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- [00:01]
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John McKenzie
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- [02:08]
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The Athletic.
- [02:09]
Ayo Akimwalere
FC welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Akimwalere. Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca says he wants more players so it actually got us thinking. Are New signings always a solution or should coach coaches be more adaptable? All right with us for this one. We've got Jackpot. Brook also got John McKenzie as well. I want your answer to this question because I want to start with Chelsea. Since Oresco joined Chelsea in May 2024, the club have made 20 senior signings for a total of around 483 million pounds. Talk to me, do Chelsea need more players?
- [02:53]
Jack
Every team needs more players. There is not a team in the world who would not be improved by adding in a better player than the ones they currently have in a key position. Who is better able to execute what the manager wants. That all said, they do have a lot of centre backs. There's no getting past that. I think that they're maybe a bit unfortunate because I think the best two are probably Colwill and Fofana, both of whom are injured at the moment. They've both got. Fofana came back, didn't he? I think he was on the bench the other day, but clearly he's been out for a long time. So, yeah, I'm not expecting anybody from outside of Chelsea to have any sympathy with Maresca, but there's a small part of me that can just about see him thinking, why not? Why not ask for another one?
- [03:35]
Ayo Akimwalere
Okay, I tell you what, John, we're going to delve more into Chelsea's centre back scenario in a second. But does Chelsea in fact need any more players?
- [03:42]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I think it's a difficult one, right, because what you have is you have a manager caught between, well, you have a manager and a board of decision makers who are deciding who to bring in. And Chelsea, they speak about their approach as being a portfolio approach, right? So they see the players as assets. They're often in the market for value for money. And that sounds great, right? It sounds great to be saying we're going to buy low and sell high or whatever. But there's a tension between those two things because often what the manager wants is very different from what the board are going to find in their portfolio in terms of value for money. And so I think that's where Chelsea are. A really interesting case because those two things often clash. And I'm sure Maresca would say, yeah, sure, I've got eight center backs, but I don't have the center backs that I want. These might be all very exciting centre backs in terms of like their future prospects, but if they can't do what I want them to do, then it doesn't really matter. And so I will need Someone to come in and do the job that I want them to do. So I think that's the sort of context that we're going to discuss today.
- [04:41]
Ayo Akimwalere
Yeah, for sure. Well, I tell you what, we've got the clickbait stuff out the way podcast over.
- [04:45]
Jack
Really.
- [04:46]
Ayo Akimwalere
Right. While we're talking about Chelsea, let's hear from Maresca and hear what he had to say about the topic of losing key defender Levi Colwill to a long term injury.
- [04:55]
John McKenzie
We said many times that we are able to create chances and to attack in the right way if we are able to build in the right way. And Levi was a huge part of our build up and now he's out. We are trying to find solutions internally, but the club know exactly what they think and we'll see what's happening. I think we need a central defender.
- [05:17]
Ayo Akimwalere
Yeah, Maresca. They're putting pressure on Chelsea to sign yet another defender despite having as many as eight centre backs. John, come on, man, like, just look at your team. Look what you've got. Maybe work with them a bit more. Or is Maresca's system just too rigid or specific for all those players to be taken into consideration?
- [05:36]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I do feel a bit of sympathy with him because he's operating in a context where the other clubs are doing that. Right. If they need a player, they bring that player in. So it's very easy to sort of look at the squad, as we said before, and say, well, you've got plenty to work with, plenty of raw materials. But he will come back and say, well, look at the other teams who are going to be in a title challenge this season. They're able to just bring in finished products. They don't need that raw material to develop. They can just bring in these players who hit the ground running and can do the things that we want them to do. And I think, yeah, there's definitely a sense of loss here in the sense that in the past it felt as though there were, you know, none of the clubs out there had these sort of finished results players. They were all having to work with like raw materials in some way. It feels like we don't see that anymore. It's become. Coaching has become more about being able to fit the correct profiles together, being able to work with really elite players and man, manage those players. And we've maybe lost a little bit that sense that you can take a player and fit them in and maybe, yeah, okay, maybe this player doesn't exactly fit what you want a player to do. But can you work the other players around that player so that you're getting better dynamics between them, you're mitigating some of the weaknesses of one player in order to accentuate their strengths. And I feel as though that's something that's maybe been lost in the last few, last few years.
