Hello and welcome to Pukipondas, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. Today's question is, how can students look after their mental health at university? And I'm in conversation with Nick Hooper. My name is Nick. My grandma calls me Nicholas, but nobody really calls me Nicholas anymore. I am a senior lecturer of psychology at the University of the West of England in Bristol. And what is notable about me right now, and probably the reason why I'm having this conversation with you, Pukipondas, is that I've written a book about student mental health. It's not really a book about student mental health. It's more a guide for students about how to look after their wellbeing when they're at university. And so that is a little bit about me. I mean, there's a lot more I could probably tell you about my journey into academia, my journey from secondary school through to A-levels and whatnot, but maybe we'll get into that during the conversation. Absolutely. So let's start with the kind of episode question is the jumping off point, which is very much focused on your book, which I love, by the way. So how can students look after their mental health at university? What's the kind of big picture? So what it is, is I've been in my lab now for the last two years, and I've created this little pill, and it's like a little magic pill. And if you take it, then your life will be absolutely wonderful and you'll have nothing to worry about forever. It's like a lifetime supply, please. Yeah, sure. You know, I watched the film Limitless with Bradley Cooper and I just thought, brilliant, that's the answer. All I've got to do is make that little pill. And so, no, of course, life's just not that simple, is it? And so a question like how do you, how does a student maintain their wellbeing at university? It's never going to be a straightforward answer or a straightforward road for students that are out there that are listening. But what I've done in the book is I've tried to give some concrete, some concrete skills, and some concrete bits of advice. And so the chapters of the book, they map on to what's been referred to as the six ways to wellbeing. There are six behaviors that psychologically healthy people tend to do. And a lot of people that are listening will probably recognize them because they jump off the New Economics Foundation five ways to wellbeing, which you'll see in a lot of organizations and in universities as well actually. Things like connecting with people or embracing the moment, challenging yourself, exercise, self care, and one other that of course is going to allude me right now. So these are sort of like the the wellbeing behaviors that psychologically healthy people tend to do. And so I wanted to give that advice and that information to university students like do those things more when you're in university if you want to keep that ball rolling, because what's going to happen when you're in university is, is mirrors what's going to happen in life you know there's going to be some times that are lovely and great and there's going to be some times that are a little bit more difficult and you know what informs those times is a changing context, you know, living with new people looking after yourself for the first time being away from parents, being under pressure with regards to assignments, etc, etc. Of course those things are going to fill your bucket and sometimes when, when things like that fill your bucket you experience unwanted thoughts and unwanted feelings.  Can you, can you behave in a way that's likely to be optimal for you in the long term by for example exercising, or by connecting with people, or by giving to people, which is the one that I was missing, embracing the moment challenging yourself, etc. That's like the gist of the book but of course, I'm ranting now pookie but I'm going to carry on while I'm while I'm here. Yeah, like it can't be that simple, because if it was that simple everyone in the world would be psychologically healthy and they'd be doing those things and so like the way that I pitched a book is that, of course, the reason why, like a lot of people in the world they know that those things will probably be good for them but don't do them. The question is why, and from my perspective, the answer of course is the human mind and the way that it can be obstructive sometimes when we need to move towards things that are important to us. And so, in addition to say and like you need to do those six things, a little bit more. I've also talked about and explored the human mind how it works. You know why it does the things that it does sometimes, and specifically with regards to avoidance. And maybe some better ways of relating to our unwanted thoughts and our feelings that will still allow us to move freely in the in the world. And so yeah it was really I actually watched your video with your daughter. And then somewhere she talked of course about that that pull of avoidance and the short term relief that you can get from it. But of course in the long term, avoiding things is probably going to narrow narrow your life a little bit and so yeah that's that would be my my my longer answer is to how to maintain soon well being which is like do those psychological do those things that psychologically tend to do and figure out a way of relating to your thoughts and your feelings that will pop up along your journey at university. I think one of the hard things there that you sort of alluded to is that I think when we're in a good place actually it's much easier to do those things and you see that cycle don't you that real positive cycle of reinforcement and you're more able to do the things that keep you well and it's all good and I certainly found that during this last lockdown for example my husband and I both kind of got into a bit of a rut and we've kind of looked at each other and gone well we know all the things that we need to do to help ourselves and even knowing it and knowing it will help when you're really low and you're really demotivated it's it's hard isn't it to engage with those things. I have experienced that myself as well, even in the last few weeks so we had a bit of news about my father a few weeks ago and a cancer diagnosis and of course like when your your bucket is full with the stresses and strains of life making those those self care moves and also continuing to exercise or continuing to make effort to give to people or to connect with people or whatnot. They fall into the background of your existence and your existence becomes about just essentially keep in going. The pitch of the book is when when the clouds come, try to do as little damage as possible, so that after they go you're not in a bigger hole I think that's a really there's this there's this real like temporal thing about suffering and human suffering that people experience this, which is that it does it comes and it's goes and it comes and it's goes and so when it's here, can we try not to drink a load of alcohol. Can we try not to eat 10 tubs of Ben and Jerry's every day for a week. Can we try not to isolate ourselves from other people. Can we try to, you know, to maintain those things that keep alive taken over. When the clouds do pass our life is still in some sort of fit state rather than then being more broken than what it was when when we had those clouds and of course then you're in that cycle then right where you're in a bigger hole now and then there's more unwanted thoughts and feelings as a result of being it being in a bigger spiral in. And so it is, it is easier, of course, to do those things and I guess you can relate this to students at university right because some students will fly through university, and it will be the happiest time of their life and that's the reason and that what that means is that the context has has has occurred in such a way in a student's life that enables them to move stress free through throughout the universe throughout the university adventure but for some students, the context in the past, you know, both their relationships with parents or students and and and their relate their context with the future with their presence. As in, do they like their housemates, are they having troublesome relationships are they struggling with with assignments and stuff. Those things are all going to inform how someone is is getting on at university so there's going to be those that variability there. And so really when that when people do find themselves in those places where they're struggling, can they relate to their unwanted thoughts and feelings in a more functional way. Can they be willing to have them. Can they watch them and understand that having these unwanted thoughts and feelings doesn't make them abnormal. Given the context, and that a more functional way to manage those unwanted thoughts and feelings isn't to avoid the world. It isn't to stop going to lectures it isn't, you know, stop contacting family members or stop going out with friends or stop exercising or stop doing the things that make a life work that your job is to relate to those are wanted thoughts and feelings in such a way that you can still do the things that are important to you in the in the long term. And so that that's essentially what the book is about it's about trying to shift students perspective about the nature of suffering and about and about how to how to move forward when when it comes along, as it invariably will do if not in university then at then at some point in their in their life. I hope that made sense I'm not sure you know I'm sort of just make sense it does make sense and one of the things I find myself wondering I suppose is when I first read your book. I think it's incredibly useful to the particular demographic you're targeting at but I also think it is just far more widely applicable than that and I found myself wondering as you were talking about your dad who you do mention in the book as well in a very different context but how the kinds of skills and ideas that you're sharing in the book presumably they're exactly the things you would need to draw on when dealing with something like that that really challenging news and that diagnosis if recently faced. Yeah, yeah, absolutely as in those things haven't. So you get to the, the last chapter of the book and one of the last few paragraphs, and I say something like, I have essentially told you my philosophy for life. I've essentially told you that this is how I live my life right now as a 36 year old man. So that you know if you if you think of what the message I'm essentially sending the students is unwanted thoughts and feelings exist, they're going to exist for you, whether you like it or not. Can we figure out a way of relating to them in such a way that you still get to chase your dreams. You know, that's changed for me, you know that's still the case for me now and it has been the case for me since I was their age since I was, you know, 18 to 21 or even afterwards when I was doing my PhD and stuff. Now I think that the cool thing about me right in this particular book is like I'm almost evidence that this stuff matters, because I as a working class lads have managed to change my stars and of course. That is luck and timing and serendipity, but a lot of it is having the ability to keep going even when your mind tells you can't do it. Or like you're not good enough to do it you're not smart enough to do it or you don't belong here or you're not worthy and those sort of like thoughts and feelings that can easily stop people from doing and going for things. Whereas I've been able to do that which is which is amazing which means that I'm almost like a role model to students for for like the importance of these skills. A long time ago, a, a writer. He's a clinician as well his name is Russ Harris and he's big within the acceptance and commitment therapy world of the Act world. And he said that the way I write might lend itself to like a self help book and so I'd always thought well, maybe I wouldn't write mind writing something like this. And of course because the, the information that's in the book, actually, yes it's useful for students but it's also useful for everyone anyone