In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including what Ruben Amorim can expect at Man United, is Pep Guardiola ready to lead Man City for a few more years, why Thomas Tuchel has food for thought for England and why Mikel Arteta just isn’t very good. 

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Is Guardiola ready and able to lead City for another few years?

I think that Manchester City are just going through what is a cyclical process of all teams that are routine winners.

If you look at the bar that they set over the Pep Guardiola years so far, it’s been so high that it’s virtually impossible. We are talking about eight years of continued success whether it be Champions League, Premier Leagues, FA Cups, League Cups… they’ve won the lot.

To be able to do that, firstly, you need to completely overhaul the club every few years, which they’ve done successfully. From Aguero to Haaland as an example.

You look at the players that Pep inherited and the players that he has now, and there’s been a huge difference. He’s also massively improved players and they’re all playing at eight or nine out of 10. Not only that, Pep has also raised their awareness of the sport that they play, which I think will be good for coaching down the line with a number of players.

I do think though this is potentially the end of a cycle, and I think that the decision that needs to be made by the board is for them to go for another coach who will implement a new 6/7/8 year cycle.

Look, Pep could stay there for 20 years if he wants to, but he’s got to answer the questions himself. If it becomes about money, how much money does he need, because the club would pay him £20m a year no problem. They’ve got the best man in the in the world.

The other thing of course is that time waits for no man, and as you’ve got younger, fresher coaches coming through it will be very interesting to see how the likes of Amorim, for example, compare to him tactically and technically.

Is Pep a bit sick and tired of asking the same questions of his players week in and week out? Does that feeling transmit to players? Is he as fresh on the training ground as he once was? Is he as manic as he was?

Players that have won everything look around and go ‘do I want to push myself through that barrier again?’

I think it’s just the natural ending of a cycle and the only two main questions I’ve got is whether Pep has the hunger to be able to handle another 6/7/8 year cycle or could it be somebody else? And secondly, if the latter scenario is the case, at the end of this season could we see one of the more revolutionary Manchester City transfer windows, with the cull of up to eight first-team players?

Fergie’s United, the great Milan teams, the great Real Madrid teams, the great Barcelona teams… the cycle always ends. The question is whether Man City’s is about to or if Pep is committed, brave and resourceful enough to push himself through another few years.

Kane was right to moan about England players; now Tuchel has food for thought

I can understand Harry Kane’s view on players that are starting to dip out of England games, even if the context of this is that it’s the third or fourth international break in a year in a competition that is meh at best and whereby a lot of club managers and coaches will tell their players ‘be very careful, don’t put yourself on the line, we’ve got big games to come.’

Ryan Giggs used to do something similar for almost every Wales friendly, and it’s effectively managers saying that at this stage in the Nations League, it’s not important enough to be putting our players on the line – and I agree with them.

However, it’s very corrosive if you start having so many players missing. Once they start to dip out of Nations League games without any punishment but then walk back into the squad for a World Cup qualifier, for example, then it becomes about players getting special treatment.

I think that Harry Kane will actually have been briefed to let it be known how important it is to turn up for England on a regular basis, because I don’t think he’s a particularly contentious individual.

And surprise, surprise, when you don’t have the best players available, when players have just got to put the kit on, go out and do a job without all the big build up, lo and behold; Madueke, excellent. Ollie Watkins, a goal. Curtis Jones, excellent finish. Players like Morgan Gibbs White coming on.

Utilising a full squad of 23 poses questions such as is Harry Kane gonna start? Is Ollie Watkins going to start? Where’s Declan Rice? Where’s Bukayo Saka?

When you strip all that back, the manager can pick players who can look them in the eye and say that yes, EVERY Three Lions game is important to me.

Make no bones about it, just because Greece are low down in the rankings and we’re fourth, they turned us over at Wembley and we owed them one.

Without all the bells and whistles and the superstars that were going to turn up and give them a hiding I think a lot of England fans would have thought that we might just about nick a win and it might be boring.

The result on Thursday is proof that Thomas Tuchel must come in and almost be blind about the names. Get his scouts out there, pick on form, pick players for his system. If that means no Harry Kane, if that means no Jude Bellingham, if that means no Bukayo Saka, so be it.

The balance and blend was there in Greece in a way that it hasn’t been in the preceding games so it’s very much food for thought for Tuchel.

It’s very clear what Ruben Amorim should expect at Man United

So… Ruben Amarim has finally arrived in Manchester and quickly sent Ruud van Nistelrooy packing. That shouldn’t surprise anyone and I don’t think that the Dutchman needed to be pushed by the new man in order to get him out.

He will have expected it, and with his coaching staff going too, van Nistelrooy may find opportunities open up for him elsewhere. There are rumours of him going to West Ham so that’s one to watch.

In terms of Amorim coming in, I think that every good manager that I’ve played under, and every good manager that I’ve seen on day one says everybody’s got a clean slate.

Players that have been injured, players that were out in the wilderness, players that have been forced to train with the U21s, U23s or the kids get an arm around them. He’ll also want absolute honesty so that he can say to players like Luke Shaw, for example, ‘can you get to a level where you play 30 plus games a season?’

If the honest answer is no, then I think he’s got to get rid of those players because I think that if you look at winning teams, they have a lot of players that play a lot of games.

I know that in the last couple of seasons Kevin De Bruyne has had his injury problems, but that was after the bulk of being involved in all of Man City’s major triumphs.

Man United need all of their players to buy into what Amorim wants to do, and that will be fresh, lively and intense training sessions, which will be taken through into games. It will be hanging on his every word. It might be picking out three or four trusted senior players in the dressing room to cover all his bases but everybody has to play their part.

It’s very simple. If a player’s level isn’t right, they have to understand that they’re going to be on the bench or not even in a match day squad under Amorim. I think that kind of clear communication has obviously been lacking across the board at Manchester United but now is the perfect time for that to change.

Arteta just isn’t very good and is full of waffle

I immediately thought Mikel Arteta was full of bs, waffle and modern coaching tricks when he was handed the manager’s job at Arsenal.

The reality of the Arsenal fanbase too is, perhaps more than any other club, that they’ve a divine right to win the lot every season. To illustrate the point, I retweeted and commented on an Arsenal Fan TV tweet when one of the guys said “I think we could go invincible this season.”

It’s only a few games in and there’s nothing that’s changed in years. Pitches are beautiful. Sun is shining. Arsenal are incredible. Three nil, four nil, five nil, brilliant but all the ‘this is the year’ talk is more than a little grating.

Don’t forget that in each of those years they’ve significantly invested. This is Mikel Arteta’s team now, and these are Mikel Arteta’s players. He has broken the bank for the likes of Declan Dice who, dare I say, has been below par so far this season.

Players that came in that were supposed to be winners from a winning club Manchester City – Zinchenko and Jesus – are nothing more than bit part players.

How many players has Arteta actually brought in that were seen to be title-winning level players, and how many of them has he made significantly better? Ben White? Kai Havertz? Thomas Partey? Declan Rice?

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What about Martin Odegaard? He was the guy at age 15 at Real Madrid that was meant to go on and be a world beater anyway, so surely he would have got to this point of maturity whereby he has an impact on somebody’s first team.

The classic question is how many players in the Arsenal squad has Mikel Arteta turned from average to good, good to very good, very good to great? And if you compare that with Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Unai Emery and others, he doesn’t come across very well at all.

Forget results, because results come as a consequence of you making those players better.

It’s not about whether he’s a nice guy, it’s not whether he’s fresh and young or he’s from the Pep Guardiola Barcelona school of coaching… How many players has Arteta actually made significantly better and, Arsenal fans, I want you to answer that honestly.

The post Collymore’s Column: Is Pep still the man for City, Tuchel’s food for thought, Arteta just isn’t very good and more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Ruben Amorim’s challenge at Man United, why Rodri was a worthy Ballon d’Or, the shame of Real Madrid for not attending the awards and much more. 

