Will anyone catch Leicester and Ipswich in the Championship? – Football Weekly

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Hello and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

It's an EFL pod.

Leicester and Ipswich still running away with things in the championship.

Despite the Foxes dropping their first points away from home in the league at the weekend, Leeds fans are not very quietly falling for Daniel Farker with a bunch of teams packed in behind them.

Wayne Rooney isn't having a nice time.

Well, he might be having a nice time, but not a very successful one at present.

And there's a new man at Millwall.

In League One, Portsmouth keep on not losing with Oxford and Bolton ticking along nicely.

And surprisingly, for a pod dedicated to the Football League, we'll have run out of time to talk about the team in fourth.

Stockport are flying in League Two, and we might mention Mansfield for the first time ever.

We apologise in advance for not mentioning your club.

We'll answer your questions.

And that's today's Guardian Football Weekly.

On the panel today, George Elek from Not the Top 20 podcast.

How are you?

Yeah, very good, Max.

How are you doing?

I'm good, thank you.

Nice to see you.

Sanny Rudravagula, welcome.

Hello.

Looking forward to the Manchester Show for a Guardian Football Weekly, by the way.

Oh, yeah.

You come in.

You didn't pay for a ticket, did you?

I paid for a ticket, yeah.

Yeah, did you?

There is some benefits to being on this podcast.

I know, and I'm a Guardian supporter as well, so I've

doubled down, haven't I?

I'm also a Guardian supporter, which I sort of see is I'm just sort of giving myself, you know, 20 quid or whatever it is.

But, you know, it's good.

You should pay for the investigative journalism that is the Guardian, not specifically this pod.

Ben Fisher.

Speaking of investigative journalists, Ben Fisher, welcome.

Hi, Max.

How are you doing?

Yeah, looking forward to Bristol tonight.

Very much so.

Very much so.

Exciting, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

As you said, playing the big city.

Finally, playing the big city.

Thank you to everyone who came to London.

Yesterday, just before midnight, Barry said, do you need me for today's pod?

Barry is not here for today's pod.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Let's start in the championship then.

So that's as we were, right, Ben?

Leicester and Ipswich still absolutely fly.

I know Leicester have lost a couple recently, but there is still such a gap.

Yeah, Leicester have had a little couple of bumps, two defeats, but their minutes, which are still far and away, the best teams in the division, still quite a healthy cushion.

I do think...

Leads in third are quite interesting, I mean, going very well under Daniel Farker.

But

I mean, the Leicester squad is just the envy of all the other teams in the division.

When you speak to opposition managers or players, everybody's sort of just quietly saying the same thing.

How on earth have they still got all this ammunition?

Ipswich, it's a very different case, but it is extremely impressive what they're doing.

I think Kieran McKenna's stock is, I mean, I think we've spoken about him on here before, but his stock is just sort of rising by the week.

If I'm honest, I maybe didn't expect them to be still where they are in the division.

Obviously, they're level on points now with Leicester.

and what they have done the transition that they've obviously come up with momentum from league one and i don't know if the fact that they're just a big club obviously big history a huge fan base i don't know if that's kind of watering down the the significance of what they're doing really because i think maybe if this was a so-called lesser team maybe we'd be more uh struck by it but i think what they're doing with the resource and it's quite uh strategic that in the summer they didn't go berserk they just brought in a couple of loans and they tried to get a couple of targets who sort of turned their nose up at the move, thinking, oh, this team have just come up, maybe it's not the right move for me, maybe I'll go somewhere higher in the championship.

Actually, you know, they are one of the forces of the division, and

I think we have to really sort of admire what Kieran McKenna is doing.

And, you know, again, he's one of those coaches who you think, where's he going to?

Where's his kind of ceiling?

Obviously, he spent a lot of time at Manchester United.

You know, maybe he could get to the Premier League with Ipswich.

Like I said, maybe, you know, let's face it, it's still early days, but them in Leicester are so far away, so clear at the top already.

You know, we have to take them really seriously.

I promise I will take them seriously, Ben.

I really let that slide recently.

Sally, those two defeats for Leicester, were they Leeds at home in the Middlesbrough away?

Do we, you know, is there any danger that that is that just a bump, as Ben suggested?

Yeah, I think so.

It was funny that the Middlesbrough one, the goal scored by Greenwood, is actually a loane from Leeds.

Perfect free kick as well well into the top right-hand corner.

So some confusion as to why Leeds loaned him out to Borough, but if he keeps doing that against the top teams, it'll really help them.

But yeah, I think, you know, when I saw Leicester against Blackman Rovers, I mentioned last time on the pod that they just are playing with a bit of a swagger, which sounds like cliche, but more like just having a bit of fun, like, you know, and they can just let the hair down.

And clearly, these two results can, you might think, oh, are they being found out a bit?

But I don't think so.

I mean, they've got such quality, you can replace every player with another Premier League-ish level player.

And this happens in the championship.

You know, it's 46 games.

You're going to have these results, but they're going to keep that buffer, aren't they?

But, you know, I've seen all the top three teams now and they are pretty impressive, got to say that.

George, do the teams at the top of the championship, you know, at what point do they have to start thinking, right, what do we do differently next year?

Do they look at the bottom of the Premier League now and, you know, just start moping about the divide?

Or do we just have recency bias because they all stayed up last year, the promoted teams, and just because these three aren't having a great time, we decide: look, the Gulf is so wide, and football will never be the same again.

Yeah, it's difficult to know how they prepare for this.

Like, you think the likes of Leicester, if they do get promoted, maybe there's more of an infrastructure there compared to Luton or Burnley to kind of maintain a survival bid.

But at the same time, I do think, you know,

Ben there talking about Ipswich and Kieran McKenna.

I think in what McKenna's doing at Ipswich and what Rob Edwards did at Luton last season, like it seems pretty obvious to me that even though parachute payments and, you know, if they do get promoted to the Premier League means that there is a disparity in revenue and budget, like still good management and good coaching and basically joined up thinking of a football club in terms of recruitment and the rest of things can actually bridge that gap pretty quickly.

Like I personally think that you know particularly with Leicester there was quite a lot of

complacency around the coverage of their start to the season.

Like yes, they won a lot of games, but so many of those games, they won very late on in them, so many of those games, I didn't really necessarily think they were by far the better team.

Now, that isn't to say that Leicester aren't at their best, the best team in the division, but you look at the game against Leeds 10 days ago or so, and I thought Leeds were by far and away the better side in that game.

