A very Spursy start for Tottenham and the eternal Jamie Vardy – Football Weekly podcast

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Speaker 5 Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. Is Spurs tilt at the title finally over?

Speaker 5 They somehow deliver the most comprehensive 45 minutes of the weekend and yet failed to beat Leicester, who did improve dramatically after halftime, although they had set themselves a very low bar.

Speaker 5 A disappointing night for Dominic Solanke, who played very much like he'd only met his teammates two minutes before kickoffs.

Speaker 5 First should have been out of sight, but then Jamie Vardy made us all feel very 2016. Then there's some transfer stuff.
It's been a quiet old window for them, but Chelsea finally get their man.

Speaker 5 Jow Felix in, Connor Gallagher out. Still rumours over Ossiman, while Lukaku and Sterling might be off too.
There's Aaron Ramsdale to Wools, Georgino Ruto to Brighton, amongst others.

Speaker 5 Then let's do a bit of Europe. Seriat is back.

Speaker 5 Late drama as Champions Inter and Milan are both held while Antonio conte Conte starts his antonio conte nus early we'll preview the bundles league of season barry's belangerie is open jose's in a mood in turkey will answer your questions and that's today's guardian football weekly

Speaker 5 on the panel today after being sensationally dropped from the first pod of the premier league season barry glen denning is back welcome barry hi Just to say, you weren't suspended for a day on the hippie crack like Eve Basuma.

Speaker 6 No, I've never done hippie crack in my my life. Although where I live, I often see

Speaker 6 the residue of other people having done it. But I'm wading ankle deep through those little silver canisters.

Speaker 5 Well, if you do it, let us know. Archie Wintut, hello.

Speaker 1 Hey, Max.

Speaker 5 Nikki Bandini, welcome.

Speaker 1 Morning.

Speaker 5 Let's start the king power then. Leicester won.
Spurs won. Oh, Spurs.

Speaker 5 I even said it yesterday, Barry, after all those results that were so predictable at the weekend, Spurs will be the one who'd mess it up. really, and they really did.

Speaker 6 I mean, it wasn't the most unpredictable of results,

Speaker 6 but yeah, you would have to say it is

Speaker 6 two points they left behind them at the King Power Stadium. They were so impressive in the first half, and Leicester looked really, really bad.

Speaker 6 They looked like relegation certainties in that first half.

Speaker 6 And I think Steve Cooper said after the game in his interview with, well, I know he said it because I listened to it, is his interview with the the the club media guys that

Speaker 6 everything went wrong they were terrible in possession they were terrible out of possession and at half-time he and his staff sort of showed them some clips of you know stop doing this stop doing this and start doing this remember what you're good at and uh that they turned things around but yeah spurs were were

Speaker 6 imperious in the first half and should have had the game won by half-time. They did score with a lovely Madison delivery into the box.
Pedro Poros header.

Speaker 6 Throughout the course of the game, Dominic Solanke missed three very presentable chances.

Speaker 6 Gary Neville said on Sky afterwards, he needs to make sure he doesn't beat himself up over that for over the next few days.

Speaker 6 And I think maybe a young Dominic Solanke or a younger Dominic Solanke might, you know, get that get in his head and he'd dwell on it and start worrying.

Speaker 6 Hopefully, this older iteration of Solanke won't let it bother him. He is going to get a lot of goal-scoring chances at Spurs, and we saw that last night.

Speaker 6 I'm sure the goals will come. I was trying to put my finger on what exactly it was Leicester

Speaker 6 did to turn things around in the second half because they could have won this game too.

Speaker 6 An unfit Vardy playing up front, he scored. He probably should have scored a second,

Speaker 6 and yeah, they just moved the ball forward quickly.

Speaker 6 The chance where Varity was played in behind and he sort of shot straight at the keeper.

Speaker 6 That was a brilliant move. Just the long ball from Vout Fass and then Buena Notte and

Speaker 6 Harry Winks combining to play Vardi in behind. It was just boom, boom, boom.
And there he is through on goal.

Speaker 6 Ange Postcoglo was understandably down after the game, but as Nikki said in her column on Syria

Speaker 6 that was out yesterday

Speaker 6 some Italian mass manager I think it might be Massimo Allegri said August football is nonsense or it's a lie it's it's Marizia Sari said it's a liar August football is a liar I wouldn't read too much into the result but both teams can take positives from it less or more so than Spurs would be my sort of assessment yeah Nikki Bobby says can Tottenham will tottenham ever truly recover from lads

Speaker 5 with Spurs?

Speaker 5 I mean, I know you, I mean, I know I'm speaking because I'm not objective in this, but I just, I just, that first half, you were so enthused. You're like, God, they're on it.
They're so on it.

Speaker 5 Every pass is crisp. Everything is working.
Madison looks great. We're just, we're not just getting to the byline.
We're like, we're past the fullback.

Speaker 5 We're like, we're like sort of on the six-yard box. This will be a cricket score eventually.
But you just knew it. wouldn't necessarily be like that.

Speaker 7 Well, you were saying to use Max, I think everyone who listens to this podcast knows I'm an Arsenal fan.

Speaker 4 Of course.

Speaker 4 No,

Speaker 7 they were really good.

Speaker 7 Baz was saying, she said he didn't know what turned things around in the second half. And I've just got this idea in my head that all that turned it around was Jamie Vardie getting his Red Bull.

Speaker 7 It's like when Asterix gets his magic potion out, it's like, okay, well, now you know the galleries are smashed, aren't you? Because

Speaker 7 he's going to do his thing. Tottenham were really good.
And I completely agree with what Baz just said about... about what Sanny said about August football.
You can't take these games as some

Speaker 7 verdict for the whole season.

