Crystal Palace win the Community Shield and the Championship is back – Football Weekly

20:01Max Rushden:but that aside it was a really entertaining game Southampton won it with two late, late goals in added time one of which was an absolutely splendid free kick and yeah so that I think I watched four championship games and they were they were all pretty decent I was surprised Birmingham Ipswich on on Friday night I was surprised by how poor Ipswich were and I was very impressed with Birmingham who like Wrexham looked to the championship manner born yeah so

20:32George Elek:Ryan Manning scored that free kick for Southampton it's absolutely brilliant free kick with his left foot into the top corner I mean just before that Gavin Bazzuno makes an amazing save which means Wrexham would have won that game. The Friday night game, I think Barry makes a good point. It was a sub-rime, Ibswich got away with murder there, not just because their penalty is one of those where maybe that's the law now and I can't believe this early in the season I'm saying this, but I just, there's nobody, nobody who grew up watching football thinks, yeah, that should be a penalty. Maybe people do think that now.

21:02George Elek:I feel like you can cut and paste me saying this from any pod from last season, but it's such a frustrating way for that game to end. Yeah, I agree. I think with the handball rule, it just feels like created a mess, like a massive issue where there's no answer, there's no right or wrong. With every single handball decision, there's a huge quantity of people who think it's a penalty. There's a huge quantity of people who don't think it's a penalty. Neither of them are right or wrong. There was a penalty shout in the Wrexham-Sahampton game that to me looked way more like it was a penalty with the arm, a clear of Wrexham's arm away from the body.

21:34It was probably a shot that was heading towards the goal and it wasn't given. If you compare that to the decision on Friday night where the penalty was given to Ipswich, it's a total farce that one of them was given a penalty and the other one wasn't. But then on the flip side of that, I kind of think that the Kliweth one shouldn't be a penalty because if you're running full pelt towards someone about to take a shot, it's pretty unlikely that your arm is going to be plastered to the side of your torso. So the whole thing just... Of course, of course. It needs reform. Breach, George, breach. What it doesn't need is VAR, I'd like to point out.

22:05That isn't the answer, as we see in the Premier League. But it needs someone to basically tear up the handball rule and start again because right now there's there's no definitive answer in a game that is is way too subjective already to have such a gray area with different decisions being made and different games on the same weekend it just makes a bit of a mockery of the whole thing really and it's just going to create more angst towards pgmol and towards the fl and anyone else who people can blame so i agree a total farce um i do think that the kind of the main takeaway from this weekend and you don't want to jump to conclusions because of all the teams who probably do the most business between now and the end of the window it'll probably be the three relegated sides for Premier League but normally on opening weekend whether it's whether it's Burnley a couple of seasons ago whether it's Leicester a couple of seasons ago under Maresca there's normally in that first weekend you see a team and you're like oh yeah hello this this look these look like they're a cut above you know of course Leeds last season Burnley as well to an extent I didn't get that really from any of the three sides.

23:04Now, obviously, Southampton and Leicester, both when they were behind, were able to pile on the pressure. But in both games at 0-0, there were massive issues with both. Ipswich, as you say, looked completely undercooked and a shadow of the team they were a couple of seasons ago. There's obviously loads of time to change and you shouldn't be making sweeping statements off the back of one game. But the limited evidence we have, it looks like it could be quite an open league this season, especially with, as you say, Birmingham looking really impressive on Friday night.

23:30George Elek:Matt says it's been good to get Ali and Georgia's opinion on Wednesday despite the absolute shit show going on around us thought we were fantastic today I fully expected a 4-5-0 defeat hats off to all involved yeah they were 1-0 up they lost in the 87th minute our mate Valtfass scoring the winner Barry Bannon sent off I mean he probably deserved it for some dissent and then a probably a yellow card but I sort of think you can't send off Barry Bannon given what's happening at Sheffield Wednesday right now I just felt that referee just absolutely you know it's the right thing but it just felt wrong.

24:01George Elek:But I was so gutted for Wednesday, Ali. Yeah, it kind of felt like everything that happened in this game from the start until the end was almost sort of pre-written in a script designed to show that football doesn't care how hard done by you are. Football doesn't care whether, you know, the club is up against the wall and football doesn't care if your team is just sort of based on the guys who are somehow still under contract and then a load of kids on the bench. But yeah, Wednesday's first half performance was absolutely brilliant. They looked way more coherent than Leicester. They looked much more up for the fight.