could read that book, and, and, and learn something from it and and probably connects to it in a more personal way as well. I also thought well maybe I'll be writing just an ordinary self help book but I, I'm still ranting and I probably shouldn't be talking as much as I am, I'll carry on. That's my job. That's my job. I should be doing this. You're right. You're right. So it was always in the back of my mind that maybe I would write something and I love writing. And then when my son was two. We were watching the film. He's five now turning six in a couple of months. We were watching the film The Lion King. I'm sure everybody listening has watched The Lion King, but the Daddy Lion dies. If you haven't watched The Lion King, I've ruined it with you. I'm very, very sorry about ruining The Lion King for you. And in Titanic, the ship sinks, right? Sorry, you're on The Lion King. So, so, you know, when he was two, I was crying and he's just like looking at me like what happened to the, to the Daddy Lion Daddy and I'm like, I can't explain death to you right now boy. So I'm just like nothing he just go into sleep. But of course like in my mind, I'm upset at this and the reason I'm so I'm just thinking, dear me like what if I die in this little two year old exists without me around and you'll know yourself in the impact that become an appearance can have on on your existence and my existence at least became about him from the moment that he was born and so I started writing a book to him. A self help book aimed at one person and I started that the next day after that after that. And so I, the first version of this book was actually written to my own son to be given to him when he was 18. I couldn't be given a book about psychological well being and, and like clinical psychology skills to a 12 year old or an eight year old or a five year old and so I said to my wife look it's saved in this part of my computer. If by the time Max is 18 I don't happen to be around anymore you need to give this book to him. And then of course I read the book once it was finished, and it was as much written to my students as it was written to Max you know written to my boy to begin to as an 18 year old, when in the day times I was interacting with 18 year olds who were struggling in various ways and they were in a bind and I was thinking of examples and things. And so it was at that point that it became obvious that the, the peak, the audience that I'm most suitable to talk to our students, they're who I've been around for the last 18 years, or something. And so, although the, the stuff that's covered in the book is pretty general and anyone could read it and get something from it. Those, they're my gang, they're my posse, you know, to my people. And so it felt appropriate to be writing something to them for for them to use as they, as they go into that, that university transition and try and manage all of the strains that can come with that and I wouldn't want students, if students listen to this, or educators, for a lot of people, university is great. Of course it is. And so maybe some students out there would be thinking well I'm not sure I'll get a lot from the book like this because I'm fine. But you don't know how long you'll be fine for, for one. But two, even if you're like, you're doing pretty well this book can still help this book can still give you the skills to chase to chase your dreams even if you're not like, you know, diagnosing yourself with any sort of mental health problem. And so, and so yeah sorry to go back to your original question about it being general yeah absolutely like I read it now. And it, it like prompts me into some sort of some sort of action now as a 36 year old man, but I'm glad that it's written to the demographic that I most that I've the most experienced with and that I care. The most about. I think it's also helpful for students might read it I quite often find when I'm teaching young people, it can help to teach the lens of supporting a friend and I think definitely it would be a helpful way for every student so they can be a good friend to their So for parents and carers and other interested adults trying to think how to help a young person who is is going through the university things I think you provide such sort of practical tangible stuff that people can do. And I think it can feel sometimes like you're quite far away or you don't know how to help and actually here you've got real simple prompts haven't you can work through the six rules and kind of say, Well, you know, what are you doing in terms of exercise or when is the last time that you connected with people or or what have you. So I think it's really helpful from that point of view. Do you think that the kind of, do you think, obviously when you wrote the book, albeit you wrote it actually with different purpose in mind with your son but when you wrote the book we were living in quite a different world won't we and the world that this book gets birthed into it comes out in July. So the the world that this book gets birthed into is not the one in which it was conceived like you university students have maybe not been face to face for some time now and not quite sure what next year looks like for them do they face different challenges does this book still hold water do you think or hold water even more so I don't know. It's tricky isn't it so I mean I wrote this. I had it written obviously for max and then I rewrote it during lockdown.  Yeah, go in. And so my agent said to me, you know, we're going into a very different world. And so you need to talk about COVID because originally I said to him, I don't want to touch COVID in my book. This book was written for students pre COVID, not for students post COVID. And so he said, yeah, but COVID has changed the world as we live in and so like you have to, it has to be mentioned at least. And so I have mentioned it and I'm fine with that because I think even if someone in 15 years reads the book is quite interesting for them to have an insight into my context at the time the context of the context of our lives for the last year has been has been COVID. So that's that's cool. I'm happy with that. But with regards to your question about is it still, you know, is it still appropriate. I think that the thing about unwanted thoughts and feelings is they've, they've always been there. They've always been there, you know, in the first chapter I talk a little bit about the history of psychology and the treatment of people with mental health problems. And, you know, going back to Benjamin Russian, like the 1700s, who I love that bit of trivia in that in the book about how he signed in the declaration of independence in the US. I love little bits of trivia like that, but, you know, the people back then had unwanted thoughts and feelings and he tried to treat them with a bunch of horrible things ranging from a metrics to the spinning chair to purges and whatnot. You know, interesting ideas about what caused mental health problems which is like malities in the blood vessels or something like that. And then if you track the treatment of people with mental health problems from that early on, you'll see that they never went anywhere no matter what was going on in the world. They were always, they were always existing and what's changed is like how we approach mental health problems. So, like, yes, the book was written pre COVID with the idea that students can have unwanted thoughts and feelings during university and this book is going to help them to manage those unwanted thoughts and feelings a little bit better, while still doing those important well being behaviors and moving towards the values being the sort of person they really want to be in the in the world. The thing about COVID is, after it, there's still going to be unwanted thoughts and feelings the nature of them might have changed the nature of the pressures might have changed like instead of now, the social awkwardness of walking into a seminar class where there are 25 people that you don't know and having to find a table and strike up conversation. Those social anxieties. Now we're going to have the social anxieties of turning on unmuting yourself and talking in an online way and having that awkward. Can you hear me? You know, is everyone listening to those like those really awkward things that happen in online learning or worse than that you don't unmute yourself and you're not really engaging now and you're not getting the most out of your degree or worse than that, you know, you're you're living a world in isolation, which is probably the biggest threat that COVID has presented, at least in my opinion, for human beings is just this this this isolation that impacts your ability to connect with other students and which is just such a such an important aspect of being alive, isn't it? It's human connection. And so I think that, you know, I could guess as to what life is going to be like post COVID for university students. I'm sure it'll be a blended learning approach. I'm sure they'll still be doing online learning. I think they'll probably get back together for seminars and of course this book will help them when it comes to such things. I don't think I wanted thoughts and feelings generally are going anywhere. And so this book will help them to be able to manage those things and keep their feet moving towards important wellbeing behaviors when when they've got clouds. I think that answers your question. It does it does answer my question. I think it's it's hard to know how best to advise young people in the current moment and I think maybe actually thinking about what's the evergreen advice might be a really sensible way of kind of looking at it. Because I think that so many of us have been a bit wrong footed. I think many of us, I've certainly been in the situation where young people I spoke into who are looking for advice last year about should they go up to uni or wait a year and you find yourself going, oh, you know, wait a year and it will be gone. And yeah, so I think we all fit. Yeah, the thing we all have in common right now is none of us quite know what to expect. So I think we've all given up trying to guess now haven't we. And yeah, I think that's a nice thing though. I mean, I think that young people appreciate it. I think my students appreciate it when I say, I don't know.  This is how it's going to go and these are the decisions that I'd be making if I was you. But like life doesn't happen like that what happens is you make a decision and you hope it works. Yeah, and that's it and sometimes stuff works out and sometimes stuff doesn't work out and when stuff doesn't work out that is not a reason to not do more stuff. No, like, like bumps and scrapes in the journey that they're fine. And so just like those that a generalized skill of relating to bumps and failures in a more functional way is probably the thing that I'm after more than offering them any sort of certainty about about the way life is going to be going forward because I don't I don't know myself and I think that you know, from from reading the book at least I hope you got this sense. I wrote it as I in the most authentic way that I could. Yeah, I wrote it as I speak to my students. When you speak to your students, I always swear. Yeah, I'm always swearing. To me, sometimes for pedagogical reasons, you know, as in, you know, if you need to catch their attention. Yeah, a good way of like catching catching their attention but often just because it's like part of my my my lingo sometimes. But there's. Yeah, sorry, I forgot what I was going to say now which was. What was the question. Sorry, I'll take you offline with the, yeah, asking. No, no, you did. Oh, what was it? Brilliant, isn't it? I never mind. We can we can move on. Okay, I, I was wondering as well about whether you as someone who so you said you kind of came from a working class background and you've, you know, had sort of various opportunities that either you've taken or that you've created throughout your life and I wondered as that, if that makes a difference to the kind of advice that you give. And because certainly I was a young person that came from working class