The Press Box - 'Soccer Pod' — Offseason-Transfer Talk (Ep. 317)

Episode Date: June 7, 2017

The Ringer's Chris Ryan and Ryan O'Hanlon discuss the exciting offseason moves to be made in the Premier League this summer. They look at Arsenal (4:28), Manchester United (7:30), Tottenham (15:20), Manchester City (23:20), Chelsea (32:00), and Liverpool (38:28), and finish up with their dream-transfers (41:58). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we start today's show, I wanted to tell you about our newest Ringer podcast, Binge Mode. Binge mode is a place where we dedicate ourselves to be watching and giving you expert analysis on our favorite television shows. And it will come as little surprise to hear that the Ringer's collective favorite show is Game of Thrones. For the next six weeks, you can listen to the ringers Mallory Rubin and Jason Concepcion, the mother of dragons and the maister as they deep dive into HBO's Game of Thrones. The first 10 episodes of Binge Mode are out now and they cover the entire. first season of Game of Thrones. Every Monday, we're going to drop another 10 episodes covering another season of the show.

You can subscribe to binge mode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcasts. He's going to get there. He cuts it in. He's going out the chest. Manzuka's off the chest and your goal. What is you will ever see in a year? Oh, Mario.

Well, that was just audio from Mario Manzuch's great goal for Juventis. against Real Madrid and the Champions League final from this past weekend. We thought maybe YuVe, the old lady, Ryan. We're so close. She might come through, but instead Real Madrid becomes the first team to ever retain the Champions League. And here we are at the end of another dull and lured year. And it's soccer pod. And this is kind of the, you know, it's an end of the year look back, but more it's a transfer special, Ryan.

And I think that the reason why we were gung-ho to do this is that in some ways the transfer the off season, right? The hot stove league, the transfer market, offers soccer fans almost more variants than the actual season does. It seems like it. So there's a, you know, I read a review today and the Guardian of sort of the top European leagues. And, you know, the different writers, Palabandini, and said Lowe went over the league that they covered and talked about how this sort of static nature of who's winning these leagues has a knockout

effect, both in terms of the popularity of the game and their respective nations. but also across the board in Europe. You know, Juventus has won six Syria titles in a row. But aside from the Athletico Blip, Real and Barcelona have dominated the last 10 years. 10 years of Spanish football. Byron has survived the Dortmund insurgency and is now just... I think five in a row. Five in a row.

And, you know, there is the one place, the richest league is also the most unpredictable in a lot of ways. although Chelsea has won two out of the last three league titles. So we come into a summer where there's a lot of money floating around. Not only in England, you have Chinese takeovers of the two Milan teams. You have, obviously Paris has a lot of money to spend. There's exciting things happening in lots of different leagues with lots of different teams. And what happens is we get really excited about some of these transfer rumors, not only because they're just fun to talk about.

And they're so opaque that you never know what to believe. The thing is you could probably go into Google and pick any team and any player type both of their names, and you would find a transfer. Somebody somewhere for like The Daily Star has written a blog post suggesting that sources say Killion and Bob is interested in joining West Ham. Tribalfootball.com is my favorite. So Ryan and I are going to kind of go through some of the big storylines to watch out for this. summer. You've got, in England in particular, a really interesting situation where two of the biggest clubs in the country are finished fifth and sixth this year, right?

You know, Manchester United and Arsenal finished outside of the Champions League places. Arguably the biggest team in the world finished in the sixth place. They certainly spend like it. And then you've got teams like Liverpool who are... coming back to the Champions League after a few years away, and trying, I think, very early on in the summer to make a push to solidify their roster and do what the hardest thing seems to be in the English game right now,

which is to keep your spot in the Champions League places and to keep that consistent revenue coming from European football. Because that's something that really helped Arsenal, right, for a long time is when they moved to the Emirates. They've been in the Champions League for 20 years. And I think that we took it for granted. the top four was going to be the top four was going to be the top four. And now there's so much instability there

that the futures of these clubs are really up for grabs. Yeah, I think it's sort of like a tipping point in some ways. Like it's where either we could maybe be entering an era where the top four teams or some version of the top four sort of consolidates their place by signing the right players and continually succeeding. or the other option is that it's going to be chaos every year and it's going to be like a rotating door of the teams that finish in the top four.

And I think like you're saying, this summer can probably have a pretty big effect on that. Yeah, I mean, you look at Cordillo's probably going to revamp Manchester City's roster. At least that's what all in. I mean, they've already gotten rid of like half the team. Yeah, and he's brought in Bernardo Silva from Monaco. Yep. You've got Arsenal who you would think, if they've given Venger this new two-year contract, are going to spend really big to get back into the Champions League.