- [06:54]
Jack
I think this is down to the level probably of top end football is so high now that generally speaking, if teams are going to be successful, they need a very specific way of playing, they need a very specific idea. And often to really realize that idea, the only way to do it in the best possible way is to bring in the best player of any given profile. And you know, I can't, I think, I don't disagree with anything you said, but I think if you look at the success for example, Liverpool had after signing Virgil van Dijk, that just goes to show that if you can, at the very top end of the game, if you can just fit the perfect profiles, like the roundest peg into the roundest hole in your team, that is how you fully realize the manager's ideas and that's how you get the best level of play.
- [07:40]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I totally agree. But I think the interesting thing there is it's time, right? None of these clubs have time to develop players. They want their players to hit the ground running straight from the off. And yeah, when you don't have time, you don't have time to curse coach.
- [07:51]
Jack
And also when you don't have time, but you do have money for having the money but not having the time, right? It's if you're particularly, I mean like Klopp at Liverpool or Guardiola at City or even to maybe slightly lesser extent, Arteta Arsenal. If you've got money but you don't have time and you need to win now, why would you not spend £100 million on Declan rice or 70 million on Van Dijk or anything like that, of course you're going to go to the top end of the market to find the perfect peg for the hole.
- [08:20]
John McKenzie
I think it's interesting as well because I think a lot of the coaches now that talk about as being coaches who improve players are actually further down the table. So people will talk about Thomas Frank, people will talk about Antoniola, people talk about Oliver Glasner. And I think the big reason that they can do that is just because of context, because they can afford, well, they can't afford to fit the best players into their team.
- [08:40]
Ayo Akimwalere
Jack, you know, we talk about buying these specific players but you've got the kind of money Chelsea have got Surely it's about recruiting smartly as well. I mean we'll touch on City's ideology or maybe Arsenal's ideology where perhaps one player can play in more than one position. Always have to be about buying one play. Can only play in that specific position though.
- [09:00]
Jack
Yeah. I think recruitment nowadays often does come down to buying one specific player who is perfect for your, for your team and you and you go out and you buy the best and you and you buy the best player you can get. The best examples I can think of recently, well, Alisson and Van Dijk obviously. Liverpool Haaland at City in 2022, maybe Declan Rice at Arsenal you could argue fitted that as well. But the weird thing about Chelsea's recruitment is that said against that is that Chelsea's equipment seems to be incredibly high volume almost to the extent that people are called it a scattergun. Now I don't know if that, that is not quite the same model as finding the perfect player and then being happy to pay a huge amount of money to get him in. Like I often feel with Chelsea, like particularly in terms of salaries, they're not really, they don't really pay huge amount of individual salaries to players or haven't, haven't so much the last three or four years. It's a bit, it feels like a bit more of a high volume approach, maybe slightly more geared towards young players rather than peak age players. So it's not. So I think the Chelsea example and maybe we'll see a slight change in Chelsea. Now perhaps this is the interesting topic, but the Chelsea model in the last three or four years has not quite been that like Pete Klopp, Pete Guardiola model where you're basically looking for ready made stars.
- [10:14]
Ayo Akimwalere
Okay, well I tell you what, Morezque isn't the only manager that's been talking about needing new signings. Let's go into it. Fulham boss Marco Silva, I mean they've barely bought anyone so far. Forest, Nuno Espirito Santo. I know at the time of recording this they've done some business but he's been quite vocal about it.
- [10:30]
John McKenzie
Seemed like he prompted it as well.
- [10:32]
Ayo Akimwalere
He's made some comments saying stuff makes it work, right. Wolves manager Victor Pereira and also Palace's Oliver Glasner. That's an interesting one. Who knows if that's more to do with outgoings than incomings, but we'll talk about that later. But out of all of those managers that I've just mentioned, surely Marco Silva's got to be kicking himself because what who they brought here Benjamin Leconte, I'm sure a great player, 34 years old.
- [10:56]
John McKenzie
Backup goalkeeper, half a million quid.
- [10:58]
Ayo Akimwalere
It's not going to affect the first team, is he?
- [11:00]
John McKenzie
Yeah. And I think, you know, I think with someone like Marco Silva, he's got a very clear case to be made that he should be, his team should be signing more players because that's the way that you compete in the league right now. And I think if the owners are looking at and thinking, oh we can stay in the league again without making huge amounts of investment, then fine. But for him, he's obviously thinking, you know, it's becoming a harder and harder league that we've already seen from this weekend. The promoted sides are going to be much more competitive than they have been in the past. It's one of those things where you don't want get midway through the season and think, oh, we actually should have strengthened our squad earlier and we haven't. So I can completely understand where he's coming from.
