The Post-Salah Reckoning and the Bezos Blueprint: Deconstructing Liverpool's Epochal Shift

The Athletic F-C Welcome to the Athletic F-C podcast with me, Kate Mason. F-S-G have sold nearly 40% of Liverpool to a consortium, including Amazon Founder, Jeff Bezos. So what does this mean for the club ahead of Andoni Eriola's first season on Merseyside? To find out with me in the studio, we have Rob Green and Jack Pitbrook, and down the line Matt Slater is back with us too. Now, it was first reported that F-S-G were selling around 30% of Liverpool Football Club to 1892 Holdings Consortium, but the Athletics Dan Sheldon and Simon Hughes exclusively revealed that the figure is actually much closer to 40%. So, a lot of questions this is raising. Matt, who, first of all, is involved at 1892 Holdings Consortium, and why have they decided to purchase this stake in Liverpool? Well, I'll do the easy beer that question first. So, 1892 Holdings is a consortium led by Amit Batia, who Coupi are fans? Well, no, he was involved closely involved in the club for about 19 years, until a couple of weeks ago. He's also the son-in-law of Lakshmi Mithal. Lakshmi Mithal was once one of the richest men in the world. He's still up there. Don't feel sorry for Lakshmi, but he has slipped down the ranking slightly. He's a steel magnet, very, very powerful Indian family. Amit Batia himself comes from a good family, from a good sort of property-owned family. So, you know, lots of old Indian money there. As part of his gang, and I suppose this is the exciting bit. So, I think Amit Batia himself is still quite exciting. You have Jeff Bezos, and he is doing this via one of his sort of family offices, one of his funds called K-5 Sports, and Eduardo Savarin and his wife Elaine. Now, who's Eduardo Savarin? He was Andrew Garfield in the film Social Network. He was one of the founders of Facebook. He massively fell out with Mark Zuckerberg. It's quite a good scene that, but he's done all right for himself since being living in Singapore for a while, possibly tax reasons behind that one. But anyway, he has a nice fund over there, and he's a multi-billionaire himself. So, you've got, I suppose it's better to say you look at it. It's better to say you sort of view Amit Batia's money, whether it's kind of his or the middle family, there are either three or four parts to 1892. So, Amit, the Metals, the Bezos fund, and the Savarin fund. Oh, well, why? Yeah, why? Please. Well, because it's Liverpool. It's Liverpool, and this is what billionaires do. And everyone, you know, scarcity value, we can get into some more if you like this. There's this whole concept around hedges against AI. So, all of these very, very wealthy guys who, kind of, are also investing in AI, are slightly concerned that once AI takes over the world, what are we going to do with ourselves? And what jobs are going to be left? What industries are not going to be ravaged by AI? And they're thinking, well, we can't all just do coffee shops and cutting hair. So, maybe it's sport and really famous sports teams, maybe they're the thing that will linger and survive, and that we'll all kind of huddle around. So, there is this whole idea that's quite big at the moment that sport premium entertainment is a great big hedge against AI. What's really interesting about what's gone on with the reporting of this is that initially it looked like it was a smaller stake and, and then it's slightly bigger as this will quite a lot bigger actually coming towards 40%. And now the key factor seems to be that they could also buy a controlling stake within the next 12 months. Now, that makes it start to sound as though it could be a roadmap to FSG's exit and then a transition towards a new ownership. Is that what it sounds like to you? Or are we getting ahead of ourselves? Yes. No, absolutely it sounds like that. So, I think there's, I mean, there are a few things to sort of unpick there. So, if you go right back to when this story first emerged, right? A strategic stake, you know, nothing's going to change, businesses usual. And people started to think, well, hold on, FSG have done this before, just two, three years ago, they sold a very small stake, 3% to dynasty capital, like a very small privacy firm that nobody ever really heard of. It didn't change anything at all. It basically paid back some debt for doing up the training ground and one of the stands. It just seemed like really clever. And a lot of people thought, well, you know what? FSG can sort of do this, you know, almost add in for an item. They can keep selling tiny little stakes. And this is just a great way of like banking some of their chips. You know, everyone, I don't want to go too much into FSG history, but they, you know, they bought the club when it was in real trouble for, was it 3, 400 million? And now it's worth loads. It's been under fantastic investment. And, you know, how do you exit? Like buying distressed assets is really clever and they did it really, really well and they've managed the team well. They've won trophies. They've definitely grown the club, done lots of work and heard, of course, how do you exit? Do you sell in one go? Or do you sell in bits? And I think a lot of people thought they might just sell in bits. Although, although there was also a sort of feeling, well, is this forever? You know, the