And I think Leeds, when you look at the talent they've got in the final third, especially whether it's Joel Peru or Crescentia Somerville, you know, they've got players, Jorginho Ruto, who they bought for £30 million

in the last window, Dan James, who's having the best season of his career, I would say, so far.

There's a long way to go here.

Like, I don't think it's the case that the Leicester and Leeds, you know, there's an eight-point gap as it stands now.

Leeds have by far and away the best underlying numbers in the championship in terms of XG ratio.

Enzo Mareska, as Leicester manager, had a great start, but this is going to be a test of his management skills now.

Where, you know, where it felt a couple of weeks ago, like they were so far clear, it's gonna be hard for anyone to bridge that gap.

Suddenly, they've got Southampton and Leeds chasing them down with squads that are also full of quality.

So, you know, it's still eminently likely that they're going to be the best team in the division.

But it does feel like in the last couple of weeks, since we last spoke, at least, the top of the championship and the promotion race is definitely wider open, if not wide open.

And look, we do it everywhere, don't we?

We sort of get carried away with what the league table looks like this week and decide that's what's happened and forget that that's a lot of football left, isn't there?

In the playoffs, Ben, it's got Leeds third, Southampton fourth, Sunderland sixth, and Preston of fifth.

And to me, it is a surprise that Preston are in that position.

You know, in my mind, Neil Meller is still chucking away up top of them.

And, you know, John Parker.

Yeah, and Graham Alexander's hammering penalties home for fun.

God, what a record he had.

Incredible.

I've got sort of loads of time for Preston.

I think they're just so well run.

Obviously, a couple of years ago, I think I'm getting my timeline right, Trevor Hemming sadly died, but his family have kind of taken it on.

And they said, you know, that I think it's something like 12 million a year they just have to invest to keep it afloat.

That's kind of without topping anything anything up.

So I think they are one of few very well-run clubs.

They don't go mad.

They don't sort of pay what they can't.

And

I think for them to, you know, be where they are is really good.

Ryan Lowe, they got in because they saw, I don't know, almost like a bit of a Kieran McKenna, if you'd like to use a more salient example, is an up-and-coming coach.

I think he's done a really good job.

He's actually taken quite a bit of flack at times.

He's quite an outspoken character.

We like those in football, don't we?

But he's taken a bit of flack at times when they've had tougher runs.

Do I think they'll stay in the playoff?

Probably not.

I'd expect them maybe to fade away.

But as you say, they're in the mix.

Sunderland, I think,

probably have a bit more staying power.

And obviously, coming to Sunderland, we probably need to speak about Joe Bellingham.

Is he better than Jude?

Well, I have to say, like, it sounds easy to say now, doesn't it?

But I remember doing a piece on Jude Bellingham when he was 16 on 145 quid as a scholar.

I think things have changed a bit since those days.

In Christian speaking.

Yeah, whose career when you you met at that time and both your careers have gone stratospheric but you know who's who do you reckon's yeah i don't know i think it's quite hard to tell isn't it parallel yeah i think so but christian speakman who who was at birmingham really influential in their academy uh is now technical director or sporting director at sunderland and was very influential in getting joe bellingham to the stadium of light obviously knew the family and there's a couple of other birmingham connections or former birmingham coaches at sunderland And it was all quite hush-hush when the move happened.

I don't think Jude had moved to Real Madrid.

Obviously, he was a massive name.

Obviously, since he's gone to Real Madrid and become even more important for England.

But at the time, all those years ago, what, three, four years ago,

they were saying this guy, his younger brother Job, could be as good.

if not better.

Now, maybe that's just something that's easy to say, throw around.

Is he a similar player?

I would say so.

I think he's got that, he wants to attack.

You see, his goal on the weekend is just such a great instinctive finish, first time finish inside the box, off a corner.

You know, he's an intelligent player, like Judas.

I don't want to compare them in that sense, but I think we should be excited.

And also, because of where he's playing, you know, with Tony Mobra, he gives young players a chance.

I know speaking to somebody before, and they kind of said, with knowledge of the setup, there, and they kind of said, you know, Tony Mowbray is great because

he just kind of says to them, just go and and do your thing lads just just go and do it and it genuinely I'm not saying it's quite as simple as that but I do get the sense he's really not that rigid with this with this core of young players and I do think that makes it exciting for people like Bellingham Jr.

if you like

but I know just little things like on the back of his shirt he wears his first name Joe because he doesn't want Bellingham doesn't want that uh sort of extra hype if you like or anything that that could bring his parents obviously mark a former uh non-league prolific goal scorer um and his mum, Denise, are very, you know, they look after both of them.

And it's a really tight-knit setup.

I think it's admirable what they've done because, in the face of, you know, when Jude was coming through, the interest and they've just managed to keep everything quelled from a sort of personal point of view hasn't gone the other way, which we've seen so much over the years.

Yeah, Barry was saying on stage yesterday, you know, the Bellinghams, you know, one of the parents goes to live in Madrid and one goes to live in Sunderland.

It's not a sort of totally fair choice of

who gets what.

Sanny, let's talk about some of the new managers.

I think Wayne Rooney hadn't taken the job the last time we did the AFL pub.

It was about that moment.

We're going, I'm not sure this is a great idea.

He's trying to change the style completely from John Eustace.

Four defeats in a draw so far.

How are the Birmingham fans feeling about all of this?

Well, they weren't happy a couple of games ago, telling him to F off, weren't they, after a home defeat.

And after that 3-1 defeat against Sunderland, he said that he needs the players to get a bit fitter, and they've got a two-week training block.

He wants them to, you know, raise the levels.

And

it just seems quite strange that John Eustace was able to get these players playing pretty well and knocking on the playoff door.

And all of a sudden, Rooney's come in and said they're not fit enough.

I mean, and it's also not the sort of thing that's really going to get many players on side.

So, you know,

he needed a good start after Eustace coming in.

He's not had that at all.

And now he's only seemed to make it worse.

I mean, by all accounts, when he he was at DC United, like he lived and breathed football, like apparently he'd live in a, in a house with his coaches, and when he wasn't coaching the team, he was at home watching matches all the time, you know, family back home or whatever.

So you think with that sort of dedication and with that experience that he's got as a player, it's only a matter of time before he can be a successful manager, right?

And it's just not working.

I mean, personally, I don't know why.

I don't know, you know, we know why they got rid of Eustace.

