Sunderland, Charlton and Wimbledon celebrate playoff joy: Football Weekly

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Speaker 6 Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly. And after so much euphoria and unexpected winners and tears of joy, we are left pretty numb by what happened in Liverpool.

Speaker 6 Someone driving through a crowd of football supporters celebrating winning the title yesterday evening. Just a devastating event.
All of our thoughts are with the injured and their families.

Speaker 6 As always, moments like this make it feel totally trite to talk about football matches. But this last week has shown just how much the game means to people.

Speaker 6 So we will discuss promotion for Sunderland after that thrilling finale against Sheffield United.

Speaker 6 Charlton and AFC Wimbledon, I think the polite word is win cagey games against Orient and Walsall, respectively.

Speaker 6 We'll round up the rest of the EFL news before it can shut down for a few weeks as fans studied retained lists and wonder how their squad can go again with eight outfield players and no goalkeeper.

Speaker 6 We'll answer your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Speaker 6 On the panel today, Barry Glen Denning, welcome. Hi, Max.
Sanny Ridgevadula, hello.

Speaker 4 Hello.

Speaker 6 And from Not the Top 20, George Elek, welcome. Thank you, Max.
Okay, so we're recording at around 20 past eight on Tuesday morning.

Speaker 6 So the latest we have from what happened in Liverpool is that 27 people have been taken to hospital in total, according to the ambulance service.

Speaker 6 Of those, one adult and one child have been seriously injured. Another 20 were treated at the scene, including four children.
A paramedic on a bike was struck, but not seriously injured.

Speaker 6 When emergency services arrived at the scene, four people were trapped under the vehicle. According to the fire service, that vehicle was rapidly removed so the injured could receive treatment.

Speaker 6 A 53-year-old man has been arrested. It isn't clear why it took place.
Police do say, though, it isn't being treated as terrorism.

Speaker 6 As is the way of social media, it is almost impossible to avoid seeing truly harrowing videos of the incidents. Most of you probably will have seen them.

Speaker 6 And it is perhaps having seen them, even though I was desperately trying not to see them. Liverpool said, our thoughts and prayers are with those who've been affected by this serious incident.

Speaker 6 We'll continue to offer our full support to the emergency services and local authorities who are dealing with the incidents.

Speaker 6 It's one of those situations where like the football that we're going to talk about pales into insignificance, but at the same time, there's not a lot to be gained from spending an hour discussing this when the news will probably have changed by the time that you listen to it.

Speaker 6 I think it is worth calling out the far-right blue tick brigade on social media who immediately jumped to conclusions and tried to make political capital with no thought for the victims at all.

Speaker 6 Our thoughts are just with them. And I will move on.
Just on the euphoria that we mentioned, I don't know if anyone saw the Crystal Palace celebration.

Speaker 6 Doc Brown, who's a massive Palace fan, actor, comedian, sort of polymath, I guess, was hosting it. And he brought out those two lads from the TIFO.
And it was just so, it was so beautiful.

Speaker 6 They came out. This is to end the parade.
And I think they're scousers, actually.

Speaker 6 So I presume their family moved up north, which sounded quite incongruous when they were just talking about their love for Crystal Palace.

Speaker 6 But it was a really lovely moment and a lovely touch and what these celebrations should really be about.

Speaker 6 Let's talk about the playoff final then, the championship. Chef United won Sunderland 2.

Speaker 6 Eight years away from the Premier League. Four of those spent in League One.
I mean, the way they won the semi-final and this is just utterly ridiculous.

Speaker 6 And look, Barry, you talked about being there yesterday. I'm sure you'll repeat yourself in a minute.
But, George and Sanny, you were there in a more professional capacity.

Speaker 6 George, that last minute, like,

Speaker 6 even if you're there, you know, as a neutral, though you can get swept away in those moments.

Speaker 1 Massively. I was lucky enough to be sitting in the posh seats next to the Sunderland dugouts.

Speaker 1 I took a video on my phone where the players, the substitutes, and the guys who'd come off were, you know a couple of meters away from me. And

Speaker 1 you could feel the nerves as the full-time whistle approached and the magnitude of the occasion for them.

Speaker 1 And as you say, for Sunderland to win promotion in this way, to come into the playoffs in such bad form and to have two moments, I think as football fans, you know, the reason why we support our clubs is that we hope that we have 10, 20, 30 moments that will define our lives in terms of football.

Speaker 1 And Sunderland had two in 10 days.

Speaker 1 Like, absolutely incredible in terms of the Ballard goal in the semi. And then Tommy Watson, who,

Speaker 1 you know, he's someone who has not played that many minutes for Sunderland, has looked incredibly exciting when he has done.

Speaker 1 I think Sunderland fans are all pretty frustrated that they won't see more of him in a Sunderland shirt because he's off to Brighton, which was announced a few weeks ago.

Speaker 1 But for him to come off the bench and score in the way that he did in front of the Sunderland fans with...

Speaker 1 like just absolutely outrageous composure and poise for a player of his age to given the time that anyone who's watched Tommy Watson knew he was going to shoot there. Like he shoots a lot.

Speaker 1 As soon as he got the ball in that kind of space, he was always going to have a go.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't, you know, we've seen on so many occasions over the weekend because payoff games are generally games of very few chances. We've seen loads of snatched opportunities when they come about.

Speaker 1 But Watson had the composure just to roll it. a proper kind of bottom corner postage stamp out of the reach of Michael Cooper.

Speaker 1 It was an outrageous finish and a moment of real quality to take something back to the Premier League where their fans, of course, believe they belong.

Speaker 6 Yeah, it was like a putt in many ways, wasn't it? It just looked sort of perfect. Sally, where were you?

Speaker 7 I was in the press box, so I was right near the Sunderland end. In fact, all three playoff finals, the winning fans were on that.

Speaker 7 I don't know if it's the east side or west side. I know there's the hoodoo now.
I can't remember which end it is. But anyway, yeah, so right by that.
So that was complete carnage.

Speaker 7 That was absolute bedlam.

Speaker 7 They made a big thing about not bringing Pyro into the stadium, like for all three playoff finals, big signs everywhere. And yet there was absolutely loads of it everywhere.
You know,

Speaker 7 I think it's technically illegal, isn't it? But it was there. What it did do is it meant that the spectacle was huge, you know, red clouds and white clouds everywhere.

Speaker 7 Just, I had my reporter's monocular with me, so I could like zoom in and have a look really closely.

Speaker 6 So sorry, I know you've sent these to us on the WhatsApp group.

Speaker 6 Listeners will not know. And also, I mean, I've got a vague idea, but what is a reporter's monocular?

Speaker 7 Well, it's basically a bird-watching monocular. So like binoculars, but one eye.

Speaker 4 Yeah, okay, good.

Speaker 7 And I call it a reporter's one because that's my justification perhaps.

Speaker 4 A telescope.

Speaker 7 Well kinda.

Speaker 7 I guess it's a monocular telescope.

Speaker 6 You were like Magellan.

Speaker 4 Yeah, basically.

Speaker 7 Originally,

Speaker 7 to peer behind the curtain, originally it's because like on 5 Live when I'm doing match updates, you only got 10 seconds to say what's happened. And in that time, I really want to find out who scored.

Speaker 7 I'm not sure. And the quickest way is to look at the shorts number on a player, celebrating player.
And that's why I've got it.

