The Press Box - Ep. 188: José Mourinho's Style and Midfield Specialization

Episode Date: September 23, 2016

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon discuss José Mourinho's tiring coaching style (8:00), Man City's dominance (16:00), Everton's surprising start (20:00), and Pep Guardiola vs. Mourinho. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome to the Ringer Soccerpod. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the Ringer.com. And I'm Ryan O'Hanlon. Also an editor at the Ringer.com? Also an ex-Division-1 college soccer player? So when you're saying that we don't know what we're talking about, that we're just some dwebes pushing numbers.

It's not true, man. It's basically like an ex-PSG player across the table from me. Yeah, I would say so. The Patriot League and League are about the same level. Ryan, we are cutting it a little. close with soccer pot this week to talk about this weekend's games, obviously. Most of our fans are in England, and they'll

be getting up soon to watch this weekend's games. We will talk a little bit about Arsenal Chelsea, but let's just take a little bit more of a macro, 10,000 feet look at everything this weekend. And I wanted to talk about Jose Marino because he's been in the news a lot this week. Manchester United.

Maybe they'd be Fleetwood Town, Northampton Town, who they beat this week? I think it was Fleetwood Town. In the ECF? Fleetwood Mactown. Flewwood Macdown, Jamie Vardytown. Finally ended a three-game losing streak, which happened. Man City, Watford, and Firenord? Yes, Dirkout.

Yeah. So that was unfortunate, and it kind of revealed a larger problem with Joseo the manager of Manchester United, where here's a theory. Here's something I want to throw. Let's hear it. Okay. Train spotting. Really good movie.

Aged quite well. I've heard. There's a scene in train spotting where Ewan McGregor's and Johnny Lee Miller's character are shooting joggers with an air gun. And they're talking. And Johnny Lee Miller's character is like, once you lose it, you never get it back. And all the greats, everybody that we adore, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Sean Connery, all these people, they have it. But then they lose it.

Do you think there's an it in soccer and has Jose Marino lost it? I think there's an it in regard to Jose Marino. I think his, much of his effectiveness was, you know, behind him creating this, like, unified, like, us against the world mentality for all of his teams and sort of being like, I'm going to protect you guys. I'm going to throw myself in front of the press for you guys. And just trust me and our, what I tell you to do is going to work out. and it did a lot over the first 10 years of his career, and now it hasn't. So I think for him specifically, like, when things don't work,

then essentially Jose Marino doesn't exist anymore. He's not a wartime president. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like, his whole thing is, trust me, this is going to work, even though it might seem like it's not going to. And once it stops working, like it has over the past couple seasons, like he can only really say so much to the players.

Even more specifically that, it's like, trust me, this is going to work even though it doesn't feel good. Yeah. And it's not fun. Because you look at Inter, you know,

and when he won the championship league with Inter, he's got Samuel Etoe playing as a fullback, basically. Yeah. That's not fun for Samuel Eto. No. He doesn't want to do that. No, not at all.

But you beat Barcelona in aggregate and you start sobbing on the field, like you're going to feel good about it. But whenever he's gone to, I mean, I think that you could probably put the ADBC moment for him at Real. Because Real is where he gets thrown into this insanely politicized. And for people who haven't read it yet, there's a really good Rory Smith article in New York Times that kind of is about this situation with Marino at Manchester United.

But when he was at Real Madrid and it's such a notoriously gossipy political dressing room. And you've got people like Icarcius and Sergio Ramos on there who are pretty much bigger than any manager, or even Ancelotti or Benitez, wherever comes in there. And even though they won some matches there, did they win the league? Yeah, he won La Liga. Didn't feel exultant at the time.

I remember those years and just being like, man, this is like a not, for a team that has Cristiano Ronaldo, this team really feels like they're pushing it. Yeah, and I mean, he famously, they were, I don't know, five points ahead of Barcelona at one point, and he famously held a meeting with his players

and basically like ask the rat who leaked info to the press to out himself, which sort of suggests like, you know, when you're five points up on Barcelona, things should be feeling good, and he's more worried about like who betrayed him, which his priorities are not in line.

