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The walls come down against Walsall | Gillingham 0-3 Walsall · Blood, Sweat & Gills

• Simon Head: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Blood, Sweat and Jills. Simon Head from Jills365 and Matt from Jills and the Blood TV. Looking to unpack a rather bizarre first weekend in EFL League 2 for Gillingham. All the optimism that we had going into that weekend, all the positivity, the positive thoughts, a new beginning. And for eighty minutes it looked like we might have had one and then all of a sudden it was like the ghosts of seasons past have come back and we're sitting here now still scratching our heads as to what we just saw on Saturday. Matt, give us first off, how are you? How how's how's things been since since Saturday? 'Cause it was a hard one to get your head around coming home afterwards, you know? Yeah, it was tricky. ⁓ I'm fine. I'm I'm trying to look at both sides of it. I can understand the people that are concentrating on the collapse in the final fifteen minutes because we've seen it all too often. It's not a new thing, so I totally get that. But the caveat was there was enough in that first eighty minutes, especially considering we lost two key players, certainly in the eyes of the manager. Within five minutes of each other, midway through the first half, when I think it's fair to say we were probably on top and that rocked us for a little while. But yeah, like you said at the top of the show, I just I cannot get my head round how we went from looking so solid like a proper team with a proper identity, a defensive structure, even when we lost Armani Little first and then Logan Dobbs to to then what we witnessed in the final fourteen minutes if you include injury time where we conceded three times and I think all three we can do better at in certain aspects. So yeah, a very baffling one. trying remain positive because it is only ninety minutes out of forty six games. But I can totally understand why people reacted as they did because we've seen it for four or five years in this division. Yeah, I'm gonna do a piece on this at some point in the next couple of days. The phrase I'm gonna use is scar tissue. There's a lot of scar tissue from seasons past where like if if this take if if you take this game in isolation you can kind of process it and say First game the season, bloody body bar, new group of players, lost a couple of ⁓ important leaders on the pitch, things happen, right? But we've seen this we've seen this film before, right? We we you know, this is this has been like groundhog day for us, sort of throwing games away and being defensively disappointing. But in the context of this game, the fact that we we didn't collapse after we lost Liam Gordon and everybody is just crossing their fingers and hoping that Whatever injury it is he has, he can make a full and speedy recovery from it, and that he isn't rushed back until he is 100% fit. but the fact that we we did regroup after that injury, Logan Dobbs came on and I thought was outstanding. I thought he had a really good game on the left of a three, looked like he'd played there for years, looked very calm and composed, used the ball well, all of that sort of stuff. Everything was fine. And it was just the nature of the way that we conceded the first goal on the break from ⁓ I think it might have been from one of our corners actually. Yep. ⁓ and then ⁓ I think it was Nick Freeman, took a heavy touch on the edge of the box. But there was a lot that happened after that. You know, it wasn't like straight down a pitch and score. There was a bit of ⁓ wing play on the left hand side. ⁓ Omar Beck was got pulled out there, didn't really do what he needed to do. Cross comes in, And it gets headed back and Andy Smith unfortunately caught ball watching as the ball went over his head. He stood still. His man, Isaac Moore was moving, ⁓ and and tracked the ball and and ended up putting putting the ball in the net. But even conceding one goal, you can kind of you can put that down to, okay, fair enough. You know, we got caught on the counterattack. It was what happened immediately after that really raises the sort of the alarm bells for me was the heads dropped straight away. And it it was it was almost and it wasn't just on the pitch as well, it was in the stands as well. Everyone was like, ⁓ my god, here we go again. And it was like a self fulfilling prophecy after that. You know, the second and third. I think a lot of people in the stands knew those goals were coming long before they hit the back of the net. ⁓ how do we get out of this mindset, Matt? Because we ha we we do have largely a a new team. I know a lot of familiar players were playing at the back end of the pitch when those goals went in. But nonetheless, you know, we need to somehow change the mindset here and I don't know what I don't know what's needed because everybody in the ground knew what was going to happen long before it did and that's that's that's a big worry, right? Absolutely. And you talk about scar tissue and we also talk about it being a very new team. How many of that starting eleven or that eleven that were on the pitch at the time of the three goals have scar tissue from previous seasons for us? 