Liverpool Sign Chiesa, Simakan Linked with Newcastle, and Darwin Nunez to Arsenal? | Ep. 20

hello and welcome back to the transfer flow podcast it's me your host Patrick van stren and if this is your first time listening to us or watching us then please do subscribe to our YouTube channel head over to Twitter and subscribe to our Twitter feed for lots of updates on upcoming transfers and of course make sure that you're signed up for our newsletter which has all the best analysis this summer today I'm joined by my podcast co-host Ravi rinen how are you Ravi hey Patrick how are you doing I'm good I'm good we're nearly there we're nearly at the end thank God uh I don't know if you're as fatigued as I am I I think that you're but you're kind of are you not a longdistance runner robit well good thing you asked about it like I am a longdistance runner but you know I'm obviously I'm in Houston uh for those that someone some of them already know the weather sort of turned at the end of last week to the better so we've had probably every day we woke up at 6:00 a.m. with 95% human humity every day for like the last three months uh 80° fah which is like 27 somewhere around there great and then uh last couple days it been nice and so so I thought today I'm going to do like a harder run which is usually some intervals running a little fast for about half a mile at a time take a few minutes off um and then I went out and it was just as bad so two two things happened you know one of the things that happens always with the runners is that you always tend to overestimate what you can do oh I can do that speed or I can do that pace um or or you do I can do six instead of eight or eight instead of six so you end up overestimating what you could do and then you also I also underestimated how bad the weather was going to be like the conditions to run so it was a very tough tough run this morning but it's okay you'll be missing it once once you're uh you know losing things running running in East Coast uh snow you you'll be missing you'll be missing you'll be trying to run back to Houston for sure I think that we are also leaving right around this is the time this is the best time of the year starting in Houston like end of August early September through through April is the best part of the year uh so but anyway I think uh we I think we've had our fix of hot weather oh uh I'm I'm going out to seek some next week I'm on holiday next week you and I will be taking some some time off over the next couple of weeks but there'll be plenty of great content coming up we've got transfer grades where we'll be going through and rating uh different teams transfer business over the course of the summer but the windows not quite shut yet and there are some moves coming up kind of out of nowhere one that came up out of nowhere this week was federo kza who is now off to Liverpool for a fee that is supposedly about 11 million something like that which is to my mind crazy value we were talking about him earlier in the in the window at the end of July I think and the rumored fee was 2025 that's been cut in half and of course Liverpool being the smart team that they are thought yeah we'll go and grab this guy what do you think about the fit uh of Kaza for Liverpool Ravi I think he's first of all I think he's ALS he just has one year left in his contract and yeah and I would say in terms of the price generally when the price is so low you wonder what the wages look like because as a as a club as somebody running the club most of them generally look at what is cost per year so you amortize the transfer plus what the salary is going to be over the year so so usually they look at Players financially teams look at the squad in terms of how much this player cost me per year how much this player cost me per year if a player X is costing me 5 million per year all in when I if I'm not going to renew him usually what happens is I just bring in somebody in the same salary slot or same kind of cost slot so so so it could it's it's something that North American Sports are very are very used to doing because they always look at these slots one in one out two in two out type thing where oh how much room I'm creating on the cap or the salary salary budget and what players I'm bringing in so I I don't know obviously it could be that his salary is pretty high um so it might even out but still it's a good price I think the rumor was that um that Juventus were happy to shift him because supposedly he was on about 7 million a year something like that which I guess I guess that's what 140 140 a week something like that so for Liverpool that feels quite doable in a way that for Italy that's really up at the top of the range yeah for sure and also he was also being played in a system where his skills were not being really used well I think in Ju I mean he's a he's a he's a very technical right-footed Winger playing on the left side cuts inside creates chances shoots can create his own shot but sometimes that's also a double-edge sword like he does take some kind of wild shots or like shots low quality but um he is a good dribbler and you know he he definitely I think fitwise if you you have to go back to antina where he played a little differently I think um you mentioned it in the pre U before the show and so what that shows is that he can adapt to playing different roles I think last year he even played a little bit of wing back which shows a couple things one being that he's quite adaptable to playing different roles to get on the field and number two is also someone that probably not that gets upset that he doesn't get to play in his favor role so playing as a wing back being a being a Winger like that I think is is not that difficult I think if you look at look at it but obviously players are different players look at it differently so I think I think for Liverpool he will to me he he walks into the to the group as the backup for Luis Diaz on the left