The general consensus following Leicester City’s win over Liverpool last Monday was that it proved player power brought Claudio Ranieri’s reign to an end.
And I tend to go along with that.
Having watched Leicester make a mockery of their league position, it’s hard to disagree with the conclusion that Ranieri is currently walking around with a dozen little stab wounds in his back.
I mean, how else can you explain a team that has been consistently awful for much of the season suddenly remembering how to play like champions?
If the players had spent the past few months displaying last Monday’s levels of professionalism, passion and intensity, the Foxes would be challenging the top four not the bottom four.
The only logical conclusion, therefore, is that the Leicester players had lost faith in Ranieri and wanted a managerial change. They played below their potential to make it happen and then, to prove they were right, upped their game the second he was gone.
A shameful combination of player power and manipulation.
Of course, they claimed their improved performance was because they were ‘hurt’ by the accusations that they forced Ranieri out. And they used that ‘injustice’ to fire themselves up.
What a pity they couldn’t find something to fire them up while Ranieri was still in charge. I don’t know, like maybe the fact that they are supposed to be the champions of England, like the fact that their fans are paying their hard-earned cash to watch them perform, or the fact that their reputations as footballers were on the line.
In many ways, last Monday night’s performance vindicated the club’s decision to part company with the man who led them to the title just nine months ago.
If, as now seems clear, the players were not prepared to give everything while Ranieri remained in charge, then the club simply couldn’t afford to keep the Italian.
While the club’s owners probably didn’t want to fire Ranieri on sentimental grounds if nothing else, the players left them with little choice.
The only other option available to the King Power owners was to bring in an entirely fresh set of players, because the current squad’s lack of faith in Ranieri was never going to get better with time.
What a pity the Leicester players couldn’t find something to fire them up while Ranieri was still in charge. I don’t know, like the fact that they are supposed to be the champions of England
But overhauling a team would cost hundreds of millions, while firing Ranieri was comparatively cheap. There was only ever going to be one winner in that particular contest and there was no need to wait for relegation to announce who it was.
Yesterday’s game against Hull City will have given us a clearer indication of whether last Monday’s performance was a flash in the pan – a dead cat bounce if you like – or if Leicester really have found a new lease of post-Ranieri life.
If they have, they are probably going to stay up.
And I can’t say that makes me even remotely happy.
How not to hooligan
You can almost picture the scene can’t you?
A bunch of Crystal Palace fans, enlivened by the consumption of a few gallons of ale, are staggering home from the pub on a Friday night when they spot the Middlesbrough team bus outside a hotel.
Knowing the two teams are due to meet the following day, they fire up the brain cell they share between them and decide to teach the nasty northerners a lesson – by vandalising the bus and causing £40,000 worth of damage.
Oh the laughs they probably had, imagining how the Boro players would have to endure the long drive home with the words Crystal Palace FC spray-painted on the side of their coach in 10-foot letters.
There was, however, one tiny flaw in the plan that this crack unit of hooligan commandos had hatched – the bus didn’t belong to Middlesbrough.
Nope. It belonged to Crystal Palace…
Boro had actually flown down for their game at Selhurst Park, and Palace – rather generously it has to be said – had lent them a luxury coach so they could get around London before the game.
And these vandals trashed it.
They probably shouldn’t hold their breath waiting for their hooligans of the month award…
Breaking the flow of the game
A quick message to all those people who believe video replays will cure all of football’s ills: be careful what you wish for…
There was a time, many years ago, when I was in favour of video replays being used to settle contentious decisions in matches.
Today I strongly believe they could unravel the very fabric of the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why people want them introduced. They would, undoubtedly, go a long way towards eliminating game-changing mistakes. Human error would be eradicated from the game. And sleepless nights would no longer be part of the refereeing job description.
But at what cost?
There was a clear example of the problems that video replays bring with them last week in America, where the system has been in use for a while.
During a pre-season friendly between New York City and Houston Dynamos, former Barcelona striker David Villa decided it would be fun to punch one of his opponents in the box. (That’s the geographical box by the way, not the physical one).
The referee blew for a foul, booked Villa and then decided to check the video footage. After doing so he revised his decision and gave Villa a straight red card.
Fantastic, I hear you cry, justice was done and that is exactly why we need video replays!
Yes, but in this case, justice took nearly four minutes to be done. That’s four minutes of 22 players standing around waiting for a conclusion while tens of thousands of fans get increasingly agitated.
Only the most blinkered video replay advocate would agree that that sort of hold up to a game is acceptable.
Fair enough, this may have been an exceptional case. Maybe the ref had forgotten to renew his IPTV subscription.
But the reality is that checking video replays, however quickly, will destroy the flow of the game. Especially in cases where the video evidence is not instantly clear.
Can you imagine if we have a match with five or six contentious incidents? And each one of those takes three or four minutes to resolve? It could end up adding another half hour to a game.
One of football’s most endearing qualities is its pace – the fact that it ebbs and flows at speed with little respite.
Which is why we all get so annoyed when over-officious referees blow their whistle at every little thing. The rhythm is destroyed.
Now imagine if they have the power to stop the game completely to go and sit down with a mug of cocoa while they check an endless loop of potentially unclear replays. It would be like watching American football without the shoulder pads.
I know it’s hard, but we really should just accept that football is played by humans and officiated by humans, and on that basis a degree of human error is inevitable.
But it’s a damn sight preferable to the alternative.
sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade