Latest / Blood, Sweat & Gills / The morning after the night before | Deadline Day Recap + Chesterfield 1-1 Gillingham

Transcript

The morning after the night before | Deadline Day Recap + Chesterfield 1-1 Gillingham · Blood, Sweat & Gills

• Simon Head: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Blood Sweat and Jills for a bonus episode. It is the day after the night before. Transfer deadline day was a busy one by the end of it. We had Gillingham going to Chesterfield on Tuesday night. We had the potential lure of some new arrivals coming during the day. And much like Gillingham's performance at Chesterfield, everything came kind of late on in proceedings as we made two deadline day signings. Shortly after picking up a very hard one point on the road. Matt from Jills in the Blood TV is with me, of course. I'm surprised he's awake because he didn't get home till the early hours of the morning. Hat and glasses are hiding a multitude of I don't know, not sins, but just yeah, I look rough. It's probably the best way to put it. This this podcast is being propped up by by caffeine today. Let's d let's put it that way. But Let let's start with the Chesterfield game and get that get that one squared away first. ⁓ and then we'll talk about deadline day and our signings in general. You made the long trip up to the the brilliantly named SMH group stadium. SMH is in Shake My Head, I think. But it certainly was at half time 'cause we were I thought we were absolutely dog rough in that first half. We were so poor. So I said you voiced that half time and said comfortably our worst forty five minutes of the season. Yeah, we were we were ranked bad and that's Probably being polite. Yeah, I mean, how the thing that struck me, and I don't know what the view was like from from from the ⁓ from the ground, I was watching it live on Sky Sports Plus. It's very fortunate that we get these Tuesday night games so you can actually watch it unfold in front of you. But everything that we were doing well on Saturday, we weren't doing in that first half on on Tuesday night. We were keeping the ball quite well on on Saturday, knocking the ball around, being patient at the back, not being rushed into our work. But on Tuesday everything seemed panicked. We were just sort of lashing at clearances. There wasn't any any thought to what we were doing. It just felt it was a worrying return to the sort of away performances we saw towards the back end of last season in terms of the way we were going about it in that first half. Was that the worry when you were stood there watching it that ⁓ no, please don't let it be like this again. Yeah, yeah, I think so. The longer it went on. I mean there was a there was a shot across the bow straight away, wasn't there, metaphorically and literally. I think Ollie Wright had to get down and get a big left hand on a an effort from Gillam Marcande, I think it was, from the edge of the box, and he was the scourge of us throughout the game, not just the first half. He was very, very good. At the time obviously you're sort of in amongst it and you're frustrated and you're shouting and and everyone's sort of throwing their hands up in the air, the politer ones and the other ones are obviously choosing more fruity language to describe the performance, which is fine. But yeah, just with the the benefit of I'm gonna say a night's sleep, ⁓ half a night's sleep at least, we have to factor in the fact that because of the injuries we've got, you've then got people out there that are probably, dare I say it, playing too many minutes at such an early stage in the season and I get they're professional footballers and they should be able to do it before we get jumped on. But ideally, game four on a Tuesday night With another big trip to come at the weekend, you want to rest and rotate a little bit. And we could only we could only make one change because of the fact that we've still got lots of people unavailable. And those that potentially could come in from the bench on Saturday to rotate probably can't get more than half an hour at the moment. So it was the same eleven apart from Lamin Silla and for Will Goodwin. So that was sensible. We know Goodwin had injuries last season. It looked very evident. Very early that there was a few that were that were running on fumes probably midway through the first half. Biggest concern for me is Robbie Mackenzie and I think we touched on him on Saturday. ⁓ didn't look fit, was hobbling around. ⁓ I think the phrase be coined halfway through the first period with the lad who sits behind me. ⁓ was limp drag. From the Mickey Flanagan sketches, that's what it looked like. It was it wasn't nice to watch. And then that puts more pressure on Harry Waldock who I thought again stood up to a lot, but wasn't as good as Saturday. But yeah, bottom line was it just made us far too open and it made us far too easy to play against, to play round, to play through, to play over. ⁓ the added concern was that Lee Bonnis quickly realised that he had the run on Omar Beckles, and we know about Beckle's strengths and his weaknesses and his weaknesses are definitely being turned and making him run towards his own goal. And that in turn you get a by product of like you say, people become panicked, people become rushed. Clearances are just sort of smashed up in the air and and that was a a horrible sort of flashback to twenty five, twenty six, where we used to just shell everything and play battle ball all over the pitch. And I said to the the gent who was sat behind me, I said, I don't want us to be a team. four games in that's just trying to stay in football matches and that's what it felt like for large periods of last night. But y credit to us, we did stay in the football match. Yeah. Yeah. And like I I think like I'm I'm in a WhatsApp group with yourself and a few other Jills fans. I'm in a I'm in a separate group with the a friend of mine and his his brother who we all sit together at the Jills ⁓ on a on a on a home game and The the view from everybody was the same at half time. It was well, the only positive in that first half is it was only one nil. ⁓ it was it was it was very, very one sided. And Markandey, how I don't understand how no one hasn't come in for him. 