Watford expert Tom Bodell joins James Copley to preview Sunderland clash
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Raw podcast brought to you by the Sunderland Echo. My name is
00:23James Copley and today we're going to be previewing the Sunderland-Watford game at the Stadium
00:28of Light. I'm delighted to be joined by Tom Baudel from the Watford Buzz podcast. Tom,
00:34welcome along and how are you getting on today?
00:36Thanks James, yeah really good thank you. Just kind of getting over the deployment for
00:43the Watford transfer window but we'll get to that.
00:47Yes absolutely right, let's jump straight into it. So Watford 1-5, three losses on the
00:53spin. I've noticed a little bit of pressure building on Tom cleverly. I had a little
00:58look at the table actually coming into the game and Watford are obviously miles away
01:02from the relegation places and three points off the playoffs. Now it's interesting isn't
01:07it, the perspective of a football club from the outside can often be different to what's
01:12on the ground but what is the general feeling with Watford at the moment?
01:17Yeah you've said that quite nicely, I think anyone looking from the outside in would say
01:22there should be no pressure on Tom cleverly and there isn't from the support base, it
01:27all comes internally. There's been a period of discontent over the last few weeks where
01:33we've built up and up to the point that anyone who was watching the early game against Norwich
01:38on Saturday on Sky would have seen and heard some kind of chanting against the owner and
01:42certainly in support of Tom. The reason for this is that there have been reports emanating
01:48out of Spain from a guy that's kind of got some stuff right in the past that Pajeto,
01:52who was the Villareal manager earlier in the season, would be replacing Tom as head coach
01:58and it came to a point where the owner put the stakes on Swiss which is very professional,
02:05didn't exactly fill people with confidence backing Tom. It later emerged that the kind
02:12of breakdown over the Pajeto appointment was over a failure to get a work permit so it
02:17feels like Tom's got a bit of a stay of execution but that he's certainly on thin ice. In terms
02:23of the kind of season expectations overall, we're probably punching still at this point
02:28despite that kind of tail-off in form as you alluded to. No-one expects us to be anywhere
02:33near the playoffs. The fact that we're still within touching distance even at this stage
02:36is a massive overachievement. So from a fan point of view, he couldn't be doing a better
02:42job than he's got. In terms of that, there's certainly a sense that a change might be coming
02:48down the tracks.
02:49And just to expand a little bit on Tom Cleverley, if you could, Tom, from an outsider's perspective,
02:56again, looking in, it appears that he's a very bright young manager. I was very impressed
03:01with him at Vicarage Road when Sunderland lost 2-1 down there to a late penalty. I thought
03:07he spoke about the game very well, as you'd expect from a guy who's come up through Manchester
03:12United's academy and played under Sir Alex Ferguson, a wealth of experience. But I thought
03:17he seemed like a really, really good guy, a really level-headed guy and I can see why
03:21Watford fans would like that.
03:23Absolutely right. It's interesting to hear someone that isn't a Watford fan say that
03:29because I think that aligns with what we feel, that good or bad, he comes out and tends to
03:33say the things that you expect from a manager. There's no sugar-coating it when we've been
03:38bad. He's been really quite strong in his words after the same season, saying things
03:44like, you know, that was a team I didn't recognise out there and kind of calling out the senior
03:49players when they've not stepped up to the plate.
03:52He's popular here because he's had such a long association with the club. He first came
03:57to Vicarage Road on loan in 2009. We didn't have much money and there's a kind of apocryphal
04:03tale about how Malcolm McKay, who was then the manager, had to ring Sir Alex Ferguson
04:07up. McKay and his first managerial role at this point and say, look, we haven't got,
04:11there's been a mix-up, we haven't got the, I think it was 250k that we were on the hook
04:16for the loan for the season. Ferguson, you know, reputation goes before him, but was
04:24quite, you know, quite calm about it all and said, just pay us as and when sort of thing.
