Will Kevin De Bruyne change the title race? | Weekend Preview

The Athletic Football Podcast looks ahead to gameweek 16 in the Premier League.

The main event of the weekend sees Manchester United take on Tottenham. Will we get a glimpse of new Spurs’ signings Timo Werner and Radu Dragusin, and can they hit the ground running?

Elsewhere champions Man City travel to Newcastle. Both through in the FA Cup, Pep Guardiola now welcomes back Kevin De Bruyne from a five-month absence. Can he make the difference in the title race?

The remaining fixtures see a six-pointer between Luton and Burnley, a west-London derby as Fulham go to Stamford Bridge, and second-place Aston Villa look to continue their strong season with a visit to Goodison Park.

Hosted by Adam Leventhal, he is joined by Nick Miller, Jon Mackenzie, Jacob Whitehead.

Timecodes

00:00:00 Intro
00:03:33 5-a-side formations
00:05:06 Manchester United v Tottenham
00:05:20 Tottenham’s transfer window
00:13:43 Manchester United’s transfer window
00:21:06 Højlund or Richarlison?
00:24:31 Score predictions (MNU vs TOT)
00:28:03 What genre is Jon’s band?
00:30:00 Newcastle v Man City
00:31:04 KDB’s return from injury
00:36:20 Newcastle’s run of form
00:47:42 Score predictions (MNC vs NEW)
00:48:29 Burnley v Luton
00:53:25 Everton v Aston Villa
00:57:22 Score predictions (BUR vs LUT)
00:58:12 Score predictions (EVE vs AST)
00:59:02 Chelsea v Fulham
01:04:52 Score predictions (CHE vs FUL)
01:05:25 Outro / Breakthrough player of the year

The Athletic Football Podcast is your essential guide to football’s biggest stories, five times a week this season…

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#premierleague #mancity #tottenham

Hi there this is the athletic football podcast weekend preview and it is the return of the Premier League well with me for this week’s episode I’m delighted to say Nick Miller is back how are you nick uh yeah a bit tired but all right all right tiredness because of

Overworking pressures of Modern Life the you know the weight of existence and expectation I guess so yeah I don’t know who’s expecting things of me but um but I’m feeling the weight of it nonetheless but you always deliver and it’s great to have you on the show uh as is someone who delivers

Always doesn’t make sense John McKenzie is also here John how are you I’m doing very well thank you yes how are you I’m very good before we started recording you told me a very very interesting stat and I wanted to have it on record about scoring goals and how one should do that

Tell me yeah since the 2122 season this is a startat from from a guy called Dominic Haynes who is a Lector at ucfb knows his stuff knows his stuff he’s been individually Gathering uh shot data in in the last three four seasons and in that time 60% of the goals have

Been scored with the first touch so you’re much more likely to score with a first touch than you are of of any other subsequent touch love that I like it Jacob Whitehead is back as well how are you I’m very good I’m very good although I’m not feeling sator enough dressed

Looking at you and a smart shirt and I’m in tracky bot in the studio I it’s not really good enough for me the second time today someone said yeah I know but I’m getting the the feeling that people are remarking on it because it’s the exception rather than the rule you’re

I’m I probably should just be a bit more relaxed well I’d say you’re at one end of a scale and I’m at the other end so maybe both of us just need to kind of give into peer pressure and go for a jeans and a hoodie I don’t know I think

That’s I think you’re you’re not other end of the scale I think like one end of the scale will be like white white tie and the other end is I don’t know nude uh well there’s the the end of season show yeah oh yeah there you go yeah so

Who’s who’s going to be which any we’re not going to do a show in skins that would be that would be awful it would be really awful um for anyone that’s listening to this um you’re listening you can’t see it but you can actually see uh what we are wearing if you’re

Watching on YouTube which is which is great if you if you want to see what we’re wearing um this week the winter break means that it is a hared match week so we have five games this weekend and that makes a fixture formation very very simple indeed like a fers side team

It is one 22 from Friday to Sunday would you like to hear what the fixtures are yes please here they are on Friday evening oh what a curtain Razer to the weekend it is the basement battle Burnley against Lon on Saturday lunchtime probably the most well-healed Derby of

Of them all Chelsea against Fulham then on Saturday evening it is the fixture which is now known as the oil Classico it is Newcastle against Manchester City on Sunday evening we have Everton three defeats on the spin against second place Aston Villa life is good for unai

Emory’s side and then late on Sunday 4:30 it is Manchester United only one win in five against Spurs four wins out of five and that is where we will start the show so we’re going to concentrate on Manchester United against Spurs in a moment’s time but just to reflect back

On the fixture formation um obviously it is a FIV side lineup what would be your your Preferred lineup in FIV side do you bother the F side games I’m playing there is absolutely no formation at all it’s very free form yeah it’s kind of jazz F side rather than you anything

More structured nice um John yeah I’m more of a fan of the 1121 formation so you have a a Central Center back and then you have two wider players and then a player in front and the beauty of that is you can you can have the two wide

Players one of them dropping in when the other one goes forward and you’re always giving yourself a bit of cover but I was thinking fivers side the the go is you can shoot from almost anywhere on the pitch right so you always need to have a central player to make sure you’ve got

Some kind of pressure on uh Central shots because they’re more dangerous but you also have to have an agreement that one player is going to stay at the back and that’s not often what you want to do in five side I suppose so you have to

Judge the level of the players if they really want to win or if they just want to have fun you know football can be about both yeah I’m I’m more on the the fun fun fun I’m not no fun ever when I’m on a football pitch is it all what all

Analysis and doom not really no but or just are you Aggy I I can be a bit Aggy yeah um certainly when I was younger um but I guess the the the older I get and the less important it becomes the the more mellow I become I can still be a

Bit ay Jacob you bothered about formations when you’re playing F side couldn’t care less brilliant let’s go on with Manchester United against Spurs it was 2-nil to Tottenham you’ll remember in the reverse fixture which took place on August the 19th two teams looking pretty active in the January transfer

Window um let’s start there um Tottenham they’re making moves let’s get the assessment of the moves that they have made first of all teimo Vera um we did a special show earlier on this week on the athletic football podcast we had Seb staford blor in the studio Liam tumy and

Also Jack pit Brook just to analyze um whether it’s going to be a good signing or not John what’s your your take on it do do you fancy this one I think it’s important to distinguish between um deals and and signings um so I think this is a good deal for Spurs they’ve

Got a player with an option on loan with an option um they got going to have the chance to not only cover kman son when when he’s away um but they’ve also got the option of essentially trying out verer within the system they have and if it doesn’t work

Out they can send him back and the option they have seems to be a pretty affordable option so I think it’s a very good deal in terms of the signing itself the questions are whether or not this is the sort of profile of player that that

They need it feels to me as though verer is is one of a profile that they have a number of already um and so in terms of whether or not we think it will work out that’s a different question entirely but I can understand why the the the recruitment department at Spurs would