Speaker 7 But But also, in these situations, it comes in very handy, especially when Wembley's so big and you're so far away. But what it meant was I had this really like

Speaker 7 quite surreal view of what was going on when I looked through it because I could just pan with my monocular and look across this sea of faces.

Speaker 7 But then I could actually look at them all closely and see them all going each and every single individual, like going absolutely mad. Like most of them were shirtless.

Speaker 7 It was complete chaos. And

Speaker 7 it was just brilliant. I absolutely loved it.

Speaker 6 Yeah,

Speaker 6 a mate of mine,

Speaker 6 Tom, who plays in holding midfield alongside me in a very slow two for Melbourne University Old Boys, then Macam, who just yells shape a lot in full Macam.

Speaker 6 When Ballard scored, I think he'd already booked his flights, but he was like, right, I'm going. And he went for, I think, three days.

Speaker 6 And I was like, why are you going to watch someone lose 2-0 to Sheffield United? And when that, you know, when I watched that goal, I was like, oh, thank God. Thank God he made that journey.

Speaker 6 24 hours on, Barry? Are you still, you know, have you come back down to Earth?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I still delighted. I think this victory draws a line under the sort of banter era of the Sunderland

Speaker 4 regimes who were in charge of the club during the Netflix documentary era. You know, that clown who paid four and a half million quid for Will Grigg after having a deadline day meltdown.

Speaker 4 and his Rupert of a sidekick in the red trousers. You had Martin Bain in as chief executive, and he came across as very David Brentish in Sunderland till I die.

Speaker 4 Jack Rodwell sitting on a 70 grand a week contract in the physio room, never actually playing for the club and refusing to leave. And let's face it, who could blame him? But that's kind of over now.

Speaker 4 And I think of all the Macams who sort of took the place of the narrator in that those series, who loved the club and how pleased they must be.

Speaker 4 Macam Palamine sent me yesterday a picture of Elysier Mende on an easy jet flight to Alicante. He scored Sunderland's opener.
I noticed he was sitting at the front. He'd paid for extra legroom.

Speaker 4 I hope he had speedy boarding because he deserved it. And he's off, presumably I checked, he's from Zaragotha, which is about a four-hour drive from Alicante.
So he's obviously off home for a break.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's just fantastic. I feel a bit sorry.
I know a few Sheffield United fans work with a couple, and I feel sorry for them because it's the fifth one they've lost.

Speaker 4 But in a way, I don't feel sorry for them. You know,

Speaker 4 it's tough.

Speaker 6 I do, I tell you, I feel sorry for Kiefer Moore, George, because...

Speaker 6 You know, you can make mistakes. You know, you can, you know, if you do a dodgy backpass, but they don't score, it's fine.
You know, if you, if you let your man go and they don't score, it's fine.

Speaker 6 But, you know, Chevy United are building an attack and, like, he's, he has laid the ball off probably a million times in his career. Like, it's not a hard pass.

Speaker 6 And yet you can just see in that moment, he knows he can't catch Watson. He's like, ah.
And then when it goes in, he kind of crumples.

Speaker 6 And he's so big that it takes him so long to crumple to the ground.

Speaker 1 And the thing, you know, it felt like this was a game of loads of fine margins, loads loads of kind of coin toss moments.

Speaker 1 And that was the most important one of them because Anil Ahmed Hodzich was off the pitch getting treatment.

Speaker 1 And that meant that Vinny D'Souza, their normal holding midfield player, had dropped back into centre-back.

Speaker 1 And that meant that when Tommy Watson picked, well, when the ball was picked up from the back pass from Kiefer Moore, rather than there being your holding midfielder there to try and stop the attack, there was just...

Speaker 1 a huge amount of space in which for some of them to attack.

Speaker 1 You know, also Kiefer Moore had a header incredibly well saved within a minute. Amazing save.
Incredible save.

Speaker 1 And you know, Patterson, who's come under a lot of criticism, the Sunderland keeper, there's no doubt in my mind who, you know, Tommy Watson, yes, of course, he scored the goal.

Speaker 1 My ended with the first goal, but the reason why Sundarland, the most important reason on the pitch why Sunderland got promoted on Saturday was Patterson, because he made that save from

Speaker 1 more early on. But even more important was just before the equaliser, Brooks was one-on-one for Sheffield United.

Speaker 1 Sent Patterson the wrong way, but Patterson still put off an unbelievable save with his feet before Ballard got back and scrambled it clear.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, there was the VAR decision, which is a frustrating one for people like me who don't want VAR anywhere near any football, but in particular the EFL, because it's one of those where it's relatively subjective, but there's no denying that D'Souza was offside.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you cannot say that he wasn't standing in the line of sight for Patterson.

Speaker 1 I don't think had there been no VAR, I can't imagine Sunday fans watching at home or watching the game would have been like, that's a disgrace. That's offside.

Speaker 1 It's only one of of those you only see it in the fourth replay um but in a game of massive importance BAR made a decision that by the book is correct and turned the game um because when that goal went in from Burroughs I kind of been the only one in the stadium thinking oh no is this going to get ugly for Sunderland and they went on to win the game so yeah sometimes I think it's very hard to win playoffs without some things going your way and we've put a pod after this and said in the pod you know there's no denying that chef united on the on the you know over 90 minutes were the better team but this is a one-off game.

Speaker 1 Sunderland took their chances, their keeper made some important saves. And when it comes to playoffs, um, that is normally enough to get you up.

Speaker 1 And I think that with Regis Labri and his style of football, which is you know, they're very happy to concede possession of long periods of the game, very happy to attack and transition.

Speaker 1 For once, we've got a manager coming out of the championship who's won the championship promotion who looks pretty well suited to trying to take a club and upset the odds and keep them in the top flank.

Speaker 6 Just on the VAR, Barry. I mean,

Speaker 6 basically you repeat the gag that you did on the radio on Sunday.

Speaker 4 It made me laugh a great deal.

Speaker 4 Well, can I shock you, Max?

Speaker 4 I love VAR.

Speaker 4 And George is dead right. I didn't spot the players in the,

Speaker 4 I think there was two players in an offside position in front of Patterson. I didn't notice.
And then when the ref it took quite some time.

Speaker 4 I think Sheffield United more or less finished their wild celebrations over on the far side of the pitch from me and then the ref uh sort of went to he had his fingers to his ear and then he went to the monitor i'd kind of forgotten it was var

Speaker 4 um so that was a big let off um

Speaker 4 and well thank god for it you know i did notice yesterday uh on on the news it was revealed that Joe Bellingham was in Germany for talks with Eintrank Frankfurt, which

Speaker 4 slightly took the gloss off Saturday's events.

Speaker 4 You're not leaving a week. Cash in.

Speaker 1 He'll buy your whole new defence.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Sandy, do you follow what George said about Reggie Labri and the football that they play? Because it's quite interesting that Bernie as well, you know, our defense seems to be very solid.

Speaker 4 And we are desperate for,

Speaker 6 you know, just for the interest in the Premier League. We are desperate for the teams that come up to give a better fist of it than they than this season.
And I think

Speaker 6 the three that went up last season as well? I forget. forget, is it two in a row? I think, yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I think he could do very well because he's different, isn't he? And that's the thing. We know what we're going to get with Chris Wilder.

Speaker 7 And LeBris has shown that his reputation before he came to Sunderland was all about developing young players, and he's done that really well.

Speaker 7 And I think Sunderland, the thing about them, I think they've got, it's like a squad of impact players.

