The Sweeper: I Want My 42 Quid Back
Big Story
In the end, my wife was right (shh). We were both sitting at home yesterday afternoon (don’t ask), and I wanted to put on the Man Utd-Wolves game at Old Trafford on the TV. Hell, it was bonus Premier League midweek football, right? Well, quite frankly, she wasn’t having it. I should note at this point she is a Celtic, Tottenham and Chicago Fire fan, so she is far from opposed to the beautiful game in principle at all. But she said this game was pointless, she had no interest in these teams, and it was going to be boring anyway. So the Travel Channel won the day instead.
Now, I can’t speak to the actual action, but the 3-0 scoreline to Man Utd and the fact Wolves changed their entire outfield team from the one that beat Spurs at the weekend suggests she made the right call in choosing Anthony Bourdain over that. The game was pointless. “Forty two quid to watch the reserves” came the frustrated chant from the away fans who had traveled to Manchester, with Wolves CEO Jez Moxey today offering heartfelt emotional support to them by saying “We have no plans to refund the £42 that they were chanting about, although we do have an empathy with them.”
Ah, that’s nice, then. The league, meanwhile, has asked Wolves for an explanation of the team fielded, since somewhere in the arcane rules they never enforce there’s a dusty line about teams needing to field their best teams available. Which is why all Wolves have been saying since is that they fielded their best team available, even though that’s patently not true. This, of course, is not the same as saying it wasn’t the best decision for Wolves in the longer view of the season (200% disagrees, though).
All in all, I bet some of those Wolves fans wish they had a wife like mine and had sat on their sofas watching the Travel Channel instead of, well, actually travelling.
Worldwide News
- Poor Watford are on the brink of going under financially, facing administration (“The Championship side’s parent company, Watford Leisure, has been asked to pay back £4.9m in loans before the close of business on Wednesday”), with their entire board resigning yesterday. Let this be another salutory reminder of the economic issues plaguing English football: it’s just over two years since Watford were in the supposed promised land of the Premier League, after all. A promotion and relegation system is all very nice and all in competitive terms, but without more revenue sharing or a salary cap, it’s also a disaster waiting to happen for club after club.
- England’s potential World Cup host cities have been revealed, and the Guardian has one of their nice interactive maps to look at. I’m most depressed to see Milton Keynes included.
- An Argentinian fans’ group is forming promising to clean up hooliganism in the game, and is looking for some government support. I’d be very curious to learn more about this, beyond this rather pithy piece. Anyone?
- Paul Doyle has a pretty good piece on the hypocritical English attitude to diving: “why is diving by English footballers so often overlooked? English footballers are as hypocritical as randy clergymen when it comes to preaching one thing and doing another.”
- UEFA.com has the details on this year’s revenue distribution in the Champions League, so here’s what Liverpool missed out (excluding even performance bonuses from the group stage): “the 16 teams that reached the first knockout round will each collect €3m, the eight quarter-finalists €3.3m apiece, and the four semi-finalists €4m each. The winners of the final in Madrid on 22 May will pocket €9m and the runners-up €5.2m.”
- Premier League managers are once again moaning about losing players to the African Nations Cup, as if the tournament has suddenly sprung up on them and been scheduled just to mess with the Premier League calendar. How rude of an entire continent to mess with England.
The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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If Liverpool reaches the quarterfinals of the Europa League, they’ll earn at least €5M in market pool and prize money. Yes, they’ll miss out on the Champions League, but they can make up the difference, and really, does anyone think they could have gotten any further than the quarterfinals?
True, though “If” is the key word there given Liverpool’s recent form! I also don’t entirely buy that number for Europa League prize money — what’s it from? Are you sure that doesn’t include projected gate receipts too? Because if we included that, obviously the CL number would grow a lot too (which it also would further if we included the prize money from the group stage Liverpool missed out on by not winning many games). I feel there’s been a lot of spin from Liverpool on this.
If Watford ends up taking a 10 point drop in the standings due to this its gonna just plain suck. The team has played some gorgeous football with the kids really stepping up. It kills me to see all this CRAP going on.
Hornet til’ I die.
One other thing on the Hornet’s mess: Where’s Sir Elton when you need him ?!?!?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John#Sports_and_other_interests
I was at that game, and was one of the fans chanting “42 quid to watch the reserves” and many more. The logic employed is really questionable. Not only did some of those who fought their hearts out against Spurs and Bolton deserve to play at ManU, but the best team available should have been fielded. Especially if we were still going to lose 3-0. Confused, frustrated, and bewildered…
McCarthy was a disgrace last night.. To treat the Premier League and most of all the Wolves fans with such contempt needs looking into.