And frankly, I think they should do what Manchester United did and try to win the Europa League. Yeah. I mean, it's the reports that they've bid upwards of 90 million pounds for Mbapé and rejected. And I saw that they're considering going as high as 110 to 120 for him, which I'm sure drives Venger out of his mind because he's the kind of guy who's like I could have gotten Mbapé for 350,000 euros. Yeah, well, one of the true,

one of the things you can always rely on with soccer rumors is that like three years after a guy blows up, Venger will tell you that he tried to sign him two years ago. Yeah, Conte. And the other thing, Mbapé is, if Venger is trying to win on a two-year plan, Mbapes doesn't quite fit that. but I think Venger probably has more.

The dream scenario for Arsenal, obviously, is to bring in talent, keep Sanchez and Ozil, hopefully, for their sake, win the Europa League and give Venger one last Champions League campaign as he stabilizes the club and probably handpicks his successor. That would be sort of the dream scenario. Give him one last chance to lose to Zen at St. Petersburg in the round of 16. That's right. When you look at what Manchester United,

And that's sort of what Manchester United decided to do about six weeks before the end of the season is. Marino just kind of was like, I think our best way back into Europe is through, back into Champions League is through Europe. He started playing kids during Premier League games. Pretty much when Zlatan got hurt. I think he was like, I'm going to change the way we play in the domestic competition. I think that the best place to start would maybe be Manchester United because they're the richest team in the world. They can effectively buy whoever they want. I mean, money is no object.

It's the matter of getting people to come there. They've been linked with Gareth Bale. The Guardian has them linked with Alvaro Marada. I don't know. What do you think they need? Because I think there's going to be the Edwardward transfers that are what are the biggest, the guys who can sell jerseys, and then there's what do they actually need? I think what they need most is someone to score because they were a good team overall last year,

like their underlying numbers, they saw a lot of improvement from under Van Hal. And you know, we've talked about this before. You've seen it. They were sort of unlucky, according to some stats, to finish outside the top six. But the thing is, so much of their attacking production came from Slotan, like a crazy amount of it.

And we were all kind of amazed that it was happening as it was happening because he's so much older. and there's all the mystique of you can do it everywhere else, but can you do it in the Premier League? But the thing is, we were so mystified by it for the reason that it ended up stopping because he's an older player who was being relied on so heavily,

and his body wasn't able to take it. And so... Although, to be fair, he's already like... Yeah, I mean, let's... Do it keep you up six weeks after ACL. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. He's probably going to come back and double the EPL scoring record in a season by only playing half the season. But the thing is, it's, you know, there's a lot of teams that they can weather an injury because they have the system in place that still creates attacking production with whoever you plug in.

But that's not how Manchester United was set up this season. It was a very star-centric, Pogh creates chances and Ibrahimovic scores them. And he's gone now. So it's sort of a very obvious thing. you need someone who's going to score goals. And because the defense is very good. The midfield with Pogba and Herrera seems set. Very stabilized.

I mean, you probably need a third guy in there. You're not going to rely on Michael Carrick or Fellini forever. Does he want a destroyer or does he want a creator in midfield? I think you probably want like a deep line passer because Herrera can kind of be the destroyer and run around and then you let Pogba play ahead of him. but I think that it's a striker, someone who's going to score a ton of goals. So you imagine Rashford playing kind of like off striker as a wing

as like a kind of a wide forward then? Yeah, I think so. Because Maria certainly seem to like get very enamored with Rashford towards the end of the season, which I kind of, you know, for as much as we always like blame him for falling out with players and, you know, inexplicably kind of alienating guys. Yeah.

I do like it when he like adopts a guy and it's just like, I'm going to make you into Samuel Etto. Yeah. I think Rashford, he's not, he doesn't score enough yet to lead a team like Manchester United in the way that Zlatan led the team. I don't know if he ever will. I think he might be sort of a wide forward ultimately. That's why the Maratha thing is interesting because that's what he does. He scores just sort of no frills, basically.

And that doesn't seem like an Ed Woodward transfer. He's not famous. He's famous in Spain, I guess, but that's it. Right. So, you know, Mbapé would seem like the obvious, like, hits the marketing, you know, checklist. Yeah, like, he's a young star that would sell jerseys and could theoretically grow to be the next great Manchester United Stryker. Yeah, I know we've talked about this, too. Greasman seemed like an obvious choice for that.

That seemed like it was a done deal, and then tell people what happened with that, let it go. And then so Athletico has a transfer ban. Why did they have that? They played underage players. So they can't bring players in. So obviously they don't want to get rid of him. And he, I think, we've both said that it's a World Cup year. Things are good for him there.

