Source: Telegraph
Martin O'Neill questions Uefa over Europa League
He has warned European football's governing body that their failure to reduce the number of ties that teams will be expected to play in the competition, which replaces the Uefa Cup, will inevitably lead to fixture congestion and the fielding of weakened sides, which devalues the competition.
O'Neill has argued that last year's review of the competition offered Uefa the perfect opportunity to reduce the number of matches needing to be played, which could have been achieved, he says, by removing the round-of-32 stage. However, Uefa have opted to reduce the number of teams competing in each group from five to four, but increase the number of fixtures at that stage by introducing home and away games. As with the Uefa Cup, there will also be two knockout rounds before the quarter-finals.
The number of games to be played is a serious concern for O'Neill, who was criticised earlier this season for fielding a weakened side when Villa travelled to play CSKA Moscow in favour of chasing a Champions League place. Unless O'Neill brings in a large number of new players this summer – something he is not expected to do – it seems unlikely that they will have the squad depth required to compete in both the Premier League and Europe next season. Even though they will not need to go through qualifying in July as a result of finishing in the top six of the Premier League, Villa will still have to play 17 matches if they are to win the competition.
"There are too many games," said O'Neill. "One thing they could have done was that whoever comes out of the group stage would be in the last 16, like the Champions League. The last 32 is a round too many. I accept there are more teams and that there are teams that drop out of the Champions League and go into it, but you can devise a system that those teams that come out of the group should be in the final 16.
"It should have been redesigned with that in mind because you can see the problems teams in the Champions League have had. Manchester United, going all guns blazing for every single competition, go to a semi-final of an FA Cup and play a weakened side. United can possibly get away with that but there's fixture congestion at the most important time of the season. And that's the Champions League. So you can imagine what it's like with the extra Uefa Cup games."
