In his fortnightly exclusive column for CaughtOffside, Jon Smith, one of football’s first-ever agents and a man who was an integral figure in the forming of the Premier League, discusses why Wayne Rooney failed at Birmingham, why Joey Barton is wrong, why modifying the FA Cup doesn’t mean breaking with tradition – and more!
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Rooney is another big name that didn’t bother learning his craft properly
This is something that I’ve been talking about for a long while because of being involved with older managers, good friends like Harry Redknapp, who has been a great servant of the game.
There’s this desire to bring on the young talent too quickly as managers and I think people should read a little feature called ‘Why traditional number 10s are being deployed as number eights.’
It’s a very long feature from The Times and it describes how the original number 10 used to sit behind the striker but now functions pretty much as a number eight.
There’s various formulae that you can deploy, but it’s a really interesting article for any football fan because it actually illustrates the various formations that are being deployed now.
Promoting people into positions because they were successful players doesn’t necessarily mean they then become a successful manager, and there’s many that have fallen by the wayside over the decades.
Look at John Terry. He’s been a number two, a number three and has now actually gone back to Chelsea’s Academy to learn more of his trade. Doing it the right way.
He’s a dynamic character and my instant forecast is that he’ll be a really successful manager of the future if he decides to tread that path because he’s learned his trade properly, similar to Mikel Arteta under Pep Guardiola before blossoming at Arsenal.
Rooney, Gerrard and Lampard all appear to have been fast-tracked – not sure that’s the best way forward.
VAR needs more work but I remain a huge fan
Ultimately, one of the best things about VAR is that the referee’s decision is currently final. So the VAR can flag something that he wants the official to have a look at but the man in the middle still makes the final decision.
As I’ve said before I’m a big fan of VAR, though like we saw in the Liverpool vs Newcastle game, the problem with it is you’ll still always have players dive and there’ll always be human mistakes.
One would hope that the team of people in the VAR room should be able to decipher these types of decisions very, very speedily.
I can watch a replay on Sky or TNT and I’m not saying I’m brilliant, but I’ve been in the game quite a long time and I could pretty much make a decision after 30 seconds of watching an incident from three different angles. Maybe a minute, but to take four or five minutes with a team of people around you, and then force the referee to look at it again while nothing is happening in the stadium is wrong, in my opinion.
The best thing about football games is celebrating when your team scores, and you can’t do that at the moment.
So, you absolutely need to involve the crowd. There needs to be a replay on the screen to keep the atmosphere in the stadium with everyone jumping down, putting their head in their hands or whatever it might be.
Football remains a fast-moving game, therefore VAR has got to be quicker and it’s got to be delivered with crowd involvement.
Saudis can ensure that the Super League will happen
Football regulation says that no government should be involved in it, but UEFA went straight to the British government and asked them for their support in facing down the Super League threat.
A lot of the footballing authorities and associations will also come out and say there’s no need for change and we don’t want money people running the game.
However, I had a conversation on CaughtOffside last month whereby if Saudi Arabia goes to UEFA or FIFA and says ‘here’s a sum of money that you can only get on planet Mars, we want to be involved – and by the way, part of this is that we’d like to create some sort of evolution of our league or sponsorship of a new league,’ that’s where I think the Super League then becomes tenable.
Nobody wants the Club World Cup except FIFA for example, that’s potentially where a Super League could fit in our crowded calendar and whether those within the game like it or not, we are in a Super League ‘gestation period’ at the moment where there will be conversations.
Saudi have to get their act together and pull in the crowds in order to get the right marketing, which is probably 3-5 years away, but let’s have this conversation again in five years time and I think we’ll be heading down that Super League road in some shape or form.
FA Cup can keep its traditions but it does need to evolve
I love the tradition of the FA Cup and I think we should try and preserve that on its future footballing journey, however, the competition does need to evolve too.
I was talking to Simon Jordan recently and he mentioned that the Premier League teams maybe shouldn’t draw each other for the first couple of rounds, and the lower-ranked teams in the draw should always have the home tie in the early rounds as that will give them the finance that they need.
Little things like that will put a more modern spin on the FA Cup but the problem is look who’s running the game!
I can’t see the entrepreneurial ship inside the FA thinking of doing something which is creative like that because they play the tradition card very heavily.
I know it’s the FA Cup and I know there’s so much tradition around it and that’s great, but the FA Cup will always have its place because of that tradition – I just think you need to clean the cup and make it sparkle a bit.
Joey Barton is entitled to his opinion… but he’s wrong
I don’t like gesticulating politics.
I do sometimes look at the presentation teams on television and think ‘that person isn’t particularly good and I have a horrible, queasy sentiment that they’re there because they’re making up the numbers,’ but there are a lot of excellent female analysts and colour commentators.
In the 2020s you have to be inclusive, but inclusive with responsibility and respect to everyone that’s in that environment.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion too even if those opinions are abhorrent to many.
You don’t have to agree, and I certainly don’t agree with the tone and position that Joey Barton is taking at the moment.