The Press Box - Ep. 169: Premier League Round 2 With Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon

Episode Date: August 18, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon preview the Round 2 matchups, and discuss Manchester United's midfield, Leicester City’s and Arsenal's slow starts, Everton's transfer activity, and much more from around the league. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So drop the old ticket app and experience buying and selling tickets the way it should be. To start using Seatgeek, download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seekek.com. Hello and welcome to Channel 33 soccer podcast. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com. And as always, I am joined by Ryan O'Hanlon. How you doing, Chris? I love the pregnant pause before you say hello.

Ryan, thanks for joining me for your. never pot alone, a two and a half hour podcast about Liverpool's victory over Arsenal. I'm just kidding, guys. Yeah, it's, it's only going to be about Danny Ingings. I don't think we're even going to talk about Liverpool today, because we've got so much else to talk about, this is a preview pod. I guess going forward, these will sometimes be earlier in the week, sometimes it'll be later in the week, sometimes it won't happen at all. But with one round down in the books of the Premier League, let's talk about round two as like a preview and that way we could chat about teams here and there

we've picked out a couple of games that we wanted to talk about you'll be delighted everybody out there that we're not talking about Liverpool we're going to start with Friday's game real quick when did we decide that we're going to start playing Premier League games on Friday? As far as I know 20 minutes ago

yeah that's cool I guess what are they going to do is that going to happen a lot or what are they going to do once Europe starts I don't think it'll keep happening Okay, great. First match we're talking about is tomorrow afternoon's game between Manchester United versus Southampton. It is at Old Trafford Manu coming off a 3-1 victory over Bournemouth and Southampton drawing with Watford. And I guess, Ryan, the first thing I want to say or ask is Manchester United seems like it has its swagger back a little bit because they've got an avatar for that swagger.

And that's Laton. Got a goal in his first competitive match. Got a goal in the community shield too, but got his goal, got his first league goal on, over the weekend. Yeah, it's like, I don't think the performance

from Manchester United was anything special. I think they sort of, you know, they were given a goal basically by Bormmouth in the first half and going up 1-0 sort of changes how they can play. And I think if there's one manager,

you don't want to go down 1-0 against, it's Jose Marino. Right. But like even, like last year and the year before, when Manu would play this super boring version of soccer and they would win by a goal. Which is basically a lot of like horizontal passing. Yeah.

Cycling the ball around and cycling the ball around and not very many attempts, right? Yeah. It would be super uninspiring even though they won. But now like even if that happens like Zlatan is on the field. Yeah. Well that was the thing is like didn't they, I don't think that they took much more shot. They didn't take any more shots over the weekend than they did under VAT haul. They basically hit their their shot average.

But when Zlaton takes it, it just feels cooler. Yeah, exactly. And he is part of the thing that makes him Zlaton is that he can place a ball in the bottom corner from 30 yards out. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that one thing I'm going to be really looking forward to in this game, and I know that we're going to talk about this, but just is what does the midfield of Manchester United look like? There's a lot of pieces. There's only so many positions, right? for you with Pagba coming in

what is the ideal set up for that midfield I would like to see it be Schneiderland behind Pagba and Micgatarian in the midfield and Havrik Meketarian hasn't started gotten a game yet he came in a little bit and then he is the one who Marino subbed in for Mata in the community shield

because he said Mata was too small to be on the field in the last five minutes that's like as a neutral observer what I would like to see because I think Schneiderlin is defensive and sort of lets Pogba do the things that we both like watching him do run up and down the field and he can cover for McIterian who's basically an attacking midfielder but you'd be playing him in a deeper midfield role yeah I think that's what I would like to see I don't that that is not going to happen we didn't see any of those guys in the midfield this game I think

Ander Herrera is a guy that you and I, as Liverpool fans have talked about, as someone we hoped as an athletic Bilbao fans. Yeah, exactly. As the true Bilbao heads of the podcasting world. Herrera is a guy who came to the league with a degree of fanfare. It's considered one of the best young midfielder's to come out of Spain. Yeah, or at least his first year, it seemed like that. Yeah.

And then like... Like, I feel like he has a very high ceiling. and I don't feel like he comes up a lot and like, well, he's obviously starting. You know, it's like he's very peripheral, at least in terms of conventional wisdom. I can't wait to see what Marino does with him. I think that he might like him a lot.

