Collymore’s column: Man City victory is hollow, no England revolution under Tuchel, Spurs and United have problems, and more | OneFootball

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Aston Villa attacker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including why Man City have opened a can of worms with the APT decision, why Liverpool and Villa will be happy with a draw, why Thomas Tuchel won’t spark an England revolution and much more.

Man City have opened a can of worms with APT victory

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak with chief Executive Ferran Soriano during the Premier League match against West Ham United FC at Etihad Stadium on January 04, 2025 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

First and foremost, I think that the Premier League should be pretty much one man, one vote, with the majority winning in terms of what they’re going to bring in and what will be voted out.

Whether there’s going to be semi automated or fully automated offsides, what the amount of parachute payments will be… that should be down to the 20 clubs to decide.

If 17 clubs say “we do not want Aston Villa football club to benefit over and above the market rate from associated partnerships with their two owners companies,” I don’t see what’s wrong with that, because competition law says that we all live by varying tiers of laws every day.

I failed to see why the Premier League can’t make those rules as they wish, but the problem is, of course, that you then you get into very murky waters in terms of contract law, human rights law, overlapping laws, etc.

With the recent APT decision going in Man City’s favour, I think what that means moving forward, is we’re now saying you can get money directly in a pipeline from Riyadh or Abu Dhabi or Dubai or wherever, that’s going to kill the game, because it just enables a space race that only a few can really enter.

I’m a Villa fan, and I get a lot of Villa fans, Newcastle fans and Forest fans saying to me “we’re the great unwashed. We should all be able to spend what we want to spend, and to be able to compete with these clubs.” To a degree, I agree, but I don’t want to see Aston Villa or Forest or Newcastle just be able to turn on a one billion, two billion, 10 billion, 20 billion pound pipeline in order for the Premier League to become a procession for the next 20 to 30 years.

What we all really want is to say that there is some financial regulation and transparency that allows all clubs to be able to spend a really good healthy amount to enable them to build squads and benefit from really good recruitment.

We don’t want to stop upwardly mobile clubs from doing that but all we’re really going to end up with in 10 years time now is Newcastle outspending anybody. Once they get the green light, they’ll blow everybody else out the water.

It would be ludicrous to say that Newcastle United – that haven’t won a trophy since the 1950s – win a sixth consecutive Premier League and it’s all because of great recruitment etc. It won’t be, because it will just be the money that gets them there – and we don’t want the Premier League to be just about money.

At the moment there is decreasing value in every trophy that a club wins, and that is in proportion to how much that club spends.

I want to see Leicester City win another miracle Premier League, I want to see Bournemouth get their rewards because of good recruitment and spending – and by virtue of what they do on the football pitch.

I don’t blame Manchester City for doing what they’ve done, but what I do blame Manchester City for is their aggression in trying to get one over on the Premier League.

The APT decision is a hollow victory for them and it’s a poor loss for the Premier League who should’ve done much better.

My view is very simple. Get back to the drawing board, have an open process where we can see what Premier League owners and groups are saying, come to some consensus that would hold up under any legal scrutiny, and get on with it.

No England revolution for Thomas Tuchel

Thomas Tuchel, Manager of England, looks on during the Premier League match between West Ham United FC and Crystal Palace FC at London Stadium on January 18, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

I’m absolutely convinced there isn’t going to be a revolution in Thomas Tuchel’s England team and squad.

I think they’re playing Wales at Wembley in October and there’s a game for the first time since 1909 at the City Ground, Nottingham, where England are playing Senegal.

The rumours are that Tuchel hasn’t been to the amount of Premier League games that he should have been in the lead up to his first matches as national team head coach, but that would suggest to me that for most of these he’s delegated a lot of the responsibility – surprise, surprise – to scouts.

Secondly, he can watch matches live in Germany, which isn’t quite the same but it’s not a million miles away from the real thing. You can absolutely be a football professional, watch a match on television and then extrapolate things from it in pretty much a similar way as you would do if sitting in the stands.

The third reason why I think that he’s not here, there and everywhere and watching games, is because I think he knows the vast majority of his squad and the vast majority of his team. There are going to be no wild cards or rookies.