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Amorim needs to be a manager first and a coach second

INEOS get a one or two out of 10 for not getting rid of Erik ten Hag last June, but 10 out of 10 for actually doing it when it needed to be done – ie right now.

I think that most people thought that when he got the contract extension, that meant that ten Hag would get till the end of the season. That INEOS would then basically look at the situation and make a decision based on that.

But the results and performance are more important. They’ve been so poor that making the decision now was absolutely the right thing to do.

In terms of Ruben Amorim taking over, he’s a guy that is well respected and well regarded as a coach, and has a very defined way of playing, like Klopp, Slot and Pep.

My theory is that we’re getting back to the days of an old fashioned manager. Not just a head coach that gets out on the training pitch but someone who manages people.

Erik ten Hag had the ability to coach but he wasn’t a manager. You could tell he didn’t have the respect or the charisma or the character to get people along the journey with him. He massively and painfully lacked that, to the point that at times you thought to yourself, is he deluded?

What Manchester United need now is a manager. Unai Emery is a classic example. People say he’s a really good coach and he’s got a defined style of play which he absolutely has, but you look at him and the way that the players talk about him.

If Amorim is going to be successful, he has to gravitate back towards a situation that worked for over 100 years in association football; be a manager that has coaching ability. Be a man that has the belief, the spirit, the soul, the character and the personality to bring your players along with you, every step of the way.

Let’s see what he’s got.

Barcelona have been brilliant under Flick but there’s still work to do

When Barcelona were hit by near bankruptcy they needed to look in their near view mirror, not the rear view. It forced them to confront a few facts.

They were no longer able to compete in the space race with Premier League clubs for the best players. Unable to outspend them, which seemed trendy and funky beforehand, Barca had to start thinking about being organic in their growth. They had to look internally at what they had rather than letting players move on, adding to the grand ecosystem that is European football in the process.

Fast forward to today and Hansi Flick is doing a fantastic job. I think he’s fairly understated in his post-match comments, but he gives off the aura of a manager that can manage players.

All you want as a player is to go in from Monday to Saturday and look at a manager that you respect because you know he has the experience to be able to guide you. Flick gives that off in spades.

From a club perspective, with a very prodigious young talent in Lamine Yamal, everybody can see that, once again, Barcelona is a very fertile environment for young players.

La Masia players will think “he’s only two years older than me, I can do that,” and that’s the biggest compliment I can pay the club.

Does it mean that they’re back?

I think there’s still plenty to do, but when you are beating teams of the caliber of Real Madrid and Bayern Munich by multiples of goals, it’s fair to say that if you could add consistency on and off the pitch to that, you are going to get back to where you feel you need to be quicker than most clubs, because of the sheer size of the club.

Real Madrid trio can’t be expected to reach Ronaldo or Messi levels every week

I think that the issue with Vinicius, Junior, Bellingham and Kylian Mbappe is that they’re not quite as good as a lot of people believe.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re all very good players in their own right and because of their age, they’re all going to get significantly better.

However, what we’ve done as a global football community is go looking for the next Ronaldo and the next Messi, so these three guys are going be expected to hit those heights every week.

If they don’t, the wider footballing community are just going to say that they’re not good enough.

Do I think that Mbappe will get anywhere near breaking Ronaldo’s records? No. I think he’s very useful for Real Madrid, but he has to accept that he’s not the political boss in the dressing room as he was at Paris Saint-Germain.

Do I think Vini Jr is as good as Messi at traveling with the ball? No. He has too much confidence and cockiness and he just isn’t as good as he thinks he is.

Do I think that Jude Bellingham yet has the consistency and skill set of the likes of a Toni Kroos or a Luka Modric? No. He’s now getting used to the the grind of 60 plus games a season as a midfielder/attacking midfielder but he’s got a way to go.

If they are at fault, it’s because they’ve allowed their sponsors or people around them to try and elevate them to greatness far too early. Messi and Ronaldo did the business first and then would perhaps appear in a commercial venture. These younger players are trying to do it in reverse and there’s the issue.

But let’s not forget that they are all league winners, and both Bellingham and Vini Jr have won the Champions League too, so they’ve already won some of the best trophies there are to win.

I think that what we’re talking about is a mythical Ronaldo and Messi playing 10 out of 10 every week and therefore any direct comparison with them is only going to ensure that no one matches up.

Arsenal and Liverpool will both be happy with a point

I don’t know the exact statistics on it, but you would say that Mikel Arteta, Pep Guardiola and Arne Slot might tell their dressing rooms that they’ll only be able to lose one or two games in the season if they want to win the title. That’s the that’s the reality of the situation.

So their respective clubs can either draw six or lose two, but not any more than that.

It focuses the players minds so that they know that they’ve got to perform week in and week out, and that’s why you see lots of goals going in late. So, Arsenal score goals at home with players out, against a team that has the best defensive record in the country.

Yes, they’ll be kind of disappointed, but I would imagine that on the chalkboard at Arsenal’s training ground that if they’re crunching the numbers, they’ll look at it and say for us to be champions, we’ve got to win one of the two games against City, or we’ve got to not be beaten by them at all – and I would imagine Liverpool are in that equation as well.

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Arsenal started off very well, as they seem to have done in the last seven or eight games against Liverpool, and I also thought that the Reds had chunks of the game, 10/15, minute spells, particularly in the second half, where they kept the ball and they created opportunities on the counter attack.

Overall, with the likes of Saliba missing for example, I think that that’s a very good point for both teams and it instills confidence that they’re playing against the very best in the country, and being able to compete.

I think that both managers were generally relaxed with the result and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they didn’t both chalk that one down as a point earned.

Rodri is a worthy Ballon d’Or and Real Madrid have brought shame on themselves

Along with Luka Modric, Rodri is the purest player on the planet.

I don’t think you could argue with most of the Ballon d’Or’s of Ronaldo or Messi in terms of the levels that they were hitting, but it’s really simple for me.

Individual consistency of performances at a level that others can’t get to, for a period of time that is significant, a player that creates moments that significantly add to your team winning trophies… that’s simple, linear criteria and Rodri ticks all of those boxes.

He’s been the mainstay of a Manchester City team where he’s been the best player and most consistent player, and he’s scored big goals in big games to help win trophies over a period of time.

Rodri. Ballon d’Or. The end.

As for Real Madrid not turning up to the gala, I thought it was really mealy mouthed and borderline shameful.

A trophy let’s not forget that they’ve massively helped overhype, and because their new star boy hasn’t got the glory, they go and make such a big deal about it.

If it’s true that Vinicius was handing out Rolexes to helpful, friendly team-mates along the way and having an all-night celebration party before the result was officially announced, I think that’s a massive red flag too.

The post Collymore’s column: Amorim’s challenge, Real Madrid’s shame and much more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why Thomas Tuchel is the wrong appointment for England, what Amanda Staveley’s potential investment in Tottenham could mean and why he doesn’t care about the Ballon d’Or awards.

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Tuchel’s appointment is a damning indictment on English football

I think that Thomas Tuchel’s appointment by the FA is a damning indictment on the notion of building St George’s Park and Wembley to be able to create a pathway for English coaches.

That’s dead in the water, because apart from Lee Carsley, you might throw in one or two minor names that have come through the system but there’s not a de la Fuente, for example.

We’re as far away as ever and we need to hold the FA to account as the guardian of the English game. They’re supposed to be pumping money into the game so that coaches are able to achieve a better and higher standard of coaching.

Gareth Southgate was an FA man but didn’t really come through that St. George’s Park system and the likes of Eddie Howe, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard weren’t invited into the FA system when they finished playing.

Graham Potter had to go to Sweden, Eddie Howe was obviously at Bournemouth and Burnley, Gerrard was at Rangers, Lampard at Derby and Wayne Rooney over in MLS.