founders of FSG, you know, they're getting on a bit to they really, really love Liverpool the way they love Boston Red Sox, which is their first team. There were lots of sort of kind of theories as to sort of how they would exit. But anyway, so this story kind of emerges and thought, and we all thought, well, is this another dynasty style sale? Or is it bigger? You know, quite quickly it became bigger. No, we're going to, we're going to buy a third. You sort of thinking, well, who buys a third of a business if they don't want to buy it all at some point? And it's sort of, because that there's a sort of, you know, a theory, another theory, another sort of line that has a very expensive season ticket. If you haven't got control, if you're, if someone else is still making the big decisions, you've just given them a great big check for a few fancy seats and a couple of nice meal. You know, what, what have you done? And that's not what billionaires tend to do, right? They tend to want to be in charge. If you generally want to be a silent partner, you buy about five or ten percent, but going to a third straight away with your first big clue. For me, the second big clue, because this, you know, Emmett Battier is driving this. We know that Emmett Battier likes sport. You know, he, he wanted to do this at QPR. He wanted to make QPR bigger and he wanted to sort of, you know, he wanted to go on that journey. It didn't quite work out. We know his family have bought the IPL team, register on royals. We know that his brother-in-law, Aditya, funded the Boston Celtics takeover. So we know that he loves sport. You know, look at his Instagram. He's always playing sport. He hangs out. He plays golf with LeBron James. Jeff Bezos was the next big clue. He is being linked with every NBA NFL franchise for the last decade. And apparently, he doesn't like sport. He's just gone, no. But this, this opportunity, has, has, has, you know, has peaked his interest. He's, he's, you know, this is his first big move into sport. I, I, you know, so that was my second big clue, right? This, this, he's not, he's not, he could have bought the Seattle Seahawks, which is his local team, you know, that's where, that's where most of Amazon employees seem to employees. That's, you know, that's the team they go support. So you didn't do that. He's done this. And now then we hear the third big clue is, well, it's not even 30%. It's close to 40. So I'm sorry. I know everyone's trying to sort of say, this is as usual, FSG are not heading to the exit. Which is true. This is not like a disorderly retreat. This is not them saying I'm fed up. I can't stand any more. This is, this is their exit. This is a nice stage-managed choreographed exit. They were going to do it on a nice, orderly fashion. They found some more billionaires who they get on with. They're going to be good custodians. They're going to hand this thing over. And yeah, I, I think in the next year, two years, Bezos and Co. Batteer and Co. are going to be in charge. Matt, I was just interested that I was at QPR with Amit Batteer. Was it in charge or one of the people in charge? And I never met it. So that was a good, sort of, good, sort of key area where you're thinking, actually, this could be a success because the good owners are the ones you never meet. And it's, conversely, I met Tony Fernandez a lot of times. It's just, it's just, for me, it's interesting. When you talk of takeovers and you talk of the monies that involve, it always boils down to egos. And it always boils down to, they always, I've been disrespected because Amit Batte has been down this road before. He's experienced in so many club takeovers or Senator take over buying of shares. And ever see seemingly our keen, there is this extended period where they buy a certain amount of shares and then potential for more, which you talk of. Do you think that that experience will override the egos that are involved? Can you remind me when you were at QPR? What years? I joined in 2012 when everyone else did. So have you seen the four-year plan? The documentary? Are you aware of it? On the flight, I signed and flew to Malaysia on pre-season tour and watched it on the plane on the way there. And thought, what have I done? Right. Amazing. So you'll be aware then that Amit Batte used to meet the players and hang out with the players. He was quite pally, wasn't he, with, with a lot of them. So I think, I think, I think he learned a lot in those early years, those heady years, you know, that, that documentary is remarkable if anyone hasn't seen it. It tells the story of, if I remember rightly, basically from about 2007 to 2011. So when did, when you joined, had they just gone up to the Premier League? They survived a year. So Tony Fernandez got involved that year and then it was all changed, not for the better. Right. So in some ways, that was the happy part of his QPR story. Now, I think he learned a few things. One football's quite hard. Getting teams up and keeping them up, particularly teams like QPR, I'm not being rude, is hard. I think if I speak to QPR people, people that sort of knew him a little bit about him, what he really wanted to do there was get the stadium sorted. And they spent quite a lot of time looking at other sites. Again, we know that's quite hard in London in particular. And there were some