Latest 5 aside and 6 aside football Blog posts from LeisureLeagues.net

Best Season Ever? Are You Sure?!

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No one can argue that the end to the Premier League season was remarkable. The scenes following Sergio Aguero’s goal were something that we haven’t witnessed for a generation and those last two minutes might just be the most exciting climax to a season ever – certainly since 1989 when Michael Thomas’ goal gave Arsenal the title with more or less the last kick of the season.

No one can dispute either that – particularly when the big teams met – there were some great games and that some of the football played was superb on occasion. There was also a tally of goals that apparently is the best since the Premier League began in 1992.

But when, on Match of the Day on Sunday night, Messrs Hansen, Shearer and Lineker proclaimed it to be the “best ever “ Premier League season, are we sure they weren’t just engaging in a bit of hype?

Simply put, I would argue differently. I would argue that whilst the end was exciting (and the way Man City overhauled the lead of their rivals was quite incredible) the quality just isn’t there in the way that it used to be.

City and United were the best teams, but the rest rather flattered to deceive. Arsenal were a shadow of their former selves and came third because they had Robin Van Persie. Spurs showed that they were nowhere near title contenders. Newcastle worked miracles to get where they were with the team they had and Chelsea’s period of transition looks like it might be couple of seasons before it’s completed.

What of the rest? Everton were ok, Liverpool’s expensive gamble didn’t pay off and then there were a vast amount of teams in the middle who will not look back on the campaign with any pride. The likes of Sunderland, Stoke and Villa have largely just plodded along, doing just enough to not seriously be in trouble really.

Norwich and Swansea performed admirably in their first season up and The Swans in particular impressed many with the standard of their football, while QPR for all the money they spent, just kept themselves up.

The teams at the bottom were bad. Wolves had a horrible season – despite briefly topping the table in August, Blackburn was a car crash waiting to happen and Bolton never recovered from their bad start in the way Wigan did. And in fairness to Wigan, who was better to watch than them in the last two months?

This is the first time for 10 years that all three promoted teams have stayed up. Now, granted QPR took it to the last day and spent a lot of money to do it. But that is not the case for the other two. Both Norwich and Swansea, it is fair to say stayed up with ease and never looked in any serious danger of going down. Is this a one off blip, or does it signify that the gap between the Championship and the Premier League is closing? And if that is the case then is the quality getting better in the Championship, or is it a top level decline?

There is more to a great season than just a list of teams. It’s about moments. It’s about skill and the quality of player seems to have diminished. There are some fine players in the Premier League, of course, but it does seem to me that the standard of the players is not as high as it was a few years ago.

Where are Bergkamps, the Le Tissier’s, the Henry’s, the Cantona’s? Those magnificent players that you would have paid to watch. This is – by common acknowledgement perhaps the worst Manchester United team for years and yet it came second. What does that say about the other contenders? Indeed, what does it say about Manchester United themselves that they were able to pull a man out of retirement and he looked their best player? In fact, what does that say about the rest of the league?

It is true to say that there is always a tendency to look back at the past and think everything was better and maybe there is an element of that here. However, if Manchester United had beaten Wigan and Everton as they would normally have, would anyone have been saying it was the greatest campaign in the last 20? But a great finish to the season does not necessarily accurately reflect what has gone on in the other months.

So maybe, when the dust has settled and the euphoria has died down, the 2011/12 Premier League season will be remembered as “the one with THAT end, but apart from that nothing else much happened.”

Not that Manchester City supporters are ever going to care.

Europa Cup: It Is Not Just The Ticket

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Ticket allocation has been much in the news recently, whether it’s the shambles that is the Olympics (and that keeps going, too with yesterday’s news that another 900,000 tickets are going on sale to those that have been unsuccessful twice before) or Liverpool and Chelsea fans moaning about their amounts for the FA Cup final.

But all of this pales into insignificance when compared to what happened last night with the Europa League. Atletico Madrid beat Bilbao 3-0 in Bucharest, but there were just 9000 fans of each club there – in a crowd of over 52,000.