24:37They looked much more up for it out of possession. And they went ahead via Chalabar, a deflected goal. it just seems pretty clear that they were going to find it hard to keep it up in the second half under pressure from a team with lots of individual quality and also having had a disrupted pre-season and very little off the bench and that's basically what happened and it's you know I always think like it would annoy me even more that both goals came from set pieces that one of them the first one looked like it could have been ruled out for for a player in an offside position interfering with the ball as it came in.

25:15And then the second, just a free header at the near post. It's like, not only have you lost from a position of being in front in kind of heartbreaking fashion, but also by goals that didn't show that the opposition were the better side, with the better individual quality and the better attacking ideas, just sort of a bit more heft and brawn right at the end when you kind of run out of steam.

25:36George Elek:Off the pitch, George, what is the latest with Wednesday? I mean, some small slither of hope, I guess, not in terms of a takeover, which is obviously what has to happen, but their embargo has been lifted in terms of bringing players in. They still can't pay a fee, and that's because outstanding debts have been settled. Now, what that means, we don't really know. It's obviously likely there's been some kind of cash injection to the club. We can speculate what that is, and that's been used to settle those debts. It's obviously a short-term measure. There's no cause for optimism so long as Chancery's at the club.

26:07What I would say is that when the team came out yesterday, you did look good at the 1-11. you know like there's a lot of championship minutes here there's a lot of kind of decent players it doesn't help that Chalabar the goalscorer went off injured shortly after scoring and of course Bannon will serve a one match ban now but there's the bones there as was shown by the performance itself that if they can find a way and find a buyer you know maybe they don't have to write this season off but frankly for Wednesday fans that's kind of the last thing I think about right now it's more about making sure the clubs exist in a season rather than thinking about survival but hopefully you know with the ability now they've been linked to a couple of players on loan from Manchester United, hopefully we'll see some additions coming in in the short term to just enable them to be competitive at the very least because on the showing of Sunday's game there's no reason why they can't put up a fight so long as they're able to continue playing.

26:52Max Rushden:On the subject of players with championship minutes in their legs, Liam Palmer I read somewhere, he played for Sheffield Wednesday yesterday, 15 years to the day after his debut for them and I think he's been with them all that time apart from one loan spell somewhere else. Quite a stint. For Liam.

27:11George Elek:It is. Good shift. Yeah, absolutely. James says, can you discuss, I mean, it's not the coming up 20 years for you on Football Weekly, is it, Barry? But how will we celebrate 20 next year? It's very exciting. James says, can you discuss Struberball and Bristol City's demolition of Sheffield United? Nice to see front football attacking football after years of Manning Ball. Yes, so the Bristol City manager. Specifically a year and a half of Manning Ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A year and a half of Manning Ball, which was so terrible, but they did quite well under him. So the new Bristol City manager, who is the former Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Ströder, because Sheffield United thrashed Bristol City in the playoffs.

27:47George Elek:And that isn't that long ago. They're like the last competitive games that Bristol City played. So Ali, what's happened in this time? Yeah. So, yes, I was completely in love with my former partner. And yes, it might have appeared like I was blissfully happy. And yes, it might have appeared like I was pretty heartbroken when she left me for someone else over the summer. But now that I've had some time to think about it, I realized I didn't actually like her that much. And the new person that I'm seeing now, I can't tell you how exciting they are. They make me smile. They make me laugh. They make me feel energetic.

28:24I wake up feeling motivated when I'm around them. That's Gerhard Struber, Liam Manning and Bristol City fans right now. And it did make me laugh a lot. And also, what I really want to do is celebrate what was a really exciting and very significant away win on opening day. But even the idea of super attacking football, I think, is slightly massaging the truth of the game on Saturday, where Bristol City's goals came mostly on the counter-attack and mostly having won the ball off Sheffield United's defence or midfield and then breaking quickly and scoring. And Bristol City did both of those things quite a lot and quite well last season.