I think he does. I mean, we should say he started this game. Yeah. And he might have been their best player. And he kind of is one of those guys. I don't, it's unfair to compare anyone to Pogma, but he's one of those guys that can sort of play a bunch of different midfield

roles, which I think maybe is why he doesn't get talked about in the same way, because it's harder to appreciate someone who can do 15 different things than one guy that does this one thing particularly well. Okay, well, we'll look to see what Murino does with his midfield over the week on Friday. And then also, I really, I actually was very impressed with Daly, Daly Blin playing next to Eric Ba'i in the, in the defensive, in that back, in that central defensive partnership. Yeah. I am always fascinated to see how partnerships define players, how just playing next to somebody

a little bit more competent or complementary towards your skill set turns you into like, Ooh, Daily Blade's going to be a centerback for 10 years. Like that's, that's, have you noticed that happened with another pairing before? I mean, I think it's the, the most obvious one to me is Kishelny and Murtessacker. Yeah. Because Kishelny is like this extremely proactive, uh, centerback who's sort of leaving the back line trying to win when balls that are played in, win headers, and Murtysacker is much more

reserved and they sort of balance each other out because anytime a centerback sort of steps forward, the other one has to drop back. Is that typically the division of labor where somebody goes and somebody stays and somebody's attacking the ball and the other one is sort of holding the line and making sure everything is organized? Essentially if the ball gets past that guy, the other guy is covering it. So I think the sort of the organizer slash terrier combination is like the classic defensive centerback. Speaking of defensive partnerships and defensive backbone, Southampton, one of the best defenses

in the EPL, I know you're interested to see what happens when United doesn't get that one goal gift in the beginning and what it looks like when they play up against Southampton. Who do they have on that back line? I think they're the sort of star of it is Virgil Van Dyke, the dude with a ponytail, I guess. It's a ponytail that they signed from the Netherlands last year. And then they have Yoshida, Maya Yushita, who's sort of been the guy that's always been filling in for their other centerbacks who have gotten sold like Lovrin in recent years. So that was the pairing for this game. Jose Font is on the team still.

You could be on Manchester United by then. I think he's great. He's the best one of the three probably, but it seems like he's going to be leaving the team. Um, Arsenal's rumored to be buying them, which means... Oh, I thought United was in for him. I've seen Arsenal too. Oh, interesting. Which means Arsenal's probably not going to buy them.

But it's sort of with Southampton, it is more than like, it's more about the system, it seems like, than the players. They always are identifying the guys that they can plug in to keep the machine moving, and they're sort of built on this very solid defensive base. And they just plug guys in each year, and it sort of keeps truck. along. We can move on, but one guy that I really enjoy who's been around for a few years, they're never really got picked up in is now 27, so

I think for only the best teams would be attractive because most teams like to buy a younger player so they can someone as Duzan Tatich, who's their attacking midfielder, really like, you know, one of the top 10 in key passes last season for, I just love his creativity. I'm sort of surprised he's never

been picked up by a Tottenham or Chelsea or I guess Chelsea, but Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal, that level of team. It seems like every time Tottenham sells someone, there is then a Tatich report. Talk about how this is actually the guy that the team that bought Adam Alana should have bought. I mean, they replaced Lalana with Todic, but there's always sort of a, this is the actual superstar of Southampton, but you bought the wrong one. And Totich, like this Liverpool bought Lalana for some 30 million pounds, something around there. replace him with Todditch for one-third of the price

and Toddish has just straight up been better, much better than Alana has since he's been in the league. But Comyn, last year, Ronald Coleman, their old manager, didn't play him as much as you would think the team like Southampton would play, like their elite near star level player. But yeah, he's up there with the best creative passers in the world and he gives you something defensively too.