This is verging on the disgraceful but yet it is entirely in keeping with the ridiculous, overblown and rather pointless monster that is the Europa League. As well as qualifying on merit (which there is no problem with),teams get in it as a sort of consolation prize for being not good enough for the champions league, get in it for being good boys (Fair Play League? Seriously….?) or for losing the cup final to a team that was already in the “big” competition.

If that isn’t enough, the teams that have small squads but are unfortunate enough to be in it then see their seasons ruined by playing games on Thursday’s, Sundays, then sometimes Wednesday’s if there’s no Champions League – with a 5pm kick off if you are really unlucky like Manchester City were earlier in the season.

The reason for this kick off time tells you all you need to know about how UEFA views the Europa Cup. It kicked off at 5pm because there was a Champions League game on the same night and UEFA rules stipulate that a Europa League game cannot kick off at the same time as CL one. Not that it’s the poor relation or anything like that.

The amount of tickets available to the fans of the respective clubs in Europa finals is nothing new, though. Fulham fans were up in arms the other year when they received 12650 tickets, for example.

Even in the Champions League things aren’t much better. For the game in Munich next week, Chelsea have been given just 17,500 tickets. From this we can conclude just how low down the pecking order fans are in UEFA’s thoughts.

In their defence they do have a ballot for neutrals and they do have sponsors to satisfy. For the money they give these sponsors are perhaps entitled to see some tickets coming their way, but the amount seems to be out of kilter. If the remit of UEFA is to protect the game in Europe then largely it seems they aren’t doing the best job they could.

Governing bodies seem on occasion to forget that they have responsibilities to supporters and also to the history of the game. The tickets are expensive, but that is not just UEFA’s issue – at the FA Cup final last weekend, those fans who were lucky enough to get tickets were charged on average £80 for the privilege. However, people will pay for big matches, just like they will for concerts, shows, posh restaurants or whatever and there is no doubt that with the Champions League – love it or loathe it – UEFA have hit on a formula that works, both in terms of attracting TV audiences and fans to the matches. This is less the case with the Europa League, and they perhaps need to think about a way to make the competition mean more and make it less bloated and more appealing.

Giving genuine fans the chance to buy more of the tickets would be a good way to start.

Why The Safe Option Is A Big Gamble

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It’s Roy then – or so it seems. Just when everyone (including this blog – although we were half right, Capello did get the sack ) assumed that Harry Redknapp was stuck on to get the England job, the FA announce they are talking to Hodgson and moreover he is the only man they have approached in connection with the job.

The BBC website is – as I type this – reporting that the West Brom Manager is going to be appointed in the next 48 hours. The prospective appointment has divided opinion in the Leisure Leagues office, and we suspect that we are representative of the whole country in this, there are those who think it is the wrong appointment, those who think he will do a good job and those who are prepared to be won over.

The London press are in uproar, obviously, and as might be expected, Harry got to the microphone first, wishing Hodgson all the best and claiming he “woke up this morning in a great mood.” This is a bit different to the approach that Hodgson took at the weekend, when even when asked on 5live he repeated that “"I shall just watch like everyone else interested in football to see who the next England manager will be. “

In January he said, when pressed: “If ever the people in charge decided I was the man they wanted then I would be delighted.” But that is about as it went.

The contrast between the two men in terms of their personality couldn’t be much more marked. Redknapp is loud, brash and gives the opinion that he would be good company if you got the chance to meet him. Hodgson on the other hand is quiet, studious, reserved and looks like he would rather not be good company at all and would be much happier a good book and a mug of Horlicks.
Where the two do have plenty in common is that they are good – and I use the word advisedly – managers, and were if the FA wanted an English manager, the only two that could reasonably be chosen from apart from perhaps Stuart Pearce.

However, even here there were differences. Redknapp has won nothing in his career, bar a couple of promotions and the FA Cup at Portsmouth, while Hodgson has experience of major club management and has managed International teams to great effect.