side however his game is very different from Lis DS and so I think that gives Liverpool the opportunity to to have have a a variety throw a different look uh at a different type of opposition let's say if they're playing somebody really a low block team and you don't have a lot of space to run in behind someone like him that's a really good dribbler can can open things up take guys on One V one and create some angles and passes that that may be that may be one way to use him the other things also one one aspect of partner slot's management seems to be that he does make early Subs like he wants to use his full roster I don't know if you watch the game this past weekend he he took out Trent around 77th or 75th and Trent wasn't happy and you know and then they they shot to the the The Dugout area and where AR was slitting next to Trent and talking to him because Trent kind of was sulky when he walked off the field and just went and sat down in his spot anyway that's that's an aside but I think he does he looks like someone who wants to use the full depth of the squad so having another player that's starting caliber that can come in and play albe it slightly differently than Dana Lu Diaz I think that gives that gives a a lot of um lot of flexibility for for Liverpool and I think I completely agree with you I I think the best ker as Kim has said in the newsletter is the Kaza that's playing off the left that's coming inside and getting shots that is the Kaza we saw of that last season at Fiorentina it's the Kaza we saw of the first season in Juventus and these were the seasons where his shot numbers were healthy and he put up really good expected goal numbers you pointed out that he's become more of an expected assist guy over the last few years which I think probably is a product of playing different roles now I don't want him I I don't think the best way to maximize him is to put him on the right but if you do have a system where your right back is stepping into Midfield then your right winger kind of has to hold the width and that feels a bit weird when your right winger is most Sal because he can do it but it's not where he does the most damage well having would having kazer in that situation who does have experience of playing as a wing back and maybe is a bit less bothered about getting his shots when he plays there would would that kind of make sense as as a fit in that situation I think as a as a change I think it it definitely he looks like a player that is adaptable that can play different roles and in a team like if he walks into a team like Liverpool from Juventus where he was being played little bit out of position but he's now going into a higher profile team I think he will do everything to be on to get on the field and I think that that you what you pointed out being on the right side where Trent if Trent comes inside then him staying wide and holding the WID I think that's another that's another thing that while it probably wasn't used does much at at ju I think it could it could be a really good um I think a really good way to use him at Liverpool an interesting thing about this is that it feels like Liverpool's attack now has quite a lot of relatively low touch guys in it you know like Diaz Diaz and Salah are the guys who are on the ball the most and after that you know jot is a kind of inside forward rather than a Winger right Nunes obviously very low touch it feels like all his touches are shots hako not on the ball that much I don't think you know personally I don't want him on the ball that much because I don't like him um and kazer is relatively low touch too so when it comes to fitting these guys together I look at kza and I'm not sure I want Kiza and Nunes on the field at the same time and an interesting thing that's come out of this move and again Kim wrote about it in the newsletter was the possibility that Liverpool would want to move somebody on they've now got Diaz hako kza nun Salah plus Elliot plus zos you know a lot of a lot of depth in these attacking roles um and the thought was maybe they'd be willing to move Nunes on how would you feel about the prospect of them putting nun on the market because he's kind of a stats darling but he is undeniably a frustrating player if he plays for your team I think yeah he is I I think first of all I think for a move of this this size and this magnitude to happen I just don't think there's enough hours left in the window to pull this off I I I honestly feel if this is really were to happen I think we would have heard a lot more sooner um about this that's that's my take on whether the move will happen or not um but just thinking about it yeah I mean I think it if obviously he hasn't played much in the first two games but that could be because he's coming back from Copa America and you know I think arlot slowly easing those players in and he wasn't participant in the preseason as much um in the in the their US tour so yeah there could be that so there's we probably can't read too much into that now to the rumors and to what if you if that is indeed true that AR doesn't fancy him as a as a player that he wants to depend on as his core player it's always advisable able to make the move sooner than later uh just because if he's going to sit on the bench for six more months or until dece until December uh then the value will only go down and also you know that in the January window the sums of money that you exchange or you know that we see are not quite as as much as what they see as we see during the summer window so there is definitely like a downside to to keeping him to to just if especially if the decision is made or if they're set that well I don't think he's in my long-term plans like if all that is done then then yes I think moving now makes more sense but I also think that the way we mentioned it in the previous podcast how ARA has been very deliberate or the way they have not really made any moves this year because the squad