Speaker 7 and of course it's really easy to go back to oh they're being spursy and these things that we we have in our heads about who teams are but just realistically it was one game of football and and there's lots of positives to take from it for Tottenham.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry to bring it back to Vardy but I just I just loved of course the shithousery that he does with the going off his dig is hilarious.

Speaker 7 But even before that he just even now as

Speaker 7 just objectively an extraordinary striker in the history of the Premier League, someone who's scored more than 100 goals past the age of 30.

Speaker 7 Not for a second trying to diminish the fact that he is an absolutely elite level striker.

Speaker 7 He still has that energy about him of that Sunday league striker who's gone, oh, all right, lads, you haven't got anyone this weekend, I'll come in and I'm not fully fit, don't worry about it.

Speaker 7 And even the way he sort of gives that little gesture

Speaker 7 for the cross before he scores, like lads, there's no one marking me over here. Everything about him just has that energy to it.
But he combines it with just being an exceptional footballer.

Speaker 7 It's a joy to watch him when he's not doing it against your club.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, Tom Williams tweeted, and many others did.

Speaker 5 Jamie Vardy swinging from a can of Rebel as he walks out the second half, scoring an improbable equaliser with his first chance, goading Tottenham fans for having never won the Premier League, and loudly telling Christian Romero to fuck off as he goes off.

Speaker 5 I mean, he just played all the hits, Archie, in one game.

Speaker 1 Needle is so important for football viewing, and Jamie Vardy brings it in abundance. And

Speaker 1 particularly the way that the Premier League tends to play out is this soap opera it feels like a character who's been away for a year has come back and he's like I'm making my mark here don't don't think you forgot about me

Speaker 1 which I quite liked but yeah as as for the game I thought that for all the dominance that we talk about Spurs having there just wasn't that same quality of chance that

Speaker 1 that I would have expected to come with

Speaker 1 And to be honest, if you'd offered me the chances that Leicester had over the ones that Spurs had, they were a lot clearer to win the game. And

Speaker 1 in answer to something that Barry was saying as well, for as much as what did Lester do in the second half, I think it's that also this insane intensity and tempo that Tottenham play with, it's impossible to play like that for 90 minutes.

Speaker 1 And I wonder sometimes with Tottenham if

Speaker 1 Ange has this necessary pragmatism that he's willing to work into his game.

Speaker 1 Because I think that if you are a team challenging for the top four, that's the sort of game where you get 1-0 in front, but you're able to close it out.

Speaker 1 And I think that's the worrying thing for Tottenham.

Speaker 6 The one other thing I'd say, and I read the comments under the match report of

Speaker 6 in The Guardian, and the doom and gloom of the Spursbats Spursbats was just off the scale, man.

Speaker 6 And while, you know, it's obviously they should have won this game, and it is only the first game of the season, but

Speaker 6 it's also kind of exactly how they played last season when they only kept

Speaker 6 seven clean sheets out of 38 in the league and lost five of their last seven games. That

Speaker 6 worryingly high line is still

Speaker 6 evident, and and better teams than Leicester might exploited more often.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean I think my thought was if you looked at Man City, right,

Speaker 5 they were comfortable, they didn't play 100%, but Chelsea had chances, but City just did the job. Arsenal again against Wolves, like Wolves had chances at 1-0, but Arsenal did the job.

Speaker 5 Liverpool outplayed for the first half, but they still did the job. And, you know, Tottenham are looking to break into that.

Speaker 5 And they were the ones who didn't do what all the other sides did, which is sort of that's sort of in in that comparative sense. The job, the job.
They didn't do the job, did they?

Speaker 4 I do think it was a point well made about

Speaker 7 even though they had a lot of the ball and played really good football, how many of their chances were chances where you think, oh, that's a shocking miss.

Speaker 7 There wasn't those sorts of chances all the time.

Speaker 7 I thought Solanke's chances, to me, they read like the sort of chances where you think, yeah, if that was Harry Kane, Harry Kane, sorry to bring in the obvious name, he'd score that because it's Harry Kane and you'd expect him to.

Speaker 7 But it wasn't like, oh,

Speaker 1 he wasn't missing sitters from five yards out was he and actually pedro porrow's goal was really well taken header the sad thing to watch here is is is actually just watching max and how there's just this there's a tension that comes over max when you watch him when when there's talk about spurs like you cocked your head in such a way of why why is this happening again at the start look cambridge united have lost three from three Tottenham are the only big side who haven't won.

Speaker 5 You know, it's the start of any normal season, isn't it? Leicester have signed Oliver Skip from the Spurs on a five-year deal for a fee in excess of 20 million.

Speaker 5 He'll partner Harry Winks in a very retro Tottenham midfield. Get Daly Alley in, get Sergei Rebrov in.
Why not?

Speaker 5 Off the pitch, been reported that Leicester faced two points deductions in relation to their spending during the 2022-2023 accounting period and last season when they're in the championship.

Speaker 5 It sounds like a similar situation to Everton, who faced two deductions for failure to comply with PSR and were deducted 10 points, which then became six on appeal.

Speaker 5 Leicester have said Leicester remained willing and eager to engage constructively with the Premier League and the EFL to seek the proper resolution of any potential charges by the right bodies at the right time.

Speaker 5 And also, something that we haven't mentioned before that game: tributes were paid to Craig Shakespeare before kickoff.

Speaker 5 A minute's applause in the stadium. He passed away at the start of the month, age just 60.
He was the assistant manager in their league-winning season in 2015-16.

Speaker 5 He revealed last year he'd been diagnosed with cancer. His family released a statement via the LMA saying he passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family.

Speaker 5 In other Premier League news, transfer news, surprisingly, Barry, we go to Chelsea

Speaker 5 who've agreed to sign Jo Felix. Conor Gallagher's moving the other way to Athleti.
They probably do need a striker. Do they need that striker?

Speaker 6 I don't know.

Speaker 6 I've never...

