KOA x NTT20: Ali Maxwell from Not The Top 20 on Ipswich Town and the Championship

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0:23hello everyone and welcome to a pretty special AOA podcast episode we're doing a crossover today kings of anglia and not the top 20 it's just down back in the championship and that means that we had to talk to someone with the expert knowledge of the EFL he's been covering the EFL for a long old time he's going to tell me how long in a minute because he'll know for sure Ali Maxwell from NotTheTop20. How are you? Hey, mate. Yeah, really good. Thank you. Really, really good. Used to be that the summer months were time off. Now, with our quite intense in-depth transfer coverage, it's now not that when it comes to NTT20 land, but also do the England pod as well.

1:06And this summer has been brilliant, full of youth tournaments in June, obviously the under-21s, which we won. and now the Lionesses in Switzerland. So I'm really busy from a work point of view. It's kind of still nice to have a bit of a break from covering 36 games every single Monday, which I love to do, but after 42 weeks can get a little tiring. So in good spirits, in high spirits. And yeah, I don't know. I think everyone has a different feeling about when the last season finishes and the new season starts. But for me, it was Monday, the 7th of July. That was when I got to my desk and I had the feeling that, yeah, last season's done and now we look forward with what are we, four weeks away or something like that.

1:49So great to be joining yourself, talking Ipswich, talking EFL. Let's get into it. Yeah, we've brought you right back in from your live show as well that you had over the weekend. It's been a hectic few weeks out of what sounds like a pretty hectic year all in all. Let's look at the championship then because Ipswich weren't involved last year. we originally maybe thought at the start of the season that's good we get out of the championship out of the EFL into the promised land the premier league and then like a lot of teams found out that's not great it's not that easy it is a difficult place to be so while Ipswich have been gone 2024-25 you've kind of drawn the line under it so let's go back one more time we've had um well let's go through it now Leeds have gone up as champions Burnley have gone up we've had Sunderland who've gone through in a really dramatic uh kind of playoff campaign there and And then Luton, Argyle and Cardiff dropping down.

2:39What was it like covering the championship last season? Yeah, it's fun, actually, having had, what, six weeks or so to kind of let the dust settle. And I guess looking back, the top of the division was not as exciting as it was when you guys went up the year before. Partly because in your promotion season felt like there were four really strong contenders that did battle for the majority of the season. And there were loads of twists and turns and loads of big games and big results and dramatic moments between those four teams, of which Ipswich were ultimately victorious, along with Leicester. Here we had three, well, we started off the season with four really good teams and Sunderland fell away pretty dramatically in January.

3:25The beauty of the EFL is that the playoffs still give you a second chance and they managed to win them somehow, despite having lost their last five games of the regular season. That was a remarkable story, really. And then we had three and then Sheffield United kind of fell away just a bit too early for anything to have been considered hugely dramatic. So there was still loads of stuff to be, you know, loads of storylines for us, even within that group of teams. You know, Leeds were a brilliant team who dominated pretty much every game, played some sparkling attacking football, but they had a really poor goalkeeper.

3:59Normally, I don't like to boil down analysis to something as simple as, oh, there's a bad goalie and he's costing us points, or our striker can't hit a barn door. But in this instance, it was impossible to ignore that Elan Melier's mistakes cost Leeds points in games that they dominated. And then it was in such stark contrast to Burnley, who went up in second, also on 100 points, who only conceded 16 goals in 46 games, the likes of which we've never seen before. and I imagine we will never see before. And although they were a good defence, and if you look at XG conceded as one barometer for that, that they were strong, probably not as good as Leeds in a funny way, but they had a goalkeeper that will probably go for 50 million quid this summer in James Trafford who saved so many goals above expected and helped carry them to 100 points.

4:50And we had Leeds scoring in injury time to win the title. So there was some drama as there always is at the top, but it didn't feel quite as flavoursome, I guess, as maybe the season before. We had an insane relegation battle, which seems to be increasingly the case. And my theory is that the Championship's worst teams have just got better as a unit. I think generally teams make better decisions. They build squads better. I think the average manager quality, even towards the bottom of the division, is really high. And so I think we're getting these intense relegation battles where sometimes the teams that go down don't feel like really bad teams.

