Will Rooney speaks to Albanian football expert Redian Ara.
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00:00Hello and welcome to a special episode. Myself Will Rooney from Liverpool Wales speaking
00:07to Albanian football expert Radian Ara talking all things Armando Brogia. Brogia of course
00:14joined Everton from Chelsea on loan on transfer deadline day. Everton fans yet to see the
00:19striker in action because he arrived from injury but now he's returning to full fitness
00:24and supporters very much excited to see what he will offer Everton this season. Radian
00:31first of all how long have you followed Armando Brogia's career for?
00:36Oh I don't exactly know the year and date but I've been following him I would say at
00:42least five plus years ever since he played for the under-17s of Albania and also the
00:48under-18s for Chelsea because I was hearing some rumours about a guy who was two metres
00:54tall I think it's six foot four in the imperial system who's strong who's quick who has incredible
01:00ball striking dribbling and I just had to see it with my own eyes. So I started watching
01:06Chelsea academy games and then he got called up to Albania started watching those under-17s
01:11because I usually don't do that only if there's something special there and I couldn't instantly
01:16tell this guy is the real deal. So yeah I've been following him for a while and I haven't
01:21missed a single minute ever since because I thoroughly enjoy watching him play.
01:26Well it would be fair to say that you've followed him for practically his whole career from
01:30what you've been able to see from a public perspective. Everton signing a player who
01:38was highly raised at Chelsea has a couple of ups and downs just tell us about him in
01:42the Chelsea academy because he's come through a real talent pool there at Chelsea hasn't
01:47he played with some real top players in the academy at Cobham?
01:52Yeah I think first of all Cobham and the Chelsea academy in general is one of the best academies
01:58in the world not only because they consistently produce some great great great players in
02:03all positions and his generation could easily be called a golden generation because he was
02:09playing with players like Rhys James and Enyo Wrynn who also went to different places or
02:14Doi at some point he was playing with a lot of players who we see today play in the Premier
02:18League. So yeah the thing about it is he still managed to stand out because it's very easy
02:28to just be a part of a team like that and you know do the dirty work or do a little
02:33bit here and there but he was actually one of the main players in that team and there's
02:37a message I wrote to him on the on Instagram like four years ago I said bro you score every
02:43game and when you don't score you get like three assists because that was what he was
02:46doing every time and I was just in awe of the the performances he consistently produced
02:52for this Chelsea academy team and yeah he was very highly rated by the Chelsea scouts
02:57and the Chelsea staff as well so it's not like I'm just here hyping him just for the
03:02sake of him being Albanian but he was very highly very highly rated by Chelsea and that's
03:07why in this beginning they also wanted to keep him they rejected bids from West Ham
03:12for 40 million pounds they rejected bids from Everton also a couple years ago for 30
03:17plus million pounds so he's been very highly rated in amongst one of the best teams in
03:21the world which is Chelsea. He was given his debut by Frank Lampard and then he has a couple
03:27of really productive loans fellows at Batiste in Holland and then Southampton what did you
03:33make of his progress in those couple of years when he went away from Chelsea and had to
03:37hone his craft playing men's football? Yeah it's funny because you mentioned his debut
03:43it was actually against Everton which is quite coincidental you could see I think he dribbled
03:50Holgate and then Holgate had to foul him and get a yellow card so instantly he showed he
03:55has a lot of personality and he wants to to do stuff of course he was 18 years old and
04:00sometimes you need a bit of a breakaway in another place where you can play every week
04:06to manage to raise your level and that's why he went to Vitesse. I think at Vitesse he played
04:12quite well he played in a two-striker formation so he was playing off Luis Openda who now
04:17plays for Leipzig and they were having a very good duo there he scored 10 goals he got a
04:23couple assists scored a header in the semi-final of the Dutch Cup and his overall play was
04:30very good that was like the first steps of his development then of course he had to try
04:35his craft in the Premier League for Southampton and it's a different different ball game I like
04:40the Eredivisie a lot but Premier League football of course is different but I still think he managed
04:46to perform at a very very high level consistently for Southampton in the beginning the first two
04:51months he didn't really play much then he came to Albania and scored a couple of good goals for us
04:56where Hassan Huntel at the time who was the coach decided okay now we're going to give this guy a
05:01chance we believe in him and he scored a couple goals against Leeds against West Ham, Brentford
05:08and his overall game once again was just incredible dribbling, linking up, passing, shooting he's just
05:15a monster when he's really at it so I think it was two very productive loan spells and
05:21then Chelsea decided to actually keep him because he was ready for the big next step
05:25Yeah after that Southampton loan spell I think Everton were really interested in signing him when
05:30Frank Lampard was the manager, Chelsea kept him at the club they gave him a new contract that clearly
05:35showed that they raised him highly but then he picked up a bad injury didn't he and
05:41last season he went on loan to Fulham where he struggled again can you can you just
05:46tell Everton fans why maybe he had that little stutter in his career?