See this as a good signing and therefore go for it I didn’t know where you were going with the differentiation between de signing but now when you’ve said it I I think yeah it makes complete sense um when we did that show earlier on in the

In the week um Jack pit Brook basically called Teo verer a banter player um of course he did do you agree do you do you agree with that in terms of um that this is this is doomed to fail or do you think actually no this makes perfect

Sense and in this environment this Tottenham environment is more likely to make is more likely to work for him yeah I mean you sort of have a little bit more faith him in him going to Spurs than anyone else partly because there as kind of John mentioned there’s not a

Huge amount of pressure on him individually he’s not being signed to kind of solve a problem he’s being signed because well they can and he’s he might be quite decent cover and also you know Andre poog was managed to get a tune out of a few players who previous

Spos managers haven’t so you know Lelo being the the kind of obvious one so you can understand the optimism of a lot of Spurs fans I’ve seen is quite sort of heartwarming really that they they think well yes this this guy hasn’t been good for about four years but maybe he could

Be good for us um and there is a an element of of logic to that um so yeah I mean I I don’t I don’t think he’ll be great but uh but he might be and as John says they’re not kind of losing much in finding out they have a new um German

Striker who may well play at Old Trafford we we don’t know yet um and they also have a new Romanian defender in Radu dragan are you an expert on Mr dragan Jacob sounds like a sort of Pokemon character to an extent when you put it like that but uh no I am not

Although uh the deal does seem to make a lot of sense for Spurs in that the deal or the signing oh Asha I correct myself I’d say signing yeah yeah yeah yeah that sounds good for signing uh makes lot of sense him he’s a player who very much

Fits posto system with an eye on the future and it’s an area in which they do need depth especially as we see there’s kind of this churn of a squad going over kind of as we’re speaking at the moment as Eric D kind of on the way out towards

By Munich and it’s just quite nice to see them be all quite put together and have two deals done by January the 11th I it’s it’s going to change the way that I talk about transfers and I’m going to be talking about transfers a lot during the January transfer window the deal and

The signing it’s important um oh just before we we actually ask again about um dragos San because there’s there’s something interesting that was said about him on verer we put out a poll on Spotify this week asking if ver is going to be hit and 60% of Voters said yes do

You know how many of those voters were Spurs fans I don’t because it’s it’s a safe space for people just to engage in the in the poll they don’t have to be out Spurs fans they can be you know no they they don’t they don’t have to tell

Us anything about their lives it reminds me the um Arrested Development meme you know the one where they say has it worked for anyone before it’s like no but it could work for us yes that tends to be the way that most fans I think think about signings if if it’s a player

Who is sort of being perennially Mercurial it’s like this is going to be this is going to be the time it works for us so it could go could go either way could it says it says nice things about the human spirit I think you know

That we’re we’re all to to the point of delusion tend to be optimistic about these things I think there’s something quite exy about it like no I can be the one that changes him yeah it’s very much that sort of vibe well I wish him well and I don’t have any expectations good

Or bad for him I hope it all goes to plan for team overa unlike the rest of the room hang on now hang on hang on hang on we’re not you know we’re not we’re not saying we want it to go badly I think we the suggestion is that it might not work

Out entirely brilliantly on the basis of the evidence there’s been a lot of moves that he’s made where it hasn’t worked out so it seems it seems interesting that a lot of people are quite convinced that this will work out well we we will

See um I I’ll ask about Eric Dyer in a moment because I just wanted to speak about him but on dragan um funny quote from his agent and he said we can’t believe we turned down Bayern Munich uh Ru had given his word to Spurs and chose to respect this we’re

Still a little bit mind blown about it all which I thought was a a good quote I don’t know if it’s sort of trying to sort of big up big up the negotiations and and big up the player a little bit um but it is interesting to have turned

Down B munit to come to Spurs and it’s a little bit old school as well I I’d given them my word it’s a bit sort of getting a you know getting in a car up the M1 to meet with Sir Alex Ferguson or Graham Taylor or an old school manager

And saying no you know we did this the old school way but fair play he’s he’s stuck to his guns this is the same agent who before the deal was even fully announced was saying that he expects him to play For Real Madrid one day right so

I’m all for the whoever this guy is we haven’t it feels like we haven’t had like a really like obnoxiously gobby agent in in the I was listening to something where they were talking about I can’t remember what the guy’s name is the yot tor’s former agent who the guy

Who complained about his birthday cake and made him look absurd we haven’t had one of those guys for a little while um so yeah whoever this guy is I’m all for it it’s a nice Dynamic isn’t it I quite like the way that this quote doesn’t necessarily make the agent look that

Good it kind of looks as if it’s accidentally happened to him and oh wow wow Tottenham here we go well here we go let’s ride by the seat of our pants now boys yeah well to be honest however much um recruitment at times can be very well

Planned and executed perfectly a lot of it during the transfer window is a little bit haphazard a little bit WhatsApp based and a little bit sort of a little bit crazy and I suppose you could you could look at Eric Dyer heading to to Bayern Munich in in that

Sort of vein it’s a great opportunity for him it seems to make sense but it’s probably not something that we would have predicted no it’s I mean if you were being quite harsh about you could say it’s a sort of failing up example because he’s not he subject of one of

The more cutting quotes of the um of the season from pastu last weekend when I can’t remember who it was that got injured it was Ben Davis yeah and someone said to poao with Davis in you can you afford to uh to get rid of Eric

Dyer and there was a pause and he said yes yeah showed his real sort of Ruthless side yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean well there’s this kind of idea that when he first arrived that he was this kind of cuddly of vular figure but you know I

Think as we’ve seen he has certainly has the capacity to not be that yeah he uses the word mate in various different ways I think as a full stop yeah exactly um in terms of Manchester United they’ve they’ve said goodbye to to Jaden Sancho he’s headed back to um barusso Dortmund

Is that something that that makes sense for all parties and does it make you think the fact that they’ve only done it until the end of the season that maybe haven’t necessarily got as much confidence in Eric ten hog as they do Jayden Sancho I I noticed on the running

Order it says a good deal so you see you’re already thinking in those terms in in the running order but yeah it it does seem like it’s a good deal for all parties from a from a business point of view that’s the distinction that I’m making you’ve got a player on your book

So you’re you’re not using you spend a lot of money on you have the possibility to send them somewhere else maybe raise their their profile so you can claw back some of the the value for that player so does seem to be uh a good deal for whatever reason hasn’t worked for him

Under Eric tenh har there’s probably I would say tactical SL structural reasons why that might be the case so um I can understand why you might think send him back to Dortmund where he just had an incredible couple of Seasons when he was there and see if he can re reinvigorate

The the the former Jaden Sancho so that’s I think that’s the way I’m understanding in terms of um the shortterm nature of it I’m I’m not I’m not actually I don’t really know what’s going on with the deal so I wouldn’t like to make a comment on that so

