Latest / Blood, Sweat & Gills / The season starts now... and we're cautiously optimistic
Transcript
- Simon Head: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Blood, Sweat and Gills. It is a brand new podcast. A bit of a co-promotion between Jills 365, the site I've just recently launched for the start of season, and Jills and the Blood TV. Matt, I'm really looking forward to doing this. You've been doing the video vlogs for years. I'm back to writing about the Jills for the first time in years. This should be a lot of fun. I'm hoping so. Yeah, definitely. It's ⁓ it's nice to jump on board and Maybe have the questions asked to me rather than the other round, which would be quite different. But yeah, looking forward to it. ⁓ we'll gloss over Saturday and ⁓ the reaction to the cup exit maybe. ⁓ and look forward to the league season. But yeah, forty six games to look forward to and ⁓ I'm sure there'd be plenty of highs, plenty of lows, and and every imbo emotion in between as well. Let's not dwell on on Luton too much, but Gareth Ainsworth turned around straight afterwards and said it felt pre seasony. Everything he said leading in was that we're not going to treat this like a preseason game. So how much of a worry is it when okay, we go in against a team who are a a ped a high much higher pedigree, right, than than than we are. Were there issues with application or is it just a case of a team that isn't one hundred percent cooked yet and ready for the season, playing a few a few fringe players against the top draw side, ⁓ in a in a competitive game straight off the bat? The latter for me. And that's not me sitting here and saying that everything was okay with the performance and we can't do things better and there's not stuff to improve on. Absolutely there is. You can say that potentially Andy Smith switches off for the first goal. You can say, can we stop the cross for the second goal? Can we be more alert once the keeper makes a good save? Can the keeper do better for the third goal? But there was a lot of extenuating circumstances in this one side that meant even with a full strength team it was going to be tough. Because of what you've said. Luton are a good side. They finished seventh in League One last season. They won the EFL Trophy. I'd imagine their aim is top six minimum this season. I said in my own review show, look at the difference in terms of substitutes benches. They're bringing on a Jamaican international, twenty nine years of age, and a lad that's played three seasons for Aberdeen in the SPL. We brought on Will Goodwin, who was twenty four, who, let's be honest, has probably not played enough games for a twenty year or four year old. And aside from that, teenagers, seventeen and eighteen. There's there's a golfing club for a reason. I don't think the application was wrong. I just think if you're being made to run around chasing the football for 90 minutes against a side that has over sixty five percent possession in temperatures that are probably approaching thirty degrees at pitch level, yeah. You're gonna look a bit tired at some stage during the football match. Yeah. Yeah, it kind of looked like that. I I My I I had some preseason issues of my own. I was supposed to be at that game on Saturday and completely misread my work assignment for the day and there was an event that was supposed to start at five. So there was an empty seat in the Rainer Men that should have had my rear end on it on Saturday. So I had to stream it from ⁓ from Sky. Very, very useful being it was a cup game. ⁓ I d there were some positives. I was really impressed with Zayn Albarez. I think he got caught on the ball a couple of times, but he's playing top top quality midfield players. He looks like a real find. I mean, obviously we're really early on. I saw a little bit of preseason and he impressed me just with the way he goes about his job. ⁓ to think that that was his first professional senior game. And then you've got someone like ⁓ Connor McManus, who wasn't on long but did some things that impressed me when he came on as well. We've got Logan Dobbs coming through. The heart of this team is very young, ⁓ in terms of we've got some experienced heads in there, but we've got a lot of young lads coming through. This is gonna take a little while to gel, right? This isn't you know, the last few seasons we've hit the ground running from day one and everyone's getting ⁓ sort of very excited when we're top of the league after September. I don't think we're gonna get that this season because this team is brand spanking new and it's gonna take a little while for everybody to find their feet, whether it be within the team framework itself or whether it be just in professional football at league two level. This one's gonna be more of a slow burn and I really hope that the the patience level from from from us guys in the stands is there. And that's always the big thing 'cause people are f if you if you look at Ainsworth, we've had Ainsworth for for a little while and you can carry that string through and say, Well, it's not got any better or you know, whatever. But this is a completely new page of a completely different book now. We have a com a totally different set of players. It's gonna take a little while, right? It's gonna take some time. Totally agree. And and we've heard the chance, we've heard, you know, satire, which is fine, and and banter and and all that type of thing. And we have to humour ourselves sometimes when ultimately you've watched a football team that's not been very good for five, six, seven years now, dare I say it, from the the drop out of League