05:50Yeah as you as you also point out he got a new contract everything was ready for him to you know
05:56make the striker role at Chelsea his own the problem was he wasn't really given way too many
06:03opportunities he scored for Chelsea against Wolves people were thinking okay maybe this is the guy
06:08and then there was a quite a good opportunity when the World Cup came about because the World Cup
06:12was in the winter where he could prove his worth in the friendlies to Pochettino
06:17or Tuchel who was at the time he could prove his worth in these friendlies and that's why he did
06:22everything he could to try and score try and prove what the what type of quality it has and that's
06:28why he ultimately ended up getting injured because in a pointless friendly against Aston Villa in
06:33like Dubai he presses so relentlessly against Ezra Konstantinov from Villa and he ends up
06:41relentlessly against Ezra Konstantinov from Villa and he ends up tearing his ACL and it's just
06:49it's bad luck but it's also maybe a bit too much eagerness from his side to prove his worth
06:54and he ends up being out for a year he comes back and Chelsea decide that they actually want to sell
06:59him permanently because they didn't think he was the same player as he was before and they had moved
07:04on bought a lot of new players as they do recently and then they wanted to sell him but nobody was
07:10bidding the the money that they want in January he went to Fulham it was like a a deadline day
07:16deal sheet move similar to the one with Everton now and it was quite frankly a disaster in every
07:23way of the imagination at Fulham I think what went wrong there was the fact that Fulham weren't
07:30actually interested in getting a new starting striker because they had Jimenez who was injured
07:36and they also had Muniz who they had just bought the problem was Muniz was performing badly but as
07:42soon as Broya came he started scoring goals and of course they would rather prioritize Muniz who
07:48they put money in who's their player on the contract than Broya who was like a six-month
07:52loan deal so yeah he didn't really get the opportunity to flourish when he got these 20
07:57minutes cameos off the bench he didn't really do much either his confidence was at an all-time low
08:03and just everything culminated in something very bad at Fulham
08:08Are you surprised that it took him so long to to leave Chelsea in the summer obviously
08:13his move to Everton was really late it was at the 11th hour a deal sheet had to
08:17to go in or is it because Chelsea with the Euros happening Copa America they had to
08:24protect themselves for the summer and ultimately that maybe has a little bit of a negative on
08:29on his future and he was held up a little bit in terms of getting out of Chelsea because
08:34it was quite clear that maybe he didn't have a future under Enzo Maresca
08:40it was quite a quite a hectic transfer window and it was always going up and down everything
08:46was happening here pretty sure they had a meeting before Enzo Maresca was was hired
08:54where they said okay you're gonna get sold in the summer your loan move has been a failure
08:59but we still want to sell you because you're not in our plans and he agreed to that but then
09:04Enzo Maresca got into the coaching role and Broya is a big Chelsea fan he's always been Chelsea
09:11through and through so of course a guy who comes through the academy as a Chelsea fan himself
09:15he wants to play for Chelsea or at least he wanted to and that's why he wanted to do everything in
09:21his power to convince Enzo Maresca he could have secured a deal before going to the American
09:27pre-season tour with Chelsea but he wanted to go and he wanted to prove his worth
09:31I think he picked up a little bit of an injury there and that's why everything took a little
09:36bit of a of a stall because then there were talk about Ipswich they had agreed to deal with Chelsea
09:42they had agreed to deal with him but the medical showed a bit of a bit of concern and then everything
09:47you know collapsed and that's why Everton they were there and they were ready and they have
09:52actually been ready for him like the whole transfer window they just wanted to see how
09:56things were actually going to develop and then they came in at the last second with the deal