Well, I mean, at the same time this week there was a story of the Daily Mail, so take that with a great assault, but it was the story in the Daily Mail for the Gail Cleese, he was talking about how Gardeola, like ripped into their defense at Man City, even though they're arguably the best team in Europe right now.

But he was like, you know, he's not satisfied with greatness. He wants perfection. And this has been sort of the narrative, the storyline for the last 10 years, I would say, like seven or eight years, which is this Marino versus Guardiola dichotomy and this idea that Pep is this beautiful, equally a control freak, but somehow gets these expressive, incredible performances out of teams and gets these players to basically be like, sure, I'll go from playing fullback to central defensive midfielder.

I'll go from playing defensive midfield to centerback or whatever he's asking these guys to do. And Marino more or less has like a 10-minute now freshness sell-by date. Yeah. And then as soon as he gets there, it's like, oh, man, what a surprise. Like, he's ripping on Luke Shaw. there's already rumors coming out about like discord and he's throwing his players on the bus, which is such a new thing for him. He never used to do that.

No, and I mean, you talked about Inter Milan. You like hear some of those guys talking about playing for Marino and it's like he's some like famous Civil War commander that like led them. There were like 10 men left and they like fought off like the opposing battalion for like a week or something. It's a siege mentality. He creates this us against the world mentality. Yeah. It doesn't work if you're a global superstar.

No, it doesn't. And I don't even know if it, it's, it's just rings so false when you're at Manchester United. You know, it's the biggest brand in soccer. Like, is it really you against the world when you are the world, essentially? I think the thing with Guardiola and Marino now is that, you know, preface all this with, we're five games end of the season. Sure. But five games in the season, Man City looks like,

if you imagine man city getting incrementally better over the course of the season yeah which is what you would assume is going to happen there's really not much of the question of who's Sergio iguerro isn't even playing right now yeah yeah they look just qualitatively and just aesthetically way different than they did last year way better man you there may be what they were last year essentially and that's after adding pogba in slatown over the summer so Why is it so much different now than it was when they played Southampton a couple weeks ago? What I would say, I don't know how different it actually is. I think at the beginning of the season, Zlaton was scoring from not great opportunities, not high quality opportunities, and now that's sort of stopped happening.

I mean, I don't, I think that's, and that's where you're getting into small sample size to be fair. Yeah, I mean, he scored like something like five and two or three, and then he hasn't scored in two. or three, right? Yeah, yeah. He scored like on three of his first five shots or something like that. And I think part of it is, I think they've played okay. Right. Like it's not last year at Chelsea, when Marino was coaching, they were actually like legitimately bad from their results and then their underlying numbers were terrible too. So they haven't been like a bad team necessarily. Like they lost to Watford, who's a team that can surprise teams sometimes. And they're in, you know, know the results are okay so far, but that's not what Marino

promises or what you expect with the players they have. It doesn't feel like why is Marino getting beaten? It's not like he doesn't know what Walter Mautzari does. Yeah, like Watford. Watford plays with like a back three, which is like, you know, you have to, you have to play differently against that system usually. And it seemed like Marino was kind of fooled by it, which seemed weird because that doesn't happen with him.

He said that he was only going to play Wayne Rooney as a nine or a 10 or a nine and a half he's already playing him as a deep line playmaker he doesn't play a good well like he doesn't really protect pagba but he doesn't really make pogba stay in one place it's i mean the runi thing is interesting because that's like that's the kind of thing the marino in the past wouldn't have done you know he would have runy would have done the guy that he would have just taken out of the lineup right way to like make his mark like what guardiola is has done at city um what he did at barso what he did at byr exactly what he did everywhere and maybe that's related to what happened with Marino at Chelsea last year.

Like maybe he needs to respect the organization in some way. Right. So he's playing Rooney. But like, like, Rooney is just at this stage, he's just not a Marino player. I don't know if you really, I mean, he once was, but not anymore. He's just, you know, he doesn't really move. I think that when you look back at Rooney's career, you're going to feel like he was Rooney ever totally the round peg and the round hole?

