Bowen’s brilliance fires West Ham and an EFL round-up – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to Guardian Football Weekly.

It's an EFL pod with a little bit of Premier League and FA Cup at the surface, but dig beneath and you will get the gold below.

Jared Bowen's hat-trick means West Ham are good again.

A decent win over Brentford, who are getting a lot of they'll be fine vibes, despite being very much in the mix.

Maidstone's FA Cup fairy tale is over after a 5-0 defeat at Coventry, and then it's on to the Football League.

Might Leicester not actually make it?

Okay, six points clear at the start of March is quite a good place to be, but two defeats in a row, one to form side, and now second-place leads mean the most pessimistic at the King Power at least will be getting a tiny bit nervous.

We'll go through everything you need to know about promotion, playoffs, and relegation.

Discuss Mardi post-match interviews, take your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

on the panel today.

Sanny Rudravagula, welcome.

Hello.

Hello, George Alec.

Hello.

From not the top 20 podcasts

saves me for the last seconds of the pod before I promote your excellent podcast.

Ben Fisher, welcome.

Hi, Matt.

And hello, Barry Glendenning.

Hi.

Let's start at West Ham's win over Brentford then in the Premier League last night.

Ridiculous start to this game.

West Ham tunal up after seven minutes.

Bowen hadn't scored since before Christmas, got two in seven.

And then his first ever hat-trick.

I thought West Ham were quite good in this game, Barry, and all is forgotten over the last, I don't know how long, since West Ham were hopeless.

Yeah, I noticed you're coming to me for this one.

I thought you'd keep my powder dry till we get to the league two nitty-gritty

in part three.

Listen, you've got five minutes, Barry, then you can do one of the Europods, sit back and enjoy.

that's that's today no it was a very impressive west ham performance and i suppose that may have had plenty to do with the fact that uh lucas picetta was back from injury and his just his mere presence seems to lift his teammates seems to lift the fans he's an exciting player he was good jared bowman was outstanding mohamed kudas was good Thomas Suchek and Vladimir Sufal, who've been getting a bit of stick in recent times, They were good, and it was a really good performance.

Brentford were pretty poor.

I think there was maybe, you know, West Ham won pretty comfortably.

I think there was a key moment in the game at West Ham were 2-1-up, and there was this really unnecessary Mokudas shove on Sergio Reggie on as they were both running out of one side of the West Ham penalty area and they were both in the penalty area.

I thought it was a stonewall penalty.

It was like the Andy Robertson shove on somebody.

Not quite as violent, but a definite shove and a completely unnecessary one because they were running away from goal.

That wasn't given.

I'm not sure why.

But that might have made things interesting.

But after that, West Ham went 3-1, then 4-1 up, and game over.

And Jared Bones,

first ever career hat-trick, he is now on 14 for the season.

And obviously, there's talk of an England call-up for the next international break.

So it'll be interesting to see if he gets one or not.

His celebration, Sonny, you sent

two men talking very quickly.

And

I don't know what that music is.

I don't know what it is.

Yeah, so he scored his hat-trick and then he did like a DJ sort of pose, one hand on the ear and one hand kind of spinning

a record.

Apparently it's on a march to DJ Spider Raji, and I thought I'd go down the rabbit hole, and it appears it's two Geordie blokes

to kind of like happy hardcore, but then also the DJ is just a man like dressed as Spider-Man in the classic like modern DJ of just pressing play, not actually doing any mixing, but then firing a little like party popper thing.

And all the responses have been like really quite upset.

Newcastle fans because they had the chance to get him a couple of years ago.

And clearly, Jared Bowen very much buys into the Newcastle fan vibe of Speed Garage with Geordies.

So I missed out on that one.

I believe, Sally, one of the young gentlemen alongside DJ Spider Raji is a man called MC Menace.

Yes.

I actually did more analysis of DJ Spider Raji than I did of the game itself.

So yeah, he's a DJ from Newcastle.

Raji is a sort of a tuned term for a young man of, you know, know nefarious repute you'll find hang hanging around public spaces playing loud music and drinking cider yeah good good luck to jared bones clearly a fan it's a bit niche for me but uh good luck to him david moise did say uh the weekend there's a contract they're ready for him to sign i don't know what the reaction from the west hand fans you know they really are split and i i just sort of think if you're david moise ben you should probably just like sign that like what's what what's he waiting for Is he waiting to be loved by everybody?

Well, yeah, maybe.

Yeah, I thought it was quite interesting that he volunteered that.

Obviously, the contract talk has been there for a while.

I thought it was almost him kind of saying, look, you know, I'm pretty good at this.

And if you don't want me, I'll just sort of...

I don't know.

It felt like a bit of a two fingers up, really, which is a shame that it's kind of gone towards that way or going that way.

Obviously, last night's result

clearly takes the heat off for a little bit.

But yeah, I think it's quite sad.

I mean, I just can't go over last season.

I think he's done so well, obviously, in two spells there.

And for it to, you know, it's not like they're kind of even mid-table.

You know, they're really sort of still in the mix.

I guess the idea is they are the best team or the highest team that don't want the ball.

So 41% of the ball yesterday.

And like every other team in the top half of the Premier League is trying to play the way that

perhaps people now expect teams with money to play.

It seems like eventually there's got to be one team who wants to pan the counter-attack, and that is the complaint, I think, of West Ham for.

Yeah, I mean,

I suppose it's a, I mean, it's not comparing like with like, but I suppose it's a little bit like with

the teams that have come up in terms of the relegation picture this season.

You know, if Luton stays up playing the way they are, you know, that should be commended, whereas certainly Burnley, who've come up and were really good in the championship, you know, kind of nowhere near it.

So I don't know.

I suppose I just think, you know, if David Moyes can get West Ham winning, obviously in last year's case, winning trophies as well

and sort of in the mix, for me, that's a decent return.

They've spent a lot of money and I get ideally you'd probably want a, you know, more stylish style of football at times.

But they've got some great players there.

Barry alluded to Piquette earlier, I think is just a brilliant player.

I just think it's quite sad given what Moyes has given West Ham and given what he's given them so recently.

It's not like we're sort of harpooning back to kind of three, four years ago, one about last season.

But that's football, I suppose.

I think you harp back rather than harpoon.

Sorry, yeah.

So, for a violent way to go,

it's a violent way to go back.

But however, you want to go back in time, why not jump on a harpoon?

Yes, George.

It feels to me like the, you know, with West Ham in eighth, it's easy to sit on the outside and say, well, hold on, why, you know, why are West Ham fans getting frustrated?