The question remains though of whether Redknapp was the first choice or not – and common consensus at the time that he won the court case was that he would soon be appointed – and if he was, what has happened since to change the FA’s mind?

Tottenham have, as we all know, been on a really bad run of form, but surely if the FA were set on him earlier in the year then some bad results haven’t changed things. It always seemed that they were waiting until the end of the season to decide, and of course then it made it look even more likely that Harry was the man, they were waiting, surely until Spurs got in the champions league before making an approach?

Now, the suspicion is they have gone for Hodgson precisely because he is a safe pair of hands; he is less risky than Redknapp. There aren’t, you suspect bank accounts in Monaco named after Hodgson’s dog, and there won’t either, be the type of personal issues that dogged Sven’s time in charge.
But at the end of the day, it must, ultimately be a football decision and on that basis, arguably, Hodgson ticks more boxes than the man who has lost out. There is one caveat though: since leaving Inter in 1999, Hodgson has managed just one what you might call “big club” and that was a pretty disastrous spell in charge at Anfield last year. Now, if the Liverpool job was too much for him then what does that say for his England credentials?

The 64-year old is arguably more suited to International Management than ‘Arry though. Hodgson is a technical, perhaps more studious coach than Redknapp, who is a wheeler dealer and motivator and more from the Kevin Keegan mould as a boss – and we all know how that turned out.
Hodgson it seems will be signing a four year deal and will be coach for three tournaments and he will, according to some of the press this morning, be making an appeal to the England fans to get them on board.

Hodgson it seems is the best of a mediocre bunch, while Redknapp is this generation’s Brian Clough, perhaps the best boss never to take on the mantle; the people’s choice but not the establishments. So for now it seems clear that going for the better bet is proving a real gamble for the FA.

The Magnificent Unpredicitability Of Football - And Why Clubs Abuse It

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If you ever wanted proof of just how hard to predict football was and is then the events at the top end of the Premier League in the last few weeks have shown that just never can tell.

When Man City lost to Arsenal the other week it gave Man United an eight point lead, and 20 years of Premier League watching has taught us that Manchester United do not blow eight point leads.

It was over and done, then. Manchester City left to wonder what might have been if Carlos hadn’t gone on holiday for six months, if Mario hadn’t been somewhat unstable and if they hadn’t lost their away from. All the while the red half of the city was left to crow about how they had overcome a 6-1 home defeat in October and won the league with a team that wasn’t as strong as they have had in the past.

Except it wasn’t quite like that. United have managed to drop five points in the last two games. At Wigan (a ground they had never dropped a point at before) and at home to Everton.

It was in January that City themselves lost to Everton, ironically enough to a goal scored by United old boy Darron Gibson, and my how the fans at Old Trafford celebrated that night.

A bit of a contrast to yesterday when it was the Blues’ supporters were dancing in the aisles of Molineux as they eased themselves into position where they can go top of the table again with a victory next week in perhaps the most important derby for decades.

It is the sheer unpredictable brilliance of football that keeps us coming back week after week, season after season. It is what makes us fans. The old cliché when it comes to football is “it’s not the disappointments that hurt you, it’s the hope.” And City fans, with all the chequered moments in their history understand this, perhaps, if we are honest, a little more than their counterparts across the city might.

However, not just the supporters of City but all clubs see that loyalty tested to the limit. It was a cause that Kenny Dalglish took up last week when faced with the news that not only the FA Cup kicking off at 5.15, there are also only two trains from Liverpool to London that day because of engineering work that day.

"Sometimes that is the problem when fans are taken for granted - not just our fans but those at all football clubs,” the Scotsman said.

And you have to argue that Dalglish – who hasn’t always covered himself in glory with his public statements this season - has a point on this occasion, especially when you take into account the ticket allocation of the respective teams. Both Liverpool and Chelsea have received just 25,000 for the match – around 7,000 lower than they had for the semi. This is added to the fact that more than half of the tickets for the match are onsale are for £85. Not exactly a cheap day out!

