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West Ham insider James Jones helps preview Sunderland clash in Premier League
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00:00hello everybody welcome to the raw podcast my name is james copley and i'm your host today
00:23i am joined by james jones welcome to the podcast please james tell us a little bit about yourself
00:30thanks james uh so yeah i'm uh james jones i i'm the co-host of the we are west ham podcast uh it was
00:38originally a radio show now just a fully fledged podcast and youtube channel been uh consistently
00:44uh moaning about west ham for the best part of about six years now so uh so yeah but it's all
00:49good it's all good and as well as that you are technically one of my bosses because we work
00:54for the same company and in the same industry as well so there is technically yeah yeah there is that
00:58as well yeah well let's get uh straight into it i mean it's been a long long time since sunderland
01:04have played west ham sort of seven eight seasons i think it will be three thousand and nine days
01:11come saturday since sunderland have played in the top flight which is the longest period of time
01:15in the club's entire history what's sort of your perception of sunderland at the moment and
01:22in the transfer window they've had they've spent 150 million pound has that sort of filtered down
01:27to london has it sort of formed part of your consciousness ahead of this game
01:32yes definitely i think when the fixtures came out and i saw sundern away first game i thought
01:36i mean it's never going to be easy um but you know most teams in the premier league would have been
01:42looking at a newly promoted team to trying to kick the season off but as you know since then and the
01:47business that sunderland have done now i'm a little bit more concerned than i was when the
01:51fixtures came out because i think something's done some fantastic business a nice mix of um experience
01:56and youth and young talent coming through and uh coming into the club um i think i was talking to
02:04some of them found yesterday and they're saying that the the spenders make sunderland the second
02:09highest spending newly promoted team in history maybe even the first um so sometimes you look at
02:16that and go or you know if they bought too much too quickly is it going to be too much to gel at one
02:19at one time but i think given the mixture of you know youth and experience that you know the likes
02:23of granite jack are coming in um uh and the likes of alpha masuaku who you know i love um and but then
02:31coupled with some of the youth players that have come in uh the youngsters and players with the
02:36early stages of their career i think it's a good balance and i think it's been it's been very clear
02:40looking from the outside in that it's a well thought out transfer window from sunderland um but
02:48that could all change after the first two or three games of the season you might be going i know what
02:51we've done but i think just just looking at it on paper i think it it's seen sort of uh from the
02:57outside looking in as quite a positive summer for sunderland and how do you view the game itself
03:02because the reason i asked that question is that if i was a west ham fan i'd i'd be looking at that
03:07thinking you know west ham i've got the the squad the premier league experience to to beat sunderland
03:12but there has been you know a few little murmurings around potter and just the general state of the
03:16club if west ham were to go to the stadium of light and and lose that game it might set you up for a
03:23tough season is that fair i think there is an element of truth in that um i think a lot of the the
03:31criticism and the pressure uh aimed towards grandpa particularly towards the end of last season and
03:37at the early stages of this summer were a bit unfair i think when he joined the club when he
03:41arrived at the club last january he was inheriting you know half the squad was a david moore's squad
03:47in decline and the other half was uh a luden lopetegui squad that was bang out of form and he had to
03:54come in very very quickly and steady the ship um and you know he did do that you know he steered us
03:59away from uh what would have been a relegation battle uh picked up some big wins at arsenal and at
04:04man united along the way um and this summer he's he's clearly instilled from what we've seen from
04:12the social media and from the games itself the pre-season games you know a real team ethic you
04:16know there's the the squad there's a good squad harmony going on there they all get on really really
04:21well they all look very very happy to be there and the performances in pre-season have been you know
04:26quite encouraging as well um there's still a lot more work to do there's still a few more you know gaps in
04:31the squad we need to fill but i think you know to your point about you know is there going to be
04:35pressure if we lose this game i think you know the first game of the season does tend to set the tone
04:41for the rest of the season um and losing to sunderland away uh could just bring on some additional
04:49unnecessary pressure that i don't think he needs i think he does need to hit the ground running
