And it is time. This is fun. This is fun because the last time we saw this guy, we were trying to steer him to barbecue in Atlanta. We're trying to steer him into the ways of barbecue. And since it is nine point thirty, incredibly punctual. Love it. And we've got Ben Jacobs dropping by. Fantastic and Ben already had Golden ticket status when we talked to him. They're the man is Ben?
Good morning? How are you?
You tell me you're the busiest man in show business? As I told you, I mean you're the one bouncing around out here.
Yeah, I mean we've had an incredible window, not just the things that have actually happened, but the maybe deals and the big names that still have their future is unresolved. So needless to say, I'm busy. But it's a pleasure to join you.
Yeah, so great to have you here, my friend. What I wanted to do this morning is run through some of the names that are attached to Atlanta United, Miguel almor On, Emmanuel atte Lot, the odds On, Edward for a Hashi Soon, all those names. But I also wanted to talk about at Landa United and their perception there in Europe about being a player in quotation marks on the world stage. So let's start with the players themselves. Miguel al Moron says, Luis Merrilo said twelve million. That's
agreed to right now. They're just kind of waiting on getting signatures. What's the latest in the news that you have on MIGGI.
Yeah, so this was an exclusive story that myself and colleague Tom Bogart's broke and no doubt many of your listeners know Tom very well, the best in the business for MLS scoops. So Miguel Almeroon too, MLS and specifically Atlanta United. You may remember it started with Charlotte FC. They've moved for Wilfrid Zaha and Atlanta have found an opportunity to bring Almero on back. It's not one hundred percent done, but what I can say is there's a
verbal agreement between the two clubs. My understanding is that it's ten million US plus add ons and that's about half what Newcastle we're looking for. In January twenty twenty four when it was the Saudi club Al Shabab that we're looking and Amiron is very keen on returning to Atlanta, the personal terms are being finalized, and then there's just one question mark, which I think shows you the amicable
relationship between the clubs, and that's when he arrives. Because from Newcastle's point of view, they want to keep as much depth as they possibly can right through the end of the window. There's no guarantee that they replace Almoron right now, like for Light they could, but it's not definite. And obviously all the MLS teams are in their pre season and MiG Al Almeron is already fit.
He's midway through his own.
Season, so it may not be that much of a concern to Atlanta United if it drags on a few more days, simply because of the fact that they're in a privileged position where they're building up to the new season and they're going to be.
Inheriting a very fit player.
So the expectation, because Newcastle already have verbally accepted the deal, is this one gets done. It's just a case of when exactly he's given the permission to fly, if it's going to be now, or if it's going to be right at the beginning of February, near of the window closes.
Because Newcastle have kept down We're on in their match day squad and they've still got a couple more games that potentially, if they're not going to replace him, they could look to use almir on four at least in their match day squad.
What for those who are not familiar with the day to day elevens of Eddie Howe and Newcastle, why was it that Miguel went from starter and contributor to someone who is part of now just the game day eighteens and coming up occasionally playing in cup ties things like that. Why did the for those not familiar, why did he go from starter to bench player in the Newcastle universe?
Yeah, I'm not sure that he necessarily made that kind of linear progression. It was more that if you remember the half season a few seasons ago when Almron was just on fire between the beginning of the season and Christmas into that break that led us to the Katar twenty twenty two World Cup, and at that point he'd had such a positive preseason and exploded onto the scene and showed a goal scoring streak that Newcastle really hadn't seen before and became indispensable as you would expect.
Really, but in that build up to that season, the.
Fan base was saying the same thing as they are now, that they would not be averse to him being sold. Newcastle were open to offers. He just changed everybody's mind. And then unfortunately, since that kind of purple patch, his goal scoring and contributions have leveled off and therefore he's become more of a squad player. And Newcastle, therefore, even before the Purple Patch, had been looking for this kind of right sided forward or winger that can have a
more significant goal impact than Almeron is capable of. So at the moment he's finding himself on the bench. Jacob Murphy sometimes plays on that right hand side. It's a four to three to three formation. You've got Alexander Izak and then usually Anton Lee Gordon is on the left hand side, so it leaves Almeron as a little bit more of a squad player. There is Harvey Barns that can play on both sides as well, so he's fallen
down the pecking order. But like I say, you could make more of an argument that he's returned to where he was two and a half years ago.
He changed Eddie Howe's mind.