The FA has to make a more persuasive argument to get top quality players into the system on a more regular basis, and it’s clear where another of the problems lay too.

There is no incentive for them to do so at the moment. I had a look earlier this week, and the cost to undertake the FA Pro Licence is £13,700 – and that’s if you can get on a course.

About two or three years ago, it was just €1,800 to do the equivalent of the Pro Licence course in Spain, and they’ve got 2,200 coaches that have qualified. By comparison, England has 200.

So if you’re a guy that is a good amateur coach, a national league, League One or League Two player that’s coming to the end of your career, with the greatest respect to anybody, £13,700 is a lot of money to find.

If you’re having to pay 10 times as much in England than abroad to become a coach, then you’re going to have 10 times less in terms of coaching numbers.

That means the odds of the FA finding a Pep Guardiola or an Unai Emory in house are 10 times less. Simple maths.

That’s one problem. The second one is why are there so few places on courses?

There’s no clear, consistent, cost, effective pathway for English coaches, and it now goes to show, along with the Pep Guardiola rumours, that the pleading poverty and ‘we don’t want to buy out contracts’ stuff is a load of rubbish.

The FA have got more money than sense. The last instalment for Wembley was paid off in June, so we might now see a situation whereby Mark Bullingham could follow Thomas Tuchel if the German isn’t successful.

The simple reason why Thomas Tuchel shouldn’t be allowed to manage England

International Football is about people from one nation versus people from another.

However, there’s been a genuine ‘clubification’ of international football over the past few years. Everything from players swapping allegiance (higher profile, bigger contracts playing for the glamour nation if they’re dual nationality), to high profile coaches effectively using international football as a nice part-time job before the next one of half a dozen plum jobs comes up.

It’s turning the purest form of the sport a farce.

A simple remedy is you declare, aged 18 and on signing a pro contract as a pro player or in completion of your pro licence as a coach, which country you wish to play for. Which country that you’re eligible to play for or coach.

The joke of players picking one country after representing another then ends, and countries via UEFA and FIFA can concentrate resources on making sure EVERY football nation knows who they can pick but more importantly know who to invest money in on their coaching pathway.

That would mean Tuchel can only manage Germany and Declan Rice, Jack Grealish etc would have had to make a choice aged 18 and back themselves as adults to make and stick to that choice.

I take a flag and travel almost everywhere to support and opine about England, and I can assure you that this England fan will give Tuchel the same support and excitement as Bobby Robson or Gareth Southgate got.

So this isn’t about him or anyone else being from outside England.

But at some point, international football has to be the people, culture, style and substance of that nation versus the same qualities of another. Otherwise it ceases to be international football, which then begs the question where does it end?

FIFA pressured to change rules to allow a new Messi to give up playing for Argentina and playing for the USA because it’s a ‘bigger market’?

Trust me, if the FA could have done that legally over the last 58 years of hurt, you know full well Cantona, Salah, Bergkamp, Henry and others would have been sounded out to play for ‘the country that pays them.’

Tuchel will get the warmest welcome from me and I’m sure 99% of England fans, but if you cherish international football then we need to go back to it’s fundamental reason of existing.

A team of people from one country versus a team of people from another. That means the kit man, the physio, player, Dr, everything.

Otherwise we may as well call it something novel… club football.

Vinicius’ Ballon d’Or win will be worthless

I think that the high water mark for the Ballon d’Or was during the Messi and Ronaldo era, quite simply because they were two exceptional players putting out exceptional numbers week in and week out.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t care about the Ballon d’Or at all. If it didn’t exist, there’s still the PFA Player of the Year, the PFA Young Player of the Year, Player of the Tournament in the Champions League, La Liga’s best player etc etc.

The awards are just an opportunity for a junket. A full gala dinner for the great and the good to get together, some glad handing, some networking, and an opportunity for FIFA to get ahead in a day and age where the Premier League, La Liga and UEFA generally tend to rule the football roost.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have something that acknowledges the best and I get why it exists, but let’s be perfectly honest the Ballon d’Or is more for the eight to 21 year old demographic. People beyond that just don’t really care about it.

They know what they see when they go and see their club. They know what they see when they stick on the television, in terms of the people this year that are in the running for it. I mean, Harry Kane out scoring everybody in Germany should be in there.

I think that Vinicius Junior being given the award this year – if the rumours are confirmed – is so subjective. It’s still likely to be affected by friends in the game and tactical voting, whereas it should be a strict merit-based system, based on criteria that is known.

Or it just needs to be retired full stop.

Amanda Staveley’s potential investment in Tottenham shows her business nous

I think Amanda Staveley is a new type of leech on the game of football, really I do.

She’s obviously very clever because she’s somebody that hasn’t got billions but is extraordinarily well connected to people that use their money to buy big assets, and rumours of an investment in Tottenham would provide her with a very quick and very effective way of making a huge return.

I get why Spurs would be seen as a a potential hostile takeover with Middle East businessman first buying a small amount of shares, then gradually buying the whole club. The suggestion from recent news reports were that it was 12.5 percent for £700 million, and then the Qataris would chew off the percentages until they bought the lot.

It makes absolute sense to buy Tottenham too. They’re in London and they’ve got a fantastic stadium which is arguably the best in the country if not the world. They’’re a known and historic name, and are massively underperforming in terms of what people could legitimately expect from them on the pitch.

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The tradition of London also means something to the Sheikhs. The Shard and other landmarks in the capital were funded by Qatari money for example, and these things have massive clout in the Middle East. To be able to buy big, iconic British brands are seen as a solid and sound investment.

All of the 13 or 14 London clubs within the M25 should be rubbing their hands together though, because there’ll be a queue of sheikhs as long as your arm that will be wanting to invest in London landmarks and sporting entities, as these will become big levers of power for them.

Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy could be offered something ridiculous like £6bn to get out, and then Amanda Staveley, by putting in relatively little of her own money, will walk away with an astounding amount.

The post Collymore’s column: Tuchel’s appointment is damning and damaging for the FA and more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why Erik ten Hag is finished at Man United, his worry for old pal Gareth Southgate if he took over at Old Trafford, a simple solution to stop set pieces being and a look at a brilliant week in the Champions League for English clubs.

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Erik ten Hag is finished but Southgate would be a worry

After Sunday’s Man United performance, I think Erik ten Hag is finished. By what metric are we judging him? Results? If so, his results have been poor.

People were putting up graphics of Gary Neville’s Valencia team recently, and just like Neville’s time in Spain, ten Hag doesn’t have the personality, authority or gravitas to carry Manchester United football club to where they need to be.

Whether you like it or not, and people say ‘come on, Stan, we don’t need the big personalities anymore, surely, it’s just all about the coaching,’ the fact of the matter is United need someone almost picking up, metaphorically, a flag and carrying it forward saying, ‘charge.’

Everybody pulling in the same direction, from the players to the staff to the supporters. Don’t underestimate that feeling.

Enzo Maresca can get away with being head coach at Chelsea because he’s got a good group of young players, and the perception is that he’s a quality coach to bring the best out of them. Arne Slot was left with a sort of golden legacy, if you like, and the big personality of Jurgen Klopp who carried everybody forward with him.

The manager of Manchester United football club has to be the standard bearer that goes ‘nobody’s coming to Old Trafford and winning.’ There’s no smiles, there’s no greeting opposition players and managers on the pitch and swapping shirts. Old Trafford has to be a fortress, and for it to be a fortress, everybody has got to play their part.

Players have got to make it hostile, and the manager has got to talk obsessively and only about Manchester United. Not about City, Arsenal or Liverpool. Erik ten Hag just doesn’t have that in him.

He would’ve been a good coach coming in on the back of a golden era where pretty much everything had looked after itself, and all he needed to do was coach the players.

But they need a leader, and solely a leader now, and ten Hag isn’t one.

