OPPO PREVIEW | Footy Finance Guru Kieran Maguire On SAFC v Brighton

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Hello, everyone. I'm Chris Wayne. Welcome to How We Are The Podcasts,

and as we all aim to put last week's cook exploits behind us, we get back to the bread and

butter of the Premier League this weekend. Braden and Orvalbian are the visitors to the stadium

right as the lads hit the 40 point mark last time out at Leeds, and we set four points behind

seventh-placed Brentford, and for the record, three points and three places above our opponents

this weekend. And because it's Braden, it gives us a perfect excuse to catch up with a good friend

of the podcast. He's the leading voice in football finance, which you can hear regularly on the price

of football podcast with Kevin Deere. And just last week, he was told by Jerry Carriger that he was

their most popular guest. They had had only overlap fan debate in 2025. And more importantly,

for the purposes of today's pod, he is a huge bright and fan, which can only mean Kirin McGuire.

Hello, Kirin. Hi, Chris. Thank you very much for that introduction. Check's in the post.

Well, thanks for joining us, because like you said, we know how in demand you are. But it is

your third appearance on the pod, so in the post will be the signed mutable. Brilliant.

But I was a good generally, because you know, I did hear when Jimmy Carriger asked you that.

You were like, I'm bitterly. I'm teaching the Belgian league how to do their

for the finances. I'm teaching the PFA. I'm teaching, you're basically teaching the world how to

handle their money in terms of football. Yeah, it's exploded. I've been doing

this teaching of football finance for a long, long time. And I was quite happy.

University life is good. If you've got a little niche, you just nobody knows what you're doing,

but provided the students are happy, then nobody bothers you. And then over the course,

probably the last six or seven years, it's really grown. So yes, I teach for the professional

footballers association has set up its own business school, which is really weird, because I go

into a class and I've got Ilke Gundahan, Ben Davis, Jordan Hens and Tyrone Ming's, Robbie Fowler,

Paul Bracewell. And you go, this can't be right. And things, they are really good students as well,

because they want to be able to move potentially, sort of the strapline of the PFA is dressing room

to classroom to boardroom, because there's not enough player representation at the higher levels of

football. And these are the people who actually understand the industry. And you look at the number

of clowns involved owning football clubs, who they either destroy them or they just leave a mess,

because they don't understand what's going on. So yeah, I teach for the PFA, I teach for the

league managers association, I teach on the FIFA Masters course, not about ticket pricing, by the way.

And I teach at uni, and I'm also working with the independent football regulator, so I do a bit

of teaching there as well. So yeah, it's fun. I mean, I'm fortunate, I love what I do.

So, but it's a 60 hour week, every week. And you take it because it's not work,

as I tell my wife, it's a hobby that I've got, which sometimes pays me, sometimes doesn't.

And then you get people like us bugging you all the time here. I'm a football fan,

yeah, the spreadsheets, because people don't, I mean, I live near Brighton, but I work in Liverpool,

so I've got to have something to do on the train. So I just built up all these spreadsheets of utter

nonsense, which I thought would show would be of no interest to anybody ever, but there's now a

market of intrigue as far as they go as well. Yeah, just make sure they're backed up multiple times,

and in multiple locations, that's all I'll say. But yeah, I've already given one plug for the

price of football podcasts, because it's fantastic, but been listening out of the last week,

and still going strong, I assume you still enjoying it? Yeah, I mean, when we started,

it was one of the guys from the BBC, originally somebody had pitched it to the BBC,

who turned round and said, that's like, okay, who's going to be interested. So we were kicked

into touch, and one of the guys from the BBC said, well, I do think this will work, so we set it

up ourselves. So we've been going since 2019, yeah, we're about 800 episodes in, we're almost at

20 million downloads now in total. So for a niche show, from two blokes in their 60s,

rabbating on about amortization, it shouldn't have an audience, but it does. And now we've got

the crazy situation, we get clubs sort of giving us information, which they can't put out

themselves, but they think that it goes out via us. So we've got a very strange relationship

with the industry, for one, to the bed of phrase, and it is very much momma, I have been

given legal threats on quite a few occasions, as well as more sinister threats as well,

which I've not prepared to discuss on this show, or indeed, anybody show, because I'm looking at

my kneecaps, I like my kneecaps, and I want to keep my kneecaps. Who would have thought the

world of football finance was so dangerous, but there you go, but yeah, and there's a fascinating one

this week, actually, about Manage's contract, it was a fantastic interview, but I'll advise

anyone, recommend that to get on that, and the price of football, fantastic podcast, but

we want to get on at the bright and get, but before we do, we can't kind of let you go without

picking your brains a little bit about what's going on at the moment, and obviously the

pressing issue at the moment is of course the big one, the Manchester City debacle, let's call

it, and we first spoke to you a year ago, last March actually, and I remember trying to

organise that one, and you were saying, I'm on call, somebody might ring me, and all this,

and then we spoke to you in September, and you were, I'm on call, somebody might ring, I don't know

where it's going to go. I mean, as your life just revolved around being available for almost,

let's say, at least 12-80 months in case something happens in this case.

