633: Kings of Anglia: How worried should we be about McKenna leaving for Fulham?

0:08Hello friends and welcome to your summer weekly edition of the Kings of Anglia, Ishram's town podcast. I'm Mark Heath. I'm joined by my two best friends, young and old, Stewie Watson and AJ, the kid, Jones. Friends, how are we? Stewie, how are you first of all? I'm alright thank you the kid how old are you now AJ? mid 20s 25 I think we've probably moved beyond that haven't we? I don't know we've been calling Ross that for most of the last few years he's got a few years on me yet he's 30 soon very soon in fact and he's really going to have to assess his life opinions being as he's been sending people post 30 to the glue factory for years on this very show.

0:54Stu, I want to talk to you about something seismic that's happened in our lives since we last spoke. Very, very important. Life-changing, I would say. They've changed the bins where I live. Has it been the same where you are? They've gone from a two-bin system to a four-bin system. And we've had the first collection this morning. And it's left me, frankly, in a daze, just wandering around the house saying to the wife, which bin does this go in now? You've been the same? Same, yeah. blue bin got connected for the first time this morning um putting glass out in the bin is discombobulating and it makes a hell of a racket it's almost like you know you're on holiday and you're getting woken up by the big glass bins being emptied but um it's great for the planet mark and that's what i'm all about that's the main thing isn't it absolutely uh yeah stop global warming etc um i'm also pleased about glass things it means i don't have to go to the bottle bank anymore and pretend that the weekend's drinking is in fact been the last month or so um i can just chuck it all all of the shame goes in the in the blue bin no one has to see it until it gets collected aj uh i don't know what the bin situation is in cambridge i'd imagine you just chuck your rubbish over the over the side for the poor people to to use as they see fit yeah they get the leftovers it's usually how things happen um we have a little bin now it's like a little food waste bin yep that's what we've got gray ones yeah um that is the only change that i've noticed so far i've been picking tea bags out of the main bin stew where i've been putting them for the last well my whole life and putting him into the the food recycling bin now has that been a similar situation for you've been putting coffee grounds in there yeah yeah well we're really going deep into this yeah all of all of the food waste is going in that i tell you what it opens your eyes as to how much how much just the the last little bits of your plate being scraped away adds up doesn't it shames you not wasting so much food do you know what this is friends this is relatable chat everyone's kind of probably going through a similar thing at some point in their life or Indeed, wherever they're located around the world.

2:48Interesting, isn't it? Bin chat. Friends, obviously we're not here to talk about bins. We will move on to the football now. Just a reminder that we are sponsored by Molecular UK, who have re-upped for another season. They want to be on board, Kings of Anger, as we move again to being a Premier League podcast. They're now a Premier League podcast sponsor. Thank you very much, Jordan and the team at Molecular. Friends, we've got a few things to talk about today. There's not a lot going on. We are going to talk about McKenna and Fulham. We're going to talk about Mjordic leaving, and we're going to talk, obviously, a little bit about sexy stuff.

3:18But first of all, there was something we expected to happen this week. I certainly expected it to happen. If you look back at dates from previous years, the retained list has always been released on the first week in June, and we're still waiting for it. It feels like the only team on the planet who haven't released their retained list as yet. So people are obviously putting two and two together and going, oh, something's afoot. But just calm down, friends. Stu, as we understand it, there's nothing sinister going on. No, I don't think so. I think Ipswich have always liked to leave it as late as they can for whatever reason to announce it.

3:51That date when the EFL will kind of put all of them out at the same time is coming pretty soon. I don't know the exact date of it, but it will certainly be next week, I imagine. From my understanding, there's not going to be too many surprises in there. There will be, you know, if you look back at previous ones, there's normally a section in there of players still in negotiations with the club. We had that with Flagkey. We had that with Twenzewi. I think Burgess was in that situation. So I don't think you're going to get any major clarity around Wes Burns, for example, when this comes out. I think it will just be talks continue.

4:29And then, you know, I've written a piece probably a few weeks ago now saying sort of predictions for the retain list in terms of, I guess there's some obvious ones that have released, options taken, things like that. So go back and have a look at that for predictions. I don't think it will be miles off of what we've put out there. I think most people can probably work it out. But, yeah, should be coming soon. Okay. Just calm down. That's the main point. Nothing sinister is going on. It will be released when they get to it. And I guess in terms of main talking points, since we last spoke, here we go again, I guess you could call this section.