04:28Tom went on to be player of the season, came back kind of eight years later, you know,
04:33from boy to man, England international, Premier League winner with United and played a really
04:38important role. Often unappreciated as well, I think, that role over the next few years
04:44in our best period in our history really, sustaining Premier League football, reaching
04:48an FA Cup final and being a big part of the team and the captain of the team that went
04:54up to the Premier League after relegation. So, he's really popular and, you know, not
04:59the best player ever, you know, no one will ever kind of pin him as a proper kind of playing
05:05icon or legend, but he's...
05:19Sorry, did you lose me there?
05:20Yeah, I've got you back. I've got you back now, Tom.
05:24Can I start on the sentence I was previously on? Is that all right with you?
05:27Yeah, yeah, go for it. It was just in the middle of Tom Cleverley and I think you just
05:33dropped out as you were saying that he'd captained the club through one of its best periods.
05:37Perfect. Yeah, he was captained through promotion to the Premier League,
05:43Covid, which was a big achievement and a kind of necessary achievement at that point. So,
05:47although he wasn't the best player that Everton has ever pulled on a Watford shirt,
05:51the point is that he pulled two very distinct periods in our history where we were kind of
05:56higher-uppers, you know, didn't have money to spend, were kind of really fearing what was
06:01around the corner and then that kind of success in the real high of the last few years. But he
06:05did it over such a long period of time and at a time when, as we've already touched upon,
06:10the manager changes regularly. There's a high turner of the players. He's been a constant.
06:14He's been someone that we can cling to and say that he is part of our identity. That's why he's
06:19so light and so well-respected. The fact that he's done such a brilliant job this season,
06:24up to the point of when he enhances his kind of legend at Watford.
06:29No, absolutely. And talk to me about the Potsos, if you will. You mentioned a little line there
06:34that Watford went through arguably the best period in the history, reached an FA Cup final.
06:39There was a long period in the Premier League. They were then relegated, got back to the Premier
06:43League and I think this is the third season now, isn't it, back in the Championship.
06:47They've always had a reputation of doing things a little differently, I think, in the football
06:52world. And you've alluded to it already with the fan protest and stuff. But talk to us about their
06:58arc at Watford, their ownership and how it all feels like it's coming to a head, despite the
07:03fact that in relative terms, they could be viewed as perhaps successful previously at Watford,
07:08I think. Is that a fair assumption, Tom?
07:11No, absolutely. It's the old relationship status. It's complicated. The first year,
07:19really, you know, the influx of players that we could never have imagined in our wildest
07:23dreams. People that were fantastic for us. Matty Pitre, Fernando Forestieri, Almanabdi,
07:29Aurelio Gomez, you know, they very rarely missed in the kind of transfer market.
07:35Got us promoted within a couple of seasons. Even in doing so, we went through four coaches in the
07:40season we went up. But it was justifiable at that point, you know, that they kind of fell out with
07:45one, but another one had health issues. Another one was a very kind of short-term appointment,
07:51and it was the fourth guy, Slovicia Canovacic, that got us over the line. Established ourselves
07:55in the Premier League, and that's something we've never done in our history, really,
07:58in the Premier League era, I should say. Been up a couple of times and been down very quickly.
08:03The 80s and the original kind of era of success under Graham Taylor. We went all the way to
08:09Europe in another cup final. Have we done that? So, for someone like me, I mean, that's the best
08:15era of supporting Watford in my life, for the long, long, short. You have to then kind of contrast
08:23that with the last few years, where we've been relegated twice, gone through managers at a now
08:28alarming rate that I don't think even the most optimistic kind of positive fan could
08:33justify a lot of those changes. And I'm certainly not going to bore you by going through them all,
08:38we'll be here for a long time, but the trend...
08:50What's wrong? Sorry, is this my Wi-Fi that's being iffy?
08:54I think potentially, yeah, I think possibly.
08:57Sorry.
08:58It's all right, I'll get you back now, so continue on, Tom, we'll get there, don't worry.
