Football goes into overdrive as supporters spoilt for choice

Every two years, at the end of January football fans are spoilt for choice. In the weekend just gone, we had “Super Sunday” in which North London and Manchester met each other in the Premiership.

Barely pausing for breath, the FA Cup Fourth round appears this weekend; these days it is run over three days, starting with Watford against Tottenham in a London derby (well, nearly – Watford is just outside the capital), and Everton against Fulham on Friday night and finishing with Sunderland playing Middlesborough in a genuine North East derby and then Arsenal against Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon.

Traditionally, the television schedulers choose the best games in the early rounds of the FA Cup.

Unlike in Africa, not all games are shown on television in the United Kingdom, particularly not those that kick off at 3pm UK time on Saturday afternoon.

These four games are outside the time zone and will be broadcast, and they were chosen because of their likely high number of viewers.

You can understand why they were picked. Two of the games match local rivals against each other (this is rare in the FA Cup even if this year it has already happened twice in the Third Round, Birmingham playing near neighbours, Wolverhampton Wanderers and then the tie of the round, Manchester City against Manchester United).

And the other two are all Premiership clashes.

Eagerly-awaited contest

But there is one match in between, on Saturday lunchtime (and hence also on live television) that will be eagerly-anticipated all over the world.

The two most successful clubs in the history of English club football go head to head at Anfield: Liverpool against Manchester United.

There would be huge media interest in this game whatever the circumstance. Sir Alex Ferguson famously said that his greatest achievement was “knocking Liverpool off their perch” as the dominant force in the country.

It took him a while to do this, but with their latest league title the Red Devils have moved ahead of Liverpool in terms of the number won.

The rivalry, often bordering on ridiculous hatred between the two cites, is encouraged by the short distance between them.

There are similarities: both are clubs from hard Northern cities that feel fashionable London neglects them; both have Scottish managers and American owners. Familiarity breeds contempt, as the saying goes.

But all past reasons for enmity are overshadowed by the very recent matter between Luis Suarez and Patrice Evra.

Liverpool badly misjudged the mood after this happened; the potential for further fall out this Saturday, particularly amongst the Liverpool crowd, is great.

We know that Sir Alex Ferguson will not take the coward’s way out and rest Patrice Evra (at least I hope not) and it could be a stormy 90 minutes in store.

As if this is not enough, African footballers, including those from the Premiership, have escaped the winter cold and jetted off for sunnier weather: it’s the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

There are some attractive games in a competition that, unlike other international tournaments, is guaranteed not to be boring.

In the opening group games, there is the prospect of Ivory Coast against Angola, Morocco playing North African rivals Tunisia, and Senegal taking on Zambia amongst others.

If you know your football, these are games well worth checking out.

The nearest East Africa comes is Sudan and Zambia, and this requires a generous interpretation of geography.

What there won’t be are some of the more established names of Africa football: Egypt, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

Complex situation

It’s harder for Premiership managers to argue that the Africa Cup of Nations disrupts their squad when out of the 368 players away in Africa for the competition, only 13 belong to Premiership clubs.

This is just over half those who were away for the 2010 tournament.

Not only, that, but these are not all players who are key to their clubs’ success.

Salomon Kalou at Chelsea and Kolo Toure at Manchester City may not be missed that much.

Arsene Wenger (and Arsenal fans) is probably glad that Marouane Chamakh is away; indeed his only regret might be that his fellow struggler, Arshavin, isn’t African.

Other managers are having to put a brave face on the situation.

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew argues (not altogether convincingly) that his squad has sufficient depth and quality to handle the absence of both Cheick Tiote and, critically, one of the successes of the season, striker Demba Ba.

Another worried manager must be new Queens Park Rangers boss Mark Hughes.

His side are without Armand Traore and Adel Taarabt. Even with them, the team has been on a worrying downward trend with a thin squad; the sacking of Neil Warnock seemed all too likely before it actually occurred.

And what of Chelsea? They may use the Africa Cup of Nations to get used to what is likely to be a permanent fixture at Stamford Bridge: life without Didier Drogba.

Rumours persist of him going to China as age catches up with him and he seeks one last move before hanging up his boots.

With Drogba away, this could be Fernando Torres’ last chance to find a scoring touch after a year of false starts and stuttering play.

If he doesn’t then he will surely depart Chelsea in the summer.

What no manager should do is lay all the blame for their domestic success or failure at the door of the Africa Cup of Nations.

Depending on how far each country makes it in the tournament, players will be absent for three to five Premier League games.

As the most any one club has are two players away, that’s a total of 10 lost games – not a great deal.

Much better for managers, like players and spectators, to sit back and enjoy this multiple feast of football.

When not thinking about football, Guy Maughfling (Facebook Group: “Premiership Chat”) is a director in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Advisory business in East Africa. The views expressed here are his own.