Son signs off at Spurs and the Football League kicks off – Football Weekly

24:00Birmingham getting 111 points last season was absolutely incredible, but it meant that from a competitive standpoint, the league never really got going hugely. And I think this year it looks pretty open. So yeah, it was a good start. I like that own goal, just the fact that it looped. It took like 20 minutes to go in and everybody knew. And you could just be like, oh, there's Wimbledon players so late on going, I know, you're not serious, are you? Yes, and the teams that went down, the other teams that went down, Cardiff, came from behind to beat Peter Blinné, and that free kick was, if you haven't seen it, Reuben Colwell, it is, like, it's an absolute, it is, and I don't like the phrase knuckleball, even though that's what it is, but it is the ultimate knuckleball, isn't it?

24:38It is, yeah. The way that he strikes the ball, almost sort of cutting across it, like you're trying to sort of slice a golf ball on purpose, is very, very hard and very unusual. And it seemed crazy that it went so powerfully and straight via many, many wobbles into the top corner. It was incredible. And because it was quite far out wide as well, so the keeper was probably expecting a cross, it was just absolute perfection and pretty apt as well. Colwell, I'll just quickly say, is one of my favourite young players in the EFL. Someone who, although he's probably now 23, which these days isn't considered that young hilariously.

25:19He's an attacking midfielder who is 6 '4", 6 '5", but has the close control of some of the best at EFL level. He's been one of those young players that's not quite become a superstar and everyone's been waiting for it for three or four seasons. But Cardiff themselves have just been quite a poor team at Championship level with a lot of different managers. And now they've got a manager in Brian Barry Murphy who's just been working at Man City for the last three or four years with Cole Palmer and others under his tutelage in their sort of PL2 team. And, I mean, it all lines up pretty well, I think, for Colwell to suddenly become, well, easily should be the best player at League One level if he can hit his straps and starting with a 30-yard free kick while wearing the armband for your boyhood club with your brother playing in midfield next to you, who's even younger, was a pretty cool way for Cardiff to start the season.

26:09Anything to catch your eye on League One, Baz?

26:11Max Rushden:I'm interested to see how Huddersfield get on this season. They've spent a lot of money. They brought in Alfie May for 1.3 million, I think, which is obviously a lot of money for that level. They got off to a good start against Leighton Orian. 3-0 win. Alfie May scored a penalty, so he's off the mark. Plymouth Argyle, I've kind of a soft spot for him, because James Darton, one of our editors, is a fan. And we occasionally go to Plymouth games when they're in London. I'm always amazed at how many fans Plymouth can bring to London for a school night game. Tom Cleverley's in charge of them now. Didn't get off to a very good start.

26:52Max Rushden:They lost 3-1 at home to Barnsley. It was quite a fractious game. Cleverley got booked. There was a bit of a melee at one point near half time, I think. But yeah, Plymouth were 2-0 down, got back into it. And looked like they were going to rescue a point. and then Barnsley, who are managed by Conor Hurrahan, who's ex-Villa, isn't he? Yeah, ex-Villa and Plymouth, in fact. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Conor Hurrahan's in charge of Barnsley, so they won that game. And then, yeah, Bradford back in League One, they beat Wickham Wanderers in front of a crowd of, I think, just over 20 ,000. Yeah, there was one amazing save in that Bradford-Wickham game as well, which is worth digging out.

27:39if you have a lot of time on your hands. And look, a good win for Stockport over Bolton, Ali. In a sort of, you know, that was a playoff six-pointer already, wasn't it? Yeah, it did feel like that. And it was an entertaining game. I think, I don't know about you guys, I don't know how often this happens in the Premier League, but in the EFL, like the dream for me, watching a live game as a neutral, is when you instantly get the sense that both teams are trying to win rather than one team sort of sitting back and trying to hit on the counter, and maybe happy with a point. It feels like at the top of the game, you get quite a lot of games where it's very clear who the team that should dominate is.

28:15And that's the kind of passing of the game. Albeit the games between the very top teams are always absolute carnage at the moment. And yeah, this was the sort of League One version of that where both teams came with real attacking intent. Bolton looked to the better side and Stockport went in 1-0 up at halftime. Their manager said, we would have been lucky to be level and instead we were ahead and we didn't deserve it. And I think it reflects to me that Stockport have moved up the food chain so quickly from the National League to a League One promotion contender. And their manager, Dave Chandler, is so impressive with how he manages everything.