Looking at his potential replacement, I have 10 out of 10 respect for Gareth Southgate. I’ve played with him twice. I knew him from being a kid at Crystal Palace, and we played in the same reserve team. We made our debuts on the same day at Anfield for Palace and he was my captain at Aston Villa.

We’ve remained in touch ever since and I have nothing but respect for the job that he’s done for the England national team.

He will make Manchester United a thriving culture, because he’s very much the man for knitting the parts together of an organisation to make it function. Given half a chance at Manchester United, he will do all the right things behind the scenes.

However, my worry is that his last club job was 20 years ago, when Middlesbrough did get relegated on his watch. Club management, as he will know, is very different on a day to day basis to being the England head coach, where you where you turn up every two or three months, albeit under immense pressure come tournament time.

Don’t underestimate the global fan base either, the Goldbridge’s of this world, The United Stand, 16 different fanzines and fan groups… they will tear Southgate apart.

I cannot foresee a situation whereby Gareth Southgate can turn around the Manchester United team quickly enough and sufficiently enough to satisfy the board or supporters, and that will only see him having to put up with insane levels of disrespect. I can’t see Graham Potter doing that job either though.

Poch has the US job and why would Unai Emery leave a sparkling Villa side?! So it leaves the field fairly barren to be perfectly honest, and that’s why ten Hag kept the job in the first place. A little bit of continuity.

I think the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer stuff is ridiculous. He didn’t do the job that he was paid to do the last time, so the fact that you love him, he scored an iconic goal in a Champions League final and he’s very good with youngsters, as well as having a lovely smiley baby face… he still shouldn’t be in the conversation for one of the world’s biggest jobs.

Ten Hag never had the support of the Man United dressing room

I don’t think Erik ten Hag ever had the support of the Man United dressing room if I’m being perfectly honest.

I think that when you win a couple of cups, you get the halo effect and all of a sudden go away as a player and think, ‘well, actually, maybe there is more to this guy.’

However, Man United haven’t played with any identity, with any belief, with any authority since he’s been there. That’s just the truth.

There’s been two or three games, including the cup final against Man City that was, without a doubt, the big reason why INEOS decided to keep him. Why wouldn’t they? They’d just beaten arguably the best team on the planet who are also their noisy neighbours. It was at Wembley, and they’d given their fans an unforgettable memory.

There’s absolutely nothing to suggest beyond that, however, in your bog standard league games, that Manchester United are feared or even respected anymore in the way that they were on the football pitch.

If INEOS would have been a little bit more analytical and clearer, perhaps without contract extensions and the like being in play, and said ‘we’re going to give our manager until Christmas,’ then everyone would know the score for a few months. Then, if results aren’t as expected, the doors close on his tenure.

Players pick up on things and though they’ve got their professional pride to play for, I doubt that there’ll be one player that’s playing for the manager. Not one.

They’re so bad at the moment, there is zero chance of Manchester United getting back into the Champions League positions this season, and that’s a sorry state of affairs.

Simple solution to players kicking the ball away

The issue of players kicking balls away or delaying set pieces is a really easy one to solve.

Bring in a law or a rule that a player, when the referee has blown his whistle, is not allowed to touch the ball. No player is allowed to pick it up, to move it, to roll it… until the referee has blown the whistle a second time.

Whether it’s a corner or a free kick, and the official might have to give a signal that accompanies it as well as a bit of literature that goes around Premier League dressing rooms, no player on the pitch is allowed to touch the ball until the referee blows the whistle again.

There’s a huge grey area at the moment that if the referee blows the whistle and the ball is dead, players are just trying to take up their position.

It’s a habit that they’ve got into and been told to do by coaches and managers. ‘Go and stand on the ball, move the ball, kick the ball, stop the ball. Don’t retreat 10 yards…’

I think if the referee took ownership of that particular situation, he bends down, picks the ball up, marches five or six yards and puts it wherever he needs to put it, it’ll immediately stop the the habit of players getting in his way.

It will also stop the situation like that which happened to Kyle Walker during the Arsenal game.

English clubs have been a joy to watch in the Champions League

The Aston Villa performance and result against Bayern Munich was great for everyone and particularly the younger Villa fans that haven’t seen anything like this in their lifetimes. Everybody left Villa Park in good spirits at the end of the game, walking off and singing songs.

This week’s Champions League fixtures have been excellent for the English clubs. Liverpool have now played two and won two, Villa have played two and won two, City and Arsenal are both on four points after much improved performances.

A clean sheet for Arsenal against PSG, one for Villa against Bayern…

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You can never really look beyond the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or Juventus, those kind of clubs, when it comes to the Champions League, but I do wonder, with this format, whether we’re going to see some big clubs spat out fairly early. Milan, for example, have played two and lost two.

Before you might have had a Champions League group done and dusted after three or four games, whereas now I genuinely think, especially because you have this really weird situation of not playing teams home and away, everybody has to turn up. Everybody’s up for it.

I’m really enjoying it. Enjoying watching English clubs navigate the Premier League and the ‘new’ Champions League.

So far so good. A clean bill of health for English clubs, but with lots of football still to be played terms and conditions still apply.

The post Collymore’s column: Ten Hag is finished, I’m worried for Southgate, viva Villa and more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including what Rodri’s absence means for Man City, why Michael Oliver got it wrong at the weekend plus much more.

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Pep will issue a clarion call despite Rodri’s injury

If Man City are the champions that they are, Rodri’s absence shouldn’t affect them at all. People keep seeing graphics of games won without Rodri, games won with Rodri and it’s obviously very stark, but somebody has to step up to the plate and make sure that City retain another title.

Pep Guardiola won’t be speaking about Rodri on the training ground and he won’t be speaking about him in the dressing room either, because once you start, in a team game, to suggest that one person is the sort of the icing on the cake or the magic elixir of life, then you get yourself a real problem.

Rodri isn’t irreplaceable. John Stones made a difference at the weekend and can play in midfield, whilst Matheus Nunes has, apparently, been the one told to step up.

There’s this narrative that if Rodri plays City win or if Rodri doesn’t play, City lose. That’s not strictly true, of course, because Man City still win a hefty amount of games without him.

However, this is now a really good chance for Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Villa and all the other pretenders and wannabes to push City hard all the way through the season.

There’s no doubt that Rodri’s injury is going to level the playing field somewhat, but I think that Pep will rightly will be shouting from the rooftops of the dressing room today; ‘we’re the champions, we’ve won four out of the last five titles, we don’t feel sorry for ourselves.”

Michael Oliver got it wrong in City vs Arsenal… twice

I think that when a captain is called out of position and has a discussion with a ref, it is absolutely right and proper to wait until he’s back in position before an opposition player can have the chance of taking a quick free-kick. Particularly, as in Kyle Walker’s case, if you’re a right back.

It’s not as if he was just two or three yards away from the action when he was called over by Michael Oliver during the Arsenal game.

It’s a really big talking point because we’re all clear on the new directive that only the captains can now approach the match officials.

Walker was out of position when Arsenal took their free-kick, something the referee should’ve acknowledged – and which he already knew, to be perfectly honest.

As long as a captain hasn’t been dragged way out of position, then the referee is well within his rights to signal a quick free-kick, but that isn’t what happened at the weekend.

When I was at Liverpool, we always had it drummed into us to take a quick free-kick wherever you can. So you got the ball down, you’ve got it in front of the referee, and you take it because the opposition team are still out of shape.

This latest tweaking of the rules seems like a quirk in the system which has been found out quite early, and it’s going to have to have referees very aware that it’s not just a player coming over and talking to them, it’s a captain.

I do think that we can both have a quick free kick and allow a captain get back into his position. They’re not mutually exclusive.

Sticking with Sunday’s big game, I did think that Erling Haaland throwing the ball at Gabriel Magalhaes was funny, but it was still ungentlemanly conduct – or unsportsmanlike behaviour if you prefer.