He can wait another year. Yeah, so that's something to keep in mind across the board. I think this is a good one before we get into other Premier League teams and who they could be buying. is that whenever you're coming up on a World Cup year, players want playing time. And they want to have, like, because what they hate is if an international manager has a tough decision between Alexander Lacazette,

André Greisman, Drew Benzema, I mean, there's got to be like nine other French forwards I'm not even thinking of right now. And he's got to just make this determination. He's going to pick the guys he sees get playing time, right? Yeah. And it's, it was... Like, Hamas is not going to get dropped from Colombia

for being on the bench at Real Madrid. Yeah. But Lacazette, Griseman, those guys are all, like, competing for one of four spots. Well, that's the thing. You know, Griseman is better than Hamas, probably a lot of people would say. But it's the things can change so much in a year with a team like France where the roster is so stacked if Grisman goes somewhere, gets hurt or doesn't succeed. Yeah.

And, like, if Jose is like, I don't like the way you don't track back enough. Yeah. It's just like, that's it. You can see that happening. He doesn't care, and he does not care how much money they spend on it. Nicarian barely played for the first three months of the season, despite, you know, being there big, attacking midfielder signing. And it's like these other, like, three other guys blow up.

And with France, it's like we've seen it, we see it every year. There's always, like, one French player who essentially comes out of nowhere and has an incredible season and you don't write them off. So it seems crazy because Grisman's, you know, one of the most important players on France, but like, one bad year, and it can kind of throw you off. Right. So keep an eye on that.

Keep an eye on players wanting to, you know, this is money speak. Money does all the talking you need. But when you're looking at a guy like Killian Mbapé and you see him tie, you know, there's a $135 million offer from Real. Yeah. To Monaco for him. I don't really see how they could do that while keeping the forward line that they have for one thing.

But furthermore, Mbapé is going to have to decide, if I go to Real, I'm going to be behind Bale, Rinaldo, and Benzima, theoretically. Yeah. And that's not a great look for an 18-year-old who was basically the focal point of the Monaco offense, at least in champions. Yeah, I mean, Mbapapé stays at Monaco for another year. He'll be at the World Cup, maybe even starting. But there's also the chance that he breaks his leg.

And then he's set back a year. the money he could have made a man, Madrid maybe disappears. I think the thing with Real Madrid, as we've seen, like the only thing that kind of unsettled the team after they won the Champions League in 2014 was that they signed Hames and the way the team was playing was a much better fit for Anheld D. Maria.

But Hamez was the guy they signed so they had to play him basically for marketing purposes and it kind of threw things off for a little bit. And I think if Mbapé comes in for that much money, I think it's Benzima's probably on the outs more than anything. You know, Benzima would be like a really good Arsenal signing. I would feel like we've been talking about that for 15 years. Okay, so we've talked about Manchester United a little bit.

You feel like they need a striker. Let's talk a little bit about Tottenham, because they've been linked with Douglas Costa, which would be to... me like I know he had a down year in Byron but when he played under PEP and to see him, to see somebody that athletic with Kane and Ollie would be so cool and he seems like a perfect Pocitino player. But here's the thing.

Tottenham traditionally does not pay very high wages. I don't even think they have a six figure a week salary right now despite the star power that is emerging on their team. And they are also in a very weird spot. where they are going to be playing their home matches at Wembley. Yeah. Correct? And they, I think have gotten better at Wembley, but have often had trouble there.

This is like a really weird totemir. You know what I mean? Like across, if you asked me, you know, they would actually be my favorites to win the league next year. Just because I think Deli Alli is in the process of becoming like one of the three or four best midfielder's in Europe. Yeah. But it's a really tricky year and it's a really tricky time because Daniel Levy typically does not go out and buy the 70 million pound guy. No, the only time he sort of spends a lot is when they sell one of their superstars. And then buys a bunch of 25 to 35 guys.

And it takes a couple of years and then they're back here where they are. Yeah, it's interesting because at the same time it's like you look at Tottenham and you almost see, at least in their story. starting 11, you see probably the fewest weaknesses, right, of any team. Yeah. But that's the thing. It's like you need depth, especially if they're going to try to advance farther in the Champions League than they did this year. That would be the one, I guess, criticism you'd have of the team this year.

It's like they spent a ton of money on Susoko from Newcastle last summer and he, like, was essentially a net negative, basically. I don't know what he provided to the team this season. So I think with them it's another, they need, I guess it depends how they feel about Vincent Eonson. You know, it takes a while to adjust the Premier League, but he looked really bad. They need like a real striker backup for Cain. Yeah. A real guy who pushes him and could play league cup games, could play fake up games.

