher where it is, I am about the aesthetic. No, if he's got that particular style of play, it's because he thinks that style of play is the best way for him to win football matches. And he is quite fundamentalist,

about that. Although, you know, I do think it has been quite interesting that, you know, he hasn't gone against his principles, but he's done stuff he wouldn't usually do at a football club at Marseille. He's played a back three. He said, he said, I would not play a back three unless I thought it was the best thing for this group of players. It's not part of me. I just don't believe in having an extra defender because it means you have one less midfield player and it means you have one less attacker, one of the other. So look, I mean, if that contract offer that he presented in that dressing room from Manchester United is legitimate, I would kind of question judgment.

Why didn't you take that contract offer? Because I think a lot of people, even though they forget how challenging and provocative he was towards the end of his time at Brighton when he said. said, what is the Tony plan? You know, sort of challenging Tony Bloom, one of the most successful football owners with one of the most successful recruitment operations in recent Premier League history,

challenging his ambition. I think a lot of people were very surprised that DeZerbe's next step wasn't to move up in the Premier League. It was, and I say this with all due respect, Jules. It was to go to Liga and not to go to PSG. It was to go to Marseille. And so,

He's made some curious choices. You know, after Sasuolo, he went to Shaktar. After Shaktar, he went to Brighton. After Brighton, he's gone to Marseille. You know, I think there probably needs to be some reflection on his part about those decisions. And I think also it probably reflects what the clubs he thinks he might be able to get to. Also think about him because they haven't gone for him. There's another thing as well, I think.

that probably also played in all these kind of toxic atmosphere at times. And I think we mentioned it maybe last week or the week before on the show is this kind of eternal war with the French media that he had not so much last season when everything was really good or better suddenly in the finish second and went back to the Champions League and there was this incredible can buzz around the team and him. But this season is very different. I mean, he had issues with Jerome Rotten, the first. former France and PhD

midfielder and Christoph Dugari, the former Marseille, forward and Birmingham legend as well who on their radio show kept saying a bit what we've just said, it's not really clear what the plan is, he keeps changing the back three, the buy four and they were a bit

underwent by what they saw from him, especially considering the reputation. So that's one thing and that could be difficult. But also, I've rarely seen a manager at that level changing moods so quickly, Because one day we had moody Roberto.

One day we had happy Roberto. One day we had sad Roberto. One day we had excited Roberto. One day we had, I can't be bothered, Roberto. And I'm like, which Roberto is this? Like, what's going on? And I think that sums up really well the whole season. And in a way, for him as an Italian too,

it felt like a washing machine at times, you know, and it probably was a bit too much at the end. Just before we move it on to what might be next for Marseille and indeed Deserbie, Raph, I'm really interested to know, because he was really heavily linked with Bayern Munich at one point. And I sort of wanted to lean into the idea of why a top club might go for him or might not go for him. Is it possibly something to do with the fact that you, quite often the higher you go, the less autonomy you get? And for Roberto Terseurbi to be the manager of your team, it sort of has to be his way, doesn't it?

Yeah, I guess, I mean, from what I heard from buying at the time is that they just, weren't convinced he was right for the structure. I think there was a sense that if you give it to him, you are in danger of losing a little bit of control. By and particularly, but I'm sure other clubs of a similar size are the same. They don't want a manager that is going to be managing the whole club and being in charge of almost everything. They want somebody who's a coach who will be part of the existing structure, who will understand

that there are checks and balances to his power, who cannot take six or seven people necessarily within the staff because there are people who already there. And they also don't operate on the basis of changing everything for a new manager because they know chances are one and a half, two years later you have a new manager, then you have to start again and they don't want that. So that was the feeling. And there's also a sense of pigeonholing, I think, as well. you know, there's always a kind of a mental shortcut. You think, okay, Italian managers, you know, what are they like? It's silly because there's huge differences to the way a Calon Cholotti works and

Roberto de Zerbi works. But I think as far as sort of cutting-edge coaches are concerned, you think of Conte immediately and you think of D'Zerbi. And these kind of coaches, the way they work with super high intensity but volatility, they scare people at certain clubs. and I think that that's worked against him. And I'm not sure that the Marseille stint has really changed that perception or maybe enhanced it and made it more difficult for him to land the job of that

kind of magnitude in the near future. James, I have to ask the Tottenham question here. I know it's the Euroleagues, but he's obviously being linked already. I wonder if the best argument for Deserbie at Tottenham is it's probably the only thing they haven't tried. You know, they've done the kind of the winner, Jose Marino, or the big personalities like Antonio Conte. They've done the sort of the, you know, the kind of club legendy approach in the past.