29:04That's why they made the playoffs. They were really good out of possession. And in general, they sprung forward pretty quickly on the counterattack. They didn't score four goals very regularly, but they scored four goals on the weekend from their first six shots. One of which was a Scott Twine free kick. And he's the best free kick taker in the world. And I've run the numbers on that. And no one has scored more direct free kicks in world professional football since Scott Twine started scoring free kicks in 2020. a really nice counter-attacking goal for the second deflected strike for the fourth and you know it was really good away attacking football against a team that's expected to beat you in dominating possession there's still lots to prove as to whether Struber's football will be constantly really exciting and attacking and the proof will come in home games where they're expected to break down teams who come and play for a point that's something that Bristol City weren't very good at under Manning and haven't been for a couple of years So, yeah, I mean, the positives are obvious.

29:59It must have been bedlam in that away end because three months ago, Sheffield United beat Bristol City 6-0 on aggregate in the playoff semifinal. It was as big a golfing class as we've seen really in the championship playoffs for a long time. Not helped with a red card in the first leg early on from Rob Dickey. And they capitalised on a Sheffield United team. The owners made a big call to get rid of Chris Wilder and bring in Ruben Sayes. Could not have gone any worse for Sayes in his first game in the dugout in that whatever you thought about Wilder's Sheffield United, they were an excellent team that picked up a lot of points and generally looked solid defensively.

30:37And here that back line looked all at sea. And I'm a little sympathetic to Sayas because actually the players that have left, including Ahmed Hodzic this week, I wouldn't say they've got the replacements in the building for either him or Vinicius Souza. And those two players are 15 million pound players. Most championship teams are going to find it hard to replace them. And instead of doing any sort of succession planning and bringing players in ahead of their sales, they're now scrambling around with a lot of money burning a hole in their back pocket. And everyone knows they've got it and exactly what positions they need.

31:07So for me, it looks like a bit of a mess off the pitch in this sort of transition period for Sheffield United. And that bled onto the pitch as well on Saturday evening.

31:17Max Rushden:I heard a panel on Five Live, I think it was on Saturday afternoon, discussing Sheffield United. They have apparently gone off in a new direction and they're paying more attention to recruitment through the use of data. and that's why they got rid of Chris Wilder and brought in sellers. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Is that part of the problem, such as it is a problem after one game? Yeah, I mean, it feels like every single club in the country now tells their fans and everybody else that they're data-driven. With Sheffield United, they took it a step further and they've kind of openly said they're going to be using AI to identify players.

32:00so far that recruitment has been either relatively kind of standard fare. Have they signed Johnny Five in the short circuit? No, they've basically signed so far. AI seems to constitute of players that Ruben Sayers has managed before, which I don't think you need chat GPT to tell Ruben who he's managed in the past. Or players who've turned up from Bulgaria with very little history of looking good enough to play in the championship. so we'll see I mean my kind of reading between the lines Chris Wilder has had issues in the past in his first day at Sheffield United and at Middlesbrough in terms of a bit of a power struggle when it comes to recruitment and whether it's AI whether it's you know data whatever else it is it feels like the new owners of Sheffield United want to be in charge of recruitment for the most part and therefore I think that the forecast of a power struggle was probably played into the reason they decided to sack Chris Wilder, albeit it does make a bit of a mockery that two of their first signings under Ruben Sayers, as I mentioned, Louis Barry, who played for Sayers at Hull at the back end of last season, albeit was injured for most of it, and Tyler Binden, who can basically credit Ruben Sayers with his career because he brought him into Reading and gave him minutes at a very young age before his move to Nottingham Forest where he's now on loan.

33:18So if you're Chris Wilder, you're probably looking at those two signings thinking, well, yeah, AI seems to be serving you well but yeah I mean as Ali said it was almost the worst possible game first up because of what happened in the playoffs and it just couldn't really have gone worse and I think even though I I think Ali does as well really great Ruben Sayers as a coach and would like to see him do well and think there's a chance he could do well with time he's not going to be given much time and things are going to get nasty very quickly if results don't improve after that on Sunday sorry on Saturday afternoon

33:51George Elek:Feels like such an open goal to think about the meeting where somebody went to Chris Wilder and said, we'd like to use data. And just to see how that panned out, maybe that is being harsh on Chris Wilder.

34:01Max Rushden:Your new number two is grok. Given last season, he said the words in an interview, you can stick your data wherever you want to stick your data, which for data-driven owners probably wasn't the best thing they wanted to hear.

