What makes Sutton United tick this season? From defensive masterclasses to sparking moments of brilliance, it’s clear the pieces are coming together. But will it all click?
00:58 - 01:32
Sutton Podcast: Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast. It's the Sutton podcast, an association with LuckystarGin. I'm your host Mike and joining me today we have Claire and Alex. In this episode we're going to talk about the win against Solihorn Wars, the start of the run. 2 in a row, 2 clean sheets, this is where it starts. I don't mind being wrong, I said after Christmas but it's now guys and we're gonna look forward to the visit of AFC filed the 2022 league champions or whatever it was supposed to be and we
01:32 - 01:53
Sutton Podcast: love hearing from you Love the conversations, love all the retweets. Alex, thank you very much. And the likes and shares. Do love it on YouTube. I love seeing all the little extra likes. I'm like, oh, they love me. They really do. Shout out to everyone else, I know it's sad but Alex how have you been?
01:53 - 02:04
Alex: Yeah good thanks mates I'm thinking about the pod today and I realize this is my third 1 of the season and it's 2 wins in a draw with only 1 goal conceded so happy to sign up to the rest of them throughout the season.
02:07 - 02:10
Sutton Podcast: Neil will be sulking about that because Neil hasn't lost.
02:10 - 02:11
Alex: He's got a
02:15 - 02:41
Sutton Podcast: a moment but first of all public thank you for the brilliant evening organized last week and really really interesting and and I know it's not everyone's cup of tea but I'm sitting there going oh it's stats and stuff I love all this but yeah it was really really insightful and I you could tell that john meanie especially loved it because I left way after it finished and he was still holding court.
02:42 - 02:44
Claire: He was there till 11 o'clock.
02:45 - 02:51
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, I can imagine. But how have you been and how now especially you don't have to organize that stressful situation? How are you?
02:52 - 03:24
Claire: I'm very good. Thank you. I feel like I mean, I haven't done 1 of these for a really long time. I feel like this is actually my first 1 this season, which was a bit crazy. But yeah, really, really good. Thank you. I really enjoyed last week and we will do similar things again but yeah absolutely shout out to Salas and Meanie because they are absolute gems and yeah really appreciated them giving up their time to talk about what they do. And yeah, we'll do something similar, probably something more staty that I think you'll probably love
03:24 - 03:29
Claire: even more. So yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
04:01 - 04:10
Sutton Podcast: The knowingly knowing you segment is your question is what is your Sutton United claim to fame? So we'll go Alex first. What's your claim to fame?
04:10 - 04:37
Alex: Get mine out of the way because we'll be here for an hour if we do all of claims. I think so I think I've got who maybe 2 and a half So first 1 is that I am a gift if you search something United on the whatsapp gift bar You get a picture of me celebrating wildly And I can't remember what I was celebrating since celebration in the car park rather than like in the stands or something. So it's not even after a go. I'm not sure what was going on. But perhaps I was just reflecting
04:37 - 05:09
Alex: on a good moment. Just my second my favorite 1 though is the I was invited by Claire to do the halftime sort of entertainment challenge that we used to do a couple of seasons ago and that involved trying to score from the corner flag, so scoring along the line, basically curling out and curling it back in. It was quite funny because my mate who was down from Manchester that weekend did it as well at the same time. And he got his in first with a left footed, lovely little slow curling 1, which I then followed with
05:09 - 05:26
Alex: an outside of the boot, even lofted finish. And we both ran off celebrating in front of the fans and that was just a great moment. And the extra half is playing in the fans match alongside yourself Mike but I don't know if my performance would call that a claim to fame or something I shouldn't talk about so I'm only giving that half
05:26 - 05:31
Sutton Podcast: well you at the hands of Claire's brother you you you could have been killed I'm gonna be honest
05:31 - 05:32
Alex: well
05:32 - 05:34
Sutton Podcast: 1 instruction was
05:34 - 05:35
Alex: perhaps that's a claim to fame
05:35 - 05:38
Sutton Podcast: if I want the ball I'll shout for it don't shout for me
05:38 - 05:39
Alex: yes
05:39 - 05:47
Sutton Podcast: 3 and a half minutes later Alex goes keep his ball My 1 contribution to the game was Alex, don't
05:47 - 05:48
Alex: do that.
05:49 - 05:57
Claire: Everyone thinks that Paul's the most mild-mannered man until they play football with him and then they realise there's another side to him that they just don't know about.
05:58 - 06:00
Alex: We had a drink in the bar afterwards, he didn't mind.
06:01 - 06:10
Sutton Podcast: Oh no, he's fine once he's off the pitch, he's got to hold the grudge. I thought the half was going to be you were going to say, I've been on the podcast 3 times this year and I've not lost, but never mind.
06:15 - 06:16
Alex: We're on fire.
06:18 - 06:21
Sutton Podcast: Claire, go on, what's your claim to fame?
06:21 - 06:22
Alex: I'm going to make a cup of tea while Claire does this.
06:23 - 06:55
Claire: I don't think this is really very fair to say that I've got a big long list because I'm literally just going to pick 1. And I'd be really interested to know what you think all my other ones are, but here, let's not do a podcast that's entirely about me, as much as that would be fun for everybody else. I'm going to claim, my claim to fame is that I am desire, I won a strikers club competition, many, many years ago to design a kit for the club and my entry won and I won a wonderful prize
06:55 - 07:28
Claire: and that was all very exciting but then I was approached by the club to have said kit made so I mean possibly 1 of the most unlucky kits we've ever worn but from like kind of 2005 to 2008 that lovely striped number as a C is me so I feel like that's you know it also starts a theme because unofficially the pink goalkeeper shirt was something that I massively requested and Ben lovingly refers to that as the Claire care. So I think like you know starting a theme
07:28 - 07:31
Sutton Podcast: here Yeah, and obviously The color
07:31 - 07:33
Claire: you really want. I'm Miguel
07:34 - 08:07
Sutton Podcast: It's obviously you're the super slow. So it's not let's not It's a very difficult job, which I completely ignored the 1 time you and right hope the other Anyone else got their claim of fame let me know but another question and this play you can't join in either because you did this the other night and Steve asked a question of something fans and I was gonna are there's only about 70 there and then I worked out actually that's probably about 3% of our fan base at the moment And so the question was where do you see
08:07 - 08:22
Sutton Podcast: Sutton in English football? So 92 clubs in the league and so on and so on. Where do you see something sitting? Some of the answers were quite wild and they're actually Banned me from putting number 1. I just do a really
08:22 - 08:29
Claire: you're looking at 92 plus our league gives you a hundred and 16 So where would you put us in the hundred and 16?
