Alan Shearer showed rigour and bravery to stand up to Pep Guardiola’s rant over fixture congestion
Have we reached peak pundit? Three were stationed close to the FA Cup and BBC Sport’s pitchside plinth after Manchester City’s win over Chelsea, alongside Gary Lineker, and Jermaine Jenas on gantry detail. So five former footballers to pontificate over the 22 involved at Wembley, a 1:4.4 ratio for now but due to rising budgets and inflation over the next decade we can look forward to the era of one ex-pro per player.
Pep Guardiola arrived for his post-match debrief, greeted with risky familiarity by Lineker who plonked a welcoming hand onto the manager’s shoulder. No complaints from Guardiola but in doing so Lineker wobbled and nearly unseated the trophy from its table off his starboard bow. Forget about the BBC Gladiators revival, we almost had a reboot of Auntie’s Sporting Bloomers.
The discussion which followed summed up several unwelcome trends in football. Lineker shaped for a gentle line of inquiry about the challenges of facing Chelsea after defeat to Real Madrid in midweek, and the pride Guardiola surely felt about his players making it into the FA Cup final. Guardiola was having none of it, calling the scheduling “unacceptable”. “not normal” and “impossible,” which seemed slightly lacking in rhetorical ballast given his team had managed to win.
Sensing danger and ever-ready with a de-escalatory quip Lineker said, “It might be our fault,” meaning the broadcasters. This time Alan Shearer was having none of it. Shearer is nobody’s idea of a modern-day Woodward and/or Bernstein but he showed admirable rigour and a fair degree of bravery to challenge Guardiola. “You can change your squad around and play different players though,” he said.
Had a rank-and-file journalist attempted such a point with such directness, Guardiola’s eye-roll would have been visible from space. But he engaged Shearer, recalling making changes after a previous midweek European trip then being 3-0 down to Liverpool by half time in the following game.
‘We still see too many pulled punches’
It was good to see him pressed in this way and welcoming use of the pundits’ privilege. If, as is to be implied by the make-up of TV panels, it is only people who have played the game to a high standard who can opine on it credibly, we still see too many pulled punches. Micah Richards was not taking notes. “We want you to be happy Pep,” was his only contribution. Frank Lampard watched on silently like a competition winner.
You could understand Guardiola’s confusion about why Coventry City and Manchester United were playing in Sunday’s semi with no midweek games and his point about mental recovery from a game like Wednesday’s defeat by Real Madrid. Yet managerial moaning rarely goes down well, given most people’s jobs are significantly less interesting and lucrative. Complaints are harder still to stomach when you consider City’s financial advantages over basically every club in the sport’s history. And choosing this weekend to whinge about too many fixtures seemed especially unwise.
City have not played in an FA Cup replay for seven years, when they needed a second chance to see off Huddersfield in the fifth round of the 2016/17 competition. Guardiola and other managers always make sure to pay lip service to the traditions of the Cup, but of course they would prefer that the entire competition be massaged to their convenience. Scheduling which takes account of European commitments, no replays, obviously, and ideally a bye to the last eight in recognition of excellent possession stats.
One thing always absent in manager-led discussions of player burnout is what teams are doing with the fixtures they control. Fifty-nine days after City’s season concludes with the FA Cup final they face Celtic in a pre-season friendly in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. From there, New York, Orlando and Columbus, Ohio for four games in a 12-day stretch with long-haul flights at either end.
These lucrative tours are a necessity in a PSR-driven world, but never cited when managers are bemoaning having to play too many games. Instead Guardiola mentioned that the (expanded) Champions League kicks off in the same week as the League Cup next season. You can guess which of those tournaments will be next in managers’ sights.