Yeah, it's really weird. I mean, I have affected, I've got sort of two or three very strange

contracts, which says that when the verdict comes out, I've got to give so many hours to

these particular organisations, and perhaps do written reports as well, as just be available

for sort of audio and video access, which is absolutely fine, and my wife has said, but she's

probably not, if the verdict is in the next week or two, her original threat, I'm off to

Dubai for a fortnight, I don't think, I don't think she's going to employ that, just a presence,

I think she could be the only person on the flight going out, but it's to be fair here,

and that could all be over by the time this judgement comes out, Manchester City. That is true.

I remember when super league happened, and life got a bit crazy,

and I ended up doing, because I keep a spreadsheet of everything, I ended up doing 80 interviews

from when it broke, which was the Sunday night, to the Friday, and by sort of Friday tea time,

you know, Mrs M, not happy, as you can imagine, and it was the, yeah, well, yeah, I've not managed

to talk to, but I certainly heard you, and I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, I know it's been a bit of a

crazy week, and she said, she said, right, well, yeah, I'm making us a nice meal, we're going

to spend the evening together, and it's just going to be me and you, and I said, yeah, absolutely,

so what's going to happen the next time, the phone rings, and I say, I'm just going to politely say,

my wife's in the middle of making me a meal, I'm terribly sorry, can we delay it until Monday,

and she looked at me, you know that, look, her indoors gives you, you're really going to do that,

can I trust you to do that? I said, yeah, yeah, you can trust me, and then sort of 15 minutes later,

the phone rings, we're both sitting in the kitchen, she looks at me, I was going to say,

don't worry, don't worry, this will be fine, I'll pick it up, it's Gordon Brown,

the FA, given the former prime minister, my number, because he's going on television to give him

a briefing as to all of the individual complexity involved in super league, why it

collapse, the potential ramifications for clubs and so on, and he's a, yeah, I'm not

part of political, he's a very intense guy, so he was really grilling me, far greater extent

than any of the journalist I've spoken to, and my wife's now, she's now moved to the arms folded

stage, and she's just staring, and I'm sort of, I'm trying to mouth, and she's just looking at me,

yeah, I don't care who it is, I don't care, and then my team was ceremoniously scraped into the

bin, very, very theatrical, and I'm going, I was so much better, so I put the phone on speaker,

and she looked at me, and she sort of, she went, second and brown, I'm going, yeah, and she

cuts each of the fucking telephone, I mean, it might have been to you, it might have been to you,

you know, it might have been, no, no, no, so yeah, it's bonkers, yeah, that's crazy,

and well, luckily for him, we're going to be involved in that, so it shouldn't have been too

fussed about, but again, just on the same thing, I mean, it's the time that they've taken,

because everyone's talking about the time now, I mean, is that a signal of how serious this

could be, or is? It is, it's also, I think it's also indicative that it's not an open and

showcase, you know, there's actually around about 130 charges, but yeah, into the public domains,

got this figure of 115, and in terms of the amount of evidence, and I do think here,

the Premier League, to a certain extent, to the shot themselves in the foot, I was talking

with a fairly senior lawyer who said, if the Premier League had just been through all the potential

issues, picked, you know, the top 10 or 20, they could still have had a very, very serious set

of allegations to apply to Manchester City, and that would have reduced the amount of evidence

being given, and also, we don't know what's happening, but you get bits and pieces on what's

out groups. Now, it has to be said, what's out is not a reliable source of evidence, but on some

of them, it was, and it sort of made sense, the commission, which did the hearing, it's,

it's a Premier League commission, it has no legal powers to enforce people to give evidence

and so on. So, one of the stories that came to me via WhatsApp was, they, one of the potential

allegations against Manchester City is that Roberto Mancini was being paid £2 million a year

as his base salary, that would be significantly enhanced via bonuses, to be the coach of Manchester City

football club, and that he was also being paid £2 million a year for doing four days of coaching

in Abu Dhabi, where, as we know, Manchester City's owners are based, and the allegation was effectively

come, this is City's paying, yeah, this is City a way of paying people off book, and therefore

it should be included in City's wages and so on and so forth. So, that appears to be one of the

allegations. What happens when the commission asks Roberto Mancini to give evidence? Now,

sorry, I'm busy on the coach elsewhere, I'm not going to give any evidence. When they ask when

one of Manchester City's sponsors where, again, sort of the story which has come out, the sponsorship

deal was worth £60 million a year, but the sponsor was only paying six, and the remainder,

yeah, the allegation was, if it was coming from Mansour or one of Sheikh Mansour's associates,

