Welcome back to Sutton United Talk Time on Podcast! I’m your host, Mike Dowling, and this week we dive deep into the fantastic 4-2 victory over Gateshead. Joining me for the post-match dissection are the ever-insightful David, dialing in from Madrid, and Neil, giving us his perspective on the new Northern Outpost and his strategic travel base! We break down the goals, the stunning attack, and the defensive debate, all while celebrating an unbeaten November for Sutton United!
Mike Dowling
Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast. It's the Sutton Podcast in association with Lucky Star Gin. I'm your host, Mike. And if you're a regular listener, you're very, very welcome back.
Mike Dowling
Thank you very much. If you're new, hopefully you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of the show and beyond. It does go on every week and forever and ever. But I'm joined today by David and Neil.
Mike Dowling
And don't forget, we do like all the engagement, we like the sharing, the liking, the thumbs ups, and all the rest of it on social media. It's at Sutton Podcast, all of them. Just, yeah, boost my ego. I love it.
Mike Dowling
And thank you to everyone who already does that. David, we'll start with you. How are you? Very well, Mike, how are you?
Mike Dowling
I'm always good, always good. And are you UK or are you Spain at the moment?
David
Yeah, I'm in Madrid at the moment, Mike. You're in
Mike Dowling
Madrid. Yeah. What's the weather?
David
Cold.
Mike Dowling
Is it?
David
Yeah, cold but sunny today.
Mike Dowling
Oh,
David
yeah,
Mike Dowling
not too dismal. It's quite sunny here as well. Neil, how are you? How's all the driving?
Mike Dowling
How's all the... How's life?
Neil
Life is fine. So I feel very, very satisfied that now I've got my daughter finally grown up and established and has her own house. But the best thing is it now gives me a fabulous northern outpost on which to base away travel. So if we got relegated to the National League South, that would be a disaster.
Neil
If we maintain our place in the National League for this year or get promoted, then it's a good basis. But there are certain teams now that I want to come down or get promoted up. So, like Fylde have got to come up from the National League North because she literally lives about five miles down the road. So, that would be perfect if they came up.
Mike Dowling
So there you go, boys. Never mind about anything else. You have to maintain or get promoted just to make Neil's life easier. That's what needs to happen.
Neil
I'm
Mike Dowling
sure Aggie will be in the changing room. Come on, boys. Let's do it for Neil. So it's getting all a bit boring now, isn't it?
Mike Dowling
another game, another win. But for that, just very, very quickly, good luck to Henry Sandow, who's left us. Obviously, he didn't get to do an awful lot with us, but as always, appreciate the efforts he did do, but very good luck to him. Neil, sticking with you, what were your thoughts going into the game?
Mike Dowling
And were there any surprises in the lineup for you? Obviously, the last minute change, but were there any other surprises in the lineup?
Neil
Aside from the last minute change, no, it's what I expected. The hints were there. Perhaps we might have seen Ashley on the bench or not, but obviously he wasn't quite as fit as possibly. So line up, no surprises.
Neil
As for the result, just being the typical pessimist that I am, I thought, you know, all good things have to come to the end. So I was thinking it might be a tricky draw.
Mike Dowling
Well, somebody here last week said we were going to win 4-2. I'm just putting it out there that I got the result right. Didn't get the goal scorer, but I got the result right. David, what were you thinking before the match?
Mike Dowling
What were your expectations and what did you think of the lineup?
David
Well, I was feeling very optimistic, actually. I had a kind of quiet confidence about the game. The only query I had about the line is what happened to the Wimbledon guy who joined on loan?
Mike Dowling
I'm not sure he wasn't in the last couple. I think he must have picked up something, but I don't. I've not.
David
Yeah, because I thought because he started the last game and so I kind of assumed he would this and he's only here for a short while anyway, so I kind of figured he'd be in the team or at least in the.
Speaker 1
But
David
he wasn't. He wasn't either, so I wonder whether he. I don't know. Do we know if he's injured or if he's left?
David
I
Mike Dowling
haven't heard either. I'm assuming it would be an injury. Oh, OK.
Neil
He did play for their under-21s in midweek, apparently, on the forum. And apparently you can
Mike Dowling
still play. No, no. I think you're talking about Noah Boateng.