They wanted this big name, glamour name.

But yeah, to turn around and say they're not fit enough, it just makes me think, well, you know, you're not really winning anyone over at the moment.

So we'll see.

You know, the jury's still out on that one.

Yeah, I just find it really quite worrying, actually.

If I was a Birmingham fan, I'd be quite concerned.

Obviously, they didn't want Rooney in the first place.

Let's be straight about that.

I was at that first game against Hull.

And, you know, talking earlier of, you know, progressive managers and styles and all these kind of buzzwords that we love, front foot, all the rest of it, all these no-fear football, which is what Birmingham's CEO, Gary Cook, was trumpeting when he appointed Rooney, wanted Rooney.

You know, it's very much

he led that appointment because that's Sanny said that you know they wanted a big name.

It was nothing to do with results or whatever else they want to say.

But

we're not seeing any of that and they don't have the players for it.

I mean it was so concerning.

You know,

that whole game, everything that Birmingham wanted, we were seeing from Liam Rossinia's whole team, who are really impressive, by the way, and have signed really well, Jaden Finigen, people like that.

They got in from Philip.

But

I just don't see that

the turnaround when it's going to just be implemented.

I just can't see it.

They don't have the players even after his second game.

He was saying, yes, some of the players have already communicated with me that they are uncomfortable playing what I'm asking them to do.

Now,

that's kind of almost fine if you're just in the midst of preseason and just trying to learn along, you know, we've got a few weeks to iron this out.

But Birmingham don't have that time.

They are genuinely kind of plummeting is too strong, but they're falling down the table.

John Ruddy in goal, great guy, great, great goalkeeper, but you're not going to suddenly turn into Edison or Allison.

It's just not going to happen.

And the same goes for the centre half, you know, Kevin Long, who's, you know, been in the game for years.

Rooney's asking these players who are kind of, I don't want to say bad habits, but they've got habits that are ingrained.

They've got ways they play.

And we're suddenly trying to rip it up and start again.

I just...

I don't know where it's going because, you know, let's face it, Birmingham have to say face.

They're not going to sack Wayne Rooney,

certainly not anytime soon.

So it has to work in January he wants to bring players in but you know January is quite a way off December that we have loads of games is the busiest time of the year so I just don't see when it's going to start working yeah I like the idea of Kevin Longer generally knocking on the manager's office and just saying listen gaffer I just want to get it launched that's that's all I want to do can I please get it launched no son you can't um Neil Warnock is possibly coming back Sanny Sandra said come on away you go i've had enough and he's he's popping off to rotherham after uh at rotherham sacked matt taylor or at least we think he is does he does he really want to bring this on himself he lives in he lives in cornwall doesn't he it doesn't he just he has a nice time down south like does he really have to bring himself back into this and i'm not really sure

well i say i'm not really sure what what what he'd bring of course i know what he'd bring but i'm not really sure what more you can do with rotherham other than just survive which is very much the neil ward that's all he does isn't it yeah exactly.

That's the Neil Ward at Wheelhouse.

Just bring him in, survive.

It's too early for Neil.

It's mid-November.

He comes to life.

He goes into hibernation until February or March, and then he comes back to life.

It's too early.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, yeah, the job he did at Huddersfield was just incredible.

And

the way he turned that club around, you know, I was there last season when he was there.

And he just, because of how he is, he takes so much attention on him.

The way he is with journalists, you know, just joking around.

You know, in the press conference with him at Huddersfield and he called them all boring for watching other teams play.

Oh, you boring sods.

What are you doing watching the other teams?

And, you know, all of a sudden it's all on him.

So going into Roverham, where you've got one of the smallest budgets, you're struggling for goals, you've not really got a massive amount to play with there, it puts it all on him.

It takes it off the players.

You know, the fans can be vocal when they need to be.

And so therefore, if he's going to do it, it certainly would galvanise him.

But yeah, as George says, it is too early.

And it was too early to get rid of Matt Taylor either because I don't know what more you can achieve other than try and keep them up.

And they've had a couple of games called off as well.

And, you know, there are lots of factors around what's happened at Rotherham and it's very unfair.

But yeah, where will we see Warnock turn up?

Who knows?

Could be anywhere.

Could be in, could be in the cabinet.

Yeah, that is possible.

Could be Big Sam and Neil Warnock.

They probably would.

wouldn't do any shitter.

Also, I think I'm a bit worried, Max.

I fear that Neil has ran off with a new woman when he said Sandra a minute ago.

I think we did the old classic.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, no, we've done it again, haven't we?

Yeah, Sharon.

Sorry.

There's not, you know, Harry Rednuff and Neil Warnock on wife swap.

I mean, it's a show I would watch, but I have no knowledge of that.

It's true, and I think I've done that before.

I've made this mistake before.

I quite like you.

Yeah.

Harry, a different Harry, I presume, says, I heard you mention you talk about QPR when you next do an EFL pod.

Since we were last on, they've sold the naming rights to the stadium, the main stand, and the training ground, all with connections to the ownership.

SACTA manager hired a manager that was on no one's radar.

The chairman stepped down has been replaced by the current CEO, who will somehow do both roles.

The club's hemorrhaging money with little income.

Modern football stadium can generate revenue most days of the week through use of facilities.

Lost this road only brings in money once a fortnight.

There's calls amongst supporters for the owners to sell up and the board to be sacked, but I really fear for what's to come if the current owners do get bored of losing millions of pounds a season.

Very frustrating to see how Brentford can generate revenue, produce a successful business model, build a new stadium in a city where land seems impossible to acquire.

What next for QPR?

George.

I think he sums it up pretty well there.

You know, it's a really concerning period for QPR.

QPR.

And, you know, they brought in a new manager in Martis Sifuentes,

who we know very little about, who wasn't really on anyone's radar before he got the job.

He was seemingly in contention for it when Gareth Ainsworth was given the job at QPR last season.

In Ainsworth, I think the club hoped they could go after a manager who had embodied a long period of overachievement with Wickham, who had

taken a club with a low budget for the league, taken them all the way to the championship, embodied a spirit of of of being I guess the the the David to the Goliath but it wasn't that long ago that QPR were one of the big hitters in the championship were a premier league team and it does feel like the club are in a real funk right now I don't know you know when you go to Loftus Road or whatever it's called after the naming rights have changed you know it's still I think is a as an experience as a fan it's it's an incredibly fun place to go it's a proper old school football ground but he's right you know when you when you look at it as a commercial entity it's backward.

