Joey, let’s do squad news for the weekend. Obviously, Josh Coburn is back after being cup-tied. Is anybody else in with a shot?
Lewis Gibson and John Marquis come back into the fold. Harry Anderson are going to be a bit longer, and Paul Coutts is still up in Aberdeen. We’re letting that heal and he is seeing his missus and kids for a bit.
Lofty has maybe got a squeak but it looks a real outside chance. He’s done everything well today but even if he joins in tomorrow, he’s had a hamstring (injury) and we’ve got to be careful with it.
If he wakes up in the morning and feels good and wants to train then I wouldn’t mind getting Lofty in as an option, it would be nice.
With Josh Coburn, it sounds like there is positive news over his longer-term future here at the Mem?
Yeah, you want to keep all the players you bring in because you put so much work into them, certainly with the younger players, but that is the job, it is to get them closer to their first team and you do understand when clubs recall players or don’t want them cup-tied.
From our perspective, we had a couple of good conversations with the guys at Middlesbrough this week and barring a bad run of injuries or whatever, it looks like we will be able to keep hold of him for the season.
Which is great news. Obviously, January is not that far away now. What work is going in behind the scenes to make sure you’re ready for any business you might want to do?
We are always in a recruitment phase, albeit we can’t execute (outside of the window) but you’re constantly seeing what’s out there and that’s what the guys who are information gatherers for us and our contacts are important, because you start to get a steer on who and what options are available to us.
We’re always looking to upgrade the squad but we do feel we’ve got a really good squad and the days of huge windows for us are hopefully behind us, with 20-odd out and 20-odd in or whatever.
Ten is about par for the course for the summer and I think if you do two or three in January, that’s about right. If you’re doing five or six, it says the first part of the season hasn’t quite gone to plan.
We’ll always look to strengthen if we can, but also you’ve got to protect what you’ve already got in the building and I expect the way some of our players have been playing that we will be tested for a few.
You only made a couple of changes last weekend in the FA Cup, but James Connolly gets through 90 minutes and Scott Sinclair gets his goal. It adds to that problem for a manager of picking the right XI for every game.
Yeah, but we’re in a spot now where it is knockout competitions in all the cups and we want to win every single game that we’re in. We’re in the knockouts of two cup competitions, we don’t have the squad as yet to challenge in all four, but maybe one day.
But no, no, it’s about winning every game and keeping that habit. The lads have got on that since they picked it up in the FA Cup last year with a few little blips in the road, but we’ve been pretty consistent in terms of being a difficult team for opposition teams to play against.
Very familiar opponents for you this weekend. As you look back on your time at Fleetwood, what are your emotions when you look back at where you started as a manager?
Nothing but good things. We had a great time at the club and made a lot of good friends on and off the pitch.
I felt we did ourselves proud. I think the way we played, the results profile, player progression, etc., I think we can be really proud of the job we did there.
For me, it was a very important learning space. It was the first time I’d ever been head coach and I learned so much there and I will always be thankful for the support I received from everybody in the town and at the football club.
When you think back to when you first started out, what has surprised you and is not the way you thought it would be in management?
Where do I start? Ninety per cent of it. So much goes into it. When you’re playing, you just worry about how you play on Saturday and who you’re playing against.
When you come into the management space, a lot more is due to the fiscal side of it. People have got lots of good ideas but they haven’t always got the money to back that up.
At Fleetwood, one of the things I learned was how important the cup runs are, how important the financial side of the club is. They are not a football club that has a massive fanbase, it’s still growing but it’s come out of the non-league scene and Andy Pilley and Steve Curwood have done a phenomenal job there, making them a consistent professional club.
Their infrastructure, their training ground is a testament to Andy’s belief and his vision for the area, but on the other side of that they are a side that will be in our way in the game on Saturday and for me, sentiment and feelings about people will go out of the window. We are desperate to pick up three points and win in front of our fans.
What have you made of them under Scott Brown?
I think they have made a really good start and that’s where Andy (Pilley) is good. He gives opportunities to young coaches and he’s probably seen in Scott what he saw in myself, someone who was a good player and had a good career with the ingredients to be a good coach and a good manager.
Certainly in the opening gambit, they’ve been difficult to beat and I think he has done a really good job. They are still in the evolutionary process, it usually takes three or four transfer windows as a manager to really put your stamp on a group.
I think we are going to be in for a tough game on Saturday, as Oxford and Peterborough will attest to. They are no mugs by any stretch of the imagination and we will need to be the best version of ourselves to take maximum points because they are defensively well organised and difficult to break down.
