🎙️ The Athletic FC Podcast •August 21, 2026 •⏱️ 45 min

Newcastle vs Liverpool + early season tactical trends

🎧 Listen to Original Episode →

1. Executive Overview: Core Theses & Key Revelations

The dawn of the 2026-27 Premier League campaign marks a decisive watershed in the evolutionary trajectory of elite football tactics. For over a decade, top-flight football across Europe has been dominated by Pep Guardiola’s positional orthodoxy, short-passing buildup sequences, and high-line pressing structures designed to strangle pitch space and monopolize possession. However, as revealed in a landmark discussion on The Athletic FC Podcast featuring host Kate Mason, former England international goalkeeper Rob Green, and tactics writer Liam Tharme, the English top flight is on the precipice of a dramatic tactical counter-revolution.

This upcoming season represents far more than a standard managerial churn; it is an analytical inflection point where nearly half the league—nine out of twenty clubs—is entering the season under new leadership. The central narratives established during this opening-weekend analysis reveal systemic shifts in tactical setup, squad building, and dressing-room management that will dictate the competitive hierarchy for years to come:

  • The Direct Tactical Counter-Revolution: Rob Green posits a bold thesis predicting a return to classic out-of-possession 4-4-2 structures, accompanied by an unprecedented surge in direct long balls and aerial headers non-existent in elite English football over the past two decades. Mid-table and lower-tier clubs are increasingly acknowledging the futility of attempting to out-possess hyper-funded elite pressers, opting instead for compressed low-to-mid blocks, territorial displacement, and aerial dueling.
  • The Wide Attacking Re-Architecture: Liam Tharme outlines a structural transition away from inverted, goalscoring wingers (the defining wide profile of the Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min era) toward traditional same-side wingers. Driven by a league-wide influx of towering, physical centre-forwards—including Viktor Gyökeres, Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak, Benjamin Šeško, Brian Brobbey, Igor Thiago, and Jonathan David—managers are shifting back to natural-footed wide players capable of hitting high-velocity, whipped crosses off the byline.
  • Chelsea’s Managerial Realignment under Xabi Alonso: Fresh off transforming Bayer Leverkusen and drawing directly from his experiences within Real Madrid's strict dressing-room hierarchy, Xabi Alonso has initiated an aggressive cultural overhaul at Stamford Bridge. By procuring veteran leaders Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson, Alonso has deliberately insulated himself from dressing-room politics, delegating player-led accountability to senior lieutenants while asserting absolute tactical authority.
  • Newcastle United’s Structural Vulnerability: Following the departure of manager Eddie Howe and an unmitigated talent drain featuring the exits of core stalwarts Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon, and Bruno Guimarães, Newcastle enters the campaign facing an existential crisis. Without established succession pipelines, panic has set in among the remaining squad, casting a long shadow over their opening-day clash against Liverpool.
  • Liverpool’s Post-Salah Systemic Symmetry: Under Arne Slot’s second season, Liverpool is experiencing a paradoxical structural upgrade following the departure of Mohamed Salah. While losing an elite individual output merchant, Slot’s high-pressing system has achieved out-of-possession coherence, eliminating the defensive asymmetry caused by Salah’s tendency to cheat off the ball during transition phases.
  • Arsenal’s Title Defense & City’s Persistent Void: Arsenal enters the season as defending champions for the first time in 22 years, backed by predictive models according them an unprecedented title retention probability of over 40%. Conversely, Manchester City continues to wrestle with the unfillable void left by Rodri, whose unique dual-role coverage remains an unsolved tactical riddle.

2. Context & Background: The Landscape Leading to This Conversation

To fully grasp the magnitude of the insights shared by Green and Tharme, one must examine the macroeconomic and tactical conditions governing European football entering August 2026. The previous three seasons represented the absolute peak of micro-managed positional play. Standardized tactical patterns had created a homogenization of play styles: full-backs tucking into central midfield as inverted pivots, wingers holding touchline width purely to isolate opposing full-backs in one-on-one scenarios, and goalkeepers acting as secondary centre-backs during complex build-up phases.

However, this tactical extreme triggered an equal and opposite reaction across the league. Opposing defensive coordinators mastered mid-block spatial denial, converting central channels into congested graveyards. As open-play goal generation slowed across middle-tier clubs, set-piece routines, long throw-ins, and aerial chaos became the primary currency of competitive survival. Tottenham Hotspur’s utilization of Radu Drăgușin’s long throws and Coventry City’s reliance on Milan van Ewijk’s boundary launches were not isolated gimmicks, but early manifestations of a broader territorial shift.

Concurrently, the summer of 2026 witnessed unprecedented organizational volatility. Nine Premier League clubs replaced their head coaches prior to matchday one. Three of these appointments involved managers moving between top-flight rivals, while others saw proven continental innovators like Xabi Alonso entering the fray. This massive managerial turnover disrupted established squad continuity, forcing coaches to implement pragmatic, rapidly adoptable tactical frameworks rather than multi-year positional philosophies. In this context of flux, the stage was set for a brutal clash between theoretical idealism and direct physical realism.

3. Deep-Dive Thematic Breakdown

3.1 The 4-4-2 Counter-Revolution and the Aerial Renaissance

For over fifteen years, the classic 4-4-2 formation was viewed by tactical purists as an archaic artifact of pre-modern English football, superseded by 4-3-3 pressing shapes and fluid 3-2-4-1 build-up structures. However, Rob Green’s analysis highlights a massive resurgence of the dual-striker, flat-four framework, driven by pragmatic necessity across bottom-half and mid-table environments.

When out of possession, the 4-4-2 offers unmatched geometric efficiency. It establishes two compact banks of four that naturally cover the full width of the pitch while maintaining tight vertical distances between lines. Against modern positional teams that operate with five attacking channels, a well-drilled 4-4-2 forces possession out wide into non-threatening lateral zones. Furthermore, having two central strikers occupying opposing centre-backs prevents high-pressing opponents from leaving their defenders in isolated one-on-one situations, forcing them to drop a midfielder deeper during transition phases.

In possession, the return of 4-4-2 coincides with what Green explicitly quantifies as a revival of direct long-ball mechanics. Middle-tier clubs are openly conceding that contesting possession against elite setups yields diminishing returns. Instead of playing out from the back into high-intensity press traps, teams are utilizing targeted long balls directly into the opposition half. This tactic deliberately bypasses midfield pressing grids, transforming football from a chess match of spatial control into a high-octane battle for second balls and aerial territory.

Green’s thesis predicts that the 2026-27 season will witness more headers than at any point in the last twenty years. This aerial renaissance poses a severe technical challenge for contemporary data analytics. As Tharme highlighted, standard data providers historically coded aerial contacts, header clearances, header passes, and aerial duels under overlapping, imprecise metrics. The inability of traditional data models to accurately quantify aerial territory creation has created an analytical blind spot—one that direct coaches are actively exploiting to catch possession-obsessed opponents off guard.

The broader systemic rationale behind this aerial pivot lies in energy conservation and spatial displacement. High-pressing systems require massive physiological output from players across ninety minutes. By adopting a flat 4-4-2 shape out of possession and launching high-volume direct balls into the opposition half upon recovery, teams can minimize high-intensity defensive sprinting while forcing opposing centre-backs into exhausting back-to-goal aerial contests. This operational shift levels the playing field against superior technical rosters.

3.2 Wing Play Evolution: The Demise of Inverted Isolation and the Rise of Same-Side Crossers

Perhaps no tactical role has undergone a more radical re-definition over the last decade than the winger. The era spanning 2015 to 2025 was defined by the inverted wide forward—left-footers playing on the right wing (Mohamed Salah, Bukayo Saka) and right-footers playing on the left wing (Son Heung-min, Marcus Rashford). These players were tasked with cutting inside onto their dominant foot to unleash shots or craft incisive reverse passes into the half-spaces.