Neil
No, no, no. It was talking about Osman because somebody was querying that he's gone back. then somebody said or he played for their under 21 so therefore but apparently you can under some loan agreements depending on the age or the the status of the player
Mike Dowling
i'll be honest i skimmed that and i thought that was about um no butan
Neil
yeah
David
or i could have
Neil
misread it so you know so that was that was my reading on it
David
so that was the only mini surprise before the before the game i mean you know apart from that it looks we're kind of to a point now where i think the team is beginning to look it's becoming reasonably predictable. I mean, I think there's in back in the day, a few, you know, a few months back or a few weeks back, there was a kind of, I think, six or seven positions, which were not clear, I think it's flipped. And we've got seven or eight now, which I think there's a definite first choice. So
Speaker 1
I
David
think it's a bit more predictable now. I think we know who's going to be playing at centre back. We know who's going to be playing just in front of the central partnership in midfield. So I think there's a lot more stability in the team, which might be one of the reasons that we're doing so well.
Mike Dowling
yeah it's one of those self-serving things is the more people play together the better they're going to be but while you're trying to find the winning formula you got to keep changing it around to find it so um i mean one because jack coming in. I know he played in the under 21 game against Southampton the other day, but Tommy's obviously, he's not done anything overly wrong, but Jackie is our goalkeeper and Tommy's on loan, so I can kind of see that.
David
Yeah, that makes sense.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. Now Chris has said this himself, the first 20-25 minutes was flat, how were you feeling at the first half hour or so of the match? We'd conceded a goal, we weren't playing overly well, how were you feeling at that point David?
David
Yeah, the first 15, 20 minutes or so was that there was a little bit of, it was a little bit reminiscent of some of the early games in the season where we felt a little bit open, particularly going down the right, down our right hand side, it felt as if we were a bit open and a bit slightly flat as a performance. Not terrible, but just a bit flat. And them having scored early, it kind of somewhat seemed to knock us for a while.
David
But even when they scored, I was feeling confident. This team has a different feel to how it had a few weeks ago. So it didn't feel like a mortal blow getting a goal conceded after five minutes, whereas I think a few weeks or months ago, we would have all been getting anxious for a minute six. So I still felt confident that we would get back in the game and probably do well.
David
despite that. And then it picked up significantly with the goal and then after the goal, everything got a lot better.
Mike Dowling
Absolutely. I mean, it's a strange kind of atmosphere because, as I joked about earlier, it's getting a bit boring now, but there's an expectation when you're heading to matches that we're going to win. So, Neil, how were you feeling in that sort of early stages of the game when we were a goal down and not playing as we know we can?
Neil
This is the problem that I have speaking about the match, which is partly what I alluded to before we started recording, was that normally when I can't get to the game, I switch off all of my devices, I wait for the live stream to go at 5.15, so I watch the match live knowing but the wonderful DAZN basically didn't post it till the live stream till about half past nine at night. So therefore I knew the result.
Mike Dowling
You get to watch it slightly differently then.
Neil
Yeah,
Mike Dowling
so I
Neil
got to watch it not the way that I normally choose to when I can't actually be at the game, but just looking at it without knowing the result, they didn't do much wrong. That was a cracking opening goal. So, you have to give sort of full credit. That was, you know, that was one of those that nine times out of ten, the guy turns and it goes into Rosette.
Neil
If we had a Rosette behind the goal at that end. So, yeah, they did look a little bit, passes weren't going astray. They didn't look as smooth or as slick, but they didn't seem to be that much, they didn't seem to be that much wrong. It just wasn't quite clicking.
Neil
And as the time progressed around about sort of the 20-25 minute mark, the passes started finding their target. They seemed to be going forward with a little bit more pace. And you sort of felt, yeah, you could see a goal was potentially coming, which was exactly what happened.
Mike Dowling
Well, on that goal, watching it there live, you just thought for a split second, what's Jadon doing? That ball was not meant for him at all. Obviously you knew he'd scored, but did it look different? Did you think, oh, that's great anticipation, but obviously my thought of Jadon, what are you doing lasted about half a second, but how was the goal for you?
Mike Dowling
I know it came and I know it was a great goal from Jadon, but what did you feel at that point, Neil?
Neil
having looked at it multiple times, I think he meant it. I think that actually was a definite glancing head.
Mike Dowling
No, Jaden meant it, but I don't think the ball was meant for Jaden.
Neil
No,
Mike Dowling
but he's a big
Neil
guy to get the ball over. So therefore, if he's there, it's very hard to actually
Mike Dowling
Fair
Neil
enough.
Mike Dowling
Fair enough. When I was watching, I was like, that clearly was meant for him because the ball was at a totally wrong pace to be meant for him. I thought, obviously, I don't play, as we all know. But David, what did you think watching that?
David
Well, just to start by saying I was watching it live. Sorry, Neil, but I was watching it on DAZN in Spain live. Um, so there's no, there's no delay out here. It's shown a three o'clock UK time.