5:08Or indeed, what's that meme from the old Grand Theft Auto game? Ah, shit. Here we go again, that one. um kieran mckenna obviously is going to be linked to big jobs this summer um quite a few of them helpfully have been filled already uh but unfortunately there is now one open and it's one we've talked about before fulham as expected a parting company with marco silver so immediately kieran mckenna aj is installed as the betting favorite as he is pretty much with every job that comes up uh so it's worth the chat isn't it um how how how much are you concerned about this and in terms of people go oh fulham it's not you know not as big a club as if rich town whatever but the fact is they're an established Premier League club.

5:48So talk to us a little bit about your feelings on this link. The first thing I think is quite funny is that Ipswich are involved in a managerial set of dominoes that start at the Real Madrid presidential elections which is just really good fun because obviously if their current president wins, they want to get Mourinho. If Mourinho goes from Benfica, that's going to be Marco Silva's job And of course, that has created the vacancy at Fulham. And you can see what the appeal would be. I've seen quite a lot of back and forth on social media. Oh, well, it's such a bigger club. Club sizes don't matter that much when you're a manager.

6:26You look at what players you've got to work with, what stage the club is at. This is an established Premier League side with good players who've been there for a while now, who will back the manager, you would imagine, in the transfer window and will look to get a good replacement for a manager that they've had for five years prior to this summer. So you can obviously see the appeals of that. On the flip side, I think that Kieran McKenna has turned down better jobs and we've sat on this very podcast discussing links to Brighton, to Crystal Palace, and we know that there was definitely quite a far process with that Palace job, what was it, two, three years ago now.

7:06we've got the United job, Chelsea job all of these things that we've spoken about right here in the last few years and Kieran McKenna is still the manager would you say that Fulham is a more attractive job than some of the ones he's turned down? Personally, I'm not too sure so it puts me somewhere in the middle and to be honest with all of the numbers that have been thrown out as well £8 million release fee is the figure that has been quoted to be able to take Kieran McKenna away from Ipswich Town It might not be that much for a player, but for a manager, that is an incredibly high release fee.

7:39And I would imagine that Kieran McKenna, as my doorbell goes again in podcast tradition, also owns a pretty penny that might put off some clubs. That's why he signed that new contract. And yeah, that's why there'll also be a lot of other managers linked. We've seen Arna Slott, Ange Postacoglu, Thomas Frank's one of the favourites. McKenna's the favourite, but I don't think it's as cut and dry as that. um this is your doorbell by the way to say someone's at the door it's a ring doorbell that's that's what i have so it links up to my um i don't want to say the the a word because it'll trigger it but the uh amazon echo i believe is the full name which then uh rings out on all of them across across the house to let me know that royal mail is currently at the door amazon echo hey how the other half live uh stew keira mckenna to fulham should we be concerned are you concerned um more concerned than aj i think when we've uh discussed this um

8:41do you want to ask me compartmental questions around it rather than me giving you a big monologue all right okay compartmental questions why why would it appeal to him why would he think having having won three promotions in four seasons he's basically all powerful at it switch town why would think now is the time to jump ship and go to Fulham. Well, I could give you a stream of reasons why he'd want to stay at Ipswich Town. As you say, Adord has his fingerprints over everything at Ipswich Town. He's helped design the new training grounds that's about to open this summer, has big final say in transfers, which is not the case at every football club, certainly at the top level these days in football family settled probably a sense of unfinished business with it switching the premier league the list goes on um but kieran mckenna's an a thoughtful intelligent analytic man with big ambitions in the game and timing is everything in football and the stars have to align sometimes between managers and clubs and he's already seen some opportunities be close go by crystal palace i think we can say this publicly now i think he pretty much accepted that job midway through the last championship promotion season it's around the february time when glasner got the job and he had a change of heart and he thought no you know i need to see this project through ipswich and he stayed and palace have gone on to do what they've done under Glasner.