looks pretty set um and obviously there's the three big contract extensions looming but or decisions looming for Salah Trent and one but still I think there seems to be this idea that they want to I think he wants to give a chance to everyone to prove or whether they can work in his system or not so if we go by that logic it does seem like a hurried move to because if you think that ARA hasn't seen him in the preseason and he's only probably has been training for the last two three three weeks um with the team fully so then it makes like that it doesn't hold I mean both can't be true now if there is any other personality issues or something that came up um you know obviously we wouldn't know that but I do feel like the likelihood of this happening is is low very low now like of this happening now yeah uh I agree I think it's quite unlikely to happen now um but I don't think it' be terribly surprising if at some stage Liverpool said he he is not like a must pick like last season his numbers are they're kind of astonishing I think it was 21 and a half expected goals and assists in 22 and a bit 90s like it's crazy stuff it's up at like 0.95 per 90 and 19 actual goals so a slight underperformance but still you know like 19 goals in the league you don't throw that away for nothing like that's that's pretty special stuff Book value probably still at about 50 mil something like that so it would have to be a pretty a pretty healthy offer for them to for them to get rid of him um yeah and the other point to add to that is like they also need to have a replacement lined up or do we think that well he's gonna just make do with the rest of the guys for six months I don't think that's G to work as you said with 19 goals like no matter what you can say about his kind of streaks of finishing at times could be maddening uh where the kind of Misses he has but I think he gets into really great situations you know from the front I think he opens a lot of things up for Diaz and and Salah as well like with his pressing so I I I also see like one thing is okay if you if they decided to move on from him and and the reason I say it's too late now is just because they may not have a line someone lined up to replace him plus I just don't think value goes down obviously if a player doesn't play it but I don't think it's that he won't play at all I think he'll play plenty yeah honestly and and also we've seen a lot of players who you'd have thought their value would go down but when they've got a track record of playing and scoring and assisting in the Premier League it doesn't go down that much you know like havs went for about seven million less than Chelsea paid for him somebody like Pedro Netto I mean obviously he was going to Chelsea so all bets are off when it comes to that evaluation but he went for top dollar kind of the highest prices we've been talking about so even if he didn't play that much this season I'd still expect him to get I I think not that much is probably 1500 minutes and that probably means double figures for goals and assists yeah I think that they could probably sell it if they're looking at a 50 million plus add-on selling fee I'm pretty certain they could get that next season as well but yeah Kim's idea that maybe Arsenal would be interested in in a player like this because that's been a rumor that's been floating around football twistter is an interesting one because we just talked about that depth that Liverpool have in attack Arsenal do not have that kind of depth right yeah no they don't yeah I think that as you were talking about earlier like they have what six players for four spots you know on the front four it feels like Arsenal yeah they've got well and the thing is artetta doesn't trust to very ease you know there are managers like like klopp last season and his hand was forced by injury but klopp said I'm going to give some of these youngsters chances I'm going to play Bradley and I'm going to play Quanza like in positions of need arteta is not has not really got a track record of that now there's talk he's going to use in weri this season who's more of a kind of eight attacking midfielder something like that but that doesn't solve the problem in the real positions of need which is that Arsenal have trosa Martinelli for the left wing up top they have have a and shesus for the right they have sacka and technically they still have ree Nelson and then at attacking Midfield they've got uro and maybe on weri and this is this is quite troubling like this is not a lot of players and some of those guys who are second choice in one position could end up being First Choice in another position if there's an injury there it's quite a concerning thing for them to do right when when it last year best underlying numbers in the league a real shot which is the first time we've seen that really in the pep era at City a real shot to go one further this year and while City have you could argue they've slightly downgraded their front line because they're a bit less injury proof at Center forward with Alvarez going they've still gone one in one out Alvarez goes Savino comes in well Arsenal have gone Anda out Smith row out Fabio Vieira out no hasn't hasn't played much last season I think in the Premier League right yeah but then you can also imagine in eight eight games in a Champions League group stage maybe Smith row soaks up a couple of those games and you get to play you know Martinelli more in the Premier League or something yeah I was going to make the point about eight game Champions League group group stage um earlier too with with with kza and you know Dar Nunes at Liverpool I think it it applies to Arsenal as well so I think like if you look at it it's like you know to make a deal you need to have in this case all three parties agree at least two of them being fully agreed so they can convince the third party I think if you have to say at the outset I think maybe just Arsenal would be interested