EPL Matchday 2: Madueke Stuns On Social Media and The Pitch

In this action-packed episode of Football Yanks, your hosts Ryan, Derek, and Luke dive deep into the latest Premier League action and transfer news. They kick things off by discussing Chelsea's blistering destruction of Wolves. Despite the dominant performance, the gang discusses Enzo Maresca's tactical winners and losers.

The trio tackles the swirling controversy surrounding Raheem Sterling’s cryptic comments about his future at Chelsea and the implications of the Blues entering another season without a shirt sponsor. They break down Chelsea's intricate financial strategy amidst an inflationary transfer market and debate the club's zero net spend goal for the summer.

Liverpool continues to deliver with a new coach and system and aging stars on short-term contracts. Salah continues to produce, but the hosts analyze Liverpool’s decision to keep their star player for the season’s continuity. They also explore Ivan Toney and Evan Ferguson’s potential transfers alongside a critical look at Liverpool versus Brentford’s match trends.

Attention turns to Chelsea’s trail of big-name movements—Lukaku, Petrovic, Kepa, and more—as the hosts predict the whirlwind of transfers in the final week of the window. Everton’s looming relegation concerns and possible points deduction bring up a heated discussion about the potential impact on their Premier League future.

The episode also touches on Tottenham’s performance boost, Newcastle’s financial constraints, and the controversial rulebook that frustrated fans over a disallowed goal. From football injuries to standout performances, the hosts leave no stone unturned.

Join in on this lively football banter packed with game analysis, intriguing transfer speculations, and an inside look at your favorite teams. Listen in on player critiques and tactical breakdowns that make Football Yanks the ultimate podcast for the passionate football fan!

Tune in now and be part of the conversation. Join our active Discord community, leave your likes, reviews, and feedback, and prepare for the next episode, where we cover the end of the transfer window and much more. Football Yanks—where the beautiful game lives!

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Transcript

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Hey, everybody, this is the football Yanks. We've got Luke back again for the second consecutive week. Got myself back here and Ryan as well. We'll be going through the Premier League's second week action. Primarily, we'll talk about the continued growth of the ship pilot as Man United. And we'll talk about Noni Madweke's opinion on Wolverhampton as a locale and his performance and the great blues victory this week, as well as the rest of the action around the league. And then we'll get into some tidbits on yanks of the ranks as well. Yeah, not none's ideal vacation spot, that's for sure. To each his own. Yeah. Welcome to the Football Yanks podcast. I hope you guys enjoyed. Yeah, we're american, but we're talking about soccer here. Hosts Derek Ryan and Luke are all football fanatics tracking our fellow Yanks in. The EPL and abroad. Today's episode, beverages and everything else he needs to get through an hour. That's a branded bottle, too. Yeah. What is that? That's fancy Barstown bourbon company. Oh, nice. Those guys make second class liquor objectively untrue. Not that you've tried any of it. Yeah, I've never promoted the brand, but. You probably shouldn't diminish the brand. Yeah, send the checks. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, maybe we withhold that endorsement for now. Good call, Ryan. Yeah, yeah. They gotta earn that with money. Cash money. I need my end of year bonus, guys, come on. I'm really rich. Oh, fuck, yeah. So, what's up two weeks in a row with Luke? Are you complaining? I can't believe I missed it last week. No, actually, let's see this. I haven't looked at the stats from last episode. Actually, that was one of. I put Luke's here in the title. And we better get on Twitch now. It's one of the worst performing. Oh, we may not be streaming at all. I have no idea. I disabled it for the. Yeah, we may just not be streaming this week. I don't see it online. I think I was the only one in the twitch stream last week. Yeah, we have had people popping in there, but it's not been the most popular thing. Yeah, the discord has been where it's at lately, which Luke also opts out of. But anyway, yeah, this is actually last episode where it was just me and Luke was one of the worst performing episodes in a while. The people have voted. You know what else we didn't react to that. We didn't revisit this. People voted on their favorite orange beverage on the discord. Orange crush for days. Yeah, orange crush. One derek on the wrong side of history again, comparison, dude. Yeah, it's. It's. To my mind, it's not even. I'm more about the man Moses with the vodka added to the mimosa. But anyways. Well, how do you feel about beer, Moses? Have you ever tried this kind of horrendous thing? I don't need that though, actually, I. Thought that's what a man Mosa was. I thought it was blue moon or like half a wizen type beer with the other. Now Manbos is what we get Tom's dad blacked out on at Maryland Michigan football games. Oh, thankfully. I guess we don't have to do that this year. I don't think we played them until 2028. With the Big Ten become like the big 25 amazing teams or how many teams are in it now. I think college sports are fucking stupid. Just go on, go on. That's my hot take for today. Just a bunch of fucking children playing the worst version. Saudis are potentially buying into nil. I did see you posted that. Yeah, you'll be real. You'll be really into when that happens. Is that a real thing? Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. They're buying anything that isn't bolted down. Yeah. Around. I was shocked that. Yeah. That the entire like, kentucky whiskey industry isn't purchased by the Saudis already. No. Just like, you know, very wealthy white men. Why couldn't the Orioles get saudi owners? Are you liking. Well, you don't even like baseball. Why are you encouraging this bullshit? That's our payroll. The rival the Yankees. Yeah, that's what they. They should be like. They could do everything they want in the MLB, right? Like there's just no salary cap, nothing. Like they could come in and just. Yeah, yeah, it's guaranteed. It is guaranteed contracts though. But yeah. Are there laws in those leagues of foreign investment? Like, is there any foreign investment in the NFL? MLB? That's capitalism, baby. Whatever color of money is always green or whatever people say. Maybe purple in Saudi Arabia, I don't really know. Or black. It's just like, they just like give gallons of oil. Yeah, yeah, it's green and black there. Now that we managed to divert us there. Yeah, I. Way off topic. I had to go to a baseball game yesterday. Shannon's Sunday soccer team. Someone on that team works for the Orioles and organized a off site with the whole soccer team. So I went to that and it was like, it was one of those games where it had one really exciting moment, which most of them have zero. Like, I think you have to watch, like, five of them for any game yesterday for you. Yeah, but they, they subbed on this LA. Maybe I'll stick the landing on this, this segue. Actually, I don't think I can. But they loaded the bases and then subbed Jackson Holiday on. Is that his name? The child? He's like 20 years old or something. He pinned. I wasn't paying close of attention, but I guess he pinch hit there and. Yeah, so, so he was on the bench. Yeah. They load the bases. They're down by two, and they sub on, I guess, in the. Yeah, and that it's pinch hitting. They, they, yeah, for those listeners that. Know anything about baseball, but, yeah, we'll work on the nomenclature offline, but, yeah. So the Astros, they, they put a new pitcher in, and then Jackson Holiday pinch hit against a fresh pitcher and batted in the winning run the bat in three runs. And as he was stepping up to the plate, I could not believe that the coach opted to do that to this child. And likewise, I could not believe that Noni Madweke started today after, after a social media faux pas. What do you mean? He said it was an accident. Sure, yeah. The post on his private account. That doesn't. Yeah, yeah, but that doesn't, that doesn't change the fact that there was a lot of tension there. There was. There was gonna be a lot of pressure on noni. Yeah, yeah. True. Yeah. Pressure. I don't. But, like, I don't general fan base. Like, I don't know. I