So I don't understand really why he fell out of favor last year, but he's sort of one of the more unheralded people in the EPL. We'll keep our eye on Tatich against United. He may have a lot to do, he may get a lot of action because I do think that they're still looking for some, that defensive midfield for them is still, yeah, I don't, if Merah and Falani is playing,

I don't really picture him being able to handle Toditch. Right. All right, the next game we want to talk about is Arsenal versus Leicester City. This is a battle between the defending champions and the second place team. ordinarily this would be like your Christmas Day NBA game this would be oh one versus two how exciting I don't know that we I can't remember more skepticism surrounding a number one and number two table team from last season going into only the second week of the new season and yet I think people are pretty skeptical skeptical about Lester's ability to even get in the top to get into the

top four much less top six say and with Arsenal this is deja vu all over again but we're back to Arsenal in crisis. Yeah, I mean, it's, I believe it's the first time that the top two teams of the league lost their games in the first weekend, because I'm pretty sure it's the first time the defending champ lost their opening game in a Premier League season. And it is, it's just crazy to me how it still feels so weird to say, like, these are the top two teams in the league last year. Which I think says something we sort of have, I've beaten this horse.

way too hard recently, but like Lester, they're, they're an outlier in the sense of how they looked and how they played last year. So how they played on the counter, and they basically converted a high level of like not too many shots, right? Yeah. Their shooting numbers suggested they should be lower.

Yeah, they had a very low sort of total shooting number. Their shots on target number was a lot higher, which I think you can sort of trace to the fact that they played a very direct style down the center of the field, which fails a lot, but when it's successful, you got a good chance. And Arsenal last year, you know, they sort of limped to second place. You know, Tottenham just completely collapsed over the last couple weeks and gave Arsenal second place. So I think that's why we're sort of in this weird situation we're in. But I think Arsenal, you can kind of explain away the loss to Liverpool. I mean, they got blown

off the field, but they were missing so many players. There was a moment in the second half, really in the beginning of the second half, as Liverpool had begun to completely blitz them. And it was like that 15 minutes of hell for Arsenal. Yeah. And Graham Liseau, who was doing color on the NBC broadcast, said something about all the Liverpool players, or a lot of them were out there on the field before the second half, working on like patterns and movements, and they had coaches who were putting them through paces.

And that, like, some Arsenal players were out there doing keepy ups. and like that was it and that generally i think that arsenal starts slow and i i don't know like basically the suggestion was and i think that this is a wildly held belief was just that the arsenal's just not prepared on a on a week-to-week basis and they kind of have to get past by on talent yeah i i mean if there's a criticism of arson vinger it's that like arsenal has a style that they play but like there aren't really any specific tactics to yeah i mean i thought played well in the first half. Yeah, they, I mean, they, they probably should have been up at half time.

They missed a PK and Coutinho hit a ridiculous free kick that he typically, he's not going to score that most of the time. But the thing is, it's like we talk about how close the top six teams are. I don't think you can just be like, oh, we're going to play our eighth and ninth string centerbacks and like still try to play the same way that we would normally play. and basically sort of just be like, oh, well, we don't have a full team. Just we're going to take this hell. I also just think that there's there's the question.

I mean, you see Oobie and Ramsey go off injured, which is just, it feels like it happens. Yeah. With such regularity of guys just getting hurt on Arsenal, I know that that's unfair, but it just does seem like that. And even if they're like all their players are healthy, I don't know. I don't know that Venger knows. What is the best 11? what are they supposed to do? Now I almost feel like they have too many good defensive

like engine room midfielders and not enough like width or something. I know they have Sanchez and Chamberlain and Walcott and they can all play on the wings and some of those guys like Ozo can play coming in but the the Kakalan,

Jacquesa, you know, when Wilcher comes back, when Ramsey's back because Zorla plays well back in towards the center of the park. I'm not really sure what the best 11 is for them. Yeah. And I think it's more, even more specific than that. It's like they have all of these good players and these extremely creative players

and they'll probably be able to overwhelm all of the less talented teams than them. But a team like Liverpool, the talent level is roughly the same with the starting 11s they're playing. And Liverpool is just way, way more prepared for that. I feel like Ryan is staring at a field of waving corn and the field of dreams music is playing in the background. Lester's another team that there's been whispers about them being not quite. prepared for this season. Partied in Thailand. No judgments.