David
Yeah. Um, so yeah, the guy, no, I think he meant it. It was a, it was a great goal. And I'm going to assume that the cross was intended as well, because I think why not?
David
Why not? Exactly. It went in. And let's also assume that had he not headed it, it would have curled in the top corner anyway.
Mike Dowling
Absolutely. When this all came through to halftime, Chris was very, very gracious in his interview about his halftime team talk, where he told the boys that don't worry, just keep the ball, make them run. You don't need to worry about getting frustrated if we don't score until later on. And then five minutes later, we scored two.
Mike Dowling
How were you feeling? Obviously, Simms with his little tapping and Jadon with another great goal. How were you feeling at this point, David? Were you like, oh, this is it, done, let's just blow up the whistle and go home?
David
No. No, no, no, it's far too many minutes to go before you start thinking that. And 3-1 is not a... No, no, no, I don't think the game was dead then, as it turned out not to be.
David
But no, the goal was fantastic. I mean, the Lewis Simba goal was absolutely fantastic. I mean, Brilliant. Well, it's just fantastic.
David
I think also what you can see is that in the ground, and you know, we've all been in the ground many, many, many times. And like you can feel the energy and the kind of happiness and seeing a bit of play, you know, some passing some moving some, some goals, some action, you know, it's just we've had a bit we've been a bit impoverished over the last year or two, really, honestly, at home for for kind of genuine joyful moments. And so there's plenty of that.
David
I thought for a minute that the Jadon goal was not going to go. I thought he fluffed it with the first shot and happily he got a second bite of the cherry. But having got to 3-1, no, I didn't think it was all over. No.
Mike Dowling
Well, Lewis doesn't need much encouragement to be shooting, and he does love it. But I think every time he gets a ball anywhere near the penalty area now, everyone's going to be, shoot, shoot. And he does love a go against Gateshead. Again, you were knowing the match, but how were you feeling at the 2-1?
Mike Dowling
Were you like, are we looking good here? What
Neil
I didn't know was how good a goal it was. And it was a beautiful build-up as well. It's yet another one. We are scoring every week these goals from the back with multiple passes and it was just a superb shot that ended up a superb meal.
Neil
build up, you know, there was just so much to love about it. So, it was
Mike Dowling
like a
Neil
Cape Cherry on top perfection.
Mike Dowling
And as for
Neil
the Jayden one, I was really cross that he didn't put it in first time because that again was another 12 pass move. So, that one deserved it to go in first time.
Mike Dowling
You can't expect perfection every time. It'd be boring. But yeah, Alison said on Twitter that, is it just me or does it, do I feel like every time that Junior passes the ball to Lewis, there's going to be a goal? There do.
Mike Dowling
He had another great game as well, Junior. It's funny because
David
yesterday I was making, I thought I'd be professional about the podcast so I was making some notes during the game yesterday and I started writing down like a review of each player and I got to, they're all, all 11 are on there. So we could probably just kind of cut the
Speaker 1
names and
David
just say that everybody played really well. I mean, it was from after the first 15 minutes or so. But after that, it looked really, really complete as a performance. And the players, I mean, I was seriously impressed.
David
I thought that Jennings was fantastic. I think that Jake Taylor's brought something definitely to the team, like he's doing a lot of stuff, which is maybe not quite so showbiz as the Lewis goal, but a lot of covering
Speaker 1
and
David
simple passing and opening up the play and closing down the opposition. And I thought the back two looked fantastic. So really, I could go through the whole team. I thought everybody played.
David
I thought Critchley did very well holding the ball up many, many times where that's been a bit of a problem. I think in some recent games where the ball goes up and it kind of pings right back again. And I think he managed, despite being fairly small, he managed to kind of battle away and keep the ball up and link, you know, create some links. And that was really so basically all of them played you know, terrific football, I thought,
Mike Dowling
really. Yeah, Kane was obviously mentioned in the post-match because he hasn't played for quite a while for various reasons and it's not his natural game to be holding the ball up and doing that kind of job. He's supposed to be running in behind, he's quick. I did actually have Jake to talk about, and you've covered some of the questions anyway there, David, but Neil, if you could jump in on Jake.
Mike Dowling
The midfield, obviously, we're doing really well for midfield. The goals from yesterday show that. But how much credit are you going to give to Jake for going, you boys go off and do that and I'll do this bit?
Neil
He's doing the dirty work. He's allowing the others to be so good. So without him, Lewis Simper, you know, Junior, Faz, Critch, whatever, would not be able to play as the way that they are playing. So, you cannot underestimate how good he is, you know, in the centre of the field.
