Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast, in association with Lucky Star Gin. I’m your host, Mike, and joining me today is Mark. We are finally back after the holiday period, and a postponed Scunthorpe match threw our schedule into chaos. Today, we’re diving deep into the recent transfer flurry, the narrow defeat against league leaders York City, and the road ahead as we fight to climb the table
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 Gym. If you're a regular listener, thank you very much.
Mark
And great to, well, great for you to hear me, not me to hear you, because that's not how this works.
Mike Dowling
But if you're a new listener, you are very, very welcome. I'm your host, Mike. And with me today, we have Mark. The Christmas and the New Year period has caused havoc with my schedule.
Mike Dowling
There was an arranged date, and then the Scunthorpe match got postponed, so it threw everything out. But we're back. It seems like forever, but we are back. We love hearing from you.
Mike Dowling
Join the conversations, stay connected, share your thoughts on the episodes, what you want to hear, chat with other fans, give us the thumbs up, always the thumbs up. All social media platforms at Sutton Podcast. Likes, shares, retweets, conversations really, really do help. And Mark just discussed, you fought out since yesterday.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. What time was it? Because my toes are still cold. Right, so a bit of club news.
Mike Dowling
This week has been quite busy on the transfer front. We first of all, well, I don't know if it was first of all, but in some order, Charlie Bell committed his future to the club, which is obviously great news. Another one off the Academy treadmill. What are your thoughts on that?
Mark
Yeah, good. He's obviously a player who's come on in leaps and bounds over the last year or so. He's established himself in the first team squad. He started yesterday.
Mark
He scored a few goals. You know, the future is looking bright for him. You know, it's good that we've tied him down to a contract.
Mike Dowling
Absolutely. And then the other side, we've got Kai for the rest of the season. Obviously, Wimbledon are very pleased with his regular game time and how he's developing here at Wimbledon. Do you see that as anything but a positive?
Mark
Yeah, I think, again, he's been a great acquisition, very, very talented player. He's got a very bright future. You can argue he's a similar sort of player to Charlie Bell. I don't think they play together very often, but you've got the option of taking one off and bringing the other on, having a similar sort of player.
Mark
Also, I think with Jake Taylor in the side as a holding midfielder, I think Kai can get forward a bit more than perhaps when he first joined us, and I think we've seen the benefits of that, particularly at Truro.
Mike Dowling
We then had Dabham Ezeh join us from Bolton Byre, I can't remember which club he was at loan on.
Mark
He was at Scunthorpe, I think, for a while.
Mike Dowling
Scunthorpe, there we go, yeah. And he's an attacking midfielder slash winger. Jack of all trades, according to Chris. And the goalkeeper with Chris Hay has joined us from Chelsea City as a player coach, which I think is quite important.
Mike Dowling
And the return of Bessat. Topalov, what do you think of those three signings in general?
Mark
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much Chris A will play, but he obviously knows Chris Agatha quite well. There's a good working relationship and it's always good for the manager to surround himself with people who he knows and can trust. I think that's been a big element of that signing. So yeah, that works good.
Mark
Eze came on as a sub yesterday, didn't have a lot of time to prove himself, had a couple of good runs, no end product, but I think there's some promise there. And Bézard went straight into the starting 11 yesterday, as was expected. And I thought he did well.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. It's great that he wanted, I think he really wanted to come back. There were other clubs in for him, but he kind of gave the impression that once he knew that we wanted him, he was going somewhere. I think Hayden might have a lot to do with that because they're best mates.
Mike Dowling
So, OK, yeah, there may be quite a bit to do with playing with your best mate. The ladies side unfortunately lost today 1-0 to Hammersmith. They're out of a cup. Not sure which cup it was, sorry.
Mike Dowling
It does look like that there was an awful lot of chances for Sutton. I'm seeing this chance cleared off the line from Millie Cutler, Emma Spear. also had a couple of chances, had a chance to go on goal, throw on goal with one of the keepers to beat but it went wide and then 85th minute we conceded and it stayed 1-0 until the end of the match. I do know we are back and definitely playing at Gander Green Lane.
Mike Dowling
I think it's against Brentford at the end of March, towards the end of March, so keep keep running a solstice for that because they're getting some good crowds. I was talking to Lucy the other day and it was I think one of the games recently they had 450 at, which is obviously a great crowd. So definitely something growing there. There was, I've just had a report in, nine players missing, and it's a tough result to take, but they're at home.