That's a value neutral statement to say that they partyed in Thailand. Then went on to this ICC challenge where they play a bunch of really big clubs all over the world. I think that they will probably get their shit together and be like fine. But right now they resigned Mares to this four-year deal. I thought James York from Statsbaum had a very appropriate tweet about that that that there was similar like, Hosanna's about Tottenham re-signing Gareth Bale

and he was probably sold. But we're going to find out how important Conte was. Yeah, I mean, it looked, the game against Hull, we should also say that we both probably think hole is going to be maybe the worst team in Premier League history and they lost a hole. I think that that game sort of exacerbated

how badly they're going to miss Conte because his replacement wasn't playing. and Andy King, who is sort of this very, very, very journeyman, right? Yeah, extreme journeyman player. And in that midfield, they're only playing with two center mids. So there's just so much more onus on a center midfielder in a midfield two than there is in a three, just based on sheer numbers. So it looked worse than I think it's going to be. But this game was also sort of a mirror image of what happened last season.

had a ton of chances. Lester versus Hull was a bit of age. Yeah, they had a ton of chances and they just didn't convert at the rate they converted last year and they give up a goal that was like a double bicycle kick by Hull, which is just not going to happen. That's soccer, man. I am going to, I'm going to go to say that I think Arsenal, every time Arsenal ever, like, has the fan TV videos and everybody's like, is this, will Venger make it to Christmas?

I feel like they get two or three wins under their belt. I think they'll win this weekend at King Power. Yeah. But I don't think either way, if Arsenal loses or whatever the way the result goes, I don't think it's disaster time for either team. I just think that they might find themselves on the outside looking in both squads towards the end of the season because of the slow start. Yeah, I mean, it sort of depends on what your expectations are.

If Arsenal starts the season with two losses, like that's not great. No. That's a big hole to get out of already. Right. Let's move on to the next game we want to talk about, and that is Stoke City versus Man City. Stoke coming off a draw 1-1 to burrow, Man City coming off a victory over Sunderland, but I wouldn't necessarily put PEP on my shoulders for that one. Man City broke out some pretty cool tactical stuff.

I know that inverted fullbacks is the temporary name for this podcast. You were really excited to see cliche. and Sonia playing is basically as defensive midfielder. Yeah, I've kind of always sort of looked at those two guys and just been like, I need their creativity to be unleashed. Right. On the same, by that same token, Pep also pretty much banished two of the most iconic city players of this era of city success.

Yeah, a Torre, player of the year a couple times. And England's number one goalkeeper, Joe Hart. Yeah. Joe Hart thing I understand Sounds like he's just not Manwell Noyer None of us are And he thinks that somebody else can play The sweeper keeper role that he wants

Yeah Yeah yeah I don't really get I don't really I don't know I think it sort of comes down to the fact that he's Essentially just a defensive zero And just doesn't really give you anything

On that end And I don't know if PEP If you have a guy that doesn't provide any sort of defensive resistance, you need to sort of pick up that slack elsewhere on the field, which then is sort of taking away from attacking options elsewhere on the field. And I just think he's probably not willing to do that with Yaya,

especially at this age. Is there anything there where you feel like he is getting all the controversy out of the way early? Yeah, I think so. You know what I mean? That would be like, it would be like us going in and be like where it's it's the first week of the football season like the NFL season yeah and we were like and we've now removed robert maize from running about football yeah that would never happen but let let that would be like what it would be like though

it would just be and then by week three week six people would be like who's robert mays it would be like if but it would be like if like david remnick came in and was like maize you're out of here who's David Remnick. In the sense that, like, I think it's sort of a, it's a statement in a lot of ways in addition to being a tactical system fit thing. And it's a thing that only Pep Guardiola can really do. Because if it's, we saw this with Andre Vius Boas a couple years ago, this young manager from Porto goes to Chelsea, all of these older Chelsea players can't play this sort of intense

system he asked for. And he tries to change things around and all these older dudes are like, fuck you, buddy. Yeah, right. And then there's a mutiny. That's not going to happen with PEP. No. And he's also already done a good job of clearly bringing in some of his own players and convincing guys like Sterling to play the way he wants.

Sterling looked like he could get back on track under PEP. Yeah. I mean, I think Sterling, his big thing last, or the thing with him is like he's always getting into positions to score and then just fucking it up. So it looks like he's bad. but getting into those positions is very difficult to start with and he's a super active just extremely athletic and fast attacking midfielder that at the worst pep is going to be able to use him as a like

further up the field sort of destroyer um but in this game and then they played in the champions league uh a couple days ago yeah yeah he was just creating chances left and right um and he i think we were joking we weren't really joking but we were talking about like if Rahim Sterling turns into 2011 Pedro, that's huge. Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah, probably, I don't know if he'll ever be able to finish like Pedro does, but probably not, but I think he can do some other things and maybe Pedro couldn't. For people who don't understand, but I've gotten 20 minutes into a premierly preview podcast,

briefly go to the tactics chalkboard and explain to me why when Manchester City has the ball. there are two fullbacks. Yeah. Funnel into the middle of the park, creating almost a giant square, but within that square of other midfielders, lots of little triangles. Yeah.