Neil
He's giving us that stability and everybody else is confident that he's going to get the ball, he's going to cut it out.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, it's been a type of player for years. I mean, I know Eric Cantona was really scathing of Didier Deschamps because he called him a water carrier. But the French national team were like, yeah, we need someone to do that. Because without that, you can't do what you need to do.
Mike Dowling
And as far back as the 66 World Cup, that was our frenzy to Nobby Styles. Win the ball, give it to someone better. So yeah, it's always needed. Um, just a quickie, obviously Dom Telford scored his typical goal, um, off the post.
Mike Dowling
I think it actually was weird because they was recorded that only had two shots on target. Because that one came back off the post, I don't think it was counts as a shot on target, um, because it obviously came off the post and he scored from the rebound. Um, but on Simo, His dad was in the bar after going, I don't remember Jack having a save to make. I was like, we conceded two goals.
Mike Dowling
That's not exactly a boast, is it? But how did Jack do for you, Neil, on his return?
Neil
I think that he was very good. There were a couple of wayward back passes that he had to come up very, very quickly to. And he's fast. His distribution was very good.
Neil
You realize how good his kicking game is. And also, he's got a heck of a throw on him. So, there were a couple of thrown distributions that set us up to very quickly attack. So, he seems to be got the confidence of the back four as well, or back three, or how many were playing at the back at any particular time.
Neil
So, you know, I don't feel as scared with the ball being passed around at the back as I did with Tommy Reid, I have to say.
Mike Dowling
And for you, David, how was Jack on his... Yeah,
David
very good.
Mike Dowling
Obviously, it wasn't his first return, but league action.
David
I thought it was very good. I think there might have been one or two nervy moments. There was one nervy moment when he got a bad back pass, had to come chasing out. He did that really well.
David
And I think he also made a pass where it kind of nobbled and bobbled a bit and it kind of came chest high to one of the defenders. And I think that wasn't quite intended, but overall very, very good, I thought. And it makes a lot of sense that he's back in goal because he's the number one. I mean, he's the permanent squad member and it doesn't make sense for him not to be back playing number one.
David
Um, as far as I can see, no, he's good. I mean, in terms of also the distribution, the passing, that's all good, but he's a great, I've always thought he's a very good shot stopper and he's got good presence. Yeah. So he's
Mike Dowling
moved into that. Um, money goalkeeper stage of his career where he will tell people when they've done something wrong. So at stages last year he wasn't necessarily doing that, but like things like the bad back pass you saw him straight away afterwards once he dealt
Speaker 1
with it
Mike Dowling
and letting them know what he thought of it. But on to another Jack, you guys have had the benefit of replays, there was a lot of talk in the ground that That was offside. I don't think it was because the linesman didn't put the flag up and the referee didn't blow for it. So clearly it can't have been offside.
Mike Dowling
But David, talk us through Messi, Taylor, his fourth goal.
David
Well, he's got this, he's got a fantastic, the tool in his toolbox, which he's using really well at the moment. I guess it's all part of the game plan. is this kind of power run out the back with the ball so it's sort of a little bit like it for i think people on this podcast were old enough to remember alan hansen but he's got that kind of capacity to bring the ball out and it gives us another attacking option a way to kind of create something and go past one or two players and he's got a very very kind of uh it makes it look very easy and it's not And the goal yesterday, the goal in the 95th minute, was it?
David
97th minute? Something like that. Yeah, no, it was fantastic. I mean, because he had a long way to go and he cut across the defender beautifully.
David
And you had that gone wrong from the defender's point of view, it would have been a penalty, but he just took the goal like a number nine, you know, fantastic. And it was great, you know, because I think we're all kind of accepting to kind of run the ball into the corner and But he just decided to take him on and score. It's fantastic. I think that's a great, great moment.
David
And he's doing tremendously well for us. I mean, he's, since he came to the team, I don't know, is it a few months ago now? He's, I think he, he's, is it a few months? Yeah.
Mike Dowling
Basically been in the team all season.
David
Yeah, but a few months going back into the back into last season as well, wasn't it? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
David
Yeah. Yeah. A few. I mean, a few calendar months, you know, he's back to say, I think he's made that position his own and he looks completely accomplished.
David
And he looks like a kind of one of the first of those six or seven players that are going to be on the team sheet every week. He's one of them, I think.
Mike Dowling
I think Aghi also made the point that he expected him to go into the corner with the ball as well, so it came as a surprise when he cut across. But Neil, the defender did try to push him. He gave him a push. He's a strong boy as well.
Mike Dowling
But what did you feel about the goal? I mean, again, you knew he scored, but you didn't necessarily know what kind of goal it was.