Daniel Levy will make enemies of Tottenham fans

Daniel Levy has almost become the poster boy that other clubs want to follow, and his contention that he ignores supporter criticism of him certainly isn’t good PR for the club.

At my own club Aston Villa, there’s been a lot of criticism around the head of business affairs charging for disabled parking and the like, causing the club to backtrack – but there’s still not been an apology.

I think that awful situation and Levy’s attitude towards Tottenham fans are examples of an Americanisation of English sport whereby you are treated as a customer that should have no emotional link to the product.

You pay your money for the product, and clubs will give you the commensurate entertainment for the product – and that’s it. The fact that you’re a fan and your dad’s been coming for years doesn’t matter.

Back in the day you were herded into pens at ropey old grounds, you paid your two quid to go in and you might be able to get a beer and a warm roll, if you’re lucky.

Now you’ve got brand new stadiums that have state-of-the-art facilities, you’ve got a seat, you’ve got a concourse, you’ve got a great view with no restricted views anymore and you’re watching superstars from around the world.

Daniel Levy is effectively saying ‘everything’s been built for you, stop moaning. You’ve got the best of everything and if you don’t like it, somebody will come in and pay more money.’

Unfortunately for him, when this chapter of English football history is written, Daniel Levy will be seen as the man that effectively put his fingers in his ears.

Julen Lopetegui must be given time at West Ham

Is Julen Lopetegui a man that’s capable? The answer is yes. He wouldn’t have had the jobs that he’s had if he wasn’t a capable coach.

I think that where he rubs people up the wrong way is that he’s probably one of those guys within the club that once he’s got his feet under the desk, he wants things done his way and he’s probably not the most tactful of guys.

Unai Emery is a very good ‘football politician’ who knows how to play that side of the game and has surrounded himself with four or five of his men at Aston Villa. He’s insulated from the chairman, the owner, the director of football; all of the big decision makers at the club effectively. So if and when things start to go wrong, the club need to consider whether they’ll want to sack a handful of very important people.

Lopetegui doesn’t have that luxury at West Ham.

The issue he has now is that he hasn’t got results behind him, so he has to get a few wins on the board quickly or he’ll be under mounting pressure.

David Moyes was on Keys and Gray at the weekend which, whether we like it or not, has traction in the English language, and so a lot of people are going to get to watch David Moyes talking again about his philosophy in the game, and how he’s putting himself back out there again. I can see the narrative and what’s potentially coming.

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From my perspective, it’s really simple for Lopetegui; he’s probably got to win two thirds of his games before the Christmas break to have a chance of then going “it’s taken a little bit of time, but here we are to silence the doubters.”

Lopetegui’s been at Real Madrid, the Spanish national team, Wolverhampton Wanderers… there are people that will say if you give this guy time, he’ll get you to the promised land.

On Sky Sports the other day they talked about the new manager bounce, and the percentage points of the new manager bounce is relatively small. If the West Ham board were to pick the phone up at Christmas and get David Moyes back, the odds of him being better is about 2%, which would keep them in the position that West Ham currently in, around 12th/13th/14th in the table. Is that really worth doing?

Your move, West Ham.

Top photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images, Carl Recine/Getty Images and Michael Regan/Getty Images

The post Collymore’s column: Pep’s clarion call, Michael Oliver got it wrong and more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Villa’s Champions League debut, Brennan Johnson’s social media abuse plus much more.

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Villa’s brilliant UCL debut hands them advantage in captivating new format

I looked at the Champions League table this morning, and I saw Bayern Munich, then Celtic, then Aston Villa.

It’s going to be a tough old series of games and a massive test for Villa, but I’m actually more confident than going to lots of places like Young Boys.

I think that when you’ve got so many big games – Bayern at home, Juventus at home, Celtic at home – interspersed with Monaco and Club Brugge, that Villa are more comfortable in that kind of environment.

When you’re paired against minnows, with respect, it’s very difficult to be up for a European night.

UEFA changed the format to stop the issue at the latter stages where the big teams had already qualified and the smaller teams knew that they were going to go into the Europa League, so everything was a little bit ‘meh.’

Now that isn’t the case, and big teams could be going into the final game of the league set up needing to win – so it drags that little bit extra out of you.

I was incredibly critical of this new league phase because none of us really like massive change, but I think that we’ll get better games, stranger outcomes for longer and ultimately, you have to put your hands up and say that’s what we want as fans.

That jeopardy and the need to get points in most games makes it a captivating and fascinating watch.

Man City should be relegated to the National League if found guilty

My bar on whether Man City beat the charges against them is set very low because when you are employing best-in-class lawyers, who are finding out every single part of law, that’s an obvious advantage.

It’s the red tape, it’s the ‘you didn’t file this before midday’ or a ‘paragraph that includes a sentence that we consider factually incorrect, so we want the whole document struck out.’

If they are found guilty they should be starting, in my opinion, in the National League.

Getting relegated to the Championship and having two or three windows where they’re not allowed to compete in the transfer market isn’t likely to see any of their big names leave.

If, however, you’re kicked out of the Premier League and you’re kicked out of the Football League, that really sends out the strongest possible message.

And the reality is that the National League would welcome them with open arms, because it’s Man City, and they would generate a significant amount of revenue.

Allegedly, it’s taken the club a number of years to run roughshod over the rules in order to be able to get a competitive advantage over other clubs, so it has to follow that it takes a number of years to get back up to the Premier League.

Erling Haaland, Rodri and Jack Grealish et al aren’t staying put if their best years of their playing career are spent in the lower reaches of the English football pyramid.

If we look back in 10 years and see City have had dropped down one division whilst winning 15 trophies, the owners of other big clubs are likely to think that’s a risk worth taking.

Fans need to lay off social media abuse if they want authenticity from their stars

I saw a clip of Brennan Johnson being pushed by his team-mates last night in the League Cup towards the away end, and he literally just put his hands together three times, a little clap and turned away.

After the social media abuse directed at him, that was a message to the Spurs fans at Coventry and supporters more generally.

If I was still playing today, given how outspoken I was then never mind today, I’d have probably been deleting my Instagram, my X, my Tiktok etc. every single week.

I remember in the early days, I was the first current or former player to use Twitter, and I started to use it on talkSPORT as a great tool to get real time feedback from supporters.

Now we already have a situation where lots of players accounts are managed by their people, and you just see a very sanitised version of themselves.

I think that fans want authenticity in their superstars but aside from the likes of Marcus Rashford, a lot of players’ social media is very, very benign.

What I’d say to supporters is, if you want to engage with your heroes on social media, don’t send them nasty messages. It’s that simple.

And for players like Brennan Johnson, I’d say one thing; if deleting your social media means that you’re able to get the maximum out of your career, you go right ahead son.

Eddie Howe could be on borrowed time if trophies aren’t around the corner

(Photo by Carl Recine/Carl Recine)

Any arguments or heated disagreements between club management, directors of football and the general management of the club are necessary, and if you can’t have those, you’re in real trouble.

News that Eddie Howe are Paul Mitchell are apparently at loggerheads doesn’t surprise me. You don’t want a dictatorship, otherwise you end up with what Chelsea had initially under Todd Bohely.

If Eddie Howe were to leave Newcastle, I think it would be the club moving on from him rather than the other way around.

I think that they’ve started the season relatively okay, and with no European football this season, there are no players flying here, there and everywhere with their country. That means Howe has no excuses in terms of bringing further success to the club.

If Newcastle are fifth, sixth or seventh at a time when the likes of Aston Villa are juggling lots of different balls, I’m sure that a director of football would have been given the remit by the ownership to say, keep your eye out for other people.

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It would be ridiculous for Newcastle United to not have a hit-list too in case Eddie Howe decided tomorrow, for example, that, he wanted to move elsewhere.

In any event, I don’t think Eddie Howe is the man for longer term and the one to get them winning titles. I just don’t.

