Mateus Fernandes

[laughs] And Adrian, the, the Ballon d'Or list has come out.

Bruno Fernandes is in there.

Have you sent your congratulations to him?

No, funnily enough, I haven't.

Well, may- maybe we'll have a Fiery Friday Ball- uh, Ballon d'Or edition, uh, as we get closer, so keep that one in your back pocket, Crook.

[laughs] But let's get straight into things, shall we? Adrian, kick us off this week.

I know you love Bruno Fernandes, okay? And I get it, those numbers were insane in, uh, that lazy season he had last season.

Uh, a- he can be an absolute bully, usually against poor sides, okay? But I, I get your love for him.

So in theory, you should be better at breaking down those low blocks.

And, you know, I think it's pretty clear that someone like Matheus Fernandes is, is a, a great low block picker.

So I think, you know, Spurs arguably have, have those players, uh, available to them, um, at this point Uh, what, what I would say is that the, the more worrying thing for me is that, that Spurs aren't forming those low [laughs] blocks, right? I, I think the, the, the problem with, with Spurs right now is that they're not able to actually play through presses, and so they're playing over the top of presses, uh, a lot of the time a- and the games are just becoming quite back and forth and transitional.

If you're playing long into, into Premier League back lines right now, those, those ce- center backs and fullbacks are so good at dealing with those long balls that, that you're just losing a lot of, uh, advantage, right? So, um, the issue I think right now is that Spurs aren't controlled enough in their build-up phase to be able to force conditions that are, that are, are suitable for the players that they have.

It stops the other team from thinking that they can attack you in those transition moments, which makes everything else look a lot more controlled.

When a team has a frightening attack, you don't wanna attack them so much because you, you're very wary of what might happen behind you.

So, um, I think so much of it comes down to whether these, whether these players, whether these signings in the, in the final third, as well as kind of the Tonalis and Fernandes, if they can kind of get the ball to those players and those in the right positions, um, can produce to the level that we all hope that they do.

Okay, time to move on because Jack Pitt-Brooke, I am so jealous of you.

Well, it's-- I mean, I don't even think I'm saying it correctly 'cause I'm half Anglicizing it.

So I mean, I, I could come on this podcast and say Matheus Fernandes every time, but, like, that seems like a bit of a nightmare.

So maybe we... let's just go with Fernandes.

We'll go with...

Okay.

We'll compromise.

Matheus Fernandes.

Matheus Fernandes.