34:14George Elek:Take that USB stick, Chris. And anyway, what else? What else took you? Your boys lost 1-0 to Portsmouth, George. And I think probably I have seen more of Adrian Segicic, who scored for Portsmouth than anyone else, given that he was playing for Sydney FC last year. I did an A-League show. I'm pretty sure I watched him a lot, but I can't totally remember. But Portsmouth signed a lot of Australians. I wonder if they all just arrive on a ship that lands in Portsmouth. Are you saying you guys, did you guys not nickname him the Vegemite Messi? Because that's what I'll be calling him based on that performance on Saturday.

34:54George Elek:I think when you're covering the A-League for Australian viewers, you can't put Vegemite in front of every player. It just doesn't quite work quite as well, doesn't it? You just pick a footballer and go, oh, look, it's the Vegemite Marouane Maloney. That's all like over there. Look, lovely finish from him. I don't know how the game went. I didn't watch all of the game. It was a great, I mean, yeah, it was actually, I think a very, it'll be an underrated goal because it was a strange goal where Colby Bishop was set through one-on-one after Cameron Brannigan decided to pass to Michal Helic without looking that he was actually standing behind him and set Bishop through one-on-one.

35:26And Jamie Cumming made a great save. And the ball kind of very sharply went out to Segecic. And his first touch and finish, given Cumming was still there and Helic was on the line, was like unbelievably good. And he came close a couple of other times in the game. He looked really lively. Yeah, it was a game that Pompey deserved to win. They had multiple chances in the first half. Oxford kind of huffed and puffed and didn't create too much an open play I think Gary Rau has been relatively open in the press a pre-season tour of Indonesia during monsoon season probably wasn't the best idea in terms of a way to get a team prepared for the upcoming season and it resulted in quite a lot of injuries and players being behind where they should be going into the season.

36:09George Elek:A couple of players blew away, don't know where they are Yeah so I mean the games were a farce played on terrible pitches in ridiculous weather. So maybe not a massive surprise that Oxford started the season looking a bit undercooked. But either way, a 1-0 defeat at home to a side who I think he came up with a couple of seasons ago. I was there and it wasn't great. Also, it wasn't terrible. Pompey without Josh Murphy still looked pretty good, especially in the first half and managed the aerial threat of Wilvox's trebuchet throw pretty well too. So yeah, good start to the season for Pompey, picking up where they left off at the back end of last season.

36:47Yeah, for Oxford, probably some pre-season optimism making way for, not panic, but a bit of concern with an opening day defeat and no goal at home.

36:57Max Rushden:Anything else to take your eye, Baz? I thought Stoke were hugely impressive and it's quite a much trotted out stat that since their relegation from the Premier League seven years ago, I think, they have not finished in the top half of the championship. on the evidence of their performance on Saturday. I would suggest they will do so this week. Sorry, this season. It's obviously far too early to say, but they have been something of a managerial graveyard. They have a high churn of managers. No one can sort them out, but it looks like Mark Rabins has whipped them into some sort of shape over the summer.

37:42George Elek:Yeah, two late goals for them. Ali, anything take you all right? Yeah, I saw Millwall beat Norwich second half performance. Very, very impressive at Carrow Road. First half, they kind of, you know, they sat off Norwich and I think kind of lulled Norwich into a sense of control. And we're seeing in the Championship, like in the Premier League, that actually it's what teams do out of possession and in moments of transition that are kind of almost more important than your build up play and how good you are in possession. and I think Millwall under Alex Neal might use that to their advantage this season because he's such a good tactician and because they have real threats at the top of the pitch, two up top, good wide players, they counter-attack really well.

38:24Having gone in at half-time 0-0 but Norwich feeling like they'd probably dominated the game, they then just came out swinging in the second half and won absolutely deservedly with Macaulay Langstaff scoring. Now he signed after being the League 2 Golden Boot winner in 23-24. he signed last summer, found the step up to the Championship a bit difficult, which isn't too surprising. Only scored one league goal last season, but sprinted in behind and finished very, very well here. I think we often forget that if a player has a difficult first season, they get written off quite quickly. But I think the smartest clubs give players that they sign, particularly from overseas or particularly asking them to jump up two divisions, you can't be signing them and expecting them to hit the ground running, but you can get a lot out of them in Year 2 and Year 3 and make sure you're not wasting money on them and maybe Langstaff, even if it's just as a sub for Coburn and for Ivanovic, can offer plenty.

