The Idiocy of Weakened Squads

I know it's deadline day, but I'm in a small state of mourning after the loss of Fernando, and so I'll cover all of that tomorrow. First, I want to talk about the fact that Blackpool is being fined by the FA for fielding a "weakened" squad. Now, 25k is quite a pretty penny for a team that cannot even afford under-pitch heating, and they did the same thing to Wolves last year. Let's just go over the facts, shall we? Ian Holloway selected a starting lineup, entirely composed of the 25-man squad he selected for the Premier League, but with 9 of the players starting not being first-team regulars. The game was very evenly matched, with Villa winning on a late Collins strike.

We Just Scored on Blackpool's B Team!

Now, look, it was clearly a weakened team (which makes it all the more pathetic that they nearly drew Aston Villa) but what exactly is the crime here? Teams all the time make callous decisions like this. First off, the FA, which controls both cups, regularly watches teams put in B (or C or D) squads in those cups that they frankly don't care much about. How is this allowed then? They are basically saying that these ties don't matter much to them. If they aren't allowed to say that about a Premier League game, why can they say that about the main cups in the country?

Furthermore, where you draw the line between rotation and weakening? Any rotation is clearly a weakening of your best XI, but when is it weakening and when is it resting? There's too much gray area, and Holloway has done a great job at Blackpool so far so who is saying that he is not doing what is in the best interest of the club? It is insipid to fine Blackpool when he simply did what the Big Clubs have always done but never get called out on. Fergie, Wenger and Rafa would all be very poor men if they were fined every time they rotated to a "weakened" team. Just because no one rates Blackpool's bench does not mean they are any less right.

Bye-Bye Hodgson

Well, it's official. After a horrible half season, the 2010 Manager of the Year is now the first fired manager of the new year (well other than that other Roy but the Championship doesn't count). It really is a shame it had to come to this. You had a quality mid-table manager just simply way too far out of his depth. Hodgson can get you some decent results, but he is never winning a title. Even at his best, he lacks an ability to get any team to perform on the road. But, I will stop. Far too much ink has been wasted on his ineffectiveness as the manager of Liverpool. He just was not the right man for the job.

I think his career won't be soiled too horribly by this, and he surely will work again. There will probably be a few more openings this year in both the Premier League and the Championship, and he has never shown himself to be unwilling to go abroad. So, he will work again. He will be successful again, but his success is not that of a championship winning manager, it is that of stable mid-table success. An odd cup run, midtable finishes and no relegation. And that's what plenty of teams would kill for.

Roy Keane, on the other hand, has to be close to finished in football management. He is quite far removed from his only success (Sunderland's promotion and their subsequent staying up) and has followed that with his acrimonious exit from Sunderland and his horror show with Ipswich. Simply put, I don't think he has the temperament for management. Unless he got a big club (very fat chance), he will almost assuredly never manage a player as good as he was. Regardless of where he coaches, he will never coach a guy as tough as he was. And he will forever remain infuriated by his players by not reaching his own lofty standard. They will burn out by the military atmosphere, and eventually tune him out. He was hated as a player, and that's fine. In this day and age, you simply cannot be hated as a coach. The players have too much power.