It's behind where other clubs are.

It's again not going to be easy to commercialise the stadium in any kind of way.

And if there is a relegation to League One, I mean, there is a precedent, I would say, for clubs like QPR to be galvanized by relegation to League One.

I often think that people forget, and it's one of the weird quirks of football, that relegation can be the best thing for a fan base.

We were just talking about Rotherham and Rotherham fans are sick and tired of Matt Taylor because they're sick and tired of losing games in the championship.

Realistically, that probably has little to do with Matt Taylor.

It's got more to do with the fact they've got the 24th biggest budget in a league of 24 and therefore they're on hiding to nothing.

When they get relegated, if they get relegated, next season will be a lot more fun because they'll have one of the biggest budgets in the league.

You look at Ipswich, you look at Sunderland, you look at these clubs that had to basically get relegated to League One to refine their love of football.

And I'm kind of thinking and hoping that with QPR, maybe it'll be a case of them needing to be a big fish in a small pond again, needing to hopefully get in some investment that will change the course of the club, that'll get the fans enjoying their football.

But, you know, it was just over a year ago they were top of the championship.

It's been a really sad demise to see.

And hopefully Sifuentes is someone who can bring in some new ideas and get them playing well again.

It has been a promising start, I should say.

Like they haven't won a game yet, but back to actuals and they've looked better in both.

Just to mention on Marty Safuentes, like for a moment, when he signed, I was like, you know, am I failing as a football reporter?

I've never heard of this guy.

And then I just double-checked.

No, well, I'm not expected to really know that he managed Ham R B, AAB, and Sanderfjord in his last three appointments.

Like, this guy has genuinely come from nowhere.

And, you know, Ham R B did it okay in Europe, but it just seems like a very strange appointment.

Kind of fitting with QPR, though, and you know, the historical bizarre random transfers they used to have back in the day as well.

I think, I don't think that's a failure.

If that's a failure of your part, then I mean, this pod is really unfairly nice quite a lot of the time.

Anyway, that'll do for part one.

We'll do league one in part two.

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Max here.

Barry's here too.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Let's start.

Top of league one then, Ben.

Portsmouth, still unbeaten.

They were held by Charlton.

And Dean says, will we ever lose again?

We didn't even lose to Charlton, which always happens.

Shout Shout out to Alex Robertson, who's been a fantastic blown signing from Man City.

Yeah.

John Massinho doing wonderful work at Pompey.

Yeah, doing a great job.

I mean, unbeaten.

And they've had a couple of things to deal with.

In the latest setback, you know, Regan Paul is out for the season.

I think it's an ACL injury, which is a big blow for them.

One of their summer, I was going to say better summer signings, but almost everything they've done is worked.

I think it's great to see Portsmouth back on this footing and it's an exciting footing as well.

It's not like it's, I don't know,

they've turned to some old manager and he's sort of grinding out the wins.

You know, this is an exciting time back there.

And I think they'll stay there.

I think I really fancy them to go up.

They do have a really strong squad.

People like Joe Morrell, who we've seen perform so well on the international stage for Wales.

You know, really good players in League One.

All across the board is, as the listener said.

And I think Messinho is a real steady hand.

He's a real cool operator.

He's very relatable to the players.

You know, he's not been out of the game that long.

Former PFA chair.

He's going to have a really good career in coaching.

I think he's a really impressive guy.

You know, we're talking earlier about McKenna, Liam Manning, who's just gone to Bristol City from Oxford, obviously, who are second in the division just behind Portsmouth.

I think these are really interesting, bright coaches.

Maybe, Ben, they're not young.

We're just not as young as we were.

I mean, I think you're right.

I'm just noticing, hang on, they're probably all 70.

And it's just, you know, Oxford a second.

So Bolton third, Peterborough fourth, Steamage fifth, and Barnsley sixth with Derby level on points with Barnsley.

So

it's certainly turned around since the opening day of the season.

Perhaps I read too much, George, into when we hammered you 2-0 at the Abbey on the opening day.

Oxford,

they looked like a good football team then, and they appear to be so.

Yeah, we do, although there's a bit of upheaval at the moment at the club.

It was a brilliant start to the season, but I think Oxford fans feel a bit jilted at the moment because Liam Manning, who was brought into the club to replace Kyle Robinson back in March, was appointed manager of Bristol City last week.

And I think a lot of Oxford fans are wondering, well, just feeling a bit used, I would say.

Albeit, you know, we didn't do too badly out of it, given we were down in the relegation, just outside the relegation zone when Manning came in and he leaves us in second position.

I say us, obviously, because I am an Oxford fan.

So it's an interesting time for the club now in terms of recruiting a new manager.

Des Buckingham is one of the names being linked, who was an Oxford Academy player as a goalkeeper, retired at a young age, became a coach at age 18,

kind of rose through the Academy as an Oxford coach, became a first-team coach, and has since worked

as a head coach and manager in New Zealand, has been an assistant manager for Melbourne City, your local team, Max, when they won the A-League, and is now manager of Mumbai City.

So he's been part of the city football group for a while.

So he would be, I think, a very interesting appointment in terms of his managerial profile, also a very popular appointment given that he is an Oxford fan.

So we'll see what happens there.

But yeah, it's been a pretty good season for Oxford so far.

It just will remain to be seen.

Will they do a Plymouth Argyle, you know, who kind of kicked on when Ryan Lowe left, or a Luton Town, who kicked on when Nathan Jones left twice?

Or will it be one of those stories where Manning leaves and suddenly everything starts to crumble?

It's interesting on Manning, isn't it?

And we were talking before the poll about Mark Bonner, right?

The Cambridge manager about, you know, I think Rotherham wanted him and his stock was really high.

He'd got Cambridge up, then we'd finish mid-table.

And then you sort of will revert to the mean.

And we struggled last year and we're doing okay this year.

And I guess Liam Manning has to, you have to, as a young manager, you have to time your jumps carefully, don't you?

Because

your reputation can go in one, you know, it doesn't work at Whistle City and that's kind of, oh, then where do you go next type of thing?

But that's it's already happened with Manning before where he came into MK Dons as a bright young thing from Lummel, again part of the city football group.

He took a side to third in League One who weren't necessarily expected to finish there.

By all accounts, there was interest from championship clubs and he said, no, I'm happy here.

I want to take MK Dons up.

And then he'd been sacked by October or November.