background and went off to university and I hated it. But I didn't have your book to help me and I think you know when I first read your book that was one of the things that I fed back genuinely completely honestly was, I really wish I would have had this book to read before I would have gone to university would have made a big difference if I would have actually listened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that it's tricky isn't I mean I wouldn't want to. Well, I'm, I think having come in from the working class background, maybe gave me some sort of drive. You know, maybe a work ethic, maybe an insight into some of the struggles that working class people have, you know, like being in a family where the conversation conversations about money were every day. Yeah. And so of course those things, those things shaped me. And, and a lot of people that are that are reading the book won't come from that sort of background and they'll still have legitimate struggles. It doesn't really matter how much, how much money you've got, you know, we all exist in very different contexts and can and still what what unites us more than anything probably is suffering so I think it doesn't really matter like where you come from. I think this book will still be useful to you but I think what happened for me, and the reason why I, I, I managed to keep going and keep having ideas and keep chasing them and keep pushing was two things. One, and this is me speaking really frankly by the have not really thought about this before. The reason was I met act when I was doing the third year of my degree. So in my degree I hated it. I wasn't a fan of psychology at all. I chose psychology because during my love was I liked it more than French and politics but not because I loved it and I really sort of like wanted to do it. I did it because I knew I needed a degree to be able to get a decent job. And psychology was the one that was more palatable than the, than the other two. In the first couple of years of my degree. I didn't engage with it at all. And I was living in Cardiff and traveling back and forth as ones and of course, you don't travel an hour for an hour lecture where someone reads off the slides to drive back an hour. And so I just thought I'll just not I'll read, I'll read stuff myself. Of course I didn't read the stuff myself I ended up sort of like messing around with friends or working in restaurants and hotels and stuff. So in the third year of my degree. Inspired by inspired by my dad's and the way that he was dealing with his suffering which was avoidance. I thought well, I don't think people talk about the problems enough. I think they try and suppress them. And I got randomly, you know, in a fateful way, directed to a new member of staff at Swansea University, and she gave me this book about act. I've been reading that book about act and especially the idea of self stories acceptance and commitment therapy. Sorry, acceptance and therapy, which back then nobody had heard of. It was really, really new and even now many people aren't sure wouldn't have heard of it. But anyhow, I connected with it and especially the idea of self stories the idea that we built stories about ourselves over time. And that often those stories can imprison you know they can hold you back. If you've got a story about like, you know, I'm not a good public speaker. Then what does that stop you from doing. Or if you've got a story about you know I've been smart enough then what does that story stop you from doing. And so as a result of that, I was able to hold my stories more lightly and not let them influence my decision making. And so in the book as well as I essentially became a yes man, anytime something made me feel uncomfortable. I said I said yes, equipped with this idea that the stories that I held about myself were just that were just stories and equipped with the idea that I could have discomfort. Discomfort wasn't something that I immediately needed to get rid of and in fact it's discomfort is usually a signal that something is important. And so anytime something made me feel discomfort I said yes to it and when my teachers, my supervisor said you want to do a PhD, I said yes before I even knew what a PhD was. This is going to push me, I'm going to go for it and more or less every step of my career, whenever an opportunity has come along including this, you know, including speaking to someone like yourself.  That won't happen no more. And still say yes and still get on and do it and you said something similar to your daughter in that clip which is, you know, if you want to feel anxious about something then continue to not do it. That's the way to keep your anxiety, you know, if you can get out there and sometimes your anxiety doesn't change even with lectures and stuff. I still feel anxious before I go out there, but I'm able to relate to it in such a way that I don't close down, and I'm still able to do those things and so that would be the one thing that changed for me. That allowed me to push and to chase my dreams and stuff and so that I've tried to get a lot of those act skills and funnel them into the book in various ways just like more functional ways of like relating to one's thoughts and feelings. But I also, I also, and I've never said this before, so this is a, this is the first that I'm saying it to you is I also, and this is back to the working class thing. I'd go to conferences as a PhD student and of course you'd meet these really impressive people. And a lot of, like my friends and whatnot, they found such people intimidating. And I never did. I never found well to do well respected people who had achieved a lot of stuff. I was never intimidated by them and the reason why I wasn't intimidated by them was, the reason why I was intimidated by theory actually saying this was because I never, because I always looked to them and thought, you've done amazing things. And you're not a more worthy human being than my dad, or my mom, or my neighbors, or, or those people that came from that place. From very early on informed by acting some of the theory around it, like this idea that people are a product of their experiences and so if someone is doing particularly well, a certain contexts, allowed that to happen it allowed them to become that person. And if you come from a working class background, often you don't get that context that will allow you to flourish and that doesn't make you any less of a human being or worthy human being and so maybe that, maybe that helped I was never intimidated to go into a room of people that had done really well and tell them my thoughts. And so yeah, that, that, yeah, I'm not sure if that, I think that answers your question. Yeah, and I wonder as well you, you talk about your, your, your dad in the book and it seems that he's been a really important role model to you, not least because he's had to overcome adversity and challenge and do you find yourself kind of drawing him as a kind of parenting role model as well as thinking about how you support young people through your book and through your work. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a, you know, it's a funny one with, with my dad's, because in some ways he's the blueprint for what not to do, you know, as in, as in his way of managing the suffering that he was going through wasn't a functional thing to do, and it had a lot of knock on effects and a lot of consequences to it right up till, you know, this literally the last few weeks. And at the same time, he always managed to put us first, and he always managed to be there for us and to, and to take his parental responsibilities seriously. And maybe the most important parental responsibility of love. And so in some ways, you know, he's a blueprint for how to be in the world but more than that he's probably a lesson for me about suffering. How it happens, how life can be hard sometimes. How people sometimes deal with it in ways that aren't brilliant. And how there are better ways, there are better ways of, sorry, I can't remember how there are better ways of dealing with it. And so, you know, one of the reasons why I did a PhD in the first place was because of my dad. And not because he said to me, you need to go and do extra studying, because I could see what he was going through. And I was thinking, that is not the best way to be dealing with this. And so, yeah, I mean, yeah, I speak about him, because, you know, it's, I speak about him in the context of, of love and pain, and the two sides of that coin, and how that played out in my with my relationship with him. And specifically reached a point where I was seeing him in pain, and I didn't like that, the pain that that brought me. And so the easiest thing for me to do to manage that pain was just not speak to him. And of course, all I'm doing there is trying to protect myself from pain, but in trying to protect myself from pain, I'm also stopping myself from connecting with someone that's really important to me. And I think that's like the pitch of that particular chapter, which is about, look, if you're going to get into relationships with people. You do so with the knowledge that things might not work out. They might leave. You know, they might be hurt.   And so you're going to have to deal with that pain. Now your other option is you throw that coin away. You just don't love people. If you're going to die, if you're going to be living like you have to go into love, knowing that pain is, you know, it's just a stone's throw away. And so that's the reason why I talked about my dad in that particular chapter, because it just felt like an example that would hopefully make sense to people and inspire them to choose to love with the knowledge that pain is going to be there as well, whether you like it or not. And also because I wanted the writing in the book to be to be personal, I wanted it. I always had this, this, this worry, and my worry was this it's going to sound bizarre but university students don't like reading. And so like I'm writing a book to a population of people that don't generally like to read. And so I was like, how am I going to get over this and of course like, I had to try and write a well being book that was going to be entertaining. Like, it's a book about psychological well being. And so it's not naturally a topic that lends itself well to comedy. And so I've tried my best to sort of like bring that comedic value to it and that entertaining value as well. I also thought like, if I can give myself a little bit in the right and maybe that all, that all wrap people into what I'm going for and it will also like break up the heavier psychology, the heavier, the heavier content to have stories in there as well and so it. Yeah, I hope that that that does function in the way that it was intended when I was when I was writing the book. And dogs. You dedicate the book amongst other people to your dog. You talk about dogs and how happy talk to me about dogs. Yeah, I love dogs. So we, so we, I've grown up with dogs anyway. But I lived in Cyprus for a couple of years. And when we lived in Cyprus, they didn't have a new term program in the north of Cyprus at the time. And so dogs everywhere, and a couple of dogs follow this home after walks. And the one of the one of those dogs is called Dora. Dora is mentioned throughout the book. It's amazing dogs, isn't it?   I think they mean a lot psychologically to people more than what they might expect. Because I'm talking about something slightly different now, but I think they signal the passage of time.  Time has passed and in the background of every picture, there they were in the stock, not really demanding a whole lot from you, but always loyal, always fun and always, you know, having that feeling of like protecting that protecting you. And I think that my experience with dogs is that I've always gone into them thinking that I'm saving them. And then when I look back across time, it turns out they were saving me. And so like I do have like a really special relationship. And so you'll see Dora dotted throughout to the point at which I make a joke at some point in the book, which is if you don't like dogs, I'm really sorry that I've talked about dogs so much in this in this book. But there are just so many stories and little anecdotes that lend themselves well to the points that I was trying to make.  