08:30 - 08:35
Sutton Podcast: Or below if you think we sit below if you think obviously I'll come off
08:36 - 08:39
Alex: and is this where I as in now
08:42 - 08:44
Sutton Podcast: where you feel we are as a club at the moment
08:45 - 09:20
Alex: I think given the squad overhaul in the summer and the fact that Steve is relatively new to the job, I used to know he's been in charge for less than a year and the overhaul that's kind of happened in the summer and stuff, I would probably put us, let's say, a hundredth, i.e. Just outside the playoffs in this league. Because, and the reason I say that is that I do think that with time and gelling and consistency this team and this manager can get us higher than that, i.e. Into the playoffs and hopefully up back into
09:20 - 09:32
Alex: the league. But at the moment, I think that is our ceiling for this season. I don't think we will make the playoffs this season. I would love to be proved wrong, but that's kind of where I logically come down.
09:33 - 09:51
Claire: I mean that's interesting so there are 46 people who partook in the like the little exercise and I went around like I did the maths and added them all up which was quite stressful and off those 46 the average was was 100.
09:51 - 09:52
Alex: Oh really?
09:53 - 09:56
Sutton Podcast: 99.8 or something. 99.6 so
09:56 - 09:57
Claire: we called it 100.
09:57 - 09:59
Sutton Podcast: Yeah and I think
09:59 - 10:24
Alex: part of that is because with the exception of obviously the last few years that we've had, I'm so used to certain being in the national league or below, obviously. So that is kind of part of it as well, that I'm still I still view those 3 years in League 2 as like a fantasy fun thing that we had. I understand that the process of the club will be to try and make that the normality rather than this sort of exceptional few years But yeah, that's that's yet to transition into my my head
10:24 - 10:54
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, and I was the same when I was banned from putting 1 night. I kind of think about it. Okay, a hundred he then made some points afterwards with pointing out some of the clubs in our league and saying For a screen there a championship club and you know, well if champion I like 1 you over with championship Olden Premier League and he was going for all these clubs and we put in ourselves in that category So yeah, it was interesting. So if anyone and gives us any other ideas Let us know where you think the
10:54 - 11:43
Sutton Podcast: club sit and it wasn't then 3% if only 40 odd people did it we should be hovering around that last playoff spot. It resets everyone's expectations a little bit because you've got people thinking that's it, we're going straight back up. I know the club socials took a bit of a hit and the videos took a bit of a hit where they're going, the idea is promotion, promotion. I don't think any of them actually said this season, but that's a totally different point. Yeah, let's know your thoughts. Onto the match, I haven't broken it down into moments.
11:45 - 11:58
Sutton Podcast: It was 1 very nice moment. I've not seen it back but Mr. Wilkinson got a yellow card for simulation. What did you think of that Claire?
11:59 - 12:04
Claire: I've not watched that back either. It was nice isn't it?
12:04 - 12:06
Alex: What was your instinct when it happened?
12:07 - 12:07
Sutton Podcast: Annoying.
12:08 - 12:17
Alex: Yeah me too. I was down in the tardis, I was right the other side of it to be fair, but I thought Jack spilled it and then he went for it and oh my god he panicked a bit and you know I thought pen immediately
12:18 - 12:22
Sutton Podcast: yep oh that's because we're something united sports and we assume they're gonna go against us.
12:22 - 12:39
Claire: I talked about this with a few people and they thought that that there was a let's resort to diving in a blatant attempt to try and get a penalty and that was desperation. So I think you have those moments of like, your gut reaction is to expect the worst, right?
12:39 - 12:39
Alex: Yeah.
12:40 - 13:12
Claire: And it comes back again to some of the things that we talked about last Thursday about how you like what you do with the ref, right? So if that happens and none of your players react and they don't try, then they're less inclined to give something in a situation like that. If everybody, you know, runs over to the ref or they run over to the line and they start trying to appeal something, you do potentially start playing the odds there and trying to win something more. So it's not always necessarily that the incident itself is what
13:12 - 13:18
Claire: results in the penalty. Sometimes it's the kind of bluntly the theatrics that follow.
13:19 - 13:41
Alex: I think that's interesting because the reason I didn't walk away from the game thinking, oh, we've got I haven't watched it back. So I don't know if it was the reason didn't think, oh, we've got way with on there is because their players didn't really appeal massively like some. You know, if you genuinely had been tripped, you would like to think they would all be up and aren't them. I'm not saying the players should crowd the ref, but it does happen a lot. You would expect them to be quite vociferous in what they're saying. But actually,
13:41 - 13:47
Alex: the guy who got felt sort of said, but, you know, on with it which made me think okay probably decent assume.
13:48 - 14:17
Sutton Podcast: Yeah I mean any other player you'd have a bit of doubt but the fellow who's taking a dislike to us for some reason and we all go okay well you don't like us we don't like you we don't know who you are or why you don't like us but we don't like you either and best guess is we rejected him as a kid because he's concreting and No 1 knows why he celebrates like that against us when he's good. It's like who are you? And but yes, what what did you? Think of Let's go with Jack
14:17 - 14:34
Sutton Podcast: Jack Wadham Alex what what did you think of his performance is capped off with a goal and difficult for him? Obviously, he's been away for a month or so. But what do you think of his performance difficult for him he's been away for a month or so what do you think of his performance? Alex sorry I lost you for
14:34 - 14:39
Alex: a second there, Mike. You were saying the question. Were you asking about Jack?
