THERE are no Premier League fixtures this weekend — but don’t feel ashamed if you haven’t even realised.
It’s hardly been a bumper year for the so-called greatest league in the world.
Liverpool have fast-walked the title race and Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton have been hell-bent on relegation since last August.
So who would have thought the two cup competitions would be left to stop the entire nation switching off altogether and doing something less boring instead?
The cups have been bulldozed and bullied to make way for expanding European competition.
Boiled down with second legs and replays scrapped to relieve the heavy legs of players grinding it out to satisfy the demands of clubs looking beyond two relatively tiny trophies offering a few quid in prize money.
Newcastle’s victory over Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final this month was a spectacular bloody nose for the Big Six.
It’s five down and one to go in the FA Cup, which means “little” Bournemouth have the opportunity to finish the job.
Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham all have a surprise weekend off as we reach the quarter-final stage.
Anyone with an ounce of romance, spirit and sporting fun should be willing the Cherries on against Manchester City. If not, you should never again pass an “I am not a robot” test.
A winner from Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Fulham, Crystal Palace or Preston North End is a rarity.
And not since 2013 have both our domestic trophies been won by teams from outside the “elite” in the same season. That’s when Swansea won the League Cup and Wigan beat City in the FA Cup final. Prior to that, it was 1988 with Luton and Wimbledon.
In between, it is the same old names and the same old finals. Prior to this year, the previous nine Carabao Cups were shared between Liverpool and the Manchester clubs.
For one year only, Leicester broke the FA Cup stranglehold of Arsenal, City, Chelsea, United and Liverpool that has existed since 2014.
What we are seeing now is football’s equivalent of Halley’s Comet entering our solar system.
Come May, screw up your eyes and you may be able to visualise the glowing tail of glory for a team which doesn’t treat Wembley as a second home.
The Cherries have never won a major trophy, nor Palace, nor Fulham, nor Brighton.
Preston, synonymous with the great Sir Tom Finney, have had big stars but no significant silverware since the 1938 FA Cup.
Breaking tradition
Villa and Forest are shaking up the establishment in the league but you must rewind to the 1990s to find either winning a cup of note.
What it will mean for the supporters of these seven clubs to reach the FA Cup semi-finals or beyond fires the imagination.
And it serves as a beacon of hope for anyone wishing to salvage a crumb of interest in a mundane season in the league. Players love the cups, the fans adore them.
Attendances throughout this year’s Carabao Cup were 20 per cent up on last year and their highest for almost a quarter of a century.
If Bournemouth beat City on Sunday it’s a huge shot in the arm for the much-maligned cups, for fans and for fun. So what if it’s bad for business and for the big boys?
Fans ticked off with Todd
TODD BOEHLY is feeling the heat from Chelsea fans over his 41 per cent stake in US ticket resale outlet Vivid Seats.
To the extent the supporters’ trust has written to the Premier League demanding they probe their club chairman over a potential conflict of interest. Fair enough.
No trip to Stamford Bridge is complete without the sight and sound of several shady characters loitering by Fulham Broadway Tube station offering tickets for the coming game at inflated prices.
So much so that the London club emailed fans last week to trumpet their actions targeting this criminal scourge.
They claim to have stopped more than 1,000 people entering the ground with dodgy tickets, cancelled more than 1,500 memberships linked to dodgy tickets and arrested dozens of people through matchday operations.
Meanwhile, Boehly, the man at the top of the club, is raking it in via his investment in what the Premier League label an “unauthorised” ticket website.
They urge fans to “exercise extreme caution” when dealing with firms like Vivid Seats.
It’s almost as if it’s one rule for one and one for another. In football? Surely not?
A bore’s no draw
EVERYTHING about England’s recent two matches was highly interesting — apart from the two matches. Thomas Tuchel, Dan Burn, the build-up, the team selection, the hope.
But as usual the ties were as flat as a pancake and sparked a debate about the entertainment value of qualifiers against Albania and Latvia.
Don’t think the boredom level of these insipid games hasn’t been discussed at the top level.
Not that long ago a plan was hatched to expand the Euros to 32 teams.
The continent’s top-ranked countries would face each other in an extended Nations League to leave 16 sides. Lesser-ranked nations would do similar, eventually leaving 32 teams.
Almost everyone was up for it apart from Europe’s rights-holding broadcasters, who seem to think England v Albania on a Friday night is just what the nation wants to see on their TVs.
London bawlin’
AS domestic football returns, a plea. Can London-based clubs stop playing London Calling by The Clash, fronted by Joe Strummer, during every pre-match build-up?
Yes, we know the song is about the city — it’s in the title — and your club is in that city. But that’s it. It’s not that big a deal.
And by endlessly forcing this irony upon fans, you have worn out what should be cherished as a post-punk classic by one of the greatest rock bands of all time.
Just stop it. Please.
FA party Ful of it
IF you have £120 to spare you too can enjoy a night out at Fulham’s 1975 FA Cup final celebration dinner come May.
A selection of team members from the day will entertain guests with memories of the showpiece — which they LOST 2-0 to West Ham.
Sounds like a silly idea — then again, Newcastle held open-top bus parades after losing the 1974 FA Cup final and 1976 League Cup final.
Even more daft, someone I know actually went to BOTH.
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