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- [02:04]
Ayo Akimwaleere
The Athletic FC welcome to the Athletics week in football with me Ayo Akimwaleere right It's been one week into the Premier League and we've already seen a lot of surprises. Who has changed the most over the summer and how might that affect the season ahead? Well, let's get into this, gentlemen. We've got J.J. bull and John McKenzie. John, Manchester City. Oh, four nil against wolves. Tasty looked very exciting from where you were watching. What do you think Pep Guardiola's tweaked over the summer?
- [02:37]
John McKenzie
Well, obviously the big problem that City had last season was conceding chances that were too big. Pep Guardiola, I think, sets his system up in such a way that he is going to concede transitions. But the problem last season is that those transitions were resulting in very high value chances. So I think what I had in my mind going into this season was what are the things that City are going to do that are going to stop those big chances from being created? Now, I've got a quote here from Pep Guardiol from last season. This is in a post match press conference after they lost to Bournemouth. And he talked about something that I think he talks about quite a lot last season, about the way that teams were generating these. These massive chances from transition. And he said transitions didn't actually happen that much. It was more that when we pressed high and they played long, we lost the ball. They then won the second ball and after that they ran. So I think that what happened in the past with City is that we would see that thing that you always see with Pep Guardiola. Teams where they try and get territorial advantage, where they squeeze the opponent deep into their own box. And the reason they do that is because even though you are leaving a lot of space to defend, if the opponent do win the ball, they have to get the ball forward a long way and they have to get there with their players. And often what you do is you'll play the ball into the channel and City are well set up to be able to defend that. And you're usually only attacking with a few players. What we started seeing last season, I think, was teams finding more efficient ways of attacking in those kind of moments. So the ball would go forward and the opponents would then start structuring themselves to actually attack the second balls, to actually give themselves a better chance of having their players move up the pitch and then win the ball back and then have the players to be able to have these transitional moments. So I've got an example of this happening in the game from the weekend to show the sort of thing that Guardiola wants to stop Happening Wolves here building up from the back. The outside centre back has the ball and he's going to play the ball into the channel, in behind Ryan 8 Nouri to try and generate some kind of upside for Wolves. But if we actually look at the situation, the structure that Wolves are in, they've got two forwards up against the two centre backs and then they've got another forward who's dropped off. But City have six players in this area. So the idea is that City have the advantage, the numerical advantage, which means that even if they don't win the first ball in the second ball, they should have a good chance of being able to retain possession. When the ball actually does come in, they're aiming for Bjrgen Strand Larsson, because he's a tall striker. The other forward is going to run in behind so he can run onto the flick on. But I think the really interesting thing to note here is that at this point, around the ball, 6v3, still in City's favour. But as the play breaks down, actually what ends up happening is that City do win the first ball. A pass is played into Johnny Reinders here, but at the point at which the pass is played, Wolves have actually structured themselves much better for that second ball. So in the event, now we've got around the ball actually a 4v4. So wolves have gone from having a massive disadvantage numerically to having parity. They've both got the same number of players here and as a result, Wolves have a really nice way of being able to actually access the ball, close the ball down and win it back. So that's what Pep Guardiol was talking about. Wolves going in long, losing the second ball, and then you end up with this scenario now, which is four Wolves players attacking the City backline. There's five City players there, but this is a massive numerical advantage from what they had at the beginning. So this is what teams are trying to do to cause City problems, trying to get the ball into forward areas centrally, break the ball down, win the second balls and then attack from there. But I think what's really interesting from this game is it was very clear that City were aware of this. They wanted to stop teams from being able to build through the middle. So Wolves are