Of course, it has hardly anything new to say that the fans are an afterthought in the minds of most clubs and the football authorities. You can see this by the ticket prices that are charged (although in fairness many clubs are freezing prices again for next season) by the prices of kits, even by the kick off times.

But if people’s money is stretched then by and large their loyalty remains. They support football clubs in a way that they don’t support anything else. A love for a football club is handed down for decades, and it’s that clubs know they can rely on.

They can rely on it because, while the sport provides such magnificent theatre, so many highs and lows, so many moments of sheer brilliance and despair then we all keep coming back.

And, those that have a ticket for Monday night’s match, as well as the millions of City and United fans watching all around the world on their TV, wouldn’t want it any other way.

Even Wolves fans, deep in the depths of despair right now, will be back in August, believing it will be their year. That’s what football does to you. That’s why it so wonderful.

Why Our Stance On Diving Is Hypocritical

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There is a programme on IT4 at the moment called The Big Match Revisited. Every Saturday Morning it shows old highlights programmes from the early 1980s. It is a fabulous trip down memory lane for those who are old enough to recall the games and a magnificent look at the pre-Premier League age for those that aren’t.

The season they are currently showing is 1982/83. Amongst the many differences the programme shows us, both in football - where each week you muddy pitches, players who are anything but athletic, far fewer foreign players and harder tackling - and in the coverage itself - where there is only three games shown from all leagues not just the top division, there is almost no punditry and hardly any interviews with beaten bosses - there are certain things that seem to prove that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The other week on the show the main game was a Merseyside derby. An Everton player made a sliding tackle on Ian Rush who went over when he felt the contact and a free kick was given outside the box. Kenny Dalglish stepped up and dispatched the free kick and Liverpool won the game.

Fast forward 29 years. Move venues to old Trafford and Ciaran Clark hangs out what Gary Neville termed a “lazy leg” on last night’s Monday Night Football and Ashley Young goes down. Wayne Rooney converts the penalty kick and Man Utd are on their way to beating Aston Villa 4-0.

The point I am making here is that “diving,” “feigning injury” “cheating,” “simulation,” whatever you want to call it, is nothing new and for all the hysteria over recent days over what happened or didn’t happen, it isn’t going to stop either.

It won’t stop because, whether you like it or not, professional sportsmen and women are seeking to gain an advantage in anyway they can. Whether it is ball tampering in cricket, drugs in athletics or cycling, or eye gouging in rugby, they will do whatever they can to win.

Of course, this doesn’t make it right. And you cannot and should not tolerate it if it is seen. If people are caught cheating in football they deserve to be punished. Just the same as they are in the sports we mentioned in the previous paragraph.

The specific case we saw at the weekend was highlighted for a couple of reasons. Firstly it was a big game at either end of the table and, with it being live on Sky’s Super Sunday it couldn’t be ignored. But second, it was the second time in a week that the Man Utd man had found himself embroiled in a controversy.

His “dive” against Villa (and I think he went down to easy and that it wasn’t a penalty) was arguably less blatant than his “dive” against QPR the previous week, for which United again were given a spot kick and the Londoners had skipper Shaun Derry sent off. He has done it before and he will do it again. He did it when he was at Watford and he did at Aston Villa. He simply did what all players do – try to win the game for his side.

As much as we all like to get outraged about cheating and who can forget the outcry when Thierry Henry’s handball deprived Ireland of a World Cup spot? We all – and lets be honest here – keep a little bit quieter when our own team is it. Moreover, can any footballer really admit, hand on heart that they wouldn’t have done the same in Henry’s situation?

Surely, that is the point? Last night when Arsenal lost to Wigan we saw Arsene Wenger hopping up and down on the touchline while Wigan wasted time. But the fact is, and we all know this, any team, Arsenal included, would have done the same thing in the same situation.