What's the advantage of that? The advantage is, so typically, you know, your fullbacks sort of attack up the wing as your attack moves up, moves up the field, right? And with that, if you lose the ball, as we saw with,

this will be the last Liverpool reference to the podcast, Arsenal's first goal Alberto's left back was pushed up. They lost the ball and there's all this space in behind him. The lung-busting run from a fullback is sort of kind of the trademark things you think of when you think of Premier League football. You lose the ball and one of your defenders is already behind the ball and you're already playing, you're disadvantaging yourself.

But this way the two fullbacks slide into the midfield so they're still involved with the attack and the opposition midfield has to deal with them, which then usually creates space. between the midfield and the opposition defense. So it sort of encourages you to play the ball down the middle of the field rather than up the sideline. And then if you lose it, the fullbacks just have to shift back out to the side as opposed to already being behind the ball and running back down the field. The thing with that is that central midfield is a very difficult position because you have to be seeing 360 degrees. And I like cliche and sanya, but nobody, I don't, I wasn't necessarily like, you joked earlier, but I don't think anybody is like, man, And cliche and Sanya are just so nice with their passing.

No. And then the other thing is playing as a fullback, you have the sideline right next to you. So like the field of vision and the degrees of the problems you have to solve with the ball are like half what they are as a center mid. So typically as a fullback, you just don't have that skill set. Byron Munich had David Alba and Philippaam, who were essentially like this is kind of a, it's like if you want to see what the difference is between city and Byron or city and Barcelona. in terms of talent, you can kind of look at this issue. Pep's trying to do tactical things that he's done with some of the greatest club teams of the last 15, 20 years.

Yeah. With a very, very good city team. Yeah. But if you were ever wondering what it would look like if Pep had to coach lesser players, you're seeing it. Yeah, exactly. And it sort of maybe gives you a better appreciation for what he was doing. Will...

Okay. Can you counter that? Like, can people... As soon as he plays Everton or as soon as he plays... I don't know. I mean, it could be even stoked this weekend, let's just say, for sake of argument. Will a Premier League manager with some experience know how to counter that?

I mean, I think part of it is you sort of put more bodies in the center of the field because that's where Man City is sort of sending their guys. And the other thing is you press the hell out of those two guys because if they lose the ball, there's only two or three people behind them. Yeah. And attacking against three guys is much easier than attacking against 10 guys. And I think you could sort of see it on Saturday. Klishi and Sanya were sort of,

they took a second or two longer to really make a lot of decisions. He's like a very tactically astute and this creative player was like, we don't really know where we're supposed to, like what we're supposed to be doing. Yeah, exactly. We're still learning these. I mean, guardio,

it divides the field up into these little zones. And a lot of it is read option. You're in the zone. You're supposed to be. but you can go here if this and if this than this. And DeBron, who honestly probably had more space to play with than he has in two or three years against Sunderland. He was like, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do all the time.

Yeah, and it's interesting to see because there is, I'm sure there is a way, a more simple way he could have played against Sunderland and they probably would have won much more easily. Like kick the ball to Sergio Aguero. Yeah, exactly. But he's doing this because he thinks the pay. off for it in the long run is going to be way higher. And it's,

you usually don't see that in soccer because everyone is so worried about losing their job and on the game in front of them. But he's got, he's got, he's got the leash to do it. We would be remiss if we did not talk about Mark Hughes's school for aging starlets. One one draw with Burroughs for Stokes' results.

They probably feel like they are going to lose to City. I mean, they, they might feel that way, but they probably will. This kind of also will bleed into a, what I want to talk about with West Brom and Everton, but Stoke is in an interesting spot here of having a couple of talented players, being in and out of the market for a couple of other talented players,

but not really sure what you do if you're Stoke. You're probably not going to get relegated. I guess you can hope that a Bo Yan or a Shakiri or Arnottovich gets, takes a leap. I mean, it was funny when Shakiri scored his goal against Boro, he was about to get removed for John Walters which is like kind of like the specter that hangs

at any given moment Mark Hughes can just revert to the things that have kept Stoke in the league for the longest time do you think any of those guys have a next level to go to where they could still be successful for Stoke but not get bought by a bigger club? I don't think so but I think what happened is security?