only able to get 23% of their attacks through the central areas. Everything else was being forced out wide. And that's because I think City were trying to emphasise stopping those central attacks and as a result actually allowed space to be on the outside, which maybe introduced some weaknesses. We'll get onto that, let's have a look at how they did that. So this is the beginning of the second half. City are pressing up and as Pep said in that initial quote, when we are pressing up often it was leaving space that teams could then access. And to counter that, I think the first thing to notice is that Nico Gonzalez is playing much more of a zonal role here. I think in the past, City of Light, all the players who aren't in the back line, sometimes even players in the back line to step up to put players under pressure. But actually what we saw from this game is that Nico Gonzalez had a bit more of a covering role in that central space. So again, an emphasis on blocking out the middle, not allowing the opposition to get control in the middle. But the problem is that broadly speaking, City are man oriented here. Almost all the players are up against their opponent. If you have a player who is playing a zonal role in this, that means there's going to be a free player somewhere. Docker has stepped up from the outside centre back onto the central centre back. So Matt Doherty now has a huge amount of space to work with. So you're allowing a weakness outside of the centre. And that also raises questions about whether or not weaknesses are going to be punished by the opponent. Because actually if we look at the other City players, we can see they're all very centrally located. This is the line of the players outside the full backs, which means that the full backs both have 2v1s against them in the wide areas. So City are blocking out the middle, allowing those weaknesses to drift outside. So let's just see how this play breaks down then, because I think there's some interesting things that show up from it. So the ball goes back to the goalkeeper, the goalkeeper is pressured by Haaland, but as we've seen, this is a huge amount of space for Matt Doherty to be in. So that's an easy pass for a Premier League goalkeeper of, however, their ball playing ability when that ball is going forward. I think the interesting thing to note is again, Nico Gonzalez role. So the ball is coming forward and you can see he's dropping into the back line. And this is something that we're seeing happening a lot more frequent at the top level of the game that you use your defensive midfielder to drop into that back line because what that allows you to do is to retain the advantage. You have the plus one advantage here when the outside player goes wide. So again, making sure you're emphasising keeping the centre of the pitch blocked out. The problem is that this player is so free is able to take the ball down and no one can get close to him before he starts carrying the ball forward. And now you're in a situation that no one manager wants to be in. That is, you've got a player on the ball who's not under too much pressure at this point in time. He's got momentum and he has two players in front of him running at the back line in a 2v2, there's plenty of space to attack, so you can play that ball down into the channel and have runners onto it. This should be a fairly easy way of generating a chance. And that's how it transpires. So Kiano Hoover, the wing back here, gets the ball in space. And because City are now transition defending, there's a lot of space that is opening out in their defensive structure. And in the end, Hoover plays the ball into the middle, Jorgen Strand Larsson finds himself in space and then just puts the ball wide of the post. So this is really interesting, I think, from Man City point of view, because we've seen them blocking out the centre, allowing weaknesses in the wide areas and it's been okay, they've got away with it because the logic is it's harder to generate from wide areas than it is through the middle. The big question is what happens in the future when they come up against teams who maybe are going to exploit this better than Wolves did. And I think that will determine how good City's season is going to be from a defensive point of view, how good they are at stopping these weaknesses from opening out quite so obviously, and how good they are at defending the central areas when the ball does come in.
- [09:12]
Ayo Akimwaleere
Well, the thing is, from what you're saying, if Wolves had a little bit more quality, perhaps they could have punished Manchester. Manchester City. And actually looking at City's next three fixtures, Tottenham, Brighton and Manchester United, that could be really tricky. And that brings me nicely, jj, to my next question. Let's talk about Manchester United, because I know they lost to Arsenal, but I was watching that thinking Manchester United look pretty good.