'Cause Ashley Maynard Brewer doesn't. It's his first game for us. ⁓ Logan Dobbs. To a degree he's seen the first team struggle, but I thought like you said, he was really good. None of the goals are on him. Thought he used the ball really well. There was a couple of times where he could have just kicked it in behind. He punched a pass into midfield and found feet. Omar Beckles was here back end of last season, didn't play a lot. So you're saying that back three Andy Smith is probably one that's burdened by said scar tissue. Robbie McKenzie And after that, you're looking at people that either joined in January, Roland Hale, or people that that weren't here last year. I know Glareth McCleary was on the pitch, maybe Seb as well. But there wasn't a great deal of players that have been here last season or before that to say, well, you can understand why they're still struggling or confidence is low. Where was your Omar Beckles after the first goal? Not digging Omar out, 'cause I thought Omar was actually okay. I know there's a lot of opinions flying around about him at the moment of looks slow on the turn, no recovery pace, which I think's maybe why we're playing a three. Yeah. And back to what you said about the goal, I actually thought we did okay, because like you say, there was a lot of football played between Nick Freeman's awful touch on the edge of their D and the ball hitting the back of our net. I thought Omar did fairly well when he got out to the left hand side and managed to hold the bloke up. There was then a bit of a wrestling match, I think they both fell over. Robbie McKenzie seems to have been left out of this because if you watch the highlights back, Robbie McKenzie's at the back post, doesn't even bother jumping. So unless he's had a call from Ashley Maynard Brewer to I'm coming to collect. Which I don't think is the case, because Maynard Brewer doesn't come off his line really. He sort of takes a step and then thinks I'm not getting there. So at best it's miscommunication. At worst, Robbie Mackenzie's just not challenged for the first ball. And like you say, unfortunately, after that, it's something that Andy Smith's been guilty of previously. He stands there and ball watches and to be cliched and corny, Isaac was more alert and that's why we went one nil down. We can go back to last week and we know we said Luton Wasn't the bill and end all, but Smith got caught square on, didn't track the runner Narkey Wells for the first loot and goal. So you're suddenly sitting here talking about two games, we've conceded six. Andy Smith's been culpable for at least a third of them directly, which is a little bit of a worry. Then when you factor in I can't see Liam Gordon playing this season, I'll be perfectly honest. I'd be very surprised if this doesn't come back as anything other than an ACL, sadly, the way he landed. The way his body was contorted when he came down. There was just that nudge from Dallas which unfortunately sent him off balance. The way his knee straightened and then went out the wrong way. The picture of him in the knee brace at the end isn't a good sign. Whichever way. I know there was a bit of debate in our WhatsApp chat about whether you walk off or get stretchered off. From my own experience, the damage is done. It doesn't matter whether you walk off. I got the choice when I did my ACL. You could you don't have to have the operation. It just means you can't do anything more than just to walk without your knee buckling from time to time. Yeah. So for me, I don't think the fact that he walked off with help means too much. And like I say, I'd be very surprised if that's not unfortunately an anterior cruise shit ligament injury. So now you need two centre halves because you're replacing him, replacing Sam Gale. And I think the difficulty we've got is they're two very specific skill sets in terms of leadership and being a warrior, which Liam Gordon was all of that in that first half an hour. You mentioned on social media how good he was, led everyone. We looked so solid with him in the team. Sam Gale Not to point fingers at smudge again, but how many times has Andy Smith been got out of jail last season that we've maybe not noticed because of Sam Sam Gale's recovery pace and now that's not there and he's being exposed. Yeah. Yeah, it's clearly there's some work that he's doing back there. I mean obviously we're we're we're talking a lot about Andy Smith at this point and because there've been specific incidents involved. Yep. It's worth it's worth mentioning on balance. When he when he first arrived on loan from Hull, he was