‘Anyone who doesn’t wish Trent well at Madrid hasn’t got a warm bone in their body’
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Hello, this is your Monday edition of It's All Kicking Off. Ian here. Celtic have well and truly won the SPFL now and Chris Sutton has gone missing in Glasgow. If anybody sees him, please treat him kindly. He's had a long season. It's not finished yet. In Chris's stead today, we have Nathan Salt, one of our Manchester United reporters and the world's most enthusiastic and indeed well-known Wrexham supporters. Um...

Nathan, something struck me last night, and we always talk about how players don't get much time off these days and the off-season gets shorter and shorter. That's not actually true if you're an EFL player.

Because if you play for a team that's not in the playoffs, your season is now finished and it's only the start of May. So you'll get May, June, July, etc. So those players do still get a chunk of time. But the reason I'm saying this is that it always makes me feel a little bit sorry for the managers of people like Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, etc.

other smaller nations because they've got big games to play in June. Wales, for example, have two World Cup qualifiers. And of course, they draw quite a lot of players from the EFL. And it must be very, very difficult to almost drag players off the beach, literally and metaphorically, and try and get them up to speed again for games that are hugely important to people like Craig Bellamy and Michael O'Neill.

Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I hadn't really given that too much thought previously, but Wrexham, for example, do not have any Welsh internationals right now, but they are going off to Vegas, going to have a very nice time there celebrating. There'll be other teams that do likewise, whether it's in Europe or in America. And best believe, and you know Craig Bellamy well enough, that he will not be too thrilled that most of the pool of players he's picking from

are weeks and weeks away from having kicked a football. So, yeah, now you've given me a sense of dread now. We're only a couple of minutes into the podcast. I'm now worried about Wales' chances in June. Well, Wales have got two big games, Liechtenstein and Belgium away. You know, probably the biggest qualifying game to play.

I'm not saying there's anything that can be done about it. The fact is the calendar is the calendar, but we always presume, or I do when I look at my schedule and my diary, in my head, the football season doesn't finish until England have played two games in the first 10 or 12 days of June. But of course it is, for lots of players, it's done now. And it is odd now how the EFL season is,

and the Premier League season just do not match up in any way. And by the way, that is a shocking state of affairs that Wrexham don't have any Welsh players. That's got to be fixed.

Well, yeah. I mean, one of the big discussion points of the weekend, I went to Lincoln for the final day and it was talking about how in League One, you do not automatically get your international breaks. Obviously in the championship you do, that's new for Wrexham. But yeah, we never automatically triggered our own international breaks. Never had three internationals that were called up and somehow made our way to the championships. Hopefully a Welsh international would be great. Yeah.

So would that matter to say, well, I was going to say a dyed-in-the-wool Wrexham fan of many years standing, but in fact, any Wrexham fan, does it matter? Obviously, I'm sure none of you would swap the journey that you've been on in the last three or four years, promoted again, of course, this season, will play championship football next season, which is just, it seems extraordinary. Is it an issue for anybody at all that there are no homegrown players in that team?

I think it's one of those topics and discussion points that sort of rears its head when Wrexham plateau a little bit. But everyone would love internationals, but at the minute it's just been promotion, promotion, promotion, back to back to back. And so I dare I say we've been a little bit distracted and kind of kept at bay with other little issues such as not having internationals, but it'll come. It's the calibre of play you get in the championship. I'm really excited. You've...

You've known plenty of managers over the years in the championship. It's one of the most exciting leagues in the world, you could say. It always throws up incredible drama. And yeah, I'm very, very excited on that front. The championship is a wild west of European football. That's how somebody described it to me once, although they were talking from a financial point of view. But I think that description applies across the board. It is probably still...

the hardest league to get out of, the hardest league to get out of. And as we know, it's becoming a desperately hard job to get out of it and then do well in the Premier League. But we might get to a little bit of that. I do think, I think local players are important. We'll move on from this in a minute. I was at a game recently at Fulham,

Forest when they beat Manchester United and Ryan Yates who was born in Lincoln but came through the Forest Academy so he counts as local he's their club captain he absolutely tormented the life out of Bruno Fernandes that night Forest won the game Yates was to use one of Chris's Chris Sutton's favourite phrases

Yates, he's a decent footballer, by the way, despite what I'm going to say, but he just shithoused Fernandes all night to the point where I think Bruno was taken off, I think, for his own peace of mind. And I thought that when I then saw Forrest perform pretty meekly in the FA Cup semi-final last weekend against City, he wasn't playing. He was suspended. And I do think that on occasions...

It might be a bit of a cliche. You know how important it is to Manchester United, but to have just a homegrown presence somewhere around that squad, I think is still really important in football.

Yeah, no, definitely. I remember speaking to various Man United fans that night, they were watching it in pubs around town and they said, this guy is so annoying. I always think that's quite a good compliment if you're central midfield and you are, the descriptive word is you are annoying. You know, the adjective is that you are irritating and annoying. And that is exactly what Ryan Yates and people like that do in the team. You know, he is not the one that will get linked to Manchester City. Morgan Gibbs White has been my colleague, Jack Gorn, and

and maybe Chris Wood will get a load of plaudits for the goals he scored. It's always the players that come through academy, they do the jobs no one else wants to do because they're not fashionable. And yeah, those are always the players that fans can root for.