- [09:35]
J.J. Bull
I agree. In the last time they played Arsenal, they drew with them. It sounds like a much better result. However, when we look at the numbers, something else is revealed. For example, in the game they drew against Arsenal last season, towards the end of the season, United only had 32% of possession. Arsenal obviously had much more. And United hardly had any passes. They made a lot of tackles. They didn't have control of the game at all. And the way they controlled the pitch Very much system buildup. They couldn't really keep the ball. Arsenal were able to get at them, keep all the ball. That wasn't very good. So even though they got a draw out of it, you can get that by hitting teams in the counter attack. But when we look at the game that happened last weekend when they lost to Arsenal, we saw much improved United performance. We can see it in the way they have more possession. It's not always the thing you need to win, but it shows you got more control of the game. Much more shots, much more passes. And Arsenal having to commit a lot more fouls against them, having to break up play more because United have more of the ball. I think a lot of that is to do with the attacking players they've brought in, which just makes them better. You can build up in the same way, but it's just improved because those players are better on the ball. There's down to structure as well. And I was thinking, were they actually even that bad last season? Because they looked it and I think they probably still were. But if we look at the expected goals that they had towards the end of the season, per game, there's a lot of games where they actually won the game on XG but lost the game or drew it. And if they have players who then overperform their expected goals or at least match it, these should, over time, turn, turn into better results. So draws turn into wins and losses turn into draws or wins. This is what you get. But if we look at how United actually played, we see even more. More is revealed to us. So United building up from the back, they had a clever little way of playing around Arsenal's press that John spotted on a short last week. But when they then launched the ball forward, there are players now who can actually win the ball when they're in contested areas. Now, in the past, when the ball drops loose from a long ball out from the goalkeeper, players aren't in positions, they don't win the second ball, then their team can go at them. Then they win possession, which is how Arsenal have so possession in the last game that they played. But now what we're seeing are United have players in position, ready to go. So when the ball bounces loose from one goal, kick up the pitch, you have a player picks up in the midfield and instantly Brian Mbumo is ready to go, making the right run and the right time is threatening. They're actually scared of Mbumo running in behind. So they generate a big chance from just building from the back, playing it Backwards, launching it forward. Something they couldn't do last season, in my opinion, and you see it multiple times. So another example from the same game. Bayindir hits the ball forward very high up the pitch. United players contest it with Arsenal players, it drops loose. But now what? You've got our players in the right positions to deal with the second ball. They're a bit more compact than they were last season, which just removes huge amount of space for their team to counter them. So when players step forward to try and step in to win the second ball, sure enough, for this example I'm showing on a board, Arsenal pick the ball up. But United now have players in position to be able to counter this, to get aggressive and tight to it. This is what you want to see from them, because last season they were really easy to play through. Now there's an example where Saliba carries the ball forward into midfield, but again, once he reaches a danger point, United's midfielders are in position and ready and aggressive to step in. Cut the chance out and it breaks it down. Now, when they do that, they then have players in position not too far out of the game, so they'll be exposed if Arsenal go forward, but in position to attack straight away. And because you have players like Cunha and Bumo and Dor, even just players who are actually really good going forward, they offer a threat. And so what we see basically is United look far more organized, much more structured. They close the gaps between the forward line and the backline, players in position to be able to win that midfield. Now, there's caveats. I think Arsenal weren't quite at it, so I think that's relevant. And it's only the first game of the season, so there's a lot more that can be pulled apart if players do it. But what we see is a more aggressive, more organized and more physical man United, and that will make a huge difference.
- [13:04]
Ayo Akimwaleere
Physicality. That got me thinking. On the opposite side for Arsenal, there is one henchman, very physical, Victor Yokorez, who I guess some might say probably didn't have the debut in the Premier League he would have wanted.
- [13:17]
John McKenzie
Yeah, I think a lot of people were focusing on some of his technical skills. There was a few misplayed passes, a few trips over the ball. Looked a bit clumsy at times, but I think watching it back, the thing that really stood out to me was the, the. The physicality compared to Premier League center, because we know that he's been able to dominate the Portuguese League. A big question when he was brought over was how is that going to translate into the Premier League? And I think worrying signs there a little bit, because I felt as though Matthijs de Ligt in particular was just able to deal with him, particularly with aerial balls. So balls that Arsenal was starting to play long, you expect a physical striker to be able to bring those balls down, bring your teammates into play. This is everything we've been talking about today almost is like winning second balls being physically available in that part of the pitch where the keeper can access it by going long. And if he can't do that in the Premier League, if the physical, physical level is too high for him, then it's maybe a bit of a worrying sign. And of course, the other thing with Jocherez is he's a very dangerous transition player. And Arsenal were able to generate a number of those kind of opportunities, but they weren't able to actually benefit from them. And obviously that's not entirely down to Jocherez because it involves a number of different players doing the right thing to be able to generate a good chance out of that. But I thought it was maybe a little bit worrying from the point of view that if you're going to lean into having this kind of player lean into playing in a certain way and you don't see those immediate upsides. Yeah, it will raise questions for the Arsenal fans, but it's obviously very, very early days. It's, you know, not even 90 minutes of football for him, 60 minutes of football. He'll have time to start fitting in in England. He will obviously get up to speed and I think things will look a little bit better in the next few weeks.
