WHY SAY ANYTHING?

When Arsene Wenger fielded a weakened team in the Capital One Cup against Sheffield Wednesday, he got exactly what he deserved. The 3-0 scoreline did not flatter the Owls and they could have won by more.

My question to Wenger, Pellegrini, van Gaal, Mourinho and Ferguson in the past is, do you actually realise how the disrespect is apportioned in this competition?

The first object of disdain is your own fans. They blindly follow where you go, spending hard earned money on tickets, travel and occasionally hotels in order to see their heroes try to win a game of football. The Arsenal fans who travelled up the M1 to Sheffield were cheering the team on and pledging their undying love even when they were 3-0 down.

They deserved more than they were served up by their team. Firstly, Wenger left Cazorla, Sanchez and Ozil out of the squad and, unlike the fans, they couldn’t be bothered to go and watch the team. Why would they? It was a very cold night in Sheffield. There are times when I am amazed by the loyalty of supporters. Having lost the game they faced a trip back to London, probably by train if it wasn’t cancelled, arriving back home at any time between 1:00am and 3:00am if they were lucky, with the prospect of a couple of hours sleep before getting up for work. Are football players and managers that far removed from the fans that they either don’t know or don’t care what they go through to follow the team? Then they charge them the highest prices in the Premier League to attend matches at the Emirates.

The second object of disdain is the opponent. I don’t know, but I feel pretty sure that when Sheffield Wednesday saw the Arsenal team it was almost like they had scored. It is so motivational to think that a team like Arsenal assume they can beat you without even playing their first team. So, no team talk required, Wenger removed the need for that.

The third object of disdain is the competition itself. We all know how managers like to go on about how too much football is played in England. Notice that it is only ever the managers, readying their excuses for when they lose a game. You never hear the players saying, “I would like to be left out of the next game as I feel I am being asked to play too much football.”

Then there is the excuse of the Champions League for the top clubs. “I’ll have to rotate when it comes to the Capital One Cup as I can’t have players playing two games per week.” Except when one of those games happens to be in the Champions League, then it is fine.

Anybody who is a regular reader of mine knows my feelings on this two “games in a week” scenario faced by footballers. If they cannot manage 180 minutes of football in a whole week, with or without travelling any distance, then there is something very wrong with them physically. Obviously the training is wrong, or the diet is wrong, something is wrong. There are 10,080 minutes in a week. Even allowing for half an hours extra time in a midweek cup game a player can expect to play 210 minutes of competitive football that week. So he will spend 0.02% of his time on the field of play, not necessarily running around, just on the field. It must be so tiring.

Now, the other side of the coin, which I do have a bit of time for, is that the manager wants to give some game time to the younger players. I still don’t see, however, that this necessitates wholesale changes to the team at the expense of the competition and the fans.

Before Ferguson started playing a weakened team in the League Cup the clubs managed very well with what they had. The United I first started watching in the sixties didn’t have a massive squad, yet they still managed to compete in the League, the League Cup, the FA Cup and the European Cup. The first division as it was then consisted of 22 teams so there were four games more during a season. They even managed to win the European Cup in 1968, a feat they have only been able to repeat twice since, despite the size of the squad and the rotation.

Whatever is written here is not going to change the way football managers think, or go about their business. I would be absolutely amazed if any of them deigned to even read this. It is just my small way of pointing out that, although we will follow our team to the ends of the earth and support them through thick and thin, despite being taken for granted and treated like mugs, that doesn’t mean that we will always agree with everything they say and do.