Liverpool go clear on top and Wayne Rooney gets the boot – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

We'll start an anfield.

Liverpool blow the XG records to smithereens, which is what the fans want.

Newcastle held on somehow for a while, but Mo, Salah, and Co.

were too good.

Do Liverpool have enough while he's away to maintain their title push?

Add to that Diogo Jotter's slow-motion fall and Trent Alexander Arnold's wonder strike that almost went in.

And hopefully, we won't have to talk about West Ham nil, Brighton nil.

And then it's on to the EFL: Wayne Rooney sacked by Birmingham.

Was he not high-profile enough for the new owners?

If so, who's next?

The Rock, all the Kardashians, Little Mix, Leicester are walking away with it.

Ipswich are stuttering with Southampton on their heels, and there's a usual bun fight for the playoffs.

All pretty tight at the top of leagues one and two.

So we'll get our experts to decide who will prevail.

Answer your questions, and that's today's Guardian Football Weekly

On the panel today, Sanny Rodravadula.

Sanny, how are you?

Good, thank you.

Hello.

Hello, Nick Ames.

Welcome.

Hello, Max.

Happy New Year.

And to you.

And George Elek.

Hello.

Hello.

Happy New Year, Max.

Yeah, happy new year.

Sorry, George, to have to thrust you into Premier League chat before we get onto the EFL.

I know it's blasphemous for you, but I hope you enjoyed it.

Terrible for brand.

No, no, no.

It really is Brand Elek.

Tarnished by discussing Liverpool 4, Newcastle 2.

Really fun game.

Great second half.

Liverpool had a million chances.

Then our three points clear at the top of the Premier League.

There were times, Nick, when you thought they might not win this game somehow.

Yeah, you know what?

I was just thinking about this before I came on because

you might have thought after the penalty miss and, you know, Trent...

belting the rebound somewhere into row Z of the cup, you might have thought, oh, it's not going to be their day, one of those days, etc.

To me, it didn't really feel like that because Liverpool was so relentless.

They were just going, going, going.

And Newcastle was so, so porous as well.

Like

the midfield was missing in action, they were very exposed over back as well.

I just never felt it could be possible that Liverpool couldn't score in that game.

They were just all over it.

And it was one of the most fun Premier League games I've watched in years.

I think it was.

It was totally flawed, but totally brilliant and bonking.

The fact that you had a first half that could have been, you know, five, two,

and finish 0-0, and then all the goals second half just had absolutely everything.

But

I think Liverpool, I'm sure we can come on to a discussion of why they might not win the league.

But what they seem to have got back, and you saw it a bit when they played Arsenal as well, although that was a fair result, I think.

They're getting back that relentlessness, aren't they?

That drive and that just sort of, you know, keep flooding forward, keep going again.

That intensity, the sharpness of

oppressing, the ability to go from one to ninety, which they were doing against Newcastle.

They were still sort of chucking five or six men forward in an attack in stoppage time.

So I never, I don't want to be contrary,

so I never really thought they weren't going to do it.

But it was really, really fun.

And I think Liverpool are a fascinating side of the moment.

and without getting ahead of ourselves if Klopp does turn this into a title-winning side I think it would cement his greatness because I think

the real hallmark of a great manager is when one top side that you've created you know falls apart disintegrates its era finishes you can go again and build another one I don't know if he's done that yet I think the bit ragged in place is a bit flawed.

Again, we can come to that, but I'm really excited by what he's putting together and probably one of the best games in just in terms of sheer madness and entertainment that i've watched in the past couple of years it was fantastic do you think sonny that

liverpool are kind of lulling us because they they do seem flawed they do seem vulnerable and yet their defensive record is pretty good and they've only lost once this season like those the statistics seem to say this is a steady well-oiled machine that are just you know

really putting on a proper title push but when i watch them i think oh they they're get-attable

I think it probably helps them, doesn't it, with not having that expectation?

Because we've been here before, haven't we, with them top of the league, and we're going, is this Liverpool's year?

And maybe now we're kind of all softened a bit.

And I was just checking the highlights just as Nick was talking there, just to see if you missed the game, whether they included the Darwin Nunez miss from a free header from a cross from about six yards out.

And at first glance, it's like, oh, it's a bit difficult.

And you look at it a bit more, and

it was quite easy, really, for a striker like him.

And I think maybe it's a bit...

Well, not for a striker like him, I would say.

Maybe because we know they've got him up front and we know he's going to miss chances, are we less expectant on Liverpool to do as well?

I know, pinning it all in one player, but that sort of, yeah, free range, do what they like, captain chaos and all that with Nunez.

Maybe that kind of relaxation from us means we're going to have a bit more relaxed there.

Just as a four-year-old just burst into the

pod studio slash his own bedroom by the way

come back to me george uh xg uh the highest ever liverpool got the highest ever xg on record 7.2 is this something we should be celebrating parties in the streets weren't there off the back of the head

exactly yeah you'll never sing that exactly but it's interesting because this isn't the first time you know

In my mind, what Eddie Howe has done incredibly well at Newcastle is formulate a team who are very, very solid defensively and I think maybe due to the injuries that they've had it shouldn't be a massive surprise but it's not only this game if you think back to when Newcastle went to Paris in the Champions League I think PSG wrapped up an XG in that game of around five so that there are clearly some defensive frailties on the road at the moment for for Newcastle but you know

game state plays a massive part.

PSG were behind for the vast majority of that game, which inevitably is going to mean that Newcastle sit in.

Again, as Nick said in the first half here, despite there being loads of chances, you know, had Liverpool put themselves ahead early in the game, then naturally, maybe we wouldn't have seen them rack up the kind of XG that we saw.

But yeah, I mean, I'm

a sucker for this stuff, and I absolutely love it.

Yeah, and there was a question that we had that you answered on the WhatsApp group.

So I'll come to you, George, on from AG saying, Can I clarify something that's bugging me in terms of XG?

Does each shot contribute or each attack, e.g., Salah's penalty miss and Trent's follow-up?

Does that count as one combined score, or is each shot counted and totaled independently?

Like that, is that an XG of almost two just in that moment?

So, firstly, there are different models who work out XG differently, and in a similar way to possession, which also has different data providers giving different stats, working out in different ways.

Some

more basic XG models will just accumulate the total XG, which is inherently incorrect.

Like, it's ridiculous.

If you had a goal mouse scramble that constituted seven shots in the six-yard box, and suddenly that constituted for three XG when obviously it would have been impossible to score three goals in that time.