10:18Then he has the summer of two years ago with all of the noise around Brighton, United, Chelsea. I still don't know the full story around the timeline of that. I think Brighton were first on the scene. There might have been a bit of waiting to see if his beloved United came around, Henhag stayed and the ship sailed and he signed his new contract at Ipswich. Now, Kieran McKenna has to think very carefully about these opportunities might not come around forever and he's got to think if i go down again with ipswich this year and there's every chance that might happen they're going to be massive underdogs going into this season what does my reputation what does my stock look like with two premier league relegations on my cv and all of a sudden i'm not in those conversations as much as as i was so um is fulham the right next step for him i think it would be a solid stepping stone maybe towards bigger things if he if he thinks and believes he can get to that level um it's just the things that concern me the spidey senses that get tingling is is for the first time we've seen in some of the national reports that kieran mckenna is understood to be interested in the fulham job i don't think we've seen that sort of language used in some of the reports before i think there was correct me if i'm wrong i don't think that that was any of the terminology last time around when when jobs came up the bookies favorite thing you can always take with a pinch of salt because those markets can move on you know only takes a handful of bets to move those markets but again i don't think when previous jobs came up we ever saw him as the bookies favorite for some of these jobs um so i don't know how this one's going to play out to be honest and then there's other moving parts as well in terms of what fulham want to do the compensation figure that aj's mentioned how much do they like kieran mckenna they like him i know that much but how much do they like him when it's eight million pounds comfy versus thomas frank free agent versus arna slot free agent versus liam rosinia free agent so that that will be something for them to think about the optics of appointing kieran mckenna if you look at the fulham fans reaction it's maybe not the the big name or or experienced player at this level.

12:43I'm very intrigued how this is all going to play out, to be honest. AJ, talk to me about that, because we said before, you often talked about the rising tide of players departing. With McKenna, there has to be a judgment, doesn't there, a point where his stock is as high as it can possibly be to give him the best opportunity to go, and that would be the right time to go. So in terms of that thinking, Sue says there that you're not as worried as perhaps he is. Where do you think we are with McKenna on that kind of level at the moment? Because he's gone back into the Premier League. As Stu says, they will realistically be favourites to be relegated again.

13:21If he can keep them in the Premier League, that's like another tick then, isn't it? Oh, he's got them up and he's kept them up. Would that then be the time, do you think? Or, you know, as Stu says, if he gets relegated again, then his stock drops again, doesn't it? So where are you with that kind of rollercoaster at the moment?

13:39the cop-out answer I really don't know because the highest stock that Kieran McKenna has had was two years ago when they got promoted to the Premier League and he had teams that should be challenging for Premier League titles who were interested in taking him on, obviously relegation changes that he still has had links be it Celtic, be it mid-table Premier League jobs, whatever, but replicating what we got to two years ago where there was very clear very genuine interest and i always kind of link back to it mark when we were working that fun week or two period us two waiting and waiting for all the updates and just a string endless streams of news i just felt like it was kieran mckenna everywhere at that point getting back to that it is very difficult um in fairness two years ago i don't want to kind of come in and correct but there was a lot of talk of like i remember there were articles got put out saying kieran McKenna wants to leave Ipswich and you know he sees this as kind of the end of the line I remember there was one from the BBC there have been other ones who come out and and said the same thing I think that narratives can be pushed not trying to accuse anyone here but ultimately that they want to get whatever is that the best situation for their client for Kieran McKenna whatever that's going to be so naturally you can kind of get these stories in the news where it might be something like that but whether that tells the whole story is another case um where are we kind of on the stock levels it really depends and i think it depends how much faith kieran mckenna has in those above him and how he'll be backed and how the recruitment networks have improved and also what the faith is going to be in the players because if he has the faith that they can go and survive and thrive in the premier league and look at examples of leads compared where Daniel Farker's stock was 12 months ago when they were considering sacking him after they got promoted.

15:32And now you would say that if he was to leave Leeds, he'd get a really good Premier League job based on what he's done in the last 12 months. Take Regis Leris at Sunderland, who was kind of predicted to take them back down again. He'll be managing in the Europa League next season. You get it right. If you have faith in the club, in what Ipswich can do, then in 12 months' time, you can then be back in the situation where, oh hang on Carrick's done a rubbish job at United and they've come calling for you Chelsea have changed manager for the 80th time they come calling for you various different jobs open up and you get back into that position but at the same time if it goes wrong then who knows what your situation is in 12 months he's not Vincent company he doesn't have the glittering playing career that other managers do that will make him instantly pretty attractive take Steven Gerrard take Wayne Rooney who've all seen stock drop at different clubs but managed to kind of recover and get good jobs elsewhere, even when jobs haven't worked out for them because of the playing background.