well, the sponsor just turned around saying, no, we're too busy running our business, why should

we fly across to London? And can you see that it means that the case for the prosecution,

under cross-examination, becomes that little bit weaker. At the same time, the prosecution,

which I thought were there were there, the reason why they're not coming here, they've got to be

outtaxed, no, they've got to be a reason. And the commission has got a huge amount of evidence

to sift its way through. I mean, somebody did send me, and I can't say who or where or how,

but somebody did send me a PowerPoint presentation where supposedly, again, this could be somebody

making this up, but supposedly the Premier League had given a talk to chief executives and say,

well, these are our overheads, and the Premier League's legal bill had gone from,

think it was six million pounds in 2021, and then in 2024, it was 46 million, and in 2025,

it was 43, 44 million. And an awful lot of that is going to be with that Manchester City case.

Now, yeah, we've got Everton, and we've got Forrest, and we've got Leicester as well,

but they were pretty, pretty small cases. So I think the total legal costs for both parties

could easily exceed 100 million pounds. And you might say, well, how does that affect me as a

fan? Well, yeah, ultimately, that gets taken out of the money which goes to the Premier League

clubs is that they've got less money coming from the Premier League itself. They're going to start

to go after fans for higher shirt prices, higher pie prices, and higher ticket prices. So we are

all on the receiving end of this, unless you're a sports player. Yeah, well, I think you've just

highlighted the real winners and the real losers out of all this to be honest here. And then,

all the questions, and I was obviously watching that over that fan debate, and all the questions

seem to be directed at what happens if City are fan guilty. And you talked a lot about the

potential point deduction, and that might be a sliding scale, depending on what the guilty of,

and what they're not guilty of, and etc, etc. Maybe over years, maybe in one lump sum, if you like.

But after all this time of money, and you've maybe touched on it a little bit there, where would it

leave the Premier League? Because could there be potential repercussions afterwards? Let's see,

City get, you know, it's found not guilty of anything, of any offense whatsoever. Where does that

leave the Premier League? I think it leaves its reputation in in Tatters, and I think Richard

Masters has got a difficult stroke, almost possible job, because he's trying to represent the

interests, and he's trying to corral 20 different club owners. And I think we talk about clubs,

but we shouldn't. We always talk about club owners, because these are the people who are actually

sort of directing traffic. You've got those who want to make money out of football, you want

those who want to gain influence out of football, you want those who are just having to be successful,

and are just enjoying the fact that they can pump some money into their local clubs. You've got

all of these different people with different aims. And if the verdict goes against the Premier League,

and I think the only area where I would be probably confident would be for the non-cooperation

charges against Manchester City, but because Manchester City gains nothing on the pitch for not

cooperating with the Premier League's investigation. I can't see how they can get a point

to seduction for that. But as far as the others are concerned, if the Premier League loses the

majority of the financial misrepresentation charges, which is effectively fraud, then those

people who are bad-charing Richard Masters to put this together, they will be trying to find

a scapegoat, and you have to wonder whether senior positions at the Premier League itself

disappear on the back of this. So will people lose their jobs? That could very much be the case.

That's going to be an interesting one to watch if it goes that way. But let's move on to the

new financial regulations. And I think I've got this, right? It's SCR, I think, I've got that,

right? There's only, what is it, you know, MDF and SCS and MFI to go on. They've got the

flush. But I heard you mentioned when you're talking about that, you think it's very similar to

what we have, except it maybe helps our clubs who maybe move into the Premier League from the

championship, but doesn't necessarily allow big money owners to bankroll clubs, jump and

they'll try and to jump to join that group of elite clubs. On paper, that sounds okay, but you

didn't seem to be a huge fan of the, the changes. Well, I'm not, I'm not forer of a gain. So

my first reaction was again, I get onto a couple of groups with lawyers and accountants and

financiers, and they say, we think this is going to be great for us. And when they say that, you

know, I think because all sets of rules of strengths and weaknesses, so, so there's going to be

somebody who's going to be testing the waters. There's going to be somebody that's going to come

out with something which is, which is left field. And we've seen that with the PSR rules, with

Chelsea selling the women's team to themselves in car parks to themselves. And, you know,

and Leicester City managing to prove that they weren't in the Premier League or the EFL

at the end of June 2023. So therefore, they couldn't have appointed us. And so

you would think that there is going to be some form of challenge here. And, you know, it could

be along the lines of, the people not familiar with the rules, it works as follows.

You take the money generated by the football club from ticket sales, from broadcast,

from commercial. And you're going to add on some effectively, you add on a third

or your player sale profits, or you spread your player sales profits over three. So that's

the start figure. And then you say, you can spend 85% of that on your player costs. So you take

the wage bill and you say, well, you know, not the wage bill you see, not all of that's players,

probably about three quarters of it is. So you sort of, you can work out that figure.