09:03So, we're reaching kind of end game, and not just for my Wi-Fi here. The feeling is we've got
09:12kind of, we've got substantial debt now owed to Judy Potts, a donor. We have substantial external
09:19debt. We're trying to kind of clear that, and the feeling is, the suspicion is that that is
09:23all to prime the club for a sale, which is absolutely fine. But the kind of lack of
09:30communication flowing out of the club, and the kind of firm denial of having done anything wrong
09:35to reach the point where we've kind of accrued all this debt and aren't punching towards the
09:40Premier League anymore, is what kind of irritates supporters. The transfer window has been that,
09:45in microcosm, you know, you only have to see the last month. We've seen players that didn't work
09:50out move on, not being placed in the window stronger, sorry, weaker, I wish we had ended
09:55it stronger, than when we went into it. And it all kind of suggests that this season is now going to
09:59fizzle out, and leaves people worried about what's to come next season.
10:05Just generally though, I think I just did a quick count there, and it's 14 or 15 managers since
10:112014. I'm always interested by that, because Sunderland went through a very similar sort of
10:16period in their Premier League history, where they were going through managers at an alarming rate.
10:21I know you have to judge everyone on a case-by-case basis. Some of them may have been justified,
10:25others mightn't have. But do you think that's harmed Watford's sort of long-term strategy,
10:31that you do need a little bit of stability at times, and when you don't get that, you end up
10:35with a squad full of conflicting playing styles and ideas? Has that been sort of a symptom of
10:43Watford's fall through the Premier League, back to the Championship, and then the failure not
10:47to get out of it again? I know Cleverley's been there for a little while now, by Watford standards.
10:51No, absolutely right. I think there's a bit of a kind of conflict of interest here, a bit of
10:56contradiction here, in that the model has always been on ownership, that the head coach is
11:03replaceable. When they first kind of started changing managers at the end of each season,
11:08the first season of the Premier League, Kiko Sanchez-Flores did really well, but they kind of
11:12said at the time, look, we want to aim for higher, we attain for better. Why should we
11:20be limited to kind of just surviving as a newly promoted club? And fair enough, that's the sort
11:27of thing you probably want to hear as a sports. We've seen examples of it go both ways. But at
11:31the same time, they put a lot of store in the ability of a manager to change things. And we've
11:36seen a lot of kind of short, sharp, shock appointments. 22-23 season started off with
11:43Rob Edwards, brought in Slavin Bilic, ended the season with Chris Wilder, and even though he was
11:48only on a contract for kind of two or three months, they had to come out and say, no, no, no,
11:52he's not getting sacked, he's not getting sacked, he promised. And that kind of speaks for the
11:55environment that it's created over the last 13 years or so. I think a lot of the changes
12:03in the first half of that period have been justified. And since then, it's been a case of
12:08kind of stucking as much mud at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. They've gone too early
12:13on some managers. Javi Garcia got us the FA Cup final. Probably should, if you were being harsh,
12:20go at the end of that season as we're taking off. But they gave him the start of the next season,
12:24some money, spent quite a bit of money for us on Osmar Asar and other players,
12:29and then kind of pulled the plug on him early. Other managers have probably been allowed to go
12:33on too long. So it's really, really, it's the biggest bone of contention, I think, among
12:40Watford supporters. And to be honest with you, we're just sick of the fact that that's what people
12:45know us for. No, I can imagine. And how does all this translate to transfers and Watford's
12:52transfer strategy? I noticed that Watford had signed Caleb Wiley on loan from Chelsea, who comes
12:58very highly rated. I noticed Dan Jebbeson as well went out. I haven't had a chance to sort of,
13:03to look at Watford's full winter transfer business, but as it made transfers hard, how does that sort
13:09of, does that work out? And I guess, you know, in terms of this window, are you optimistic given
13:15the signings that Watford have made? It's very apparent that we're shopping in kind of poundland
13:22these days, having kind of dabbled in Waitrose and beyond in recent years. And there's nothing
13:30necessarily wrong with that if you get the signings right. You know, in the summer, we signed a player
13:34called Rocco Vatta from Celtic. He was out of contract. We paid kind of 200 grand, give or take.
13:39The likelihood is that he will leave for many multiples of that, and that will be a success.