28:47But I think the way that he spoke about the game, where they'd just been Bolton 2-0, Bolton, one of the biggest teams at the level, also a promotion contender. And he was doing that thing where he was like, we didn't even play very well, pretty disappointed with the performance. We can get so much better than that. And I always think for opening day, that's actually quite a cool thing to do, I reckon. win 2-0 and be like a bit disappointed actually guys so yeah Bolton fans are furious with that Now Ali let's get down to the serious business do you want to apologise now for putting Cambridge United 18th in League 2 after our demolition of Cheltenham in the game of the day at the Abbey Stadium I watched it I confess I was on a nap walk when the goal went in Louis Appare who I wrote a column about he scored a goal so I'm going to write 20 more columns about him see if they can all get past the sports editor.

29:38I've done another Louis Aparre column but a great win for the mighty yous, Ali. Presumably your headline from League Two. Yeah, I suppose given that we had Cheltenham finishing second bottom. Oh, OK. On paper, the 18th place... It was a six-pointer, a relegation six-pointer. Yeah, but also kind of the 18th place team winning 1-0 at home to the 23rd place team feels about par, I'd say. That's almost exactly what I expected and the fact that it was a sort of tap in from a rebounded shot and you kind of huffed and puffed and struggled to blow the door down. Otherwise, I think it was basically exactly, you didn't learn anything that I didn't already know here.

30:14No, we love Apare on the pod, mainly because on his Wikipedia page, his name is Louis-George P. Apare, just the initial P. Good. Which throws up all sorts of mystery, but also because he's a kind of French-Scottish striker with a terrible... He actually looked quite good. He looked quite good. What was it? A terrible goal-scoring record. Goal-scoring record. But works very hard for the team, brings others into play. I'm on a bit of a mission on our pod to try and change the way that people think and talk about strikers because we're still in an era where people want a 20-goal-a-season striker.

30:52And in the EFL last season, across 72 teams, only two players scored more than 20 goals. And only one of them hit 20 goals without any penalties. So in the modern game, and it's dripped down from the Premier League, like there aren't very many pure goal scorers and the ones that are tend not to play very much because they don't do very much else because if they were good at goal scoring and they were really quick and really strong and really good at bringing others into play they play for premier league teams so um yeah someone like a pair i don't think he will score 20 goals for you but i think he might help ben knight for example or uh sully kai kai score 10 goals each and then in the aggregate max you've got a great attack but actually what's interesting i think and this was the point i didn't really write about louis appare i'd never heard of the guy you know came into a video going we've we've signed this striker but didn't actually give his name i was like this is a lot of presumed knowledge it's just a man in jeans kicking a ball could be anywhere i could have found him on the street is the point it's the sort of and you must have find this frustrating the way you view footballers at this level is our you know these are shite and these guys are unbelievable footballers right they you know they are just so when you think about how competitive it is and we talk about the number of players that actually make it from academy level whatever You mentioned Ben Knight, who actually played for City under Pep and, you know, made his debut in the Community Shield.

32:09Like, it's interesting that you watch these players who are simultaneously living the dream because they're being paid to play football. But they're not, they were the best at some point in their life. They were the absolute best at this. And now they're sort of trying to come to terms about that this is their life. And sometimes you'll just basically, if you're a centre forward in League Two, a lot of it is just shuttle runs. It's like, you know, twice a week, you do 90 minutes of shuttle runs and you might get two chances. And this is the dream, but it's an odd dream. For sure. And that's why I think I haven't done this scientifically and run the numbers, but that's why it certainly feels to me anecdotally, like most League One and League Two strikers that start games consistently and are considered first choice, many of them would have come up from non-league rather than dripped down from Premier League academies.

32:56And I think a large part of it is that mental side of the game is the react, the harsh realities, if you like, albeit it's a bit of a cliche of League Two football, of shuttle runs and of being that sort of player that Neil Harris wants rather than someone who, you know, is really, really strong technically, but has never wrestled with Michael Morrison for 90 minutes. You know, it's really, really interesting. And that's where the English game has a bit of an issue. Would I call it that? I think probably, I think it will rear its head more and more over the next five years of the PL2 academies have so many players at any given time between the age of 17 and 20.

33:33and there aren't enough spots for them to drop down into the EFL because the record of PL2 players dropping down isn't that good. And EFL clubs for the last five years have been going, surely if we can get the guy released by Brighton, well, he'll certainly be good enough for us in League One. But the hit rate isn't that good because I think it is such a culture shock. And also because these guys are generally on, like some of them are on 10, 20 grand a week, even nowhere near first team football. So then trying to play first team football for a League Two club on two grand a week or three grand a week, there's this huge, huge disconnect at the moment.

