Fulham Focus

Jay La Vie

Join Jmac, Sarge and Wiggo as we look back on foxes, sing about the blues and march on to Ipswich this weekend. We also delve into how many different ways one can say 'Tractor Boys', our favourable cup draws and possible transfers as deadline day looms.

Duration:: 57m
Broadcast on:: 28 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

This is your Fulham Focus podcast. After a solid win against The Fox's last week, we look back on what it can prophesise for our trip to The Tractor Boys this weekend. But our more immediate focus will be the recent win against Jay Stanfield's jealous ex-girlfriend Birmingham City, who have already unretired the shirt #28 as soon as he scored a beauty against them. On the panel today are Luke Sargent, aka Sarge and Matthew Wiggins, aka Wiggle, and I'm Jay Mac aka who cares, "Hell, how are we doing? You first search, how's the family?" Yeah, good thanks mate, everyone's asleep at the moment, which is a really good thing in this house when everyone's tucked up and not making those noise, so. Yeah, lucky man, that's great. I love that. I love that. And you were going to know how are you doing? I'm all right, thanks. Happy the season's back and ready for another year of hopefully some good away days and obviously some great times at the cottage as well. How are you going to balance out the cost though? I mean, I've heard that you're potentially selling the house so you can get tickets for a basis. Yeah, well, you know, you've got to do what you've got to do, right? I mean, it's going to be... I mean, I'm going to be on my way to work switch on Saturday morning as they go live, so I can see myself at stop station just for a fresh ticket master. Everyone is going to be on the train just refreshing and losing their mind, aren't they just sort of like, "What do you mean I'm a fucking 2,000 in the queue?" or whatever. Try 2 million really. Yeah, exactly. Very good. All right, so we've done our loads and how are we? That's all lovely. This is just... I think we'll go straight into Birmingham and then we'll talk a bit about Lester and all that. Not... Yeah, just our general opening fortside, is that not the most convincing win that's been argued, would you say? Well, I think it was actually quite a convincing win, not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that we scored two early goals. We were never really in any danger. I mean, Birmingham pushed a bit, but I really remember Benda having to make any ridiculous saves. They did hit the bar with that free kick, but I think we were in control and we never really got out of second gear, so from that side of things, I think it was quite convincing. We did the job that we needed to do without really over exerting ourselves and probably let the game drift a bit too much in the second half and didn't really ever sort of get hold of it again, but we managed the game. It was game management 101, and I think the back line looked really strong. The midfield didn't have control of the ball, but held their shape really well, which I think is important when you're trying to put together players that played together before, and the front line had done their damage in the first 50 minutes. So I think it was a convincing win, it just wasn't a sort of a blow away win. Yeah, it couldn't have been like, you know, I think everyone, I was expecting it to be a bit like what Crystal Palace was against Norwich last night, like four-nil, thumping them sort of thing, but I mean, maybe just we took our steps a bit easily, especially with two debuts. You don't want to sort of just throw in with one in the deep end, like you see what happened to Matt O'Reilly, Paul Matt O'Reilly for Brighton, you can lose new songs quite quickly if you put too much guess in the tank in these games, I imagine. Yeah, I mean, as you said, you're putting players together that have never played together before. I mean, Anderson's only been back in the club for three days, four days, and is brainstorming for 90 minutes, brilliant seeing back in the film chat, by the way. So yeah, and you've got Cess and Leon playing his first competitive minutes for God knows how long. Yeah, it was just one of those games, right? We knew he was going to change it up, and it was the right thing. Players needed minutes, players needed the rest as well. Got a line up spot on the Thorpe Castan, he was excellent as well. But yeah, I mean, as you guys have said, I mean, two and a half and 15 minutes, it kind of looked comfortable. And then we sort of took our foot off the gas, really, but that's not to take anything away from Birmingham. I actually thought they were pretty good, brilliant, actually, really. Some of the football they played was exceptional. It was just the lack of quality in terms of finishing, really, that let them down, ultimately, that is why they are where they are, you know, I mean, the guys scored our second goal, got 13 goals last season, right? And they still went down. So they didn't score enough, ultimately, that's what they needed to be able to get out of League One. And I think they will. Like it may have been our second team, but take nothing away from them. They played some really, really good stuff. And do you know what? They gave us a game, even if we were sort of set off a bit. They gave us a game, and I think their fans are pretty happy with that. So yeah, fair play to them. Yeah, fair play. I think there's something else I noticed about this game, Sarge, is just, it shows you, I know some of the second team as we go says in this game will actually be incorporated into the first team probably very soon, but it shows how much depth we have with these signings we've got now. I mean, we've actually got a whole different team we can put out and rest on the other. It's really encouraging to see. And I'll go on to say that we haven't really spoken about the new signings of Burger and Anderson, but just my next section here says, you know, stand out player moments or stand out players that you thought, and I guess we have to come to Anderson because he looks so good to see him back in a Fulham shirt, his lovely long locks, he's so handsome, it's great. Just your thoughts, basically, Sarge, on his appearance and what you think he's going to be for us in the long term. I mean, that assist for Jay Stansfield was very, very replicant of previous sort of work he's done for us and for Palace. Yeah, he says lovely long locks is lovely long ball as well. It was brilliant that he switched over to Stansfield, and yeah, we've seen that before. I remember it reminded me of when we played Liverpool and Anfield during the Covid season and we beat them and he just kept pinging that ball out to Lookman on the left. Yeah, it was very similar. It's just a perfect ball, spot to get early, perfect weight on it, and then Stansfield did the rest. And I think he is going to probably be, well, I think Smith Rowe will be the defining signing of the season for us. I think Anderson may go down as probably the one that makes us the most solid. He's probably going to be the most consistent of the new players that come in. He'll, across the season, I think he'll get a regular seven out of ten performance from him, if not more, and he actually may prove to be the most important signing in the sense that he just provides us with that solidity at the back that he gives us a base to build from that I think our other centre backs don't give us at the moment. I think when you look at the depth of the squad now, we've come so far from that game that we were all at Crawley a few years ago at this same stage of the Cup. That team that played that night, it was a lot of youngsters in there. It was very much an under's team, whereas this wasn't at all. The only under player that came in was Josh King, and we're expecting big things from him, and he came off the bench and handled himself really well. But everybody in that team has a shout for being a first-team player at Premier League Cup, I think when you look at the way that we played, it wasn't exceptional. But despite the fact that we weren't out our