13:43And that will be another, you know, a boon for the model of buying cheap and selling high. And
13:51that's what they've been very good at. But the feeling is that we also need kind of experienced
13:55championship, and to use the phrase that Tom Cleverley used, oven ready players to support
14:00those younger, talented guys. And that's where we've really, really badly fallen down. The
14:06recruitment in the summer was disastrous. You mentioned Dan Jefferson came in with high hopes,
14:11didn't do very well, certainly didn't endear himself to fans with his activity on social media,
14:16probably for the best overbody that he got recalled by Bournemouth, because two of their guys got
14:21hurt, Evan Ilson and then Isunel. But we've not replaced him. So we go into the game at the
14:26Stadium of Light with two senior strikers, one of whom's on loan from sister club Udinese after we
14:31sold him to them last summer. He's spending, so it'll be at best 18-year-old Mamadou Doumbia up
14:37front. One of those bought as a prospect, bought as a prodigy, has done very well at kind of youth
14:42international level, but he's played kind of 70 minutes in the championship this season. So I
14:47think that kind of underlines in microcosm the issue that there's no one in that kind of
14:51experienced, ready to minutes category. We've got a few kind of older players, and then we've got a
14:57lot of younger players that may come good, but you've got to get the right blend, and we just
15:02haven't been doing that for a long time. The other thing that irritates Watford fans, and rightly so,
15:08is our association with an agent called Mogi Byatt, who, you know, go away and have a Google if you
15:14have the chance. He's an interesting character, has kind of been in legal trouble on the continent.
15:20A lot of clubs refuse to do business with him. He's in our director's box most games. He's clearly
15:25a very close personal friend of the owner, to the point that in the last week we discovered
15:30that the owner and he were kind of, had been at each other, sorry, had been helping raise money
15:39for a charity close to one of them's kind of heart. You know, despite that, we're told that
15:46there's no kind of special relationship there. And look, you know, we get it, clubs operate
15:51with certain agents. We saw it a few years ago, Arsene and Keir Drabtion, but I think more often
15:55than not, it doesn't end well for the football club. And, you know, George Tez at
16:02Balls, right, you know, too much influence, arguably. So, and in fact, you've had it in recent memory as
16:08well, right? There was a guy quite a few years ago at Sunderland, wasn't there, who was, who was it?
16:13Was it Roberto De Fanti, who kind of got into... Yeah, he was actually our director of football, but he ended up,
16:18well, director of football equivalent. I can't remember his specific title, but yeah, we ended up
16:22with a lot of Italian-based players from the same age. And I can't remember the age, but it was,
16:28yeah, it was an interesting time. That's it, exactly. So, you know, the fact that when we do
16:35have money, that it kind of goes through him, leaves a really bad taste in the mouth. Some of
16:38his signings have been brilliant. A lot of his signings have been really, really mediocre. So
16:44we're in a pretty sticky patch at the moment where there's not money to waste, and we seem
16:48to still be wasting it. In terms of this month's business, you mentioned Caleb Wylie,
16:52could be a really good player against him, but he's not played since the middle of October.
16:56He's got a shoulder injury, and we've already been told he's not going to be fit until March
17:00to even resume training, by which point most of the season's gone and the whole season will be over.
17:05So entirely pointless. As I say, not replaced Jefferson, not addressed the gaping holes in
17:09central midfield. The sporting director Gianluca Nani talked ahead of the window about needing to
17:16come out a bit stronger than you went in. We've completely and utterly done the opposite, and
17:22if we hadn't had such good starts this season, I think we'd be looking over our shoulder a lot
17:25more than we are, which, as pessimistic football fans, we're having a little squint and just,
17:30you know, making sure it's in the rearview mirror.
17:34It's interesting that you've also signed a player on loan from a Premier League club who's
17:38carrying an injury, because Sunderland have done exactly the same. We signed Jadon Danz.
17:43We signed him on deadline day, but it got announced the day after deadline day,
17:46and it turns out that he's got a back injury, so he's going to go back to Liverpool.