Speaker 6 On his day, he's brilliant. And

Speaker 6 we've seen him play brilliantly sometimes for Portugal.

Speaker 6 I'm trying to think, have I seen him play brilliantly for Atletico? I can't remember off the top of my head, I'm sure he has. I don't know what to make of Chelsea.

Speaker 6 On Monday night football last night, they had a graphic up of, you know, where each player they have in the squad, what position they have.

Speaker 6 Like, there's up to seven players for some positions, goalkeeper.

Speaker 6 None of the goalkeepers they have particularly good is in the way. They do need a goalkeeper and they do need a striker, that's for sure.

Speaker 6 And that seems remarkable considering they already have 75 goalkeepers, but they don't have one that stand out as being particularly brilliant.

Speaker 6 We will find out in due course if Joe Felix is the striker they need. I mean, I think they already have the striker they need, but they're going to sell him to Napoli.

Speaker 6 So, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 6 It's very difficult to say.

Speaker 5 Yeah, he's been offered a six-year deal, which has produced your rights for Chelsea is equivalent to a three-month emergency loan.

Speaker 5 Apparently, Nikki, they are still interested in Victor Osserman as well. You know, Napoli want Lukaku.
Can you see that happening?

Speaker 7 Napoli not only want Lukaku, they really pretty, well, Antonio Conte, as we're going to get on to, is pretty desperate to get Victor Ossman out off the books because when he arrived to be manager this summer, it was pretty much open knowledge that Victor Ossman

Speaker 7 had agreed with the club he was going to leave. When Ossman signed a contract last year, there was

Speaker 7 a verbal agreement between management and

Speaker 7 Ossiman that, look, you sign this new deal, we'll put this 130 million euros release clause in. Someone's going to pay that, and we'll all be happy in the summer.

Speaker 7 But until Ossiman leaves,

Speaker 7 Napoli can't do the business of going and signing someone else. So there's this really obvious, what looks from the outside, nice, logical deal to be done, right?

Speaker 7 Ossiman goes to Chelsea, Lukaka goes the other way, and everyone's happy, except that no one at the moment can make the sums work because

Speaker 7 even if you take Chelsea's valuation of Lukaka of about 30 million, that still leaves about 100 million gap.

Speaker 7 Chelsea don't seem inclined to bridge that for Ossaman at the moment and the other players who've been discussed as possible part exchange deals.

Speaker 7 For whatever reason, there's a lot of names being thrown out in the Italian press. Certainly Tiesare Casadeo, the young Italian at Chelsea, has been mentioned as a possible makeweight.

Speaker 7 For some reason, this deal doesn't quite work for everybody.

Speaker 7 And it's one of those things, the closer we get to the end of the transfer window, it's possible that someone backs down and says, you know what, we'll all be happy if we just get this done, let's give some ground.

Speaker 7 But at the moment, it's like no one quite wants to get less than what they think their players are worth, I guess.

Speaker 5 Look, we'll get to whether Raheem Sterling would fit with Juve when we do the Juve bit. Just a couple of other transfer bits.

Speaker 5 Al-Hilal have Kyle Walker and Jao Kanzello on a three-man shortlist, apparently. I mean, it feels a lot like a two-man shortlist to me.

Speaker 5 Ilkai Gundawan might be going back to City from Barcelona.

Speaker 5 Brighton have signed Jorginho Ruta for a fee of 40 million from Leeds. So I feel Barry losing him.
They lost Somerville, didn't they? And they lost Archie Gray, Leeds.

Speaker 5 So disappointing for them, but you know, Brighton signed good players. And Wolves want Aaron Ramsdale from Arsenal.

Speaker 5 Good idea, Baz?

Speaker 6 When you said that in the intro, I thought you meant Aaron Ramsey. I was going.

Speaker 5 Is he still at Arsenal and he's going to Wolves?

Speaker 6 No, he's at Cardiff now and not doing particularly well, I think.

Speaker 6 But one presumes Aaron Ramsdale isn't happy playing second fiddle at Arsenal, although he might think, you know, I might get in and be able to stay in, but I think a move away would benefit him.

Speaker 6 I don't know if a move away to Wolves would benefit him, or with apologies, or with all the obligatory all-due respect to Wolves, if he should perhaps be setting his sights a little higher.

Speaker 5 Oh, Chelsea need a keeper. They could make it their ninth one.
Archie, it's early for a Fulham minute, but why not while we're on the Premier League? You did all right at Old Trafford.

Speaker 5 You're trying to sign some interesting players. Smith Rose is sort of a statement, isn't it?

Speaker 5 Are you staring at gossip columns, refreshing your transfer feeds every second of the day?

Speaker 1 No, I hate it.

Speaker 1 I hate all the stuff which isn't the football, to be honest.

Speaker 5 But I suppose for Fulham, it doesn't look like you're like Palace are obviously terrified of selling all their best players. It looks like you're going to sign players and not really let anyone go.

Speaker 5 So it's not as bad as.

Speaker 1 We've already sold our best player.

Speaker 1 He went to Bayern Munich Giao Pellinio.

Speaker 1 So, yeah. I thought the showing at Old Trafford on Friday night was better than expected and was frustrating as well, given how a couple of counter-attacks could have worked out.

Speaker 1 I think we will be fluttering about somewhere in lower to middle, mid-table this season.

Speaker 1 Other things still disturb me about the club. Yes, I do mean ticket prices.
Thanks for asking, Max. And along with other just ways that the club is being run, just, I don't know,

Speaker 1 it's worn down my love of Fulham.

Speaker 5 What else? Apart from ticket prices, what other things?

Speaker 6 You've got that nice Riverside Stan Jacuzzi and fine dining experience to look forward to in, I think, December.

Speaker 4 Exactly.

