Don’t be fooled, the Glazers have no strategy at Man Utd…

We can get through this international break together. Keep your thoughts coming to theeditor@football365.com…

Champions League proposals
Not sure if James is genuinely from Switzerland, or if he was just nailing his colours to the mast, but patriotism is the only reason I could see any football fan being in favour of the “Swiss” system.

There is a basic flaw in his argument straight away. Uefa may want domestic leagues to be made smaller, but this isn’t anything they have any control over. 14 teams would need to vote in favour of a smaller Premier League and with the increased threat of relegation that just isn’t going to happen. So we will have 4 more European games per side in the Champions League and the same amount of domestic games.

His comment about ‘crap teams’ is rather telling through. Does James actually work for Uefa? Because this is exactly what they want. To prevent as much as possible teams not named Liverpool, Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus etc. from reaching the knockout stage. ‘crap teams’ who obviously only ever get through by ‘fluke’ will find progress more difficult.

Football is made exciting because of jeopardy. The thought that each result matters. Losing takes you further away from your goal, whatever that might be. The first 3 group stage games are already less exciting because there isn’t the immediate threat of being knocked out. Then things get more exciting as we get to the final 3 games because each result really matters.

This won’t be the case in the new format. Lose your first match? Second match? Doesn’t really matter. There are 8 more games for you to play in which you can try to finish above midtable. Playing 10 matches per team to eliminate 20 teams from a 36 team format is ludicrous.

There is also a very clear element of sporting unfairness. Currently, within each group everything is fair. You play each team twice, home and away and the best 2 teams go through. Now in your 10 matches, you play 10 different teams, sometimes home and sometimes away. Comparison between teams in that situation is not fair, because everyone has played different teams.

The Champions League format right now is excellent. There is a reason that a mini-league, then knockout format is used in many sporting competitions round the world. The only reason to tinker with it is to make even more money.
Mike, LFC, London

Johnny agenda…
If the Premier League is getting its usual 300k-1.5 million and the BBC is getting one to three million consistently for women’s games, will it give men’s football an inferiority complex, or will it just be accepted that women’s football is a more popular TV event?

Stupid comparison but you already knew that Jonny. You can’t compare free to air sport vs subscription packages.

The only thing this would prove is that people more people would rather watch football for free than to pay for it.

A better comparison would be to compare the mens WC final vs the women’s WC final but I guess those stats wouldn’t fit your agenda.
Dale

Taking players out in the box
Thanks for this week’s “prick of the week”, which is helping me to convince myself that I’m the sane one and it’s everyone else who’s gone crazy. I’m totally mystified by the Kane penalty controversy. Foul? Tick! In the box? Tick. Therefore a penalty. Easy. Ditto the recent Lacazette one.

But one sentence in your article really stuck out: “His error – in this case a wild miskick – doesn’t mean a defender is now entirely permitted to just take him out.“

Well actually, often the defender is entitled to do just that. The rules are clear: “… penalty kicks can only be awarded for offences committed when the ball is in play.“

So if Lacazette had gotten a slightly better connection on the ball, or if Kane had taken a slightly heavy touch instead of missing the ball completely then the ball would have already gone out of play and the defender absolutely has licence to take them out without risking a penalty.

It’s always struck me as a strange rule. A player being tackled after getting a (wayward) shot away may be eligible for a penalty based on how hard he’s kicked it.
Dave Lillis, Dublin

Prick of the week is really growing on me. So much so, I wanted to throw my tuppence worth in regarding Harry Kane.

He’s a prick, undeniably, he also seems to be a very nice man. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. The fact that he is England captain is because of who and what he is on the pitch, we can’t now be upset as he becomes a more educated, sneakier version of himself. He’s the most well rounded forward playing in this country right now, arguably the most well rounded PLAYER (I have an inkling that you could throw him in at LB and still get a good performance out of him). One of the things that makes him great is knowing when and how to cheat and get away with it. Don’t get me wrong, It’s a clear penalty, he’s wiped out in the area. (I actually think if you apply the stupidly reductive rules fully it’s a red card because Kane didn’t have the ball, so how could Cash be playing the ball? The law is an ass.)