big characters around that table weren't there. And I think when, see, you mentioned Tony Fernandez, you had Eccleston, Brea Torre before that, you know, there was some, there was some big egos. And I think Amit was quite young then. I think he was only in his late 20s or 30s, early 30s when he first bought a stake. And he did hang out with the players and he did also spend a lot of time engaging with fans. He was very, he was, you know, heart and sleeve guy. And I think one of the things about that documentary, and if you are interested in him as a Liverpool fan, do do watch it. Because I think you're, I think he comes across well. And there's a, he goes on a journey, I think through that documentary, as well. But it's clear that by the time you got there, I think he was already stepping away a bit, you know, Fernandez was the new, was the main guy. And I think other things were going on his life as well. I think his, his own business career was taking off, you know, his own investment career. And you know, I don't want to bore people with that. But you know, he has a, he has a fund and he has, you know, he's got a small stake in the London spirit, the hundred team, you know, he's back in Kevin Peterson's YouTube channel. He's a chief exec of a massive mining and quarry in business here in the UK and Ireland. No, he's, he's a, he's a busy guy, but he does love sport. And I think, you know, to go to your question about egos, I think he learned a lot. I mean, I can't think of almost a better school than that era QPR. Yeah, there is, there is a great scene in the documentary where he's on the phone to someone. I mean, I mean, the access to the documentary people got is, is remarkable where he is literally going, I thought I was going to buy a majority saking QPR and I don't know why Breatory and Ecosthen are, I'm totally confused. I genuinely thought I was taking control of this club and they're not selling to me. And then you have all this kind of craziness going on with Breatory effectively picking the team and sacking managers and Bati is there in other meetings trying to save money on the flower bill and the sandwich bill. I mean, it is. So, you know, that, that was a circus. I would like to think he's, he's learned something. We're getting a certain picture of transitions at football clubs, aren't we? And perhaps now is a moment, Jack, for you to talk us through another example of a transition or a change in ownership structures that you've been reporting on very closely at top them. Obviously, Spurs had an interesting season last season. How significant do we think the shift from Daniel Levy being responsible for everything to not how significant do you think that was? Yeah, massively. I think that the story of Tottenham last season shows that boredroom change has to be managed very carefully. Do you think Tottenham's a really, really unique situation in the sense that Daniel Levy was both the man who made all of the decisions and who accumulated so much power for himself. And, you know, from football side to finance, to the stadium, construction, infrastructure, everything. But at the same time, he wasn't the ultimate owner, like he owns roughly one quarter of the club, but he was kind of shown up to be ultimately just an employee when the Lewis family fired him last September. But that created a huge vacuum at the club. And the Lewis family had to scramble really to almost rebuild the whole thing, like the phrase that people kept using inside Tottenham was, we're trying to rewire the plane or rebuild the plane while it's in mid-air. And that I think contributed to this really, really difficult season they had last season, really unclear, I think, on strategy and direction at points. Obviously, they nearly ended up going down. They were very lucky. I think that West Ham kind of faded right at the very end of the season. And they got to, Tottenham got deserving and exactly the right point. And he won enough games for them to stay up by the skin of their tea. And now, actually, I think they're in a pretty healthy position with a very good manager in their spending money in their backing him. And they've got some pretty good players in the door this summer. But I think the whole, if you look at this whole story of last season, I think it shows that these kind of changes have to be managed very carefully. Now, I don't think Liverpool's exactly the same situation. Like I don't think there's any one individual Liverpool who has, like Daniel Levy level power. And they think what's going on at the moment, Liverpool, like they've been very keen to say that this is not really going to change the kind of day-to-day operations of the club. But obviously, Matt says, like, you know, the people, the people investing are ultimately probably going to want to say. So I don't think it's quite going to be like the Tottenham situation of last season. But I do think that lots of clubs will look at the Tottenham situation of last season. I think, actually, if we're going to do boardroom change, we probably need to do it in quite a careful way. Okay. And in the context of Matt, what we've talked about, the potential for this consortium to fully take over Liverpool. In the first 12 months, it could be that there's quite limited change. And it is just what it sort of looked like at the outset that it's