Why is there any speculation over Moy's future?

But I do kind of think that maybe the way that Moyes sets West Ham up to play gives them a kind of inferiority complex whereas actually when you look at the the amount of money that's spent when you consider the the the quality that they are able to recruit where you know Lucas Pakatar and Mohamed Kudus are two players that I think would be desired by pretty much every manager in the in the Premier League in terms of being part of air squad when you look at the financial outlay that tallies and when you look at the fact that Pakatar was very much

of interest to Manchester City last summer that there comes a point where you say well is this actually overachieving is this not where we should be?

But on the flip side of that, yes, fans want their teams to play a certain way, but every team can't play that way.

By definition, every team can't have 55% possession in every game at the minimum because there has to be room for teams to exploit the fact that there have to be a couple of teams within the Premier League who don't dominate the ball, who do attack and transition.

And West Ham are so good at that.

But this is where these days, which is probably different to 20, 30 years ago, where this was purely a results business, fans go to games and are expecting to be entertained more so than just by getting results.

And clearly, amongst West Ham fans, there's a desire to play a different way.

But often we see teams in the Premier League who look to change style, who kind of think that they've hit

a ceiling in terms of where they can get to playing a certain way.

When they do tear it up and change style, things unravel pretty quickly.

So it kind of feels like West Ham is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Emerson's goal, it's a great shoot from the whole crowd and then into the the top corner.

And, you know, it is worth saying that Fabianski Asterisk made a couple of excellent saves in that game.

Do you fear for Brentford, Barry?

They are 16th, five points off Luton in 18th?

I don't, and I probably should.

And that seems to be the prevailing mood.

Everyone seems to think they'll be fine.

But

no, if you're that close to the drop zone,

there's

every chance Luton or someone else could put a run of games together.

Yeah, I think the general consensus seems to be that Burnley and Sheffield United are gone.

It is just extremely unlikely either of them will get themselves out of the mess they're in.

So that's just one relegation place left.

So Brentford probably are fine, but they need to be careful.

Everton's penalty for breaching Premier League financial rules has been reduced from 10 points to 6 after an appeal.

The reduction lifts them from 17th to 15th.

They are facing another possible points deduction.

As far as I can see, Barry, Everton don't come out of it brilliantly, and the Premier League don't come out of it brilliantly either.

Yeah, and the commission who arrived at the judgment didn't come out of it either.

So the penalty has been reduced by four points because they made legal errors.

You would presume they shouldn't make legal errors.

It should be watertight case and you know we've done everything correctly.

They said that Everton had been less than frank about the direct the debt surrounding their new stadium and part of the original punishment was for not acting in the utmost good faith in adverted commas and that shouldn't have been the case because they did act in the utmost good faith.

There seems to be a massive lack of clarity about how the Premier League arrived at the punishment and Richard Masters refused to make the minutes of the meeting

at which this punishment was arrived at available for public consumption.

So people are wondering why.

And there just seems to be a sense that they're making things up as they go along.

Everton, I don't think they come out of it too badly.

They claimed assorted mitigating factors, such as the imposition of sanctions on Alastair Usmanov, the cancellation of one quite high-profile player's contract after he was arrested.

And these were all dismissed as not being mitigating factors.

But yeah, no one comes out of it tremendously well.

There's still a chance they could get another points deduction.

In the FA Cup last night, first game of the fifth round, Coventry beat Maidstone 5-0, Hatrick for Ellis Sims.

Ben, you were there.

Did you have a nice time?

Yeah, no, it was

a pleasure to be there.

No, it was good.

It was great to see.

I watched the Maidstone Ipswich game on the television.

I must say, it's obviously a neutral in that game.

I don't think I've enjoyed watching a game on television for as much as a long time because it was just, it was amazing viewing.

I remember feeling weirdly emotional.

It's sort of half past one, and I think it was an early kickoff, sort of Saturday afternoon.

It was just great.

Really, just an amazing game, amazing reminder of what the FA Cup can be.

And that was kind of what you could see even last night, even after a 5-0 defeat.

And let's face it, it was game over after certainly 34 minutes, if not 14, when it was 2-0.

You know, at the end, George Elikobe went on this, the Maidstone manager went on this lap of the pitch, and plenty of, you know, thousands of Coventry fans stuck around to applaud him.

He's given it back to them.

This kind of two-way street, and kind of like a communal kind of acknowledgement of what

him and his team have sort of created almost this season.

It feels like haven't had that for quite a long time.

Obviously, you know, the fact they're in the sixth tier, it's not like they're just sort of a, I don't know, mid-rank in league two, like a Newport or something, where, you know, it's really good, but ultimately, this is a league team.

You know, for them to be a non-league team and have the ride that they've had in the Cup,

really quite special.

Obviously, a shame for it to end.

But it was never really going to be about the scoreline last night.

I mean, I was going to say it's a shame for it to end as it did, but I'm not sure if it was.

I mean, the scenes at full-time were just incredible.

Lucas Cavolan, the Brazilian goalkeeper,

who's a big sort of personality.

He was whipping up the fans at the end of the game, sort of leading chants and stuff.

You know, half of you might have thought that they would have won 5-0.

You know, the celebrations were.

I don't think I've ever seen a team so sort of happy to lose 5-0, put it that way.

So it was really, yeah, it was nice to be

sort of a part of that last night.

And yeah, good,

just a great ride for Maidstone.

Probably another good evening, really.

You know, they have great memories.

Like Ellie Coby had said before the game, he wanted his players to cherish it, to record memories, take as many photos and videos as possible, which we don't always hear, often hear sort of criticism of the the opposite.

And, you know, players were filming and videoing as they stepped off the team coach and stuff.

You know, just great, great to see.

I'm thinking to say, as Casey Palmer threaded another pass-through to Ellis Sims, just to centre back on his iPhone, going, look, I'm here as the FA Cup hit the round.

He wasn't, yeah, it wasn't that starry-eyed, but I mean, it was,

I don't know, to see, to see that and like the, I don't know, just what it meant to them, I think, was really quite refreshing, actually, especially in an era where it seems everybody's so quick to want to deride.

Certainly, the cup competitions, including the FA Cup, really nice to kind of have that special moment.

It's worth saying that before recording, Ben was talking about how to park at Coventry unprompted.

So, you know, good that you're sticking to form.

Anyway, that'll do for part one, part two.

We'll begin with the top of the championship.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Look, the last time,

George, we did an EFL pod, it looked like Leicester were-I don't know how many points clear they were, but obviously they're in a good position.

