Problem 1 - TV Scheduling
Every year when you see an advert for the FA Cup, whether it be on BBC or BT Sport, it always highlights one thing in particular, 'the magic of the FA Cup'. So what I would love to know is why these channels that hype up 'the magic of the FA Cup', are showing games like: West Ham vs Man City, Man United vs Reading, Tottenham vs Aston Villa and Preston vs Arsenal, what's magical about watching teams in the richest leagues in the country play each other? The magic of the FA Cup is a little team that most 'modern-day fans' haven't heard of or know little about, causing an upset against one of the country's top clubs (Premier League - League Two). Unless the top Premier League teams are playing each other or a non-league club, they shouldn't have the right to be live just because they are a big team. You can argue that TV companies need views but is a non-league club playing against a Championship side going to get millions of fewer views than just another Premier League fixture, I think not. Everyone has their team, but if you love football and your side isn't playing, you're going to watch a live game, especially if there's an upset on the cards.The final thing I want to bring up about this problem is a man I've lost so much respect for over the past few days regarding these tweets, Gary Lineker. These two tweets from him aggrivated me as I expected better from a man, who in recent times, has hyped up non-league teams in the FA Cup, you can tell that's all for show now. Tweet 1, 'Did you see the draw? Didn't produce many romantic ties.' If this doesn't show you that most of these top pundits only care about Premier League teams then I don't know what will. So Mr Lineker says the draw didn't produce 'many' romantic ties, yet the games that were live on BBC were West Ham vs Manchester City and Tottenham vs Aston Villa. So are these two games, the few that he thinks are 'romantic'.... You'd hope not otherwise he's clearly an idiot and doesn't understand what the FA Cup is about. What annoys me most about these tweets is that he's clearly trapping is a Premier League bubble as there were plenty of ties that would have shown the 'magic of the FA Cup' that is always hyped up by these platforms.
Yet they chose to show the household games when in reality the ties that would have shown people worldwide what this competition is really about would have been: Ipswich Town vs Lincoln City (The well supported Conference side are high-flying this year as they find themselves top of the league travelled to the mid-table Championship side, this game had upset written all over it). Barrow vs Rochdale (Playoff hunting Barrow have performed well above expectations all year in the conference and host one of League One's most in form sides, had the makings of a great game). Wycombe Wanderers vs Stourbridge (Wycombe are yet again chasing promotion to League One and host the lowest ranked side left in the competition, no further explanation needed). Sutton United vs AFC Wimbledon (Many won't know the history behind this game, but this fixture saw AFC Wimbledon return to the ground where their journey back to the football league began with these sides meeting in the Dons first friendly back in 2002). These four games would have shown off the FA Cup in all it's finest and there's no way that plenty of people would have tuned in to see some proper FA Cup football with quality fans.
Tweet 2 'Desire is always to show lower league club at home to PL club. The draw was awful.' So this tweet gives us all more of a hint at how this man is trapped in his Premier League bubble and I'd like to hear from him why wasn't Millwall vs Bournemouth live as that fits this bill better than both of the games that were shown on BBC. So because Lincoln City are away to Ipswich and not at home, they shouldn't be shown live, I'm sorry but that makes no sense. Being a fan of a non-league club, I understand we create hostile atmospheres for the big boys at home but I also know that when we're away, we're louder than ever. Those 5000 Lincoln fans that went to Ipswich were no doubt loud for 90 minutes, aswell as all other lower league clubs fans would have done, home and away. From experience, there's nothing better than going away to a side and knocking them out the FA Cup (Thank you John Mills for that one). I'm sure people would agree they'd rather watch two lower league sides show fight and commitment for 90 minutes to ensure they get through to the next round rather watching Man City, Man United and Tottenham cruise through in dull games and listen to fans be passionate in singing their hearts out for their club rather than watching half of West Ham's support leave with half an hour left to play. To summarise, at this stage of the competition, the lower league sides left in the competition are playing teams at a level they aspire to reach so are going to give 110% to give their fans a day to remember forever and for their players, it's a chance to put your name in a clubs history books forever. For me that's the magic of the FA Cup, it's not all about the Prem sides, it's about two teams giving their all for a chance to make history.
Problem 2 - The FA Cup Is No Longer A Priority
Another thing that's worrying is that club's are now disregarding the integrity of the FA Cup by putting out weakened sides in the early ties as the focus of most now is primarily on the Premier League and Europe. For a team like Bournemouth to field a completely different side against Millwall is shocking and shows that even for teams like them, the FA Cup is not a priority. I find that shocking as they're 9th in the Premier League, 10pts clear of the relegation and you'd say their strong enough to stay up but not good enough to fight for Europe. So, with that said, surely their main chance of silverware is the EFL Cup and the FA Cup so why they changed their side completely amazes me. In his post-match interview he was fuming and said that 'I changed my side because I tried to protect players'. I'm sorry but that's ridiculous, professional players need to be protected from playing in a hard-fought competitive match, the chance of injury is no different to any other game yet so many managers make that excuse.