However, as Liam Tharme meticulously details, defensive structures have adapted. Modern low-blocks routinely double-team inverted wingers, cutting off internal passing lanes and forcing them backward. Furthermore, the physical profile of elite Premier League centre-forwards has fundamentally shifted. The league is currently populated by a lethal array of physical, dominant target men: Erling Haaland, Viktor Gyökeres, Alexander Isak, Benjamin Šeško, Brian Brobbey, Igor Thiago, and Jonathan David. Populating the box with these imposing figures while employing inverted wingers creates a biomechanical misalignment: an inverted winger cutting inside must hit inswinging delivery that curls toward the goalkeeper, reducing the attacking angle and allowing defenders to face the ball while clearing.

The return to same-side wingers—left-footers on the left flank, right-footers on the right flank—resolves this structural friction. A natural-footed winger operating on their corresponding touchline can bypass opposition full-backs on the outside, attacking the byline directly. From these positions, the delivery mechanics change completely:

  • Whipped Outswingers: Crossing from the byline allows outswinging deliveries that curve away from the goalkeeper into the corridor of uncertainty between centre-backs and the six-yard box. Strikers like Gyökeres and Šeško can attack these balls at full speed without decelerating.
  • Low Driven Cutbacks: By penetrating deep into the penalty area along the line, same-side wingers pull opposition centre-backs toward their own goal, opening massive vacant pockets at the edge of the eighteen-yard box for trailing midfielders.
  • Defensive Rest Structure Preservation: Employing same-side wingers eliminates the need for full-backs to constantly make high-risk overlapping runs. Full-backs can remain inverted or hold a compact back-three rest defense, dramatically reducing vulnerability to counter-attacks.

This tactical resurgence also presents an intriguing technical demand on wide players. Crossing off the run while maintaining top speed requires extraordinary ankle flexibility, spatial awareness, and timing. Unlike inverted wingers who slow down play to shift the ball onto their strong foot inside the pitch, same-side wingers rely on explosive acceleration down the touchline, delivering the ball before opposition double-teams can establish containment.

3.3 Chelsea's Cultural Sea-Change: Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid Lessons, and Veteran Anchorage

Chelsea’s structural trajectory under Xabi Alonso represents one of the most intriguing managerial experiments in modern top-flight history. Having spent years accumulating an vast roster of high-ceiling young talents on long-term contracts, Stamford Bridge had become synonymous with squad bloat and dressing-room instability. Alonso’s appointment marks an uncompromising assertion of managerial authority.

Green’s analysis highlights a core philosophical principle Alonso absorbed during his playing career at Real Madrid: never allow the players to dictate the culture of the football club. In previous seasons at Chelsea, player power and squad fragmentation consistently undermined tactical cohesion. Alonso recognized that implementing his demanding, high-intensity tactical system required absolute locker-room buy-in.

To achieve this cultural transformation, Alonso pulled off what Green categorizes as a recruitment masterstroke: securing veteran stalwarts Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson. On the pitch, neither Welbeck nor Henderson may start every match; however, their strategic value in terms of cultural leadership is immense. By delegating locker-room discipline, professional standards, and daily accountability to proven veteran lieutenants, Alonso effectively insulates himself from squad friction. He establishes a clear division of labor: Henderson and Welbeck maintain dressing-room standards, while Alonso focuses exclusively on tactical instruction, match preparation, and squad motivation.

Tactically, Alonso’s Chelsea is rapidly evolving. During pre-season, Alonso experimented with a dynamic 3-4-3 shape akin to his undefeated Bayer Leverkusen setup, featuring aggressive wingbacks. However, recognizing the unique spatial profiles of wide players like Facundo Pellistri and Pedro Neto, Alonso has deployed them as inverted wingbacks, enabling Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers to operate in dual central playmaker roles behind a central striker. Simultaneously, Alonso retains the flexibility to pivot to a direct 4-4-2 utilizing Robert and João Pedro in tandem. The primary challenge facing Alonso remains squad pruning: integrating or offloading high-profile peripheral assets such as Estêvão Willian, Liam Delap, Nicolas Jackson, and Mykhailo Mudryk without disrupting team chemistry.

Alonso's approach reflects a broader recognition that high-level tactical frameworks are ineffective without emotional alignment. In modern super-clubs, young players on eight-year contracts often feel immune to managerial discipline. By introducing Henderson and Welbeck—two players who have won premier trophies and understand the day-to-day standards required at the pinnacle of the sport—Alonso creates a peer-enforced accountability structure within the squad.

3.4 Newcastle United's Existential Talent Drain and Structural Deficit

In stark contrast to Chelsea’s proactive restructuring, Newcastle United enters the 2026-27 season amidst intense institutional anxiety. The departure of manager Eddie Howe, combined with a gutting talent drain that saw marquee superstars Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon, and Bruno Guimarães exit St James' Park, has gutted the core identity of the squad.

Rob Green’s insider perspective as a former player provides a haunting assessment of the psychological reality inside the Newcastle dressing room. Well-administered organizations, such as Brighton & Hove Albion, operate with continuous succession planning; when a marquee player is sold, a fully vetted replacement immediately steps through the revolving door. At Newcastle, however, no such succession plan materialized. The departure of key figures without immediate high-caliber replacements has triggered genuine panic among the remaining players.

While newly appointed club captain Dan Burn has projected public resilience, players inevitably look around the dressing room and recognize the catastrophic loss of individual quality and leadership. When elite match-winners depart without structural replacement, the burden placed on remaining squad members becomes unsustainable. As Newcastle prepares to face Liverpool on the opening weekend, the lack of decisive action from club executives leaves the team dangerously exposed to a downward spiral.

The tactical fallout from this talent drain is severe. Without Bruno Guimarães in central midfield, Newcastle loses their primary press-resistance and progressive passing engine. Without Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon out wide and up front, their transition threat vanishes, allowing opposing defensive lines to push fifteen yards higher up the pitch. This spatial compression leaves Newcastle trapped inside their own half, amplifying the defensive burden on Dan Burn and the back four.

3.5 Post-Salah Coherence at Liverpool & The City/Arsenal Power Dynamic

Liverpool’s entry into year two under Arne Slot offers a compelling case study in structural trade-offs. Following the summer exit of Mohamed Salah, widespread external narrative predicted a severe decline in Liverpool’s attacking output. However, Liam Tharme and Rob Green highlight how Salah’s departure has inadvertently solved Slot’s primary tactical bottleneck: out-of-possession pressing symmetry.

During the 2025-26 campaign, Slot attempted to instil a rigorous, high-intensity pressing scheme. However, the system repeatedly suffered structural breakdowns because Salah, given defensive latitude throughout his legendary career, frequently cheated out of possession. By lingering high up the pitch to exploit counter-attacking spaces, Salah left Liverpool’s right-sided full-back severely exposed, forcing central midfielders to make unsustainable lateral recoveries. Without Salah, Slot has established an integrated eleven-man pressing unit where wide forwards track back diligently, closing down opposition passing lanes and cementing defensive compactness.

Simultaneously, Liverpool is fine-tuning player integration. Jeremie Frimpong, signed from Leverkusen, experienced tactical adaptation friction when deployed as a conventional right-back in a flat four-man defensive line—a stark contrast to his explosive role as a wide wingback under Alonso. Slot’s ability to adjust Frimpong’s positional instructions will dictate Liverpool’s right-flank dynamics.