5:27Luton being the obvious one, they got the third most points in the league in the last 12 games of the season. They were one of the best teams and they went down because almost every team among that group changed their manager. Almost every one of them got a little, you know, a little uplift in terms of performances and points. So it was a very high points tally that went down 49 Luton got. And that was, you know, very, very dramatic as well. So as always, kind of loads and loads of excitement that, you know, the mid table's never that exciting, is it really? That's the nature of it. But it felt like Bristol City made the playoffs in sixth.

6:01And with respect to them and they had a good season, they didn't feel like a very strong sixth place team, if that kind of makes sense. So, yeah, Sunderland and Coventry City, probably the strongest of the non-parachute payment teams. And that's, yeah, that's how I'd package it up. your focus is of course EFL and it's not just of obviously the championship you've got so much to look at did you have the opportunity to to watch or follow much of Ipswich in the Premier League because I guess they've made some interesting signings last summer with bringing in players from the EFL you look at the likes of Sammy Smoddix and Jacob Greaves there's Jadon Philogene that came in midway through quite a lot of these kind of really big name uh championship players Have you been able to kind of watch too much of them in the Premier League?

6:45Sadly, no. To be honest, I barely watch any live Premier League games, Ipswich or otherwise. And on top of that, I don't then, like I do with the EFL, go back and study all of the games and make sure I understand what's happened and what the main talking points are and keep track of the sort of narratives of all clubs. So I can't really offer any insight that would add anything to what you guys already saw. i guess you know looking at it this morning kind of intrigued by the home and away split in terms of picking up more points away from home winning more games away from home losing significantly fewer as well that's that's the sort of thing that piques my interest that i'll i'll delve into maybe a bit more ahead of the one to 24s but um no i'm i'm i didn't see much many of those games i actually think possibly the first two were the ones that i saw uh watched the most of the liverpool and man city game so i was going crazy when smoddick scored uh at the etihad and that was pretty much the last time i watched a full ipswich game yeah it's just been a roller coaster since then but unfortunately one that has mainly gone downhill rather than that um let's let's look at ahead of next season then because ipswich come into next season as the title favorites with the bookies it was kind of something that i thought they would carry in given the nature of the squad i know you haven't watched a lot of them last season do you think that's a fair tag do you think that's kind of where your early thoughts would be with it such in that kind of conversation yeah for sure I am the starter for me is I can't believe that Kieran McKenna is still Ipswich manager and will take them into another championship season I'm absolutely buzzing about that from a neutral point of view I love Kieran McKenna pretty much everything about him as a manager I really really admire and respect him so much and I loved watching Ipswich play particularly in that championship season and so you know i'm really interested to see how if at all he is different how if at all uh the team differently the team plays um and how they handle the tag of you know favorites this is something that luton town seems to struggle with this idea that you know the momentum of the double promotion that you had is obviously gone it's a completely different challenge uh the way that the other teams in the division are looking at ipswich is completely changed no no more is it neutral's choice like god this is a great story they're taking on leicester and leeds and southampton the big guns now it's you are there to be shot at and you know that comes with really different challenges i i think that Ibswich and McKenna will be very well placed to understand them and to overcome them.

9:36So I'm really excited about that. And I think just, you know, clearly there haven't been any major signings made so far. And apart from David Button, of course, and, you know, third and fourth choice goalkeepers are crucial, as we know, particularly for team morale. But I'm, it's a funny one with me. We do these transfer bulletins on ntt20.com. We cover every single EFL transfer and not just a line on it, but we try and provide detail on every player, well-researched, and some comment on the context of the squad and why they've been signed, or maybe sometimes why we're not sure they've been signed.

