What’s next for Manchester United after Erik ten Hag era ends? – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

Finally, finally, Eric Tenhar gets the sack from Manchester United.

Of course, that happened just after we finished recording the pod.

Andy Mitten from United We Stand joins us to dissect Eric's tenure, work out why now, and then on to Ruben Amarim.

If he is the chosen one, what he needs to do, we'll briefly touch on Real Madrid boycotting the Ballon d'Or, this fight-winning team of the year.

And then to the EFL, Sunderland, five points clear in the championship.

Can they keep it going?

Leeds and Burnley in hot-ish pursuit.

A bit of Rooney Watch and the rest of those at the bottom.

To League One, no one's catching Birmingham, are they?

A real bun fight below that.

And to the bottom, our Burton, the new Cambridge, we'll find out if Ryan Loft is the secret to the U's success.

In League Two, Port Valera flying and Ian Holloway is back.

Hopefully there's time for an Aberdeen minute from Baz if he's remembered.

That'll be your questions and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, Barry Glendenning, welcome.

Hi, I'm Act.

From Not the Top 20 podcast, Ali Maxwell.

Hey, Ali.

Hello.

It's out in a car park at Old Trafford.

Sanny Ridravadulo.

Sanny, hello.

Hello.

Hello.

Yeah,

I presume for work.

You're not just one of those people that just sits outside football grounds.

Waiting to be Vox popped by an unsuspecting Sky Sports news reporter.

Noah, I'm the man with the microphone waiting to break the news.

If you hear it, if we get the news, you'll hear it here first, depending on when you listen to this podcast.

Okay.

And as I said in the intro, Andy Mitten, editor of United, We Stand, joins us.

Hey, Andy.

How are you doing?

Yeah, I'm good.

How are you, Andy?

And what's your reaction to

the news that we were all expecting and have been expecting for months, to be fair?

Busy.

Well, you're right to expect it for months.

Manchester United's managers tend to last between two years and about two years and and six months i didn't wake up on monday morning thinking this would be the day that eric tenag lost his job but then i had a start to get a few odd phone calls asking me if i'd be available i'm like okay and then the news broke manchester united are 14th in the table they've won four games this season it's it's been a disaster so far this season and the optimism which was pretty significant at the start of the season, I think partly because that's what football fans are like, just completely evaporated.

The performances have been poor, the

injuries have continued, and that's not on 10 hog.

Nor is the fact that his players created loads of chances at West Ham on Sunday in the first half, but couldn't score any of them.

But look, he's a football manager, he's going to be judged by results.

Eighth last season wasn't good enough.

The FA Cup win was fantastic.

A lot of fans were behind him at that point.

But this season has been really, really poor and worryingly so.

And no matter how well a team have been playing, such as at West Ham in the first half, or Brighton in the first half, or Crystal Palace in the first half, you're seeing a trend here.

Manchester United are unable to win those matches.

Mitch says, has Michael Oliver's awful VAR call turned out to be United's best assist this season?

I mean, I heard Andy Simon Stone on the BBC saying that this had been decided after United lost 4-0 to Palace last season, which begs the question, why wait until now?

Is that simply because no one they spoke to wanted the job or they didn't want anyone that they spoke to.

A successor was a was a problem from those May talks and it was pretty unedifying.

It wasn't comfortable for Eric Tenog either.

He was in Ibifa and he was trying to relax and when I next saw him after that, I asked him what clubs he'd been to in Ibifa and he just looked at me with like, what?

Did you not see what happened to me when I was there?

I just want a list of clubs.

That's all I want from you.

And I got on with him.

He was a really good person to deal with.

as a journalist and I don't think his charisma always came through.

He looked awkward a lot of the times in press conferences, but there is definitely another side to him.

As for that palace game in May, all I know for a fact is words were had within the dressing room,

with the coaches, and it was put that, look, we're playing Manchester City in a cup final in two weeks.

We're going to get absolutely destroyed unless we change what we do.

And that wasn't on Eric Ten Haag.

So the team changed.

They've become far more pragmatic for those final few games of the season.

Played well, got bot, but were beaten by Arsenal, defeated Newcastle United, and then most famously defeated Manchester City the mood did pick up and I did a poll straight after the cup final win 60,000 people voted should Eric Ten Hog stay and 85% said yes now a certain number there is definitely people high on the emotion but I was with Eric Ten Hogg and I showed him I said look at that and he pretended not to um not to look and I just said name one politician who wouldn't like those approval ratings And he was absolutely buzzing.

And why not?

You know,

he'd done what he said was a bucket list.

He had become the first Manchester United manager to win a trophy since 2017.

Wasn't good enough in the league.

The team doesn't score enough goals.

There are problems all over the shop.

But he did win two trophies.

Ultimately, that's not good enough given the amount that he spent and the expectation at Manchester United.

Do you think, Andy, the problems above him are a bigger deal?

Wasn't easy for him.

He had a strategic review going on in the background.

That wasn't his fault.

There was a lot of uncertainty.

I remember a year ago, nobody had a clue what was happening.

It was Qatar one minute.

It was Inios the next minute.

And he had some other awkward situations to deal with, none of which were his doing.

It wasn't easy to deal with Cristiano Ronaldo or Mason Greenwood or a dressing room full of players who are probably not as good as they think they are or not as good as their wages might suggest that they are and and he wasn't for everybody he wasn't for every player even after that cup final win i spoke to six or seven first team players outside the dressing room and not one of them said he absolutely must lose his job and not one of them said he absolutely must stay all the opinions were somewhere in the middle or people you know and people whose opinions i respect were like he's just got to change his man management for example now that is only the view of one player I know a lot of people who backed him and he had a very, very difficult job.

But then Manchester United are not the only huge football club with pressures.

I watched Barcelona hammer Real Madrid 4-0 at the weekend.

It's only a year ago.

Barcelona was supposedly finished crisis club call them what you want.

Manchester United are not getting that break, not coming close to being able to challenge for a title.

There's not the United have not been in a title race in the post-Ferguson era.

Yes, there's been second place finishes.

Yes, there's been cup wins domestically and in Europe.

And after six months, I really felt Tenag was onto something.