At the pinnacle of the league hierarchy, Arsenal enters the campaign as defending champions for the first time in 22 years following their historic 2025-26 title run. Analytical models assign Mikel Arteta’s side an extraordinary title retention probability exceeding 40%. Arsenal’s dominance stems from their defensive solidity and elite set-piece execution overseen by Nicolas Jover. In contrast, Manchester City’s title retaking prospects (rated at 18.6%) remain hindered by their ongoing failure to replace Rodri. Green hyperbolically noted that replacing Rodri requires signing two elite midfielders and playing them simultaneously—demonstrating the Spaniard's unmatched ability to single-handedly anchor City's midfield rest defense.

3.6 Championship Winners and Tactical Readiness: Coventry City's Premier League Audition

The promotion of Coventry City under Frank brings an extraordinarily entertaining tactical blueprint to the top flight. Arriving as Championship winners, Coventry represents a fully formed, battle-tested unit that refuses to abandon its attacking principles.

Unlike previous promoted teams that suffered from over-reliance on a single goalscorer, Coventry boasts an exceptionally distributed attacking threat, with five distinct players achieving double-digit goal tallies in the Championship. Their game model relies heavily on direct wide play, physical penalty-box presence, and aggressive high-line defending:

  • Aerial Dominance & Crossing Metrics: Coventry excels at wide deliveries targeting towering centre-forwards Haji Wright and Ellis Simms, complemented by the box-arriving instincts of Brandon Thomas-Asante.
  • Boundary Launch Capability: Right-back Milan van Ewijk possesses one of the most potent long throw-ins in English football, capable of launching flat, high-velocity throws directly into the six-yard box to generate immediate panic.
  • High-Line Risk Management: Coventry maintains an extremely high defensive line that caught Championship opponents offside at record rates. Facing Arsenal at the Emirates on opening night presents the ultimate test of whether this aggressive offside trap can survive against elite Premier League speed.

Coventry's tactical blueprint offers a potential survival blueprint for promoted sides. Rather than attempting a complete structural overhaul to mimic top-flight possession teams, Frank’s side relies on physical intensity, direct wide service, and specialized dead-ball routines. This identity allows them to enter opening fixtures with established muscle memory and tactical clarity.

4. Speaker Perspectives & Analytical Contrast

The dynamic between Kate Mason, Rob Green, and Liam Tharme on The Athletic FC Podcast provides a fascinating study in analytical contrast. The discussion synthesizes two distinct worldviews within modern football media: the practical, dressing-room realism of a veteran former player (Green) and the data-driven, tactical sub-system analysis of a specialist writer (Tharme).

Rob Green’s analysis is fundamentally rooted in player psychology, dressing-room mechanics, and physical realities. He consistently views tactical shifts through the lens of matchday execution and player emotion. When evaluating Newcastle’s talent drain, Green ignores abstract tactical formations to focus on the psychological impact of squad panic. Similarly, his thesis on the return of 4-4-2 and long balls stems from his firsthand experience under managers like Sam Allardyce and Maurizio Sarri, recognizing that under pressure, teams revert to direct, low-risk structures. Green exhibits a healthy skepticism toward hyper-granular data metrics, lightheartedly mocking the analytics community's struggle to quantify headers while maintaining absolute confidence in his macro-level observations.

Conversely, Liam Tharme operates with surgical analytical precision. Tharme dissects spatial structures, body orientation during crossing sequences, and positional inter-changes. His insights regarding same-side wingers, inswinging versus outswinging cross trajectories, and Slot’s pressing symmetry at Liverpool provide the theoretical framework that complements Green’s practical observations. Where Green identifies what is occurring on the pitch, Tharme explains why it is happening structurally.

Speaker Primary Analytical Lens Key Structural Insights Core Perspective & Bias
Rob Green
(Former England GK)		 Player Psychology & Dressing-Room Realism • Return to direct 4-4-2 out of possession
• Skyrocketing long-ball frequency & aerial duels
• Alonso’s culture shift via Henderson/Welbeck
• Newcastle squad panic & talent drain		 Pragmatic ex-player realism; prioritizes physical resilience, dressing-room dynamics, and anti-theoretical directness over abstract tactics.
Liam Tharme
(Tactics Writer)		 Spatial Analytics & Positional Mechanics • Revival of same-side wingers for direct crossing
• Post-Salah pressing symmetry under Arne Slot
• Coventry City high-line mechanics & set pieces
• Biomechanical advantages of outswinging delivery		 Methodical tactical analyst; focuses on structural symmetry, passing angles, statistical profiling, and spatial sub-systems.
Kate Mason
(Podcast Host)		 Macro-Editorial & Storytelling Framework • Managerial turnover impact across 9 clubs
• Arsenal title retention probabilities (40%+)
• Opening weekend narrative dynamics		 Broad journalistic synthesis; bridges elite tactical concepts with engaging macro narratives for a global audience.

5. Strategic & Industry Implications

The insights articulated in this milestone discussion extend far beyond opening-weekend storylines; they reflect broader macroeconomic and operational shifts transforming the global football industry:

1. The Re-evaluation of Squad Construction Economics: For the past five years, elite club ownership models heavily favored stockpiling young talent with resale potential. However, Chelsea’s initial struggles under this model, contrasted with Xabi Alonso’s immediate integration of veterans Jordan Henderson and Danny Welbeck, highlights the operational necessity of experienced cultural anchors. Expect top-flight recruitment departments to re-allocate capital toward seasoned professionals who maintain locker-room discipline.

2. The Commercial Realignment of Data Providers: Green’s explicit call for data providers to develop precise metrics for aerial duels, header passes, and throw-in territory generation underlines an essential industry evolution. As direct play styles regain prominence, historical metrics tailored exclusively to positional passing will become obsolete. Analytics firms that successfully pioneer advanced 3D spatial tracking for aerial interactions will secure a dominant market position among elite club analytics divisions.

3. The Death of Managerial Dogma: The presence of nine new head coaches signals a shortening of managerial lifespans and a decreased tolerance for dogmatic, slow-building tactical projects. Executive boards are increasingly demanding immediate structural stability. Managers who insist on rigid, short-passing build-up play despite lacking the requisite technical squad profiles will be rapidly phased out in favor of pragmatic strategists capable of deploying flexible 4-4-2 mid-blocks.

4. The Valuation Inflation of Physical Strikers: As clubs shift toward same-side winger crossing mechanics, the market value of physically dominant, aerially proficient strikers will skyrocket further. Centre-forwards who combine elite sprint metrics with aerial duel dominance (such as Gyökeres and Šeško) represent the ultimate tactical assets, capable of converting wide service into high-probability expected goals (xG).

6. Looking Ahead: Unresolved Questions & Next Milestones

As the 2026-27 season unfolds, the tactical predictions established during this podcast episode will serve as critical benchmarks for evaluating team performance. Key unresolved questions and empirical metrics to track over the first ten matchweeks include:

  • The Newcastle Benchmark: Can Newcastle United recruit functional replacements before the transfer window closes, or will internal squad anxiety manifest in a disastrous opening quarter of the season?
  • Same-Side Winger Adoption Rate: Will middle-tier clubs actively re-configure their starting lineups to deploy natural-footed wingers, and will cross-completion rates into physical centre-forwards like Gyökeres, Šeško, and Haaland validate Tharme’s thesis?
  • Alonso’s Squad Pruning Challenge: How effectively will Xabi Alonso manage peripheral attacking stars (Estêvão, Jackson, Mudryk, Delap) at Chelsea once European fixture congestion begins?
  • Aerial Contact Metrics: Will top-tier data providers introduce specialized tracking for header passes and territorial aerial duels, confirming Green’s assertion of a twenty-year peak in aerial battles?
  • Arsenal’s Title Retention Pace: Will Mikel Arteta’s defending champions maintain their 40%+ predictive favorite status by neutralizing the direct, set-piece-heavy tactics of promoted opponents like Coventry City?

💬 Key Quotes & Speaker Breakdown

Premier League tactical trends

"I think we're going to see a return to more 4-4-2. Teams are accepting they're not going to have so much of the ball, so there's going to be more long balls than any other time, and therefore more headers this season than in the last 20 years."

