I bloody love football. Everything about the sport just ticks the boxes for me. Often, I can lose entire weekends watching build up punditry during breakfast, 12pm kick-off with dinner, evening matches with tea and then move to somewhere a bit more continental to see out the evening in Spain, France or even as far as the US for that extra footballing fix.

Despite this, I often find myself thinking of how the game could possibly become better. In these blog posts, I will take a part of the ‘Almost’ Beautiful Game, and examine ways that this part of football could be improved.

This time, I will be looking at one of the biggest jobs in football, the managers. Often blamed for the failures but never truly praised for success, it’s a tough old job where big decisions need to be made, and the difference between winning and losing is your job. It’s not easy, however I would argue we are on of the best periods of managers football has ever seen. With managers trying to outwit one another in any way possible, it’s been incredible fun over the last few years to see the likes of Guardiola, Klopp, Bielsa, Tuchel and many others compete each and every week. However, despite this, I still think there are improvements to be made in the manager department. They do too much complaining and excuse making that it actually aggravates me watching a manager blame the wind for their team losing (looking at you Jurgen). So, with that in mind, I’ve put together 5 suggestions of how football management could be improved.

Challenge Flags

This is a feature of NFL, and while I don’t personally think we should adopt too much of the American sport into football, challenge flags could seriously improve the consistent argument and controversy around managers, referees and big decisions. I mentioned this pre-VAR as a solution and even with VAR managers stomp up and down the touchline claiming things are wrong and need to be looked at again, and then complain when they are looked at. However, as see in most other sports, calling a challenge or review allows the manager to get the referee to stop, check the big decisions and possibly reverse the call. This could allow managers to be responsible for those big controversies, and prevent players from nagging referees and managers conducting mumbled post-match interviews about how the referees are terrible. I am well aware it would be easier to get good referees in England, however no matter the calibre of ref, managers will always complain. However, their complaints will now cost them one of their challenges and thus things will be more focussed on the smooth running of the game as opposed to replaying tackles and miniscule offsides and watching theatrical performances on the sidelines. Either call a challenge, or don’t… it’s as simple as that.

Bonus Cards

Okay, from the serious to the absolutely ridiculous, but go with me on this one. If the challenge flags aren’t working, then give each manager and each club a set of bonus’ they can use at any point during the season. Again this will be down to the managers discretion and thus their role will become more influential during the game. Some of the cards they could use include, ‘a 10-man card’ which means the opponents play 10 minutes with 10 men, before the player returning after that time, ‘extra-sub card’, ‘5 more minutes card’, ‘swap a player card’, ‘borrow a player card’ and many many more. With each club being given a set at the start of the season, we will see them creep in every so often in big moments, and managers must choose exactly when to use them or when they think the opponents will use them. It will give the managers a big responsibility and enhance the touchline battles to the next level. Either that, or it’ll just be a silly thing to see happen to create drama.

I’ll Take It

Coming slightly back into reality, but still in the surreal, is out next suggestion, managers take penalties. That’s about it really, but wouldn’t it be great to see. It is another suggestion that was made to actually improve penalties in a previous post, however it’s worth reviving here again, as I think managers taking penalties for their side would even the playing field. So often, penalties are given which creates a goal from nothing, as perhaps the player fouled wasn’t in any way near a goalscoring opportunity and thus the manager having to lace up their boots and take the spot kick would balance out the fairness of penalties. Also, just take a moment and think, would you trust your clubs’ manager to score the last minute penalty to take home 3 points?

We Can Hear You

Next one will be one for the television channels to get on board with, and that’s that managers should be given microphones for the viewer at home to hear. After the games without fans, players have been heard communicating, however having a ‘red button’ option to get managerial commentary would be great viewing (or listening) for fans at home, who want to hear specific instructions or what their managers are doing on the touchline to influence the game. It could be used in a similar vein to F1 whereby their team radios are played to give viewers any interesting comments made during the race, and the same could be applied to managers. This way, fans will know exactly who to complain at when the results don’t go their way.

Fines That Matter

Finally, to punish the complaining and attitudes that managers often display, I believe they should be given fines that actually matter. This needs to be implemented across football completely, as so often million pound footballers are given measly fines for their actions, when instead you could hit them where it hurts. My solution is that there is some kind of punishment wheel they have to spin (back into the surreal world again). For example, if Sean Dyche moans to the referee, he will spin the wheel and perhaps have to manage the next game in fancy dress, or only be able to give instructions using interpretive dance. I’m not too sure of the exact punishments, but why not get creative with it. You never know, it might be fun.