39:17George Elek:I love the Preston goal in their one-all draw at Loftus Road. I mean, I don't know, George, if that is an unbelievable assist from their keeper, Daniel Everson. You know, striking across the ball, modern keeper style, really low, like a one-iron or just some old school getting it launched that got lucky. But it's... And it was a lovely finish from Osmaiic, who, you know, might not be the greatest bloke in the world, but it's a good... Yeah. I think we give him credit I also love the fact that he was being aggressively closed down as well and he very easily could have just absolutely volleyed it into the pressing QPR player that I think was Borel a brilliant goal I wouldn't say it was necessarily deserved on the balance of play but a moment of quality away from home brilliant ball and then Osmai has the pace to get in behind and the quality finish too certainly one of the more eye-catching goals of the weekend in a game between QPR who have this remarkable team of three exciting, diminutive attacking players in Ilias' chair, Karim Okudembele and Kwame Poku, just surrounded by brutes.

40:20And it seemed to work for the most part and they had the better chances in the game. But Preston, as you say, with Iverson, who's come back to the club after a couple of good loan spells. He's now their player, replacing Freddie Woodman, who's gone off to be Liverpool's sub-keeper probably for the next 15 years. What a life. But yeah, a good point for them because two teams that certainly is an Oxford fan, you're looking at and hoping they aren't going to be too strong.

40:46George Elek:Producer Joel was desperate to get Charlton high up the running order, but this is where they are. They beat Watford 1-0, an injury time winner from former Cambridge legend Harvey Nibs. Graham says, if Watford lose against QPR, is Petzolano in trouble? Paolo Petzolano. Simultaneously, Ali, someone I'd never heard of but could also have been manager of Watford five times. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. and comes in with a reputation of guaranteeing promotions. And that's why he's been hired. He's done so in the Uruguayan second tier, in the Brazilian second tier and in the Spanish second tier. And there's quite a lot of buzz around Watford heading into the season.

41:22They've got a very fun young team on paper with some very exciting technical players. And it's his job to make sure that they are also a serious football team that defend their box well and can play for a full 90 minutes rather than in bursts. And they struggled with that last season under Tom Cleverley. And I think they had some OK moments at Charlton. Didn't quite connect in the final third. Their new striker, Kjerumgaard, scored a lot of goals in the Danish second tier last season. He looked very, very good on debut. But they couldn't resist Nathan Jones' Charlton, who scored an injury time winner.

41:58Jones going nuts in front of the fans. Charlton back in the championship. they've only had one season in the champ I think in the last 10 seasons and they were relegated straight away back down to League One so I think they're coming up a little under the radar because of Birmingham and Wrexham coming up and expected potentially to challenge for promotion but I'm really positive about Charlton and I think it was a really positive start it looks to me like they're going to translate what they became last season which was a tremendous League One team and should sort of build on that and go again this season in the champ

42:29George Elek:Alright that'll do for part 2 part three we'll round up league one and league two

42:40George Elek:welcome to part three of the guardian football weekly actually was having quite an interesting discussion off air while my wi-fi was failing about kind of analytics and data and and sort of what we went into and how actually this perceptionality is just not what it is like every club is using this so you know when when middle-aged men make jokes about johnny five from short circuit references that you don't understand actually it's sort of stupid now because every single club is doing this kind of thing yeah it's not so binary yeah and i just sometimes i feel like and not the way we discussed it i hope but sometimes i feel like it's still being framed like it was in sort of the early 2010s of kind of like a club is either being run by boffin sitting in a basement somewhere or by a neil warnock um and everyone sort of dancing to that tune and I just think there's so much in between that and every single club probably fits like I feel a bit bad for Chris Wilder who with the Sheffield United situation albeit it is clearly true that the owners want a different type of head coach that is not Chris Wilder but again I think it frames him as some sort of dinosaur and he couldn't have had the career that he's had he has been excellent in almost every single job that he's done for like 15 20 years now had success pretty much everywhere there's absolutely no chance he could have done that um but you know if he didn't have some um appreciation for you know the modern aspects of the game that have come in particularly in the last 10 or 15 years so yeah I just I do sort of tear my hair out sometimes and the thing about Sheffield United that's that's wound me up most is that I don't believe they are doing anything different to any other club in the championship when it comes to using data to basically search for players that's what first and foremost in recruitment what data really offers is the ability to search the globe for footballers that fit certain parameters or play in certain positions and play in certain roles quickly because previously if you didn't have data that would have taken months and years and you'd never bother because it would just be too much in terms of human resource.

