Étienne Capoue

But they've still kept the kept the heart of what made Toulouse strong in the past, which was always the sort of underrated development of young players.

You look at the likes of Etienne Capoue, Moussa Sissoko back in the days, Alban Laffont more recently, although less a success perhaps, but still somebody who I think had a France cap, right? And over the last few years in Ligue 1, it was very much a stability and people could have seen it as stagnation, but it was getting fully secure in Ligue 1 and establishing themselves truly as a Ligue 1 club again.

And they did so last season again, in the third season under Carlos Martinez Noé, who's now at by Leverkusen,

I think.

I think there was a couple of shots from Palmer and, uh, and that was about it.

Um, there were some changes in Capoue and Zubimendi on for Calafiori and, and Lewis-Skelly.

Um, while I-

Do you think that, that the Zubimendi introduction was maybe a bit of a response to, to the fact that we have been a little bit more open than, than we're accustomed to prior to that?

if the opposition, if the opposition think you're too, if you're, the opposition haven't noticed you, you're being too nice.

I mean, when you look at when we had Doucoure and Capoue, they between...

And when Hughes came in, which was a lovely compliment to them, those we had our midfield sorted for five, six years and they weren't why that we went down in 19, in the 1920 season either.

In fact, they was, they still won a few plus points from that season.

A Bale bond, if you will.

Eriksen, Lamela, Soldado, Paulinho, uh, Nacer Chadli, Etienne Capoue, and Vlad Chiriches.

Took a long time for that three of those to work.

[laughs]

Yeah, he was.

But I think Capoue-

He was

... is not the, not the most tricky customer to defend against.