outstanding for us. He w he really did a good job for us initially. And it only seems to have been more recently that he seems to have he seems to have just sort of drifted a little bit. And I don't know what it is, whether it's the I mean I last season I'll give him a little bit of a pass because it felt like every time he played, every every week he'd have a different person next to him. So that back four barely barely stayed the same week to week. So that's one thing. But it's fundamentals at the end of the day. You've got to get your fundamentals right and and The thing that we need back there, and this is where it's going to be really difficult, and the onus is really on ⁓ Gareth Ainsworth, the recruitment team and the ownership to understand that this isn't a gap that can be plugged with a a young lad from a Premier League team on loan. We need a grizzled, seasoned leader who knows his way around the lower leagues and is capable of organizing and marshalling a a a back line because that's what we've lost. and Arguably we needed another one of those anyway, but we absolutely need one now. ⁓ Omar Beckles, from everything I know about him and everything I've been told about him, is he is a great leader off the pitch. ⁓ but I think when it comes to organising the defence on the pitch and being that vocal that vocal leader, I didn't really see that on Saturday. ⁓ and Certainly not when we needed it. No, and and that's that's much more obvious when we concede. Because all the time you're playing okay, which we were for eighty minutes, you don't really look for such things. But yeah, I think he should have been the one that stepped up. Like we've lost Glenn Morris, we've lost Bradley Dak at the moment. So there's a lot of experience. Gareth McCleary's just coming back. They're your type of sort of veterans that know how to get out of these situations or prevent these situations. Liam Gordon absolutely is one. So I just thought Omar Beckles went missing a little bit in terms of I didn't see a lot in terms of rallying the troops. Or anything like that. But then that's not just on him as wearing the armband. Gareth came out pre match and said he wants eleven captains. Did we see that from Robbie McKenzie? No. Did we see it from Gareth McCleary? Not really. No. It was it seems to be that it's just so ingrained into us now that ⁓ we're one nil down, we sort our socks out, we shrug our shoulders, heads have dropped, and like you say, everyone can see what's coming after that. It's like watching the car crash in slow motion. You're just mating for the moment of impact, which is sadly the second and the third goal. Yeah, that and that exact phrase is one I've used countless times when talking to talking to the lads who sit with me, ⁓ watching games over the years. It is like that at times and it was like that watching England against Argentina in the World Cup, exactly the same, you know? As soon as you decide you're not gonna play and you're gonna s you're gonna sit back or whatever it is, the the word attitude doesn't necessarily mean the way that you talk to people. It's the way that you project yourself physically. And as a team Our attitude completely changed. We sink. We absolutely sink. And that's that's the thing that somehow, some way needs to be addressed. ⁓ and that's gonna take time. But I think I think that you know, we're we're one game in, we've had this situation happen now. I'd rather it happen now than in December. ⁓ the one thing that's or a week after the window closes and we've won three games and everyone thinks everything's rosy with the world again, because we've been in that situation as well. Yeah, we have. Yes, we have. The one thing I w I'll mention, I mean obviously we're we're starting the pod with a with a few negatives. There are positives and we'll get onto those in a sec. Absolutely. The one thing the one thing I wanted to talk to you about, because you're you're a reign amender, right? You're sitting in a reign amend. You've got a season ticket in a reign of end. And and ⁓ I I'm in a Medway stand. So it's a different experience sitting in those two different parts of the ground. Mm-hmm. The exodus that happened, ⁓ I th either it might have been the second goal, but definitely the third goal. I want to talk to you about that. I want to talk to you about The booing at the final whistle. What was your take on that? Was it understandable? Does it go back to the scar tissue that I'm talking about pr you know, I was talking about previously? Or are people being a little bit unfair given that this is largely a new team at the start of a new season and we've only had ninety minutes? I think if they go in after the first goal, then maybe you can say they're being unfair because there was still fifteen minutes to play to include the injury time. ⁓ But again, everyone has their own reasons. It could be that they're trying to beat traffic. They might leave you for one