You then add on the, what we call the amortization cost. And on what's happening there is,

if you sign a player for 50 million on the five year contract, you say that's, you know,

50 divided by five. That's 10 minutes. You do that for the whole squad. So that gets added into

your player costs. Agents fees get added on. I'm not quite sure why. Because

the view of agents is, I think it's sort of pantomime villains. There's some, I know some

agents who are really good and really look after their clients. I know some others who are out of

scumbags. It's the same as any other industry. And also you have to include player write downs.

So if you look at what happened with Chelsea when they signed Romelu Lukaku and Kepa, the goalkeeper,

that they paid big fees for both of those lads. And it didn't work out. I'm not going to

criticize the players. They're both professional footballers. They're both excellent players in their

own right. But at the end of the first season, Chelsea said, well, we think they're now overvalued

by about 50 or 60 million. Now that's a number, which yeah, that's one of those things which I think

I can manipulate that quite easily. So I think there are these issues. And when you talk about

now, you're including player costs. Well, what happens if the football club employs the player

and then employs the player's wife or mother or cousin on the payroll and pays them three or

four million pounds to do some sort of back office work? He might say, well, that's not going to

happen. Well, it has happened in the past, you know, in the case of Tom Inz, who's, you know,

good footballer, Derby County were paying his mum for 700 grand a year about, yeah, about eight or

nine years ago, in order to try to sidestep some of some of the cost controls and so on. So

that's why I'm not necessarily a huge fan because I think it's just creating work for

accountants and accountants don't need work. You don't need an extra range rover. You don't

need an extra week with the nanny in in Corsia Val's skiing, you know, so I don't really think

that's great. I think there are some benefits in the sense that as you rightly said, you look at

the six clubs who opposed these new rules and it was sort of the teacher's pets of the Premier

League. So it was Bournemouth, Brighton, Fulham, Palace, Brentford. I think Leeds and Thoris,

as well, might have been. And what does it mean? I think it was Wolves instead of Thoris.

When Sunderland were promoted this season, you were allowed to lose 61 million pounds over three

years. Now, you've had a fantastic season. Congratulations. Absolutely knocked it out of the park.

You must be so, so proud of your team and your management and the board and everybody connected

with the club. It is a hell of an achievement. But you are competing against clubs such as Bournemouth

and Brighton and Brentford and Palace. They're allowed to lose 105 million pounds. So can you see

that they've got they've got an inherent advantage over you because you are being penalised

suspending two seasons out of the last three in the championship. That's not right.

But if I was if I was Brighton or Bournemouth or Palace, I would oppose the news rules because

everything's based on one season. So that's advantage that the established, you know,

the established middle class of the Premier League have over the clubs that have just been promoted.

That advantage has now been taken away, which of course increases the likelihood of those

clubs being involved in a relegation divide or be being relegated full stock. And that's why we've

now got this split in terms of the appeal. And the club said, oh, well, it doesn't take into

account your our success in in player trading models. And this is like, you're just looking after

number one. Yeah, so don't try to make it out that you're doing. You had to have this opposition

for honorable reasons. Yeah. Well, just about closing that gap because obviously they've just

changed the playoffs to the top eight in the championship from from next season, which I'm sure

Spurs fans were really celebrating because let's get on with Spurs because I want to talk about

that as a goblin's case, an example, that you described the recently I saw as the Lehman brothers

of football. So I'm sure at some point there's going to be a big short style movie about Spurs.

But but what kind of trouble could there be in if they don't avoid the drop because I imagine

and you might tell me otherwise, being the size of the club they are and getting the league

positions that've been in champions they football, would they have actually thought

to protect themselves against a season like this? I think Spurs is a fascinating one because

to a certain extent that they are actually quite well prepared for a shock. And the reason why I

say that is that they signed a contract with the local council about 18 months ago, which allows

them to have up to 30 full attendance events, ICO 60, 60 or 1000 people attending. And that will

be for the other summer concert, Beyonce and Coldplay and Taylor Swift, whatever it is,

NFL matches, boxing, whatever it's going to be. So that's proven to be incredibly lucrative

and that would be unaffected. They're not going to cut the prices of a Beyonce concert simply

because Spurs are in the championship. So Spurs cut as the landlord who take, I think they normally

take 15-20% of merchandise sales as well for these events if the merch is being sold on the premises.

So it is very, very lucrative. So that's good from a Spurs point of view.

The downside is that the money that they get from fans, I did my sums and I think it averages

around about 102 or 103 pounds per match it costs a fan. Good luck trying to get that Tuesday night

at home to Lincoln or Stockport next season. So I think they have to acknowledge that

match day income is likely to take a hit. This year it was around about 130 million pounds

that is an incredible amount of money and they've been very successful. They won't be able to do that.