So the better, more reliable providers and probably the ones that we generally see in,

you know, used by broadcasts and the rest of it will have both a shot by shot XG and then a cumulative XG where Trent Alexander Arnold's second shot, for example, from the salah penalty, that may have been a 0.3 XG, but it wouldn't have totted on 0.3 to the total cumulative because they'd have worked out a second figure, which would tag on.

So it would never add up to more than one.

But if you were to look at Trent Alexander Arnold's individual shot mapper XG for the season, then he'll have the total there because obviously the fact that Salah had just missed doesn't change the chances of him scoring in isolation.

Presumably, Nick, Trent Alexander Arnold's XG for that shot, the sort of Van Basten from a tighter angle, would have been minus one.

Like, it was, as Pete says, was that the best goal that wasn't a goal in Premier League history?

It was so good, wasn't it?

Did anyone else think

immediately of that Roberto Carlos goal?

I think it was at Roberto Carlos where there's a long ball down the line.

It must have been 20 years

ago.

And he belts it after it towards the byline and just puts his foot through it from an absolutely impossible angle.

And I think it was even sort of further out wide than Trent was.

Didn't a Nottingham Forest player do that?

Did a Forest player score a goal like that?

Am I...

I don't know if I'm inventing that.

I can see a goal at the city ground, but it could be anywhere else.

Left footed.

You're not thinking of Jack Colbach's goal.

Yes, I am.

It wasn't quite at that angle.

Yeah, who was that for?

It was for Forrest in the promotion season.

Yeah.

Out of nowhere.

I believe that.

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So really tight angle outside of the foot.

There's something, it's just such a there's something so beautiful about even taking it on.

Sorry, Nick, I interrupted you.

No, I

was simply making a comparison from which you drew another comparison, which I did.

I can't visualise, but it sounds very good anyway.

Well, from Roberto Carlos naturally to Jack Colbeck is how all football conversations go.

Sonny, what did you make of Diogo Jotta's dive, not dive?

There was contact.

I suppose it's that tricky balance between contact doesn't mean a foul, but players shouldn't have to go down to get a free kick.

So where is this on that scale?

Yeah, it was horrible.

I didn't like it at all.

Yes, there was a touch, and so it goes down, and you immediately go to Twitter and you've got every single answer.

You've got the Diogo apologist saying one thing and everyone else saying something else um

it's it's funny I can't imagine I know Alan Shearer like swore about it well he put a little X in there instead of a C I think saying it was embarrassing I can't imagine many strikers choosing like weighing it up in that split second and thinking of the odds and going do you know what the chances of me going down and guaranteeing a goal are more likely for me to then get the goal it was and then he didn't even score it because it was seller who took it So, very strange.

Surely, he could have gone for it and it probably would have gone in.

And if he hadn't, they would have still given a penalty.

I guess you then gotta

weigh up.

He's kind of second-guessing the referee as well.

It was a pen, I guess, because there was a touch, but come on, he was through on goal.

He was through.

It's very silly.

My question, so I mean, I'm more sympathetic to him.

Where the two things I would say is: firstly, when you slow these

clips down, it looks worse and worse.

Where, like, obviously, he takes a couple of steps after the contact, but there seems to be this perception that, like, when you're shot, like, as soon as there's contact, you just collapse on the floor immediately.

And anyone who's ever been clipped whilst running, being shot, that isn't the case.

But the second thing, and I think this is like the more pertinent point, is if you're running and you feel contact, and you have that moment where you are aware that you felt contact, and you're aware that you're therefore somewhat off balance off the back of that, and therefore that impedes your ability to maximize your opportunity to score the goal but you're also fully in the knowledge that if you don't go down the chances are that you don't get a penalty what are you meant to do because if there's an infringement as an attacker are you not entitled to go down in order to win the win the penalty like there's this whole idea around like the way people talk about football that you have to have like

absolutely necessarily gone down that there couldn't have been any conscious decision making in your you know decision to to to fall to the floor whereas realistically if zotter's like like, hold on, he's hit me there, I'm not really balanced now as I would have been beforehand.

What am I meant to do?

So, I would, there's a grey area that seems to basically be lost unless you are partisan, where you're either a Liverpool fan who therefore wants to support your player, or you're Alan Shearer, a Newcastle fan, who's obviously livid that your side is conceded a penalty.

No Sala's final game before Afcon

played incredibly well.

I mean, Nick, do you think he's the biggest individual miss?

Obviously, I think Forrest lose six players or something.

They get really quite stung by Afcon and obviously players going to the Asia Cup as well.

And it's probably him or son, isn't it?

Of individual players leaving who leave a massive gap.

I mean, I can never remember who plays for Forest.

I'm pretty sure Forest fans can never quite remember who plays for Forest either.

There's always somebody on the Jack Colback is going because he plays for Chad, and that's the problem.

There's so many of them.

But look,

I think Sala massive, massive miss.

Obviously, he's just,

I know, we always sort of say, oh, he's raising the level, he's raising his own level.

I think it just means he's just been consistently fantastic for years and years now.

I mean, the other night, everything went through him, and it has been for quite a while.

I think he's got, is it 22 goals already this season for club and country?

I think four might have been against Didjibouti or someone like that.

But still, it'll be a massive miss.

I think the danger for Liverpool, I don't know if it's just that terrible until the end of AFCON, except for Arsenal

away, sorry, on the 4th of Feb, which has got a red flag title significance on it.

And I think Salah could only be back for that game if Egypt lost him a round of 16 against a Minnow against a third-place team from the groups.

I think.

How do they compensate?

I mean, Gakpo

has shown he can contribute Jota as well, players like this.

The rest of the team is functioning probably a lot better than people thought it would.

But I do think a lot is going down that right-hand side for Liverpool, and they will have to find a way to recalibrate a bit.

And how Klopp does that will be very interesting.

Again, the only silver lining is that I'm not sure he's going to miss that many league games, but you'd like to get him back before early February.

Jürgen Klopp dropped his wedding ring in the post-match celebrations.

Said afterwards, this happens quite often.

He once had to get a professional diver to get it from the bottom of the sea.

I'm like, I hope he gave the diver like sort of a finite amount of sea to get it from.

That seems very difficult.

I mean, it is for the record, I'm on my third wedding ring,

first wife, but third wedding ring.

It's never fallen off.

I've taken it off for sporting reasons and then just left, can't find it again.

But sporting reasons isn't a isn't code for a night out there, I hope, Max.

It really isn't, George.

No, poison tour.

Occasionally, me and my wife say, you know, like, so we have a small child, like the thought of having an affair, even if you really wanted mine.

