New Year’s Resolutions in Football for 2020
TV pundits to become less pally
On Match of the Day, regular pundits Ian Wight and Alan Shearer refer to each other by nickname. “Al” is used for Alan Shearer and “Wrighty” for Ian Wright. Mark Chapman, presenter of Match of the Day 2, is also in on the laddish culture and referred to as “Chappers”.
It’s no different over on Sky Sports with Soccer Saturday host Jeff Stelling calling Paul Merson as “Merse”.
It’s not the dressing room anymore, it’s television. It seems a little forced, fake and just very cringeworthy in my opinion.
As I stated before in the ’10 things that sum up football in the 90’s’ article, can you imagine Des Lynam referring to Alan Hansen as “Al” or Trevor Brooking as “Trev”? It may have been a different time but I think that there does need to be an element of professionalism.
Clichés to be cut down to a minimum
We have these two of hundreds of footballing clichés to look forward to this weekend with the Third Round of the FA Cup in “David vs Goliath” and “Magic of the FA Cup”.
Each and every one of the footballing clichés have been used to death and are also quite lazy. They have become so repetitive now that they have lost their meaning.
As for the “magic of the FA Cup”, that was lost when the FA decided to host the Semi-Finals at Wembley and change the kick-off to later on in the day for television purposes.
VAR to get sorted out
The offside situation with lines across the pitch needs to be stopped and referees need to consult the pitch-side monitor. These monitors have sat unused for most of the season to date.
Fans inside the stadium also need to be aware of what is going on. An earpiece should be made available for each fan in the stadium to listen to the referee and VAR. Another idea would be to show the incident on the big screens so fans are aware of what is going on.
The only issue with this is grounds such as Old Trafford and Anfield do not have mega screens and so it won’t be available at all grounds.
Liverpool to (finally!) get beaten in the League
This is a completely selfish one here but I would love it if every one of Liverpool’s remaining opponents in the Premier League to try and take their unbeaten record.
As an Arsenal fan fortunate enough to remember the magnificent Invincibles and the 49 games unbeaten, it’d be horrible for another team to match the record or even worse, surpass it!
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Diving to be eradicated form the game
Diving in general is poor form, cheating and is a real scourge of the game. Tougher punishments should be brought in that would have an impact on players. Fines wouldn’t be enough as players in the top-flight are all multi-millionaires.
England to practice penalties at every squad get-together
Penalties have been our undoing in six major tournaments and must be something that plays on the mind of our players. Yes, we beat Colombia in the 2018 World Cup but it would be foolish not to practice at each training session.
Incidentally, the victory over Colombia was the only penalty shoot-out victory in a World Cup match. The other victory in a shoot-out was against Spain at Euro ’96.
Another idea that might be a good idea is to end every friendly in the lead-up to the European Championships with a penalty shootout irrespective of the result after 90 minutes. The players would then get the experience of a shootout in front of a crowd and against another team.
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