Still very valuable because he's very positive, very happy, very liked by his teammates, and we shouldn't underestimate the impact footballers can have as characters, even if they're not starting every week. Actually, a lot of managers like a player that says, okay, I accept my role in a squad rather than the starting eleven, and I'm happy for that, and I'm going to be hungry to try and earn my opportunities.
And Almeron is that kind of player.
But the reality is that on and off Newcastle have been looking to offload Almeron that I would say the best part of the last four or five transfer windows.
When you're also discussing it Lene United chasing after a nine. There are two names that are right now front and center. Emmanuel Latte Lath, who is currently at Middlesbrough their leading scorer and they're in a pursuit for hopping back into the promotion playoffs in the Championship, and also the name Odds and Edward, but that has cooled somewhat when it comes to pursuit anything else that you're hearing about. Latte Lath, where had had the leads tie, where Daniel Farker might
be chasing after him to add things up. Anything else that you're hearing with your ear on the train tracks about those two.
I hope it's not on the train tracks, not if there's any active trains coming anyway. But Latte Lath is the top choice for Atlanta, and Edson Odward is up there too. But I think if they can get Lade Lath, then the Edson Odworld deal will be off the table. It's just a case of spinning both plates because time
is running out and both have relative complications. The Latte lat situation is that in the last week or so Atlanti United have had very positive talks with Middlesbrough, so there's not that many concerns that they can't get to a full verbal agreement.
They're just about there.
It's more a realization now from Atlanta's perspective that this is an in deman player and it becomes relatively likely that another suitor will enter the race in the final days of the windows. So, my reader, the situation is that Atlanta have taken the negotiations about as far as they can with both the player and also club to club, and they've got all of their ducks in a row.
It's just that if you're Middlesbrough.
You're waiting for a bidding war or a twist, and again you're in no rush to sell because if they're going to lose him, then keep the player scoring and in the squad and getting as many points as you can out of him before he eventually departs. So don't think it's a case of Atlanta United up against Leeds because Leads sources that I speak to deny that they have place to bid. The interest is genuine, but they've
not put a formal offer on the table. And interestingly, and this might be the clue that I alluded to a moment ago, the leads perspective from sources I speak to is he's either going to go to Atlanta or a Premier League club, and it's that Premier League club that still has the question mark over it because a lot of the links that we've heard so far are not from Premier League clubs looking for strikers. And there's
one or two that I can mention. Leicester City are looking for goals, Everton are in the market for a striker. West Ham and Bournemouth are both going to be alert to opportunities, and west Ham and Bournemouth, the more looking at Brighton, z Evan Ferguson. And we know that west Ham bid for John Duran as well and that was turned down yesterday a story broken by the excellent David Ornstein.
Fifty seven million instantly rejected by Aston Villa. So there's a few Premier League clubs and the reason why I mentioned these other transfers is just to give you that context of three or four in the Premier League, just moving around from target to target, working out the opportunism of what might be possible in the fine hours of the window. And maybe one of those four clubs I think less likely tam possibly Bournemouth, certainly Lester in the
mix as well. They all could decide at the last minute just to enter that race, and that's why I think that Middlesbrough abiding their time. And then it'd be unclear at this stage if late Elath would say I still want to go to Atlanta, finalize that deal, or I fancy an opportunity in the Premier League. So it's a bit of a nervous wait there for Atlanta United.
And then if they get to probably four or five days left of the window and they don't think that that one's possible, or a Premier League suitter comes in and it's off the table. That's where they've put I wouldn't quite call it a backup bid because that's disrespectful to the money offered and the player. But the Edward situation is a bid in the region of twenty million US dollars, which again underlies the big spending of Atlanta and how ambitious they've been so far in this window.
And the expectation again is that financially speaking, that offer will be good enough and then it will be down to the player to decide whether or not he wants an MLS opportunity. And I think it's fifty to fifty as to whether he agrees to that move, especially knowing at the moment it's on ice, because Atlanta's number one priority remains latt a laugh.
Our buddy Ben Jacobs from a give me sport and talk sport where I get to hear him do play by play occasionally here on this side of the pond, propping and by and hanging out with us here this morning in the middle of silly season, let me ask you about Atlanta United and MLS's place in the world. Sphere. How do you think, from all of your interaction and all the work that you do, how is Major League Soccer viewed as a quote end quote player on the
world stage and chasing after talent? And I guess Atlanta United sub subsection B of that. How do you think Atlanta United is viewed as a player a pursuer of talent there on that side of the Atlantic.