I mean, I was just so exhausted.

Like, all I really want to do is go to bed alone.

That's like, this is the only.

Alone.

Yeah.

Alone.

Yeah, I just want to go to bed.

Leave with your wife.

I just want it.

I want a quiet, dark room where no one will talk to me.

James says, if everyone was watching the darts, did West Ham Brighton really happen?

Charlie says, good luck talking about that for however long it's scheduled to be.

I mean, there are good nil-nils and bad nil-nils.

Um,

I don't think we need to give this any time, Nick.

I don't know what you think.

It was a really

so drab

and and it and it finished and it's over.

I found myself watching the game and listening to the darts because I live very near to the darts venue, and when it all starts kicking off, you can literally hear it in my living room.

And the audio sailing through my garden through the window was much more interesting than what was going on

on my television.

Yeah, it was an elevator elevator music game, wasn't it?

And I mean,

I switched it on to watch it

in the spirit of good football weekly preparation, like a true professional, and started to get a bit bored as it unraveled.

I think it was basically it.

It wasn't two teams that didn't want to be there.

They were both trying, weren't they?

They were both having their goes.

Some of the football was, you know, as it always is with Brighton in particular, quite watchable and smooth.

But I love this festive period of football.

We all do.

But is it going a little bit far now, given the pace and athleticism?

I know it's a bit of an age-old debate and we've probably had it every single year for the last 10 years, but I do wonder whether we could get rid of one of these sets of fixtures.

It's also staggered out anyway from Boxing Day that there's a game probably

every day between Boxing Day and like now.

You could just stretch out that schedule a bit further for that match day and lose this one and then make use of a midweek later in the season.

It just seems crazy to me that

we start the FA Cup as well tomorrow on Thursday in a game that I'm covering, Palace 3 Everton.

And you think,

how are these players and even these fans, these clubs, gonna

raise themselves to put on the right spectacle?

And

I get why it's attractive to the Premier League to be the only major league running really at this time because you've got a captive audience, you've got a product that no one else is matching.

There's no Bundesliga really serious

things like this.

But

I think that's right.

Anyway, I haven't missed one, have I?

There's La Liga.

There's La Liga started again yesterday.

I'm not just an EFL man, look at him.

But

I just think something has to give.

And we talk about the Premier League.

It's worse in the Football League.

since the 23rd of December,

Premier League clubs have played twice.

Football League clubs have played three times

in most cases, and

it throws up some weird results, and that can be part of a fun, but it's clear that a lot of managers aren't happy with it.

Very clear, unless, of course, there's a

floodlight failure at Stevenage, and then you do get a game off, but doesn't necessarily help you.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

Part two, we'll get into the AFL, begin with Wayne Rooney sacking as manager of Birmingham.

Is that literally all we're doing on West Ham Brighton?

Because I watched that game, I didn't even watch the darts, I had it on.

And not only that, but because we had the one-year-old was up and my wife wanted to watch TV, I watched it on my tablet with my headphones in.

So I was like super concentrated.

My notes I gave up.

What I did discover on sound, by the way, Nick, is ASMR, the sound of like a muted football stadium just rolling through your ears for like 90 minutes.

It's quite soothing.

It's quite nice.

But yeah,

what a waste.

Well, I'm so sorry you've done all this work.

Do you want to do a do you want to release a bonus track?

Yeah, I think so.

It's a two-hour long.

Yeah.

And even

worse,

for Sky today, I'm going to do

Warrington Wolves that are watch party of the darts.

And I can't even say to them, oh, how about Luke Little yesterday?

You're a local lad.

How great was that?

Because I wasn't watching it.

So I'm going to focus on that.

We all know you'll do it.

Don't worry.

Yeah, I think Sky reporters have fudged it in the past.

So I'll say.

Well, you can keep that in, Joel, if you want Sanny's rant about not being able to talk about a game that was shit.

I'm happy to do that.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day, Scratchers, from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Week.

Glee Michael says, could Tom Brady be the man to save Birmingham from relegation?

Matt says, has there been a more disastrous managerial change than Birmingham replacing John Eustace with Wayne Rooney?

I mean, I presume, George, the only answer to that is replacing Gary Rowatt with Gianfranco Zola, which was also Birmingham City, City, right?

I mean, he

sacked after 15 games, Wayne Rooney.

They've lost nine and won two of those 15.

They've slipped from sixth to 20th.

It's a total disaster, isn't it?

It's a total disaster.

There's no real way to dress it up.

And especially when you had a fan base who are pretty united in thinking it was a disaster from the outset, when you have, when you go back and you read the press release when Rooney was appointed and fans were promised a no-fear style of play and they were told it was going to to be a defining moment for the football club, and the rest of it.

You know, it may be defining, but not in the way I think that the Birmingham hierarchy were hoping for.

In fairness to Rudy,

there's no way to dress up his tenure as anything other than disastrous, but he took over a team massively overperforming, playing incredibly well under John Eustis.

And that is, in my mind, probably the worst kind of job you can take because you are immediately going to be judged on your predecessor.

You're immediately going to be judged not on preseason expectations, but where you are in the league when you take over.

And not only was he tasked with maintaining a probably unsustainable runner form, but he was also made to promise that he was going to play a style of football that he just didn't play at Derby, that he just didn't play apparently at DC United either.

So to be brought in to play this certain style and to be only given, what was it, 13 weeks to do it seems incredibly harsh.

But having said that, given where Birmingham are right now and with the managerial managerial changes, in particular, Sheffield Wednesday, who brought in Danny Royal, who's doing an incredible job.

Marty Sefuentes at QPR started very well, but it's dropped off a bit.

But these teams in the relegation zone are now picking up points at the kind of rate where if Birmingham don't sort themselves out very soon, not only are they going to be in the relegation zone at the end of the season, but they could find themselves there in the next couple of weeks.

Disastrous all around.

I did notice that a few journalists who cover EFL football all kind of came out on Twitter yesterday and said that

they'd heard that Eustace would be interested in a return to the club.

So he's clearly briefed a couple of people that he knows that he wouldn't mind going back, which would be interesting.

But yeah, there's no way to dress this up.

It was a terrible change that was made not on the basis of actual performance on the pitch on the Eustace, but clearly just a desire from an ownership group to bring in Rooney for some reason, whether it was his profile as a player or whatever it was.

But yeah, you know, at the time it looked risky, and now it looks like a terrible decision.

It's an interesting question, Nick, from Kapanosti saying, look, England's golden generation did not succeed at the major tournaments.