— Rob Green

"I'd be amazed if we don't see more same-side wingers this season. A left-footer playing off the left, a right-footer playing off the right. It makes sense to have players that can cross the ball."

— Liam Tharme

Liverpool tactical changes

"I think this might be a benefit of Salah leaving. Last season, Slot trying to instill pressing football, they were struggling because Salah wasn't going to offer much defensively. He'd often cheat without the ball."

— Liam Tharme

Chelsea management

"You look at Alonso and what he learned from Real Madrid is: don't let the players dictate. And what has happened at Chelsea is the players have dictated. There has to be a sea change."

— Rob Green

Newcastle United squad turnover

"Unless you see a real answer of players stepping up and stepping in, the panic starts to set in, and you're thinking, are the guys the decision makers got the ducks in a row? Are we going to be left in the lurch?"

— Rob Green

Newcastle United outlook

"It's going to take something monumental to turn that around at Newcastle. They haven't replaced the players they've lost yet, and it's going to be one of those teams this season."

— Rob Green

Chelsea transfer strategy

"Alonso by getting Danny Welbeck and Jordan Henderson in has pulled off a masterstroke. You deal with that side of it, I'll pick the team, I'll coach the team, I'll motivate the team. You keep it on track."

— Rob Green

Manchester City midfield

"I adjusted that they not only needed two signings to replace Rodri, but they needed to use him at the same time on the pitch. Tactically, I think that's going to be an anomaly having 12 players on the pitch, but that's how good he was."

— Rob Green

Premier League title race

"The 40% prediction of Arsenal retaining the title seems extraordinarily high. The odds are that 60 out of 100 times they don't win it."

— Liam Tharme

Coventry City promotion

"Coventry are a real spread of goals across the front line. They'll fit the Premier League quite well because the directness, the physicality, the set pieces—they're all things they're good at already."