10:00sheet and managed to secure a service. So Everton fans have had to be patient to see Broya in action
10:07he is back in training now I think Sean's just said that he'll have to play for the under-21s
10:12just to get minutes under his belt which is is understandable what will he exactly bring to
10:19Everton in terms of his qualities? Yeah I think his most obvious qualities is his pace his power
10:28like his physical attributes are are remarkable he's one of very few players who is both tall
10:33strong fast and yeah can do everything in that regard but also he's not just you know a target
10:39man he's not a target man by any stretch of the imagination he is a guy who likes the ball at his
10:44feet he loves dribbling dribbling might be like his best attribute because his technical quality
10:50is very good and likes dribbling and when he gets going it's very fast and also I think his shooting
10:59is very good I posted a goal where he scored against Hungary where it's an impossible angle
11:04and against a guy like Peter Gulacsi who plays for Leipzig a very good keeper but he's left
11:10stoned in the goal he couldn't do anything about it so yeah for me at least from what I've seen
11:15he's the complete package for a striker he just needs to prove it with the consistency.
11:21Everton very often play with one striker opposed to two the striker Donald Carvalho in this season
11:27has been a little bit isolated is that something that that he can bring someone who can play with
11:33his back towards goal have to bring others into play and then get himself into the box and score
11:39goals as well because that's been a real stroke for Everton really giving the striker a decent
11:44supply line in front of goal. Yeah to be honest I would say some of his weaknesses because of
11:52course he has some of those as well some of his weaknesses might be his back to back to goal play
11:57and also his positioning in and around the box because as we have seen he hasn't really scored
12:02that many goals in his career and even though he's a guy who's got the finishing who's got the
12:07quality to finish his chances he doesn't get into way too many chances because I think his movement
12:11is a bit off and it's something he certainly has to improve on. What I do think however because
12:16I've been watching Everton this season and you like to play counter-attacking football you don't
12:21really have possession too much I think on the counter-attack he's going to help you immensely
12:27and he's also very good at creating stuff out of nothing on his own if you would like to use
12:32that term. If you just send him a long ball he'll run towards it he'll get it and he can dribble
12:38two or three players and then maybe pass it off or get a shot away so I think in that regard he's
12:43going to help you a lot but if you want to use him as this target man type of guy I think it would
12:48be best to play the two with Calvert. And just in terms of his future I mean he maybe doesn't
12:57have a long-term future at Chelsea do you think if everything works out then a permanent deal
13:03could be in the off and I think there is an option there to make that deal permanent?
13:08Yeah the thing about this the sporting director of Everton Kevin Thirlwall has been after him for a
13:14while as I already mentioned he is very highly regarded by him and that's why I think the plan
13:22here is to actually make it a permanent deal they've wanted him for a while they like him as
13:27a profile they think he fits the the playing style well and I think right now it's 30 million pounds
13:33it might get renegotiated by the end of the move depending on how it plays. I think if he scores
13:39five six seven Premier League goals and overall provides what Everton are expecting from him
13:45we will see him in an Everton shirt at Bramley more too. The fee well it's up for debate but
13:51I think we will see him as long as he performs. Brilliant well Reddy and I think I've got
13:57everything I need to hear from you on Armando Broya you've been great to get your insights and
14:01thanks very much for joining us today. Yeah thank you very much for having me I love talking about
14:06Armando Broya so I'm always ready for that. Brilliant thanks very much for joining us.