One. I think we've probably underachieved in in League Two since we've been in here. ⁓ but yeah, there's there's lots of factors. We can't as a fan base sit here and demand huge change, then watch fifteen players get released, one retire One then have his contract torn up and one get sold for anything between two hundred thousand and about thirty-five million, depending on what you read on social media. ⁓ and expect it to be instant. And you talk about young players in the squad, you talk about experienced players that we've got. Maybe the more key point on Saturday side was the fact that the experienced players that we didn't have available. You'd say Ollie Wright played forty three league games for Aprinton last season. ⁓ Armani Little, regardless of your opinions on him, was our captain last season. Bradley Dak was our top goal scorer and player of year last season. ⁓ Liam Golden, who it looks like probably will be captain this season if rumours on social media are to be true. He was missing as well because of a spension that carried over. So I'm not saying Luton were at full strength, but we were so far away from having what might be our first choice spine in a month or two that it was always going to be really, really tough. We had the preseason. We've had one quote unquote competitive game, but we're we're now into the meat of it now. We're into like the what we're all here for, which is the league two season, right? First game in the season, coming up this weekend, Warsaw, who have been typically pretty strong without really quite managing to sort of get themselves into into promotion contention consistently. They had a great run, was it last year, and then they completely just fell away? ⁓ two two years in a row, I think. Two years, yeah. Top three and at Christmas and then yeah, similar to us from October, they've decided to not play in the second half of the campaign. Yeah, so we've now got the season started. We've got what I would say is a good barometer for what we're likely to come up against in League Two this season. They're probably in that clutch of teams that you would expect to finish between sort of fifth and fifteenth. I think there's a big group of teams depending on consistency and and you know, any more potential arrivals in the summer. How they will go. So this will be a good test for us. How how would you want to see us approach this game? Because there's a lot of talk. Obviously, we had the fan forum and and Ainsworth was talking about high press, high energy game. ⁓ we didn't really do that on on Saturday, largely because it would have wouldn't really work. Are we gonna see that on Saturday? And is that how you want us to play over the course of the season with that high press, or would you rather we adopted a different approach? I I'd like to see us to adopt an approach that that's i in line with who we're playing at the time. We can sit here now before the first game and the first ball's kicked and Yeah, we want to be a high prossing team, but like you say, you might come up against opposition that you can't do that against. Would you go and press high against an MK Dons in previous seasons? Maybe not, 'cause they probably just pop it around you. Salford City are probably the team that's going to be labelled this year's MK Dons based on budget, so are you going to go and high press against them with all the quality they've got in their squad? Maybe not. I think The the biggest thing for me, and I've said it for ages, and I we keep going on about this two year plan, and I read it as we had to be better at the end of the two years. So by end of March twenty seven or the end of the season, we've got to be better than where we were when Gareth took over, which was sixteenth, seventeenth. I don't think promotion's the B or end all. For me, I wanna see a season where we're not talking about it being over at January, February. We have an identity. style of play and we look like a Gillingham team. 'Cause I don't think as a fan base we ask for too much. And I think we can get that with this group of players. But like you said, it goes back to your point. There's a lot of new signings and in amongst them new signings there's a lot of young players that are going to have to adapt to McManus is in your Tabares, Albarus, ⁓ Sheldon Kendall coming down from Milwaukee on Lunds, never played senior football before. So there's a lot of there's a lot of question marks over this squad. as exciting as it looks. And you won't find that out about that group until probably dare I say it. October, November. Yeah. Yeah. It's I'm I'm I think I wrote it on on the site the other day. I'm I'm quietly optimistic. I think that's probably how I would put it. I'm not sort of going overboard thinking this is a title winning squad. What's a good season for you then? I think I think good would be Top ten, solid would be top half, excellent would be playoffs. That's kind of how I see it. Literally how I've said it. Yeah. Top twelve represents progress. You jump five places in one season. Top ten means you're in and around it. So be it, if you don't quite get there. Top seven be the icing on the cake. And I think to to sort of add to that, to not be going in to sort of look like we look back at last season, there were several games where we didn't just lose, we got tongued. And and I think most people can handle losing games. I don't you know, obviously no one wants to lose matches, right? But you want to be competitive even when you lose. And there were games last season where we just weren't. You know, we we were blown away and we need to get away from that. We