And they've done the up-and-coming coach. They've done everything apart from the madcap genius. So maybe now it's time. Yeah, although I do think there are some similarities in approach to Ange, Posterikoglu, certainly in terms of how they want their teams to play and believing it is the best way against the judgment of journalists and radio hosts like us,

when we've said, why are you playing this high line? Look, I mean, Deserbe has been of interest to talk them in the past. It's no secret that their former consultant, co-sporting director, sporting director Fabio Padatachi, was an admirer of Roberta Deserbe. I think when Parathchi was in talks about becoming the sporting director of AC Milan in the summer before he formally came back to Tottenham. He was thinking about Deserbe as being a future coach of A.C. Milan.

Paratichi is now at Fjantina. He's not at Tottenham. But those recommendations that he will have made will presumably still be in the memory bank at Tottenham. But I think for everything that Raphael has kind of have said. And I think also for the kind of trend that we've seen in the Premier League in this calendar year alone with the decisions Manchester United and Chelsea have made, where you could say that both of those ownership groups or executive level manager were challenged by the coach in the

press conference, you know, Dyserby is vocal about what he wants, how he thinks things should be done. And, you know, he's gone into clubs often with a member of his staff who is, he's not a coach, he's a scout. He's there to guide the recruitment team at the club he goes to on what Roberto likes in terms of which player he likes. Now, that's not necessarily unusual. Graham Potter had Kyle McCauley, for example, and Carl is now working, I think, for Manchester United, independent of Potter. But, you know, it goes to show that this is a coach who expects an input on recruitment and expects a voice to be heard on recruitment. And we have seen, I think, over the last few decisions big clubs have made in this country that they want a coach to coach and that's it. Recruitment is left to the sporting director.

It's left to the ownership group. Yeah, we'll use you as a sounding board. but ultimately the final say is with us. And I think that's the interesting tension, I think, in the Premier League going forward with big clubs when they're looking at managers because it seems that they are moving away from these managers with big personalities, let's say.

Just to finish, Jules, two things. One, I love that Christoph Dugari's got a French football radio show. He's obviously like their Chris Sutton, which I'm very much on board with. It's Jerome Roten's one, but he's a guest pretty much. Sorry, Jerome. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to.

And also, if the, you know, if fans are phoning in to speak to Rotten and Dugari on C. Cease or Cease, they'll be talking about Habib Bey as a possible successor. They will. What a link. Six-Zerosis. That's it.

You know the crazy thing about Habit Bay, who I think will get that job. Right. I think it's the first time. I try to look. It's very hard to look. But I believe it might be the first time. that a manager is sacked and the week later

is re-employed by a team that is better or higher in the rankings or in the table than the team that sacked him. So imagine being sacked from the team that is six in the table because they don't think you're good enough and then a week later being hired by the team that is fourth

in the same league, in the same table, the team that just, it's just, yeah, I mean, it's incredible. But I'll be paid from a Marseille player, captain, although Paris Bon and Brent, obviously, I have to say it there. It's still very much highly rated. I think he's a good young coach. Some things worked well, Aran.

Others didn't so much. But it would be good for him to be tested at Marseille. To embrace the impossible requires a vehicle that pushes what's possible. Defender 110 boasts a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms, a weighting depth of 900 millimeters, and a roof load up to 300. 100 kilograms. Learn more at landrover.ca. If there was a big rent button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead.

From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life. And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, this is Matt Chorley's urgent questions.

Your daily dose of political mayhem from the heart of Westminster. Order, order. I call Matt Chawley. I'm a supporter of flags. It turns out time is finite. Government doesn't want to be involved in this. I did not think the candidates are frivolous. Matt Cholley's urgent questions.

Subscribe to the podcast and you'll get the best bits every day from around 5 o'clock. Listen on BBC Sounds. On the Football Daily podcast, the Euroleagues with Steve Crossman. It's the Euroleagues. Let's welcome our special guest, the former France, Arsenal and Manchester City defender and new manager of Kant in France's third tier. Gail Clichy, hello. Good evening, good.

Oh, so good. I sort of toyed Gail with the idea of letting Jules introduce you because you two go way back, don't you? Wow, we like dinosaurs, but we know each other for a very long time. Yeah, very long time. Too long, too long. Right, there's so much that we want to talk to you about, about your kind of journey in coaching.