Yeah, I don't want to denigrate Ryan Yates. He's a good footballer, but he does have that in him as well. Anyway, let's talk about a footballer right at the top of the tree. Harry Kane has a winner's medal at last. The England captain is a Bundesliga champion. Bayern Munich couldn't get over the line themselves on Saturday night, but Leverkusen failed to win on Sunday and that handed the title to Bayern Munich for the 12th time

in the last 13 years. The one time they missed out, of course, was last season in Harry's first season, which few people found quite amusing. Chris and I may have had a little bit of a giggle about it on this podcast at one stage, but that's all in the past now. Harry Kane is a champion. Incredible figures.

Nathan, 61 and 61, bit of symmetry there, 61 goals and 61 Bundesliga games for Bayern Munich. Extraordinary effort from Kane and Eric Dier and of course the manager, Vincent Kompany.

Yeah, phenomenal achievement. I was happy for Harry Kane when I watched the video of him being... That's how I'd imagine my dad maybe would celebrate promotion, just doing a selfie video singing, we are the champion. Nothing against my dad if my dad did win the Bundesliga, but that is how I would imagine he would do it if he did. And yeah, I couldn't not be happy for him. It's been a long time coming and there's been a lot of noise about, you know, was this the right decision to leave? And dare I say, if he...

If, well, if he'd have gone a little bit further in Europe, he'd have had a really strong, you know, Ballon d'Or contention because it's going to end up with Laminia Mal or Rafinha over in Barcelona. But you just read out the numbers, they're 61 and 61. You've won the league title. It's just a shame for Kane that he hasn't got that European gloss that would have given him the ultimate, you know, individual accolade in football. I think he has. I think it's been vindicated. He's finally got the Bundesliga. I know what you say, 12 in 13 years. So,

How big an achievement is it really by Munich dominate that league and have done for well over a decade, but he's never dominated there for a decade. Has he? So he's finally got the monkey of his back, finally got a major trophy. And yeah, like I say, putting aside the kind of the slight cringe of the selfie video, I very much enjoyed it on his behalf.

If you won the Bundesliga, I think you'd see a much more polished social media effort than that. I think your TikTok account is certainly something to behold. Anyone who's not following Nathan on TikTok, then go and do it, especially if you support Manchester United or Wrexham. Very, very worthwhile. I have a strange thing about Kane and Bayern Munich, and I'm pleased for him. Anyone who's ever dealt with Harry from a...

immediate point of view knows the type of guy that Harry is it's impossible not to not to be not to be happy for him he's got what he wanted but I do have this weird I still this weird thing in my head about whether it was the right thing for him to do to go there I said it when he went Chris Sutton laughed at me and Chris Sutton still laughs at me about it yeah he's got so he's got his medal right so he's got his medal if he'd have stayed Tottenham one more year he'd have been on a free

And he could have had his pick of probably any club in Europe. And I only ask that because what does he do now? What does he do now? He's got two years left on his contract. There is believed to be a release clause in it. So if you were him, would you think, right, I'm 32 this summer.

I'll keep turning it over. We've obviously got a Club World Cup this summer. Turn it over with my mind on the actual World Cup in America in summer of 2026. Or does he think, right, I've done what I wanted to do. Let's see if I can get a move. Get to see a move back to the Premier League. Because off the top of my head, clubs like Arsenal, Chelsea, even Liverpool, even Liverpool,

would be, may have a flicker of interest in a fit and firing Harry Kane if the price was right. Or am I just, am I just shouting at the clouds here? I don't think he's shouting at the clouds. They do, they would all take Harry Kane right now and he would improve all of those sides you just mentioned. Do you think so? Is he mobile enough? Yeah, I think he's, yes, we can say all wrong about the German league, but we've seen him do it in the Premier League and he's still very, very fit. You know, he looks...

he's flying through some of these games. And I always think people say, well, the level is the opposition. There are some poor teams in the Premier League. You'd get plenty of goals if you came to the Premier League. The way I look at it, if I'm Harry Kane, I wouldn't be satisfied with just winning the Bundesliga. I would have gone to Bayern Munich wanting to win the Champions League and wanting to be in Ballon d'Or contention. It's the Champions League for me. Had he won the Champions League, I think I would have a different opinion. And maybe you go,

You've won the Bundesliga, you've won the Champions League, get yourself back home. And I'm sure, you know, your family had a nice couple of years in Germany and then come back. But having only won a Bundesliga, I don't think that would satisfy me. And I don't think it satisfies Harry Kane just having the league title. So go where you give yourself the best chance to win the Champions League. And realistically, that is...

Bayern Munich. They always seem to retool. Michael Alisse has been phenomenal there. They've got lots of really, really good players and they've got such a monopoly on German football that their route is always going to be slightly easier than coming. Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal,

They could easily finish fifth or sixth next season. It doesn't seem realistic now. Liverpool, you wouldn't expect to drop off that much. Chelsea, they're there about. Arsenal, who knows what happens to them. Premier League is so ultra competitive that you might just miss out on the Champions League if it's just one of those freak seasons. It doesn't quite work out. You're unlikely to miss out on Champions League football with Bayern Munich. So I think he's in a place which gives him the best chance to get the two biggest prizes I think you'd want as an individual player.