And so like it's difficult to for them not to pop into your mind when you're sat on your laptop typing and so yeah she's she's not all the girl now Dora she's like got anemia at the moment and so she's on like steroids. She's like, I didn't I didn't really fully know this before but steroids apparently make people really people and dogs really hungry and thirsty and so she's wild for food as in pulling tabs of lure pack off the top of the kitchen. Yeah, like she this this morning. She took a banana skin off the kitchen top and ate a banana skin. I know so like she's really wild and she's she's wild food anyway because she was emaciated when we met her as a as a stray dog in Cyprus so she's always had this food thing but now more than ever she's just like I will eat anything she will eat anything. And so. And so yeah but she's she's doing well she's all right. You've got one yourself right. Yeah, you can hear them in the background. Yeah, well, so I live with, we live three generations in one home but we used to live next door to each other so now we all live together we've got, yeah all the combined dogs so yeah one cat and three dogs three dogs is a lot of dogs I'd have to say and whilst we're looking at moving and yeah finding somewhere that's got enough garden for three dogs is. Oh yeah they are a tie aren't they as well as like there are so many times when we think, oh, should we go away for the weekend and we're just like, what are we going to do with Dora. And then a year of a weekend away is gone. And so they are they are definitely a responsibility but I will talk to you as well so I used to when I first have buddy who is my dog so the other term my mother-in-law's really but buddy is my dog and he's a trained kind of therapy dog and he used to go everywhere with me was registered assistance dog because I used to struggle with dissociations I have PTSD and I find myself in kind of unsafe situations but as long as my dog was with me I was generally okay. But the thing was that after a while I found it to be as I got just generally a bit better, I found it more harmful than helpful to have him with me because everyone always wants to talk to you when you have a dog and I'm autistic and that you know you get to the point of kind of completely overwhelmed by about 10 o'clock in the morning if you're travelling around London with the dog so I started travelling without him but no he's brilliant and he still knows you know he now he's just a pet but he knows if I'm having a bad day he won't leave me. It's amazing isn't it how they managed to do that. I always say with dogs that like the way that I walk a door there are like certain rules for dog walking that nobody ever talks about and I'm the type of dog walker that I generally go out to walk to be by myself not to have conversations with people but you naturally get into that dog walking community and so I'm that person that just keeps their head down like no eye contact whatsoever. I'll say hey how you doing and then I'm gone straight away afterwards because that's just not what I'm hoping for as a result of dog walking. I'm hoping for a bit of time. See I think dogs generally are just one of the best things in terms of keeping your mentally well so when we got buddy it was very soon after we tragically lost the dog got run over and I wasn't in a great place and I knew that one of the things that was keeping me well was the fact I had to get up every morning and get out and walk my dog and I've had periods in my life where I've not left the house for weeks and weeks and weeks on end when I've been really poorly. But having a dog meant I had to do the hardest thing first thing every morning and once you've done that everything else is a little bit more manageable isn't it. And that routine that they I think there's lots about having a dog that makes you do your your kind of six things really doesn't it your your connecting routine some exercise and. My wife and I talk about all the time about how you know there are people that we know that don't leave their house enough and that we haven't got a choice. Whether it's raining or there's snowing or there is hailing we're out twice a day walking that dog and then doing so we happen to be exercising and we happen to be connecting with people and it would maybe when you're in the elements you're more likely to be embracing the moment and so there are different things that are going on for you like especially if we go and see the sea or you know you anytime I see the sea I come back and I feel more invigorated as a result of it and the only reason I went to see it was because I knew the dog wasn't walking. And so I think that yeah they bring they do ring a lot of joy. Yeah, I think they give us more than we give them a lot of time don't know if you have to pick one of your your six. What do you think is the most important if people feel like they can only do one of those things in your book one of those things you advise what do you think is the most important. I cheated really, because I, I actually talked about human relationships in two chapters. It was funny it was funny writing the book because I knew that I was cheating but I also had the thought it's my book, I can do what I want with it. Yeah, so in that there are two chapters right there's one called connecting with people and there's one given to people. Now, the connecting with people is is more like a declaration of human relationships from a more shallow level or a less deep level, but the inner chapter given to others after talking about the benefits of for example given the charity or given your time to, to people. I talk about this idea of giving yourself to someone, which is essentially that deeper form of human relationship that you have with very important people in your life and the pain that that that can bring sometimes and why we should still be doing those things. And so I think that that would be, I think that's my major reason for being alive major reason for continuing to want to be alive other people that I love and right now my son, more than more than anyone else but I like people. I like students, I like speaking to students I like getting to know them I like thinking about where they, what their background is and what they're going to be able to go on to achieve and how I might play some small role in helping that to to happen and so that would be the one probably more than more than any of the, any of the others. And that's maybe the hardest one to do at the moment isn't it. Yeah, I think it's, I think it's, I think people easily get into the habit of protecting themselves from other people and the pain that other people can bring and in doing so, stop themselves from doing the most important thing that they could be doing which is which is really connecting with, with people I talk about it in the book so I talk about in that chapter my relationship with my, my son a little bit.  It works like for you. It's like wearing your heart you've got two hearts now you've got your own heart that could stop beating at any point but you've also got this heart over there that if anything happens to that heart over there this heart over here. I don't know what, what, you know how you come back from that and like, and I, and I know that and so the question is then how do I, what am I going to try and do to protect myself from the pain that my son how might that play out and you see it in little ways you know, if he's hurt, am I empathetic and loving towards him or am I angry with him, am I angry and because he's hurt, he's hurt himself and now I've got to see him hurt and I'm, and I'm now in pain as a result of that so you know how, how's that going to play out. And so it's just about trying to have that, have that play out in a, in a better, in a better way than what it might and when you look under the bonnet of what's going on what's actually going on is I really love my son and sometimes when he's hurt, I don't know, I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know what to do with that. And I think you'll see that a lot, a lot under the bonnet when you get into people's relationships and when you talk, when I talk to my students about their parents I always ask my students, why do you think they've done that? You know, if a student's got parents being particularly tough on them, why, why are they, why are they being tough on you? From that perspective, what do they think they're doing? And of course all that, all they're doing is trying to prepare the students for the, for the, as well now it might not be the best thing to do. They might be going the wrong way about it, but what's actually underneath the bonnet there is just love. It's just, I want to help in some way and this is what I think might help. And I think that that allows students to have more patience and compassion and love for the people around them because they know what the intention is for those people. The people might not get it right, but they know what the intention is. Sometimes what we need to do and what feels like the right thing can be different, they can't know, I mean you mentioned earlier having watched the video of myself with Lyra, so Lyra struggles with school based anxiety and actually she's gone through a pretty good period recently but having gone back from the most recent longer lockdown period, things have got really hard for her again. And I know because you know you Google this stuff, I'm the person you'll find and know about this stuff. As a parent, it's completely different and taking my daughter to school in the morning and when she is in that state of anxiety and all she wants me to do is scoop her up and take her home with me. That would be a completely natural and normal thing to do and it feels like the kind thing to do but I know it's the wrong thing to do. And it's so, so hard to override that you know. And again, like you say, the amount that that drains you as a parent, I feel for her way more deeply than I ever ever feel for myself. And yeah, by the time that I've said goodbye to her and I've done that you know calm and smiley and I get in my car and I'm a wreck. I know ideally when I took on parenting, but yeah, I mean, like, you know, when you're on that school run.  I'm going to do that right now. And you know that it's going to do the no favors in the in the long term.  How do we get on with the day now knowing that our world is now over there and you've just had to go through that for the last hour, and you do feel physically physically drained. Yeah, that I totally get what you're saying. At that point, of course, we don't play with the Legos and he's fine, but. And you always, I was just frustrating me because I pick him up from school and I'd say how how school said I really liked it. It's really fun. And then the next day when you take him to school, he'd be, I don't want to go to school, I hate school. And he'd say, but yesterday you said you really liked it. And he was like, I still don't want to go to school. I hate school until he like he forgets really easy. I just like learn from your experience kid if you have a good day like that register in your brain so that you're not stressing me out in the mornings when you go into school telling me that you you hate it there. And so yeah it is. It's hard. It's hard and this is something that just plays out at all forever. Yeah, this thing of like why do people do the things that they're doing and as soon as, as soon as you start thinking that way, honestly, life gets a lot easier because you start to really see the function of people's behavior and you start to think okay, all right, they didn't get it right. I could see why they were doing it and I really appreciate it and I'm grateful for that.  