10:10But I also aggressively feel that making transfers, particularly by the 8th of July, is not a blueprint for success. It's not a sort of silver bullet. Clubs that are making signings are doing so generally because they have to. quite often it's because they've lost players that were crucial players they have gaps to fill and in Ipswich's case it just feels like there's not the case to the same extent and you've got a squad of mostly excellent championship players who already know how to play at this level for the manager that you have that's something that's also differs a lot of the clubs including the two you've come down with I've got new managers new ideas new training sessions new way of playing way more up in the air i personally lean towards the continuity that you guys have um but i kind of you know i don't actually think there are that many similarities with luton but i will just flag that i felt the same with luton last year i was like oh they're really you know they understand the situation they're not panicking they're sticking with the manager they're sticking with the squad they're just going to be calm and they'll be strong and they'll hit the ground running and obviously the complete opposite happened so that's kind of the beauty of it because who knows what will happen i know there's a lot of ipswich fans that have that same concern having watched luton with ipswich when you look at the recruitment that they've done the eye personally feels well has kind of led towards this it's almost been in a way recruitment in the premier league that's been done with an eye on relegation we can have a bit of a championship super team you have that same kind of feeling when you go through and you look at a jacob Greaves who's in the championship team of the year Smoddix who scored 27 with Blackburn Jack Clark Jack Clark um Benet for example um others who've come in Alex Palmer golden glove winner is there that same kind of feeling is there maybe even a different feeling to what you saw with Luton in terms of the personnel yeah it's a good question I think um yeah I when I looked at the squad laid out this morning i probably until i got to the front line i didn't necessarily have the feeling of like this is a you know we often use lines like championship all-stars because they're just good lines to use people remember them um rival fans remember them and then like to you know chirp them back when things don't go well that sort of thing it's it's great for content um i don't outside of the you know the number 10s the wide players striker in the in the well Hurst, I know, is an excellent player, but I'm not actually sure you can call him a championship all-star at this point because he doesn't have...

12:46We know that he is likely to explode at some point based on his profile and how much McKenna likes him. But he hasn't really done that yet. So I'm not sure you can necessarily say that about him. When it comes to Clark and Philogene, absolutely. Again, Hutchinson and Smoddix, absolutely. And then, yeah, I mean, O'Shea, I think, is tremendous and excellent. Greaves I like a lot I gather he didn't have the easiest time last season but I would expect him to look absolutely excellent from opening day onwards not that sold on the options at right back at the moment and obviously a little light in the centre of the park as I said I didn't see that many games last season so I'm assuming that Sam Morsi will continue to be an absolutely excellent operator with and without the ball but at 33 at some point that will start to turn the other way I've never been massively convinced even when Jack Taylor signed, that he was necessarily of the quality at that point to be challenging towards the top of the championship.

13:45But two seasons playing under McKenna and learning and growing, I'm hoping to see a Taylor that looks stronger and better than I've seen him before. So, yeah, I think it's a good squad. It's not quite Championship All-Stars outside of the front line. And it's also different because the teams that come down having been in the Premier League for longer, Southampton Leicester sure Leeds when they came down they do tend to their squads do tend to have a lot of players in who are like quite often foreign players international players players who you can be confident are on an unbelievable wage and players that sometimes they've paid like 20 30 40 million quid for because that's the going rate for most Premier League signings and so those squads they tend to dazzle a little bit more just in terms of like the exoticism of the names and that can come with issues as well right because it's it's i'm using a bit of a stereotype here but the the assumption is that players who've joined a premier league club from overseas are less likely to want to stick around in the championship than guys who've come up from the championship and kind of this is probably the the um the nation in which they're going to play their football so they understand dropping down might be worthwhile so there's things that i think are positives and there's work that I'd like to see done hopefully work to be done because you've not really had the opportunity to cover Ipswich on your your transfer stuff on your uh not the top 20 coverage of that which I use all the time brilliant um exceptional thing to just go through and be able to have a strong insight of everything going on across the football leagues I really highly recommend signing up and go and have a look at that um I know you've done a little podcast before kind of looking at some of the major signings across championship league one league two a few more we've seen in the last few days they're kind of two or three that stand out from what you've seen elsewhere in the championship yeah i mean the championship's always slower um i've got the spreadsheet in front of me there's been 60 championship signings there's been 115 League One signings and another 120 in League Two.

16:00So championships always, you know, the contracts are longer, fewer players leave on frees, there's fewer gaps in the squad to fill. There's much more examples of needing to get players out before you get players in, things of that nature. And, you know, transfer fees are paid routinely, whereas in League One and League Two, you're generally looking at free transfers and loans in the main. So it's always a bit slower in the championship. There are a couple of teams who've gone early, shall we say. Norwich have brought in quite a few players, which may have been noted, but when three of them are goalkeepers, I don't think it really counts, does it?