It's interesting in terms of English clubs and whether they may have an interest. We tend to be sniffy these days about clubs who buy for the here and now. We always think that clubs should be buying for...

The future buying young, you know, and bringing players on and getting the best out of them and then maybe selling them at high prices, et cetera. I still think there is value in buying for the here and now. As for, you know, probably the most famous example of that or the first one that comes to my mind is when my United bought Robin Van Persie. You know, United...

Lost, let me get my dates right here. United lost the league title to City on the last day in 2012. I firmly believe that Alex Ferguson would have retired that day had Sergio Aguero not scored that late winner for City. Fergie stayed an extra year with one thing in his mind, which was to win that title back. And he bought Robin Van Persie to do it. And they did it. You know, Van Persie pretty much had that brilliant season

and then pretty much fell off the edge of the cliff for David Moyes and was eventually sold at a loss. But who cares? Who cares about that? Because they got the title. And I do think that if clubs like Arsenal, particularly Arsenal, you know, obviously got the Arsenal-Tottenham thing. Don't know how that would work. Particularly Arsenal, clubs like Chelsea,

You've got to come a point where you've got to think, I need to buy a player for now. I've also got to think, I can't keep finishing second. Mikel Arteta, can't keep thinking setting's okay. You've got to win the Premier League at some point. You've got to buy players for the here and now. Kane could be one of them.

Certainly worth a sniff. Anyway, once upon a time, Nathan, Harry Kane would have been a perfect fit for Manchester United. That ship has probably sailed. Now you're laughing. They're playing a 17-year-old up front at Brentford on Sunday, I think. Before we get into that game, the bottom half of the Premier League is really, really, really, really strange. Yeah.

United can't win a game, but it doesn't seem to matter because they might win the Europa League. And that's all that matters now. You can say exactly the same for Tottenham. They can't win a game either, but they're in the same position. At West Ham, everyone just feels a bit meh about Graham Potter. Everton have absolutely tanked, one win in 10, but David Moyes is still a genius. And this is all because the bottom three have been so bad because there's no jeopardy at the bottom of the Premier League now. So I...

I wasn't working on Sunday. I was at an event with the family, but I had my eye on my phone watching the games come through. United are 4-1 down. My United are 4-1 down at Brentford. And I'm just thinking, well, well, well, nobody's going to get too excited about that. Okay, the events, you put a bit of gloss on it with two late goals, but you're like 4-1 down at Brentford. But this is what,

This is what the bottom of the Premier League has given us. Remember those days, Nathan? Maybe you don't, but you must have heard the phrase, oh, we've got to get to 40 points to stay in the Premier League. Sure. Got to get to 40 points. You know the last time that a club needed 40 points to stay in the Premier League? I'm going to assume it's longer ago than I probably think it is. Three or four years ago, maybe? Wow.

14 years. 2011, Birmingham, Blackpool and West Ham went down with 39, 39 and 33 points respectively. So we're going to have to change the lexicon of football Nathan. We're going to have to start next season. We're going to have to encourage players to say things like, well, all we're thinking about at the start of the season is getting to that magical 21 point mark.

get to the magical 21 point mark, you know, seven wins and we'll be seven wins out of seven wins out of 38 will be good. I was watching the highlights of the West Ham Tottenham game. And I can't remember who was on commentary now, but they said that this game is everything you'd expect out of like 15, 16, 17. Like it was bad to the extreme, you know, and there's zero jeopardy to that. Yeah.

West Ham versus Tottenham, for God's sake. And a league is very much worse off when you know that the three that come up are 90% likely to go back down. I think about this with League Two, obviously. My team was in there not long ago. To go out of the football league, you have to be really bad. It's actually harder to go down than to stay up.

And I sort of think that a bit about the Premier League now, like, you know, that the gap is already so big and so vast that the teams that come up just cannot compete in terms of talent, financially, you know, expectation, whatever it is.

So to go down, you have to be really, really bad. Like Wolves for a while were really, really bad and they steadied under Pereira. Man United are terrible. You know, forget the Europa League. They are just an objectively very bad football team. Tottenham are somehow even worse. West Ham under Graham Potter haven't made any improvement, I don't think. Maybe they're a little bit tighter at the back, but they've made no real step forward.

And like you said, Everton, what was it? One winning 10 now? One winning 10 and two in 13. And we're saying David Moyes has done a really good job there since Sean Dyche and

There's a lot of really, really poor teams. And dare I say, if it was changed to, if you didn't hit 40 points, you'd be down. Well, Man United would be down. Tottenham would be down. If we did say 40 points, you've got to get 40 points to stay up. And if you don't, you're down. Obviously, that wouldn't work probably in logistically. But if that was the case, I mean, there'd be five or six teams going down at the Premier League this season. There'd be so much jeopardy. None of those teams that I've just mentioned that I've reeled off, none of them have got 40 points yet.

