HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO DRAW THE LEAGUE CUP?

IS IT really that hard to draw a knock-out tournament? It seems close to impossible if you’re the Football League. Fresh from the triumph of having Charlton playing twice in the first round of the Carabao Cup — the League Cup to anyone over 35 — they made such a hash of the second round that even the clubs involved were signalling bemusement. ‘We will be at home to QPR,’ announced Brentford. ‘Or maybe away, we’re not sure.’ In a nutshell, some genius at the Football League left the mechanics of the draw to John Salako (above), meaning that for the first four matches every team they said was away was at home, and every team they said was at home was away. Apart from West Ham who genuinely were away having been drawn at home, but that’s another story. Either way, it was a mess. ‘Our life is frittered away by detail… simplify, simplify,’ wrote Thoreau. That, or don’t put John Salako in charge. Either works, really.