Stu: Hello and welcome to episode two of the Shell and Stripe podcast for season 26, 27. I am your host Stuart Garrod and we made it to another week. I wasn't cancelled for speaking positively about Robbie Cowling. Absolutely fantastic. I'm surprised, but I'll take it. Thank you for joining us this week again. And first off, thank you for the support and retweets and listens to the rather rusty first episode of Shell and Stripe. You will have noticed a bit of a tweak in the graphics, a bit of a tweak in the name, just to kind of make things a little bit snappier, sharper. We're just going to go with Shell and Stripe. Yeah, so things are looking up. I'm hoping this next episode will be a lot more... What's the word? I want say professional, but certainly, you know, there's going to have some actual formatting to it. It's just not going to be me rambling despite what I may be doing at this very moment. But anyway, firstly, I just want to welcome you all to the show and introduce today's topic, which this week we're going to be taking our final round up of all things preseason. Just reviewing some of the in-goings... in-goings? Incomings and outgoings that have happened since we last spoke. We're going to take a quick look at the last friendly match that we played against Stevenage on Saturday. I've got a few transfer rumours that I found online and we're going to rate our preseason at five. We're then going to a bit of Southampton preview because the fun stuff starts on Saturday, doesn't it? Can't wait. Yeah, and just kind of introduce a couple of maybe other segments that we will work on for the next episode, but we'll push those out there and see if we can get some traction. Anyway, with all that being said, let's crack on with our first segment, our pre-season roundup. Welcome back. Yeah, I thought we'd just take this time to, as I move my squeaky mic, apologies. Just take a look back at the last few, I guess, days and probably the last week of the pre-season. Just review some the in-comings and out-goings that we've had since we last spoke. I think there's been one or As I say, we're going to look at the last match that we played against. Stevenage, have a quick look at what happened there and looking at some rumours of further acquisitions potentially. So let's kind of start off by having a look at our... Incomings and outgoings. I'm struggling with that, ain't I? Incomings and outgoings. I want to say transfers, but does that kind of cover it all? know. Since we last spoke, I can't remember what has happened since we last spoke personally. So I'm kind of just going to go back and if I've covered something that we already covered in the last episode, I apologize, but it is what it is. So screw you all. We have had since last speaking, Tom Smith has finally resigned. God bless him. I'm really happy with that sounding because, you know, he has... He's played an important role for Colu, not just on the pitch, you know, coming in when Macy has had injuries or concussions, whatever it may be. But you know, when he hasn't been called upon on the pitch, he has kind of stepped up to the plate off the pitch. You know, whether that's kind of being the go-to guy for arranging travel or social events or what have you. He's kind of been the glue that's knitted the squad together, certainly last season and I shouldn't have seen him before that. I think he's a great guy to have around. I think he's good keeper. I genuinely think he's a good keeper. So I'm happy to see him back in the squad. And you know, all indications are that he seems to want to battle for that number one shirt. So good luck to him, I say. I know he's had his injury problems these last few months, but yeah, absolutely. Good luck to you, Tom. We have also acquired the services of Leon Shuomei. a Wolves U21 player. We've got him on a season long loan. Transfer Market has his market value as £500,000. He's 20 years of age. If we're looking at stats for the boy, he's from Brighton. Center forward, former England U18 international. He's played 16 games in Premier League 2. He's had some games in the EFL Trophy, I assume for Wolves. He's actually got three appearances in the Premier League. Yeah, yeah, got FA Cup. So, you know, he's... I think he's well regarded. I'm excited by him. He looks like a young Lyle Taylor. I think it's the blonde highlights on his hair. But that's kind of just me being very reductive and very simplistic, but he does look like young Lyle Taylor. I hope plays like a young Lyle Taylor. but I guess we'll see, but you know, people are evoking, you know, memories of, Mbic with this, potential signing. I don't know if he'll get Mbic levels cause he was a special talent, but I like, I like our philosophy with our transfers, you know, think Danny said it in, I think it was after the Stevenage game, actually, you know, we're a club that has to take risks on people. It's just where we are in our market power, I guess. You know, we have to take chances on either injured players, sorry, players with a history of injuries, young players, people that have got something to prove. And I like that. gives us like, I think it gives us like a gritty kind of... let's show them kind of attitude. It could go either way, of