16:31I think Harry Darling is kind of one of the premium free transfers available at the level. And I think we'll add a lot to their team. I don't know much about Medic, the chap they've signed for in my axe. And Jacob Wright, I think, is unfortunately for Ipswich fans likely to look like a really, really nice signing. looks like a really quality operator young English number six in that kind of Spanish style mold that we famously don't produce very many of and looked really comfortable immediately slotting straight into the team they've got him for I think two and a half mil probably with some add-ons so I think that probably looks pretty good and then Birmingham are the I guess the kind of the big sharks at the moment it seems coming up from League One and you know they are literally just trying to replicate the Ipswich blueprint.

17:18They hired a first-time manager from Spurs in Chris Davies. They won the league with 111 points. So more than Ipswich achieved in their promotion under McKenna. They did so completely dominating the ball and territory and just suffocating the opposition completely. They weren't actually that exciting to watch in attack, but they've added, what, probably five or six players that they would expect to be started straight away. Two premium loanies, James Beadle, the Brighton keeper, who was under 21's goalie when we won the Euros just now. I was doing karaoke with James Beadle's brother this time, about 10 days ago, in Bratislava.

17:55So there's a little one for you. Tommy Doyle, who I think is going to be excellent on loan from Wolves. And then they've signed two Japanese players. One of them is Kyogo, a striker who scored a lot of goals for Celtic over the last few seasons and then went to Rennes in January for 10 million euros. Started one game, played an hour and then never started again. Wasn't injured. There was a change of manager. New manager just didn't fancy the new 10 million euros signing, which is a very strange one. He's now pitched up at Birmingham. And Kyogo's interesting because he's 30. So I paid between four and 10 million euros for him with add-ons.

18:31You never really know these days. It's a pretty big outlay. He's like a small poacher, number nine. He's not the championship striker prototype of the current era, which is more along the lines of your George Hurst's, right? Your Liam DeLapps, those big guys who can run channels and bounce off centre-backs and use their physicality and shoot well and all that sort of stuff. Kyogo's like just there to poach. And I think playing for Celtic, who scored 2.75 goals per game over the last four seasons, someone like that's just going to hoover up chances and get three big chances a game. In the Championship, I think it might be a little bit different.

19:09So I'm kind of interested to see how that one goes. they signed Bright-Ossay Samuel who used to play for QPR when he was younger, spent the last three and a half four years with Fenerbahce he's now a right back he's kind of in the Ogbena mould where he's got the incredible athleticism to just dominate the flank up and down and Damari Gray who's just come back from a year in Saudi where he didn't get a goal or an assist, so Birmingham are making quite a lot of signings they're going to be very punchy, very bullish they are going to expect to be in the top six immediately. So they're a big disruptor this season, like Ipswich were two years back.

19:46I think it's really good for the league. But also the way they go about their business, I think it's going to rub opposition fans up the wrong way and people are going to really want to beat Birmingham. So, yeah, I think transfer market-wise, they probably stand out at the moment. We're definitely going to come back to Birmingham in a minute because I think they're a very interesting team in the course, Ipswich's opening game at St Andrews. I want to kind of go through some of the big names in the championship kind of group some of these together to make it easier in terms of those that you would expect at the top half we've got Leicester Southampton coming down a bit of kind of an unknown feeling around them some new managers one of them doesn't have a manager yet and Sheffield United will put into that category as well having missed out there's still a strong parachute payment club but a new boss in Ruben Seas there With those three, do you expect them to all be towards the top?

20:38Could we see a similar kind of promotion battle to the one when it's which were last in the championship with those real heavy hitters? Yeah, I think we should assume that we will see a similar promotion battle. It's kind of like the last two seasons mixed together, I guess, in that Sheffield United are obviously still there from last season, having not gone up, having finished third in a three-horse race. Leicester, I don't know. You and probably fellow Ipswich fans will be in a better position right now to tell me about Leicester because, as discussed, didn't see much of them in the Premier League.

21:15It feels like it's been such a shambles there in terms of the way that the club has been run, the flitting between managers, the battles with the EFL and potentially the Premier League as well in terms of financial restrictions. and I just, I actually think it's quite sad to see what's happened to the club that with what they did in 2015-16 became, I think, and rightly so, like every neutral football fan's favourite club for a couple of years there because they were so fun to watch and what they achieved was remarkable. I think it's really sad what's happened there. I don't have any inside knowledge about whether they will receive a points deduction and if they do, whether that will be minus two like Sheffield United last season or minus 15, minus 20.