He was a Bayern Munich. Why isn't this guy I don't know I guess he's maybe Maybe his numbers were sort of inflated by all the talent around him at Byron. Maybe having two fire hydrants as your legs is sort of something that can only last for like a couple years. But the thing about Stoke is it's at least interesting. You can kind of see what they're doing. It's like you buy all of these failed phenoms. And if one of them hits and becomes like what he was supposed to become, it's going to vault your team up the table.

And none of these guys have really become that. all been fine so it's like they're sort of solidifying their spot around 10th but still taking chances which is kind of a nice place to be able to be in well let's talk about west braham and ever been then because one of the things that happened with stoke was for a while arnotovitch was up that there was he was he was debated about whether he was going to go to a different league and yeah and he wanted getting a pretty neat little pay rise from stoke i think he gets paid something like maybe even the 80s i'm not sure i'm pretty sure he is their highest pay player He should have a much better haircut than he has.

Yeah. Yeah, he looks like Aaron Beans from Australia's. Yeah, a bleached Aaron Baines. West Brom, new owners, Everton, new owners. Lots of money coming in. West Brom bought by a Chinese consortium. Everton bought by an Iranian owner. Here's my take on a lot of the investment that's happening.

I think it's going to be really cutthroat. I think that we could see clubs that, people are possibly fans of or at least are willy well known clubs like basically become insolvent and fall away from contention of in any like football league way but i wonder whether or not this will act as like a smoothing mechanism not a salary cap but basically if there's money everywhere and you're read mares or you are romilly lacoccu or whoever there's only so many places to play. Yeah.

If you're like, I have to play Champions League football. So if you stay with Everton, if you get a new contract with Stoke, if you get a new contract with West Brom because they have money,

maybe it's not as much money as Man City or Manchester United. But that's, if they can get up wage scale-wise around sniffing distance of some of the bigger clubs, I think you might see talented players going to smaller teams.

Like we have seen in the summer. And that could make a more competitive primarily, and which is what we are seeing. Yeah, I agree. And then there's also the idea of, like, maybe these guys stay with their teams for longer and the managers can sort of build for something rather than having to be Southampton

where you're essentially, you have like a 17-player chain for when this guy gets sold, you're going to replace him with this guy. And then when he gets sold, we're going to replace him with this guy. Like, that's the way to succeed as a lower-level club. And I think Southampton coming from

like probably at like some real financial dire straits and the club itself being you know people wondering whether or not the club is going to stick around yeah to where they are is it is an incredible story but it must be sort of like what are we doing after a while yeah no i agree and then but the counter to that or not the counter the sort of one of the the paths in front of that is Everton has this money but then they're just buying yonick belize above average players from teams that are essentially as good as them so maybe they're weakening these two teams. Well, that's what Man City did.

They basically bought Arsenal. That's what they're doing, but Man City's winning the Premier League, and Everton, by weakening teams below them, it's like the guys they're buying are going to give you an eighth place finish. Well, in a short-term level, solidifying your Premier League standing is pretty financially lucrative anyway. Yeah, no, that's true, but like, is that what Everton is really going for? I think what the other cutthroat thing you're going to see is, if people are investing all this money in clubs, and a lot of them are investing this money in clubs

and saying things like the Astonville owner, which is like I expect us to be one of the five biggest clubs in Europe in like six years. It's like you have to say that at this point. Sure, but that's also why people get fired after three months. It's pretty rare that somebody who's got that kind of ambition is like, I'm going to let Roberto DiMateau take us along very slowly. Yeah.

You know, and I wonder whether or not, Komen, like, he's probably well paid over at Everton, but like in six months, if there's Roberto Mancini out there, to hire maybe maybe like he gets he gets canned the easiest thing to do is fire coach it's hard to get rid of players ask ask all these other teams carrying expensive strikers on their books that they don't want to play don't want to play yeah so with everton they're coming off a draw with tottenham i thought they played fine i thought tottenham looked a little bit dull yeah um you know west brom beat palace palace palace is the worst team points wise in this calendar year they just got christian bent tech a but west brougham tony pulis making noise is about West Brom stagnating, wanting to spend some money. Saito Barino, like, basically has been exiled from this team, going from one of the most electric talents in the Premier League to completely...