Was there ever like a smoothness to the way that we thought of Rudy? Even Ferguson would be like play him on the wing and play him at the middle. The thing about Rooney, I think his value is how versatile he was. He allowed whatever superstar was at Manu to be a superstar by playing a different position. But it also just feels like, I don't know, it feels, you know, Marine you have, success over the first 10 years of his career, like, amazing success. And now he's into the second decade. And none of the best coaches in the world right now, other than, you know, Ancelotti, are guys that are, like, deep into their careers. And, like, the game has changed a lot. Like,

you know, Marignos played a very reactive style. And with all these teams trying to play possession soccer, like at the beginning of the century, it worked because teams would just make mistake and then his team would counter. But now, like, everyone is focused on, like, pressing and, like, aggressively, proactively defending. Right. And, and Marini doesn't do that. And for the last three time, the last three times, the last three teams he's managed, so

Ray Al and Chelsea and the second student with Chelsea and then Manu, he's walked into situations where there's a lot of established culture at those clubs. There's an expectation about how they're supposed to play by the fan base. and they're pretty established superstars there when Murillo got to Chelsea the first time and this is sort of like the, we can kind of cap the Marino discussion as like another theory

which is that the person that Marino seems to hate the most in soccer is Arsendanger. Yeah. There's a new book coming out that Marino I think did not really, is not an official biography by any means. I don't think he's like disowned it in anyway. But there's a scene in this book

where apparently Marino talks about if he ever sees Arson Venger like outside of the football field one day he's going to punch him in the face, break his face. And then when they asked Marino about it in a press conference, apparently, he didn't deny saying that. I'm not, I can't say that I'm like exactly in tune with why he hates Venger like that. I don't quite get it either. But the part of it might be a little bit of self-loathing because I think you're starting to see a little bit of Venger's fate in Marino. This is a guy who comes in, revolutionizes the game, revolutionizes the way it's not necessarily played in England, but maybe the tactical acuity

that you apply to a day-to-day regimen basis. Yeah, he was the, like, we talk about all the great, quote, great managers that are there now. He was the, you know, one that was there first. Yeah, and his pragmatism was perfect for Chelsea at the time, a team that had a lot of money, but not a ton of big-name players yet. Yeah. And wanted to get from, what was it, sixth, wherever they were under Ranieri. I mean, they got into the Champions League under Ranieri, I think.

And then Murinio came and took them and took them to a new level. But it's almost like he's having Venger's fate here. You know what I mean? Where it's like you were the hot dog and now you're kind of a little bit, your routine is worn a little thin. But at least Venger, for the most part, produces entertaining football. Yeah, exactly. It's like an evil version of Venger or something.

So you know what I think should happen? Let's hear it. To my solution to all this? Marino and Pochitino should swap jobs. I don't think Tottenham fans would go for that. Well, let's just say they had to. Okay. First of all, that's interesting that you would say that.

I 100% agree with that, though, what I just said. Like, Marino is the perfect guy to take the team that is at the lower part of the Champions League race to the upper part of it. Pocitino probably could install the mixture of tactical discipline with, like, flare. that Manchester United fans and board members, I assume, want to see. But the thing is that I don't find Manu boring to watch this year. It's just they're grinding a little bit, but it's not bad. No, it's not. I mean, part of it is not bad because, you know, Zlatan and Pogba are on the field,

so they're going to do cool stuff. Rishal is fun to watch. Rune will make a couple nice passes every game. But it just seems like for someone like Marino who is such a like, or in the past has been known as such a, you know, taskmaster and micromanager and having every detail how he wants it. There's no, like, distinct style to this team whatsoever. You can't really tell what they're doing. You can do that if you have, if it's Ramirez, Michael Essie, and Frank Lampard, Draugba.

Yeah. Damien Duff. And, you know, like a, if it's basically like a collective that are stronger than any of the individual parts. Yeah. Whereas with this team, you've got a bit. build a team philosophy that accentuates the individual skills of players like Pagba, Zlatan, Marshall,

like Rashford, you know, they've got too many, he's a guy who's like always said, I want a 22, 23 man team, two almost world class at least players at every position. Yeah.