That’s fine that’s the first no comment we’ve had on on I just I don’t like talking about things I’ve not really thought about and I don’t think I’m in a good position to to comment on that I like the way the phrasing was quite managerial oh right yeah sorry it’s like

Being in a press conference go on ask do I need to say mate at the end of it yeah exactly just to S to get us to move on I will move on Don’t worry um since oh go on Nick go I just wanted to say this is

The it’s a very early but it’s the first step in what could be a majestic paland dromic career for Jaden Sancho what we need now is for him to move from Dortmund to Manchester City and then to Watford to close out his career which um there’ve been there have been a couple

Gig Buon MH uh is that just three clubs it’s just one one two yeah yeah so it’s five sort of moves oh yeah of course yeah um and then and Andre sh shanko as well um but someone I did uh someone on Twitter on EX formly Twitter sorry uh

Did post a career paath of a player called Justin Gully who um how who play for team Wellington in New Zealand then Wellington Phoenix reserves then Wellington Phoenix then team Wellington again then Wellington Phoenix then Wellington Phoenix Reserve then team Wellington it’s quite appropriate that he played for Phoenix

And it’s the cycle of death and rebirth isn’t it exactly there you go so yeah U I don’t want to you know tell Jen San how to sort of construct his career but if he could go back to Manchester City after this and then to Watford that

Would be super that’s not going to happen but it’s made me think about a a piece that’s a it’s a good athletic piece isn’t it the palindromic careers of great I was thinking about this but I’ve sort of um I’ve kind of abandoned a couple of pieces this week and I think

Myor might just kind of set me on the spot if I then go to him and say can I something about paland dromic careers please yeah we’re business here Nick what’s wrong with you quite um I was going to ask you John quickly about um your sensible transfers uh video about

What Manchester United should do obviously we’re talking about outgoing with with Sancho where do you think they should sign and where do you think they will sign so it’s really tricky because there’s two things one one thing is is that they’re right on the custom of ffp

So it’s unlikely they’re going to do anything this window unless they bring in a loan with a with an option or uh if they sell someone to bring in funds to to do that and there’s the possibilities that they can do that but January is a

Is not it’s not the best window to try and try make notoriously difficult month that’s right yeah so in terms of what I expect Manchester United and this is what we did in the censible transfer video on on the T IRL channel was we said well looking forward what are the

The areas where they where they could improve where they could raise the the the value the level of the squad and the problem then is that they’ve just been bought out by new owners or at least the sporting control has been taken over by new owners um we don’t know if the

There’s going to be a new sporting directory in place by next summer which is when big transfers would likely happen we don’t know if they’re even going to have the same manager um so what we did is we identified a couple of positions where you can comfortably

Raise the the profile of player um the level of the player in those positions so we went with um the the rightwing position because the money that was spent on Anthony clearly hasn’t hasn’t translated into the sort of level of play that you might want in that

Position so we had to look at a few players who could be signed in the in the right wing position we actually ended up going for actually I’m not going to tell you if you want to find out go and go and watch our video and

Then we looked at the right center back spot as well because man united have quite an interesting group of players in in the center Center back spots they’ve got LeAndre Martinez who who’s you know long-term starter you would think but then beyond that there’s not really

Anyone who you’d think is going to be you know a starting player for the next five years so we uh we explored some like younger um Center back options who would compliment LeAndre Martinez as well I think that the central Midfield area is a is a a topic of conversation

Worth having but again it’s it’s it’s so interesting because they’ve spent a lot of money bringing in starting level players none of whom seem to fit together um so again we were like this this is a massive problem that a manager as a sporting director in the in the

Future is going to have to solve but we’re we’re not going to do it we sort of ran away from that one but that’s definitely a question to to be raised as well cool so you’ve been both a football manager saying no comment and you’ve told us about yeah the actual players

That Manchester United should be signing fine okay yeah no do check out the video it should be good I will have to go and do that like everyone else fair enough okay um to the game we’ve been talking about transfers a lot haven’t we we’ve been infected by the January transfer

Bug January it’s since the season yeah absolutely but on the game um Spurs as we mentioned before in really good form they can actually go above Arsenal into the top four with a win um are we thinking that it’s almost destined that that Spurs will continue their run or have we seen anything

Recently from Manchester United to suggest that they’re they’re being galvanized by their new sort of football Department franchise that has been brought in and it’s got everyone a little bit more on message in in some way shape or form I mean I don’t think

So I mean I think I think By Design This is the what um inos and Jim R Cliffe and they raford are doing is going to take a bit of time I think I saw somewhere that the time scale is that they’re going to have a long look at everything over

About two months which you know is not going to sort of result in short-term you know results and that’s a sensible thing to do right which is a very sensible thing to do it’s it’s you know Manchester United are are a club that desperately needs some kind of you know

Sensible long-term thinking so in theory it’s it’s very sensible whether you know whether they will actually manage to make sense of it uh I have no real idea but um in in theory that’s the right way to do things I wanted to ask you a

Question Jacob if I can um and this is maybe sort of symptomatic of of maybe confused sort of um recruitment from Manchester United and obviously a nod to um hun Menon who’s away at the Asia Cup who would you rather have Upfront for Manchester United holand or Rich charison I would say holand

Based partly on his age and his potential and so if you’re wanting to embark on a long-term project I think that holand shown a lot of traits since arriving at Manchester United which are really really valuable and his attitude seems spoton and I mean I am I would

Describe myself as a rich charison apologist as well um because of your Everton Roots uh yeah I mean like he it kind of gets overlooked of how important he was in rescuing Everton from relegation in difficult times so maybe he would do well amidst turbulence of Manchester United uh although you could imagine

There being a bit of uh clashes online with how richison can be sometimes when he has a chip on his shoulder which is always um but yeah I I think I would go for hland because I think actually in his last it’s been four four or five months now since he’s joined Manchester

United I’ve gone existential like Nick at the start of the podcast but um no I I would I would go forland I’ve actually been really impressed with richison recently obviously he’s had his upturn in form but he you know came back had obviously had issues off off the field

Um and it’s just the going back to the point that you made right at the beginning of the show shoot early don’t think too much and he’s been put in those positions by the way that Spurs are playing especially early on in games

Get the ball wide get it in the B get it in the box and be in and around the the six yard box that’s where he’s that’s where he’s perfect yeah I think these two players are quite interesting because they get judged on the misses they make but the difference between

Holand and rardon right now is that rardon is scoring goals um and I think that’s that’s all you really want from your Striker you your Striker can look clunky can look you know messy can can can can look awkward but if you’re getting into the positions and scoring

Goals even if you’re missing a lot it it doesn’t matter and the issue with with hland is that he’s not got that return of goals to sort of to to sort of back him up right now so I think both both these players are fantastic players they

They rardon has had a good career and continues to have a good career holand will have a fantastic career going forward uh but I think holand is playing for a team at the moment who maybe aren’t servicing him as well as as as his skill set would require and ralison