We feel like we've been waiting for him to leave for the past, like, three years. Yeah, I just... Whatever happened there, it sucks. Yeah. Yeah, anything else you want to add about West Brom and Everton? I thought Everton did sort of look pretty good in that game, in the sense, good in the sense that they sort of... puzzled Tottenham in a lot of ways and played them toe to toe.

And Tottenham's, you know, the team we're talking about is, I think we both predicted they would finish in the top four. So that's sort of a positive for Everton. West Brom, I just, I don't ever have anything to say about them because it's, they're going to have a relatively solid. It's like a boring version of, they were a boring version of Southampton, where basically they were a very efficient financially. prudent club who sold their best players.

I don't even, I don't think I can remember the best player of West Brom who was sold, though. Yeah, well, now the new West Brom thing is you just never play your best player, so then you can't sell them for anything. Right. I mean, I think as far as not playing your best players, I know that Tony Puehlis has piped up a little bit about Jonathan Leco, 17-year-old forward, that he is reticent to expose too much to the Premier League. You know, I mean, if Liverpool can lose Rahim Sterling, like that. If you're 20 pupils, you probably know that if you play a teenager

five times and he looks good, he's going to get bought. Yeah. But beyond that, you know, it's sort of the same. Yeah. Everyone on the team's six foot two. They're probably not going to go up a lot of goals. He'll keep them up. Yeah, he will. And that's, you know, that's what he does.

This is what happens when we talk about teams outside that two top six. All right. Let's wrap up our weekend preview with a discussion of, I don't know if it's going to be the best game, but it will be the best side action is the clash of Italian managers, Walter Matsari's Watford, uh, hosting Chelsea, Antonio Conte's Chelsea, uh, Watford drew one one over the weekend, Chelsea won on Monday, uh, kind of a, I guess, quick turnaround for Chelsea,

but I'm sure Conte is just like inhaling rails of soccer right now and doesn't care. Uh, what did you think of Chelsea versus West Ham? Um, I thought Chelsea looked fine. Any noticeable difference between and goal Conte being there? Did you feel like he brought anything to the team? He's their big addition this year. It's tough to say because you think of Conte as a guy that can maybe sort of allow you to play a couple more attacking type midfielder's with him in the midfield. And Conte played Namanya Matich ahead of him. I love that. And Oscar who's, you know, always been an attacking midfielder, but he's been best at being a defensive attacking midfielder.

So that midfield is just filled with dudes that are just going to tackle the hell out of you. I know that about a show I got a little bit of run out. Did you like what you saw with him? I liked him more than when I saw with Diego Costa. I'm just ready for that guy to be out of my life. I mean, I think they played well enough to win. They looked better.

than they did last year for the most part. I find it hard to believe that Fabragas is just not going to play. Like, I feel like you got to. I mean, it's probably another thing of, are you good enough as an attacker for me to like put these two guys next to you that are going to do all of the defensive work? What an interesting player. I know.

I, you know, the what ifs with Fabergas, the what if he had stayed at Arsenal? Yeah. What if he had gone back to Arsenal after Barcelona instead of going to Chelsea? Obviously won stuff with Chelsea. I'm not saying that he's a happy player or whatever. But I don't feel like he ever got the credit he deserved as a player. And I think all the weird playing everywhere from the next to Bousquet's in the back of the midfield to playing a false nine in Barcelona.

I don't know that he's never, he's a great footballer who never seems to have found the best position for himself in the second half of his career. Yeah, I totally agree. but it's also funny to be talking about him as like a what if when it's like he won the premier league with Chelsea he's won everything with Spain um I guess certain players have a demeanor where you don't they don't necessarily feel like when you watch sass fabricas he's a very easily uh I feel like he's easy easy upset and you know he he can he shows his disappointment with how things are going pretty pretty publicly yeah and he's also the sort of like language-ish guy that like when things are going well you're kind of like what are you doing

well especially now since i think that such like the defining thing about the premier league this year is this going to be like industry and energy and freneticism and he's not i don't think of gig impressing when i think of srapherabracus no um but the sort of comparison people were making at least in the preseason is when conti took over eventus he had andrea pierlo who's you know yeah greatest passing attacking passing midfielder of all time and he put Vidal, Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marquisio next to him and sort of