Speaker 1 It's that bullshit

Speaker 1 that kind of winds me up in that

Speaker 1 it's kind of taken in the media as being like, oh, look at this kind of fun thing. And I'm like, yeah, I do get it.

Speaker 1 But also, it's like knowing that it coming in the face of people not being able to go watch the club that I grew up going to see because there were also enough cheap tickets for people to go watch.

Speaker 1 The thing is, is that such is the way that the news cycles work if you bring up the same issue issue over and over again and say the same thing, it gets boring when actually it stands true.

Speaker 1 It is still the case that it's bollocks. And

Speaker 1 yeah, that's what I'm kind of trying to fight against in terms of

Speaker 1 it sounds, it sounds boring, but it's still just bollocks.

Speaker 5 I just love the idea of in the history of football, have two ever football fans said, you know, do you want to go to the game Saturday? You know,

Speaker 5 taking Cambridge's example where you could go in whatever stand you wanted. Should we go north? Should we go on the North Terrace? Should we go in the Habin? Oh, what about the jacuzzi? Oh, good idea.

Speaker 5 Yeah, love to spend two hours in a jacuzzi watching a goalless draw with Cheltenham. Great idea.
Well, look, good for you for bringing it up again.

Speaker 5 We should actually do a bit more on ticket prices at some point soon. Anyway, that'll do for part one.
We'll do Seriat in part two.

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Speaker 5 Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So, look, Nikki, the Premier League started with all these predictable results until Totland messed it up.
But Serie Art was different, wasn't it?

Speaker 5 You know, Acey Milan 2-0 down, going into the last minute, home to Torino and grabbing a point. Inter

Speaker 5 letting in a last-minute equaliser to draw at Genoa. Should we start with Inter as they're the champions?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I mean, this is why I guess it was in my column the line line about august football being a liar i think a lot of these teams to me looked very a lot of teams look very heavy-legged and i think that was true across the premier league as well to a certain extent but i really thought felt it a lot with some of these serie teams inter did not look anything like their sharpest yet with the exception of um marcus turam who was brilliant um but they they still should have won against genoa they were they were 2-1 up uh going into injury time and then Bissek gives away this penalty for hand ball and and that can happen.

Speaker 7 They didn't win away at Genoa last season either, so I think it's it's certainly nothing to get too overly anxious about, but yeah, it was

Speaker 7 an easing back into the football. I think the first five games of the weekend, the first five results anyway, were all draws.
So there was this point of like, oh, it looks really dodgy.

Speaker 7 Someone's going to win at some point.

Speaker 7 But yes, this was one of them. And so was Milan being 2-0 down at Antirino and then coming back to draw 2-2.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Turam took his second goal especially. I mean, he took them both really well, but his second goal was a brilliant finish, wasn't it?

Speaker 7 I was so sure that goal was offside, and then when the VAR overturned it and said it was onside, I was like,

Speaker 7 this is a nice scandal brewing to start the season. But actually, no, it was.

Speaker 7 I mean, it's still, I think this has been talked to death on the podcast, to be honest, but it's still one of those where when you look at it, you think, well, the bit that makes this blurry is when is the ball leaving Fratesi's foot on the assist?

Speaker 7 When does the pass actually happen?

Speaker 7 But yeah, you can only speak to

Speaker 7 the decision that was given. And then the way Turam took the goal was phenomenal.

Speaker 7 He looked really, really good. And of course, that's huge for them.
Last season, Lataro, for a big part of the season, just carried them because he was in brilliant form.

Speaker 7 But his partnership with Turam certainly was really encouraging. And that was year one.
And so you think Turam's second season in Italy has scope to come on and do even better.

Speaker 7 You throw Mediterrane into the mix, who we saw off the bench, but presumably we'll see more of as another option up front.

Speaker 7 I think there's every reason to believe, despite drawing this first game, the Intear are going to be very, very good again.

Speaker 5 Barry, I've just noticed that while your setup for the Instagram and Twitter is excellent, my football weekly is upside down. My microphone

Speaker 4 affects the number of hits that we get.

Speaker 6 Maybe we should start again.

Speaker 1 I wanted to say that it's because you're doing it from Australia and that's a good thing.

Speaker 4 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 It was clever. It was clever.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought of that.
Anyway, look, Chay Adams made his debut for Torino in their tool draw.

Speaker 5 He wasn't necessarily the central figure, Nikki, but I think a lot of people would be like, what, who?

Speaker 4 Chey Adams, Torino?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 7 I mean, I think there's a bit of that vibe in Seria in general.

Speaker 7 Again, things I think I wrote the other day in my preview, but 13 clubs with new managers in Italy and 10 of those have come from other Italian clubs.

Speaker 7 It's been a real shifting around and swapping places.

Speaker 7 But in terms of players, I think Shea Adams is probably one of the ones who will be, as you say, to British audiences, one of those names that are like, wait, hang on.

Speaker 7 But yes, came off the bench, didn't do a lot, looking great for Torino away from home at Milan. Milan, who of course had a great preseason.

Speaker 7 They beat Real Madrid, they beat Manchester City, they beat Barcelona on penalties in this tour of America.

Speaker 7 And if August football is a liar, then July football is something to completely disregard, by the way. But people still get caught up in these things and excited.

Speaker 7 Paolo Fonseca saying his ambition was to win the title. So

Speaker 7 I think people maybe had high hopes for Milan, and they didn't look great for most of this.

Speaker 7 But scoring two goals in injury time and getting the point, it's a lot better than losing your first game, isn't it?

Speaker 1 I like the idea of characterising each month of the year as a personality trait in football.

Speaker 7 Which is the truthful month.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I reckon

Speaker 5 by October, November, it's real, isn't it? When the clocks change? When the clocks change, the football is real, probably.

Speaker 5 you know and it's cold so that's real football isn't it napoli had a disaster didn't they? Three nilde feet away at Verona.