Before we do anything else, congratulations on your first head coach job. You're a couple of months in. How much you enjoying it? Well, it's only been four games, and I'm pretty sure we've wins. You enjoy it even more. If you lose, I can understand how difficult it could be.

but all the guys have been telling me, you know, it's the best job after being a player. And I can only agree with it. You learn every day. Your mind is on the pitch every day, 24-7. And it's a beautiful job. So obviously, you need to get the result. But, you know, you realize that you can impact people, people's life.

You know, I'm not talking about the players only, but about, you know, who you have in front of you. And I always like that. So I'm enjoying myself at the moment, yeah. Why, Kahn, what spoke to you about the place and the job? Well, you know, you always want to start really high. And of course, I would have loved to, you know, be able to take Arsenal or City as a first job. But, you know, if you have to be honest, one second, it's important to start somewhere

where you can actually trust the people you have around, great facilities. And Kahn is probably a club of League One, top three team in league. with the facilities they have, with the history as well and the fans. It's close from, you know, the feeling you have by being there, it's close to what I've known in England, you know, the love for the club and the environment. So it's a club that needs someone without being arrogant

trying to bring them back where they belong. So that's the challenge, that's the job, and it's a nice one. Go on, Jules. I mean, I know the story. So well, there's something that when we were messaging today with Gail, he said, yeah, I'll do the show with you guys tonight. It'd be fun. And also it will stop me thinking for the fourth-year-th time, something about the game tomorrow.

They play Dijon tomorrow, which is quite a big game because Dijon are doing well and not that long ago we're in the top flight. Because I know how obsessive he will get about every detail, thinking about all of that. My question really is very simple. You worked with Terry Henry within the 21s. You had a wonderful adventure at the Olympics. You had Ascent Venger and Roberto Moncini and Pep Guadjola as managers and this obsession with details, where does it come from?

And how do you assess all those influences that you had through your playing career and coaching career? Well, if I'm being honest, first of all, from the player I used to be. I never saw myself as a talented player and I had to be really clear on what I wanted to do. So Cherry used to call it the shadow work, the work that you do when no one sees you. And I've always been fun of this because I do believe with the right spirit and the right commitment and the desire to do well and the right intention. You can have a great career and this is this is me. That was me as a player. So, yeah, the detail always been part of me.

But when you realize how much there is going on when you become a manager, you don't talk about detail just how you are going to control the ball and who you're going to play against. Now you're talking about who you're going to start in your start 11, who you're going to play against, how can you hurt the opponent, 11 player, who wears the weakness if there's one, how can you explore that weaknesses, how can you make your players improve? And right now, actually, to stop me from thinking about the game tomorrow, I was with the staff, and I showed them how I used to work in Cervets. So basically, I have a wheel of profiles,

which is, I don't know, around the world, you will have 18 profiles. And my team, ideally, I would want to have 13 out of the 18. So we went through the team knowing who is who and who is giving you what, obviously being in third division, you don't get those top players, but you try to make it work. And in the end, you just try to develop or to map the work around different benchmark of what you want from each position linked to the player you have at disposal. It takes time, but it's fascinating because you realize that when you put themes,

thematics, you can actually improve the player. Can you win the Champions League by doing this being in count? Of course not, but you can really and surely push to get the promotion. And that's why it's great because you need time. But like I said to everybody, if you want to cook a great meal, you need time. make sure you cook the tomato, a different way you cook the potatoes. And when everything is cooked, then you put it all in the same pan and then you enjoy your food. So it's a bit the same.

You need time. We don't have much time, but the process behind it is just phenomenal. So this is what I like the most, actually. Gail, I came and saw you in Newport earlier this season just after the summer. And you were just finishing your coaching qualification there. And I know that one of the things you did as part of that course, I mean, there was all kinds of fascinating. stuff like spending time with the SAS. So I'm really interested to know because you know sometimes what people talk about,

you know, you read a rulebook and you learn stuff and then you get into an environment and it's difficult that, oh, all of a sudden things don't go out the window. What are the things that you are still really clinging onto from those kind of experiences that you had when you were learning? Well, there's so much thing that you can use on a daily basis. But just to mention one, and it's something that asks and all right, always told me when I told him that I wanted to coach, he told me basically the important thing is to understand

that you need the collective goal, objective, but within the objective, you need to be able to find an individual objective to each of the players. Why? Because if you don't have that, it's difficult to stay connected with the player. And without being connected to the player, you cannot achieve anything.