Neil
Well, again, I presumed it was a header from a corner, so that's what I anticipated. I did not expect the Gazelle-like run from his own penalty area right the way down the pitch. But sadly, Ryan Deeney, who's the non-league expert on Not the Top 20 podcast, wrote an article earlier in the week about the five players most likely to be picked up in January. And he made the comment about Jack Taylor is now growing into his body and gaining that physicality.
Neil
But really, he needs to work on driving with the ball out of defense because that's obviously a talent that he's got. And four days, he must have read the article. So four days later, he drove out the back. But this time he carried on, you know, the whole distance.
Neil
And you do have to bear in fact that he is still playing on the wrong side. He's more naturally because he's right-footed. He's a right-back, yet he's playing as a left-back, out of his natural position. Obviously, Chris has seen what he feels suits the team.
Neil
His attacking, that wasn't his only run like that. He was doing it throughout the match. He was a very, very good defensive, but it was very much a good attacking performance from him as well.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, I think it was Pruti was playing on the left hand side of the three and where we've now switched him to be in the center where he's been absolutely amazing. That means someone moves around a little bit and it's those little shifts that, again, we sit there not really paying much attention until suddenly, oh my God, this is working. What happened there? How did that happen?
Mike Dowling
Overall, Again, when you're there, when you're watching it, you don't always feel this way, but walking away from it, I felt actually that was quite comfortable. I know we let in two goals, but I felt it was quite comfortable. What about you, Neil? Did you feel it was comfortable in the end?
Neil
If it wasn't for their keeper, it would have been 7-2. We could have had 6 or 7. It was that good. Yeah, Lewis could have had a hatch, but Kai could have had one.
Neil
I lost count of the number of shots. All the different analysis had various numbers of shots on target, number of shots. So it varied from, you know, DeZona had us like having 11 shots to I think FopMob had us having 17 shots. But, you know, there were an awful lot of shots on target.
Mike Dowling
And David, again, the point was made that Gates said, try and keep possession of the ball. And we dominated them on the possession stats. I know again, some of these don't mean an awful lot because you can dominate possession and lose, but we kept the ball and kept them chasing after it. Did you feel it was comfortable when you were watching?
David
reasonably comfortable. Yeah, I think after the after their second goal things, there was a 10 minutes or so where I think we all would have felt a little bit edgy. Three ones a lot better than three, two. And of course, you do start thinking, well, it only needs one, you know, throw in one free kick one corner, and we're in a bit of bother again.
David
But overall, pretty comfortable I'd say.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. We mentioned a couple of times, obviously, we conceded two. Is there still a defensive concern, or are we kind of accepting of, no, we're going for this attacking, we're going to score more than you? Do you wish we would tighten it up, or even if that means something is lost from the attacking side, are you quite happy for the high risk, high reward kind of approach to the game?
Mike Dowling
Thank you.
David
Oh, me. Yeah. I don't think you're going to get perfection. So, I mean, you know, of course, in an ideal world, you'd be unbelievably watertight at the back, incredibly powerful going forward with tons of creativity, with goals coming from all over the pitch.
David
But I mean, I think this is not like AC Milan in the 1990s or the Barcelona team of Pep. So, I mean, within the context of the squad we've got, it's looking really good, I think. And of course, we're going to concede some goals. The other teams are good as well.
David
I mean, we're not playing against the local under-12s. We're playing against proper National League teams, so we will concede goals. That's inevitable, of course. But what's looking good now is we actually look like we can score them.
David
And when we attack, there's some threat. And also, I like a lot that the threat's coming from different places. We don't just have one tool in the toolbox. So we're not just kind of lobbing it into a six foot four center forward.
David
We're not just relying on Jack Taylor, bringing it out from the back, we're getting there's threats in various places. And I like that a lot. So I'm pretty encouraged by everything, really. But of course, we'll concede goals.
David
And you know, we're not perfect. But I don't think we should get too uptight about that, as long as we're at scoring more than we're conceding. Of course, if you're going to... I think what has happened is the defense has got a lot tighter.
David
If you're going to concede three, four goals every day, every match, it's very, very difficult to win. And I think that's kind of what Chris was alluding to in his interviews, that you can't keep on... We had those various in extremis kind of three-twos and, you know, if you're going to keep on conceding three goals in a game, it's very difficult. That puts a lot of pressure on your forward play.
David
But at the moment, I'd say the balance looks pretty good. Yeah, what do you think?
Mike Dowling
Yeah, from a purely mercenary point of view, churning out one nil wins, two-one wins, doesn't draw in the crowds. When you start posting up results of four-three, four-two, three-twos, people are going, oh, this goal's down at something. Let's go and have a little look. What about yourself, Neil?