They won't be able to hire out the hospitality boxes for matches in the championship to the same

degree. The broadcast deal will take a huge hit. Even though they took quite a hammering in the

round of 16 on Tuesday night, they've still will have made, if you combine ticket sales and

the prize money from UEFA, they'll have made the thick end of 100 million pounds. So that

disappears. If you finish 18 in the Premier League, Spurs will probably get around about 120 million

pounds if you drop into the championship even with parachute payments that drops to 45. So you've

got 75 million pounds there, 100 million pounds for not being in Europe. That's 175.

Nike aren't going to pay the same. Your front of shirt sponsors, you probably talk another 50 minute.

You throw in the ticket. So you're probably somewhere in the region of 250 to 300 million pounds

down. And even by London prices, that's more than a good night out.

I'll just apply to Guinness and some bars. But one big debate that you did have was about the

price of tickets. Now that is a debate that you had a little bit, but I want to get onto a little

great, oh, big, great that I have actually, because it's the amount of TV subscriptions that people

need. And there's more coming next season that people need to watch. All of the football they

wander watch. And just in the last week or so, there's been a few reports, I'm sorry, I think you

reposted it as well, around a pilot launch in Singapore for a Premier League style Netflix

service. I mean, do you think this is something we're likely to see? And does it have the potential

to help or hinder the financial pull of the Premier League? Well, I think there's a two important

but separate issues. Is it feasible? Yes, it is. It in the sense that the Premier League has a

very good relationship with Sky and rightly so. I think they both benefit. They're a bit like two

drunks propping each other in the street. They need each other. But the Premier League is also

conscious of the fact that Sky is making money out of this. And why not go direct to the consumer

as opposed to using a retailist row co-sailer, which is what Sky do. And what Sky do is say it's

very good. So could this help? Yes, it could. But remember, that would just be for domestic matches.

And you would then still need, if you want to go and watch any matches in the EFL, that's going

to be a separate deal. Now, would the Premier League in due course offer this to the EFL?

It could do. It doesn't include European matches. So the advantage to the Premier League is that

you get to keep everything. The downside is that you don't know what everything is going to be.

And what we've seen in France this year is that the French football authorities, they fell out.

I think it was Bayon and his own. And they, I think one of those then pulled out of the deal.

And therefore, the French football people said, we are now going to go direct to fans.

And it's been an absolute disaster. Fans have been a bit sniffy towards it. The quality of

the product. And admittedly, they've had to go from zero to 100 in terms of how to run a broadcast

company. So I think the quality of the broadcasts is so, so. But the money to the clubs,

which was already, it was a quarter of that of the Premier League under the old deal. It's now

halved yet again. So that's the concern. And if I'm, if I'm Sunderland or Brighton, whoever it's

going to be, what I want to know is a degree of certainty. This is how much money we can budget for

guaranteed. We're going to get a minimum of 110 million pounds this season. And that can go into

our playing budget, that can go into our recruitment budget, that can go into offering players

extended contracts. And if you take away that certainty, then, then potentially you have to be a

bit more conservative and outlook or you have to gamble. And if that gamble doesn't work out,

you know, what do you do with the shortfall? So, so, so they, they can.

There can be problems. So it looks good on paper. I think what you've got to give the Premier League

credit here, they're, they're going to dip their toe in the water in Singapore. And that,

that has some benefits. Is the Singapore market the same as the, the UK market? No, it's not. And

you know, again, if, if I think about what I'm chatting to my mates, I'm the only person in

quite a few, you know, WhatsApp groups of, of Lads, shall we say, I'm the only person that doesn't

have a, a dodgy stick. And the reason why I don't have a dodgy stick is that if I got found out

having a dodgy stick professionally, it would look really bad. And, and, and yeah, when I retire,

I don't care, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I might be tempted to join others, or I might not,

because I'm a law abiding citizen. So, so, so, so if, if the Premier League wants to replicate

this domestically, and all it can offer is the Premier League, you're still going to have

those people which are offering illegal alternative saying, well, we can give you Premier League,

LaLiga, EFL, Scottish, European football, and so on, for less than the Premier League are

charging. So, are you going to win back from the pirates? I'm, I'm not so sure. And, and then you,

you raised the, the absolute, you valid point is could, could this be beneficial to, to people

like me, and many, many, the hundreds of thousands, millions of others who, who begrudgingly pay

TNT 30 pounds 99 a month, and begrudgingly pay now TV, whatever I'm paying them as well. And,

yes, it could, but would the Premier League be bothered about a cheap service? You know, because

ultimately, Richard Masters is under pressure from club owners to deliver the maximum amount of

revenue. And what we have seen in the last few seasons is a willingness by some club owners

to increase ticket prices, to increase merchandise prices, to increase catering prices.

It's safe in the knowledge that people will pay because football is the one thing that you don't

give up. Yep. Yeah, it's, it's, it's so essential to our lives. Well, that's it. But, you know,

even if the judge 20 quid a month or something, which is steep, is still a fraction of what people

pay for for all of these subscriptions, which is ridiculous. But look, let's get onto the football,

and before we do, we'll take a quick break, so we'll be back very soon.