nil up with ten minutes to play, we don't know. A two nil I can understand it. And I think just walking out the ground is the better option than booing. Because Booing quickly changes into personal abuse and we've seen that over the last couple of seasons. We saw it at the back end of the last campaign. ⁓ it is a tricky one because we sound like we're saying the same things. It is only one game, and we will talk about the positives, and there were plenty of them. But scar tissue for fans as well as players means that probably the majority realise when the first goal went in there was very little, if any, chance That we were going to get anything from the football match, sadly. And they were all proven right, those that left early. Yeah. To get them back, Sai, you need to when you walk out at one nil, to get them people to stay on their feet or on their seats, sorry, until the ninety fifth minute, you need to see a team that comes back and draws one all or even if we'd lost one nil, people might have understood that and then you go, Coi yeah, you're really unlucky. It's it's a really good performance. We've had loads of chances, keepers made three really good saves, been unlucky with the frame of the goal three times. And we just got caught on the break. But it's that ten minutes after that first goal that is is unforgivable. Regardless of whether that's first game, twenty third game, or forty sixth game, they're professional footballers. If we want to be a team that's challenging for bare minimum top half, we simply cannot do that. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I think in I think it was his his press conference, ⁓ rather than his Jill's TV interview. They're very similar. He it's like he's he's he's regurgitating a lot of the same stuff, which which you will, but he he referred to the last seventeen minutes as crap. and he's he's wrong, he's he's he's spot on. He's spot on. But the thing the thing the thing with this is it happened when we were on top. We had all that I I think I said between like fifty-five and seventy-five minutes. We were absolutely sort of banging on the door. It wasn't quite going in for us, Ronan Hale, ⁓ looked really sharp. I thought he had a good game. D the anything missing from his game was a goal. ⁓ front I thought Front Two and Brocy were really good as a trio. I thought they were super apart and I know the most important thing, unfortunately, yeah. And I know that there'll be some people who will give Goodwin stick because of that chance he missed. ⁓ and he should have buried it. There's no two ways about it. Overall though, he was he looked the most potent target man or the most dangerous target man we've had at the club for a long time. He he was on the end of chances. He was He looked like he was capable of scoring a goal, which is not something we can say about too many of our of our target men down the years. So we've got the positives there, and it just happened that the goal came at exactly the wrong time and it was like a pin in the balloon and it all went. But let's move on from that now. Let's talk about let's talk about these positives. Because as as we said, lots of them. ⁓ first off, Logan Dobbs coming in. We'll start we'll go back to front. So Logan Dobbs coming in for Liam Gordon, I thought was Outstanding and if he if he gets more game time and keeps putting in performances like that, it won't be long before Ainsworth's going to be thinking, I need to start this kid because he looks really good on that left hand side, I thought. Question for you, then off the back of that, because I totally agree. So there's no point me just regurgitating what you've said. Is there an option because we've got the lad Connor McManus, who I know plays wing back, full back, but has played left side centre half? Is there an option to say that because Andy Smith's struggling? You put Logan Dobbs on his natural side, if we play Omar Beckles as the central one, which I Omar Beckles will play at Fleetwood, I don't think we're going take him out because he is the only experienced centre half, natural centre half that we've got. So is there a case to say that you play Dobbs off the right of him and Connor McManus to the left of him to add a bit of pace and athleticism in there as well? And also a natural left foot. Because as good as Dobbs was, the only thing that I'd say is every time he gets the ball He looks inside because he's right footed and that's that's not a criticism at all. That's just the way things happen when you play right footers on that side. It's similar to Kadim Harris. Most of the time he's gonna try and cut in and float a ball to the back post or try and get a shot away. ⁓ but yeah, Dobbs did nothing wrong. If Dobbs starts on Saturday I've got no issue with it. But what I've said about all of these youngsters all summer should they be in the team for a cer say 70% of the games if we want to be a top half side at