Is and the difference is translating into into those goals so I it it’s always the way with with Strikers that people remember the misses more than they remember the the goals and I think with rardon I mean he’s he’s pretty high up the the scoring charts despite the

Fact that he’s not played um all of all of the the games this season he’s not played all of them in his favorite position which is the nine slot he’s played in in the wide area as well um so I think it’s been a good season for R

Charlon despite the fact that you know it’s NE it’s it’s natural that everyone is going to focus on the you know the big the big stories which is some misses had a lot of problems Etc I think he’s quietly had pretty good season now we’re going to do our predictions now and

Before we do them before everyone size in the room maybe some of the listeners at home or people watching at home on YouTube but the reason we do predictions is to see if the people in the room know what they’re talking about and oh God we

Have now or I have now started to actually pay proper attention to the predictions I’ve written them down and then I can cross reference with what was said with what happens and I must say I like it because what happened last week ahead of the Sunland Newcastle game

Ahead of the Arsenal Liverpool game um we put our P predictions now down and John I must say you were correct in predicting that Newcastle were going to win at sundland at Tim Spears and Nick you were incorrect Arsenal Liverpool who said 2-0 to Liverpool me John did

Both Nick you PR you predicted a win for Liverpool Tim got both of his wrong um but JN got it spot on so I just like to say Well done John yeah thank you and has that heartened you and has that made you more of a fan of predictions has it

Made you a bit more competitive knowing how Agy you are do you know what I as I as those words came out of my mouth last week on the podcast I was like why are you saying that do you even do you even believe that but then obviously it

Tended I I think I actually contextualized it by saying Liverpool really good at actually destaing Arsenal and and reducing their amount of control I watched that first half and I was like I was Miles off here um Arsenal are in control Liverpool have done nothing to dis stabilize them then the second half

Liverpool made some tactical decisions which then allowed them to do that and then they ended up winning two-nil so halim I was worried second half I was like yeah had it in the bag but yeah I I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about in the podcast so don’t say that

Out loud um let’s concentrate on the predictions for this game if you’ve forgotten we’re talking about Manchester United against Tottenham Jacob this just feels incredibly chaotic to me I what the show or the game right I was going to say the game but kind of if you’re projecting then feel free it’s

Chaos personified carry on um yeah I mean just in a sense at both these clubs I mean it kind of reminds me of a Monty Python sketch kind of you’ve got POA kogo urging up Romero as he has no limbs left a halfway line and Manchester United tripping over her own swords uh

Three all three all three all well done Jacob I like that bit G bit spicy jolly good John H I’m just going to go on current form and I’ll say 2-1 to Spurs 2-1 to Spurs so that’s a one two and Nick uh I’m going to I think Spurs will

Win but I agree with Jacob that it’s going to be spicy so I’ll go with a just a little less spicy than him and say 3-2 to SP so we two three are you do you not do predictions is that is that how this works I can do a prediction oh yeah do

You want me to do a pred need to to start joining us uh okay I will put Al down and I am going to predict it’s going to be a 31 win for Tottenham it sounded like you were flipping a coin in your head there that

Seems a weird score to do that I’m pretty confident what the score Line’s going to be just don’t know which way exactly exactly but just a sign as how my mind works as well I’ve written down these uh predictions on my pad and also I’ve obviously doodled about my favorite

Um band name which would be John McKenzie and the underlying numbers which um I would like to see you emulate at some point in your life is that right sure sure uh I think it I think it would be quite an aggressive sort of punk um Ensemble nice

I was being told by my cousin over Christmas about something called math Rock m so maybe can you tell me more ma it’s math Rock it’s I’m going to get is that hardcore no it’s sort of yes someone doing algebra to the background of some heavy Techo or

Something now math rock is sort of like complicated sort of angular kind of not not particular not always particularly heavy but the kind of the kind of music that someone will go oh yeah no I I really like their first album would would enjoy which I

Include myself in that um okay do we have an example of yeah I was going to say I can’t really think of one off the top of my head almost as if like Tom York and latra radio head was on LSD and such compose I’d say quite possibly yeah really funky time

Signatures Wikipedia is telling me King Crimson and Rush is the first Sometimes I look around says roots in B I look around this room and I and I forget what we’re here for and why we’re doing it and um it’s the burden of being polys we just do predictions and then

Everything else is just fill right that’s the point exactly should we move on to the next game of the weekend it is the oil Classico technically not the oil classic no oil you’re making it Double R through us I believe that’s that’s what that’s called shall we move on to the

Next game of the weekend it is not the oil Classico as I called it earlier on because that would be the the Classico it is oil Classico so Saturday 5:30 it is Manchester City against New Castle at St james’ Park um did anyone see how easy Manchester City beat Huddersfield

Did you watch that game I sort of vaguely had it on the background while I was making a stew on Sunday and it was it didn’t look like a particular didn’t really look like a football match no it looked like a training a training session actually it REM it actually looked

Like a social video that I saw this week where Gary O’Neal welcomed the under n team of uh wolves to play against the first team that’s what it was like Manchester City but weirdly it the men against the boys it was actually Manchester City’s youth team that was

Also beating Huddersfield uh for much of the game they were just bringing on all these young guns that are going to go go far um obviously a few other senior players uh featured in that game as well um Newcastle by the way also as we mentioned Cruz passed sundland 3-0 one

Of the senior players that manchest City featured and it was a nice comeback for him was Kevin De bruyne Off the Bench got an assist as if he’s never been away apart from the fact that he’s got a new floppy haircut which I which I quite like just to differentiate this season’s

Kevin De bruyne may look like he’d been out injured since the 1990s yeah yeah I liked it though I like it I I think he looks sort of just content looks a bit a little bit little bit Jacob Whitehead actually my is it not flop enough maybe more actually more you more

Youing yeah M’s a mixture of these two mixture of yeah sorry John I’m sort of leaving you out of this this conversation I’ve yeah I’ve heard about hair anyway let’s concentrate on Kevin De bruyne um it’s good to see him back and do you think that the the rest of

The Premier League are genuinely going right right he is back and then they’re just going to go up on a on an upward trajectory even though they’ve not Fallen maybe as far as people would have expected them to because of a reasonably bad patch of form yeah there a couple of

Things here one is that I think the issues with Man City haven’t actually been on the attacking side which is obviously where you’re getting the majority of um Kevin De bruyne’s upside I think that most of the issues actually been defensive and so bringing de bruyne back I think obviously it’s going to

Make them better um and it’s going to be Philip for them but I also don’t think that it’s going to solve some of the issues that they’ve been having because I think they’ve been attacking they’ve been generating fine numbers this this season it’s that they’ve been giving

Away silly goals so you think about the game against Chelsea where they just kept letting them come back into the game game against Spurs similarly um giving up giving up very few chances in the game but those chances being big enough for other teams to capitalize so

Um but yeah I’ve got a I’ve got a just a quote from um the opta analyst who who wrote about this very very topic this this week um and they said there’s little question that man city are a better team with de bruyne but actually it’s not necessarily going to um

Significantly be be a significant needle mover in terms of the attacking play because since the start of last season City have played 33 League games with de bruyne and 24 without on average they’ve scored 2.5 goals with him and 2.4 without him conceded 0.8 goals with and

1.1 without and have won 2.3 Point uh three points per game with and 2.2 without so it’s not it’s not and you know with and without stats are always a little bit of a funny thing but it’s not this doesn’t suggest that what we’re going to start seeing is Man City just

Revitalized in many respects they’re always good yeah so he just makes them slightly better so the weird thing that’s happening I think is that this season they’ve not been good usually they’re good with or without him now they’ve been not good and he’s not been

Around so it’s easy for you to draw the line of causality there but yeah the big question I would would raise is like what’s going to happen this season Once he’s back are they still going to have some of those maybe more defensive issues that they’ve had so

Phil foden has been wonderful to watch recently for for Manchester City um I guess there might be one school of thought that he won’t be necessarily as as dominant in games or allowed to to dictate as much now with Kevin De bruyer back or do you think that it will just

Be that they will complement each other perfectly well they I mean they’ll probably compliment each other perfectly well as they kind of have done in the past and that you probably won’t I don’t know whether they’ll be on the pitch like together uh a huge amount because the Guardiola obviously has this of

Collection of forwards that he can you know rotate and he has the the luxury of being able to ease Kevin De bruer back in if if he if they were really in the soup then then de bruyne would be straight in there um from the start of

Every game but he he has a bit more leeway to just kind of be a bit more gentle with him um but yeah F foden and de bruyne could play together in the middle foden could play out on the right um he he might not be quite as dominant

As as he has been but you know I think wherever he plays across that kind of attacking line he’ll be brilliant it’s interesting that everyone’s sort of thinking right Kevin De bruyne is back um Manchester City are going to go on an even better run and you look at their

Run of fixures and after this game against Newcastle they only play one of the current top 10 in the Premier League until early March which is Chelsea so that’s not even a tough game anyway so um it’ll be interesting to see uh if anyone can stop Man City and they’ve

Also got harand to come back as well just to sort of really R everyone’s faces in the dirt on that on the run that they’ve got they then get to March and they have a bit of a tricky March I mean it could be the case that they 10

Points clear by then or whatever but they get they have the Manchester Derby early March and then they got a uh fixture against Copenhagen in the Champions League but then it’s Liverpool Brighton Arsenal and then Villa right the beginning of April as well so that’s

Going to be the crunch run for them if they can be ahead by then and and get through those fixtures you think that they’re going to be looking pretty formidable in terms of winning the league I’ve seen Jacob looking to one side and looking to John and looking to

Nick and say why is he not asking me about Manchester City well because I’m going to ask you all about Newcastle due to your previous Incarnation as a Newcastle expert for people who aren’t familiar you spent how long up there covering Newcastle n nine months or so

Nine months are you glad to be back down south or do you miss it up there I miss Newcastle a lot I missed the beach it’s not quite the same as kind of the Via dogs isn’t quite as pretty as uh the Northeast Coastline in terms of how they’re doing

Now um one win in the last five in the Premier League they’re struggling aren’t they and it will be interesting to see if that Newcastle Sunland fixture and everything about it was a welcome distraction and now they can return back to the Premier League with a little bit

Of a spring in their step having beaten their their local Rivals and and it can have some impact going into this game or do you think that it’s it’s it’s wrong to judge them taking on man city I think the thing with Newcastle is they’re quite hard to Benchmark as a

Side of of the last couple of months because obviously wi over Sunderland as cathartic as it was was over a who have much less Talent than them you’re now judging them against one of the best few sides in the league and even if you take their results over the last month they

Were bouncing from a run of incredibly tough games Champions League fixtures late knockout heartbreak into suddenly games against weaker opposition with lots of injuries which they were really really disappointing in and did lose those games against Luton notingham forest and it kind of feels like for

About 3 or 4 months they haven’t almost had a run of what you would classify as almost ordinary fixtures with a semicoherent squad where you actually get a chance to sit back and sort of be like how good are they they’re sort of lurching from one moment to another like a sitcom

Um I don’t think they’re by any means in any sorts of disaster I think a slump is fair but they almost need to get through this match put in I’d say coherent performance and then they do have a nicer run of fixtures which they can start to attack with a squad which after

About 3 months is almost back to something resembling Fitness can they hurt man city in any way do you think definitely I mean if you look back to the start of last season which is the last time that Manchester City visited in the league it was a three old draw

Draw in which ver ripped apart large spells in attack and it was only some late man city goals which pulled it back then the last match which they had at St James’s Park was in the carabal cup earlier this season uh when Newcastle actually won so

There’s been lots of Doom and Gloom from supporters who pointed out that man city are newcastle’s uh least favorite opposition in the Premier League uh era if you go by points per game but kind of if you set that to one side it’s not necessarily um an automatic loss they

Only lost one nil earlier of the Season uh at Man City in a game where they didn’t play particularly well and had a chance to equalize late so yes there are alwayss vac hurt Newcastle especially when you’ve got a player like Bruno gimz Alexander is at back fit and form which

People had Anthony Gordon are in I wondered about the the cup game against sundland because I mean this is it’s very sort of simplistic um way of looking out their their recent poor form but they just look knacked for for most of the last you know month six weeks and

Then although with the the caveat that they were playing much weaker opposition they didn’t look knacked against Sunderland they seem they I don’t know what you know what would have changed in the kind of intervening period to make them not quite as but yeah they just seem to look a little bit more

Lively and although obviously you can’t take a huge amount from beating Sunderland 3 nil in that respect I don’t know they just they seemed a little more a little revitalized I think they’re starting to get into no excuse territory in the fact of this is a team who haven’t been used

To playing twice a week they last time they played in Europe was 2013 under Alan paru and that took a lot out took a lot out of them both physically but I do think also emotionally this is a club who see their rightful play as being back in the Champions League who put

Huge set huge store in terms of their personal identity in terms of being in the Champions League and who exited it in relatively cruel fashion I think that’s just the whole thing around it the circus around it took a lot out of him before that Sunland game they had a

Week with no match they’ve now had another week off with no match and players are back and so I just think that now that they should have like Eddie how said that intensities our identity it’s quite hard to have much intensity when you’re absolutely exhausted Newcastle had 10 points off

The top five um it’s what 11 points off Arsenal in in fourth they’re not getting into the Champions League this season are they John doesn’t look that way no and to follow up from what Jacob was saying that you know they they’ve lost that intense that they have and

Intensity being a big part of what it is that they’re trying to do I think the problem with any of these s very aggressive High pressing um approaches is that if you don’t have that then you you don’t have anything to fall back on and it’s a similar thing that we saw

With early Jurgen Club Liverpool where you know it’s all about gagan pressing and you you get into the Premier League and then you realize not only are you coming up against teams who can break your press quite easily um you also being you know you’re being EXP expected to press against um players