a straight investment. If I'm not just trying to calm Liverpool fans down, but obviously this is a very special club with some very special heritage. Yeah, look, I mean, let's take FSG and everyone at their word. And I think any reason to doubt that. FSG are running the club. And they're going to continue to run the club. And this, what's happening in the last few weeks doesn't mean there's going to be 100 million more to spend on transfers or anything like that. You know, one of the reasons why Bezos, Batia and Savarin have brought into Liverpool is because they rate FSG, you know, they rate the management of this company. So I don't think there's going to be any noticeable change for a while. And both parties have been stressing. There is no obligation to proceed. It's an option. I just think all the clues and everything we know about these kind of billionaires is that there's a clear direction of travel here. And I think, I think, no, if I was a fan, well, I'd be excited about that. You know, I don't, I think most fans are excited about anything that happens in the boardroom, unless it's really bad. So here's what I can tell you. This isn't really bad. So carry, carry on moaning about, I don't know, transfers or, or, you know, why we're selling courage drones or whatever, carry on moaning about that. This is going to be fine. You're going to be okay. There's stuff Matt Slater great to see you capture again, Rosie. Okay, Rob, on Monday, Emma got you to do some blind rankings, which I know you saw really enjoyed and didn't feel any pressure about at all. And surprisingly nailed it as well, which I was absolutely thrilled about. But it makes me dread next week. Yes. The next time we're just being more relaxed in studio today. Thursday's more of an opportunity for you to answer some of our audience's questions about football. So we reached out to our YouTube audience. Thank you everybody for getting in touch. Some great questions in there. Here's the one we've picked for today with the new season on the horizon, very closely on the horizon around the corner. We've got this question, which is, I'd like to know what it's like defending corners and making saves in all that chaos, please. Yeah, it's interesting. It's quite topical from last season, isn't it? The chaos that really ensued during corners or any set piece and the, well, should we say NFL tactics and things like that, which we hope to see less and less of maybe, but it's for a keeper. One of the hardest things is the judgment of the guys hitting the balls so hard. So they're effectively shooting from a corner, shooting into an area that you've got to judge with balls flying in, players flying across and what you need to do is disassociate yourself from the plat. So mentally, you don't want to get dragged into being drawn into where they're running. So you see a lot of goalkeepers moving towards the near post and the ball traveling to the far post and then being caught under the ball. And you can't do that because then you're in a world of trouble, you get squared up, but it's a bit like, and I've always likened it to standing at the train station and the train comes by and everyone walks alongside the train. When you know the train is as long as the platform, why are you all walking towards the front of the train? So there's that. It's a real tough phenomenon, but what I used to do and you used to, when everyone ran across, I would make sure I was in the same position every time ready to either move for the cross or be anticipate moving for a save. And that would decide on obviously the ball flight at the ball, but also my further foot away from the corner being taken. So if the corner was on my right side, my left foot would be the first foot to move. So whatever decision I made, I realized my unconscious trigger was with my near foot. I go, oh, go to there. And that was before the balls kicked or even just as the balls kicked before I could judge it. So make sure you move them with your fur this foot. From there, it's about buying yourself time. Am I buying myself time moving to the far post to get the ball or am I buying myself hot time to get onto the line to make a save. And that in there is kind of the key to it all. It's keeping everything as simple as possible whilst chaos is going on around you. And it's repetition. It's so hard replicating training and doing it in games. Everyone's flying around you. There's a crowd. There's so many things to overload you. Your brain's going to mile a minute when really it should be complete serenity and zen states. Yes. And then the rest of it is simple because then it takes over. The movements, the saves and you're in the set position. Everything becomes what you've trained for. Rob, do you think that in the like we've seen in the last few years, it feels to me from the outside like keepers have not really got a lot of protection on set pieces nowadays. And lots of lots of teams in the Premier League are really exploiting that. As a goalkeeper, do you just how do you feel about that? Do you think it's wrong to think keepers should get more protection? Do you think that teams are sort of taking the mech a bit with like putting someone on the keeper so they can score a header at the far post in the corner? Yeah, it's a really hard balance, isn't it, Joe? Any one that you say, okay, where's