best, we still coasted to a fairly comfortable victory. And that says a lot about the quality and the score and the depth of the score at the moment, I think. Yeah. Jay Stansfield was, I mean, he looked good. I mean, I don't think we talked about this in the group already. It's too early to say he's going to start against Ipswich, but just from the Anderson Assist, just the way he composed himself and took that goal, I know it's against a league one side. It does make one quite excited, doesn't it? And good to see that he can play on that left wing, because I can tell that he's obviously not that sort of striker that Marcus Silverwood favored in the middle. Yeah. I mean, he's had a couple of years out online, and he's been good, right? Birmingham fans love him. They were sad they didn't keep him. But yeah, really well-taken goal. That was, seemed like, an experienced player that took that goal. You can tell he's been had a couple of years of first-team football, which is really good. And ultimately, you know, that helps him prove his case to Silver, right? I mean, we all know that we're looking for a winger, and we probably do need one as well. But that's not to say that, you know, Stan'sfield isn't in with a chance. He's probably an injury away from getting in to the squad. I mean, he started that game against Brent for a couple of years ago, and I thought he gave a really good account of himself. So we know he can do it in the Premier League, and that was on the right wing. So, yeah, he had a good, solid game, and I think it was great to see the reception he got when he went off as well, and yeah, quite a nice thing to say. And I'm talking of good receptions, and we're going to go through the players that we thought stood out. And I don't know if this player did stand out, but I'm talking of good receptions because he gave a really nice message at the end of its size. What were your thoughts on Ryan Cession this game, because I've got to be honest to the listeners right now and to you guys, I didn't watch this game, I couldn't access it, I watched highlights and I listened to everyone's thoughts on Twitter. And I just, I saw that a lot of people were complaining about Cession as the game went on longer and longer, not too kind of toxic, but just saying this guy needs work. He is so out of his depth, and I don't know how true that is, and I'm genuinely asking it. I don't think I think out of his depth is why the mark. I think he looked like a player that hasn't played a lot of football. He's showed that he's still a very capable one-on-one defender, he positions himself well. Ryan Cession has always been really good at the basics, that's what made him shine through when he first came in. But good first touch, he is good in terms of his body positioning, he knows how to stand off his man, he knows how to press into the tackle, he knows when to move the ball forward and all that sort of stuff. The things that's going to take time to come back is just his sharpness, his general awareness of where his opponents are around him, where his teammates are around him, and that will just have to come with time. I think he acquitted himself fine, he didn't do anything that suggests he needs to be a starter for the next league game, he's still a way off of that. We know that it's going to take a while for Ryan Cession to find his feet again, he barely played any football for the last 18 months. We just have to be patient with him and he was fine, as a back-up player in this sort of fixture, he did the job that he needed to do, he didn't embarrass himself, we know that it's going to take time. Marco Silva said as much, I think what was really interesting for me was on the other side is Timothy Castania, I thought he was the best player on the pitch, I thought he was minor, he was minor at the match, Castania, I know Castania got it on TV, I think on the website as well, and he scored a goal, and the story was, Jay Sanfield could have gotten in the box, what Castania looked the best player on the pitch, I think it's really intriguing the level of competition between him and Tefte at the moment, because last season Castania was, he was the de facto right back, like that was it, he proved himself, he better than Teteo of the course of last season, and he was the rightful first pick, but Tete started this season really strongly, and he's good to see that Castania was kind of taking that challenge on, he looked really sharp, he just looked to cut above everybody else. Yeah, I'll just, please, sorry, just going to add on Sessignon, I actually thought he started off the game really well in terms of getting forwards, and looked quite shaky defensively, but then second half, and we didn't do much attacking, I thought we sort of grew into the game defensively, he made a couple of good tackles, a couple of good interceptions, and actually grew into that part of the game as well, because you know, I think most fans will agree, I thought Ethan Ledge for Birmingham was brilliant last night at right back, he was up and down that wing, he was causing problems, and I thought Sessignon really sort of helped himself a little bit in the second half, he struggled first half, you know, sort of caught ball watching a couple of times, caught out of position, a couple of bits like that, and that is where I agree that he's a player that has not played much football over the last 18 months, two years, but yeah, as the game went on, he grew into the game, ultimately you have to look at the opposition, whether they were in the back team or not, you know, in terms of the stats, they are still in league one, you know, we play in a Premier League week in week out, so ultimately we've got to look at how comfortable would he be in a Premier League back line at the moment, you know, probably not, but as Sessignon said, it's going to take time, as Sessignon said, it's going to take time, so, you know, there's a player in there, and I saw, when he's going forward, I saw hints of the old Ryan Sessignon, because some of his play in the first sort of 15, 20 minutes around their box I thought was really good, so yeah, it's good to see him back. It really is, but I'm glad that it's not just, I'm glad that, I don't think Silver would have just got Ryan Sessignon back, just because Tony can't beg him, and it's really nostalgic and lovely, I think, obviously they think they can do something there, and I really, I hope that comes through and we have a really lovely, another sort of regeneration project on our hands, it's just nice, I know with Ryan Sessignon, obviously he, he left for a bigger project and for money and all that, but he's come back and he could have gone elsewhere, I know it didn't work for him at this bigger club, but I just, his message, I know their words and it's hot air to some people and it's just gaining likes on Twitter, but like his comments after the game saying how happy he was to put back on the shirt and to make him realise how much he's missed football with us, it just, it rings true of what I got a good eggy is, and I remember specifically two seasons ago when he came back out at the Spurs away game, just to, just to applaud us fans in the corner, and he's just a really good lad, so that's good, I've got, going back to what you said there with stats, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just finish this off with Tim if he could stand you, 93% pass accuracy, two out of three long balls completed, seven out of seven duels, one, three fouls drawn, one clearance off the line, one block, two in deceptions, three tackles, one for clearances, so he's going to be keeping Kenny Tete definitely on his seat, which is good to hear. Any thoughts on Sander Burger this game? I didn't really, I didn't hear any sort of, did okay, I mean he's very tall, isn't he, Sarge? It looks like he's, he could definitely do some work for us. Yeah, he looked like you need to pre-seize him, or at least he needs to, just shot the game, he's a, a similar success in you on in the sense, he didn't read you anything wrong, he didn't do anything spectacular, he looked fine, we didn't