in this deal probably the most interested party of the three in the deal right because yeah they will add depth to where they have a need whereas uh whereas the other two I think it feels I don't know what nunas feels about moving you know from Liverpool to Arsenal but but for liverp it's it's two things one is well it maybe too late to get a replacement number two that also means it's a bit of a PR thing because they haven't really made a lot of signings and and if they sold their one of their top goal scorers from the previous season what does that mean like to show to the fans in terms of what their ambition is even though they they may have a plan and it may all work out but on August 30th it probably doesn't look as nice so so I think I think in among the three I think Arsenal probably if you put this in front of them they probably like yeah we wouldd be interested in this because for them it's just okay we're gonna a also the other thing we haven't talked about is it's a direct rival so we're going to weaken a direct rival take out a starter and we're going to add to you know to increase our depth so yeah I I think that that to me is like it's definitely something for Arsenal very favorable or or like something that they can they would love to explore or they would even want to make a deal if uh if if all things line up but the other two parties may not be as Keen agreed and I think as well you know Liverpool next summer if they do have two or maybe even all three of those star players leaving um that'll free up a lot of salary space but it won't give them a lot of cash on hand whereas if at that point they also were to sell Nunes for you know 50 million or whatever then that gives them a nice big kind of write off that yeah that they could before they go ahead with a big spending spree which you assume they would have to go on to replace a guy who's been their best player for the best part of a decade now the best center back in the Premier League and their star page right back as well um with with Arsenal oh go on sorry no I was just saying the other thing is also like for teams like the top teams like Liverpool Arsenal City uh Bona Real Madrid ban if for them to replace four three five players at that level like starters to replace them it's a huge risk to do all of that in one window um you know you want to have the continuity you want to have the success like where you you are taking one or two pieces out adding one or two pieces into because first of all it's also hard to find so many top end players and make be able to close the deals for so many top players that can come in and start for your team at that level if if this was um a mid-table team then I think there's in terms of the pool of talent available you have a lot more players available that you could pick from but at the top top levels the air is very rarified so you don't find those players also so that's another kind of thing that you have to look at like I can only replace realistically maybe two players every window like two two starters every window so you want to not um not not not leave too much to do in one window and then that becomes then what happens is you bring in four players all of them may be good but they take three months to Jael which means you probably won't be challenging for the title because the nowadays the title winning team is going between 95 90 plus points close to 100 sometimes so that the margins are low so you don't have that time to say I'm going to take three months to get all these guys going okay so if they were to close the deal for for Trent Alexander Arnold which you assume they're they're trying to do try and get a new contract on the table for him then next summer they probably wouldn't want to get rid of Nunes because they'd say we've already got to replace van dijke and Salah presumably yeah yeah okay okay well um that's that's an interesting point then because Arsenal have brought in two guys who might might be starters for them already right like calori is arrival we assume that he's going to start given that the the Rival there are a lot of players for that position at Arsenal but they've spent a lot of money on him and zenchenko isn't trusted defensively Kier isn't trusted generally Timber is out of position tomasu is never fit it feels like that should be his position to get and then Mikel Mourinho going into the Midfield it feels like he's the natural fit for that left eight role it's where he's been playing at sadad it puts puts rice back into the six role it bumps party out of the 11 which is good for multiple reasons that's already kind of two starters so that might perhaps suggest why Arsenal weren't going so hard for the the star attacker that Arsenal fans wanted but do you agree with me that they have left themselves quite thin in attack agree yeahh yeah I think an injury to Saka or you know I'm not wishing anything but just just kind of playing 65 games in a season if you're 38 games plus eight group games and let's say arsenal at least goes to quarterfinal um semi-final then you're adding another six games um and you know cup the two Cup competitions and we were like yeah so to play that many games I think you do and also Saka is one of the most fed players um I don't know in terms of ranking maybe he's not number one but he's definitely in the top five in the last years so so like that to me seems like I think we had this discussion off off the air about the Saka position being the most kind of single point so in in in software and systems we call it like something what we call a single point failure meaning what is the weakest link or what is the weakest point of the system where if that fails then the system fails um I think Arsenal if you have to point out something I think that that that right wing seems to be the the spot yeah I think there's there's a story you can tell about them being able to deal with it somehow like it depends when it happens you know if Saka