Declarations of substandard technology and genuine apathy may seem like sour grapes from two Premier League managers who were shown up by lesser opposition this week, but Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino inevitably raise a serious point; who, if anybody, actually wants to win the Carabao Cup?
The name alone is underwhelming in itself, coined after a sports drink from Thailand that was hardly known in England before aligning with the League Cup – despite sponsoring Reading from 2015 and Chelsea’s training kit a year later.
But the League Cup’s problems hark back far beyond its current commercially-driven incarnation and it’s been a grievance for the vast majority of managers in English football for some time.
For the biggest clubs in the Premier League, progression is essentially a lottery. The squads are continually rotated until they reach the semi-finals, in which case some of the big guns are brought out, or suffer an early elimination that is welcomed by the manager with the equal warmth of winning the title itself.
“Our objective is to try to win the Premier League and the Champions League. For me, two real trophies. That can really change your life. And then the FA Cup, of course, I would like to win. I would like to win the Carabao Cup.
“But I think it will not change the life of Tottenham. If you want to be a big team and if you want to fight for big things, it’s impossible if you don’t use all the squad and rotate in England. Players are not a machine. In Spain, France, German and Italy it’s completely different. I think we need to teach our fans because it’s so difficult to fight for four competitions.”
Pochettino discusses Tottenham’s Carabao Cup exit
Considering the sheer intensity of the Premier League and particularly the title race, having two or three games wiped of the schedule during the hectic winter period is probably more useful than a trophy every club in the top six has already won, that doesn’t particularly prove anything we don’t already know about the players involved and that doesn’t give managers something significant to show off about at the end of the season.
Sure, a win at Wembley can boost morale amongst both the players and the fans, but defeat can have the opposite effect and it takes four games to get there – plus the second leg of the semi-final – all of which can go to extra time. That’s a big drain on resources if you’re already involved in the title race and the Champions League.
In theory then, the League Cup should consequentially appeal more to the rest of the Premier League, clubs whose players and fan bases would view any silverware as a significant achievement when their resources are compared to the so-called big six, and clubs where the League Cup can be used as a beacon of success to attract hungry players and investors.
And yet, the only two non-big-six winners of the trophy in the last decade have been Birmingham City, who were relegated in the same season, and Swansea City, whose stunning rise from the depths of the Football League appeared to climax and end when they lifted it in 2013. Since then, the Welsh side have been on a downward trajectory.
“It is too light, it moves all over the place, it is not a good ball. It is impossible to score with a ball like that and I can say that because we won, I’m not making excuses.
“All of my players said: ‘What is that?’ I’m sorry Carabao Cup is not a serious ball for a serious competition. It’s [for] marketing, money, OK but it’s not acceptable – [it has] no weight, nothing.”
Pep Guardiola complains about Mitre ball after failing to score vs Wolves
That suggests the rest of the Premier League don’t take the competition as seriously as they could do either, and that there’s compelling evidence in place for why they shouldn’t. But in many ways, such an apathetic stance is understandable when you look at the complexion of the Premier League.
Last season, there were just six points separating 8th place and 17th place, highlighting how very few clubs outside the top six, if any, can feel assured of avoiding relegation when their Carabao Cup involvement begins in either late August or mid-September – or even when the final takes place in February.
In the context of this year’s tournament, the few clubs that can perhaps expect safety as a bare minimum – the likes of Southampton, Everton and West Ham – have all started the season in underwhelming form. In any case, only the latter have progressed through to this term’s quarter finals.
Surely then, some plucky club from the Football League will dare to defy the odds and embarrass the big clubs reluctant to take the competition seriously. Although plenty of clubs outside the top flight have reached the final throughout the years, the last Football League side to win it were Sheffield Wednesday in 1991 – rather tellingly, just over a year before the incarnation of the Premier League.
Since then, the difference in quality has jbeen too great and the fact of the matter is that clubs in the Football League have similar priorities to those in the top flight – gain promotion, make the playoffs, avoid relegation – which are further exacerbated by the difficulties of a 46-game season.
“The prize is good when you win another one, but you waste a lot of energy. You can’t imagine going to play a Tony Pulis team at West Bromwich Albion, play 90 minutes there in those conditions.
“And then after three or four hours – bus, come back, three days later Crystal Palace, three days later Shakhtar Donetsk, three or four days later Stamford Bridge.
“For the managers it is a lot of wasted energy, but we knew that before, so it is not a complaint in those terms. If we have to play we have to play.”
Guardiola questions importance of Carabao Cup after beating West Brom
So then, who actually wants to win the League Cup and who has the resources to do it? We know Jose Mourinho is a fan, seeing it as a springboard for the rest of the season, but that keenness clearly isn’t shared by his contemporaries.
Alongside Pochettino and Guardiola’s apathetic comments, Chelsea exited the competition early en route to the title last season and, perhaps most tellingly of all, Arene Wenger is yet to win the trophy after two decades at Arsenal. During that same period, he’s won the FA Cup a record number of times.
The rest of the Premier League appear too preoccupied with the relegation scrap to truly commit to the competition and the Football League either become lost in the same tyranny of priorities or are eventually blown away by bigger clubs with far superior talents.
It makes you wonder how many, if any, of the League Cup’s most recent winners had any desire to claim the trophy at all when the competition starts, or whether it was something that more simply came their way as likeminded rivals dropped off.
Which, in turn, makes you wonder what use the Carabao Cup truly has in English football, who it actually serves with the exception of a rotating sponsorship deal, and whether it still deserves a place on the calendar. The League Cup was never designed to be superior to the FA Cup or the top flight title, but it’s relevance is waning at an incredible rate.
We’ve now reached a point where its worth considering the most obvious advantage of not having the tournament – chiefly, more rest for English football’s biggest talents during what is traditionally the most exhausting period of the season.
We often discuss the benefits a winter break would have on English football both in the Champions League and internationally; maybe chalking off the League Cup, sparing players from five or six games that could amount to a huge burden in minutes when including extra time, could have a similar effect.