— Liam Tharme
📜 View Full Episode Verbatim Transcript 48,963 characters
Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Kate Mason. Now we have a brand new treat for you every Friday this season and it is the Tactical preview show. We're looking at games from the weekend to come, Tactical Lens and the 2627 season starts with a cracker. It is Newcastle against Liverpool on time side. On board today we have two absolute crackers as well, former England goalkeeper Rob Green, hello Rob. Good morning. Good to see you. And the Athletics Tactics writer Liam Farm, hello. Not a former England goalkeeper, hello. Really? Yeah. Yeah. How what are you liking goal? I'm okay. I actually coached goalkeepers at kind of a Academy level for a couple seasons but better at kind of coaching and giving out the instructions than I am trying to do them myself. Okay. And that is very much the attitude we're going to be taking here in the studio. So great news, how excited are you that we are about to see the start of the Premier League season? Yeah. I think quite excited. I always find preseason a bit strange. There's a lot of talk and a lot of hype signings but once the game's actually start, I think it's way more fun. We can talk about things that are actually happening and not just kind of prospective things or his what might occur. We're going to theorise. Yeah. It does feel like preseason once as a player is really quite dull at times. You're doing, you're trudging through preseason, you're trudging through games that don't really mean anything. And everyone else is just looking at the transfers and you're just saying, well, when you're in the club, you don't really see it, you see some guys come in, I mean, the overall picture of players coming and going all the time because you're in one club, you know, you go to one of the clubs in the Premier League, the maybe Crystal Palace or something like one or two players in, that's it. It can be a long old preseason with not that much happening. So you're desperate for the games to start. Let's run in more games and then you just get into that routine, which is what we're going to do. For me, I've been absolutely obsessed with pieces. I think it's the best. At the moment, I feel like it's the best fit. Like, for these games that don't mean anything. It's just not. No stress. They're speaks of Tottenham, but the question from a tactics perspective, looking ahead to this season, is that I don't particularly agree? Lots of people said that last season became a little boring with all the focus on your set pieces, people kicking the ball out for territory, long throws, I'm a long throw connoisseur. Set pieces, maybe not so much. What do you think it's going to look like this coming season? More the same. No. I think Dragassin's long throws fell into the category of just throws from Tottenham. I don't think they were worth waiting for, but if there is a skill and there is a unique abilities for a player that can make that, if you can utilize it and the chaos that it causes, then it's so big. You can all do it and having been a player lived through that generation is nice to see some other players suffer as well. You go, yeah, it really was that tough dealing with long throws, with big centre-offs heading you and kicking you, whilst the throws are coming in. I would you recommend the set pieces, is it going to be more of the same this season? Potentially. I mean, there might be some new rules brought in like we saw kind of at the World Cup, so I think that will be, in that instance, quite a big dictator for that, but I think coaches copy in general from each other, we saw it kind of going back a number of seasons with kind of clock in his high pressing, other coaches say we want to do the same, Guardiola and kind of playing out from the back, short-goal kicks, the little change obviously came in very under the 2010s and then a lot more kind of copy cats coming in and try these things and not always quite as well, but I think coaches and clubs in general, especially when they then, as Rob says, suffer from those things, teams score those goals against them, go, well, if we can't beat them then let's join them and we'll go with it. How much time did you, when you were playing, how much time did you spend on set pieces training, in training? You normally, depending on who the manager was, some didn't believe in them, some didn't think of set pieces as really a thing and those are the ones that generally didn't last that long, but under Sam Oliver, Aladais, I was at West Town with him, you do at least two sessions, maybe more before each game, practicing them, Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea was a big believer in the timing of the runs, everything he was neurotic about it, almost sort of a paranoia that if he didn't get done, there was ramifications there to the coaches and that, so it was very much from a player's perspective that once you got the understanding and the timing, it was built in by the end, by pathway through the season, you knew what the drills were, you knew if there was going to be play A, B or C at a certain amount of time, it was, it was basically, it was the, can you get skills right, can the delivery be right? We've seen Arsenal and they've made a big talk of his there, their set piece coach and everything around it, wouldn't be anything without Declan Rice and Bakao Sakka, you know, then there's no great surprise, Bruno Gilmerich, fantastic at set pieces, there we go, and you just think, there's all this, another one, brilliant at set pieces, all of a sudden, they've got even more options. So they're playing to their strengths, basically, we would like, this is tactics, this is a tactical show, so have you got a bold prediction for a tactical trend that we're going to see this season Liam? I do, I'll say before I tell what the trend is that we should acknowledge that there's so many new coaches in the league this year as well, which makes it quite hard to predict as where things might go, as nine in total, which is obviously almost half the league, three of them will come from other Premier League teams that have done well, because Garo Neal as well at Ipswich, who's formally got Premier League experience, so it's a weird kind of, I guess just time for the league to be where there's a lot of clubs and kind of stages where you say, we don't quite know where they're at, the same for kind of a few big clubs, same for a few mid-table clubs that have had success, so it will take, I think, a bit of time working out kind of where they're going to be at, even though those coaches have had full pre-season, so should be able to get their ideas across. That said, I will now come in with some kind of prediction. I'd be amazed if we don't see more kind of same-side wingers in kind of future season. That being a left footer, playing off the left, a right footer, playing off the right. We've understand that we had a real big era of kind of the inverted wingers, so a Mahamma Salar, a songy men, players like to cut inside and shoot, that kind of wide goal score that became really, really key, but I think we're so many big forwards in the league now, Ireland, Yorkez, EZAC, CESCO, Brobi, Egor Tiago, Brighton, just signed Promised David, who I think is about six foot five. It makes sense to have players that can cross the ball, and I think there's a lot of players that can that are good at that, but it's a different kind of technique when you're on the, say, the right-hand side is a Bikai of Sakka, that kind of curling back post-cross that's a bit more looping. It's a really hard skill to perfect, but if you're on the opposite side of the pitch and can go down the byline, go on the outside and kind of drill across a bit more a whip across, I think it gives kind of different solutions up against defenders. It's something I was shocked that Thomas D. Hull didn't try, more during the World Cup, when we had Bellingham and Hadcane, as I was working on a penalty area threat. So I don't know if we will see that, I'd like to see it, and I hope it's on the same side as me there. Yeah. I mean, I think on a similar theme, not touching on it, we will see a return to, more to four-four-two. Oh. A lot of teams do it out of possession anyway. That's always been just the easiest to be in, to be in a press or to hold a shape has always been four-four-two, but also from that, you have your potential for your normal sided wingers, but my mind was going to be when we now get to the point where maybe teams are accepting that they're not going to have so much of the ball, that there's going to be more long balls than any other time, but they're set up for the long balls, therefore more headers this season than in the last 20 years. That's your prediction. And I've quantified it. Go on. There's, well, 20 years. Yeah. There you go. But, did you know what the number is? Yes, more than all the others. We can find that out. We can find that out. Yeah. I think we're going to be like, there's going to be, I don't know, 12, I can't even think one other way. Absolutely. No idea what the number is. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Funny sort of this, we actually tried quantifying kind of, I think, headers or header kind of contacts, at some point during last season, try to work out things like header clearances, aerial joules, header passes, but I think some of them kind of get coded as similar things. So it's actually quite hard to get an exact number on, touch the number of headers. So if there are any data providers listening that would love to kind of actually add that in as a metric, please do. I'm sure we'll be tracking it along with the season when you can get some kind of track of going as well. That makes me more confident of my prediction that there is absolutely no way of tracking it. So I'm going to be right, aren't you? Yeah. That's perfect. And also the right way to do it, right? We've got data. We just make it answer the questions in the way that we want to. So a heavyweight clash to kick off with on the athletic FC podcast. We will start with talking about Newcastle, of course, both sides with new managers, Bob, they've lost any how, Newcastle, but not just that. They've seen a huge talent drain. They may be looking over the way to see one of their key players. It's at, obviously, Gordon, Bruno Kimmerash, to not let the list goes on, right? What does it like to experience that level of talent drain in a site? Yeah, really difficult. And you look at it from a player's perspective of the guys who are still there. And unless you see a real answer of players stepping up and stepping in, or these immediate replacements, so you know that well-drilled clubs or a Brighton will sell a player and someone will have backed up and they're just walking through this revolving door as one goes out, one comes in. Unless you see that, the panic starts to set in, and you're thinking, are the guys above us? Are the guys the decision makers that they got the ducts in a row? Are we going to be left in the lurch? Are we in trouble here this season? Where are they going to go? Is going to come from? Everyone's looking around the dressing room going, who's going to step up? And you have that belief at the start of the season, and you have it initially. I think you heard Dan Boehner at the weekend, new club captain of new cars all turn around going, yeah, we're going to look forward. You make all the right noises, and you're looking around going, we've lost huge characters. We've lost huge players within this, and unfortunately at the moment new car, so you have to say, it's going to be right now, it's going to be one of those teams. That's what you think. You think it doesn't look as though they're doing enough to replace this? Well, they haven't replaced them yet, and it's going to take something monumental to turn that around. And you think in why, one day before the start of the season, or before the weekend, why are they not in place? So new manager, young