|
Before
we go any further, we should just make it perfectly clear that these
pages have absolutely nothing against Rafa Benitez, Liverpool’s
current manager. There is no vendetta against him, little but admiration
for the way he has coached his side these last few seasons. But
that said, if you’re looking for a barmy idea to really hack
off football supporters up and down the country, then look no further
than Rafa. A greater repository of crackpot schemes it would be
harder to find.
There is a great deal to be said for foreign coaches, administrators,
owners even, coming into our game, taking a fresh look at things
and implementing new ideas, new tactics, new ways of running things.
Looking at our own leagues, we’re sometimes so close to it
all that we can’t see the wood for the trees.
The whole Chelsea revolution, going back as far as Ruud Gullit’s
days, totally changed the way we look at fitness, at nutrition,
and all for the good. Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal have been similarly
forward thinking, dragging the rest of English football into the
21st century in their wake.
At the same time, there’s plenty that’s good about English
football, plenty that has seen the Football League structure through
nearly 120 years, surviving even the utter contempt shown for the
pyramid system in the greedy scramble to instigate the Premiership
and cut the rest adrift.
Much of what keeps football in the forefront of people’s minds
today isn’t the here and the now. It’s the history, particularly
as we are being increasingly cut off from it by the ultraspending
power of the big four.
We all know that even “big” clubs like Spurs, Everton,
Manchester City, Newcastle United aren’t going to win the league
in the foreseeable future, and probably not even a cup. But they
continue to play to good crowds because they mean something. The
same is true, in the Football League, of Sunderland, West Bromwich
Albion, Birmingham City, Derby County.
But Rafa reckons that’s not enough. You see, the Premier League
is too good for him to try his young players in - that’s the
same young players that a few weeks ago he complained weren’t
coming through his academy anyway.
Clearly it’s not fair that Liverpool players should be starved
of experience given that there are 25 internationals ahead of them
in the Anfield queue. So Rafa has had a brainwave. Let them, Liverpool
reserves, play in the Championship, let them disrupt the competition
that decides who’s going to be in the Premier League next
year, let them gain match experience there instead of in the reserves
league which, according to him, is a waste of time.
So let’s get this right. Liverpool have a huge squad because
they have a huge amount of money. They buy players they don’t
need just to make sure that nobody else gets them. They snap up
teenagers from obscure Scottish clubs for a pittance at the age
of 16 to avoid having to pay three or four times as much when they’ve
had two years of experience under their belt - the experience he
admits they won’t get at Liverpool.
It’s not enough that teams like his create the chasm between
the Premiership and the Championship by hovering up footballers
that would otherwise be playing lower down the leagues, and then
leaving them in mothballs, stunting their development and denying
the rest of us the chance to see exciting young talent, simply because
Craig Bellamy is in the way.
In every possible way, Liverpool have a monumental advantage over
88 other league clubs. But it’s still not fair. Somehow, things
are still stacked against them in Rafaworld. Of course, there is
another way to look at the issue. It’s possible, just possible,
that instead of providing the solution, Benitez and his ilk might
be the problem.
Back in the day, the day when they won the European Cup most years,
the league every year and the occasional cup on top, clubs like
Liverpool had 16 or 17 senior professionals in the running for a
first team shirt. Nine of them probably played every game of a 60
plus game season. Players wanted to go join Liverpool, but they
wouldn’t go there to sit on the bench. They were players, so
they wanted to play.
Nowadays, Liverpool have perhaps 26 or 27 professionals, all of
whom will get games thanks to Rafa’s manic merry go round rotation.
But a dozen of them will perhaps play a dozen games all year. But
because of the astronomical wages Liverpool play, they’re happy
to sit on the bench or in the stands.
Twenty years ago, playing every third game would not have been enough
for a Peter Crouch, a Momo Sissoko or a Robbie Fowler.
They’d have demanded to play every week, or they’d have
left. Crouch would have been at Tottenham, pushing out Jermain Defoe
who’d have moved to Middlesbrough, shifting Mark Viduka to
West Ham, Dean Ashton to West Brom, Kevin Phillips to Stoke and
on and on. The depth of quality in every team would have been greater
and that quality would have been on the pitch, where we, the paying
punter, want to see it.
He might be a decent enough player, but I don’t want to pay
£30 to see Arjen Robben chewing gum in the stands. If he can’t
get a game at Chelsea, he’s more than welcome to come to my
club, as he would have done once upon a time.
Let’s give Rafa the benefit of the doubt. Let’s assume
he’s moved by philanthropy rather than self interest. He wants
to see these young players flourish, play the football they deserve
to play. There’s an easier solution than elbowing your reserves
into the Football League though Rafa. If you care about them so
deeply, and I’m sure you do, why don’t you give them away?
There are 22 Football League clubs who’d love to take them
off your hands.
And if they turn out to be really good, you can always buy them
back with the yankee dollar.
|