None of them have got that, you know, and really in old money, as we say, in the old school world, they'd all still be thinking, oh my God, one more winter stay up, one more winter stay up. But it's been, it's just been like, oh, so what? And the Europa League, which we'll talk about in a minute, the Europa League for United and Tottenham has skewed that a little bit, don't get me wrong, because they've got their eyes firmly focused on getting to Bilbao for the final.

because it gets them into champions league if they win it i understand that i absolutely understand that but we are now in a situation where a manchester united manager whose team have lost 16 times in the premier league 16 once again once again for emphasis a manchester manager can go to brentford where united have had traumatic experiences in the past uh

everyone will remember the Ericsson-Harg disaster there, of course. And he can go there and, and I say this respectfully, toss the game off, toss the game off by picking what according to Max today was the third youngest team that any team has ever picked in Premier League history, not just Manchester United team, and pretty much lose 4-3 to

It was a hiding at 4-1 and think, oh, but it's okay because we've just won 3-0 and we've just won 3-0 at Bilbao. We're going to be all right. It's a strange old, it's a strange, I would argue that a Manchester United manager probably really, no Manchester United manager should ever look at a Premier League game and think it's okay to lose this. No Man United manager should ever think that.

It's also one of those things where if they don't win the Europa League, then the knives really are out because you've thrown these games, you've really put every single egg you have that isn't cracked at Man United into this basket that you are going to win the Europa League and that is how you will get the backdoor entry into the Champions League.

But there was just no real surprise for me watching that performance yesterday. It was a surprise they took the lead through Mason Mount. I was surprised at. And Garnaccio, I think, is really unfairly criticised. He's been one of the actual solid players in a really bad season, domestically at least. And what I think fans are getting confused about with Amarin is, and you maybe say the same, is that

Where is the tangible progress with a lot of these players? Like if you're a coach, a head coach, which he is, and you've had six months now, I mean, you and I were both at that game at Ipswich on the first day. And I remember vividly that he was having to essentially just drag players about because they didn't know the positions. They just kept looking to the bench. I don't know where I need to be. And that was understandable at Ipswich. They probably should have lost that day at Ipswich. That was understandable then, I thought, because it was a new system.

And it's quite hard six months on to still see players looking across to the bench, not knowing where they should be. I get the systems. I get there's a philosophy, which you work on day in, day out. I know they play sort of midweek and they don't train all the time. I get that. But how complicated is a football system for top level players? That's what I've never understood. I've never understood how you go from a back four to a back three and suddenly you're

it's like you're doing, you know, the toughest exam in the world and none of these players have done any revision. It's like really confusing to them. And like I said, you and I were both at Ipswich and Portman Road. It made sense then. They drew 1-1 that day. And I did see shoots of life. I remember Rashford scored that day and Ahmad looked really good as a wing back. And yet we've kind of been just stuck really. There's a lot of players who have just shown no sort of sign of improvement. And United paid the price for that.

I take you back to what you said about Garnett, so I agree with you. And to be fair to him, he has, it would appear, sort of recovered from a patchy start under Amram. If you remember, he was, remember the day at the Etihad when, when,

Amrim dropped Rashford for the first time and the headlines and the reaction, the social media noise was all about Rashford, but he dropped Garnaccio as well for the same reason, reasons of application and attitude, et cetera. Rashford, Rashford's solution for that was to bugger off to Aston Villa. Garnaccio's reaction to that, to be fair, has been to make himself quite useful. He's one of those players where United, and United do suffer from this unfairly just because of who they are. So,

Any Man United player who leaves Man United, Alanga's a really good example, and produces any kind of numbers at all, everybody just says, oh, we shouldn't have sold him. Oh, we shouldn't have sold him. What a mistake. And I'm sorry, and with the greatest of respect to people like Alanga, just because you can be a very good player for Nottingham Forest, it does not mean you can be a very good player for Man City United. That argument to me is fundamentally flawed. But if Garnaccio had left,

And he produced the numbers that he subsequently produced for United. People would be saying, oh, shouldn't have let him go. But then his numbers, but people still look at him and think he's still not good enough. What he's doing now isn't good enough for United. Even though if he was doing it somewhere else, people would be flagging up his numbers as proof of another failure by the club, letting a player go.

So no one has played more times for Manchester United this season than Garnaccio. So he's played 54, made 54 appearances, played more for Manchester United than Bruno Fernandes. So when I speak to people at the club, they say,

Garnaccio gets so much stick and he does take it personal. He is young. He is one of those that takes it a lot more personal than say Bruno Fernandes who has had a lot of stick and just seems to take it on the chin. He's a more experienced player. I understand that. Garnaccio has been so available. When you think at the beginning of the Amarant, Rainey, like I say, got dropped after that Victoria Pilsen sort of touchline spat and then has worked his way back in. He plays 90 minutes, 100 minutes every week and is always available. One of

the players that actually survived the Bilbao game made eight changes. Amarim Garnaccio played again because you can trust him and he's got 21 goals guarantee you exactly what you said. If Garnaccio is a

Brentford or Brighton and had 21 goals and assists, you'd have Man United fans saying we should sign that guy. He would be exactly what we need. He's this rapid winger that, yes, he's missed, what, 13 big chances. I think that's not even in the top 10 in the Premier League this season. So if anything, he's being punished because he could have more, could have 30 goals and assists. And what I said to somebody the other day is, so we're criticising Garnaccio for having the chances. Yeah, he's missing them. He's 20 years old.