'Cause he every time I see him, he looks a real problem. ⁓ I don't know whether he's one of these players who he's great at home and maybe goes missing in games. I don't know. 'Cause I don't watch him enough to say how consistent the performer he is. But he always seems to show up against us. He always looks quite useful against us. But he had the run of the game, but there's they had that trio, there was him, there's Mandeville and ⁓ well him Karoma who scored the goal. Yeah, and Bonnis up front led the line really well first half. Yeah. They were they were they, you know, they were a real handful in that first half and it felt it was just like a constant stream of attacks and we really couldn't get a foothold in the game. ⁓ But as you say, we got to half time and it was only one nil, thanks largely to a couple of brilliant saves from Ollie Wright. There was one late one from from from Mark and Dale he cut in and hit it with his left foot. Looks like it's curling in the top corner. And Wright managed to get a hand to it and tip it over the bar. Great save. So that got us to one nil at halftime. And it was like, Well, we need something to change in the second half. The team comes out for the second half, no changes. What was the reaction in the stand when they saw no changes? After forty five minutes of really disappointing football. Again, I said at half time to to the people around me, I said, ⁓ you you've got to make a change here, surely. It looks like it. You've got Robbie McKenzie that's that is lame at the end of the day. Like if if that's a race or they don't let him start the race. That was that was how it felt with Robbie McKenzie. ⁓ But I suppose and I did say this after sort of fifteen minutes when we did get ourselves into the game because the second half at least felt like a contest. Even at the beginning. They were still gonna have ball more balls summoning and I understand that they're on the side that like you say, that that front four are very good. They've then got people that keep the football in the middle of the party, George McEkrons. They've got Tom Naylor who wasn't even in the starting eleven last night, who's very good for the level. ⁓ so yeah, first port of call was to made sure it felt like an actual game of football rather than a training exercise second period, which we did. And I and I I laughed and said, Fair play to Gareth. He's been brave and he's trusted them to go out there and right the wrongs of the first forty five and they did that. He's probably given ⁓ a time limit, don't get me wrong. He's probably said you've got till fifty five, sixty minutes, and then the cavalry, so to speak, will be called. ⁓ but yeah, in fairness to the lads, I I thought they did it. ⁓ you're not gonna see lots of ball at Chesterfield's home ground, I'm not gonna name it 'cause I hate sponsored name stadiums. ⁓ but yeah. I thought we was a lot better. We seemed to play with more intensity. More importantly, we was able to play the game in their half a little bit, ⁓ which was good to see. And I I titled my matchday live vlog A game we lose last season. I think if that's played in twenty five, twenty six, we've only got to sort of go back to February, March and April last season. One bought two and then two bought three, four and five really quickly at the back end of last season. I get there was injury problems at the time. Probably more so than now, but that's probably for a different episode which we could talk about as one subject. ⁓ But no, fair play to the lads. They went out there and they rolled their sleeves up and they said, No, we're not just gonna roll over and let Chesterfield beat us. We're gonna make sure that we battle. We might not be our best. Some of us might be running on fumes. ⁓ some of us might even not have any fumes to run on, but we're gonna stay in the football match. And then similarly to the cobblers on Saturday We get our huge slice of fortune with the equalizer. Yeah. Yeah. I did the I did my player ratings very late last night. Very late last night. And ⁓ the the headline I think I said grit overcomes chaos or something like that. Cause that's kind of how it felt. It was like first half was utter chaos. We just could not get a grip on the game at all. Second half, we were still second best, let's be honest. For you know, for the the ⁓ the the you know the lion's share of the second half We were still the second best team out there. But as you said, as you said crucially there, we made it a contest. And w when you're in League Two football, if it is amazing what can happen if you put League Two defenders under a little bit of pressure, they break because they're League Two defenders. They're not championship defenders. They're not Premier League defenders. You make defenders do a little bit of defending, make them have to make a few decisions. You'd be amazed at what happens. And what happened with Ronan Howe's goal was because he chased so many lost causes and he does this and maybe he doesn't get the credit he deserves for this. He willingly runs his legs off chasing lost causes. And he kind of did that with the goal. He chased after a high ball that he was never going to win. That centre half should have just put his head through that ball. And for for reasons that only he'll be able to explain, he misjudged it, let it bounce. And then Hale was onto it like a flash, got brought down, would have been a sending off, in my view. Having watched the replay, they were he was clearly the