Let’s not forget the pricks who came before him: Wayne Rooney – prick, Stevie G – prick, Frank Lampard – prick, John Terry – prick, Gary Neville – massive prick, Alan Shearer – giant prick…the list goes on. Being a bit nasty helps on the pitch, CR7, Zlatan, Messi, Neymar…they all have a bit of nasty in them and it helps make them great players. His prickiness gives me hope for England in international matches, where we have sometimes suffered from a lack of wiley prickiness.

On the topic of VAR…I think fans do want it to work, we do want the right decisions made, we just don’t want to be left so utterly in the dark about how they are made. Mic up the refs, play the slow-mos on the big screen, include the audience in the experience and the thinking. This would also make refs and video refs more accountable for inconsistencies, which would help, I think it’s mind blowing how often VAR seems to contradict itself from one match to the next. Rugby has this right, show people the process, show them there is some accountability and they will complain less
Tim, AFC (I still think he might accidentally break someone’s neck one day)

Cunning Glazers
The signs are there to see, the writings are always on the wall but the fans always lure themselves into sense of optimism and are willing to get hurt over and over again… mentally i checked out being a united fan since 2017 after the club decided Perisic wasn’t a neccesity. we had bought Lukaku earlier that summer & in a mourinho system it is common knowledge we get a creative winger to service him esp. When all options in the wide areas including fbs are mediocre as a creative outlet, if i can sense that from miles away i thought why the club not do enough to get him considering his qualities + the season he’s had before… then i got answers the following year when Woodward belatedly declared playing performances isn’t important to the club. So the point of this mail is don’t be fooled by their words or latest actions, the Glazers have no strategy/need for any on field success & their only real concern, take it or leave it, is just the £££.
Abiola Asayinka, lagos

Ole and United are crap
But…they were 33 points behind Liverpool, and today they are 11 points ahead of them. But they get all the good press! I’m shocked that Smiling Boy is still in charge at Liverpool, they lost in the 4th round of the FA cup, who to? Remind me? And United won against a European giant three days before the match against Leicester, but that is totally insignificant, as the adoring press are now quoting the genius that is Danny Murphy, that Ole is getting the sack if they don’t win the Europa League. I think he should be sacked for the crime of being United’s manager anyway. But who in the press would say that? Lackeys!
Tim

Crap strikers
Whilst agreeing with almost everything that Simon (Woking) wrote (I also grew up at the same time just down the road in Weybridge) I take massive umbrage at John Spencer being included in his crap strikers for Chelsea.

Wee Johnny was great, he was basically Scrappy Doo with a goal every 2.86 games which for 90’s Chelsea is basically Ronaldo levels. And as Simon did rightly point out though, he scored that amazing goal in Austria!! Love the man.

As an aside, has any other team had such stinkers of strikers such as Chelsea.

As a top 5 I’d say

Kezman
Sutton
Shevchenko
Pato
Falcao

However, I can’t think of a team that has had such good right backs in the PL era. Off the top of my head

Ivanovic
Azpilicueta
Gallas
James
Ferrer

Not really any other point to this mail
Lee, Hornsey

Insightful articles
Delicious irony from JB there in asking for more insightful articles there.
Dave (what was it exactly that made him not strike you as a social justice warrior before that?) Windsor

“Media Darlings”
Hi there,

I think it’s reasonable to think that Trent Alexander-Arnold has been hard-done-by with his recent omission from the England squad. However, if you’re saying it’s because he isn’t a “media darling” then it might undermine your argument if, say, he was on the cover of this week’s The Sunday Times Magazine wearing mad never-ending trousers.
Dara O’Reilly, London

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