44:46Now you can do it very, very quickly. And there's still so much more that goes into it after you kind of filter and you identify the players. And it's not all about numbers at that point. It becomes much more about video scouting, scouting in person, referencing, due diligence on character and the player situation. There's so much more that goes into signings in certainly in the Premier League, but Championship League One, League Two as well. And yeah, them claiming that they're using world-leading AI just pissed me off, basically, because I think all they've done there is upgrade the word data to the word AI as if it's something new.

45:23And I don't believe it's new in the slightest or particularly impressive based on their current transfer dealings.

45:28Max Rushden:I think Chris Wilder is unfairly stereotyped because, A, he's northern, pushing on a bit in years, and quite blunt in conversation. And I think using data and AI and analytics, et cetera, and so on, I don't think, I would imagine it makes it a lot easier to sort out the wheat from the chaff, to sort it right. well, this is who we definitely don't want. So now we've got this short list of guys who fit the parameters. Let's do our due diligence on, you know, have a chat with them, find out about their character, as you said, et cetera, how they'll fit in around the training ground and all that. So, yeah, I do agree that Wilder is unfairly maligned.

46:18Max Rushden:He occasionally doesn't do himself any favours either. Well, you could argue that Ruben Sayas, doing his post-match team talk on the pitch after a 4-1 defeat where they'd been booed off was, and I think Jonathan Wilson's written about it on his substat this morning, an extraordinarily high-risk strategy for your first game, given that the idea is that it sort of creates an idea of, I guess, togetherness and kind of group responsibility for a poor performance. But actually, most people aren't going to see it that way. They're going to see it as a very high-risk strategy. The last thing I'll say about Wilder, that we've been big fans of him on the podcast because we've consistently covered good Chris Wilder teams, more so than most other managers, is that it's also not the case that he just buys old proven pros and gets an old school team playing old school football successfully.

47:03Last season, if you want to talk about data as a way of getting value in the transfer market, which is perceived as its biggest strength and what it can offer clubs, then how about buying Michael Cooper, who had played in the championship for Argyle, but not that much and is now worth probably 15 million quid in goal. Harrison Burrows had never played in the championship as a young fullback who Wilder developed unbelievably as a defender as much as anything else. Femi Sariki's made his way into the team as an academy player. Siddy Peck and Oli Arblaster, two young midfielders that Wilder's got to being first team regulars and potential stars of the team and they are so young that therefore that creates a lot of value for the team as well.

47:45Someone like Tyrese Campbell, they signed for a free and now looks like one of the best finishes in the league and potentially top goal scorer in the Championship this season. These aren't old, grizzled pros that Wilder brought in because he knew them from before and he could trust their characters. These are young pros that were bought, not for loads of money, that he has created a lot of value for the club for. So, yeah, just a few things I wanted to point out there. Sheffield United, I just find a very interesting topic of discussion at the moment on and off the pitch.

48:11Max Rushden:And it was, of course, Wilder who came up with the overlapping centre-backs, wasn't it? That was a Wilder innovation. Yeah, or possibly Alan Nill, his assistant, who's often credited with a lot of the tactical detail. Another thing that gets missed in managerial discussion is we don't always know exactly what managers are doing when it comes to training tactics. You know, often the staff are doing so much on that front. So, yeah.

48:36George Elek:From League One, I mean, what stood out for you, George? Obviously, this was the second weekend of League One action. And I'm pretty concerned about Plymouth Argyle, who came down from the Championship, who, of course, lost their manager, Miran Muslic, during the summer, who did incredibly well at the back end of last season. They were beaten at home on opening day by Barnsley under new manager Tom Cleverley, didn't look particularly strong. And then they were well beaten 2-0 by Bolton and to rub salt in the wounds, of course, to the Bolton manager now is Stephen Schumacher, once Primoz Agar manager who led them to the League One title before he decided to chance his arm and be the latest victim of trying to be a good Stoke City manager.

