December is well known as the time of year when the football calendar backs up and fixtures start flying at us thick and fast. With Liverpool, the current reigning Champions of Europe competing for five trophies at the start of December, the fixture pile up was always gong to catch up with them eventually.
And that fixture pile up culminated this week as the reds were expected to play 4 games within 7 days, with two of those fixtures played on consecutive days (Tuesday/Wednesday) over 4,000 miles apart.
When Manchester United were invited to compete in the Club World Cup after winning the Champions League in the 1999-2000 season, they pulled out of the FA cup entirely.
Liverpool’s approach to combat the busy period was to field a team built up of their under-23s squad to do battle against a heavily changed Aston Villa side. After a strong start by the visiting kids, the game went the way most were expecting, finishing 5-0 to the hosts and putting Aston Villa through to the semi finals where they will play either Everton or Leicester for a chance to reach the final.
Both teams and fans (mostly fans) have slowly been finding the league cup more of a distraction than a competition they really want to win. Is this a failing of the FA, or are teams not showing this domestic trophy enough respect?
Social media was abuzz the morning after the game and all talk was either directed at Klopp disrespecting a domestic trophy in favour of a ‘PR’ trophy abroad, or aimed at the FA’s inability to reschedule a fixture and placing a Premier League manager in a tricky position of having to play two games on two consecutive days.
To many, the League Cup is a ‘Micky Mouse’ trophy; a trophy that is a nice addition to the cabinet if won but is not sorely missed if you’re knocked out of it.
With plenty of other teams fielding much weaker sides throughout the tournament, and with the likes of Oxford United and Colchester coming up against Premier League Manchester giants in the quarter finals, it is hard to still consider the League cup as a prestigious tournament.
Was Klopp’s idea to send the kids insulting to the cup? Or is the fixture simply a mistake by the FA that have easily be played another time?