14:39 - 14:41
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, Jack Wadden. What do you think about his performance?
14:43 - 15:09
Alex: So I thought he... Similar to the maidenhead game, really. I liked him coming in the maidenhead game. I thought, given that he got recalled from his loan that week, wasn't it? And then he came straight into the starting 11 in that fixture. And he's clearly good on the ball, clearly good touch. Low central gravity helps him get past people. I think he's got a nice touch, got quite a nice vision. I think he fades in games at the moment, but that's OK. He's coming back into the team after some time out on loan and stuff. And
15:09 - 15:35
Alex: I think that will gradually get better and better. And you can see by the fact that with the goal yesterday and his general play, he was sharper in the first half an hour than probably the second, 2 thirds of the game. And as I say, I think that will continue to develop as he gets more game time. But I mean, yeah, really positive, really good on the ball, distributes it well, doesn't do anything daft and took his goal really nicely. Anyone who can do a first-time finish into the corner from the edge of the box is,
15:35 - 15:36
Alex: you know, thumbs up in my books.
15:36 - 15:41
Sutton Podcast: Oh, good by me, yeah. And Claire, yourself, what do you think of
15:41 - 16:12
Claire: his play? I'd pretty much echo everything that Alex said. I think that, like, there is that kind of, that spark, isn't there? And I think it goes for so many of the people that we have in the squad at the moment, that there are moments of brilliance, right? And you're almost just waiting for it all to Click into place and for that to speak and completely consistent throughout the 90 minutes. I think that there are moments at the moment we can all get these like flash bangs of what people are capable of and then it's There's
16:12 - 16:44
Claire: a little bit of hesitance to it and that just comes with with age and with experience and gelling as a team and finding that 11 that's just absolutely Amazing and I do think that we've got I think we've got the building blocks or something really incredible But it is just finding that and it is it's exciting to see those moments kind of you think is of like I should say like someone that can score like that great isn't it like you take that every week so it's just hoping that those moments become more and more and
16:44 - 16:49
Claire: more and that the Confidence of them grows and grows and grows because they're just such they're such a young squad.
16:50 - 16:51
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, and really for
16:51 - 16:56
Claire: them, which is depressing but Amazing. So yeah, yeah,
16:56 - 17:24
Sutton Podcast: you really do forget that sometimes and I know again It was a good evening. So gonna keep going on about what we said but that's what Steven John was saying is you forget this is probably they said I've the youngest or the second youngest squad in the division the guys are learning and yeah you kind of I think I said a couple weeks ago is this gelling thing still allowed after so many months? And their thing was you start your new job and 4 months in someone says, come on, you got to be better than this
17:24 - 17:28
Sutton Podcast: now. So it's like, okay, yeah, fair enough. We don't think of it like that.
17:29 - 17:55
Claire: Especially though, isn't it like as you join a job and you kind of think to yourself, okay, cool, flight for first, I mean, in an office job, maybe first 6 months, you're learning who everybody is, what you're doing, how you will work together, what you actually do as your job. Then that's that second kind of period of 6 months, you're really bedding in and you're putting that all to use and actually you kind of start to solidify things and things start to really click into place. And then it's after that that you get really, really good
17:55 - 18:22
Claire: at your job and you know how to make things better. You notice the problems and how to fix them and things like that. And actually we don't think of it like that because you just kind of almost go well they're footballers and like they should all just know what they're doing and it should just work automatically and that's not the case and actually giving them a little bit of grace to go they need to find what works for them and what our best formations are and who is best where and who plays best with who and
18:22 - 18:28
Claire: what those partnerships could potentially be. And then I say, I think it's going to get really exciting.
18:28 - 18:39
Alex: I mean, jobs quite literally have six-month probation periods, don't they, for that exact purpose where you sort of see how you fit in and if it's all working, if it's the kind of thing you want to do. So yeah, the fact that we're only 4 months in is promising in a way.
18:39 - 18:41
Claire: Mind me, I'm 2 months into my new job and
18:41 - 18:52
Sutton Podcast: I haven't got a place. You manage bills. But Alex, you referred to the fans match because we can all play football. It's easy.
18:52 - 18:54
Speaker 3: Is it ball? I thought
18:54 - 18:55
Alex: so until I played in the fans match.
18:55 - 18:56
Speaker 3: But then
18:56 - 20:13
Sutton Podcast: when you suddenly stand on the pitch and you're like, So what did you think of our new signing? Who Steve said basically he was in the office a little bit before the game trying to read up on all the tactics and work out what he's supposed to be doing, where he's supposed to be. So he got him in only a couple of days ago and he's come in and I understood he was a centre back and next thing he's coming from the left wing back. So Alex, what did you think of him settling in and how,
20:13 - 20:14
Sutton Podcast: what did you expect from him?
20:16 - 20:39
Alex: I don't know. Yeah, I think it's Too hard to tell from from last night I thought he showed some bits of good stuff They got a good touch on the ball a couple of decent crosses from the left But equally at times, you know quite understand and read looked like he sort of was quite tentative It's not they didn't know what was going on but didn't quite know where to be or, you know, how to fit in with the tactics, which makes total sense given that he was providing them for the game. I think, you know,
20:39 - 21:11
Alex: an option in that position is good to go alongside Vaz and Charlie in that position. I think that it's working well having a consistent, bit more of a consistent defense with Charlie in that left center back position. I think having someone like Bez on his outside left in the wing back slot could be really good. And having a natural left footer there as well, rather than pushing Coley over that side or something is preferable I think. So yeah, I hope that he starts again on Saturday because I think it's good for them to play together lots.