Yeah. And so that's kind of, but that's sort of a tough thing, right? it's like what really pretty good striker wants to come in under that situation, you know, especially if they're not paying the wages. You know, like Man City, it's like I'm going to be a backup, but I'm going to be so rich. Right. See, right. I mean, like, you know, they would be, this is sort of one of, this, you know, this is a good,

that's a good question. Because here, given the fact that they finished the top four last two years, they almost won the league this year, they have, two of the best players in England, the best defense in England, right? Yeah. You'd say like, oh, maybe Casper Dahlberg from Iax. Yeah. You know, go get the guy who's going to make the move

to Tottenham before he becomes Louis Swars. You know, like that guy who's like one team away from being one of the top 15 players in the world. Yeah. But at the same time, Tottenham's kind of like where Arsenal were about five years ago. Yeah. Now they are also playing defense. They have to protect their core.

And the more time they spend in Europe and the more time they spend on international television and the more people who are like, oh man, Deli Olli is actually like really good. He's like Stephen Gerard good. It's going to be harder to keep Dyer and Aldervild and even Erickson, you know, all these guys, one of them is going to get picked off. Yeah, without a doubt. If Barsa or Man City or Man United or Real Madrid or PSG really knocks on the door hard. Yeah. And it's so there are two ways look at it, right? It's like, you can look at the Tottenham roster and see how settled it is and see how young everyone is and be like, this team is set for the next 10 years.

That's not how it works. So it's like maybe the way you have to look at it is this team was good enough to win the Premier League last year. If they play as well as they did this year or next year, they could easily win the Premier League. So considering that, do you surround them with like a couple older guys who are going to help the team over the next however many years you have that core? have like somebody in mind when you were talking about an older guy like who who would you say well i mean douglas cost is a good example like because he's someone you can get he's someone who had a weird season with a new manager so maybe he's a little undervalued just just like so much

competition and douglas costa it's very easy to picture him on tottenham like one of those guys who looks like he's like being pulled by a rubber band down the field and that's like how Tottenham plays. So it's weird to think like we have such a young team and now we're going to bring in a couple proven players to surround them. But I think that's probably

if they want to make a run for the title, that's what you do, right? Because you don't know how long Pachitino is going to stay. It's weird to run a team and be like, we feel like we have an expiration date. We don't feel like everyone is going to stay

is quote unquote committed. But like that seems like the reality of it. Yeah. I think if they're smart, they'll, not to put too fond of point on it for Spurs fans, but they'll do what Arsenal did, which is sort of allow a little bit of control bleeding. It's like, okay, like you got let Man City overpay for Kyle Walker. Yeah. You know what I mean? You could probably find a replacement, if not a cheaper, younger version of him. Yeah.

They have some good fullbacks. But they can't lose that, anybody from the spine of the team. It seems like everyone, like Erickson. like that would be just such a hard thing to replace because of all the things he does for them. Kane, obviously, the same thing. He's just scoring all the time. Deli Ali, I don't know who there is basically in the world

that does similar stuff to him that is like that can be that much of an attacker from the midfield. You know, Musa Dembele is such a unique player. Al de Vareld is like basically holds the team together, it seems like those are the guys you have to protect, and you do, you know, you're right. It's like if you have one guy on your team who you feel like is being overvalued by the rest of the world, then you just get rid of it. It's the Bacari-Sanya guy, Al-Chii.

Yeah, Alexander HUB. Yeah, Alexander's club. One guy I think that Tatum could go after who I think could help. They would have to pay a fair amount of money, but they've been linked with Musa Dumbale from Saltic, not. They were named Musa Dembele from the Belgian midfield. It was great. And I think they could probably actually use someone like him in that role, like to back him up because he has a tendency to break down.

But Musa Dembele could play on the wing. Musa Dembele could score goals. Super athletic. That would be the kind of level of guy that I would target if I were them. That seems realistic. And I don't know, maybe you can promise him like Harry Kane might be leaving at some point. I mean, I think you can promise him Champions League football past the qualifying round. Yeah, and I think past the group stages.

I think he's close enough that you can be like you have a chance to break into this front three. Yeah, maybe you'll play a person. He's coming off of trouble for Saltick, so it's not like he's got unfinished business in Scotland. Yeah, this is true. And, yeah, so I think that that would be a good move for him. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about Arsenal. We talked a little bit about Manchester United. We've talked about Tottenham.

let's talk about the teams in blue Chelsea and City so let's start with City because they obviously have the financial weight to just do what they want much like Manchester United but they have the sort of extra level

of aesthetics that they have to satisfy that comes with Guardiola who I'm kind of surprised that we're like I read quite a few concern trolling pieces about Cardiola at the end of the year really kind of like saying you know this is the first time he's ever ended a season without trophies and you know maybe it's harder than he thought it was going to be in England and he doesn't quite have the same zip to his like persona as he did where

he was just sort of treated like a Buddha in Spain and in Germany that being said city is really good they played really well down the stretch I wonder whether they would have been even closer to Chelsea if they had had Gabrielle Jesus for the whole the whole season. And I don't really know, like, they have to rebuild their defense, although I would say that playing defense for Guardiola is very hard. Yeah. So all centerbacks are going to look a little exposed.

