“But I think back and, maybe, one thing, I was a bit too nice when I was there. I was a young kid and I didn’t really want to get in people’s faces. You show them that respect, don’t get me wrong, but if you want to play every week and you want to play at the top you have to be like that, be pushy.
“I say to the young lads now that you must have that in you because if you don’t you get bypassed. I probably needed a few loans to learn that. You have to go and play because 21s football compared to league football is so different. It’s people’s livelihoods and you don’t get that in academy football. I left there and came here and I don’t know how many games I have played now but I love it.”
Klopp did try to send Brannagan out on one loan – but it was a deal he pushed back on. “It’s actually weird because he wanted me to go on loan to Swindon and I said no,” he says, mentioning Oxford’s bitterest rivals.
“I am not from round here and I didn’t know about the rivalry then but I said: ‘I ain’t going there; no chance.’ I don’t know why but I was just adamant I wasn’t going to Swindon. I ended up going to Fleetwood for a little bit and we ended up getting beat in the play-offs and there was a stage when I was going to go to Wigan on loan and then I ended up here.”
Oxford lost 5-0 away at Bolton in March. It proved a turning point as they propelled themselves into the play-offs, where they have already beaten Peterborough United. “I will never forget about it,” Brannagan says of that Bolton defeat. “I have never been embarrassed like that.
“I remember going home and if that doesn’t set a fire in your stomach then I don’t know what does. We were just not good enough. There is no beating about the bush.”
It means that Oxford are undoubtedly not the favourites at Wembley. “You’d probably say so,” Brannagan says. “If you get whacked 5-0 you are going to go in as underdogs. But we want to prove a point and I can’t really put into words how big this is.”
The Championship – with Oxford planning to move into a new £130 million stadium for the start of the 2026-27 season – is the attainable dream. “One hundred per cent that’s where I want to be. But I want to do it with this club,” Brannagan says. “I want to push this club to the next level. Of course I want to play at the top. People can say: ‘Oh, you should be doing this.’ But it’s my life and my career and I will do what makes me happy.”
And walking out at Wembley? “I can’t wait. I’m like a kid at Christmas,” Brannagan says. “I am a footballer and this is what you live for. These moments. There will be no better feeling. You have an opportunity to go to that next level and just that feeling, there cannot be a better feeling in football. I have spoken to lads who have had many promotions and they say it’s the best feeling you will ever have.
“Stuff like what happened to me comes into my head a lot of the time and if it wasn’t for the club maybe I wouldn’t be playing football now. I can’t really repay this club, to be honest. That’s my opinion. I really can’t.” But he can try.