We're punishing him for having that. Hoyland doesn't even have the chances. So we're criticising him because he doesn't get the chances. And honestly, Ian, what I think with the discourse around young players is that everybody's going to turn into Laminia Mal. It's just not, it isn't a realistic benchmark. There are very good players, young players that,

Alejandro Garnaccio is a very good player and the reason why people at United are scared that if he leaves, he will go on to do really, really well. And he is the one that someone put to me that's going to bite us on the backside. So you mentioned Alain, you mentioned others. That's why they're hesitating a little bit on Garnaccio. This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Life can get overwhelming and stress and anxiety have a way of creeping up on us.

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Get blue balls this season with BuzzBall. Please do responsibly. BuzzBall's available on Spirit, Wine and Malt. 15% alcohol by volume. BuzzBall's LLC, Carrollton, Texas. Right, let's talk a bit about the EFL. Big weekend. Chris and I prefaced it at the weekend. It felt like it was going to be a big weekend. It was a big weekend. The bottom of the...

The championship was as dramatic as we felt it was going to be. Hull stayed up with a gutsy draw at Portsmouth. Preston stayed up with a draw at Bristol City. Derby and Stoke City seemed to come to some kind of pact to draw nil-nil. And Luton went down, which feels more than desperate for a team that was in the Premier League a year ago.

Yeah. I mean, I had a vested interest in how Hull were getting on. Good friend of ours, Catherine, was there in the away end. And I was fearful, I would say, on her behalf when Portsmouth equalised. But yeah, Luton is a very, very strange one because you always do think, you know, with the three teams coming down, going into the championship next season, I will assume that they will be three of the top teams.

again just with the parachute money you would expect that it's quite hard to go wrong when you're getting a huge financial advantage it does feel like you know talking about League 2 and how you go out of the league it's really difficult to do that actually really hard you'd think to go out of the championship when you've got a huge financial advantage over basically everyone else so it's been a really really poor season for Luton Rob Edwards

Really like him as a manager. I don't know how it went so wrong for him. Honestly, I don't watch Luton week in, week out. Matt Bloomfield left Wickham, that torpedoed their season and didn't have the desired effect on Luton. Stoke was another funny one. Mark Robbins there hasn't quite... I mean, that's been a real difficult job for a lot of really good managers. Managers I rate highly. None of them can seem to get a tune out of Stoke. And they were, you know...

when I was only a little bit younger, Stoke were basically solidified in, in, in the premier, premier league, I'll have Brentford or Brighton or, you know, any of those kinds of teams. So really strange for them that they could have gone down and Preston, I think if anything, I said to my friend who was a Preston fan, that relegation might've been the best thing for him because they've been stuck in the championship with no hope of getting out of it up or down for what feels like well over a decade now. So yeah, EFL, like I said, championship, just the drama and knowing that there were five or six teams that could have gone on the final day and everyone's checking the scores and,

I would say that's what it's all about if you're not one of those fans, which is agonising. Yeah, incredible day at Bradford. Chris and I have been following the Walsall story quite closely in recent weeks. Obviously, Walsall were miles ahead at the top of the top of League Two earlier in the year and then have absolutely tanked. Just to put it in a couple of paragraphs, Walsall did finally win on Saturday, their first win in 14. They went away at Crewe and they would have gone up

they would still have gone up in third place at Bradford's expense because Bradford weren't winning at home to Fleetwood. That was until the 96th minute. Anthony Sarkovic's winner. He's been promoted eight times, that lad, and he's now scored a goal that got Bradford up. I think the...

The word that the younger people use these days to describe such scenes is limbs. Limbs. You're exactly right. Down with the kids there, it was limbs. It was probably the flukiest goal of Sarcevic's career and probably the sweetest as well because having been to Bradford, it is an incredible arena. They are a really, really passionate fan base. Massive football club. Great intelligence, yes.

incredible. And so I was, I was delighted for them. And also I love those kinds of moments that will just be frozen in time when you get all these kind of highlight reels of EFL seasons and promotions. That is what it's all about. I mean, Fleetwood, they had nothing riding on it, so I'm not sure they would have been too, it did make me laugh that there were some Bradford fans that ran onto the pitch before the final whistle, ran over to the Fleetwood fans, cupping their ears as if the Fleetwood fans would care too much. But I did very much enjoy that. I thought that was quite funny. Just even at the,

very, very end, they still had to really stick it up on the travelling Fleetwood fans. So that was very good. And Walsall, quickly, 14 points clear. Nathan Lowe gets recalled to Stoke and the season just goes off an absolute cliff and Nathan Lowe barely kicks the ball for Stoke. So sad all round that story, really. Well, they've got another chance. They're now face Chesterfield home and away in the playoffs and at least having won a game at last, at least they did their job to at least get

this group of players who haven't known what a win feels like for so long and can now go,

to Chesterfield, home and away in the playoffs, at least thinking, right, we've just played a big game and we won it. Oh, it didn't work out for us because of what Bradford did. But we've played a big game and we've won it so we can do it. We've got the feeling again. That might just help them, might just help them going into the playoffs. But it's interesting what you say about big moments frozen in time. And, you know, Bradford, I remember Bradford being in the

being in the Premier League. I remember Stan Collymore playing for Bradford. I remember Bradford doing very well in the League Cup a number of seasons ago. Obviously, Bradford are not short of big moments in their own career, but this one, this one will count. It will be there, I'd imagine, on photographs in the corridors at Valley Parade next season because...