His team knocked Barcelona out of Europe, won the league cup, were playing well, were really strong.

So many journalists, we had a two-hour sit-down with him in Spain, and he was really impressive.

But that was probably about the high point.

That season finished badly.

team shipped seven at Liverpool away.

There were some horrendous results and the highs just became less frequent.

Europe last season was a disaster.

One win in six, bottom of probably the weakest Champions League group.

And this season, three European games, no wins, no defeats, if you want to be glass half full, half empty.

And that 20 game a few weeks ago, in my opinion, that's where he lost the moderates.

That's not the online crazies.

That's people who are sensible, who are patient.

And after failing to defeat 20, his former club, that's when I felt he's losing it here.

And it's very, very difficult to get back from that point when you're losing fans who've been so supportive.

Baz, we've touched on this before, but the recruitment under Ten Haag has not been good.

No, he has had plenty of financial support, but

if you look through a list of his signings,

arguably one of the most successful of them has been Johnny Evans, who came in on a free and was supposed to be a kind of therapy dog for the under-21s you know that that kind of role on the training ground uh manufacture matthias de lick newser mazeruit uh joshua zerkesi came in this summer they've all yet to make an impression of note i would argue hoyland's been okay andrea nana

he's having a good season Mason Mounts constantly injured.

Casemiro is no longer the player he was.

I think we all know real madrid sold him because they realized he was no longer the player he was lessandro martinez was a success i would say uh malasia we haven't seen much of but that that's nearly you know that's over nearly 600 million euros worth of of purchases and you have to question ineos as well just their sports group I was looking yesterday,

they bought a third of an all-conquering mercedes formula one team they're now bang average uh they became the owners of an all-conquering sky cycling team that is now bang average and they're the official performance partners of the worst all-blacks rugby team i've ever seen and they have three football teams uh lausan nice and man united who are all mid-table at best in their respective divisions and I don't know much about sailing but I I do know their yacht just got battered in the final of the Americas Cup.

But apparently they didn't disgrace themselves.

So

you could argue that

Sir Jim Ratcliffe is something of a jonah when it comes to investing in sports.

I watched one of those America Cup days.

I've never been surrounded by so many posh people in my life.

Oh, you're from Manchester.

Yes, I know somebody who's been there.

Yes, it was a terribly frightful experience for them.

I think Barry's pretty bang on the money.

Casimiro was very good in his first season, as was Lessandro Martinez alongside Rafael Varan.

But recruitment has been a major problem for Manchester United long before Eric Ten Hag

came in.

Huge amounts of money

has been squandered.

You're absolutely right about Johnny Evans.

Not just Johnny the player, Johnny the person.

Apart from being the most intelligent footballer about with four straight A's in his A levels,

numerous people in that dressing room tell me this dressing room used to be full of people like Johnny Evans, not A-star students,

but

people who

got whatever it is to be a serial winner, people who were about the collective, not the individual.

And it's hugely ironic that Johnny Evans is one of the best defenders and has been an absolute success.

He's probably the lowest paid player there.

And we can celebrate Johnny and we do, but it's also symptomatic of the fact that, you know, Johnny was a last-minute ditch signing because other things had not gone to plan.

And

United fans celebrate all these new signings.

Every single one of them, they have this idealized view of how they're going to improve.

Manuel Agarti, fantastic, is going to be much better than Scott McTominay.

And then when he isn't, it's like, oh.

And then you have some people, get rid, get rid of the Deadwood.

But when you're hearing this for 10 years and the new players coming in are not as good, it just becomes even more of a worry and there should be people who are smarter in recruitment than manchester united have had you look at the other clubs look at the way manchester city recruit the way liverpool have recruited there's been a real shortage of players who've come in where you're thinking yeah i didn't actually hear of him but he's turned out to be fantastic six months into 10 hog

We were thinking that with Casimiro did look a smart side.

I spoke to lots of people at Real Madrid.

There's another side to that story.

Anana is looking like a decent goalkeeper this season.

He certainly wasn't last season.

It was a really difficult time for him.

Injuries have been a massive, massive issue.

Then you have players like Marcus Rashford who are among the best paid players in the world, but simply not among the best players in the world.

Because United have got this huge financial muscle, this global support, and it is massive.

You know, the kits sell in record numbers.

Demand for tickets is higher than it's ever been, which is bizarre because the team's not very good.

And

it's a huge news story, as you know.

Maybe people like to look at this car crash and study it and celebrate it or dismay in it.

But

it is

an unedifying circle of continual managerial changes.

And now, what you're going to hear is, okay, Inios are in, things will be different now, best in class, and all that.

Prove it.

We're all ears.

Man United fans,

hope that they are a success.

But as Barry rightly pointed out,

their success in sport has been patchy so far.

Sorry, in that list of players, I left out the worst signing of the lot, Anthony.

I mean, it's interesting.

There are definitely listeners to this podcast who grew up watching Manchester United in the 90s who are not United fans who love watching this

CardQuest.

That is for sure.

Sanny, do you think a managerial change is enough?

I mean, do you think we expect it will be Ruben Amarin?

You're there, poised, ready to talk to people as soon as the announcement is made or before it is.

I mean, is that enough?

It clearly seems like the right thing to do, but still, it's a big old job.

It is, and is it enough?

No, but then one could argue that they've managed to do all the other things to kind of remedy that.

You know, all the people who are above Ten Hag are now in place.

So, in theory, you've got a structure that can, you know, right all the the wrongs, but then equally that same structure is the one that supported Eric Ten Hag to bring in a lot of his, you know, IX compatriots or ex-IX players and a team that is pretty dysfunctional.

Would Amarin, if it is Amarin, be enough?

I mean, certainly,

just like what we learned with Gareth Southgate in England, is you needed someone who's

as much a comms man as a manager, right?

Man United is that too.

Eric Ten Hag, he was a very decent guy.

He was always very courteous with me.

His communication with the media, his communication with the fans, it was never quite with that clarity.

There was never that that warmth.

There was never that, you know, it's even,

I don't know how much it was, you know, perhaps his English wasn't there, or maybe just lack of charisma.

But either way, sometimes stuff would kind of get lost in translation.