course, that, you know, those injuries could reoccur and those players could ultimately be shite. But, always the optimist. Shirl and Stripe is always ever the optimistic podcast. that's what I want it to be. So I'm hoping we kind of see the fruits of, Leon's endeavors here at Coal U. I think it will... Get a chance. Certainly. hope that's not the end of our signings upfront. I do think we need, as I've coined it, an ugly bastard upfront. Maybe that will lead into the rumors that we're to talk about in a short while, but yeah, I'm quite happy with Leon Cioemi coming in. I'm definitely happy with Tom Smith coming in. I think that was it. I don't think we had any other. re-signings, obviously we had Cain Vincent Young, but I think we spoke about that. I think that was probably it. was KVY wasn't it? And Tom Smith, were the last remaining holdouts, I think. I could be wrong, but I think so. so in terms of new faces, our business so far has been Sean Raggett, Paul Digby. Jake Leake, Leon Chiwomi and Bradley Ihoenvian. I think I had that better this week. Brad, yes Brad. So, you know, there's some good business being done there. I think we still need maybe two or three more to come in. I think that will happen, but I don't think that will happen before Southampton. Which as of recording is... this coming Saturday, I'm recording this on Monday, the eighth, the third of August. I should probably said that at the start, but yeah. I'm quite happy with our business, but I will wrap that up in kind of, as I bring this segment to a close. I just want to briefly touch upon our fixture with, God, who was it? Stevenage. Stevenage, one of those teams I can never, I can never, they're not memorable, are they? They're not memorable, in many ways I find them quite inspirational. I think that's, they're a club that Cole, you should look to emulate. because they were a team that were languishing at the bottom of League 2 a couple of seasons ago. Anyway, they had a mid-choic rise with Steve Evans, who got them into League One. Obviously Steve went. Ultimately he lost his... went to Rotherham, didn't he? I think. Ultimately he went on and ended up in Bristol Rovers. But Steve and Inch have kind of carried on their great form. They made the playoffs I think last season, they? Yeah, I think they're a club that we can look to emulate, know, doing good business with a good manager. Huge club, probably not a huge fan base. But yeah, certainly a model that we could aspire to. But our final preseason friendly took place at Ligue 1 side, Stevenage. And, you know, we rock up looking to have a nice, good test, a nice kind of, I don't know, let's do some final polishing up before our first game of the season against Southampton. Let's give what we consider our first team as a good run out before the season starts. Sean Raggett gets shown a red card of the 15 minutes I think it was for having a judge to have handled the ball on the line. from which Jamie Rees scored a penalty and then Stephen June onto him one-nil. you know, come on referees, it's pre-season. Come on. I don't know if you were just like practicing the, you know, getting into muscle memory of issuing a card, you know, reaching into your top pocket and or your back pocket for your red cards and using that. Perhaps you forget that over the summer. don't know. Referees do seem to be quite thick and forgetful, but Absolutely. I don't have the superlatives to say that was a bullshit decision. really was. mean, fair enough. Going by the rules of the game. mean, from what I hear from Tani's post-match interview, it was a dubious decision in the first place. So to then have it... So Sean Maggett was sent off, Digby had to go back into defence and... It's no use to anyone is it? Stevenage would want to have played us at full strength, test them. Likewise, we would want to be at full strength, test ourselves against a good league one side. So ultimately it kind of just turned into an exercise of attack versus defense. I get the flip side of this, that we're going to encounter these situations. We're going to get red cards at some point during the season. So it's probably good practice to kind of play that style, you know, have to adapt as we had, had to do in that game. And by the sounds of things, it looked like we did quite well, know, doggedly defended. We certainly didn't concede again throughout the game. So I guess I hope Danny has taken something from it. But yeah, ultimately it just felt like a match wasted. because a referee wants to make it all about himself. there we go. Yeah. Final pre-season friendly ends 1-0 to Stevenage and that kind of concludes our pre-season for 26-27. Fairly up and down, you know, a couple of wins against the local sides. But I think either losing or having defeats against most of the other opposition. I just want to try and see if I can find. I'm sure I saw a tweet that summarized the results. Bear with me. I'll get this, least silence is. It is out, it's fine. Hashtag call you. Where was it? I'm not gonna be a fan of that now, I know that it particularly matters. I can't find it. Never mind. But, regardless of that, think it's been a pretty good pre-season to be fair, you know, not in terms of results, but I don't think you read too much