It doesn't matter if it was League Two or the Premier League. It's a massive moment for a club we've been trying to get up in the last couple of seasons. And what I was going to say as well, what I love in the EFL is we spoke about the Premier League and all these managers that are underperforming and under pressure and, you know, really aren't delivering. There are so many managers in the EFL that have been written off, like Darren Moore, Paul Vea a lot. Nathan Jones is having a great run now with Charlton. That'd be one of the favourites in

in the playoffs. I mean, look at Paul Cook or Dave Challen or... Is it Phil Park? Who is it at Bradford? Graham Alexander. So again, he was written off after Salford and there are so many redemption stories in the EFL, which is what I love. And just while I've got the chance to plug it, we'll pick with our colleague. His EFL column has been brilliant this year. Really, really great stories that

that maybe we don't get the coverage all the time, but there are so many good redemption stories in the EFL. And I know we can look at the Premier League and say, wow, all these guys are underperforming, but to build yourself back up in League Two or League One and the grind of that is, you know, hats off to all those managers there that I mentioned that have gone and got promoted this year.

It's very true. The EFL is rich in stories. We possibly don't cover enough of them on this podcast, but we do try when we think it's relevant. And Nathan's absolutely right. Go and check out Will Pickworth. You'll find him on X and other social channels. You'll find his work online.

on Mail Online. He is our EFL specialist. He writes a column once a week, for example. Last week, he was writing very intelligently and in detail about Michael Carrick. Of course, Michael Carrick took his Millersburg side to Coventry where they lost. So Millersburg won't be in the playoffs, but Coventry will in the championship. All those games start this week. No rest for those championship players. The playoffs start this week.

up and down the pyramid. Cole Palmer, quickly, Nathan, Cole Palmer would have been in most people's team of the season at Christmas. I'm not sure he will be now, but he did score his first goal in something like 1,162 minutes in the Premier League penalty against Liverpool, who really are on the beach, penalty against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. I had a bit of a dig afterwards saying that he's been a bit riled up by

comments that have been coming his way on social media recently. I was really surprised by that. Not that people have been digging out of football and social media, because that seems to be what some people think social media is for, but it did surprise me that someone like Cole Palmer, Cold Palmer, would

would be the slightest bit bothered by that. I genuinely have no idea why footballers check social media, especially during a bad run. I don't understand that. I've had the same chat with Chris before when we were talking about Rasmus Hoyland. It was, why on earth would you check social media? Nothing good can come from it, surely. And what I do know is players are very sensitive, especially Premier League players. It always gets me when...

an agent of a player rang me recently because they were unhappy with a mark they got in player ratings. Wow. Something you all know well. Wow. And six players were given a lower mark and yet they were very, very unhappy with the mark they got in the comment I left. And my question was, why would this player...

Well, not to devalue my opinion here, but why would what I say really, really bother this player? And so for Cole Palmer, you've had a fabulous run with Chelsea. I know there's been more downs than ups of late in the past few months, but why would you care what sort of Johnny come lately on Twitter says? I don't get it, Ian. I personally think that I would...

I would just leave social media behind. I've made it. I'm the one who's playing for Chelsea and doing very well. So yeah, that will always baffle me. Player ratings are fascinating. Player ratings, you know, marks out of 10 for those who aren't familiar. As a journalist, there were always a thing that I didn't like doing because as Nathan has just articulated, they are the thing that the players look at. And I mean, without going into details of the,

my particularly checkered history in local newspapers, et cetera. I've been physically threatened by footballers over marks and over marks in the, in the, in what was back in the day in the newspaper. Seriously, I've been physically threatened by a couple of players for marks. I've given them in, in, in, in print back in the day. Um, somebody wants threatened to run me over in his car. Um,

I don't think he meant it, by the way, but it was just a turn of phrase to get his point across. But what do you, so when you do your marks out of 10, Nathan, this is something that also makes me laugh, is that we all have, it's not as though our marks out of 10 are uniform. You know, some people, my six might be your seven, for example. So if I give a player a six,

that's basically your standard. If you've got your six, you've done perfectly well. You've not let yourself down, but you've not particularly impressed anybody. That's your standard. But what's, and that's what I work off. I work up from that for players who've done well and down for players who haven't. But what's your middle ground? Is it six? I'm the same. I'll start on the six and it's just very, very fun. I've had it a few times where,

this player will have had a couple of great marks you don't hear a peep you know it's radio silence and then you'll give them a four or five and they've I remember once a

a player got very, very annoyed when they'd lost, I think they'd conceded five or six goals. They were a defender. And unsurprisingly, the mark was not high. And I think what bothers them now more so than the number is the actual comment that I leave. And to put it very briefly, you only get, you know, one sentence to describe the player's performance and a performance as much more nuanced than that. But yeah,