You know, there was a, I was at a press conference that Andy was with as well, where, you know, he talks about lies and fairy tales from the media.

And he didn't really say it with much vitriol, but when you read it in print, it sounds worse than it is.

And

as well as all that, you know,

in that very press conference, so that one started by the way, and I don't think it went on TV anywhere, but Andy has just finished climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for the Man United Foundation for charity.

And so, this press conference started.

And before we got the first question, Ten Hard goes, right, but you know, before we start, I just want to, Andy, congratulate you on all your work, you know, amazing, brilliant stuff.

And so, then the conference goes, all right, well, you know what, Andy, we'll start with you with the first question.

So, we've had that.

He's had a round of applause.

And the first question from Andy is, Eric, are you sure you're the the right man to be the man United manager?

Absolutely no leeway whatsoever.

And funnily enough, just on that as well, I don't think I've been to any other club where the journalists in the building are so mutinous and so openly so.

Like you get there, they put on a very nice spread at United, but all the journalists will quite happily say, you know, oh, this guy doesn't know what he's doing, you know, he's on his last legs, you know, I can't believe he's still there.

All within earshot of other United staff.

I can't imagine that happening at other clubs.

So this, you know, Andy mentioned about Johnny Evans being the only player, essentially, from the Ferguson era, you know, everything comes back to Ferguson in some respects.

That has all kind of gone.

So whether Amarin can come in and

get some of that back, you know, that's a big ask, a really big ask.

But certainly from a communication point of view, from a...

from

his abilities, from what we've seen so far at sporting, he's been very successful there.

He could be very good.

And I suppose you could argue that Ten Hag hasn't done the best with the opportunity he's had as far as that is all concerned as well.

So Amarin could be onto a winner on that front at least.

Ali, do you think

the Premier League English football needs a successful Manchester United?

Not particularly.

I am very...

I'm probably more engaged with the next few years of Manchester United as a neutral as I have been since Ferguson left.

I'm not someone that has necessarily delighted in Manchester United's decline, far from it, even though I did grow up in the 90s as a non-Manchester United fan, watching them win everything.

For me, what's interesting about football isn't necessarily the car crash stuff.

I think, however, the next few years and the rebuild, if you like, from this moment, is a really interesting footballing story.

So for me, that is the main focus.

I'm really pleased that, you know, Andy has laid out so well the many, many factors that go into Manchester United's current situation outside of Eric Ten Hag's performance as Manchester United.

But I must say, specifically,

from the perspective of the football team that I have watched as a neutral and someone who enjoys analysing football teams, they have been, to my eyes, a very unserious team in the Premier League over the last few years.

And I know that the FA Cup win was incredibly well received and for obvious reasons, beating City and Pep in the final.

But I also think that acted as a little bit of a red herring because for me the way of judging a manager's performance when it comes to managing the football team is league football is not cup football and frankly having been at the semi-final against Coventry City who took them all away having watched their early round game against Newport County who scored two goals against them you know there were aspects of that FA Cup run that they made pretty heavy weather of and maybe that summed up Ten Hag's tenure pretty well because when it came to the the games against Liverpool and Manchester City the players players stepped up, and that speaks maybe to what Andy talked about with the mentality of the players and the culture around the club.

Where maybe the big games, the one-off games against massive teams, the players were able to motivate themselves.

But week to week against teams outside of the big six in the Premier League, they were consistently an unserious team, a team that just wasn't one that was feared, I don't think, by any team, even ones coming away to Old Trafford.

And so I think for me, setting aside the politics and the pressure, the recruitment and all the many things that made his job so difficult, I really believe that there are managers out there who could improve how this team plays.

And so I can't argue with the change in management.

And I do, I am genuinely quite excited if it is Ruben Amerin by what I've read about him and not being an expert myself.

I would love to see a regeneration, a rebuild of Manchester United.

I genuinely think that would be, I think it would be very good for English football to come back to your original question.

Yeah.

And Andy, finally to you,

do you share the same view about Ruben Amarin?

Do you, I mean, do you know?

I mean, we're pretty sure it's going to be him, but I mean, how confident are you of getting him?

If it is him, or if it isn't him, and without going all football cliches, what's the intree?

What have they got to do?

Amarin,

I studied his sporting team in the Europe League in 23 with people who know far, far more about tactics than I do, but who are not writers, so I put their words together.

I've been asking similar people the last 18 hours about him.

I'm getting a pretty positive feedback.

One person is adamant it will be a mistake, but the rest of them are like, no, top, top guy,

is the best available at the moment.

He will have a very, very difficult job.

The pressures at Manchester United will be far higher than sporting club.

I don't think the players are as good as people might think that they are.

The league position is not lying.

Even if you take into account the injuries, maybe you can tweak some things.

We've seen a new manager bounce before, most notably with Ollie Gunner Solskjaer.

It's a pretty disparate, divided dressing room.

There's not the unity that there was.

And of course, confidence and wins can change all that.

Bruno Fernandez is probably the best player.

He's got a real difficult job on his hands.

One thing that really annoyed Ollie Gunnar Solskjaer, and I've kept in touch with Ollie, was he felt that individual players all had like their own PR agents working for them and pushing their cause in the hope of a huge new contract, which often they got.

That made his job really difficult because he didn't know where the briefs were coming from.

And

it was just against the collective that

is often most evident in the most successful football teams.

In the short term, he's got a he or whoever gets the job, and it might be Van Nistelroy,

we don't know how long Van Nistroy is going to be in charge

results have got to improve the team have not been playing that badly they have been creating chances put some of those chances away maybe if you're Van Nistroy just put yourself on because I'm sure even 48 year old him would put some of those chances away Rude Van Nisteroy was popular when he arrived I was going to interview an unemployed Rude Van Nistelroy on the 8th of July and I went to Holland to see him and he wasn't there because

he was about to take the Manchester United job so I made him feel really guilty.

And he said, what did you do?

I said, I just sat looking at the departures board in Ship Hall all day.

What I actually did was went to see Yapstam and Rude said, look, if I can do anything to help you.

So he's written a forward for my new book, which I really appreciate.

I wish him well.

He's also got a really, really tough job.

The pressures, and some players really crumble under the pressure.

Because they're built up and up and up and start to believe it.