Mike Dowling
Actonian's in the cup at Cobham next week at 3.30 kick-off. So that match I'm sure will be on the socials. But yeah, it's quite hard to take. Lucy's correctively there, it's the 91st minute, not the 85th, so that's my mistake there.
Mike Dowling
And it was a 25-yard shot, but um with football it is what it is so there's not a lot you can do um but they're still going well great guns in the league so and that's that's excellent so get down to see them Yesterday, we're not going to go about the all-shot game or any other game, we're going to talk about yesterday. I was quietly confident on a 2-2 draw, I'll be honest. The lineup and expectations, you've already mentioned Asak coming into the starting 11, was there any surprises for you or anyone you felt was missing?
Mark
The obvious omission was Jack Taylor, who wasn't in the squad at all, but we do know he's been carrying a knock, been playing with that. So it wasn't a huge surprise to see him not involved. and Bézard just slotted into that left centre-back position where Gap normally plays and did so quite seamlessly. I think we all want to see Gap back soon, but in the meantime I think Bézard can do a good job there and indeed may hold down a long-term place in the starting XI.
Mark
He can play left wing-back as well, can't he? So he's quite versatile. So yeah, apart from Jack missing, no real surprises. We knew Kai Jennings was unlikely to start because he played midweek for Wimbledon, but he was on the bench and did come on in the second half.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, I mean, it might be that we just we don't see Jack until January is out of the way, because we don't want to pretend his injury is worse than it is. I've seen where you're coming from. I've seen where you're coming from. I'm not sure.
Mike Dowling
But Will Tisard, Yeah. Selling it back, showing strikers instincts and scored our opening goal. Eight, ten minutes-ish. What were you feeling at that point?
Mike Dowling
I did find out from his dad that he did used to play up front. So I was like, oh, was he playing up there? And his dad said, oh, no, he did used to play up front when he was a youngster.
Mark
I think that's his third goal as he got that winner, a dramatic winner against Farnham Town in the in the FA Cup, didn't he? Some people might say he's actually better going forward than defending, but I wouldn't necessarily endorse that view. But yeah, he both won the corner from which he then scored, so sort of double success there. And the goal was a little bit like the one he scored at Solihull.
Mark
It was just a low shot through a crowded penalty area. Keeper probably saw it too late. And 1-0 up. And, you know, I don't think many of us were expecting Sam to take an early lead, but we did.
Mark
And I thought we'd started the game the better. I thought York, they grew into the game, but I thought they started a bit sluggishly, possibly because of the cold. And, yeah, at that point things were looking good. Very, very positive start.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, I mean, like you, I was like, it's a long time to hold this. Yeah. They, I mean, they played well and our team, I'm talking about, we were battling, we were doing well, but as you say, they did start coming back into it, showing quite a bit of quality. Was the equalizer a surprise for you, or were you hoping we could have held on?
Mike Dowling
Well, both.
Mark
I noticed that York were the biggest, the highest scorers in the National League. I think they're up from 65 goals now, including the two they got yesterday. So they're well ahead of the pack in the scoring charts. So it wasn't really a surprise when they scored, obviously a bit disappointing, but it almost felt inevitable that they would get at least one goal in the game, and of course they ended up getting two.
Mark
But like our goal, it followed the corner. It was a sort of second phase, and the guy, I think he just beat David O'Connor to the ball, it was a clearance, and he just dumped it into the net. A decent goal, but rather different from the one we'd scored, but like ours, it followed the corner.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. I mean, so we were kind of, again, not sure what to expect at halftime. One thing, before we go into halftime, we're going to rewind a little bit. Before the match, obviously, Macclesfield beat Crystal Palace through very gritted teeth.
Mike Dowling
I'm saying well done to Macclesfield. I think that is, at the very least, on a par with our 1989, possibly surpasses it. But what do you think about that?
Mark
Yeah, I mean, in terms of the number of places between the two clubs, yeah, there was a bigger margin yesterday. What you could say in our defence is I think back in the 1980s, top level clubs took the FA Cup more seriously than they do probably today. I'm not saying Palace didn't take the Cup so seriously yesterday, but they probably weren't quite as up for it as they might have been 30 or 40 years ago when the Cup meant a bit more. These days it's been effectively devalued by the amount of money that clubs can make from competing in the Premier League and in Europe.