And that's all I need. I don't want to be bothered with seven central midfielders who all kind of play the same position. He wants like, he wants two destroyers. He wants two. engine room guys, he wants two attack, and that's not what he has here. And I think that maybe that's sort of getting to the point with Marino in that he is, you know,

all the best managers in the world, they have their philosophies and tactics and styles, but they're ultimately all flexible in some way and they adapt and they adapt over time. And Marino just doesn't seem to have done that. So let's talk about specialization more generally then. Because this has been one of the more interesting parts about this Premier League season. which has been fun. But it's been Man City and then everybody else, I think, it's pretty safe to say.

But one of the themes that's been coming out of it is this idea of like what is a midfield? What is the proper, for every team it's different. But when you're looking at it, you have so many players who are like, I do this. I'm good at this, I'm good at that. Then managers have, well, I have two to four, usually three slots and each slot needs to do a very specific thing for my system to work now on one hand

you've got people like marino are like shit i've got pagba but pagba goes streaking that upfield at the drop of a hat leaving phileney or whoever yeah i mean that's part of your issue having to shield a back for some of whom have just gotten to the premier league then you've got on the other side, Klopp in Liverpool, who is like, the midfield is just a buzzsaw and anybody can be a blade. What are you seeing so far from the way that some of these teams have had just difficulty figuring out who their best midfield combo is and how some of those managers have responded to those issues?

Yeah, I think Man City is sort of the one team that's figured out. And essentially, like, their strategy is just like everyone on the field is a midfielder, essentially. Yeah. You know, there were times at Byron Munich where there'd be like seven attacking midfielers on the field at the same time. And, you know, those guys are just so good with the ball that, you know, it lets you keep possession

and just dominate a game. I think that's, you know, he's turned cliche and Sanya and Zabalata into midfielders now. Yeah. And he's got his keeper playing up near the center circle. Exactly. And like his nominal midfielder's are, Ferrandino is a holding midfielder,

which is what he plays. And then ahead of him, he has David Silva and DeBron both playing as, like, actual center midfielder. And they're usually attacking midfielder. But, like, the sort of fluidity of the team, like, doesn't let – and the way that they press the ball doesn't make them, like, a – you know, normally you would think of that midfield as one that would just get completely bypassed every time they lost the ball. But one thing is they just don't lose the ball. Do you think that that's a lesson that he learned over the course of time with Barcelona

where he takes over Barsa and their possession numbers are almost – complete. They're just like, the other team gets the ball a couple of times a game. But he's still playing a relatively traditional lineup.

Bustadt's is the holding midfielder, regular back four, eventually moves Mascherano back there, but it still looks like a football team that we are used to. And then as he goes through Byron and now eventually it's city where like you're saying,

he's kind of done away with the traditional starting 11 look. And now it's like, everybody here, like we need to create scoring opportunities from every part of the field from every player. Yeah, and then it's like a team can't just totally pack it in on you

because they don't know where the ball is coming from. And then the other thing is like if you're going to have that much possession, it's like you don't need like a guy who can't really pass but can defend is just useless on your team. And then even he's taking it to even more of an extreme. Like do you need a sort of classic box-to-box midfielder if you're going to have the ball the whole game, put another attack on the field. I would explain why.

Yeah, yeah, Tori is. not played for Mancite yet, even though he's making 200,000 euros a week. Yeah, exactly. Much to his agents show. Yeah. So, yeah, that's like the apex of it, though. That's very hard to pull off, I think. Liverpool, like you said, it seems like they're more of just, like, there isn't that

much between the three midfielder's, Henderson, Adam Alana, and Winaldam. They're all, like, relatively active. they can pass a little bit and they just run around. And that sort of creates like a situation where you're not as reliant on one midfielder, which I think is a good thing because Klops players get hurt all the time. But two, it also creates the problem you saw against Burnley where they had so much of the ball that you have these guys who are so good at running around and winning the ball back. But when you just have the ball the whole time, they're not going to like pick a pass through.

a pack defense. Yeah, right. So that's like the problem with playing that way. But so the key there is just to never like go behind. Well, Liverpool, I, you know, we are understanding more and more about the game every month or year with the evolution of advanced analytics and everything and scouting. But watching Liverpool, it's just like very obvious that that midfield looks a lot better when Daniel Sturge is playing up the middle.