into results for pre-season. There've been good tests, know, Danny said he set out to give us a pre-season that tested us against good teams, good possession based teams. And I think we've got that with Peterborough, West Ham, both emotions of West Ham that we played, Steven Edge, you know, I think. We've got a had a good mixture of games. You know, we had the lower league local teams, which might provide more of a direct approach that we have to have to counter a conconquer counter. You know what I mean? But you know, definitely varied varying amount of styles for us to, to go up against during preseason. I think it's been useful. I think we've made some good signings. I mentioned this last episode, you know, I like our squad at the moment. I like where it's going. I like that we've kept, you know, those, those, those core, I use the term superstars, but you know what I mean? They're not our core of good players. You Jack Payne's, you Harry Anderson's, you Tucker's, et cetera. You know, we've got a good core there, but what we've added to it is, certainly a good spine of seasoned professionals. You dag it, you digbees. Did I say dag it? Wreck it. You know what I mean. You know who I mean. too many new names to remember. But my point still stands. We've got these good professionals coming into the squad that will make us certainly physically a more powerful team than we were last season. Still think we're maybe just lacking that little killer quality up front. I know we signed Lyon but... Yeah, I still think we need something else. Maybe some backup on the wings and obviously another keeper. So I still think there's work to do. I think we are probably bar a keeper maybe. If we get a keeper in this week, that would be ideal. But I think Tom Smith will start on Saturday. Yeah, I think we're pretty much there for the first game of the season. And then I do think it's going to be another slow start. I really do. But I'm still confident. I'm still confident. I think you've got to be. It's the eve of a new season. If you can't be confident then when can you? but what I wanted to do is gauge your opinion of our preseason. so I think when this episode goes live, I'm gonna throw out a question on X. So that will be x.com forward slash shell and stripe. Please go and follow us over there. I will ask you to rate our preseason out of five. so you can give us your scores over there and your reasons if you so wish. And then we'll kind of come back to that. Read some. read through some of those thoughts and reviews and scores next episode. So head over to x.com forward slash shell and stripe and give us your preseason ratings out of five. I think I would probably go a three, a three, think solid work, but you know, we just, think transfer wise, we just need to go another level. get a few more names in. of new names, I noticed this as I was coming to write my show notes for this week's episode. And this is a report from Glenn Williams of Wales Online, who is suggesting that Culturisty United could be interested in signing striker Keon Etete from Cardiff City. potentially on a loan for the season. Etete, I believe, is unfavored at Cardiff and was on loan last season at... what did it say? Mirren? think it was somewhere in Scotland. Yeah, so his time in Scotland failed to reignite his career, however, after poor loans with Bolton Wanderers and Rotherham United. Meaning another move now appears to most likely outcome. yeah, Cardiff don't want him. He's had, again, another one of these plays with a point to prove and sounds like just the player for Kouyou. Let me get him up on transfer market. Kion Etetei. He's 24, center forward, currently with Cardiff as I say. Go St. Mirren. Why, how do I get someone's view full stats? me the full stats. Come on. by season. Let's see what he got up to last season. Okay, I didn't score any goals last season. Lordy, yeah, I a few games in... I 11 games in League 1. I assume for Cardiff. There we go. dear. SPL games. 24, Samirin I think. Let's go back to 24, 25. Come on! Give me something! No goals in 20. When did he last score a goal? Twenty twenty four, twenty three, twenty four. OK, so he played 28 times for Cardiff in twenty three, twenty four and scored three goals and three goals in the League Cup as well. So not particularly prolific. But again, this is the market that Cole you were in plays that aren't particularly at the peak of their, I guess, skills. We've got to go. We've got to take punts. And apparently that's another punt. we'll wait and see if that's true. I do want this to be a positive show and I will remain positive. I think he will have a point to prove and I think he will likely smash in 20 goals this season. There we go. You heard it here first. Thank you. Thank you. That's that for our final pre-season roundup. Let us know again your thoughts over on X. Rate it out of five. Next up, let's take a look at our next, or our first fixture of the season, Southampton. Hello there, listener. Yes, so we come back to my thoughts on the Southampton games and a real proper football does the talking can stop. The real season kicks off this Saturday, the eighth of August as we take on Southampton at home at the JCS in the Carabao Cup first round. And quite frankly, I