goes out and it's relatively short term and it's an easier run of the Season maybe you're okay because you know they can play Gabrielle Jesus there that's what they've been talking about I'm not sure I love it but like he's a good player and I also think Martinelli should be due a big season I said this on Twitter and everyone went berser because Arsenal fans hate Martinelli for some reason or lots of them do and I do not understand it because his numbers have always been great two years ago he had 20 non-penalty goal involvements in the league and last season the underlying numbers were just as good and actually his carry numbers went insane he went from kind of I think he was at 2.3 carries into the penalty area he went to like 3.7 last season per 90 it was it was nuts and I thought okay well this guy he's also now 2 he's 23 Saka is 23 celba is 23 like this is an age where you would expect these youngsters to start putting it together more consistently right you know it's um before that you expect these kind of one step forward maybe a step back or or a plateau season and then another jump 23 24 this is now the beginning of peak age so if Martinelli were to have a bigger season or Jesus were to be fit for more of the Season havs had that slow start last year you know maybe he's more up to Pace this year that can help but still it's just it's so strange to look at a team which did have the best underlying numbers in the League last year um that at the very least you know are going into this campaign thinking well we are second best maybe we're kind of 1B um in in the in the team rankings and to have left themselves so open to you know for one of a better term happening um I don't know it it just seems very bizarre to me but I agree with you that when we're talking about it right wing is the issue and yet we spent this whole summer it feels talking about Strikers talking about Osan now we're talking about Nunes there was somebody else as well currently lose me it feels like there's been a lot a lot said about that position and right wing seems to me to be the worry well I think as to your what you pointed out with jus playing there um it's deputizing so I think I think maybe internally their Think Tank feels that they are fine with the the the combined solution they have for that position um I think that they what they see is maybe getting a different type of nine uh gives them a different dimension to their attack against certain type of um offenses or or attack sorry defenses um so I I feel like that may be the that may be the prevailing part um in among them and you made the point off air as well that HZ played some left eight minutes last season well if Marino soaks up those minutes then havs can kind of be redistributed and soak can Jesus across that front line which exact helps a bit but but the other thing I wanted to ask you about is my feeling is the sensible move for Arsenal was to try and improve their attack this summer because last year they were the third best team in the league by expected goals regardless of goals scored where they were second they were the third best by XG they were about 76 XG I think city were somewhere like 80 and Liverpool were at 87 which hilarious um but they were the best defensive side in the league 28 expected goals against over the course of the season to me it seems more likely that you can get that you can improve your attack when your attack is third best in the league then you can improve your defense when your defense is already the best in the league and very very very good it feels it feels like there's 5xg difference that you can get on the on the attacking end rather than the defensive end does that make sense yeah but I you know it's it's always hard to um break things down that way and then um you know and also like add to you know I think in the the Premier League at the at the top end of the table just to add one XG for season it's like the amount of money you need to spend could be astronomical um so so I I think that there's probably some of that and and the other things is also that um that they look at availability of the talent as well where obviously oan has been available but it's very expensive it's again there's the the thing about like to make deals happen there's multiple parties and opportunity has to be the right opportunity to do it but I see your point that that they based on last year their attack is the one that needed um maybe maybe like a a better attack they would have they would have won the title over City but but yeah but I don't know if it's that straightforward to um to separate it that way and then try to improve it yeah yeah I mean the one good thing as we said is they're the right side of the age curve and maybe you just get things kind of going your way as and of course the thing we don't talk about I guess it's I guess it's harder to talk about is the benefit of training you know like the way that a manager can tweak things to get more out of them which is something that is really hard to tell when you're not behind the scenes I suppose um yeah yeah yeah and then like there's always I mean the soccer or football um has so much of chance and um you know variance involved season season so that's why just changing or even getting better player here and there might not immediately show up um whereas you know the I think the question is going to be we're going to have these same players for one more season in the attack let's say and it's it's one more season they're playing together so how much of that is going to improve their ability to work together and you know create more versus adding a new player who may be slightly better than one of the one of the already established players um and you know and then the time that takes to for him to get in sync with those with the rest of the group um so you have to weigh those two it's a really good point what vanger used to call automatisms um yeah automatisms yes yeah