Those that have entered management were fast-tracked into jobs because of their fame.

Are these men guilty of hubris or of believing the hype of a supportive media?

Or can you sort of, you know, can you put Lampard, Gerrard,

Rooney,

the Nevilles into the same?

I guess Southgate is the only, he's a bit before then, wasn't he?

He's the only one who seems to have had any success.

It's not their fault in some ways.

I mean, if people are going to give you jobs, then you're going to take them,

aren't you?

It's more a failing of

club owners who want a headline, often media for begging them up, you know, their friends in certain places.

And yeah,

credulous employers or prospective employers who see a big name and think, wow, they're going to be great.

I'll give them a job.

I don't know if it's hubris as such to

want a career in coaching and fancy yourself as one and turn out not to be that good.

I think it lies squarely on the people employing them.

I think in Birmingham's case, from day one, I remember their first game, their first home game against Leeds, which they won 1-0, which I think is a result that wouldn't have been possible under Rooney.

They were waving Tom Brady around in front of the cameras.

I remember the ITV highlights of that game lasted about 40 minutes and half of of it was talking to Tom Brady, who I don't think really knew too much about what was going on.

And

that is what felt like Hoobris to me.

Bionas

coming straight in and waving celebs about, and then obviously

sticking Rooney into,

as George has said, a team that was overperforming, had a defined and quite tightly wound way of playing and under a very good manager who got them playing for each other.

And the whole thing has just felt, for me so far, like a recipe for a disaster.

But yeah, going back to your original point,

I don't think there's any reason why we should expect the Golden Generation to be fantastic coaches or anything like that.

But

I don't think there's any reason why they shouldn't

be aiming high.

It's more of

more of the people who believe the hype and think this is what's going to get my club going when we've seen time and time again that it actually isn't.

there's also a point here where

football is changing very quickly, especially in the EFL.

And I'm sure this will filter into elite football, where

we're entering the era of career coaches, aren't we?

So a lot of the best coaches and managers currently operating in the EFL,

either by injury or by design, made a decision probably in their early 20s or late teens that this is what they wanted to do.

And they have done an apprenticeship of probably over a decade in terms of learning coaching and not playing.

And in some senses, even though, you know,

certain former pros may think that there's no better experience to be either a manager or a pundit than playing the game.

Realistically, if you're someone who has dedicated your craft to coaching rather than playing, that's going to put you in a very strong position.

So you've got Kieran McKenna, obviously, at Ipswich, Liam Manning, who's doing very well at Bristol City.

There are plenty of these guys who are elite-level coaches who probably have a head start on the likes of Rooney.

I mean, Lampard obviously did an

apprenticeship of sorts previously, but

I think we might be moving into an era now where when the game was populated with just the ex-players as head coaches and managers,

the market was there for who was the best of those.

Whereas now, I think we're going to increasingly see the best head coaches and managers are going to be those who made this decision

around their careers at an earlier stage.

I'll tell you who from the golden generation could be a hugely successful manager.

2006 World Cup squad for England, 20-year-old Scott Carson was in that squad, and he's had a lot of time sitting on the sidelines of Pep Guardiola.

It's true.

Let's see where he is.

Let's see who he is in 10 years' time.

I love how old he looks.

Whenever he goes out to pick a trophy, and he just looks like a vet's keeper, you know, like, just like

he looks so much older than the rest of those players.

The interesting thing about Rooney Sanny is that he has got a really high profile, but he's not showbiz.

Like, he's like, he's like sort of defined by not being Showbiz.

Like, he's a grizzled bloke with a beard, wears a track suit.

Like he looks like an old EFL manager from the 90s, right?

Like he isn't going to give you Rasmutan.

If that's what you want, you're not going to get that.

Yeah, he doesn't, he kind of eschews all that.

He's kind of molding himself almost into some sort of alternate Sean Deys in his look, you know, with his beard.

You know, he's got the hair, though.

But I'm not...

Why is it not quite going together?

Well, he's not had Liam Rossinha alongside him.

I think that's been a big thing.

And similarly, Stephen Gerrard didn't have Michael Beale either.

And it's almost like, you know, George talks about these career coaches.

They've needed that career coach alongside them, and they haven't had it.

Left to his own devices, you know, run around and kick it just hasn't really worked.

There was a great moment, if you're a neutral, on the third goal for Leeds United when they beat Birmingham 3-0, where the two defenders, IU and Buchanan, like collide into each other as the ball's put into the goal.

And you think, yeah, that kind of sums it up.

I imagine John Eustace would have come and been a bit more pragmatic against the team that haven't lost the Ellen Road all season.

But they were just all over the place.

And, you know, go and do it hasn't really worked.

Sorry, Rooney.

I know I'm being a bit, a bit, a bit harsh there, but, you know.

There was an interesting point.

I was listening to Five Live a couple of weeks ago, and Rob Green was on, and he was asked about this.

He was asked about how he felt about,

you know, these guys who haven't played the game coming through and getting jobs ahead of maybe ex-pros.

And he said, which I'm not sure I agree with, but he basically said that

the difference is, is that basically these guys who are so hungry to get the top jobs will basically do jobs that ex-pros don't need to do or don't want to do.

And that makes their pathway a bit easier.

And even though I'm not sure that's true, it does give an interesting insight into the ex-pro, where I'm sure Rooney is desperate to make it as a successful manager.

But when you consider the repercussions of someone like Rooney or Gerrard not making it, and for Gerard, it seems to be being one of the best paid managers in world football in Saudi Arabia, compared to what it would mean for a Liam Manning, a Kieran McKenna, a Des Buckingham not to make it, where suddenly the career path that they've chosen at an early age just disappears in front of them.

You know, the hunger and the desire and the absolute necessity to make it work might drive why we're seeing these

different profile be more successful.

Let's talk about the top of the championship.

I'm sorry to do this, Nick, with

Ipswich struggling so much.

Leicester, now 10 points clear, unbeaten in the last 10, including eight wins.

Sunny, when do we start asking if they're cut out to be well in the Premier League?

When do we just say they are there?

Because Ipswich have like stuttered, so it's not a guarantee, but Leicester would really have to fall off the wagon for this not to transpire for the end.

Yeah, and what's interesting with Leicester is they've kind of changed the style as well.

I know earlier in the season, I said on the pod how they were kind of having a lot of fun, but then a lot of teams kind of figured out how the how to kind of counteract that.

And Enzo Mareska kind of had to change it up and do passing teams to death in a Pep Guardiola kind of style.