cannot wait. It's going to be on Sky. It's one of the main fixtures of the day. High five kickoff. Spygate, Danny Cowley versus Spygate. Let's see what's happened. One assumes they haven't been kind of peering through a bush over at Florence Park, but who knows? This is their first fixture, Southampton's first fixture since... was charged with misconduct by the FA and you know, the whole Spygate thing came to the forefront following their defeat in the playoffs. So yeah, it's going to be interesting all around. So I'm really looking forward to this fixture. I think we could do something. I would not be surprised if we get a win here. Maybe like a streaky one-nil. I don't think there'll be many goals in it. But I do think we could get a win, know, fingers crossed, touchwood, all of that stuff. But yeah, interesting. First round of the Carabao Cup. We haven't had a good cup run really since Tottenham at home. How many years ago was that? can't remember when that was. 21, 22, around then, what a night that was. But yeah, I'm hoping for a good performance on Saturday. You know, kind of tentative first half and then kind of, I don't know, maybe they'll come out. So of course they will. They're a championship side, but, know, maybe catch them on the break. Who knows, but I'm, quietly confident. But yes, as I say, this is the first game since Spygate for Southampton and Tondar Eckert has been charged. This was back in July. He was charged with misconduct. the FA for his role in the Spygate scandal. Southampton were kicked out of the championship play-offs in May after admitting they spied on three clubs during the campaign. An independent disciplinary commission ruled at the time that the espionage was authorised by Eckert and was a contrived and determined plan from the top down. Since then the club has been the subject of an investigation by the FA looking into who participated in the spying and assessing the culpability of those Who knew it was happening? So I think he is still to hear about the, the, punishment for this or whatever that may be. Who knows? That's not my place to speculate, but I do think it does put some pressure on them coming into, into the fixture with culture stuff. You know, all eyes will be on them. All eyes will be on Eka and what he's going to do. so yeah, I think there's, I think there's a chance there for us, you know, hopefully Danny will pay out a side that's got plenty of pace. can maybe hit them on the counter. It's Slim Bickens to be perfectly honest, but you know, we will do what we do and put out a team that we can put out. But yeah, I'm pretty, pretty, pretty damn confident. But I thought I'd pick out some players to look out for. Maybe just take a look into Southampton and where they're kind of positioned at the moment. Obviously they're still in the championship having been kicked out of the playoffs last season. And you'd be livid wouldn't you, if you were a Southampton player. You really was, you you work so hard throughout the season. Think, yeah, we're doing well, we're in the playoffs. Let's kind of crack on now and get into the Premier League. Sadly not. Sadly not. So in terms of arrivals and departures over the summer, Lewis Dobbin has come in from Aston Villa for £10.5 million. Wow. Daniel Peretz, goalkeeper. They've also got George Long from Norwich, a local boy. Kyle Lahren, centre forward from God knows where, Mallorca. I know. My knowledge of championship teams is limited. Obviously, being stuck languishing in League 2 for two decades. So, I don't know. I can only really give you a gut instinct really. But I do just, I don't know why. just think, I just think me win. just think me win. Streaky 1-0 or on pedoys. Either way, I'll be absolutely laughing. In terms of departures, Will Smallbone, Ross Stewart, Joe Arebo, Charlie Taylor or Oriol Romayhou have all left the club. That means nothing to me. They're like most valuable players. Sort this by market value. Let's go 20 million. Finn as as he's injured. That's good. Not for him, obviously, but we'll take it. Taylor Hardwood, Bellis, center back 20 million. Casper Jander, central midfield, 18 million. Shay Charles, 15 million. Aaron Ramsdale. OK, you've got Aaron Ramsdale. 12 million. So. There's names there, I recognize. Whether or not they play them or who knows? I they might play a weakened side, a rotated side I should say. But yeah, let me know what you think. Check us a comment below or get in touch next. Do you think we'll beat Southampton and get into that second round? I'm looking forward to watching the preliminary. no wait, did you see that penalty shoot out? Did you see that penalty shoot out between Tranmere and Rochdale? my lord. quite possibly the worst penalty shoot I have ever seen. I think I'm pretty sure there was only three of the potentially ten penalties scored. All the others were either blazed over or saved. It's a thing of beauty. Go check out the highlights on YouTube. I'm interested to see how York and... can't remember who else is playing. it York and someone else? Obviously. It's going to bug me. I'm going have look at this. Chow num? No. Fixed use, please. Crawley! York vs Crawley. Half 7. So yeah, by the time I finish this recording I will go and watch that. It's