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And welcome back to Highway the Podcast, and we're going to get into the football. So,

obviously, we set out that you're a massive break and fan of course, and we've talked about that

in the past, Kevin. But I want to know what was your first game? How long does it go by?

What I mean, I used to live in a place called Chumsford. So, I used to go and watch Southern League

football, which is sort of, you know, sort of blind Spartan standards, I guess. And I grew up in,

you know, I'd born in the early 60s. So, you wouldn't get it today. Yeah, at the weekends,

my mum would give me, you know, the shilling, five pence, or whatever it was. I'd go off

on my bicycle from about the age of seven, leave my bicycle outside the ground, and go and watch

a game of football at the age of seven. And that would be due to be completely more morbid behavior.

So I started off watching Chumsford, then my old man, he worked for Amix, and they moved to Brighton.

They moved their European HQ to Brighton, which is why Brighton is now sort of, you know,

it's got the Amix stadium and the sponsorship deals and so on. So I think the first match I

remember seeing was Brighton versus Leatherhead in the third round of the FA Cup. And Leatherhead

had a center forward. I think they'd had a, they'd done quite well in the first couple of rounds,

and they had a center forward called Chris the Lip Kelly, because he was mouthing off before

the match, and he scored the only goal of the game. So my first match was a home defeat,

and that's quite good. That set me up for the next 50 years of disappointment and misery.

But I was just captured. Yeah, because it was a FA Cup, it was the floodlights were so bright,

the grass. I thought the grass was green, but it was just rolled mud, because in those days,

you didn't have the pitch maintenance. But, you know, the noise of the crowd, and I was just

captured, and it's just a love affair, isn't it football? Yeah, I'm sure Leatherhead went on to

play a Leicester in the next round. Yeah, I think, and I think it went up and lost 32.

Yeah, there was, and something weird happened in that game. I can't remember what it was,

but something strange happened in that game, again, Leatherhead and Leicester, because I think it

was in Danny Baker's Fabulous Will of Freeg football, and it's brought in a memory from watching

that all the way about when. But anyway, I was just thinking about Brighton. You've said,

you know, you talked about this, this bit getting big enough Leatherhead, and when I was young,

Brighton always seemed to be bubbling around the bottom two divisions. He talked about,

you know, early 90s, late 80s. I mean, are Brighton still that long-term story that should give

us hope about football, considering where it might be headed? I think it's

it's indicative, and the danger with Brighton, because people say, I say to people,

what's in the sport I support, right? Oh, they're a well-run club. That is the,

that is the, I don't want to support a well-run club. That's sort of, you know, it's a bit like,

if you go out for a first date with somebody and say, oh yeah, how did it go for you? It was okay,

you've you've got nice hair. Yeah, all right, I'm never going to say you again.

It's something like that. So I think it's indicative of a club, which if it has a strategy

and a plan, and it sticks to it, it can punch above its weight. So it does give, again, I'm saying

I'm patronizing myself. It does give a bit of hope. You know, I, I was at Heriford in 1997, where

Brighton and Heriford, the Brighton needed a point. Heriford needed to win the, or it's Heriford

United in those days, where one of those clubs was being kicked out of the league. And I think

it's probably fair to say that if Brighton had lost that match, I'm not sure they, they, they would

have survived because they, they then played two seasons at Gillingham. The National League wasn't

necessarily going to accept Brighton playing in Gillingham. So it was all very complicated. So, so,

so I've, I've seen the other side of football. And again, you know, rogona's

very strange practices being undertaken, the ground being sold for six million pounds,

and then being sold immediately for 26 million pounds. And all of these types of

nefarious parts of the game. So, so, so, yes, I think it's, it is, it is a, it's a good luck. So,

if somebody had told me nine years ago when Brighton got promoted to the Premier League, you're

going to be there for nine years. I'd have gone, no, no, no, no, nobody thinks that. And, and now

it's, it's a really weird thing because there's a section of the fan base who are bored.

If you're ambition, the club owner has said, you know, the, the aim is to try to regularly

be top 10 and occasionally get into Europe. Well, the fans read that. They don't read the whole

thing. It's like, okay, it's Europe every year or nothing. And, and this season where the football

has been, yeah, fairly forgettable, but okay, there's, there's been a fair amount of dissent

amongst the amongst a section of the fan base. Yeah, I'm looking to get into that, but actually,

I was just going back to that, that 96, it's between 96 and 98, Brighton finished 23rd and Division

3 twice in a row. But, but yeah, actually, just on that point, because we started talking about

before we started recording. And it ninth consecutive season in the Premier League,

lost league place. And then the last four seasons has been 11th. And you can throw in an FA Cup

semi-final appearance in that time, just to spice things up. But we were talking about this and

saying that Sunland are aspiring to be that, you know, team that consolidates itself,

you're on you're in the Premier League. But we're already looking ahead, because the

some people are looking at the Port Vale game, like in the Cup and thinking, well, expectations

might have been we had a really good cover on. How do you manage that year on year to say,

actually, we're like, we're not likely to achieve anything this year.