Speaker 7 Like, any of them would make, could be a great player to come on in the Premier League as a sub and change a game. Like, Joe Bellingham may well be off to Germany, we don't know, but

Speaker 7 he plays very much like his brother. He doesn't like making the simple things simple, like he'll throw in like a step over or something here, but when it all comes together,

Speaker 7 it can be huge. But then he's played so many games, and that's the same for a lot of this squad.
But LeBree is the sort of person, clearly as a coach, you can get the most out of them.

Speaker 7 After the game, I went down to the mix zone, and it's one of the few times as a reporter where the players actually want to talk to you, or the ones who've won anyway.

Speaker 7 like it's very rare that this ever happens but tommy watson was doing like a whole row of uh of interviews and stuff and what struck me was he's quite um

Speaker 7 quite a confident kind of kind of steely character because like again as george mentioned he's not really played many games at all i think i was at his first ever start against preston uh earlier in the season and there wasn't really any much information about him he had this big reputation uh but we didn't really know much and like somebody asked him about his goal and he said it was like an out-of-body experience and that's cool but then he said like you know the next thing he said was it kind of showed you what I am as a player.

Speaker 7 Like, I will take on the ball and shoot with it. You know, that's what I like to do.
And I thought it was interesting to say something like that in amongst all this other stuff going on.

Speaker 7 I mean, he's had a bit of time to think about it. But it kind of shows that someone like him is thinking of the future.
And clearly he's been given a platform.

Speaker 7 And Brighton have spotted it very quickly. And they're going to make something with it.
So yeah, I think LeBrie...

Speaker 7 Certainly, I think they'll need to strengthen a lot, but they have got the right man with that pool of players.

Speaker 7 And all the way, by the way, on the other end of the spectrum, like Patrick Roberts, who came on, another Impact sub, who like moments earlier had like, you know, some of them were chasing the game, just pointlessly floating the ball into the box for Michael Cooper to collect.

Speaker 7 And then all of a sudden, the one time Sunderland get four positive passes going forward, he plays a perfect through ball for my ender. It's like this team of impact subs.

Speaker 7 So I feel like they need a bit more. But yeah, on the day, in the moment, they can make the difference.
And that's what they did on the weekend.

Speaker 1 And, you know, myself included, looking at the benches before the game it felt to me like it was a game set up for if it's tight late on then you look at the firepower that the chef united had to bring on and it would it would be to their advantage but it was anything but britton diaz came on and looked pretty poor before he got injured um calum o'hare really struggled to make an impact when he came on and instead i was surprised that um issidor didn't start i was surprised that roberts didn't start but i think labri nailed it where like i think as football fans we get so obsessed with starting lineups and like you start your strongest team who's a starter, and all this stuff.

Speaker 1 But actually,

Speaker 1 especially in a game like a playoff final, where you can be pretty confident it's going to be tight late on, in many ways, saving players for the last half an hour, you know, saving finishers to come onto the pitch at a time where you're going to need them to step up and they're going to be fresh is more important.

Speaker 1 And that's where they nailed it. Like, Roberts, in particular, came on and gave them a completely different dimension going forward.
Obviously, Watson came on and scored the goal too.

Speaker 1 So, it was Sunderland and their, you know, their team of young, fearless players who stepped up when called upon rather than the more experienced kind of star studded bench by championship standards of the of the Blades.

Speaker 7 Just before it gets lost in translation, just to mention that Cheffey United's goal and Gus Harmer's incredible run, like level with his penalty spot, running the whole length of century of the field before like Fredding Tyrese Campbell through and a lovely little dinked finish and that was from a Sunderland corner and for the longest time it looked like Cheffee United were going to go up.

Speaker 7 Like let's face it. Like Sunderland hadn't managed to create too much.
Didn't really look like it was going to go their way.

Speaker 7 And yeah, Gus Harmer, I wonder what will happen to him next because he was their one

Speaker 7 shining light from the Premier League campaign. Remember, Chef United finished bottom of that league

Speaker 7 and has done even better back in the championship again. We've seen what he can do at this level with Coventry previously.
I wonder whether he'll be around.

Speaker 7 I suppose they get more parachute payments and all that, but he again, like on the biggest stage, showed what he could do.

Speaker 4 Sunderland in this game, they had three shots. One of them wasn't really a shot.
It was a very scuffed effort from Chris Rigg. And the other two were goals.

Speaker 4 I don't think the Sheffield United Keeper actually made a save worthy of the name, which is not to disparage him. A shout out, by the way, to I met a bloke.
He introduced himself to me.

Speaker 4 He'd flown over from New Zealand to attend this game.

Speaker 4 Do you know what?

Speaker 6 It's quite interesting, George.

Speaker 6 Maybe, and I can never remember which teams have, you know, gone up previously, having gone down, etc. But only one of the relegated teams in the Premier League went up this year, right? Burnley.

Speaker 6 And

Speaker 6 it does seem that you know it's very hard for the three promoter teams to stay in the Premier League, but it doesn't follow that the three teams that are relegated automatically go up.

Speaker 6 Why would that be?

Speaker 1 I think it's more a quirk at the moment rather than anything else. If you look, the last two play-off finals have been Leeds massive favorite against Hampton get turned over.

Speaker 1 Chef United, massive favorites against Sunday and get turned over. So, like, in another world, you're looking at two out of three out of three and then two out of three.
Obviously, Luton were

Speaker 1 a strange case this season where it's not often you see a relegated side get relegated again, and they'll be in league one next season with parachute payments, which could be interesting.

Speaker 1 Um, but it I would still definitely say that there is a massive disparity in quality between the top teams in the Premier League, or sorry, the worst teams in the Premier League and the top teams in the championship.

Speaker 1 And that's reflected, you know, if you look at next season, Ipswich and Southampton certainly will be expected to

Speaker 1 form at least two of the top few few spots. And then with Leicester, it's a waiting game to see what kind of punishment is applied to them.

Speaker 1 I think their fans are expecting a pretty hefty point seduction, which will impact where they finish.

Speaker 1 And that's why it's going to be interesting what happens to Sunderland, because this is a Sunderland side who

Speaker 1 they've made their way from League One to the Premier League via the playoffs both times. When, you know, this time around,

Speaker 1 relatively unfancy going into the season. For all of his personal wealth, Kirill Louis Dreyfus isn't someone, isn't one of these owners who pumps in loads of money into a club.

Speaker 1 They operate very shrewdly and smartly. Christian Speetman, their sporting director, is very, very shrewd.

Speaker 1 If you look at the squad that they're building and the resale value of that squad, it kind of makes me think that I can understand why Barry and Sunday fans

Speaker 1 would be sad to see Joe Bellingham go. But given what they're up against, surely the best means to try and stay up is to cash in on one, two, three assets.

Speaker 1 get yourself enough money to go out there and sign players of a different level because frankly as much as this is always a sad fact with with playoff finals you're looking at a group of guys on the pitch who are celebrating what they've just done but a few of them have probably just signed off their their Sunday careers by achieving promotion.

Speaker 1 Barry,

Speaker 7 how much has Luco9? Just absolutely love it. I mean he dislocated his shoulder like two minutes in trying to stop

Speaker 7 that header from Kiefer Moore. And then like that happened right in front of us as well.
So like you could see the doctor like push, and especially with my little monocular.

Speaker 7 I could see his shoulder like being reset.