control the game in the way that we probably should have, for a Premier League teaming as a League one opposition, but again, it's three players that haven't played there together before, and then Harrison Reed looked like he struggled a bit as well to be honest. Well, do you want to talk about that? Because let's talk about that, because the players that people are saying that I had bad games, Harrison Reed, Wilson, and a bit of Tom Kenny potentially losing his legs there. I know you're about to start that train of thought, but I just thought we'd, we'd start a topic there, Sarge, if you want to maybe go with it. Yeah, I think it was, there was, there was a few players in there last night that for me, that was their opportunity to kind of throw their, throw their name in the hat for the League games. Some, some of the players that played last night, you know, they're not really in the thinking yet to get started. So Jay Sandfield, as well as he did, we know he's not really in the running at the moment to start at the weekend, like that's, it's just not quite there yet. Same for Sessignon, he's not going to start yet. You'd probably say that Quenk is probably not there to start yet, because Bassey's so strong in his position, but there are a few players, so the likes of Harry Wilson, Harrison Reed, and Ralph him in it's really, they probably had an opportunity last night to really throw themselves into the shop window for the club and say, I want to be playing 90 minutes at the weekend. And I don't think any of them did that. I think Harrison Reed, that the game passing by a bit, he was just, I don't know if he was over eager to impress because he just looked a bit shaky in possession, a bit erratic out of possession. Harry Wilson just didn't impact the game. Like when he got on the ball, he didn't really do anything with it. He just didn't really get involved. Tricky for him, because he's a wide player, he's relying on the midfield, so if the center midfielders aren't having a great game, then the ball is going to struggle to get out to him. But when he did get the ball, he didn't do anything with it either. And him and Es as well, I thought, you know, he scored his penalty and he took the penalty really well, but he didn't impact the game either. Again, difficult when we're not generally controlling the game, but he didn't, he didn't really come and get involved. He didn't offer much. And then yeah, and then Tom Kearney, I don't know what the deal is with Kearney, and I actually thought second half Kearney was quite good and actually allowed us to rest some control of the ball back a bit at times. First half, I think the whole team just looked a bit disjointed. So I wouldn't really level it out for that. But I've seen a few people say he looks like his legs have gone. I think he's come into games at weird points. So we've only played three games. So the United game, he comes on and he's at fault for their goal. And he's made a poor decision trying to win a ball that's not there to be one. And then they they go on a few more issues with their goal as well. But it starts with him. But I actually thought when he came on against United for Smith Road, he actually was quite integral into our being threatening again. So we still look like we could make that game when he came on. And he was a big part of that. At the weekend, when he came on, I think the game stayed affected that because he came on. You've got to remember he came on to help us win the game. And then within a minute or two of him coming on, we scored. And so the way the team shape was set up was to go and try and win the game and attack and get that goal. And then within a minute of that, him coming on, he shaped has to change again. And it took a while still for us to get Harrison Reid on to get sort of a base of two midfielders again. So he kind of went on to the game being told right, going at them. And then all of a sudden, within a minute of going on, his instructions have changed and he's got to sit a bit deeper. And I think that should be taken into account. And then, yeah, and then against Birmingham, the whole team was a bit a bit of mishmash and disjointed as well. So I don't subscribe to the theory that his legs have gone. I think he's come into games at weird times. It's probably not flowing through at the moment. And it's still early in the season. And it might be as well that Tom Kearney is a bit older now. It might take him a few more games to get going. Some players do hit the ground running. And some players need a bit of match fitness and sharpness to get on a roll and run. And maybe that's what he's going to be like in these last stages of his career. I mean, he'll definitely have some moments this season, like he always does, no doubt. Moments this season where you can absolutely add to any comments you want to add to what Sarge just said. I just want to ask you about what your thoughts on Harry Wilson. I've seen some comments saying that this could very likely potentially be his last season for Fulham. Do you agree with that? It just looks like, I don't know, it's just we're kind of running out of time here with the look ahead of a new winger coming in before the deadline close. It makes you think like, how does Harry Wilson actually got much of a future? What do you think? Well, that's a tricky one. I'd probably say he's got this season as well. Yeah, he's got this season I think. Yeah, it's probably fair. I mean, he spent more time on his arse yesterday than he did on his feet. He kept fucking diving. I don't know why stupid. I was getting pissed off at Sarge. I don't know what you thought, but I thought he dived a couple of times when he didn't need to. Yeah, he goes over with a stiff reason. Yeah, I was just pissed off with that. But I don't know. He's looked good in certain games. When he come back from that injury the first season we got promoted, he was excellent. For those few months he was back. I think it was from like, I don't know, February, March time. He looked really good. Then last season didn't really have much of a part to play, but with coming on, got that great goal against West Ham, played really well against Luton as well. The West Ham game was over by the time Wilson came on and scored that goal, really. So, you know, it's just that effect on games. I'm just not seeing it as much as I did certainly in the championship, but even from a couple of years ago towards the back end of that 22-23 season. So it's going to be tough for him. The longer in the Premier League the more upgrades we will make and position by position with all due respect players will get picked off because there will be upgrades to be made to become more attractive prospect. You know, it's just how it is. That's football, right? How long does he have? I don't know, but he needs to have a belt over season, I think. And I really like him. Don't be wrong. I think he's great to have that inverted winger, one little cut in. You know, he's great sometimes he gets it on his left and straight into the top corner. So I really like him, but he's got to cut the diving out of his game and just needs to make more of an impact when he gets his chance. But it's easier said than done, I guess, sometimes. Yeah, he's a moment player, isn't he? He has moments in games. He very rarely has what I would say like a standout game over 90 minutes. He has moments within games where he does something and because he's got such a good left foot and he's, you know, he can hit shot into the top corner like anyone in the team, but he doesn't sustain his impact on the game over a period of time. And I also think that he generally has his moments against weaker opposition or in games where he's kind of free to kind of just get on with whatever he wants. So if he comes on and we're behind, sometimes he comes on and looks quite useful, but the game's kind of already gone. We're like maybe two goals down and he gets at teams a bit that are sitting in. Or it's against the teams that are kind of probably flirting with relegation or don't have anything to play for. So we're going to make the point that