Mark
I think many of us regret that. There seems to be a bit of a debate about whether Palace put out a weakened side or not. I've heard it said that they got a lot of players missing through injury and they got a player out at the African Cup of Nations. So they put out about the strongest side that they could.
Mark
Whether that's actually true, I'm not an expert on Palace's score, so I can't say for sure. But there seems to be a debate there about whether Palace did put out their strongest XI or not. Whereas I think when we play Coventry, I think Coventry did put out their strongest XI.
Mike Dowling
Oh, absolutely. whether it was because of the Palace result or not, but certainly Man City put out a very strong side yesterday, very seriously. Again, as an Exeter fan, you'd be sitting there going, well, I wish they didn't, but they paid you respect by playing those top, top players, punished. But yeah, I would have said Palace were going to be trying to play as strong as they could, maybe with one or two outsiders, because they're trying to defend their cup.
Mike Dowling
But yeah, through very gritty teeth. Well done, Max.
Speaker 3
Boo.
Mike Dowling
But second half came out, keep it tight, keep everything solid, don't give anything away. bloody ollie pierce what was it four five minutes um yeah something like that within five minutes of the restart anyway yeah they got that second goal which turned out to be the winner
Mark
Yeah, not great defending by us, it has to be said. It was a throw-in, I think, quite close to our goal line and I think that guy just ran in behind David. I don't want to be too hard on him because I mentioned him in connection with the first York goal, but the guy ran in behind him and whipped across in and it seemed to evade all of our players and there was Pearce at the far post to thump the ball into the roof of the net.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, as he has done about 8 million times in his career. I mean, even then, we're 2-1 down. As I said, utterly convinced this was going to be 2-2. It's not based on anything other than, apart from one match, it's always been 2-2 of York.
Mike Dowling
Yes, yes. Am I being proper amber-tempted spectacles, or did you feel that from that point, we were the team in the ascendancy and most likely to score? Because I certainly felt that we were having great chances, and there was a double save from the keeper, and there was a clearance off the line, I think. Did you feel that we were in the ascendancy, or did you think that at some point we're going to get held on the break here?
Mark
I didn't feel we were in this sentence. I thought York played a bit better in the second half than they had in the first. They did hit the post, didn't they, in that second half?
Mike Dowling
Was that the second half? Oh, yeah.
Mark
Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, we did have chances on the break. You know, we put some good counter-attacking moves together. There was a double save their keeper made.
Mark
I think Lewis Simp had got the first one. I think it was Brandon with the follow-up. And then a bit later, the keeper saved another decent shot from David. So, you know, we had chances to make it to all, which we felt perhaps was going to be an inevitable final score.
Mark
It wasn't to be. But yeah, I just thought that in the final 10, 15 minutes we just faded out of it a bit. despite bringing on Kai and the new guide as a, we seem to not have quite enough in the tank during those final stages and York I think in the end held out fairly comfortably.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, I mean It was, we had a chat just before Christmas, Johnny was on with me, and we were talking about the red cards. We seem to be getting red cards.
Mark
Yeah.
Mike Dowling
There was no reds yesterday, but there were a few yellows.
Mark
Four for us.
Mike Dowling
Four.
Mark
And one hilarious one for Piers, who we will come back to in a moment. Mark Freight rather enjoyed.
Mike Dowling
Do you feel that the ref was a bit whistle happy or do you feel that it was?
Mark
Yeah, I'm not quite sure that when it came to yellow cards, we were 4-1 worse than York. I mean, the one or two, you know, that Junior Eccleston got and the one that Jadon got, I could kind of understand why they were given. maybe a four was a little bit harsh on us. At least we didn't get any reds, we didn't concede a penalty, so we're grateful for those small nurses.
Mike Dowling
Terrible.
Mark
Go on and talk us through Ollie Pearce's... Oh right, well he hadn't at the far end, but yeah, he got through and he went down under what appeared to be a challenge from Jack Simms and it was a heart in the mouth moment because we were so far away you couldn't see exactly what had happened and you thought well maybe Jack's brought him down he's going to get a red card it's going to be a penalty but very quickly the ref blew for a free kick to us and then booked Piers for simulation right in front of the York supporters which is quite entertaining.