One or two bad games, you are getting absolutely slaughtered on social media from people all around the world.

It can be really weird and it's not unique to Manchester United.

But then Manchester United of the biggest clubs in the world are probably losing more games than the others.

Andy, thanks for coming on.

Good luck with everything.

Andy Mitten there from United We Stand.

And that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll do the EFL.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Before we do EFL, and it always gets done the EFL by big news happening.

Martin says, who would most likely lead a boycott of the SFSA awards show?

Should the pod not win?

It is very funny, Barry, Real Madrid not turning up.

They want Team of the Year.

Angelotti were manager of the year.

Surely that's enough, right?

Well, you'd think so.

I don't think the ballon d'Or is that big a deal because I'm one of those

grumps who who thinks individual awards don't really have that important a place in a team sport.

But I was reading an article yesterday in which

footballers are obsessed with it and their teams are obsessed with it.

And

word obviously got out that Vinicius Jr.

wasn't going to win.

So Real Madrid threw a collective strop and elected to boycott the ceremony.

as is their inalienable right.

It would take quite a lot for me, I think, to boycott the FSA awards because they always put on a nice dinner and you get a few

nice glasses of wine.

So, even if I was going home empty-handed, I'd still have a nice evening.

You get to meet nice people,

so

it's always a fun night out.

I can speak from the other side of the fence.

The two times that not the top 20 has been nominated for the FSA Awards, Guardian Football Weekly has taken home the gong.

So, it's easy for Barry to say as he stands up there,

does his witty, certainly not pre-rehearsed routine and makes us all laugh.

And we think, yeah, that is a good podcast, isn't it?

Well done, Guardian Football Weekly.

And you know what?

I thought this morning that I couldn't think of a footballing story that I was less interested in talking about on Football Weekly than Real Madrid throwing their toys out the pram at the ballon d'Or.

There is literally nothing about the story that interests me at all.

And then and then I remembered how seriously I take losing the FSA awards to Guardian Football Weekly.

And I thought, maybe they're not so much worse than me after all.

Let's get into the EFL

because the Man United News has shortened this a little bit.

Sunderland, five points clear at the top of the championship.

B.

Oxford tuna at the weekend.

Brilliant volley from Wilson is the door.

And Job Bellingham, Sani, scoring a great header.

Hit the bar with a great shot as well.

And he's played every minute so far this season.

What's the ceiling for Job?

It's very hard not to bring up Jude, right?

You know, the guy plays with Job on his back, not Bellingham on his back, so he can avoid that.

But then he's been playing in a lot of different positions.

He seems to be able to do a lot of different things.

And we've kind of seen that with Jude, right?

I mean,

I think his time at Sunderland is limited.

Fair play to him for kind of...

getting not an internship's the wrong word for it, but certainly, you know, we've seen players that come through DFL develop a certain steal, don't they?

You know, Jack Realish is a great example.

I think his ceiling is pretty much as high as Jude based on what we've seen so far.

And admittedly, that is in the championship, you know, obviously, I think if he went to, you know, a lower-placed Premier League side, then it would actually probably hurt his development.

You know, if he did something, you know, not necessarily going to Real Madrid, but certainly...

to a high-performing club, maybe not Man United, by the way,

he could get a good chance to really develop and show what he can do.

Um, yeah, any position he seems to be playing in, seems to be doing really well there, and yeah,

he seems to be just on a on a different level, and it's perfectly time for Sunderland to really kick on.

So, yeah, his ceiling is as high as he wants it to be.

That's just interesting, that point, Ali, if he wasn't a Bellingham, would we be as excited?

Or should we be?

Do you know what I mean?

If he was just Job Smith, yeah, I think this weekend was the time that I realized, yes, basically.

And actually, you know, as someone who likes to think of themselves as, you know, really trying to tell the truth about the EFL, there have been times in the last 18 months where I have felt like the Jude hype, if you like, that rubbed off on Job.

And it is such a wonderful story.

They are, you know, the story of the family, the story of these two young players is incredible.

So I don't begrudge it, but, you know, in the same way that Job wears Job on the back of his shirt specifically to try and forge his own path, I was quite keen to try not to feed it.

However, it's very difficult not to.

They are very similar players.

He is, like Jude, able to play in a number of different midfield, central and attacking midfield roles, has even played up front.

But I think right now, as a number eight, being able to affect the game in many different ways

is probably the best place for him at the moment and where he's going to get so much development, you know, kind of 360 development as a player, needing to do everything.

And this was probably his strongest performance of of all, not just in terms of his goal threat, but he had a couple of moments where he received the ball in tight midfield areas.

He's so strong for his age, just like levering defenders off him, sliding past them, carrying the ball forward, good forward passing as well.

He's really dogged and

tenacious, just like Jude was when he was playing in the championship at such a young age.

So, yeah, it is incredibly difficult to avoid comparing them for so many reasons.

But I actually think basically for the first time, I'm willing to say that it's legitimate to compare them as footballers because of the way that he's playing right now for Sunderland at this age.

You're starting to believe Barry?

That's too early to say.

Part of me having seen what's happened to various teams who've gone up to the Premier League from the championship in recent seasons, almost thinks, God, do I want them to be promoted?

But I think it's important to point out that Sunderland are far from a one-man team.

And

Chris Rigg is another very exciting young prospect there who,

if we presume he doesn't go off the rails, is a definite future England international as well as Job.

Patrick Roberts is brilliant.

Wilson Isidore, Romaine Mundle are both playing really, really well.

And they're just a pleasure to watch.

They really are a very, very entertaining team.

And I think that's what's most pleasing of all.

Below them, Sonny, you've got Burnley, Leeds, Sheffield United, West Brom.

You would would expect them to be there, right?

Yeah, you would.

I think if you were just looking at the table, you'd assume that Burnley are just, you know, Vincent Company Mark II side or something and are using all the parachute payments to kind of just do what they did last time.

But actually, it's been quite a different kind of team under Scott Parker.

He's still got, like, you know, I think the best part of 35.

I think pros are still there.

He tried to get, move some out, but they've actually

not been performing as well as you might have expected.

You know, the last two games they'd drawn, and before that, I I was at the Sheffield Wednesday victory.