In this context, all the anger and hot air about diving is all a little bit fake. I can think of at least four or five times this year when I have been at games and my team has scored a goal as a result of this player or that player “going over when contact was made.” Do I wish they had stayed on their feet? Yes. Would football have been better off if they had? Yes. Did I cheer the goal when it went in? You bet I did. Does that make me a hypocrite? No, it makes me a football supporter.

So spare me the sanctimonious moral high ground about all of this. We as football fans cannot on the one hand condemn the opposition and cheer our own side for doing exactly the same thing.

Diving has gone on for decades and it isn’t going to stop just because it’s the current flavour of the media week.

The Lottery Of Sacking A Manager Mid-Season

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With the results over the Easter weekend – and as an aside how nice it was to have top division games on Easter Monday too this year, like old times – I think we can now confidently say that it is now three from five at the bottom of the Premier League.

Wolves look to have gone, and joining them will be two teams from Wigan, Blackburn, Bolton and QPR. The Villa fans in the Leisure Leagues office are sweating, but after their draws this weekend they might be just about of trouble. Although they do have the same points total as Birmingham did this time last campaign and we all know what happened there.

However, it is interesting to look at the differing approaches from the teams at the bottom with regard to the hiring and firing of managers and wonder if, despite all the pressure they are under, it actually does any good to sack the boss mid-season?

There have been four casualties so far in 2011/12 – and you suspect that might be all there is at this late stage. The most high profile, obviously, was Andre Villas Boas at Chelsea, but joining him down the Job Centre are Steve Bruce, Mick McCarthy and Neil Warnock, who were shown the door by Sunderland, Wolves and QPR respectively.

If we take all of those in turn then, as we have discussed elsewhere on this blog, then AVB probably had to go. And you certainly cannot argue with his replacement Roberto Di Matteo’s record. They are back in the top four and face Barcelona in the Champions League next week, so you have to say it worked out well for them.

It is a similar – if less spectacular – tale at Sunderland. Martin O’Neil has taken the wreckage left by Steve Bruce and steered The Black Cats to mid-table and the FA Cup quarter finals. It will be interesting to see what they do next season.

At the bottom, the popular wisdom is that the change of boss has spectacularly backfired at Molineux, but is that really the case? What choice did the board of Wolverhampton Wanderers have, in actuality? They had just been destroyed by their fiercest local rivals and were going to go down anyway, surely, they had to act?

The harder one to call was at Loftus Road, when Neil Warnock was dismissed after a bad run and replaced with Mark Hughes. Warnock is a good manager, but rather like Mick McCarthy he is better at getting teams out of the Championship than keeping them in the Premier League, and it can be argued that long-term Mark Hughes was and is a better Premier League bet.

However, both of these sackings can be juxtaposed with the approach at Bolton, Blackburn and Wigan. All three of these clubs could – and this especially true of Blackburn – have got rid of the boss at various points. But both these Manager’s have a quality that Kean, (and Warnock, Villas Boas, Bruce and McCarthy didn’t) they have a history with the club they manage, and it is harder in some respects, for fans to turn on one of their own.

It does seem that there is no right or wrong way to approach this matter. Some clubs benefit from a new voice in the Manager’s chair, while others do not. The difference, as to whether the new man does well rather comes down to the quality of player that is at the club in the first place.

Chelsea should have been doing better than they were under AVB, the players that Steve Bruce signed to take Sunderland forward last summer should not have been languishing at the bottom of the table, so in that respect shouldn’t it have been expected that they would rise up the table? Similarly, are the players Wolves have actually any better than they are showing at the moment?

The enigma is QPR. They signed some good players in the summer and they did the same in January, but this has not translated into performances. There are signs recently (with the victories over Liverpool and Arsenal) that things are getting better there and the game with Swansea is looking to a massive one. But would they have done any better – or worse – with Warnock in charge?

All of which leads us to wonder, despite the clamour, is there any point in sacking a Manager in mid-season? It is a gamble that often doesn’t pay off.