49:19The squad is basically unrecognisable from the one who came up a few seasons ago, apart from Barley Mumba. They've recruited Young, which is part of the ethos of the club. But they're one of those teams now where I think at the beginning of the season, the expectations weren't particularly high. The idea was we're going to recruit Young. we're going to recruit a young manager who can grow with us um but and again you know you've got to say it's early days and you don't want to get ahead of yourself and things and things can change very quickly but on the base of the first two games of the season they look like one of the poorest teams in the whole league and you know it's not unheard of for teams who get stuck in a rut to maybe be a bit complacent in terms of recruitment and then find themselves lower than they thought possible so a bit concerned about them but on the flip side i think Huddersfield looked like a very good side.

50:06And with Lee Grant, their new boss, who was part of Kieran McKenna's coaching staff at Ipswich, it's his first job. You never know how it's going to go. But back-to-back wins for them. And, you know, they went to Reading and beat them 2-0. Did so with a set-piece called Start and then a teenager, 18-year-old Ashia with a really good finish to make it 2-0. And that's off the back of beating an Orient 3-0 on opening day. And then Orient themselves looked impressive in a 2-0 win over Wigan on Saturday. So that form has been franked off the back of it. So yeah, one positive, one negative. It's Huddersfield.

50:39He looked like a good side to me and Argyle I'm a bit concerned about.

50:42George Elek:And Ali, a shout for Barnsley. 2-0 down to Burton. I saw that going, God, Burton, I know are bad. They've always been bad while I was actually focused on League One. And the 2-0 up against Barnsley, who are a sort of odd team, I think. But then 37-year-old David McGoldrick scoring the winner for Barnsley. Yeah, Burton are always bad in the first few months of the season and then somehow change manager and achieve a miracle survival. Yeah, McGoldrick scoring the winners is really fun, partly because he's old, he's 37, and he did something very rare. He moved up a division aged 37, having been at Notts, his hometown club, for the last two seasons.

51:15He's still clearly got juice in the tank, which I think is a complete mishmash of analogies there. My favourite thing about this is that's the 20th consecutive season in which David McGoldrick has scored a league goal and the 11th different side that he has scored. That is some career, isn't it? That's amazing.

51:35George Elek:Interleague 2, George, only three teams have got 100 % record. Crewe, Chesterfield and Fleetwood. Are they the three you expected to have 100 % record at this time? Chesterfield was top of our 1-24s, so we can pat ourselves on the back there. Fleetwood have been a side that I've been crowing about for a long time. With Pete Wild in charge, they've signed Will Davis from Sutton, from non-league, who's kind of scored a lot of goals through non-league and has started the season with three goals in his first two games, which is impressive. and under Wild it's very hard to see why they won't put a couple of really disappointing seasons behind them but the story and the one that I think we have to give massive credit to is Koura Alexandre who we were pretty concerned about pre-season they finished our season in pretty desperate form there was a celebration and rightly so when Lee Bell was targeted by League One Burton Albion last season and he decided to stay at the club basically from the moment that he did decide to stay at the club the form tailed off and it looked like he might come under pressure if they didn't start the season well but they started the season brilliantly two wins from their first two games they beat Accrington at home 2-0 on Saturday and did so impressively you know they're a side who a couple of seasons ago of course got to the League 2 playoff final and were beaten having been on the fringes of the top three for most of that campaign and early signs that you know that was a side that was so impressive in terms of the way they played like really attacking football to start the season and they look like they've kind of gone back to that after being a bit of a shadow of them for themselves last season they'd be playing front foot attacking football and doing so very well so yeah they're certainly the surprise package at this early stage in our mind at least although I know that a fair few crew fans were more positive than us In the Inter-Guardian cartoonist podcaster Derby one of the biggest of the seasons the bragging rights and he did text me just in capital if there's bragging rights go to David Squires 3-2 victory for Swindon Town over Cambridge United.