Like, six points clear with 12 games left is not a bad spot, but they have lost two in a row, you know, and they lost to leads who are absolutely flying.

There isn't a chance that they might not make it after all this, is there?

I think there's definitely a chance.

You know, I think you have to caveat the conversation around Leicester in the championship title race and promotion race by saying that clearly Leicester are still the massive favourites.

And,

you know,

with a six-point gap in the end of February, the chances are they will not only get promoted but win the league.

But given the position they were in a couple of weeks ago,

for most of the first part of the season, them and Ipswich were kind of

neck and neck at the top of the table.

Ipswich dropped off and

they built up a double figure point lead.

But Leeds' form since the turn of the year has been relentless.

They've won every single game so far in the league in 2024 when you also consider that ipswich who went through a bit of a slump when george hurst their key striker got injured they are now looking as good as they looked early in the campaign and their fixture list is very kind as well like this isn't just a title race i think if you're saying if you're looking back at leeds and ipswich is just trying to chase down leicester with southampton having lost back-to-back home games and lost three of their last four probably tailing off a little bit then you've got to not only say the title race is open but if if one of those teams can chase down leices then then possibly both of of them can.

So

the one thing to say on this on Friday night, you know, when these two teams met at Leicester back in October, Leeds did an absolute job on Leicester.

They won the game 1-0.

They were by far the better team.

It wasn't the case on Friday where Leicester turned up.

They went ahead early.

They were the better team.

There was a period of 25 minutes in

the beginning of the second half where they looked rampant and it felt like a matter of time until they got a second goal.

But Leeds had some fortune themselves with the goals that they scored three goals late on,

sparking wild scenes at Ellen Road.

And Leeds have been, you know, in terms of the quality they've got on their squads, there's no reason I don't think why this run can't continue.

And for Leicester, they've got tricky games to come.

The Homes QPR next up, who under Marti Sefuentes, are defensively very, very sound.

And then trips to Sunderland, which is looking a bit easier than it looked a couple of weeks ago, but a trip to Hull, who are in great form too.

Leicester need to, you know, last time that they lost some games, they lost

a glut of games in a very short period of time before turning it around.

If they do that again here, I think Leeds and Ipswich both have the potential in the short term to close that gap even further.

I mean, if you're going to have a wobble, this is a decent time to do it.

They've still got that gap.

I do kind of feel like, you know,

there have been some Leicester fans complaining at the style of football.

And, you know, there's been booze occasionally at the kind of slow build-up.

The, you know, Enzo Maresca comes from the Pep Guardiola School of Football.

And you contrast that with Ellen Road, where all the fans are all together as one and you know they're all singing and that game at Ellen Road, the place was just absolutely rocking.

And I do wonder, you know, in that run that George has mentioned there, Leeds have only conceded two goals as well, winning nine.

So the momentum certainly feels like it's with Leeds.

And you just wonder if all these maybe little grumblings here and there, you know, Mareska didn't get one of his main players where he wanted to sign in in the transfer window as well.

Perhaps Leeds might just gazump them just by virtue of just having players coming to form and everyone kind of coming together.

I mean, Willie Nonto is one, for example.

I think it's five in six for him, and he's come back from injury and kind of not quite being in the squad.

He's just been absolutely on fire.

And they've got a few players like that now that are just kind of all hitting really nice form at the right time.

Whereas Leicester are kind of slightly going off the boil here and there.

Ben, who would be the most fun to come up into the Premier League, would you say?

I think Leeds, on current evidence.

I think Leicester, as Sandy just alluded to, you know, they play

is that kind of Guardiola school of thought as, you know, sort of pass you to death, inverted fullbacks, you know, seeing Ricardo Pereira and, you know, all these people take on sort of different lives.

Yannick Vestergaard, sort of a man transformed

after, you know, training alone under Brendan Rodgers and back end of that, obviously what was an awful season last year.

I do think Leicester should be, you know, if they're not already on the back of Friday, really quite concerned about Leeds because I think the way they're playing are just, they're so rampant, especially at Ellen Road.

Sanny alluded to it there.

You know, the atmosphere is amazing.

What Daniel Farker has created, I actually think it's probably going to sound stupid, a little bit unnoticed.

I mean, if you think back to the start of the season, I mean, sort of pre-season, you know, Leeds were kind of a bit of a shambles, really.

There was the remnants of new ownership, lots of sort of confusion behind the scenes still.

I think Farker was deemed, I could be wrong, but I feel like he was deemed a fairly kind of underwhelming appointment.

Lots of players obviously left.

Many wanted to leave, didn't move.

You know, Nonto was one of those who sort of threw his toys out of the pran before.

Obviously, now he's on this amazing run,

a key part of what they're doing so well.

And I actually think, you know, so much of this season we've spent lauding Leicester's squad depth, really, or quality of side.

And you look at Leeds, and you know, their bench is pretty impressive, too.

What they've actually built through for the last summer in January, they have this, you know, little Welsh contingent where Daniel Farkas had to say, you know, I don't care what's on the passport, you know, it's about their quality.

But Connor Roberts now joins Dan James, Joe Rodon, Ethan Amperdou is this kind of Welsh contingent in Yorkshire.

You know,

looking at the bench on Friday, sorry, you know, Bamford, Liam Cooper's on the bench, Jaden Anthony, who was at Bournemouth.

You know, there's Gail Hart can't even really get in the squad who's something I do like.

I just think they have so much.

They have a nice mix.

They've obviously got Archie Gray, that bit of youth.

And

yeah, I think

six points is nothing, really.

One more slip by Leicester and Leeds are going to be right there.

Likewise, Ipswich.

So, yeah,

I think all three of those teams play really good stuff, but I think the leads, the way they are at the moment, they're just so rampant.

Burnley were runaway winners of the championship last season.

Sheffield United also came up.

They're both stinking the Premier League out.

Could we see the same thing happen next season?

Obviously, there's a lot of variables to consider

summer business, but whoever goes up, will they be as bad as Burnley and Sheffield United, George?

It's so hard to say.

I think with Burnley,

it feels to me like there was massive complacency where they believed their own hype.

And I don't think anyone at Burnley thought they would even be threatened by relegation this season.

I think they believed a bit like Leeds when they came up under Bielsa, a bit like Sheffield United when they came up under Wilder, that they were riding the crest of this wave and they'd be able to implement their philosophy and their style in the Premier League easily.

And clearly, that didn't work.

They also recruited basically a whole new squad, which was bizarre when you consider how well they did last season.

So, I think there are lessons to be learnt there.