Speaker 5 How was Antonio Conte?

Speaker 7 Well, this is the thing. Antonio Conte

Speaker 7 was in full Antonio Conte mode before the game even happened. So Conte at his pregame press conference is does this whole long extended uh bit about

Speaker 7 things aren't how I expected them to be. When I arrived here, I thought there would be at least some positive things to hold on to, but there's nothing positive at all.
It was basically what he said.

Speaker 5 And and doesn't sound like him. Right.

Speaker 7 But it sounds like him, maybe at least by halfway through the first season or

Speaker 7 the season between the summer between seasons one and two, to be there already before there's even been a ball kicked was all at once a bit like, oh, this doesn't look good.

Speaker 7 And also entirely predictable from looking at the fact it's Napoli, it's Arelio de La Ventis and how the team went last season going through three different managers.

Speaker 7 But yes, Conte came in at peak Antonio Conte and then they got walloped 3-0 by Verona.

Speaker 7 Verona, who was supposed to be relegation battlers last season, had an incredible second half last season, despite selling 12 first-team players, first-team squad members in January, and then have seen some of their best players leave again this summer and change managers.

Speaker 7 So not a team who anyone had high expectations for.

Speaker 7 To get walloped 3-0 there, not a positive start. Conte, to be fair to him, after the game, did not go back to the transfer talk and say, I'm not getting everything I wanted.

Speaker 7 He actually said, this is on me, this wasn't good enough, and held his hands up. But yes, I think a lot of people, including myself, have been slightly caught up in this idea of it's Antonio Conte.

Speaker 7 When he was last in Italy, he won with Inter. Before that, he won with Juventus, he won with Chelsea.
The only place he didn't win was Tottenham, and well, it's Tottenham.

Speaker 7 So, you sort of think he's got this idea, this aura around him of the guy who will just show up and win and to get thumped 3-0 in your opening weekend

Speaker 7 does rather shatter that a bit.

Speaker 5 You said

Speaker 5 he wants to sign the Scotland midfield.

Speaker 7 Well, this is just this.

Speaker 7 So Conte talked a lot in his, again, pregame comments about the Mercato, the Transwinder being blocato, which is blocked. And what he means is Ossiman.
Ossiman is in the way until Ossiman leaves.

Speaker 7 Ossiman has been training apart from the team for the whole preseason. Until Ossman leaves, we can't get business done.
But actually, in reality, some business has been done.

Speaker 7 They signed Buon Giorno, who Torino defender had a sensational season last season. Unfortunately, missed this game because of injury, but did play in their cup game the other day.

Speaker 7 They signed Rafa Marin, who didn't play in this game, so questions about why given another centre-back, and the player who did start Juan Jesus was terrible. So there has been some transfer movement.

Speaker 7 And the idea is, yes, we can't go and sign Lukaku until we get Osuma off the books, is really what everyone's talking about. But maybe there's some deals can be done around the margin.

Speaker 7 But the players they're being linked to are Billy Gilmore and Scott McDominay. And I was just thinking, what was it about Scotland's Euro 2024 performance that sold you

Speaker 7 this is the group you need to get back to the top of the city? I don't know. But those are the names.
Those are the ones we're hearing a lot of in the press the last few days.

Speaker 5 Juve beat Como 3-0. It's nice to see Pepe Reiner in goal for Como.
Looked quite comfortable. Tim Weyer's first goal for the club.
I don't know anything about Samu in Bangula,

Speaker 5 but he scored a lovely goal.

Speaker 7 In Bangula, yeah. Listen.

Speaker 7 The scoreline's one thing. Newly promoted team, sure, you expect Juventus to win.
This was really fun. And I I haven't said that about a Juventus game in years.

Speaker 7 I can't remember the last time I watched Juventus game and thought, oh, I enjoyed that. That was an entertaining time to spend watching 90 minutes of.
This is Chiago Mota has just taken charge.

Speaker 7 Mbangula, none of us expected to see him start this game. That was supposed to be Douglas Lewis's role.
They spent... more than 50 million on Luis this summer and he was supposed to start this game.

Speaker 7 But Mota has been saying, we're going to start the players who are giving us the best

Speaker 7 energy in training. And obviously, Mbangula has been doing that.
And he comes on and 20-year-old kids scores an absolutely brilliant first goal of the season for them.

Speaker 7 The whole team, I think the oldest player in their starting 11 was Bremer at 27 years old in defense.

Speaker 7 This was a young Juventus, it was an attacking Juventus, it was a Juventus who's three behind the attack was Mbangula, who's come up from the next-gen squad, again, 20 years old.

Speaker 7 Canon Yildis, 19 years old, another next-gen player, and then Timothy Weyer on the right of the attack.

Speaker 7 This was exciting.

Speaker 7 I honestly, I'm still, because it was last night, a bit shaken by it, because even when Juventus have been good, and they've been good plenty in the last decade and more, it's often been, oh yeah, Juventus, they're good, but it's kind of tedious.

Speaker 7 No,

Speaker 7 this was something else. And sure, everything I've already said today holds.
It's

Speaker 7 August, but I've never been this curious and intrigued at the start of a season to see more of Juventus.

Speaker 7 I want to see see more of this team under Marta and I think they certainly have done nothing to dispel the idea that they are back in the ascendant now that they've made that choice to make him their manager.

Speaker 5 There are rumours of Raheem Sterling going to Juve.

Speaker 5 Would he be a good fit?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's an interesting question given everything I've just said about this young project and perhaps not every single player has to fit the mold. But what is true is that Federico Chiesa is

Speaker 7 effectively similar to Ossiman.

Speaker 7 He wants to leave, the club wants him to leave, they haven't managed to find anyone to take him because Kiesa is one of these odd stories where there's general agreement that he's got a lot of talent, but he hasn't really played up to it since Euro 2020, partly because of a lot of injuries.