04:53just to avoid that you know the the ship being rocked a little bit we need a little bit of consistency
04:58he does need time he probably needs a couple more transfer in those to really get the squad
05:02looking the way he wants it um but he ideally needs to get off to a positive start whether that's
05:07a win or a draw i mean at the moment i'll take a point um you know respect the away point um but
05:13yeah he ideally needs to get three points this weekend what what do you think constitutes success
05:18for for west ham this season because obviously it was a there was a little bit of a disappointing
05:22season in terms of the league position finishing 14th haven't really built off of that european success
05:27and under david moyes west ham's a club i i really like i've got a cousin who's a west ham fan i find
05:33that the fan base extremely passionate but a bit like sunderland over the years they seem to lurch from
05:40from one extreme to the other and you know there's there's the west ham way and and the identity and
05:45it just feels like it doesn't tend to stick and even under the likes of sam allardyce and david moyes where
05:52there's been success there's still been grumblings alongside that and there's the there's the stadium
05:57element to consider as well which i see a lot of discourse about online so how where is west ham
06:03like as a club at the moment it's a good question because you know you mentioned the european success
06:09there we really thought you know after three consecutive seasons in europe winning a european
06:13trophy that's the first time in the club's history we've been in europe three three years in a row
06:17and we really felt finally we're getting what was promised when we moved into that to london stadium
06:22almost 10 years ago we were promised european football consistently we were promised success
06:26we were promised trophies it took a long time to get there but then finally we thought we got it
06:30we cracked it finally be there and i think you know we're we're a big enough club to to feel like we
06:35should be in the conversation for european qualification in the premier league every single season not not
06:40saying that we deserve to to qualify for it every year i'm not saying that we deserve to be a top
06:45six club every single season but i feel like we're a big enough club to to be in the conversation every
06:52year and we should be really given the resources that we've got um but this season i think we have
06:58to look at it realistically and go look after david moyes left it's it's you know the lopatagi
07:05appointment was the wrong appointment and we're now kind of almost trying to lay those foundations again
07:11and kind of just have a steady season you know i'm under no uh illusions that it's going to be
07:18probably another season where we're going to finish probably in the bottom half but you know if we can
07:22look at 11th 12th uh improve slightly on last year's 14th position and kind of just have a season where
07:29we're not looking over our shoulder i think that's really important for the football club and for graham
07:33potter as well that we're not spending parts of the season going cough we lose this we're in trouble
07:38you know put put a run of results together expect that you know some weeks you are going to lose
07:43games that perhaps you should have won but then maybe win some that you thought you might you might
07:46lose and just remain relatively consistent to a point where we can go into next summer with a with
07:53a solid foundation go okay well this season we finished 11th or 12th we had a little bit of a cut run
07:58maybe um and grandpa's got some more money to to throw it because if we don't do that and we have a
08:04a season where we are looking over our shoulder then the likelihood is that grandpa is sacked
08:08at some point in the season and if that's the case then we're just starting again we're just starting
08:12again because the new manager is going to come in he's going to need time he's going to probably
08:16finish 14th 15th by the end of the season and then we're going to be saying the same we're going
08:20to have the same conversation this time next year again he just needs to finish 11th or 12th
08:25to then go again so we need that consistency we need to be in a position where he's afforded the time to
08:30improve and get us back to where we feel we should be um so yeah that's probably why there's
08:36a great deal of pressure on his shoulders because he starts badly and by october november we're sitting
08:41in the bottom five then it could be a little bit of a disaster for us i think it's very hard that
08:48scenario wasn't it james when when you talk about managers and having different squads just thinking
08:53back to to sunderland's last stint in the premier league which was which was 10 years we came up under
08:57roy keen so there was a degree of stability we had i think steve bruce for two and a half seasons and
09:02then after that really all hell broke loose i don't think anybody completed a full season at sunderland
09:07until david moyes which was the relegation season we lurched from gus poyer there was palo de canio
09:13martin o'neill all of these names and by the end of it you ended up with a with a squad with