53:35George Elek:We went 1-0 up. I started to think, OK, this is really good now. The WhatsApp group got excited. But yeah, we gave some goals away in that one. Andy says, based on the opening games, which of their 1-24 predictions do you think might be widest of the mark for you chaps, Ali, across all three divisions? Well, yeah, the way that Crewe have played in their first two games certainly is not wherever we had them, sort of 20th in the league level. I don't think that they have the most depth in their squad. And last season, they showed that, you know, even when they were looking pretty good in the first half of the season, they did tail off.

54:09So, you know, it's very early, but certainly based on their performances, they would be one. And just a bit of respite for you, Max, if it makes you feel better. Of the four teams that came down from League One last season, which include your beloved Cambridge United, you're the only team that's won a game so far in the first two weekends. A combined record of one win, one draw, and six defeats for the teams that have come down. including horror start for Bristol Rovers, who are expected to go well with quite a big budget and a returning favourite in the dugout in Daryl Clark. A bit of a horror show for Shrewsbury, drew 0-0 on opening weekend at home to Bromley and then got thumped 4-0 by Tramier.

54:46And Crawley as well, who just lost at home to Newport, having been absolutely smashed on opening day. So Cambridge, if anything, looking like the best of that quad.

54:56George Elek:We're the shining light. Mark says, if any of the panel played football with someone who then went on to be a PGMOL referee.

55:02Max Rushden:This is a message that was put out on Blue Sky.

55:06George Elek:Whether it's true or not, I don't know. Just says, Hugh Gilroy, assistant ref at the West Brom game today, used to play for the Sunday League team I ran 10 years ago. I bought him on as a sub in a semi-final once. I had to sub him after five minutes as he was having a mare. His replacement got the winner to take us to the final. Seems that's doing no favours to referees who have got some... Actually, we haven't talked about it that much, but officials have quite a lot of stickbats over this first couple of weeks of the EFL season.

55:30Max Rushden:Yeah, I don't want to stick the boot in, but I would say on the evidence of what I've seen, some of the refereeing has been, I've got to say, I used the word already, erratic. Southampton, Wrexham, certainly. I thought the ref in the Birmingham-Ipswich game was just too fussy. He seemed very whistle-happy when there wasn't much need to be, But look, everyone's a bit rusty, early doors in the season. So, you know, I'm not going to stick to booting.

56:04George Elek:Fair enough. Let's finish with this from Nate, who says, hi, Max Barry and the gang. My name is Nate. I'm a Brighton fan from New Jersey, long time listener, first time emailer. I wanted to add to the chorus of other doctoral students who listen to the podcast while working on their thesis. I will sometimes put the pod on while translating medieval Japanese poetry. The other day, however, I accidentally found myself translating a poetic turn of phrase originally written by a 14th century monk in Japan as, quote, get amongst it. And I decided I probably needed to confine my listening to when I take my lunchtime breaks from writing.

56:35George Elek:Barry is right. No one beyond my doctoral committee and maybe an unlucky friend or two I asked to help me copy edit is ever likely to read this thing. Ideally, it's the year or two managing in League Two for a coach who's just done their UEFA badge or whatever that. No one besides that team's fans are likely to remember, but done right, it could be a stepping stone to bigger and better things, despite there being a very small and competitive market. But in this case, fairly low paying jobs and a very limited audience for more polished research. Still, I love what I'm doing. It's a privilege to be paid to learn something otherwise deemed useless by society and not have to work from an office.

57:09George Elek:There was a time when knowledge of the court poetry I study was about as well remunerated and publicly renowned as football. Well, to be honest, I'm not upset to live in a world where this isn't the case. Even it would increase my job prospects. Imagine tuning into Sky to watch a bunch of aristocrats compose linked verse every Sunday. Anyway, love the pod, Nate. Thank you, Nate. Appreciate it. And to all those...

57:29Max Rushden:What imagines the remake and success of the excellent Shogun probably is bringing medieval Japanese poetry to a wider audience. That's set in the 16th century, I think. Is that medieval? No, that's not medieval. Sounds medieval to me.

57:47George Elek:No, it's not medieval. but you know it has put Japanese poetry back on the map I would say um anyway that'll do for today thanks everybody thank you not the top 20 thank you George thank you Max thank you Ali thank you Max cheers Baz thank you Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove our executive producer is Danielle Stephens Premier League predictions in the next couple of pods

58:09this is The Guardian