Stiliyan Petrov

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It is certainly a strange time in football right now.

Not even a month after Fabrice Muamba suffered his terrible cardiac arrest came the terrible news that Aston Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov had acute Leukaemia.

Petrov is one of those rare things in football – a player that almost no one has anything bad to say about. This was shown in the genuine affection shown to him by the whole of football, and the emotional scenes at Villa Park, where team mates and crowd united to give him their support.

And this week Petrov went to London, accompanied by wife Paulina and manager Alex McLeish to begin his treatment on what is without doubt the most important battle he will ever have to win.

But, as we have seen with Muamba footballers are both naturally fit and receive the best type of care possible. And that combination is a winning one on many occasions. Allied this to the type of will to win you need to be a top sportsman and there is every reason for optimism.

In a way, Petrov owes the diagnosis of his illness to Muamba. It has been reported that it was while the Villa players were being screened for heart problems in the wake of the terrible scenes at White Hart Lane that the details of Petrov’s illness first came to light. It was announced on the Friday and it says much for the man that he was at the ground on Saturday when his side – he takes his responsibilities as Club Captain extremely seriously – took on Chelsea.

McLeish said on Monday that Petrov planned to “tackle his illness head on” and that he was also planning to continue training as and when his health allowed. He will battle, and he has done that all his life. Right from the moment he broke into the team at his home town club Montana, before moving to CSKA Moscow, when at 19 he won his first international cap (on his way to getting 106 – and becoming his country’s most capped player.)

His performances for CSKA got him a move to Celtic, where after initially not being able to settle he became so determined to learn the language he took a job on his friends burger van. At the end of the 2005-6 season he decided he wanted to ply his trade in England, turning down a move to Portsmouth in order to re-unite himself with Martin O’Neil at Villa Park, where as we have seen he has become a firm favourite, especially since becoming skipper in 09.

If he is looking for inspiration as he looks to beat the aggressive form of the disease he is suffering with, Stiliyan could do worse than look to the example of former England midfield man Geoff Thomas, who was diagnosed with leukaemia when he was 37 in 2003. After having been originally given three months to live, Thomas responded to ground breaking stem cell treatment and his now in fine health, and recently completed a charity bike ride in aid of the illness.

Indeed, Thomas offered his support and experience – and a degree of hope - to the Villa man, saying: “The success rates are getting better and better every year. We should never stop campaigning for better treatment and funding. When stories like this hit the news it highlights the cause. I'm always at the end of the phone for anybody with this illness.

“He seems to be such a delightful guy. I'd like to wish him and his family all the best. “

Those are sentiments that all of us at Leisure Leagues echo.

Winning The Title? It Is All In The Mind

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Manchester United’s slightly stuttering victory over Fulham last night is, according to popular wisdom the sort of victory you need to get at this stage of the season in order to win titles.

You know the sort of performance. The one where you don’t play well and win one-nil (of course it helps if you should have conceded a penalty which isn’t given by the ref in the last minute) these types of wins are the sort that get you league title.

And to be fair, they are the sort of victories that Manchester United get more than any other side. Manchester City, since that famous 6-1 thumping of their rivals in October have played 10 league games away from Eastlands, winning just three, while their goals scoring prowess has largely deserted them in that time too.

As soon as City dropped those points at the weekend, you just knew that United would beat Fulham to open up a gap, didn’t you? They were always going to find a way to prevail over Fulham. They believed it too, you suspect, and its this belief, this sheer unshakable resolve that, whatever the situation they will win which makes them so formidable, even as people write them off.

Say what you like about Manchester United (and many have over the years) but there is a reason they are the most successful team in the modern era. They know what it takes to win titles. They don’t often drop unexpected points and they get stronger as the season progresses – often timing runs just right and overhauling teams that had been miles ahead.

Not from them (at least since the mid-90s when they failed to beat West Ham and Blackburn won the league at Anfield) a blown lead, rather they have just relentlessly won 12 titles in the last 20 years, and who would bet against them making it a lucky 13th?