last man and was going through, was brought down, but he bounced straight back up, managed to get the shot away, took a deflection off ⁓ Romeo Hutton. That's his first Jules assist in a long time, by the way. and ⁓ you know, we end up we end up we end up we end up getting the goal. But that all came from making their defenders do a little bit of defended and for all of their attacking composure, for all of their creativity, you make their defenders do a little bit of defended. You can get some rewards and that's what came out of that game. And even though we were second best, we came away with the draw. So I think under the under the circumstances and given the the amount of pressure that we had to deal with over the course of the game, a point was a very good result, you know, in the context of the game. In the context of What we served up as a performance, there's things to address, but I do think, as you say, there's underlying underlying issues at play with re with regards to you know injuries, lack of fitness in key areas, which leads us on nicely to the transfer window because we've made some we made some additions and we now seem to have a l ⁓ a surplus almost of of midfielders at this point. So ⁓ looking at The transfer wheel. I mean, first off, how did you digest all of this? Because you were on the coach on the way back. I'm trying to I'm trying to think what's how far down the motorway you would have been when the first sign in was announced. Because it the two signings were both officially announced after the eleven PM deadline. But as I mentioned on the live blog on the site, that doesn't matter as much. It's as long as you get a deal sheet into the EFL on time, and the deal sheet basically says the two clubs have agreed a deal. They've shaken hands on a deal. The player has agreed the contract to move. All we're doing is ironing out paperwork. That's basically what the deal sheet is. It's like an IOU for paperwork for the EFL. And as long as the specifics of the deal are in place before the deadline, you're golden. And that seems to have been what's happened with the two signings. And it's two more midfield players, Matt. What does that tell us about? Gareth Ainsworth's plans for our midfield. ⁓ given the two types of player we've got. It looks like in in in Ellie ⁓ Eli King, I can't call him Ellie. Eli King, ⁓ he's he's more of a holding midfielder. He can he can play as a s a standard eight, but I think he's probably more of a six. And then you've got ⁓ Zek Obiero who is a bit more of an advanced midfield player, maybe a bit more of a a bit more of a ten or maybe dropping into an eight. So We've covered both tips of the diamond, so to speak, with these two sign ins. I think so, yeah. I mean, if we want to look at it from a a slightly negative standpoint, does it then raise more question marks over the ongoing fitness of the likes of Ethan Coleman and dare I say it, Bradley Dak? ⁓ Armani Little you can put in that bracket as well because of the fact that he's got this recurrence of a hamstring and it looks like it's gonna be another few weeks at the moment. So yeah. ⁓ the other question mark And we spoke about I think on the last show and said Paramount that we replaced Kadem Harris. I think we have. But indirectly, not directly. Because particularly the Obiero signing says to me that then James Brofi can go and play as a winger again, which I think we signed in to be. Yeah. Obviously the the flip side of the coin is we're not playing wingers. So can Brophy operate as a wing back potentially? Which then would free Nick Freeman up to play in his natural position. And and just to touch on Nick Freeman last night, again, saw he got criticism on social media. Has to do better for the goal. Not going to sit here and say anything different. He he stands off, he lets he lets the lad Karoma put the kettle on, make his cup of tea and pick his spot in the far corner. That such is the amount of time he got. But I thought he still did a lot of the dirty work really well. And you look at the numbers of Nick Freeman, I thought he was a lot better. than what people are giving him credit for because we tend to look at the obvious stuff, don't we, as as football fans. But I think if you dig a little bit deeper, I thought I thought Freeman done okay again. Duck out of water, phrase comes to mind, out of position and all that type of thing. But I'd love to see Freeman in his natural position because I think he's got that composure on the ball, can clearly pick a pass. He's got the engine and the work rate to to to to run back towards his own goal and protect his back four, back three, back five, whatever we're playing. ⁓ Yeah, I've gone off on tangent there, haven't I? But yeah, Obierro, I like. ⁓ Tramir fans, I think, said he did well last season. ⁓ scored two goals, I think, in thirteen appearances. So that one looks exciting. ⁓ and like I say, yeah, it means that Brofie might be able to play wider, which we certainly bought him in to do. 