17:51Obviously, it probably makes sense to have him for the running, just in case there are injuries,
17:56but it's not the instant impact sign that most Sunderland fans hoped it would be.
18:01So it's heartening, actually, to know that these things don't just happen
18:04to Sunderland, because it can feel like it's just us, doesn't it, when you've got your head
18:09down, sort of, you can feel like the world's against you. Can you please talk to me, Tom,
18:14about this sister club situation, because it sounds fantastic on paper. It's very football
18:19manager-esque, a game of which I have played a lot over the years. You've got a sister club
18:23or a feeder club, you swap players, you can get all of these fantastic young Italian wonder kids,
18:28and it all works out great and everybody's happy. But I can imagine the reality is a little bit
18:32different of the Apostles having to devote their sort of resources and time between two different
18:37clubs. And I can actually envision scenarios, which I'm sure has happened over the years,
18:41where it's deeply frustrating for Watford fans, perhaps not to feel like they're always the
18:46priority. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, I think we've done a full 180 on it over the last few
18:52years. And actually, it's an unhappy marriage for both parties. I think if you asked Udinese,
18:58they would say that it was an issue. And if you ask Watford fans, they'll certainly say Udinese
19:03issue. What has really exacerbated this is I mentioned in the last part, Gennaro Canani is
19:09now group technical director. So he kind of splits his responsibilities, or his time between us and
19:14Udinese. I think you speak to any sporting director, they tell you how busy they are off
19:21the phone. So the idea of doing that job for two clubs that have their own kind of needs seems
19:27insane to me. We've had the chance to kind of on the pod to question Scott Duxbury about it. And
19:32he's adamant that it's an advantage. But I really find that hard to believe. And there's been kind
19:36of diminishing returns for us in terms of that relationship. We have signed, as you will have
19:41seen from your own research, a lot of players from them in the last 12 months. This month alone,
19:46the goalkeeper Egil Selvik came via Udinese, joined them from a Norwegian club at the start
19:51of the month was with us by the end of it. That's a permanent transfer apparently. So it'll be very
19:56interesting to see if money has changed hands there. James de Banqua is on loan with us from
20:01Udinese. We sent Antonio Tic out on loan this month. We only found out we signed him permanently
20:08this month, because we all thought he was on loan from Udinese from last summer. He's a player that
20:13Tom Cleverley didn't want. They tried to foist upon Valerian Ismail this time last year, failed,
20:19brought him in over the summer. He's played in the League Cup only because he's so below the kind of
20:24level. But we signed him permanently last summer apparently, found out this month and now he's out
20:29on loan in Austria. Make of that what you will. It kind of goes on and on in that vein. The one
20:36that possibly would have caught the fans' eyes in recent years is the signing of Hassan Kamara. We
20:43brought him in when we were in the Premier League a couple of years ago for about £4 million,
20:48did very well, was player of the season despite being here for half a season, which kind of sums
20:52up the rest of the team's efforts that year. Sold to Udinese that summer for £16 million, 27 years
20:57old, loaned back to us immediately. The club said there was nothing in it, found that very hard to
21:03believe. And yet, much like the relationship with Pozzos as a whole, the first half of this era
21:11was quite good and we were certainly the beneficiaries. I mentioned some of the guys at
21:14the top, you know, Vidra, Forestieri, Almanabdi, all came from Udinese, all brilliant, all far and
21:19excess of the kind of players that we'd seen at this level in Watford Sheds prior. There was
21:24another club, Granada, in Spain. They're also part of this kind of Pozzo family network. We got players
21:30from them, Daniel Pudl, a Czech international, Ekeci Anja, who went on to play for Scotland.
21:35They both came via Granada. So we have benefit news, not to pretend we haven't. It just feels
21:42like at the moment there's been a very clear shift and the Udinese are the chief beneficiaries
21:48here. They are the club that the Pozzo family has owned since the 80s and have kind of dragged
21:54up from being quite a small provincial club to getting into Europe regularly. You may
21:58football manager fan as well. Probably remember the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Arturo Vidal.