and Pagba and protected him with these more defensive players in front of him and their idea was maybe you could do that with Fabragus as he's getting a little older and certainly if you wanted bodyguards Conte and Madditch would be the best two for the job and it's just fun to see a team that has their playmaker

deeper in the field than other teams. It's a different viewing experience as a fan and that didn't happen. It was was just that very defensive midfield three. As someone who likes watching soccer, that was kind of disappointing. I'd like to see him get out there and like to see Conte try to use him because he's such a creative manager. But maybe it's just they're just not going to fit together. So for people, I know Watford is not the most sexy thing to end on, but Watford pretty decently last year,

Watford, a very good example of the cutthroat nature of the game right now. Like they got rid of the manager who got them promoted. The PTA looked like. And then they got rid of Kiki Sanchez-Flores, who I think it was sort of like a mutual disinterest in returning. Now they have Walter Mazzari who managed Napoli in Syria. It's famous for playing a back three. I think there's even some tension you said before between Conte and Mizari about like originated this sort of back three formation in Italy, right?

Yeah, there's, it's like, his quotes were taken as if he said that Conte stole his idea of playing a back three and used it with Juventus, but Mazzari has said he was just complimenting him for doing it. I don't think Walter Mazzari was the first person in the history of soccer to play. To play a back three, I'd have to look at inverting the pyramid, but I, yeah. He's also sort of famous for... I'm still stuck on that, that chapter in that book where it's just the entire village versus the entire other village and it's like 27 versus 27.

And no one's learned how to pass yet, so they're just sprinting at each other full speed. Yeah. I mean, that's what I want soccer to get to again. You just watch MLS for that. I'm surprised it took us that one. One thing I will say about Watford is much like Southampton where they lose players and you're like, man, Southampton

and then they just have like five more guys that Liverpool will buy or that Arsenal will want to buy. Watford has these other clubs that they are sort of a part of a a relatively official partnership with this with Udnazi right yeah so I know the Potsa family used to own Granada they still own Udnizu they own Oudanasi they own in Watford now

and they are experts in just manufacturing decent players yeah who come through their ranks and then they sell on for a profit yeah it's a little bit I don't think it's I think that there's a lot of loan players and that's what people get kind of like oh it's a search cheating but you know I I'm excited

to see Wadford has a pretty thin team but maybe it's just because we don't know the good ones yet yeah and it's just sort of another you know we've talked about how southampton tries to live in the mid the mid to upper table by doing what they do everton is apparently just buying players from the teams below them and watford has this other weird sort of lone production um approach uh i mean their last year they they were interesting because they had uh trodini and odia and agallo two strikers that played a very like like old school forward pairing and just create a lot of havoc. And then sort of in the second half of the season,

teams started to be like, that's all they have. There was an interesting, the contrast between watching Liverpool, between watching Man City, Arsenal and some of these other teams that are playing either incredibly precise counterpressing games or they're doing things like

inverting their fullbacks or whatever. And Klop and Gordial have gotten some, some they've been made fun of for some of their quote unquote innovations yeah but watching middlesbrough or watching watford and or watching stoke it'd just be like wing drive down the side line to the touchline cross knock it down it there was a lot of like i was like oh yeah that's what soccer looks like yeah i mean that that's how watford scored they just

played a ball to the end line and i think dandy headed it back to capoe who's a nice goal yeah it was great yeah um but yeah I mean, Capoe is a guy that, you know, played for Tottenham. For whatever reason, he fell out with Pachitino. Watford picked him up and he might be their best player, you could argue. And that's just, that's sort of another way to do it. Do you think they'll regret not selling Dini for like 30 million or whatever was the price tag on him? I feel like there's no way they don't regret it.

But the other, I guess, possibility is the market's just so inflated that they just don't have to. They don't have to. They don't have to or they eventually sell them anyway. All right. Okay. Well, I feel like that's a good look. we don't have to bother with Burnley and Bournemouth. Sorry, guys.

Until next time, we'll probably be back next week, maybe around this time, to talk about week three of the Premier League, and then we might jump back in towards the end of the month, talk a little bit transfers, but there's an international break. So we won't be bothering you too much. Thanks for listening.

I'm Chris Ryan. I'm Ryan O'Hanlon. Bye.