It does kind of feel to me like Leicester and Leeds have the infrastructure of a mid-table Premier League club when they come up, and therefore they should be able to settle in and to Lambton to an extent as well.

Albeit, you know, Jason Wilcox, who was a very good bit of recruitment from them as sporting director for Manchester City, is now clearly being linked to Manchester United, which would derail their progress somewhat.

Ipswich is a really interesting one where you've got a side who have been on this amazing journey under Kieran McKenna and I still think McKenna has to be one of the most sought-after managers for Premier League teams and top-tier teams going forward.

You know, he's taken them from being a really underachieving side in League One to now the brink of the Premier League.

But they're the one where if they do go up, do they continue to play the way that they do?

And I think we've seen from the back end of last season where they dominated the ball, they pressed aggressively

going into the championship.

They haven't lost any of their attacking threat, but they've been a little bit more pragmatic in the way that they keep the ball.

So, that suggests to me that McKenna is someone who understands the task at hand.

And I think we're seeing now, in terms of what Luton have done, that the blueprint, in my mind, at least, to how to

survive in the Premier League, when you have to accept that you're not going to have players who are as technically gifted as your opposition, is to prioritise other skill sets apart from technical ability.

We've seen that Luton have gone aggressively after players who are physically dominant.

They've seen them press teams off the park, not not allow teams to play, and recruit players like Andros Townsend and Ross Barkley, whose stock has fallen way beneath what their actual performance level is.

And it's that innovative means of recruitment and style of play that I think should be the way that a team like Ipswich, if they do go up, look to progress.

But I personally think the likes of Leicester and

Leeds would probably be okay.

Sampton under Russell Martin would be a bit more difficult because he is very wedded to that passing style.

Ipswich is the question mark if they do get there, but McKenna is certainly a pretty promising coach and someone who I anticipate wouldn't be as naive to think that he can just come up and continue playing the way that he wants to.

Yeah, Southampton, you know, the other team that could get automatic promotion, they're five points behind Ipswich and Leeds.

It should be just two points had they not lost at home to Neil Harris's spit.

But we'll get to Miller in a bit, but Sally, we shouldn't write Southampton off of this race, should we?

No, no, we really shouldn't.

Although they have lost two in a row and three the last five.

so certainly having gone on that brilliant run where we can't remember how many games it was now but it was 20 odd games wasn't it more than that um 24 24 i was like 24 i there you go 25

yeah and all of a sudden you're thinking uh you know have the have the have they got the the depth maybe um you know both the armstrongs are still doing okay for them um but yeah certainly i i think they're a victim of well uh george would probably term it variance wouldn't it you know there's lots of teams that kind of can beat each other.

And you see Leeds and Leicester, I think, kind of that slight cut above.

But yeah, you certainly can't write them off.

And Russell Martin has done a really good job when you consider, again,

a bit like what Ben was saying about Leeds in the summer.

You know, Southampton were in a bit of a strange kind of shape.

And they're doing okay.

And they're there or thereabouts.

And that's all you need to be.

And you just need to wait for one of the top two to kind of slip up.

And you can sneak back in there.

I was just going to say on Southampton, I think it's interesting because they've had a bad couple of weeks.

They go to Liverpool in the FA Cup on Wednesday.

I'm just a little bit concerned about that because a few weeks ago it seemed a bit of a free hit.

Russell Martin was saying, you know, we just want to go.

This is the ultimate challenge for us to play our way and this is what we're going to do.

We're not going to,

you know, go away from what we do.

We're going to play our way at Anfield and that's going to be the ultimate test, you know, playing this sort of amazing team, Klopp's team.

I just worry a little bit now whether, you know, off the back of a defeat to Millwall, if you, you know, if they were to go there, and okay, there's going to be changes, it's going to be a different team, but I just wonder if they were to get a real kind of pummelling, what that would do, kind of confidence-wise.

You know, it's so brittle, and Russell Martin talks really impressively about, you know, what he's giving his players courage, bravery, and that's kind of at the heart of what they do, and you can see that.

But equally, it's a double-edged sword, right?

So I think, I don't know, just be a little concerned if that was to go awry this week.

You know, in some ways they go, oh, this is, you know, this is the cup, this doesn't matter, it's Liverpool, we need to focus on the league.

I just wonder if there could be a knock-on effect

because because

that, as George said a minute ago, you know, Russell Martin is very wedded to that style.

And for a long, long time, you know, for a huge patch of this season, it's reaped rewards.

But,

yeah, they've just had a little wobble of late.

Just worth pointing out as well that Saints have still got to play Leicester League and Ipswich away from home.

So, you know, they're the three hardest games you can have.

There are two ways of looking at that.

You know, one is that their points expectancy from those games is quite low, but the other side of it is if they can manage to get, I don't know, six, seven, nine points from those games, then they will be taking points off the teams above them, which which will help them close that gap.

There are two other playoff spots then.

If we presume that two of those four go up and two make the playoffs, it'll be pick two of probably West Brom Hull, Norwich, Preston, Coventry.

Sanny, can you pick those two for us?

Well, now that Norwich have got Josh Sargent back, I think that makes a massive difference.

But having said that,

they've lost Johnny Rowe, who has come through the youth team and was scoring for fun, and he's had a couple of injuries.

He's got a serious hamstring issue that I think is going to hamstring the whole team.

Hull are a really interesting one because they play this style of football.

They've got loads of young players.

Jaden Philogene, in particular, has been outstanding despite having injuries as well.

I was kind of looking at the table.

So, at the moment, with Hull and West Brom making up those final two playoff places, thinking, do you know what?

I think it might stay like this.

I think these are probably that top six might just be the strongest six.

I mean, Preston have had a really strange season so far.

For a while, it was getting a little bit mutinous at the back end of 2023.

And all of a sudden, they're on a great run and playing some really good football and dispatched Coventry.

A really bad, very, very bad performance in Coventry, but beat him 3-0

last time out as well.

But I just feel like the strength and depth maybe of West Brom are going to keep them there,

assuming Carlos Corbranc can keep himself off the pitch rather than trying to kick balls off it, on it, which got him sent off the other week.

But yeah, I think as it is, Mike just stay that way.

I think those are the kind of the strongest teams for me.

Barry,

any further thoughts on Sunderland?

And, you know, they were in the mix for what I felt was quite a long time.

We have obviously dealt with the Mick Beale burner account, which is one of the highlights of the season, I would suggest.

Now, Mike Dodds is interim manager to the end of the season.

They lost at home against Swansea

at the weekend, and they're what

eight points off the playoff spots.