They won 2-0 at Hillsborough, but they weren't actually the better team for big periods of that.

And both their goals were against the run-of-play.

They're allowing other teams to get chances.

They've got Luca Collioshio on the right-hand side, who's always kind of wanting to be the furthest man forward in the outball, and Jaden Anthony on the other, who have kind of gotten him out of a bit of a hole so far.

So I don't mean they're quite there,

certainly, where they were last time, and that's kind of borne out from their position.

And it allows, actually, someone like Sunderland to actually you know put on that run but we've equally seen all of these sides actually either top the table or very much near the top and they've all had I mean it's it's easy to say stumbles but I think it's just the the nature of a 46 game season and the players just aren't as consistent as you'd like them to be otherwise they'd be in the Premier League.

I mean Leeds's draw with Bristol City on the weekend.

You know, they had big chances there as well.

Weren't able to take them.

Sheffield United, their best player, by the way, is Jezerin Raksaki at the moment from when I've seen him.

And he's on loan from Crystal Palace, another exciting kind of wing player who did brilliantly at Charlton the season before.

So they've all got fallibility, and it makes it quite an interesting table, actually.

And they've all got quite different sort of styles between them.

So very exciting.

We'll see how it pans out.

But yeah, you'd expect that group to be there.

Someone like Blackburn, for example, is a bit more of an exciting kind of surprising one this season, I think.

It's an interesting table.

Who within that top half alley is the most interesting, would you say?

Yeah, I'd say outside of the top teams, I think that Middlesbrough are about to catch fire based on how I perceive them to be playing.

You know, that the points that they've dropped this season have almost exclusively been in games where they have clearly been the dominant team.

And

the fact that they've drawn or lost games has been, you know, just individual errors, sloppiness, a lack of finishing.

And those are the sorts of things that are so frustrating for fans.

You assume they will last forever.

I'm much more of a believer in what the data suggests and the fact that, in the same way, you can have runs where you can't hit a barn door, suddenly, if you are creating those chances, you get a bit of confidence, you start taking them, you start winning two, three, four.

So, um, they've got four of six games in November at home.

And I expect if we were to do this pod again at the end of November, that Burrough would absolutely be in that clutch of teams towards the top.

And then, I guess, as more of an outsider,

perhaps a surprisingly good team in the top half that I think could get higher are Millwall under Neil Harris, who are playing fantastic.

How dare you say that name on this podcast?

Right, okay.

They are playing really exciting, quick attacking football, you know, in the Millwall mold, which is really important for the fan base, but it's effective as well.

This isn't direct old school 4-4-2 type attacking.

This is really good, modern, on-the-break, quick-attacking football.

They've always been a strong set piece team, and they still are.

And they're just starting to get the results that I think their performances deserve.

So they're in 10th at the the moment, which is probably higher than I would have expected them to be pre-season.

But I actually think they could get even higher than that.

Could I just mention that Norwich 3, Middlesbrough 3 on Sunday, which was actually time to be in the middle of the Chelsea game and the Arsenal game?

So I had a real choice of like, do I watch the Premier League or do I commit to the pod and watch the Norwich game in full?

I decided I'd put big screen.

the Norwich game and it was absolutely brilliant.

Middlesbrough came back from 1-0 down to go 3-1 up.

Tommy Conway has a penalty for a hat-trick.

He misses it, and then Norwich end up drawing 3-0.

Middlesbrough

go down to 10 as well.

It was just a brilliant game.

And in that, Borgia Science with just two absolutely incredible strikes from distance.

I mean, this is a bit hyperbolic of me, but it did kind of remind me of the Alvaro Rocoba debut for Intera, the day when Ronaldo was playing.

But Borgia, you know, Ronokoba scored these two brilliant goals from miles away.

And Science has did that.

He's actually scored lots of different types of goals i think he's got three kind of worldies but what was also great about it was because the of the overlap with the two other games you know every time i kept looking at the premier league game there was a var check a player down it was so slow and there was none of that in this i i actually

My mission to not be a fat football reporter this season has been setting up my bike as a turbo trainer.

So I'm pedaling whilst I'm watching a match, another match.

And I couldn't get ready and get changed to do that for a whole 45 minutes because every time I wanted to get into my cycling kit, something was happening in this game with Norwich and Middlesbrough.

It was a brilliant example, a brilliant advert for the EFL.

Just two teams going for it, mistakes, chaos, amazing goals, no VAR.

I just don't understand, sorry to my Sky Paymasters, why it was scheduled in the middle of two Premier League games, because it was a brilliant advert for the sport.

We salute your commitment to the pods.

Wayne Rooney, watch Ali, talk us through it.

Pretty lively stuff, I must say.

He is,

you know, even if you, even if you remove all the extra scrutiny and interest around Wayne Rooney's management career and him being Argyle manager and their reasons for appointing him, the team are incredibly entertaining.

His approach to managing Argyle, who are a, you know, who were a relegation candidate, is to try and play the most

aggressively attacking football, you know, maybe a bit more appropriate for a top team like a Middlesbrough Elides or the ones we've talked about.

And so we're getting these absolutely insane games where away from home, they are getting pumped pretty much every week.

They've lost five out of six.

They've lost 4-0, 5-0, 1-0, 1-0, and 1-0.

And at home, there's just something in the air at Home Park.

They've scored a goal in stoppage time, four straight games at Home Park.

Two of them winners.

One of them to cap off

coming back from 3-0 down to draw 3-0 on Saturday.

And the one that made it 3-1 against Luton.

So all of their points tally is being propped up by their incredible record at home, which we should say stretches back a few seasons now.

It's not specific to Rooney.

It is specific to our guilt and their fan base, and the belief that they're able to instill in this team.

So, I'm loving it.

I'm definitely not of the opinion that Rooney is a horrendous manager.

I'm definitely not of the opinion that he's an incredible manager.

I'm just enjoying the ride at the moment because his team are absolutely box office.

Baz, is there anyone near the bottom of the championship or even in the the middle of the championship who that has piqued your interest in prep for this pod?

I'm interested only in the very summit of the championship, Max.

So I would defer to Sanny or Ali, who know more than I

about what's going on in the murky decks.