What do you think that they need to get? Because they can afford it. So you mentioned Bernardo Silva, and that to me is sort of, he's very good, I think. But they have so many very good attacking midfielder. Right. It's just depth. And it's weird to think of depth.

for however much they paid over 30 million pounds. So that's not, he's not taking the team to another level. He maybe wins you an extra point or two because when someone gets hurt, he's playing. They're probably going to sign Edison from Benfica and break the record for a keeper. And they clearly need a keeper. We ran a piece on our website

in defense of Claudio Bravo after the Manchester Derby talking about how well he played with his feet and what sort of that unlocked for City's potential and how that outweighed the occasional mistake he would make but that wasn't accounting for him sort of just

like losing all feeling in his hands for the rest of the season and he was just like a bad shot stopper and he had never been that in the past and that was City's like City gave up not a lot of chances, but when they gave up chances, they were reasonably high quality. So you need a guy who can stop.

A shot stopper. And finding, I guess, a shot stopper combined with the guy with the foot skills is difficult. And I think that's what they see with Edison. So if he works out that that's a big upgrade from what happened this past season. There's Manwell Noyer and then there's, you know, that gets dicey after that. Willie Caballero was their starting keeper at the end of the season. So that, it checks that off. Do they have any fullbacks that you can consistently rely on at this point?

I don't think so. It's weird to think considering how much money they have. Yeah, they essentially have no real fullbacks on the roster right now. Klishi's gone. Zabaleta's gone. Sanya's gone. Hazes Navas was playing fullback last season and he's gone. Okay.

That those two clauses of that sentence basically tell you everything. So they've been linked with Kyle Walker. Walker, Benjamin Mendi from Monaco, who looked incredible. Ivey, Alexandro from Juventus, which would be incredible for them. And I guess maybe seems possible, but it seems weird to think of city stealing. I think what Pep-Garillo needs is a little bit of good old-fashioned British steel. Who do you have in mind? I don't know.

Maybe bring Milner back. Milner, we're going to have a whole summer of James Milner telling us that he didn't want to play fullback, but is willing to help the team. I don't know. I don't know. I think that one thing watching Gardiola last year is watching his teams, and I think watching a lot of those teams at high press is that, like, they're beatable. Yeah.

You know, and if you put your defensive line is up around the center circle, they can get dogged, man. Like, it's really, it's tough. Like, I think that counterattacking football has gotten so good and so sharp that if you're going to put, you know, your centerbacks that far from goal, mistakes will be made. Yeah. It's like. We, like, playing for Barcelona, especially when Pep was there,

required such a specific kind of player, right? Like, you couldn't just sign any, quote, unquote, star, and plug them in. You had to be able to play a certain way, be flexible to a certain degree. So now it's the same thing at Man City, but, like, it's Man City and not Barcelona, you know? So I think there's, you're still,

city can get most players they want, but I don't think they have sort of the pick of the litter in the way that Barcelona still does because you can win the Champions League if you go to Barcelona City, that's sort of a far-off dream, at least it seems like it currently. Maybe he should buy Mores and re-ab Morrow's

and convert him to a fullback. Yeah, I think that's what you do. Mora seems like the kind of guy is just dying to play fullback. Yeah, he's the rich man, Tazuz, Navas. Yeah. And their centerbacks don't seem great. Well, they're not healthy, yeah.

Yeah, and they need a reliable midfielder. Like, Gundaghan, you can't rely on him to stay healthy. I don't think at this point he's incredible when he's healthy. Fernandino, still great, but always gets red cards. Yeah, yeah, Torres somehow still on the team. So they have a lot of work to do. Those are not inexpensive positions to fill. No, when I think about City and I was just thinking about their forward line with Sané,

Hazi's coming back, DeBroyne, David Silva, Sterling. They still have a Guerrero, Sterling. It's criminal, almost. We're not talking about these guys being the champions of England. And I think what Pep really, really needs, and to some extent, this is the Holy Grill for all the top teams, with the exception, I guess, of Chelsea. And maybe Manu, because Manchester United has by E.

And he's Tottenham, too. Yeah, and Totham. But the stud centerback, who is basically going to settle your team. team for the foreseeable future. The Rio Ferdinand guy comes in and you're just like, I guess we're just going to be good for 10 years. Yeah.