the line of sporting chance really for a goalkeeper to get the ball? I think on set pieces on corners, the understanding and my understanding and speaking to the Premier League on a regular basis is if you're in the goal, you need the right to go for the ball as a goalkeeper. So you've then got what's impeding you and it can be the smallest of thing. And I think now you get into the point of the understanding is you can block but you can't go grab people's arms. You can't expect a footballer to be expected to kick a ball and you're holding his leg. So the same way, don't hold the goalkeeper's arms. If you are touching, so he saw David Reuer get the infamous one against West Ham and it was a cliff out. It's an obvious fact because he's grabbing, Pablo was grabbing the arm of David Reuer. He can't be expected to claim a ball, punch a ball or whatever. I think therein is the understanding of where we need to get to. There was a point where it became overly protective and then we've gone too far back the other way. So players, clubs, set piece coaches now are really, really good. Just touching the bar, touching, touching the dial, moving it a little bit further every game and they go and find the smallest player. Benardo Silva for Manchester City was the guy to block the goalkeeper because he can't block it. He's so small. Yeah, they can. So there's no point getting harland to go and block him because everyone goes, oh, look, there's a giant Norwegians still on the goalkeeper. So it's those little nuances, the refs understand that now that you've going, okay, let's just dial it back down again and find that happy medium, right? Right, let's get back to Liverpool. Plenty of intrigue to come ahead of the new season. Fifth place finished. Jack lost season. Let's not forget they won the league in on a slots first season in charge. We're coming up to the start. Day one is on our on the horizon. Where do you sit going for Liverpool? I'm really, really interested to see if they, if they can play Iriola style of football for a minute. I mean, I think it'll protect them a while. Iriola actually started in first season at Bournemouth. It was pretty difficult at first. I think it's always going to be a challenge given how, I mean, if you look at the stats for his Bournemouth team, like they would always be well at the top for kind of sprinting and high intensity running and you have to be so fit to play that style. And I think that when I look at that Liverpool squad, I don't necessarily think that it's perfectly attuned to the kind of brand of football that he wants, but I think that he's such an impressive manager and I think such an engaging, interesting broke as well, Iriola. And I do think we'll have a lot of patience from the crowd at the start. I'm just really interested to see how he, how he goes about getting them to play that style. As well, you look at, you talk to about the style, but also the swings in form that Bournemouth have. You know, you can go six, seven days of that. Liverpool is a whole different thing. So, like you say, it's one of real intrigue and what's your space. And I do think one of the most interesting things in the Premier League is like, if you have a manager who's done really well, let's say it's a smaller level of team, can they make that jump up to a big club? Because sometimes it goes really well, like I'm, you know, when Pochettino went from Southampton to Tottenham, did brilliantly. Sometimes if you look at, you know, how Thomas Frank went from Brent to Tottenham, it doesn't always click, like it is. It's, I think, managing one of those top clubs, like the, the demands of the kind of media demands are different. The fan demands are different. The style of player expects to play, obviously, as Rob says, like the kind of scrutiny on if you have a bad run, is very, very different. So you never really, you never really know until they get there how the manager will adjust to managing a huge club. And yeah, I'm kind of curious to see how Eriella goes about that, that aspect of it too. I think you, you touched on a really good point in the characters within the dressing room as well, managing, stepping up in terms of the stature of the club, but the stature of the players. And I think where you see younger managers fall short, stepping into bigger clubs is they don't get the key individuals on board within the dressing room. And you, you look at it, it's someone like Virgil Bandai who's been a fantastic professional. There's no reason to doubt it that he will be on board. But I wonder what Eriella's gone in and pulled him and said, right, take me through it. I've had it leads, I had it at QPR where managers have come in. And rather than leaning to my experience, I've just gone, no, you're out there. And your attitude from being one of the main players in the dressing room while still being in the dressing room to being cast aside by your a mission leaves a huge void within the dressing room. So, you know, your voice, your presence, you're going, sorry, it's not my gig anymore. And you just end up with this vacuum within the dressing room with the manager doesn't even realize it's happening because he wasn't there beforehand. He wasn't there this season before. And then all of a sudden, one of your leaders has gone just by your mission. Then it's a really, it's