16:30Kieran McKenna doesn't have that. So he's got to weigh things up really carefully. But yeah, two different sides to it. Depends how he sees it. I always come back to the point that I'm just not sure how attractive the Fulham job might be. And we'll see who they appoint. Maybe they can come out and get a really big name and prove me wrong. But when I look at where they are, the feeling from the fans, there's a lot of negativity around there at the moment that they've overperformed with Marco Silva there based on the squad that they've got. The director of football that they've got is the owner's son who seems a little bit busy running a wrestling company, All Elite Wrestling instead.

17:08Oh, nice. Yeah, I know. And obviously there's been some questions over the recruitment as well, an ageing squad, quite a few players out of contract. So I would think, sat here at the moment, just on 11 o 'clock on the 5th of June, that I would lean more towards the side that Kieran McKenna will fancy staying over leaving. I think from Kieran's point of view, he's probably looked at, you've mentioned Carrick there, his good mate Michael Carrick, who were joint assistant managers at Man United. And he's outperformed Michael Carrick. Michael Carrick's got sacked by Middlesbrough and he's ended up with the Man United gig and making a good job of it.

17:48He outperformed Liam Rosinha in the Championship. Rosinha's gone on to manage Chelsea, albeit briefly. Maresca, who he was going toe-to-toe with in the Championship, has now had Chelsea and soon-to-be Man City. And there is that burning ambition in Kieran McKenna, but I think he will be very lethargic, very thoughtful. He waited, he picked Ipswich very, very carefully of his first job, and he'll do so again. And I think it comes back to what AJ says. are they the best, most solid stepping stone, Fulham? I don't put them in the same bracket as a vibrant Brighton or Bournemouth or Brentford in terms of having the really good model behind them and a sense that they've done that over time.

18:38There is a sense with Fulham that maybe Marco Silva has, like you say, overperformed a little bit. And there's a reason he's left. And by all accounts, he's taken half the money. he was offered at Fulham to go to Benfica and he was making a lot of public noises about no signings and in the end I think they kind of panicked and went out and spent quite a bit of money on Kevin the Brazilian winger that's not done an awful amount but I don't know you can put what I don't want is sometimes I think Ipswich fans can maybe be a bit too ready to dismiss or why would he go to Fulham there they've got no history and they haven't got the trophies that Ipswich have got and I don't know if necessarily the past and history plays that much part in decisions it's about where a club can go and Kieran McKenna's got to decide whether Ipswich's trajectory is is potentially stronger than Fulham's so hopefully it's another storm in a teacup and it it all blows over again.

19:35History suggests that the Man United job will be up for grabs before long anyway this is a this is their MO isn't it they at the point someone temporarily they do well they get the job they then lose the first 10 games of next season and get sacked so no doubt that's probably the route that Caracol go down so just um to dot the i's and cross the t's we've talked about why the Fulham job would appeal and you kind of briefly touched on on you know what the the the the um the pull factors would be in terms of keeping him here but it's worth stressing in terms of how safe his job is here isn't it he's extraordinarily well um insulated i guess at the club he's got a lot of power here got a lot of say and clearly is huge standing at the club for him yeah the money shouldn't be an issue because ipswich made him one of the best paid managers in the premier league two years ago with tying him down to that that big new contract um from what i understand you know in the same way that you get relegation reduction clauses you get the promotion ones so he'll have returned to the the money he was on in the premier league last time So I don't think it's like Fulham can go and blow it, switch out the water in terms of a financial package.

20:44We often underestimate location pools. Very settled in Suffolk. Love Suffolk, family, kids in school, all the rest of it. West London's quite a nice location, isn't it, as a pool, I would have thought. So that's a factor. And then ultimately, I think it comes down to squads and who is more likely to stay in the Premier League. Fulham have had four successive mid-table finishes now. If I said to you how many Ipswich players would get in the Fulham team right now, that would be a difficult conversation to have. And that's probably when you get down to brass tacks and Kieran McKenna's weighing up the two squads and where he could take them.