Speaker 7 And I think that the Sterling deal would be a Kiesa goes, Sterling comes

Speaker 7 swap, which might be good for everybody, right? It's a change of scene, it's an opportunity for different people to

Speaker 7 start over in different sectors.

Speaker 5 You definitely need to get someone in like that.

Speaker 7 I mean, it's definitely a case where you look at both both of them and think, are you going somewhere where you're definitely going to start in that swap? Probably not,

Speaker 4 but you never know, right?

Speaker 5 But I suppose money-wise, he's on 325 grand a week, apparently, at Chelsea. And presumably, Juve...

Speaker 5 I mean, I don't know what the wages are like in Italy, but I presume Chelsea would have to...

Speaker 5 It would be a loan and Chelsea would have to pay buckets of that wages, or he'd have to take a massive pay cut.

Speaker 7 I'd be surprised if Juvenes would be willing to take on the wages that big. Kies obviously has been one of their highest paid players.

Speaker 7 There has been, as was talked about quite a lot, the end of this Degreto Crecita, the growth decree in Italy, which means that they can no longer give quite as generous wages to foreigners because the tax breaks aren't quite as good as they were a year ago.

Speaker 7 Having said that, Juventus are

Speaker 7 throwing money around this summer. Douglas Lewis was over 50 million Euros.
They're still working to get a deal across the line for Tiancoop miners from Atalanta.

Speaker 7 That will certainly be over 50 million euros.

Speaker 7 They're not being shy with their wallet this summer. Juventus are

Speaker 7 throwing money around around in a way they haven't for a while, so who knows?

Speaker 5 You mentioned Atalanta there.

Speaker 6 They had a good win, didn't they?

Speaker 5 Aleche.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I just, I mean, again, first game of the season. Also, it's Lece who are very much in the teams who start the season, I would say, among the relegation favourites.

Speaker 7 But I just think with Atalanta, we always have to pinch ourselves a bit and remind ourselves what the story is because it was already a club that's done so much punching above its weight for years and years now, has built more of a steady footing off that, to be fair to it.

Speaker 7 The budget is bigger than it used to be.

Speaker 7 But look at this this summer general cascamaca torn crucial ligament uh scalvini brilliant young defender tore his crucial ligament at the end of last season so that's two of your best players out the way coop miners didn't play in this game because he's almost certainly going to juventus that's another of your best players out of the way and uh lookman as well being linked with a a move away and so he also doesn't play in this game that's four of your best players four of the players who carried you to a europa league win last season not present and you still go and win 4-0.

Speaker 7 I just think Gasparini's got some secret sauce. He's doing amazing things there, as always.

Speaker 5 All right, that'll do for part two. Part three, we'll do the Bundesliga, Barry's Belangerie, a bit of Jose, and any other business.

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Speaker 5 Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. I saw the Bundesliga then, Archie.
And again, the big question is like, what happens with Bayern Munich and Vincent Company? What do you think?

Speaker 1 With the upheaval that hasn't happened, that the likes of Sierra Nabri, Josua Kimmish,

Speaker 1 Alfonso Davies, Leon Goretzka, they're still there, albeit Gorecka looks like he's being nudged towards the door.

Speaker 1 The other changes that we would have expected to have happened at Bayern haven't happened yet. And it's still difficult to call what Bayer will look like, maybe even in September.

Speaker 1 But I think the company has he's

Speaker 1 going to try and play man against man, pressing all over the pitch by the looks of it, similar to what Atalanta did to Baya Levakusen in the Europa League final.

Speaker 1 I think that his biggest challenge is to make Bayern entertaining again. The one quote that really sticks out from last season to me is one of the Bayern hierarchy, Jan Christian Dreason,

Speaker 1 the CEO, saying that Bayern were boring against Verde Bremen.

Speaker 1 And if you look at what happened throughout the season, you had Stuttgart and Leverkusen playing much better football than Bayern, and Bayern had to bend the knee to Stuttgart when they were at home to them to beat them.

Speaker 1 And that's very un-Bayern-like. So the key for Vincent Company is to make sure that Bayern are winning, first of all, but they also need need to be entertaining.

Speaker 1 And there have been some good signs in preseason, but with Bayern, it always feels like you're one defeat away from a crisis. They beat Ulm in the first round of the DFB Cup at the weekend, 4-0.

Speaker 1 Thomas Muller's coming back to the fore again, but you wonder how a player like Thomas Muller, who looked like he was so far on his way out.

Speaker 1 under Nagelsmann, really, and then under Thomas Tuchel as well, if putting the faith back in Muller there, putting the faith in Josua Kimmish playing in central midfield again, these are things that if it goes south, these questions will be put back towards him.

Speaker 1 And one thing that has been said to me by a member of the local Munich press is that Vincent Company doesn't give much away when he's speaking.

Speaker 1 Now, I think in England, the culture is if you're not giving much away, that's kind of accepted because nobody really is.

Speaker 1 But in Germany, there is this media expectation that you should be addressing things and you need to talk. And company's predecessors were very good talkers in Nagelsmann and Turkel.

Speaker 1 And that he's having a sporting director alongside him in press conferences, whether it's Max Abel or Christoph Freund, tells you that the club are trying to support him in that way.

Speaker 1 But it is something that he needs to be aware of that there will be times where he's expected to address issues because that is the status of the job that he's taken on.

Speaker 5 My first thought is if you want to play high press man on man,

Speaker 5 Thomas Muller and Harry Kane is not dynamic.

Speaker 1 Muller is actually a very good presser. He is somebody who is

Speaker 1 somebody who's very good at conducting it and he has been like a second coach on the pitch for previous coaches.

Speaker 1 So Harry Kane, less so, I agree, but he's been saying, well

Speaker 1 he's been saying that, you know, he's very happy with Vince and Company coming in.