I think this is a real challenge, because if you talk to fans of Stoke or Charlton,

and again, I'm old enough to remember, when those clubs, Stoke always used to finish eighth

in the Premier League and Charlton had a few good seasons as well. And then, fans are going,

yeah, we've done it before. And we want to move the next to the next level, which means that

they want somebody else to spend an awful lot of money to increase the chances of success of

the club. So, I think people do become complacent. They, you know, I go on to the Brighton forums

and say, but Brighton's still got the 14th biggest budget in the Premier League. So, anything

over 14th is an achievement. Like, oh, well, yeah, but the owner says we can get into Europe.

Yeah, so they, he says, you've not read the small print. I think the big challenge for

a board of directors and a club owner is the ability to ignore the noise. So, when the fans

were screaming for the manager to be sacked, because Brighton went, you know, one win in 12,

the easy thing to do is say, yeah, I've listened to you. And, you know, it takes the heat off

the board of directors when you sack a manager, because all of the focus is, oh, you've listened to

the fans. So, there, there are complications. I think as fans, we are aspirational. And that's

right and proper. You always want the club to proceed. But in the Premier League money talks,

you know, if you're playing against Manchester City or Liverpool, who's players are on an average

wage of £178,000 a week, and your players are being paid 50 grand a week, there's a reason

why those players you're up against are on the higher money, because they've got that edge. And

what you find is that you have to spend, you know, an extra 10% on wages to get a 1% better player.

But if you've got a squad of 1% better players, or then ultimately, they will get

the rub of the green in terms of, they make fewer mistakes, they see better opportunities,

they are 1% faster and 1% faster over, you know, 20 yards means that you get ahead of that defender

and you stick it in the back of the net. So, I think it is really difficult for any football club

to establish itself in the Premier League and accept where it is. You know, and I understand,

I sound the same here, we want to be dating a supermodel. But I go and I love my wife,

but I was very tolerant. Sometimes you've got to accept where you are.

There's a headlight there, Cuban McGroy says, know your place. But yeah, just on Brighton season,

they see, of course, we get on to that because, look, it started slowly with just one win in the

first five, which was against Man City. And there was a run of one defeat in nine. After that,

that saw Brighton move up to fifth after 13 games. Since then, which was the beginning of December,

Brighton won just three games in 16 Premier League fixtures, which were actually,

they were at home to Struggler's Burnley and Forest and a way to Brentford. I mean,

what happened? Did the performance level drop? Or was it just a loss of momentum? Can you put your

finger on it? I think we're just a streaky team. It was exactly the same in 24-25 under Herzler,

that I remember we lost 7-0 at Forest. That was on the back of a 1-0 home defeat to Everton and

the fans run. And then they lost twice for the rest of the season and they end up finishing eighth,

which is the second highest finish in the club's history. So it is a strange one.

They're not being, when they're losing matches, they're losing matches by one goal. And when they're

winning matches, they're winning matches by one goal. And there's an awful lot of draws in between

as well. I think we've got one of the highest number of draws in the Premier League.

So it's weird. And when it comes to assessing the coach, and I think this is where the owner,

Tony Bloom, his experience and the guy is a maverick genius. I've met him twice.

And I'm not blowing smoke up his backside. He's the cleverest person I've met ever.

Yeah, because he thinks at a different level and Matthew Benham at Brentford is very,

very similar. They're just, they're playing four-dimensional chess whilst I'm in Tidley Winks.

That what they will have done is that they will have looked at that poor run. And they always said,

well, the stats suggest that we had a few bad decisions. We missed it. We made a few bad decisions

on the pitch as well. And the stats say that we probably should have got, you know, 17 points

from those 13 games. And we've only got 12. But we think on a longer-term basis that actually

we are where we should be. And I remember being in a meeting with somebody from one of these

aspirational clubs. And he says, our secret is that we ignore the table. Yeah, remember as fans,

we would say, oh, the table doesn't lie. Yes, it does. And I was out with the club.

And we were talking about Forrest last season. You know, Forrest got into in Europe. They

was absolutely fantastic. Chris Wood was on fire and so on. And I remember them saying to me,

take a look at Forrest next season. Because our data suggests that Forrest should have finished

14th or 15th. And they overperformed in terms of their overall. And sometimes that is the case.

You must have come away from matches thinking, how did a point or how did we get three points there?