'Cause if you look at the way we was playing, we had Brophy as the ten with Bradley Dack. ⁓ and then we had three wingers, didn't we? In McCleary, Kendall and Harris. So obviously Harris has gone down lame ⁓ for a period of time. So you've now got potentially Brophy, Kendall and McCleary. So we're no worse off in wide areas. Plus we've still got the youngsters in maybe Louis Dale, Damian Theodore can come in if needs must, and maybe for the trophy games we'll see them. ⁓ so yeah, I think we've replaced what we needed to replace. So for me, the only position now where we've not got any out and out cover is probably just left back. Yeah. If we play a back four. But again, you come back to us being a League Two football club, players will make mistakes and all that type of thing. At the same time, there's generally gaps in some squads, which not all squads in League Two, because these budgets only stretch so far unless you're a Salford City who finally got it right, it seems, on Tuesday night, so won't have to go out and spend half a million to rectify another defeat. ⁓ But yeah, I I like the two that come in. Obviously there's a big risk with King because of the dreaded ACL injury that he had last season. ⁓ but I'm sure we'd have done rigorous tests, rigorous medical. And it's another one that probably falls into the category if we give him time, could be a very astute bit of business. The the ⁓ Eli King signing is a fascinating one because as soon as you as soon as you hear the name, you immediately start doing your research, right? You start looking, okay, this isn't someone I'm that familiar with, right? So you start doing your research, and the thing that immediately leaps off the page is the amount of football that he's missed over the last couple of years through through injury and you think, crikey, okay, what what are we signing here? We've got a guy who basically hasn't played hardly any football in over a year. ⁓ and then you look online and I think it was I can't remember the guy's name, apologies to him ⁓ he was the Cardiff City correspondent for Wales Online who first published the the news that he was on his way to Gillingham. Initially he reported it was going to be a loan and then he corrected himself shortly afterwards and said it'd be per then he said it'd be permanent. But ⁓ the response to his tweets was quite telling, I thought. It was just a a a raft of Cardiff City fans, really not that happy. ⁓ They were of the view that this is a guy, and some will so some some will hear this and say, ⁓ they're you know they're they're being disrespectful to Gillingham. Look at it slightly differently because they're going, he's far too good for that level, why is he going down there? blah blah blah. And others were saying, why are we getting rid of him? We're losing all our depth, he needs to be staying where he is. ⁓ to me, and the fans are always a good barometer, right? Okay, people like to have a scapegoat within their own club sometimes. But in general, you can, you know, as a as a bit of a sort of stick you sort of lit your finger, stick it in the air to check check which way the wind's blowing. If you see a load of similar messages coming from a club's fans, you've got a rough idea what you're getting. And based on what we saw from just from those tweets alone, it sounds like we've got a player. ⁓ what we don't know is his state of fitness. What we don't know is how well he's recovered from his injury. And the thing that concerns me. If I'm just being a little bit a little bit guarded over the signing. It sounds like we've got a player with some quality about him. What we don't know is how much fitness diligence we've done, because we know through documented fact that this is a guy who got the call to come to sign for Gillingham after his morning training session yesterday. So what kind of medical could he possibly have had when he only showed up? in Chesterfield in time to watch the second half. So, you know, maybe maybe he did his medicals in the morning. I don't know how soon sort of late morning. I don't know how soon he got there. But he's very good. What did his interview say? His interview, let's try and break it down. His interview said that there was he had an inkling the day before, on Monday. He trained in the morning. So deadline day. Yeah. At half ten. Then got in his car straight away because he knew something was happening and he said it was four hour drive. Four hour drive, right? So he's in Chesterfield by mid afternoon? That's that's that's conservatively, yeah. Well if you say all right, so say say he left at twelve, four hours with a break, he's got there by half four. There's still three hours between him arriving in Chesterfield minimum and the game kicking off and all our medical staff are up there. Yeah. But that's medical I mean let me be devil's advocate for a second. ⁓ you know, medicals are not all created equal, right? If you've got someone who has a has a has a completely clean bill of health and has had no prior injury issues, a medical can be a a formality, can't it? You just It's like an MOT on a car. You're just checking everything's still there and it works. But if you've got someone who has come back from ACL injuries are are still major injuries. I know the like the surgeries are so much better these days than they were, say, like 20 years ago. But there is still a rehab process. Like you would want to be talking to the surgeon. You would want to be talking to the people in charge of the rehab. You would want the service history on his knee, basically, in an ideal world. So That's a lot of information to pull together in a very short space of time. So you'd like to hope and think that we've been able to get enough of that information to give us the confidence that what we've got here is a fully fit and repaired Eli King and he's good to go. deadline days. Yeah. He only says he was aware of the move from Monday or Tuesday morning. That doesn't mean that we've not done all the due diligence before he's become aware that we're interested. yes and no. Like if you're after medical information, you've got to get permission for that. You can't just I mean, you can get word of mouth, but officially you've got you know, you need you need ⁓ you need proper permission to get medical information. So we'd about to get permission. We'd about to get permission from the football club potentially, wouldn't we? I think you'd need permission for the football club, but if it's medical information, you'd need to get permission from the from from the person, the subject themselves. I would imagine. I'm talking with zero knowledge of how to conduct a football matchup. ⁓ we're just making it up as we go along at this point. We are we