Speaker 1 How much of what Harry Kane says, I never know how much of what he's thinking really, because it always feels like there's some shutters behind it.

Speaker 5 Well, no current player can say that, right? No player can say, actually, I don't think there's a point, you know,

Speaker 1 that's where it's interesting. And I think it's also that there is this pressure on him to play

Speaker 1 some sort of counter football to what Lever Cousin have been doing.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 look, I'd still expect them to keep the ball very well but what's going to be interesting is teams will will back off them still because buyer munich have a way bigger budget than everybody else still in the league we're talking even in relation to brussia dortmund their their wage budget will be 150 million euros bigger than them so that's

Speaker 1 even just by gravity buyer should still be winning financial gravity buyer and should still be winning this league and that's the exciting thing coming into the season is you you think it may still be quite a close-run thing again.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 5 How are Leverkusen shaping up?

Speaker 1 They've not sold any of their big players from last season. There was a controversial moment when Fernando Caro, the Leverkusen CEO, said of the Bayern CEO.

Speaker 1 of the Bayern spotting director, Max Ebel, he didn't want to have anything to do with him, not at all, because of, I think, verbal promises that were made over a transfer, a potential transfer of Yonatan Tar, centre-back for Bayer Leverkusen and Germany and the Euros to Bayern, and then that not going through after

Speaker 1 Mathai Stelet's sale to Manchester United. That's caused a little bit of uproar.
But overall, it's been quite a serene affair with Levakus, and that they've held on to Vietz as expected.

Speaker 1 So, the question for me is: how will it affect them when certain players who chipped in last season are not playing? Will everybody still have the same buy-in?

Speaker 1 Because that dynamic last year of everybody chipping in at the right time, if there was an injury,

Speaker 1 somebody was able to step up. When Victor Bonnyface was out injured, Patrick Schick came back and

Speaker 1 helped deliver for them. So throughout the squad, you saw that happening.
They've made some smart additions by the looks of it. Alish Garcia coming in from

Speaker 1 Hirona, for example,

Speaker 1 he looks quite solid, but yeah, they are still unbeaten in domestic competition since the start of last season.

Speaker 1 It's funny, whenever you lose a game, it's always okay, where can we now put the unbeaten record to? But they are 34 games unbeaten in the Bundesliga.

Speaker 1 Start away at Brussy Munching Glabbach on Friday night. Gladbach were one of the few teams to stop them in some form last season.
They drew 0-0

Speaker 1 at the Bay Arena last time.

Speaker 6 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 it's still quite a cauldron to walk into.

Speaker 1 But Levakusen are definitely looking like the main title contender alongside Bayern, I'd say.

Speaker 7 It was another 88th-minute equalizer in the Super Cup, wasn't it? They can't keep getting away with this, Archie. They can't.

Speaker 1 They were down to 10 men as well. One of their new signings, Martin Therier,

Speaker 1 was sent off in the first half. And Stuttgart, who

Speaker 1 deserved more credit for finishing second above Bayern Munich last season under Sebastian Hernes. And also these

Speaker 1 forever there has been this hype around Der Classica being Bayern against Dortmund.

Speaker 1 If we're talking purely on the games that it produces, then the fixture right now is Levakus and Stuttgart because it is always open, entertaining football and both teams just going at each other.

Speaker 1 So yeah, there is still very much that feeling of, oh, they've done this again. And yeah, they won the Super Cup on penalties as well.

Speaker 1 And just a little note of how German fans still feel the need to take a moral stance.

Speaker 1 The ultras of neither club were present because of seeing this as a commercial operation and this was not on sporting merit, this trophy.

Speaker 1 But yeah, still positive signs for both Leber Kusen and Stuttgart. Stuttgart have lost some key players in the summer, Valdemar Anton and Seru Girassi going to Borussia Dortmund.

Speaker 1 And you've got Hiroki Ito as well, who went to Bayern Munich.

Speaker 1 But there still looks to be enough about them that they got in Denis Undav

Speaker 1 back from Brighton.

Speaker 1 That's a really big, big signing for Stuttgart, both in terms of identification, but just also how good a player he's proven to be. So they'll still be a team to watch.

Speaker 1 They'll be interesting to watch in the Champions League, but I think they'll probably be competing to get back into the Champions League again next season with Borussia Dortmund.

Speaker 1 Leipzig, probably somewhere in between Bayern and Leverkus. And I would say that they're still a notch above them.
I think you saw what Chavi was like in the Euros

Speaker 1 and watching him with another year's experience is going to be very exciting.

Speaker 5 You mentioned Dortmund. They've got a new manager.
Bit of churn there as well. What are their hopes and dreams?

Speaker 1 I think it's worth saying that, yes, Edin Taersic, the man who led Dortmund to a Champions League final, was also

Speaker 1 mutually parted ways with on the day that the Euros began, meaning that nobody, I think, really registered it.

Speaker 1 But the style of play last season was a big issue for the Dortmund hierarchy, but also a lot of Dortmund fans. There was a tense relationship with sporting director Sebastian Kahl, but also

Speaker 1 there were problems which were bigger than him in the dressing room that I think have been boiling over for a while. That Mats Hummelsen was contract was not renewed, particularly after what he said

Speaker 1 in his own interests in the week before the Champions League final was no surprise. Marco Royce is gone, but Nouri Shaheen, a fabled son of the club, former Liverpool midfielder,

Speaker 1 is now the coach. And he doesn't have that much coaching experience he had, half a year in Turkey.

Speaker 1 But there is a big emphasis at Dortmund, sometimes to my liking, too much of an emphasis on how much do you identify with the club? How much of a past and history do you have there?

Speaker 1 And you see it with Sven Mislintat coming back.

