It's a funny old game...

There are a few topical football issues I wanted to share my opinion on, so decided to return to my blog after yet another long break. To say my blogging is sporadic would be something of an understatement, but anyway here goes...

Firstly, I wanted to touch on the complaint lodged by West Ham regarding Fulham fielding a weakened team. There are plenty of reasons why the complaint should be thrown out without even a second's consideration in my opinion. The obvious points to make are that Roy Hodgson was simply utilising his squad, that any team's 'best eleven' is subjective, changes game to game and is difficult to judge so ruling on such things is near impossible, and that the bigger clubs rest their key players and rotate their squads far more frequently than Fulham so it would be unjust to single them out for punishment just because Mr Sullivan is throwing the toys out of his newly purchased Upton Park pram.

The most significant factor however is that Fulham, enjoying another excellent season given their resources, have accumulated enough points to ensure they have staved off the threat of relegation - the primary objective of all but 7 or 8 Premier League teams at the start of any given season - with games to spare and have thereby earned the right to pick whichever team they see fit for their remaining fixtures. Whether this is a 'weakened' team, and if so if this is, as was the case in this particular scenario, to rest players for a cup tie, or simply to try out new systems and personnel with the following season in mind, is quite frankly irrelevant. If you have amassed so few points that you are embroiled in a relegation battle and relying on other teams to do you a favour you need to look closer to home in order to tackle the real problem.

Of course it should be pointed out that West Ham's manager, Gianfranco Zola, dismissed the complaint made by his seniors claiming that Hodgson had done what was best for his own club, which is what all good managers quite rightly do. The jury is still out on whether nice man Zola will himself cut it as a good manager, but he's certainly not been helped by some of David Sullivan's comments since his arrival. Perhaps Sullivan was simply trying to fire Zola and the players up to breathe some life into their season, maybe even knowingly casting himself as the pantomime villain of the piece in the hope it would galvanise Zola and his troops in their quest to prove him wrong. I'm not personally sure Sullivan deserves such credit, he comes across as an outspoken and rather unlikeable character, but whatever the motive behind some of his comments, it seems to have caused nothing but unrest and it now appears it is a matter of when rather than if Zola will go, be it jumped, pushed or a bit of both.

Personally, I hope the current bottom three - Portsmouth, Burnley and Hull - are the teams that go down this year. As amusing as it can be to see a 'bigger' club fall from grace, West Ham have been relegated already in recent years and Zola is a rare gent in today's game so however brief the remainder of his reign at Upton Park turns out to be, I'd like them to escape relegation so he can leave with his head held high.

There aren't many clubs that have endured a more torrid a time both on and off the pitch than West Ham, but Portsmouth certainly have. I don't want them to go bust, simply because I don't want that to happen to any football club, but one can only hope that a Premiership club going into administration, so soon after all looked rosy on the back of an FA Cup winning season, may act as something of a wake-up call. No football club should be living beyond their means. Notts County aside, lower league clubs seem to be slowly realising this, but Premiership teams cannot be immune from this. Yes they enjoy generous helpings of TV revenue, along with large investment from wealthy owners in some cases, but hopefully the demise of Pompey will make the rest of the Premier League's teams realise that no matter how much money comes in, if you squander it and indulge in a wage structure that is simply unsustainable over a period of time it can come back to bite you, and hard.

Personally, I'm very fortunate in that my team, Swindon Town, are now run by a very sensible and forward thinking chairman and board. A sensible wage structure is in place, combined with astute investment in players that can be sold on at a profit as and when the deal and time is right. Swindon were the first Football League team to enter and come out of two separate periods of administration so they have certainly learnt the hard way, but I now have a team to support that is no longer one unpaid bill away from a winding up order. And it is no coincidence I'm sure that the team is currently enjoying a very successful season now there is some genuine stability behind the scenes. Portsmouth, Notts County and the rest of the Premier League and Football League, take note.