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Exclusions apply. exclusions apply. It's

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the flight. It's

1:29

the flight in. Cook.

1:33

It's the flight in. It's

1:37

the flight in. Cook. A

1:41

camel chur-dum. And

1:44

welcome back to the Fight Cook Podcast. Joined

1:46

by Ben and Cal. How you doing, boys? Very

1:49

good. You're doing fantastic because we just went up to Manchester

1:52

United, right? And we pinned them down. We held them down

1:54

by their fucking throat. And we just punched their fucking faces

1:56

in until they couldn't see anymore. It was so sad. goes

48:00

up, so that's never going to go away. And it

48:02

was like, it's almost like they just put the managers

48:04

on a spinning wheel and then who is under pressure?

48:06

Like they just decide week by week, who is under

48:09

the pressure the most. And look, Tenharg, this narrative hasn't

48:11

gone away with Tenharg, like even when

48:13

they won the cup final, that's

48:16

probably where most people will call in for him to be

48:19

sacked because it was like, okay, brilliant that you've done this.

48:21

But even it doesn't, it just kind of undermined

48:24

like, or that's probably the wrong word, but

48:26

the fact that they were going to sack

48:29

him then, but basically couldn't find anyone else.

48:31

That's real pressure. What we're going through was

48:35

just a kind of spate of form where it was like,

48:37

okay, well you can see what we're doing, but it's just not

48:39

quite coming off. That's real pressure. He should have been sacked

48:41

months ago. So it's just a kind of tired narrative,

48:44

I guess, but the

48:46

hand isn't under pressure. Like he's- I

48:49

think things like the fan forum show that, that

48:52

he's not under pressure. You're not going

48:54

to, they're not going to go in

48:57

public and sit together and talk to

48:59

fans and answer questions and stuff like

49:01

that. If there's some sort

49:03

of, if there's any issue, if there's any tension, they're not

49:05

going to do that. Yeah,

49:08

I think Levy's all in on Ang. I

49:11

don't think they're, yes, we've spent money, but we've also

49:13

bought a lot of really young players and there's going

49:15

to be, there's going to

49:17

be a realization from Lang as well as

49:19

from Daniel Levy and Scott Musworth, Scott Munn

49:21

now really, isn't it? These

49:25

young players are going to need time to bed in as

49:27

well. There's a little concern about our depth of our squad,

49:29

but I think, again, that goes back to the young players.

49:31

These guys, they're not 29 or 30 and they're going to

49:33

be blown out of their arse by March. These kids are

49:35

going to keep going and keep going. So, you know,

49:38

injuries and then, you know, a good January window,

49:40

you never know what could happen this season. Jen

49:43

Spence got 45 minutes as well, that was good. It

49:45

was great. It was very good. It was

49:47

fine, wasn't he? Playing out position, left back, no

49:50

complaints, took the ball forward, carried it,

49:52

comfortable. Couple opportunities in which

49:54

you broke, you managed to get free, right, down

49:56

that left-hand side, really good. Yeah.

50:00

Harry, sorry, I was gonna say, Harry Brooks made a really good

50:02

point actually on Twitter yesterday about the fact that like winning

50:05

that game in the way that we did mean that

50:07

we could just do things like that We were just

50:09

like takes a doggy off at halftime where it was

50:11

just clearly a precaution and you can trust in Spence

50:13

and then Taking van de Venne off

50:15

with ten minutes to go where like, you know, bear

50:17

in mind. We've got a thin squad we've got a

50:20

much better squad in terms of the quality compared to

50:22

last year, but The Europa League

50:24

football obviously we're gonna come a bit unstuck at points If

50:26

someone at van de Venne does get injured or a doggy

50:28

does get injured So it's like just being able to do

50:30

that and having Spence as an option there to do that

50:32

with and Dragison as an option to Come off the bench

50:34

of van de Venne as well And

50:36

I think you made a really good point earlier in the group chat

50:38

about the fact that the Europa League is gonna test us With

50:41

the the fitness and the durability of this squad

50:43

and certain players with injuries But it's

50:45

also great for building momentum because like you said if we

50:47

did just if those Europa League games weren't there We were

50:50

only one two in a row not four in a row

50:52

and that that building up of momentum You

50:54

win a feeling is matter. Yeah, we're not

50:56

first. That's five Exactly

50:58

and we're going to Brighton next

51:01

week where they play a really really high line like they

51:03

did against Chelsea And then you could potentially

51:05

go and feast in that game as well. And then that's six and

51:07

then it doesn't stop Then she win

51:10

every game for us this season. Yeah, but that having

51:12

that I did I lost I said this before but

51:14

last year I used to think it's gonna be great

51:16

playing once a week because you're gonna have so much

51:18

rest we're gonna be so fit and It

51:22

became quickly apparent that one loss

51:25

and one win doesn't really feel much different Over

51:28

a two three week period at the international

51:30

breaks It's horrendous.

51:32

It's just you have to

51:34

sit in this whereas now that's sort

51:36

of misery and defeat Now

51:39

you kind of we got beat by Arsenal It's

51:41

very frustrating. But you know what it is

51:44

what it is. Whatever happens losing service is

51:46

horrible But after that we've been

51:48

had like winnable games which are important and

51:50

and this is a club the size of Tottenham the players

51:52

We have they should most more

51:55

games than not should be winnable seen

51:57

as winnable and then for us

51:59

to achieve that That's why the

52:02

free wins before United were

52:04

good as a building block to get

52:06

that confidence back. Brennan Johnson had

52:09

games to just get back to where he

52:11

wanted to be. Those games against, again, lesser

52:13

opposition meant that he could score free

52:15

on the bounce. That opportunity wouldn't have been there last

52:17

season. The narrative around Brennan Johnson going into this game

52:20

would have been almost identical to the one that

52:22

was after the Arsenal game. Yeah,

52:25

so with those games, you just enabled us iron

52:28

out problems more quickly. And

52:33

yeah, I mean, it's just

52:36

better just having those games. And the problem

52:38

with the Champions League, because

52:40

to your point last season, that playing

52:43

in the Europa League isn't

52:45

the end of the world because you can use

52:47

it as a competition to grow. Whereas

52:51

in the Champions League, you can't do that because the competition

52:53

you're playing against is too good. I'm

52:56

not saying I wouldn't have taken Champions League. I'm

52:59

just saying perhaps we'll be a better position based,

53:01

and I'm just really stealing your point, Ben. Perhaps

53:04

we'll be in a better position a year

53:06

from now because of Europa League football than we would have been

53:08

if we had to qualify for the Champions League instead.

53:13

Or, no, I'll stick by that. I'll

53:15

stick by that, Ben. I'm on your side. Cal, you

53:17

think you should have, I don't know what I can't

53:19

tell by that face, what you're thinking. I

53:22

hate the Europa League. Whoa! It's

53:26

the music, that's why I hate it the most. No, not

53:28

really. No, I've always been

53:30

a Europa League. Just because it's the

53:32

Thursday-Sunday bit, and actually yesterday, I was

53:35

pretty confident about that we would win

53:37

yesterday, but the thing that made me

53:39

a little bit nervous was we played

53:41

Carabag 10 men for 83 minutes. Didn't

53:44

look tired. No, we

53:46

didn't. We didn't. The slightest bit tired. And

53:49

I don't know, but I

53:51

imagine there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, but

53:53

I had my tin hat on about Man

53:55

United playing on Wednesday, and we played on

53:58

Thursday. And I was living about...