Wembley pitch gets the hairdryer treatment

It seems that £750m doesn’t but you a half-decent playing surface, according to top managers.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s famous hairdryer treatment is usually reserved for terrible showings or sarong wearing, but this time the aim of his tirade is not even a human.

After United’s defeat to Everton on penalties in the FA Cup semi-final, Fergie defended his decision to make 8 changes to the side that beat Porto. His reason for omitting Rooney, Ronaldo, Van der Sar, Berbatov and Giggs and fielding a side with an average age of 22 and a half? Why, the Wembley playing surface of course:

When I saw the pitch what I didn’t want was to go into extra time with my strongest squad.

Yesterday (for Arsenal v Chelsea) it looked spongy and dead and difficult to move the ball quickly around it. So we had to go with the bold decision of playing the younger ones.

But the Old Trafford gaffer was not the only top manager to be shocked by the clumpy, tough grass. The other losing semi-final manager, Arsene Wenger, also had a pop at the field:

It is not a pitch for a stadium like that. You spend all that money and still have no pitch

People may think that the managers are clutching at straws to explain their respective losses, but even victorious Everton manager David Moyes wasn’t impressed:

I thought it looked very spongy and a poor playing surface – not in a way that it was all bobbles and divots but it just looked as if it was very soft, spongy and quite slow at times.

Watching the United-Everton match, and others that have been played at Wembley since its opening two years ago, I have seen player-after-player pull up with cramp as soon as the 60th minute, demonstrating how tough players are having to work on their unforgiving surface. Sure players push themselves the extra mile in the dying minutes of a Cup final in late May, but the 60th minute of the League Cup final in early March?

The current pitch is the fifth to be laid in only two years and is not helped by also staging American football, International rugby and rally meetings. it is not scheduled to be relaid again until late in the summer. By which time it will have seen three Football League play-off finals, the FA Cup final and England’s World Cup qualifier against Andorra.

However, interim Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink put the pitch into real perspective:

If you go to a lot of places in Europe and Africa you get pitches that are a lot worse than that.

Related Posts

• Premiership: Arsenal close on Chelsea and United
• Mixed Fortunes For British Clubs In Europe This Week
• Football’s big spenders keep their hands in their pockets
• Chelsea Vs Everton: FA Cup Final Preview
• Everton angry at “disgraceful” ticket allocation.