are we are you know we are spitballing here and offering opinion, right? With prob possibly no fact involved at all. So take this with the largest pinch of salt you can muster. But no I just I'm just thinking that when you sign someone last knocking's deadline day or announce it last knockings, that's that's that's the distinction, right? ⁓ but when you sign someone deadline day and you hear that they only drove to the ground ⁓ that afternoon And then you see this person had a has had a lengthy ⁓ absence due to a serious injury. It's hard not to have a couple of alarm bells ringing. Because we've been we've had this we you know, we've had this sort of issue before where we've signed players injured. and you've got people who they arrive and then you realise that actually we knew that we were signing people who were injured and then they get injured. case in point. ⁓ our our big striker who's now gone to Grimsby and has got injured again, bless him. So, you know, it's it's ⁓ it's can we can we go Ricky Holmes to trump Josh Andrews, who didn't actually play a football match for us. Yeah. Yeah, he would have been good for us as well if he'd been fit. I was quite excited about him when he arrived. But ⁓ but yeah, no, I it's ⁓ these things happen. These things happen. I remember we had way back when we had the Signer Stryker Fund, which was Which was ⁓ a big thing back in the day. We had no money to buy any players. There was a football match held. I played in that game. I did ⁓ did I play in that game? No, I didn't play in that game. ⁓ and ⁓ the ⁓ the you know, the money was was was raised to pay the wages of this striker whose name completely escapes me at this point. And then he got crocks at MK Don's on the first day of the season and he missed the season. It was it was or he was done till Christmas. It was one of those. It was just These things do happen in football. So it's hard not to be a little bit worried when you see that. But but if we take it on on good faith, which you have to, and you have to assume that the job's been done properly, I do think through Richard Dobson we are in a position now where we've got someone who is diligent and conscientious and seems to have a genuine plan and direction for what we're doing. ⁓ I have a lot more faith in that system than perhaps You know, the previous one. ⁓ fingers crossed all of that is fine, all the I's are dotted, the T's are crossed, all the checks have been done. Eli King, based on fan reaction from Cardiff, is a good sign in for us. So ⁓ will he be thrown straight into the team? I don't know, but when we get him in, I think I think we could have ourselves a good player. Someone who's capable of playing one, maybe two levels above where we're at. Potentially, yeah. And i you know, it goes back to it's similar to Bradley Dack, isn't it? Bradley Dack wouldn't have come back to Dillingham in the summer of twenty twenty four if he'd not had two ACOs because he'd have still been playing in the championship or Dire say it, he might have ended up going to the the glitz and glamour of the Premier League. But ⁓ so yeah, it's ⁓ it's ones you have to take a chance on, isn't it? You have to take you get the ab you get the extra ability, but then there's caveats to that, or you get your run of the mill League Two player that can play fifty games a season. ⁓ But yeah, looking at a prior from To last season, so he played thirty two games in twenty four twenty five, he played thirty seven games in twenty three, twenty four and nineteen games in twenty two twenty three. So you're looking at a three season period, if my maths is quick enough, that's eighty eight football matches. Between the ages of sort of nineteen and twenty two. So I don't think that's to be ⁓ to be ignored. ⁓ No. But yeah, like anything at our level, there's always there's always risks and there's always caveats and sort of peeps and troughs as to how you've managed to get him in and why. Yeah. One thing I wanted to mention to you, because I don't know whether you've had chance to see this interview yet, because it I had a very short shelf life. Gareth Ainsworth did ⁓ a pre game interview up at Chesterfield that went on Jill's TV, so it'll still be there. He made a comment that he made a comment that you know, you sort of watch these pre match interviews, they're very much of a muchness, right? And you It's a bit about, okay, here's who's playing, or I'm not gonna tell you he I'm not gonna tell you who's playing, but here's kinda who's playing. ⁓ he does things like that and he did that and he mentioned that that Scylla would start. Having said, I'm not gonna tell you who's gonna start, he then let he didn't let it slip, he just sort of dropped in there, casually dropped in that Silla was gonna start. And then he said something that made my ears prick up and was like, Really? He basically said, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit but not much, where he said We don't know what we've got with him yet. with let so I'm interested you know, I want to see what we've got with him. Okay. Why don't why don't we know what we've got with him? Why are we signing players when we don't know what we've got? Like that struck me like it was like, okay, he's been identified by other people and said you should sign him and he's like, ⁓ okay, he sounds good, we'll sign him. But that I don't know whether this is just ⁓ me being an old get and not not maybe thinking along the same lines as how football clubs now recruit their players but For a manager to say, I don't know about this player, so we're gonna start him, so we can learn a bit more about him. Surely you would like to think you'd learned about the player before you've signed him. But I don't know. It just it's it stood out to me as a bit of a maybe it's me being a bit of a football old schooler, I don't know, where they get, you