And it's kind of interesting. You can say the same thing about, say, United. Like they have definitely not played as well since Daily Blinn got dropped from center back, I thought. And it's strange how that affects the way the defensive midfield. Flaney was a cult hero all of a sudden again

when they were doing fine. Yeah. And now that Blin's out, was he dropped or was he hurt? I'm pretty sure he just got dropped. Like, he just got switched off for Smolling, right? Yeah. So it's like, sometimes it's not the midfield's fault that the midfield isn't

working. Another place where that is kind of an interesting concern and this is probably the biggest match of the weekend is Arsenal Chelsea but Arsenal is another team with a collection of similar players and yet not over they haven't completely committed to like an almost oppressively possession style like they pass it around a lot and they keep the ball and they move it but not with the kind of assassin's creed that Man City seems to have yeah what are you kind of looking for what is your version of the best Arsenal team right now? Best Arsenal team right now.

The best midfield. Best midfield, I feel like, is probably it's Jacques, Cochalon, or not Cochalon, Kazorla, and then Ozil ahead of them. But I think the thing with Arsenal is that they have all of these great passers, but the way that their midfield plays, it's just not that structured. So like they put all these great players out there,

but their midfield never. really dominates a game in the way you would expect them to. Well, this goes back to the manager's thing. We were talking about, like, look how much better Sterling looks this year. And just from the reports you get from what they do in training, where it's like Sterling's only allowed to run within like this little box that Cordelia chocks out for him. Yeah. But then you watch Arsenal, and Tom Payne did an awesome piece for us a couple weeks ago about Arsenal.

There's just not, like, there's quote unquote freedom, but there's not any sense. Yeah, well, it's just like, it gets back to like, there are 11 players on the field and you're only allowed to use your feet. So you need some kind of like structural directive to get the ball to goal. That's just like how it works. There has to be some sort of structure for your team. You can only be like go out. You can only, you know, roll the ball out and tell your guys to just go do their thing so much. With Arsenal, it's like they just, you know, playing the ball out of the back, they sort of.

of just rely on one guy to get it from the back line and then get it to the attackers, which is just against all these teams that press in the Premier League, no matter how good of a passer you are, that's so hard to do. And the other surprising thing with Arsenal is that Jacques just doesn't seem like he's a starter. He just plays in cup games and then comes off the bench and scores deflected goals. What do you see for Arsenal versus Chelsea this weekend? And I know that we don't have to spend too much time on this since this game will be over by the time most people hear this podcast. I mean, I think Chelsea is tough because they've been really good, I think, except they've played a very easy schedule, except for the Liverpool game.

And Liverpool, the best way you could look at it for Chelsea, the Liverpool game was that they played Liverpool toe-to-to-tow, essentially. That's the most generous way of looking at it, but that's a game at Stanford Bridge. It shouldn't happen if you think you're going to win the league. Chelsea's whole thing has been, it's sort of the opposite of Man City. It's that they play these three very defensive center midfielders, and the team is just never, they just don't create enough chances, and then they eventually bring Fabragas or another strike around at the end of the game, and then they suddenly create chances.

Right, and maybe in Conte's head, like, that works fine. Maybe his version of things is to not be losing two nothing at halftime, but to be tied or be 1-1, and bring in this maestro who just unlocks the game. Which is, it's a strategy, but it's a strategy where against Liverpool, they were completely out of it. They fuck up a free kick, so Liverpool goes up one-nothing, and then Henderson scores a ridiculous goal. But you're like falling, you're opening yourself up to those opportunities when you're not playing a more, like, proactive style, I guess. You can't play exotic smash mouth.