Mike Dowling
There were calls for that yellow to be followed by another yellow because he didn't want to let it go, did he?
Mark
He was mouthing off a few times in the game, yeah, that was noted.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, it would have been very interesting for that other card to come out straight away. But I mean, we had a fantastic November. Everything was going our way. We didn't lose.
Mike Dowling
Followed up by a very difficult December and one game in January against a team that I think they went top yesterday and we did match them quite well. This is Is this Chris's first kind of test? Because when he came into a side that's not doing well, no one really expected anything. But then he's given us this hope, and it's another little mini slump at the moment.
Mike Dowling
Is this a test, or is it still part of the original problem that we had going back to sort of COVID time?
Mark
I mean, losing to York City is not, I mean, in Southend, as we did at the end of the year last year, is not as embarrassing on paper as losing to Walton and Hersham. however well they might be going at the moment. So I don't think there's any disgrace in losing those two last league games by single goal margins. You're playing two of the top teams in the division and I thought we played reasonably well in both those games and were unlucky not to get something out of the south end game.
Mark
We've obviously got another tough game coming up next Saturday when we're home to Forest Green. After that, things get a little bit easier. We're playing more of the clubs in the sort of middle and lower ranks of the table. So you take nothing for granted, but you would have thought with the fixture list looking a little kinder through, you know, end of January, February and into March.
Mark
March in particular, we're playing a lot of the other sides down the bottom. you would have thought there's an opportunity there to put a lot of points on the board. The one downside is we've got a lot of traveling in February. You've got, we've got to go to, don't know about Scunthorpe, that hasn't been rearranged as far as I know, but we've got Boston, Hartlepool, Yellowville, Halifax, all the way trips in the month of, quite short month of February.
Mark
So that's going to be testing. But we're not playing any of the top sides once we've got Forest Green out of the way until I think Rochdale, we've got it home at the end of March. So I think there's an opportunity there for, you know, the November form to, you know, repeat itself.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, because when the game At one point yesterday we were 21st, and then Aldershot helped us out, didn't they? Yeah, yeah. So we did quite well there. So we're 20th, 23 points.
Mike Dowling
Boston, you've just mentioned, they're on 26 points, and they've played two games more than us, and they're in 16th. So there isn't an awful lot between but that means solid mid-table and further down. I mean, there is a bit more of a gap then as you start moving up, which there wasn't until fairly recently. I think I know your answer, I think, based on what you've just said, but are you getting those relegation fears or are you still optimistic that actually we're going to come good?
Mark
The relegation fears haven't been completely banished. One thing saying we've got a relatively kind run of fixtures coming up is another thing actually getting points on the ball during that run. So we'll have to see how things go. But we are getting players back from injury and suspension.
Mark
Eden Pruett, he has now served his three-match suspension, though I don't know whether he's still carrying an injury that he picked up.
Mike Dowling
I think they said he was, yeah.
Mark
Yeah, same. So he might not be back for a few more games yet, but obviously we've got Bézard back and we might see Jack Taylor back, we'll have to wait and see. But yeah, we don't seem to be quite short of numbers as we were a month or so ago, and obviously the new, the recent arrivals have helped with that. as it's Kai saying on.
Mark
So I think there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic. My feeling is we probably will stay up, but maybe not by a huge margin. But yeah, a long way to go yet.
Mike Dowling
Just had a little look. Southend are only 18 points ahead of us. That's a lot. That's a lot at this stage of the season.
Mike Dowling
Earlier in the season, I felt quite happy, but it's not really me. As you say, big game on Saturday for a screen who are fourth and definitely still within the hunt because there's only three points between first and fifth. Although Rochdale, they have all the games in hand, but if the tired. What do you feel is going to happen for a screen match?
Mike Dowling
Early thoughts? Is it something we've just got to try and contain or we're at home trying to get that attacking intent and get something from the game?
Mark
Yeah, I mean, Forest Green play some stylish football. We saw that when they took us apart 4-0 at their place back in August. I know Chris Agates is an admirer of the way they play as well. They don't score as many goals as York.
Mark
That's the only thing you can say. I mean, I think they're on 44 goals this season in the league compared with York's 65. So there's quite a difference there. Defensively, though, they're slightly better than York.
