In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Liverpool attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including the recent FFP charges brought against Nottingham Forest and Everton, the future of Jose Mourinho and what have we learned from the Henderson/Saudi Arabia situation?
Does Football need an NFL-style salary cap to ensure fairness?
I have got no problem with any club that have fallen foul of breaking financial fair play rules being punished. However, the situation regarding these regulations has moved on a lot.
In 1992, the Premier League and Champions League started, which locked in the clubs that qualified that year and gave them a licence to print money. Was that unfair? yes, it was. It basically meant that if you were in the Championship or lower down in that Premier League table, you didn’t get the leg up that a club like Arsenal did.
Man City, Nottingham Forest and Everton would argue: ‘Liverpool, Man United, Arsenal, and Chelsea to a lesser degree, have benefited massively by being in the top four and the Champions League season in, season out since 1992. How do you expect us, equally as big clubs, to be able to compete with them.’
FFP was born out of a noble idea, the fact that clubs could only spend within their means, but what it has done is still allowed nations states to come in with bottomless pits of money and find every single way when charges are thrown at clubs to kick things into the long grass. I am not saying that is Man City or Newcastle, but I am saying that if you have state money you can just push things done the line forever.
As for Everton and Nottingham Forest, they have wealthy owners, but they don’t have the means to allow things to go on forever. They also pleaded guilty, whilst Man City have stated that they are innocent of all charges.
What I’d like to see going forward is the global governing bodies now get their heads around an NFL-style salary cap. That is the only way to be able to ensure that all clubs start a season with the same parameters. Clubs will be given a budget, let’s say £200m, you can’t go beyond that and it is audited by independent bodies.
FIFA have a lot of political clout to get this over the line as several countries are bending over backwards to get World Cups. If they want to have a credible FIFA Club World Cup when the new format appears in 2025, all clubs across the globe should have the same amount to spend on players, as FFP in its current state is not fit for purpose at the top of the game.
Two factors stopping Mourinho from returning to the Premier League
Wherever Jose Mourinho has gone to manage he has been handsomely paid and therefore, I think the next step for the legendary coach now is Saudi Arabia and they will love him there.
We are starting to see the Saudi playbook in recent days. Some players go there for a few seasons and play well, such as Cristiano Ronaldo; but then you have others such as Henderson and maybe Benzema, who decide they don’t like it and want a way back into Europe. Recent events show that going to Saudi doesn’t do damage to their reputations and that clubs in Europe will be still willing to bring them back into the fold.
So for me, Mourinho’s future could be that he moves to Saudi Arabia for around 18 months and somewhere within that period of time, Eddie Howe will be sacked by Newcastle and the Portuguese coach will be parachuted into the Tyneside club. That would be nice for him as he would finally get to say ‘I have followed in the footsteps of Sir Bobby Robson’, a man the former Chelsea boss idolises.
The problem Newcastle may have is that the fans will not accept him because of his style of play, especially going from Eddie Howe to the Portuguese coach’s pragmatism. The two issues Mourinho will have if he arrives at a top Premier League club is that he is not doing the business anymore, in terms of results, and that fans of these clubs expect exciting, attacking football – which the former Chelsea boss doesn’t provide.
If Mourinho turns up to one of the ‘big six’ clubs or someone just outside of that, he has to win games because if he doesn’t, fans will not put up with his style of play for very long. These would be the two things that could stop him from returning to the top of Engish football in the future.
What have we learned from the Henderson/Saudi situation?
I can see why Ajax have signed Henderson. The Dutch club are known for being a breeding ground for talented, technically good players but they have brought in stars throughout history that have helped them enormously. Henderson has experience and was also part of a Liverpool team that moved the ball around at speed, so I can see the football merits of the move.
I think this whole experience Henderson has had over the last six months shows us the power of the Premier League and the power that English footballers have. We have seen at both ends of the scale English stars moving to top European clubs, 20-year-old Bellingham moving to Real Madrid and now players such as 30-year-old Eric Dier completing a transfer to Bayern Munich and 33-year-old Henderson to Ajax.
