Platini's plan is a Euro Superleague by the backdoor

Hey, call me Scudamore! I've plans to reduce your power!  

UEFA's considering ditching the Europa League in favour of extending the Champions League from 32 to 64 teams. Michel Platini’s pondering a format change to European competition from 2015. It means seven English and five Scottish teams could enter at a qualifying round stage.

What's the joke about fourth being the new first? It works for Arsene Wenger, who rates fourth as good as winning a trophy. Now try seventh - and work out the damage that does to competition in the Premier League and other top leagues around Europe.

Scrapping the Europa League effectively makes all the domestic leagues feeders for the Champions League. A bunch of Europa Leagues in fact.

Could the European Cup get bigger than this?

Seriously, there’ll be a lot of funny fixtures between teams who’ve no hope of progressing – and lots of empty stadia. Motherwell v Getafe? not even Sky's best hypemeisters would get me to watch that – and a bigger Champions League represents a challenge to the Premier League and La Liga, particularly on a global level. 

In developing football nations where new fans are exposed to lots of competing TV pictures, won't they make the connection that somehow a pan European competition is higher than a countrywide one? Of course they will.

Lovely trophy - but it's over.

For a couple of years, the thrill of being an Aston Villa, Hibernian, Real Betis or Chievo fan playing for the big one will carry the tournament, but sooner or later the Champions League brand will be dininished by rubbish football before January each season.

UEFA's plan is a Euro Superleague by the backdoor - and will effectively make all domestic leagues the feeder competition to it. I'm sure the Premier League will have words to say about becoming what's effectively the Europa League at the moment.

Get behind Roy Hodgson as the new England manager

Wilshere, Walker, Walcott? no problem

He mightn't have been your choice as England boss but are you right behind Roy? I am and here's why.

He was appointed by the FA without recourse to interview. The favourite Harry Redknapp didn't even get a look in. But we shouldn't be too surprised by Hodgson getting the nod. His appointment follows a distinctly conservative course plotted by the FA recently.

As the media were completing the coronation of David Dein as FA chairman, it was David Bernstein who was crowned behind the scenes too.

Known as quiet, efficient and rather businesslike, it doesn't take a huge leap to imagine Hodgson preferred to Redknapp in the corridors of power. The culture clash probably didn't even start there either. A quick phone call to Dan Levy in the Tottenham boardroom to check the millions in compensation required, might've made his mind up even in advance. 

Young Roy



Next phone call: West Bromwich Albion! Bernstein was very complimentary to them in the news conference.

But Hodgson's greatest credentials may lie within his consensus approach to management. He admitted his first job will be to get John Terry and Rio Ferdinand talking again after the two fell out over the racial abuse Terry's accused of shouting at Anton Ferdinand during Chelsea's game at QPR earlier this season.

He admitted to being great friends with Harry Redknapp, who graciously left voicemail of congratulations on Hodgson's mobile. Roy said he and Harry were cast as great rivals for now, but will resume a great friendship again soon.

It's these perceived qualities of so called lesser importance that my well yet lead to success at international level for the WBA boss.

Because what is being international manager anyway? It's nothing like being a club boss: he's not with his players everyday. Instead he steals a week with them before each international and a few weeks during tournaments. His plans for selection are ripped up during the rigours of a league season, and there's no such thing as canny dealings in the transfer market to strengthen a squad. Mind you, Jack Charlton did his best to persuade non Irishman to his cause (and succeeded).

Of his international and European credentials, Hodgson is second to none in experience. England will be his fourth international assignment. Throw in Inter twice, Blackburn and Liverpool (neither of which went that well) and he's managed the very best. We well remember the success of Fulham's Europa League season ending in final defeat to Atletico Madrid two years ago.



Rivals but friends, but rivals. Vanquished Harry

There's an element of good fortune in the timing of Hodgson's appointment too. He has just 40 days and 40 nights to make England ship shape. Like Roberto di Matteo's highly succesful tenure as Chelsea caretaker, I think he'll pay respect to the elder statesman who earned England qualification instead of opting for youth in some sort of fitful revolution. Promising phone calls to the leading characters in the squad will give him a clear view of their togetherness in advance.

It's easy for him to tell the gathered media that reaching the quarter-finals of Euro 2012 is a realistic target in a way that Fabio Capello couldn't possibly have in charge over four years. Hodgson's managed expectations just by arriving in time for the plane to Poland and Ukraine.

He's called for unity and only a foolish lobby wouldn't grant him that. Yes, probably like you I fancied Harry for the job, but I'm right behind Roy and I'm asking you to be too.

Liverpool FC: a Comolli of errors

The Kop relies on elephantine memory

There's no doubt Kenny Dalglish is relying on his legendary status to remain as Liverpool manager at the moment.

Here was a man in his first year as player-boss who claimed the Reds the double, clinching the league at Chelsea and scoring the winner. Real Roy of the Rovers stuff from one of Britain's greatest ever players.

And of his second coming amid the dying embers of the Gillett, Hicks and Roy Hodgson gloom, which Kopite wouldn't have called for the Messiah back then?