Yeah.
I think we started, didn't we, with the prism of exports, and that was our kind of window into MLS. Now, as we see from Maritzio Pochtino's international squad, the vast majority of male players anyway that have come through MLS have ended up exploding on the scene somewhere in Europe. And that's the kind of Christian policic ripple effect. But if you go back further, there's the sort of every American top goalkeeper under the sun in the Brad Guzan, Tim.
Howard, Casey Keller era again finding.
Their way over to a European club, and more often than not in the Premier League as well. And once you got that influx, I think the opportunity to find young players from MLS really became clear to most clubs and fans, and there's definitely now not this feeling of an American player coming to Europe and not being good
enough in terms of technique or development. If anything, it's the opposite now, and there's a feeling that the infrastructure that you have in place through the college system and the USL into the MLS is very secure and structured and it's created a new generation of both male and
female talent that can go on to big things. So then phase two is can you keep these players in MLS, Because although it's great to say you develop them and sell them on very early in their career, the way MLS grows is obviously by cultivating homegrown or home based talent and keeping them in the league for as long as possible, and that's what raises the standard and the
value of it. And then if foreigners come as well, you have that balance, as we've seen from the Premier League since the early nineties, that allows the lead to develop. And it is a balance between wanting US talents and promoting them in addition to having those box office stars
to get global eyeballs. And I think unlike USA ninety four, we're now going to see the World Cup in twenty twenty six have a really meaningful legacy in terms of grassroots, in terms of infrastructure, hopefully a strong knock on effect to the women's game as well. So I think MLS now is starting to catch the eye. There's more global broadcasters,
there's more foreign talent coming over. What a coup for Charlotte to get Zaha or for Atlanta to be able to re sign Miguel almere And I think the almeor On thing shows you, even though he's a little bit older now. Of course, that full circle moment when he left Atlanta United and realized he was going on to
big things. Did he think at that point that he would go full circle and still feel that he could offer something in terms of peak Almero on returning to Atlanta United, and I think when he left, the appetite to return probably wasn't there. But now he realizes that he's walking into a very competitive league of.
A high standard.
Then you look specifically at Atlanta United and I think it has naturally grown to be synonymous with success. I remember the twenty eighteen MLS Cup definitely putting the club on the radar, and those were the sort of glory years of course, because there was a Open Cup as well, and in addition, naturally they'd won in I think twenty eighteen the MLS Eastern Conference Championship as well. So in that kind of period we started to, I think realize
how serious Atlanta United were. We know that some of the backroom staff went across from Atlanta United, like Darren Eels who was at Newcastle sadly now has ill health so has had to step away from that role. The likes of course of Tata Martino or Frank debaor and so on, all again putting the club on the map. And I just think you don't get that caliber of backroom staff, or that blend of star power and talent staying in the MLS unless your.
League is progressing.
So I think MLS is in a very healthy position and it's only going to get stronger off the back of the twenty twenty six World Cup.
What about when it comes to flashing the wallet? So say I am insert MLS owner here or MLS Director of Soccer Operations, and I go wandering over to Europe and I'm chasing after talent. What is the perception from your mind about MLS coming over and it's like, yeah, well,
I want your guys. I want your guys. I want your guys to do front officers in say Premier League, Championship, all the other leagues that you look at sit there and look at an MLS guy and go, who are you or do they actually have them as an equal player at the table and basically money talks, it doesn't matter where it comes from these days.
Yeah, an equal player. Remember half the Premier League. Now we've got some form of American investor or owner. So it's flipped and you're not dealing with top clubs in England anymore that are all English, are all ingrained in English football. They're global, and you could argue they're America predominant in terms of the makeup of their collective shares.
So it's actually a lot of the time an American owner dealing with an MLS club and they know exactly the potential and they know the growth opportunities.
So I don't think.
We're looking at America being at less of a standing, whether we're talking MLS or even USL, because remember a few years ago USL used to basically be reserve teams and that caused an issue because you had this odd balance of very young players coupled with effectively demoted ones, and there was maybe a bit of a lack of cohesiveness and balance and in some cases motivation. Now they've ditched all of that and you have a competitive league
effectively a tear down from the MLS. And again you have a lot of pathways for players to come through, and global clubs realize that, so there isn't as much of a risk factor now about signing a player from MLS.