Player for player United might not, perhaps, be the best, and they might not play the type of scintillating football that we see from Arsenal or Tottenham at their best, but they just – like against Fulham last night – find a way to win.

All of which makes it all the more baffling that Manchester City have chosen to take Sir Alex on at mind games. Really has anyone ever beaten Fergie at this sort of thing? So you just knew he would be rubbing his hands in glee as soon as Patrick Vieira announced that for Man Utd to bring Paul Scholes back was a sign of “weakness.” This is a man who had Kevin Keegan ranting when Newcastle imploded in 1996 and who had Rafa Benitez listing his “facts” in a famous – and rather bizarre – interview in 2009.

Ferguson was straight on the attack: “"If it's desperation bringing back the best midfielder in Britain for the last 20 years then I think we can accept that," he said. "If you talk about desperation, they played a player the other night who refused to go on the pitch. The manager said he'd never play again and he takes a five-month holiday in Argentina. What is that? Could that come under the description of desperation?"

He then announced that he had “plenty of ammunition” for City if they wanted to continue with their jibes in the press.

If that wasn’t enough then Rio Ferdinand got in on the act, saying he was seeing a lot more City fans on the streets of Manchester than he used to, and that success “brought people out of the woodwork.”

All good fun of course and Manchester City Assistant Manager David Platt was quick to say that none of these things made any difference. This may or may not be true, but it in a week where City dropped points and United moved clear in the title race, it gave the press something to seize on.

But whether it makes any massive difference or not, these types of squabbles and verbal battles are not something they want to be indulging in. It’s difficult enough to beat Manchester United on the pitch. You certainly won’t get the better of them in mind games off it.

Fabrice Muamba: How He Proved Football Is Still A Positive Force

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Like millions of others I saw the terrible events at White Hart Lane on Saturday live on TV. The game between Spurs and Bolton was shaping up to be a really good cup tie and had been absorbing to watch, when in the 41st minute, it became very obvious that what was happening on the pitch was far from your normal player feigning injury.

It wasn’t even when the cameras turned away from the incident that the full gravity of the situation hit home. They do that when a player breaks his leg, or sustains some sort of other serious physical injury, as a matter of routine. And, without wishing to seem unsympathetic, such are the advances in medical practices that players who break a leg – although clearly a horrible thing to happen – can usually return to football fitness.

No, what really made me – and I should think many of the TV watching public – understand that what was going on with Fabrice Muamba was something shocking and awful was the sight of Tottenham fans and players in tears in the crowd at what they were seeing.

Footballers get a horrible press – and a lot of the time it is deserved. We have written on these blogs, for example, about our distaste for the way the likes of Carlos Tevez and the way they behave, putting money, it seems before any desire for the game they are gifted to play, then there is the way some of them – and we all know who we mean here – think they are above the law and can behave in ridiculous ways.

Fans too, are no angels, frequently acting in ways during a match that they would not do outside of the ground (and this is true of all of us), but what is often forgotten is occasionally, just occasionally football shows what a force for good it can be. How it has the way to unify people in a way that no other sport, indeed barely anything else, can.

And what an example of unification we have seen in the genuine and heartfelt outpouring of support for Fabrice Muamba and his family. You hope they have found comfort in the amount of good wishes they have received from the “football family,” not just from the UK, but Europe too.

There was a minutes applause for the former Arsenal and Birmingham man before the Wolves v Manchester United fixture, there were good wishes from Liverpool over the tannoy at Anfield before the FA Cup Quarter Final, and both sets of fans responded by singing Muamba’s name. There was Gary Cahill’s tribute to his former team mate when he scored the first goal at home to Leicester in the other quarter final played on Sunday, and of course the Real Madrid players wore T-shirts bearing their support in their game on Sunday night.