Yeah, exactly. What are some surprises? I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Everton, who sits second at the table as of Friday afternoon. and I know that they have a player you really wanted to highlight as sort of someone who's come out of nowhere and really been impressive. Yeah, it's this guy, Adresa Gae,

I think is how you pronounce it. Yeah. They signed him from Aston Villa. Nobody really commented when that happened. No, it was like 7 million pounds. Aston Villa was one of the worst Premier League teams of recent memory, too, I would say.

But he came over from France and his stats were very, very similar to Angola Contes. But he went to Aston Villa and was surrounded by a bunch of, you could name how many Aston Villa players have I asked you. Right.

Other than Jack Reallish. I bottom over, yeah. And so it's like having a great defensive midfielder, you just don't see it when the team is terrible around him, right? But on Everton there are actually some, you know, Lukaku's incredible.

There are Delafay, great there are players that can do stuff so he is just like basically doing in some ways what Conte did last year just winning the ball constantly circulating it and then getting it to the guys who can do things yeah Everton's one of those teams they remind me I guess a little bit of the way Tottenham looked last year where they just look like they're in better shape than everybody yeah and when you watch Stoke who's just getting their asses kicked every weekend and that usually when a team I've been just anecdotally when a team is getting four put on them yeah weekend week out that usually means people have tuned out the manager a little

bit but um it's interesting to see teams that just like look in like they're in better shape like they're eating something differently than everybody else and how well they do early in the season like a liverpool like an everton like a tottenham where they're just like tottenham I know that people have talked about cane looking tired but it's strange to To see, like, sort of, you know, there's nothing wrong with, like, West Ham's got the same players that got into the Europa League or qualified for it last year, and they all look like shit. Yeah. I think the thing with Everton and with this guy gay, you know, the thing about, like, West Ham had Dimitre Piat last year, and that was, like, their huge star that upgraded the team, and he creates a ton of chances and scores goals. But with, like, an amazing center midfielder, it one protects.

your defense. I don't know if they brought in Ashley Williams. He's not like he's an maybe above average Premier League player but he's not anything special but the defense is fine. And then he also upgrades your attack because he's breaking up the other teams.

So is Ashley Williams and Jagie Elka starting center back pairing? Jaggi Elka or Funas Mori, the Argentinian guy. And then he wins the ball back and just shuffles it on to one of the attackers. But the attackers then get the ball with the other team's defense unsettled.

So he's improving your defense and your attack at once without actually playing defense or as an attacker. Yeah, so that seems almost like it is, you know, whether it's a stretch for or it's like that that is actually secretly the most valuable part of a team. I mean, watching Conte play for Chelsea this year has been, he's incredible. Like, he really is probably the difference. between Lester being ninth and first in a lot of ways. Is there anybody else out there that you see who does a job like that?

Across the Premier League. Yeah, or anywhere in Europe, too. I mean, that's the thing. It's like there are, that's, there are only so many, like, elite center midfielders, right? And that, yeah, Catermole, Glenn Wheelan, Charlie Adam, Stephen and Zonzie. But I think the point is that when a team like Everton gets a guy like that, you see them take this huge jump. Right. Because normally a team like Everton, you're sort of cycling through this set of like above average midfielders that all do the same thing.

Right. But they're bringing a guy like this and he sort of seems to vault the team. And maybe it's just a Coleman knows how to play a guy like that too. Yeah, exactly. That's part of it. Those kinds of midfielder's very useful in Southampton. Yeah. I know what I want to end on.

This piece you just wrote for us for the ringer. Talk about the best player in the Premier League right now. I'm just going to read my piece back to you. Please, yeah. Should we get, do it in Garrison Keillers, please. And the comments as well. No, Kevin DeBroyne, I think he's, Pep Guardiola recently said that he's sitting at the table next to Messi,

essentially suggesting that he's the best player in the world. And then Messi had a grin injury as soon as he said that. Yeah, which makes, makes him the best player in the world. I mean, he's just, he's been unbelievable to watch the first five games because it's just, he is an attacking midfielder, but he's an attacking midfielder who doesn't do anything crazy, isn't doing a ton of stepovers, isn't ripping shots. He kind of reminds me of bail a little bit in his directness.

