The Real Football Man

The Carabao Cup, how hard can it really be? I don’t mean winning the competition, as a Tottenham fan I’m still somewhat smarting after Spurs’ capitulation on Wednesday night as they lost to West Ham at Wembley. They say this is the ‘Cup Final’ for Hammers fans, well I guess they are one step closer to winning a competition that Mauricio Pochettino’s men are, but at the end of the day who knows who they really will face in the Quarter-Finals.

That is because in a week where the remaining JFK shooting documents were released another conspiracy has loomed large, that, of course, being Thursday’s draw for the Quarter-Finals of the Carabao Cup. If it’s not something that raises suspicion then it is certainly bordering on the farcical.

We’ve had teams been called out incorrectly coupled with the wrong teams being named at home instead of away, then the brains trust at the EFL then decided to host the draw via Social Media. Not to mention the fact that the draw seems to have taken some form of global tour this season.

After differing outposts have been lucky enough or should that be unlucky enough to host the draw at it should be said ludicrous times of the morning UK time it begs the question where exactly Shaun Harvey has in mind for the latter stages.

What about North Korea for the Semi-Finals or why not go one stage further and have our first intergalactic draw on the Moon. That might be something of a challenge as John Salako goes into zero gravity and reluctantly informs that he can’t remember if ball number one or number two has floated away into oblivion.

But I digress, if only slightly because as I mentioned earlier the latest hairbrained scheme of the EFL is not to host the draw via the traditional means of television, no they are now taking to the enchanted waters of social media platforms.

The draw for the Third Round via Facebook somewhat surprisingly didn’t work but then again if I can live stream from the pub then why cannot something this simple be captured on an iPhone and sent around the world? So with their fingers burnt from that experiment what would any sane person do.

The answer is stick the draw on Sky Sports. Which most times would be correct but oh no not with this lot, instead of trying and miserably failing to host the draw on Facebook they moved their idea to Twitter instead and yes you guessed it it didn’t work there either.

But this is where it gets a little fishy actually something more resembling a huge Whale. Because after a two-hour delay while someone looked for a laptop charger and the password to the EFL’s Twitter account somehow Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United were all kept apart.

Now the cynic in me would say that there was some manipulating of the balls going on (not like that) and the big four teams have been kept apart as another way of generating more revenue for the EFL. I mean after all that’s why we we have been subjected to such farce this season.

This is the only time that the EFL have Premier League clubs in their control and they will want to maximise their profits to the fullest and what better way to do so then give them a better chance of not just a showpiece final but semi-finals also.

When questioned they will say that the draw was held in its fullest integrity but to be honest I cannot say I buy that for one minute, then again with Tottenham out of the competition it has become the equivalent of  ‘I didn’t fancy here anyway’

Until next week