So having lived that, having been out of work for however many months, you know, Oxford fans won't like me for saying it because Liam Manning's name is now often has about five snake emotions after it when it's typed anywhere.

But, you know, I can understand why he looks at the opportunity and he thinks, I'm not going to make this mistake again.

I'm going to cash in when my stock is high.

I'm sure the financial package.

managing Bristol City compared to managing Oxford United is vastly different.

It was a three and a half year contract.

Realistically, he'd be mad not to take it.

The issue for Oxford is that it's not just him, it's his assistant, Chris Hogg.

It's the analyst that he brought in from Arsenal just a couple of months ago.

You know, Craig Short, who's Oxford's caretaker manager, had to go and recruit a mate of his who was formerly at Derby because he was the only member of the coaching staff left.

And that is where things become difficult.

But there was a, it feels like sometimes this can galvanise the side.

And Oxford played away at Leighton Orient on Saturday, beat them 3-2, having gone 3-0 up, and then had to

weather the storm later on at 3-2.

Oxford fans singing about Liam Manning at the end of of the game in front of the players who are clapping it.

Ruben Rodriguez, the star man on the day,

Instagramming a bleary-eyed photo from what looks like the back of an Uber at about midnight with a poll saying, Did Manning say goodbye?

Yes or no?

You know, it feels like one of those situations where everyone at the club is pretty annoyed about it and it's kind of coming together, rallying around each other off the back of being dumped.

Ben Bolton talked to me.

They've won, I think, what eight in all competitions.

They are,

I was going to say trotting along nicely but i didn't mean didn't mean that as a pun yeah i like it no i at the outset i think bolton i was probably i probably fancied them the most to go up obviously they're really uh well placed you know only a point off the top level on points at oxford again really ian everts one of those guys whose reputation is has grown significantly since he was at barrow obviously took the bolton job and since then the trajectory has just been in one way.

They recruit really well.

You know, a couple of the players that they had last season have gone to, you know, bigger and better things.

This year, you know, James Trafford, all right, he's not having the best time in the Premier League with Burnie, but you know, these kind of guys they had in last season.

And I think everything is there.

I think maybe with Bolton, actually, perhaps a bit like Portsmouth, but at Bolton, I think everything off the field.

Let's face it, you know, not that long ago, we were talking about Bolton in the kind of same

conversations, you know, all the gloom, all the negative stuff, which I'm sure we'll come to in terms of Reading or other clubs in a second.

But, you know, Bolton now are really solid, on and off the pitch, great for the club, you know, again, a big club, big fan base, and everything seems in place for them to get promoted.

Reminds me of Ipswich a bit, actually, in terms of that that's on a joined-up thinking.

Everybody's on the same page, they've had a plan in place for a while, the same people in place for a while.

Everett's obviously at the top of that tree.

Yeah, and I'd really fancy them, obviously, as you say, Max, on a great winning run.

I'd really fancy them to probably even just kick on again from here.

And probably them in Portsmouth.

I do think Oxford probably won't be helped, as George says, by Manning's departure.

Yeah, hard to look past Pompey and Bolton for those top two for me.

Sally, I had quite a sad Saturday morning.

I was quite jet lagged.

And on one screen, I had

Wolves coming from behind to beat Tottenham.

And on the main screen, I had the biggest game in world football, Peterborough United to beat Cambridge United.

We held them for 32 minutes.

And then suddenly, I think Cambridge tweeted, you're battling well, you know, in a tight game 32 minutes.

By 38 minutes, people were 3-0 up.

And it was very disappointing.

And actually, under the Abbey stand, which is probably a podcast that not lots of people listen to, but I listen to, and it is good.

And it's up for the FSA awards.

So vote for them, amongst other podcasts you can vote for.

They had this great conversation.

One of them was saying about 79 minutes, they were like, you know, the minute conversation you have when you think, should we just go?

Because obviously, you know, there'll be police about if you stay till the end.

And do you just want to just get on?

And they go, and we're 4-0 down.

And then someone says, just wait we'll watch this throw in on the halfway line as this that is going to change the game but we were blown away and so it is i think my professional responsibility to ask how how good are peterborough even though it hurts to say it well they are very good uh and they've got lots of exciting players sorry to say that i mean that's okay just before mentioning players you know the the things that counted against cambridge as well peterborough put fans behind both ends of the goal and put all your fans in the middle yeah uh which i've experienced that rochdale used to do that with berry all the time time uh and it does make a difference it really does but yeah i mean ephron mason clark was great if kwame poco uh out wide he's been playing in a few different places but i think came we're going to let them play that's the thing like poco had a lot of time to get balls into the box mason clark you know pretty much tap ins from from crosses but all in all this is classic peterborough isn't it i almost feel like oh do you know it's quite lazy to say when they get into league one they do really well and struggle in the championship but they clearly have a good conveyor belt if you like of talent coming coming through.

And even without Johnson Clark Harris, the other players around have been able to fill in really well.

So, yeah, really exciting and been allowed to play.

And Darren Ferguson, you know, we talked about getting the ball on the deck and stuff.

And at times, they did that really well.

But yeah, Cambridge did give them quite a bit of space.

You know, they did allow them to play

the football they wanted to play.

And if you do that, you're going to get punished.

So, yeah, I mean, it wasn't me there.

I wasn't there, Sanny.

I was sort of saying that's sort of quite accusational.

I know.

I was just watching.

Yeah, it's your fault.

A coaching remit on on this.

I do like that Peter Bree, you know, it's either Darren Ferguson or Grant McCann.

They just rotate for the rest of time.

They'll be the can soon.

Yeah, I'm never sure which one it is.

Purple says, Thornton Wigan have done tremendously well to overcome an unjust eight-point deduction.

Now sit mid-table with three players called up to the England under 21.

Exciting academy and vision.

Can they push for more, George?

Yeah, possibly.

I mean, it's going to be tricky for them, I think, to do anything more than be mid-table and be safe.

But I think that's fine.

You know, there is a new era at the club.

Sean Maloney, as a manager, is kind of learning his trade and is doing incredibly well by doing that.

I watched their game where they beat us the other day.

They beat Oxford 2-0, and they were really impressive.

They came with a game plan, a game plan that was well executed by Cambridge on opening day, basically letting Oxford have the board and be deadly on the counter-attack.

And it worked incredibly well.

I'm surprised that no one else has really been doing it.

You mentioned the young players too.