know, they're they're putting their trust in the recruitment team who have said this guy hits all the metrics, all the you know, all all the boxes are checked. and ⁓ he's come with great references and all the rest of it. I think he's worth a he's worth a chance for us. and we don't know how much of the wage bill is being covered by Forrest, if any. ⁓ maybe Forrester helping out. So maybe it was a shot to nothing to sign him. So I don't know. It just that that one comment leapt out at me, and it's it was in an interview that a lot of people might miss because A, it's beyond a paywall on Jill's TV, and B, it was a very short shelf life. It came out probably about five, six o'clock in the evening, maybe later than that. So yeah, I just w you know, obviously you're getting your first your first sort of hearing of this. So but assuming the wife said he's correct and I'm pretty sure I'm I'm I'm accurate. What's your initial thought on that? I'll play devil's advocate again. Yeah. Does he be and I've not watched it so obviously I'm having to take this as a well, I'm having to trust you entirely here. So this could be fun. It's dangerous thing to do, but yeah, go on. ⁓ Maybe he means that we don't quite know what we're going to get from him in the sense that we watch players and you've seen it. I remember Tino Asprea playing for Newcastle back in the mid nineties. Some players you just watch and you think they don't even know what they're doing. So how defenders and managers and coaches and opposition know what they're going to do. We had Jorge Atado a couple of winters ago come in. Very off the cuff. very instinctive player. I'm not saying other players are not. You all have to be instinctive to a degree. ⁓ so does he maybe mean that we've just got a player that because he's so raw and he's so young and he's still learning the game. I watched him last night sign he reminded me of a new puppy. He was very gangly. There was a lot of running around and a lot of effort. I thought in the early stages probably him and Waldock plus Wright were the only ones that were showing up. ⁓ plenty stuck initially. There's obviously refinement needed to then be able to find a teammate once it has stuck to your chest or you pulled it under control. ⁓ but no, without watching it, obviously it's difficult to gauge the context. But yeah, I will go and have a look later before I invariably fall asleep mid afternoon. Yeah. It's it's ⁓ it just struck me as a as an interesting one. But ⁓ but In all then, let's try and wrap up this transfer window. We've we have made a lot of a lot of changes to the squad. Like we have we've offloaded v basically an entire squad of players and signed an entire squad of players. What's what's what's your overall I'm not gonna ask you to put a grade on it, 'cause you you you can't grade signings until you've seen them for a period of time. But what's your what's your overall ⁓ What's your overall ⁓ emotion's not the right word, but what's your assessment as you look at what we had at the end of last season compared to what we have right now? And obviously we're not we're not talking injuries here, we're looking at the squad as a whole, working on the basis that all of these players are going to be available at various points during the course of the campaign. ⁓ more energy. ⁓ better mix of youth and experience. ⁓ I think we we're better balanced aside from maybe left back and one extra winger if we was being really greedy, but we've already mentioned it's it's league two, you have to have you have to have a couple of jack of all trades, so to speak, and we've got Nick Freeman, we've got Robbie McKenzie that that fill that gap and we've got ⁓ a couple of others probably sort of multipositional footballers. ⁓ Yeah, it's difficult to gauge, isn't it? We're four games into a league season, with like you say, essentially a new team, a new squad. ⁓ dare I say it'll look younger. ⁓ I mean you take out Beckles, Freeman, and McCleary from that at eighteen last night. I don't think I've missed anyone else. And you're looking at a group of players that are all probably twenty seven and under, dare I say? Robbie I think's probably twenty seven now. You've got a very young goalkeeper, you've got two very young centre backs next to Omar, you've got a young wing back on the left hand side, you've got a youth product in the middle of the park. ⁓ Brophy as well. Sorry, I did miss one. James Brophy. So you'd say four out of that eighteen, five at a push are what you call experienced, have got the know how of of this division and and the lower leagues. I think it's exciting. And and people are probably moan at me for saying it's exciting when we've got three points from four games and we've not won a league game. But There's so much potential in a lot of these signings. We don't quite know how high their ceiling is. Yeah. Yes, we're probably gonna sit here from from time to time and we're gonna be really frustrated because one's made an error, missed an open goal, or cost us a goal at the other end. But I think if we bear with this group and if we bear with Gareth Ainsworth, I think we're gonna have a season that I think will burn slowly like it is at the moment. But we said it Saturday. ⁓ I think once we get one win this group are realise, right, we're playing well and now we're getting our rewards. And I think we'll then kick on. ⁓ I think there's a couple of signings that are probably for the future. You look at Lennon McClaw, I don't think he was gonna come in to be a a a player this season generally, and that's made with no disrespect 'cause I thought he was very impressive in preseason before he got his injury. ⁓ that's just the approach we've gone with the goalkeepers. Ollie Wright was outstanding last night, so and we know he was very good last season for Accrington. ⁓ Brofie just looks like he's got all the time in the