Why wouldn’t Newcastle even openly say Eddie Howe is our manager but if we don’t hit these quite incredible high notes consistently, then we could look elsewhere in order to continue to move forward?

I’m watching that situation with interest at the moment.

Top photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP, Stu Forster/Getty Images, Carl Recine

The post Collymore’s column: Man City to the National League, brilliant Villa, Howe not the man for Newcastle and more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Chelsea’s civil war, Cristiano Ronaldo’s latest dig at Erik Ten Hag and why fewer long-range shots are being taken by top-flight players, plus much more.

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Chelsea’s civil war shows just how far the Blues have fallen

What a farce! Two parts of the ownership structure want to buy the other out after dropping a billion on, to date, subpar players.

Why would Chelsea fans want either of the parties involved in their club?

Surely Chelsea have reached the point now where they could find a dozen fit and proper owners who would run the ship properly? — There has been no forward-thinking, no growth and very little performance progression under the Todd Boehly / Clearlake regime.

Manchester United’s losses tell English football’s sad story

Let’s be honest here, the losses Manchester United have recently posted weren’t a good look.

For arguably England’s biggest club to have any losses after 30 years of Premier League and Champions League money and success is a damning indictment on the post-Sir Alex Ferguson years and lack of investment and vision from the Glazer family.

It’s also a damning indictment on English football as a whole. If our biggest club can’t be in the black with satisfied owners taking reasonable dividends, a full staff of happy employees treated as you’d expect top class organisation to treat staff, instead of austerity, owners who now won’t budge and take take take, leaving redundancies and staff cuts, then what chance do other clubs have in this waste waste waste that has been the hallmark of the last 25 years in English football?

Manchester United should never have debt. They should always have plenty of money and should always be able to compete. Why? Because they have a master supporter base and huge attendances — it’s a sad and very telling tale of English football, not just Manchester United.

Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t wrong, but he was half the problem

On the subject of the Red Devils, I agree with Cristiano Ronaldo when he says everything needs to be rebuilt at Manchester United.

I hope he’s being ironic though — because his return for a second spell at Old Trafford to many was proof the club had lost it’s marbles.

United, with Ronaldo there for a second time, became a club of headlines, headline makers and galactic nonsense rather than being a serious football club.

The truth is that a Manchester United in its groove, competing for the biggest honours and having recruitment, management and its finances in order wouldn’t have caved in to the “will he, won’t he go to City?” saga which saw United desperate to not be left behind in Manchester, never mind England.

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In my opinion, Erik Ten Hag is a dead man walking but Ronaldo’s comments should only serve to remind United fans of the circus that the Dutchman came into rather than any pile-on comments the mercurial Portuguese now makes.

Fewer long-range shots being taken

So the stats say that fewer shots are being taken and scored from in top flight football.

For someone who scored more than my fair share (left and right footed, I’ll have you know!) of outside the box screamers, this stat is both disappointing and frustrating.

Disappointing because the metronomic — a five yard pass maximum, almost hockey-esque nature of the game along with less risk means that fans are being short changed, fans who literally go to football to see players do something that they can’t. It’s frustrating because you see the talent of players on offer. Take Jack Grealish as one example — we see a player with all of the ability to drift, shimmy, glide and wow but he’s had his wings clipped under the discipline of Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola is not to blame of course, he employs a system to win games, not win style points, but his puritan way of playing the game isn’t just halting freedom of expression, it has created teams who walk the ball into the net and therefore are less likely to take on shots 20 or more yards out.

Perfection would be marrying the two arts together….

The post Collymore’s column: Chelsea’s civil war, Cristiano Ronaldo’s ironic comments and why fewer long-range shots has turned football boring appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including his former club’s recent decision to increase ticket prices, Cole Palmer’s omission from Chelsea’s European squad and why Man United must sack Erik Ten Hag, plus much more.

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Aston Villa ripping season-ticket holders off is a disgrace

There is a lot of excitement surrounding Aston Villa at the moment.

Off the pitch, there have been stadium renovations and good partnership agreements reached with the likes of Adidas who will now manufacture the kits.

On the pitch, the good times are back thanks to Unai Emery. After finishing fourth in the Premier League last season, we’re now on the verge of kicking off our Champions League campaign — the first time we’ve been in the competition since 1982!

Despite all of this though, the club, who have decided to charge season ticket-holders between £85 and £97 for Champions League home games, are using the feel-good factor to cash in while they can, and I think it’s an absolute disgrace!

I have a friend who is a die-hard Villa fan — he can count on one hand how many games he’s missed, including pre-season friendlies, in the past 10 years — but even he is being fleeced, and it’s not right.

I urge Villa, who are the club I have followed and supported since I was a kid, to reconsider their recent pricing decision.

La Liga already use dynamic ticket pricing, the Premier League wouldn’t dare, would it?

And on the subject of football ticketing prices, I want to bring to people’s attention dynamic pricing.

Dynamic pricing is when a ticketing company adjust a ticket’s face value in real time based on demand, therefore, the more people vying for an event’s tickets, the higher their price, once through the online queues, will be.

This sales tactic was most recently used for Oasis’ reunion tour, but, as many may not know, there are already European football clubs following the same model.

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Valencia and Celta Vigo both use dynamic pricing for their home La Liga games, so as you can imagine, whenever Barcelona and Real Madrid come to town, prices are unfairly ramped up and fans left facing a decision: part with hugely inflated sums, or miss their team’s biggest games.

I really hope Premier League clubs do not follow suit. It is an awful way to charge fans — a tactic that relies on impulsiveness and people’s fear of missing out. I never want to see this style of ticket pricing used against fans of English clubs.

As far as I am aware, this tactic is going to be looked at by Watchdog but until legislation is brought in to combat it, it will continue.

Players should be capped at 50 appearances a season

Interestingly, my thoughts on ticketing ties in quite well with another topic I want to discuss.

One of the big stories this week has been Chelsea’s decision to leave Cole Palmer out of their 23-man squad for their UEFA Conference League group games. Although we were surprised by the news, we probably shouldn’t have been.

I think we’re going to see this kind of thing happening more and more often — and going back to my very first point about Villa charging season-ticket holders nearly £100 per home European game — if I am right, and other teams take the same approach in the future, how can clubs then justify increasing ticket prices when their best players may be missing?

There is an absolutely ridiculous amount of football played in a season nowadays and players, despite being in peak physical condition, just can’t cope with it. This was proven by several lacklustre displays in the EUROs.

There is a reason Erling Haaland looks like a beast compared to other big-name strikers. He’s 100 per cent fit and fresh after having the summer off following Norway’s failure to qualify for the EUROs.

If players are going to be expected to compete across multiple competitions, both domestically and internationally, then surely it’s time we thought about bringing in an appearance cap. I recommend a 50 appearance cap per player, per season, and then let the player decide how we wants to split his allowance.

Time is running out for Erik Ten Hag

Moving away from ticket prices and football’s scheduling demands, Erik Ten Hag is under pressure at Manchester United.

I don’t care what anybody says, he is so far out of his depth its unreal.

I am sure Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS have come in and agreed to let him stay on because they’ve looked at the time Arsenal have given Mikel Arteta and thought ‘see, if we trust the process, it can work out’.

Ten Hag isn’t Arteta though. I know Arsenal have only won one FA Cup with Arteta but there is clear and obvious progression being made season after season under the Spaniard, and more importantly, the team have their identity back. The Gunners play technically exciting and fast-paced free-flowing football.

Historically, United have played the same kind of electric, all-action football; devastating defence-splitting counter-attacks but they are absolutely no where near rediscovering that identity under Ten Hag — at best they’re too passive and at worst they’re boring. He has got to go.

With the exception of Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp, the pull of Manchester United should still be big enough to make any manager in the world think about taking the job.

