The Athletic

Hello, welcome to the Athletic Football podcast. I'm Mark Chapman.

Coming up a little later in the pod, Greg Evans will tell us how Aston Villa held firm to Simon

Philippe Coutinia. And we'll talk to Adam Leventhal about Watford's new boss, Rob Edwards, who is going to have a lot of work to do after their relegation to the championship.

First up, the focus is Leeds United, who are now outside of the Premier League drop zone.

But rivals Burnley and Everton both have games in hand before they all play their last game this weekend.

I'm joined by the athletics Phil Hay.

You're sort of mystic, Phil, aren't you really?

Your tweet from November of last year this season is going to kill everyone.

Yeah.

So when I came out the crown yesterday, somebody said to me,

you know how they've started talking about the possibility that one day a person will live to a thousand years old?

Well, it's not going to be any of us.

I mean, the weird thing about yesterday is that we've seen that several times this season. It felt just like the Joe Gelhard game against Norwich. It was as desperate as that moment. It felt as urgent as that moment. And I think the fact that we have been here before tells you how hard it's been for Leeds to get themselves out of this, how deeply they've sunk into it. Because they are still clinging to 92nd minute goals. They are still clinging to anything from anywhere to drag them out of it. And I don't know. I mean, that point yesterday, it might just save them. It might just be enough. And I think that was the feeling coming out of the ground. It's probable that they will need more. And I don't think they can rely on Burnley losing these

next two games. But even so, it was a massive moment at a point where I think even the

crowd have been really supportive of all season, even they had pretty much given up hope.

Is it a season defined by desperation then? I think it is. And it's been building right from the start.

Somebody tweeted a couple of weeks ago that scene from Austin Powers where they run over the security

guard with the steamroller, starting from about 100 metres away. And it does feel like that.

It's not that everybody saw this coming in the summer, but when you start

to piece together now, the things that have gone wrong and the areas in which it's failed,

it's absolutely everything. It is the recruitment. It's the form of individual players. It's

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