Most teams apart from Man United, Hull, Southampton and Liverpool that played this weekend have a week off, so it's not as though you have to play 2-3 days later. Even if they did, these are professional athletes, they should be able to play a 90 minute game every day let alone one a week. Now although, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Spurs all made a fair few changes, you can barely pick them out as they put out sides good enough to win in the Premier League and if you say but Arsenal came close to losing, yeah you'd be right, but that's more of a mentality problem at Arsenal and there will more than likely will be a rant on that topic from me in the near future. One team I will pick out is Liverpool, they put out their youngest team in history with an average age at 21, against a top 3 team in League Two and yet I see their fans moan at Plymouth for playing defensive. Yes they play in the EFL Cup against Southampton in mid-week but these player are professional athletes with the best training facilities and you're telling me they can't put in a top performance if they have to play 2-3 games a week. I tweeted this the other day when people were saying fixture congestion is why Arsenal drew 3-3, in the Midland Football League Premier last year (9th tier of English football) my local team Hereford FC had to play 5 games in 10 days from late March to Early April, made 2/3 changes across these games and we won all 5, with the pressure of a title fight on. These players that play for us have jobs, train once/twice a week and can play whenever you ask, so don't tell me Liverpool couldn't put out their first team.
Linking this with problem 1, it's bad enough that you have a team like this putting out a team of youngsters in this competition but what's worst of all, is we have to watch it. Why should working class people who pay their hard earned money to be able to watch games on both these platforms have to sit through games watching a team that you can ask the questions: Do they care if they lose? Do they even want to win this match? Jurgen Klopp has already said he'll be playing the kids again in the replay, now don't get me wrong, I love to see young players come through the academy and make it to the top of their game but it didn't work with the crowd on their side, how can you think it'll be any different when the crowd is against them. Now you could make the argument 'If he doesn't play the youngsters in the cup, where else is he going to play them?' To that I say, what does the youngsters going out there and beating Plymouth prove? That they're too good for a loan move to League Two? If there's a youngster that is thought to be good enough for the first team, here's a crazy idea, play him in the league, you know, the level you play at all year. If the youngster is performing well in the league, then clearly he's good enough to play in the first team. Manager's need to stop using that excuse as a reason for heavily changing their side in this competition when it works against them, you're disrespecting the integrity of this great competition.
My final point on this is that the growing amount of foreign managers and players is taking away from the integrity of the competition as they don't understand what it means to the fans, seeing your club either win it or cause a massive upset and that's why you see so many upset. In this country, it's not like any other. In foreign countries, the top teams can play a lower league team with a much weaker side and walk it, but over here, as proved numerous times before, the underdog doesn't lie down and roll over for the big guns, they fight and have more passion than their bigger opposition and that's why they manage to cause the upset. Players in lower league teams are playing for the badge on the front of the shirt and not the name on the back, because, each time they step out on the pitch, they are playing for their futures, they don't have the security of a job and a massive wage like most Premier League players seem too. This is something that a lot of foreign managers and players don't seem to understand at all. To solve this, obviously we need to trust in our own talent, give English managers a chance at the top level and focus on bringing through more English talent in the academies rather than finding the 'Ukranian Messi'.
Solutions?
Solution 1 is something Martin Glenn has spoke about recently, increasing the prize fund. Most importantly, this will help out non-league clubs and over the past year and a half I've spent going to clubs in the 9th tier and 8th tier, I can tell that honestly it's not great for most, you have to see it to understand how much just a little bit extra money will do for these teams. But also, if it means that the big teams will take this competition more seriously and not put out weakened teams against lower opposition then fine.
Solution 2 is to offer a Champions League place to the winner because offering a Europa League place clearly isn't enough incentive for bigger clubs. If the winner has already qualified then the spot should be given to the runner-up rather than the highest placed Premier League team but that's a very hard call to make as their are good arguments for either side of that debate. People could argue this and say, what if a team from below the Premier League wins the FA Cup, should they still qualify as it's likely they won't be competitive. My answer to that is don't write them off, they'd have a good of a chance as any other team, if the big teams want to get into the Champions League and they're struggling in the league, then they best start showing respect to this competition and play their best available team in every round.
I definitely hope that both these happen, you could heavily argue the Champions League one but something needs to be changed in the FA Cup (especially the scheduling!), if it's to start feeling like the greatest club competition in the world again.
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