21:24I mean, their front four, for example, Zawobi, Smith-Rowe, Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez, who's about to spearhead Mexico at a Home World Cup. But this summer, I mean, it's packed with international caps, Premier League appearances. We've tasted it now, the Premier League, two years ago. It's not just the big boys. I think the surprise came when Ipswich played Fulham, played Palace, played Forest, played Everton, played teams like that. And you go, wow, look at their bench. Look how much money they've spent. Look how much experience they've got. And Fulham fall into that bracket. The only question is, as Alex says, is the age of that squad.

22:01Is it getting towards the end of a cycle? there will be a lot of food for thought here for Kieran McKenna. It's not something to be readily dismissed. Okay, right. By the way of finishing this, I'm going to ask you both for a score out of 10 as to how concerned you are. The higher, the more concerned. So Kieran McKenna to Fulham, how concerned are you, Alex Jones?

22:27Oh, mate. You're going to have to explain what that just was and clarify that I'm not having a heart attack in the corner. Mark's got some new toys. Mark's got some sound effects, which he found out this morning as he was waiting for you boys to join the pod. And he's been playing with them. And I thought I'd drop it in there just because it's fun, isn't it? And that's what we're all about. Anyway, as you were, AJ, I'm not going to play that again. Please don't. Four out of ten. I was going to go five, but that would be a really boring, stupid answer right down the middle. and I'm leaning more towards the safer side than anything else.

23:02I think that the noise has quieted down a little bit over the last 24 hours when the first pieces came out. It's now been a, well, Fulham are looking at slots and I've seen Ruben Hammerin has been spoken about and a few others. I'm not fully convinced that Kieran McKenna is their man, especially for that price, and I'm not convinced that Fulham is the club for McKenna. So I'll go for only really pushed by those betting odds, which I know Stu's kind of poo-pooed a little bit, which is fair. But yeah, that's where I'm at. OK, AJ's saying four out of ten, Stu. Where would you put yourself at? And in terms of the past, and we talked about the numerous clubs he's been linked with, what has been the kind of highest out of ten you would be concerned with?

23:42Just as compare and contrast. We've had Brighton, we've had Chelsea, we've had Man United, we've had Celtic, we've had Crystal Palace. I suppose Crystal Palace would be top, given what you've just said. Yeah, I didn't know the fullness of how close that came at the time. It was only kind of subsequently. summer of two years ago I mean there was so much noise around that time wasn't there so I guess that would have been higher probably that would have been more towards a seven or an eight in the early stages of that now I think I'll probably land on about six somewhere like that I think it it changes almost day by day and these situations become you know there's so much noise and so many stories that emerge and it seems to change all the time but i think a six at the moment um yeah you can make solid arguments for and against can't you but i think i'd like to think we're better off for these experiences in a weird way because two years ago there was so much pandemonium wasn't there like if you asked me two years ago where i'm at with with kieran mckenna and a potential exit.

24:52I think maybe the Chelsea job at one point was the one I was the most worried about when he was really linked heavily, even more concerned about that than the Brighton one. And I probably would put that an eight, maybe pushing even a nine with some of the stories that come out. And I think part of it, and part of the reason I've gone quite low is, and I think fans feel the same way. It's almost like, oh, here we go again. We've seen this story before. We've seen it with Celtic recently. remember when we had the whole press turn up at that press conference that drama, we had everything from two years ago, we've heard about Palace and he's still here so I think there's almost a case of just thinking maybe rightly or wrongly you know what, it's fine, this will blow over and I like to think that we're better off for it Excellent, so you reckon McKenna's going to stay AJ?