world at this level, which I love to see. ⁓ yeah. I think Will Goodwin's been good. Colin McManus is growing into that position left wing back. We spoke about him on Saturday as well, so it just gives us a little bit more natural balance being a left footer on the left hand side. I'm actually running a vote on my ⁓ ex page at the moment. So whenever this goes out, it might have finished. But yeah, again, I don't like doing it. It's not a one out of ten, a five out of ten, or a ten out of ten, because I don't think you can you can put numbers against it. But I think the four options are generally along the lines of an overhaul that we needed, a good mixture of youth and experience. I think one option was why no ⁓ marquee signing. ⁓ and the other question to was are we too ex inexperienced? Will there be games where we might sink? Based on last night, I don't think we will. Because that's a game we lose three and four nil last season, I've said that. And there was a lot of kids out there still learning their way in the game. I've already mentioned them, your Dobbs, your McManus, your Waldox. They weren't great, but not once did they say we're letting Chesterfield just go and win this game and we're just gonna roll over. And ⁓ yeah, that fills me with a fair amount of cautious optimism, we'll call it. That's the phrase of the season, that is, cautious optimism. I ran the numbers before yesterday. So this is before our sign ins yesterday. ⁓ and I've I've our average squad age before yesterday was twenty-three point nine years. So that's pretty young. So it would have dropped further then, wouldn't it? Eli twenty three, I think. And I think and Obiero's twenty one. Tw twenty one. So we've got as of now If my if my counting is correct and matters never been my strong suit, so take this with a pinch of salt. Our squad, which is massive, supposedly we're gonna have a small squad, this is a big squad. We've got twenty two players who are twenty five years or under in age. Fifteen of them are twenty one or under. Mm-hmm. Nine players are thirty and above. That's that's that's the that's the age profile of this squad. So Nine. I didn't even think it was that quite. We've got let me run through them. We've got Liam Gordon, we've got Omar Beckles, we've got Gareth McCleary, we've got Nick Freeman, we've got Daky. ⁓ we've got Dak. ⁓ hang on a minute. Kadeem Harris. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Did how many do I say? Nine. No, we've got seven. We've got seven. Gordon Freeman, Brophy Dak, Harris Beckles, McCleary, and Armani Little is twenty-nine. So Dash your experienced group. You've got an experienced group of eight there. I told you my counting was poor. ⁓ and my tax returns are a joke, by the way. ⁓ but they probably don't help if anyone from ⁓ HMRC's listening. But yeah, no, it's but no, what what it shows is we've got The heart of our team is so much younger now. And I think we've got experience in those key areas. If we can keep our experienced players largely fit, I think we're gonna be in good shape as the season goes on. Like Armani didn't have a great season last year. I think he can have a really big part to play this season when Bunsi's fit again. but I think we've got players in all positions other than that left back area. If Conor McManus goes down injured or suspended, we're we're we're sort of we're gonna end up put in ⁓ a midfielder at a wing back I would imagine but you know we'll see how all this pans out but I think I think cautious optimism was the right phrase to use. ⁓ we've got a very young squad. I and the other thing that you said which is I I do one hundred percent ⁓ concur with is we need to bear with these players. This is a very different group of players to the one that we've had in the past where we've known their ceiling and we can see when they're maybe not putting everything in. ⁓ that's it. This is a we knew this is a group of previous squads where there was a very small gap between from what you were buying to where they could get to. I think with a lot of this squad there, we might have the bar might be a little bit lower in where is where they are now. But I think where they can get to is so much higher. Yeah. Yeah. And and what's encouraged to me is is these aren't all loan signings. We have made a fair few loan signings. But we have also invested in young players for ourselves as well. And even the older signing, so sort of some of the older young signings, you know, take take Eli King, for example. He's got some serious experience under his belt already and he's twenty three. So you know, we've we've got we've we've we've signed people who we've we've got some experience in there, we've also got some youth in there. We've made a a couple of little gambles with some young lads to see whether they can make make the leap. And I think we just need to let things play out and give them the opportunity to play and let them know that we're behind them when we're in the stands on match days. You know, it's back to that scar tissue that we talked about a couple of weeks ago. That scar tissue's not there with these kids. Let's just watch ⁓ play and ⁓ give ⁓ give ⁓ everything that we can. And I think over time we'll we'll see increasingly improved performances and increasingly improved results ⁓ as we go. But League Two's League T is a tough, tough old league to deal with and they're gonna have to learn on the job quickly. But given where they've come from and the upbringing that a lot of these players have had, they're best placed to to come in and do it. So fingers crossed, fingers crossed we can have a have a have a positive run of results. But ⁓ anything else you wanna you wanna chuck in before we before we wrap things up? No, I don't think so. I think we've covered it, haven't we? ⁓ Yeah, just exciting to see to see the new lads. And then excited to