You know, for the audience of this pod who hear a lot of Premier League chat, I guess Luton being in the bottom three.

Award-winning, award-winning Premier League chat.

This overrated football vlog.

Yeah, I think Luton being in the bottom three is clearly a big story from the first chunk of the championship.

They were in the Premier League last year.

They're in the relegation zone right now.

And, you know, overall, if you zoom out, I would say the first three months of the season have been a bit too wild, a bit off the rails in terms of their performances.

Rob Edwards has seemingly struggled with the job at hand, which is trying to get them to settle back at this level.

And actually, not back at this level as they were before, but settle back at this level as a dominant team that's expected to win most games.

And that was never what they were before.

You know, they were such an underdog all the way through the leagues and winning promotion to the Premier League.

So they seem to have struggled as a club and the manager to work out this kind of brave new world.

Clearly, that's being reflected in really poor results.

There was a real lack of consistency in team selection and approach in the first two months of the season.

And since the international break, you know, they've clearly gone back to try and play the style that they played.

Previously, aggressive, direct, a lot of long passes into their strikers out of bio and Morris, a lot of midfielders getting on second balls, getting it wide and swinging in crosses.

And they look a lot better.

They won against Watford in that style.

They did lose to Sunderland and then Coventry in their last two.

So results haven't turned completely, but I would say, eye test-wise, it looks to suit them much better.

And I would expect them to move away from the relegation zone, but

they still have to look at what's been a really poor return to this level.

Coventry, they're struggling as well, aren't they?

Well,

they were.

Funnily enough, they actually, against a runner-play, went 2-0 down to Luton Town and then turned it around.

So just like with Luton, there's a tiny minority really who are like, you know, is the manager the right man?

But Mark Robbins has done such an amazing job.

I know we mention him every single time.

And it is worth just remembering where they were when he came in and

the brilliant work he's done to get them where they were.

You know, so close to Premier League promotion and that penalty shootout defeat to Luton Town when they went up.

I guess you have a turnover of players every year, and maybe there's been a bit of a struggle there, but they've got a lot of quality as well.

You know, someone like Haji Wright can do the business, and he was the one who got a late winner as well.

So, again, I think there's enough for them to turn it around.

The thing they don't have that Luton will have, of course, is they won't have parachute payments for the next two seasons after this one, which I think mean that Luton can kick on next season and stick with Edwards and see where they go.

Where Mark Robbins is still kind of battling against all of that and all the might of all these other clubs, but I think they'll be okay.

They just need to kind of, you know, settle down eventually.

All right, that'll do for part two.

Part three, we'll do League One and League Two.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So Birmingham top of league one on 29 points.

Wickham are three points behind.

Then come Wrexham, Mansfield, Huddersfield, and Reading.

Barnsley level on points with them.

I mean, we've talked about it already, Ali, but you know, Birmingham spent £15 million on a player.

Like, that's ridiculous.

I think that's more than Cambridge have spent ever on all their players put together.

Probably by quite a lot.

Like it's it's mad.

And you know it feels like they should win this league.

Like everything suggests they should win this league, right?

Yeah, talking about...

Cambridge's historic players just always makes me think of Tom Youngs, who was one of the great championship manager wonder kids of the early 2000s.

So thank you for that memory.

Yes, Birmingham spent a lot of money in the summer.

That's for sure.

They've taken an approach to League One, the likes of which we've not seen before.

And, you know, in terms of putting aside the spending power, what's it actually looked like on the pitch?

I mean, they've been incredibly good and they've picked up a lot of points.

I would say they've been incredibly good eighty percent of the time.

They are playing at the the most aggressively possession and territory dominant style that that you could imagine at this level.

Chris Davis came from from Tottenham Hotspur where he's a very highly renowned coach, a little bit like the Kieran McKenna appointment at Ipswich from United a couple of years ago.

And he's trying to replicate elite level football at League One with a squad that is far too good for that level.

So they've been really good, really dominant with the ball and in terms of territory.

They've barely conceded a goal from open play.

It's all been, you know, goalkeeping howlers trying to pass out the back, which has scuppered them a couple of times, and set pieces where they are looking pretty vulnerable.

But they've also scored some lovely goals.

And there's just that 20% where it's still not perfect.

As I say, say, the set pieces, they seem to be conceding one in every game at the moment, which is making things a bit harder for them than it otherwise would be.

And they are finding it difficult at times to create clear cut chances with so many opposition defenders behind the ball.

But, you know, that's the style they've chosen.

So it's very much the onus on them to sort of break teams down and work that out.

I think they will win the league comfortably.

I think the main point of interest in League One is who will battle for second.

Currently, Wickham in second, Sammy.

I didn't have Wickham there.

Cambridge always lose to Wickham, as far as I can tell.

I think I watched a goalless draw last season, which we definitely didn't deserve.

And actually, come to think of it, I saw us win 3-2 away.

But they always seemed like a strong team, Wickham, but I didn't have them at second.

No, I think

it's a good indication of why you should kind of stick with a manager who...

who's got the right ingredients and then has, what, 500-odd games for Wickham in Matt Bloomfield?

Because for the longest time, a lot of Wickham fans have been quite concerned about him being the manager it's not kind of been working and now they're on this brilliant run at the moment you know I've got my app again that last time he said grey shouldn't be draws but they've got lots of green for wins four wins in a row uh unbeaten in what fight six games um and yet they were absolutely brilliant against layton orient as well uh at home they've just got you know a great atmosphere great kind of camaraderie between them and matt bloomfield's kind of the the centre of that and because they've got one of their own there and because he's been

i suppose that's the thing when you, when you bring in a manager who's got that club connection, they get that extra time, don't they?

They always get that extra time.

And Bloomfield's managed to use that as well as you could possibly imagine.

But he's still got lots of experienced players.

Gareth McCleary's still there.

I mean, he must be, he must be 90.

He must be.

90.

I think he came on soccer AM when I was hosting it.

That is now like a lifetime ago.

So, yeah, I mean, he's managing to get a tune out of them.

and it's going really well.

So, yeah, and actually, there's a couple, by the way, we touched on Luton.

There's quite a few players who got promoted with them into the Premier League who are now playing in League One and doing very well.

