Paris Saint-Germain F.C.

And my mini thesis, and I'm not a scout, I'm not even very good from a tactical perspective, but my mini, um, hypothesis on this is that Arsenal have very specific requirements of attacking players in the defensive department, and that narrows our options in attack because we can only really sign players that can do everything.

And then trying to find somebody that does all this madness off the ball and can deliver an attack is really, really hard, and there's a very few, a number of players in world football that can deliver what Arteta, uh, really needs, and they tend to end up at teams like PSG or Man City, where we can just be outgunned.

And, um, my, my concern is that because we have such a narrow pool of players, the chances of success are much lower.

And I'm really concerned because even the players that we're missing out on, that we've gunned for, aren't doing well.

Um, but I think, you know, [laughs] and it's funny, just after I saw this Paul Merson quote, a, a, a reel popped up from, um, one of the-- I can't remember the name of the podcast, but it was Paddy McGuinness saying he expects Maresca to be sacked after 10 games because he doesn't quite see, um, doesn't quite see him working at City, blah, blah, blah.

So, you know, I don't know what on earth is gonna be going on in the next, in the Liverpool or the PSG game or whatever.

But, um, I dread to think if he's gonna end up getting sacked in those next three matches.

But expectations certainly were something that have, um, impacted this narrative.

But in terms of the sort of, you know, that narrative, well, yeah, teams start fast and to be fair, go back 10 years, it was exactly the same when Guardiola came and City won the first six games of the season I think it was, across all competitions, and then obviously started to struggle a little bit thereafter.

So it could happen.

Liverpool away, PSG at home isn't the nicest sort of return after the international break.

But I look at the sort of start to the season City have had, and I've, I've made this comparison a couple of times, but I think it's even more pertinent as the weeks go on and City keep winning.

I very much appreciate all those three players that you've mentioned, mate, all very good footballers in their own right.

I still do find it a little bit funny, though, that Vitinha, I don't want to say he failed in the Premier League, but he didn't show the signs of being the player he's gone on to become a Paris Saint-Germain when he was with Wolves in the Prem.

But again, it just goes to show, isn't it, that sometimes these players may be a little bit too early for the Premier League.

I'm thinking Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah, those type of players as well who started at the Prem, Ended up going elsewhere and showing that they are the players that they were expected to become.

To me, from the outside looking in, I think he's a player that will have more confidence in himself because he's had a bit of a longer track record at a higher level, being in the Champions League and stuff like that.

He's not, he was never like a benchwarmer at PSG.

I don't, I heard a couple of people say that like he wasn't in, cause he's not, you know, they're one of their top three attackers, but he played more minutes than Dembele last year.

And he played, I believe more minutes than Douay as well.

I'll know if you're not.

Okay, my next one is... play it and I've kind of like cussed out Newcastle quite a lot in this but like their players are guilty of this actually Bruno G now Arsenal player very guilty of this really celebrating tackles but when they just go out for like a throw you know what I mean like I get it if you I hear it if you win a tackle and like goes back off the attack and you win a goal kick I get that shielding the ball out for a goal kick like that is good you've just won your team effectively like 60 yards of territory because you just go long but if you like Dan Byrne did it against PSG quite a lot I think it was PSG tackles him, just goes out for a throw and he's like, yes! I'm like...

The attack's not over, you've just conceded a throw.

Well done.

Man City away, big game, big opportunity, and it went horribly wrong.

Manchester City won 4-0 out of the FA Cup, and if that wasn't painful enough, Paris Saint-Germain were waiting in Europe.

PSG won the first leg in Paris 2-0.

Liverpool needed another great Anfield comeback.

We've seen them before.

And that made a big difference to the growth trajectory.

And it also meant that future things, future things that we took on, like the PSG, the Paris Saint-Germain collaboration that is still ongoing now, moving into women's, you know, for the Jordan brand, which we did a couple of years after that.

It gave me the confidence that sort of we can achieve anything.

You know, it's an amazing brand.

You know, there's a super talent there, I have to admit.

Da Vinci said, please make Ryan Alibi sugar the same agent as Chippo Moting, who was taking him from PSG to Bayern.

As I fear Ryan may fall away from Nigeria if he continues in the championship.

It looks like something needs to shake out for sure when it comes to him.

Then we'll go a little bit more into some detail.

But if we start with Man City... uh community shield he got 7.1 a 6.7 against commentary quite low for him then a 7.7 v aston villa then 7.3 against chelsea lots of greens here guys for those that are listening on the audio a 7.6 against napoli an eight against sunderland a seven against ipswich and of course everyone sucked against brighton he got a 6.2 now if you compare those to the last 10 games of last season this is split over two images unfortunately i couldn't put them together But the PSG game, Champions League final, he got 7.7.

Crystal Palace away last game of season, which you could be, you know, quite forgiving.

Last game of season, we'd already got the title wrapped up, not wanting to get injured, not wanting to put himself about a bit.