also Celtic vs Dundee in the Scottish Premiership. I know where my eyes will be going. But yeah, interesting stuff. I love the Carabao Cup. I think it's a nice, great competition for us. Yeah, really cannot bloody wait. Cannot wait. Roll on Saturday. Absolutely. Roll on Saturday. Next up, I just want to introduce a couple of concepts that we're to be taking forward in future episodes. Obviously, I will be recording these shows on a Monday evening. So that will allow me to review the previous weekend's game and then look ahead to either a midweek game or the following Saturday's game. Monday nights feel like the best time for me to record this. So that's kind of where we all hit. during the cycle of the week in the cycle of the fixtures. Just a couple of things, segments and initiatives that we'll be doing throughout the season. First up is we'll be collectively nominating a player that has earned their stripes each week. Essentially, we will be nominating collectively a player who we feel has shone throughout the previous week, either stunning performance, just a happy bit of news or I don't know, a return from injury or you know, receiving a certain award or I don't know, whatever it may be, but that one person that has earned their stripes that week, we will celebrate them collectively. And what I will probably do is put that out to a vote each week on, on over on the, X account, maybe whittling it down to two or three names. And then you can pick who you, who you want to be the player who's earned their stripes for that week. So look out for that going forward. This week, it felt right. with pre-season coming to an end that I nominate a player, who I feel deserves their stripes. And this week I'm going to nominate, Tom Smith. that's right. Tom Smith, you have earned your stripes this week. Not only have you earned a contract, you have earned your stripes. Whether it's through battling through appendicitis, making some cracking saves apparently in the Stevenage game, and just having a bloody good attitude saying that you're going to come back and earn your number one spot. I think Tom Smith, you deserve this week's earned their stripes. need to, I need to make that a bit, I don't know, the terminology on that is, is needs work. But Tom Smith has earned his stripes this week. So what on Tom, that award goes to you. Yeah, that's kind of everything for this episode. I think what I will do is kind of just go into the outro and wrap things up. I'll just take a quick break and take a quick sniffter of water and we shall return. Right, final thoughts. Preseason is over. Up comes the real football, the real test. All the talking is done. All the moaning about pre-seasons and lack of signings and depression over this, depression over that is all gone. We can't alter that now. The first game starts on Saturday. We're at home against the Championship side, an exciting fixture in the Carabao Cup. Get down to the job serve. Back to boys, get a ticket and let's roll them on to a victory in their first game. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm happy to let by cons be by cons and let the preseason go. its most ups and downs, mostly downs, let's be honest, but it's all for nothing. That moment you that the boys crossed that line and you know, they walk onto the pitch. And we're applauding them and we're kind of urging the mom. That's what it's all about. It's about getting back to your seat, getting back to the friends around you. Getting back to that man who sits to the right of you, who you never speak to outside of the football, but you, you know, his, you know, his daughter's names. It's about having hope and belief and the review, you know, the renewed optimism for what could possibly be this coming season. So get down to the ground, get your ticket. bring your kids, it's school holidays, let's back the boys and let's, let's yeah, get a victory against Southampton and then see where, see where this season takes us. That could give us so much momentum heading into, Accrington away and then into Aldermott home. then who knows what will happen in Danny. We trust let's get on with it. thank you for joining me this week. It's been an absolute. I've enjoyed this. Hopefully it's been a better episode, with more of a format going forward. That format will get refined as we go on, obviously, but it will kind of be these little segments where we preview, review, talk about news, etc. and get some involvement with you guys as well. Thank you so much for joining me. Please do subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to it, whether that's YouTube, Deezer, Spotify, Apple, there's probably others, Amazon. We're all we're everywhere now. I've settled that up this week. We are absolutely everywhere. And please, if you are enjoying us, wherever you like to listen to us, just review, just subscribe and give us a review as well. You know, it all, it all helps kind of get this, this new venture going. You know, I'm not going to proclaim to be the best call you podcast out there. They'll be on the bar side. Boys do such an amazing job. Amazing job. But I've got my own little corner over here and hopefully you'll come along for the ride. So until next time, take care and up the U's.