22:05I really, I don't know anything about that, but that's obviously going to be a big factor. So I don't know. I don't know who their manager is going to be. I think maybe Gary O 'Neill is one of the front runners. Chris Wilder as well mentioned. It looks like, you know, there's a way of looking at it where it looks like complete carnage. I do remind myself that Scott Parker was only hired by Burnley on the 6th of July last year. they ended up with 100 points conceding 16 goals it is possible for a manager to come in around about now and still oversee a promotion like it's not the case that that just precludes any success and the squad clearly has loads of really good players in it as well and so you just don't know how many of them are sticking around how many they can keep need to sell what their ability is to sign players absolutely no idea with Leicester at the moment and with Southampton, I'm a bit warmer on them.

23:01I don't know for sure that Will still is going to be exceptional, but I just have a gut feeling that he will be really, really good. And I think he seems like a really good manager for modern championship football in that I think his kind of profile, having not been a player five, 10 years ago, was sometimes held up as a bit of an issue within the dressing room. Like he's never played the game before. What does he know uh i now think that actually with young players in particular the current generation of footballers there's no issue on that front and they just really expect someone who's going to come in and be a world-class coach and do training sessions to the world class uh be a good bloke as well and i think with mckenna we've seen that um and i think we'll still might be in a similar mold um so i expect them to be really strong um teams always come down you know people will say they could have been the worst team in the Premier League last season.

23:53And you can look a lot into the points tallies of the three relegated teams and what that might mean heading into the new season. I try not to get too in the weeds with that because so often within a couple of weeks of the season starting, it doesn't look the way that you expect. So I expect Southampton to be pretty strong. And Sheffield United, I don't know really. I don't know. Big call to swap Wilder for Sayas. I think if you buy a football club and you want to run it in a certain way, it's understandable that you would want to move away from a manager in the Chris Wilder mould and towards one in the Ruben Sayas mould.

24:33That does not mean for a moment it's the right thing to do in the short term. And so I do think there could be some real tension if things don't start well. Sheffield United are in a position where the expectation has to be that they challenge for promotion. that they can't really they're not in a position to suddenly accept getting worse than last season I don't I don't think that's how the fans will see it and they're one of few teams that still have a little bit of parachute money so there's there's a bit of like urgency as I see it um but they're making such a big change and the squad has been built fairly strongly in Chris Wilder's image with what he wants I just think that could be a bit awkward and I think the fans are going to have not a lot of patience and might start using it as a stick to beat the new ownership with.

25:20And when things get a bit like that, it can hamper the team's performance and make things harder for them. So I think it's open for Ipswich if they hit the ground running. I don't think there's loads to fear, shall we say. Be a fascinating start as well. Southampton, the first home game. Sheffield United, the first game back after the September international break. So it's a strong start against some heavy hitters. And of course, Birmingham, one of those. Let's have a look at the teams that have come up, or at least two of them with respect for Charlton. I probably don't expect them to be in the promotion mix.

25:54So we're going to have a focus on Birmingham and Wrexham here. They've got the big spenders tag a little bit, having come up. Wrexham really going with that pathway to get up the leagues. Birmingham, we've touched on a little bit already. Do they feel like two teams are ready to push and go again to try and reach the Premier League? Yeah, I think Birmingham are. Within the NTT20 team, you'll have a decent range of how bullish people are on them. And as I kind of mentioned, I think some of the signings, they're quite big names. In Kyogo's case, it's a decent transfer fee for a 30-year-old striker who you'd expect to hit the ground running.