09:19players from six or seven managers it was it's crazy and you know there's so many buzzwords about
09:25football these days but continuity and squad planning are high up there and it is hard for
09:30managers when they're coming in to to sort of to get a hold of that and to get their own players
09:35and as well on that note what have west ham done in in the transfer market so far and what are the
09:40planning to do because i'm i'm seeing sort of 50 million links to southam midfielders and links to
09:46harvey elliott as well which which seems quite exciting yeah i think you know the beginning of the
09:51summer there were concerns because we were hearing that the club needed to sell before they could buy
09:55and it was that was really concerning at the time and that has been the case to an extent
10:00uh but you know we offloaded mohammed kudas to tottenham um and that's allowed us to go go out into
10:04the market and spend a bit of money on we bought in malik juuf uh the the left wing back from slavia
10:10prague who looks fantastic by the way um only 20 years old got a lot of promise about him um but then
10:16the rest of the signings have been pretty underwhelming is probably the right way to
10:21describe it you know carl walker peters is you know went down with some uh southampton last year
10:26but you know it is a relatively solid utility fallback and play the side of defense it's
10:31premier league experience so you'd take it as a freebie callum wilson you know i'm still scratching
10:36my head over the decision to bring him in on a on a performance-based contract um but i'd rather
10:42it's just got he's going to spend most of the season injured we know that um so that's been
10:47a little bit concerning and then mads home sending goal from leicester so we've we've signed an injury
10:52prone 32 year old striker and then we signed two players from relegated clubs um so that's why it's
10:59a little bit underwhelming um it could be three if we get the 50 million pounds southampton midfielder
11:04in um fernandez but he's a good player um i think you know a lot of people look at relegated
11:09players and go well he's got relegated so he must be rubbish that's just not always the case um so
11:17a lot of fans want us to go out there and spend big money on players playing in the champions league
11:20but realistically we're not in the position to do that at the moment um we need another midfielder
11:25and it looks like you know either harvey elliott or atas fernandez could be the guy uh we probably
11:30needed another striker because we can't rely on full krug and callum wilson to remain fit all season
11:34although full cook's been in really good form in pre-season um and probably another center
11:39bank he's going to be playing three central defenders all season and we've only got four
11:42on the books so we probably need another one um so so far it's been an okay summer for us it's been
11:50better than i was expecting given you know that we've got a sell to buy and all of that that happened
11:55earlier in the summer um and there's probably going to be one or two more exits but the squad's looking
11:59okay um i'm a little bit more confident than i was two months ago let's put it that way because the
12:04performances in pre-season have been quite encouraging it looks like they've taken to grandpa's style
12:08and his philosophy relatively quickly um so yeah but there's still a lot more work to do before we
12:14we can be absolutely ready for the season i think the color wilson's a really interesting one am i
12:19right in thinking james that there's some sort of like historic needle between between what was that
12:25all about please explain well it's it's it's a strange one uh and a lot of fans he had to come
12:30out and apologize for everything he's done to the club when he after he signed because it's been
12:34it's uh it's a good start isn't it exactly yeah it's that it started when um he was playing for
12:40when he was at bournemouth and he scored i think it was at bournemouth's ground i can't remember
12:44whether they won three two it was a three-all draw i think it was a three-all draw and he scored a last
12:49minute goal to to brick make it three three and he handballed it in from about three yards out and
12:55obviously before the days of uh var and um so the goal stood fans are upset about it and he came out in
13:01his post-match press conference and was laughing about the fact and he basically he didn't say it
13:05in so many words but he was admitting that he deliberately handballed it um and kind of made a
13:09joke that you know is what it is sorry i've done that um so immediately like he's like public enemy
13:17number one in east london yeah um and then he's you know made a career out scoring against us i think
13:22he scored more goals against us than in any other club in his career um his first premier league
13:27goals um for bournemouth were a hat trick on the opening day of the season on bournemouth's first
13:32game in premier league um at upton park so he's been a thorn in our side for so long and then he
13:37had that podcast with michael antonio where he spent most of the most almost every episode just