he was really good sort of towards the back end of that first season up. Well, I remember one of the games that I saw that I thought he actually did look really good in was against Leaked and they were dreadful. They're on their way down. And then you're talking really the end of the season when teams, let's be honest, we're here with it as well. Team starts to put their feet up a bit. They're safe. They're not going down. They're not getting to Europe. And those games kind of lose a little bit. And unfortunately, if Harry Wilson, it seems to be those are the games that he looks good in. And I'm just not sure that he sustains his performance level over the course of 90 minutes enough for this level. I think we're about a year away from seeing Harry Wilson get picked up by a team that's just been promoted to the Premier League or is pushing for promotion to the Premier League because he is very effective in the championship. We've seen it because of those moments of quality. But I think when he gets to the Premier League, you can't rely on moments. You have to be able to sustain a formative level over a long period of time, especially in a team like the one that Marcus Hill was building. So he kind of needs a good season. Like you say, well, I mean, maybe if he had maybe six half a dozen goals that might do it, I'm not too sure the bit like Bobby Decadova read. I'm not sure of the last season. My only thing is, is that if we, let's say we looked at it now in terms of if we won't be on the left trial rate and Wilson on the right, and we're going to get another left winger in, likelihood is it won't be a move out to the right. But it's current situation. If you're telling me R2 right wing is a trial in Wilson and trial rate gets injured. And my massively comfortable with Wilson playing four or five games in a row. I don't know. So yeah, that's the how you looking at it. I know you've obviously got versatile options. Smithrove can go on the left way. We can go on the right. So you've got those sorts of options. But in terms of out and out wingers, it is a case of how comfortable would you be if try already had a another hamstring injury that gets out for basically half a season. And you know, it's that with a wobie who's brilliant. But then his backup is Wilson and Wilson only. You know, it only takes five yellow cards on injury to a wobie. And then it's Wilson, right? Exactly. Yeah. And then it's that and then it stands field or it stands well, then Wilson. I don't know. But yeah, that that's the only thing. And that's why I say about upgrades, right? Because that ultimately, the longer you're in the Premier League, the more you want to push on, the more you're going to upgrade. That's called nose position, get picked off. Well, let's let's talk about, I mean, I didn't actually think Harry Wilson would we've been talking about him for about five to eight minutes now. It's great. I mean, but what I'll say is you talk about upgrades and we sort of sold off Bobby Reed for upgrades. And I'm mentioning this is just because it ties quite nicely what we're going to talk about next, which is obviously we'll briefly talk about Lester only because everyone's talked their stuff about the game already, just so it can lead us into what we might expect from Ipswich. It just I actually want to talk more about the returns of the cottage for some of you. Like, wiggle, what was it like being back? I think an AEW title was raised, beers were one pound. I think Steve Bergerwine was in the audience. It's the Riverside looking fruity and fun. Is it it's still not fully full? I don't understand. I don't know, mate. I've got there a half to and all the beer was out. So I had a can of wine for six, kind of white wine for six pound 50, which was which was quite nice. But I was like, Oh, this is a new low for me. Got in and seen the cups on the Camden Hills tap. So, no guineas either. So white wine it was. See, I missed the one pound bit, but that was that was okay. And it was good to be back. It was a weird one. It felt like someone went really quickly. I think because of the Euros near Olympics, it sort of felt like you blinked. And, you know, we're back and ready to do it all over again. So yeah, it was nice to be back and obviously nice to start off with a win. And I think, you know, most people were expecting us to win, I guess, predicted us to win. And at points, it didn't look pretty. But at the end of the day, we got the job done. And that was the most important thing. And I think to kick off three points out of our first two games, you know, it's fine. No one ever expects to go in the United and win however shit they are. So yeah, good to be back, good to get a win under our belts. And yeah, let's crack on with it. I mean, happy, really happy days from a lot of people and other podcasts at the moment saying that they're really excited about what they see. Despite chances being missed, it feels like we're not arguably out of second gear yet. So would you say that's right? And Moon is like, it looks like he's obviously not scoring yet, but doing all the right things that will lead up to that. Just your thoughts. Yeah, we look like a team that's still finding our feet in terms of, you know, how we're going to go about this. We can't ignore the fact that we've lost our best player. So the team is having to, to rejig itself. And, you know, people have to step up and take responsibilities and those responsibilities are probably going to be shared across more than one person because Palini was such a, such a force in midfield. So it's going to take a little bit of time. But yeah, I said this a couple of weeks ago when we were talking sort of about the fact that we knew there were still some gaps in the squad in terms of we needed to get players in this before Anderson Burger came in. But all the signs were that we're going in the right direction. And I think that transfers to what we see it on the pitch as well. We're still not quite where we want to be. But everything looks like it's headed in the right direction. We can see what they're trying to do and where they're hoping to get to. And I think there can be a lot of faith that they will get there. I think, you know, you're looking at, you know, this player's like Sasha Luke, it's stepping up. This is exactly what you want. When a big player leads, you want someone that's already at the club to go, you know what, you don't need to sign anyone else. I'm going to step in and I'm going to show you that I can do this job. And that's what Luke gets just done too far over the first two league games he's probably been our best player. He was brilliant again against Leicester. That's the sort of thing you want to see from players. And I think Moon is, he just needs one to go in. I think once one goes in, then we'll be off and running. He just, he's doing, he's rolling build up has been really good. I mean, he was instrumental in the Smith Rogol. Like, he, you know, he bullied the defender for that. And he was, he's generally a handful of what I love about Moon is that I think him and his didn't offer against Birmingham. His Moon is, occupies defenders. He made some constantly think about what is he doing and they're constantly having to work out. Do we get tied to him? Do we stand off him if they get tied to him? They know they're going to get a push in a shove. They know he's going to batter into them. Like, he doesn't give them any moments of easy, easy life. He's always at them. And I think sometimes him and his kind of just drifts through the game a little bit, which is why he's second at the moment. I think for Moon is once a goal goes in. He's everything else is there at the moment for him. I think he's doing everything that you could ask of him. He just needs one to go in. And I think it will come. I think it will come. I hope so. I hope so. I think that what you mentioned about Lukach there, I had a prediction in my mind that when we were linked earlier to Scott McTominay, he would come in and actually disrupt the Redressing Room slightly because it's a big swinging dick from Man United. And I can imagine him