manager, new ideas, players coming back in dribs and drives, Joel Inton, your other midfielder, as well as out the other two leave in, is injured. The problems just keep on stacking up, and they've not kicked a ball yet. This feels like a very persuasive argument about new car, so generally across the course of the season, but actually sticking with the topic of squad turn more generally, it sounds like we feel a bit concerned about the level at new car, so, but do you think there's an amount of squad turn that is a problem just like generally? Yeah. I think you can compare them to Liverpool almost a couple of seasons ago, when they kind of, you know, the team that Clop left behind didn't really chair much at all that slot came in and won the Premier League with. You always need a little bit, I think, bring through some fresh blood, academy graduates, you know, make signings, you don't want a team to kind of stagnate too much either. I think there's a case of timing and where it occurs on the pitch as well. I mean, the classic example being last summer that the EZAC cycle went on for so long that Newcastle started the season playing a back three and had Anthony Gordon up top because that was their solution with the players that they had. They didn't yet have a solution to a player that they were quite clearly going to sell but hadn't yet sold. And again, now to lose, I think, how so close to start the season, must be really frustrating because you then started preseason and change things and that gets quite difficult. They've lost key players from kind of the core part of the team, I think, in the central area. Lost two-thirds of them at field, a really strong midfield. I do think they'd got kind of caught up to a bit in terms of that Bruno, Tinali and Jolinton trio were so good physically for so long and I think actually part of the league had learned from that and had kind of invested in similar types of midfielders. So they weren't quite as outstanding last year as they had been in years gone back. The good thing for them, I think, is the most their defence is still there and they've got kind of a rock that they can build on from that their child botanist ship, I think, is generally quite good. It was kind of one of the green shoots in not a very good season last season. I think if they can build on that, they've got good fullbacks in Lewis Hall and Tinali Romento, providing they can keep them both fit. So there's pieces there to build from. I appreciate that. It's only one part of the team, but people might remember that kind of a few years ago when how first came in, they were a really good defensive team. They never really got back to that, which was a bit curious. But they only conceded 33 goals in 2022-23 now. Can they do that again? I don't know, but I think that's something they should probably aspire towards. OK. On the Liverpool front then, also they've gone through plenty of changes, as you mentioned, but not so significant, still, of course, losing most talent every moment, canatae, but they've brought in Jacques K. from Ren, they've got Victor Munoz from Osasuna and also Ronald Aurojo in defence when it did start to look like they had some defensive worries. That feels like a big, lone deal, focusing on tactics, so Liam and Donnie Eriola through the doors. What his football looks like, high octane, high pressing, chaotic, exciting, can this work with the current players? I think so. Actually, I think this might be a benefit of Salah leaving was that last season, kind of slot trying to instill some kind of pressing football, they were just really, really struggling because Salah wasn't going to offer much defensively. He'd often kind of cheat without the ball that he wouldn't do, huge amount of pressing, either the right back for him, probably after basically stepping up higher and defend for him or in midfielder wood, and you need those players at the top end of the pitch that lead that, the kind of Marne style figure that clockpad all those years ago, to move back more towards his foot, I think, than it is slot. And it means it's, I think, big for Subbersly and for Florian Vietz as well, Subbersly especially, such a gifted player physically, I think, very good technically, but kind of his engine, his capacity to sprint and keep sprinting throughout the game is probably better than most players in the league, and definitely one of the top Liverpool players saw that. I think the big challenge I know will come onto this with some stuff that Rob's got, but the centre backs, how they deal with that, have into a man to man going touch tight. Like we see with Arsenal where they can lead their two centre backs to go, one V1 against the number 10 or a striker, knowing that they can win the drills and they've got that physical capacity. I think that's quite demanding for Van Dyke especially, and I see why they've invested in someone like Aralho's played at Barcelona in quite a high line. You've got to get players that are going to fit that style of play. Okay. Well, we are going to look at the Eriola press with some examples from preseason, right, of Liverpool. Obviously, if you're watching this, you can see them. If you're listening, you can either choose to come and find us on YouTube or just these guys are going to paint pictures with their words. We will do our best to describe as we're going through, and it's Liverpool's preseason game against Colmo that they've picked this game from, and it's Eriola in his way of going man to man, and the problem in he's alluded to it, his self-missed preseason is, can they do it for 90 minutes? And this is the bit where you're thinking that Eriola may need to adapt, and this is a brilliant example that we've got early on in the game where Liverpool, one of the not full strengths, full strengths, but as strong as they're going to be at the moment having their team, and highlighting how they get that press on up the pitch, but also across the pitch, shutting off one side of the pitch, and where this allows this man to man press from, and where the risk comes from as well. So the first clip that you have, the first still is of E's at pressing from the centre of the pitch, cutting off between the two centre-hards, and angling his run to stop the goalkeeper when he receives the ball to allowing to open up onto his right foot, to open up half the pitch, so that cuts off the whole left-hand side of the pitch, there's Liverpool looking at Colmo on the right-hand side, and Trevor Chalber playing it back to the goalkeeper, being going to be cut off by E's at making that curved run, and in the centre of midfield, is your left-back curkers, pressing on the Colmo right-winger. So this is where you're looking at one, two, three, Colmo players dropping in, but also the centre of midfield that are the pivot coming into the space between Floring Verts, who's playing as one of the two, we talked about a 4-4-2 earlier, this is Liverpool in there, you've found 4-4-2, E's at cutting off that line, there's a gap in the middle for the goalkeeper to play into, but one thing is for sure, that left-hand side of the Liverpool pitch is cut off, and they can't go on from there. From that, they've eliminated so much space that they can, they can just basically ignore. Two double pivots are coming in, one was the right-winger, one was the pivot in midfield, he's truck coming in to block off those opportunities, come or keep it, can't come out to his right-hand side, curkers, sobs slight, then you talked about how good sobs slight is, and how much of his engine is there, they're right in there, cutting off those two passes, there's a goalkeeper, when you're taught in the modern day, you're saying, if the ball's going to come from your left-hand side and they've got one centre-four, the space is going to be out on the right-hand side, or with one of your two centre-halfs, if they've got two up front, without even looking, you know between the two centre-halfs, there should be one of your two or one double pivots, one of the pivots in there, your number six, that it should be in the space, so in there, you're looking to say the goalkeeper automatically knows where that part is, but because sobs high, so tight, because curkers is so tight, he's thinking, I can't go out to the right, because I know he's actually in my peripheral vision there, and I can't go in there because the risk ball, the bounce pass into one of them two, it's pretty spicy right now, that's the one that deserves to be loves right, that's the kind of thing, bait them, press, get them on, pass in, and bounce back out, find the spare man, they're the kind of pictures that the coach I think these days love, they want those situations, try and manufacture those, yes, that's it, that's it, are you brave enough to play that ball, that's the question to the goalkeeper there, but it takes another option to say, look, I'm going to go back to Chalaba, he plays it to him, back to the center half on the left hand side, back into the tight area, and it goes to the full back, the left back Chalaba plays the next pass, and this is the situation Liverpool want, this is the situation where Cuomo are trapped in the corner, this is where Newcastle they're saying we've got you at St James's Park, where we want you, curkers is on the edge of the D, sobers like is in the penalty area pressing, you've got Riongamoa and Gravenboat all pressing in, and the only pass then, full Cuomo is to flip it, flip it over to corner, he's not got time, the pressure is on that pass, and when you look at the top teams they'll look to say we're going to press forwards, and then I said the best ones manage to press sideways as well, so condense you and just knock them out wide, they manage to condense the pitch if from a full size Amfield down to a tiny 20 yard, 30 yard square where they've got seven players in that area, it leaves the risk at the back, you've got to go man to man, everyone has got to go man to man, which brings us on to where Riongamoa is saying I'm not sure my team can do it all the time, we can't do this for 19 minutes right now because I haven't got the engines in the legs, so this next example is to be fair to Liverpool from the 89th minute, but that's at the point of Irohdon, it's the kind of doing it five minutes in when everyone's fresh, okay that's fine, you're fit and ready to go, it's also the challenge I think when subs come on and change the game, that's on both sides where the opposition bring on more forwards, you change your personnel, because the big thing, they had issues I think that boom with when he first came in, they didn't have great results at the start of a couple of seasons, because he's saying we're trying to embed these ideas, and the big part of it is not just the first line of pressure going, the striker, it's what the players behind them do, so what we'd say the kind of the second or the third line to pressure, so the midfield to centre backs, because if a striker is vacating the midfielder that they're marking, it's going to press a centre back, well someone needs to come and fill and cover that man that they were already defending, so it's how they kind of, what we'd say is jumps, so players all kind of in a coordinated fashion, one goes to press someone, someone else follows up behind them, and this is a good example, we've got, again from letting the coma game of them, not really doing that very well. Yeah, so the subs have been made, the changes have been made, the continuity isn't there, the players maybe know the drills, the Iriola has been there a few weeks now, but by the end of the season, not just the guys who are starting, but the subs have got to have it drilled in the brother of the brains, like clockwork, that it's got to be in there, and if it's not, you get punished, and Bournemouth at times would get punished in the way that they, when they tired, but here you've been looking at this same press that's going on, the same run by the centre forward, it was exact, now it's changed, and that