Mark
and to say they do play some slick football. I think we've got a better chance of getting something from the game than perhaps we had against York. I don't really want to go into predictions yet. Maybe we'll leave that for a bit later.
Mark
But yeah, we're going to have to be at our best to get, or close to our best to get something from that game. But based on what I've seen in the last couple of games, I think we're capable of getting something from that game.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, we'll do predictions. We're coming up to that point anyway. I haven't written mine yet, so I'm going to have to put them out in public towards the end of the week, but I haven't done mine yet. But what's your early thoughts on predictions?
Mark
Well, I'm going to go for the score that we should have had against York, 2-2.
Mike Dowling
2-2 against me. Yeah, it's a lot to fit in, but what were your thoughts on the Aldershot match? Because I didn't cover that. Oh, right.
Mark
Best forgotten, I think. Yeah, there's very little positive you can say about that game. It was just one to forget. But we got a point from it, where there was an injury-ravaged side and several players missing the suspension.
Mark
So, you know, you take that.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, well, the one positive is I didn't get my day pass and I was held hostage at home on Boxing Day, and it was an awful game. So I had to go around and say all that moaning and groaning about it. I have to say thank you now.
Mark
But the other one was Southend.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. Away, last game of 2025. How was that?
Mark
Yeah, I went. It was cold. We played well. bit unlucky with some of the refereeing decisions.
Mark
And there's a debate about whether, you know, the penalty should have been awarded against us. Jack did seem to win the ball, although he did come in from behind the player. Anyway, Jack Simms did save the penalty, but unfortunately we didn't clear the loose ball and one of their guys followed in and scored what proved to be the only goal of the game. That side I thought we defended well.
Mark
We hit the frame of the goal twice. uh against yeah signed with a good defensive record i think we've got the second best defensive record in in the in the national league um so i thought actually we gave a pretty good account of ourselves and the scunthorpe postponement yeah proved something to me that
Mike Dowling
we're never going to be a big club because scunthorpe announced the day before that the match was off and you look on twitter any other club that announces the game is off the opposition fans will always give grief and abuse and say oh you should have given it more time you should have done it earlier whichever whichever. Sutton fans oh fair play good call thanks for doing it early cheers we're all gonna do something that's like This is why we'll never be big. We're just too polite and too nice.
Mike Dowling
We should be moaning about it. But were you pleased that they did it the day before rather than the day of?
Mark
I was. I mean, I don't think many of our fans fancied traveling up to Scunthorpe on a cold day in January anyway, so there probably was a certain amount of relief. Jane did. Jane was up there shopping.
Mark
Jane was already up there, yeah, but I was actually ill last weekend. I had some sort of chest infection, so even if the game had been on, I wouldn't have made it. So I wasn't unhappy to find that it was off. My mate Peter went out because he did all your book trade tickets as far as Doncaster and went on a pub call of Barnsley.
Mike Dowling
Nice.
Mark
He rather enjoyed this.
Mike Dowling
Nice. Excellent. But that's it. We're kind of bang up to date now.
Mike Dowling
We have, as I say, Forest Green this week. We've got another home game Tuesday, and then we're Tamworth away. Tuesday is Woking, so that'll be a nice warm atmosphere for everyone. But we're going to wrap up.
Mike Dowling
Nice quick one.
Mark
Before we go, Mike, is it your special day tomorrow? Am I right?
Mike Dowling
It is my birthday.
Mark
Make a big day tomorrow. Happy birthday for tomorrow.
Mike Dowling
Thank you very much.
Mark
Mine's mine four days later.
Mike Dowling
I'm sure you'll remember yours. Of course. Yeah, 52.
Mark
You're a mere youngster.
Mike Dowling
I said this to Vicky in the club shop yesterday. When I was young, I used to pour salt on my dinners like that. And everyone said, oh, if you carry on with that, you'll have a heart attack and you'll be dead by your early 30s. Liars.
Mike Dowling
I made no plans for the future based on what they told me. And here I am. But thank you very much. And thank you all for listening.
Mike Dowling
As always, we appreciate the attention and feedback. Subscribe. Let us know what you what you feel. Give us the thumbs up on YouTube.
Mike Dowling
And a big thank you to Lucky Star Gene and a big thank you to you, Mark. And we will see you soon. Take care. Goodbye.
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