Ok, I’ll be the contrarian here: I believe Mick McCarthy made the right decision for his club last night in Manchester. As any intellectually honest Wolves fan will tell you, the only goal for the entire season is to stay in the Premier League. That’s it, end of story. It isn’t to play attractive football, or to go to Old Trafford and bring home a famous victory. It’s to finish in 17th place (or better).
McCarthy made the determination that the long-term interests of his team were better served by resting most of his starters for a game than risking injuries three days after a hard fought victory over Spurs. Even with the loss, Wolves have picked up six points out of the last nine, and they have a home game against Burnley coming up on the 20th where they can realistically expect to pick up points. Is any Wolves fan going to complain about 9 points from 12 without any additional injuries?
Sure, we all love to wax poetic about doing the “right” thing in sports and always going out there to win, but McCarthy has to worry about bigger things than that. A club of Wolves’ size and finances can’t trot out a reserve side of full internationals like Man United and Chelsea, so unfortunately they have to make strategic decisions that aren’t always palatable to the rest of us.
I’m going to agree with brad. Man united did the same in the champions league a few weeks back……I didn’t see anyone making a huge deal about it. Why should have Besikstas faced an easier opponents than wolfsburg?
Is it cynical? Yep. But it’s a tragic consequence of the modern game, when the gap between rich and poor is immense and relegation from the premier league or missing the champions league can send a team into a tailspin.
If the sport higherups want this sort of thing to change, it’s going to require a drastic re-organization of the game where money is spread around more evenly between teams.
I feel sorry for the first team players who must of dreamed of playing at old trafford since the promotion and then be told they have been dropped for the good of the team. I think it sucks as a bit of man management and it could backfire in two ways. One those who feel slighted because they where dropped from the biggest away game of the season and the second string how played and now are aware of where they fit in McCarthys plans.
Lets hope they need a point to stay up on the last day and some fields a second string team and sends them down!
Why is everyone forgetting that more than a few of “the first team players who must of dreamed of playing at old trafford since the promotion and then be told they have been dropped for the good of the team”…
ALREADY GOT BEAT EARLIER IN THE SEASON AT OLD TRAFFORD IN THE LEAGUE CUP AGAINST UNITED’s KIDS (mostly), NONETHELESS.
SAF made the same changes at Hull on the last day of the season, and the FA wrote to United in the same manner.
Look at what happened to Villa last season—O’Neil tried to play the best 11 from a small squad continuously and injuries/fatigue caught up with them. Many praised O’Neill for only playing a reserve squad in the Europa Cup, collectively saying that for Villa it is/will be all about getting 4th this year.
And they would be right.
Maybe someone should remind Wolves “supporters” that Mick McCarthy is the same manager who got a relatively inexperienced, extremely thin squad promoted against some rather unlikely odds.
When the fixture list was released, away at Spurs, just like away at United, would not have been venues anyone associated with Wolves would’ve been expecting to travel home with 3 points from; however, the inverse could be said for Burnley at home, who are in excellent form at home and poor form on the road, which is now looking like an absolute must win for Wolves.
Mick would not have expected the 3 points at Spurs, and we probably would’ve seen a much stronger squad had they lost.
If they get 3 points at home this weekend, Mick will be praised. Watch this interview: http://www.skysports.com/video/inline/0,26691,16475_5772690,00.html. In retrospect, you can hear the possiblity of the 10 changes rattling around in his head.
If they stay up, everyone will praise him for making a tough decision he knew full well would go down like a sinking ship.
Every player that played for Wolves at Old Trafford had already appeared in the league this season, and 6 internationals were on the field. Why is it only ok for the big teams to rest players?
If they go down, no one can realistically look at away at Old Trafford as the fixture that sunk them. Regardless of ticket price, this is the kind of shortsightedness that puts good managers under needless pressure.
It’s a shame that so many supporters of Wolves and those who couldn’t care less about Wolves’ survival are allowing Tuesday to take the shine off of Saturday, which was one of Wolves’ most massive league victories
—–perhaps since 2004 when they beat an injury plagued United team at the Molineaux with their best 11 on the field—–
Wolves got relegated that season, by the way, and Dave Jones was promptly sacked.
McCarthy was a disgrace last night.. To treat the Premier League and most of all the Wolves fans with such contempt needs looking into.
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