that's that's a good word which which it feels like Liverpool really got so much value out of when they there was that point where they had that front line with with Salah man firmino um I there was a stage in there where it felt like the the individual players were almost some of the individual players were almost overrated um because it was more that the unit how well they knew each other how well they understood each other's position and how easily they could find each other was really the kind of X Factor that made them the best attack or one of the best attacks in the world I guess um yep should we move on then to to one more interesting transfer rumor which is muhamad simak uh 24 year-old Center back right back hybrid playing at RB leig now suddenly linked to Newcastle which is interesting Newcastle have obviously spent this entire window going to Crystal Palace saying can we buy gay and Palace say how much and Newcastle say a number and Palace say 5 million more and Newcastle come back the next day and say okay we'll give you that and Palace Say No 5 million more and now we've ended up we've gone from 50 million to 70 million and it still isn't done frankly to me they should have switched targets earlier though this is on the side this is very clearly on the right side and Simon is a really interesting a really interesting Prospect here do you not think what what do you think of him as as a player and I guess as a target for Newcastle specifically I think he in terms of some of his qualities forgetting the left right side where he plays if you take that out for a moment I think as a player I think he brings a lot more to new style that fits Newcastle style in terms of his physicality athleticism and and the way he defends and plays to to them then maybe I think then maybe GUI I think I can't separate Mark GUI from his price that that's that's you know as the price increased from 50 I think at 50 we thought okay this is kind of I think Ted mentioned this it's like at the far end of the reasonable price range I think it'll be an okay at that point now we almost 50% more than that like I think today I read something about 75 is the new number and I'm like that's at 75 you're not getting somebody that's not good in the air that can be iffy in One V one um you know plays on the left side but he's not like he's a right footed right footed guy and GUI at that price compared to simakan I simak I I feel that they this makes more sense to me I I like the player a lot yeah I I agree I think that it's just when it comes to the allocation of their money this just seems like eminently more reasonable uh I mean they do have some players here you know they've obviously got Kelly and Sher at the center back slots and then technically for right back they've got tripier they've got livero and they've got Emil KP who's still there but trippier is pretty old now liento is still very young and has played both sides but they spent an absolute fortune on him you wonder if they would need to move somebody on to make this happen but this is a guy who he's he's an above average passer he's not a tripier level passer but I also think replacing Tripp's passing is less pressing given that Bruno didn't end up leaving this summer he's pretty good in the air lots of ball recoveries defensive H The Tackle success rate has gone up season after season which feels like quite a good sign and he's 24 years old I mean plus he's coming from a team who play an intense aggressive yeah he he takes very aggressive positions in terms of out of possession like just to kind of cut out plays and you know sort of like wants to prevent danger before it kind of develops further um and he has the ability if he misses something like a tackle or like something like that he he doesn't definitely has the pace to recover um I think that's that's good the one thing I do slightly worry about him is that he listed at 187 CM so that's like roughly 6'2 I think that would be average height in the Premier League for center backs so he may be he may be a bit um I wouldn't call him undersized but he would probably some of his aerial ability might be a little diminished because he's going up against stronger more athletic players than he would on a day-to-day basis in the Bundesliga um and and I think that that also goes back to the fact that he's like the flex right back slash um so he has some qualities that obviously if he's 190 then it will be harder to be that Flex right back that is also aggressive right so it's kind of natural thing so there is a little few concerns but I do think that at what at the price compared to what qu he's going to bring at what the price he's been quoted at I think this feels a lot more lot less risky yeah I mean we're talking at this point for for somewhere between a third and half of of the gay price which just feels it would leave them so much more money and when you consider some of the stuff they've done this summer just to make psrn meet you know letting go of M who would really have filled a position of need for them letting go of Elliot Anderson though they got a good fee for him um the weird we're going to buy your crappy goalkeeper uh Nottingham Forest for an arm and a leg yeah all this kind of dodgy stuff it feels like if actually if you do if you spend a little bit less on players like this then maybe you don't have to do that kind of nonsense next year or the year after yeah I'm really bummed about Mina for Newcastle I think he's a he's a really good player um you know just watching him the first couple of games with with Brighton I just confirms that yeah and I think you know you could you look at him and you see his decision- making against Manchester United I thought was pretty bad it was pretty kind of like 1920 and yet you still look at him at the end of that game and I was like oh he carried the ball into the penalty area seven times in this match and created a ton of dangerous situations it's just you