- [11:34]
Jack
Yeah, I think it's a really frustrating time for Fulham fans and for Marco Silva because he's done so well since he's been there. He's turned a perennial yo yo team into a very solid, consistent mid table team, which is difficult to do. And particularly now in the era of psr, it's not like they've been able to just throw hundreds of millions of pounds at it. They've had to be really, really careful. They've had to lose players as well. You know, they had to sell Mitrovic, they had to. Who was there player. They had to sell Palinia, who was their best player. They've lost quite a lot of other guys along the way. You know, obviously this summer Rees Nelson's just gone back. I think Willian's contract has expired so that they've like. There's been a real. It's not that so much that the level of the players has decreased but it hasn't continued to improve. Which I think is what any manager would want, particularly in a league where the standards of all the teams were even like the kind of bottom half mid table teams is constantly going up. So yeah, it must be immensely frustrating for Silva because he's worked, he's worked so hard over the last few years to get Fulham up, establish them in mid table. And now because they can't take an extra step forward this summer, they're at risk of maybe getting, getting leapfrogged by, I don't know, an improving Everton for perhaps or if Leeds have a Great season or something like that.
- [12:45]
John McKenzie
Yeah. And I think it's what just to add to this. I think often the reward for being that kind of coach who is seen to improve players is that you lose those players. So like Iriola again at Bournemouth, he's lost three of his players back line in the summer. That's the reward that he's had for being an incredible coach. And there's no sense that you know that you're going to replace those players with the same level. He will hope to improve those players as well. But it seems such a thankless task to be a mid level coach because if you do well then the expectation is you always do well but you lose the players along the way. And if things go badly, people like, well, you know, you're a bad coach. Now I kind of feel like the.
- [13:20]
Jack
Hardest thing to do if you're a club like that is to, I mean, because you have to trade players. Like you can't, you can't, you won't get good players to come and join you unless they think, well, if I do really well, maybe I'll go to PSG like Zabani or maybe I'll go to Real Madrid like Howson. Like players will want to know that they can make the next step and of course that's how you bring in money to so that you can buy the next generation of players. The challenge I think is to have that churn of players and also to stay stable in the league like that is really, really hard. We've seen lots of examples over the years of teams who have player traded quite well and brought in a lot of money but they have not been able to maintain stability. So I think Southampton's probably the best example. Obviously back in the sort of Pochettino era they, they, you know, they would sell and under sort of Atkins and Pochettino they would sell a lot of players. They brought in money. They did recruit really well. You know, in the Koeman team they had some incredible players, you know, like Van Dijk, Wanyama, Tadic, Mane. Players who went on to have brilliant, brilliant careers over the next 10 years. But eventually if you, you really have to kind of keep pace with that churn and make sure you are always bringing in talent because if you don't do that then eventually you'll start to decline.
- [14:24]
John McKenzie
It takes one season of failure and that's it.
- [14:26]
Ayo Akimwalere
There's another side to this where I could actually say that these managers are also in these teams because there's also a bigger plan at hand. You know, look at Marco Silva into his last year of his contract, Glassner as well. I mean, he's not long left on his contract. Talk about Iriola, last season everyone was like, will he stay? Will he go? I mean, the reality is, you know, if a club isn't able to fulfill that genuinely, then you might also be seeing the manager say, do you know what, I appreciate it. I've done my workout. You've seen the work that I've done. Here I am off to psg, here I am off to a bigger club.
- [14:57]
Jack
Yeah, that's the challenge I think for any of these clubs is that they have to, you have to keep the manager happy. But that often in order to keep him on board, but that often involves giving him so much power over recruitment that effectively your club kind of revolves around the manager in a way which might be helpful and healthy initially, but probably not always a long term strategy. I think a lot of clubs, I think in the main clubs are a bit skeptical about handing over too much power to a manager because they don't want a situation where if the manager gets bored or leaves or the players fall out with the manager, then all their eggs have been in that basket. That said, you do generally see situations where if managers do stay, they tend to accumulate so much power that they provide stability, but it's a stability which is a kind of brittle stability. So I'm thinking about Eddie Howard. Bournemouth is quite a good example. At the up he did unbelievably well there, accumulated lots of power there. Eventually he left and they got relegated. Or Shaan Deisch at Burnley again did amazingly well, brought them so much stability, had a very, very clear way of playing and clear way of recruiting, but he left, they got relegated and had to come back up again. So that's always the trade off for managers. And I know it's very easy for us to say they should just give the manager more power, but I think in practice clubs do have good reasons for being reluctant to give managers that much power.