And that was something that's all Campbell did for Arsenal. That's something that I think, even to some extent, to a much lesser extent, not a trophy winning extent, but Murder Sacker at Arsenal, like, settled that defense for a while. He and Kisholny were like, that was like, Arsenal's defense sucked for a while. Yeah.

And they really came in and like locked it down a little bit. Yeah. The Laverine effect at Liverpool. Yeah. right I mean like and look how many titles we've won since Laver came through not every guy is going to be Sergio Ramos nor do you really want him to be I mean Ramos makes mistakes too but like that that quality that having the Chialini having the Ramos having the Rio Ferdinand having the I don't know having having that guy who's just the

absolute rock last line defender is something that's just so important especially as more and more managers switched to a three at the back Yeah. And the centerbacks are responsible for a whole different element of the game. So I think that who pet buys this summer in the department of the game in which he is maybe least concerned? Yeah. I don't know if that's a fair assessment, but it does seem like he's been incredibly lucky to have the defenders he's had in the first place. P.K., Puyol, then later, Boatang, and the variety of guys that they had, you know, aliba.

you know, like all the guys that he had at Byron, to go in and he's basically got a lot of expensive and or injured centerbacks who can't play style football, they probably are going to have to spend 120 million pounds minimum on their defense. Yeah, well, it's like as we're talking about this, you wonder how many guys can sort of play the position, that position for PEP, like in the world,

how many of them exist? And it's like Boatang, Hummels, Hobby Martinez are all at Byron. Zuma. Zuma take him off of Chelsea's hands. John Terry, obviously, but who knows where he's headed. John Terry would have to stand next to the keeper. In fact, I think John Terry should stand behind the keeper in a Manchester City defense. That would be incredible to see John Terry playing for pet.

They'd be able to write a whole other set of pet books. Okay, so City needs a defense. Chelsea won the title. It could have felt like they had won the title in January, but formalized it only at the end of the because Tottenham's league pushed. Lost the FAA Cup, not the end of the world. Going into Champions League again, Conte probably benefited from just knowing

the 14 or 15 guys he was going to play at any given moment. He just had his starting lineup, and then he had Fabergast and Wallyon and Batteshoe off the bench, even though Batteshoe was not good. Played all right at the end of the season. Yeah, at the end of the season,

he played pretty well. Costa, It's been, you know, he was like a done deal that he was going to China, and then it was like he's going back to Atletico, and now I feel like he's sort of saying, he wants to stay at Chelsea. I can't keep up with his progress. He seems to have different things to say than his agents, at least.

For Chelsea, though, this is an interesting catch-22. Part of the reason why they were so successful this year is everybody knew what they were supposed to be doing. Once they switched the formation, it was just like everybody's job crystallized, right? but you're going to need depth and you're going to need quality depth and they can afford it.

Yeah. Do they go out and buy a bunch of guys, whether it's like paying for the best player on the 10th best team in England, whether it's buying La Caccau or buying, you know, whoever? Or, and this is the same thing goes for Manchester City. Radical idea here, I know.

Do they bring up some kids? Because this is sort of the, we stopped talking about, this like two years ago. Yeah. Where I think it used to be like, oh man, like Bars's Academy or Liverpool's Academy or, you know, these kids coming up. And it used to be one of the most romantic parts about European football is like these

groups of academy players who would be coming up through the ranks and break in late in a season and then take over the next season. And, you know, whether it was like the arsenal classes of like Theo Walcott and Jack Wilcher or whether, you know, Tottenham's had like groups of young. great young players come through and they're really like thriving off of that right now although they bought a lot of those guys from different teams

we haven't had like this sort of like great academy class come through for any of these top teams Chelsea has like 60 players on their books all over Europe and in different divisions of England Tammy Abram just like destroying the championship am I crazy

to just think that they should just promote Tammy Abram not that I just admit it like a ton of time watching Bristol. I'm just saying, like, I watch YouTube like the next guy, but that seems like a much cheaper option than spending 40 million on Marada or, like, more. Yeah, I mean, I think it would be cheaper, but one, I don't think Chelsea really cares about that. Two, Conte didn't seem really willing to play Batchewai, Batchewa much this year. So I don't know how willing he would be to play another youngster. And the other thing is, it's like, You're still taking a chance with Tammy Abraham, right?

Like his stats all look pretty good. The tape looks incredible. But you still just don't know. You don't know how it's going to translate. He still just did it to Norwich. So it's like if you can buy a proven goal score, whether it's Lukaku, who today said he has an agreement with a team, but did not say what team.

Okay. Presumably not Everton would be the only thing I can. say. If you have a chance to buy that guy, one, you're getting a guy who's proven, but two, it's like you talked about earlier, you're getting a guy that someone else could have gotten. Like Chelsea seems to do that more in the past than any other team. Like the Mohammed Salah thing where they barely played him, but they knew Liverpool were going after him and they kept- Quadrado too, right?