34:12And I think there's going to be a generation of players currently in their kind of early 20s who might find it really, really, really tough, but who are currently on unbelievable contracts, living an unbelievable life without getting anywhere close to playing first team professional football. Yeah, that's interesting. So there'll just be this sort of amazing set of technically brilliant footballers that have to just go and be street football. You know, they'll all become... Well, they'll be playing in the baller league. Yeah. No, no, you're probably right. Some classic league too. Barnett's new keeper getting caught dribbling out and his manager throwing him under the bus after the game.

34:48Shrewsbury Bromley, the ref, got injured. So the fourth official went to refs. So the tannoy, they said, is there a qualified referee? Which is a very low stakes. Is there a doctor or even lower stakes? Excellent. Is there a pilot on this plane? Isn't it? We need somebody who knows the laws of football. And obviously everyone in the crowd thinks they know the laws, but they actually don't. Just the ladies on Sheffield Wednesday, EFL's increasingly concerned about Wednesday's financial situation, their ability to fulfil their opening championship fixture. They've got a senior squad of 14 players, more set to leave.

35:17I mean, it feels, Ali, like we're barrelling towards claps. I mean, the one silver lining, you know, is Barry Bannon committing to the club. You sort of feel what a hero this guy is. He's the string quartet on the Titanic. But it's incredibly nervous times for them, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I haven't seen any major updates post-weekend yet, but the Wednesday fans were given, as you say, kind of a rare moment of joy and of feeling like they matter for the first time in a long time because Bannon signed a new contract. I'm absolutely sure he could have got a contract with another championship club, but he's been there for a long time and this level of loyalty or this show of loyalty, if you like, because I'm still a bit confused as to how he's got a contract, how the club are purporting to promise that they can pay him given how many issues they have had and are still apparently having with paying players in full and on time.

36:15But for Bannon, it's not like he doesn't understand the situation, so he obviously feels it was still worth it for him. And I think for fans, you know, you want to see any signs of loyalty that can in any way reflect the loyalty that you show for your club. And these are increasingly hard to find from players, from managers, certainly from those who run your clubs. And so for them to have seen Bannon re-sign, just an amazing thing over the weekend. And yeah, I'm not someone that has a lot of hope when it comes to owners like the Sheffield Wednesday owner. They don't necessarily seem to operate with the same sort of logic or desires that we all have to sort things out pretty quickly.

36:59And so I'm very, very concerned. And obviously the season starts for Wednesday this weekend. So I think a lot will probably happen over the next week or so. The culture text release and Andy's called for the immediate sale of Morecambe to avoid a, quote, heartbreaking closure in an open letter to Jason Whittingham on Friday. she said I'm writing to you to express my deep concern at the serious and worsening situation at Morgan Football Club the uncertainty and misery now facing this proud club its fans players staff and the local community is heartbreaking to see tomorrow we're doing a future of football football finance special with Philippe and Kieran Maguire so we will cover all of football's existential crises which will include these of course and that'll do for part two part three I'll begin with Fitbar Corner

37:50Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly, to Fitbar Corner, Barry. And a welcome return to the Scottish Premiership, and a welcome return to Russell Martin, to top-line management. And he was in a big old mood, wasn't he, Baz?

38:02Max Rushden:Yeah, Rangers got their campaign off to start on Saturday, and they drew away at Motherwell. Now, it would be fair to say that Rangers fans were not unanimous in their approval of the announcement that Russell Martin would be taking over their club. He got through the Champions League second round qualifier against Panathinaikos. Lucky to do so, I would say. Certainly haven't seen the second leg of that. I think they were very lucky. But they got through. That's the main thing. So you got the feeling that will buy Russell some time. and it seems to have bought him three days. So they go to Motherwell, they're ahead, they draw.

38:47Max Rushden:I watched some of this game and Rangers were spookily reminiscent of Southampton. A lot of possession, but with very little intent or purpose. Kept playing the ball out from the back and then losing it on the edge of the final third. And you're going, oh, this is all very Southampton last season. But after the game, they got a draw. It's not the end of the world. But after the game, Martin took an absolute flamethrower to his players. He praised two, Cyril Dessers and Lyle Cameron. And his praise for them was interpreted as a dig at the two players they replaced on the hour mark, Danilo and Mo Diamende.