worst? No. Is the answer to that. Is it's like you want to be using them at suitable moments. I mean Dobbs coming in as he did on Saturday. It was a needs must scenario and he came in and did a good job. Eventually we need to make adjustments in the transfer market. We need another body in us, an experienced body. We mentioned that a little bit earlier in the show. But Manus, now I've only seen a fleeting glimpse of him so far from from his ⁓ you know the game against Luton where he came on as a sub. I th I was impressed. I liked him. And I won't I'm in danger of this becoming a theme through the podcast so I won't do this. But I'll just say it now and we'll put a pin in it. I think we should be playing 4-4-2. I hate three at the back at at this level of football. Wing backs routinely get get exposed And centre backs get pulled out of position and you get dumb for goals a bit like we did ⁓ at the st at the end of that game. But that that being said, if we play for it at the back, McManus would be an absolute shoe-in to play left back. Absolute shoeing to play left back. Certainly when Tabaris gets fit as well. The only concern at the moment but then I suppose do you trust Harry Webster if trust in Logan Dobbs? I'd like to see Nick Freeman in the middle of the party. I thought he struggled at the weekend. And I think he will struggle and win back against quick s quick left wingers, which Ree Smith generally was. ⁓ Yeah. The error happens. The lead two footballers are not going to sit here and dig Nick Freeman out because he's cost us the first goal. And the same way that I'm not going to sit here and go on and on about Andy Smith and Robbie McKenzie. We're just observing. But that's why they play in League Two. But yeah, I think there's a case because we've not got a natural ten at the moment as well, maybe there's a case to play a four three three with two natural wingers high and wide. The only conundrum would be you'd play right back and can Omar Beckles playing a back four. There's so many of these questions, aren't there? It's like I from a system point of view, I like I always prefer four four two. I think you have the different pairings all over the field. People are backing up people in every area of the pitch. You don't get that in three five two. You end up with people being pulled out of position. But in terms of the personnel we have, I think three five two but pre pre Liam Gordon injury suited the players we had perfectly. ⁓ but yeah, I think I think McManus probably comes into the comes into the equation for sure. ⁓ it'll be interesting to see who he does go with at the back. But I thought as a as our first positive if you like, I thought Logan Dobbs did a good job. Also so ⁓ and and just quickly on Freeman, I think Freeman's only major crime on Saturday was the fact that he wasn't as quick as the guy he was trying to trying to cover. I thought he he's a bit of a square peg in a round hole. I think he's more of a central midfielder than a wing back. I thought he did okay. I thought he did okay. Serviceable would be the word I would use. Serviceable wing back, gets up and down the pitch well, a yard short of pace to deal with a really quick winger, and that's kind of what we had. I thought Kadeem Harris was a positive until he ⁓ went off largely through exhaustion, I think. Probably they took him off before one of his calf muscles went or one of his hamstrings went. He covered some ground on Saturday. Yeah. ⁓ Zane Alburas, are we gonna is this g d do we need to call this the Zane Albarez show already? Because we've we were on podcast number two, and yet again, he was outstanding. He was like he was all over the ⁓ all over the central midfielders like white on rice. He was literally stuck on stuck on them. The thing that used to happen for our midfield in seasons past is guys would get the possession of ball and they would have the freedom of the the middle of priestfield to get the ball under control, turn, and then run fifteen yards before anyone does anything about it. That's not happening now. Zane Alburas is right on them, touch tight as soon as they get the ball. And I thought he was outstanding. I thought he was really good and if if we could make sure he doesn't rack up too many bookings over the course of the season, he's gonna be he's gonna be outstanding for us. He stood out for me on Saturday. Yeah, I thought he was really impressive. And you go back to that thing about just not letting people settle. I think I put a clip in my match day live. First minute or so there was that snap tackle when it where he pinched it. But I think they retained possession, but you just knew straight away that we weren't gonna let ⁓ settle. And I thought that was the theme for the first fifteen minutes, twenty minutes before the injuries that We were so we played with intensity. We hunted in packs and I lost count of the amount of times they rolled the ball out of play for a