don't know how people in England feel, but I can't imagine, like, people would care if you're like, yeah, I woke up in Burnley this morning and I wanted to throw myself off a cliff or get trampled. I mean, they, they booed him every time he touched the ball. What, what was the social media post? Exactly. So he, he claims it was an accident. I guess he has a private social media account and then his public social media account and on instagram or whatever, and he posted an image that said, everything about this place is shit. And it had his location as Wolverhampton, and then he removed it. It said, sorry, you can't. You can't hold me accountable for this. It should have gone to my. It's like Basuma sending out a Snapchat of him doing that fucking, like, laughing gas shit. Like, what the fuck do you think's gonna happen? I didn't even see this. Yeah, like, yeah, that's why you didn't play the last game. Oh, that's why he got suspended. Last game was for nitrous, using nitrous oxide. He was suspended or just benched by the team. Suspended. He wasn't even in the squad. Yeah. Is that performance enhancing drug? I don't know. One of the few I haven't tried yet. Not my thing. Like, huffing balloons. Helium even grosses me out. Like, I don't want my voice to. Sound like that's what they give you before they, like, knock you out. Right. And, like, anesthetic or, or whatever. Yeah. So I've had that a couple times. You've had it before, Luke, you blew your knee. Yeah, I did have ACL surgery, but I didn't, like, I didn't do it recreationally. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, mad. Yeah. Like, let's just talk about the. Well, what. Did you guys have any thoughts about that Liverpool game? We just watched? I guess that's probably the very straightforward. Yeah, you saw the, like, I thought they had some. Brentford had some good moments on the counter, but what was really impressive, I thought that Liverpool in the past has not done as well. The retraction of the team into defensive posture was really fast. Like, they got numbers behind the ball when. Crazy numbers. Yeah. When. When there was a break on, you know, which is what Brentford is looking for the whole game. Every single time. They got six people behind the ball again, which was really impressive, actually. Like, watching them do that. Hadn't seen a Liverpool do the team do that under clop. Bodes well for them in terms of controlling games. Yeah. There hasn't been a fall off to, as far as I can tell, with Liverpool, with the transition. Maybe that first half against Ipswich. Right. But that's like the first 1st game of the year. You kind of, like, take it off. Yeah. But obviously coming back in that second half, I think they're going to be good. Yeah. They look like they're right in the hunt for second place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. They. I was. I think a lot of people were really hoping there'd be some kind of step backward or, I mean, us being. Me being one of them as a, as a Chelsea fan and, and just, I guess a fan of competition in the PL. Like, I'd like to see City fall off a bit. Liver Liverpool Arsenal, like, it would make things more interesting. But, yeah, he's. He's picked right up where Klopp left off and they look. They look pretty good. The fallout's going to happen next year. If it happens for him, like, you look down the middle of that team. Oh, not down the middle, but a lot of key positions in that team. Yeah. A lot aging. A lot of contracts are ending. I think Sala, Alexander, Arnold and Van Dyke are all on the last year of their contract right now. Yeah. I wonder if. Have they won anything? Did they win a cup last year? I don't think they did. They didn't win the FA cup. They didn't win? No, they did. They won the Carabao Cup. Carabao cup. Yeah. So they opted to not. They had like a crazy offer from Saudi for Sala heading into last year. It was something crazy, like €300 million, like an absolutely insane, like, reload your whole team type money and they opted to not take that. I wonder if that. I wonder how history will look back on that. I mean, he's obviously still great. He scored a goal today. He has. I was talking with someone in the discord about the, how he has. Like, if you dig into the stats, he has statistically fallen off in areas, but he's so good that he's still just so potent. Like in the last couple of seasons, he's taking players on less, he's less successful at take ons. Even when he does his, he's taking less shots. He's looking for the pass more. He's, he's less of a lethal finisher, but he's still world class as is. So it's, it's like, even though we're starting to see age take effect, he's still great. But his movement today was so good. Yeah. And it's finishing within twelve yards. It's probably not like outside Holland, but obviously Holland has kind of plays in a totally different kind of team. But him, his finishing in twelve yards from the goal is probably as good as anybody in the league. Right? Yeah. I'm assuming he didn't want to go to Saudi. I don't know if the team really had a decision to make. No, I thought. I think he wants to go to Saudi. Yeah, I think he did. No, I think he wanted to last year. I think he was pretty public about the fact that he wanted to go. Yeah. I think Liverpool has just made the decision that it's more important to have him for continuity, for a new season with a new manager, and then to rebuild after. Right. Like, despite not getting a huge transfer fee, he's probably on 250,000 a week. Like, he's a huge, huge on the wage bill. So getting him off the wage bill in a year, you could see as a win in a way, or as a financial boost for him. But, yeah, we've been like, giving up the. Sell them now. Yeah. The importance of this year, it's like the team needs continuity like the team needs. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. And I think they knew. They knew Klopp was leaving heading into last season. He had told the club. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe that did factor into the calculus there. But I thought Jada looked good in this one. I just want to say that. And he looked great and scored the previous weekend. I just wanted to throw that out there because I know that Derek is a huge Jada fan. Yeah. He almost had a second assist on that great bicycle kick. Yeah, that was a wild thing to try. You saw it happening. Yeah. And then Robertson almost finishes the back post, right? Yeah, yeah. Good. Assisted Diaz today on the counter. That team still looks fucking fire on the counter. Like in transition. So much pace. So, yeah, good. Yeah. Just to throw some stats out there. Liverpool to Brentford, zero. Sala with a goal. Diaz with a goal of 63% possession for in favor of Liverpool on 2.65 expected goals versus point 36 for Brentford. And I think that all. I mean, that, that maps to exactly what I observed in this. I don't think Brentford ever had a shot. And I think there's a lot of, like, turmoil on their side with like, what the fuck is. Whatever the hell is going on with Ivan Tony? Talk about Saudi, man. That dude's about to make a lot of money. Yeah. That's why. I mean, that's what he wants. And, you know, I kind of, it's. Disappointing for Brentford to lose him. Not financially, but you can kind of understand Ivan Tony wanting to do that. Like, I'm not such a hater on him. He's worked his ass off through the whole, like, english setup. Like, from League One all the way to Premier League. He's at the end of, like, probably at the end of the, his career in a way. Like, he's, he could still play in a big team, but for someone who's worked their way up like that, go make some fucking money. Like, you'll get killed on taxes if he ever moves back, but, like, kind of respect him for it. That's his gambling losses off centrifuge. Maybe he can gamble in Saudi and not worry about it as a deduction. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, that's basically how I feel. I, I like Tony. I like Tony the, like the person. I've seen a lot of interviews with him, especially when he had that, that layoff for the gambling problem. He's, I mean, he's a, like, clearly a very driven guy. He has, like you said, just been on a grind for his whole career. Was impactful when called on for England in the euros and, yeah, I mean, he, he, he's due a payday and he probably would have preferred to get it from an arsenal or a Liverpool or a Tottenham even. Although I don't know how big of a payday that is. But, yeah, I mean, if he's got to go to Saudi to do that, you know, he doesn't have that many years left in his, his career. So, interestingly, just while we're on that topic, uh, well, did you have, did you want to say something to all of that before? No, nothing. I think he's, I think he's a risk in the Premier League at, you know, 70 million. He's 31. You know, is. He's 31, right? 30? 30? No, no, he's like 29. Okay. He's like. It's a little bit of a risk for the. What's happened in his career so far. So it's good for him, I think. You know, he's 28. Oh, he's only 28. Holy shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, interestingly, so I was. It turns out he's injured, but after watching the Brighton match this weekend, I was surprised to not even see Evan Ferguson in the squad. I guess he's injured, but they also acquired a striker that nobody knows his. Name, but he's going to fucking score like 15 goals. Yeah. And so I guess the Evan Ferguson experiment at Brighton might be over. And one of the locations for him is in the event that Brentford sell Tony, they may pick up Evan Ferguson. That's a dude who I was like, me and everyone were really high on at the beginning of last season. He was just scoring for fun. I remember him bagging a goal from like, way outside of the box. Like he scored a hat trick, I think. I forget who it was against. And one of the goals was just outrageous. And I was like, man, this guy is crazy. He's going to be insane. And I. And he just has really fizzled out. Well, he's also, he's also 19 as a new manager. Right? Yeah, I don't. I think it's. I think it's far too early to say he's like total fizzle or like totally out, but he's 19, you know, it's like, got a nine goal match. Against Wolves, probably, and then. Yeah, I mean, he. At that age, to your point, he should be getting. It makes sense to go somewhere to get minutes because he's fairly entrenched behind well back and Jael Page. Pedro is playing great. Yeah. Ja. Pedro looks really, really good. Yeah. Good player. All right, let's talk about Chelsea Wolves. Luke, did you watch this? I did. I hope you watch this. Good, good. Really good result. I think that it follows a little bit of a trend that the Liverpool Brentford game kind of showed, but I think despite we always talk about the two in comparison, I think it was a little like the spurs game. It's kind of like a really good result, good performance against. Not a great team, but yeah, it's a good game. Fun game to watch. Yeah. So this is the type of match that when we had much lesser, much, much lesser manager last season, we would have lost regularly and we did. We lost them twice last season, particularly. In the first half of the season. Yeah, yeah. Well, we lost in the first and second half of the season to them under Poch. But yeah, he. This was, it looks shake. I mean, we scored in like two minutes and then it was, it was very shaky for the rest of the first half. And then again in a very, like the antithesis of Poch, whatever adjustments were made which like. Like nothing was. Was visible to me other than we subbed Mudra count who like, maybe we should talk about that and put Jal Pedro on. Netto on. Sorry. Yeah, we were just talking about jail. Pedro. Pedro Netto. Put him on. Yeah, looked. Looked significantly better in the second half. I thought Enzo Fernandez looked crazy in the second half. Casey, though, went off with an injury. He was really poor in the first. I think he's lucky he wasn't responsible for. He was. I blame him. Well, his turnover and Malagusto switching off on defense led to the first goal and then he could have been responsible for like another two goals in the real. Like he just was dwelling on the ball and getting dispossessed and. Yeah, it's just not Moises Quesados day. I thought the bigger problem in the first half and less so in the second was just the ability of Wolves to like take the ball and basically dribble through the midfield. I think that looks like the biggest weakness that the manager is going to have to figure out is ball carriers are going to have success first. Chelsea, as it is right now, which you saw Gomez or however you say his last name, saw him do that a couple times. So I think that was the biggest weakness in the first half. But they tightened it up, made it much harder to dribble through the midfield, which I thought was the biggest adjustment. And definitely Mudrick is just not at the level still. Yeah. Huge change with Neto coming on. Yeah, he is. I mean he's. You watching him, you see how physically gifted he is and how much flair there is to his game. Like he'll. He'll take someone on. And we saw that in the midweek game against whatever the. That swiss team, what's their name? Civet or something like that. Yeah, in the conference league. Yeah, in the conference league. I mean he would. He would take on players with ease and then it's just like the decision making after that is. Is so bad. I mean, it's. What's been said about him all along is that he's. He's just physically unparalleled almost, but. But he just doesn't have a footballing brain and. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they seem committed to him. Enzo Mareska seems committed to him. He's starting. I think he's. He started in the mid. Did he start the first game of the season? I think he did. I think he started all three matches so far. I think that's. That's coming to an end. And part of it, I think, was Mareska trying to give consistency to him and try it out. And he saw the result. We saw the result. And whether it's Neto or NKU, anyone's good. Both of those have much more to offer out there than what he had. That's also where. That's the position Joe Felix played for. Barcelona was off the left last season, so they. I mean, they have a lot of options there. Well, the comparison between what's going on with Raheem Sterling and with a player like Mudrick, finances aside, because I think that has a lot to do with decision making around Sterling. You look at the quality between the Mudrick and a player like Sterling and it seems like nonsensical that Mudrick would start the season and Sterling wouldn't even be in the squad. But, yeah, I think a lot of factors going into that. Yeah. So this match was six to Chelsea, two to Wolverhampton. We didn't. Didn't mention that earlier. 22 at halftime. Two. Two at halftime. And then Chelsea just really, really came and nonee Madwecke, he scored a hat trick. And Palmer. Palmer looks so good in number ten. That finishes pairing right is really what we saw cooking today. Yeah. And there's obviously constant, well, some ambiguity around what that front four should look like. And I think those two kind of cemented themselves in those positions today. It'll be interesting to see how Ryan feels when mad wakey out scores. Nico Jackson this season. Dude, Nico Jackson was really good in this match. Like really good. Uh, his like, flick on passes were phenomenal. He scored the opening goal. Uh, his, uh, forward play to lay that pass off to Palmer for Palmer's goal was really good. He, he drops deep really well. Uh, yeah, I don't know. I thought he was, he was. The thought I kept having is like, I am, I am virtually certain that Chelsea are going to sign awesome in this week and I just don't even care. I, I think that, I think that this is fine. I mean, we looked lethal once Jackson came off and then Cuckoo and Felix came out. Like, the depth on this team is crazy. Like, watching the subs come on. It's fucking mind blowing. Particularly marking areas. Particularly attacking areas. Yeah. And Mark you was, was great. Like, he's, he's always really good. Dude. Runs his boots off. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think this team needs acommen but yeah. The struggles as Chelsea goes through the season is really more now about the back four and the, and the solidity of the midfield. Right. That ability of good ball carrying midfielders. Like you saw it a little bit with that Rogers player against Aston Villa. For Aston Villa against Arsenal. Like players like that are going to have success versus the Chelsea midfield. And then the center back pairing I still think isn't set. But the attacking power that that team has is that Chelsea has right now is really phenomenal. Yeah. In terms of whatever 25 players fucking the manager keeps talking about he's working with. There's a lot of attacking, attacking flair in that team. Yeah. The only other thought I had is weird that we, so we've seen some tactical tweaking so far against City. They played more of a traditional back, I guess. Back four. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And, and in this one they, they had gusto inverting into the middle and that I like. Gusto doesn't yet. He hasn't yet taken to that role. And I thought that was interesting because Kukureya is well suited for that role. And in the match against Civet, they had Renato Vega the left and they had him doing the inverted roll. They had Desasi playing the like, I guess staying on the right of the back three once. Once Renato Vega inverted. And in this one. Yeah, Gusto stepped into the middle and he just switched off on where he should be positionally. When they, they don't have the ball and. And they got exposed for Wolves first goal. I think it was their first goal. It was also great play by Ayat Nori for that goal. Yeah, but yeah, Gusto was just not where he was supposed to be and I just. Because we know Kukureya can play that. But maybe it's just that gusto, like the assessment has been such that Gusto is better suited inverting even though he doesn't totally understand that position yet, versus being the right side of a back three in possession. Like maybe he's just. And I could buy that. Like it that just the profile of players and isn't right for that. But yeah, that was because Matt Wicke. Wants that width out there too and doesn't necessarily want the overlap. He wants to just take it and drive. So having somebody like Gusta who can also do that is a little bit superfluous in that scenario. So I don't know, maybe that's part of it. It isolated, met Whitake against the outside backs. Right. That's what was really successful for Medweck. He was almost always one on one if not up numbers with Cole Palmer coming to help. What blew me away about how poor wolves were in the second half, they went in the second half with both cucurea and gusto on yellow cards. All I would have done in the whole isolate gusto and kukure and white areas and drive. And not once in the second half did wolves do that. Yeah, I think on the. Was it the discord or maybe Derek texted me, I think it was Derek and said, hopefully Gusto remembers he's on a yellow card this time, something like that. Was that you, Derek? No, they looked exhausted. Like, they looked like there could have been another yellow card in the game but yeah, wolves were just not good enough to take advantage of that and they really fucking fell apart after that third goal. Yeah, I loved it, though. I, I thought Chelsea, I mean, the, for once, the commentators at halftime I thought had it right. I forget. Forget the dudes like Robbie. They're both Robbie. It's like Robbie and Robbie. Robbie Earl. Yeah, he, he called it. He was, he was like this. This isn't the same, Chelsea. Like, they've been exposed but like, I see the patterns and, and they look good. They're, they're taking to the system. He said something like that and then they came out the second half and just fucking beat the bricks off of wolves and, yeah, it. I'm excited. I'm, I am excited to why and I wasn't and and I revisited the stats and Luke was, like, thoroughly wrong about his analysis of Chelsea. We can get into it. You're fucking out of your mind. Like, like, uniformly wrong. I don't give a shit about. Doesn't, doesn't exist in the same reality as the rest of us type stuff. Don't give a shit about your stats, still. But Chelsea looked good against City despite the score line, and they look great today, especially in the second half. So I'm excited about the season. Cole Palmer being in the middle is. I think it's just a much higher, just a way untapped potential in the team. I think, like, having Enzo that far up the pitch is never going to help them. I think Cole Palmer getting the ball on the half turn is going to be where the team succeeds. I will also say on Wolves Toti, that center back that they replaced Max Kilman with, looks like a fucking shed of a player. That dude is just huge. He's a huge lump, you know, and he just, he cannot play the ball. Like, he just cannot. It was like. Especially because duties on that right side where Madwicke is getting in just like, so poor. Toti is so poor. Yeah. Again, great performance. Not taking anything away from Chelsea. But I just don't. I'm just glad that Luke agreed with me when I said twelve months ago that Cole Palmer was the best center attacking mid on this roster, so. Oh, there's no doubt about it. Else ad here. Yeah, no doubt about it. It's. I mean. Well, let's. Before we move on, I'll. Let's just cover some of the drama around. It's hard to like me and Derek. Well, I'm a Chelsea fan. I don't, I don't know what Derek is. It's like, we don't want to be a Chelsea podcast, but I don't think Luke would stand two assholes wearing blue. And Luke, well, there's a particular person on the podcast who loves to monologue. Chelsea. And we all listen. We will. But there is, there is. I mean, everybody, everybody is talking about Chelsea because of how insane the running of the club has been. So, just a quick recap of what's happened this week. So there was the drama around Sterling last week where right before the match, he released a statement that his, like, his camp released a statement that they're confused about his future and they want clarity, et cetera. The consensus from even Chelsea haters that I saw this week was that that was a really dumb thing for Sterling to do. And apparently, like, Mareska came out and said this, that like, well before that match, like Thursday or Friday of that week, he told Sterling he wasn't in his plans anymore. So like, Sterling knew and then still made that move and so he's just hanging out. Same with Trevo. And they updated like Pedro Neto had. I think he wore Sterling's number today and I think somebody else now has Trevor's number. So they like, they just like ripped them off the store. Which also, it's worth noting, Chelsea still doesn't have a front shirt sponsor. So for all this, like, FFP talk around them and how comfortable they are with their status with FFP, they, I mean, still no second season in a row that they've entered the season with no shirt sponsor. And if any kit needs a fucking giant logo on it, is it, is that disgusting kit that they have this season. I want a giant tire covering the whole thing. Michelin man. Yeah, whatever will cover as much real estate on that fucking abomination. Get that happening fast. Well, you don't want to start printing the kits before you know who's on the roster for the season. Yeah, fair enough. Another couple weeks and. Well, I think the sterling thing is interesting, right? Like, I think the biggest risk for Chelsea, the bet that I see them making is that they see the inflationary kind of market right now. So they're being, they're willing to take bets on players, hold them in the squad or have a huge squad because transfer fees just keep getting up and up. Right. I think the risk with Sterling is that because he's on such big wages and will demand such a big transfer fee or at least some large ish transfer, transfer fee, there's a lot of financial risk. If Sterling says no, I'm going to stay here and keep making 300 pounds a week. Yeah, there is a good amount of risk there and there's not another, like, very few clubs in the world could take a sterling wage bill right now. Yeah, the flip side. So the, like, the bet that Chelsea is making is that Sterling wants to play because there's a turnover with the England coach now and he wants to get back into that squad. And if Chelsea say, we're just not going to play you, he, Sterling may take a pay cut and go somewhere where he'll get played. So we'll see. Yeah, yeah. It'll be a lot of this is the last week of the transfer window, so hopefully the circus will stop by Friday. They've got some like, seriously Adderall, like, fueled fucking transfer workers right now. Just like. Yeah, yeah. Pretty, pretty insane. But they also moved Lukaku, so that's official. It's a 30 plus four or 30 plus 15 deal, which, which is fucking crazy that they were able to get that. Napoli insisted that they were only going to table a offer of €25 million. So, yeah, the big names that they still need to move on now at this point are Sterling, Petrovic, Kepa, who I guess might be going to Bournemouth, Chilwell, Chalaba. They're trying to move to Sassy and Chuquameca. Those are, those are the big names that they're trying to move, and Broiah. So, yeah, 30 million for Lukaku. If they're trying to get 30 million for broia, kind of sounds like reasonable in a way because Brea hasn't really done shit. He's young. Right. So some credit there, but Lukaku is going to give you 15 goals a season. Syria. Right? Yeah. What. What is Broye gonna give you? Nobody knows. So 30 mil for something like that is a crazy thing. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and then I have this. The Chelsea have spent 204 million pounds in fixed fees this summer. They have sold players for 148 million pounds. They're targeting a net, a zero net spend for the summer. And I think they're going to do it. I think after what, get selling. Yeah, I think after it's all said and done, they're, they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll make it to Luke's point. Right. Like they waited on Lukaku and they got the optimal value in. Yeah, in my opinion. And so I think that we're seeing that with Sterling and a couple other players and we're going to see that play out the next couple weeks as teams feel more desperate to buy. Well, it's this week. Right. When's the end of the transfer window? Okay. Yeah, that. I don't know. I think it's this Friday. Yeah, that sounds right to me. It'll be interesting. There's a lot of clubs with a lot of. A lot of players are going to move in the next four, four to five days will be kind of exciting. Transfer fee, not just for Chelsea but for the whole league. Five days left. Yeah. To get cooking. Yeah. Pretty, pretty wild. I mean, Luke called this a couple weeks ago with all the tournaments this summer, it just, it was a slow start to the transfer window and then, and then the floodgates opened. Do you want to talk about Tottenham? Sure, yeah. I think similar to the Chelsea Wolves game, good performance, lots of goals against. Kind of a subpar team. Do you think Everton will get, finally get relegated? Yes, you do. It depends on what they do in the next couple days. It really like if they can get a couple players in. The problem with the club is that it's for sale, so the current owner is not investing and they're so tight on PSR anyway. It's just if they get relegated and have to play in their new stadium in the championship next year, that will be terrible for them. But also slightly hilarious. Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to say. You think, you think that Shawn De, when the transfer window closes, he'll galvanize the team a little bit and they'll get a boost from kind of not having so much, I don't know, discourse around who they need. And that's really what Sean De is good at saying. It's us, let's fucking go and do it. We'll really see when Everton start to play the newly promoted teams where they are, I think. Yeah, I. Yeah, they, they are also probably, or at least the rumor is that they're going to get another points deduction this season that that's in the works for PSR violations. So they should just force out the. Owner at this point, like just fucking move a sale, get it over with. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, but yeah, they looked, they looked bad in this one and I mean, Tottenham had really clinical finishing. Yeah, it's a four goals on six big chances, I guess. Guess it could have been a little better, but 13 total shots for Tottenham. Yeah. I don't know, this Everton, I'm. They were really poor in their first match, too, right? Yeah, they have not looked good. I think what, you know, coming out of really disappointing results against Leicester, which, you know, as a fan, I'm kind of willing to be put to the side as the first game of the year in a really hot environment for a newly promoted team. The difference was getting two goals up, they could control the match and you actually saw the potential of a Tottenham team to do that. But it's really about getting more than one goal up because they're always going to be vulnerable at 10. So getting a second goal was pretty much the whole game. Once that happened, there's a little flurry of corners at the end of the first half, but, you know, at 20 they were pretty much clear. And Dustin, they controlled the game. Yeah, yeah. Go, Derek. Sorry, I was just gonna say it could be an interesting relegation battle between Everton and Leicester in particular if they don't take a points deduction. If they take a points, I think they're toast. Yeah. My pick for my pick to stay up was Ipswich and I think it's probably going to be Lester if anyone. They look a lot better than I thought they were. There was. There was a lot of dramatics around their club and. Well, Steve Cooper is a good manager. Right. Like you put someone like that who has experience keeping a team up and Lester is not a small club. They get good revenues from King Power. You know, they, they have good kind of mojo in the team, if that makes any sense. But they got a stone cold assassin up top. Yeah. New drinking Red Bull. Fucking killing it. I think. Reminding the Tottenham fans of the scoreboard, the one that counts. Yeah. So I think the good thing, something I was really excited with spurs was Oda Bear, the new signing from Burnley. 19 year old looked fucking good. Like, he looks tricky. He looks exciting. A little like Medweck a like willing to take people on, do some tricks which we don't necessarily have in the team. So that was really, really exciting to see. Solanke was hurt for the game so getting four goals is huge. Yeah, dude, Sonny is. How bad is his injury? I saw that they announced he was injured. Do you know, I think it's just. A day by day thing. It's like basically an inflammation issue now. Like once swelling goes down, he's good to go. There's no ligament damage. He just got. I think he just turned the ankle and got treaded on or something like that. Yeah. So it should be pretty minimal. What about. I'm looking at your bench? Yeah, bent occur. He went off with a concussion in. The previous game against lesser. Yeah, he had like a super swollen side of his face but should be back soon. He didn't have like a terrible concussion or anything. I think it's more just procedures that's. Gonna be tough to diagnose because of how low he. His baseline is to be. Well, he tore his ACL at Leicester, I think. So he should just not play it ever again. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That place has some badger. That's a rough go of it. Yeah, dude. Yeah, man. Pretty standard result. You'd expect it. And again, Everton are not good. We have Newcastle and then arsenal. So that'll be the test of really where the. Where the team is. Yeah. I'm surprised. How so? Newcastle have been linked with Noni pretty heavily and I imagine that that is now off after this week because it wasn't just. Noni was the most prolific scorer for Chelsea in preseason and then didn't start the opening match, played in the euro fixture and scored. And then scored a hat trick today. I just like, can't. I mean, who knows with these owners? But I can't imagine they would sell him at this point. No, but who knows? Depends on the bid. I think. I think Resca, like, was told you have to figure out who, like, the 25 or whatever many players are he's rolling with. Right. And he chose mad wakey. They probably stuck him with mood direct. He probably didn't have a choice. And they probably. Yeah, he had. He said, I don't need sterling here. So. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, Newcastle have not looked where I was going with that. They've not looked as good as I thought they might. It's early, but like, what I've seen of them so far has not been. I thought that, yeah, they would just have a little more teeth to them. Rather than lose a game like they did today. They drew. Right? Well, sure. That's what. That's what. That's what the saudi owners care about and that's what they paid the refs. Yeah, fair enough. The actual fuck. I mean, like, I try to discount it when. When, like, Ryan starts talking about like, match fixing and the Copa, but I mean, like, I don't. I would believe it. I mean, like, I don't know who the fuck, like, what these guys are watching to train for this stuff. And then even then they're showing like, the training guide and it's basically like stick figure with like, shaded, like, body parts. Like, why don't you just take a photo of an actual fucking soccer player and mock it up with, like, here's where the shoulder begins. Like, this is like, we. We've studied human physiology for, you know, eons. And this is what we've. We've come up with is a stick figure with some green and red on his arm and shoulder. There is. There. There is no. What's it called? There's no photoshop skills at the PFA. Yeah. Roblox has a better vir system than the Premier League now. I mean, it's like, I don't. What are we doing? We talked about that Bournemouth disallowed goal. Yeah. Did you see that? Yeah. So, yeah, I know Derek did based on this unhinged. Like, apparently he saw it and then he went to the rule book and didn't like what he saw there either. I actually was watching