Rejoice, for the season has arrived. Everything but the Prem never really went away but we do have some actual football to talk about as the EFL campaign kicks off this weekend. Chris Holt is joined by Joe Crann from Sheffield Star, Jordan Jones from Bristol World and Steve Jones from Doncaster Free Press to preview each of the three divisions. Never mind the top flight hype... this is where it's at.
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00:00 The weather is measurable, there are some absolutely bizarre transfer rumours floating
00:09 around and Love Island has finished. That could mean only one thing. The football season
00:15 is back. This is everything but the prem, the show that ignores the top flight hype
00:19 to concentrate on what are obviously the best leagues in the country. This week we have
00:23 a bumper pre-kick-off special looking into the championship with leagues 1 and 2 with
00:29 our experts Joe Cran from the Star in Sheffield, Jordan Jones from Bristol World and Steve
00:34 Jones from Doncaster Free Press. The stage is almost set, it's time for everything but
00:39 the prem. We'll start with the teams looking ahead to the season. We'll start with the
00:45 teams who have come down from the Premier League. As you said there, leagues aren't,
00:50 you couldn't describe them as a Premier League club, given that they've only been there a
00:58 couple of years and they're back down again. But certainly Leicester and Southampton have
01:04 probably nailed themselves down as having that kind of status. What do you make of those
01:10 three teams coming down, Leicester, Leeds and Southampton? How do you think they're
01:14 going to cope?
01:15 Yeah, I mean, Leeds are signed, Ethan Ampadu is the only one they've got in so far, I think.
01:23 Then you've obviously got Connor Coday, Harry Winks, they've come in for Leicester, they're
01:29 tremendous, tremendous championship signers. But I think the problem that they've got,
01:34 I mean Leeds have lost a load of players, haven't they? There's a lot of guys that have
01:37 left either on loan or on a permanent basis since the transfer window opened. And I think
01:45 you look at Southampton, they've still got Laverie there, they've still got Ward-Prowse
01:49 there. I mean, if they keep hold, if they happen to keep hold of those players, which
01:53 you can't really see happening, but I mean, Ward-Prowse in the Championship is a bit of
01:56 a joke, isn't it? I mean, there's no way he should be there. I think it's very difficult
02:03 to judge them based on the current situation. As it is, I would say, you know, Leicester
02:09 and Southampton top two, that would kind of make sense. With Leeds, you've got to wait
02:15 and see what happens. But going back to Leicester and Southampton, they could be an entirely
02:20 different team by the time the window closes, both ins and outs. So they could get better,
02:25 they could get weaker.
02:26 And so we move on from the Championship to League One, where we have Jordan Jones with
02:32 us from Bristol Worlds. Jordan, how are you doing?
02:34 I'm doing well, thank you. How about yourself?
02:36 I'm good, thanks. It looks as though certainly teams like Portsmouth seem to have had a decent
02:41 transfer window. There's probably some teams there who have maybe not done as well. Charlton
02:50 is probably in this list as well. There's probably a few teams in there who have not
02:54 done as well as people perhaps expected them to, that look like they may have got their
03:00 house in order this summer and could well make a big push this year.
03:05 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm mad that I left Portsmouth out of that, actually, when I was
03:09 speaking about the teams, because I think Portsmouth will definitely want to be up there.
03:13 They've recruited some players from the Championship and some good players in League One and League
03:18 Two as well. So it shows that they're really going to try and make a push for it this year.
03:24 Portsmouth, if you go back about 15 years, won the FA Cup final, winning the FA Cup final
03:29 and being in Europe. So they don't want to be in League One anymore. They want to be
03:32 in the Championship and then at least push for the Premier League as a team that's got
03:36 lofty ambitions as well. So, yeah, a lot of the teams that perhaps haven't been as well
03:41 run in recent years seem to have got their house in order, but there's only three promotion
03:45 spots. So for one of these teams or a few of these teams, it's going to become a bit
03:50 unstuck for them and they might have to chop and change their manager, despite arguably
03:54 all of those big teams. I'm going to go try and soar in dough.
03:57 Are we expecting the team that were in the playoffs last season, who narrowly missed
04:04 out Peterborough, Barnsley, are we expecting those teams to make another challenge? Obviously,
04:11 there's been a bit of a change at Barnsley. They unfortunately lost Michael Duff as their
04:17 manager of the Broadneath Collins in this summer. Do we think that might be another
04:22 work in progress for them or are they likely to be a team that could push for it?
04:26 It would be interesting to see if Duff did stay, but I just think you can't turn down
04:30 the opportunity of managing in the championship. It seems like they've lost a few of their
04:34 players to championship clubs and obviously to League One clubs as well. Luke Thomas has
04:39 gone to Bristol Rovers as well. So it shows that I think maybe Barnsley will be there
04:44 or thereabouts. As for Peterborough United, they were transfer enlisted a lot of their
04:50 players and they were trying to bring the wage bill down, be a bit more self-sustainable
04:54 and things like that as well. So I'm not sure. Maybe Peterborough United will be in the mix
04:57 this season. They've still got Clark Harris at the moment, but obviously a championship
05:02 team or an ambitious League One team might try and go all out for Clark Harris because
05:08 obviously he won the Golden Boot last year or shared the Golden Boot with Conor Chaplin
05:11 last year. So, Barnsley, there or thereabouts, maybe Peterborough get a top-half finish as
05:16 well. But yes, for the teams that didn't quite make it last year as well, obviously their
05:22 ambition will be to do it this year.
05:25 And so last but not least, we move on to League Two, where a little bit of Hollywood stardust
05:31 has been added to the division. In case you weren't aware, there's not been an awful lot
05:37 said about it. Joining me is Steve Jones from Doncaster Free Press. First of all, we'll
05:44 talk about the elephant in the room of Wrexham. If nothing else, we can't be sniffy about
05:57 this. They're going to bring something to the league because of the circus that goes
06:03 with them. They're going to bring something to the league that hasn't been seen before.
06:07 We should really welcome that. We shouldn't be sniffy about it, should we?
06:14 One thing, it was my first season covering Doncaster last year. It had been a while since
06:19 I'd seen football at that level. It's not a glamorous division. The football played
06:23 at times is, I think the term uses, agricultural. Some of the stadiums are less than impressive.
06:30 Some of the teams are even less impressive. I think you are right, it's going to bring
06:33 a bit of glamour, a bit of attention, a bit of stardust potentially at times to a few
06:40 stadiums up and down the country. I think it's a good thing in a way. I knew this question
06:47 would come up when I was thinking about Wrexham. To be fair to the owners, they're not antagonistic
06:51 with how they're doing things. They seem to be trying to do things the right way. They're
06:55 very Wrexham-centric, to be honest. They're not here to have a go or a pop at anyone else.
06:59 They're just doing their own thing and generating a hell of a lot of attention in the process.
07:03 It's going to be quite strange, I think, because they'll be internationalised on League Two
07:06 for the first time in its history, I'd have thought.
07:11 So that's us all wrapped up for this week. Join us again next time where we'll reflect
07:15 on week one of the EFL season, where we're sure there'll be once again plenty to talk
07:21 about. Thanks to all three of our guests for joining us and to you for watching and listening.
07:26 This show was produced for National World by Chris Hedges with music by Gentleman Jackals.
07:31 See you again soon.
07:32 [Music]