22:10They're stable. And we've kind of benefited from that, as I say, but I think the balance has
22:17shifted very much towards Udinese at the moment, which is understandable. But we are still here,
22:23you know, we are still here and it does feel like we're rather neglected in this relationship.
22:28No, absolutely. You mentioned Caleb Wiley is not going to be fit for the Southern game at the
22:33stadium. What other injury news is there from the Watford camp? How are Tom Cleverley's side
22:37shaping up? Yeah, we're struggling at the moment, to be honest with you. The reason we signed the
22:42goalkeeper is our first choice, Daniel Backman, is out for the bulk of the rest of the season.
22:49Midfielder, Pierre Duomo, hasn't played a lot, probably would have played more because
22:53the field is tight. He's got a thigh injury that will keep him out for a couple of months. The
22:58real big one is Claude Vauban, who may not have been kind of quite in the team at the time that
23:04Sunderland came to Vicarage Road, but has really kind of come on leaps and bounds since then,
23:08explosive. He's got a bad injury as well, so his season isn't quite over, but he's going to miss a
23:14good chunk of the rest of it. And then, as I mentioned earlier, Vakam Bayo, who is a divisive
23:19figure, our top scorer and one of the championship's top scorers, but he's only scored in seven games
23:23this season. He's serving a three-match ban. Probably one of the players that may come in
23:28for him is Rocco Vatta, who I mentioned earlier. He's not a striker, but I think it's unlikely
23:33Cleverley's going to throw Amadou Mbira in there for his first stop, you know, up at a team that's
23:38flying high. Tough game. Rocco Vatta might be the one to come in. He missed out last weekend against
23:44kind of expectations with N'Gol, so hopefully he will be fit. If it's not him, then I honestly do
23:50not know what we're going to do up front because there is nobody else. It's a lot of concern.
23:57And given all that, given the injuries, given the noise, the general state of Watford post-transfer
24:02window, how do you envisage the game going? Obviously, Sunderland are in decent form, but
24:08they've shown that they're not adverse to a bad result at home. They haven't actually lost at home
24:13this season. It did slip up last time against Plymouth Argyle, the bottom club in the championship,
24:19laboured to a 2-2 draw, arguably could have lost that game as well. So, I feel that
24:25although Sunderland are obviously in good form, three points off the top two places, everyone's
24:30fairly happy at the moment. I do think there's something there that can be got. I don't think
24:35Sunderland are infallible at the moment and that makes for an interesting game, I suppose.
24:40Yeah, absolutely right. As I said on our pod this week, you've not lost at home this season,
24:46which is a pretty remarkable record. We had had a similar good record until recently. That's
24:51out the window now, unfortunately. I think the way we are going, this is probably one of the
25:00worst possible fixtures we could have on the horizon, to be honest with you. As you mentioned,
25:05our form has been poor away. We have been particularly poor. We've only won
25:11three away games this season, just had to check that. Millwall on the opening day,
25:15thrashed Sheffield Wednesday 6-2 in a free kick game and won at a poor Derby side a few
25:20weeks ago. Generally on the road, we are poor. We're really struggling to create chances at
25:26the moment. Our first shot on target against Norwich on Saturday came in the 72nd minute.
25:31We had next year 0.7 and we're not particularly strong at the back either. We tend to concede
25:40early. We tend to concede the first goal and make it hard for ourselves.
25:45One thing I will say is that I know you don't score heaps of goals at home, despite that
25:51imperious home record. You're not one of the higher top scorers at home. That defensive
25:58record is very strong as well. It's going to be a really tough game. We've often skated by,
26:04actually, the home game against London was a prime example of this, by scoring late goals or
26:11bringing somebody off the bench who will change the game. I'm just trying to refresh my memory.