some of that. I usually don't watch much of like, Peacock's post match stuff, but I listened to the interview and then they had, like, found the page in the rulebook where it shows, like, where the shoulder ends and the arm begins. Oh, I missed that. I don't know why. I was like, who. Who is this content for? Like, I'm pretty sure he's talking about the rulebook, but why did he look at the rulebook? It wasn't my first choice. And once I saw like, that. Yeah, it looked like a fifth grader drew a. A person and then, like, shaded it with crayon. It was like, what? This is our training guy? Huh? All right. No, Newcastle haven't looked quite as good. It feels like they need, like, another cycle with that team to really. Yes. You know, I don't know if it's a new manager. I tend to be a little bit more on the Eddie Howe apologist side, but I think that the team just needs a new cycle, essentially, to really make the next jump, if that. If they're going to do that. I also think Bournemouth are a good team. Ariola, is that. Is that the manager's name for Bournemouth? Yes. Yeah, he's a fucking good manager, actually. Like, the way that that team plays. They have really progressive wingers. They're dangerous. Even without. Even after moving Solanke on, like, the team looks good. It's not. It's very organized with really progressive passing. So I like, at Bournemouth, a tie is the worst result early in the season. No, but you'd expect Newcastle to do a little bit more, I think. Yeah. Newcastle didn't have, like, it doesn't have the depth and they probably need to resolve the trippy a situation if he's not going to be starting, especially. But. Yeah, well, I think Newcastle is really hamstrung by PSR. Right. They. If they could, they could. If this was 2005 or 2010, whatever they'd be spending, but they. But they've been a little bit more, you know, restricted. They're not happy about it. Sub clubs, but I think that they'll turn. That team will turn into a juggernaut, like four years, five years down the line, no doubt. Yeah. What good is oil if you can't convert it into soccer players? Yeah. There's only so much they can charge those mouth breather geordies up there. Yeah. So, yeah, anyway, I'm gonna get. Yeah, I'm gonna get some hate for that statement. Geordi's are a proud, proud group. I don't know anything about Geordi's. Well, they. To put it in perspective, they. In. In the UK, the equivalent. Equivalent of Jersey shore is filmed in Newcastle. And it's called Geordie Shore or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's. That's the level of trash here. Six of them sink in a yacht. Nobody. I'm just, like, throwing shots that I actually like. Newcastle. And I think their fan base is really cool. I've just taken shots for no good reason. But as. As someone from New Jersey, I quite appreciate that level of garbage, so I'm all for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Derek. You and Derek both from Jersey? Yeah. They found out the other day only one of us was an uppity person that went to a private school in New Jersey, which is a whole nother level. Oh, you only just found that out, huh? Yeah, I just. Yeah, I was like, oh, that explains some of this behavior and personality. The woman I dated before, I don't know if I. That would. Uppity is not necessarily the way I would describe myself, but I'll take it. You're not. That's why you said you went to a private school in New Jersey, no less. I was like, a, we have great public schools, and b, like, what the fuck were you doing there? Private all boys school, baby. Yeah. The woman I dated before, Shannon, she went to, I think, middle school and high school at a private school in Jersey. And I remember that coming up. Yeah, I went to her high school reunion and it looked like fucking Hogwarts. It was crazy. It absolutely blew my mind. And they, like, recruit around the world for their sports teams, and they had their men's soccer team playing the public school, like, local team that weekend, and we watched it and they beat them, like, 15 nothing or something. This was like Don Bosco or something. It was. Wait, what? Don Bosco? Well, Don Bosco is an all boys school. St. Benedict's prep is an all boys school. Yeah. I don't remember what the school was, but they. I definitely was a part of some of those games, like private prep school. Destroying the public school in town. Dude loved it. This is a co ed private school. Yeah, co ed private school. And they. They were. They told me that they were, like, recruiting in Brazil and they owned a real estate for, like, a radius around the school. And these, like. Like, foreign prodigies that they were bringing in would then get to stay in that. Those, like, buildings. Yeah. And they asked if I wanted to donate to them, and I was like, no, I'm gonna donate to this public school. I don't think they have a soccer ball to kick around, based on what I'm seeing. They've got nails coming out of the field. Anyway. There's money in Jersey. There is money in that place and. And in Newcastle. Is there? Well, yeah, I guess the. Yeah, yeah, saudi money. Anyway, the other two matches that I thought were of significance were the Arsenal villa game. Which arsenal, I felt just. Just completely controlled this one. Villa had a couple really good chances. Watkins missed an absolute. Like, really? Yeah, really two. But one in particular was like, how the hell did he not put that in the back of the net? But, yeah, like, Arsenal, just get it done. I to nothing. It could have been like, I felt that Arsenal just fully controlled this game. I don't know if you know it. So we talked about last season, right? Like, there's just so many of these games where they're in cruise control and it looks nonchalant and they're playing within our tennis system and there's just. I mean, the other. They might give up a couple chances, but the rest just looks so under control. You just, you know, they're not that, you know, they're going to put one away. And again, it's. Aston Villa is a great team. So it'd be interesting to see, you know, I think this sets them up well for, you know, matchups with, with the other top teams, right. To see what they can do against know City, Chelsea, Tottenham, et cetera. November 9, Chelsea plays Arsenal. That'll be fun. Well, I think the difference with Arsenal, like, maybe end ish of last year and it seems like it's coming into this year and I actually think that this is something Man City has kind of always shown is they're willing. Arsenal are now willing to accept pressure. Like, they're willing to say we'll. We'll go through transitions in the game where we are defending and we'll be okay. Like, they're really comfortable in their shape again. I think that's really what Man City maybe has done better than anybody is. Even when they're defending, they're confident. And you see like, that Rogers player, I thought, like Morgan Rogers, I can't remember his first name. He like, had some incredible runs with the ball for Villa. Like some really, really good midfield breaking runs. But again, like, outside of giving up two chances that I think Wykins scores nine times out of ten any other day, Arsenal were in control of large parts of the game. It was, yeah, that team is good. I think they're better than last year. I think that they're gonna be. Yeah, they're. They're gonna be right up there with city this year, depending on, you know, what the motivation level for city is. Raya made an unbelievable save off his ass. Yeah, that guy's got glutes. That guy is. I mean, that was. That was a smart, smart move to pull him in. He is. He is really good. I think he got the PL keeper of the season. I think he was the golden glove. You know what this got me thinking about? How the hell was Ramsdale still on the bench for this team? I don't. Yeah, they haven't been able to move him on. I'm sure they'd love to, but. Well, I think they also can't find a replacement that they feel comfortable with too. Like. Like, I don't know. You could go to Chelsea. They have, like, four to 20 different goalkeepers. Yeah. Like, you could. I'll give you two for one. Yeah. Right. So it's. So it's not like there aren't. Out there. I just don't think that they can one move Ramsdale on and to know who to bring in. Yeah. It looks like they rejected anything other than alone, but nobody, I doubt people want to take them as alone, so. Yeah. And then we have the man United Brighton match. Let's go. Fun. This was. That's what Derek's. Derek's favorite punching bag. Just shit on the ship pile when there's already too much shit in the shit pile. You fucking love to see it. Yeah. Like, I think my. Yeah, my. My comment to discord, they encapsulate this was like, anyone subbing on Antony at this point should be investigated for match fixing. That's like your go to. You're doing something stupid. You're fixing fucking matches. You. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it gets more egregious than that, but, you know. Yeah. Um. How dare I say this about the next England manager? Yeah. Um. Really weird substitutions. I felt Mason Mount looked really bad. Mason Mount was bad to the point that he was subbed it at half. Yeah, that's a call out. Yeah. Brought Zerxian. No refund for Mason Mount. No take backs. You're stuck with him. And the subs from, like, just. Nothing worked in terms of how this game was managed. Like, their best defender for me on the day was Harry Maguire. And I wouldn't say that if I didn't think it was true. Like, I'd say anything before I would say that, but I felt he was their best defender and he was subbed off for Delick because they, you know, they just spent money on him and he's Dutch and ten hag is. Is committed to pulling every dutch player he possibly can over to this team. And, yeah, I think that it was. It was him who completely lost his. His. His man for the. The final goal, the jail Pedro goal. I think. I think that was his man to mark, and it cost them. It cost them the. The point. So I don't know what the fuck he's thinking making a change like that at that point in the game. Like, keep the structure of the team right. Don't change that. Bring in de Lick later, like, in another game. Like. Like, it's not like there's not going to be an opportunity. Right? Yeah. Why are you bringing off what they played? Lissandra and him played pretty well together, and they're. I kind of like Lissandra, Martinez and Maguire. Like, they kind of, like. There's a kind of dichotomy to them that I think actually does complement each other when they're in form, but, like, it just, like, delict hasn't played it. Why would you bring him on for the last, what, 20 minutes, 15 minutes? It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And then yanked Fernandez for McTominay, who was listless. And. And, yeah, Garnacho was terrible. Rashford wasn't great. Garnacho was even worse. And, yeah, this team deserves every. Any bad thing that can happen to anyone in the world, I hope happens to Man United. And. And, yeah, I just. Yeah, just hope this. This keeps up. Let's look at these stats. I'm curious. United allow 14 shots. There was like, toward the end of last season, do you remember? United was letting like 30 shots a game or something? Like, it was insane. So I guess there has been some cleaning up of that, but. Well, I think Casamiro is a lot fitter than he was last year. Yeah. Casimir, that is the one thing, like, I thought he. I thought he was cooked. I thought it was career over for him, but he. He has looked good this season thus far. Yeah, I think that their midfield is just like, like, terrible. Like, yeah, Casimiro playing better. He's still not that mobile, though. He's fitter, so he's getting around the pitch a little easier, but it's so easy to play through that midfield. It's just every time you can see a team scoring. Yeah. I don't know that he's the solution for potentially a top six team when you've got Xerxe on the bench or Erickson, who is unused in this match. Somehow Erickson's cooked. That guy cannot get around the pitch anymore, man. He has no mobility left. He's a brilliant footballer, like a magician of a midfielder, but he just can't move. It is crazy how fucked Man United are. I don't know, they just have such aging squad. Like Johnny Evans was on the bench still. He signed a new contract. Yeah, I know it is. Yeah. You thought maybe it was like a new season, like want to see what you get out of Rashford, didn't he still just looks like a fucking ghost out there. I don't. That might be the most shocking part of it for me. Yeah, he needs a move. I think Marcus Rashford would do with like some new environment. I don't know. He just looks so low on confidence. When his football manager should put Marseille with his buddy early, earlier, mid November. Yeah. If you want to play hard mode on football manager this season, take the reins at Man United. Jesus Christ. I have absolutely no interest in ever playing football. Yeah, that's not, that's not for you, that's for the, that's for the real fans out there. Yeah, that's, that's what, that's what it is. Man United hard fan, hard hard mode. That's, that's why, that's why you, you could you could you learn a thing or two from football manager. You might have had better analysis of that. No, I. I just watch and have played at a high level, that's all. I don't need to look at excel. Sheets and play at a high level. I play soccer with you every Monday. Derek has been dying to talk about whatever the. This is. I wasn't gonna bring it up, but. So what? Wait, what did I do? Just Derek has said to me at least five times, we gotta talk to Luke about his strategy at success, his tactics. What tactics? I never say anything. Yeah. Boot ball, far away. Let me run and see something happens. Yeah, to be fair. That's right. What do you. It's a little more game than me, but yeah, I'm playing, dude, I didn't play forward my whole life. Yeah, Luke is just some insight. Luke is not interested in your statistics of ithood includes passing completion percentage. Yeah, no, I played right back. Right. My whole life and I get to, I'm like, well, I'll just play up top. Who gives a fuck? Left striker is what he plays now. Yeah, that always drove me nuts on that team. When at halftime someone, I guess it was probably Luke, now that I'm thinking back, would be like, just bomb it down the field. Yeah. Just for the record, I have never ever said that. Really glad I worked 18 months to return from injury for this strategy. Listen, some of us can play more than, like, five minutes at a time. Derek. I was like, no. Should I just go to the social league and play with Tom? No, I should go try and play with Luke because he'll be a little bit higher level, and there'll be, like, some tactics and passing and stuff. I can't imagine what that social league looks like. I bet your risk of injury is higher there. I bet if I'm not playing, if I'm playing against Tom or if I'm playing with Tom, maybe not. Yeah. Tom, a wild player. Clumsy is the word. Yeah. Yeah. Clumsy me. It's like. Like I'm choosing violence. Like, he's not choosing violence, but it happens. You know, we were hanging out with Shannon's soccer team, and they were talking about how they were her Sunday team last night, and they were talking about how they were aghast at, like, some of the antics that other teams would play, like, how they'd get worked up and what they were saying. I can't even give you an example, but it seemed so low stakes for. For you to be, like, like, worked up, over, or, like, taken aback at by this behavior. And I leaned into Shannon, and I was like, have you ever considered having Derek sub for this team? I don't think I've ever been invited. And she said, no. I think it would keep them up at night if he did. That is fucking hilarious. Charm city soccer, c level. Really? They get up for it, dude. They're a d level. Oh, there's a d for. Sounds like the team I should be playing on. I want to play on the d level of Charm City. It's either this or over 40 soon. I don't know. Is that the league we played in that allowed slide tackling? No. Where did we play, Derek? I don't know what that transition to. I think that transition to charm city social at some point. Okay. That's all we. Me and Derek, like, in our twenties, like, the league that we were in, it was. I think it was charm city social that, like, if you were in the highest league level, then they allowed slide tackling. So there was, like, a, b, and c, and if you opted for the a, then slide tackling was allowed back then. Yeah, charm city a. If you slide, you get a yellow. Yeah. No, it was. It was fully legal in this league, and. And Derek would take complete advantage of that. And we also had. It was coed. We also had, like. We had women who. Who, like, all of them played in college basically. And they were very willing to just nuke a dude. Like they were all like the best tacklers on the team. Were our women good shit? Slide tacklers especially. Yeah. They were just fucking badass. They'd just be trucking dudes and it was a hackath like how. How good the women were on our team was. It was unfair. We won for like years in a row. It was. It was crazy how good that team was. Yeah. Anyway, did uh. Did you