21:11 - 21:13
Sutton Podcast: Yeah. Any additional?
21:14 - 21:19
Claire: No, I mean, I basically spend the whole evening just saying what Alex said. Yeah, no, I think it takes
21:19 - 21:19
Sutton Podcast: a lot of time
21:20 - 21:37
Claire: to bed in. And then we'll see what happens. But I think it's probably a bit too early to tell at this point. But hopefully, yeah, some promise and some good partnerships that potentially could come out of that. But after a couple of days, it's kind of hard to know whether that's working or not.
21:38 - 21:56
Sutton Podcast: A couple of days but he was chucked into it and there was nothing you could go oh I thought you did bad there so exactly so. On the other players, so I am so brilliant at this whole social media thing and great I know 1 of those in the know
22:30 - 22:47
Claire: This is what happens to me all the time and people go oh you were in the room for that meeting Do you remember what said and I was like no I get distracted by something shiny and I have no idea what's going on I'm like the best person to tell like Important things to that you're not meant to tell anyone else because I'm just not listening
22:47 - 23:37
Sutton Podcast: You got a secret you need telling and you need to tell it but you don't want to go on Tell me a Claire because we fucking shit. I I'm great at it. So I have my questions and I will ask them but, yeah, I do like seeing all the plays who aren't involved. Because we did lose that a little bit with some of the players at some stage last season where if they weren't involved, they'd just go home.
23:38 - 24:10
Claire: I think there's very much, there's a really good kind of like team ethos and they do all seem to really, really get on and like, you know, enjoy spending time together. And I think Steve said it quite early on, is that there isn't a dickhead. Quite often in any work situation, you end up with 1 person where you're like, oh, no 1 really likes that person or that person's the obvious like knob and there isn't that like they are a nice bunch of guys which I think probably makes it the fact that they're supportive of each
24:10 - 24:36
Claire: other kind of even more and you can kind of see that like in teams that we've had previous Like kind of that first EFL season team that we had, like they are all still like mates, they will still hang out, like there's that camaraderie and that's what you're trying to kind of bring together because it's all a good like what they do on the pitch but if they don't actually get on like that's not gonna help the dynamic in any way
24:37 - 25:05
Sutton Podcast: Yes, and again, I know it's really Sunday league inside But it's that piss-taking element that your mate is gonna rip the piss out of you if you don't put the effort in So you kind of forced to because you mates from the sidelines moment you I mean, they're not all nice Matthew ransom when I told everyone I called him Matthew instead of Harry and they were share that just because I shared it my whole room again
25:05 - 25:06
Alex: nice to see him come on yesterday
25:06 - 25:37
Sutton Podcast: yeah yeah I'm gonna go with there you can do this 1 defense we seem to have really really tightened up defensively Do you think it's this new formation? Do you think it's just people are getting the message, switching on? What do you kind of think is the reason for it or is it it was always coming?
25:38 - 26:12
Claire: I think, I mean on some level I think it was always coming. I do think it's a combination of probably all of the above but it is really really good to see. I think for last night in particular, I think there was a fair few people going into the game that thought that, they say they score a lot of goals and we were going to be in trouble with that. But bluntly, for all of their puff and puff and their possession, did they actually have a shot on target so like there was a lot of like
26:14 - 26:43
Claire: long throws and kind of nothingness but I'd like to think that a lot of that was down to the fact that you know we did our job properly and we stopped them from creating any of those chances or you know doing anything useful and we already talked about it But like the desperation of having to go for a dive for a penalty Says everything about what you're getting up your end of the pitch doesn't it? So I do think that there's some there's some real positives to be seen there And I will keep harping on about
26:43 - 26:49
Claire: it Like when this clicks it's gonna be incredible And I do think that's the start of it. Yeah.
26:49 - 27:03
Sutton Podcast: I mean, I said last week where people said, oh, sorry, Maidenhead didn't offer March and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, that's because we didn't let them. So yes, you can say they were rubbish, but now to play.
27:04 - 27:28
Claire: I think that's also, I mean, again, not hopping on about it, but it's how it's 1 of the things we discussed last week is the lens that you choose to look at things through right you can look at that and go oh like they do this and they do this and that's because we don't make much effort or whatever or blah blah blah blah. But if you can look at it from the other perspective and go okay cool right well they didn't have many shots on target or any shots on target because we didn't let them
27:28 - 28:01
Claire: do that rather than you know the reverse. It's that positive versus negative with some of it. And I think that there is, rightly or wrongly, a bit of a negative voice kind of floating around. And I know some of that has to do with what Alex mentioned earlier about the social media stuff, was that you can't remember the name was Alex, but like it was there was a build-up at the beginning of the season that was very much like oh the journey back to the EFL and ultimately that is what this journey wants to be, whether
28:01 - 28:24
Claire: that is this season or next season or whatever, great, but I think that has bred a lot of negativity where people expected us to be sat at the top of the table constantly for the whole of the season, which obviously hasn't happened, but you know, we're 10th in the lead up to Christmas like we're not far off the playoffs like we've got a team in hand
28:24 - 28:49
Sutton Podcast: like it's got a lot of time to us not stuttering but they're not consistent and we're getting with that team I mean Alex Jack did give us What do you think of the defensive, I would go with master class, come on let's just do that.