- [14:48]
Ayo Akimwaleere
It's very early days for everyone in the league, including Champions Liverpool. I want to stay with you on this one because they've made a whole heap of changes, some brand new players over the summer. They got the result, but there are still a few bits in that match where you're thinking, is the team clicking yet?
- [15:02]
John McKenzie
Yeah, the big word for me, I think watching Liverpool over the last has been risk, because I think the narrative that we had last season was we've got Jurgen Klopp and he's like, you know, the big heavy metal football guy. Lots of risk there. They just play really direct football and they want to score goals and they, you know, they run to stop goals and then you bring in on a slot who's introduced a level of control and he's the guy who sort of brings the stuff that Klopp was lacking. But actually, I think watching these games, it's remarkable how much more risky I think Liverpool have looked in the last few weeks than they did last season. And this is something that not only I have noticed, other people have noticed as well. So there was an interview after the game on Sky Sports where Arnesot was being interviewed by Jamie Carragher who was interested in the question of risk. Why was it that the goals that Liverpool gave away when they were in a position of being two nil ahead was there so much risk being involved? This is Arnaslot's response. So he said we need to find a better balance in taking risk. So balance and risk, both important words for what we're talking about here. Because against palace, so that was in the community shield, we've lost two or three simple balls that led to counterattacks. And here for the 21 goal we lost the ball with a trick as well with Dominik Szlai. So I thought I would run through both of the goals and just see what he's talking about here in terms of the balance and the risks involved. So this is the first goal that Bournemouth scored and both of these goals involve Liverpool attacking and then losing the ball. And I think the really interesting topic to talk about here is the structure that Liverpool have in their possession phase when it then becomes an out of possession phase. So the word that a lot of tacticos used to talk about this is rest defense. Rest defense is simply what happens to your attacking structure when you lose the ball. Are you well set up to be able to stop the opponent from getting advantages here? And the point that Arne Slot makes in the interview with Jamie Carragher is that a number of times in these plays you look at the rest defense, the way that the team is structured and things look relatively fine. So this is the point at which Bournemouth win the ball back from Mo Salah and Arne Slot would say, well look, we've got 2v1 against the striker with our centre backs and then across the rest of the pitch all of the players are, you know, within distance of their marking responsibilities. And he clearly thinks about rest defense in terms of man orientated ideas. So he wants to make sure that your players are going to be close enough to their opponents so that when the ball comes to them, you can immediately jump in there and you don't allow them any sort of possession on the ball. That's all fine because that's a good way of doing rest defense. But the problem is in this situation there's a couple of players who stand out to me, one of which is Antoine Semeno is in advance of the fullback here now. Now the ball is on the far side of the pitch. So you would think, well, the full back has plenty of time to get back into position and the fullback does have plenty of time to get back into position. But as soon as you start introducing these sorts of distances with the opposition player in advance, you're ripe for being exploited. The same is happening here on the other side of the pitch. This is more worrying because it's on the ball side of the pitch. So you've got Mac Allister ahead of Marcus Tavernier here. And this becomes an issue when the ball is turned over because at the moment when the ball then comes out, when the centre back just clears it, it does fall to Marcus Tavernier. Marcus Tavernier is now in and Liverpool have to respond to this. They can't allow a player to just move the ball forward unhindered. The way that they do that is that they do a series of jumps. So Endo who's playing right back here, he's going to jump up to Tavernier, he's going to be leaving David Brooks free and as a result Konate is going to step up to David Brooks. That's fine. That's precisely the way that this structure is designed to be able to absorb these kind of situations. And actually in the event, Marcus Tavernier just plays the ball straight into Endo and bounces out to Mohamed Salah. So you think Jovi done rest defense worked perfectly. But the problem is is that Liverpool have the ball again and their rest defense structure has changed. Right. So we've already talked about before they had a 4v3 at the back. Now they've got a 3v3 at the back. So your back line is 1v1 against the opposition. So you've lost that little buffer in having an extra player because Endo stepped forward. Not only that, but when the ball goes back to Muhammad Salah, Endo the fullback