Time for clubs to get tough over TV games rather than just taking cash
eicester City are English football’s last representatives in the Champions League and, yet, of the quarter-finalists, they were the last to kick off at the weekend with their 4pm Sunday fixture away to Everton. They now travel to Atlético Madrid – who played on Saturday afternoon, albeit the Madrid derby – for the daunting prospect of trying to overcome Diego Simeone’s side, who have been finalists in two of the past three seasons.
This is not to blame the broadcast companies who pay billions for the rights to show the Premier League. Having paid so much they have the mandate to choose. What needs to change is the clubs themselves. They need not simply to go to the highest bidder when it comes to the television rights but structure deals so that, for example, Champions League teams do not play on a Sunday before a midweek tie.
In fact they can add whatever caveats they want with regard to the timing of fixtures rather than just take the cash. The TV companies are not going to go away. It is simple. Adrian Bell, of the Henley Business School, presented his study, based on analytics, that clubs should not be afraid of managerial change but, crucially, should decide to make that change based on a number of quantifiable factors: from the transfer budget to the suspensions a team receive.
It is partly about stripping away the emotion and Bell also argued that the analytics showed a club such as Leicester City were right in sacking manager Claudio Ranieri despite the outcry it provoked. He noted that most of that outcry came from the media, former players and many people not connected with Leicester.
What would be the reaction if Watford sacked Mazzarri? Given their form for such things there would be less surprise but, inevitably, there would be criticism that football had sold its soul and the game has gone forever. That managers are not given time.
But why should Watford not try to do things differently? Clubs do not have to follow each other or run on those conventional straight lines. What makes Watford different is the way they organise themselves, the clarity with which they make decisions and the speed with which they act, allied to a core belief that the club exist beyond the manager and have their own identity. They need a coach to coach not a manager to run their club. He does not provide the continuity; Watford’s structure does.
Of course clubs can come unstuck. There is risk. Change is costly, upheaval leads to uncertainty. Backroom staff and players move on. The forerunners to this approach were Swansea City, who believed in their infrastructure, style of play and recruitment and were prepared to make managerial changes, sometimes early. This season they appear to have come unstuck and may go down.
If Watford do sack Mazzarri then it will not be a decision taken lightly. There do appear to have been concerns over the defensive style of football the team have played, that maybe they should be doing better with the squad recruited and also with Mazzarri’s failure to learn English.
If Mazzarri does go it will also be what he is used to. The 55-year-old has been a coach for 16 years and Watford are his eighth club and his first outside Italy. It may seem unpalatable to English football to make another change. But if Watford believe in their way – and it has worked so far – then they have earned the right to shock the system again.