28:50 - 29:19
Alex: Yeah, yeah. So Jack, just his positioning is so good. There were a couple of times where the ball gets sort of slipped in between the full back and the right or left center back, depending on which side it is. And Jack is there, darts out edge of his penalty area, stops the danger by just grabbing the ball in a way that Steve Arnold, bless him, wasn't as adept at doing. It didn't come as naturally to him. And that is, you know, that's so good. It's just so reassuring. But for me, man of the match last night
29:19 - 29:42
Alex: was Muller. I thought he was excellent, you know, to come in first start since September, wasn't it, I think, given his injury. And he's got that knack that some central defenders have of just sort of being in the right place at the right time, whether that be blocking crosses or heading balls out or, you know, he's obviously can do the stuff on the ball that we wouldn't want them to do this season in the way that we're
30:15 - 30:57
Sutton Podcast: and they're going, oh, actually, we've got lots of options. And talking of options, then you've got the midfield, where we've got a completely different 3 at the moment that was playing a few weeks ago. So I mean, obviously, there's injuries, so that doesn't help. Jayden was there last night on crutches. He said he's fine. Oh, I basically shook my head and whacked. But what do you think of the midfield trio basically Alex is you
30:57 - 31:23
Alex: okay I am in danger of doing the same thing I did last season and that is falling in love with a lone player. Did it with Charlie Lakin last season and I last time I was on the pause with you Mike, I said about Finlay that I really I think it was the oval game and he had played on Saturday and played well, I can't remember who he played before, and then we didn't start him in the over game as part of the rest and rotation thing, and then he came on and was so great, and
31:23 - 31:53
Alex: I realized how much we missed him when he's not playing. That has just grown and grown. He is growing into it so much, that in another good game last night, he's clearly just growing into confidence, both on the ball and what he does, but also his role within the team, which for a man as young as he is, is so impressive. I thought Sidjou had a pretty good game last night as well and we've spoken about Jack and this is nothing against you but I am so excited to see Finlay, Lewis and Jack when Lewis is
31:53 - 32:00
Alex: back from his injury as that midfield 3 I think that is 3 excellent ball players I think that could be really really exciting.
32:00 - 32:26
Sutton Podcast: Yeah the ball's be sprayed around but it will be again depending on nothing opposition. Yeah Okay, I mean, what do you think of our midfield options? Because yeah, if we if we're going for Lesser team and I hate saying that with some but we will then be attacking with those players or we will then be able to bring in the more defensive players and then where does Jayden fit in all this? So what do you think of the midfield options that we've managed to get?
32:27 - 32:58
Claire: I think the really exciting point in that whole sentence is options And I feel like for such a long time that perhaps we haven't necessarily had options and we haven't always had that kind of ability to mix it up and really look at who are we playing? How do we need to respond to that? How do we best deal with what we're going to go up against? So I think that's the really exciting thing. And there's such a mix there that could actually, you know, you can kind of click around and play around with it, which
32:58 - 33:34
Claire: is quite cool. Yeah, like Alex, it's that risky thing of falling in love with a lone player, isn't it? But I do think that there's something really spectacular to watch there with Finlay. I thought Stich had a really great game last night and I'd have put him in kind of contention for the man of the match as well to be honest I know we'll probably come to that at the end that's my vote for the pearl but yeah I just think that the options seem to be quite exciting and at the moment maybe like not having
33:34 - 33:43
Claire: that certain stone is actually quite good the fact that we can respond and kind of flex to to those stuff so yeah lots of exciting things to watch I think.
33:43 - 34:11
Sutton Podcast: Absolutely We'll talk about the attacking side because that's where we're potentially lacking at the moment. Talking to someone last night and obviously Harry has left us and he's obviously entitled to go elsewhere but he's in a struggling team at the bottom of League 2 and you just look and think imagine Harry Smith with all these players around him, how many goals he would have scored here.
34:30 - 35:00
Claire: That. I would absolutely wholeheartedly agree, I don't think like for, if you took a kind of step back and go okay cool like of all the people that we got rid of or that we lost or who chose to go whatever, Is there anyone that you would necessarily bring back into this squad because you think that it could strengthen it? And I know that with a lot of people having these kind of conversations or we miss this person we miss this person but actually I think what we've got has More potential than what we had.
35:00 - 35:00
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, and
35:00 - 35:32
Claire: it'd be quite easy to say oh, yeah, you could our Harry Smith would work pretty well with this But again, I wouldn't I wouldn't swap in for will I think there's some really Exciting stuff coming that way Now this is pretty great There's just there are so many options I can't stop being overly excited and enthusiastic, which is not my normal wheelhouse. You all know me as an eternal pessimist. So, yeah, it's, I think that what we've got is exciting.
35:32 - 35:33
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, I
35:33 - 35:34
Claire: need to calm down.
35:34 - 35:50
Sutton Podcast: What I was going to say, we seem to be making chances, but not putting them away yet. That spark isn't it? Which will come. Is it luck or is it just we're not doing it right?
35:52 - 36:14
Claire: I think the practice is there and like there was a set piece towards the end last night and I can't remember who it was and Harry was like he stays late to practice these at training and you could see that it was just a little bit slightly off and we're getting there like it's just that it's just that finishing.
36:15 - 36:46
Sutton Podcast: Yeah I mean I joked around it earlier but actually I do know it frustrates people a little bit because we will get the ball we'll get into positions and then we'll go backwards and what I joked around earlier was Nadas put the ball in and there was no 1 there. Now that would have absolutely infuriated the bench because their whole thing is don't give the ball away. It's basically if it's not on, go back and go. And I know everyone on the sidelines and I'll do it as well. Oh, come on, just break forward. But if
36:46 - 36:55
Sutton Podcast: there's no 1 there, what's the point of pushing it? And Alex, what do you jump in with the attacking options and why you wouldn't change them?