It's going to be very difficult, isn't it?

But yeah, it's a circus, as George said,

as we were discussing it before we started recording.

And Mick Dodge is the latest or Mike Dodds is the latest ringmaster at the bottom.

So Rotherham are gone.

They must be 19 points from 34 games.

Then it's pretty tight.

Sheffield Wednesday on 32.

Stoke QPR on 35.

Millwall on 36

after that win at the weekend.

Hardersfield on 37.

Birmingham 38, Swansea and Blackburn 39.

George, talk us through how you see the bottom of the table.

It's been such a strange season at the bottom of the championship because Sheffield Wednesday and QPR are making two of the most inspired managerial appointments we've seen in the middle of a season.

In a season where there's actually been loads.

We've seen MK Dons make one in league two

as well.

Danny Royal at Sheffield Wednesday has done unbelievable work to get them on the brink of getting out of the bottom three.

And QPR finally worked their way out under Marti Sefuentes.

And that's kind of shaken everything up because back in November time it basically looked like we had the three teams relegated out of the championships sewn up after about 15 games of the season and that has been a disastrous turn of events for Millwall who when they appointed Joe Edwards I think probably thought they were safe they've had to dispense with him pretty quickly and given that their trajectory a classic new manager bounce I would say rather than giving Neil Harris too much credit for this one Max where I don't think Harris had too much to do with it it was just the Millwall weren't actually playing that badly and then they went to Southampton and scored from a penalty and an incredible header from Tanganga.

And Sarkic made some big saves to keep them in it.

So they're in trouble.

Stoking trouble as well.

Their mid-season change from Alex Neil to Stephen Schumacher not working yet.

And they dispensed with their technical director, Ricky Martin, last week.

As many people on Twitter would have seen, leaving the Viada Stoker as that 16 for viral tweet seemed to fly around.

And then Oddersfield, also appointed you manager in Brighton Writer, which sounds like an employee at a broad sheet rather than a football manager, but he's someone who has come in and got a big win straight away and they seem to be improving too.

So I mean, it's so open now.

I think you can basically go all the way up to certainly Plymouth Ard Gardener 15th.

And if they went on a really poor run of form, possibly even the glut of teams above them and on 44 points, but that would be pretty stunning if it did happen.

Blackburn and Birmingham also changed your manager.

Birmingham's manager, Tony Mowbray, obviously having to take a bit of a break due to health issues, which is

obviously concerning and everyone's best wishes towards him.

But it's not ideal for Birmingham City to have appointed a manager who's started very well, who then won't be on the touchline for a while.

So

it's a real mess.

If I had to say now, I think we'll go down.

I think Rotherham are all butt down.

I think Stoke are in serious trouble and probably looking at one of Millwall or Birmingham to make up the three.

How are Stokes such a mess?

I mean,

they have

loads of money.

Sorry,

would it take you a couple of hours to answer the question?

Yeah, I think so.

They've tried everything.

They've tried so many different profiles of manager.

You've had the pragmatic Gary Rowatt, who's been a relative success everywhere he's been.

You've had Nathan Jones and the job he did at Luton.

Michael O'Neill, you know, someone who inspired Northern Ireland to eclipse anything they'd ever done in international football before.

Alex Neill, a serial promotion winner.

Stephen Schumacher, someone who at Argyle has done an unbelievable job, and no one seems to be able to get the best out of this team.

I think in the short term, they recruited

about 25 players, of whom very few have played in English football before.

And I think maybe they did too much too fast.

Not that these players are necessarily poor players.

I think Ruta Berger, in particular, is someone who will probably be gracing the Premier League at some point, despite his not really,

you know, tearing it up at Stoke.

But in terms of the reasons behind this, it just feels like a club that, for whatever reason, as smart as the decisions look when they make them, nothing ever seems to go right.

Just on Stoke, they lost two on to Cardiff last time out, and Schumacher

said

in the post-match interview that the challenge is the club, he's coming to a club that isn't settled.

And he talked about next season he wants to build a squad that wants to play the way that he wants them to play.

And you just think it's such a strange kind of way to come into this when you think that every side from 15th to 24th have sat the manager and changed the manager for one reason or the other and are expecting a new manager

bounce.

I wonder whether Schumacher maybe needed a bit more pragmatism in here in the same way George kind of mentioned about teams potentially going up to the Premier League.

Maybe now's the wrong time to be saying

we want to play this style of football when if you don't particularly like the squad and you think it's all a bit disparate and your top scorer has only got six and Andre Vidigal.

like, you know, maybe just cut your cloth accordingly for now, Steven, keep them up, and then try something else because it could just all go completely wrong.

I mean, they are, they are in free fall.

The flip side of that, though, is that that's why he'd have been appointed.

You know, he, he, he, the, the whole basis of appointing him will be, will be in terms of what he did of our guy, and I'm sure that's the brief he's been given.

But it is interesting to say that, because if you look at Swansea, who appointed Luke Williams, and Luke Williams plays, you know, he's Russell Martin's assistant previously, he plays this

uber extreme possession style generally.

And this is a Swansea fan base who demand that style of play.

And yet he has come in and done exactly what you've said, where he hasn't looked to implement his philosophy immediately.

He's been more pragmatic and it's yielding the results that

should keep them up.

And then next season, I'm sure we'll see him reverting to type.

But I think it's difficult to criticise Schumacher for not doing what he's done in order to get himself this shot in the first place.

Ben, am I allowed to find it hilariously funny if Millball get relegated, given what they've just done?

I suppose you can, Max.

I think the Mill one's actually interesting to come back to an earlier point.

I suppose what we were alluding to with David Moyes, and I suppose it's just a football theme at the moment, where earlier in the season, when Ryan Lowe, Preston manager, was getting stick about the style of play.

I can't remember the exact wording, but basically it was, you know,

it hinged on style and, you know, they weren't sexy enough, basically.

And he was like, well, that's fine, but, you know, you couldn't have this.

And he didn't name Check Joe Edwards directly, but

he basically said, you know, about a team struggling at the other end of the division who've changed their manager to try and

win on those stakes and get this kind of brand of football.

And obviously, this is massively backfired.

Didn't work for Millwall, obviously, to the point where they've ended up in...

in real trouble.

Obviously, Harris comes back.

But I just think it's interesting kind of that careful what you wish for, I suppose, because Millwall and many teams have tried to go that way, implement a new style, young coach, you know, a 30-something coach, you know, rip it up, start again,

and it didn't work.

And I don't know, I suppose it's a little bit like the same with Schumacher in Stoke.