13:42criticizing and taking the mick out of west ham and you know because he at that time he's at
13:46newcastle playing in the champions league and we were playing in the conference league at the time
13:49and he's saying you know antonio is only scoring european goals against farmers and stuff like
13:53that and it was like he's got no respect like um but now he's a west ham player and now i tweeted
13:59the other day that you know it's sport he's he's happy to have a bit of banter he's well with his
14:05rights to have a bit of banter um and barring the handball and the joke and the cheating
14:12it's sport it's banter you know a lot of my mates take the mick out of west uh i've got to make a lot
14:17of mates of tottenham fans who've obviously just won the europa league and they're going well you know
14:20you won the farmers trophy we won the actual trophy and you know i don't dislike my mates for
14:25saying that sort of stuff so disliking calum wilson seems a little bit you know contradictory in a
14:30way so you know he seems like a nice bloke looks like he'd be a good character in the dressing room
14:34so i've really got a problem with it like that my issue is that he's going to spend a lot of time
14:40on the sidelines injured um but yeah a lot of fans are not happy i've seen rumors of fans preparing
14:47to boo him on his first appearance and stuff like that because they're just unwilling to forgive
14:51which i think is a little bit a little bit extreme a little bit much but um some fans aren't willing
14:56to forget those sort of things unfortunately well we'll move on to injuries then since we're talking
15:01about and you've mentioned it there will he be fit to play on saturday and i understand somerville
15:08currently out as well what's the latest on injuries with graham potts squad well it's only
15:13somerville that seems to be the one sidelined um still he picked up a hamstring injury back
15:18i think it was in grandpa's first game uh back in january and he just and he's a good little player
15:23as well he's really good yeah he was one of our best players under lopetegui um before his injury
15:29in that first game for for grandpa he was looking really sharp um and he just just didn't come back
15:36from the hamstring injury he had surgery at the beginning of the summer so um he's likely to miss you
15:40know the first month or so of the season until he gets back fit um but other than that i'm under
15:45the impression that calum wilson is fit uh he didn't feature in our last pre-season game on
15:50saturday at home against lille uh which surprised me he wasn't even on the bench um but i'm as far as
15:57i'm aware he is fit and he will probably be on the bench on saturday yeah you mentioned earlier
16:03in terms of graham potter deploying a three at the back but how are you expecting west ham to play
16:09against sunderland and and generally stylistic because he's he's got his feet under the table
16:14a little bit hasn't he's got a few of his own signs he's he's had time on the training ground now
16:18it's always hard when you're parachuting in mid-season and you're putting fires out left
16:22right and center and you you have to become a bit of a pragmatist don't you but potter
16:25strikes me as very much as an idealist yeah it's you know he he's well known for you know changing
16:33tactics mid-game several several times so he every game this summer he started with five at the back
16:39or three at the back depending on the shape um and you know his wing backs which will be malik juif
16:45and wan busaka their remit is to essentially be wingers um and be as high up the pitch as possible
16:52um midfield buyers before making a signing it is very slow still um you know it'll be probably edson
17:01alvarez thomas sucek and uh lucas piquetta in midfield piquetta aside there's not a great deal
17:07of creativity there not a great deal of pace so it will be down to the likes of um juif and
17:12wan busaka to almost act as inverted wing backs as well um so that's kind of what we're what we're
17:17expecting um in the early stage of the season before we can bring in a midfielder uh who's a
17:22little bit more dynamic and a little bit more pacey a little bit more creative um but one thing we
17:27have noticed is that uh there's a lot of intensity um in our uh when we're out of possession there's
17:33a lot of pressing which we didn't really see last year we saw it in stages but you know i've noticed
17:38you know we were two new up against bournemouth in the premier league summer series in america
17:42two new up and in the final minute our forwards are still pressing their center backs like intensely
17:47um with a couple of minutes to go in the game and that's kind of just shows the the mentality that
17:52he's tried to instill in the players that you know yes we might be two new up but you know we've still
17:57got still got to press we've still got to fight so beyond that it's still a little bit up in the air
18:02in terms of you know what he's going to do because as i said he changes his formation so many times
18:06changes his tactics in his philosophy so many times in the game that we might sit out one way within
18:11five minutes of the the the first whistle we might move around and we might change so but i think what