36:55 - 37:23
Alex: Yeah, so I will okay, I wouldn't change Will Davis for Harry Smith, because I think Will Davis is a better all round player and a better all round character to have in the squad. I don't think he had his best game last night, I reckon he'd probably say the same thing about himself, but he's got it. He's got the touch, he's got the work frame. I know we're not playing that many long balls these days, but he is the 1 when we do, who is often up there by himself with 2 central defenders, sometimes more around
37:23 - 37:49
Alex: him, and he's tasked with holding it up, and more often than not, he does a pretty good job of it, and that's grunt work, really. That's physically sapping, and fair play to him, and he runs and harries and chases, but he's also got the, you know, it makes him sound like a bit of a workhorse but he's got the touch and the talent to come with it as well just on nathers I I like him I just I'm desperate for him to have a bit more conviction in some of his decision making. Because, and again, it's
37:49 - 38:14
Alex: a tricky 1 to teach, but I reckon it will come with regular game time, increased confidence, getting to know the people he's playing with and stuff. Because as we've touched on throughout this episode, they're all at the early stage of this. But sometimes he just looks a little bit tentative with his final ball and that's when a good move can break down and that's why I'm confident that it will come because the building blocks are there for the good move to happen in the first place which is great and to be fair to me he picked
38:14 - 38:25
Alex: out the perfect ball for the goal so if he does that every week then you know no further comment but I think he's got another level that he can unlock with that bit more conviction but again that's exciting.
39:00 - 39:31
Sutton Podcast: And you got dropped cuz he hit top speed and Steve was saying oh, yeah Well, I mean wasn't picked the hit top speed and we're trying to rest him luck. Sorry Because it's a process you can't Someone go up top speed too much because yeah, you bet would burn yourself out So it's almost got punished for going too fast. It was quite funny. And also another little interesting fact that we had last night, we'd scoring goals within in games. It's all great. Do you know the last time we scored at the end we all stand at?
39:31 - 39:42
Alex: No, was it? Was it not matters when we who's a 3 to tune it up, drew 2 all in? Who's that against? Can't remember. Help
40:30 - 40:54
Sutton Podcast: Good performance. It's all coming. Everything's coming and it's ticking over nicely. It's really easy when we're winning games But the support is there you do often get the comments. I haven't looked at anything really today get comments Oh, it's only so and so all like I said, I'm sorry. He'll didn't offer anything but You can only eat the teams that you're playing and if you nullify them, it's great Yin-yin Alex
40:54 - 40:56
Alex: they were 8 before last night
41:15 - 41:16
Claire: of. We've
41:19 - 41:21
Sutton Podcast: made that sticker, the likes of something. I know
41:21 - 41:22
Claire: it's on my laptop.
41:25 - 41:50
Sutton Podcast: But to and the funny. So Claire what was good for you last night?
41:52 - 41:53
Claire: The 3 clients.
41:53 - 42:01
Sutton Podcast: That'll do that's fine. Alex what was good for you last night? They are. What was
42:02 - 42:06
Alex: a good clean sheet for me? Clean sheet. Always good.
42:06 - 42:07
Sutton Podcast: Alex, what was bad?
42:09 - 42:25
Alex: Bad was the decision from Nadas to cross the ball to their goalkeeper. And I did it. I'd actually did a pirouette on the touchline because I couldn't believe he'd just gone to the corner. It's like the 93rd minute and we're trying to see how he just chipped it to their goalie. He thought someone would be there, fair play to him, but next time mate, go to the corner.
42:26 - 42:37
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, he can take it because when we did the supporters event the other week, he was there just chit-chatting. I was like, right, it's a good time now to talk about the Birmingham chance.
42:39 - 42:40
Alex: That was hard,
42:45 - 42:59
Sutton Podcast: was asking about a Birmingham game and he just turned and looked and he was like he's just done it to me as well. So yeah, he can take it so he's fine. He's easy. We won the game. It didn't cost us anything. We can slag him off as much as we like. Claire, what was bad for you?
43:00 - 43:07
Claire: Well, for a whole match experience, the selfies that you and I took after the game they're horrific. There we go
43:08 - 43:10
Alex: Are you going to share those on your platforms mike surely?
43:10 - 43:16
Claire: No. No mike looks good It's me that looks horrific and I will not be sharing them. I might just fuzzy out my face
43:16 - 43:30
Sutton Podcast: Mike Mike looks good is all you Looks like Santa Claus I've got the white dye coming soon. So I can proper Santa up. Hey, what was funny for you? Oh
43:33 - 43:35
Claire: What was funny, oh
43:37 - 43:39
Sutton Podcast: That's a hard 1 thinking
43:39 - 43:41
Alex: to me at halftime obviously, I
43:41 - 43:54
Claire: mean you are a laugh a minute I think Bruce telling me off the dairy to go on a holiday was quite funny Or thanks for last
43:54 - 44:00
Sutton Podcast: young Bruce or Bruce German Chairman Bruce Alex was funny for you
44:00 - 44:23
Alex: And I think it was the 8087 388 minutes, something like that. And they were attacking down their right wing and 1 of our lads put in a tackle and it bounced off their player and out for a goal kick, which at that point in the game feels like I mean, I celebrated it more than the guy celebrated it more than anything. Last night, loud clapping, loud shouting. And my dad just turned to me and said, you've got to mention that on the podcast tomorrow.
44:26 - 44:30
Sutton Podcast: For me, there was loads of kids saying hello to me.
44:33 - 44:53
Claire: I completely forgot about this, right? So during the second half, I walked from where we stand behind the goal to go and go around towards the tunnel and there were a bunch of kids in the first bit of the seats that all had their hands out that made me high 5 them as I walked along. I felt like an absolute celebrity and I was like I don't understand why this just happened.
44:53 - 45:00
Sutton Podcast: Yeah because I just passed another bunch earlier and they kept going something podcast something podcast hi hi hi and I'm like stop. You're a big deal
45:00 - 45:03
Claire: I don't know why it happened to me. No, your homework.
45:03 - 45:06
Alex: Don't say stop, Mike. You love it. Don't say stop.
45:09 - 45:10
Speaker 3: Oh, guys.