But you can do that because you've got the quality they've got.

I mean, they brought in Tom Cannon now, who did pretty well at Preston last season on loan from Everton.

He got eight goals and your first start for it for Leicester and he's he scored two goals.

And when you're losing the players they're going to lose in the Africa Cup of Nations, which is kind of that glimmer of hope for everyone else.

And you can throw in someone who's, you know, they signed him injured.

I think he had an issue with his back.

And they've been able to rehabilitate him and

he's done brilliantly for them.

It's just an example of the quality they've got all over the park.

You've got, you know, James Justin scoring blind

worldies, you know.

So they've got players who look like they're stepping up.

Vardi's injured at the moment, but he will eventually come back.

And that'll just add to the quality they've got.

So, yeah, I don't think anyone's going to stop Leicester at all.

Leicester,

I mean,

they've only not won five games all season, haven't they?

I think they'll miss Indeedy.

I think he's going off with Nigeria, isn't he?

And I mean, I watched them, of course, against Ipswich a week or so back, and the drop-off in their midfield when they took him off.

I think he was on a yellow card after an hour or so, was fairly stark.

And I think Indidi is one player, along with Gewsby-Hall, I think.

Those are the two who I think are so clearly above the level, it's almost ridiculous.

So it'll be interesting to see how they adapt to that.

They've got Casado, the Italian online from Chelsea, who is a good talent, but maybe a little bit inconsistent.

But those two guys, I mean, Indeedy and Deesby Hall for me,

the absolute peak of,

you know, ridiculously good for the level.

But Ipswich matched them a week ago, I must say.

If we're talking about Ipswich stuttering, by the way, can I do this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, go on.

No winning five for the carrot for you, carrot munchers.

First carrot munchers.

It's a good narrative, the um the Ipswich falling away thing.

But what I would say is that if this is the bad run in the season and you're losing only one game in five, I would absolutely take it.

And that game was at least, which can happen.

So I'm not personally that worried about

drawing a few of the performances have been good.

the exception of a draw against QPR when they were down for bare bones resources wise.

I think January for Ipswich which is going to be really key now, because they've lost George Hurst, the striker, with a hamstring injury for, I think it'll be about three months.

That's a massive blow.

He's

quite a unique player at the level, really.

He's a big lad, but he can hold it up.

He can assist, he's very clever, he can also stretch teams really well.

I don't know how you replace that

without spending a lot of money.

I mean, you look at some of the fees being bandied around for strikers currently.

I saw someone saying that Bolton wanted five million for Dion Charles earlier, who is 28 and never played above League One, I think.

So you can see that that will be a difficult one to replace.

But

I'm not so worried about Ipswich.

I think Southampton had been on a prodigious run, the kind that Ipswich were on a few weeks ago.

So there's that to be accounted for as well.

And I think Kieran McKenna is just such a smart, clever manager.

He won't be too high or too low about any of this.

The levels of performance

have been good.

They're not losing games, which is the key.

If you're slightly off, don't lose games.

And I think if they can reinforce in January, they've got a good chance of at least keeping pace with whatever Saints do and making it an interesting end of the season.

But I am obviously very biased.

Yeah, I was going to ask, George, you're less biased.

Do you see that as the layer of the land?

Leicester are there and then it switch and what it's really between them, Southampton and and Leeds for that second spot it looks that way I mean I'm not quite crowning Leicester champions just yet just because we know how quickly things can change like it was only a couple of weeks ago that it looked like Ipswich were going to go top and now you see the gap between them and it is worth pointing out that even though Leicester have been at their scintillating best in recent weeks they have played Millwall, who at the time were in a very poor run of form.

Birmingham, as we just discussed, on a, you know, Southampton, on a prodigious good run.

I think we know that Birmingham have been on the opposite of that.

Rotherham, who are the bottom team in the league, they played Hardisfield last time out, who are slipping into the relegation zone.

It has been as easy a run of games as you can really get, except for the Ipswich game, where, as Nick said, I actually thought that on the balance of play, Ipswich were very good value for their point, even though it did take a double deflection in the 95th minute or whatever it was to get it.

So, you know, last time Leicester had a difficult run of games, they lost back-to-back against Leeds and Borough.

So I'm not quite promoting them yet.

The overwhelming likelihood is that they will win the league.

They have a ridiculous squad squad of players.

You know, Nick mentioned too, and Ndidi and Dewsbury Hall in particular, I think, is just way too good for the level.

But also, Mavadidi off the left has been something of a cheat code.

The goals that he scores, Fatalu, who's also going to Afghan on the right, has been magnificent.

The fact that he can rotate between Vardi, Dhaka, Ian Acho, and

Cannon is just a total joke.

So I'm sure they'll be fine.

But yeah, in terms of those in behind, I agree that Ipswich, I think, will be okay.

They've certainly lost some firepower, back-to-back, Nilmil Jaws, and Hurst, I think, will be replaced.

Sarmiento is a decent pickup who they signed this morning on loan from Brighton.

They're very good in the transfer market, and I don't think they'll be long until they put right this little wobble they're having at the moment.

The issue for both Southampton and Leeds is their away form, where Leeds seem to basically lose every away game, and Southampton seem to draw every away game one-all.

And so long as they're doing that, they're going to struggle to chase down Leicester.

But Russell Martin has done incredibly well when you consider they lost four games in a row at Southampton at the beginning of the season.

Quite a few of the home fans and Samaris weren't liking what they were seeing, especially from a defensive standpoint.

But he's sorted out the defence.

He's got goals throughout the side.

You know, Armstrong topping the goal screen charts for them, but Adams, Stuart Armstrong, Aribo, all these players, Alcaraz, all coming to form at the right time.

And for Leeds, it's just sorting out this consistent inability to press home an advantage.

You know, they beat...

It dominated Ipswich to a ridiculous extent in the 4-0 win at Ellen Road and followed that up with back-to-back away defeats.

And that's been the story of the season so far on the road, unable to break down teams who get ahead.

And that's got a few leads fans wondering if Daniel Farker is the right man to take them forward.

But those are definitely the four.

What order it goes into?

We'll have to wait and see.

But yeah, Leicester overwhelming favourites to win it.

And then one of the other three to come second.

And then Sanny below them in that sort of you know, the charge for the playoffs.

I mean, Blackburn is 17th and are eight points off the playoffs.

There's 20 games left, right?

I mean, like,

anybody could go on a run.

I mean, it doesn't look like Blackburn will, given their current form, but anybody could, right?

It is that classic kind of momentum, let's see where you are in March sort of season, isn't it?