and Lukach maybe having, I mean, maybe the plan would have been, actually, they are a double pivot, sorry, together. But I'm not too sure. I felt like Lukach is going to be a problem. In the same way that what Moon is, when Brojour arrived, Moon is stepped up and I felt like any player that came in Lukach was going to suddenly show this number eight, number six role that he can do really well. And he really has. For someone who's like quite slight and not, he's got a kind of a bit of physicality about him. Have you got any thoughts you want to add on Lukach? I thought it was excellent towards the back end of last season. And I feel like whatever happened, he deserved his chance. Obviously, I don't think any of us really thought that we'd bring in an attacking midfielder for 34 million quid and then Pereira would sort of drop back. I think we all thought we'd have a six in. Lukach will play in the eight and we'd have Pereira in the 10. I think Lukach was excellent in the eight last year. He's been great in the six so far as well. A couple of times against United at the start. It was similar to what I said about Cessignon against Birmingham. A couple of times against United at the start, he looked a little bit ropy, but he grew into the game. Lester, he was excellent against Lester. Now, when we've got Sanderberger, fully fit up to, you know, ready to play, really. Oh, does that midfield work? You know, that's a tough choice for Silver. You've got Lukach Berger. Pereira has been playing at the eight. Is Pereira now competing with Smith Road, play at the 10? Is Smith Road moving out to the left? You know, no one knows how this is going to go past Friday. Because I will say we are going to get a winger in. No one knows how all of this dynamic is going to work in the middle. So that's going to be really interesting to see. And hopefully the squad can still be the same sort of cohesive unit. Actually, the key to the midfield now is going to be what winger we bring in, I think, which is a really weird way of looking at it. But it's just how that flow of that midfield is going to work. Because, you know, is Smith Road going to end up on the left quite a bit? I'd say no, depending on the last couple of games. So it's a really weird one to think about. But I don't think Lukach deserves to be dropped at all because he's been one of the best players over the last two games. And it's great because it looked like in January might be off the last one. So for him to get his chance again. And I think he's been fantastic ever since. You know, either way, last season actually was just exceptional, exceptional. So yeah, happy friend. If him and Sander Burger can form a sort of partnership together as, you know, your turn, my turn as a defensive midfielder and as the number eight, it could actually arguably be a more interesting midfield than when we had Polina, because you then got two players that could do a bit of graph, but also have really good ideas of going forward. I mean, Sander Burger scored lots of box crashing goals when he was with Sheffield Granting. It was in the championship. He does have that sort of edge of McTominay about him. You've got to set a peace threat again with Burger, right? Like he's six foot five. The bloke is massive. So, you know, well, we might not necessarily be a direct replacement for Polina in terms of height and presence in the box from corners. He's a sort of person we need, you know, so I think it's a great, great bit of business to get in. I think what Marco Silva does really well is he plays the strengths of the players that he's got. So we set up a team, we have Polina, and his big strength was that he could command that century area of the pitch on his own, and it freed up two other players to go and attack the game. And I think now what he'll do is he'll go, okay, we don't have that monster in the middle that can do that job. But what we can do is we can get a standard burger in. We can have Sasha Luke, it's in there. Sasha Luke is a very intelligent footballer. He positions himself really well. He makes the right passes. He retains possession really well, and he can move us up the pitch with progressive passing. Oh, he can progress with the pitch by carrying the ball. So what you'll see now is he'll play to the strengths of those players that he has. He's done a really good job of identifying, okay, Emil Smith-Roe, probably not 100%, well, definitely not 100% fit at the moment. We're going to play him for an hour, get everything out of him, bring him off, get someone else on. I think Marco Silva is the key to all of this, and it hasn't been since he arrived. He knows what the best traits of his players are, and he will get that from those players. And so losing the best player in the team, which we've done really for the last two summers now, Mitrovich went and he went, okay, we're going to have to find another way to go about this without Mitrovich, and then we've lost Palini, and then we're going to have to find another way to go about Mitrovich, and he will identify the skills and the abilities of the players that he has, and he'll get the best out of them because that's what he's done since he came to pull up. It reminds me of when you play career mode on FIFA management, and you sort of look for these players that can also play in multiple other roles, and you switch them around lots. I feel like we've got so many attacking midfielders that can play left-wing right-wing. You've got lots of central midfielders that can do defensive midfield or actually be a number eight. It feels like that is the sort of, you've also got Calvin Basso, who can be left back and sent it back, the same with Gwenka. You've got, and you've got, you've got, you've got, you've also actually got Castania, who can play left-back and right-back. I feel like there's a sort of vibe here where actually, I mean, this is the way maybe modern football's going. No one actually has his design set role anymore. Everyone's going to do bits of everything, and it's going to make everyone on their toes, the opposition, I mean. I'm guessing that's what's happening here. It feels like this new winger that's coming in, or the links that we've had, have all been sort of attacking midfielders again, but also can play on the wing, or a bit of a striker as a new one, Muamma has been linked. So it feels like Silver's creating this team of people that can just all switch around and confuse the fuck out of our opposition and actually make us very unpredictable, arguably. I think, as well, what Saav says about Silver being the key and actually spoke about Lucid, when he came in for those couple of games when Plinian was suspended, I think, broke for the way, he looked well out of his depth at the sixth, didn't he? Because that was where he was playing. I think he got booked for the first 10 minutes, and he looked well off it. And you look now, he looks so comfortable. So I think that's a lot of credit to Lucid for his adapting to that sort of role, and also a lot of credit to Silver, because I think he's giving him the confidence to be able to play that role. And that stark contrast from a year and a half ago of him playing at the sixth compared to now is just crazy. He looks so, so comfortable there, and yeah, credit has to go to them really, because yeah, he looks great. Anything else you'd like to add, Saav, before we move on to a little break and then Ipswich? I was just going to say that I think we have different players that can play the same position, but not everyone has to play the same way. So you can have a six, but you can have different types of sixes. So Lucid is not going to be the same type of sixes, apparently, Nuremberg or won't be either, but it doesn't make them less effective. It just means they're going to have to do it in a different way, and the rest of the team will just have to accommodate that in different ways as well. And just with the four, the thing that's been really excited about Smith Rowe coming in is the way that he's added to the game in the sense of he starts in the middle, but he actually scored his goal at the