thinks, well, you know, this is a great opportunity for us to actually cause a problem for Bulma. So I'm going to make an overlapping run here, get into this wide channel. The ball's obviously going to go back to Dominic Si and he could, he could maybe find that channel ball. The issue is, is that when the ball goes to Szai, he plays in arne slots phrase a trick. So he tries to flick the ball between his legs to Florian Wirtz here. And this is a problem because he's got two players around him. He's playing with momentum. So he Wants to flick the ball through to Wirtz and then run into the space that opens out. If that doesn't go well, we end up with the same situation with Bournemouth players ending up in advance of where the ball is. And that becomes a problem because the Liverpool players who are supposed to be marking them, the rest defense will be on the wrong side of the ball. And that's exactly what happens. The trick doesn't come off, we can see. So sides now in advance of the ball. We've got two Bournemouth players here around the ball. And then we have this series of 1v1 matchups in a 3v3 at the back. This is a huge amount of space. Adams can just play the ball in behind. Look how much space he's got to play with. And they end up with this situation where you have a 3v3. The rest of the team is completely disconnected because of the rest defence position they had. They weren't able to get back in time. And David Brooks can just play the ball into this area here. And lo and behold, Antoine Semeno, who we talked about was already in advance of his fullback, is in advance of his fullback and is actually able to get to the ball before the Liverpool defenders. So, so risky play. The rest defense was fine, but it wasn't fine when they started taking additional risks trying to play flicks when there wasn't the structure there to justify that kind of play. Let's have a look at the other goal because this is interesting in maybe a slightly different way. But again, this is now 2:1. So Liverpool in danger if they concede a goal of dropping points from a position of being 2 nil up. Ball goes out wide to Mohamed Salah. Mohamed Salah has the ball with him. Joe Gomez is now the fullback. He's been brought on and Endo's been moved centrally. And in this situation, he's doing the same thing that we saw Endo doing before, which is okay. Salah's got the ball. Try and stretch the play. I can either get the ball in behind or I can drag players with me, open space out for my teammates, which is fine. The play goes on. Salah cuts back inside. He's going to try and access his teammates in the box. Gomez has continued his run, so he's nearly at the byline. And we're back at rest defense because there's an issue here because with Gomez moving forward, a huge amount of space opens out behind Salah that if they lose, the ball is accessible. And that's the point. It's accessible. There's Bournemouth players who can get into that space ahead of Liverpool players. And I think this is interesting because this is something that Slot talks about. In his interview with Jamie Carroll. He says if you stop the play at the moment Mo loses the ball, there's not such a big problem. I think the rest defense is in order. So he's saying, I don't think this structure is a huge problem here. But then he says then they came with three or four out of nowhere. And I think that's the issue here, right, Is that when the ball is turned over so we can see the ball. Salah plays a pass which doesn't arrive at the teammate. Szobozlai slides in to try and stop it. But then at the point at which Hammer Traoro picks the ball up, there's now four Bournemouth players who have access to that space space ahead of Liverpool players. That's a really heady concoction for a team trying to defend in transition. Because what ends up happening is very quickly you end up with four Bournemouth players attacking the two center backs who are the only players who can actually access that space well enough. And any Premier League side, no matter what level they're at, if they're doing a 4v2 against any center backs will have a really good chance of creating a good chance. That's actually what happens. Simon takes the harder shot on, but he has two players, players to his left who he could play in for a 1v1. That's a really risky way of playing. And so this is the interesting thing for me I think about Liverpool this season is how do they find that balance. That's the word that slot used at the beginning. He said the balance between being too risky and not being risky enough and wanting to actually score more goals. If they can get that balance right, then yeah, no problems. But if they take a while to get that balance right, then they will be in danger as they were in this game of dropping points against some of the teams. And the end of that interview, Jamie Carragher said. Can I be honest on that worries me a little bit when he. When Arneslot was justifying the way that he structures his rest defense. So yeah, a really, really interesting game from Liverpool. Liverpool will be fun this season. Which is what Slot said. He said, if you want to watch Liverpool, you're going to get fun. It is going to worry some of the fans though.