And in addition to that, the clubs are cultivating partnerships because the clarity of progression for male and female players is so much stronger and arguably even more stable than in the UK, because in England you get pulled away at let's say eleven or twelve told you the next superstar.
It can impact your location, your family, your schooling, whereas in America there's much more of a pathway through collegiate into USL or MLS or obviously in the case of the women, the USL Women's League or the NWSL, and the progression I think allows global clubs to track players
more definitively. Plus the fact that there's a lot more emphasis now in MLS on data on injury prevention, on technical training, and what we're seeing that perhaps it didn't exist ten years ago as a result is top clubs bringing talents over at very young ages for a kind of try before you buy experience, which is part of the courting process to say, come over, watch a match,
meet the squad, train with them. Sometimes it's a formal trial and a exclusive that me and Tom broke a few weeks maybe ago now was nim Fasher Birchamas, who is a Charlotte FC player and he got flown over to Manchester United. And don't think that would have happened ten fifteen years ago because likely that kind of player age profile wouldn't really have been on a top club's radar. But now most of these European teams have got full
and significant scouting networks in North America. They've always had them in Central and South America as well, and the World Cup is obviously an extra opportunity with the investment to develop that grassroots talent, and the back legacy of the World Cup will be that probable twelve to sixteen age group post twenty twenty six, with all the investment and the bars and the facilities getting into their late teens, breaking into USL or MLS, and I think you'll find
that there's a lot of European clubs ready to pounce for that kind of profile and talent because they realized there's a real window of opportunity to recruit in this market.
All right, So before we let you go, what storylines are you chasing after today? When it comes to the Premier League in silly season and Ruben amor room trashing TVs and hunch pasta cargo. Yeah, I'm going to fix it and don't worry about everything. What are you chasing after today?
Yeah?
I'm leaving the MLS to Tom, although we are both across the Almiron and Latte, latter situations which could move very quickly. I think more so Almiron than necessarily Latte laugh, only because of Burrough's perspective to wait and see for a little bit. I'm across Marcus Rushford's future. We shouldn't rule out a stay at Manchester United, but certainly Dortmund and possibly Barcelona.
Are going to be there.
Aleandro Garnaccho, Chelsea and Napoli both interested in the player. Key question is what price might Manchester United reluctantly sell for I'm told in the region of eighty million US dollars, possibly five or six lower than that, but as a starting point, Manchester United's valuation is very high. Mate's kuner at Wolves. He's not yet signed that new deal, so the door is just ever so slightly a jar for
Arsenal and others. So it should be a busy week, and I think some of these plot lines might run right.
Until February the third.
And I keep having to remind myself to say February the third, because we so glibly call it the January window, and usually it is the January window, but this particular season, I should point out that in England anyway, the window shots on February the third. So we've got the best part of two weeks to try and find clarity on some of those stories that I mention.
And see if there's going to be a player who's just going to sit in his car in a team's parking lot and figure out that yeah, they want me and I want to be here, but there's been no talk about you being here. Well, no, I'm still here. I'm sitting in the parking lot. Cut the promo for me working folks. Find all of your stuff well.
You can follow me and Tom as well on Gimme Sport and we've got lots of breaking news and hopefully some MLS exclusives for you on x I'm at Jacobs Ben on Instagram at Ben David Jacobs and of course you can hear me on talkSPORT. I'll be back at the weekend as well for another Premier League commentary, so make sure that you get in contact with me if you're listening, and I'll give you a shouts.
Out what he said as always, my friend, great to see you. Know that your Golden Ticket status is always here. So the link that I sent you this morning is good because that is the studio space if you ever want to get anything off your chest. Barbecue. Hey man, I need some barbecue. Can you send it to me? I need this, I need this, I need this. My
foxes are driving me crazy. They didn't do anything. You know that you have Golden ticket status and can visit anytime and you can crash the party here in the morning show. Great to see you, my friend. We will catch up with you soon.
Yeah, keep up the good work as well. Always enjoy listening to the show. And look forward to coming on soon. Have a good day everyone, You got it.
Thank you Ben. There goes Ben. Ben's gonna go and go get brunch or something. And it's great to catch up with Ben. And thanks to him for putting time into his hyper busy schedule to come and visit and drop by, because my Premier League conversation with Ben would probably go another forty minutes