And basically, if they want to suck you, they will suck you. So you need to find a way where A top player will see himself winning the ballandor next to you, for example. A player who's on the bench will see himself becoming a starter under you. And a young player will see an opening about being a professional next to you. And someone who's just left out for, I don't know, a couple of months, will decide to regain his desire to be a football player again, whatever it is.

And he said, and if you can do this and you can, transmit that to all of your player, then obviously you're going to be a great manager. So I'm trying to bring this. And for example, being in Cannes, I told them some of the players, they have six months less on their contract. And there's no way I'm going to sit in front of them

and telling them you have to win for the club because they're going to tell me, okay, I want to do that, but what the club is going to do for me. So the mindset I'm trying to install in the club because it's first division and, you know, you have to find ways. I'm telling them,

my duty and my only objective is to be able to sit with you in June for you to have free options. Either you stay with us for one more year because we are in League 2 or you go to a better team or you get a better contract. And if we are able to sit at the table in June and to have that conversation, it means that you would have performed. And if we can reproduce this to 10, 12, 15 players within the squad, then it means that we have a good chance of being where we want to be at the end. because if you improve the individual, you will improve collectively. So that's really what I'm trying to focus on, because in the end, I think there's a lot of people in today's football that want to make it complex,

you know, want to make the game complex with different way of expression. But in the end, if you score one more goal than I score, then you won the game. And I'm trying to make it as simple as possible for the players because in the end, they have to be able to enjoy, to progress, and to feel something while they're on the pitch. this is how I see the coaching journey that's mine anyway Gail to

in keeping with the culinary metaphor that you used earlier who are kind of the chefs that you enjoy most what kind of food when it comes to the cream de la creme of modern football do you enjoy and maybe get inspired

when you see that kind of coaching of football at the moment Yeah, I've been lucky to work with a number of managers that are probably top 10 in Europe or were top 10. But I would say that I really like the DNA of someone like Arsene who was able to take young players and turn them into world class players. I just find it so hard to be able to spot one and to develop him as a phenomenal player like says, Fabregas, like Cherianry, like all of those guys that we know. Obviously, you know, working with PEP and the PEP, you know, if you put aside all the trophy that is won, he basically took my football words upside down in 10 months.

So, of course, you need to be able to understand and to love the way he wants his team play. But if you are drawn to that, there's nothing better because we talk about detail, we talk about success. We talk about developing players. We're talking about the team chemistry. And for me, I'm talking about the way he was managing his own staff, his own team. Often, you know, you hear you have to

manage the team behind the team. And the way he was doing it was unbelievable. And I can hear people saying, okay, of course, when you've been a coach at Barcelona, Munich, and Citi with all the money, it's easy to become a coach. I've got 25 players now and they're not top

players and when comes first night and you have to kind of make a decision of who you're going to pick for the game on a Friday, it's hard. So being able to manage this plus your staff the way he was doing it was just amazing. So

there's not one that I like more than another, but someone like, you know, Mancini, you probably heard a story when he was at City when he told us that without the area, we were not the same team. I think he did down purpose.

You know, he was really, he was a fiery coach. He liked and he loved confrontation. And in the end, I just hope that I can be the guy that can bring a bit of each of them in the right situation to become my own. So that's the aim. Will I be able to do it? I don't know. But if I have to mention one for the fact that I have that feeling with young players,

I would say, Arson, but also I think over the last 10, 15 years, what PEP has done in the football world is just incredible. So I would go for those two, 100%. I'm just looking at James Horncastle's face and he's just sort of like lightly stroking the side of his head with his... You look like a man who has a really penetrating question ready. No, I just wanted to know from Gail.

I mean, there's quite a group of you ex-Arsonal players now who've gone into coaching. You know, be it CESC, be it obviously you work with Tieri, be it Patrick as well. I just wondered whether you bounce ideas off each other. other, whether you're all in contact, whether you talk about things that you see in the game, you learn from the game and you share it with each other, or are you very much all going out on your own path? No, yeah, it's a good point. And I think we should be able to share.