Who who who are individually very very good as well and I think the the problem with that is that you need to have a more varied game and I think that’s what we’re may be finding from Newcastle now is that if you can’t guarantee being

Able to win the ball high up with high turnovers cause team’s pressure problem so they can’t build up themselves you then have to be able to possess the ball yourself and have some kind of ideas of what what you’re doing in possession and I think that’s going to be the next

Stage of the Newcastle Evolution they need to be able to be more controlling in the games where they aren’t going to be able to press oppositions and what’s your gut feeling I’ll take anyone on this um on where that next step of their evolution is and I’m not

Trying to talk Eddie how out of a job but I guess that the perception perhaps may be that he’s not a big ticket item that maybe the the Saudi owners might want down the line to maybe push them on to getting into the champions league on

A on a regular basis or am I doing him a disservice do you think that they should sort of stick with him for the for the long term for the next two three years and he would be the guy that could guide them through this or what’s your s it’s

More less less an Intel Le question more a sort of a gut feel yeah I think there I I’ve kind of thought similar about whether how would be their sort of their you know their first manager and then they would bin him off for someone a little shinier but I think there’s

Probably an element of projection to that as to what we think that a ownership group with a huge amount of money should do because in terms of the the the players that they’ve signed they haven’t you know they they didn’t do the Rabino thing they didn’t buy some kind

Of glitzy Superstar who was going to make a splash they they’ve spent a lot of money but they’ve kind of broadly speaking spent them on spent that money on fairly s of sensible players so they did it in a sort of a covert way though they did still spend how much did they

Spend on chriswood uh uh Chris Chris Wood I don’t know they about 12 million or something I can’t remember what it was but but like but bought him and then just sort of tracked him in the bin yeah in the summer I mean that’s quite that’s

Quite a sort of a showy thing to do is it not a weird weirdly coverty sort of introverted way of doing it God bless him I’m not sure you could describe anything that Chris Wood does is enormously showy um he did score a hattick there he scored a wonderful

Hattick and I it made me enormously happy yeah um but yeah it’s more the kind of type of players yeah yeah yeah yeah I get what you’re saying and that maybe that sort of theory will extend to the manager as well I thought that the early transfers were quite smart because

You know you bring in a player like chriswood and then they they brought in players who they thought would get them out of that initial relegation battle and then they brought in players to raise raise the level and I guess they have problems with depth now and like

You say with with Eddie how that’s the easy option right to be like well we’ve got as far as we can go now let’s just get a new manager in which perhaps that is the best way of going forward but we’ve seen plenty of other managers learn develop other aspects to their

Game I mean the You could argue the same with someone like Metta he was given time and it allowed him to get his team to to to that level joggen Klo we’ve already mentioned as a as a sort of prototype um for for this Newcastle team and again what we saw with with

Liverpool was like finding ways of being able to develop in possession ideas that complemented their intensity out of possession uh but took took a little bit of time took a few more signings in order to to get right as well so the easy option is to just get in a new

Manager but that does with risk as well and as we’ve said the whole of this project seems to have been quite sensible thinking about and anticipating what problems could come up in this Evolution from being a a team that were in danger of being a little bit yo-yo

And making them a solid top half side now so yeah it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out I think the newcastle’s ownership group know that this is a massively different League to 10 years ago 10 years ago you could come in with lot of money and you were possibly only

Two or three seasons of spending away from not just crashing the top four but potentially competing for League titles because there are fewer restrictions on spending the overall level of the league was such that a few Investments could suddenly get you up now because of the entrenchment of wealth amongst the top

Six clubs because of the general strength and depth of the entire league it kind of means that it’s now a five or six season process to do that so John used the word project and that’s completely right Newcastle know that they need a Project based manager rather

Than a big name who can come in and Galvanize him for a season or two part of the choice of Eddie that he has in a way been the ultimate project manager um which sounds quite bad but it makes him sound like building contract it’s it’s project manager rather than project

Manager exactly um orbe it at a much lower level originally with Bournemouth but he’s effectively done a sort of football manager save in real life already they said when he first took over we wanted him to be our Sir Alex Ferguson and at the time I think that

Was something as Nick said rightly which we all thought of as being quite skeptical but after his massive over performance in the last year or two which has in a way put pressure on himself and I don’t think you can forget why this might feel like a step back but

It only feels like a step back because they did well so well last season and that should be noted in the in meis it’s only because of that but it’s considered that he’s under any sort of pressure of course the great unknown is what the relative sort of Silent 80% stake in the

Club thinks about it which is pf’s ownership because they don’t have that record of football ownership where you can see what they choose to do when there’s a manager who is struggling but internally even through the slumper form there’s been no indications that there’s been any desire to move on or that they

Want to even in the medium-term future we are going to move on now uh prediction time pep against the project manager that’s basically what he’s now in my mind and he sort of looks a little bit like someone that could be a project manager um Eddie how which is probably

Being unfair to him uh anyway uh prediction from you nick uh Manchester City 3 n 3 n okay John Man City 3-1 31 and Jacob two nil to Man City 2N Man City I’m going to go for a 2-1 win for Newcastle contrarian yep let’s look

Through going to look so good next week though if it com isn’t it that’s the only reason I did it um let’s go through the rest of the games now right so let’s uh go through the other three games uh Burnley against Luton 7:45 on Friday evening uh it’s a real relegation

Six-pointer uh a win for Luton would put them seven points clear of Burnley and I suppose out of the two teams in terms of the the form you would expect Luton to come out on on top of this one or do you think Turf more on a Friday night in the

Sort of the depths of of winter gives them a bit more bit more of an advantage in this one well I mean it hasn’t really given Burnley much of Advantage so far this season won- one game I mean admittedly that that win was 5 n was it

5 nil against cheff United against the other relegation um but yeah there hasn’t been much saying that um that Turf Mo has given Bernie much Advantage so far this season um I feel like we should I don’t know join together as a kind of collective and appoint a team that’s

Going to be just like irredeemably terrible this season because if there’s a little bit of danger that these three the three teams that are currently in the relegation zone are just going to be like you know just going to be they’ll win every now and then and they and

They’ll well could they survive they might be able survive put a decent run of form together buy a couple of decent players in January then and I I for me it just sounds cruel but I don’t find that as interesting as if one team was absolutely awful so yeah I I would like

One of these two teams to take on that role just for my own Amusement really but a Sheffield United not taking on that role at the moment because at the T for the table for people who aren’t familiar or they sort of disconnected from it over the FA Cup weekend

Sheffield United bottom with nine points so they’re seven points from safety Burnley second bottom with 11 points so five points from safety and then Luton it’s only one Gap from 15 points to 16 and Everton in 17 um so I reckon Sheffield United are that team is this not more you wanting

Another team to be cut a drift so they don’t get a little bit sort of punch above their weighty and maybe drag one one sort of loow hanging fruit IE Notting and Forest back into the mix don’t know where you have got that um it’s and also absolutely nothing

