Manchester United and Manchester City can keep Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, fans would rather Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp or West Ham’s Slaven Bilic.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola
They say a week is a long time in football and it certainly felt it if you had the displeasure of watching either of the Manchester sides in action.
Why do thousands of people pack out football stadiums each week?
Why do we switch on in our millions and pay thousands of our hard earned money each year following football?
It is certainly not to watch preening managers over complicate the beautiful game and spoil what should be memorable big matches.
Spoiler alert: Mourinho
Yes Mourinho and Guardiola, like all managers, are well paid to get results, of course that is the bottom line in the cut throat business of modern football.
But tuning in to watch Manchester United play Liverpool at Anfield anyone would have thought the Red Devils needed a point to avoid relegation on the last day of the season.
And what of City at the Camp Nou, the home of the beautiful game. Ninety thousands fans packed in to watch some of the best players on the planet going at it in Europe’s elite competition.
Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero against Barca
Except one of them was inexplicably left on the bench as Guardiola had Sergio Aguero kicking his heels on the sidelines.
Worse still the man brought in to revolutionise the Blues played with no strikers at all as Aguero’s compatriot Lionel Messi somewhat inevitably destroyed a side only interested in keeping the score down.
Fans want entertainment, they want to see their side go for it, to try and win, especially so early on in the season.
And that’s why most supporters would have the enigmatic Liverpool and Hammers bosses over the egotistical Manchester pair any day of the week.
Kings of cool: Klopp and Bilic
Klopp summed it up brilliantly in his post match press conference when it was pointed out to him that at least his side had kept a clean sheet.
“Yipee,” the German bit back sarcastically. That’s because yes Klopp wants to win but he wants goals, shots, excitement and ultimately to entertain, which is what Liverpool have done all season.
West Ham have struggled this season which has been in stark contrast to last when they missed out on Champions League football by just four points playing swashbuckling football along the way.
Bilic has been under immense pressure and his tactics, philosophy and team selection have been criticised.
West Ham United’s Manuel Lanzini applies the finishing touch to a slick 17-pass move
But he stuck to his beliefs to play entertaining football and the win at Crystal Palace last time out saw his side score one of the team goals of the season so far with Manuel Lanzini sweetly finishing off a slick 17 pass move befitting the fabled West Ham way.
If it was up to certain pundits Lanzini would not have even been in the side. Many felt the Hammers could not afford to keep playing Payet and Lanzini in the same side, ‘too many luxury players’ some argued.
But Bilic, determined not to abandon his and the club’s principles worked tirelessly to find a formation that would make his side harder to beat but also allow him to keep his flair players in the side and give them a platform to flourish.
City and Manchester United may well achieve more than the Hammers and Liverpool this season, but at what cost?
Football is about the fans, without their interest there is no long-term future in it for anyone. It is time to stop over complicating a sport which is at it’s best in its most pure and simple form.
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