Don Goodman exclusive: I’m not sure Tom Brady can compare American Football with Soccer, Ipswich Town my tip for promotion, Wrexham not transfers not finished yet and promoted teams can buck Premier League relegation trend
Speaking to Compare.bet, Sky Sports EFL expert and ex-Sunderland, West Brom and Wolves striker Don Goodman discusses Tom Brady’s role in a recent Birmingham City documentary, reveals who his favourites for promotion from the Championshipa are and explains why Leeds United and Sunderland can buck a recent Premier League relegation trend.
Q: Leeds United were your clear favourites for the title last year, can you make a similar statement now?
DG – “There are a lot more unknowns this season. Last year, it was pretty obvious which teams would be in and around the top end of the division, apart from one or two surprises such as Luton Town, who were disappointing. I also had a strong fancy that Middlesbrough would make the top six.
“Apart from Sunderland, the rest was pretty predictable. There are a lot more unknowns surrounding the promoted teams, like whether Leicester City will face a points deduction or if Will Still will be able to get a tune out of his new Southampton team, who are talented at Championship level.
“Then you’ve got Sheffield United with a new head coach and a different style of play. Will they be able to go again after such disappointment? I’ve been there and it hurts.
“Can Coventry City get off to a good start, because, notoriously, they usually start poorly? Who will they add? They haven’t done loads of business, Coventry, so it will be interesting to see who they sign.
“Norwich City have done some very impressive business from what I can see. I wonder if Liam Manning will get them to gel quickly, because there are so many new players right from the off.
“But I think my colours at this stage would be nailed to the Ipswich Town mast.
They’re the club that we know the most about. The four or five other clubs that I’ve just mentioned have got new managers, whereas Ipswich have got Kieran McKenna, who is so proven.
“Most of that squad has been successful at the Championship level and can boast extensive Championship experience. So, to me, that squad looks the most consistent, and it looks like it’s got the most depth. The big thing is that they need to get over the disappointment of relegation from the Premier League. But if they can do that, I think they’ve got a real, genuine opportunity of enjoying another successful Championship season.”
Q: Thoughts on the Chuba Akpom saga?
DG – “So Chuba Akpom has had the pick of three excellent and ambitious Championship clubs, all of whom you would expect to be in the upper echelons of the division.
“I guess, Michael Carrick not being at Middlesbrough anymore, as the man who got the best out of him, may have proven to have been a negative for Boro.
“The Birmingham project is obviously hugely attractive and ambitious, but in Ipswich, I think he has the best chance of being a Premier League player next season. It’s a lovely position for him to be in, without fully knowing where his head is, is at. He’s got great options.
“He’s a completely different kind of player from Liam Delap. I know he was the Championship’s top scorer the season before he moved to Ajax, but he didn’t ever play as an out-and-out number 9. He played off a striker as a number 10, like how Sammie Szmodics did at Blackburn Rovers.
“So, I wouldn’t say Chuba Akpom is the missing piece of the jigsaw for Ipswich Town, it’d just be another unbelievable option. I do think George Hirst will have a run, if they can keep him fit. I think that he could be the main striker, albeit if they fail to get Cuba Akpom, they may be looking to bring in another attacking player.”
Q: Have you seen any of the Tom Brady/Birmingham City documentary? If so, how do you think Brady comes across? He criticises Rooney and appears intense… but he is successful too.
DG – “I haven’t seen the documentary, so it’s hard to comment on that, but what I would say is, Tom Brady brings a top-of-the-range winning mentality of what it takes as a professional sports person to be the best version and the most elite version of yourself. That’s what he brings.
“He doesn’t bring any tactical nous or tactical problem-solving ability; that job belongs to Chris Davis, obviously. But there is no doubt he can inspire players. I read an interview with Ethan Laird, and he speaks a lot about Tom Brady and how he’s in awe of him.
“When you’ve had a career like the one Tom Brady has had, maybe that’s why he felt comfortable talking about Wayne Rooney in the way that he did. But can you compare American football and soccer? I’m not so sure. For example, the distances covered by a player in both sports are so diverse, which represents a different physical and mental challenge.
“But what you can’t take away from Tom Brady is that winning mentality and that knowledge of what kind of dedication is required to become a success and reach the very maximum of your potential, I would say.
“I was at Birmingham vs Wrexham last season when Rob McElhenney, Tom Brady and even David Beckham were in attendance (Ryan Reynolds couldn’t make it!). Nobody really cared there was a football match going on! I just think the eyes that they will bring to the Championship this season can only be a positive, like it was in League One last season.
Q: Will Birmingham and Wrexham be everyone’s ‘cup final’ this season, making it harder for them?
DG – “I think you’ve seen from both Birmingham City and Wrexham’s recruitment that they have recognised how challenging and different the Championship will prove to be compared to League One.