Quadrado. They've done it with a ton of people and they can do it. They're basically like, yeah, buying to block the progress of a. another team. Exactly. And to incrementally improve themselves, I think. It's, ideally, these young players for them are blossoming into Chelsea worthy players.

But that's the thing with these youth systems that I think, I think my theory is that the quality of soccer at these teams has like exponentially shot up in recent years. In terms of the starting, like the, the senior team. What's required of you, going back to what we were saying about centerbacks. So it's so hard to develop a player that's good enough to play for one of these teams. These teams, Chelsea is incredible at developing players that are very good professional level players, but they're just not Chelsea level players. But they're like the starter on Swansea. Yeah, so there's like 0.000% of the soccer playing population is good enough to play for Chelsea.

Sure. Right? So it's so hard to get a guy to that level. So it's like they're bringing in these young kids, loaning them out, getting them better, and then selling them for way more that they brought them in for. So it's basically an investment rather than like one day will be self-sustaining. It's not really an investment in them. Which is the idea.

And then also, I mean, one of the things that happens is like a consequence of this is, and this is going to be an interesting test for Manchester United, because the two things that Manchester United under Ferguson always said about themselves was we promote youth and we play attractive football, right? And under Marino, the football's fine. Yeah. And they don't promote youth. Yeah.

Now, I think... They promote youth when the games don't matter. Right. And Marino has to put someone on the field. But considering the, you know, the amount of people that are the Manchester United, like, Academy that's so vaunted. Yeah. They haven't really done that. They'd rather go out and buy McCutarian and Herrera or buy and sell Schneiderland than give anybody in their academy a chance of playing a midfield.

Yeah. That's going to be an interesting test for a lot of these teams. I guess once you become a global brand, nobody really cares if you're playing your academy players or not. No. But I think it does matter to some fan bases. Yeah, I mean, I think people are excited about Rashford in a way that probably exceeds how good he actually is. Yeah. That's an interesting point.

Yeah. Okay, let's do a quick bit about Liverpool. Virgil Van Dyke has somewhat publicly stated that Liverpool is his preference. Yeah. Which makes this the annual Southampton to Liverpool transfer story. Yeah, exactly. We still, they still haven't learned their lesson. Who?

Liverpool or Southampton? I think Southampton knows exactly what they're doing. Yes, yeah, I would say so. Liverpool, I don't know. But yeah, it's like this has been reported by the Guardian. So it seems very real. Andy Hunter, who's like a really pretty connected Liverpool. And this is going back to what we said.

They would be spending like a record amount of money on a centerback. 60 million. club record, like shattering the club record, shattering the Andy Carroll ceiling. Yeah. The Andy Carroll-shaped ceiling. I think that was what led to one of Andy Carroll's Benny Nie and Drews was shattering himself on the ceiling. I agree. So they're doing that, and it's, you know, ideally it's, you're just throwing all this money at this somewhat problematic position,

and it's going to set your team up for the next five to ten years. But, one, there were like 12 pieces written about how Dan Laverin was the next Jamie Carragher when Liverpool signed him. And he's just not. He makes a ton of mistakes. He's also, you know, we always say this about quarterback, so they plan on a lot of offensive coordinators. I feel like Dejan Loven has had to deal with a couple of different, like, defensive systems. That's true. And he's definitely gotten much better from the first season.

But still, probably not quite the level you want from that player. So he did score that header against Dorman, though. That's true. He's a legend for that. I have a tattoo of him on my back. I don't for anyone who thought I was serious. But the thing is, Southampton plays, they're very good defensively, but they play a super deep line.

And Liverpool does literally the exact opposite. He plays a little bit higher for the Netherlands. That's true. Based on the like 10 minutes of YouTube videos of Netherlands. The Netherlands has been crushing it recently in international competition. He's got a little bit of De Jong in him. There's like a great compilation of him just like going in high on dudes. No, he's awesome.

He's awesome to watch, like can take free kicks. Yeah. He's super aggressive. But it still seems like a big risk. But I guess the larger point is that if Liverpool get him, they're presumably, he's picking Liverpool over Chelsea and Manchester City, which seems like a pretty big deal. Yeah. I think for the exact reason is I'm sure Klopp goes to him and says you will start in Champions League matches. and you will, I mean, I honestly think that he could be the captain in a couple of seasons.