INEOS should be out there trying for Carlo Ancelotti. Yes, ‘Don Carlo’ is very much a Real Madrid man, but why not say to him: ‘You’ve won everything there is to win in Madrid, do you want to come here and make us great again?’ — Regardless of what he’d say, Ancelotti is the calibre of manager United should be targeting, not below average Ten Hag.

The post Collymore’s column: Villa’s ticket pricing is a disgrace, there will be more Cole Palmer-type omissions and why are INEOS waiting to ditch Erik Ten Hag? appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including which team has had the best transfer window, is Kieran McKenna showing his naivety at Ipswich, should Chelsea players sue the club and much more. 

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Ridiculous Carabao Cup draw shames the game

The Carabao Cup draw was an absolute shambles. It was a loaded, managed, overseeded draw, and we are now getting to the point whereby clubs with clout are having too much say in tournaments.

It’s massively subservient to the Premier League and the Champions League and the FA Cup will end up doing it too.

We’ve got the situation even as low as the National League, where U18 teams are playing senior men’s teams in their cup competition, and I just want to get back to having just one tournament somewhere where there’s 50 teams that go in a pot, they get drawn out and they play each other.

Back in 1978/79, Liverpool were champions of Europe and Nottingham Forest were the newly crowned champions of England when the draw was made for the European Cup.

Lo and behold, champions of England, Nottingham Forest, come out against defending European champions, Liverpool, and Forest beat Liverpool over two legs in an unseeded first round.

I think the fact that we’ve gone from a very common sense European Cup draw to an artificially constructed draw, which skews the draw towards clubs in the Champions League or high end in the Premier League, is killing the game with 1000 cuts.

It’s a really bad look for the Carabao Cup, but it’s a really bad look for football in England too.

Let’s get back to at least having one or two tournaments where you have an open draw, and every smaller club up and down the country is going ‘happy days, we might actually get an opportunity to win this.’

In the meantime… the game’s gone.

Transfer window common sense has been restored

It just goes to show that for Premier League clubs this summer, there’s a lot of creative accounting gymnastics going on.

I think it’s been a lukewarm window, and I think that I’m quite happy with that. The fact that clubs are having to look at alternative ways of creating squads and having to look for more value in the market is something that we’ve all been screaming for, for years.

Now it’s happening, people seem to feel a little bit short changed because a club hasn’t spent half a billion, the Sky Sports News ticker hasn’t gone over a billion pounds for the window….

There’s a degree of the Emperor’s New Clothes about the transfer window in that fans feel you’ve got to get three, four or five big name players in during every window to compete. You don’t.

Because of the academies – where you can promote players – and because squads are big enough nowadays anyway.

I actually think that my takeaway from this transfer window is that finally there’s some sort of common sense that has come back into English football, instead of turning on Sky Sports News and concerning ourselves with how many players have come in.

That’s a very healthy thing.

Kieran McKenna needs to be more pragmatic this season

If you go into a league and you play how you want but are getting done threes and fours and fives every week, that shows you are getting punished for having philosophies and theories that don’t work in your working environment.

It’s still very early days for Kieran McKenna at Ipswich, but I think he’s found, like Vincent Kompany did after managing to get the Bayern Munich job despite getting Burnley relegated, that football club owners like managers who play exciting and entertaining football.

They like entertainment because a decade ago in the Premier League, during the old Tony Pulis days at Stoke for example, football was stale and attendances were going down. That’s not a good look when you’re in the Premier League and you’re losing money season in, season out.

So of course, now every owner of a football club wants an entertaining coach that plays entertaining football and risk laden football, but the whole point of the Premier League is to compete and to stay in the league.

That enables a club to get enough money to be able to invite better players to them and for the club to stay in the league.

So I would like to think that Kieran McKenna has more about him than just ‘I’m going to play the way that I play, regardless if we get relegated.’

The Premier League is littered with maybe managers including Paul Jewell who had a couple of seasons in the top flight, possibly thought he was going to go on and be a manager in the top flight forever and was spat out. The phone didn’t ring and he hasn’t been a manager since.

I think that what Kieran needs to do is, if he wants to be a Premier League manager with Ipswich over a period of years, or even be a Premier League manager with somebody else over a period of years, is that he’s got to play with a degree of pragmatism.

In any vocation, you accept the terrain that you’re on, and don’t just say ‘I don’t care if I’m on Mount Snowden or I’m on Mont Blanc, I’m going to wear some flip flops and shorts and a vest.’ Do that, metaphorically speaking, and you’re going to get found out.

I don’t think the manager should come out of the season with any credit whatsoever if his team are being smashed every week but if he adds a little bit of pragmatism, I think he can achieve his achieve his aims this season, and perhaps more importantly, have some longevity as a top class manager over the next 10-15 years.

I’ll be bitterly disappointed in Trent if he’s trying to force a move

I’d be really disappointed if the thought had even crossed Trent’s mind that if he starts to be a bit of a mardy arse, he’ll get a move to Real Madrid. That would lower his stock significantly, because fans generally aren’t fans of people that want out of a club that is their club.

I remember Steve McManaman’s own move to Madrid, and his reputation at Liverpool never really recovered. I think there’s always a little bit of holding your nose in Liverpool where he’s concerned, and I think that it would be an awful look for Trent.

His attitude after being subbed was probably a case of professional pride in not wanting to come off the pitch, as well as thinking (about Arne Slot) ‘who does this guy think he is.’

Slot knows he’s on camera, and just said ‘I’ve subbed you off to give you a bit of a rest, it’s a long old season.’ No big deal.

I like that and the way that Slot’s going about his business. The style of play is to keep a little bit more possession, let’s not be as gung ho, but still at times having those kind of bursts we saw with Jota, Diaz and Salah.

I know Trent won’t listen to me, but please, please, please, you are the scouser in the team, you are the totem for the club. A lot of people, young Liverpool fans, look up to you as somebody that drives them forward. You’re needed for the marathon not the sprint.

Chelsea ‘bomb squad’ a prime example of why players could end up suing clubs

When I was a pro and got bombed out by John Gregory, it was just the norm. It was just the done thing. You’d still come in and train but it was a dispiriting experience, and one that, like a lot of other things football replicated at the time, was based around the armed forces.

There has to be some sort of significant cultural context to this to be able to give the younger readers an idea why football clubs behave the way they do sometimes.

Football back in the day effectively mirrored the army in terms of training methodology and behavioural methodology. Often football teams would literally go and train at army camps. Certainly, when I was at Crystal Palace, although I didn’t go, the first team squad went to Aldershot barracks and trained for a little while.

The whole thing was about team discipline.

The Army is very closely aligned to football in the sense that playing football in front of 50,000 people is quite an extreme thing to do just as being in the Army is extreme.

Football apprentices had to spend seven or eight hours sweeping the stands and it felt like a punishment. You got punished too if you didn’t clean the dressing rooms properly, or if you didn’t clean your pros kit properly.

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The bomb squad, as it was known across football, was another example of that. ‘If you don’t do this right, you’re going to get the army discipline treatment.’

Of course, things have changed greatly and for the better, so that we now are very aware that if you sign an employment contract, you should be signing an employment contract for the duration of that contract and be what you were bought as, which is a senior professional footballer.

When players are told by clubs that they’ll be banished from training and won’t play again so it would be best they were sold – Chelsea is the perfect recent example – those players have now stood up and said that’s not right. Clubs can’t be doing that and they couldn’t get away with it in any other industry.

I think that unless the PFA come out and say ‘we need to stop this practice and if you are at a professional football club and are surplus to requirements, that’s fine, but you still train with the first team until you are sold,’ and make it almost a dictat, then there might be a situation whereby a player says ‘this is restriction of trade, this is workplace bullying, and I’m going to sue the club.’

My preference would be that the PFA now step in, they sit down with the Premier League, the FA and the EFL, and they all put statements out next week saying the long standing and old practice of the bomb squad is now finished.