Human beings are so tricky. There's so much for people to deal with. And so it's hard and that's the same at the same university for some students. So, you know, I think that I said to my agent, which is a weird thing for me to have to say, but this sounds strange even as I say the words. I said this is the only book I'm writing. So I'm not writing another book. Like this was the book that I was meant to write. I know that this was the book I was meant to write. And he was like, yeah, all right to say that. I said, no, no, really, I think this is it. I don't have got anything left to say. I think this is, this is the, the one and so there's nothing tokenistic in the book. There's nothing put in there that I didn't need to be in there and I wrote it to be real, to be real and to be genuinely useful and not to sell books and not for money and not for fame or any of those things just because this is my contribution. Do you know what I mean? This is my, this is these are the things I've learned one young people to know. And if it helps 10 people, 100 people, 1000 people, one person, I've done, I go to bed now, feeling like I've feeling proud of I've done something I put something together that I really think is going to be useful for university students and I send it to my students, Yui, and of course, they're tainted by the fact that like that I often supervise them and so it sort of is in their benefit to like my book, but like some of them have had some really deep and meaningful experiences as a result of reading the book and so like I, it's not just that I think it could help I sort of, I know that I know that it can because I've not had 30 to 50 students that I've read it and said things have just changed for me slightly as a result of reading the book and so it's a really sort of fulfilling feeling to think that I've done this and yeah I said to my wife, I'm done. I'm done now and I'm going to go and I'm going to work maybe in a forest school or as a postman or just do something outdoors. I'm done with academia. I'm done with writing. I'm done with pushing the boundaries. I'm now ready. I've done my thing. I've done everything that I wanted to do and now I think I'm ready to go and buy a caravan in West Wales and sort of live that. Your students are lucky to have you. It's funny just as you're saying that I was just trying to reflect on my own time at university and just one conversation and actually my tutor was generally very good, but I just remember one time me walking in for a tutor on her just saying, don't get any thinner or we'll have to send you home and I know and you know that you wouldn't want that. I think you take maybe a slightly different tack than that, don't you? I was anorexic at the time just for the record. That's why the weird comment wasn't necessarily something she knew about. But yeah, I think your approach may be a little better. To be fair, I do try and you'll pick this up from the book. I try to be straight. Your tutor there was probably too straight, but I do try to be straight. Look, life's hard. I wish it wasn't. I wish you're suffering, whatever it is you're going through. I wish it wasn't happening if you wish I could take it where I can't. And do you know what? There's no one in the world that can. There's no magic bullet that exists out there. There are never mental health problems.  They're problems that arise as a result of being a human being. And so it is a humbling experience to do that and to try and be straight with people in a way that's loving and also soft. I get it wrong so much. People will sometimes say, wow, you're really blunt. I'm just like, yeah, I got it wrong then because I don't ever want to come across as sounding blunt because I want it to be seen as coming from a loving place. But sometimes you've got to be hard and you've got to be straight with people and maybe that can help them accept. Okay, life is hard. Okay, I want to draw some feelings. I've got to make friends with them. I've got to have them on my journey of life. And now that I know those things, now what's life going to be about for me? What am I going to chase? What am I going to dream of? How am I going to make the world a better place? Yeah, I don't think that your shooter got that right. And I'm sure there are students out there right now thinking, hang on, this one time he said this to me. And so yeah, I'm sure I'm a little bit too blunt with them sometimes as well. She did great things for me. Hopefully in a useful way, you know. What final thought would you like to leave people with as we wrap up? Oh, do you know, a final thought to leave people with? It's tricky as well because you don't know who's listening. So if there were, if I knew, you know, a lot of students were listening right now, there would be a different final thought to a lot of maybe teaching personnel or whatnot. And so I'll address it sort of like the layperson rather than to the students because my gut would be that that would be the audience that's likely to be listening to this. So my final message would be the trick in life is to keep going. And that's it. That's that's that after 36 years of living in this world, all I've got is life can be tough. There are going to be storms and there are going to be clouds and there's going to be sunshine as well. And in fact, the only thing that we can do is to try to keep going when life gets tough so that by the time life gets less tough, we are the wheels of our life are still in motion. And if you want tips for how to keep going and like also where to keep going the sort of behaviors that you might want to think about doing, then you know my book will give you some ideas for that. It's not going to solve the world's problems or anything, but it might it might be useful for you for when things get tough.  And so yeah, that's it. That's all I've got is, you know, just try and try and keep going, try and keep those feet moving, even when life's hard.


Yep. Don't like her. I think I'm pretty good. Hold on one second. I think it's something in my pocket. I don't want to have my pocket. Okay. Clear the pocket. I'm good. All right. Rock and roll. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another installment of talk VTV USA James and Ryan here as always today. We are bringing you our way too early Everton. Squad analysis following the first three matches for matches unbeaten of the campaign. Just a reminder as part of the American taffy podcast, we did do a gigantic four part squad assessment prior to the hiring of Rafa. How are we looked hours, hours and hours that goes very in depth to all of the current players in squad save some of the new faces. And so if you want to go back and check that out, you can find that on our podcast feed. Otherwise, if you haven't already subscribed to taffy TV, like this video, leave us a comment. If you enjoy it, we're going to get right into things here. I think of the squad assessment. We kind of had five key points that we were looking at. That would be key opportunities for a new manager to exploit or leverage in order to improve the current squad or options they could take in the summer window to improve the squad. And we're going to look at the first few matches of the Everton season and some stats and analysis as we so often do that sort of support some of the things that we had decided and look at what is Rafa done well, essentially. And then towards the end, we'll look at some of the remaining, let's call them opportunity areas for the manager. That's so business positive of you. Yeah. And the nice part about doing the assessment, it was a lot of work, but I felt like both of us gained a lot of knowledge in terms of what Rafa has done in the past. And while our five big things, our solutions, maybe we didn't think he was the perfect person to implement all of them. Some of the things, we thought there were about five things that we decided to come up with independent. Some are the same. Some are different that we think his tactics could could help because we're seeing a very familiar tactical base from him. You know, the 4231 is his baby defending in 442 and sometimes attacking in not really 442, more like a 4411, but we saw that in the past. So, so without further ado, kind of the five areas, the first area we thought was initially we're hoping a new manager could come in and play a little bit more of maybe possession based modern football. You know what I mean? Dominating the ball. And Rafael Benitez is not that type of person, which is fine. If you're going to not dominate the ball, he likes to dominate the space and that's okay.  No, he won't be big on possession, but he wants to, you know, have less possession in the defensive zone as well and move the ball very quickly up the field. He prefers long direct passing rather than carrying the ball to move it more rapidly from back to front. And we were hoping that since he brings a certain degree of attacking design to his counters, they're very well scripted typically, that will result in greater creation from open play. We hoped.  We're like 19th in possession at 37.3%, but that's not really as important as maybe, you know, our degree of possession and where we're possessing the ball. Is it not? Absolutely. Most Evertonians, you know, it almost hasn't felt like the lack of possession. We haven't felt it so much watching the matches because the possession that we have had has been, as you said, with that attacking intent, with trying to get the ball forward rapidly. Yeah. And the numbers support that. So we're 19th in the league in total touches, just under 500 per match. Now you look at where those touches take place is the key part here. So in the defensive third, we're 13th in the league. In the middle third, second to last in the league again. In the attacking third, 11th in the league, 100, almost 150 touches per match. And then in the penalty area, about 23 touches per match, which puts us at 10th. So towards the bottom of the league at. Defensive possession in around the back line and then almost dead last in the middle, but really focusing on getting the ball in those dangerous areas into the attacking third and. Trying to have most of our possession there. Yeah, you can see it too.  I mean, we're 11th in progressive passes. And we're like 19th in total passes. You know what I mean? And that, but actually we're second in the league. You know, we did a little, little statistical calculation here. We're actually second in the league in progressive passes per pass attempt. And that's pretty impressive. So meaning as, even though we're not getting a lot of passes and a lot of possession, when we do it's going forward with some intense, you know, it's progressing us up the field, but not surprisingly, since we're playing a lot more vertical, you know, we're 19th in the league and switches in the field in terms of passes. That's not surprising, right? We're watching it. We are going direct. We're going vertical, not as much horizontal. So that shouldn't be a surprise. And again, what else do we see fewer carries? I mean, our progressive carry distance, 18th in the league. And I think that's okay. You know, Rafael Benitez does not want to do that. He wants to dominate certain areas of space. And when it gets there, when it back, you know, it's trapping basically allowing the team, trapping that bang, sending it up the field as quickly as possible. And the ball moves faster, you know, without the people, you know, very, very, I think the only negative here that we see statistically is we're probably dribbling a little too much. We'll get to that in a second. But I think all of this has helped result into what was our last point. Hopefully more open play creation. And we're seeing that for sure. Absolutely. Definitely seeing an improved creation. We'll look at point number two here, which was, I mean, in our squad assessment, we thought a new right wing, a new right back. Now, obviously we did get gray and Andrews Townsend in to support wide play. We didn't get the right back. Much has been made about that. But we do have now some more options on the wing that can mix and match as Rafa likes to do with his wingers. They can switch sides. They can come cut inside or stay wide. And we're really not seeing so much of a focus on crossing and dribbling the ball, but focus creating shots and getting up and down the pitch very quickly. Yeah. And we're using the full backs a little differently too. So I mean, the wide play is different. And look, we didn't spend a lot of money, but I think we actually did a fairly cost effective job and bringing some players in that fit maybe a little bit better in the Raphael, but this Benita scheme. And you can't argue with the results. I mean, we talked about creation from open play and we're the fourth highest non penalty expected goals per 90 at 1.53. I mean, that's massive, right? But how are we doing? So the full backs are very involved. The two highest touches on the team per 90, Dean and Coleman. Look, we're not crossing that much. That's true. We didn't think he would cross that much anyway, even with Calvert Luhan or someone like Townsend who's great at crossing the ball. And as a result, we've only had 29 crosses. That's 14th in the league. But the crosses have been a lot more effective for sure. I mean, we're fourth most accurate crossing percentage, according to why scouts. And I think probably the biggest individual impact is Luca Dean because he's way down in crossing volume, but his crosses has still been very effective. Yeah. Look, Luca Dean in his time at Everton has averaged over four crosses per 90 since he's been here for three full seasons. Now he's at less than two, basically barely over one. I know per 90. So that's massive way less huge drop. And we remember how often Luca Dean would rely on his crosses as one of our sole sources of creating opportunities. But now his crossing percentage went from 33% to 50% this year. So he's connecting on half of his crosses, even though he's not taking early spending. Yeah, it's a small sample size.  