know that that is that that incredible one we vulnerability and just danger direct the directness into the goal like that into the box like you know the how he's direct I think that those things are high have high value in my my book but it's funny to me that given that we were talking about about attacking depth before you know we talk about if you're Arsenal maybe you look at Liverpool and think oh god well if I'm Newcastle and I'm aiming for the top four I look at Brighton and I think boy they seem to have a lot of a lot of attackers who we could benefit from they've got like nine guys for four positions this is incredible yeah know maybe they're maybe they're an interesting outside bet for um maybe not top four but if they finished up there I don't think it would completely shock me well I guess a good to kind of see through the season is who finishes higher Manchester United or Brighton that may be a good kind of you know yeah the she amount of turnover in that in those squads I mean in in Brighton it's strange Brighton have spent 200 million net um but it doesn't feel like it's created chaos whereas some teams had a ton of players and you think yeah well we don't know how these guys are going to fit together because there's no established pattern of play there's no established setup who knows how have a new coach as well right Fabian hler yeah yeah just speaks to the the quality of their back room work I guess that they're they're so well planned out um yeah I think that brings us to the end Ravi unless there's anything else that you wanted to cover nothing just uh I guess we can briefly mention Danny almost debut for Barcelona you know it took it took literally an arm and a leg somebody's leg getting injured to get him into the get him registered which was crazy uh but I thought when he came on at I mean that was the easiest like going into that halftime game halftime of that game against um Athletic Club is that Athletic Club yeah you know there's so many matches I lose yeah so it was pretty um pretty uh obvious that that was going to be the sub that Danny olmo is going to come on and they're going to take out fan Torres and move Rafia to the left and the game changed on a dime like literally just every touch he made almost like maybe not every touch but every other touch he had was creating danger and you could see the moment he he was on the pitch that also Freeda pedri to attack sometimes going into the box and create and that's how you know pedri scored the first goal um to to equalize it 1-1 I think I don't think it was Athletic Club I think it might have been a different different team so I have to look it up but I thought he was really I think I think when we talked about him back in the day when they were looking at niiko Williams and they said well we are not going to get niiko Williams so we're going to get Danny um Danny Olo it felt like a I think we were we were a bit critical of how much they were paying I think our our main points were about his availability like he is definitely somebody that's injury-prone misses a lot of games obviously we we didn't know that Rafia could play the 10 so well the first couple games and then and then he moves to the left and you know Danny Olo comes in and it it all seems to work really well um for them yeah yeah it's annoying when uh when good things happen to bad people it was yeah for everybody who was uh who was screaming at us during that section our producer rishy our resident Barcelona expert jumped in to let us know that it was rakano um but yeah for a guy who you know I would say we we like but don't adore this has really become the Danny omo cast this summer I've got to say um yeah he's uh yeah he's he's had a he had the assist on the first goal and he scored the second goal which was a nicely taken goal and I think he's also created a couple more um chances and and I think that was pretty um uh pretty good uh overall performance uh in in 45 minutes so so yeah so it's again Barcelona looking really good on the field but off the field they definitely or you know they don't look as good but but you know with hansy flick I think he's gotten them playing in a coherent way that's has always been the issue although they did suffer a big big injury like the 17-year-old Mark Bernal who was playing as one of the one of the two in the double pivot he had an ACL he was been he was been very impressive the first three games so far um bummer it's interesting weird weird that we we talk about how well run round Madrid are behind the scenes and Barcelona being a mess and yet in the early stage of the season when it's on the field Real Madrid are still are doing their early season like oh I wonder what we'll end up being when we win the Champions League by the end of this campaign and Barcelona are chugging along already but um I was just going to wrap us up thank you very much uh for listening or watching as I said at the beginning make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel make sure that you follow us on Twitter make sure that you subscribe to the newsletter for all the best analysis there'll be more podcasts over the next couple of weeks where we'll round up everything that's happened over the summer and probably start looking at what's going on for the season we might be bringing you some interviews as well thank you Ravi for joining me it's always good to hear your takes even when it's uh we're talking about how Arsenal have not signed any attackers makes me a bit sad yeah thanks a lot Patrick always fun to talk to you about football see you again soon yes have a great see soon oh yeah of course I W I won't see you next week I'm off on holiday uh but I will be back in a couple of weeks at which point you will be driving cross country so it's going to be a period without one another Ry um all the best of your move yeah thank you thank you cool uh we'll catch all of you next time on the transfer flow podcast see you later bye