To do with the with the fact that next week we could learn if there are any points deductions taking place with any any Premier League clubs who may have spent more money than they should have done just you know yes quite um in terms of Len obviously they’ve been through

The the the mill the issues with Tom Loy their captain and everything and I think the way that Rob Edwards has conducted himself has has endeared him um to a lot of a lot of people and the way that they’ve been playing has been well very sort of

Effective effective to a certain extent um but Ross Barkley in there he’s been he’s been quite special at times hasn’t he K hugor as they say in in in Spain yeah it’s been a fantastic season for him it’s been a joy to watch him see him play a little bit deeper

Pick the ball up carry it through pressure and and and set Luton off on on attacks but Luton just just a really nicely well-rounded team I think like it’s easy to associate how good teams are with where they are in the league table but I think if you take in the

Context of what Luton have done and and what they’ve achieved and the way that they play there’s a reason why they are the top team team out of the three promoted teams right now that’s because they’re hard to beat they know what they do they have identity they have a a good

Coach as well and yeah I think everyone knows if they continue on this kind of trajectory yes maybe they’ll yo-yo up and down in the next few years but they’re are heading heading in the right direction and I think that’s what I think everyone would probably want to

See them and probably considers them to be the team who maybe will escape relegation out of the out of the three promoted sides I just want to correct you I don’t think everyone would like to see them stay up I just want to correct who who do you think who could possibly

Not like what Luton are doing you know what unless they really small minded individual have to admit this and it is it is tough but I think I’ve said it before yeah you have said it you said it to me you love you love l no I’ve never

Said I love any of the Watford fans to know yeah imagine if I said that to you and you’d actually said that on a podcast yeah that would terrible no I agree with you they’ve been the most pragmatic they they’ve found a way um to play which is unnerving more Premier

League teams than than both Burnley and Sheffield United are but as I’ve said before Luton have been to the depths and they’ve come all the way back and they’ve managed to do it by being a really well-run football club um kennworth Road as I’ve said before it’s

Not necessarily the nicest place but it is also a leveler for them orbe it’s not going to have an impact this weekend because they’re at Turf more but they have got quite a few ticks in various boxes which may well see them survive above the line and the team that is just

Above the line at the moment is Everton and they’re on a bad run of form three defeats on the bounce the um the Premier League punishment pep up that they got seems to have sort of dissipated a little bit and now they’re taking on Aston Villa who is second in the table

Um obviously they’re your Team Jacob just give us your your take on Everton at the minute are you are you worried again or not no if I introduce my friend Chris context he will start to explain that yes it’s been three losses in a row in the league the first two came against

Two good sides against Tottenham Hotspur in Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City in which Everton played very well and had chances to at least get something out of the game it was only the third against wolves which was a bit of a shocker and can be put down to an extent

To I think tiredness a stretch Squad had very few legs in Midfield and then they bounced back and played right in a nil nil draw and Crystal Palace in the FA Cup so I think that yes they’ve lost for in the ROM league but it’s not a slump by any

Means very I I quite like that you’re buoyant because before when we were speaking to you earlier on in this season yes we were talking about the fact that they were actually probably playing better than their results but you were still a little bit fearful about where the season was um heading

But that sort of uptick in form has given you longer term belief that they’re going to be they’re going to be fine thank you very much I think it was the start of the year although they were playing much better as as side it was

The fact that no goals were going in and you sort of worry are they ever going to go in now there’s actually a sustained body of work where they have started to get those returns coming back proven they can be end product now Jack Harrison and Dwight mcneel who on both

Wings have been absolutely pivotal both attacking and defensively to how Evon play since theyve come into even more form the Cory will also very important um it’ll just start to really help I season going forward I do think that I mean without the 10o deduction

They’d be 11th or 12th in the league and that’s a reflection of how well they’ve played this season word about Aston Villa John obviously you know they’re not going under the radar they are second in the Premier League um and they’re doing very very well and they

Have a chance of finishing in the Champions League places at home they haven’t lost a game uh away from home though they have actually lost more games than anyone else in the top five uh that’s four games they’ve won four drawn two and lost four is that

Something that they can Rectify do you have any idea why it’s why it’s the case I think with Villa they’re obviously a fantastic team they they’re definitely a team who control the ball uh control games better when they’re in favorable game States what I mean by that is in

Situations where they go a goal up they find it a lot easier to then control games and carry it through to the end very early on in the season I think they lost Maybe even the first four away fixtures and in those four games they played away I think all of them they

Conceded goals in the first six minutes of those games and then went on to to lose them so this is very much it’s about can they get into a favorable game State can they go up in games early and then and then hold it together in order

To in order to win them I think that’s that’s where we’re at with Villa there still maybe a little bit of a control issues there they can be they can be sort of very variable between being good and bad so I think yeah this is this is

What we’re seeing with Villa I think the challenge for them is still going to be can we finish in the top four rather than thinking about the the the title pretentions at this point I think a top four finish with them for them would be still incredible you know you look at

The table Midway through and you say second place they should be going for the title challenge but um for me yeah the big question with them is can they stay in in that top four can they introduce more elements of control so that they are they’re not necessarily

Reliant on how games unfold for them to to come through with points seeing as we’ve only got five games I think we should do predictions on all of them um Burnley against Luton Nick I think Luton will win 2-1 21 John uh despite saying nice things about about Luton I do think that

The interesting thing about Burnley is that when it comes to those games against the teams at the bottom they probably actually do have the edge so I’m going to go two1 to Burnley rather than the other way around okay and Jacob one two headers two celebrations where

We a to grab the shirts and Shout a bit fantastic make note of that if that doesn’t if the scores are 11-1 but those things don’t happen the prediction is not avoid okay yeah make a note of the with the with the shirts and the grabbing yeah and the noise we also need

Yours your oh yeah nil nil okay right prediction time Everton against Aston Villa nick uh Aston Villa to win narly I think one nil 1 nil and John I’m going to be this is going to be my controversial one I’m going to say 2-1 to Everton 21 Everton yeah we’re all

About a controversial one and Jacob no fanty Everton as well one nil to Everton one nil and I’m going to go for a 4-1 win for Aston Villa I don’t think you’re taking this as seriously as you could I’m going for broke okay Glory quite right it doesn’t because although I’ve

Tried to put some sort of importance on it it doesn’t really matter it doesn’t matter you’re going to get them all nailed on and then you’re just going to kick us off future podcast it’s just going to be you it’s just going to be me um right final game Chelsea against

Fulham Pleasant derby um both teams played midweek Chelsea lost against middlesbor Fulham lost against Liverpool um but going into this one it will be Fulham that will think right we’ve got we’ve actually taken something from the game that we had uh in midweek because Chelsea as many of their fans have said

We can’t lose to Middlesboro if we want to be taken seriously as a as a team but then if you do as John would have done look at the underlying numbers for Chelsea they actually had a really good XG they should have finished um many of