Fred Onyadima's another one.

Luke Berry, Luke Berry's.

Yeah, yeah.

Luke Berry's a great example, actually.

He's doing really well.

And so, yeah, they've got quality there.

Onyadimna's another, and I think they're going to do very well.

I think they're going to ride it out, actually.

Ali, who else up there is perhaps surprising you?

I mean, it's great to see Redding doing well on the pitch, given what's happening off the pitch, but who else in that sort of top half are you surprised to see up there?

Reading are pretty astounding.

The job that Ruben Seles is doing and the way that the fans have connected with the team in such basically scary and frustrating circumstances off the pitch.

They've won, I think I'm right in saying that they've won the most home games of any team in the top four tiers in 2024.

So that just shows the connection that the fans have with the team.

You know, their back four are, I think, 21, 19, 20, and 16.

They've got 16-year-old playing at left back.

They haven't been able to sign anyone other than one or two loanes for over a year.

So it's a team of like half a dozen senior pros and then mostly players that Ruben Sellers has.

introduced to senior football and many of them are really really thriving so i i'm unbelievably impressed with um how the football side of reading are are doing there's still a lot to sort out off the pitch and it is absolutely you know you have to kind of separate those two things because overall i'm still very concerned about the future of the club.

I mean Mansfield and Wrexham are both up there at the moment having one promotion from league two last season.

Wrexham look very strong.

Their starting 11 is exceptional.

Mansfield under Nigel Clough are you know they're pretty entertaining team and winning a lot of shootouts at the moment.

And then you've got like Huddersfield and Bolton who are kind of lurking, having been expected to challenge and I probably do expect them to stick around in the top four long term.

Charlton, hit and miss.

Peterborough, hit and miss, having been in the playoffs last season.

Rotherham, a lot was expected of them, and they've started really poorly.

But, you know, they're all kind of jostling position and jostling for position rather with Barnsley X to Lincoln, Stockport as well, round out the top half.

Charlie says, How's Ryan Loft getting on at the Users?

We spent too much time about England's either the final or the semi-final of the Euros.

This is a semi-final, yeah.

The semi-final, discussing Ryan Loft.

He's not done a lot, but it doesn't matter.

We've won three on the drop.

Burton, bottom on four, Shrewsbury, second bottom on eight.

Crawley have 10.

Cambridge, 10.

Leighton Orin 11.

Wigan 14.

Northampton 15.

Will we be okay, Sanny?

What do you think?

Well,

it's hard, isn't it?

Because I'm also wrestling.

It's okay.

You can hit me.

We only had a point a week ago.

I understand.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's just a weird one that Crawley are down there.

They're like the second most...

possession based team in the league and I'm not quite sure why it's not coming together and they've got quality players so I look at the other clubs around and I just wonder you know oh I don't know it's a tough league that's what I thought you you look at it you you look at it I thought Orient would be better but Burton are struggling Shrewsbury also would be down there but you know Wigan Northampton Bristol Rovers Blackpool especially under Steve Bruce you know you

it's a tough league to stay in Ali actually yeah yeah because four relegation spots so one sixth of the league goes down and that's why the English League Pyramid is probably its greatest quirk and weirdness and probably issue is only two down from league two means means you can be incredibly bad in league two and still stay up in league one with four it is incredibly difficult and um there is a clutch of teams about six or seven that look like it's it's going to be four of those and obviously cambridge part of that i mean the the team have been performing

fine i would say you know lost a lot of games by a single goal in fact i think all the games you lost were by a single goal and now winning by you know tight quite tight margins as well so confidence clearly quite a big factor in in cambridge's future successes but i do think the the base level of the team the floor of the team, if you like, is not horrendous.

There just aren't that many star players.

And, you know, poor old Ryan Loft, 176 minutes played.

He's had two shots and won eight headers, which is what I call the Ryan Loft ratio.

Winning headers is important.

But you know, I don't want this to be just about Cambridge, of course.

Like

if you look at those other sides, you know, it is all similar-sized clubs who are in similar positions.

You would expect a man named Loft to win a lot of headers.

Well,

would you expect him to convert a few more chances?

Yeah, really good.

League two, Port Vale.

I mean, everyone loves Darren Moore.

Anyone who's met Darren Moore and, you know, will be delighted to see him, Sanny, doing so well at the top of League Two.

They've got 30 points.

Walsall, Knox County, Doncaster all have 26, Cruon 24, Chesterfield 22, Bradford 22.

But yeah, I think everybody is always happy for Darren Moore if he's doing well.

Yeah, I think he's got got a bit of a rough deal of late, and it's nice that he's been given the time there.

He's got that massive contract as well.

It's weird that they've not really

been like reliant on one player.

Like Jaden Stockbrey's the top scorer with four and he hadn't scored for a while.

Got ahead of the other day.

But yeah, they've been really good.

And quite funnily contrasting with Walsall, who seem to be scoring like four a game, which has been very exciting for them.

Really positive for

Darren Moore.

I know Club put a tweet out about how he's not going to be up for the ballon d'Or or something and and, you know, trying to get on under banter and all that.

But it's good times, good times at Vale Park.

Who else up there

is catching your eye?

I saw Gillingham were doing so well and then have gone on the bleakest run of all time.

Yeah, they had a really hot start and it was a lot of it down to hot finishing and the opposition being very, very wasteful.

They're now suffering the complete inverse of that where in the last five games or six rather, which they've lost five and drawn one, their own finishing has been really terrible and they've been super flimsy at the back and conceding with practically every other attack.

So it's kind of hard to work out their actual level.

I dare say 11th is probably it.

I think it's a really exciting renewal actually of League Two this season.

We had...

We had a bit of a...

We were a bit, well, League Two was full of kind of star teams last season with Wrexham, with Stockport and Mansfield.

We're all absolutely excellent.

I think now it's a bit more equitable at the top.

So it's a bit more competitive outside of the big three, if you like.

And all of the teams I'd say in the top eight are are looking pretty strong and that they do it in very different ways.

You've got

Milton Keynes and Knotts County go for the super possession heavy approach, sixty percent possession plus.

It it cops a lot of flack when it doesn't work at this level.