But yeah, my sort of hot takes and sharp takes definitely have not gone down well in Man United's dressing room over the course of the season. So yeah, it doesn't bother me. I mean, firstly, what would they expect? Secondly, it is always the case that you never get phone calls from agents or players or as it used to be, or managers thanking you for nice things that you've said. But they always find your number, always find your number when you've written something that...

that they don't like. We are sensitive souls, us journalists, starting with Nathan. We don't like it when people call up and shout at us. I think maybe just before we move on and do our moments of the weekend,

I don't think anything will ever beat the day that somebody from Manchester United, who will remain nameless, rang me and asked if we could remove a photograph of Phil Jones from our main online sports pages because of the face that he was pulling in a particular challenge. I'd literally just got home from a game and

And my phone went, it's half past 11 at night. You get a phone call from a football club at half past 11 at night. You think like, oh Christ, what, what, you know, what have I done or what's happened? What is this about? Or is it a pocket call? Pick up the phone and this voice, oh, um, yeah, just, I know it sounds a bit funny, but this, that photograph with Phil, can we take it down? I was like, that's his face.

I was like, that's his face? I said, unless you want to send me a photograph with him with a new face, a different face, that's one request I'm afraid I cannot grant. Right, there we go. Nathan, let's do some moments of the weekend. You can go first. I am going to go with an on-pitch interview after Burnley had finished out their season between James Trafford and his dad, James. I thought that was, if you haven't watched it, go and watch it. It's a very nice interview. And also James and James, big fan. Why was James Trafford interviewing his own son?

I've no idea. They were both getting interviewed. They were both just very emotional on the pitch at the end of the season. And as Burnley was sort of celebrating, I mean, I think they thought they were going to be celebrating the league title. And then obviously Leeds went and scored. Leeds went and scored in the 91st minute down at Plymouth. But it was just a very nice interview. Just, you know, James Trafford and his dad. And also I should say that James Trafford gave a very, very funny interview at the EFL Awards where I think he'd had one too much.

too many to drink a few days prior. So he is very entertaining and I'm sure he'll be on the move this summer. So that is his farewell at Burnley. Lovely interview, signing off with his dad. Yeah, interested from Newcastle, we believe, in James Trafford. Nothing like a bit of paternal pride, nothing like a drunk footballer and awards do either. We've all seen a few of those down the years, some stories that we could remember

I've got a couple. I'm going to go for Jamie Vardy. We all saw it on the field as Leicester finally won a game against Southampton. Referee goes down. Southampton are breaking away down the left side. So Vardy thinks, I'm not having that. Leans down, peeps into the, pops into the referee's whistle to make sure that that move is stopped. Jamie Vardy will be on his way. Nathan, very quickly, would you, would Wrexham take him? Where is he going to end up? Yeah.

I really hope he doesn't come to Wrexham. Wrexham need to start signing players under the age of 37 years old and he does not fit that category, unfortunately. He certainly does not. Okay. But I wouldn't be surprised if somebody in the Premier League maybe just gives Jamie Vardy a whirl. My other one would be finally the Leeds chairman. You mentioned Leeds there. They managed to clinch the championship first place spot, which is important. You know, you get the old, you get the old first division trophy if you win that. Yeah.

and Leeds did it, picked Burnley with that late goal. Leeds chairman Parag Marath finally has said that Daniel Farker will stay as Leeds manager next season. Mike Keegan, of course, our chief sports reporter, had broken the story last week.

Very well sourced, saying that Leeds were having second thoughts about retaining him. Parag Marath was due to give an interview with Sky last Monday, didn't give it, which made people think maybe that's why, because he's going to be asked about it. He's finally spoken about it. He says that Fark is my man, which makes me wonder whether they've tried to get somebody else and didn't manage to get that one over the line. But maybe that's the cynic in me. Right, I was about to go.

Because we are pretty much done, but we are literally just here. I've just had a message from Henry, our producer, on my phone. I think by the time you listen to this podcast, Trent Alexander-Arnold will have announced formally that he will leave Liverpool at the end of this season. Bit of an open secret. Still feels like a bit of a mic drop moment when it's actually confirmed. We have confirmation. Firstly, Nathan,

Do you blame him? And how do we judge his contribution over the last six, seven, eight years of Premier League football? No, I don't blame him. I think, you know, this has been, like you say, an open secret. I saw some people saying, oh, you know, he might stay after the, you know, why would you want to leave this? There was no way a local lad like that would put his own through the ringer like that. That was always my thinking, that if he was going to stay, he would have signed before Salah and before Van Dijk. And I'm sure the

the offer was, I don't even know if it is a, is a monetary thing. I think he just wants to play for Real Madrid. You know, a lot of players do want to play Real Madrid. He's won the league title with Liverpool. He's achieved great things at Liverpool and, and,

And I think when the dust settles on it, it'll be remembered very, very fondly. It's sore now, for sure. But also I'd be fascinated because Trent might think he knows what's coming at Real Madrid, but they have 16, 17, 18 pages a day in multiple papers that will scrutinize every single step you take on those streets of Madrid. Not just the football pitch, but every part of your life off it. It is a lens...