The chances that they had all of that said do you think that Chelsea will be able to take any confidence into this game I I’ll throw this one to to John um I didn’t watch the the carabell cup game all over haven’t watched Chelsea very much recently because I

Don’t find it fun to watch them okay um so I don’t I yeah I don’t want to try and make myself out to be an expert in that respect but do you not what do you are you not fascinated to see what’s happening yeah I am but on and on the

One hand I think everyone wants to be like oh what’s going on with Chelsea but we’ve been saying this for like over two seasons now we’ve had a number of managers who’ve all come in we got question coming up about what’s happened to kaiso the the common denominator here

Is is the ownership since the ownership came in at Chelsea the way they’ve approached everything has just made everything chaotic and there’s not really been anything that can can really anchor the club so for me it’s just a we’re just in that continuation phase there’s so much over like turnover so

Much uh change going on it’s hard to analyze when when you’re constantly thinking well we know we don’t even know what’s going to happen this January are they going to sell a load of players off are they going to find some new Financial loophole to be able to bring

In a load of young players from around around the country or around the even around Europe Europe it’s it’s hard for me to it’s it’s very it’s a very moving tapestry I think Chelsea at the moment you mentioned kaiso there but I I suppose you can have some

Sympathy for him he costs hundred million pounds out of nowhere he’s dropped from a very well organized team in Brighton to one that is finding its feet still under um the the new American ownership which is is changing Tac at different times have you got sympathy

For his position yeah very much so and he’s he’s still very young he I mean the other thing is that he only really had sort of 18 18 very good months in the Premier League and he’s also gone from as you say there probably the most functional one of the most functional

Clubs in the Premier League to the most dysfunctional um so to expect someone of his age I can’t remember how old he is what 22 something like that um to to just kind of along with the the weight of costing all that all that money to throw him into

The team and expect him to you know fix everything or or even just be very good is is you know quite a big ask so yeah I mean I I find I’m extremely not a Chelsea fan but I I find them incredibly stressful even their routine wins are

Stressful like they were 3-0 up at Luton looked to be cruising then conceded two goals in the last 15 minutes and it was you know they were Clinging On at the end so if it’s stressful for me as not a Chelsea fan I can’t imagine what it’s

Like for Chelsea fans and then if it’s stressful for Chelsea fans what it’s like playing for them um you know this these could all be excuses it could you know ced’s poor form could be his fault could be the manager’s fault it could be his fellow players fault but they are at

Least kind of mitigating reasons for why he hasn’t been quite as good as maybe we thought he might be one final word on this uh game I wanted to ask about maricio pochettino when he was brought in the sort of the logic was he worked really well with

Young players when he was at at Tottenham developed them well he’s a maybe a he’s got broader shoulders he’s got more experience he’ll be able to deal with any ego issues as well um but it doesn’t seem to be clicking do you think he he just simply needs more time

Almost like a a whole season to to assess this or are you seeing a manager that doesn’t quite fit and maybe that’s what the the ownership will will think as well I think some of it’s having POS having the ability to focus when we think about the young players he brought

Through at Tottenham but lik of Deli Alli he was actually bringing Delhi into a relatively settled veteran team and he could really lavish a lot of attention on him and really Foster that and we saw that actually going back to kaiso how bright were really really careful with

That they really noticed where they sent him on loan they’re very quite slow at bringing him through Chelsea don’t have that luxury they’ve got kind of about 10 new young players who are all trying to give confidence bring through both center backs madri kaiso Enzo Fernandez

Even to an extent and so you don’t have that stability or the ability to devote more of your coaching time than usual to individual players to get them to maximize their role in this system I think that’s the problem for him he’s almost he’s a good man manager without

Enough time to man manage yeah no it’s interesting and it’s also interesting that you see Cole Palmer who’s come from a very sort of well foundation um Youth Development Club in Manchester City and he’s sort of taken that with him and just sort of carried that on to the field and maybe not

Necessarily what’s going on at Chelsea but they have changed their their recruitment structure and um they have got this policy it’s just maybe going to take a little bit more time to bear fruit uh let’s have our final prediction of today and it is Chelsea against Fulham on Saturday John I will start

With you Chelsea will put up three expected goals and lose 2-1 to Fulham 2-1 okay so one two yes Jacob 2-0 to Chelsea and a knee slide from Co pal lovely thank you and Nick uh two2 two two and it is going to be 3-1 to Fulham

Okay that is all we’ve got time for uh on this episode of the weekend preview Jacob thank you very much have you enjoyed being back on the show very much so highlight of my Thursday brilliant that’s yeah that’s giving with one and taking away with the other thanks a lot

Uh John yeah good I see we’re cutting off the bit whereas another one of my predictions came right on the on the running order but that’s fine oh I forgot to mention that didn’t I I mean you didn’t it’s fine that’s whatever I forgot to mention it and that was so

Good because um if you didn’t listen to the last episode we were doing lots of predictions ahead of 2024 and we spoke about our breakthrough player of this year and John picked out someone and he only went inside for Brighton tell us all about it well he was going to do

That anyway yeah I know but just make it bigger than Valentin Barco sign signing for for Brighton played a lot of time as a left back people are touting him to be maybe the the one of the best fullbacks that Argentina have ever produced although that could be to do with the

Fact that Argentina hasn’t produced a huge amount of fullbacks but more recently he’s been playing a little bit further forward on the field um I’m going to I’m going to introduce a little phrase that I think you’ll like he’s I call him a tight space player he’s uh

He’s very good at um working within tight spaces so I got that yeah yeah yeah yeah you never you can never never to be sure can you but um that means as a fullback you know he can move inside he’ll be able to do the inverted stuff but he’s also quite an exciting

Attacking option as well he has been at bcka Junior’s quite an attacking option and they give him a huge amount of Freedom so he likes to float around a lot he is Young and he is very raw and his decision- making is sometimes a bit crazy but I think that’s a lot because

He’s been given a lot of freedom to to move around and I think moving in into the Brighton system will give him a little bit more structure to to work with him so it’ll be really interesting to see how how he develops there I’m

Glad I asked you I just imagine if if I hadn’t have asked you where would you have put all that information that you just told us it’s like when a substitute comes on in a game and then after the game the uh the strength and conditioning coach says well no he’s not

He’s not expelled enough of his energy so they have to do the the sprinting up and down that’s what you would have done if you weren I would have gone outside there yeah I’ve got to get rid of my barcode energy just have to tell someone in the street yeah exactly brilliant um

And your breakthrough star do you know who that was can you remember already forgotten I can it was bakoko yeah there you go so we will see yeah that’s still to be done Nick thanks for being on the show oh my absolute pleasure brilliant um we will be back

Next week IO is going to be back in the seat on Monday as usual just a reminder if you’re not an athletic subscriber the current deal is for the first 12 months you only have to pay £2 or $2 a month for that first year just go to theathletic.com

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