Is Carling Cup worth the time?
Chelsea was recently dumped out of the carling cup in a shock defeat at home to the newly promoted Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge. The Blues’ loss at home came as a surprise to many people considering their form at the start of the season and the record
at the Stamford Bridge.
Is it a point of concern for Chelsea having been knocked out so early in the competition? Taking a neutrals opinion: I don’t think so and I am going to discuss why I think that way.
The Carling cup in the last few seasons has become the tournament of the reserves with all the top clubs putting in their 2nd and at times third choice players in to start games.
It has been seriously felt that the big clubs don’t take the carling cup seriously. Arsenal is famous for playing their reserve team in the carling cup. The likes of Abou Diaby, Alex Song, Fran Merida, Denilson, Ramsey and Carlos Vela all having played their
fair share of games in the carling cup and gained experience from it.
Chelsea on the other hand, have always fielded their strong eleven in each round, showing intent to win and showing respect to the competition. That is why they have been finalists thrice in the last 5 years and won the competition twice.
The 4-time winners Chelsea, I believe can benefit from the fact that the early exit means no unwanted fixture pile ups once the Christmas period approaches. A funny trend that has been established is that only two of the last 10 Premier League winners have
won the Carling Cup. One was Chelsea in Jose Mourinho’s first season incharge of the Blues in 2004-05 and the other being Manchester United in 2008-09.
Manchester United has lately used this competition to help the club’s youngsters gain much needed game time. Speaking before the game against Wolves he said, “So it’ll be a young but very capable team tonight. We’ve been doing that in the League Cup for quite
a few years now and we’ve had good success in it.
“But I expect a tough game. You know exactly what you are going to get from Mick McCarthy’s teams.”
According to the stats from last season, the average ages of the squads are a testimony of the fact that many clubs don’t take the competition seriously. The average age of Arsenal’s starting 11 was the lowest among all the Premier league clubs with 20.5.
Behind Arsenal was Aston Villa with the average age of 24. All clubs other than Arsenal fell in the age bracket of 24-27, Chelsea being 26 years.
This leads us to the question of whether winning the Carling Cup has any significance or if it is just a headache to the managers? Going by the records, it seems that it has become the latter. That is why now we see the likes of Middlesbrough winning it
in 2003-04 and Spurs reaching the final of the competition twice recently.
Looking at the Chelsea starting line-up against Newcastle it seems now that Chelsea has decided to use this competition as a means of exposure for the youngsters and giving them much needed game time. The Chelsea team that lost to Newcastle had the likes
of Gael Kakuta, Van Aanholt and Jeffrey Bruma, not the first team players for Chelsea by any stretch of the imagination.
It seems like the right approach to have as it is a renowned fact that the carling cup is not a competition big clubs crave to win. So why not use it for the development of the youth? - The policy followed by Arsene Wenger and recently adopted by Sir Alex
Ferguson. We all know that the objective is to win the Champions league or the Premier League. If you end up with just a Carling cup after a busy summer in the transfer market, your season is deemed as a failure. So, using the competition for the enrichment
of the youth is not a bad idea at all.
(The opinions of the writer are independent in nature)
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