I think Sam Tickle, who is a great name for a goalkeeper, who's their 21-year-old.

He's a really good name for a goalkeeper.

Tell me he's like a round orange thing with really long arms.

His dad is.

You know,

he should have photos with his dad going, I owe you everything, and just have Mr.

Tickle there.

He is, he's one of these very good young players who, and credit to Maloney and Fawigan for investing some faith in a young goalkeeper.

And we've seen that, you know, be very successful in recent seasons.

And, you know, it seems to me to be quite a good way of

instilling some value into the squad is to blood these young keepers early on.

Charlie Hughes, another one, a centre-back, who's playing very well.

They've used the loan market incredibly well with Martial Godot, who

is playing brilliantly.

My favourite thing about Marciel Godot is that his actual first name rather than Martial is Beckett, which makes me wonder if his parents were just massive fans of waiting for Godot to play.

I thought that they would use that as

a naming mechanism.

Or, of course, Quantum Leap.

It could have been, they just loved Quantum Leap so much.

One of the two.

One of the two.

It has to be.

Two important literary references.

Anyway, do carry on.

But yeah, I think the future looks very bright, I think, for Wigan.

It feels like this last time they came down to League One, they had to really firefight against relegation before winning the league this season after with new owners.

This time, the new owner is, you know, he's a Wigan fan.

He's an incredibly successful businessman who it feels like is implementing best practice at Wigan.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this season's one of, you know, with the point seduction, it's a case of consolidation.

And then I'd be very surprised if they're not a real force to be reckoned with when we get to next season.

At the bottom, so in the bottom four, Fleetwood up and Fleetwood are pretty close to the chasing pack, Carlisle, a little behind Cheltenham and Reading quite adrift at the moment, although Cheltenham have, you know, picked up since they got their new manager.

Reading, rock bottom, Hugh says, can you talk about the Sell Before We Die DAI

campaign against the ownership, as well as the general struggles EFL clubs are having with owners?

West Brom, for example.

Sell Before We Die is fan-led pressure group pushing to encourage Reading football owner Young Dai to sell up and transition the club to a new owner before more damage is done.

We've been hit by two points deductions this season, totaling four points.

Haven't won a game away from home in a year.

Ben, what's happening?

Yeah, it's really grave in short, isn't it?

I

have a lot of sympathy, if that's the right word, for Redding fans, for the fan base, the Sale Before We Die fan group, you mentioned there, Max has spoken to them a couple of times in the last few months, really, which is sad in itself.

Yeah, it's really concerning.

And they obviously have this situation where you have an owner at the club who has totally lost interest in funding the club and talking to people there it seems a case of they're having to really

it sounds mad things to say but sort of encourage the owner to to do his duties to pay this bill and pay HMRC because that's what he's doing and often those things are happening late which is getting them into more trouble and deepening the trouble and it's it's a really vicious circle.

I find it hard as well if I'm honest because it's easy to attack the owner and sort of rightly so, very much so at the moment, obviously in the right way because he's an absent owner.

There's a

massive issue where he has spent the money very poorly.

He's been very badly advised.

We've reported in the past about some of those people in his ear, super agents and the like.

you know this is a guy who has no let's be honest no football where's it going i mean at the bottom of the league they've got a totally fractured club the fan base are totally apathetic really now and it is really concerning and

the difficult thing i i kind of think is as you say it's they spent so much money they've got a really nice impressive training facility but you know none of this counts for for anything when the current situation is so bleak but i do find it difficult because it's not like he's come in not spent a penny, where's the investment, what a bad guy.

It's actually, he's just, he's spent the money so badly.

Yes, his track record at other clubs was questionable, and you can very sort of legitimately question why he was allowed in on those grounds.

But he has spent loads of money, but unfortunately, for Reading, very badly.

Yeah, on the subject of owners that aren't, you know, doing an amazing job, JJ says, look, what impact will the UK's new independent football regulator have for the game?

Is it something to celebrate?

And I know that's a very broad question, Sammy, but like on first thought, you know, it was in the King's speech.

I don't know how excited he sounded about it, if I'm honest, but is it something to celebrate?

Because we, it feels like, as far as I can tell, as someone who hasn't read every last minute, you know, last word of that document, that it is something that football really desperately needs if it's done properly and well.

Well, yeah, and, you know, Tulun initiated as a Berry fan, I certainly have skin in the game.

And so the first thing I do is, you know, think, would this have saved my club or would we still be a league club?

And it's quite hard to tell at this stage because,

you know, the EFL, they just allow the rules that the clubs vote for, right?

The whole thing's a kind of a closed shop.

And the Premier League are the ones as well who are kind of, you know, they've got a comms kind of movement at the moment to kind of, you know, delay and not quite discredit.

But, you know, there are many people who have not got an interest in this going through.

Principally, why would any current owner of a football team want this to go through?

All it's going to do is limit what they can do.

And if you think, you know, roughly, let's say half of all EFL clubs are up for sale, then all you're doing is limiting the opportunity to then potentially sell your club and make a profit.

But yeah, I mean,

how in practical terms this will all actually work and, you know, the situation to stop Berry happening, I'm not quite sure because a lot of these people are already in place.

Like you cannot remove an owner.

Like we just talked about Reading and Younger there.

Like you can't get rid of somebody like that, let's say, for argument's sake.

But having said that, you know, when Berry got expelled, we were going around going, why didn't the FA do more?

Why didn't clubs in the Premier League do more?

And funnily enough, the late Bill Kenright actually, having seen Joy Hart, one of our fans' former director chain to the stadium, actually rang up and offered to give us some money and actually wanted to invest in the club and wasn't allowed because of ownership rules.

So individuals tried.

Perhaps legislation can actually do something.

I think if you were starting for a clean slate, this would be great.

You know, if we were to 1992-style start again with football, then these rules coming in would just at least give some sort of solid platform for everyone to be working towards.

The horse has kind of bolted.

So I'm really interested to see how this can be applied.

It can't be retrospectively applied.

But overall, yeah, this is good.

You know, the FSA, the Football Sports Association, everyone else is saying, you know, this is a good thing.

We need this.

And we do need this.

And the real reason why we need this is because football teams aren't just businesses.

The cynic in me is a bit on the fence on it, but overall, it's positive.

There is a world where the trickle-down effect and the redistribution of wealth can ensure the long-term safeguarding of football clubs in the EFL.

