We’ll get to the big Fifa stuff shortly, but there could be an interesting tweak to the laws of football when the International Football Association Board (the people who control and change the rules and regulations) meet in March.
An IFAB member told the Times:
Looking at ways to cut down on time-wasting, speed up the game and increase playing time is one of our priorities.
A rule to say there should be no substitutions during added-on time is an interesting one and could work well. Referees add on 30 seconds for a substitution but in practice it can eat up a lot more time than that.
There would, however, need to be trials to see if there are any unforeseen ramifications.
Thoughts? Would this make a difference? Would this not just lead to a stack of subs between minutes 85 and 90?
Turns out Gennaro Gattuso wasn’t impressed at all with Milan’s performance in their Europa League defeat to Real Betis last night. He said, possibly while strapping on a cilice and punching himself in the face:
It’s only right that my position is under discussion. It’s difficult for a coach to sleep after a performance like this, one of the worst.
It was a terrible, embarrassing performance. I saw a team that was switched off and that has given me cause to reflect. I’m worried, disappointed and angry, especially with myself.
This team cannot think about doing well in the championship with that sort of mentality. I can’t accept a performance like that.
Quiz? Quiz! Mesut Ozil became the Premier League’s top scoring German this week, so here are some questions about some other nationalities.
Spicy old report in El Pais, which if accurate doesn’t sound like Thibaut Courtois is wild about the prospect of a couple of former managers taking over at Real Madrid.
Diego Torres reports – and, we should stress, this is what he says a witness told him – that Courtois said during training, with a “pale” look on his face:
I can not believe it! Here I am the only one who has worked with Conte and with Mourinho. I left London to not have to go through something like that again and now it turns out that Conte comes, and if not, Mourinho.
We don’t know the context. So keep that in mind. Maybe he was saying it in jest. Maybe he was deadly serious. Whatever the true picture, we know this: it’s funny.
Sachin Nakrani (@SachinNakrani)
I’m no body-language expert, but this definitely looks like a man who’s not that arsed anymore pic.twitter.com/G7gz3w4o8t
Here’s more from Mourinho:
We play against Newcastle and we go to the national team period in a good situation and then after two weeks we lost Dalot in Portugal, we lost Fellaini in Belgium. We lost Alexis with Chile, we lost – who else? – McTominay with Scotland.
And some of them, the national teams they were very professional with us and they send the players back and we could start the process early.
But some of them, they weren’t and they kept the players and we didn’t even know the dimension and the nature of the injuries, so when the players arrived here two days before Chelsea, we have no idea what is going on.”
Jose speaks! And, remarkably, it turns out all of this is someone else’s fault. In short he seems to be blaming the World Cup and assorted other international games for some of the fitness problems his Manchester United players have been suffering. Specifically, that some national teams don’t take care of his players. “Some [national teams] aren’t professional. They kept the players and we did not know the nature of the injuries.”
Fuller quotes coming up. Sources have told the Guardian that no other Premier League teams have international footballers.
He also says United won’t be re-signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Have you read Eni Aluko’s column this week yet? If not, you should probably get on that. It’s about Karen Carney but more broadly social media abuse, and this passage is particularly notable.
The huge problem for me is that there aren’t enough consequences for people who do this sort of thing – if they knew that writing that kind of sentence could potentially get them a jail sentence or a ban from Twitter, they wouldn’t do it. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook need to get real about the consequences and deterrents for users.
Rumour Mill! The transfer window doesn’t open for another few months, but gossip never sleeps. Get stuck in.
If your weekend doesn’t start here, it should start with the 10 things you need to look out for in the Premier League, by your pals Simon Burnton, Niall McVeigh and Jacob Steinberg.
Plenty of big football coming up, lots of big stories, but perhaps the most extraordinary is that Andy Carroll is back in training for West Ham. Imagine that! Obviously the chances are something will snap off him before he gets near the first team, but there’s always hope.
“Andy is recovering,” said Manuel Pellegrini yesterday. “He started this week working, part of the warm up with the whole squad so we will see in the next week how he improves and I hope that maximum 15 days he will at least working with the squad, completely.”
Good morning, hello, and welcome to your weekend football countdown. Exciting, eh? Plenty going on today, looking forward to the on-pitch action over the next few days: we’ve got the build-up to Manchester City v Tottenham, what must be the first Messi and Ronaldo-less Barcelona v Real game in a while, whatever José Mourinho’s latest excuse/explanation for Manchester United being no good is, plus a whole bunch of other stuff that you should know before the weekend kicks off.
Plus, the Fifa Council are meeting in Rwanda, and trouble is afoot. The Uefa delegates are threatening to walk out over a whole heap of issues, which we’ll get into later, but the short version is there could be an absolute s-storm brewing.
So stick around, we all might learn something. Or just waste a few hours while staring intently at the clock. Maybe both. Together, we can do it.
If you fancy emailing in thoughts on anything – preferably football, but let’s not restrict ourselves – then direct those to [email protected], or tweet @NickMiller79