Speaker 4 And and he was there and he was going off and I know you must have seen this as well like he had his arm in a sling and the match is going on and he's like geeing up the crowd like come up with his one functioning arm and then throughout the game he was like what cheering on the sidelines giving out bananas like he absolutely just lives for it doesn't he yeah he he really put his heart and soul into it lifted the cup with with his one arm at one stage um after the presentation some players were over celebrating in our corner of the ground and he he got in a hug with two of his teammates, and they all fell over.

Speaker 4 And I'm thinking,

Speaker 4 how injured is that shoulder exactly? Because that's going to really hurt.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 yeah, jubilation is clearly a great anesthetic.

Speaker 6 Just moving away from this game for a sec, George, Matt says, feels like the championship provides some great players who are ready to move to the Premier League. Who are George's top five?

Speaker 6 I mean, if that's too many to mention, but are there any potential Ezes, Grealish, Elise, Watkins, Waltons out there? Or is the league less strong than a few years ago?

Speaker 6 You don't have to give us five, but you know.

Speaker 1 We're actually lucky. We're talking about this with someone at Wembley yesterday, and I would say this is

Speaker 1 probably

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 weakest batch right now, where normally there is like one or two who you can look at and you say, yeah, they are, they're an England player in waiting. It's just a matter of time until they get there.

Speaker 1 I think Chris Riggers is certainly one who's incredibly exciting.

Speaker 1 And I think his promotion to the Premier League will be of massive benefit to him and Sunderland because you know he's still incredibly young, but he's played a lot of minutes, and his development I think will be fairly rapid now.

Speaker 1 Um, Joe Bellingham's another one where I don't personally think he's ever going to have the kind of goal output of

Speaker 1 Jude, but he's got all the attributes to be a very dominant box-to-boxer, holding midfield player.

Speaker 1 And, you know, his time in the second tier is now over, and he'll be, I'm sure, a top-tier and elite player going forward. Hayden Hackney's one at Middlesbrough, who I really like.

Speaker 1 He's an incredibly good, kind of progressive ball player. He's improved physically over the last couple of seasons too.

Speaker 1 And yeah, he's probably the only one outside the promoter teams. You know, he's England under 21 International.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think it's a matter of time until he gets into the top flight, whether or not he can replicate the likes of Wharton and Eze, you know, even going back to Madison, Watkins, Bellingham.

Speaker 1 You know, these guys, I think it was pretty obvious to anyone watching that where their future lay.

Speaker 1 And I wouldn't say there's necessarily that superstar outside of you know Trafford and the Sunday lads that I mentioned.

Speaker 7 Jack Radoni, can we throw him in the mix?

Speaker 1 He's just, he's just

Speaker 4 definitely. I mean, he's, I think, still young.

Speaker 1 I think he'll be a very effective top-fight player.

Speaker 1 I just don't think he's going to, he'll hit the heights of being linked to the best teams in the world, you know, if that's the level that we're looking at here.

Speaker 1 Like, I think Wharton's going to play the rest of his career, you know, he'll be an England mainstay and he'll play. I'm sure he'll get to move to one of the biggest teams in the world.
The same with

Speaker 1 there's a level of being like a good Premier League player and being one of the best players players in that top tier.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, he may do, but I wouldn't be as confident with him as others in the past.

Speaker 6 And, Tony, how do we think the championship will be next year with, you know, Birmingham and Wrexham alongside Charlton? You expect Birmingham and Wrexham to spend money, don't you?

Speaker 6 And Leicester, you know, Southampton Ips, which as George said, like, how competitive. It's always competitive, right? We know that.
But how do you think it'll look next year?

Speaker 7 Well, with respect to our American friends who might be Wrexham fans and ones closer to home as well, I don't think Wrexham and Birmingham in the championship will really be at the same sort of level.

Speaker 7 Like Birmingham's infrastructure, the amount of money they've got coming in, the way they're set up and what they've got to offer players is a much greater level than Wrexham.

Speaker 7 I was still kind of like,

Speaker 4 you know,

Speaker 7 it's funny because on the one hand, I kind of feel like with Wrexham, they need time. You can throw loads of money at it, but eventually

Speaker 7 not all the building blocks are in place. Like the stadium is still like way behind where it should be.

Speaker 7 There's no footprint for them to do anything on that developmental side and hospitality and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 7 Like those dreaming for Wrexham to go into Premier League, for example, I think really need to take a reality check because it's extremely competitive and you can't just go around signing

Speaker 7 aging ex-Premier League players and assume that you can

Speaker 7 make a good fist of it. I think they need a bit of work.
Although they've got a couple of young players, I think that's one of the oldest squads.

Speaker 7 So Wrexham, I think, you know, I temper my expectations of them birmingham i think have got like you know massive potential um and they've already got jay stansfield in as the the main man up front and we know how you know if you look at the top 13 scorers in this season's championship i think five of them are actually recognized strikers like they're quite a rarity we know in football anyway so birmingham i think will do pretty well uh charlton i mean you know and we'll talk about them a bit more but they are they're kind of going to need get bodies in but in nathan jones they've got someone who can play anti-football if they need to kind of alluded to what george saying yeah the fact that players are kind of there's no outstanding players means that this league is very kind of much of a muchness.

Speaker 7 Norwich, you've got like some amazing players who can score loads of goals, like we're completely all over the place.

Speaker 7 The manager is now gone, as we mentioned on the last pod, or about to be. But teams like that can turn it around very quickly because they've got...
players who can make a big difference there.

Speaker 7 So I think we've got a very middling sort of league, a samey sort of league, but that actually means it's probably going to be very entertaining.

Speaker 6 You mentioned Charlton. Let's do them in part two.

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Speaker 6 Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Charton beat Leighton Orient to win the League One playoff final.
Producer Joel saying it felt like it lasted 17 hours.

Speaker 4 Barry, I think we should get.

Speaker 6 I mean, I don't know how you feel about producer Joel. You know,

Speaker 4 are you going to break the fourth wall, Max?

Speaker 6 Are we breaking the fourth wall?

Speaker 4 He is a Charlton fan.

Speaker 6 It feels like he's quite an easy booking. I think.
I think it feels like we can get him. I don't know.

Speaker 4 I have no problem with producer Joel. No, no, me neither.

Speaker 6 Welcome to the pod, Joel, Joel Grove, Charlton fan and podcast producer. Welcome.
How are you?

Speaker 8 Yes, very well. My voice has just about come back in time for this.
So, yeah, very happy to be here. Well, look,

Speaker 6 you're not allowed to be on for too long. No, of course.

Speaker 6 As a Charlton fan, how was it?

Speaker 8 It was amazing. I think in the days leading up to it, I sort of served as the voice of reason in the group of us that were going.

Speaker 8 And I was quite calm and sort of quietly confident that classic producer.

Speaker 6 Calm.

Speaker 8 We were going to to win and then we uh we we got to Wembley Way and I this is something you talk about all the time Max is seeing the colours on Wembley Way and and how glorious and exciting that feels and as soon as I walked out of Wembley Park station I just felt sick

Speaker 8 my stomach just dropped and it was essentially just a tight knot until full time and so the overriding feeling um when we did win was was relief i think because we've been in league one for five years and they've not been five if i mean if such a thing as a glittering year in League One can happen, it's not been five glittering years in League One.

Speaker 8 We finished seventh, thirteenth, tenth, sixteenth and then fourth this season. It's just immense, immense relief.

Speaker 8 You know, the season before we were relegated to League One, quite often if you're talking about clubs in crisis, you use an example of the number of managers they've been through in a season.

