Imagine the scene. Its 5:40pm on Sunday April 27th at White Hart Lane. Against all odds and in spite of their rather questionable footballing skills, Tottenham are holding Man Utd to a nil nil draw.
Panic in the Red Devils dug out you say? Fergies title ambitions about to lay in ruins?! Surely Utd will be throwing everything, possibly including the kitchen sink at the Spurs defence, in an attempt to secure the vital three points?! Well you would think so, but no! Instead their back 5 are knocking the ball about effortlessly, occasionally stroking it forward for one of their forwards to run it in the corner. Ferguson has a hug grin on his face, probably already perfecting his title acceptance speech, while the mayor of Oslo begins to declare the day a public holiday. But why is this happening? Has all that whiskey finally gone to the bosses head?! Did someone slip some narcotics in the pre game lucozade? No I shall tell you what has happened. Bolton beat Arsenal the day before.
Now thats not my preditiction for tomorrow, im hoping when the chips are down Arsenal will pull out the goods. Obviously should they slip up, or even lose the game they will be in serious trouble, but their disadvantage will have been compounded by the schedulers. You see in the scenario above Man Utd knew a point would be sufficient to keep them in front of us and in fact put the title into their own hands. So instead of going hell for leather to win the game, they were contented to sit back and gain the draw. In case you were wondering though, sadly Spurs did not snatch a last minute winner, I know this was a fantasy scenario, but I have to at least attempt to keep this column in the realms of reality!
There may well be some people who would say it makes no difference and that this would never happen. Well to them I say lets go back to May 1999. The Democrats where still in power in the US, the Y2K bug had wags across the world screaming armageddon and Nicholas Anelka had shown only a glimpse of the trouble he was to cause that summer. As for the race for the Premiership, well with two games to go Arsenal and Man Utd were deadlocked at the top. On a Tuesday night Arsenal first played Leeds at Elland Road. In an absolute barnstormer of a game which went backwards and forwards Leeds delivered what proved to be the telling blow with 5 mins to go to full time. The next night Utd played Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park and this is were the ‘White Hart Lane’ scenario kicked in. Normally Utd would have gone all out for the win at relegation doomed Rovers. Instead they knew a draw would mean that a home win in their final game of the season would secure them the title. Despite Rovers needing to win to stay up, the game finished nil nil and Utd were in the driving seat. Come Sunday both Arsenal and Utd won their games, meaning the title went back to Old Trafford.
So whats the solution to this? Well its simple really, come the end of the season all teams should have to play their last 5 games at the same time, unless it really is unavoidable due to fixture congestion. Now obviously if we beat Bolton you could argue that it will put pressure on Utd who could the go on to falter against Spurs. Well that is possibly true, but that same pressure could inspire them to win. Why not make things easier and just have them kick off at the same time? The major stumbling block to this is Sky who obviously want to show the big title deciding games. At the moment their is a law prohibiting live football to be shown at 3pm on a Saturday, so moving all the Premiership games to 4pm on a Sunday for the last month is possibly a bit extreme. But why not relax the law for the last 5 games of a season? At worst you would effect a clubs home attendances for 3 games, and in exceptions 4, but if the worse came to the worse then the FA could pay them compensation. This all may seem kind of radical but do we really want to see Fergie jumping around as if he is David Pleat at the end of Sundays game when Utd have ‘battled’ to a draw with an out of sorts Spurs team?!
Other random thoughts …
*So the FA have upheld the Campbell sending off. Frankly im shocked, I mean the FA never cease to amaze me. Sure I knew they would uphold his ban but Im amazed they havent recommended a prison sentance or even deportation. Still they probably have better things to do than to worry about justice for an Arsenal player, the 2:07pm tee off time at Wentworth has become available and they can’t miss that. It would be nice if they weren’t so forgetful though because they seem to forget to schedule Van Nistelrooys’ disclipinary hearing for assualting Ljungberg in May last year …
* The whole of europe better hope Real Madrid dont start learning how to defend, because if they do then frankly they are a lock for the Champions League for years to come. Its amazing how some Man Utd fans think their side played brilliantly on Wednesday night, in fact a few are making out that they were the better side over the two legs! Listen guys Real were in total control of the match, had they need a 4th they would have got one, and if Ronaldo had had his shooting boots on in the 1st leg then you could have let in 6 or 7 in that game alone. And lets not forget Raul wasnt playing on Wednesday either. Credit to Utd for eventually winning the tie, but lets not kid ourselves, Real are far and away the best side in europe.
* Congratulations to Celtic, getting in the first European final for 33 years. I say this as a Rangers fan too! But at the end of the day it is a huge boost for Scottish football and lets see them go all the way!
* It’s not a footballing matter but I have my driving test at 3:30pm tomorrow!! If you value your life, I suggest you stay out of North London because im not overly keen on stopping when required too!
Well thats it for today, I thought I should do one of these as its been a little while since I last did one, but I have a work in progress going which I am hoping to post in the next month, I hope you will all enjoy it!! Till next time, my name is Alastair Wood and this has been Hot Stuff!