Lust for money? Or Lust for Success?

As Rocky Baptiste fired Havent and Waterlooville level in the last minute at the Liberty Stadium in the third round of the FA Cup back in January, what were the backroom staff at the club really thinking? ‘yes a chance to bring them back to our place so we can give them a good hiding’.

More likely it was ‘a chance to rake in some cash to keep the club afloat’.

And this brings up the question when did clubs become focused on financial gain, and stop considering the implications of actually going into the next round.

Gone have the days that clubs wanted a home draw against a small team so that they could have a chance of progressing.

Now they want to go to a big away ground like Stamford Bridge or Anfield to fuel their financial fire.

This is the real reason why you don’t see many upsets these days, the clubs believe they have already won there final, the draw itself.

Always the first question from the interviewee after a club gets through to the next round of the cup is, ‘who would you want in the next round?’

The same reply is always the same, ’one of the big teams!’

Why for once can the manager not say, ‘a small team at home, let’s go all the way!

To be honest this season has seen a change in the belief shown in some teams.

Havent, Barnsley, Coventry, Sheffield United just to name a few have knocked out sides from divisions above them, and bar Barnsley none of the teams made any sort of the head way in the competition.

To be fair Havet got as far as they could have wished. Even two goals against Liverpool was beyond there wildest dreams.

I don’t think clubs these days, and I’m mainly talking about teams in League 1 and 2 who get plenty of money from Television rights, who don’t need the added incentive of drawing a big team away, they should want to go as far as they can until the draw results go against them.

Teams think there biggest achievement is drawing a big team away, it isn’t ,the biggest achievement is beating them.

And until teams start to realise this it will be a long time till we see two teams from outside England’s top league contesting the FA Cup Final