Cherry, as you may know him, he's a football brain. So you know so much about the game. And I told my group of players, because obviously Cherry being Cherry, when we won our first game last week. He sent me a text saying yes, yes, yes. And he follows everything. So when I have something in mind or something that I want to discuss, he's always available for me. Cess, we've been talking, not lately, but we've been talking over the last couple of months because I think the job is doing is just phenomenal. I speak a lot with Vincent. So that's not Arsenal, but that's another one that I'm looking up to because of not the success they have, but just because the love of what they do.

And when you love what you do, you're always looking for ways to improve yourself. And if you improve yourself, you improve your team. So that's the example I want to use because they're young. You need energy to be a coach. You know, I can feel that if you don't have that desire, that fire within yourself, it's difficult to make things happen.

So the guy that we share ideas, but obviously we all are in different environments. So what may be working for CESC or for Cherry when you was at Gender 21 is totally different, you know, of the environment and the thing that I'm facing every day. My players, some of them were amateur football a couple of months ago. And you kind of need to work physically with them mentally to make them realize that they are here. But, you know, sometimes you are here because, let's say, French football, doesn't have much money,

so you have to kind of be creative in who you're going to sign. So I'm not saying to them, like, you don't deserve to be here, but you have to understand that, you know, there's a long way to be, to become a professional, but you can become a professional

by doing this, this, this. So, you know, the process with my team, for example, would be much longer than the process that says Fabrogas will have when he signed a playoff, you know, 40, 50 million euros. Obviously, that's, that's nothing, nothing new.

But the end job, is the same. You need to get the points and we all got our different routes on how to do it and how long it will take. But of course, when we talk about the tactic bits and the situation that you have to deal with, with your star player, with a player that is not happy because he doesn't play, this you can share. But the rest, you know, is a different job and you have to understand that because you can't copy-pace what someone else is doing really. Do you know, Gil, one of the fascinating things, which links together literally all of the former Arsenal players that James mentioned.

So that is Thierry-on-Rey, obviously. You mentioned Cessque Fabragas. We can obviously add Mikhail Artetta to the list as well. And there are more. All of them and you all did your coaching badges in Newport in Wales, which is amazing. And it's an incredible story. When I was there at the start of the season,

Nuri Sahin was in Gail's year. And he said it's like the Harvard of football coaches. And Nuri Sine went to Harvard, so he should know. So I'm just curious, Gail, as to whether or not this is because of word of mouth. Are you all just basically recommending this course to each other effectively? Because the list is getting really long. I think it is. But also what I found when I got there, it's a very dynamic,

Federation, a very young federation, and the most important thing is that they have their way of seeing football, they have the vision of what they want to see on the football pitch, but they don't try to orient you towards this. And basically, they're telling you a simple example, if you want to play long balls, you just need to convince us, why? And I think that's very important because very much linked, you know, being a coach as being a parent, and you kind of want to push people towards something they love, but you can't really force them to become who you want them to become. And I really love that because in the end, you know, you can only do so much and in a certain way when you are free of doing how you see it. So for me, it was a, it was a,

I wouldn't say a blessing, because obviously, you know, you can, you can have success anywhere. But the fact that you have that freedom of expressing yourself and putting on the table what you believe in is fantastic. So, for example, when I came and I said, of course, I've been inspired by Pepe Gorgola because it's the latest manager I've seen, but I also love Giroo for the fact that he took a club in France, amateur and took him to Champions League. It is something that I'm attracted to. Can I be able to do it? And then they just talk with you and telling you, they're giving you advice on what to do, what to expect, what to avoid. And we've met a lot of people coming in, giving us advice and you have young coaches,

you have all the coaches, sometimes coaches that don't even, I wouldn't say they're not relevant anymore, but in today's football, they will probably find it difficult to coach a team, but yet, you know, the value they have when they bring their ideas and their experience is just phenomenal. So all in whole, it was, it was, yeah, a good feeling. three years, three, four years, where we've learned so much. And that was unbelievable. And the last question is almost the most important question.

Is Killeen Mbapé a good boss? Well, you know, I think French football, Julian will tell you is not in the best shape at the moment. And I think he actually may have saved the club, you know, by taking the club over. And now it's down to us because I'm part of the team to try and bring success to the club. But, yeah, I mean, you know, when I signed for the club, I was just hoping that it could be half as good as he is as a player because I'll be in good hands.

But he's good so far. It's good so far. Great stuff, Gail. Thank you so much for joining us. All the best for the rest of the season. I'm sure we'll talk to you again. That is it for today's episode of the Football Daily. So big thanks to Gail Clichet to Julianne-Laureen, Raffaunuchstein,

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