26:18I'm pretty sure, actually, having mentioned him earlier, that it was
26:21Kwadwo Barr who had an impact in the home game, who won the penalty that we scored with five
26:26minutes to go. He's injured. It's going to put a lot of pressure, a lot of onus on Rocco Vata
26:33and Giorgi Chiappattata to be the ones that are going to change it. I suspect Tom Pogba there
26:38was intentionally being spied and trying to create a platform from which to nick something. I think
26:44we'd all take a point right now. I think it's an interesting game, actually, obviously because of
26:50where Sunderland are in the league and everything Watford have going on and the narrative around
26:55them. But that game at Vicarage Road earlier on in the season, Dan Neal, who was Sunderland's
27:00homegrown captain, he was 23 at the time and has since turned 24. He gave away that penalty.
27:05Obviously, fans, as they are on social media, a lot of fans got behind him. A lot of fans
27:09criticised him and possibly rightly so because he cost Sunderland the game. But there were
27:13questions about his captaincy. That since died down. I spoke to him after the Middlesbrough game
27:18and we mentioned that Watford moment and him maybe calming down and just trying to relax
27:23into his sort of new leadership role. But what struck me is that that Watford game is still
27:29very much in their minds and obviously players like to get motivated. And it was something
27:35that I got the impression that they would quite like to put right, which is again another narrative.
27:41I actually thought Watford were very good at Vicarage Road that day and probably just edged
27:47the game. I thought the Vicarage Road crowd was excellent and potentially played a part. I never
27:52really thought Sunderland were going to go on and win the game. Perhaps a point would have been a
27:56fair result. But again, it's interesting coming into it. Yeah, I really I don't I don't find any
28:06issue in taking anything you've said there. I worry about us going up there. We are really thin.
28:11I think it's kind of 17 fit outfield players at the moment and a lot of those aren't in aren't
28:17in great nick. The one thing that kind of gives me a bit of confidence and a bit of, I guess,
28:22intrigue as much as anything, as I mentioned earlier, James Obanqua, who's come in,
28:26has started really well at centre half, had a good partnership with Matty Pollock last weekend.
28:31It's been one game. So, you know, don't read too much into it. I think the likelihood is we'll have
28:35Egil Selvig in goal for the first time. He's got some quite good goal prevention numbers from his
28:41time in Norway. How does that translate? We'll see. But I think it's going to be a case of just
28:46going there, parking the bus a little bit and seeing what we can do. The problem with that is
28:50obviously as soon as you concede, and we probably will, you have to change what your plan is
28:54entirely and it kind of throws everything out. It's interesting that you mentioned that for
29:00Sunderland that coming to Vicarage Road was one of the kind of, you know, whole significance for
29:04you in this season. Last season, we were well beaten 3-0 midweek, barely got a kick. That was
29:12kind of the real turning point for us under Blair and Ismail. They kind of backed him with a new
29:17contract and we went on a decent run and got ourselves into playoff contention time for the
29:21new year. Didn't capitalise in the January transfer window, fell away and he got the sack to be
29:26replaced by Tom Cleverley. I hope that our next trip to Sunderland doesn't kind of, you know, bear the
29:32hallmarks of that game. And what's your prediction just finally, Tom? How do you think you'll feel
29:37come the end of the game? I will feel, I think we'll probably lose, I'm going to say, 3-1.
29:51My father-in-law is a Newcastle fan, a lot of my family are Newcastle fans. I used to live in
29:58Sunderland as I went to university, so I will feel conflicted because I hope they don't do well
30:06this season, then it will be Sunderland. I feel like your popularity's just...
30:11Pat, you should have said that earlier, shouldn't I?
30:13Yeah, your popularity's just dipped and then spiked back up in the same moment.
30:17Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
30:19Well, thank you very much for joining me, Tom. I really appreciate it and hopefully we can get you
30:24on the next time Sunderland play Watford. Hopefully, from our point of view, it might
30:27not be for a couple of seasons if we get promoted. Yes, absolutely right. No, we'd love to. Thank you
30:32very much for having me on.
30:34Brilliant. Thank you to everybody for joining us for this preview podcast. You can find all of the
30:39latest Sunderland content, including news ahead of Sunderland's clash against Watford at the
30:43state of the flight, over at the Sunderland Echo website. Thanks once again for listening.