“And so, I don’t think that the majority of clubs facing Birmingham and Wrexham will view it as a ‘cup final’, particularly the ones that are going for promotion. I don’t think those sorts of teams are going to be viewing those games as ‘cup finals.’ I think much of it depends on how the season progresses and on how the clubs are doing, respectively. But there’s no doubt about it, the glitz and the glamour that the two clubs bring off the pitch is going to be brilliant exposure for the Championship.
“Based on how superior Birmingham were last season and how they’ve more than matched Wrexham’s recruitment, of the two teams, you would have to say Birmingham would probably be the ones who have a better chance of going up. I’ve gone from giving them no chance to saying maybe they have got a chance, and that’s the danger of speculating before the transfer window shuts.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the Wrexham signings?
DG -“Wrexham signed Josh Windass, Lewis O’Brien, Connor Coady, Keiffer Moore, Ryan Hardie, Liberato Cacace, who was £4 million, George Thomasson, who was Bolton’s captain, and I don’t think they are finished either. They’ve had an excellent window so far, honestly.
“I think their squad needed a massive overhaul as they would have been in a massive relegation battle. It’s been a brilliant window, but it was also much-needed. The fact that they are selling the project to various international players such as Moore, Coady and Hardie speaks volumes about how attractive it is. Christian Eriksen’s agent even explained how exciting their proposal was, despite a move not happening.”
Q: Thoughts on Haji Wright potentially playing as a striker?
DG – “I think most people hold the belief that Haji Wright is most effective from the wide left and, personally, that’s where I’ve seen him play at his best.
“If he is going to play as a number nine, there are a couple of areas that he’s definitely got to work on. Despite being a big, strong lad, he doesn’t appear to like the physical aspects of playing down the middle, as in making contact with centre halves, having the ability to make contact and being close. As a consequence of that, I think his hold-up play wouldn’t be one of his strengths.
“I also don’t think heading is a massive strength of his for somebody so big. I don’t see him as a natural headerer of the ball, and, ironically, Coventry City were the team that put the most crosses in last season. Now, he may have scored 2 or 3 other tap-ins from crosses with his feet, but he only scored one header.
“So, yeah, for me, if Coventry are wanting to play him as a central striker, then there’s work to be done on the training ground, I think, and a new understanding for Haji to try and grasp.
“I know Keiffer Moore got a bad rap for his Sunderland’s winning goal at Wembley because he gave the ball away, but I thought generally before that, he actually held the ball up and was strong, won his headers and even brought out an amazing save from the goalkeeper.
“But those kind of strikers are a throwback, and I’m not sure you can ever ask Haji Wright to be that kind of striker. So if he is going to play down the middle, maybe you want him stretching defenders, maybe you want him making clever runs in behind, but the problem is if you’re one of the better teams, and certainly Coventry are going to be, you’re often, especially at home, going to come up against a low block and so there isn’t going to be room for Haji Wright to run in behind. So you’ve got to find a different way, and one of the different ways is for him to pin centre halves and hold the ball up and wait for runners.
“Look, he can do a job there, but I think, in reality, he’d probably be more effective coming from slightly wider.”
Q: What are your expectations for Derby County given their summer business?
DG – “I’m really pleased to see, first of all, that the football club is on such a sound financial footing that they can pay £4 or 5 million to bring a striker in. I don’t know what the exact figure is for Patrick Agyemang, but it was a decent chunk.
“They’ve also attracted Rhian Brewster, Carlton Morris and Andi Weimann. So, straight away, a team that struggled for goals and only scored 48 goals last season, now has four very capable strikers, with three of them proven at Championship level.
“I know Rhian Brewster hasn’t been particularly prolific at Sheffield United, but at Swansea City, he was almost unplayable some weeks that I saw him. If they can get that Rhian Brewster back, then they’re in business.
“I felt that, on the back of last season and just surviving relegation on the final day, there needed to be some strengthening throughout the team..
“But my biggest worry for Derby, and maybe the thing that holds them back from challenging for a playoff spot, for instance, is the lack of athleticism in their defenders. Although they had a good defensive record because John Eustace gets teams well drilled, well organised, and hard to break down. I don’t see too much athleticism in that defence.
‘But I love John Eustace, he’s a very proven Championship manager. They’ve backed him, and I think they’ll see a big improvement from what they got last season. The other thing is that they had the fourth-lowest amount of average possession last season.
“I think in this version of the Championship, which is deeper in terms of quality, you need to have more of the ball to be challenging for a top-six spot, even though a team like Millwall last season might tell you otherwise.”
Q: What would represent a successful season for Hull City, given the situation?
DG – “The one thing I will say is, I genuinely think that Acun Ilıcalı has good intentions, I genuinely do. But he keeps making poor choices.