25:41Forever Thank you i'm only going to bring them in every now and then uh friends let's talk about something else do you know sorry do you know where he is now in terms of longest serving managers what mckenna in in the in the pyramid yeah he's got 10. yeah i'm just trying to have a look at it now i'll just uh because obviously pep's gone um silver was longer so he'd be well in the top 10. i'm just looking at it arteta clough woodman parkey at wrexham barnet manager eddie howe just about edges in by a few days so and then it's it's kieran mckenna followed by paul cook still at chesterfield by the way but he's one of the longest serving managers in there the cycle will end at some point the kieran mckenna love affair with it which will end at some point um hopefully not now i hope i think i feel like in my gut that there's still another chapter to be written in this story and I hope he feels the same um so yeah I'm sure there'll be plenty more to talk and write about this over the coming weeks oh absolutely we're just getting started aren't we but from my point of view knowing how ambitious he is if he can keep Ipswich Town in the Premier League that takes him to a whole new level doesn't it in terms of being able to prove that not only can he take him up he can keep him there so that enhances his stock even more so i reckon he'd probably back himself to be doing that that's what i'd be hoping anyway um as we as we start this summer of speculation etc whereas to improve your stock at full and what have you got to do you've got to go in there and probably sort of have them in europe challenging for europe yeah to be you know it's going to be really difficult i think to improve upon what they've done in the last few seasons um and he'll be taking that into account isn't it won't he you know what is what is success at the next step of the club that he goes to and how realistic is that so there we go anyway um he's not even been offered it yet or you know or anything like that this is all hypothetical that doesn't matter stew come on talking about it right then um we've already talked briefly about the retained this we know a couple of things that are going to happen um from that obviously we know connor chaplin's departed tears in the eye we also know that someone else has moved on maybe not so much tears in the eye arrow murich the great arrow murich experiment um which lasted a season is over aj um how do you how do you affect on that because when he when he signed what was he 8 million 10 million something like that um he came with a bit of a reputation for making clangers but equally making some brilliant stops and that's basically what we got wasn't it unfortunately for him the clangers came very early in his career and that made it hard for him to kind of recover from yeah there's a weird mixture of different feelings here i feel sorry for him in a way because obviously he misses opening day who knows if he does get that missing opening day from what we can understand was his own fault i think um but because he misses that who who knows what could have happened he could have had a great game he could have made excellent saves against liverpool and front of a home crowd on opening day maybe helped get a result who knows um and then kind of sets the positive mindset in the eyes of the fans.

28:59Instead, his debut comes at the Etihad and a game where Town go 1-0 up. And he has a bit of a mare against his former club. It's not one of his worst ones by any means, but it wasn't a great performance. And again, that first impression. First impressions are important in football, aren't they? Especially with the nature of how fans are. And then from there, I think that his confidence dropped and the belief from the fans dropped as well. and we have all of the incidents that we've gone through. Stu's done a really good piece looking back at his time at Pullman Road and detailed the good stuff like Brighton, like Spurs and the bad stuff like Brentford, like Bournemouth, like Southampton and a couple of others.

29:39And ultimately, as you say, the bad stuff outweighed the good and when you are a team that's battling relegation, you need to have a reliable figure at the back that you can depend upon, that you know isn't going to make mistakes and it is part of the game, but not to the extent that they have, not where Premier League attackers punish you in the way that they do, like Erling Haaland did in that second game, the one that the Yeti had. So things that he could have done better, things that he's been unfortunate with, ultimately it wasn't the right fit. It wasn't the right profile. It was a recruitment mistake from an Ipswich perspective.

30:18The whole goalkeeper.com link up to do this, the data-driven stuff. I'm not too sure about going too heavy on goalkeepers and data, to be honest. I think it works much better for an outfield perspective. And yeah, it didn't work out. He went and has had a really strong season in Italy, where now it's flipped and the good stuff's outweighed the bad stuff. They've got him at quite a good fee, even though it looks like he's not going to stay and they might be able to flip him for profit this summer. one that I think we can all draw a line under and move on now that this has been sorted on a permanent basis.

30:56What do you make of the manner of the departure, Stu? Because he obviously had a decent season at Sassarolo and then said that he didn't want to stay there and yet he's been sent there. So what do you make of that? Yeah, it feeds into the Aramuric personality, doesn't it? He's not someone that's sort of afraid to speak his mind at times. We never spoke to him during his time at Ipswich, but he's come out and spoken during Kosovo camps. He says, I won't be continuing my journey at Sassuolo for personal reasons. And then they trigger the option to buy clause. I would imagine, reading between the lines, to probably flip a quick profit on him because clubs like Juventus and Valencia are reportedly sniffing around.