throwing. ⁓ I thought it changed 'cause I thought him and Little were really good together, which surprised me 'cause obviously Little's barely played. I thought we actually looked weaker when Mackenzie came on, not because McKenzie's a worse player or anything like that, but I don't know whether there was a tactical tweak, but all of a sudden it looked like Mackenzie was playing higher up to be near a Brofi. And then Zayn looked a little bit exposed for a period, but then it settled down again. But overall, for a kid that's played two professional first team games in competitive competition. I said it start season, he looks one L of a find. He does. He sh he has no right to be that comfortable that early, does he, in his career? But not at all. He does, and and all credit to him. The thing the thing with Mackenzie, and I'm glad you mentioned Little because he's been someone who's had a lot of criticism. Not least of all from me. I I've I've I w I wasn't a huge Armani Little fan last season. I thought he was guilty of trying to do too much a lot of the time. ⁓ and sort of playing beyond his ability a little bit, if that makes sense, trying to do things that he shouldn't even be trying to do. ⁓ I think he was doing stuff. And I said before we got to the ground on Saturday, I said, Let's hope now that Armani Little just concentrates on being a player and realises that he doesn't have to be the one that sets the example all the time. Yeah. That's That was exactly my my mindset going into it. And I thought he played very well until he got hurt. There was one pass where he just completely just passed it straight off the side and there was the groans went up and it was like, Okay, let's not have any more of this, please, Armani. But he straight away he was straight back on it. And I thought the combination with him and him and Alburus worked really well because Alburus kind of held the middle and it ⁓ it allowed Litz to sort of get around a little bit and ⁓ the energy was good. That energy noticeably dropped after he went off and Mackenzie came on. Mackenzie just doesn't have that same mobility and just sort of two sort of five yard pace about him, you know, just sort of to snap into stuff. ⁓ and that was noticeable after the change. Also someone in midfield or potentially playing in midfield or playing in the ten, or maybe playing at left wing back towards the end. James Brophy got the man of the match award or the player of the match award, whatever we have to call it now. ⁓ I thought I thought he was the probably the pick of our players on the day. I thought I thought we had a really good game. So much in so much of encouragement to see from him. Not just the fact that he played in a couple of positions and did a good job in in both, but it was the little things I was noticing, like the way he was starting to link up with Ronan looked really good. He was starting to spot ⁓ Goodwin as well. And just just little early signs that there is, you know, he he's got some real football intelligence about him and He's already starting to get on the wavelength of the two lads who are going to be playing just just ahead of him in the in the formation. So that was really encouraging. And he was very unlucky not to score, obviously, just on the stroke of half time with the shot that hit the crossbar. Yeah, thought he was very good. I said I think I don't know if I said it on last week's episode. I've I've say it about lots of the the best footballers look like they've got a bit of extra time with the ball. James Brophy for me always looks like he's got an extra couple of seconds. He always looks like he knows what the next picture is in his head before He's even got the paintbrush out, so to speak, and yeah. We could be sitting here that goes in just before half time. The Roland Hale one goes in just before half time, or if Will Goodwin's one that hits the crossbar is a foot lower. We could easily be sitting here talking about us winning 3 0. Which wouldn't have been inconceivable, because if you look at the stats, that we had we both had seventeen attempts. We had seven on target, they had five on target. Four of theirs on target came from the first goal to the final whistle. So before then they've had one shot on target, which says how solid we were and how comfortable we were until we imploded. We've also hit the crossbar three times, so they don't even go down as shots on target, but they're extremely close to being goals. I know their XG looked higher. I'm not a big fan of that. But if you do the eye test, I think if you ask a hundred people, ninety nine percent ninety nine people say Gillingham did enough to win that and certainly shouldn't have lost it, let alone by three goals. Yeah. If you pause the videotape at eighty minutes and say who wins this game? Most people says the team in blue. Do you know? Unless they knew that the team in blue was jilling them and then they'd Well, obviously