I think that that way, you also get to a position whereby players would get sold quicker because players wouldn’t dig their heels in and not turn up for training amongst other things.

The post Collymore’s column: Carabao Cup draw isn’t a good look, solid start from Slot and much more appeared first on CaughtOffside.

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why Enzo Maresca has made a disgraceful decision at Chelsea, why Liverpool fans must be patient, why Ivan Toney’s move to Saudi is an absolute waste and much more. 

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Maresca’s decisions deserve respect… apart from the captaincy issue

Players respect the fact that managers give them clear information because too many don’t. Too many will literally walk down a corridor towards a player and give it the old ‘how are your pal? etc. etc.,’ pat them on the back, and then knife them in the back by leaving them out and not saying anything or facing up to the problem.

It’s happened many, many times in football history and the stories are legion about how a manager will say one thing and do another.

I think that you’ll find players won’t be overly angry by these instances of a manager basically saying to five or six Chelsea players ‘you’re done, you’re finished, you’re not going to get a game here.’

I’m a massive fan of that.

In the case of Conor Gallagher, he gets a very warm welcome from 40,000 fans at the Atletico Madrid stadium with fireworks and stuff, so he won’t care now what opinion Chelsea have of him.

I don’t fully understand what Chelsea didn’t know about Joao Felix that meant they desperately needed to have him coming back? For me, that’s filed under another Chelsea aberration. If it didn’t work the first time, what makes them think it’s going to work the second time within a year or two?

In terms of Raheem Sterling, he was okay at times for Chelsea but I don’t think he was ever great. His options in England are limited and he’s no longer at the elite Premier League level. I could see him going to an LAFC, New York Red Bulls or maybe to one of the Saudi clubs.

In terms of giving Enzo the captaincy, I think it’s nothing short of a disgrace, if I’m being perfectly honest. It sets the tone.

You saw the players on their social media feeds, the reaction after what happened in the Copa America, with some coming out who were very, very upset.

On what basis now have those players been placated to the point where the manager has sat them down saying ‘Enzo is going to be captain.’

No black player at the club, and I don’t any white player either, would be happy with the manager saying Enzo’s our brand spanking new captain. That he’s going to be the poster boy and the face of Chelsea Football Club.

I think that Maresca has got that one absolutely wrong, and I think that the fact that the club had to come out and make a statement after something that Enzo Fernandez did on on international duty tells you how wrong it was.

The optics are absolutely awful but let’s be perfectly honest… Chelsea Football Club over the years haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory on or off the pitch when it comes to matters of racism.

Ivan Toney’s move to Saudi is an absolute waste

If Ivan Toney was 32, he could go out to graze in Saudi Arabia and earn a few million by doing the classic 12 to 18 month stay. Say that his family haven’t settled and come back. Likewise, if he was 25, Toney would stay put because top-class European football is where it’s at.

But at age 28 it’s interesting, because if he does sign a three-year contract with the Saudi Pro League, as has been rumoured, that will take him to 31 years of age, and there won’t by anyone in the Premier League’s top 10 that would be willing to take him by then.

To be honest, it’s a dreadful move for him, but he’s clearly being advised to go to Saudi. What a shame. What an absolute waste.

In my opinion, he should stay at Brentford, get his head down and score goals. If he scores a shed load, who’s to say that the big clubs he expected to move for him this summer still won’t come in for him?

Let’s be realistic here. Ivan Toney has been very good for Brentford and Brentford have been very good for Ivan Toney, sticking by him throughout the gambling stuff.

Did he think he could just coast it at the end of last season and he was going to get a massive move anyway, because there was just this queue of clubs?

You could argue that the current situation is a lot of his own making. Just four goals from January to the end of the 2023/24 campaign tells its own story.

If Solanke doesn’t work out at Spurs, or if West Ham are still on the lookout for a hit-man, there’s a possibility that there’s a route back to the top of the English game for Ivan Toney… but don’t hold your breath.

Hold your horses Liverpool fans

Key players turned up at Ipswich in the second half for Liverpool, and showed Arne Slot exactly what he already has in situ.

The Reds are like any other club in that they need a couple of players every window to be able to freshen things up, but we are now, of course, not talking about a team of just 12 or 14 players like when I played, but a squad of 25/26 players.

Liverpool have also got an academy of players that has produced plenty of talent over the years, like the Trent’s and the Curtis Jones’.

The question I’d put to Liverpool fans is, yes, ordinarily, you’d have at least two that would come in to freshen the team up and to create competition for places, but with a squad of 20 plus an academy that’s producing players that can get into the first team squad, why do you think the need to buy more players is still so great?

Look at what Manchester City do. They bring in a couple and they let a couple go, but there’s always an improvement of personnel, not buying for the sake of it.

I think that Arne Slot has come in and he’s assessed what he’s got, and then gone to the board with a shopping list.

He’s obviously not that desperate, and he’s still got another nine days before the window closes anyway, so Liverpool may yet still do business.

Furthermore, I honestly believe that when you look at Arsenal’s first game performance, you look at Spurs, Villa, Manchester City, Manchester United… Liverpool’s second half at Ipswich was as good as any performance that you’ll have seen over the past weekend, so there was obviously a lot of confidence in the camp and perhaps they just don’t feel the need to change things a hell of a lot.

So I’d say to Liverpool fans ‘don’t panic.’ There are players that are not needed arguably until the January transfer window, when the squad might need a little bit of help.

Chill out, the big cavalry is already there. The captains, the lieutenants, the generals, are already in the team, and even if one or two infantry are required to help them get across the line, the last days of the window or even in the January transfer window is just fine.

Jhon Duran is a maverick talent but if he doesn’t grow up, Villa should get rid

Aston Villa fans have already shown their fickle nature where Jhon Duran is concerned.

A week before kick-off, it was like ‘silly boy, get him out, what an idiot, don’t want him anywhere near Villa Park,’ and then he comes in against West Ham, he looks sharp and scores a cracking goal, and all of a sudden he’s back in vogue. They’ll be going to the club shop and getting Duran on their shirts I’m sure, and will be very excited about him playing for Villa.

The boy’s undoubtedly got talent and ability but he’s a maverick, and let’s make no bones about this, he will create problems for Aston Villa.

Despite Chelsea and West Ham wanting him, Unai Emery has handed him the number nine shirt. That’s a responsibility in itself because Villa have had great number nines over the years, going back to Peter Withe, who scored the winning goal in a European Cup final.

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Emery will have to realise that he’s got to keep him on quite a short leash, however, because he doesn’t want any antics or perceived favouritism to upset squad equilibrium.

Duran could ‘poison the well’ for want of a better phrase, and players like John McGinn and Emi Martinez could turn around and say ‘hold on a sec, we’ve done the business for you for two or three seasons, and this guy turns up, doesn’t train hard, is disruptive and he’s in the team’… that could be a problem.

To be honest, I don’t think that Jhon Duran will have loyalty to any club, and if he’s still a pain in the ass in another season or two, then Villa should just sell him. Simple.

Brighton and Mitoma get opening day plaudits

Kaoru Mitoma at Brighton was excellent against Everton, the best player on the pitch by a considerable margin, and boy have they missed him.

Obviously, he’s had a long time out with injury, and though it wasn’t a disaster last season for Brighton, as a club that were hitting the giddy heights of Europe it was a little disappointing how things ended up.

From my perspective, it was a really good attacking performance at Goodison, and Brighton fans will be salivating.

If Mitoma continues to play well, then they’ve got a £50m-£60m player in the squad who I’m sure the big boys will be taking a keen interest in.

In three to four months it wouldn’t even surprise me if an offer came in the January window, because he scores goals, creates chances and goes past opponents with ease.

What more do you want…?

The post Collymore’s column: Maresca has lost respect with Enzo decision, Liverpool fans must be patient, Toney’s Saudi move a waste and much more appeared first on CaughtOffside.