And it does feel like one of these teams that we've not talked about at all, like Bristol City, for example, you've got quite a lot of young players, could be exciting, could just suddenly rank up there.

I was looking earlier on AFCON and I know West Brom, you mentioned George Sarmiento.

He was at West Brom and he's gone on, he was on loan from Brighton.

He's gone to Ipswich now, and they are going to lose three of their key players in Semi Ajay, the centre-back.

Then you've got Grady D'Angana, who's a brilliant match winner for them on the left-hand side, and Brandon Thomas-Asante getting all their goals.

So the core of West Brom's team are out of the picture for a while.

And I think they're one team that are always there or thereabouts.

And I know the pressure on them to get promoted is huge financially.

There's a lot riding on them going back up.

And I think they might come a bit unstuck.

And there's an opportunity there.

They're currently fifth for one of the teams below them to to certainly come in.

I think Sunderland are a pretty exciting team.

I think that's fair to say.

And I think they want that could be sticking around.

And you think the size of the club, the fans behind them, I mean, you look at the other end of the table, Cheffy Wednesday, with a massive fan base, and how the expectation can weigh you down.

But yeah, I think there's a load of teams in here that are really exciting and could really make things very interesting.

But yeah, the top three out of their top four with leads look very much kind of of a little bit of a level above the rest can i draw the attention to to one particular game that happened in the championship the other day it was plymouth three watford three and it was noted notable for a couple of great goals there was um there was a wonderful sort of side-footed hooked volley from finazaz of of plymouth which was absolutely i mean you should watch it it was very unusual and a great hit as well by eshmael kone of watford who i think on his day is one of the most interesting talents in the entire football league i think he's fantastic he's a canadian international.

But in that game, 3-3, there were 49 shots on goal.

That's amazing.

And I thought Liverpool, Newcastle was fun, but blimey.

And I can't think of a game with more goal attempts off the top of my head that I've ever seen or heard of.

I always think the goal standard is 40.

I think

if the games had 40 shots, you think, wow, bloody hell, I really wish I'd watched it or want to have watched it.

But 49 is off the hook.

Yeah, that is more.

What's that?

One every two minutes it's like it's more than that isn't it it's brilliant there's a really good um interview after the game with uh plymouth argyle's sporting director who is currently their caretaker manager called neil duesnip and he was stephen schumacher's pe teacher um all many many years ago and he was asked you know what did he make of the of the game and how open it was and he said well there's an old student of mine um who is an ex-manager here who used to think that i was a boring coach while my team drew three all today and his drew nil

What was great about all of that, by the way, it was absolutely hammering it down, like whether the camera ops, like having to wipe the lens for you to see it.

But that's what made Azaz's volley.

So, I don't know how he managed to get that kind of purchase on the ball, given how wet it would have been, like, an unbelievable goal.

Now, just for those listeners who never even look at the tables at the bottom of the championship, Rother and Bottom on 18 points, KPR have 21, Sheffield Wednesday, 22, and above them, Huddersfield on 25, Birmingham 28, Stoke and Plymouth on 29 and that'll do for part two

unless Sunny wants to complain about something we haven't discussed in detail and

we'll do League One and League Two in just a second.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

I've just watched that as a volley.

And George, I mean, the greatest skill in football is is the side foot pass.

And that is just a side foot pass, right?

But just a volley from 25 yards that dips into the bottom corner.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

Incredible.

Like, I think the word the cushioned volley to perfection there, like, unbelievable.

And I was just saying, like, the fact normally with a goal, I think, for the aesthetic, you either want it to fly in the top corner or you want it to hit some kind of woodwork before going in.

But this is a rare example where, because of the dip, the fact that it just nestles into the side netting, having dipped, you know, from above the crossbar height, it is, yeah, seek it out if i were you and make sure you watch it top of league one portsmouth have uh 53 points from 25 games bolton 51 uh won the last four with a game in hand peterborough disappointingly uh doing quite well uh 49 from 25 derby oxford barnsley also in the playoffs stevenage uh level on points with barnsley um and the blackpool doing uh pretty well behind them uh who's going to win the league sanny well at one point i thought it was going to be portsmouth and then they kind of had a not as good a run and then you look at the table table and actually they've only lost two games so I think again we talked about the championship and anyone can beat anyone League One is very unpredictable and just as George kind of reeled me back on saying Leicester are going to run away with it I think I need to stay a bit more on the fence on this because whoever I say it probably won't be but Pompey do make a lot of chances and do

have a lot of quality in the team.

So that's me saying Portsmouth.

I agree with Sanny in that it is it is very open.

Like, it feels pretty clear to me that there are four quality teams in League One, and it pains me to say it because the team that I support coming fifth.

But in Pompey, Bolton, Peter, and Derby, you've got four sides who I wouldn't say there's much between them.

Bolton have a game in hand on Pompey, which, if they win, they'd go top.

In a similar way to what I was saying about Leicester, Bolton have also had a run of fixtures over the festive period where they've won them all.

But you look at who they've played.

They played Leighton Orient, Lincoln, Fleetwood, and Burton.

Four sides.

Leighton Orient are kind of doing okay at the moment, but certainly Lincoln under Michael Scabala, their new manager really struggling.

Fleetwood sacked the manager Lee Johnson and replaced it with Charlie Adam off the back of that 2-0 defeat.

And Burton, currently managerless as well, having sacked

Dina Memory a couple of weeks ago.

So it's been an easier run.

And before that, they played Bristol Rovers, Portsmouth and Oxford only took one point from three more difficult games.

So they might be in a bit of a not a false position because Ian Everett is doing an amazing job and season on season improves them and they've got quality players.

But if there is a side that might be dropping, well, be dropping more points than than they have done recently it could be them but but posh are the ones that I'm most impressed with at the moment where if you go back to this to the and I'm sorry to say it Max but if you go back to the to the summer and you read

the kind of noises coming out of the club you look at the fan sentiment who are very worried about the financial state of the club at the time there was a lot of kind of discussion about how this was going to be a summer where they were going to build for the future, bring in young talent, how they weren't going to be as ambitious as they normally were.

They had to act more sustainably.

What they've kind of done almost by mistake rather than design is rather than having a team that was reliant on Johnson Clark Harris to score their goals, they've now built this incredible attacking unit full of young players.

Like Kwame Poco off the right is absolutely superb.

Ephraim Mason Clark off the left, their captain.

They got from Barnett a couple of years ago.

It's brilliant.

They've got just quality running through the team.