- [16:17]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I think Liverpool, great example of that. With Jurgen Klopp leaving, I think he left at the perfect point because he was at a point there where a lot of the recruitment department had left and it felt as though he was actually governing a lot of the recruitment drive. We saw that that meant that he sort of tailed off maybe a little bit towards the end, but I think him leaving just opened that space up again. The power vacuum opened up and they brought Edwards back in, et cetera. So I think that's a really really hard balance for clubs to get right. The fact that if a manager does well, it's natural to want to give them more power. But if you give them more power, it can then impact on other processes as well.
- [16:52]
Ayo Akimwalere
Okay, well, let's get back to Forrest because Nuno Espirito Santo has also complained as well. And in an interview with sky, here's what he had to say.
- [17:00]
Jack
We are very far, very, very far. The plans that we had didn't come true. The preparation was in terms of squad was not ideal. We didn't have a chance to create. What I think is more important is the bond because we don't know which squad we have. We have players working here that know they're going to live on loan.
- [17:21]
John McKenzie
We have a major problem.
- [17:23]
Ayo Akimwalere
I mean, who knows if those comments triggered, you know, the boss to stick his hands in his pocket because since he made those comments, Forrest has spent over £100 million in three days or so, including Omari Hutchinson, James McAtee as well. Now, historically, who have been the most outspoken managers in your thoughts? Because I'm thinking Conte, I'm thinking Mourinho.
- [17:46]
Jack
For instance, I would say Conte, definitely at the top. Like, I know that whenever it was a transfer window coming around, he would have no qualms about expressing his opinions about the recruitment and the quality of the recruitment and the need for experience in the squad and so on. And he didn't mind putting the board under a bit of pressure. That's happened at, I think, almost every job he's ever had. He has no reluctance about really turning up the heat on his employers, particularly during a transfer window. And, you know, he kind of had a huge. It's no secret, he had a huge row with Chelsea, I think before he, before he left the Chelsea job, when he was working in Italy, it was a big thing. When he's at Napoli recently is a big thing and even at Tottenham a little bit too. So I think he would probably be my. In my gold medal slot. Rafa Benitez, I also remember, would often, particularly, I mean, particularly during his time at Liverpool, but also I think during his time at Newcastle. Newcastle, that comes to mind. He was not. Yeah, he was not shy about particularly using the media during the transfer window to make clear what he wants and do that to kind of crank up the pressure on the board. So it's a bit of a. It's a, you know, it's a classic tactic at this time of year and I'm not surprised to see it continue.
- [18:58]
Ayo Akimwalere
It's a Tricky one, isn't it, actually being outspoken like that and you directly talking to the board and going, look, give me more money. I think Rafael Benitez won, but that was under Mike Ashley. Right. So there was a lot of tension happening there, inevitably. But I guess it's a really good way of getting your message out to say, look, we need more recruits. I've seen what Chelsea are doing. I've seen what everyone else is doing. If we want to stay competitive, we need to stick our hands in our pockets.
- [19:20]
John McKenzie
Yeah. And it's tough to do, I think, because it makes it look like you're not a good coach. If you're saying like this bunch of elite players who have got to the very top aren't good enough, it sort of suggests that you don't have any faith in your own ability as well. So I think there's that element to it as well.
- [19:31]
Ayo Akimwalere
Okay, well, next we'll discuss the managers with track records of improving players.
- [19:44]
Jack
Avoiding.
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Ayo Akimwalere
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John McKenzie
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Jack
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John McKenzie
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- [21:12]
Ayo Akimwalere
Yeah, I guess. What's the difference between managers and head coaches these days? How many of the top flight coaches are actually on the training ground every day? John, from your perspective, who are the clearest examples of coaches who you think extract the maximum out of the players that they have?
- [21:31]
John McKenzie
I think the most interesting thing in terms of answering this question is that it often tends to be the coaches have a Very clear game plan and they have their systems. And you know, almost all of the coaches we've talked about so far, we've talked about Silva, we've talked about Nuno, we've talked about Iriola, we've talked about Glasner, all of those coaches have very clear game plans. And I think you get the benefit of that because when you fit good players into systems where they're well coached into that system, I think it generally does raise the level of the player. Iraola, I think particularly interesting because his approach is so much of an outlier that it accentuates different qualities of the players that are in there. So I think there may be a tendency for people to slightly overrate the players on the basis of the fact they're playing in such an outlier system. But I think it's very clear when you watch any of these coaches, teams, the players know what to do in every phase of play. They, you know, they often coaching in that way is seen as sort of imposing strictures on players. But I think for a lot of them, it actually brings out the best in them because they are given a little bit more direction for where they should be, what they should be doing. And I think for me, that's the real joy of watching these coaches is seeing what someone can, someone can have these ideas, can communicate these ideas to the players well enough that they're then able to take them and run with them on the field.