need to have fewer or I I I ideally none of those. What I wouldn't be content with is to see a side where we're not competitive. And to me, if you can finish in the top half, that means you're competitive. And ⁓ that's what I'm hoping for. And I'm as I say, I'm qu quietly optimistic is sort sort of the f the the the tag I'm giving it. I'm I I think that the league is not about who's got the best team because the best team doesn't always go up or the the team that plays the best football doesn't always go up. It's the team that is the most consistent. ⁓ and to add to that, it's a team that is the most consistent and avoids injuries. We seem to collect injuries like my daughter collects Lego. It's it's ridiculous. So, you know, hopefully we can steer clear of that. We seem to be getting all our injuries out of the way in preseason and before the season starts. Hopefully, hopefully they're they're made of slightly stronger stuff this season. We've got a lot of younger players in there, so I'm hopeful. But just talking about these younger players and the new signings we've got, Matt, who are the ones because you you've actually been at these preseason games. I've had to stream them, so I've been a little more removed. You've just been sort of watching them on the ground, so to speak. Who have been the ones that have stood out for you or the ones that perhaps you're the most excited by going into this season? Well I to to not copy you, but I picked Zane Alburas in my own season preview to be the youngster that could make the biggest impact. I think he looks he looks like he's had a Premier League upbringing. I think is the easiest way to put it. ⁓ he's willing to take the ball in tight spaces, he's comfortable with it on both sides. But what I liked, particularly in pre season, was the game at Ebbsfleet, ⁓ where we were two one up with fifteen minutes to play and Ebsfleet weren't treating it like a friendly game. They were well up for it and they were desperately trying to find an equaliser. There was no taking it easy and thinking, right, I'm not going to pick up an injury before the first game of the season. At the time, obviously we've seen what's happened since, and hopefully that gets sorted out on a side note. ⁓ St. Alvarus was brilliant. Not once did he shirk any challenge going up against big experienced pros that and he's not a big lad. He's very slight of frame, he's stocker, he's got low centre of gravity. Didn't miss a challenge, didn't miss a battle. And I thought and even going back to the Dover game, and I said, I think that night and I mentioned it again recently. I think he started that night with Nick Freeman, Bradley Dack and maybe I can't remember who the centre midfielder was. But he had senior pros that have been around the block at League One and League Two. Bradley Dax played in the championship, got all the pedigree in the world in terms of League Two. He could have just got into that game, just been quiet, shrunk into his shell, just got the ball given it and just sort of coasted through forty five minutes. Not at all. He was telling Dacky where he wanted him to be, he was telling people where he wanted to receive the ball. I think he's got a great chance of having a really good season for us. The others we've not seen a lot of, have we, unfortunately? Tabar has lasted all the twenty minutes at Ebbs Fleet. McManus were going off a fifteen minute cameo. ⁓ Sheldon Kendall even less unfortunately. Ollie Wright, we've not seen. I like Lennon McClaw, I really did. I thought he was superb against Millwall. ⁓ and then unfortunately he's he's done something fairly sinister it seems and's had to have quite major surgery and looks like he's gonna be out for at least a couple of months or so, which is a real shame. Given, you know, it's his first foray into first team football again and and also th the story surrounding it is really frustrating for him. But no, I think we've got a few exciting ones. And I think we've got a few exciting ones within the group already. I mean myself and Ava are sponsoring Louis Dale this year. I think he's got half a chance. A Ava picked Sullivan Booth to be the ⁓ the outstanding youngster this season and and based on that twenty minute cameo on Saturday, I thought he was superb. Just plays with absolutely no fear. And maybe that's what we need. Players that are not playing with any scarring or baggage of the last few seasons. Doesn't care for reputation,'s got pace to burn, which people have mentioned we've been missing for a few seasons. So whether we're gonna be where we want to be, so I if all them players are playing and I say in inverted comms too regularly, maybe not, but I think it'd be great to sort of implement them and have ⁓ around the first team squad. Cup games like we did at the weekend, trophy games because they're only gonna learn and I think it's probably the most exciting group I've seen in a long time in terms of how many have genuinely got a chance of making it. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I mean, like just just that group of young lads who are coming through from the from the Academy system, I can't remember there being as many who have got a genuine shot of being in the squad, a match day squad. You know, with all of them we've seen little cameos from over the last season or so. And all of them have come on and not disgraced themselves. There's not been any that I could think of that have come on and you think, Okay, well they're not ready or or They're they're nowhere near at it. And you think some of them some of them have been coming on in horrible circumstances well. Harry Waldock making his debut in a team that was, like you say, was conceding four and five on a regular basis. Michael Luxton coming on against MK Dons when you're 5-0 down, Louis Dale similar late in the season. Sullivan Booth was our man of the match at Barnet in a 6'2 defeat. It's they're not they're not coming into a side that's playing well. So therefore it's probably more encouraging how they don't look out of place. Maybe that says more about the standard of our first team back end of last season, potentially. But we're trying to be positive as it's the first ever side. Yeah, I think I think like genuinely like it I think we've got we've got enough young lads in this team that we've got we'll you know, we're gonna have a lot more legs in the side, we're gonna have a lot more energy in the side. But the role of the experienced players among them is gonna be even more important. I know James Brophy was asked about this after the game at the weekend. And was asked, have you ever had to really do any kind of mentoring before? And he was like, No, I've never done this before. So he's kind of got to move into more of a senior role himself. But you're gonna have the likes of Liam Gordon, who's pretty street wise, been around, he's played at a high level in Scotland. You've got Omar Beckles, who I know not everybody ⁓ is is the biggest Omar Beckles fan in terms of his performances so far in a Jill shirt. From the people I've heard from from Leighton Orient, he's incredibly well thought of ⁓ as a human being, as a leader, as someone who helps get the best out of the people around him. ⁓ and hopefully his performances will settle as well. I think the thing we're lacking at in in the heart of our defence is pace. And I think losing Gale is something that obviously we're probably keen to address within the next week or week or three. But as an overall thing, we've got experience in key areas where I think it matters. But we've also got a lot more legs, and that gives me a lot more optimism for games where I I would like to think we aren't gonna just get outrun by teams like we were. ⁓ our midfield continually would get just completely, completely overwhelmed week to week. So I'm hopeful that we won't get that as much this season. But as I say, as it's asking a lot of some of our young players, but I do think that it's worth a go, you know. I remember when we've had teams in years past where Everyone's been at their sort of really sort of at their last their last sort of knockings of g ⁓ giving any kind of a stuff about the team on the pitch and they're saying, just pick the youth team, put the youth team out there. That's always what happens when you completely lose faith. Well, we don't have to put the whole youth team out there, but we're bringing a load through. And maybe two or three dotted in and around that squad that are playing a regular part is no bad thing. Absolutely. And we're putting them in the team now 'cause we think they might be good enough. We're not saying they're good enough straight away. But we're not doing it because, like you say, we're just fed up with the first team players. We're doing it because we think they can go and have a positive impact, they can learn, they can grow, they can develop, and then they become one of the first team regulars. And and what a great example, regardless of your opinion on the two players, but Joe Boday and Sam Gale in the last twelve, thirteen months, what an example to those youngsters to say this is your pathway from youth team football to the first team. And dare I say it, beyond Gillingham, because that's the nature of the beast at our level. If you go and play very well. Chances are we'll show you onto a bigger club because that's how we survive. That's the life of a lower league football team, right? You can't just keep all your players. You gotta, you know, it is the the circle life of of lower league football. But ⁓ I'm I'm very aware that we are short on time this week. So before before we sort of wrap up this debut pilot episode of of Blood, Sweat and Gils, I just wanted to wanted to get a sense of what does your season look like? You've got a you know, you you produce video blogs pretty much throughout the week. every week during the course of the season. What does your match day look like and what does your week look like when it comes to putting this stuff together? Because a hell of a lot of effort goes into doing it. These things don't just happen. You don't just say, here's the video, off you go AI and do it all for me. There is still editorial process and effort involved. So There is, there is, yeah. ⁓ match day's probably the easiest day because you just wait and you film what's going on at the game. Whereas there's note taking and research for preview shows, so Tomorrow night I'll be recording on a Tuesday for a match preview show to go out on a on a Wednesday evening for people to watch. That then gives that a couple of days before obviously matchday live on a Saturday. Generally recalled the matchday review Saturday evening for Sunday night if it's a home game. Obviously it's a bit more difficult if you're stuck on a coach with very little signal and ⁓ very little goodwill, depending on what part of the season it is. But yeah, and then obviously myself and My good friend Lee from around the grounds, we do the League two hour now on a Monday at seven PM. So yeah, I was meant to have a rest throughout the summer and then realised I've done thirty three videos, but they were brilliantly supported, so I can't say thank you enough to each and everybody who who who watched them and