And his creation is way up.  I mean, it's over three, it's 3.33 per 90. I mean, and from open play, if this isn't coming from set pieces, I mean, it's almost a full shot per 90 more from last year. And it's the highest it's been at Everton, you know, I mean, he has eight shot created actions from live passes alone. I think the other individual that it's really benefited is that it is Damari Gray. Cause we talked about the reason why he was only, you know, 1.7 million pounds in terms of a fee. And yes, I know that was a release clause, but why would that be so low?  And historically his crossing has not been very effective. Yeah, his crossing in his career thus far until arriving at Everton, 27.2% accuracy rate. And that's with almost three and a half crosses per 90 across all of the leagues he's played in Bundesliga primarily, but he strikes the ball so well. It's almost hard to believe, right? Right. It's unbelievable. And then you look this year, he goes from 3.4 to 2.58. But again, similar to Luke Dean, the completion percentage skyrockets, 27.2%, 62.5% this season. Again, very early, but strong indication that Rafa wants guys banging crosses into dangerous areas into the six and more importantly, most importantly, knowing where players are going to be and knowing that he can find them with those crosses. Yeah, I think he's through. Benitez is doing such a good job with Damari Gray. I mean, when we watched him at Leverkus and we talked about this on the pod too. And we said, look, he's the reason why he's not a great cross or the ball is not because he can't deliver across is because, you know, his vision isn't that great.  He's dwelling on the ball. So the opportunity is lost. He's sporadic. You know, there was no pattern where he puts it, but look, you see him on set pieces. And when he has to shoot a ball, I mean, he strikes the ball so cleanly. And he's good with his left foot too. So to me, it seems very obvious. If you go back and look at every one of his crosses this year and getting small sample size, everyone is where it's all the same place. I mean, don't we think that's Rafa. Benitez very clearly saying, hey, look, let's simplify things for you. Let's get you to play more direct. And that he's got to just demand from him. You know, that's part of the scheme. We're seeing that he's giving a lot of freedom to do that. But where is every cross going? Straight to the six, right to the six.  It helps that he's totally on fire and shooting the ball. I mean, I think he's, he's fourth in the Premier League and non penalty goals versus expected goal difference. Again, he's banged in two goals with his left foot. You know, he's very right foot at a time. Yeah. So I mean, that's a good example of the wide play is different. You know, maybe we wanted it in a different way and we didn't buy the right back, but we're getting the most out of what we've got using him intelligently. So I think the third point here is one that, that I think Raphael is showing that we wanted any new manager to come in. And I think he's doing a very good job with this one. And that's that interplay between the two defensive mids or central mids in the 4231 or 442. I mean, we knew that he traditionally, we go through all the combinations in the team assessment that he's ever had. You know, typically he's got one that sits back a little bit more and the other one's a little more aggressive. Some of them are more passers like a Javi Alonzo, but most of them, you know, are energy guys with athleticism. What we saw a lot last year was some issues with shape as well too. Not only were they not involved in the attack, because what did we say in the team assessment? We need to get more out of Decore and Alon, right? But we also saw some shape issues where, whether it was the center half being too scared to go up, there's too much space behind them in the, you know, that those lines are too open. But I would say, you know, we thought Alon might struggle a little bit and Decore would probably thrive. I think Alon's adapting very quickly. And I don't think the shape's been great, but against Brighton, the shape was wonderful. And I think that was really encouraging. And I think this is where Benitez is making a big difference. So if we go through them one by one, we thought Alon might be an adjustment, right? I mean, he likes to carry the ball. He knows he has to move it quickly. I think it just shows what an intelligent player he is by starting to adapt, but his creation numbers are way up too. And that is a good news story, I think. Yeah, because he was one of the best possession based midfielders in all of Europe, perhaps the world and his time in Napoli and obviously brought in under Carlo kind of thinking he would continue to play in that mold. Yeah, not going to happen under Rafa. So he has to make the, he has to adapt if he wants to play. And obviously he's very skilled. So he can create, he can drive the ball forward, but we didn't see that at all from him really under Carlo. Now, this season so far, he's had two goal created actions already. And he, that's his matches is total from all of us here. And I remember in like the first match, he had a shot on target within the first 10 minutes. Oh my God. And he had like two all last season. So it just shows the difference. Yeah. I mean, look at his touches are up, you know, 10 touches in the final third per 90 so far up from, you know, he was under seven decor is no surprise though. Actually, what's probably surprising is that he's not getting a lot of tackles in interceptions, but everything else is way up.  He's played in Watford and in a silver attack, you know, and he just seemed natural and he seemed somewhat neutered last year. You know, he just, you wanted to see him do more. So he's got fewer touches overall, but he's got more in the attacking third 15 to, you know, under 13, but some of the things are shocking. He's got 16 progressive passes. He's 15th in the whole league. That's over five per 90. I mean, last year he only had 65. The whole year was averaging like 2.4. I mean, that's like twice as much. And that was the lowest in his career. I mean, he's got 39 progressive passes in the Leeds match.  You know, he didn't have more than five in any match last year. And the thing that's shocking is that his passing accuracy is still so good. So as a team, we've made the second most amount of passes under pressure of anyone else in the Premier League. And that's partially due to our opponents, right? I mean, Southampton, Bright Leeds, they pressure, right? Decori has made 39 passes under pressure. He's second in the league at doing that. Yet he's still almost at 85% from a completion rate. And look at the shots created actions are over three. He's never been close to that, his career. He is getting into the attack. Three shots on target. How many did he have all of last year? Five. So he's all right. So you're looking at guys that are almost equaling their offensive output after three games that I had all of last year, which is crazy. And then you look at his defensive numbers. Like you said, he's not getting as many tackles and interceptions, but the recoveries are way up. So he's kind of just like cleaning up the junk. He's got 14.3 recoveries per 90, which is his best since 17, 18 interceptions and tackles are down. So not being quite as aggressive, going to win the ball, but he's really cleaning up all the mess is winning loose balls, knowing where to be and anticipating when guys are going to disrupt play so that he can be there to pick up the scraps and progressing it up the field. You know, and that's what he needs. And we're seeing that. So, so the fourth point was pressure. You know, we were hoping maybe of a more modern high pressure system, we're not seeing the high pressure. And maybe it's the opponents a little bit here. I don't think our numbers going to be this high all year. But look, once opponents get to a point, we're going to control that space. It's an active low block. It's at times it's been higher than that this year so far, but this isn't Carlo Ancelotti parking the bus. There is some activity. Once I get to a point in a space, we own that space and we go after him. And our pressure numbers, I think are indicative of that. I mean, our pressures total were six in the league, but where the pressures are happening or not really a surprise, even though I think that total is going to go down because we didn't anticipate to depress high a lot. And I think the numbers indicate that as well. Yeah, it's kind of the opposite of what we see where our touches are coming in possession. We're seeing we're seventh in the league and pressures in our own defensive third drops a little bit to ninth in the league. When you talk about the middle third and then in the attacking third, we drop down to 11th. Yeah. Yeah.  You know, mostly in the defensive third, I think he'd like us to see us tackle a little bit better. And we've got more, more times dribble past than anyone else in the league, but we also have the most tackle attempts, you know, but it's all, you know, kind of in the defensive third, but look, you know, that's okay. You know, I like that percentage to be higher, but that'll come as you get familiar and once you get familiar with the tactic, you can be more aggressive with it. You know what I mean? So I think, you know, we talked about a couple of people to our fifth point, which is the most important one. Last year, we wanted to just say play the attacking players, you know, or just use the existing personnel better is probably the more universal thought process behind it. So look to Corey much better along much better. Gray simplified his game. He looks just absolutely amazing right now. One guy we have not talked about, which is probably a shock to everyone that we haven't even mentioned his name so far yet. And we're what, you know, 15 minutes in is Alex a woby. Now look, I think we knew this was coming a little bit. Let's be honest. We've talked enough about Alex a woby and what he's capable of and frankly, you know, we've championed the potential that he has on the show a lot last season in news. I think what we've seen thus far in this campaign is that you use a guy where he's most effective, you're going to see results from that. Yeah, right. I would argue actually he still played a little too defensively against Leeds, but that's okay. But that's kind of been a right side so far this year, you know what I mean? Coleman's putting up amazing defensive numbers. He said help from Townsend and a woby did a good job in that match. But look, the key to his game is what we've always said is touches in the penalty area. When he gets the ball and he can carry into there too, you know, he doesn't have to do that. Doesn't have to receive a pass in there. He's not limited in that way. When he gets in there, he creates havoc. You know, and Arsenal, he averaged almost six per 90 in Everton, both prior years under three. Like that's half as many. That's doesn't mean that's just utilizing a guy in a strange way this year. He's back around six. He's over six.  