I mean, he left a really solid foundation at Plymouth.

He was obviously a massive part of it, was assistant to Ryan Lowe previously at Plymouth.

Neil Deuce Nip, director of football, obviously, had a great relationship, all knitted together really well there.

We've said before many a times on here about how kind of impressive Plymouth are as a structure.

And he goes into Stoke, and

it is a total mess.

It's a shambles, obviously.

As George said, Ricky Martin leaves, which speaks to wider problems.

Recruitment's been wild.

They haven't finished above mid-table since being relegated from the Premier League.

It's, you know, they've spent serious money.

You know, you can't really knock

the sort of Coates family in ownership.

They do spend a lot of money.

They do bat their guys.

You know, all of their managers would attest to that.

Yeah, what a slide that's been.

Going back to style of play.

Do you think every club in this division, does every fan feel like they have a team that has a style of play?

Is there a Millwall style play?

A way, the West Ham Way.

Yeah, exactly.

West Ham Way.

Because, you know, we're talking about Millwall and their playing style or Prestons or whatever.

In our minds, when you think of your team, do you think there is a certain way to play?

Because in my mind, for Stoke, for example, it's just long froze and it will always be there.

Well, I think there's definitely a Neil Harris style of play, which isn't to everyone's taste, but it's not necessarily the Millwall style of play.

I did notice Danny Baker tweeting that Millwall's problems are nothing to do with the managers.

He just said the players aren't good enough.

I don't know if that's the case, but I told him.

I think what's interesting was actually, I mean, it was split from Millwall.

But it wasn't like everyone was overjoyed that Neil Harris had come back.

You know, there were quite a lot of fans going, this doesn't seem like a forward step.

Anyway, obviously, I hate Millbull and I will knock out any Millwall fan who comes near me.

But also, I wish you all the very best.

Well, I don't really mind if you go down or not.

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 the top of League One, then Pompey top, 73 points.

Derby have a game in hand on 66.

Bolton have a game in hand on them.

So two games in hand on Portsmouth on 66 as well.

Barnsley played 33-63.

Peterborough, sadly, doing quite well after beating us at the weekend, 59.

Oxford, 57.

This question from producer Joel, actually, was that, are there any really good teams in League One?

None at the top are particularly convincing.

I've kind of felt this, George.

I've watched Pompey, Bolton, and Posh all beat Cambridge recently, but none of them looking that amazing.

And we're not amazing.

I know that for sure.

This is such a hospital pass because now any Pompey fans listening or Derby fans of Bolton will be annoyed of the answer, but no, I mean, it's a really poor renewal of League One.

It's a massive opportunity for all these teams to get out of it.

If you compare these sides, in my mind, with Ipswich last season, Plymouth Argard last season, Wednesday last season, I think they'd have been the standout team in League One by a stretch.

Having said that, I think we have to give Portsmouth due credit here, where we talk about rookie managers a second ago, and John Massenho came in in January last year and didn't really pull up any trees in the first half of the season in the same way that Kieran McKenna didn't really when he came in at Ipswich.

Seems to be a bit of a trend, maybe, that these managers just need some time to settle, and often they aren't afforded that.

Stephen Schumacher, the same at Argar when he took over from Ryan Lowe.

But this season, they've been magnificent.

And for them to, you know, go from being a side last season, back end of last season that

weren't even in the playoffs, were kind of a decent mid-table side at best, to now being clear at the top of the top of League One.

I think Massinho deserves massive credit, as does their Director of Football or Sporting Director, Richard Hughes, as well, for turning that football club around very, very quickly.

They look like the standout team now.

Weirdly, I think the team who've been

the best in parts this season were Peterborough, who, you know, in the reverse game at Peterborough, where I think they beat Cambridge 4-0, was one of the best attacking

football.

I've seen in league one, they have amazing attacking talent, and for whatever reason, they were favourites for the league title about three weeks ago at the end of January.

And then they've just gone on this horrible run through February where they lost consecutive games.

I think it was four league games in a row.

And that's seen them slide from being favourites for the title to now

having to fight for their place in the top six.

Barnsley have progressed as the season's gone under Neil Collins and Bolton Derby, both very capable of putting in decent performances, but despite often going under some difficult runs, they still seem to have the staying power to be at the top end.

So, in short, I think it's a pretty poor league one, but I think Pompey deserve immense credit for

developing into the team they have done over a short period of time.

Yeah, they've had a few injuries as well,

which is probably worth taking into account, Sally.

What I think is amazing is Derby are second, and they don't really have a recognised striker at the moment.

They've got so many injuries, they've had to turn to dwight gale on a free transfer to come in um and it just kind of shows i think he is a recognized striver it's a bit harsh on dwight

so so they've been playing they've not been starting a recognized striker for quite a while and having to just put uh tom barkhausen who's more of a wide man up there or mendes langu who plays on the other side um and yet they're second in the league so it really does kind of show that any team that can kind of put a run together with with with an actual striker maybe it'd be dwight gale could really do something but yeah really quite a strange situation to be second in the table and desperately wanting a striker and they're all injured and maybe it'll be dwight gale the hero who knows in this run in could be um always thought dwight gale looked like a really old man like like with sort of

just

it's like benjamin button um can um can stevenage can steve evans do something with stevenage ben i mean they seem like we talk about you know managers having styles and teams you expect so it feels like a good fit i i we're playing them tonight, so I don't want to say anything, but I don't imagine they keep it on the deck, but they are doing incredibly well, Ben, aren't they?

Yeah, no, a great fit.

And he's just signed a new contract.

And yeah, no team certainly likes playing Stephen and Jordan, Steve Evans' team full stop.

Yeah, they're still well within the mix, just outside of playoffs with a couple of games in hand.

And for them to be in the picture, despite the sort of

quality perhaps of the league this season is still quite remarkable.

Let's face it, it, when he took over, they were looking at relegation out of the Football League, into non-league.

And now, in the theory, they could be a championship team next season.

I think it's still a big ask.

I think if they were to get in the playoffs, those other teams are certainly better equipped.

But, you know, Stevenidge have given plenty of those teams a sort of bloody nose

this season.

And yeah, Steve Evans deserves huge credit.

And I think it's interesting that somebody like that could probably, you know, he was obviously a Rotherham before.

I think they were semi-interested in taking him back this time.

And this is a guy who, I don't know, he has effects on teams.

He has positive effects on teams.

So even if you don't like the style of play, it's winning football.

And we'll probably get to it in a minute, but I was going to say on the bottom of league one with Cheltenham,

it's just quite remarkable what's happened there when Daryl Clark took over.