18:17what we can expect is just a lot of intense pressing um and on the ball it will be you know
18:23the wing backs are going to take it could be five up front at times um it's just the transitional
18:28periods that i'm a little bit concerned about because there's not a great deal of pace in midfield
18:33so if we lose possession high up the field it could be you know it could be quite quite concerning
18:37quite dangerous um but we've got enough attacking attacking options there to to hope for you and we do
18:42get in the final third try and make it count more often than not it's interesting you mention the
18:48press and west ham pressing because i haven't watched the championship in the premier league
18:52i think that's one of the the key points of difference is just general time on the ball i think
18:57a couple of the top sides in the championship did it quite well at times last season leeds did it well
19:02but premier league teams tend to do it for 90 minutes and that is a little bit of a worry for me
19:07coming into the game james that you know west ham press high in the first 10 minutes sutherland
19:14and nervy there's going to be an inexperienced defense in terms of premier league um minutes
19:20it's an inexperienced team in terms of being premier league ready there's a lot of unknowns in
19:24there and you my big concern is that the game could get away from from sutherland fairly quickly within
19:30sort of the first like 10 20 minutes if if west ham come out and blitz them but if they did manage to
19:36whether that storm hopefully someone would be able to to grow into it and then the nerves sort
19:40of shift it's going to be a big sellout crowd as well so hopefully that will be a factor but
19:44yeah i think with west ham playing a five at the back with win backs as well that's not something
19:50sutherland came up against too much last season we tend to play a 4-3-3 so i think that tactical
19:56battle is going to be very very interesting and i think the opening sort of quarter of the game could
20:00could prove to be sort of really crucial
20:02yeah i think you know we saw uh in our in our friendly against lille we were one nil down with
20:08a couple of minutes to go and you know obviously we needed a goal it's only a friendly but even in
20:13the friendly you've got you know you've got three players surrounding their center backs forcing
20:17them into an error which led to a goal in their own in their own box um and you know if we do that
20:23from the very off and i'm sure graham potter will be saying you know this is an inexperienced
20:27defense they've just come up you know get on them first minute you know really hassle them
20:32full crook will do that the only problem with full crook pressing is he doesn't have a great deal of
20:36pace so if you've got uh center backs with a little bit of confidence a little bit of pace they should
20:40get away from him uh jared baron's the one that just won't give up and he'd be the one causing most of
20:45the problems um in that press um but yeah if i'm graham potter i'll be exactly what you just said
20:52i'd be like right from the first minute get on them you know let's test this this this team um
20:57because there's a lot of new signings in there a lot of inexperience um they wouldn't have gelled
21:01properly yet either because there's a lot of new players let's really give them something to think
21:05about and try and put them on the back for early doors um whether that happens or not it's a
21:09completely different story but that's what i'd like to think will happen and if it does happen
21:13we've got enough quality in there to to hurt most teams in the premier league i think from
21:16an attacking point of view um but like i said if if it doesn't go right then i think there's enough
21:22quality at sunderland to be able to to to on the transition really hurt us as well so um it's going
21:29to be very very interesting as you say to if if we don't score early or if we don't get on the back
21:34foot early enough then uh and you grow into the game then it could be made for an interesting 90 minutes
21:39well i don't think we've won a top flight game on the opening day since 2009 so that's we've got a
21:47similar run like we never start the season well ever so yeah i mean we used to i mean during the
21:56back end to that 10 years in the premier league we used to start horrendously beat newcastle a couple
22:01of times pick up and miraculously recover but obviously obviously our luck ran out in the end and we spent
22:06eight seasons away talk to us about arthur masuaku i don't think he'll play against west
22:12time but obviously sunland have signed i think he spent five and a half seasons in london with you
22:17guys what type of player are sunland getting um you're getting a bit of a showman uh well that's
22:23what he was when he left uh i don't know he's a little bit older now a little bit more uh a bit
22:26more experienced but um westland fans loved him he's a cult hero at the club you know we call him king
22:31arthur um and uh i think actually i was reading the the uh on the sundern's official website of
22:38the announcement of the signing and they even made reference to the fact he was called king arthur