“He makes poor decisions in terms of hiring and firing head coaches, in terms of the recruitment, which hasn’t been good, and now they’ve got some sort of EFL embargo in terms of the recruitment and their ability to pay for players. They’ve got to deal with that.
“And when I look at their squad right now, I see a weaker squad than they had last season, and they only survived on goal difference on the last day.
“With respect to the manager, I don’t think many of us know too much about Sergej Jakirović. Not too many people know too much about him, and that kind of reminds you of Tim Walter, doesn’t it? You’d think that, having been burned so badly that the owner might have gone down a different direction.
“So, a decent season, for me, would be survival. I honestly think with the way the club is at the moment and the state that it’s in, that if you’re a Hull City fan right now, you’d probably take that if it were offered.”
Q: You thought Middlesbrough were bankers for a top-six finish last year. How do you feel this year and why?
DG – “I was so disappointed in Middlesbrough last season, I was really, really confident they would be promotion contenders. Even halfway through, I looked at the data and all the games they’re playing, and in a lot of the games, they probably had more chances than their opponents, but they were drawing or losing games because of individual goalkeeping errors or defensive errors and not taking their chances.
“Some of the crazy goals that they gifted opponents proved really costly, and slowly but surely, their season fizzled out. I think the crowd turned a little bit, didn’t they?
“I think the championship was a weaker version last season, and there was an opportunity that I saw for Middlesbrough, which ultimately was grabbed by Sunderland.
“Rob Edwards will probably change the system, and I hope he succeeds because he’s one of the nicest men in football. Rob has acknowledged that it’s such a great opportunity for him, and he will have learned a lot from his time at Luton Town.
“Given their transfer business, it’s hard to be overly optimistic, but there’s still around four weeks of the window remaining, and they have a basis for a good team. I just think they might be three or four players short at present.”
Q: Has the Stoke City squad been transformed enough for you to believe they are on the way up under Mark Robins?
DG – “The benchmark is so low for Stoke City, the only way is up for them under Mark Robins.
“This is their 8th season in the Championship since they got relegated from the Premier League, and remarkably, for a Premier League team that was established for around 10 years, they have not finished above 14th. It’s easy to get stuck in the championship, so that’s maybe not the biggest surprise, but the biggest surprise is that they’ve never finished higher than 14th. It’s bonkers.
“It has to change, and you can’t say that the owners haven’t invested because they’ve invested the maximum that they’re allowed under the financial rulings, and if they could chuck more money at it to get it back to the Premier League, I know that the Coates family would.
“So far, they’ve brought 6 new players in and there’s probably more to come. It seems to me that generally, with the odd exception, the recruitment is focused on younger, more dynamic players. I think there was a general consensus that they weren’t a massively dynamic team, particularly in midfield last season, so I know that they wanted to improve that.
“Again, they’re another team, weren’t they, that survived on the last day of the season, so the benchmark is low and you would expect Mark Robins to make some kind of progress.
“Whether it’s enough to get them anywhere near the top six? I would, at this moment, doubt it.”
Q: What are your thoughts on Nathan Lowe’s loan move to Stockport from a Stoke City perspective? Would you have liked to seen him stay?
DG – “If Nathan Lowe had stayed at Stoke City, I don’t think that he’d have got too much game time, and I think if he’s reflecting now, and if Stoke are reflecting now, recalling him from Walsall last season wasn’t a decision that worked out too well for either.
“Although he did score against West Brom, which resulted in a point that might have been quite important, near the end of the season. But he didn’t get much of a chance in the second half of last season, and he’d have been gutted about how it went when he returned to Stoke.
“I really like Stockport, and I think you’ve heard me mention Dave Challinor many, many times. They’re a good club at League One level, so the opportunity to go to a very good team in League One who plays a really nice style of football, I think that’s a brilliant move for his development.
“Then hopefully this time next season, he’ll be Championship ready.”
Q: How difficult will it be for Sheffield Wednesday to survive? But they still have the legendary Barry Bannan?
DG – “Barry Bannan is a Sheffield Wednesday legend and always will be. I played golf with him just before pre-season, and I know, for a fact, he could have left. The fact that he’s taken a pay cut to stay says all you need to know about him as a man. I’m not knocking any of the players who have left, either.
“But he cannot keep you in the Championship on his own. 11 Barry Bannan’s might be able to, but the club is in a huge mess. Every week, a new player seems to be leaving, and I’m led to believe they have just a 15-man squad. The North Stand is also closed and that will cost them money. It’s hard to see anything other than a relegation battle as it stands. A sale doesn’t seem close to happening either.
“Fair play to Barry Bannan for committing to the club and fair play to Henrik Pedersen for taking a job which looks like an impossible one.”