Speaker 8 You know, oh, they had two managers and a caretaker. They're a club in crisis.
That season, we had three owners in a season.

Speaker 8 So it's just been completely tumultuous. And I think the fan fan base has found it quite difficult to trust in new owners and new managers during that time.

Speaker 8 And there's been points where it's felt really poisonous. I think the worst it's ever felt is when the crowd turned on like Nigel Adkins, who's maybe the nicest man in football.

Speaker 4 And it turned on Nigel Adkins.

Speaker 8 Exactly. I mean, it got so bad that we turned on Nigel Adkins.
So no, just completely immense relief. Very excited to be back in the championship.

Speaker 8 I think there's just such a leap in the profile of clubs that you play against in the championship and their sort of more viable away days and things like that. So, yeah, I am looking forward to it.

Speaker 8 Obviously, nervous, but yeah,

Speaker 8 it was ultimately a good day out. A terrible game.

Speaker 1 Thoughts on Nathan Jones?

Speaker 1 Because, you know, I remember meeting you for a pint before the FSA Awards back in December, and I asked your thoughts on Nathan Jones, and you were like, nah, not sure, you know.

Speaker 1 But since then, obviously, you know, the impact that he's had and watching him on the sidelines, it feels like, you know, really galvanised Charlton as a fan base.

Speaker 1 yeah and i remember when you played sunderland in the playoff final what six years ago five years ago and again on you

Speaker 1 like it's amazing it's so different when you go to the valley in times of bad and the stadium feels kind of relatively empty and a bit sad compared to when charlton's been on the up where your fans just seem to be frankly incredible yeah i will say one of the things i do when i um quite often if you speak to people kind of um around my age about charlton they think of them as a premier league club and they reference you know, when I was texting Max about the final, he immediately referenced Klaus Jensen.

Speaker 8 So one of the things I do do is...

Speaker 6 That doesn't sound like me.

Speaker 8 One of the things I will do on that is when I go back and sort of revisit the Glorious, because they were like my formative years as a Cholton fan, I don't tend to look at the results and the squads.

Speaker 8 And what I look at is the attendances. And it just

Speaker 8 feels sort of unreal to me that there used to be 27,000 fans week in, week out for games against Wigan and... you know, Bolton and stuff like that in the mid-2000s.

Speaker 8 So yeah, it is a completely different feeling when the values full. The second semi-final against Wickham was incredible.

Speaker 8 And it did, on Nathan Jones, it did take me quite a long time to buy into the cult of Nathan Jones.

Speaker 7 He's

Speaker 8 he leaves it all out there.

Speaker 8 I don't really know what to say about it, really.

Speaker 4 I was going to say,

Speaker 6 do you wish he showed his heart on his sleeve just a little bit?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I do. He's a difficult man to read.

Speaker 4 No, I didn't.

Speaker 1 He didn't have any sleeves on

Speaker 4 Nathan.

Speaker 8 No, he didn't wear any sleeves. No, I kind of,

Speaker 8 what I found, obviously things did turn turn in December. I think that game where we beat Wickham on the 29th of December is where it really turned.
And we went on this incredible run.

Speaker 8 And what I found really hard to sort of buy into and believe in is a really strong defence.

Speaker 8 It's really tricky and not something I think I've ever had to do or ever had the opportunity to do is sort of believe that you're not going to concede goals.

Speaker 8 And so when you're playing very conservative, quite attritional football, it has taken... sort of a period of three or four months to believe actually we might not concede a goal.

Speaker 8 And I think the playoffs are sort of the perfect example of that. We had three games, three clean sheets.

Speaker 8 You know, Wickham had Richard Konay, one of the best performing players in League One this season.

Speaker 4 Leighton Orient,

Speaker 8 huge attacking outlets, particularly Charlie Kelman, who's League One's top scorer. And we never really looked like conceding a goal.

Speaker 8 So I think, say, that's kind of Nathan Jones's crowning achievement: is that I kind of started to think we won't concede, which is good.

Speaker 4 On the subject of incredible runs, our producer Joel did the Manchester Marathon a few weeks weeks ago.

Speaker 4 And I just feel now is probably a good time to point out that his marathon PB, which is what is it, Joel?

Speaker 8 301.

Speaker 4 301

Speaker 4 is better than producer Dave Masterman from the Ellis James and John Robbins podcast. It's better than his marathon PB.
So up yours producer Dave. Our producer is better than you.
Well, fast.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I don't want to be the best producer, just the fastest.

Speaker 6 Well, some podcast navel gazing, if you wanted it.

Speaker 4 That's Barry. This game, well, Joel is welcome to take that out in the edit, but I'm sure he won't.

Speaker 4 This game just seemed to be... There was a free kick which went in because the late Norian keeper didn't have enough players in his defensive wall.
That's what I thought. And then just...

Speaker 4 deflected shot after deflected shot after deflected shot that didn't go in. And yeah, it wasn't very good, but it was a lot better than the League Two playoff final of Adventure.

Speaker 4 The game just got progressively worse, which is what should happen, right?

Speaker 6 The

Speaker 6 games, every game in League Two, should be worse than every game in League One. That's how we should understand this sort of thing.
And how, um, I mean, Barry's right, it was not a classic, George.

Speaker 6 How do you think Charlton will go

Speaker 6 in the championship?

Speaker 1 I mean, I was at this one as well, and again, as a neutral, but also kind of as an Oxford fan, because I expect we're probably going to be down towards the bottom end of the championship.

Speaker 1 And I definitely wanted Orient to win

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 they're more likely to get relegated next season than Charlton are. I think with Nathan Jones, Richie Weddings has done an amazing job at Orient, there's no doubt about that.

Speaker 1 But they were, you know, they're going to lose a lot of key players who are lonely. With Charlton, that's not the case.
This is a pretty settled squad.

Speaker 1 This is a manager, Nathan Jones, who I have absolutely immense belief in.

Speaker 1 I think once he gets buy-in from a club, and that's the fans and the players and the ownership, then which is something he never had at Southampton, seemingly with the players, all the fans uh and at stoke with the fans but at luton you know the the the success that he's achieved at louton i i just never understand with nathan jones why people tend to focus on two poor um short spells at other clubs when the success he achieved at luton albeit only one promotion because he left um during the the league one and championship promotion seasons halfway through but the trajectory that that that club was set on towards the Premier League, like he was absolutely the architect of that.

Speaker 1 On a purely footballing perspective, he never should have had to drop down to League One to get his next job anyway. Charlton saw that potential.

Speaker 1 He's someone who's got an affinity with the club anyway from his coaching days. And yes, as Joel said, it took time, I think, for people to buy into him and the cult of him.

Speaker 1 But once you do, the success is obviously there. He's developed loads as a manager, too.
Like

Speaker 1 he used to be really stubborn in terms of playing shape. And it was this diamond that he used at Luton that was initially very successful.
Then he tried to implement it at Stoke and it didn't work.

Speaker 1 But he's changed that now.

Speaker 1 He used to play pretty expansive football at Luton when he had Jack Stacey and James Justin on each as wing backs, which I guess you would do in League Two if you had those two players.

Speaker 1 But, you know, now it's a case where it seems like he has learned that the best vehicle for success is, as he said in his

Speaker 1 post-match team talk, clean sheets. It's all about clean sheets.
And he's worked out a way to coach a team to do that.

Speaker 1 And that means I think next season going into the championship, they have the perfect manager

Speaker 1 to overachieve and to consolidate them at that level.