Yeah. But then has David Silva's passing. Yeah, he's the directness of bail, but less athletic. And his passing gets the ball there rather than bail just running with the ball. But I feel that's him, there was a goal I can't remember it was against United but it was just one of those over-the-top passes that he just like has the most amazing first touch.

Yeah, it's a ball over the top and he runs onto it right before it gets to the center back and flicks it by him. You know, he's just, it's fun to watch him play because he always makes the right decision when he gets the ball. He holds onto it for the right amount of time which opens space for his teammates

and there's always multiple options for him to pass to in Guardiola's system, and he always passes it to the right guy. The crazy thing about Man City right now is that every one of their players seems like a bargain. Yeah. DeBroyne seems like about half of what you might pay for him right now. John Stone. Sterling seems right on. Yeah.

You know, it's just, I almost wonder what it would have been like if he had had Yovitch or any of the other guys that have kind of washed out there, but he's very good at getting rid of dudes. I mean, Mangala is going to probably relegate Valencia this year. Yeah, exactly. It's scary because, like, you know, a coach who is able to develop your players,

maybe that lets you save money in the transfer market because you can sign this, like, little-known guy from FC20 or something, and he'll suddenly be amazing, but Gort Man City doesn't have to save any money. They can buy whoever the hell they want. Yeah, and if they, if Aguero tears a knee next month, they can go buy whatever the best available striker is.

And they have been fine without him. I go back to what we were talking about with Marino. It's like, Guardiola dropped Torre in no uncertain terms and then in very certain terms and heart. Yeah. And Bravo looks good for the Guardiola system, but a little shaky in the England system. Yeah.

In terms of how he gets attacked. But you have to imagine what that must be like for a guy to come in and just be like, who's the big dog here? Who is the baddest dude? You're dropped. Yeah. And he's done that at Barcelona. and he's done that at Man City.

And that is, like, what we're saying. Like, Marino didn't do that. Rino was like, I have all these big personalities, all these guys with big agents, all these guys with PR teams, everybody's got friends, everybody's talking. And instead of saying, like, Rune's dropped, and he's a bit player.

Yeah. If he wants to continue to play for Manchester United, he's like, no, no, no, we're going to figure something out. And it's like, look what happens when you do that. Well, it's also, like, the Marino-Guardiola thing. It was like, Gordial was this tactical mastermind,

and Marino is this, like, brilliant motivator and Gordial is doing, like, the stuff Marino would do. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So it's just sort of... I mean, this can go wrong. You look at, like, what happens to Chip Kelly teams? No.

It's just like, yeah, I'm dropping. I'm going to get rid of all the talented players. Of course. It's a different sport, but I'm just saying, like, that kind of... But that kind of exertion of your personality. For sure, but he's sort of, you know, he hasn't put a foot wrong, basically, anywhere he's went so far.

And it really does, again, where it's only five games and things can happen bad to Man City, good to menu. But it really does seem like we're heading into the era of Man City just dominating the Premier League for the foreseeable future. It feels like it did two, was it two or three years ago, when Marino's first year back with Chelsea, where it was just over by December. Exactly, but it's like, you know,

Marino clearly has an expiration date on his approach working, and I don't know if that's true with Gordiola. It's going to be really, really crazy if we're here in three months and we're like, who's going to manage Manchester United next? I don't think I ever thought I would say that as like an adult soccer fan. No, but there's a non-zero percent chance, I guess, that we're there. Right, right. Would have been crazy.

I'd say it's 50-50 at this point. Because he's not a feel-good perk. Like, he doesn't do the charm offensive thing. Yeah. He leads from the, like, he's kind of a front runner when it's like, it's going well for him. It all seems fun in games. And when it's going bad, it seems incredibly childish. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't, like, Marino doesn't work if he's not winning, which

just it's a very, very slim margin for error he creates for himself, I feel like, and there's been a lot of error. All right, well, we'll come back in a week or two, talk a little bit about where the Premier leagues at, maybe some champions league, some other leagues. I know people have shown interest in hearing about Bundesliga and Syria and stuff. So until the next time, I'm Chris Ryan. And I'm Ryan on Helen. Later.