But how long can King Kenny's credit last? Six defeats in seven games has left the summer's big spenders out of Europe and out of touch of the big sides. Liverpool FC a big brand? Yes. A big club? Measured against the new arrivals at football's top table in the form of Tottenham and Manchester City? it's highly questionable.

Not even Roy could match King Kenny's '86 triumph

During the latest defeat at Newcastle, I was surprised to see Steven Gerrard shoeing Dalglish off the pitch in a "stop interfering" kind of way. Gerrard is about the only one at Anfield with the status to do such a impudent thing to the gaffer - and it was telling.

But the blame for Liverpool's plight can't entirely be placed at Dalglish's door. It's transfer policy which has been a major let-down too - and that's squarely the responsibility of Damien Comolli.

Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing and Andy Carroll have yielded just six goals between them. The quartet cost owner John W. Henry an eye-watering eighty million quid in the summer.

Comolli talking a good game with the owner.

They're all British too. Now, I'm not battering the reputations of home-grown players. Indeed, the English backbone of Chelsea and Manchester United has served them rather well over the years. But the contention of building a new team from the British Isles is misguided when as a Premier League club, one can attract the best of the world.

It's just not true that British players settle in better or faster. A high-level professional from Togo or Tel Aviv is just as reliable. But Comolli seems to think so.

Without qualifying for the Champions League, the best players, whatever their nationality won't be Anfield-bound anymore. Without them, Liverpool will become Premier League also-rans. Despite splashing out in the summer, that's what they've become this year.

As with other victorious Carling Cup managers, trophy glory doesn't guarantee job security and sometimes it's the straw that breaks the back of relegation.

Let's not forget Juande Ramos has still won one more piece of silverware at White Hart Lane than Harry Redknapp, but the Spaniard was taken out in a midnight cloak and dagger exit months later.

Alex McLeish steered Birmingham City to the League Cup last year - but at huge cost to the Second City's Second Club, as they were relegated. Next thing you know, it was out of the frying pan and into the fire for Big Eck when Aston Villa came calling.

So it's a results business whether you're Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, former Spurs boss Glenn Hoddle or Newcastle's Kevin Keegan (twice). And if things don't turnaround fast, I can see the passwords to the Liverpool bank account reset for a new manager this summer. Kenny's got to be the on the edge.

But it's not just players that lose managers their jobs these days. It's Directors of Football too.

More on Dalglish at Anfield here. Click here for Dalglish: Never Go Back (written back in January last year)

More games, more goals

Recent competitiveness in the Premier League has been a breath of fresh air - and the main reason is belief.

Rory Delap's long throw. No one can stop it!

While money still talks and Manchester City's elevation to the big-time shows it, clubs with less resource go into 90 minutes against bigger opposition with larger stature; both mentally and physically.

Birmingham's Carling Cup victory over Arsenal and Bolton and Stoke's FA Cup semi-final berths show more than ever that graft and experience can undo clever gameplans and squad depth. I thought Koscielny and Szczesny's mistake gifting Martins his Wembley winner was made of Blues second half pressure.

Fergie's "Men Win Matches" approach is even more applicable in 2011. Tactics and beautiful play just don't count as much as they did three seasons ago. Arsenal are the main fall guys of this. Yes, they're in the title race but they'll have to play with more force and individual leadership if they're to topple United to vindicate Arsene Wenger's ideals.

And more goals are being scored because manager's are more open to winning matches than sitting on leads. There are definitely less clean sheets around. Isn't it Bloomfield Road where every match has resulted in at least one goal for both teams?

Martins winner was a deserved one

Money is still the decisive factor and the longer the Champions League pays such huge bounty (together with being top of the Premier League of course), the cartel will be tough to break. It's where the cream of star players want to play. But the clutch of Europa League wannabe clubs believe the gates aren't shut to them. 

And with UEFA Financial Fair Play coming into force in two years, expect an even bigger impact on competition in the coming seasons.


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Burnley's Fair Play League hopes dashed

As quickly as hopes were raised for Burnley, they were dashed! UEFA's decided to award Fair Play places in Europe to Sweden, Denmark and Finland next term, so ending the relegated Clarets hopes of joining the Euro elite from August. But Soccermongery says the Fair Play League is distinctly unfair - to deserving clubs:

Why should Burnley manager Brian Laws have been incentivised by Europe's governing body to send out his team urging careful challenges in their last game of the Premier League season? Because that's what Laws would've been mindful of as he prepared his Clarets for their last (ever) game in the top flight, at home to Tottenham. A place in Europe via this contorted route was still up for grabs at the time.

It’s not as if they were a particularly clean team anyway. Burnley were just the highest up the Fair Play table who'd not qualified for Europe.

In fact, they finished as low as seventh. Incredibly, the six teams above them didn’t need a back door to Europe like this; they'd already qualified. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea and Villa among them.

What the Fair Play League shows year after year is that successful teams are usually disciplined enough to play the game the right way, leaving struggling hoofers like Burnley to earn this ridiculous route into the Europa League.

I suppose it might've stopped an exodus of players from Turf Moor following their relegation to the Championship. That and the parachute money, of course. But it’s still a European-style fudge and nonsense.

If UEFA awarded a Europa place to the most improved side in the Premier League, it might help that club to develop further. Stoke or Birmingham would drink to that suggestion.