IT’S domestic cup week and therefore it’s a big one for Big Ange Postecoglou.
Because if any team is capable of beating Liverpool in a semi-final and losing to Tamworth in the space of four days, then it’s Postecoglou’s gloriously unpredictable Tottenham.
The Aussie was in a magnificently grumpy mood after Saturday’s league defeat by Newcastle but he has a pleasingly positive attitude towards knockout competitions.
Indeed, he has pretty much staked his job on them by insisting “I ALWAYS win a trophy in my second season” at a club.
This ought to be Chas & Dave Cup-final music to the ears of Spurs fans, after 17 years without a trophy.
Indeed, the Carabao Cup might just provide us with a dream final, should Tottenham and Newcastle win their two-legged semis, because no two clubs in the English game crave silverware to quite such an extent.
The Geordies haven’t had a pot to pour champagne into since 1969 and they head to Arsenal tonight in rude health after a major festive resurgence.
But it’s not just about Spurs and Newcastle quenching their thirst — because the domestic cups are in desperate need of any different winners.
A cup final is properly special when it means the world to the winning club — and not just a consolation prize nor one leg of a Double, Treble or Quadruple.
But remarkably, 21 of the last 22 major English domestic knockout competitions have been carved up between the ‘big five’ of Manchester City (eight), Manchester United and Arsenal (four apiece), Liverpool (three) and Chelsea, who have won two finals and lost seven in the last eight seasons.
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Leicester’s 1-0 FA Cup final win over Chelsea in 2021 was the only exception — and even that trophy went to a club who had been champions five years previously.
It is a far cry from the heyday of the 80s, when Coventry, Wimbledon, Luton, Oxford and Norwich all won their only major honours in the space of four years. Although all were denied European football by the Heysel ban.
This weekend brings an FA Cup third round and our annual chance to wail, ‘What can we do to save the Cup?’
This year, third-round replays have been scrapped to the widespread groans of traditionalists. But this switch makes Cup shocks more likely, not less — a one-off match with extra-time and penalties gives smaller clubs a better chance of an upset.
Every year there is a call for the Cup to be revamped with seedings or with clubs from lower divisions automatically being given home advantage.
Tamworth v Tottenham is the tie of the round not only because of Spurs’ intrinsic comedy value but because it is being staged at the National League club’s Lamb Ground, with a 4,000 capacity and the opportunity for everyone to assume the showers will be cold and Spurs won’t like it.
Meanwhile, Manchester City v Salford, Liverpool v Accrington Stanley, Chelsea v Morecambe and Newcastle v Bromley would all look a lot juicier if lower-league clubs were at home.
But this change is simply never going to happen because nobody inside football actually wants it.
Small clubs profit more from away days at Premier League grounds, while their players and even supporters relish those trips.
The best chance for the Cup to rediscover its lustre is for top-flight managers to prioritise it — especially given that the majority have no realistic title ambitions nor relegation fears.
Instead, most will use third-round weekend as an opportunity to give the regular bench-dwellers in their sizeable squads — not very many of them even exciting home-grown youngsters — some elusive ‘game time’.
There remains a huge disconnect here between managers and fans, who would relish a Cup final far more than a few extra league wins.
So, will any mid-table Premier League manager have the balls to pick their first team, then ‘rotate’ in the midweek round of league fixtures which follow?
If anyone is likely to, it’s that old romantic Big Ange.
Altogether now: “Spurs are on their way to Wembley . . . ”
CHELSEA are out of the title race after taking just two points from 12 against Everton, Fulham, Ipswich and Crystal Palace.
Yet the Blues might have won all four games with one or two experienced heads among their talented youngsters, who wilted when the going got tough defending 1-0 leads against Fulham and Palace.
During those recent matches, I’ve witnessed £106million World Cup-winner Enzo Fernandez — still only 23 — kicking off at Ipswich’s former Chelsea kid Omari Hutchinson during their 2-0 defeat.
And Pedro Neto, a relative veteran at 24, twice seemingly being shot by snipers in the stand, given his agonised response to no contact from an opponent.
Chelsea’s owners are hooked on youth but a couple of wise heads could not knock some sense in.
NOW that Thomas Tuchel has finally turned up for work, with a clean slate, he will surely be casting an eye over Ipswich striker Liam Delap.
He is an old-fashioned bully of a centre-forward who’s been hugely impressive during Town’s recent revival.
Delap has Pulisball in his blood — his father Rory was a key member of that bruising Stoke side — and has been schooled by Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.
Watch his game and you can see pleasing aspects of both influences.
Delap will be Harry Kane’s long-term successor as England’s No 9 and it would be a surprise if Tuchel does not include him in his first squad in March.
I SPOKE to an experienced ref and he confirmed what I’d long suspected — that pre-season edicts for officials are always forgotten within a month or two.
Remember bookings for kicking the ball away and delaying the restart, such as the second yellow card given to Arsenal’s Declan Rice in August’s home draw against Brighton?
Well, they’ve been forgotten by refs and their assessors, just like the supposed ‘high bar’ for VAR interventions.
DON’T get too excited about an actual title race after Liverpool dropped points against Manchester United.
Arsenal are their only credible challengers but will never win consistently enough without Bukayo Saka — just as Manchester City collapsed without Rodri.
There is no single player in Liverpool’s side whose long-term absence would have a similar effect — not even Mo Salah.
AS someone who is frequently told they must have had a ‘tough paper round’, it’s heartening to see someone who looks even worse for their age than I do.
The photo at the top of this page was taken eight years ago and I still look older in it than I am now.
So thanks to world darts semi-finalist Stephen Bunting, improbably only 39, and to the new Southampton boss Ivan Juric, who is younger than me at 49 but looks pensionable.