Had they scored a goal?

Yeah.

No, hadn't scored a goal.

And the only goal they had to their name was an own goal, which was scored by Bristol Rovers a cup game.

And now they're still in the relegation zone.

But, you know, if your team's above them, and sorry to producer Joel, but you know, Charlton, Shrewsbury, Burton,

even, you know, Cambridge Max, I'm afraid to say, you know, any of those teams above them,

you know, you'd be really concerned because Daryl Clark sort of whipped up this siege mentality.

It's kind of what he does.

And I remember talking to him when he took over, and he said, look, my style is winning football.

And you can't argue with it.

You know, there may be a quite pragmatic, direct

sort of in your face, but he's getting results.

And,

yeah, it's quite incredible, really, that they've,

you know, if they stay up, that is, for me, that's kind of manager of the season in the whole pyramid territory.

It's just absolutely incredible to galvanise what's a kind of mid-table league two budget team.

You know, a kind of bit of a team of misfits, really.

You know, they had too many low-knies, had to kind of send a couple back.

It's just a real mess.

He's gone in there, galvanized his place with sort of skeleton staff,

you know, a thin squad

quality-wise.

And he's brought in a couple of sort of old trusty players like Tom Pett, who he knows well, and he's got them kind of firing again.

And yeah, just incredible that they're in the picture.

One of my favourite January signings was Cheltenham going out and signing Matthew Taylor, who had played for Darryl Clark and told a lot of goals at Bristol Rovers, who had played for Darryl Clark last season on loan at Port Vale as well.

But Matt Taylor was, you know, a player who's been done brilliantly at Oxford, done brilliantly at Bristol City, Bristol Rovers.

He was not getting a game at Forest Green, who were in the bottom two in League Two.

So you can imagine Cheltenham fans' reaction when they are going out and recruiting a player who's not getting into the Forest Green side.

No love loss between Cheltenham and Forest Green as well.

But he's come in and scored goals immediately, scored some crucial goals to help them get out of the relegation zone.

I completely agree with Ben.

I think it is up there.

If they do pull it off, I think that the job that Daryl Clark has done to have kept a team up who hadn't scored a goal in mid-October would be be one of the most amazing survival stories we've seen.

Just on players who follow managers around.

I mean, Neil Harris, you know, brought in Lyle Taylor, who he worked with before, but he brought in Macaulay Bond, who he signed for Gillingham.

And, you know, Macaulay Bond said, you know, Neil Harris,

he said there'd be a place for me.

I'll always go where he is.

I'll always play for him.

So he signed for Gillingham.

And then Neil Harris got sacked by Dillingham.

Then he signed for us.

And then Neil Harris fucked off again.

This poor bloke is just desperately trying to follow Neil Harris and saying, just stay at the club for one second.

Of the teams at the bottom, right, Carlisle are basically gone.

You've got Fleetwood on 27 points, Port Vale 31, Charlton 33, Charlton, 34, and Shrewsbury, Burton, Cambridge, Reading, and Wickham all on 38.

Charlton Athletic are the, you know, by far and away like the standout biggest club at Reading, okay.

But we know Reading have had their problems.

But Sanny, what has happened to Charlton?

I think it's

the funny thing about Charlton is they've got such a great like youth academy that or at least a load of players continually come through.

But

just when it gets to the first team, and the players around them just aren't quite there at all.

I mean, the run they're on at the moment, I'm going to scroll down a little app I've got here, and it's just red and orange of losses and draws going all the way back to beating Cheltenham in November.

It must be such a depressing experience being a Cheltenham fan going to the Valley.

Just for the record, producer Joel is a Charlton fan who goes to the Valley, so I

agrees with this.

He doesn't need this confirming.

Yeah,

if your workplace experiences with Joel, I've taken a bit of a nosedive recently, it might be reflected in what's happening with his team on the pitch because it's just not good at all.

So I can only imagine, not as a regular at Charlton at all, it must be quite a depressing experience at the moment.

And I know as a fan, I've been in those kind of periods where you're watching a team and you know they're not going to win and you go in because you kind of have to.

You could be doing something else.

You could list a whole host of other things you could do.

And you go there and it's just so bad and it just continually gets bad, and you can't see a way out.

I wonder, as a player, how difficult that must be at the moment.

And those young players, those bright sparks, kind of getting that kind of joy kind of sucks out of them very quickly.

I would just like to take issue with whatever app it is that Sanny is using.

Surely, draw is grey.

Yes, no, no, it's it's it's orange on the uh on the flashlight.

I'm not having that.

I agree with you.

I agree with you.

The flash score app is wrong.

Green for win, red for red for defeat,

grey for draw is how it should be.

I'm glad you brought that up, Barry, because my ears picked up and then I forgot to mention it.

Top of league two, George, Mansfield on 63, Stockport on 63, Cruz 61, Wrexham 59, MK on 58.

You presume it's three from five there.

The number that sticks out to me is Mansfield only lost four times this season.

And League Two is a sort of odd league where that is really incredibly impressive.

Yeah, it's really impressive.

Their dominance in the first half of the campaign, I know some people fall asleep when you mention expected goals, but their expected goals ratio was better than Manchester City's for the first half of the season, which in itself shows a level of dominance that you don't necessarily see down towards the bottom end of the pyramid.

They went through a quite strange little wobble at the beginning of the year, but they've been absolutely rampant in recent weeks.

They've won their last two home games, 9-2 and 5-1.

They scored 19 goals in the last four games.

Like, this is a team who have really clicked at a good time, and it's benefiting them that Stockport are undergoing their worst run of the season.

Wrexham, a complete shadow of the team we saw early in the campaign.

Their games at home, which used to contain so many goals, have now reverted to what we saw away from home with pretty marginal games, not particularly inspiring football.

Paul Mullen, who was the poster boy for them last season, of course, and famous both over this side and the other side of the Atlantic.

It's been dropped and isn't playing anymore.

Stephen Fletcher leading the line for them at the moment.

Things not not really clicking.

And I think Phil Parkinson could come under some pretty heavy scrutiny if they fail to finish in the top three.

Got to give a shout out to Mike Williamson and MK Don's.

No team has picked up more points since he came in from Gateshead in League Two.

A manager who likes to play expansive passing football, who has managed to come in mid-season, implement his philosophy successfully, playing and recruiting a load of players who are about five foot six, but it doesn't really seem to matter.

They are a liquid football team who are enjoying playing the way that he's trying to impart.