31:43So fair play to them. They took the gamble on taking him on loan, so they deserve to get a bit of reward out of it. And thankfully, Ipswich have kind of limited the damage. I say limited the damage. I mean, somewhere between£8 and£10 million they signed him for. They've sold him for around€7 million. What's that,£6 million? So we're talking about a£3 million loss, and he only played 19 games. So you start to do the maths and work out what he cost per game in there. that's still a there's still uh some wasted money isn't it but um law of averages you're not going to get them all right um i still think ipswich have got more right than wrong in the transfer market across the piece if you look over certainly over the course of last three or four years um hopefully they've learned some lessons um and it's going to be fascinating whether they go down and sign a new number one route this summer well you brought me on to the next question i don't know if you want to take that phone call if it's breaking news, but I'll move on to AJ.

32:46Christian Walton did incredibly well last season. He took the opportunity with both hands. We've seen a glimpse of him already in the Premier League, where he generally performed well. Do it for its town need to go out and sign a new number one? They've also got Alex Palmer, obviously, we saw make some great saves in the Premier League. The first thing to say is, I think, in the pecking order going into next season, Christian Walton will be above Alex Palmer, and I think that that could then lead to an Alex Palmer departure in some sort. This summer would be how I'd see it because he came in for the Premier League, was expecting to be number one, obviously falls out due to injury and now that he's kind of down the pecking order, he's not been a number two for quite a while now and I think that he'd have a lot of championship interest and I've seen a lot of West Brom fans quite keen to have him back so I would imagine there's a good chance that he might want to go and play regularly somewhere else and if that's the case then tam will need another goalkeeper regardless so it's a case of saying do you want to go and get that established number one choice or do you want to go get someone to support christian walton and it's a difficult one because christian walton's obviously had a brilliant season in the championship having played fewer games than the most goalkeepers he's almost got the most clean sheets in the division granted helped by the the rock-solid defence in front of him.

34:06On the flip side, he's not that kind of big-name established number one, is he, in the same way that you might look at other clubs at the level. Take Fulham. You've got Bernd Leno, who's former Arsenal, Germany international. Christian Walton isn't that. Maybe that's a harsh way of looking at it, and I suppose that's the balance. Do you want to reward the hard work from Christian Walton, what he's done, give him a proper chance in the Premier League that he's only really had for, what, a couple of months, midway through the last campaign? Or do you need to be ruthless and say, look, I know you've worked hard, your opportunity could come again, but we're going to go out there and we're going to spend 15, 20 million pounds on a goalkeeper, someone who's excellent with the ball at his feet and has a great save record in whatever top league in Europe or the Premier League or whatever.

34:57I'd lean more towards that ruthless side, to be honest, which feels really harsh. But I would be very happy if it was Christian Moulton as number one next year. But yeah, I'd say more that side mark. Splash the cash. AJ's making it rain. Every position this summer, he's just going, yep, 20 million. I have said to you before, every position apart from left wing, as things stand, is a position. So I'd look to be strengthening either as a first choice or as a backup, every single one. Okay. Stewie, I don't want to ask you about Walton, because my view is that he's earned the right to be given a shot in the Premier League.

35:34And I think from what we've seen of him, I think he'd be all right in the Premier League. That was strengthened by reading your bit, one of your unit reviews about the goalkeepers. You made an excellent point in terms of the importance of set pieces in football generally. And Walton's, one of his great strengths is his command of the box, his ability to come and get the ball, which for me makes that even more, you know, give him a chance sort of thing. Where do you stand on it? Yeah, how often do we see now watching the Premier League from afar last season the ridiculous crowding of goalkeepers on the line at corners and goalkeepers need to be able to deal with that and I think that is one of Christian Morton's great strengths.

36:18He's go-go gadget arms when he comes and plucks the ball out of the sky. that said Aaron Mürich was a sizable human being and that was meant to be one of his strengths his decision making let him down when to come when not to come but I would have confidence in Christian Walton another reason to stick with him is that he's got the trust and the love of the fans don't underestimate that we talked about the psychological factor of Mürich and maybe people kind of turning against him and maybe some of that jitteriness transferring to the players in front of him. Walton's got a relationship with some of the players in front of him and there's a good chance that, you know, certainly Daro Shea and every chance that Leif Davis remains at left back and Furlong gets a chance at right back and maybe even Kipre and Greaves are a part of a defensive unit.