People turn their you know, people consider that managers who try and play a super possession heavy start at this level are you know are maybe doing it for their own ends rather than because it's the best way of winning football matches.

But both of those teams are pretty good teams and Knotts in in particular have wiped out a lot of their defensive frailties from last season and just look very, very good.

But yeah, Doncaster and Walsall, both really good to watch.

Crew do brilliantly to punch above their weight.

You know, it's constant their need to bring through Academy players to be senior pros in their first team.

And the way that they're able to do that every two or three years while losing the good ones up the levels is quite remarkable.

They have a manager in Lee Bell who seems to be able to cope with

all sorts and still put out a really competitive winning football team.

And then Chesterfield have come up, having won the National League last year.

They're the top scorers in the EFL at the moment with 28 goals from 14 games.

Paul Cook loves an attacking style of play and

I'd say Chesterfield and Doncaster are some of the most exciting attacking teams to watch.

So it's a brilliant league as it always is really because the gaps between budgets are much smaller than they are as you go up the pyramid.

It's always very difficult to predict, very entertaining to watch.

Sanny, you've got to go.

Go and talk to the masses.

Go and be a Sky Sports newsman.

Yeah, I think I'm live in maybe a minute.

But before I go,

just a shout on Morgan Bottom of the League.

A lot of the fans are very upset with their owners.

So yeah, it's one to kind of watch, right?

I better get out of the car, quite literally.

Hang on.

This is so exciting.

This is reportage.

Here we go.

We can see him wandering out.

And yeah, obviously,

you may have spent the day watching him and you're now listening to him on this pod.

Ali, very briefly, Ian Holloway back.

I mean, me and Barry love Ian Holloway because he once rang up our radio show

while he was metal detecting and said artifact and no one says no one can say artifact better than him.

Swindon in trouble, right?

They're third bottom, but there's trouble upstairs as well as far as I understand.

He's a wonderful bloke.

Whether he can save them is another question.

Yeah, the ownership of Swindon Town and the way that it's been run has been an issue for the club for,

well, more than half a decade now and spanning different owners as well, I should say.

And, you know, when a club is being run in that way, they drop down the pyramid.

And if they keep being run in that way, they tend to drop down into non-league eventually.

We've seen it dozens of times before.

And I'm really concerned about the direction of travel of Swindon Town.

I'm also a bit perplexed about the appointment of Ian Holloway, who is an iconic figure in English football, certainly in my lifetime, who is one of the best people I've ever met and spent a lot of time working with him on TV when I was on the Quest Highlight Show with him as a regular guest.

He's an incredible guy.

He's only managed one club in the last five years, and it was Grimsby in League Two, kind of 2020, 2021 period during COVID, which was very difficult.

But his tenure there was pretty disastrous and hasn't aged very well, I think it's fair to say.

So he comes into another League Two job where he himself has said that he thinks he's more suited to managing higher up the levels in the championship, for example, where most of his experience is.

And I'm concerned that with a lack of stability at the club, that might undermine Ian Holloway.

And I'm worried that they're expecting him to come in, be jovial Ian Holloway, you know, the kind of caricature of his personality, which is a very strong personality and a very positive one in the good times.

But I think they're relying potentially too much on that

when I'm not sure he's necessarily going to have the solid foundation that any manager needs to succeed.

So

I really hope it goes well.

I hope that we see a happy and thriving Ian Holloway because I think that that is very good for English football.

But I can't pretend I'm not pretty concerned about both, you know, his fit with that club and their situation this season and then the general future of Swindon as well.

Barry, Aberdeen.

Yep.

Joint top of the Scottish Premiership.

Nine games, eight wins, one draw.

Talk to us.

Yeah, with Rangers in disarray on and off the pitch, it was sort of presumed Celtic would march to the Scottish title at their leisure.

But it's proving not to be the case so far this season.

I mean, they probably will.

Ewan Murray has said that the thought of Aberdeen winning the title is a pipe dream, but for now, they're neck and neck with Celtic.

And it's mainly down to the work of Himi Thielen, who joined from Elsburg in Sweden during the summer.

He's a 46-year-old.

If you may remember, you may not be aware of it at all, but Barry Robson was sacked in January because

Aberdeen, like many Scottish clubs do, were really struggling to compete in Europe and on the domestic front.

And they gave a quite good account of themselves last season in the ECL.

But Robson was sacked in January.

Then they brought in Neil Warnock.

That just didn't work out.

It was never really going to work out.

They flirted with relegation, but stayed up quite comfortably in the end, I think.

Under Hime now,

they started with four wins in the Scottish League Cup, scoring 15 goals.

They've won 14 out of the 15 games they've played in the League Cup and Premiership so far this season.

And their only game they failed to win was a come from behind draw at Celtic.

They were 2-0 down.

They got it back to 2-2.

They went 3-2 up with a goal that I would say was...

controversially ruled out for a slightly ridiculous handball.

And then Celtic had the ball in the net after that, but it ended 2-third goal was was disallowed as well, so it finished two two.

And Aberdeen are set to host Rangers tomorrow evening in the league, and that is a game I would say they will probably be favourites to win.

And uh they play Celtic at Hamden Park on Saturday in the Scottish League Cup semi-final.

So very exciting times uh for the the good people at Petodery.

I d I think it would be naive to think they will push Celtic for the title, but I don't think Aberdeen want a team particularly want or expect a team that's challenging for the title.

They just want a team that challenges for the Cups and can give Celtic and Rangers a good run for the money in the league.

And that's what they've got at the moment.

Ah, but imagine if they did it.

It would be amazing, wouldn't it?

Anyway, that'll do for today.

Thanks so much.

Just two of us left.

It started with so many, but we have stayed the course.

Thank you, Ali.

Appreciate it.

Cheers, guys.

If you want more EFL, of course, go and listen to Not the Top 20.

It is an excellent podcast.

Thank you, Barry.

Thanks.

I would just like to point out that for me, the highlight of this podcast was Ali's loft conversion joke.

But when it comes to voting for the FSCs, bear in mind he said it on this podcast, not his own.

But for Weekly is produced by Joe Grove, our executive producer is Bill Maynard.

We'll be back on Thursday.

This is The Guardian.