curve run cut enough one side of the pitch, they're sober slight as one of the front two, who's on the edge of the area, who's looking to shut off the pass to the centre half, and when he looks around, he's looking around to see the space, but he knows, he's with his man in the centre of the field, why isn't there so much space, something's gone wrong, right, there isn't the man to man pressing, that should be what we saw after five minutes, the man to man pressing, that brought them success early on in the game, sober slight knows, it's sober, I can keep doing this because he's like the duro sell bunny, and will carry on going and going and going, so he's looking around to turn around and say well where's the man who's should be on my man and allowing me to press on to the other side, I did centre half, it's not there, and where we saw that pressure on the full back for the ball, all of a sudden the pressure isn't there on the centre half, sober slight is the man who's having to get over to him as well, but that side of the pitch isn't pressed, the condenseness isn't there, and then it's one pass, you've got all that space for a centre half to turn around to say I know this isn't right, they recognise this isn't right from previous on in the game, so I've got the space in the time to hit a ball, the clip of sin, the sin that's in there is Van Dyke and a rojo, give a shame, we're in a shaming place, this is part of it, and this is over a fraction of a second, the ball goes back, where's my man, I've gone up, have to press on him, the CUNY Unification is not quite there between Van Dyke and a rojo, who have never played together before, or they've seen somewhere else on one of their young players who's come on train or any, or whoever else is on the pitch, hasn't quite done what they're supposed to do, and they say well let's just hold fire for a second because we're defenders, we're conscious of the danger, so all of a sudden they've got a 2v1 at the back, which sounds fine to me, is a goalkeeper, you have a 2v1 at the back, but all of a sudden you're looking at insane, you're in danger, there's one straight ball over the top, there's a space, Alison on the final clip is having to scramble, because he's ending up being higher than he's hoping to be because of the press that should have been there, but there's no press on the ball carrier, the ball player, and that allows that ball, and it should have been, should have been a goal, they got away with it, Alison managed to scramble back and make a save, but well, I thought Alison to recover it, a quick scramble, that is panning mode for a goalkeeper, you're out of the goal, you get him lobbed, and all of a sudden you're just praying, please miss it, they got away with it there, but this is the fine line that Liverpool tread, an aerial that is trying to enforce, but recognise that they're not going to get it right all the time. This is great, because we can now see as well, when we're watching, when they play their first game, when this is working, when this is not working. And the risk is worth the reward as far as eruders concerned, that I brought them so much success at Bournemouth over a number of years, because once you kind of get these principles embedded, it comes to a point where you then don't need to coach it from the sidelines anymore, because as Rob's saying, you can't really coordinate ten outfielders to make all the movements at once, they need to know, okay, when the striker goes, if I'm in the midfielder, then I jump up, and then the centre-back's going to step up behind me, and it might take them a period of time to kind of get that trained, but if you can, then it starts to kind of serve itself. You don't need to kind of keep going back to it, because a lot of teams are going to build up in similar ways in the Premier League, so it can be really, really effective, and that's why they're prepared to say, okay, the worst case scenario of that ball going off the top like that will allow that, because we think four, five, six times a game, we can actually win the ball, hop the pitch, get the ball close to goal, generate shooting opportunities, and just shut down opposition teams in their build-up. And that was your point, I think about Swabberslide, is that he was recognising the situation, and I had to take control, but ideally there'll be quite soon sort of 11 equivalent Swabberslide, who will be able to recognise the situation, and thus it won't in theory develop. I think that's a plan. Sounds like a good plan. In terms of Newcastle from a tactical perspective, we've already mentioned they have quite a number of challenges, potentially, and they have a brand new manager, T.S. Yisler. Now, well, you've been watching them in pre-season, and you have been alarmed. Well, they've struggled, in short, they've struggled off the ball, and they've struggled on the ball at times, as well, creation of chances, but also what we've just highlighted for Aereo's Liverpool, of when they get it right in that press, and what they struggle with Newcastle at times against Bayer-Levy Cousin in the game, he was getting through a press, and it's difficult because Matthias Yisler has been in, he's had players away, and players generally know, as we've seen, how to play in a 4-4-2 off the ball. You can tweak that, you can get the press right, Aereo, getting it on the ball and timing right, when you've lost your midfielders. Your two ball-playing midfielders are a huge loss in there, and then recognising those passes, that movement is key. And so, in pre-season, he's not had those players to work with, whether they get players in, it's going to be a massive, but if they do start the season with the guys they've got, and have to run with that for the first few few weeks, even, or even longer after the window shots, then it's something they're really going to have to work on. This is certainly one that Liverpool will be saying, we close off that one side of the pitch, we can put new castle under pressure, they've got young midfielders in there at the minute, they're going to have to be so brave, especially if it starts badly to keep going for the ball, keep getting the ball off the goalkeeper, keep getting the ball off the centre-offs, Kirk has dot sub-as-ly in there, we'll be looking their lips going, let's go, let's go, let's go. Next up, we'll get into some of the other big clashes this weekend. Okay, so that was our showpiece fixture on the tactics show, but we have plenty more games to talk to you about Liam. I've got a lovely fixture difficulty chart that I'm gazing out on my screen now. Can you run us through what it all means, and actually I'd like to kind of understand how it fits together, if you know as well. I think I know a bit, it's one of optos finest, you get this kind of sprudently throughout the season, always at the start on the end, and they're trying to quantify how hard a team start or run in or any kind of portion of the season might be, they've got kind of a rolling rating that they give teams throughout the season, based on partly on results, but also underline numbers and kind of other metrics to, you know, often you get a nice list that will say something like, ball with a better than AC Milan or something like that, because obviously the Premier League kind of waiting. But it's always useful, I think, especially at the start of the season where people are kind of debating who's got a harder start or how difficult it might be. I don't think there's a huge amount of difference kind of within it. I mean, we're looking at kind of numbers that their rating goes up into about the 90s, and there's kind of two points either way for each team, so it's not kind of drastically. So it's not like you got someone down at 10, and then something like that. I think if it's like Champions League or European football, then that kind of gives you a broader, like Princess PSG if I had a couple really hard kind of league phases, because they might get drawing into really top rated teams, but kind of the argument now is that the floors come up so much in the Premier League that even kind of the the 14th or 13th team might be way better than most of the other teams kind of in Europe. Even the 17th sometimes. Even the 17th one. Yeah, but believe that as much as you want to. But anyway, the kind of key takeaways from the graph are that Liverpool, Man City and Man United are the three teams that are rated as having the easiest start to the season, which is probably good news for Eriola, some kind of more favorable fixtures there, obviously even though it's Newcastle away, there's kind of some some nicer ties in there, Ipswich, one of the newly promoted teams for them at home, kind of as nice as some of those matches can come. I even think from Man United who have got what's greater just quite a good start to the season, they face some lower kind of end up position, but they've still got a Manchester Darby in there as well in the 4th game. And right at the other end we've got Coventry who are great that is having the hardest start, which is probably fair enough because they've got Arsenal and City of their first two away trips, Bournemouth, Sunderland, Brighton and Hull also among the top five. So any conspiracy theorist out there that want to question the super computer and the favorable fixtures for teams in red, I think have got some ammo with that. So as it goes, I mean the weaker poorer teams have got the harder start, but surely it's swayed because they can't play themselves. That part is also a trick. Yeah, that makes sense. City began their season under new coach, Enzyme Reska, against Bournemouth at home. Now Rodgers off to Barcelona, we saw how they struggled to cope without him when he was injured. They spent a lot of money on Elliott Anderson. Can he fill the void rope? Big shoes to fill. He spoke to his family earlier in a week and I adjusted that they not only needed two signings to replace him, but they needed to use him at the same time on the pitch. Now, tactically, I think that's going to be an anomaly having 12 players on the pitch, but that's how good he was, is that you're looking at a player who had an understanding and it is an understanding that is really difficult to replace of just recycling possession, holding up possession and when to play it. Now Maroska's as much as a disciple of controlled football as Pep was and thinking, well, how are we going to control that? I do feel that the Elliott Anderson is going to have to learn so fast in terms of how to retain possession and just play a hundred short passes per game, potentially, just to hold that possession and wait for the right time to play, when to release players, when to go. That's an understanding and tactically, you're feeling that you looked at the game against Arsenal in the community shield and they look so vulnerable, all of a sudden, that playing play through was a thing that could happen and Matthew Covertich, my teammate was in there with him and he's fantastic. Footballer, but just doesn't have that with the Rodry had and so all of a sudden you'd go along and say, well, how are they going to do that? How are they going to have to really nail down that control, even more so? Maybe add another midfielder in their whilst in possession just to retain that element of control is going to be a tough ask initially when you've got against opponents who can expose you. Can Bournemouth expose them? I think so. I mean, it's funny that Marrestka's record against Bournemouth against Derriola really wasn't all that great when I know it's a different coach now, so it's a different tactically, but there's a lot of similarities in part of the reason why they brought in Margarose to have that kind of continuity, they want that similarly front fitted approach, which is also to be felt what City Sharnsey and Marrestka are bringing in a coach with similar style, some of those club as a former youth coach there. But I think Bournemouth is a great example of how a team has reinvented