weekend, where you switch positions with Wobi. He came on on the left against Birmingham and won a free kick with a really nice dribble. We've gotten their defenders at late and we don't even drew a fan in a dangerous position. I think what you said about having players that can play different positions is great, and it also means that within the game, their starting position might not always be where they are, and I think that's going to add a lot to our ability to attack. I think we saw it last year, but with the Wobi playing off the right, but then appearing in the middle areas of the goal, and he picked up his goals by drifting in, the Pereira was sometimes drift out to the right. So I think if we can do that across a few more players, we're going to really cause a lot of problems for a lot of teams. Yeah, I can't actually believe how well we've done in the transfer market. I think we're all being cautiously quiet about it, because you never know, we might get relegated. I really don't think we will, but I mean, you just look at the signings at Smith Rowe, Anderson coming back, Sander Burger, all these players that are not potentially coming in as well. Even a Wobi was a real cue, I thought. You've got all these really good players, and I feel like this is definitely a top 10 team when you're looking at on paper. So it's very exciting. Let's talk about this team, what we can expect, what members of this team we can expect to arrive at Ipswich after this. So on to Ipswich, the tractor boys sounded really camp away just so that didn't it. The tractor boys, yeah, should I keep that? Maybe we'll redo that. Maybe we'll redo that. No, yeah, I'll redo it. Man, it's quite funny though. All right, let's do that again. Right, so on to Ipswich, the tractor boys. Sorry, I've lost it. I've absolutely lost it. I think we'll just keep this in, you know. This is fine. Who's going to Ipswich out of you two then? Yeah, I am. I mean, did you expect it to be less supposed to be there? No, probably not. Yeah, that would be good. I'm staying over. I'm staying at the hotel by the ground, so that'll be good. Looking forward to that first away. That's the travel log, isn't it? That's quite good. Yeah, cheap and cheerful, nice little night wave. I don't know. Hopefully, hopefully the game lives up to the weekend away. But yeah, it'll be good. I've been to it to Ipswich for a couple of times, but not for a few years, so I'll be good to go back. Yeah, it's a nice, that's a really nice game at the end of August as well. It's a nice place to go in England, you know, a nice part of England, but hopefully the sun's out. Yeah, sounds good. Sarge, I assume you're not going, but just what are your thoughts on this game? Because, by the way, I'm only assuming you're not going because you've got, you're back to work, so you've got two kids. I'm not trying to, I'm not saying you're pouring or anything, I just assume you're quite busy. Yeah, your thoughts on this, Ipswich, everyone's touted them to be the sort of the Burn League, well, everyone thought Burn League were going to be amazing, the start of last season. But yeah, everyone's trying to be a bit like Luton and play really well and potentially stay up. I feel like we're going to win this and it's just going to get worse on them, but I don't know what you think. Yeah, I'm not going to the start of the school term, it's about to work for me on Monday, so I don't think after a week back at work, I should then also swan off for the weekend and leave the wife with two kids. I think that will probably get me in trouble, so I happen to miss this one. But I think it's going to be an interesting game. I think it's going to be a tough first half. I can see it being a really tough first half, they're going to be up for it. They're going to see this as a game that they can get points from. If they're wanting to stay in this league, full of them at home is a game that they're probably looking at and going, we need to go three points here, which is, you know, I think everyone that's sort of from ninth all the way down, you're trying to win your home games against all those other teams in that sort of region of the league. So I don't think it's a, you know, I don't think it's an arrogance or anything, but they'll be looking at this to think full of them at home, we need to go three points if we want to really make this a thing. I think the crowd will be up for it. They'll get behind them. We need to match their intensity early in the game, otherwise it could get sticky. If we match their intensity and we ride out of what I think will probably be a bit of a storm for the first 45 minutes. I think ultimately our quality should shine through. I made a post today on Twitter saying that Ipswich are building a championship winning squad with their latest transfer business. And I still think that is what they're doing. They're essentially building a squad that if they were to get relegated, they would expect to win the league next year and come straight. Yeah. But that's sensible, isn't it? Especially with the manager they've got if they keep hold of him and like they signed a new contract. I mean, it sounds like, you know, really good, good stuff that they're doing. It's good business. And you've got to remember as well, they came, they backed about promotions. They didn't, they didn't come up necessarily with a championship winning squad. They're building one now. They're probably ahead of a head of schedule in terms of the way they've gone up against. Look, I think, like I said, I think they're going to make life difficult for us. That first half, certainly the first half hour or 20 minutes is going to be tough. And I think we need to be at it from the off, otherwise the game could run away from us a little bit. But I equally think if we are able to match their intensity and we go with them, our quality should shine through. And we should see this one, you know, see this. I think it's an away game that we can win. But I also think it's one that we have to be cautious of. I think a lot is going to come down to how we start the game. So I think how we start the game will kind of dictate the way it goes from there on in. Yeah, I know what you mean about getting sticky. I can suddenly just feel like a bit like how they scored first against Man City. Like we can suddenly just find ourselves a bit stunned to begin with with their eagerness being at home against the team that's probably mid-table, you know, around there. They probably think, as you say, there's there's stuff to be won. They've got some good players. I mean, there's a Leaf Davis, but I mean, if, if this, if a amateur already starts, then I think you should run him shit scared, to be honest. Murray Hutchinson's a good player. I can't pretend I know many things about much of the players. The lap seems like quite an astute signing. We just need Moonish to score this game, you know. The only time I've been to Portland Rose with Morgz in the Carabao Cup last season was, I think it was Moonish's first goal for us in that season or in the Premier League. No, in the cup. I think I'm just making stuff up as I thought. But I was definitely, it was a monumental moment. Yeah, sorry, I sound like I'm going to see now. We're going to say something. That's absolutely great. I went to it such with Morgz in the Carabao Cup and I think it was Moonish's first goal in the Premier League. That was amazing. Yeah, and it wasn't. There's like 12 changes all over again. That's great. I'm getting tired. I'm getting tired. Sorry. Yeah, keep going. Do you have anything to say about this game? We're good. Yeah, it's going to be, I think, I think that I just sort of covered it perfectly. It's going to be, it's going to be a really tough game. The fans are going to be up for it. Again, I've watched a game against Liverpool the other week. They were brilliant at the first half, which is absolutely fantastic. And they absolutely run themselves into the ground. And the problem was they'd run themselves into the ground that second half, they were so open. So you don't know how it's going to go. Are they going