shared them and commented and agreed and disagreed and I say it on my show, you'll say it as well. You've seen it online, you say it online. Got no issue in your people disagreeing with us as as long as it's done the right way, because if we all agreed it'd be boring. Yeah. And and we all want the same thing at the end of the day. There's lots of different ways to get to that point. I see. And everyone has different opinions. Like I know exactly how I want this Gillingham team to play. I guarantee it's not the way Gareth Ainsworth's gonna set it up, but I have my I have my opinion on how I think it should work. And I'm sure we can we can we can debate the ⁓ the rights and wrongs of that in future episodes of this podcast. This is like a little taste to show. We're kind of testing a few things out, testing the setup, ⁓ trying trying trying out Different ways of ⁓ making the audio work. There's all sorts of things going on that that we had to sort out before we went live on this one. This is very much a pilot episode. We will look to do this as frequently as we can after every match weekend as the season goes on. And fingers crossed, touch wood, all that stuff, we will be talking about a more positive season than the seasons we have had in recent years. ⁓ final word from you, Matt, before we ⁓ before we blow full time on this. ⁓ that's pressure. ⁓ tr try and enjoy it. That's that's all I can say. Like I said, we all have our different opinions, we all have our different philosophies in how we want us to play. But at the end of the day, if we're winning football matches, none of us care how we get there. Love it. Love it. Well football's back. We've had the World Cup. We've had all the drama and all the all the late nights of the World Cup. Now we're into the proper stuff now. We're into the meat and potatoes of EFL League Two. Gillingham kicking things off. Saturday, Tuesday. Saturday, Tuesday. We love it. That's what it's all about. Well, until September, anyway. Until it's been beaten out of us. Fingers crossed it lasts a little bit longer than that. But yes, enjoy the match this weekend. Enjoy the rest of this month. We will come back hopefully after Saturday's match for another episode of Blood, Sweat, and Jills. Thank you very much to Matt for diving on for this pilot episode. We'll speak to you in a week's time. And from both of us here. Other chills. That was the pilot episode of Blood, Sweat, and Jills, a Jills 365 podcast. But with it being a pilot episode, of course, we completely forgot to put the plugs at the end of the show. Please do go and check out everything that Matt is doing over at Jills in the Blood TV on YouTube. He is the most followed Gillingham vlogger and the most successful, the longest serving. Everything he does is of a high standard. He is League Two's best vlogger by a country mile. If you are not already following and subscribing to him, please do put that matter right straight away. Get yourself online to YouTube, Jills in the Blood TV, and hit that subscribe button. Also, Jills365 is back. Over a decade or so ⁓ since we last had the site live, we've brought the site back. I have wanted to do this for so long, but it needed to be the right time, it needed to be the right situation, and I needed to have the right infrastructure around me. In order to do it, all of those boxes have now been ticked, and I'm delighted that after a summer of a lot of hard work, the site is now up and running and available for you now at gills365.news. It is a subscriber-based site. So if you want to get the full benefit of the site, please do consider signing up for a membership and supporting my work as we go through the season. A monthly membership will cost you five pounds a month, an annual membership. Will cost you fifty pounds for the year. So that is dedicated week to week, match to match Gillingham content written by a professional journalist who also happens to be a lifelong Gillingham fan, all for less than the price of a pint at Priestfield. What's not to love? Check out Jillstree Six Five dot news where you can get a seven day free trial. So you can check out the site. ⁓ no obligation. And ⁓ if During those seven days you decide to to cancel, then ⁓ that is entirely, entirely your choice, and you can do so. If not, you can roll it straight on into your chosen type of subscription, whether it be five or a month or fifty quid for the year. I would love for you to ⁓ to check out the site and ⁓ hopefully become a part of what I'm doing at Geels 365 over the course of the season. But that was the pilot episode of Blood Sweat and Gels, which is just a small part. Of what I'm trying to do with the site this season. This will forever be free. ⁓ the podcast will always be free. It will be on ⁓ exclusive release for Gilles 365 members to begin with for the first day each time we publish, and then from day two onwards, it will then go live at all of the usual podcasting platforms: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Cast, all of that good stuff. So ⁓ hope you enjoyed the first one. We'll knock off a few rough edges as we go, but the one thing we will ⁓ keep in the show every week is our love and passion for watching the Jills. Even when the going gets a little bit rough. Fingers crossed, we have a big season and a more positive season ahead of us. And one more thing, thank you so much again for checking out the pod. Me and Matt both really do appreciate it. Have a good week, everybody. And fingers crossed, when we come back and chat to you next week, we'll be talking about our first victory of the EFL season. Take care. Speak soon.