- [22:49]
Jack
I think young players nowadays really want that level of, of precise, detailed instruction. I've often been told by people I speak to in football that they will want that clear instruction, but they will also want an explanation for it. Like, modern players are not shy about saying, well, why are we building up like this? Why are we going to press like this? But what I think young players struggle with is when they don't have that kind of instruction, right? Because football, you know, football at academy level is so like detail oriented that when they get into the first team, I think they often want, they want to be told exactly how they're going to play. And that's why managers who are a little bit more, who have a sort of slightly more traditional approach, which is basically like, you're all good players, you can figure it out for yourselves. That approach can work really well with high end, experienced players who have got the kind of know how to make decisions themselves on the pitch. But when you throw a younger player into that kind of environment and the manager's like, you're a good player, you can figure it out then that's often where young players come. A little bit, a little bit short.
- [23:45]
Ayo Akimwalere
Yeah. I'm interested in, you know, people like Iriola, for instance. I was at Bournemouth last year watching them train and I met Iriole and he's just so fascinating to see his relationship with the players on the training field. It almost felt so personable and connected, do you know what I mean? Almost like a dad figure in a weird way. Do you think that's some of the magic here in terms of communication?
- [24:04]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I think people undervalue this aspect of coaching, right. The best coaches are the guys who can communicate information. And communicating information isn't about being able to necessarily just talk about things in a way that's understandable. It's about being able to convey information that is taken on board because people trust what the guy's saying and they want to do well for whoever's coaching them. So I think that's definitely an undervalued aspect and there's lots of different ways of doing that. But I think Iraola definitely sort of a head coach figure, right? He's always on the training ground, he's always working with the players, he knows what he wants, he can tell the players how they might improve doing things. And yeah, I think the results are pretty clear to see.
- [24:42]
Jack
Yeah, I think John's right. You can't really separate the importance of communication skills like tactical thinking and tactical plan and specific tactical plans and people skills because ultimately they're all together. And if you talk to any man manager in private, the number one thing they say you need from players is buy in. You absolutely need the players to buy in so that whatever you tell them, they think that is the absolute truth. And I'm going to run as hard as I can to make it happen on the pitch. And if you don't, if you can't generate that buy in, you'll never get the people, you'll never get the players to play your football. Every single successful team, really successful team, has a huge amount of buy in because the players and the coach have got such a bond that the players will do everything within their power to make the coach's ideas real on the pitch. And so without the, without that kind of personal side, you won't get the players listening and without the communication, you won't get the players understanding what exactly it is the manager's trying to do on the pitch.
- [25:40]
Ayo Akimwalere
When you talk about buy in, I also think how easy it is to get that buy in when you actually see the proof of the putting on the field. If you're winning games, you're beating teams you shouldn't be beating. I'm thinking, you know, think about spurs when Pottra is there, Harry, Kane, Dembele, I mean Dele, Alli, take them all the way to the Champions League final. I mean there's no easier buy in than that though. You're actually thinking we're going toe to toe and get some big teams here, jets and actually if we listen to what the coach says, we'll get it done. I've often heard Martin Odegaard saying Mikel Arteta will say stuff to us and it actually is what happens and plays out on the field.
- [26:13]
Jack
Yeah, that's what people always used to say about Mourinho back in his kind of glory days is that his, his predictions of what would happen on the pitch were so specific and would often come so true that the players thought he had had some kind of prophetic powers basically. But the funny thing about spurs is that actually by the time they got to the Champions League final in 2019, I feel like the kind of bonds of that squad were fraying a bit. They'd been together a bit too long. I think really where it all came together the most was in the previous seasons where they'd gone, you know, they got into the top four, they had two decent title challenges, they got 86 points which is an unbelievable number of points for Tottenham team to get. And at that point the kind of the buy in and the bonds and the sense of community and togetherness between the team and the coaching staff was so strong that at that point the players basically would have run through a brick wall for the manager because they thought that the manager was so right and so true and so kind of insightful with what he wanted them to do. And so I think that's always the challenge at any club. And you can see that Klopp's, Liverpool's probably the best. Other example in recent years, maybe Arteta's Arsenal too. Guardiola City. At points you need to. The manager has to be able to convince the players that even if they might not want to do something, they have to do it because it's the right thing to do. And you're right, if you keep winning you can maintain that buy in forever basically. And that's really been the story of, I think of how Guardiola has kept going for so long at City allied to the fact that because their resources he's able to churn the players a bit if he needs to and maybe move on some of the older guys to bring in new players to refresh the energy.