And if he goes to Chelsea, if he goes to Manchester City, there's just a lot of like, well, they could get bored of you in a season or half a season, and then they would just spend $60 million on another guy. The churn at both of those places is so obvious. Also, the sentimentality is, I mean, I think that when Liverpool gets, and this is the same thing we're taught him, when they get the money up to buy a guy, they're not as quick to just be like, man, we fucked up. So we got to go get another guy. You know what I mean? Like, they don't have the

money to do that. So that's why I think that they, you know, they could afford Kloven last season and now they can afford something a little bit more. And I think that they probably feel like if they tighten up their defense, they can score goals with anybody. Yeah. If they keep that front line relatively intact.

That was the issue last year. Okay, before we go, let's do our dream transfers for the summer. So this is it's not necessarily a rumor. It's not necessarily a realistic, but it's the perfect marriage of player and team. I'm happy to go first talking about Liverpool. This is one that I think is a storyline.

Not only is something I personally want to see happen, but I think it would be a great story for the game, both in Europe but in America too, is for Christian Pulisich to go to Liverpool. Do they need him? Maybe not. You know what I mean? Maybe that's not a creative,

attacking midfielder guy who could also play deeper. I don't think we know what Kristen Pules is just going to be yet He's that good and he's that young But he's somebody who's at least got some familiarity with the way Klopp Likes to play football by being a Bruce of Dortmund And he's clearly an elite talent I think that for him to be on a team that's already very popular And the States would just raise his profile in a pretty organic way

I think he would be really good on Liverpool And that would be I That's the kind of player that if they were going to do a Manchester, that would be their Manchester United buy. That would be one where it would just be like, if we buy this guy, the shirt sales are going to pay for the transfer. Yeah, I agree.

I mean, there was rumors of this back in January, right? And it seemed like it made sense for Puehl Sitch to be like, I'm good, I'm starting for Dortmund. I have this awesome coach. Right. We're in the Champions League. He's starting to even, like, despite Marco Royce,

O'Sman Zambele, Petrizo like Patrick Obermaoyang you know like all these guys I am like a focal point of the attack yeah and the team I'm on

is better than Liverpool and now Tugel's gone and Liverpool are in the Champions League yeah so it's and Klopp can offer you a thing

that's rare I think in professional soccer that he's going to be at the club for the next the nearish future right like other places you know

manager can really say I'm going to be here for this long but the club is committed to him and he's committed to the club and Dortmund that's not the case anymore so I think and the other thing for Liverpool is like I love Dortmund I love watching them play but their level and their kind of stability seems like more like Sevilla yeah where they're going to have a manager every two years than it does exactly you know someplace like Manchester United or Liverpool and just because even for no other reason that like it's it gets frustrating to lose your best players yeah every year absolutely but Poulosich would, you know, would he start for Liverpool right away? Probably not.

And especially with like this Muhammad Sala from Roma. So you would play him on the wing? Yeah, I think you can play anywhere attacking center mid or out on the wing. He's, but he, that's the kind of transfer that Liverpool probably has to kind of make. You get a guy who looks like he has the potential to become like a legitimate superstar, but you buy him when he's still kind of young. So you're not paying a premium. Then he turns into this.

That's what they did with Suarez. Exactly. sort of Sterling too, even though he got bought really before totally reaching that. You buy Sanchez when he said Udnesey. It's like making the buy. You pay a little bit more than you want, but you get the guy before he goes to one of the big five clubs. Yeah, it's like what they did with Emory Chan, but it's a slightly higher profile. And you hope that you can, by getting enough of those guys and winning enough games and getting into enough Champions League,

you get back to being one of those top five, six clubs in the world. What's your dream transfer? Dream transfer is Wayne Rooney to Arsenal. drop them back to the midfield and have him just solidify takeover for Santa Gazzorla Is that really yours? I mean, in my mind

that would be the I would be so happy if that happened But my dream He had to takeover for Santis He used the scouse Santuzaozoa though It's so true I think my dream

My dream transfer would be It would just be awesome If like Imbape Actually went to like Barisio Dormant and just, like, took a slight next step up and just, like, played under this super intense attacking system and just, like, killed people. Is there, the I-X guy, is he going to play the same sort of intense, like, pressing game?

He, I think he's even more, like, quote-unquote reckless than Tuchel is. More like, Klopp is a little, like, I think that Tuchel is supposed to be more conservative than Klop, right? Yeah, I mean, this guy's, like, he's the deep, IAC's total football, like intense, just, like, maybe more so than any of the managers at the top clubs. That's pretty exciting. And it would just be, it would just be, the Mbopi thing is not going to happen, but it would be fun to see Dortmund sort of sign someone who other big teams were going after and them went out on that and have a guy that just came in and just like lit, lit the league on fire. right away rather than having to wait a couple years.

Okay, well, we'll check back in in a little while to go over some of the transfers as they start going through until then. Thanks for listening to Socceropod. Thanks, guys.