That doesn't have to be to the detriment of Premier League, and it doesn't have to be the case where suddenly your transfer budget is going to shrink in the summer.

There is a way for this to work and to protect our pyramid, which is incredibly

unique within football and needs to be saved.

I think the fact that the EFL are open to a regulator basically saying, Yeah, come on in, help us, but we need to do it in the right way.

I think that says an awful lot in the first place.

And secondly, I think

something needs to happen to address the overspend because when we were talking about Reading earlier, that is what has got them.

It's just ridiculous.

And the championship in particular has got way out of hand.

Certain clubs in the championship have implemented hard wage caps in recent seasons, you know, £15,000 a week in terms of players, in terms of wage cap.

And I think that's a decent start, but we need to see something that's going to just get hold of some of these clubs and just bring a bit of sense to it because it's got way out of hand.

And the other obviously issue as George alluded to is this.

you know, the distribution of wealth, because we can't have everybody that, you know, can't have a world where everybody in the championship is on a nice 10 grand, 15 grand wage cap, but then the Premier League is just this mad beast.

That's not going to work.

So it's not straightforward, but I do think something has to change.

There's an acknowledgement from the EFL, from people at the top of these clubs and bodies that, yeah, we're in a place now where something has to happen.

And you can understand on what Ben says about, you know, the overspend.

Like if you, you know, if you step back from it, and obviously, as Sanny said, you know, football clubs, we shouldn't be seen as businesses, but like the fact of the matter matter is that they are.

And the fact of the matter is that owners who own them are probably owning them, especially in the championship, for their own means of trying to expand their own wealth.

And if you look at, say, Luton Town, for example, and the completely revolutionary impact that a promotion to the Premier League will have on their long-term, even if they get relegated this season, in terms of the money that they will get from being in the Premier League this season, in terms of the parachute payments they will get on their relegation afterwards, it is revolutionary to the whole football club of Luton Town going forward.

So why wouldn't, as it stands at the moment, why wouldn't clubs in the championship overspend in a desperate attempt to get there?

And we're seeing with West Bromwich Albion at the moment, another club and some serious pressure here, where if they don't get promoted, seemingly this season, then they are going to become under existential threat fairly soon.

But there are only three teams that can get promoted from the championship to the Premier League.

So by its very definition, you've got a league where probably

nine or ten teams are overspending in order to desperately try and get there.

Some with worse repercussions if they don't than others, But only three can go up.

So you are X amount of clubs every season are going to fail in terms of their gamble, and that isn't a sustainable way for these leagues to be run.

All right, that'll do for part two.

We'll do league two in part three.

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Max here.

Barry's here too.

Hello.

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

So League Two then, Stockport top of the pile, five points clear of Wrexham, who are a point ahead of Mansfield, who are still undefeated, eight wins and eight draws under Nigel Clough.

The playoffs made up of Crew Knotts County, Barrow and Morecombe, with Sutton and Forest Green at the bottom.

Trammere level on points with Forrest Green.

Sanny, is Stockport a wonderful romantic story, or is it just they've got buckets more cash than lots of other teams in League Two?

Well, when they were in the National League, they made a loss of about £90,000

per game playing.

So, you know, the owners come in, cleared all the debts, given them that, you know, playing field to just go out and play and bring who they want to get in.

And they're doing really well.

And, you know, all these clubs are within the EFL's rules around finances.

So let's take, I'll park that and just say that's the caveat.

That's the big, the big butt.

Because, you know, any football fan, you know, an olden fan, for example, will call them money bag stockport, you know, as a very fan I will as well.

But you can't begrudge them, I guess.

You know, they've been through some shit since the Kevin Francis days, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And that's the thing, that's the thing that really, you know, makes you feel okay about it.

Because, you know, they were 10 years ago, they were, you know, mid-table struggling in the National League North.

That's how far they'd come from the halcyon days of appointing Carlton Palmer in the championship and going successively down and all the rest of it.

But the actual team that play are really, really good.

You know, I went to see them against Tranmere the other week.

And admittedly, you know, Tranmere were awful and have now appointed Nigel Adkins outright, who's, you know, going to try and turn them around and did so.

Good result on the weekend for them.

But yeah, Stockport, you know, they play really great football.

The game against Swindon, they were the better team, even though they were losing end of winning 4-2 in the end, turning it around.

And just overall, just the play between them, Carl Wutton, he scored four against Worksop in the FA Cup.

No, he scored again.

And Odin Bailey's one.

They've got him unloaded from Salford City.

I'm not sure why Salford loaned him out because he's brilliant.

He can know, set things up in midfield and scored a brilliant goal as well.

So, overall, they've got a lot of quality players.

They like to play

good football, if you like, under

Dave Challoner.

And, you know, every home game for them is a sellout.

You know, and that's a big achievement when you think about the clubs in the area.

And they've got every reason to be celebrating.

They've even set up an Oktoberfest tent when I was there.

And there was a few straddlers coming in, having a few steins and stuff.

And it's a real party atmosphere.

And, you know, swindon this season have been hit and miss i think they've conceded i've got it written down here 17 goals they've conceded in the last four games and they lost 4-2 to stockport but yeah county doing really really well and i think they've got no one really gonna challenge them outright i think they're gonna be there along with wrexham at the top can we talk about manfield george and gloss over wrexham because they do get a bit of coverage these days um but manfield don't get any coverage do they not really and i think you know sanny just there saying they'll be up there with Wrexham.

What about Mansfield?

Mansfield, to me, look like the side who are best placed to challenge Stockport at the top of League Two.

Their XG ratio for those data nerds like me, it's a shame Barry's not on the call.

Their XG ratio so far, so the amount of expected goals that they've had for them, kind of offset against them, is better than any team in England.

It's better than even Manchester City so far this season.

That is the level of dominance they're showing in XG, at least against the rest of the division.

Nigel Clough has built something very special there.

They've kind of been perennial underachievers to an extent over the last few seasons, but it's easy to forget that when Clough came in, they were really struggling at the bottom end of league two.

They were humbled a couple of seasons ago against Paul Vale in the play-off final where Paul Vale wiped the floor with them on that day.

Last season was really hampered by injuries, and I think the Mansfield hierarchy deserve massive credit for not panicking, as often clubs do, for seeing what Clough was building, for retaining faith in Clough.

And they play a really good brand of football as well.

You know, they were live on Sky a couple of weeks ago where they beat Knotts County 4-1, having gone 1-0 down.