Your recent form in these blocks of 10 has been a real improvement and you’re getting yourself back in the mid-table area. Another few good runs between now and Christmas and all of a sudden, who knows where you could end up. Is that a real carrot to keep this recent form going?
Yeah, for sure. We’ve just got to take care of the next game. The cup competitions now are all knockout and we see every game that way. We can win every game and we’ve shown against the teams at the top of the table that we can compete.
For a newly-promoted team, I think people realise we’re beyond just staying in the league. That is the priority, of course. We’re a newly-promoted side, but we’re not sure how far we can go and the next block of games, certainly finishing off the next three league games, will give us a good barometer of where we are.
I think 20 games in the league is a good sample size. Then you go into that December period, where you can put your foot to the floor. If we’re in the middle of the table, the December period, January period are where you’ve got to accelerate to try to keep pace with the promotion-chasing pack and if we’re able to keep the level of performance and consistency like we have in the last block, who knows where it can take us.
We believe on our day we can cause problems for absolutely anybody, whether we’re home or away, but also we’re humble enough to know that we’ve still got lots of improvement to do.
Joey, you used the phrase “crossed wires” with the Josh Coburn situation. Were there different options at Middlesbrough about what should have happened there?
No, just in terms of a new manager went in and we found out they did want Josh to play (in the FA Cup). You have to respect that and he doesn’t play.
We had a couple of conversations at chief scout and board level about their plans for January and once we started the conversation, in the midst of that they won a couple of games, so they are bit clearer on their picture and they think it’s for the best, ‘No, no, that’s why we sent him to you, we think he needs a season on loan, we think it will benefit his development for us later on if he gets a full season’.
They feel he can play in the second round now. We won’t know until we get there and they give us permission, but because it hasn’t come from the manager yet and it hasn’t come for other people – directors and chief scouts – but if it comes from the manager we’re hoping he can be available in the Boreham Wood game.
That could change in January, even if he is because they could get some bad luck, but we’re hoping Josh is with us for the season.
I think the boy wants to be here, the powers that be at Middlesbrough want him to be here, the only thing that is stopping him is probably a bit of bad luck or picking up a serious injury himself, so fingers crossed he is here for the year.
Harry Anderson is going to be a bit longer out. When do you think he is going to be back in contention?
I’m not sure, it’s kind of playing it by ear with how it feels. He doesn’t require surgery, which is good news, but he’s got a little problem in his groin, so we’re just waiting on that to settle down.
When it does, we can start progressing through the phases of rehabilitation.
Looking back at your time at Fleetwood, you had took the club into the play-offs but it ended for you there six months later. Were you surprised? What did you learn from that experience?
I should have signed the three-year extension that was put under my nose, so it’s part of my learning.
We had a discussion. They wanted to renew my deal and I wanted all the people who worked for me to benefit. He didn’t want to do that and I decided not to sign as I felt it would have been the wrong signal for me to sign a new deal and not uplift the staff who got me there.
I think that was the first crack, he realised I wasn’t going to sign an extension, so he decided to accelerate me out in January. I accept that.
I felt I got to a point… I’m probably the only manager to get removed for having more ambition than the owner, that’s the reality. I know his core business was hit with COVID, but my belief at the end of the second season when we missed out in the play-offs was we could get Fleetwood promoted to the Championship.
I felt we needed support in that and I was told at the time every penny we brought in through player sales would be invested and, obviously, that turned out not to be how it went. It wasn’t disingenuous, I think it was outside factors – core business being affected and pounds becoming tighter. It just changed.
I think even if we stayed beyond the January, I think three points off third position when we left, we felt the group was just started coming to the fore. I think Andy wanted someone in who he could pick the team and wouldn’t say anything about it.
He knows there was absolutely no way that was happening on my watch and I think he did me a favour in hindsight by sacking us, I really do. There would have just been very difficult conversations because my ambition for the group and being better than we were the year before would have gotten really frustrated.
I got told late we were in an embargo. There was stuff that happened that wouldn’t have been conducive to us being on the same page going forward.
I had a great two and a half years there. I don’t think I achieved anything there. We finished in the play-offs one year, but we never actually got promotion.
But I think we changed people’s perception of what a club of Fleetwood’s size could do. In reality, we were probably a global pandemic away from Fleetwood being in the Championship because if that didn’t come, there were not going to be many teams (that could stop us).