45:12 - 45:42
Sutton Podcast: Right. So there is a quick chat with a FC Folds supporter here. This is the free Q preview and first of all massive thank you to Jack who got the call or the tweet about 45 minutes ago and has just jumped on the call so thank you so much we're gonna be asking questions about the coming up game, yourselves coming to us. So hopefully the weather won't cause too much of a problem as I think we had yesterday.
45:43 - 45:43
Jack: Yeah.
45:44 - 45:54
Sutton Podcast: So We're doing this ahead of the Tuesday Round of Fixtures, so as always, if it's a great victory, great loss, we don't know about it at the moment at all, so we're not going to reference it.
45:54 - 45:54
Jack: It's called Roll Bases.
45:55 - 46:04
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, exactly. But first of all, Jack, could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your supporting history and kind of your connections to follow?
46:04 - 46:43
Jack: Yeah, of course. So I'm 29 years old. I've been from birth, I've been a Man United fan for my sins. I could see your grimace in there. So you know I'm a Man United fan. But yeah, I followed, filed for be 16 years now. So my dad actually is in the same kind of field in his day job as our club president. They've known each other for like 30 years and he got invited to, I think it was the FA VARs quarter-final back in 2008, just as a guest. And when they made the final, my dad
46:43 - 47:17
Jack: said to me basically, do you fancy going to Wembley? And Wembley at the time had only been open about a year. So I was a 13 year old dad, I just, yeah, 100%. I'd not been to too many games before that live. So I was like, absolutely go down to Wembley. And I've just sort of, I followed their results ever since then. When I was at university, I saw an advert on the club website for help within the media department. I emailed them, met them the next day and I started working for them then for nearly
47:17 - 47:22
Jack: 10 years up until my last game was New Year's Day this year.
47:22 - 47:22
Sutton Podcast: Alright.
47:23 - 48:00
Jack: So I did a lot of things from the club's Twitter page, I did match commentary for nearly 5 years, did all sorts of things in the media department, the post-match interviews of the player and manager, almost anything you can think of but bar managing and playing to be honest. So I stepped down from that just to give myself a bit more free time basically. These long journeys as you know going up places like Fylde and going to Hartlepool and Gates and it takes it out of you after years and years of doing it. So yeah, I
48:00 - 48:05
Jack: decided just to wind it in a little bit and I enjoyed a bit more of my free time now. So yeah,
48:05 - 48:14
Sutton Podcast: you get to other people's stuff. So were you responsible for the 5 year plan tweets or was that above you?
48:15 - 48:15
Claire: The 2022
48:16 - 48:52
Jack: stuff. No, that was something that our chairman David Aethonpwate has been very, I won't say vocal about, but he's had it sort of on club merchandise and stuff like that for a lot, for a long time. And obviously that didn't quite happen. We were nearly 3 years early with that with the playoff final game against Salford which I think might have shot a few people up but unfortunately it wasn't to be. But yeah that's obviously something that hasn't quite happened but I know he's very very committed still to trying to get filed into the football league
48:52 - 49:06
Jack: if they can. And for a club representing a town of Kirkham and Wesson of 14, 000 people, I think to win the FA trophy, FA VARs, and be 1 game away from the football league is still a fantastic achievement.
49:06 - 49:12
Sutton Podcast: Yeah, no, absolutely. But it's just always gonna be a hammer to walk through.
49:12 - 49:13
Speaker 3: It's in
49:13 - 49:37
Jack: his state. It was always 1 of them. You set yourself up for it, don't you really? But I think it allowed a lot of people to buy into it obviously if they've if they've got that it can sort of engage with the local community and they can really get behind that and we had a lot of support from that with the attendance, the attendances for a few years were hovering around the 2000 average mark which for
49:38 - 49:38
Sutton Podcast: a
49:38 - 49:57
Jack: town of 15 000 people is fantastic. So it's all about trying to get that get back to those numbers if we can try to get back the support of the local community and and try and get the results first and foremost because they they sort of follow the results come and then the the crowds sort of follow don't they
49:57 - 50:24
Sutton Podcast: yeah well our social media guy basically says the more sort of engagement you get the better. It doesn't matter what the engagement is. So that probably did get a lot of people knowing cheeky kids. What do they think they're going to be doing? And at least they didn't notice you guys. So, but for the season, what were your expectations? Did they align with the fan bases in general and how has it gone so far to those expectations?
50:26 - 50:56
Jack: I think the fan base I think was a little bit tall in 50-50 I think some were were just happy for us to survive another year, whereas from being involved in the club for so long, I knew a lot of the players personally, I knew how good they were, I know the potential that the club had and some of the players had. I thought after last year we had such a very good second half of the season under Chris Beech, we were very difficult to beat and we got a lot of impressive results that a top
50:56 - 51:31
Jack: half finish at least could be attainable. I still think that is the case if we can get our act together. But it's just a case again this season, I've just been writing about it actually. The defence again is a big issue, we've conceded the most goals in the division so far this season and it just anything we do up front is negated by the issues we've got at the back we can score as many goals as we want but if you can seed in 2 threes every week then you're not going to win many football matches
51:31 - 52:06
Jack: So we know we've got the quality up front to hurt a lot of the teams. We've beaten Solihull Moores, we've beaten Gateshead at home, we've beaten Aldershot 5-2. We've had some very eye-catching results when we put our mind to it, when we really work hard. But there's been too many times this season where we've played well for the majority of the game and then just rolled over certain periods where we'll concede goals quickly 1 after the other and it's kind of killed us in quite a few games. So it's just about trying to make ourselves a
52:06 - 52:23
Jack: bit more difficult to break down, difficult to beat. And I think the quality we've got up front with, you know, the likes of Gavin Massey, Nick Horton, Charlie Jolly, they are football league quality players. And if we can tighten ourselves up at the back, I think the goals will follow at the other end.