- [27:51]
John McKenzie
He moves people on as well if they lose division. Right? I think Joao Cancello, a great example of that. Right. As soon as someone wants out of the project, he's like, fine, go. And I think it's because he realizes that that belief is so important. As soon as there's someone who isn't believing it in the group, then it becomes very easy to lose it completely. And I guess you could even argue. I mean, it's so interesting. I've been reading a lot of Guardiola's press conferences from last season just to try and find out how he narrated the decline that City had last season. And you expect it to be something along the lines of, oh, you know, here's this tactical tweak that we made that fixed everything. So much of what he talks about is just saying we were so successful for six years. It's so hard to keep up that level of momentum in a very sort of almost spiritual, evocative sense, where, like Jack's saying, like, you have to have that 100% belief in what you're doing, because if you don't have that, then the standards just drop, and even that little drop off will be enough for someone else to catch you up. So really interesting hearing him talking about that.
- [28:48]
Jack
I think it's a really interesting question about City from last season, which we don't really have an answer to yet. And it's this. Were City bad last season because Guardiola and his ideas were kind of old and tired, or was it because the players were old and tired? Yeah, that's my question for you. And I. Initially, I think when they were going through that really bad slump, I think a lot of people thought, well, Guardiola's done. This is his Mourinho season. He's been at the top for so long. No manager is able to stay at the top for that long. It is inevitable that he won't be able to maintain it. And. And this is the beginning and the end. And I think Guardiola's view, and I mean, he didn't really want to say this explicitly in public, was that in fact it was the players who were old and tired.
- [29:32]
John McKenzie
Right.
- [29:33]
Jack
Because he'd had the same players for so long. Most of that squad really had been put together in like, sort of 2017 summer to a lesser extent. They added a few more players later on, but really the core of that team had been there since 2017. They had continued to win the league.
- [29:48]
John McKenzie
Quite.
- [29:48]
Jack
I think it's kind of bizarre in hindsight that they won that 2324 title. Right. Because they were really running on fumes by that point.
- [29:55]
John McKenzie
It's like the end of the Ferguson era, right, when they won a few titles, which people look back on and think, how did they win?
- [30:00]
Jack
Because like City went off a cliff at the start of the next season, I think, because. But they won. They won the 2324 title basically off. I think pure muscle memory and, and know how. And then obviously the 24, 25 season, last season, City started that season. The players are just kind of washed, basically. Like you can tell. Yeah, they've got nothing left to give. And that's not a criticism of the players at all because they've done so well for so long, but they're human and they can't continue to perform at the same level. But since then, you know, like, obviously De Bruyne has gone, Grealish has gone, Kyle Walker's gone. Those are, you know, like De Bruyne and Walker are two of the best players they've had really. That time span. Edison is now not first choice goalkeeper.
- [30:38]
John McKenzie
Anymore, which is the starting eleven at the weekend was completely different from what it was the season before.
- [30:43]
Jack
Yeah. And they've already lost in previous years, you know, players like Mahrez a few years ago and lots of really, really integral players have, have gone up and so I just wonder if you're watching City now play with like, with Reinders in and like Oscar Bob coming back and you know, they've like obviously added a few in the summer and a few like in January last year, which started this process. If they're going to be really good, it makes you think maybe, maybe the problem was the players, maybe the problem wasn't Guardiola and maybe with new players, Guardiola's ideas can work again.
- [31:12]
Ayo Akimwalere
This is my thing and this is the bigger question about Manchester City moving forward. I know this isn't a Manchester City podcast, but I find them fascinating because they're were literally obliterated the Premier League and I've got some of the greatest resources in the Premier League is that when's a good time to. To. To say goodbye? Because we've seen it with the Ferguson era, we've seen it with Jurgen Klopp, for instance, we've seen Arsene Wenger and they sort of. These great managers have this moment where they think they've still got it, but then the season that transpires often after great glory isn't as great as the one before. Now, City have made some great recruitments, but who's to say he still has the gusto and drive to make it work in the same way he did before?