And in my mind, and Johnson Clark Harris now can't really get into the side and looks likely to leave in January.

I think Darren Ferguson has to be one of the most underrated managers in the EFL in terms of if you want someone to take a team full of technical players who are better than the majority of the of the side and create a really ultra-attacking winning machine, then he's the person to go to.

I don't think he's particularly well suited to what he normally does after that, where he tries to keep teams up with a smaller budget

with players who aren't necessarily as good.

I don't think he's suited by that and that's why it never really works afterwards.

But if I was a top end championship owner, which I'm not sadly as of yet, looking for a manager to play a certain style with good players and improve young players, then I think Ferguson deserves a crack at that because they are one of the best teams to watch and showed that live on Sky on New Year's Day when beating Derby 3-2 in a brilliant game against a Derby side who'd been the form team in the league under Paul Warren of Gone from Strength to Strength this season and went and beat them at their own place 3-2.

None of that praise for Peterborough will make the edit, of course, but it's good of you to give it a good go.

The fun thing about this league at the moment, Nick, is that everyone has something to play for, right?

You look at Lincoln, they could go on a good run, I I mean, they're not at the moment, and make the playoffs, and they could keep nosediving and go down.

I mean,

that's how tight it is, I guess.

Yeah, I think League One has it, it's still very tight.

I think it has stratified a bit more in the last couple of years, where the bigger clubs do tend to rise to the top.

I think there's a big difference

between the clubs that may come up from League Two and are quite happy to be there, and then the sort of slew of indignant clubs that come down from a championship, half of which think they should be top flight clubs.

And you do see quite a lot of difference, I think, now between top and bottom.

But

that midfield is very packed.

I think something, and this is a slight change of topic, but something that really interested me the other day, actually, was to see Colby Bishop of Portsmouth, who had that incredible unbeaten run at the start of the season and then had the temerity to drop a couple of points.

Well, I think they drew a couple, didn't they?

And maybe they lost lost one as well over Christmas.

I think they then bounced back to beat Stephen Edge, who themselves are having a very good season, just on the fringes of a playoff, so very much of a surprise package.

I think Colby Bishop, their striker, scored his 13th of the season.

And he didn't celebrate.

He cupped his ears to the fans and had a long complaint afterwards that he didn't like the barracking that he'd got and the team had got over their three-match winless run and that the criticism had, you know, given him the hardest moments of his Portsmouth career and stuff like that.

Now, I don't stand on the terraces at Threaten Park, so I don't know whether that was an absolute pounding the team were getting for dropping a few points, but it kind of chimes a little bit for me as an Ipswich fan, that when you become a team that is a relentless points gaining machine and then suddenly you drop a few points here and there, the entitlement grows and the criticism becomes totally disproportionate,

whether externally or

in your own fan base.

But I thought it was quite striking that Portsmouth are having such a fantastic season.

And I think they probably will win the league.

I've been very impressed with the manager, Messinho, in particular.

But I thought for one of their players to come out and say, look, the crowd have been really getting on my back

was quite remarkable, especially when it's a striker who over the past two seasons has scored a hell of a lot of goals for him.

Just to defend the Portsmouth fans colby bishop does miss quite a lot of chances and some of them are like ones that you'd think he should score i'm not

i was about to say i don't know if he yeah i don't know if he's quite the darwin nun years if he probably is actually well i don't know there's not there's less of the like

brilliant crazy sort of misses and more of the crosses come in and he's missed from four yards sort of frustration but yeah i mean he's got a great back story by the way uh xp teacher um so he's worked all the way up from non-league to accrington to portsmouth So, you know, he's used to having people on his back.

He can cope with some football fans.

You know, once you've had kids refusing to do PE, you'll be all right after that.

George, a few people say about League One that actually this is quite a bad League One, given who's probably going to come up from League Two and the money that's going to come into it next year, that, you know, if you if you want to have a good, if you're a smaller club who's sort of on the fringes of the playoffs, you know, this is your chance type thing.

And like next year, it's going to be more difficult.

Yeah, I think that's probably true.

And especially when you, it depends who goes up.

You know, if there's, there's no guarantee that Derby will go up, there's no guarantee Pompey will get Bolton.

You know, they can't all, well, I suppose they could, but

it does feel like this is a season where you look at the giants for the level who've left in recent seasons.

Ipswich, obviously, leaving last season, Sheffield Wednesday as well, made the league much easier.

And with Argyle, you know, they may not have the financial clout of those two sides or the history or legacy necessarily of those two, but certainly in terms of the way the club is run under owner Simon Hallett, they are absolutely a club that you want to be out of your league because they will always

be achieving at a high level.

Sunderland, prior to that, another one that went up, you know, Rotherham, who basically win the league every time they're in it.

Like, it does feel like next season, if it is, you know, Rotherham that come down with a couple of other ones, you know, QPR, another team who you'd expect would be big for the level.

And then you add to that Stockport, Wrexham, Mansfield, you know, these teams who are,

you know, they won't be like the types like Carlisle and Leighton Orange who will come up and look to consolidate.

They will come up and they will certainly have the ambition of wanting to achieve at the high end of League One, which Stephenish this season has shown is possible, not on a massive budget.

So it definitely does feel to me like this is a good season to go for it.

And I think we will see in January a lot of the teams we've discussed there.

You know, Bolton, obviously one of those with

the rumours around Dion Charles leaving, but certainly I think we'll see Bolton, we'll see Oxford, we'll see Derby, we'll see these sides look to invest heavily in order to try and press home what's been a good start to the season.

Producer Joel wants to mention Charlton, who are having a very tough time at the moment and i just wanted one word oh i was there all right oh yes you were it was another it was another it was another late winner wasn't it you got one against us you bastards apparently we were quite good in that first half against you and then uh well we didn't we didn't really have a shot in the first half yeah and then you did it again so uh like you're doing very well and just in a word george will neil harris keep cambridge up i feel quietly confident he will i think yes i think the um injury to ahadney is not good news because it's felt like he'd nailed i mean ahadme is the perfect strike for neil harris someone who you can just be literally like hit Gasan every opportunity.

So him, him being.

We need Les Ferdinand, don't we?

That's what we need.

There must be a target man

lying about somewhere in January we can pick up.

Look, we've mentioned those sides in league two, Sanny.

But like Stockport lead the way, Mansfield second, only lost once this season, drawn a lot of games.

Wrexham in third.

I don't know if you know anything about Wrexham.

I don't know.

I haven't heard a lot about their story, but perhaps that's for another day.