39:30Max Rushden:but yeah he he spoke about players needing to you know shelve their egos talked about them just jogging about with little or no purpose and was scathing in his attack which seems uh i mean nothing he said was untrue but go through them so publicly after just one league game it's it's a dangerous game but uh we'll see how that works out for us it's hard to know where to go after that doesn't it? It's a big card to play. And the thing, what struck me about his, I'm going to say rant, but in inverted commas, because it wasn't a rant. It was very eloquent, very measured. He never raised his voice.

40:14Max Rushden:So it wasn't that he just lost his temper and was mouthing off in the heat of the moment. It was a very, very eloquent coruscation of his team. and then Celtic they started their campaign yesterday they beat St Mirren 1-0 with a late goal from Luke McCowan not a particularly impressive performance from them either and I think Celtic fans are very concerned about the state of their team as well because on the face of it their squad looks conspicuously weak compared to last season's they've lost Nicholas Kuhn who's gone to Como Jota is out long term with an injury and they haven't replaced Kyogo Furuhashi who left last January Adam Ida is their main striker and the consensus at Celtic Park seems to be that he's not good enough to be their main striker they need a couple of wingers Ciaran Tierney started for them yesterday played well but of course went off injured because that's what Ciaran Tierney does plays well then goes off injured don't know how serious that is the Celtic board are sitting on loads of money they have plenty of money to spend but seem very reluctant to do so and it looks like Brendan Rodgers might be starting to lose patience with them as well his contract expires in the summer and as things stand I don't think anyone's expecting him to stay on or sign an extension best of the rest they're probably going to be it'll be between Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen I guess Hearts have this new investment from Tony Bloom the Brighton owner and they're using his analytics model, Jamestown Analytics so it'll be interesting to see how things go for them this season Hibs under David Gray only lost I think they were bottom of the table in December and they only lost two of their final 20 games last season and ended up finishing third so can they kick on i say best of the rest i think there's a chance rangers might not finish second or indeed first so there could be a vacancy in in second place for hearts hibbs or aberdeen if if any of them step up and the two promoted sides are Livingston and Falkirk, they're expected to struggle but I do know that Dundee are favourites to go down at the moment or were favourites before a ball was kicked, so that is feedback at the minute.

42:55Many thanks Barry Now Dan, I don't know how close you've been covering the Women's Copa America or if you decided to have one week off watching football but I did put, did you watch, I put in the group Marta's equalising goal. I thought she was older than 39, but apparently only 39, Marta. But Colombia 4, Brazil 4, and Brazil 1 on penalties. But in the sixth minute of injury time, Colombia were 3-2 up, and Marta Dan scores. I mean, just an absolutely brilliant goal. When Max Rushton texts, we're all alert. I saw that come in, and I promptly clicked the link that you sent me. What a strike. What a goal.

43:36Roberto Carlos-esque wasn't it the power in power in that drive and the pressure in that moment to basically save your country it was an incredible strike and an incredible moment and I'm not massive of people talking about 39 like it's old because that's how old I am but yeah a legend of the game yeah it's an amazing and it's a classic half volley and it goes in it looks like you know when you see when you see goals from South America from the 80s you know big box got They're all like this. You know, it just absolutely just hammers it home. It's such a brilliant, brilliant goal. So well done to Brazil.

44:12I've got a recommendation. I've got a recommendation which is linked to this. Doom scrolling yesterday, which normally doesn't chuck up the goods that I'm after. I managed to come across someone had tweeted a compilation of Phenomeno Ronaldo when he was playing for Corinthians when he was very old and very visibly overweight. and still absolutely incredible. And I would guess if you were to search on X, Ronaldo Corinthians, you would see the same compilation that I did and probably get the same level of endorphins that I did. So yeah, would recommend if we're talking about legendary Brazilian attackers.

44:51Speaking of good videos on X, Indranil says, who of the victorious under 21 men's football team will be a breakout star in the Premier League? Ali, you follow the under 21s closely. There is an amazing video of you in the stands. we weren't sure if you wanted to talk about it or not because you didn't reply to the uh to the tweet but it's a full time and you do some proper football fan yeah fuck off we've won i absolutely loved it uh that could have been anyone and the fact that that person was wearing a not the top 20 branded cap again which which have sold in their ones could have been absolutely anyone yeah no i i did go to bratislava along with it with a lookalike clearly um and and saw us beat the dutch in the semi-final which i absolutely loved as you could see uh i love covering the under 21s uh that was the third of the last four i think maybe the fourth of the last five that i've been out to to watch um it's always great fun and the team under lee carsley are so much more fun than the team under ad boothroyd that i had to watch for a couple of tournaments beforehand you surprise me yeah um he's honestly i absolutely love lee carsley he's an incredible bloke and coach and that team did the business.