- [22:52]
Ayo Akimwaleere
I think what more will be fun this season is you saying wirt once more. I love that. And also the phrase rest defense. First time I've ever heard that. So thank you for.
- [23:07]
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- [23:22]
Mark Marin
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J.J. Bull
Can I make my site softer?
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Mark Marin
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- [24:32]
Ayo Akimwaleere
One team I want to talk about is Spurs. I guess they look a bit more robust. How is Thomas Frank different to AmTroposakoglou in terms of the way he's dealing with this spurs team?
- [24:42]
J.J. Bull
We talk about Liverpool being fun. Spurs used to be really fun to watch, but not always for their fans because the way they played was very intense, lots of intensity, very high line, but very low chance prevention. So they were quite fun to watch, but they let in a lot of goals and chances and they finished very low down the table as you may recall. Now when Thomas Frank came into Spurs, I thought, well, he might make them much less fun. They'll be harder to break down. Games will become more boring because Brentford are very effective and over the time he's been there he's managed to really overperform the players that he's got. And my theory was that when he went to spurs it would just be more of that but maybe a bit better because he's better players. But what we're seeing is a little bit of what spurs can do and did under post Kogu and what Thomas Frank has already got them Doing. He's got them doing Brentford things already. And Brentford things that we saw from the last few seasons are that they're intense when they need to be, but not always. They don't try and control games. They don't try and always play it to the middle or wide. They. They change depending on the opponent. They're pragmatic. But one of the things Brentford definitely did and we're already seeing at spurs, is treating every single stoppage in play as a set piece. So that's things like goal kicks, throw ins, but even kickoffs. So Brentford scored a few goals in the last few seasons where they have a little plan from kickoff. Now in the Premier League, what happens every single week that I seem to see, I went and watched some kickoffs last week for no real reason, is the ball goes backwards from the kickoff. The goalkeeper has it and he launches it forwards. And so the opposition just drops back in deep to make sure they can deal with the first ball and the second ball. And spurs against Burnley in the first game of the season, knock it backwards. The goalkeeper gets the ball and so everyone retreats and they chase up the pitch because that's what you're going to do. But that leaves a huge amount of space for players who haven't gone up forward to be able to receive the ball. And this is where the set piece plays out. So the ball goes from the goalkeeper straight to someone wide on the right. They can then launch the ball to the other side of the pitch because anything Brentford would do is try and switch the play from side to side. The team is blocking centrally. That's a way to try and open up gaps between them. But because of the way that Byrne, they're going to set up against spurs, the ball is on the wide right, so they're going to try and defend against that. The ball is then switched to the wide left, so the left winger picks it up. So then what spurs have done within like two or three kicks is generate a massive chance to score within the first few seconds of the game. This is very much a Thomas Frank thing to do. So we're seeing his fingerprints, his puppetry all over the spurs team straight away. But we've also seen the spurs being super aggressive and intense like they were in the postcoglu playing against psg. They're one of the best teams in the world. Love watching them. What we saw from the very start of that game is they weren't going to let PSG have the ball. They went straight for them, pressing really high intensity straight from the off, trying to force throw ins high, not giving them any time or space on the ball and that intensity. So combine that intensity that they had in the postecoglou with a bit more control deeper should make them a lot better because when they don't have the ball, they're then not going to always be super intense and try and push them high. They'll drop into more pragmatic situations and make sure that they're not going to allow teams to play through them. And even more interesting with a PSG game is the way that spurs score. Both of their goals are from free kicks. So they are really intense with the way they play. They keep the ball, they draw the free kick, they score two goals that way and that is how they manage to compete against them. But then we see them play against Burnley and score one of the goals of the season, basically on the very first day. A full move where every single player on the spurs team touches the ball. Every single player touches this. So we're moving it from side to side and when they move it to the right hand side, they have two players spare on the left hand side. So Brentford would always do this. They would play down one side, there'd be players who are spare on the other side so you can switch it to them. And so what you see is spurs building the chance. Couldu spit of skill to go past his man near the box, chips into the back post. Richarlison scores a bicycle kick, which I'm not sure is really what they planned, but it's a great goal and so why I think he works seeing are parts of like better players than they had at Brenford doing magical things with the ball, but they've got structure. They're not always doing the same things post Koglo was doing. They're combining intensity, they're combining their aggression, organization and treating certain things as set pieces and they're just getting all of it all of a sudden. I didn't think spurs would be would look this good so quickly, but based on what I saw against PSG and then the way and it was Burnley, it was Burnley, we were probably going to get relegated. So maybe a caveat there again as well, but they just look like Thomas Frank's already got them playing the way he wants to and that will make them a better Spurs.