I suppose Knott's County of fifth and lots, you know, they've lost quite a few recently, but they were expected to be pushing.

But, like, do you see

who do you see making it?

And I suppose, probably, for you know, we probably need Wrexham to go up again, don't we, just for the story?

Are you working for Disney here or just if you say James?

No, no, like, no, but I tell you what, I tell you why, like, it's quite fun that they go and get like Stephen Fletcher and James McLean.

Like, it is a bit, it is cheap, but it's also quite fun.

And so, if they get into league one, they might get some Premier League, you know, 35-year-olds.

you know you can see vardi there can't you like just you know this is yeah i don't know is it good or bad i i i haven't watched welcome to wrexham so i'm not annoyed with them i don't league two is not on my radar because i'm following league one too much so i'm not annoyed with them yet but i imagine if you are in league two you would be annoyed my my general position on wrexham is that any eyeballs are good eyeballs you know they're bringing extra attention to the leagues and that's a good thing and the more people are aware that there is life outside the premier league the better so from that position yeah, I'm happy Wrexham, I've got all this investment or whatever.

It's always pretty funny to see them not pull it together, but I guess, yeah, for the story, it'd be cool.

On teams that I think we need to be aware of in League Two, I think Mansfield Town are the one I would flag up.

I was at Stockport County Mansfield, which was first be second.

And Mansfield managed to win 2-0 in the end.

And I also saw Stockport against Knox County.

So

Stockport are kind of...

Momentum is one word you could use and they're losing a bit of it, but it's more the fact that they're getting quite a a few injuries and the squad's a little bit thin.

And Mansfield, they've got two games in hand on Stockport and only two points behind.

And Nigel Clough,

that team have only lost once all season.

So I think Mansfield are a team that are quite exciting, and I think maybe ones to watch out for.

Specifically, Davis Keeler-Dunn, who we've spoken about before on the podcast, is

a player who's really exciting for them, and they've got quite a few experienced players around them.

But But going back to what Nick said earlier on about the amount of games,

there were four big injuries in this Stockport-Mansfield game.

A mixture of impacts, a very serious concussion for Kyle Noyle for Stockport.

There was one where the fullback for Mansfield went to just cross the ball and just pulled his hamstring.

And you just think at this level, with the playing that many games, the squads are quite thin.

Are we kind of grinding them down?

And I think there's more of an argument when you get to League Two where, yes, the money and the income from attendance is great but are we kind of really ringing the players out a little bit too hard maybe and that will all start to play in who goes up and that's why the the team in second certainly seems to be changing every week at the moment The other big story in League Two arguably this week is

Wayne Looney wasn't the only Premier League legend to have been sacked from his job after a very short stint.

I think Looney was 13 weeks, wasn't he?

But Matty Etherington gone from Colchester, and I couldn't remember how long it was, but I've just looked, and it was 47 days in charge of Colchester United, who are, I think, three off the bottom of League Two.

So

it'd be really interesting to see what they do now.

I think they've had like

eight or seven maybe managers in two or three years.

They've always had a good academy up there, actually, Colchester,

really, really good.

But they've sort of flirted him in the past with going for veteran exit switch players to bulk out their team.

And then, when that's not worked out, they're sort of diced with you for a bit.

And now you don't quite know what Colchester are.

And from a team that once, you know, in living memory, was in the championship briefly and has had a few designs at trying to get back up there.

Be interesting to see who they get in next.

But yeah, what next for Matty Everington?

And actually, at the bottom of League Two, George, two quite interesting stories.

One is Forrest Greene, you know, probably a sign of how good wealth Rob Edwards did, right?

You know, to get them into League One, because that dissent with some slightly show-busy names of Duncan Ferguson managing them for a bit, and now Troy Deaning's managing them.

And Salford as well, class of 92 Salford, who are level on points with Colchester, so just five points above the relegation zone

and two places above it.

But I remember watching Salford in the year that Cambridge went up, and they batted us one year, and they were good, and they've always been sort of playoffs and there or thereabouts.

Yeah, the Salford case is a very strange one because they were beaten playoff semifinalists on penalties last year by Stockport.

And Stockport now, you know, you consider there hasn't been very much squad churn between the two sides, but they are light years apart at the moment.

There's on Twitter someone called Mike Holden who does manager profiles and they're very good.

And he did a very good thread earlier in the week about Salford and Neil Wood making the point that Salford basically exclusively go after players towards the back end of their careers who have achieved quite a lot in the game, you know, players like Matt Smith, Conor McElhaney, who probably, if you're going to be blunt, have come come for a nice last big pay packet.

And then you go and hire a coach in Neil Wood, whose career is in Academy coaching Manchester United.

And there's a bit of a clash there where these players don't necessarily need coaching.

Like they've been coached.

They've done all that stuff.

You almost need someone who's a motivator and an inspirer to come in and sort it out.

There have been...

some murmurs of Ryan Giggs possibly going in at Salford to replace Neil Wood.

We'll have to see if that comes to anything.

But there's no way they should be as poor as they are.

Like when you consider that the team that they've got at their disposal, it's not a very happy camp.

With Troy Dini and

taking over from David Horseman in a Trojan horse story of sorts, it was because he was in there as an assistant before.

He has made quite a good start.

They haven't got the results that their performances have probably deserved.

They went to Swindon, they were beaten 2-1, but they were good.

They were good when drawing one-all against AFC Wimbledon last time, Wimbledon flying under Johnny Jackson.

So watch this space, but I've got a feeling that Forest Green may improve for that change of manager.

And we're waiting to see who Sutton appointed having sat their own manager, Matt Gray, who was the architect behind their incredible rise into the EFL.

Will we see Rooney at Salford City?

If he's got that fire lit under him and he wants motivation, he wants to be back in Manchester, he's got all his mates around him.

It's a big question.

I reckon more likely we'll see Rooney at Wrexham one day.

Actually, that's not a terrible shout, is it?

Anyway, thank you, chaps.

I enjoyed that.

That'll do for today.

Thanks, Nick.

Thank you, Max.

Thank you, Sanny.

Thank you.

Thank you, George.

Thank you, Max.

George, from not the top 20 podcast, by the way, I should have mentioned that at the top.

It's really excellent.

Great of you to plug it after the podcast is finished.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, people, I mean, there's no drop-off, there's no drop-off on this part.

I don't know what your figures are about.

People listen right to the bitter end.

Normally, the fun, stupid, you know, the stupid questions.

Our feed when we go championship league one, league two.

I don't get anyone's listening by the end.

But the weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

This is The Guardian.