46:05In terms of stars, gosh, I mean, Elliot Anderson was absolutely unbelievable. All tournament, Harvey Elliot obviously was very, very good. And I feel like if you've played 150 games for Liverpool and you're 23, you possibly shouldn't be allowed to play in the under-21s Euros, but we benefited from that. Ethan Wuneri had a few flashes off the bench, but didn't impact things that much. I think Liv Romento is exceptional and he was playing. So, yeah, I mean, we're in very, very good hands in the main. And although James Trafford didn't play, he was still eligible for the under-21s. And I'm really fascinated to see, A, whether he'll be starting for Man City, and if so, when?

46:49And B, how will that look? Because clearly last time at Premier League level, he struggled in a Burnley side that gave him a lot of shots to face. but playing for Burnley last season in the Championship he put together the best goalkeeping season I've ever seen certainly at second tier level so I'm really intrigued to see how Trafford goes I'm really pleased because when he moved to Burnley a lot of people were questioning the transfer fee and it's been completely justified and interested from an England pod point of view at what point he properly starts to challenge Pickford for the gloves because my assumption is that Pickford will remain England's number one until after the World Cup next summer But if Trafford is starting for Man City, does that put more pressure on Pickford, given that Tuchel is obsessed with players playing at the highest level possible and you can't play much higher than being City's number one?

47:37We did an amazing email from Sholto. We were talking about getting in people doing their PhDs and academic correspondence. We can't read it out because it's so long. It's one of those emails that Barry would start rolling his eyes and saying, this is the end of the podcast. You can't read this out. It's quite densely academic, 2 ,000 words long. But it argues the case for listening to Football Weekly while working on your PhD. Maybe I'll just record it and then one of those audio long reads, we can just read it out. The summary is the hypothesis, a higher XFW, expected Football Weekly, correlates with a higher probability in thesis completion and more impactful ideas.

48:15There's reams and reams of acknowledgments and there's like a glossary and an index and thank you so much for putting all that work in.

48:22Max Rushden:It does rather prove my assumption that PhDs are... A lot of work goes into them and nobody reads them. If you want the full thing... This is very much a case in point. If you want the full thing, email footballweeklyattheguardian.com and we will reply with it. Or just wait for it to appear in several peer-reviewed journals. Or maybe Barry can read it out for the halftime show. Maybe as people walk out of the Troxie in September. Max, I feel like if Sholto wants a distraction from completing a degree, surely you would recommend a copy of Championship Manager 97, 98. I'd go 90, Championship Manager 98.

49:02Never better than Championship Manager 93. S. Claridge races clear. Wow. He slides it past the keeper, but somehow misses. James says, dear Max Barry and podcast crew, I'm one of those terrible people who work in advertising. I recently included a short clip of Max's unbelievable parallel park in a meeting about great social media content. ever since I've been asked repeatedly to make sure our client presentation includes the parallel park guy I guess no one I work with watched the Soccer M glory years while others have had to figure out what's our version of the parallel park whenever we get to that slide I take great pleasure in leaving a 10 second gif of Max's parallel park on the big meeting room screen for as much time as possible constantly rotating between your gleeful face and the immaculately parked Subaru no one believes you actually parked it I promise I did all the best James thank you James I very much enjoyed that.

49:53Glad to see the cut through is happening. I don't know. How do I benefit from this great social media content? It's just that's it. That's the benefit is that you get no material benefit. You just, you know, it's the glow of knowing that people loved your parallel park. It's a great park, honestly. It's just really on cloud nine for a long time. Now, look, we're doing a football finance future football special tomorrow. so if you have questions about dodgy sponsors or the fate of football or the lower leagues or the Premier League or parachute payments or all that stuff footballweeklyattheguardian.com or on Instagram bluesky in the Spotify comments where Joel says you can also be nice about the podcast if you like I haven't read the Spotify comments that sounds fun could make a song out of them anyway that'll do for today thanks everybody thank you Ali cheers Max thank you Dan thank you cheers Baz thank you But we're weekly as produced by Joel Grove.

50:47Our executive producer is Danielle Stephens. We'll be back tomorrow.

50:55Max Rushden:This is The Guardian.