Mike Dowling
What do you feel? Do you feel it's the high-risk, high-reward is worth it, or would you rather it be tightened up?
Neil
I don't think we've got the skill to go for a 0-0 and catch one goal to win the match. So we can't do an Arsenal of old. So I think it just seems to be, we seem to have just about got the balance so that the defence is tight enough and able to distribute the ball well enough so that they give us opportunities for the midfield and the forwards to score. So, you know, it's taken 11… Yeah, what's… Oh, no.
Neil
Aggies had eight league games, in effect, now. So… And he's producing… He's producing the results. The team, obviously, are now fit enough, fast enough, and are getting getting what the formula is and they're getting better at executing it. Which is why we're now looking, as David said, relatively more comfortable than we
Mike Dowling
were. And one other sort of talking point from the match itself, the amazing debut of George coming on with his 33 seconds to go. Unbelievably, I was standing near someone who was like,
David
what?
Mike Dowling
He gets his match appearance bonus, so enjoy spending that, George. He has said he hopes to play a little bit more than 30 seconds the next time. But again, what do you feel about that kind of prospect, Neil? Another player from the Academy coming through.
Mike Dowling
We've got a few already. We've got Charlie Dunwell this season. Junior has obviously secured himself a spot. Jack, as we've already discussed.
Mike Dowling
We've got James Fenlow. We've got various different players coming through, and George looks like another one.
Neil
The Academy is amazing. It's just, it's like a conveyor belt of talent at the moment. And they're not playing just for the sake of playing them. They're playing because they're good enough on merit.
Neil
So that is a phenomenal pat on the back to all the work that's, you know, been put into the Academy over the last, well, we've had an Academy for quite a while, but it's obviously what's happened over the last three or four years. You know, Charlie Bell, If there weren't players that are potentially better than him, Charlie Bell would be starting. He's good enough. Junior now, I can't see how you can't play Junior because he is so good.
Neil
I can't see how you can't play Jack Taylor. And hopefully, you know, George and some of the others, when they get a chance, we will find that they are really very, very good.
Mike Dowling
I mean, in the hospitality yesterday, Chris did a little pre-match chat and he said that in an ideal world, you would love to have a team of players coming through the academy, all living with like 20 minutes, 30 minutes of the ground. all knowing what it means because obviously I can't promise we'll ever get to do that he said but that would be a fantastic achievement and then he went on to say that he as Nils just said he's not just putting them in the side for the fun of it because at the end of the day this is his job if he doesn't get results he's not going to get to the point and go ah but I've played this many academy players it's going to be well you're not getting the results so the fact he's doing it is high praise David to the academy.
Mike Dowling
What's your thoughts on that?
David
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's fantastic. I mean, I don't know exactly how many are in the academy and all of that, but I've heard Jimmy Dac talk about it and it's great. I mean, a club like Sutton, which is a small club with a limited budget, it just couldn't, it has to make sense to try and find local players and try and get them into the first team and then they'll be good enough to play for Sutton for many
David
years or they'll be good enough to go and be sold on someone else. the basic idea of getting young players at an early stage has got to make sense. And I think particularly now, because the way that non-league football has evolved as far as I can see, is that essentially contracts become shorter and shorter term. The turnover of players is to such extent, the revolving door now is so fast that sometimes even keen followers like us, we can't keep up with who's in the team and who's in the squad.
David
But Because as soon as they've arrived, they've gone again. Contracts have become almost, I think, exclusively one or two years as a norm. So you've got, if you're going to get any kind of continuity at all, you've got to try and build a little some kind of base. And that might be two, three, four players that are in the first team that have come from the academy or something.
David
There has to be something where you can recognize the team from one year to the next. Because otherwise I see that as a big issue for clubs like us and most non-league teams really, which is you're changing the team basically every single year. And that's difficult, as we've been seeing in the last year or two, we've had, I mean, you could play a game now, which would be we're not now exactly, but you could sit and say, okay, name the players that played for Sutton over the last two years from memory.
David
And you would struggle to…
Speaker 1
Absolutely.
David
If there's been that many, you'd struggle. And that lack of continuity can't help
Mike Dowling
Absolutely not. And again, with a mercenary hat on, internal players and appointments are often cheaper than bringing someone in. So it's from the financial money side as well. I remember Gary Neville saying he sometimes didn't even read the contract they put in front of him.
Mike Dowling
He just signed it. He was just delighted to be there. That's what you need, a player who just goes, OK, you fill in the figures afterwards, it's fine. But ahead of yesterday, I did say a couple of times that had everything gone perfectly for us, we could be as high as 16th by the end of the day.