The English system is working. From coaching players properly at academies up and down the pyramid, the investment put into St. George’s Park and the investment into the England national team by the FA are all helping produce quality players. We are not at Brazil’s level of exporting talent but we are starting to see the green shoots of English players being seen as technically adept and respected across Europe in the cases of two players at the latter stages of their careers in Dier and Henderson securing moves to two of Europe’s biggest clubs. That would not have happened 10/15 years ago outside of the biggest stars.
Going back to Henderson, if he eventually comes back to England, he has damage limitation to do. I suspect that the former Liverpool captain will want to return to become a coach once he is done at Ajax and I think at some stage he will need to sit in front of the press and explain his decision to move to Saudi Arabia but that is not for now. He has turned his back on huge money, as he wasn’t forced out of Saudi Arabia, and that shows he still has that competitive fire in him and it could be useful for England this summer at some stage in the tournament.
The perfect next club for Ivan Toney
I went to Brentford’s training ground around a month ago and talking to people there, although they didn’t make it very clear, I felt that they were already preparing for Ivan Toney’s eventual departure.
If I was advising him where to go next, out of the clubs that have shown interest, I would tell Toney to go to Arsenal. However, I think the Arsenal culture is still not a winning one. The Brentford star is a ruthless character and it is clear he wants to succeed, therefore, I don’t know if Toney’s attitude would rub off on Arsenal in a positive way.
For me, if Liverpool decided to come calling, that would be perfect. I know they already have an embarrassment of riches in forward areas but if any of them were offloaded in the coming months, the Brentford star could be a great addition. I rate Toney so highly that I could see him in between Salah and Diaz.
Liverpool will likely look at him and say ‘Not for us’ but If I was the Reds, I would genuinely be inclined to let Gakpo go, who I don’t think will go on to become a prolific Liverpool striker, and replace him with Toney. If they offered Brentford cash and Gakpo, I wonder if the Bees would go for that?
Toney would add something significant to Liverpool as he can play as a traditional nine, he can drop off and he has proven with Mbeumo that he can forge partnerships. For me, I would be giving Brentford a call.
Erling Haaland deserved FIFA’s The Best Men’s Player award
Lionel Messi winning FIFA’s The Best Men’s Player of 2023 shows that these individual awards in football have lost everything in the cult of celebrity as the criteria for voting did not include the 2022 World Cup, which if it did, the decision is fair enough.
These awards should be based on what players won, what did they add to their team, what were their individual stats etc.
I think what we have now, based on the last few years, is these awards being FIFA’s way of taking awards around the World and guaranteeing that they fall into Messi or Ronaldo’s hands so that they can be pictured glad-handing the sheikhs and the big politicians.
If we are looking at stats and achievements from 2023, Man City’s Erling Haaland should have picked up this award as he was far superior to any of the other contestants. He came into the World’s toughest league and broke the goalscoring record, which is very impressive.
If these awards are to hold any credibility going forward, they need to stop being a beauty pageant and start being decided on some proper criteria.
The arsenal formula isn’t winning for 2 reasons: I suspect the question of selling off some players to balance books at the start of the season played into Arteta’s alterations in the way he wanted to play. from Xhaka being sold to Gabriel sitting on the bench; Partey being tried at Right Back and Raya being brought in have all lead to the mess.
Arteta is a novice coach as well. Many Arsenal fringe players are losing their value because the coach isn’t giving them enough minutes. There’s no explanation why he keeps giving Havertz a lot of minutes in a position where Smith Rowe can even do better.
Today Joe Willock is looking to have more market value than Smith Rowe. It was clearly the opposite 2 years ago. Nelson can help Saka out. He has shown his capabilities in the past but Arteta keeps playing Saka even when he clearly shows he is worn out.
Arteta has neglected the Academy and is only thinking of bringing in players who would cost heavy sums.
I believe the FFP thing and Kroenke’s desire to make money is destroying the way Arteta wants to build the team.
The greatest error was buying Havertz when there were cheaper and more proven options in the market. Now, Havertz is stuck in their throat. Move Zincheko to midfield or simply play Smith Rowe there and give a break to Havertz. Find him a different position. He is the cause of the poor form of the attack. Xhaka and Partey made them to play better and score goals.