unlike anything else, you know, Kylian Mbappe, who'd have said if Kylian Mbappe had gone there a couple of months later, he'd have been booed by his own fans. So I'm excited to see what Trent does over there. And I would say that when the dust settles and the anger subsides, people will look back and say, wow, what a player Trent Alexander-Arnold was for Liverpool. I think so. It's been a privilege to watch him play. I will absolutely say that when we talk about penalty grades,

We tend to talk about attacking players, we tend to talk about forwards, attacking midfield players. We don't often talk about right-backs, do we? Although I know he's not been a typical right-back, but he is a right-back. I think he's a Premier League great, simply because he didn't reinvent the position. That would be lazy. But he certainly put his own twist on that position with the help of Jurgen Klopp, who allowed him to essentially...

not make it up as he goes along, but to play on instinct and to follow his intuition and to follow his gut on the field. I think he has been almost unique in the way that he's played, the way he's played that position. I'm not one of these people who won't entertain the idea that he has defensive flaws because he has. I know that friends of the podcast like Dominic King just won't have it. He absolutely has defensive flaws, but what he's offered Liverpool is,

and England on occasion with the other side of his game as more than made up for it. I remember watching him play, I think, in the Champions League semi-final in Rome against Roma. That would have been 2018 when he was coming to prominence and he looked like he'd spent the night in a washing machine. It was

such a massive night for him. But you look at what he's done since then, Nathan. He's won absolutely everything that he can win with his club. And he's just signed off by doing the one thing that he hadn't done, which is win the Premier League in front of an Anfield crowd. And he's done that now. And you know what? If you're minded to leave any situation, a job, a relationship, or a football club, do it when you're stocked.

is high. Do it when you're getting the best offer you can get. Do it when you've got the best chance you've got of making a success of it. And

This move ticks all of that for Trent Alexander-Arnold. It ticks all of it. He's right to go. He's within his rights to go. And anybody who wishes him anything but the best at Real Madrid, well, they haven't got a warm bone in their body. That's what I would say. So on you go, Trent. We'll miss you, but we'll wish you well. That's the way that I'd describe it.

Yeah, like I said, I agree with that. I don't necessarily think he's transformed the position, but I do think he's made that position more fashionable. I think there'll be a lot of kids that grow up saying, there's always that joke of no one grows up wanting to be a Gary Neville, but I think there'll be a lot of players that grow up wanting to be Trent Alexander-Arnold at both ends. I think he's a kind of...

trendsetter in that way and Kyle Walker in a different way. But trend is almost, don't you say unique is the word. And when you look back, he's had so many great moments, which you don't always get for defenders in terms of real landmark moments. One I think of is that quick corner kick to Origi against Barcelona. And that commentary is iconic for Liverpool fans. And there are so many others. Some of his passes to

Salah and the free kicks he scored and I don't doubt that for him yes he wants to go and try at Real Madrid and go every year do something different it must hurt though this it must hurt because it's not like leaving any of the club it's not like Ronaldo leaving Man United for Real Madrid this is his team his dream was to play for Liverpool he's done it he's achieved the dream he's won the Premier League won the Champions League and

So I don't doubt that he's leaving with a degree of pain in his heart, but he's an ambitious guy. And pulling on that white of Real Madrid, I always say to friends of mine that Real Madrid is the biggest club in the world. I don't really think that's kind of a hot take at all. I think they are the biggest club in world football.

and so good luck to him you know seeing English players go over there and do well I loved when Gareth Bale went over there and did well and he never got the appreciation I felt like he deserved so I hope in Trent's sort of sake for his sake he does but I'll be very very intrigued to see how he gets on Interesting to see how Liverpool get on without him

You know, they have flatlined a little bit as they've got over the line in the Premier League. And of course, that did coincide with a spell when he wasn't playing. He had that injury that he picked up in the second leg against PSG in the Champions League. He does, they do, he does leave a big hole. Now look, Conor Bradley is a very fine player, who we presume Bradley will be the replacement.

but he won't give them what Trent gives them because nobody can give them that. There isn't anyone else in world football who can give them that. So I suppose the trade-off will be maybe a bit more defensive reliability from Bradley. Maybe Virgil van Dijk won't have to spend as much time looking over to his right and wondering where his full-back's gone because he'll be able to see him. So that will help, but they will lose something. You talk about the passing. Blimey, they call it the switch.

Trent and Andy Robertson. I spoke to Trent about it once, actually. And he's like, yeah, you're talking about the switch. Yeah. And it's self-explanatory, isn't it? The big, long, booming pass from one side of the field to the other. Other players can do it, but blimey, can anybody do it like that? The free kicks, the set-piece deliveries,

There's a big hole. There's a big hole that Trent Alexander leaves behind, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't be able to go. Like we say, like I say, I feel the time. I feel if he's got that in his heart to go and give it a go, fair play to him because it takes courage to go and try somewhere else, especially when it's in another European country, language barriers, etc.,

So there we go. That's it. Trent Alexander-Arnold will leave Liverpool at the end of this season when we presume it will be Real Madrid white that we see him wear next season. Nathan, thanks for being with us, mate. Really enjoyed your company as always. Chris Sutton should be back with me on Thursday, I hope. Thanks for joining us. This has been It's All Kicking Off.