Speaker 1 You know, we saw Derby move away from Ward and appoint John Eustace, who's someone who is very much driven at creating a playing environment where goals conceded, numbers are low.

Speaker 1 We saw Oxford change Des Buckingham for Guy Rowatt in exactly the same way, and both those appointments work really well.

Speaker 1 I think in Charlton's case, they already have that man at the helm, and he's someone who's achieved success at that level before. So, yeah, I mean, they,

Speaker 1 given the way they finished the season and given the and a lot of young quality coming through in this squad as well, I mean, Jones is bringing through a really talented crop of young players whilst playing the style of football, which is which is hard to do.

Speaker 1 So I'd be really surprised if they struggled.

Speaker 6 A championship full of pragmatic defensive teams. That's what I can't wait to watch this.

Speaker 4 It's going to be fantastic.

Speaker 6 Yes, Joel.

Speaker 8 Just talked about twice that Nathan Jones has been tempted away from a club. Is that likely to happen again?

Speaker 8 Or is his stock sort of at a level where he needs to prove himself in the championship again before being offered a bigger job?

Speaker 6 Has he been burnt?

Speaker 1 I think you've got a really fortunate situation where you've got a really good manager who's achieved success in the past, who everyone seems to think is a clown, which is ideal because he's not.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I think a lot of owners would look at him and his antics and think, you know, I don't want that.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of fan bases of clubs at the top end of the championship or bottom end of the Premier League, if their club was linked to Nathan Jones, they would be protesting. It's incredibly unfair

Speaker 1 that,

Speaker 1 you know, and anyone who's at Stampedon, he knocked City out of the cup.

Speaker 1 And if you ask Nathan Jones, he will tell you that his record at Stampton is no worse than a lot of managers who managed there before.

Speaker 1 But there's something about his persona that obviously rubs people up the wrong way.

Speaker 1 He's incredibly passionate and his sound bites, of course, his interviews go viral and make people talk about Nathan Jones for non-footballing reasons.

Speaker 1 But if you cut out all the noise, the success that he achieves when given time is undeniable. But there is noise.

Speaker 1 And I think that noise means that he probably isn't that attractive a proposition for other teams, which should mean, unless you obviously achieve success again and he takes Trollton towards the top end of the championship.

Speaker 1 I can't see there being a world now where he appeals to any other sides, especially now that you're in the league above Luton.

Speaker 6 Are they mutually exclusive? Can't you be quite a successful clown?

Speaker 4 Like Ronald McDonald.

Speaker 6 It is possible, isn't it?

Speaker 7 Just on the day itself,

Speaker 7 as a fan of a team that's in the shadow of much bigger teams, as a Berry fan with Man United Man City, you know, the rest of it.

Speaker 7 It's quite a nice day, given that Leighton Orion and Charlton fans, you know, are used to having, you know, being like the smaller side and people going, oh, who's your Premier League team and all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 7 And also a bit of a strange one was that, like, nobody was in much of a rush to leave because nobody had to get to the other side of the country. It was pretty chill, like, afterwards, as well.

Speaker 7 To the point where Charlton right-winger Thierry Small was just like walking down Wembley Way with like his family, still like with his match-worn shirt on and like trousers.

Speaker 7 I think he was getting the tube, and everyone's coming up, going, Chieri, chieri, every little chat with him and stuff.

Speaker 7 And even like getting back to Wembley Park Station, there was like a dad, one late an Orient fan, with his two sons, and his two kids are going like we ate charlton we ate charlton we ate they must have been like six and five like they just you know this the first game like one of the first games and like no aggro none of that although it wasn't a festival of football in a way it kind of was and i think um yeah it was not it was nice everyone wants that wembley moment don't we you know it wasn't an entertaining game but it was a nice vibe and you you when you're when you're coming into a game like this in these big games you partly your senses are slightly heightened you know you just want to make sure you don't like get caught up any aggro and anything like that And it was none of that.

Speaker 7 And that was nice at least. It was the nice final in that respect.
Game was horrible, but it was nice.

Speaker 6 I see players getting public transport, like Bobby Moore getting the train with the fans before just wandering into the dressing room.

Speaker 6 I mean, a word on Orient, I guess, is that the tricky thing for them is, I guess, George, is

Speaker 6 it's hard for them to get to the playoff final. That's a great achievement, what Richie Wellens has done, like to go again.

Speaker 6 You sort of imagine Charton would always be there or thereabouts, even if their league positions didn't always define that. Just in terms of the size of Orient, what they've done is great.

Speaker 6 It's going to be hard to replicate that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is. You know, they, Joel mentioned there, whether or not Charlton should be worried about losing Nathan Jones.

Speaker 1 I think Richie Wellens is definitely one who, you know, Orient fans will feel like they have to keep. And the success that he's achieved at Orient has been so impressive.

Speaker 1 And it has been so steady, just kind of consistent improvement of season on season.

Speaker 1 And as you say, you know, he did incredibly well to get Orient to this point in the first place and to beat Stoppault over two legs. It wouldn't surprise me.

Speaker 1 There are a lot of championship vacancies at the moment, or it might be helped by the fact that their season's ended a couple of weeks after everybody else, because you'd think the process is already kind of down the line for most of those.

Speaker 1 But I think Wellands will certainly be on a few wish lists when jobs do come up.

Speaker 1 But for the, you know, the difficulty for Orient now,

Speaker 1 when you're a club operated at that level and you're trying to bridge the gap between an Orient who will have a mid-table budget around there, although they've just been taken over, so next season could be different.

Speaker 1 And those at the top, as he, you know, the loan market is incredibly important. And I can't really remember too many clubs who've used the loan market as well as they have this season.

Speaker 1 Jamie Donnelly, who is on known from Spurs, who just, you know, frankly shouldn't be playing at League One, has been such a good creative player for them in the number 10 role.

Speaker 1 Josh Keeley, the keeper also from Spurs, who definitely should have done better with a free kick. Like you cannot deny that.

Speaker 1 I'm not entirely sure how it went in, frankly, but he's been a massive player for them over the course of the season.

Speaker 1 Jack Curry, the left back, unknown from Oxford, who I thought was probably the best player on the pitch on the day.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, Ethan Galbraith, who is the right back, who is their player, but has had a contract at the end of the season. And then Charlie Kelman, online from QPR.
So,

Speaker 1 I mean, basically, as soon as that final whistle blew, their five best players are just taken out of the club. And that is some rebuild mission now for Wedlands.
But what I would say,

Speaker 1 from a positive perspective, is that if I was...

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure a lot of Premier League clubbers will be looking at Orient and thinking that's where I want to send my young players because they've done such good work with the crop they had this time around.

Speaker 1 And they're obviously very good at identifying good young talents. So it'll be hard to repeat the trick, but it feels like a club they're in a very, very good spot at the moment.

Speaker 6 Podcast producer and Charlton fan, thanks for joining us.

Speaker 8 Thanks, Max.

Speaker 4 Back in your box, Joel.

Speaker 6 We'll be back in a second. We'll do the League Two playoff final.

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Speaker 6 Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly. So Wimbledon, AFC Wimbledon to beat Walsall 1-0.

Speaker 6 Heartbreak for Walsall, you know, top of the league for so long, you know, messing it up, finishing in the playoffs, then getting to the final and then losing that one.

Speaker 6 AFC Wimbledon, meanwhile, they've been three years away from

Speaker 4 the third tier.