Mike Dowling
got to be 17th, which when you think just a few weeks ago, we were bottom of the league. Unbeaten in November, which is obviously fantastic. Three home wins in the league on the bounce and Aggie hasn't lost at home. I know he's only lost one game and the West Ham game doesn't count as a loss, that's a draw.
Mike Dowling
But Do you feel, David, first of all, is Gander Green Lane turning into a fortress? And do we feel that we can stop looking down now?
David
No and no. Okay, fair enough. Why
Speaker 1
do you feel
David
we're not? Well, in terms of Fortress, I don't really believe all that stuff. I mean, I think that you're as good as your last game. This is a results industry, you know, so I mean, if in the same way that we've won a few games on the trot, if we lose a few games on the trot, things can change very quickly.
David
So we've all seen that how it's worked in our favor in the last few weeks. So I think the stadium has got, the ground has got a much better atmosphere than it had before. The energy is much better. Chris, I think Agata has brought a much better energy into the club at every level.
David
And it's palpable. I think it all feels a lot more fun. The interviews he does are lighter. There's more energy and you can see it.
David
And I think you can see the players are enjoying it more. The crowd's enjoying it more. So if that helps it to become a fortress thing, fantastic. I don't think it's important to think about whether it's a fortress or not.
David
I think you just need to turn up every game and play well. And in terms of the second point about are we looking up rather than down, I think we should just concentrate on the next three points. I don't think we don't want to worry too much about where we are in the league and how we're doing and all that stuff. I think the simple fact is we need probably 52 to 53 points to avoid relegation.
David
And that's that's a long way to go. I mean, there's a lot of points to be gained yet. So I think we're far off the point where we need to start talking about playoffs and whether we could squeeze into the top seven and all that. I think if we're having this conversation at the beginning of April, then, you know, let's have that conversation.
David
But right now, we don't even have any late. We've got one more league game, I think, for the end of the year, isn't it?
Mike Dowling
Two.
David
Two,
Mike Dowling
okay. So Solihull on the 21st and Aldershot on the 26th.
David
Okay, yeah, so we've essentially got, you know, maximum six points for an entire month. So I reckon we need to be heading into January kind of just, you know, building on what we've got, which is great. What's been built by Chris so far is brilliant. But we just
Speaker 1
need to
David
keep going. I think the danger is if there's any danger at all, it might be that we actually start to kind of relax and think that, you know,
Speaker 1
hey, we're
David
doing really well now. We're kind of liking to look at this team. We're all feeling confident. I think there shouldn't be a single millimeter taken off the gas in terms of energy and effort.
Mike Dowling
Fair enough. You're going to hate some of the next questions because some of it you've already said we shouldn't be talking about, but we will be. Neil, what do you think? Do you think it's a fortress?
Mike Dowling
Do you think we can start looking up or do you agree with David that it's all too early?
Neil
I think it's it's hard to say it's a fortress because it's such a good pitch. I think it just it If you've got a good opponent, it allows them to play football, so it doesn't handicap our opponents, so we don't get any advantage from the pitch. Yeah, our results have improved, but I don't think it's ever going to be a fortress. I think you have to put Chris's tenure into context now.
Neil
So he's been eight matches. He's got 15 points. That's 1.875 points. That's only the top five teams are better than us.
Neil
So we've got Chris potentially for three quarters of the season. I don't believe that the team has actually plateaued. So I think their performances, you know, the average performance of the team is still going to get better. So we potentially could end up with two points a game for the rest of the season.
Neil
And that still means that we potentially could sneak into the, uh, the edge of the playoffs because the average number of points to do that over since COVID has been 70 points.
Mike Dowling
Right. Well, we're now, this is where I said Dave was going to start hating it. We're 17th. and three points away from that dreaded line.
Mike Dowling
But more important than the three points, I think there's three teams between us and the dreaded line, because even if the team in the relegation spots starts winning, you've got all these other teams that need to do well as well. And we are now only 13 points behind Southend. they have a game in hand. It was the Easley game that Claire and I were on and Claire mentioned her emotional blackmail and Aggie had said we're going to go we're aiming for playoffs and this is this is when we were in basically bottom 23-24 which to be fair we were just having a
Mike Dowling
bit of fun but now it's like oh hang on a minute maybe the man was on to something. I get what you're saying, but there's got to be a bit of positivity, because I know, Neil, the figures you gave, they include those early games where things weren't doing what, it wasn't happening how Aggie wanted it to be. So therefore, you would expect those results to start being better. But, as David mentioned, we don't have a league game now for a few weeks.
Mike Dowling
I think it's three weeks. I think it's the 21st, like I said. Do you, Neil, think that's a good thing or a bad thing that we've now got Cup fever for the next couple of weeks? Or indifferent?