22:41yeah um so yeah so yeah the fans love him he was he's got tricks tricks up his sleeve there's a
22:48couple of tricks that he pulled off some that he didn't um he's not the greatest left back in the
22:53world you know he's not going to put up any trees but he's solid he's decent he's got pace he
22:57can put across in um he'd give everything uh but he does tend to try things in places that you
23:04shouldn't try them uh he loves to step over um and things like that he's got quick feet um but yeah
23:11he probably i think for sundern i think he'll do a decent job um but when he left west and it was at
23:18a time when we kind of felt like we needed to upgrade a little bit um but yeah i absolutely love
23:23the man i'm so happy that he's back in the premier league um and i'm if he doesn't play i'll be gutted
23:28because i'm looking forward to seeing him it's uh it's always a little bit concerned when a full
23:33back likes to step over isn't it that's that's not really what you want to hear yes like there's i
23:37don't know whether you've uh whether you've seen it but there's a clip of him doing some outrageous
23:41skill playing against tottenham at wembley when they had yeah yeah i've seen it and he pulls it off
23:47but it's like what are you doing like i don't need to do that there's just no need for you to be
23:51doing that luckily he was in an attacking position but it's like what you like but that's the sort of
23:56player he is and he's not scared to try things like that and sometimes he pulls it off sometimes he
24:00doesn't um but he tends to he tends to you know be a six and a half seven out of ten most weeks
24:09yeah absolutely well we're coming to an end so i'm gonna ask you for your predictions for the weekend
24:14james you you don't have to put your neck on the line and go for a particular score if you don't want to
24:19but how do you think you'll feel generally come saturday night well in my head i think i said it
24:26earlier if we can avoid defeat i'll be happy and i'll take a point i'm always of the view that you
24:32respect the away point doesn't matter who you're playing uh you win your home games and pick up as
24:35many points away from home as you can um if you do that then you're in for a good season um so i'll take
24:42a point but i i feel like uh i'm taking into account if we've discussed about you know getting
24:48on you guys early doors and um i feel like we can come away with three points it's going to be a tough
24:53game it's going to be tight uh but i've i've said it on another podcast and my own as well that i think
24:58we're going to win 2-1 um but if we don't and it ends up one or even a ball draw nil nil then i'd be
25:05pretty happy with that it's a decent start uh but for me it's just about not losing on the first game
25:11of the season um because we're too used to that and it just sets the tone it's just not a nice
25:15feeding starting the season with a defeat um and i have said and i'm sorry to everyone that's watching
25:20but i have said that it's almost written in the styles that canna wilson comes off the bench and
25:24gets the winner because he's really i think i think i think he scored on his debut at every club he's
25:31played at has he really no um so if he is on the bench he will come off the bench and if it's one
25:37all with a couple of minutes to go it's it feels like it's written in the stars that he will score
25:42i mean these these types of things do happen to sunderland quite regularly i mean in in league one
25:48there was always a journeyman striker who had some tenuous connection to newcastle who would score
25:54as granddad worked down the pit or something in newcastle he'd do the alan shearer and it was just
25:58the most tin pot thing in the world so this could be another level up from that i mean we've also
26:02got a great record for former players scoring against us having done nothing since the the left
26:07us so if it can happen it's like the nick mccarthy thing it it can if it can happen it's if it can
26:12happen to sunderland it will um where can people find you james again remind them if they want to
26:17hear about um west ham more and the build-up to the southern game yeah so we are uh the we are
26:22westland podcast you know just we're on all the all the podcast platforms on youtube as well you can
26:26get us on all the social media platforms as well we've we've just released uh our episode uh building
26:33up to this weekend our first one of the season um where we spend a lot of it trying not to be that
26:39negative uh but uh took that and tried to be as positive as you possibly could it was a difficult
26:45episode to be fair but uh but yeah if you just type in we are west ham into any platform social media
26:51apple podcast spotify youtube you can find us brilliant thanks for joining us james we'll
26:57certainly have you on later on in the season for the return leg at the london stadium thank you to
27:02everybody for watching you can head over to the southern echo website for all of the build-up ahead
27:07of the game on saturday including the press conference which is thursday we recorded this on
27:11wednesday so take uh keep uh a lookout on the website and our social media channels and thanks for
27:17watching
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