the team in red are gonna win this. But yeah it's we do know that and we still stay beyond eighty minutes, so it says a lot about us. There we go, scar tissue again. But no, it's it's it it it is it is just and it's so frustrating and disappointing that we've come out of this game And obviously the thing that we're talking about is of is the fact that we lost and the manner in which we did, and less about the eighty minutes. I know Gareth Ainsworth afterwards said, I hope people saw the first eighty minutes and they understand what we did. A lot of people, because of what's gone before, are gonna kind of push that to one side a little bit and fixate on what happened. We need to look at the full pitch. You can't just look at one part of it. You've got to look at all of it. You can't disregard the fact that we did look better. We did play with more of a with more direction. And the th it moves me on to the ⁓ the front two, the forwards, Ronan Hale, Will Goodwin, a new strike partnership for the new season. Ronan obviously's been here since January, but hasn't really had a strike partner s until now. ⁓ he's got one now. And I am very, very enthusiastic and optimistic about what these two can do. It's a shame that neither one of them got off the mark on Saturday, but I get I get the feeling that if we can get both these guys off and running And keep them fit, they're gonna score and create a fair few goals between them this season. I said exactly the same on the review show. I said if we create that volume of chances and that volume of good chances, Ronan Howe gets you fifteen goals this season. Whether Will Goodwin gets that amount, I'm not so sure, but I don't think that's his job to be that fifteen goal striker if we're putting a label on it. I think Will Goodwin's in there to to be a foil for for Ronan Hale, which he did really well. at the weekend for sixty five, seventy minutes or whatever it was before he came off. Hopefully that was just cramp and not anything more sinister because we looked like the injuries were clear enough until about twenty five minutes in. ⁓ but yeah both could have come away with a couple of goals, couldn't they? And and and no one could complain. Ronan Howe ran into Jed Ward, turned into Gianluigi Buffon for fifty minutes unfortunately, and Will Goodwin knows he should score the first one when he drags it wide. He could have probably had a touch, such was the amount of time he had. Well that's probably a bit of nervous energy first day, front of the rain, I mean. Probably eyes lit up, thought, here comes my first goal in competitive action. ⁓ I just want us to play Brophy behind them two, not this Hale and Brophy slightly withdrawn behind Goodwin. Get Ronan Hale as high up the pitch as you can, because he's a centre forward and he's a bloody good centre forward, and we've seen that last season five times at least, in a poor side. We create that amount of chances we will score enough goals this season to be half decent. Yeah. It's like if if if you're looking at it from like a moneyball perspective, ⁓ moneyball is all about get players who can get on base, right? What we need to do with Ronan Hale, we need to create one on ones. We need to everything we do needs to create one on ones for Ronan Hale. 'Cause if we get one on ones with Ronan Hale, he will score a hatful for us. ⁓ and that for me means him playing up there alongside Goodwin, being on the last man and yeah, he'll get caught offside now and again, but he will get through. And when he gets chances like that, he will put them away. But optimistic for for what we could have. ⁓ defensively we've got work to do. We know this. I'm sure that work is already being done. ⁓ they're trying to shore things up now for Fleetwood Town on Saturday, who got a good win away from home at Chesterfield, who always play good stuff. They're always very decent at home. And ⁓ Fleetwood beat them one-nil. So they're not gonna be ⁓ they're not gonna be a a particularly easy away trip for us, but If we could come away from that away game with something, anything, nil nil draw, you know, ⁓ to me, steadies the ship, calms everybody down just a little bit. But yeah, we just don't want to get another tonking ⁓ because we had the we had the cup game, there's a caveat to that. We had this weekend, there was no caveat to this weekend. We need to see an improvement for Saturday, so let's see how it goes. But are are you going up to Fleetwood, Matt? Yes. 