Speaker 6 But as you mentioned, Barry, I mean, I wonder, Sanny, were you using your reporter's monocular to look at other things in the sky because of this game?

Speaker 7 I actually was

Speaker 7 because Wimbledon brought loads and loads of blue and yellow balloons. Lovely.
And

Speaker 7 such was the heat generated by the fans that some of these balloons, rather than waft onto the pitch, actually got caught up in the heat and rose.

Speaker 7 And a couple of them ended up going to the front of the stadium. And I was caught

Speaker 7 in a bit of a reverie, like American Beauty looking at a carrier back. It's like looking at these balloons, going, wow, this is amazing.
And the ex-science teacher in me was like, oh, this is great.

Speaker 4 Look, this is physics in action.

Speaker 7 And I did actually get my monocular. I was looking at that.

Speaker 7 And then Miles Hippolyte had the audacity to wake me up and actually have a shot on goal and score and I was back in the back in the zone but yeah it really was just kind of caught up in it because there was very little going on other than Matty Stevens boot falling apart

Speaker 7 which was yeah definitely the highlights of the first half until that goal and the balloons very little going on but yeah physics in action kids great was it one of you I can't remember putting the whatsapp group the XG was 0.12 until Miles Hippolyte scored.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was, yeah.

Speaker 6 So what did you make of the game, George?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a great game.

Speaker 1 We were quite lucky that the shot on target to goal ratio over the playoff finals was high. I think in another world, it easily could have been a weekend where we had like a 1-0, a 0-0, then a 0-0,

Speaker 1 which would have meant for lots of extra time and not many goals.

Speaker 1 But, I mean, yeah, the one thing I would say is even though it was a first half, a very little opportunity until the goal went in, I still think AFC Wimbledon were comfortably the better side in that first half.

Speaker 1 Like, if there was a team who threatened that they might maybe nearly make something happen, it was AFC Wimbledon.

Speaker 1 Whereas Walsall looked completely toothless, which was a surprise because they were so good over the two legs against Chesterfield. I kind of thought maybe they'd put a poor form behind them.

Speaker 1 In the second half, Walsall had a few opportunities. There was a ball cleared off the line in the first kind of five minutes of the second half, but AFC Wimbledon defended their lead really well.

Speaker 1 It's an interesting angle to this: where last season, Wimbledon were undone undone so many times by throwing away leads.

Speaker 1 And even though there was a period in kind of end of March, early April, where in three or four games in a row, they did it, they actually dropped the fewest points from losing positions, sorry, from winning positions all season.

Speaker 1 And for Johnny Jackson, I think that is a really impressive to take a real weakness, kind of a mentality weakness, really, or a system weakness in terms of not defending leads and change the narrative so well.

Speaker 1 And they, the way that they defended their lead, where they didn't drop off and have, you know, invite on loads of pressure, they kept Marcus Brown on the last man who's whose pace really helped them with that, with the outpull in behind.

Speaker 1 And yeah, just delighted

Speaker 1 for Jacko, who I know very well. And I interviewed him.

Speaker 1 We played foot golf together about six years ago, and he told me about how much he was desperate to be a manager one day. And

Speaker 1 he has been through, you know,

Speaker 1 coming in AFC Wimbledon, having had a difficult time at Charlton where, you know, as a player who was obviously such a legend and assistant manager to Lee Bowyer.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I think this is a case where Dons have been rewarded for keeping the faith in a young manager and they've allowed him to grow. They've allowed him to make mistakes.

Speaker 1 They've allowed him to learn from those mistakes. He was getting a lot of criticism even before the playoffs.

Speaker 1 And, you know, we said in our pod, it kind of felt like the playoff final El Sakako, where whoever lost this playoff final may well lose their job.

Speaker 1 Whereas the other one, you know, gets promoted up into League One. And, you know, as much as I feel sorry for Matt Sadlow, I think personally has done an incredible job this season.
at Walsall,

Speaker 1 albeit has been unable to finish that job. I'm delighted for Jacko that he gets an opportunity to to manage in League One again.

Speaker 6 Did you like foot golf? Sort of as someone who loves football and loves playing golf, I find it doesn't really satisfy either.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I enjoyed that it was me and Ali and Johnny against each other, and me and Johnny tied, and Ali was about 20 shots behind us. So I like that part of it.

Speaker 1 But yeah, generally, I would say it's I'd rather do one or the other, probably.

Speaker 4 Max and I sat in for an Oxford Jacobs and talks for it once.

Speaker 6 And I think we had the British foot golf team in and we were interviewing them in the studio and Max asked them if they had caddies when they went around what do you reckon left foot or right foot that's a good question maybe they have different foot you know you could have like a you know a football boot like a predators for dog legs you know little slippers for putting but yes it goes up there with one of the stupidest questions i've ever asked also the man the man who got the world record for going around the velodrome the most number of laps in an hour i did ask if he got dizzy which people seem to think was a stupid question, but I thought it was quite a legitimate one.

Speaker 4 Can I just say Miles Hippolyte?

Speaker 6 Hippolyte, the Amazonian queen with a magic girdle. I looked it up because I thought it was a great name.

Speaker 4 His goal bounced twice on the way in. It was like he skimmed a stone across a lake.
And I don't think enough was made of that.

Speaker 4 I don't think I've ever seen a ball bounce twice on its way in from a shot outside the penalty.

Speaker 4 Maybe it happens all the time, but it just struck me, yeah, that's that's like skimming a stone across a league, always in league two, Baz. Okay,

Speaker 6 the goal line clearance you mentioned was uh cleared off the line by Raleigh Harbottle, which does sound like someone from a Dickensian, uh, it's a Dickensian story, that, isn't it?

Speaker 6 Um, so so, how do you think league two is going to look next year, Sammy?

Speaker 7 As it has been this season, it'll be as unpredictable and uh ridiculous as it always is. Um, I don't think we'll see a team run away with it and collapse like Walsall did.

Speaker 7 Yeah, the much talked about 12-point lead at the top by January. 15 points ahead of Wimbledon at that point.

Speaker 7 But yeah, I kind of think there's a bit of a much of a muchness there. I mean, I'm disappointed that Carlyle went out of the league.

Speaker 7 I think they had a massive load of potential, but you know, hey-ho, if you invest it badly, you end up getting out. But yeah, I kind of think it can go...

Speaker 7 It could be anyone. It really could be anyone because it doesn't take much.
It doesn't take much, especially when you think, remember, the top seven can make the playoffs.

Speaker 7 You can always kind of sneak in. I don't think there's anyone at this point in time really standing out, but I might defer to George.
He might have a better thought than me on this.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think there'll be a few. I mean, basically, unlike other leagues, I would say that League Two doesn't necessarily track season to season as much as others.

Speaker 1 And there'll probably be some teams towards the bottom end, or at least the bottom half of League Two, who end up spending quite a lot of money and therefore elevate their score quite a lot.

Speaker 1 Barnett, who got promoted out of the National League, I think think will go pretty well as teams normally do when they get promoted.

Speaker 1 They've been seriously impressive and play a style of football that I'm excited to see more of next season and certainly very ambitious in terms of what they can do. Chesterfield,

Speaker 1 you know, they will go again under Paul Cook. I think only injuries stop them from being one of the better teams in the league this season.

Speaker 1 I'm sure that if they don't suffer that same misfortune, then they'll be competitive.