And then Crewe, whose recent run has been phenomenal, especially away from home, where they continually beat the best teams in the league.

It feels like MK Donaldson and Crewe both have a huge part to play in this top three race with certainly Stockport and Wrexham really stuttering over the line.

So, yeah, we've got a tighter race and a really exciting race for the automatic spots down in League Two.

There is for the playoff spots, you've got a bunfight, isn't it?

Way many.

Yeah, seventh are on fifty-one and 16th is on 46 so you've got seventh to sixteenth separated by five points that's so good isn't it absolutely brilliant um and then below them i mean it really looks like sutton are done for forest green have won a couple in the last five i presume that's after troydini left and that has given them a bit of hope to catch uh grimsby or colchester so sutton on 23 forest green on 26 grimsby on 30 colchester on 31.

um sonny you wanted to you wanted to bring up Steve Morrison, the Sutton manager, who was incredibly chippy on BBC London after

in his post-match interview.

After that, one I'll draw with Colchester.

I watched the highlights, which did, they look like any highlights from a League Two game from the last 30 years.

Everything about it was very nostalgic.

They missed a penalty later on, and he was generally a bit pissed off, wasn't he?

He was, and that is what came across with BBC Radio London's Ahmed Noor, who I think is a Sutton fan as well, which kind of puts him in a doubly kind of tricky position.

And we've all been there as reporters, and I do wonder for Ahmed's sake, and I spoke to him about it, like it'll be good for him as a reporter because you've had this experience.

But yeah, Steve Morrison was quite horrible.

He started going down a line of saying, well, your questions don't make any sense.

The question being like, you know, what was the decision behind who took the penalty?

Because the penalty was missed.

Or, you know, how are we going to stop conceding goals?

I mean, these are all legitimate questions.

And Morrison was quite unpleasant to him, which apparently is is kind of a pattern with Morrison a few people have kind of got in touch from his Cardiff days he was quite similar and I do wonder actually even if even if you know managers can do whatever they like but I think what you've got to remember as well is you know without us being like the you know Illuminati in media but there's so you know Sutton on Radio London for example are obviously not the biggest team they're not going to get the most airtime so how can you push any sort of positive narrative well it's certainly not by alienating one of the only broadcasters who are covering the game.

And I've been there in the lower leagues at local radio and you're actually just hurting yourself in the long run.

Yeah, a very strange situation.

But I wonder,

do we feel like managers should just be however they like?

Yeah, I thought it was interesting listening to it that

there is a difference between just being in a bad mood and basically him basically saying, I think you're shit at your job, is what Steve Morrison was saying.

And there's also an interesting part of the post-match, the post-match interview, right?

It's everybody's just danced the dance, right?

You can't, because I saw in the replies a lot of people said these questions are stupid.

It's actually impossible to ask a brilliant question because after what can you possibly say?

If a team's won, you say, How do you feel?

The team's got to say, How do you feel?

Or why did this happen?

Like, I don't know what you think, Barry.

There's almost nowhere you can go.

It's just, give me two minutes.

I'm not going to be that annoying.

I need you to say something because that's my job.

End, you know?

Yeah,

that's exactly how it it should be.

And

Steve Morrison was just downright rude.

I'm sure he knows, you know, just play the game, answer the questions.

And

Ahmed, who I don't know, but he was, I thought he performed well in the face of this rudeness.

He was clearly a bit rattled, but I think

I'd be inclined to ask, well, why are you being such a dick about this?

And see what Morrison would have to say to that.

He'd probably just walk off, as is his inaliable right.

But yeah, he was obviously in a bad mood.

He's clearly under pressure, but yeah, you just don't have to be a knob.

Being in a bad mood is completely fair enough.

Like, you know, this is his job.

This is a massive turning point, probably, in his whole career, is Harry Smith missing that penalty.

That penalty goes in, their chance of survival, his chance of keeping his job massively go up.

But that's no reason or excuse to behave in the way that he behaves.

Like, treat people with respect.

Like, if you're a manager, you expect some level of respect from a fan base.

So don't, you know, someone who's just doing their job, whose job is pretty hard, to have to go and interview a pretty terrifying bloke who's clearly seething after a game.

You know, just be kind.

Another part to this as well is the reason they can't say, why are you being a dick?

Is because this guy, well, I don't know him.

He probably has to interview Steve Morrison next week, right?

Like, and so even up to the sort of Jeff Shreves levels, you can't be, you sort of have to kiss their ass a bit because otherwise, but certainly the top level, they could just say, or even at that level, they could just say, I'm not talking to him or her.

And then

that, you know, you might be a freelance reporter.

If the manager's not going to talk to you, then unless the employers really back you, they'll probably just say, I will send someone else.

And then you lose your job.

So

what I would like, what I think BBC London should do is just for one week only, send you there, Barry.

And

open with, why were you being such a dick last week, regardless of the results?

I would love to see that.

It's always hard in these pods to get through everything.

And I just wonder if there's anything anybody, anything sort of big thing we have missed within the EFL?

I know we haven't touched on, I know it's not the EFL anymore, but we haven't touched on Talkie United and Rochdale.

And we will do because obviously those stories are much bigger than a team losing or a manager being in a bad mood.

They're quite different stories, but they're both clubs that need money and need it fast.

But is there anything else that you want to bring up before you

are sent back to the wilderness until we do another EFL pod?

Can I just make a point on Stevenage?

Every time they win, I'm not being celebration police hit, but really I'm not.

Steve Evans will go over to the fans and do like this fist bump thing, and everyone goes, Way, way, way, you know,

the three fists.

But I'm so worried about his trackies falling down.

They are so

hanging by a literal thread, and I'm so worried about it.

And I'm really, you know, concerned about this.

He needs tailoring, please, something.

So if they manage to beat Cambridge tonight, then

I will look at that care, not too carefully, but carefully.

It reminds me of, I don't know if any of you did judo as a kid,

but there was always one kid, because there's basically sort of two

eight-year-old.

Oh, I don't know, how old was I, 11?

I have no idea.

But they'd just sort of grapple each other and eventually someone's trousers would fall down, and that was it.

But yeah, I mean...

Does that have a move name?

I don't know if it does.

Particular move in judo.

Are you trousers fall down?

I'm not sure.

Anyway, producer Joel says, end the pod, please.

So I will do.

Why are you being such a dick, Joel?

That's what I want to say.

Right, that'll do for today.

Thanks, Ben.

Cheers, Max.

Cheers, George.

Thanks, Max.

Cheers, Barry.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you, Sanny.

Thank you.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Max Sanderson.

This is The Guardian.