- [31:52]
John McKenzie
This is going to be incredibly controversial, but I think we will look back on 24, 25 and see that as one of Guardiola's better achievements. Because I think if you look at it, they were awful in the first half of the season. And there was a period where it looked like they were never going to win a game again. And you were like, how's this team? How did they ever win in the past? But I think what actually happens in the second half of the season, the second half in the calendar year, starting this year, so 20, 25, 25. They put up more points than anyone else in the Premier League, and they played one game fewer than, I think, Arsenal and Liverpool as well. So they actually had a very successful second half of the season. In many respects. They still looked incredibly fragile. They still had all of these problems. And a lot of people say, yeah, well, they spent tons of money in the January transfer window. But if you actually look at the players that they used, they used Omar Mahmouche and that was basically it. They used Kusanov a few times and it had a few disaster. Nico Gonzalez was like, in and out a few times. But what actually happened is that Pep solved those problems using the players that he had. He was using, you know, Kevin de Bruyne, who was looking every one of his years, and he solved a lot of the problems tactically. And I think, for me, it's controversial to say, but I think if you look at it from the point of view, a coach having players who he clearly thought, as you were saying, were old and beyond it, and he used them and he mitigated the downsides of them. He accentuated the good sides of them. And they actually fought, too, to the end of the season. They finished in third place. There was a point in time where they could feasibly have crept past Arsenal if a few results had gone slightly differently. And I think that, for me is like, what we're talking about with the drive with Guardiola is that even in that season where I think most managers would have been like, fine, we write it off, we finish mid table, we rebuild and see where we go. He was still trying to solve problems. He wasn't just trying to solve problems in the market. He was actually trying to get the players that he had who were in many respects, not fit for purpose at that point in their careers and he got them to a third place finish. I think that's incredibly impressive. Really?
- [33:52]
Ayo Akimwalere
Yeah. We have to move on because honestly this is such great insight and I'd love to talk about City all day, but we have to carry on the pod because when we talk about problem solving, let's discuss the importance of academies in squad building.
- [34:13]
Host/Announcer
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- [35:26]
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- [36:02]
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- [36:36]
Jack
Foreign.
- [36:45]
Ayo Akimwalere
Providing managers with players Manchester United have named an academy play in every first team squad since October 1937. I guess this is the one really. Which Premier League club is that sort of gold standard of allowing academy talents to flourish and also be an integral part in the team to Jack.
- [37:05]
Jack
Yeah, it's a difficult one. I'm not, I'm sure you could prove it empirically but I think the problem is that so at the very, very top level again as we were saying at the top of the show like the demands are so high and managers are under so much pressure to win right now generally. And it's only really. And if you want longevity, the only way to get longevity is by winning. You've got to win first and then you earn the rights to longevity basically. And so for that reason the incentives never really align for managers at the top end to bring through the kids, kids. And so you'll occasionally get examples like I mean the best, I mean Saka Foden, Alexander Arnold. So sometimes it will happen that young players will emerge from the academy and play for their teams. But I feel like nowadays the level of top Premier League teams is kind of moving away from being in a position where they could just fill the team.
- [37:55]
Ayo Akimwalere
It's down to the quality of the academies though because you know, I mean obviously the Spanish league is slightly different to the Premier League but you know, La Masia continues to chucks these kids out, right? And a few end up playing. I mean it's more times than not in that first team.
- [38:11]
Jack
Yeah, I don't think so just because I think the academies are good. You know, since EPPP the academies have got a lot better. And also England, English teams keep winning European age group championships. You know, England just won the European UN21s I think the second time in a row under Lee Carsley. They're obviously in recent years won a 17's World cup and on 20s World Cup. So I don't, I don't doubt the technical Quality of the players being produced by academies. I just think that the Premier League is such a kind of money driven league and the top teams are so good. And they also think that the solution to almost everything is money. Once you have a good manager in place, the only other thing you can do is crank the money lever basically and get more players in. And any manager in those positions for the reasons I just explained, any manager of a huge team, if you're giving them the choice between, well, you need a new centre back, you've either got this very talented 18 year old who's done brilliant really well in the, for our under 23s or we can just go and get someone right now from Italy or Germany or Spain, 45 million euros. Fine, we can pay that without even worrying about it. They're always going to take the established player who's already played a few seasons in a top five league. Always. They're not going to because their incentives are not towards bringing through the 18 year old.
- [39:29]
Ayo Akimwalere
Is that the issue, buying from elsewhere?
- [39:31]
John McKenzie
Yeah, absolutely. But I do find it really funny because like you mentioned, mentioned a few examples of like success before and it's like Miles Lewiskelly a great example of this, right? Arteta bought hundreds of left backs and never really solved the problems that he wanted to solve with those.