themselves really, really well. There's been so many transfers across the board in recent years, lost a lot of coaches, changing clubs, being sacks, however, they're leaving kind of the quickest managerial turnover we've ever seen in the Premier League era, but they're really smart with their signings, I think, of how they integrate players and what Rob spoke about before, of having that succession line ready to go over, okay, if a player leaves someone else can then step up, it's done it with Semenio, did it with basically a whole defence as well for the back of last season, so I know that the record is very much in kind of City's favour in this regard, but I think Bournemouth should have a really strong season again. Arsenal start the season as defending champions for the first time in 22 years, I've seen, to predict, have you seen, it's 40%, it's over 40%, is the prediction of Arsenal retaining the title, which seems... I mean, if you're frothing at the mouth there, I'm absolutely not, I'm completely... I'm objective and professional, but that does, that isn't extraordinarily high. Well, the good news is it's below 50, so the odds are that, you know, 60 out of 100 times they don't win it, you can take the good side of this. Take the positives on that, but, you know, the second place prediction is that City win it with 18.6, so it's a big gap, Arsenal get their campaign underway against Coventry tonight. How does Arteta evolve Arsenal's style of play from last season? Because, as we all saw, you know, it was their defence getting them over the line, not yet. Yeah, well, they played with a freedom against Manchester City in the community shield, which allowed them to break through and expose the Roderie-Less Manchester City. I think you're saying the 40% comes from probably all the question marks elsewhere, as opposed to Arsenal. You know, Arsenal, you're looking thinking, really, they're only going to get stronger. They're going to make additions to make them stronger from now on. They might lose someone like Martin Ellie, but that might be, that will be replaced by someone else, and you're thinking it's going to be a bigger and stronger addition. I think going to somewhere like Arsenal on the first game of the season for Coventry is something where Frank will be telling his team and have been there before that he's going to it, going, look, this is a dream start. Yeah. Really, stickly, dress it up as a dream start, because everyone knows it's a free here, everyone knows, but you go back to thinking, well, Brentford against Arsenal. Yeah. A few seasons ago ended up in a fantastic game on the opening day of the season, so this is one where, yes, on paper, it's more than 40% that Arsenal are going to win it, but you feel Coventry have got absolutely no problems in going to it and saying we need to go and just the approval. Free here, but it's almost a extended season, friendly, because you go into a lot of games, almost like what up to have done, and you go into that first five games and say, how many points are we going to get from it? Well, let's work from game two, because this is going to be such a tricky ask for Coventry. Part of the thing we do at the start of each season is go through the newly promoted teams and myself and some of the other data tactics guys, we just try and profile them a bit of what people can expect, what their strengths are. I think Coventry are quite a fun team. They're championship winners, so they're obviously quite good, but there's a real spread of goals across the front line that they've got, I think it was five players into double digits last year, which is probably a good sign, not too relying on kind of one or two players. They're at their best, I think, at wide, a really good crossing team. There's a lot of height in that team, had you right, in Lissimza, a really good strikers, Brandon Thomas of Santé as well as a kind of good penalty box, forward slash kind of midfielder. Backpost crosses are really, really good. They've got attacking kind of players out on the wings. The danger ones probably are from Mason Clark, a really good kind of both ways, can go into, I can go outside as a winger, but I think they'll fit the Premier League quite well because kind of what we spoke about in terms of the directness to physicality, the set pieces, they're all things that they're good at already, they don't really have to kind of, I think rip their style up in a way, people spoke about maybe Southampton or other teams before when they came up or even burn, they're kind of playing a very specific style that this is kind of fairly ready made Premier League football. One of the best set p-seems in the league last season, they've got a long throw taker, Van Evike, their right back, really good long throws as well, not kind of, I think, probably pleasantly surprised when he watches them because he gets a good bit of distance on them, does drop them into the box, and a nice high defensive line as well, if people remember Villa a couple years ago, and that back four, they don't always press too aggressively at the front, but the back four says really, really high, they catch teams offside it up, which has worked really well in the championship, I'm intrigued to see if that works in the Premier League in the same way when you've got some really good fast forwards up top. Yeah, how much they stick with that, I think, kind of watch this space. It's exciting stuff, and also they're doing it in beautiful kits, and they spent a bunch of money on their team as well. So I'm intrigued to observe, of course, sending them down as well as the other two promoted sides, but intriguing to see what they can do. Yeah, and I think you're looking going, get being in promoted teams before, and stepping into the Premier League, and away wins are huge. Away points are massive, and you just galvanise a group from the opening day performance if you get it. You're in the squad, you think, first goal is massive, first clean sheet, if you can nick one or two of those in the opening game, then you're on your way. And if you are a promoted team, that momentum you take into the first few games, because you know you're going to go through a horrendous time at some point, but you're going to go through and hit the ground running, gives you a huge leap into the Premier League, and we've seen it recently, you saw some in the last season, just all of a sudden you win in on the opening day against West Ham, and they just win. And so Coventry, you just say, go on, hit the ground running, you may not get the result, you might nick something, a tick, a tick in one of those boxes you look for at the start of season. So it's like, you're predicting an upset on the opening day tonight. Well, that 40% could suddenly drop down to 20. Perfect. Can't wait to look back into it. Last one to look at, from the week ahead of the weekend, a film against Chelsea. This is madness. The battle of Madrid's last two managers, Alvaro Arbaloa, for his Javier Lanzo. Now Chelsea's transfer strategy has been a subject of, well, fascination, I think it's fair to say, and they brought in experience to their young squad. It comes Danny Wellback and Jordan Henderson. Now, clearly, these are players who can bring a lot to addressing him. It feels fascinating that they're going to be joining this, this Chelsea dressing room. How do you think that's likely to affect it? The dressing room itself, I think, all of a sudden it will be channeled in a good direction. And I think they're Alonzo by getting these two in has pulled off a masterstroke that you say, right, you deal with that side of it. I'll pick the team. I'll coach the team. I'll motivate the team. You keep it on track. You too. You might not play every week. You might not take as much minutes out of the season as you want, but that's what you're here for. So I think that's part of what they're there for. I think the game against Fulham is going to be really interesting that Fulham has scored a lot in pre-season, but conceded a lot as well where you're looking at the side and you're saying, well, I'll actually hold on. The experience of Leno, of Bassi, of the back is the bit that they're probably going to rely on. You thought this season with all the younger players up front, how they go about hurting Chelsea over the game. I'm going to be interested to see getting all those pieces to fit all the young players in and the centre-forward who's it who's going to start. I'd be tempted to start with Munisse just to cause a real handful as a poster going to start like I see her is more of a footballer and a finisher. So Fulham are going to be very much under a lower working progress and you feel Chelsea have had a whole season under a whole pre-season under a Lonzo. A lot of their players, key players called Palmer in particular has been in since the start. They'll have a refreshed last season. They had the club well cut, they had no summer and all that sort of stuff. So all of a sudden, those pieces you feel might fit. Interesting. What do you expect from what you've seen of a Lonzo, Leverkusen and Madrid? How do you think they're going to play? Yeah, I'm not entirely sure it's a short answer, but what we do know has been a lot of variety in pre-season. They've ended it kind of playing a 3, 4, 3, the kind of shape you had at Leverkusen with those real flying wingbacks, but I think a system like that needs the right person. I mean, you can tell they're about any system but specifically having those real athletes out wide, they can cover a lot of ground, quality wire players. It was Grimaldo and Frimpong and part of the reason why I think Frimpong's not looked as good at Liverpool was because it's not quite the same role as a bit different playing as a right back in a four. But we've seen Pelescher off the left in Pedro Nesto off the right as kind of these almost inverted wingbacks, which is a very great imposter kind of approach from from a Lonzo. But that does work as a way to get kind of Palmer and Rodgers playing off of the striker. Another challenge is you could also then play what Robert was saying earlier with a 4-4-2, have Robert and Joe Pedro there. There's a lot of different options, the score is so deep. I think having different ways of playing makes a lot of sense. You've brought in players as well that have played in the back three a lot, so Laquire from Palace, really smart sidings, good kind of peak age player. It's played in the back three a lot, so that might suit him. My big question then is how do you kind of fit in some of the players that are on the periphery. Look at Estabale, Lindelap, Nicholas Jackson, Mikhail and Madrid. I don't know where you fit all of those in. And you've got the challenge of playing a wing on a wingback role, is going to ask big questions of them defensively. Now I imagine some of those will be sold or will be loaned, but you kind of I think have to pick which problems you want to solve and which problems you want to kind of open up. You look at a Lonzo and what he learned from Real Madrid is, don't let the players dictate. And what has happened at Chelsea is the players have dictated. So I think there's a real... It's a glutton for punishment. Well, I think there's got to have to be a sea change. And I think a Lonzo is going to say that this is the way, this is the way that we play. And when you have a new manager come in and you need that buying, you're looking at the key players, you go back to Henderson and Wellberg and you say you dictate that everybody is buying into this because he needs it. He has to have it because it is such a high intensity way and such a big ask of players. Guys, it's basically time for the football. We've got us there. Let's go. Let's go. It is time for the Premier League to return. Thank you so much for joining us, Rob Liam. Thank you listeners and thank you to producers Mike and Laura. We will be back with plenty more tactical insight for you next week, but stick around for the athletic FCE pod all week. Ta-ga!