It is often forgotten that, as Mark Larwenson pointed out on Match of the Day at the weekend just how small the professional football community is and just how many players might know each other, but with Muamba it is about more than collective professional upset – this is about football fans and players showing their love and support for a footballer with a story that has touched people.

A young man who fled war torn Congo, who couldn’t speak a word of English when he arrived in this country to re-unite with his father, but still got 11 GCSES just five years later. Who has been a dedicated player for Arsenal, before moving to Birmingham and Bolton where his all action style has made him a favourite and enabled to him play for the England U-21 side

Maybe that, in part, explains the love for Muamba. He is not your “normal” footballer. He is one that has triumphed in adversity and, at just 23 has been struck down in such terrible circumstances. Overcoming things that most players – and indeed fans – would never have to think about.

It takes a rare thing for football fans to put their differences aside but everyone who doubted whether football had any touch with reality and could still be a positive force would do well to take a look at what happened on Saturday and re-evaluate their thoughts.

Everyone at Leisure Leagues would like to send our best wishes to Fabrice Muamba and his family and desperately hopes he makes a full and speedy recovery.

The Cup That No One Wants To Win?

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There is a report in one of the newspapers today that Manchester City players are “exhausted” after being made to train in the Portuguese heat after their game last week in Lisbon in the Europa League.

It is also said that relations between the players and Roberto Manchini have deteriorated to such a degree that a section of the players want him out.

Now, I don’t know whether this story is anything like true. No one does, expect the chap that wrote it, but it does raise a number of interesting points.

First, it raises the point of exactly how it is a bad thing to be “made” to stay in Portugal. A training camp in Portugal sounds a bit more enticing than a grey day in Warwickshire, which is all I can see when I look out of the window writing this.

Second, it has echoes with the “player power” stories that seemingly dogged Andre Villas Boas’ last days as boss at Stamford Bridge, while third there is the question of whether anyone actually wants to be in Europa League.

It does seem that increasingly the competition that should be the second most prestigious European trophy is seen by Managers (certainly those in England) as being what Sir Alex Ferguson called “a punishment.” Whether that’s fair or not, there is a perception that it is a poisoned chalice.

In fairness to both Ferguson and Manchini they both played strong teams in their games last week despite the bad results and in doing so sent out a clear signal that they want to win the cup, but I’ll bet that deep down neither man would be hugely upset if by the end of this week they are “concentrating on the league.”

There are many problems with the Europa Cup. Not least it starts in July, there is a mammoth cup competition to get in the league part in the first place, where you face another six games before getting to the knockout stages. If that is not enough, there are all the Thursday and Sunday games causing disruption to the fans who want to go, and perhaps the worst thing of all: Once you have battled through all these games and made it to the knockout rounds along come all the Champions League Teams who finished third in their pre-Christmas groups and are given the Europa League to have a go at as some sort of bizarre consolation prize. (The Manchester giants know all about this)

With all those problems (and I will not include too many games as a problem as players are essentially paid to keep fit and have absolutely no business being “exhausted”) and for prize money that is but a fraction of what teams in the Champions League can expect to receive, it is hardly surprising that it is a distraction that many feel they could do without.

UEFA seem to have gone out of their way to make the competition look and feel like it is second class. In the last round Manchester City had to kick off their game with Porto at Eastlands at 5pm on a Wednesday night. The reason? There was a Champions League game taking place the same night. On the TV. And Uefa rules state that no other UEFA Competition can take place at the same time as a Champions League fixture, and if that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about the place it occupies in UEFA’s thoughts then I don’t know what does.

There is a not unreasonable school of thought that says you cannot settle for second best and if you compete in anything you are duty bound to try and win it. Indeed these players wouldn’t play for top clubs if they didn’t have a huge degree of professional pride and will to win, so they won’t be happy to get knocked out, of course.

That said you can also bet whoever gets “the punishment” next year won’t be happy about it and whichever of the Manchester clubs that doesn’t win the league will have themselves a ready-made excuse for their failure - Thursday nights on Channel Five.