Speaker 1 MK Dons with Paul Warren at the helm, you know, you've got to look at them as being a likely team who will recruit heavily over the summer with a manager who knows how to get promoted, whose style of play should be pretty well suited to lead to.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mentioned for Walsaw and Matt Sadler. I'm really intrigued to see what happens there now because

Speaker 1 I always hate it when managers get judged on their own success. And in Matt Sadler's case, that's obviously what's happened.

Speaker 1 He built a phenomenal team for the first six months of the season or five months of the season, lost Nathan Lowe in ridiculous circumstances, given he ended up not playing for Stoke after the deadline closed in January.

Speaker 1 And he was the best player in league two whilst he was there. And, you know, therefore, massively tailed off.

Speaker 1 But the underlying numbers, the data side of things, suggested that they were getting quite unlucky rather than being just really poor.

Speaker 1 At times, they conceded loads of goals from kind of from range 25 yarders going in every week against them. I know a lot of Warsaw fans want to see the back of Sadler.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I think there's probably a lesson in their opponents on Monday where, you know, when you've got a young manager who's learning their trade, experiences like what Matt Sadler's gone through over the last five months or so can be massively beneficial to coming on as a manager.

Speaker 1 And I think if Warsaw did sack him, my hunch is that another team would probably profit from that because you don't do as well as they did in the first six months unless you've got something about you.

Speaker 7 And keep your eye on Swindon Town under Ian Holloway. I think they lost only like six from December onwards.
He exercised the ghosts on the training ground and got them all playing brilliantly.

Speaker 7 So it's interesting to see how he does next season.

Speaker 6 And of course, Cambridge under Neil Harris, which I'm amazed. And I'm slightly frustrated.
You know, you never mentioned my club.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 I'm feeling that. I'm an idiot.

Speaker 6 I'm feeling like that.

Speaker 1 there's a really worrying trend at the moment of teams who get relegated out of league one struggling when they go down and i don't think that'll be the case with cambridge because um i think in harris you've got a very very i mean at the worst very canny operator whose style of football means that the floor should be pretty high but yeah maybe like shrewsbury even though they've got a manager that i still rate very highly michael appleton you worry about these clubs that maybe don't realize that if you're a really bad league one side the chances are you're going to be a really bad league two side as well unless you you improve over the summer Tom says, Hi, Max Barry, and the rest of the football weekly crew.

Speaker 6 I found the podcast during COVID. I've been an avid listener ever since.

Speaker 6 The steady stream of football chatter mixed in with Barry's distaste of the arts, the strong anti-American bias, thanks for bringing it up, has been a source of joy for me since.

Speaker 6 And passion, for which you all speak about the game we all love, is wonderful to hear on a weekly basis.

Speaker 6 This season, for the first time since dropping into non-league, we scraped into the playoffs with a winner with an away draw at Gateshead enough to sneak into the playoffs at Gateshead expense.

Speaker 6 From there, a ridiculous 4-3 win at Rochdale, having 3-1 down, and a win on penalties at Forest Green, have led us to an improbable playoff final against Oldham, who themselves have had ownership problems in the recent past.

Speaker 6 I should say as a South End fan, is dumb. It's the biggest game for either of these teams for some time.

Speaker 6 Both clubs are estimating that demand for tickets will be in excess of 30,000 fans per fan base and setting a National League record for attendance.

Speaker 6 Following the completion of the semifinals, the club were informed by the National League that due to engineering works on the underground and Wembley Park station being closed for the day, their allocation for the game is is limited to 17,500 tickets.

Speaker 6 While both sets of fans are obviously desperate to win, the chance to celebrate our local teams on the grandest stage should be something to cherish, especially given where our clubs were in the very recent past.

Speaker 6 And I worry that decisions made by people who do not have the fans in mind is once again going to leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

Speaker 6 Anything you can do to highlight the issue would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work and keep the steady stream of Baryon Munich plane stories coming.

Speaker 6 It wasn't a plane, it was a train, but you know,

Speaker 6 it's all the same. Up the blues, says Dom.
Sally, this is it is deeply frustrating, isn't it?

Speaker 4 What's happened here?

Speaker 7 An absolute mess. And the

Speaker 7 authorities, you know, carrying out

Speaker 7 the works on the station, all that stuff. They knew that this was happening, right? Because this is all, this allocation has come down to whether they can get fans safely there.

Speaker 7 Like, this has been booked. I think the National League came out with a statement saying that this has been organized for over a year, that they've known about this.

Speaker 7 It's almost like the people who are engaging in this are unaware of the size of football.

Speaker 7 You know, they're unaware of how many extra people come that this is our national stadium yes depending on where you sit in the stadium you might get uh soaking wet which is in itself a bit of a a nightmare but um yeah overall i mean like yeah what i don't know what they're doing yeah no i mean i just okay echo what sanny says it's a mess it's so frustrating i like just you know i i 2010 i went to the nationally power final Oxford York.

Speaker 1 I think the attendance was like mad, like 60,000. And it was incredible.
And the idea that as a fan, you can't go to that day and there will be,

Speaker 1 you know, South End fans or Alden fans who are sitting at home because the allocation is so small. It's just a total mess, frankly.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, it's another

Speaker 1 all too common occasion of fans seemingly being thought of last when it comes to football these days.

Speaker 4 On the subject of attendances, Max, the three play-off finals

Speaker 4 drew a combined crowd of 211,858, which absolutely smithereened the previous record from 2008.

Speaker 6 Yeah, amazing. I'll finish with this from Scarman Rev.
He says, please mention Clydebank FC, who won promotion to the fifth tier of Scottish football.

Speaker 6 Their supporter-owned Phoenix Club, a once-proud Scottish Premier League team, boasting players like Davy Cooper. The club is on its way back to the big time.

Speaker 6 That echoes with Sanny, doesn't you, and Berry? Amazing sides in Clydebank's league now. Troon, Pollock, Ochenleck, Talbot, Cum Knock Jr.'s Schott Spon Accord,

Speaker 6 which produced all sounds like a John Grisham novel. Anyway, well done, Clydebank, and good luck to you.
And that'll do for today.

Speaker 6 Quickly, George, to mention not the top 20, you're playing the Crucible in July.

Speaker 6 A few tickets still available. Would you like to sell them here?

Speaker 1 Yes, please. Thank you.
Yeah, 5th of July at the Crucible in Sheffield, Park Crosswires Festival.

Speaker 1 We are playing Saturday 3 o'clock kickoff, as it should be.

Speaker 1 So please come and see it. We'll be talking about the champion, well, the EFL season just gone.
A couple of special guests there too.

Speaker 1 And then we'll be out and about in town afterwards watching the Lionesses.

Speaker 1 So if you want to come and have a fun day talking football and having a few drinks, then please buy tickets on the Crosswise website.

Speaker 4 The one thing I would say, George, having been to the Crucible several times to watch Snooker, obviously not theatre,

Speaker 1 are we theatre?

Speaker 4 It is not as big as it looks on the telly. Okay.
And it doesn't even look particularly big on the telly.

Speaker 6 It is

Speaker 6 George and Ali versus Bill Werberneck and

Speaker 6 Tony Knowles. Anyway, thank you, George.
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 7 Thank you. Cheers, Max.
Thanks, Sally. Thank you.
It's been a wonderful season.

Speaker 6 Cheers, Baz. Thanks.
It hasn't ended, Sanny.

Speaker 4 International Football in about a week.

Speaker 6 Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove. Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

Speaker 4 This is The Guardian.