- [28:42]
Ayo Akimwaleere
Looking good, dare I say, sexy football from Thomas Frank and his boys. Would they look even more sexy if Ebrichi E had chosen them instead of Arsenal? Hmm. Anyway, let's talk about Sunderland. Big team Promoted, you had them to go down and so did I. But what an opening day. Brilliant.
- [29:00]
John McKenzie
Yeah. I mean, you've got to take your losses when they, when they come. It's a very impressive performance from them against West Ham and I think maybe the, the worries and concerns that I had going into the season for them is that their transfer strategy was very different depending on which part the pitch you're looking at. So in the forward areas, we talked about all of these exciting players they were bringing in. Khabib Diarra, we've got Talby, we've got Siddiqi Adhingra. These are all young players, exciting players from around Europe where you're taking a bit of a risk to bring them into the Premier League at the age that they're at and hoping that they'll immediately fit in. But I think we saw in the weekend that they just looked match ready for this team. So already maybe one of the concerns there starting to be slightly allayed. The backline for me was a concern given that it took Sunderland a little while to start actually bringing in players for that. But now, yes, okay, in this game we had Ronaldo playing at full back, but the rest of their defence was championship players. But actually silt goes off at one point, Aldaretta comes on. So already you're adding a little bit more quality and experience in there. We've also got Mukiele is ready to start when he recovers from his injury. Arthur Masuaku, Premier League fans will know from his time at West Ham. So suddenly that backline is looking a little bit more maybe experienced and Premier League ready as well. I think the thing that really stood out was Granit Xhaka, because I think what you look at with these sorts of teams when they come up is, oh, well, they have like one way of playing. So Sunderland definitely have the team to be able to play direct. So you might expect. Well, the way that they're going to play is, you know, sit a little bit deeper, try and find openings through direct play when they arrive. If teams know that and find ways of stopping that, then do they have alternative ways of playing? Tactical diversity is actually a really useful thing to have. I think Granit Xhaka is super useful for that tactical diversity for Sunderland because what he was doing in the game was just being able to knit front and back together in build up. So it wasn't the case that Sunderland had to always go long. Sometimes they generated openings, they moved the West Ham press around a few times and Granit Xhaka is just such an intelligent occupier of space but also tempo player. He knows when to move the ball into more dangerous areas, he knows when to play bounce passes with teammates and I think he'll be a really, really important player for them. So yeah, Sunderland looking as though the young players are going to look strong. The backline is looking maybe more in a better position than I expected it to be maybe a few weeks ago and Granit Xhaka is tying everything together. So yeah, it's looking good for Sunderland and they've got Burnley coming up which they will consider a very winnable fixture. So if they're able to take that energy from the first game into the second game, maybe come out with two wins in a row, that's already a massive chunk of the points that they're going to need to survive the season. And I noted this weekend the Leeds and Sunderland picked up 10% of the points total that all of the promoted sides got as an aggregate last season. So we're already looking at the promoted sides I think being a lot more of a competitive element than they were in previous two seasons.
- [31:49]
Ayo Akimwaleere
Yeah, I wonder with Lee an Sunderland winning opening day whether it's reframe some of the people you lot thought might get relegated this season. Who knows? Gentlemen, we've got to call it. I duff my cap. JJ John Bye bye.
- [32:16]
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