to absolutely go for it first half and then try and shore it up at the back and actually end up leaving a load of space or are they actually learning from that? Remember, in a game, it's 90 minutes, right? You've got to, you know, you've got to see out a full game, which is something they weren't able to do against Liverpool. And I mean, City were just City the other day. They've had a really tough start. So I think, yeah, as Sarge said, this will be one that they're looking at, ultimately, because it's really on paper, their first chance to pick up any points. Right. It's going to be really tough. I think Caron McKenna is an excellent manager. I know it's just a bit in the championship last year, and they were brilliant. They were a really good side. They played brilliant football. And even when we played them in the cup, you could see, even though he put a second 11 out last year, they were all, they were all bought into his tactics to his style of play. And actually, some of the football they played them was quite good. And they had Sony Alucos starting for him at the time. So, you know, it's just, I think they're an excellent side. And do you know what? I wish them all the luck. And I really hope they stay up because I quite like it, right? So, yeah, it's going to be tough. But look, we're capable. We've won a few good away games. We're capable of playing these side and it's big. Yeah, I don't know what Fulham's going to turn up, do you? That's the problem. Yeah, hopefully a good one. But we'll see. Well, I like Ipswich as well, to be honest. If you've had to pick between them and Norwich, sorry, any Norwich, weird, really weird Norwich listeners that listen to this, if they are listening. But yeah, if I had to choose between one of the Derby, I'd always choose Ipswich. And, you know, they're a big club. They're one of the Europa League ones, I'd say it's amazing. So, talk about what he, you know, who turns up here. I just want to know, Sarge, do you think this Anderson just takes Dioff's play straight away in this game? That's the one thing I'm interested in because Dioff's played really well. But Anderson, you know, big fee and, you know, our favourite guy, I just, I imagine he will take Dioff's place for this. I just want to, if you think the same. It's true, because Dioff has played well defensively. He's not done anything wrong. He's defended really well. He defends his box really well. That is what he does. Those are his strengths. Marcus Silver plays just play its strengths. But he does hamper us in terms of playing out a bit. I have a feeling that for this game, Marcus Silver will still start Dioff, just based on players, though, necessarily win a place in the team. Other people lose their place in the team. That tends to be how it goes. So, if a player is in the 11, they're in the 11 until they perform poorly and Dioff hasn't performed poorly yet, while he maybe doesn't have all of the attributes that we want to see from a centre back at this point. He hasn't done anything to suggest he's not good enough to play for us. And so, I think Marcus Silver will stick with him just based on history. He could switch up. But based on history, generally speaking, players play until they lose their place. And this has played 90 minutes against Birmingham as well. I think if he was planning to start Anderson, maybe he would have looked at not playing him for 90, but then he don't often switch out. He sent it back. So, who knows? Yeah. I think Dioff will start. I think Anderson will become the first choice, sent a half, whether that happens at the weekend or the week after. I think that will be what we see. But I also think Anderson will get a few more training sessions under his belt before he thrusts into the starting line. I think the Premier League game as well. Wicked. And finally, I'll just do a score prediction from both of you. I'm going to go 3-1 Fulham. Here we go. Here we go. Okay. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. One nil to us. Yeah, nice. I'm leaning towards one nil as well. I think it will be a tough game. I think they'll they'll give us a scare for us half and then we'll nick a goal the other end and then have to sort of ride it out of it. I think one nil is likely. All right. I'm really glad, by the way, Amanda Broyer isn't and playing for them. No, it would have been written in the stars, wouldn't it? Yeah, it would have been bad. It would have been bad. It would have been really sad. Anyway, that's that for now. And we'll quickly we haven't got much time left. You know, we're all tired. For everyone listening. We want to go to sleep. We'll just transfers and stuff. I mean, I'll just say everything that's going on and you can just talk about what you want about. We got Reese Nelson. So that would be an absolute us and Wenga delight just absolutely just having an amazing time watching the everything click into place to finally be watching a meal Smith row at Wobi and Reese Nelson all in the same pitch together. Scoring goals. He'd love that. But yeah, so we got Reese Nelson. You got Nwama or Bana, Nwama from Leon, the other winger who is the the other one from Leon who is like the opposite of a jerky because jerky doesn't want to do anymore. I keep sounding guys that I'm I'm I'm really old. I keep talking and then losing my train of thought as if my I don't know where my brain is going. It's really funny. All really well into your name. Yeah, it might be that. It's really funny. Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this. But yeah, transfers. It's all we need a new winger and those are the links at the moment. Oh, fuck, you know what? I just saw one for our mirror on that would be rubbish. That'd be really. That'd be so that is one that is one that takes a transfer window from an A to like a C at best at best to see like Sarge said it earlier in our chat. It was like he scored that one good goal against us and then went had a bit of a purple pack. But actually, let's have it right. He is shite. Like I've seen Newcastle fans saying they will give him a piggy back to London. Honestly, it's what I've also been in left wing. I don't need another right winger who's left footed. Like it makes no sense and he's shit. Marco Silver is one for redemption art, but I mean that is just going too far. Like, you know, it's 30 as well as me. Yeah, he just seems like a waste of wage and waste of time and energy, really, if I'm honest, I'm not really a fan. I think it's just a lazy link. I don't see it. Like Marco Silver likes with the exception of a domino try already. This is not me having to go as I'm try already. He's been strangely effective. The start of this season and through pre-season. But Marco Silver likes technical wingers like players that are technically gifted can play off both feet, can cut inside, can beat their man, link playing, play triangles. Miguel Amron does none of those things. He's just rapped and sometimes pops up with the counter attack goal. Like, he doesn't fit at all. I think it's just a lazy link. I think we need a winger. New parcel of trying to get rid of him. He's a winger. So it's like, oh, Fulham are interested in Miguel Amron because he plays that position that they're trying to buy a player for. I just don't think it's real. I don't think it's a real link. If either agent talk or it's just nonsense from the press. Did you see who posted the link? Did you see who posted the link? Alex Crook from Torxball and he, you know, real source of reliability. He said that Silverball's post going to Saudi and that plenary release calls turns out that was bought. So I reckon this one probably is hope. Yeah, yeah. I think the winger that we signed is going to be, I don't mean this as the window overall. I think the window that we've had has been really good. It's not a very good business. I was really impressed with Quaker. I think that's going to turn into a really small piece of business. Yeah. As well as the Smith rung Anderson Bergham or high profile deals, but I do think the window is going to end a bit anti-climatically because we're so used to like gang bust the deals