We mentioned he was almost four. His last two years per 90. I mean, that's like top of the league this year. He's over five. Now it's small sample. It's lower minutes. Maybe we should play him some more, especially in the middle, but that number is fifth in the Premier League. And he's third from open play in terms of shot created actions. Again, you know, same thing with go created actions already got two in the Premier League at five last year in the two year before, and we haven't even talked about his cup performance. And guess what?  So and his progression is still up. So, so look, the bottom line is we're getting more out of a woby, I think, because we're using him to his, to his benefit. One person we haven't really even talked about too much is Pickford.   He can release the ball quickly. He's playing great.  So for right now, I feel good about that. You know, you never know when he's going to have a lull and it looks like he's taking things seriously. So that's a lot of positives. Do we see any issues here? There were some signs of concern or things that maybe just haven't caught up to what Raphael wants to do yet. Yeah, I think we're still sort of searching for that attacking combination that Rafa like so much and has had success with in the past. And that is of course playing with a big number nine, a big target striker and then someone behind him, usually not a second striker, though you could call it that, a more creative player who is more versatile, perhaps. And it seems like he thus far has wanted to use Richard listen in that role. But I think Ryan, you have, and I also have some questions about how well he seems to be suited for that role and if it makes sense to really place him there. Yeah, I think he's a poor fit for just from in terms of what his skills are and what he excels in. You know, he tends to dwell on the ball a little much. He's one of our best players, but I want him in a space where he can take a little time, beat someone off the dribble and create his own shot. He's not able to do that. I mean that player needs to, there's no player in a Raphael Benita setup that can dwell on the ball. He has to move it quickly. And I think that's hard in the middle of the field. I mean, that is a really important player in his scheme.  And we saw it initially at Liverpool too with Luis Garcia where he took a converted right wing and made him into more of this kind of dynamic vertical playmaker though, even though a lot of goals too, with teaming up with like Nieland Baruch, you know, that's a good example. Eventually Gerard played in their retories, but like all these guys moving the ball quickly, you know, there's no slow down like like Juan Mati. Juan Mati scored like 11 goals for Chelsea in his first year with Raphael Benita. I think nine in the league. I mean, that's, he's not a swift player. You know, he's not a big physical guy like where Charleston, but but he's thoughtfully smart. He has vision. He could move the ball quickly and find the guy Wesley Schneider at Inter. And God knows what that team would have been like if Malito was healthier. Ato had in the head by that guy. Right.  Gareth Bale is like, well, he's kind of like Gareth Bale. No. When Gareth Bale played that position, which was really odd, he played Gareth Bale in that position and Ham is right. Right. That was strange. I think, you know, in Isco, some left and it was a bad combination. I thought at times, but Bale was like a one touch player then, you know, he was not dwelling on the ball. And that's what we don't see from where Charleston. I just, I don't think he has tremendous vision as a player, not bad vision. His first touch is a little sloppy, but not out of expediency. It's because he's physical and he can hold people off. I don't think that's the demand in that role. And I think he's slowing down our counter. You know what I mean? And, and like Newcastle's last one, I OZ Perez kind of roamed around and got rid of the ball quickly. So, so like, I just don't see that combination when I look at all those comps. You know what I mean? I just don't see anyone over there that says, oh, yeah, that's where Charleston. So maybe he could adapt.  His creation numbers are up. His creation numbers are up a little bit, but the turnovers, I mean, he is giving the ball away more than anyone else in the league. And I mean, I, I think it's because I think it is very obvious to watch that it's a problem. I don't know how you feel the numbers are pretty damning for sure. Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that he's struggled. He's, he's hasn't been as effective. It's a new role. It's a new role though. I mean, a lot of people think, well, no, he's been a second center forward, but, but this is different. Right. I mean, I'm trying to emphasize this is not just throw two center forwards up like Carlo would do. This is a very distinct role working off a target guy that he's not done a whole lot of in his career. Really. Right. And you want Richard listen. I think we do particularly, as you said, wide being able to run it guys. When he's in that central position, he tends to it affects his decision making.  He's, he's eighth in the league and dribbles per 90, but under 40% and can are a little under 50% and can success rate, which Rafa's not going to really like, especially when that's such a key focal position for moving the ball quickly and he's actually instigating attack is actually 38.5%. I mean, he's way down. You know what I mean? Like fifth in league and it's only 13. But like, and none of those guys that have dribbled that much is really, really, you know, no one on the team is even more than seven too. So we're not dribbling anymore, especially not in that role. So I think you said, what you said is right, you know, I like him wide too. If he's going to be in the middle as his goal score, that's fine. But you saw what happened in bright when Dom went down. I thought we functioned very well with him as the center forward and that may be his best position, but I don't like it doesn't. So look to stats that that FB ref keeps track of his miscontrols and dispositions, you know, miscontrol is a bad touch. I mean, he's got 12. He's fourth in the premier league. Don has 10, but you expect that from him.  Yeah, he's been dispossessed 12 times to that second. No one else on the team has more than six. And look, I mean, you take those, that's four per 90 on both sides, eight in total. It's the worst in the league. So if you add miscontrols to dispossession, just call it turnovers to use an American term. He's worse than the league. That's a league that has Wilfrid Zaha in it. You know, so, but to me, like that's twice as worse and much worse than he was last year where he was at under two on one and just over two on the other means 200% up. You know, that is not good. He needs to move the ball. He needs to expedient. It's just to me, it's not working. It's slowing us down. It'll be interesting to see when and how Rafa may make a decision. Maybe we're catering too much to him. He really wants to play central, but there's no reason he couldn't play the gray role as well with the freedom he has and get inside when it matters. And someone else can play that position and get him the ball in dangerous places. I think that's what we'd like to see. I can think of a player or two that could play that position despite not being used at Real Madrid that way. No, I'm not talking to Alex Wolby. Although I think Alex Wolby is very better suited for that position, frankly, than. Yes. And I think we're Charleston would benefit getting the ball from those types of guys. Maybe that hurts gray. Maybe you move gray to the right, you know, whatever. But I'm talking about obviously about Hamas Rodriguez. And well, he's back. Still a lot of narratives around this. And we kind of knew some of this drama would happen the second we hired Rafael Benitez. Did we not? Yeah, it seemed inevitable. Look, it was questionable. It was questionable from at least after Rafa was hired. Questionable whether how committed Hamas would be to Everton following the departure of Carlo Rancho. I think it was pretty much accepted that that was the reason that he came here in the first place. Not to say that he didn't have any interest in sticking around. Had we brought in a manager with some different ideas who wanted to use Hamas as a focal point of the team, he could have been persuaded. Now it seems everyone's hands been forced in the situation. Hamas is not going to get a move away. People were saying, you know, oh, he wants to move away. He's talking about leaving on Twitch all the time and anything. Are we overblowing some of these Twitch comments? Did he ever say on Twitch that he wanted to leave on Twitch? I don't think he ever said that. No, never once. So he said, he said, I don't know what's going on with my future. Things change in football. Of course. Things you would expect someone in his position to probably say. Yeah. I mean, look, he has a big audience. He has people. He's going to talk to him. He's got, you know, his Instagram flash is like 55 million. It's going to happen. And look, he's smart. He knows what he's saying. He's not going to even if he felt that way, he wouldn't say it. But the evidence that he wants away. And look, I don't think he's passionate about Everton, but I also don't think he's like I hate it here. I think he's just kind of, you know, it's where he is. And he's okay with it. That's that's the vibe I get from him. But everyone points to, well, his agent Mendez was, you know, pushing him around and offering around other clubs. Well, he's the guy who brought him there was leaving. Like, is that an unnatural thing? And do we not know who Mendez is? I mean, is that does that any evidence to you not? Is that evidence to you that he suddenly just wants out? Or is this just an agent being an agent, especially him? If agent shopping players around to other clubs means the players want out, then probably like 90% of the squad wants out of Everton because that's just what agents do. They want to get themselves another payday. They do that by securing moves to other teams. And so I think the reaction and the negative sort of attitude that's that's been curated against Thomas is probably a little overblown. I still think he's arguably our best and most talented technical player and sure steams perfect, almost a perfect fit or really good fit for that kind of second striker or creative player. Look, he may not have the same type of attributes that Rafa typically looks for. But there's no question the guy can create shots. And if you get him in that central area where he typically thrives with those with that pace and with those guys around him, I think good things could probably come from it. It's just a question of can these two make amends? Can these two get over this? And what does Hamas really wanted? Does he want to get back in a Colombian squad with the World Cup approaching? Like all these sorts of outside factors, but it seems like it makes perfect sense to slot Hamas in at that number 10 position. I think it's the most natural position for him to play regardless of how Rafa used him at Real Madrid. I mean, this isn't Real Madrid. We don't have that kind of position. I mean, Benzema or Ronaldo up top today. You know, it's kind of a different level. Solomon Ronda. We called it. We called it. No, I think, look, I think likely what happened was that, you know, Mendez shot them around because that's what he does. And I think when Benitez was announced, I'm sure Hamas is like, you know, we don't get along. And I think that's obvious. It was a very public spat in Madrid. And, you know, so