an interesting one by leaving them out, but also by keeping them in but upsetting people as well. So there's the balance of relationships in there as well. We can hear now from our Liverpool correspondent James Pierce on how all of those preparations are shaping up ahead of their first game of the season against Newcastle. There's a real mix of excitement and trepidation among Liverpool fans going into the new season. Excitement because this is the launch of a new era and a and Tony, Eriola. And throughout preseason, there's been lots of promise and signs in terms of inputting his stamp on the squad. I was over in the US on the preseason tour and watching them train. It was telling how much of a focus there was on doing things at pace and with intensity and so many different pressing drills. You know, Eriola has been tasked with kind of bringing back the front foot aggressive attack in brand of football that Liverpool fans want to see. And what was absent for so much of last season is on a slot train unraveled. So yeah, I think we've seen flashes of that in the friendly matches. They haven't been able to sustain it for then full 90 and at times they've look vulnerable out of possession. But I think, you know, probably part of that also has been the fact that they've had so many players coming back at different times after the World Cup. Certainly the sharpness and the fitness of Alexander Esac and Florian Vert to really expensive signings a year ago who weren't able to cover themselves in glory in their first season at the club. They have looked so sharp and that bodes well for the challenges ahead. If Liverpool are going to have a successful season, those two are going to be absolutely pivotal. You know, then you've had, you know, youngsters like Rhea and Gamora and Tray and Yoni look ready to go to the next level. Where the trepidation, I think, stems from is the fact that Liverpool just haven't done enough transfer business so far. You know, you think they lost players of the caliber of Salah, Robertson, Canate, they've only brought in Jacque, Munoz and a Rauho on loan from Barcelona. They haven't yet got their Salah replacement as those talks with PSG of a Bradley Barcola, Rumble on and on. That's why I think it's a bit of a, it's a real mix in terms of the feelings going into the season. You know, you look at defensively, you know, they are still short at the moment with Gomez injured. Leone is still out, Bradley is still out. You know, it's not ideal. The fact that Jacque and a Rauho have both only played 45 minutes in preseason and you've thought one of them's going to have to partner Van Dyke and James is park on on Sunday. So yeah, the minute it feels like Iriola doesn't have all the tools he needs to do the job to the best of his ability. The hope for Liverpool fans is the fact that the club put that right between now and the end of the window. Jacque, your excellent point about the fact that this is a new experience for Iriola, managing a team of this level. He's also got to get them to play in Europe, which is something he did with Lana Kerr, but you know, it's a slightly different context managing Liverpool and it's going to be extremely demanding for the manager as it is for the team. How would you think that's likely to to play out? I genuinely don't know, but I think it's, I think it's going to be weird right because the last few years at Bournemouth, they would have been playing, I don't, unless I'm missing something, I don't think they did much in the cups. So they would have been playing like 40 game seasons, basically. But if you're playing 40 game seasons, then Iriola could build his whole week around making sure the players had maximum time to rest, but also to train really intensely, so he could make sure that they were always like physically flying, basically on a Saturday, every single Saturday. And I just wonder, like, if he's playing Europe, he's going to have to read, he's going to have to rethink his whole approach to training, isn't he? Yeah, I think there was a point, well, I think they were sort of losing players, you know, a drop of a hat last season where they were had 12 players out and stuff like that. So there were points where they weren't training, but I think in Europe now, and they're, you know, you listen to Micka Latetta last season, and he said, oh, the guy's overtrained, he said, no, because they're not training at all. Yeah, they should go out for a jog, have a stretch, get a massage, and go again for the next game. So that's where you are when it's at the top level, you, you're so, at times, bewildered by the amount of travel, by the amount of, you know, just, just the amount of games that there is, you know, that you go from a Wednesday night into a Saturday morning, you know, you remember Jürgen Klopp absolutely raging about that in Europe, and that sort of thing. So there's certainly a lot for Ariel to take on board. It's, I think, where slot went, let's go control and started to dip. It went really early, you're wondering, well, let's go for one of a better word, chaos, where, where do you go when it starts to dip? Do you just go into complete disarray? It's, it's something that he needs that plan B, which Jürgen Klopp, he found really, really well, didn't he? We pick and choose our times in games to do the chaos. I think that's