'Cause I'm crazy. All the very best to you. Four forty five AM alarm. So looking forward to at least it's not in the middle of December like last season. Yeah, so what's that? Is that s five and a half hour trip, is it? Five hour trip to get up there? Give or take, yeah. Yeah. So we've got to get up, we've got to get to sitting bomb to get on the coach at quarter past six. So you say usually get there about half one with a forty five minute stop. So yeah. Round about what you said, yeah. All for the love of the game. I think we've got the second longest total round trip for the for for League Two. I think Exeter are the only team. It's got to be Exeter now, hasn't it, yeah? Ex yeah, 'cause most of the teams are based up in that sort of northwest region, aren't they? So it's us down in sort of the football in Batwater of Kent and you've got Exeter down there in the West Country. So ⁓ yeah. So w I think we're second we're second in the list. So yeah, anybody who does most of these away games deserves a medal. so ⁓ get yours done early, Matt, if I were you. But yeah, no, it's it's it's gonna be it's gonna be ⁓ it's gonna be a tough one and it's gonna it's it's not gonna be it's not gonna be an easy game for us, but we do have a target man up front now who could potentially do something for us. We do have people who can create chances. We just need to keep it steady at the back and we'll see how it goes. I mean, what what represents a a successful away trip or a satisfying? If you get on the coach on the way home, you get on the coach on the way home, what's the divided line between happy Matt and sad Matt getting on the coach on the way home? What result do we need to keep you ab just above that red line when you get on the coach? To to be boring and agree with you, which not everyone wants they might want us to have a little spat from time to time. But yeah, let's just get on the board. And that's why after eighty minutes on Saturday I was quite content. Good performance, clean sheet. Okay, we've not scored, but we're up and running. And then yeah, we know what happened. So yeah. We can go up there horrible nil nil, gritty one all, anything like that. It gets us started. And then we're back at home the week after and hopefully we might have ironed out a few of them problems and we can get moving. But yeah. Just don't get beat, please. The season starts on Saturday, Matt. Season starts on Satur first game never really matters anyway. Season starts Saturday. ⁓ Fleetwood Town versus Gillingham. and you'll get full coverage of that on Jills 365. I'll actually do some plugs on this week's show. I forgot last week. So, Matt, tell ⁓ what you've got coming up this week. You've got a full slate of content as per usual on Jills in the Blood TV. What have you got coming up? Well, as soon as I leave you to go and edit this one, I'll be jumping on ⁓ league two hour. With Lee from around the grounds, our live show on YouTube, that's every Monday at seven o'clock looking back on the weekend's action. ⁓ only eleven games to feature this week. Wednesday night we'll have a match preview out with a Fleetwood fan, looking ahead to that local away day that we enjoy throughout the campaign, and then Saturday, yeah, myself, Abraham Nick, will be at Highbury with a full match day live, hopefully. And then on Sunday we'll have a more positive matchday review for everybody to take in. Awesome. Awesome. That is Jills in the Blood TV on YouTube. If you're not subscribing already, I'm sure most of you are. If you're not subscribing already, put that right. Go over, hit the subscribe button and ⁓ follow everything that Matt is doing. And if you're so inclined, come join us at Jills365 as well. Jills365.news is the URL for that site. It is a membership site. We do have some free content sort of smattered around on the site just to give you a bit of a taster for what we've got. The podcasts at the moment are completely free to view on there. You'll be able to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts. We're on Apple Podcasts. We're on Spotify. We're on Amazon Music and we're on Audible as well. ⁓ and we're throwing in the ⁓ the Voice Notes podcast onto this feed as well. So everything's in one place. On the Jills 365 site, you can pick or choose what you wanna what you wanna check out. But ⁓ yeah, check out the site, please, and ⁓ If you fancy giving us a subscription, whether you want to go monthly or whether you want to go annually, that would be awesome. And you get a free week as you start anyway. So if you try it and you think it's absolutely horrendous, you can you can back out and never speak of this again. But hopefully you'll like what you see and you'll join us for the journey throughout the season. That was Blood Sweat and Jills episode number two. Hopefully, we'll have a little bit more positivity to talk about after the Fleetwood game as we go on the road. I wonder what kit will. Will it be the cream kit or will it be Mr. Maker special? We will have an update on that. It could just be the boring blue one. ⁓ we could just go blue, couldn't we? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. I'm sure, I'm sure we'll get the Mr. Maker kit out as soon as we can. But but yes, enjoy the week if you can, ladies and gentlemen, and enjoy the match at the weekend. We'll be back in a week's time with blood, sweat, and jills. And until then, up the chills.