obviously see the likes of of Dakie and maybe Coleman and Little get back to fitness as well. I think they're the well, I'd say I think Daky and Coleman seem to be the two that are the closest and maybe Tabarres. I think Little's gonna be another month and obviously Gordon and Harris are are what you put down as mid to longer term. So essentially you can probably write them off until January. I think Harris is that case. Unfortunately I've already said I d I don't think we'll see him again. this season. But this is the thing. If you can be in and around it or within striking distance when January comes around and you suddenly get a Liam Gordon back, how big a bonus is that going to be? That's going to be like a new signing all over again. ⁓ and you mentioned the big squad. Is the squad suddenly looking bigger than we thought because of the likes of Logan Dobbs coming in and looking like he's been playing in that back three for ages? Are we saying it's big because Harry Waldock's coming and and just grab James by the struff of the neck and look like he's been playing in our midfield for a long time. ⁓ Yeah, I don't want to go overboard with the confidence because we still haven't won a football match. So that needs to change, of course. You don't draw your way to success whichever way you look at it. But I I just think one win might turn us into London buses and then we might get two or three very quickly. If we go to Rochdown and nick it on Saturday, I think then you become more confident that you can beat Tramia Rovers the following week at Priestfield. The acid test I think comes the week after that, Bristol Rovers, 'cause I think Bristol Rovers are a lot of people's picks to be really good this season and and they're top of the league at the moment. I get it's very early in the season. But we've had half a team missing. Got a lot of youngsters coming in. So brand new side. How many of that starting eleven last night? Right, new signing. ⁓ Dobbs, you say is essentially a new signing because he wasn't in the first team pitcher last season. Freeman, McManus, Waldock, you can probably put in that bracket because he weren't in the first team pitcher this time last year. Profi, Silla. That's that's seven of the starting eleven. And then you're bringing on ⁓ Will Goodwin new signing. We didn't see Sheldon Kendall last night. So to be we've got the second longest unbeaten run in the division, haven't we, I think? That's funny. And also if you know, if you're on a but the longest winning streak as well, for those that want to be slightly more negative. Yeah, yeah. But like Ronan Hale's only been with us since January. Omar Beckles. Omar Beck. Yep. You know, so so this is a very, very new team. ⁓ where our most experienced lads are in the team right now, pretty much. I've still only been with a team six months. So, you know, it's ⁓ Cameron Antwee can chuck in as well. Cameron Antwee building his way back to fitness has come on and looked steady, I'd say, in the three games. I don't think he's pulled up loads of trees, but this is a bloke who's not played for seven months and he's he's come in and he's looked apart, probably in a position that's slightly deeper than ideal. And then if you can get your Gareth McClearies up to full speed and you get your Bradley Dax back in your team and a Marnie Littles. Even if you're bringing them off the bench for twenty minutes at one nil up or one all away from home like last night, you'd be very confident that you can see games out and and pick up ugly points as I like to call ⁓ And how often did the great Sir Alex Ferguson use to say the best teams get points when they're not playing well? We got a bloody good point last night and we weren't playing well at all. There's we're not gonna dress this up and sugarcoat it. We were rubbish for probably two thirds of that game. But We found a way to stay in the football match and then get something from it. And that's a huge plus for me. Yeah. No, I think I think I think we're in a position now where things can start to start to trend upwards. I really do. And I understand that there's still some negativity on sort of hang hungover from last season. I get that. And it's gonna take a little while to shake that off. ⁓ and it will take longer for some people than it than you know than it will for others. And that's that's understandable. But this is a completely new generation of Jilling and Football Club in terms of the players on the pitch. We've added to it over the course of the last twenty-four hours. We've shown some more battling qualities on on Tuesday night with a performance that looked like an absolute disaster in the first half and then showed the sort of jilling and fighting spirit that we like to see from our teams on the road in the second half. Lots of reasons, I think, to be optimistic. This podcast is quite an optimistic podcast at the moment. Long may that continue. Fingers crossed the performance. Wait till October, everybody. That'll be it. We'll be we'll be it'll be a th it'll be a therapy session by October. But let's let's let's we'll try and keep it upbeat as best we can for now. But ⁓ that was pretty chunky ⁓ bonus episode of Blood Sweat and Jills. Don't forget you can follow Matt on Jills in the Blood TV on YouTube. Subscribe to him there, follow him on all the socials as well at Jills in the Blood. And ⁓ you can follow me at Simon Head Sport on all social media platforms and you can follow Jills3651x, Jills365.news on Instagram. And don't forget to check out the site. We've making a few little tweaks and changes to Jills365. ⁓ get over there and see what we're all about, gills365.news. Thank you so much for checking out the podcast. Enjoy the rest of your week. And let's cross our fingers for another positive result. Maybe our first win of the season at Rochdale. Take care everyone and finally up the Jills.