Speaker 1 You may remember him from Arsenal. He's come back in the role of squad planner, and he's already had a big falling out, which is very Sven Mislintat

Speaker 1 for appearing pitch side at a training session in front of TV cameras, almost acting above his station, also in internal meetings, trying to do transfers on his own was also another accusation.

Speaker 1 There's always seems to be a bit of noise around Dortmund, and you look at some of these signings. Pascal Gross from Brighton is one of them.

Speaker 1 And he's giving them a certain stability and possession, great possession skills in midfield that they didn't have last season. And yet, at the weekend, they beat Phoenix Lübeck of the 4th Division.

Speaker 1 the fourth tier even in Germany, 4-1.

Speaker 1 And yet, Phoenix Lubeck hit the Dortmund woodwork three times, which is difficult not to spark memories of that Champions League semifinal against PSG.

Speaker 1 And there's just this whole energy about Dortmund still that suggests that all the problems of the last few years have very much not gone away.

Speaker 1 And there's a certain overconfidence about where they are. And if it's always the coach's fault, I begin to think it's not the coach's fault.
So I think

Speaker 1 there are still some issues to be processed there.

Speaker 5 I like the idea of Sven Milantat doing transfers on his own in the hope what that no one will notice and they're there and he has to do it by stealth. Anyway, Barry, to your belangerie.
Bonjour Sava.

Speaker 4 Bonjour, bonjour, bonjour.

Speaker 6 I suppose you could argue Luis Enrique started preparing Paris Saint-Germain for the post-Killian Mbappe era towards the end of last season when he kind of phased him out of the team and didn't really pick him, only brought him on occasionally as a substitute.

Speaker 6 And the post-Killian killing and bapira officially started with uh a psg win away at la harve on friday night uh they won 4-1 but it wasn't as convincing a win as the scoreline suggests psg went ahead uh shortly after two minutes i think with possibly the earliest league uh

Speaker 6 season opening goal ever scored. Wow.
Which was so they yeah, they went 1-0 up. La Harve had a first half equaliser ruled out for off-side.

Speaker 6 Then they equalised officially in the second half through Gautier Loris.

Speaker 6 And then it was all square until the 84th minute. And LeHarave had a bit of a collapse.
And Usman Dimbele, Bradley Barcola, and Randall Colomani

Speaker 6 scored rat-a-tat goals to put a bit of gloss on the scoreline. They won 4-1.
and PSG now unbeaten in 25 league away games, consecutive away games.

Speaker 6 Elsewhere, you'll remember, well,

Speaker 6 you may not remember, but Leon went from relegation contenders late last November to qualifying for the Europa League and were the form team.

Speaker 6 towards the end of the season under Pierre Saget, I'm going to say.

Speaker 6 But they lost 3-0 away to Rennes in their opener.

Speaker 6 Auxerre back in Liga, and they began their campaign with a 2-1 win at home to Nice. That winner came in the fifth minute of added time.

Speaker 6 And Marseille,

Speaker 6 many see them as genuine title contenders, possibly that they might run PSG close this season.

Speaker 6 And obviously, the big story there is that they've signed Mason Greenwood this summer on a five-year deal from Maniu. He moved for

Speaker 6 and a half million quid and his arrival sort of sparked a bit of an online backlash from marseille fans the city mayor uh got involved saying that signing him would go against the values of olympic marseille and the city of marseille

Speaker 6 We all know why these things are being said about Mason Greenwood.

Speaker 6 Marseille got their campaign off to a good start with a 5-1 win away at Brest and Greenwood scored twice and was involved in all five goals.

Speaker 6 He was also barracked throughout the game by the Brest fans. Thank you, Barry.

Speaker 5 Just on Mbapa, he made his day before El Madrid in a game.

Speaker 5 They drew one all with Majorca. We'll get Sid on soon to expand on all of that.

Speaker 5 Archie, you wanted to bring up Jose, who was, well, it says here, criticised the team for playing anti-football, which is, I mean, sounds like gold to me.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 he was tuning up with Fenebache away at Goztepe.

Speaker 1 And yet they let that slip and it finished 2-2.

Speaker 1 And Jose said, the passion, the love, the enthusiasm matches with my passion with football totally. Then there are other things that are out of my control that are cultural.

Speaker 1 It looks like it's for me to adapt and not vice versa. I am the one that arrived.
I am the foreign one, which feels like a... a late follow-up to a special one.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to change the state of things. I need to adapt.
I'm not a magician. I'm experienced.
And then he was talking about being

Speaker 1 too naive or too poetic in a league that is not poetic. And

Speaker 1 talking as well about how the anti-football in some other countries, they call it being clever.

Speaker 1 I think they, as in his own players, need to be clever too. And you think, are you saying, Jose?

Speaker 4 Are you saying that

Speaker 1 you're receiving the treatment that you've doled out for very many years now?

Speaker 5 Yeah, what if he thinks he's Marcelo Bielsa? What if he doesn't know?

Speaker 5 Like no one's ever told him, you know?

Speaker 4 Oh, I'm up.

Speaker 7 It's such gaslighting. It's like

Speaker 7 Sherzi doesn't want us to believe our own memories of the football he's played.

Speaker 5 I'm all for it.

Speaker 6 I'm all for it when he's doing it in Turkey or Italy or Spain. I don't want to have to listen to it week after week after week after week when he's in England.
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 6 Just Just gets very tedious and annoying.

Speaker 5 All in for it from a not-gaslighting fan in general, I would say.

Speaker 5 Anyway, anyway, that'll do for today. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you, Nikki.

Speaker 7 Thanks.

Speaker 5 Cheers, Archie.

Speaker 4 Thanks, Max.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Barry.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 5 Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove. Our executive producer is Daniel Stevens.

Speaker 4 We'll be back on perfect.

Speaker 1 This is The Guardian.