- [39:46]
Ayo Akimwalere
And there it is sliding into the right.
- [39:47]
John McKenzie
So there's two things here. I totally agree with Jack. There's just no incentive for them to develop players because at some point what you do when you send a kid through a development program is you get them to a point where they need to start playing senior football and at that point they're almost never ready for, for like first team football or it's too risky to do it. There are some phenoms who we talked about who, you know, end up just playing and then, and then they go and that's that. But there's so many of them who are very, very good players. It's just too risky to, to then give them first team football at a Premier League or an elite side around Europe. And so what ends up happening is they then go away on loan, right? So the development, it's, it sort of works clearly because there's good players coming through, but in order to make that next step, it's all about playing. And, and yeah, I, I just find it funny that the solution to everything is money, but often the money doesn't work and then they fall back on bringing through their, their phenom from the, from the academy.
- [40:42]
Ayo Akimwalere
But on that skelly conversation. How much of it is also luck as well? You know, I think. I think it was Califiori was injured, Tommy Asa was injured at that point, and obviously Zinchenko is entrusted by the manager. So Miles Louis Skelly, who historically people have said have played, has played in the midfield. She's a great opportunity to break into the squad and that comes very few. And then you finally get your opportunity to shine.
- [41:04]
Jack
Yeah, there's always a huge degree of luck and contingency and right place, right time when it comes to young players making it. You know, think of when Marcus Rashford first played for Manchester United. They had lots of injuries. They had to bring in this kind of unknown teenager, and he did brilliantly on his debut. You look at, say, the time where Harry Kane really kind of made himself establish himself in the Tottenham first team in the 1415 season under Pochettino. They had Adebayor and Soldado, and Kane was kind of on the brink of going out on another loan. And I think they were going to. I think. I believe they were going to sign Danny Welbeck that summer, but then Olivier Giroud got injured, so Arsenal signed Welbeck and, you know, Kane was really on the edges and then, you know, things turned out in such a way that he ended up playing a huge role that season and did really well. So there is a lot of right place, right time with these things, and a lot of it comes down to luck. The other thing we have to mention here, like, we can't discuss this topic without it. Psr.
- [41:57]
Ayo Akimwalere
Oh, yeah, for sure.
- [41:57]
Jack
Like psr.
- [41:58]
Ayo Akimwalere
Pure profit, right?
- [41:59]
Jack
Yeah, exactly. Like, PSR has a huge. I think this is one of the. The. I'm generally a bit of a PSR defender, but I think this is like the. One of the worst things about PSR is that there are very clear incentives for clubs to just sell their kids. And I think that's bad for a number of reasons. One of them is that because as fans or even as neutrals, you often want to see young players from that club develop into the first team. But then if the club is financially incentivized to sell those young players, then it just. I mean, I just think that's wrong. Like, I think it's brilliant what Scott McTominay's been doing at Napoli, but it's a shame that Manchester United had to sell him. And I think that if you look at any other big club, I mean, particularly the clubs who've been under the most PSR pressure, the fact they have had to sell players, whether, I don't know, Cole Palmer going to Chelsea or tons of players going out of Chelsea to other teams. I think that's a bit of a shame and needs to be looked at.
- [42:52]
John McKenzie
It's worth saying as well. A lot of the people who work in academies are really good people. This is, as we're saying, just it's sort of social pressure and market pressure on the clubs to sell the players on. And it's a real shame because I think there's a very noble element to, I think, academy football. I think you're taking players, you're trying to improve them not only as football players, often as humans as well. You spend a lot of time with these kids and you work with them and often it then sort of the veneer then just gets painted over where it's like, oh, actually this was all just a means of us creating more value for the club rather than the point of football in the first place. Right? Which is here's a space where you can compete against other people and you can really show. Show who you are as a person, both in terms of the skill, but also the, the, the. The. The sort of more emotional, moral side of things as well.
- [43:38]
Ayo Akimwalere
All right, gents, let's leave it there. I could talk about this all day. John, Jack, appreciate your time and also thank you guys for listening. We're back tomorrow.
- [43:49]
John McKenzie
You've been listening to the Athletic FC podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beal. The executive producer was Aiden Moorhead. To listen the to other great athletic podcasts for free, Search for the Athletic.
- [44:00]
Ayo Akimwalere
On Apple, Spotify and all the usual places.
- [44:02]
John McKenzie
The Athletic FC podcast is an athletic media company production.
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Ayo Akimwalere
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