It's high press, it's attacking, it's high octane.

And yeah, they're unbeaten so far this season.

A few too many draws early on in the campaign, maybe they're undoing.

But yeah, I think to my eyes at least, it is very much Stockport, Mansfield, and Wrexham who look to be the quality three with Knotts County just not far behind.

I think, George, for me, sorry,

in my mind, Davis Keeler Dunn if he goes in January, Mercurial player, Max.

He's scored nine, set up four in 16 this season.

He loves to shoot.

Yeah, loves it.

Gets the ball, shoots.

You know, if they'd lose him, that would be a massive blow for them.

There's an interesting thing here where you've got, you know, adding Knotts County to those three.

You know, I think those four teams, you know, all credit to crew who beat Knotts County on Saturday.

You know, Morecambe off Saturdays and start the season to Accrington and FC Wimbledon.

There are other teams there, but those four kind of set apart probably in terms of budget and the rest of it.

It's going to be very hard to get players out of those four teams.

Like Stockport are certainly not a selling club.

We've seen it previously with Salford.

You know, Brandon Thomas Asante is the only player whose team has managed to get out of those teams.

Mansfield do not need the money.

And I can't see a team basically paying what is needed to get Keela Dunn out of Mansfield, given what's at stake with the promotion.

Because it would probably be a League One side, and frankly, they don't need the half a million quid or whatever that might be coming their way if that's going to derail their promotion bit.

Ben, what stories would you pick out?

If you could pick out a story from League Two,

The World is Your Oyster.

League Two is your Oyster.

Thank you very very nobody's ever said that to me before max thank you very much i am

i i'm going to talk about jillingham i just wanted to add on clough in mansfield that um

i think you know that maybe the key ingredient is is nigel clough's dog bobby um which i don't know if i pronounced it right because it's a hungarian visler my dog knowledge is is not where it needs to be but it's a lovely looking dog but i remember chatting to a goalkeeper coach at manfield probably about 18 months ago and he was saying at training that the dog is just always around the keepers just like having a well of a time.

And the dog is very much a presence around the club.

And yeah, I think it's a lovely thing that Nigel Clough brings his dog, it's so heavily involved around the place, and also it's named after Bobby Zamora because Bobby Zamora scored the goal that killed Derby's hopes of promoting the playoff final.

A little dig at the way Nigel Clough was treated in Derby.

So I've got a lot of time for that.

It'd be better if the dog was called Bobby Zamora.

Like, give it its full name, you know.

And you could only call it Bobby Zamora.

So, Dillingham, yes.

Yeah, so Dillingham have appointed Stephen Clements as their new manager.

They took their time to replace Neil Harris, who they sacked, because, again, as we've spoken a bit about today,

they wanted to change the direction they were going in terms of style of play.

They didn't think they were attacking enough, fun enough under Harris.

They hope that will change under Stephen Clements.

The early evidence is pretty encouraging.

Obviously, this is Clements' first job.

He spent a long time as an assistant to Steve Bruce.

And yeah, the Gillingham fans seem quite on board with it.

And I think Gillingham will be interesting to watch.

I know Brad Gallinson, their owner, said

there's no way he'd be doing a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Ale Wrexham.

So let's see if he stays true to his word.

Just before an important message on the dogs named after me and Barry, Sanny.

Well, yeah, I was at Leeds Plymouth Arg Isle on Saturday, and I was sat next to Chris from Plymouth Live, who's one of the many REACH reporters who are under threat of redundancy, 450 cuts from Reach.

Sorry, who are just at Reach are what?

A local newspaper.

Yeah, Reach own all loads of local newspapers, from Manchester Eving News to the Huddersfield Examiner, anything live, that's them.

And he was telling me that...

Because his role is redundant.

He was there doing the live text for the Plymouth Live website and the paper or whatever.

If he was to not be there, the only people covering Plymouth regularly will be the four in-house Argyle journalists, plus you've got local radio.

And that's it.

Stephen Chicken at the Huddersfield Examiner says he might not be there.

And he's the only reporter covering Huddersfield town.

And that's a championship team.

And going back to what we were talking about, about, you know, the state of football and Berry, for example, you know, there was an example of there not being anyone asking the questions at the right time, holding the club to account now some of these clubs are having a great time at the moment our gyle is one you know maybe there's no questions need asking but if there's no one left to ask the questions then all we have are press releases and you know i just wanted to make the point that Every single one of these clubs, you know, 72 clubs we're talking about, without the local journalists, there are a handful of people.

Ben's one of them, George is another, you know, in a small way I am.

But these guys are there at the press conferences when there'll be like two journalists and they're one of the only ones.

And without those people asking the questions, then you know, all of the issues we've seen with owners will continue and there's nobody to ask them.

So I really do think it's a real travesty that potentially we might lose a massive pool of really well-connected journalists who understand the local club and understand the issues around them.

And without them, there'll be people like us just sitting from afar going, what's happened there?

And we don't really know.

It's a really important point.

You can't underestimate the importance of local newspapers and local radio.

I suppose expect to the time when I did a show called Lunch with Max on BBC Radio Cambridge.

They call it Lunch with Max.

So I decided to eat lunch on the show and took a microwave, another microwave anecdote, into a studio and just made sort of gins, rustlers, burgers and said they were disgusting.

Surprisingly got moved on from that program.

But look, no,

you do make a very important point.

Spencer, who named his dogs after me and Barry in the pandemic,

because the pandemic did strange things to people, but we're very honored.

Thanks for the shouts out.

I can confirm Barry doesn't smoke as far as I can tell, but loves going to the pub, even if it's just for one Peroni, Max.

I promise if you do do a live show in the States, I will bring Max and Barry.

We'll never have to speak of the time that dog Barry got actual Barry's Munich train experience down to a T.

Only it was in my car.

What a lovely image.

And yeah, speaking of live shows, we'll see you in Bristol later.

See you in Bristol later, Ben.

Big moment.

Are you nervous?

Are you excited?

Got a big anecdote.

A bit of nervous excitement is good.

Is that what they say?

Yeah, you've got to feel them.

You've got to feel those nerves.

All right.

Thanks.

That'll do for today.

Cheers, George.

Cheers, Max.

Thank you, Sanny.

Cheers.

Thanks, Ben.

Cheers, Max.

See you later.

Football Weekly is produced by Silas Gray.

Our executive producer is Danielle Stevens.

We'll be back on Thursday.

This is The Guardian.