on deadline day and all of that jazz. And I actually think it's going to be quite an underwhelming signing that we bring in for the winger position. I don't think it's going to be someone that is going to necessarily walks into the first team and play a lot of football for us this season. I've got a feeling it's going to be a squad filler, which is not what I want, but I feel like that's the way it's going just because I don't think we've got loads of money left to spend. And I don't think that there is player out there that we can bring in that's going to walks into our lineup for the price that we're probably willing to pay. The most most exciting link that I've seen is probably Reese Nelson. Yeah. I'd ask some things that are awesome from this. I think of him and they said he's a good player. He needs to get back to games and he'll show his quality. But equally, there's not a lot of evidence on that. He doesn't play a lot of football for us. I mean, there's been a lot of football for us over the last couple of years. Same for a few substitute appearances. So that's probably the most high profiling that we've got. Probably be the one that if he comes in and he forces away into the team because he looks like a silver type player, but I think we're looking more on the end of a sort of a Dan James type sign and not the level of Dan James. I think a better player than that will come in. But I think that's sort of that sort of squad place. I think that's all before you're looking at. He's telling me a marshal. It's happening. It's happening at the marshal. Yeah. I mean, if there was any actual credence to the links of Will Saha in the past, then I wouldn't be surprised if Marcia, because that's the kind of similar vibe of someone who's older who can play on the left wing, but also play striker potentially. That's sort of the experienced player like Willy Ann, who can score goals in this league. I think, well, yeah, he is 28, he's quite young. I think he's just so injury prone, I think. That's the problem, isn't it? But then again, we have signed Ryan Sessignon, and then when he's been frozen, you know, not massively injury prone, I guess. I don't know, just out for a while, was he? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Depends on wages, doesn't it? At the end of the day, you don't know what sort of deals you can pick up, right? Like, that's the thing with Deadline Day. There are clubs that want to shift these players and get them off the books, so that price goes down. I mean, look at Chelsea, I mean, they're going to have to build new training rounds for all their bloody players. He's not necessarily saying that we're going to sign Raheem Sterling, but, you know, there are clubs that want to shift players, that want to get them off the books. Actually, a deal might come about that we're completely shot by them. It might be a really good one. Again, it might be a squad filler like Sarge says, but I do think it is going to be that sort of reasonals and type that isn't getting the game time and the club. But then you're looking at, do I sit at Chelsea a shit hole, but do I sit at Chelsea and then 300 grand a week and not play, or do I play a little bit for Fulham, sit on the bench a bit and earn 150 grand a week? I'm not saying that's Sterling. That is just a generic example, right? So I don't know is the answer, but there might be a crazy link or a crazy event, turn of events that happen before Friday. There's only two days to go. I know something will happen. It always does something a bit like it could, it does have potential to be anti-climactic as well. Some sort of deal sheet for someone like, you know, Pelestry or Pelestry where his name is, like the winger from Manionite Online. Something weird. The one that's just gone to Panathnikos, that one. Yeah, let's move on. Let's move on. Anyway, Peter Rutz has just come in. We've got to finish up, but Peter Rutz has just said, "All's are close to signing Brazil, midfield it, Andre." He nearly agreed in the region of €25 million. I feel like Wolves deserve this in some sick way because we still Pelenia off them in the last minute, so it's kind of late. I don't know, a bit of karma for us, I don't know. Good for them. Good for them. It was two months ago and he's still not here, so he'll turn up at Wolves next summer at this rate. But apparently, Silver said that the media have created a story or something, or they like to exaggerate or something like that. I wonder how interested he was. I don't know, again, conspiracy theory, but I mean, one Brazilian is still here, he's Carlos Phoenicia, so you know. Oh my god, he has the question. The boy is still here. He needs an escape number, though. He does. And Babu's off to some place in the car. Oh, good job, lads. I'm really glad I didn't say it. That's brilliant. That's good. Anyway, yeah, I'm not having the greatest of pods. That would have been murdered. The last thing I'll say is we've got the cup draw tonight. Do you have any preferences? Do you actually care? I mean, is there a way there you haven't been to yet, Wingo, that you would like to go to for the next round of the caribou? Or Sarge? I'm the only asking you because he goes to every day, like a way to know. I've been to New Plow Lane to watch AOC Wimbledon, but I wouldn't mind going as an away fan. Yeah, I like it. It's always good to go to. I'd love to go to, like, I like going to the lower league rounds, but I sound like going. I don't really because never really get the chance. We usually get something city or something like that. But it's like, well, I like about the FA Cup in January. There's a really good chance you're going to get a decent away day at somewhere like, I don't know, like a Plymouth, right? Yeah, no. We never do, but like, that sort of thing is what I'd love, but I don't know. We'll probably fucking get city anyway, won't we really? Let's be honest. City, I'm going to be pretty poor, yeah. Go on. I just want a winnable home tie. That's it. I want us to win a cup, so I just want us to get the easiest possible draw all the way to fucking Wembley. I don't really care who we play as long as it's like, if we, like say, winnable home tie, that's all I'm looking for. Winnable home, I want to see our name come out of the hat first, and then I want to see a team from a division below us come out of it next. See what ball number we are? No, 13. What is it? OK. 13, yeah. So, it's going to be one of the big boys in it. And have you seen the clubs in the Champions League and the Europa League can't be drawn against each other? No, I didn't see that. They're not even hiding it anymore. They're not even hiding it anymore. Yeah, those six are in a different bowl. They get drawn out and they can't play each other in the third round. What's a joke? Well, they shouldn't even be in it. I actually think get rid of them. If you're in Europe, don't be in the tie back up. Yeah, I think that's I feel that's actually a really fair point. I feel that's a really good point, because if you're in Europe, then I'm actually really we're starting a whole new conversation. I was going to say, I'm really excited to see what the new Champions League format is like. But you know what? That's a pod for another time. Play football manager. Just play football manager and you'll see what it's like. All right, sounds good. It's been the pleasure. It's been a pleasure talking to you. And it's been a pleasure to have you in my lovely garden shed. Listen as you can't see this, but I'm in the bottom of my garden at the moment, using my new summer house for the first time. I built it myself. I didn't pay up. Oh my god, there's a roof caving in there. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good. It's got it's got electrics. It's got lights. It's perfect. So now I've got a place to hide away. So I don't piss off my family too much trying to do stuff like this. Anyway, thank you very much, lads. Thank you very much for listening, or you listeners at home. If you like, we're here, please tell your friends about us. And yeah, take care of yourselves and we'll be back next week. Cheers.