26:38But I still think they'll be really strong. I think that there's just something about the way that the club is carrying itself at the moment that definitely rubs people up the wrong way. But I also think helps build confidence, maintain confidence and play in a way that I think will lend itself to winning games and picking up points, even if they were in the one last season. So it'll be interesting. I think stylistically, well, there are quite a few parallels with Ipswich, aren't there? stylistically it's an interesting one where uh i felt that the way that ipswich played in league one was kind of the decision was almost made for you guys to have a lot of the ball and basically a lot of the games look pretty similar just you know trying to assert your dominance and break down a deep block and then when you came up to the championship and teams weren't willing to pay quite as much respect i think that suited ipswich in many ways because you were able to play through you know much quicker uh attack at such speed when you know center backs bouncing into hearst bouncing back to the midfielder out wide really nice dynamic attacking play making use of the space that you're given with Ipswich sorry with Birmingham I think that the way that they play which is very high possession high territory slow much slower in the final third I think that's by design I think that's how they want to play and I don't necessarily think that's a great fit for championship football right now so it might be that they do look a bit more like Ipswich they do change a bit more than i think and they do play with quicker transitions at the heart of how they attack and frankly they do have some good players for that stansfield uh being one of them um but i'm just not 100 sure exactly how dominant they'll be from the off uh i do expect them to be challenging for the top six i don't expect wrexham to be challenging for the top six um their story is incredible they have done something that no club has ever done before and won three straight promotions it's it's incredible i love it um but i think the very fact of of them winning three straight promotions ham hamstrings them a bit is that phrase they are a little hamstrung because they've done so they've done that by building really strong squads for the level as they've gone up and because they've moved up so quickly they're in a situation where at least half of the squad is just clearly not championship starter material but they're paying them so well and they're on such long contracts and League One and League Two clubs do not have the ability to buy them for any sort of transfer fee and frankly they don't have the ability to pay them anywhere near what Wrexham are paying them you know this is this is using using very general terms but they're finding it hard to shift these players and until they shift these players they can't get other players in really so not too many transfers for them and even the ones that they have signed like Ryan Hardy on a these aren't necessarily quite of the level that Birmingham seem to be going with.

29:34So the style of play is very rudimentary. Phil Parkinson's style, very effective, not very easy on the eye, a lot of direct passing, onus on being very strong within both boxes and not worrying too much about what happens between them. And I think that might have a slight limit on how they can impose themselves and win games. But I don't think they're going to be relegation fodder. I just think they quite clearly need a bit more time, I think, to get to grips with the league. I don't want to take away too much from what you guys are going to do with your 1-24s which will come out I think it'll be the week before the season starts and that kind of build up period around then so I'm not going to take away too much from that I do want to ask and I'll obviously give you the freedom to change this when you go through and do your 1-24s don't have to stick with these but as we sit here today recording 10.37 on the 8th of July you have that kind of feeling of kind of on any other teams a surprise package in there I look through and I see, I mean, Coventry always stand out as one of the best of the rest, for example.

30:33I like what QPR have done. I like Kwame Poku. Are there any teams when you look through the championship outside of the ones that are expected to be there, that you think, well, you know what, they could have a good go this year? Yeah, my strong stances only ever come after quite an intense period of research, which I have not got through yet. So I'm not going to be too strong or anything. I'm really looking forward to watching Coventry play again this season they were very clearly the best of the rest if you take Sunderland out the equation and so in that sense you'd hope that they'd be challenging for promotion again the way that the club has operated over the last few years has been really smart and they're now in a position where they're able to sign players like Kane Kessler-Hayden for£5 million that's probably in advance of them selling the right-back Van Evick for probably double that, probably to the Premier League.

31:28And that kind of sums them up over the last few years. They have reached this level because they've been very, very smart. They've traded players really well. The likes of Harmer, Jokeres, Van Evick, but also a lot of younger British players like Bobby Thomas, the centre-back, Ellis Sims. They've just done everything about as well as you can do, I think, from a position of where they came from. and I'm looking forward to seeing them. And I think before last season, I predicted them to finish third. So them finishing fifth was certainly not overachieving in my eyes. It's what I broadly expected.

32:06So I can't see any particular reason why that would change massively ahead of next season. And then out of the rest, it's really difficult to say. As I mentioned, I try not to put too much into two signings before the 8th of July. I really don't think by the time the season starts, and certainly not by the time we get to the 1st of September, I think you can risk building opinions based on June transfer business, most of which is not irrelevant, but it's only a tiny part of the picture. So it wouldn't be transfers necessarily that's making me hot or cold on any particular team. You've got clubs like West Brom and Middlesbrough and Norwich, who will have the expectation that they will finish higher than the 9th, 10th and 13th that they finished last season.

32:53Not sure sitting here right now that for any of those three, I feel strongly that they definitely will. But that might change after I've kind of got a better overview of the league as a whole. And then, you know, Bristol City, Blackburn, Millwall, who finished 6th, 7th and 8th. Inherently, as a fan, you'd be finishing in those positions and you'd be thinking, well, next season, same again. you never think you're going to drop off and you certainly wouldn't want that to happen. And those teams all massively overachieved. I think it's fair to say Bristol City have lost their manager, Liam Manning to Norwich.