We were on a run like Rovers were last year. You just know it’s coming, you can feel the pace gathering and we had a really good team. You look at that team now and there are loads of lads playing in the Championship.
We were one defeat in 19 with nine games to go, fifth or sixth in the table. We had to play of the nine games, I think we had six in the bottom half, three against the bottom four, two of them in the bottom four. Nothing is given in football, but we’d just come off the back of playing against Portsmouth, who were our bogey team at Fleetwood. We drew at Fratton Park and should have won, James Hill hit the bar in the last minute from a set play. If he’d scored that goal, we’d have been promoted on the points-per-game tally.
I’m gutted for the people of Fleetwood because the reality is it’s probably as close they will come to getting in the Championship. I don’t think they will come closer and it would have been great to leave that legacy at the club.
Fleetwood is not like Bristol. It’s a very underprivileged area and I think it would have sent a great marker to the people in the town that everything is possible if you work hard as a group.
We really had that small club, family community feel, and I honestly enjoyed every moment there because you could see the impact the football team made every single day when you drove to work. It’s more difficult in Bristol because it’s such a vast, multicultural city. Fleetwood is a small town and Andy Pilley probably employs a lion’s share of the population, so the football club really does sit at a very important position in the community.
For us, it was an incredible time learning and we’re now better for it to handle these big-city opportunities and I’m incredibly thankful to Andy Pilley for giving us a chance.
I hope we get to see the documentary.
There has been none done like it, no one’s had the access. It’s better than all the All Or Nothings, and it’s not because I’m in it. It genuinely is because of the access we gave them.
Think about how ballsy is in my first job. I’m like ‘Bring them in. I’m that good, bring them in, no problem’.
That could have blown up in my face, but I was like ‘If I’m as good as I think I am, film it’ because this will be a great reference tool even if it never makes air. I watch it back and I can’t believe I was coaching, I can’t believe I was that. It has become a really important resource tool for me in terms of altering certain teaching styles.
It catches Steve Black in there as well, there is some really good stuff with Blacky and the characters in and around the club.
It starts as it naturally would as the Joey Barton circus, and I was like ‘I do not want this to be about me’. The owner, the town, the characters around the club, the players, the staff, it’s a fantastic documentary about what a community-based football club is in the community.
Obviously, there are some barmy characters in there, but it’s not what you think it will be. I can’t wait for everyone to see it.
You’ve had a duel with Scott Brown in the past. Are you looking forward to that element of it? I know you like to get involved in that battle mentality on a matchday?
Yeah. We played against each other and it’s gone. We had one game and, obviously, we lost 5-1, it’s well documented.
The actual game when you watch it back. There was nothing between me and Scott, the actual encounter. The game actually developed everywhere else and in the last 20 minutes when (Philippe) Senderos gets sent off, I end up playing middle centre-back with James Tavernier right side and Lee Wallace left side, and I was comfortably the best defender between the three of us.
Celtic Park away with Moussa Dembele, Scott Sinclair, James Forrest, but it was a phenomenal experience.
I knew Scott was a good player. I’ve obviously gone to Scotland and said ‘I’m going to be the best player up here’, which is probably the wrong thing for an Englishman to say, but I’m confident if I stayed up there I would have delivered.
I knew I was way above the average player that was in the division and I knew the only difficult game we’d have that season would be Celtic. Brendan Rodgers had gone up there and they turned the corner after Ronny Deila and became more professional and because Rangers were back in the top flight for the first time in a while, they narrowed their focus.
I think Brendan’s record up there, with Scott as captain, speaks for itself, a treble-treble.
Rangers and Celtic, I think all of us comfortably accept there is a monopoly on who can win trophies, and at that time Celtic were so far ahead.
I went there to close the gap. I knew they were ahead because Rangers were in the Scottish Champ, but I genuinely believe if they f****** listened to me they would have won the league a lot quicker.
It ended up being Stevie G and my cousin Tom (Culshaw) who ended up delivering 55 three years later. They went through Mark Warburton Pedro Caixinha and Graeme Murty before that.
I’m still watching the same players I was criticising when I was in the building make the same mistakes, which is probably going to get the manager now, Gio van Bronckhorst the heave-ho relatively soon. Certain people, who are meant to be defenders, can’t defend, and nobody’s done any work on them since.
It looked like Stevie had turned a corner with them but as soon as he left the building, the lunatics started running the asylum again.
What is your view on Aaron Collins not making the Wales squad?
I can totally understand Rob Page keeping the group that got him there together. Azza will be disappointed, as any patriotic person would be.