what Ariel is going to have to learn first. And of course, one big difference for Liverpool this season is for the first time since 2017, they won't have Mo Salah. His contract was mutually terminated by the club at the end of the last season. Salah has moved to Trabzon sport in Turkey. His new club are in Europa League qualifying action tonight, and the Athletics Nick Miller is in Trabzon ahead of the game. Let's hear from him. If you want an idea of just how excited people in Trabzon are about the arrival of Mohammed Salah in a small town just outside the main city of Trabzon, someone's named a mosque after him. A newly built mosque called the Mohammed Salah Mosque. I'm here in the main square in Trabzon, and absolutely, which is absolutely festoons with bunting in the team's colours, the team's colours of light blue and purple are absolutely everywhere in Trabzon. And no more so than on the backs of a lot of people. I don't think I've ever been anywhere with a high proportion of people wearing the team's shirt. I think I've seen one kid wearing a Barcelona laminia malsha, but other than that, everyone's in Trabzon sport shirts. Most of them have either got the number 61, which is a very significant number for various reasons to the people of Trabzon, or they've got number 10 Mohammed Salah on the back. His first home game will be against Ferrin Tvarros tonight in the Europa League, and it promises to be an extraordinary occasion. Yeah, big expense going on in the club shop, and rightly so. Well, that's a remarkable Mosque. It's either really convenient that it's just been built, or I want to see those building regs, because that is quick. From a Liverpool perspective, clearly having no Salah after what he's done for the club is a massive shift, but of course, last season, it wasn't a vintage Salah performance. How significant is this? You say shift. I would say it's a gift for Iriola that it's been done. Yeah. Everyone now moves on. That drama was unfolding, and the amount of off-field stuff that Arnslott had to deal with was just completely undermining towards his position, and just it must have just must have been so tiring for him to deal with this, and yes, you deal with this sort of stuff with a legend stepping away with someone fading, as he was, and doing it in such a way that made it more difficult for him. For Iriola now, you're saying, okay, there's a hole, but we move forwards, and it correct me if a wrong no player has ever played for a club forever. So it was having to happen at some point. It's just really grateful that Iriola doesn't have to deal with it. Yeah, obviously a huge force on the pitch, but a huge force in the dressing room, as we're discussing, James referenced this lack of transfer business earlier on. Are you surprised? Yeah. Well, in fact, I'd be interested to hear what you think about that. Are you surprised? There's not been a kind of, I don't know what I'd like. You couldn't exactly just summer up, a exact like for like Salah replacement, but are you surprised it looks as though they haven't been trying to do that? Yes, no. I mean, they did spend huge amounts of money the previous summer on frontline players. You know, they bought, Eckertike eSac and Veerts, all of whom are really your players. My theory on this is that Salah probably found it quite difficult to adjust, given that he had been the main man and the whole team in slots for a season was built around being a platform for Salah, and then they spend hundreds of millions of pounds on new players, and all of a sudden Salah's status, I think it's kind of affected by that. So I think I do think that Iriola's got a big part of his job. We'll be trying to get the most out of those guys. It's obviously a shame Eckertike got that bad injury last season, because he was looking really fantastic up to that point. I do think they probably need a bit more pace in the frontline, and be interested to see this new guy Menyaz, who I've not really seen an awful lot of myself. But yeah, I think probably they could probably do another attacking player, but I also think getting the most out of Veerts Eckertike eSac is going to be a big part of your area in this job too. You're looking at the shifting in shape, more of a 4-4-2 flurry verse, as one of the front two, if that works great, because nothing else has worked so far really for him, other than you know, real flashes, but that right-hand side, yeah, I think when Rio and Gamah were this time last year, they're saying, look, brilliant talent, shouldn't be near the squad, or shouldn't be getting on the pitch really, maybe out or low, maybe with the used team players, and now you're saying, well, still a brilliant player, shouldn't be starting, but it looks like he will be starting. You know, so I think he's stepped up when realistically there should be someone in front of him at every moment. Losses and most out there wasn't there for a loss of the periods. This season, he's definitely not there. So all of a sudden, they've had the warning, they should have had the ducts in a row. All right, gene stuff. That's it, Gamah. Thank you so much. Really thanks for having Jack, Matt, Nick and James as well. Well, when I come back tomorrow to launch a brand new tactical preview show on the first day of the Premier League season, can't wait. We'll catch you then.