want to talk about pool? Is there any Yanks in the ranks content you want to. You were talking about pool. Is six cooking yesterday? Yeah. Interestingly I watched because it was on late Friday afternoon. I caught the leads game actually. Actually I think Leeds looks Premier League ready. I think they're going to come. Come back up. I have fuck that team. Yeah, I mean it is a dumb surprise. Aronson scored in that one. Ampidoo, Daniel James, a couple others look. Look like they fit right in. So I think oh, that's where Ampidoo went. Yeah. Yeah, he's. He looks like fully control that midfield. So I think they're coming back up but wanted to mention that since that was. I don't catch a lot of those games but it happened to be on. I had really high hopes for Ampidoo and it just never worked out. He looks good at the moment. I think he kind of. I think he found the fit there. I think that's probably the. Probably if they get promoted the Premier League he'll hang but I think that's probably like the right level club for him. AC Milan. Yeah, they opened the season. Or was it that there was a second game of the season I guess. Right. They lost to Parma. Anyways. The main takeaway there is their defense continues to look like shit and Pulisic looks good. He's playing in the middle more. He opened his scoring campaign against them yesterday. So yeah, I don't know. He's looking good. Liao looks is happy to have him closer to him in the middle which I think is a good sign is Moosey Milan. Yeah, he started that one. I have to look at where he started at. But yeah, Moose is playing. He's getting minutes which is good but I don't know. That team just does not look like every time I watch them they let in some stupid ass goals and you've got a basically be putting up clean sheets every week that wins Syria. They don't look capable of it. Who is that? What's the british. The british center midfielder who played for Chelsea Loftus. Cheek is there. Yeah, he looked really good last year. It blew my mind that he did not get to play for the England men national team. Like, you think about the level he's playing at and then Garrison Southgate complains about not having whatever, whatever the fuck his name is. Calvin Phillips. Yeah, Calvin Phillips. Like, like, you think that a player like that could fit into that position reasonably well? I don't know, laugh. This cheek is more like an attacking midfielder. Interestingly enough, he's got like the build for, but it's not the role that like he ever wanted to take on. Sure. But, yeah, I mean, he's really not a holder. Yeah, England had options. Yeah. Southgate is just fucking brain dead. I. He's just an idiot sometimes. Like, I watched the palace game yesterday and they lost, right? Yeah, pretty sure they lost 20. They lost. I think. Yeah. I thought they looked the better team. But a standout to me in that match for the part of it that I watched was, was Wharton. Yeah, he's so, he's so good. And I'm not saying it like, everybody talks about how good he is. I'm not. This isn't a, like, revolutionary, what I'm saying, but he wrote the bench for England and like, it's just nonsensical for him to complain that he didn't have Calvin Phillips when like, Wharton's just hanging out. Yeah. I don't know. Good. Like good riddance to that fucking guy. Yeah. The only other note of. What's that? You know what I thought about after, like, so we, Derek, we talked about how Poch is now going to ruin the us national team last week and injure all of them. But it occurred to me that both Chelsea managers from last season are now coaching the us team like the women and men. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. We just pillaged the former Chelsea managers for the us team. I doubt that Pach will find the immediate success that Emma Hayes has, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Yeah, we'll see. Well, they haven't even announced that yet, us national team. Right. Like it's, they can't because he's like technically still under contract with Chelsea and. The payments after getting sacked, essentially. Yeah. So I think it's like done, but they can't announce it until after this transfer window closes or something. Like there's some like date that they're waiting for. But yeah, yeah. The only other note I had with the game we didn't talk about was Fulham to lester one, Anthony Robinson gets an assist in this one, again, looked like the best player on the pitch. I can't believe that dude hasn't gotten a move away. Well, and that's what I was gonna say. Bottom line is it's. He's shockingly underused. Not playing for a top six team, I think in the, in the prem at this point. But I think statistically far and away the best left back last season, if I remember right in the league. I think that that's right for. For like most stats that matter, for an up and down left back. He was. He was the best. Yeah. I think that it's not so in vogue right now to be an up and down left back. I think that's true. Like, Fulham, like, it's not a top six club but they have, you know, top ten aspirations. Like they. They're not a small club necessarily. Craven Cottage is small, but the club has a lot of history. But I just don't like what, what team? Maybe, maybe Manchester United play up and down left backs but Dallas coming into the middle now, like. Like where does he go? That's. I think that's the big question. Liverpool does, right. Yeah. That was where his big link was, was Liverpool. Everybody thought he was going to go there. Yeah. Liverpool haven't really done anything in the transfer market this season. No. Yeah. I think they're holding that money until they get all those big contracts gone. Yeah. Again, if Van Dyke Salah and hopefully not, I would like Alexander Arnold to stay there. But if those two players leave, that does open a bunch of transfer funds. Not even, like, even if you don't think of like the big transfer fee, you know, all that salary will go to transfers eventually. We'll see. Though. I would love and Robinson on a whole number of teams though, like, he's good. He's fucking. Yeah. Really. He's fine. Maybe that's part of it. So. Yeah, I don't know what the logical place is. Just, I. More. So the takeaway is just how fucking underutilized he is at Fulham at this point. Yeah. Fair. Well, did Fulham. Fulham just sold Max just bought Max Killman. No, no. West Ham bought Max Killmande. They just bought Anderson from Crystal palace. So that defense should get better. Fulham are a good team. I like watching Fulham. Kind of. Kind of hot on them. I've always liked Fulham since Clint Dempsey played there. Like. Yeah, Europa League. Like 2008. Like scoring the. Scoring that goal against Juventus, I'll never forget that shit. They still have to do something with. Sorry, I'm. I was trying to look something up while you were talking, but it's part of my. I think Chelsea still need to move David Datro Fafana on, too. We don't have a lot of work. Yeah, tune in next weekend sales. It's gonna be crazy. Whatever happens this week is gonna be insane. Yeah. Um, yeah, and Anthony Robinson's great. And. Yeah, what I was going to say is Fulham. I don't dislike them the way I dislike leads. Like, I like Fulham, too. Leeds can leads could use a couple more demotions as far as I'm concerned. All right. Yeah. Anyway, any other topics? You guys good? I don't have any more. Any other random shit for this. Luke, did you have anything on your list? I don't write lists. Yes. Real, real insight to the listeners here. Yeah. Now I'm real excited for tomorrow. Now, Derek, you gonna be at soccer? I'm gonna fucking tread. I'm gonna go. I'm actually. Yeah, it's Gabe's last day, so last game, so I'm gonna. We've got. I'm gonna show up and go to the bar after, so I'll be there. Cool, man. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for tuning in, everyone. Hopefully this was helpful, insightful, or, you know, you got something from this. Come join us on the discord. It's. It's been very active lately. It's been a lot of fun. So, you know, I keep pumping that up, but it is. But, you know, it's been a lot of fun, and we call things out from it in the podcast, so appreciate all the banter in there. Like and subscribe, leave reviews, dislike. Like I said, I don't care. Give us feedback. That'd be cool. And thanks for listening. We'll catch you guys next week, end of the transfer window and a couple more games to discuss. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the Football Yanks podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you heard this podcast so you never miss a future episode. We'll see you next time.