Neil
I don't think it makes a difference because I think, you know, Chris will look at it as it's another match. It's another match to carry on practicing the things that, you know, that we need to improve on. We may, you know, we may win. We may not win.
Neil
They're cup matches, so it wouldn't matter. in the greater scope of things if we lost them, but he's going to go out and want to have success in both of those. I think his mentality is he wants to win every single match that's left. So he's still got the quadruples still on.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, he has said about the Surrey County as well. It's a trophy at the end of the day. And we've got that on Tuesday. We've got the FA Cup on Saturday, late kick off that one.
Mike Dowling
And then we got the trophy match, the one after against Walton. What about yourself, David? Do you think that the break from the league, especially as we're doing all right, is good, bad or, like Neil, indifferent?
David
Indifferent, I think it doesn't. I mean, I think all teams in the league are going to have the same kind of issues as this. I mean, it does seem very unevenly distributed because we had a period where we were playing Saturday, Tuesday every week, and now we're hardly playing at all in the league for the whole
Speaker 1
of
David
December. But hey, I guess that's going to happen to all teams
Speaker 1
at
David
some point. Everyone's going to have that unevenness in the calendar, aren't they? So I don't think it really matters very much. I mean, we've got to get on with it as it is and got ourselves into a slightly better league position.
David
I think we can go into the FA Cup tie with a little bit more optimism and I think a little bit more relaxed about the whole thing because we haven't got the tension of still being in relegation positions and injuries and worries about who's playing and who's not playing. So I think we can go for it and see if we can have a little bit of success in the FA Cup, which would be brilliant, you know, run maybe to the third or fourth, who knows, maybe fourth round, you know, could be fantastic. No, absolutely.
David
And I think, by the way, I like very much when the manager talks now about people playing in games and because I do think it seems to me that playing against a bunch of premiership under 21 players must be a very good training session. I mean, if you just call it probably better off doing that, you know, have an easier training session and have a proper game. And I suspect that's more enjoyable for the players and probably more realistic and the better opportunity to really practice what you're trying to practice. So to me, that makes a lot of sense.
David
We've got quite a big squad, as we've been told many times. We've got quite a big squad. So, you know, having got a big squad, you may as well use it, no?
Mike Dowling
Yeah, he has trimmed it a bit.
David
Yeah. I don't know if we're equal on numbers, but there's been two or three out, two or three in, no? So I'm not quite sure where we are. Are we a net up or net
Mike Dowling
down? I think we're net down, I think we might be one or two down. I haven't actually checked it and again we don't exactly know what Noah Butan's status is because he was online but we haven't seen him for a couple of weeks so don't know what's going on there. I don't know if you play the prediction league or not, David, but we can ask for a prediction.
Mike Dowling
So what do you feel is going to happen against Shrewsbury? We're not going to do the Surrey Senior Cup because despite what Aghi says, it's not a first team fixture really, according to DFA. So we're going to look at the Shrewsbury match, or Shrewsbury, whichever you want to say. What do you think is going to be the scoreline?
Mike Dowling
three
David
one home
Mike Dowling
win to us excellent well done uh neil obviously same rules apply you can always change it right up to kickoff so whatever you say here um you can play a double bluff game you can do what you like but um it's not going to go onto your score until you enter
Neil
i've got a feeling that it's potentially going to go to extra time so uh you're
Mike Dowling
going to score
Neil
so i'm thinking I'm thinking two all in real time. And then I suspect, you know, may not be any gut. We're quite good in added time these days and all that sort of thing. So I just wonder whether it might be a 120th minute one because, you know, our name's probably on the cup.
Neil
We've had so much luck so far in the cup.
Mike Dowling
We win the FA Cup, okay. Heard
Speaker 1
it
Mike Dowling
here first, guys. That's another player who's left, Fipsy. So, yeah, he was the one who got the 120th minute goal, wasn't it? I've gone for three-two because we seem to love high-scoring games, and I'm going to go with
Speaker 2
Lewis
Mike Dowling
to score first, and AI has gone with David to score first and us to win 2-1. So, everyone says a win except Neil who said a draw. But we're going to wrap up this episode. As always, we appreciate everyone's attention and feedback.
Mike Dowling
Follow, like, share this episode at Sutton Podcasts on all socials. Subscribe on your preferred platform. Give me the thumbs up on YouTube. And I want to just give a big thank you to my sponsors, Lucky Star Gin, Big, big thank you to my guests, David and Neil.
Mike Dowling
Thanks to you as well for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Sutton Podcast. Take care and we'll catch up soon. Bye bye.
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