I understand some willingness to look at offers. But look, where do we think this narrative comes from that he can't play that kind of second striker attacking central midfield thing? I mean, number one, he doesn't work on defense. Well, okay. I mean, maybe he's not killing himself sometimes, but I don't think the defensive responsibilities in that role are that brutal. I mean, he's smart enough clear to the prevent passes from going into a six. You know, he's not running around pressing like a maniac here. You know what I mean? Will he be as good defensively as for Charleston? No, but if you move for Charleston into a wide space, and I don't think he has a single tackle this year, but you know what I mean? Like he's really valuable as a defensive player in the wide spaces. And certainly if you're going to put Hamas in the middle and move for Charleston, say over right or left and kick Andrus Townsend out of the starting lineup, that is a massive upgrade. No offense to Andrus Townsend. And you could say, well, we lack athleticism with Hamas. This just in Townsend ain't that quick either. So I don't know. I mean, I personally think that he would fit best in that role and would be effective. Maybe he's only there for 60 minutes and a woby can come in and spell him. And we've seen how good Alex is running around with the ball like a maniac against tired legs. So I just think you've got him. You've got to use him. I think that's the role he naturally has to play. I even think Charleston may even be better if Don's hurt and spelling him a set of Rondon. I think there are a lot of combinations we have there. But anyway, I think overall though, I think, you know, with the exception of a little struggling with the new role and Don maybe not finishing that great. I mean, honestly, I think things are massively improved. I mean, I think the team, again, it's three games. You know, and the opponents were not. I mean, they aren't top six clubs. But I think things are improved. I see more intent from Rafael Benitez. And I think some players are getting a result, you know, a bump. And I think we're seeing a better unit already and certainly a more, more actively managed team. And I think we're benefiting as a result. I think the actively managed thing is so key. And though a lot's been made, I think Carlos time at Everton has been kind of distilled down to like the offhand just play comment that was allegedly made. Spirit. More spirit. Obviously there was more done off the pitch than that. But I do think it's clear that, that Rafa having a very rigid system does benefit certain guys in this squad who do need that sort of specific instruction. And we're seeing some members of the squad read the benefits. And I think given enough time and given enough diversity of opponents, for example, obviously the Burnley match will be a very interesting change of pace for the squad because the three teams we've played are sort of mid table contenders who all play a very similar style. The interesting to see what Rafa has up his sleeve for some of these different tactical approaches within the Premier League and elsewhere. Yeah. He's creating some freedom for the people that need it and it's rigid in every other way. And we're seeing some of the benefits of that. I'm really the center mid play in particular, I think in Brighton really made me feel good. That was a very well played game. We were terrific. But on the very different tests coming up on Monday. But either way, I think both of us say thumbs up so far. I think Rafael Benitez is doing a good job.  Would have been nice to get a right back, but we'll see how it plays out. But I think after three games, it's safe to say there's some good trends here. I think we're seeing the Benitez that we thought we would with the tweak or two. And hopefully you as an audience, if this helped at least understand what we're seeing, maybe you agree. Feedback, we always welcome it. And we always appreciate the opportunity to come in here and talk shop on toffee TV. 100%. Yes. Thank you everyone for listening. We hope that you enjoyed it. If you agreed, if you disagree, leave us a comment below. We'd love to read them. Otherwise. Thank you again so much. If you want to find all of our content on the American toffee podcast, you can find all of our links to social media, all the podcast platforms at link tr dot ee slash USA toffee pod. That's L I N K T R dot ee slash USA toffee pod. Give us a subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. Hope you check us out. We appreciate everyone listening. And as Ryan said, always grateful and honored to be a part of toffee TV. This concludes our this episode of toffee TV USA. Thanks to everyone again. And until next time up the toffees cut.


Hi, today I'm here to talk about blur in KDE. Now what we usually call blur is actually a more complex effect structure. So there is the applet which is transparent. Underneath it there's the blur effect, the actual blur effect. Then there's the contrast effect and then there's your wallpaper. So let's go through those four phases. So first one there's the applet and the behavior and appearance of the applet is defined in the plasma theme. I've done lots of videos on the plasma theme so I'm assuming you know what that one is. Then there is the blur effect. And the blur effect has some very nice features. First of all it's very fast. It uses a dual colors algorithm, if I remember correctly. It was introduced this algorithm in 5.13 I think. And it allowed us to use very high radius for the blur without compromising neither CPU time nor you know the appearance of the result. And secondly the blur effect is also very color accurate because there was a post in error slash KDE that said that when transitioning from colors there's a common mistake that produces some black bars in the middle. And we actually fixed that so it is very color accurate. So those are the features of the blur algorithm which is super nice. But it's not just a matter of the blur because if there's just blur then you're going to get a very bad contrast ratio for what's over it because you will have black text on black background if you have a dark wallpaper. So what we decided to do is to add a contrast effect. So the contrast effect works like this. It's a normal let's say normal image editing tool. So you have actually three options which are contrast intensity which is actually luminosity and saturation. And you can change the three values independently. Now the contrast is something that takes dark colors and make them lighter. Takes light color of course and make them lighter as well. The saturation brings the color more to life like if there's something that's kind of red it makes it super red. And then finally the intensity luminosity again makes everything a bit lighter but does not actually alter dark wallpapers or pure black. Contrast as the first effect is what we use to take the black and make it a bit lighter. So if you have a completely black wallpaper for any reason you can still get a readable text over it because it's not going to get as complete black even at the outlet level. It's going to get lighter. And then of course since we're at it we also use the saturation effect to pump up the saturation and makes color more visible. That's why many people disabling the contrast effect say that they do not longer see transparency. Well transparency is still there. You still see it. But the problem is that the color behind the blur is suddenly much more saturated so it's not as noticeable. If you think about it, super red is very easy with a little bit of tint to see it but a red ish that's close to white not as much. So that is why contrast effect seem to influence blur when it actually doesn't at all. Then there's your wallpaper. And the hard part of this whole stack is that we have to design it regardless of the wallpaper you're going to use because if we had to ship like five wallpapers and that's it no more wallpapers then it would be super easy with just hard-coded values but there are some crazy, busy and some very minimalistic wallpapers and we have to design for both of them. And it's actually really hard because first of all you have dark wallpapers and those need to be lightened up. Then you also have wallpapers with colors that are either very light or very dark and those need to be saturated. But sometimes you also get some wallpapers like the one using C which do have some color, sometimes even pretty strong and when you actually saturate those wallpapers you oversaturate them and the color resulting is not very natural. So that's the issue that we have at the contrast effect level to adapt to your wallpaper. The blur is not really involved in all of this.  So what we're trying to do is design something that's better than contrast effect that's something we're experimenting with. Now that could lead to some new effect or maybe we just need to use the contrast effect better. And that's actually pretty much it for how it works so you now should have a clear idea of the stack. Wallpaper contrast effect that takes the redish yellowish color and actually pump up their saturation. Then the contrast actual effect that lightens up everything together with luminosity. We cannot use luminosity too much otherwise we're going to end up with very light colors even when there shouldn't be there. And then you actually have the blur which is again very fast and very color accurate so I often see comments saying we should improve the blur effect. Now actually the blur effect is I think perfect. The problem is above and underneath it. And then there's the applet which is actually what decides the amount of transparency for the whole theme. Now technically we could set the applet to 100% transparency and it wouldn't look like it is because the contrast effect already provides a bit of luminosity and contrast meaning that it will have some white overlay. It will seem as if there's a white overlay. So if you disable both the transparency of the applet and the contrast effect then it's just blur. But the contrast effect already provides some sort of overlay and of course we use that to allow us more transparency at the applet level. Now the issue is that if you have a light theme or a dark theme well things change because the contrast effect should adapt to the shoe because lightness is something that you really need if you're using a light theme and something that you don't need at all if you're using a dark one. Kind of. So what we are actually doing in theory is to adapt the contrast effect to the luminosity of the color skin. However we are not actually doing that because it doesn't fit our use case well enough because if you actually see what colors are generated what intensity values are generated from the color scheme they are not good enough. So we currently have just one intensity effect for both light theme and dark theme. This is why we cannot act on the breeze dark theme to make it darker in regard to transparency because we need to use a value that works both for breeze dark and breeze light and that's something else that we would like to fix. So to summarize it up if you're a plasma theme creator then the main takeaway is that you should try out the contrast effect especially if your theme is not 100% transparent. If it's 70% to 80% transparent then you might be interested in it especially the saturation value. Try turning it on with intensity 1, contrast 1 which means it changes nothing and then saturation 2 which pumps up the saturation already quite a lot. If you're a normal user so not a plasma theme creator the main takeaway is please do not disable the contrast effect because it has happened that the contrast effect has caused some bugs and it still causes some. Still the contrast effect is what allows us to design the blur effect to work for a wide range of wallpapers so please don't disable it because otherwise your applet might look wrong on certain wallpapers. If you try it and see that it works then just go for it but if you want an opaque panel do not disable contrast effect that's automatic, just right click on the panel go to the adaptive transparency section and select opaque.