The Warm-Up: Liverpool make mature choice and forget about FA Cup
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Updated 08/01/2019 at 08:09 GMT
Plus, another pretty tedious draw, Spurs and Chelsea go for another cup and a man eats a pie...
Liverpool scheitert im FA-Cup sensationell an den Wolves
Image credit: SID
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Liverpool punt the FA Cup, and damn right too
At this time of year people get all hand-wringy about the FA Cup and its place in the footballing hierarchy, essentially the same debate we’ve been having for about 20 years now. Liverpool were the latest target for those who still think the FA Cup is sacred, as they made nine changes for their third-round game against Wolves, and duly lost 2-1, a Raul Jimenez strike and a stunner from Ruben Neves sandwiching one by Divock Origi.
Now, we’re sure Jurgen Klopp wasn’t deliberately trying to lose. He wasn’t helped by injuries to a few players, notably Adam Lallana before the game and Dejan Lovren during it, the latter replaced by 16-year-old Ki-Jana Hoever. But he shouldn’t lose a second’s sleep over his decisions on the team against Wolves.
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Raul Jimenez of Wolverhampton Wanderers avoids Naby Keita of Liverpool during the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Liverpool at Molineux on January 7, 2019 in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom
Image credit: Getty Images
Liverpool are top of the Premier League and have their best chance of winning the title in 29 years. Only two teams have won the double in the last 20 years, which should probably tell you that lifting the FA Cup is, these days, not necessarily compatible with a title victory. They have a pretty deep squad but not an indestructible one. It must be protected at all costs.
Picking a second-string team for the FA Cup was not just a pragmatic choice, but the only responsible one. If Liverpool were merely competing for a Champions League place then punting the FA Cup would be less defensible, but as it is Klopp did exactly the right thing.
All that said, blaming the wind is a little silly..
..And look what thrilling stuff Liverpool are missing out on…
If you thought the FA Cup third-round draw was dull, wait until you get a load of the one for the fourth round.
The big winners from the third round – Gillingham, Barnet, Newport, Oldham – have been given ties that are not so much boring, rather ones that will probably make them wonder why they bothered.
The only game of any interest at all is Arsenal v Manchester United, which will be pretty good, but we see that a couple of times a season anyway. Teams playing their reserves aren’t the reason this season’s FA Cup has been dull, it’s because there have been no decent games.
Can Spurs move towards a cup? And will it make any difference?
The old complaint about/knock against Mauricio Pochettino is that, for all his outstanding work at Tottenham, they’ve yet to win a trophy. Whether that matters or not, in this day and age where progress isn’t necessarily measured in those terms anymore, is an interesting question. Will it make Pochettino a better manager if he wins the Carabao Cup? Almost certainly not.
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Mauricio Pochettino
Image credit: PA Sport
But they have a chance to reach the final, the first leg of their semi-final against Chelsea being tonight. Perhaps more pertinently, will winning a trophy change the way they go about things, as Pochettino suggested has to be the case yesterday. He said:
Of course now after nearly five years the club is on another level than five years ago, but how we operate in four or five years didn’t change. That is the point when sometimes people talk about winning titles. One thing is to reduce the gap with the top four, to be competitive, to create a team capable of fighting with the big sides. But if after we want to win titles we need to operate in a different way. Of course, maybe we can win some titles but it’s going to be a tough job to do because in that situation every club in the last five years was improving a lot. The other day I saw a stat, in the last 10 years in England and in Europe how the teams were spending money, and I think we were on the bottom, in England and Europe.
Either way, it should be a decent game. How seriously will both teams take it? How strong will their teams be? Will Maurizio Sarri pick Callum Hudson-Odoi? Questions, questions, questions. For answers, watch tonight.
IN OTHER NEWS
Looks like Luis Figo has gone on holiday with his pig, obviously.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: This Wolves fan, not letting the sight of his team scoring a stunning goal disturb his pie
Hats off sir.
Zero: Ken Anderson
Grim old times at Bolton these days, with financial woes giving them an uncertain future, to say the least. But the big problem is that those financial issues are not just impacting on them, but other clubs too.
Yesterday Forest Green Rovers recalled striker Christian Doidge, who had been on loan at Bolton with a view to a permanent deal in January, because “a lot” of promises regarding the deal had been broken by Bolton chairman Ken Anderson, according to Forest Green head honcho Dale Vince. He told Sky Sports News:
They have paid nothing, literally nothing, for him for half the season and they don’t care. He says to me: ‘You can seek a winding-up petition, you can bankrupt the club.’ He said: ‘I don’t care, I’m a secured lender. I’ll get my money back and you’ll get 10p in the pound.’ This is a man that lives and operates, I think, in this way.
HAT TIP
Santi Solari was right, but he got it so very wrong. First they attacked him for what he said, then they attacked him for what he did. Others, meanwhile, just gave up and walked away, leaving him standing where Real Madrid managers so often stand: alone. On Saturday, two days after his team had been held 2-2 at Villarreal on their return from the winter break and winning the Club World Cup, the hounds released, Solari insisted that draws shouldn’t be “underestimated”; as if to prove the point, a prisoner of his words, the next day they were beaten 2-0 by Real Sociedad at the Bernabéu, the league seeming to slip out of sight again on the first weekend of 2019 – 20 games ahead of time.
We mentioned in yesterday’s Warm-Up that Real Madrid are absolute trousers now. Here, Sid Lowe goes into a little more detail.
RETRO CORNER
The last time Spurs and Chelsea faced each other in the League Cup semi-final, it ended in what can only be described as a complete and utter horsing. Enjoy Spurs going postal here, led by Steffen Iversen and Sergei Rebrov, naturally.
COMING UP
One show in town tonight: it’s Tottenham Hotspur vs Chelsea in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final at Wembley as they play for a place at..erm..Wembley. Should be a spicy one.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by the ever-spicy Alex Chick.
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