52:23 - 52:46
Sutton Podcast: Perfect, you've basically gone through the second question. The strength, this is not the only players to look out for, that's marvellous. How do you see the match going? I mean, we've tightened up defensively in the last few weeks and it's at the expense of bombing forward. So how do you see the match going? I mean, we've tightened up defensively in the last few weeks. And it's the expense of bombing forward. So how do you see the match going? Do you see it a bit tight? Do you see a nice open basketball type game?
52:47 - 53:11
Jack: I think it will be a tight game to be honest. All the games between us really have been tight games. I don't think there's been any games between us where 1 team has rolled over. I think we've had, I think the first game I went to was down at Gander Green and I think it was a 2-1 defeat on the day but it could have gone either way to be honest. There have always been very tight games between us and in the FA Cup last year for example
53:11 - 53:11
Sutton Podcast: we
53:11 - 53:42
Jack: were leading till what the 65th minute or whatever it was and I think Harry Smith just had those 2 really good chances and he's a quality player, so he hurt us that day. I don't think it will be a walkover either way, I think it's going to be decided by the odd goal, if not a draw. But I think the way we're going I think you are just gonna wedge it if I'm honest I'd probably I know your next thing is gonna be the score prediction but I'm gonna go for the same as it's been the
53:42 - 53:46
Jack: last couple of times we've been to you guys I think it'd be 2 1 something
53:46 - 53:47
Sutton Podcast: all right okay
53:48 - 54:03
Jack: I'm gonna be now I'm being nice you know people will come on to these sort of podcasts and say, yeah, we'll smash it. I've got a coach on my team, but I just think you're very solid and your style isn't 1 that particularly works too well with ours.
54:03 - 54:04
Sutton Podcast: I
54:04 - 54:37
Jack: think you're very gritty, you know, hard working team with technical play, with a lot of athleticism, you've got a very, very fit squad, very strong squad. And I watched you against Birmingham on ITV I thought you thought you were very very good and it was only you know a little bit of thought that really settled it so yeah I think if we can if we can if we can get a couple of a couple of points in our next 2 games from Hartlepool on Tuesday and from yourself Saturday I'll be pretty pleased with that.
54:37 - 55:05
Sutton Podcast: Perfect, perfect. Well thank you very very much. Hopefully you're right. I mean last season what I did is I kept a little track of how the away fans was doing against the home fans I had to stop it because all the way fans kept predicting win for them and we were losing it Oh, there's every day. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not winning. So I suck But yes, thank you very much. Good luck for most of the season tomorrow, obviously We'll see you soon
55:06 - 55:06
Jack: Cheers.
55:06 - 55:26
Sutton Podcast: They're obviously having a great season. So you 2 can have to listen now So this is 1 way of boosting my numbers you 2 have to listen to hear what was But what do you think about? The game on Saturday, so how do you see it going Alex will start with you because there's pulling faces
55:28 - 55:55
Alex: It's gonna click yeah, and it's and it's my 4 nil predictions gonna come Week and you know I say every game and it will it has come true before and it will again and it's gonna be this there on a rotten runner form, and I'm sure we'll hear about that in the clip that you're about to play, but you know, it's the fixtures with the Halifax game getting postponed as it's falling kindly with these 3 home games and we've Kind of ground out to 1-0 wins playing some good stuff But you know if they've been sort
55:55 - 56:01
Alex: of scrappy 1-0 wins in a way I think it's gonna click a bit more on Saturday against a slightly weaker team and we're gonna we're gonna pump them
56:02 - 56:25
Sutton Podcast: And after that and I love the Neil by the way as well and after that we then have Ebsley in the trophy and they're they're struggling and after that we got the 1 of the under 21s so yeah we could really build some momentum now right Claire what what do you what do you think don't say something you've got to actually say something different. I'm going
56:25 - 56:40
Claire: to say something different. How dare you be so accusatory? I'm going for A31. OK, victory, much like Alex, though, I do think it's going to click. It's going to be great. And yeah, we're we're we're gonna start flying
56:41 - 56:51
Sutton Podcast: Well, I'm gonna go with just a 2 nil Because I want to clean sheet and I'm pretty sure steven the rest of them will want that clean sheet as well And just yeah, but there
56:51 - 56:55
Claire: are bonuses that had to be paid for clean sheets. So I'm just saving the club money at this point
56:59 - 57:26
Sutton Podcast: Some points last season I was like hang on if people score long goals and stuff, because they can talk about reps a lot, I'll tell you what. I'll give you a load of money if you score a long goal. But yeah, I'm going to go with 2-0, because I think it's just the simmering, the bubbling at the moment, and we just need it to go a little bit more. But thank you so much for your time. Thanks for bearing with as we jump platforms. And we're going to wrap up this episode of something podcast. As always,
57:26 - 57:43
Sutton Podcast: we appreciate your attention and feedback. Get involved in the knowing me knowing you segment it was what's your something claim of fame and also where do you see something seeing sort of in the level and level the number the Chart position. I don't know. Give me another word. Let's call
57:43 - 57:44
Claire: it chart position. That's great.
57:44 - 57:46
Sutton Podcast: I'm in their chart position Yeah,
57:46 - 57:47
Claire: it's like top of the pups.
57:48 - 58:09
Sutton Podcast: I want to do that music now. But don't forget to follow, like and subscribe, thumbs up on YouTube everyone, I love it. And not just here on YouTube. We are back next week, we've got Chris and Neil and I've just realised today that I haven't sorted out the planner beyond that. So you guys will be getting an email very shortly going, hey, it's December.
58:09 - 58:11
Alex: That means we're going to lose if Neil's on.
58:11 - 58:15
Claire: Yeah, do you want to just keep me and Alex? I'll be quick, I'm out of here.
58:16 - 58:23
Sutton Podcast: But yes, thank you to both of you guys as I said, thank you everyone listening, thanks to Lucky Star Gin, take care and we'll see you soon, bye bye.
58:31 - 58:35
Speaker 3: United, United, United, United, United.
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