Equally, sometimes you go, we lose our. And I think the ability of the sort of the data-driven

clubs to take a much broader view. Yeah, if you look at Brentford, when they appointed Keith

Andrew, who was their set peak, Pete's coach, yeah, the start of the season, people go,

let's look, let's go into odds check out what the odds on Brentford going down. Vs has gone,

you know, they lost Tony last in Buenos gone, the nor guys gone.

Yeah, yeah, I want to put them down. And what Brentford are really good at doing is that

they have this much broader strategy as to how they're going to progress as a club. And they

deliver on there. So I think Brighton are quite similar to that. Yeah, having said that, two weeks

time, Brighton lose two matches and they start curts. I'm not saying that won't happen, but

the ability to ignore the noise, I think he's part of the strengths of the club.

Yeah, what you've just said is maybe bad news for Sunland, because we keep getting reminded that

the underlying stats is we're higher than we should be this season. But anyway, onto the game,

the weekend, looking at the aware record actually, Brighton only Newcastle leads Burnley and Wolves

have got worse aware records than Brighton this season. And, you know, but last time out,

they did beat Brentford on the road in their last game away from home. And so I assume,

you know, based on that, you know, just that win against Brighton and I think what they've won

two out the last three, that Brighton fans are making the journey up with a bit of confidence

that they can actually get a result. I don't think if a result is a nil-nil draw,

which is my prediction. Like the other game. Yes. Then perhaps that could be the case.

I think people have got an open mind. There's a lot of admiration towards Sunland.

In terms of, on a very modest budget, you were promoted last season.

And on buying, you know, I think Jacka is the premier league signing of the season.

In terms of bringing maturity and experience and knowledge and game management to the squad.

So I think it won't be a game which is going to be first on match of the day.

I'm pretty confident of that. Well, I mean, you say that and you've said nil-nil. I mean,

is that an indictment on how Brighton are playing at the minute? So Sunland fans go under the

game. Should we expect Brighton to just dig in the trenches on the edge of the box and just,

you know, we're going to play sideways and there's not going to be real chances and it's going to end

up goalless. There'll be an awful lot of pressing from Brighton. So I don't know whether you

will be playing passing out from the back. Or if so, then Brighton players will be swarming over.

Then they're not particularly good at finishing. The loss of Jal Petro to Chelsea is really shown

just how good a striker is this season. He didn't really get the credit he deserves at Brighton.

In my view, it was a bit of a nutter as well. If I was going to pick a fight with somebody,

picking a fight with a six foot four Dutch sent a half would probably not be one, but he did that

with one of his in training with Van Hecker and that was part of the reason why he left

because he'd fallen out at the club and he'd just, and that was on the back of a three match

band for unnecessarily elbowing somebody. Not that there's ever a necessarily elbowing somebody

in the head when we played at Brentford. So the football is functional.

If I look at, and I've been to the vast majority of Brighton games this season,

I think with perhaps the exceptional of Arsenal away, I've never come away from a match saying,

well, that side plays really good football. Equally, I've never come away from a match saying that,

oh, I think Brighton have played a really good football with that match. They're normally good

for 45 minutes. The other 45 minutes is quite forgettable. I think there's a broader issue in football.

This season is that because long throws, set pieces have become so important in terms of scoring goals,

that the football in the main has been spectacularly dull. Now, I look at those matches in the Champions

League over the course of the last two nights, and it's been some brilliant football played.

And I can't recall seeing anything like that in the Premier League itself. So I think it will be a

match where, if Sandland win, you'll remember the three points, but not 89 minutes of the match.

You'll remember the goal, and that's about as far as it goes. And if Brighton, when I suspect,

it'll be the other way around. You're really selling it, Keirin, for people who are going,

are you assuming you're not making the journey now? I would normally be there, but I work in Liverpool

Monday to Friday. I go home on a Friday night, and my wife has already said that you're not going

to Sunland or Saturday night. I could get a ticket if you want me. If you want me out of the house?

No. So yeah, I've been red-carned. My wife is more interested in music than football, so she's

got me going to Giggs, left right in the centre, disappearing. And I think it's one of those

weekends. There are more important things than football, and I do have family responsibilities.

Yeah, the trip to Sunland is a full weekend, to be fair around trips. But let's just hope it's

a better game than the one in December, the reverse fixture. But I looked at it with four

Guildforce wins, power cuts, and somebody building outside your window.

Keirin, so that's a great place to finish off. It's been an absolute pleasure, and I just want to say

thank you very much for fighting through all the challenges we've had today, let's say.

Well, thanks for the invite, Chris, and keep up the great work you're doing. You're doing a brilliant

job, mate. Yeah, and likewise, please keep doing what you're doing, Keirin. I think everybody needs

that in football at the minute, so brilliant. Thanks again. Thanks again, everyone for listening.

We've got loads more buildup on the Rugraport website, and we'll have our usual match day preview

before the game. And Gav will probably be recording the reaction pod in the pub after the final

missiles are keeper, and I out for all of that for us. It's life and hell.

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