33:24He was kind of the one being credited with their rise. Blackburn are just a bit of a weird team overall in that in terms of the ownership, really terrible relationship with the fans, not got a lot of money to play with. It's kind of astounding that they finished seventh in the first place and repeating that will be very, very difficult. and then Millwall who have changed a lot actually since it switch went up that would be a team where I can maybe shed some light and and give some insight like since you guys went up uh the club has changed massively they very sadly almost exactly two years ago their um their owner died uh in an accident and his son um has taken over and is running things differently the John berrelson um the late owner he was very much about being solid um being loyal to to managers and players and building a kind of a sturdy squad small squad of older players who just had they had a high floor right that's why they've they've not been relegated despite being one of the teams that you know you wouldn't consider being one of the bigger teams they've done really well the the sun's way of operating things is is a bit more um risky i guess like higher higher risk Kyra Ward they have signed almost exclusively 18 to 23 year olds um and lots of them and they've started to change the way that they play so it's a little bit less 4-4-2 long diags to a big man and play from there a little less reliant on set pieces a little more dynamic and they obviously did really well last season finishing eighth and in Alex Neil they have a manager that I personally think is excellent and very underrated so um they're a really interesting team just in that They seem to be almost trying to go down the kind of Brentford path.

35:09And I don't like saying that because I think Brentford and Brighton get referenced too often by Championship and League One clubs as a way of trying to describe the journey they're trying to go on. But I actually think in terms of what Millwall are doing is quite similar to what Brentford were trying to do about 10 years ago, which is sell one player for six. well, they sold Essay to Palace for£12 million, buy three players for£3 million, and then sell one or two of those for£10 million, buy five more players. And in doing that, in theory, over the next few years, you end up with a stronger team and you keep building, a bit like Coventry have.

35:45So yeah, Millwall, just one of the teams to keep an eye out, maybe from a neutral's point of view. Like it. I want to end with an interesting question. We started off talking about Ipswich, we'll bring it back to finish with Ipswich. And when I look at the teams towards the top ends, we spoke about a bit before, Southampton, Leicester in particular, Sheffield United as well. They feel like clubs where there's so much change going on, both in terms of the managers, sometimes off the pitch, the players as well. Ipswich are going to come down with the manager that took them up. They're one of, I think, four clubs who've got a manager with promotion on the CV, the only one who's achieved promotion to the Premier League with the team that he's currently at.

36:24When you look at that and then look at the squads, which probably won't change too much and compare it to other teams that you would expect to be towards the top do you think that that consistency can play a big part for Ipswich is that the kind of thing that would stand out for you in a championship campaign knowing that this is the same team that they've had now for 12 months and you can kind of build towards achieving something yeah I think so as what's difficult here is I definitely do think so there just seems to be in football and particularly after relegation in football it can be and there are lots of examples of this it can be the case that you lose something whether it's momentum whether it's positive energy whether it's just you know there's there's not enough change and there's there's a sort of staleness if you like football is so short-term it's that we talk about things sometimes going stale off like two or three years which seems insane but then sometimes it does seem to be the case so the only thing that would worry me is if that could be the case at Ipswich I don't expect that it is because I think it's a club um that has you know that kind of understands itself it's a club that understands what it has in Kieran McKenna um I like the way that the squad has been built i don't see too many red flags there um the characters within the squad seem like good strong characters rather than potential troublemakers um the fan base i i expect to be you know quite a nice mixture of supportive as well as ambitious i don't see it necessarily being the case where there'll be loads of like just loads of moans and groans and um entitlement from the off which again might cause can cause problems for the team if they're if it's not clicked straight away i don't see any of those things being massive red flags for ipswich but i wouldn't be doing my job properly if i didn't say that that's been the case before and it has caused teams problems i i can't put my finger on it it's almost impossible to do that from the outside um but if there was any reason why the fact that it is so there's been so much continuity there's a small chance that that in itself could just cause an issue or two um i don't think so personally i'd much rather be in ipswich's position than leicester or southampton's i'd much rather be in ipswich's position than sheffield united so you know clearly as you can tell without without being able to say definitively i'm i'm confident i'm bullish that the lipswitch town will be challenging right at the top of the division again and um i hope and i expect playing some really exciting football, individual players, excelling.