You want to go to a World Cup, they’re every four years. Who wouldn’t want to go and represent their country in a World Cup?
So I’m gutted for him, but also it’s good that they are talking about him at that level, that he is mentioned in the same breath as a World Cup squad. If he keeps scoring goals and playing well for us, I think it’s only a matter of time before he gets a full call-up.
On a positive, a lot of international managers will look in four-year cycles and this is the end of a four-year cycle and if Aaron keeps up his form, when the next international window comes around he could be there at the start of a new cycle.
Yeah, and it’s good that he’s mentioned for those things. It was only this time last year we were scratching our heads about why we signed him. He couldn’t hit a cow’s a*** with a banjo, could he? He was really struggling.
Then all of a sudden, he’s disappointed he hasn’t made the Wales World Cup squad. It tips the cap to the phenomenal year that Aaron has had.
He’s young enough. There is at least another World Cup in him, so if he gets his finger out and keeps doing the business for us, I think he’s certainly made the Wales selectors aware of him and if he keeps playing well and working at his game, I think it’s inevitable he’ll get a full cap.
I’ll level with you, from my perspective and Gasheads’ perspective, I don’t want my players going to a World Cup because we have to keep playing. It’s different if you’re in the Champ and you get a break.
It could seriously affect us because you take our major goal-scoring and goal-creating player away from us for a month. We would have copped £8,000 a day or whatever they pay, but Wael doesn’t need the cash, I don’t think.
I would rather have Azza in the team playing for us because it gives us a better chance of winning games, albeit I would have loved him to go to the World Cup for him and his family.
It would have been a great thing for him, but he’s in that conversation which is a testament to the hard work and good, consistent form he has shown over the calendar year.
Finally, I know you’re a proud Englishman and you’ve got your England cap. What’s your verdict on the squad that has been picked and your hopes for England for the tournament?
I think this is the end of the cycle, the end of the road for the manager. There are a few players in there who aren’t fit and have kind of been part of it (before). I think they had the best chance of winning a major tournament last time out.
But they’ve got a phenomenal draw. I think if they turn up, they might get out of the group; Iran aren’t really a footballing superpower; with the greatest of respect to the Welsh and their squad, they aren’t a football superpower - maybe they were when Bale was in his pomp, but they’re not now; and the USA, Ted Lasso and who’s the manager now [note: Gregg Berhalter]?
They’re probably the most equipped, they’ve gone well in the CONCACAF and a good challenge with Mexico and the rivalry there, but it’s a group you expect England to progress out of.
The problem for England then is the trickiness of the knockout stages. It looks like they’re then tracking for France in the quarters and, I just think, the minute they run into anyone half-decent, I think we’ll get our comeuppance. I just don’t think we’ve got that belief in the group. I don’t think the manager is a serial winner. World Cup semi-final - great (but), they’ve got to win against Italy at Wembley.
The form subsequently hasn’t been fantastic, albeit they had a little bit of a comeback in that Germany game. But they have players who are injured trying to come back, players who are out of form who have become staples in the team. And I don’t think they can press consistently from the front because the best player, Harry Kane, isn’t somebody who can set the press off.
So, I’m a patriotic Englishman who kind of wants England to do well but who understands it’s going to be difficult if we run into Brazil, Germany, France, Belgium, Argentina, Spain - somebody of that ilk.
I just don’t think we’ve got the acumen, I don’t think we’ll have the belief, I don’t think the players have confidence in what they’re about. I just think there are five or six teams a lot better equipped than us for this tournament.
Plus the weather, I just think it suits the Latin, South American countries; I know it’s going to be moderate for Qatar but it’s still going to 23/24, dry heat and look at the proximity of games and I look through the squad - Phillips, Walker, even Callum Wilson, are they robust? They’ve got hamstrings and soft tissue injuries.
Penalty shootouts, I can’t believe he hasn’t taken Toney. I think they’ve cut their nose off to spite their face because he’s probably the best penalty taker in the Premier League. Major tournaments, most of the time when you get to the knockout stages, England know only too well how important penalty shootouts are. He’s got a good goalie, Pickford can save, but you also need players who can put it in the back of the net.
Gareth has shown he thinks about that because he’s obviously done a Pizza Hut advert where he had a bang on his head where he missed one. Plus in the last tournament, he made a substitution in terms of bringing lads on to take a penalty, Rashford and Saka, so it’s clearly in his mindset and Ivan Toney is arguably England’s best penalty taker.
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