Myles Lewis-Skelly and any number of players are getting thrown into the hat. That they’re the future of England. However, Tuchel will look at England having got to a final against a very good Spain team and know that England weren’t a million miles away.

We’ve got couple of goal scorers in Kane and Watkins, we’ve got generational talents in Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice…..

Defence might be a little bit more of an issue and the goalkeeper pretty much picks himself, so I think that if he’s looking at defenders, Tuchel perhaps needs to consider which defensive formation he’s going to use first and foremost.

Spurs and Man Utd’s problems extend way beyond the pitch

Ange Postecoglou, Manager of Tottenham Hotspur, and Ruben Amorim, Manager of Manchester United, embrace at full-time following the Premier League match at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on February 16, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Spurs v Man United…. Daniel Levy and Sir Jim Ratcliffe… protests at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Man United Supporters Trust almost putting out daily statements on the reckless running of the club and a genuine concern now about the stripping back of finances…

To think that this fixture used to be about two of English football’s top six clubs.

Supporters of both clubs are now incessantly on social media begging for that new owner to come in and blow everybody else out the water.

For Tottenham, is Ange Postecoglou a league title winning manager or a regular top four manager? Will he get the same amount of years as Mikel Arteta has had at Arsenal? I doubt it, because Daniel Levy always looks to pull the rug and then get the new shiny manager to walk through the door.

For Man United, they’ve got the right man, but instead of sacking him, it might be a case of him having had enough and going back to Portugal.

Jose Mourinho was vocal about what’s wrong at Old Trafford. Erik ten Hag said it. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said it. Every single Man United manager over the last seven or eight years has said it and they were all right. And that’s the worry.

I don’t worry about Man United moving on from Ruben Amorim but my worry is that Ruben Amorim will move on from Man United.

Both clubs have two average groups of players overall, and the malaise you’re seeing is what happens when you don’t do things properly. Look at Liverpool in the Souness years.

The good news, for Man United at least, is, like Liverpool, if you get the right people in across the business and you invest prudently, things can be turned around quickly.

At Spurs, nothing’s going to change. Daniel Levy loves the shiny new stadium, having NFL games and concerts there etc.

He’ll buy the odd marquee signing but otherwise, keep your mouth shut and don’t ask too many questions.

Draw works for both Aston Villa and Liverpool

Mohamed Salah of Liverpool runs with the ball under pressure from Lucas Digne of Aston Villa during the Premier League match at Villa Park on February 19, 2025 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)

From a Villa perspective, I think the point earned against Liverpool will be viewed as important given that they’ve got a monster run of games coming up.

Their performances lately have been flat and they’ve looked leggy and lethargic. They’ve been conceding goals earlier in games and also after scoring goals, and you start to think everything is beginning to unravel.

They need to be raising their levels now to at least ensuring an 8.5 out of 10 performance from every player each week as we start to ease into the business end of the season.

Against Liverpool, Villa got it right. Rashford looked very lively, Malen looked very lively, Ollie Watkins scored a fantastic goal. John McGinn, Youri Tielemans and Morgan Rogers did very well, and even Emi Martinez was coming out, catching the ball and quickly starting another attack. They all looked rejuvenated and refreshed.

For Liverpool, it’s another excellent away point.

They’ve had some very tough games recently including the derby last week, and they’ve still only lost one game in the Premier League.

Let’s not beat about the bush here… the derby is always on the toss of a coin. I think a lot of people, particularly Liverpool supporters of a younger generation, got used to the Everton game being a guaranteed three points, particularly in the Gerrard years, but they’re hard fought games.

Personally, I’d much rather be in a position where I’ve got a five point cushion, even a three point cushion, when you’ve gone through your period of tough games. Look at the games that Arsenal, Newcastle and Manchester City have got coming up by way of comparison.

Liverpool just need to use that very old school logic now; win your home games, pick up points on the road.

Brilliant Celtic could be standard bearers for an Atlantic League

Celtic were brilliant against Bayern this week, a real master class in how to play an away game with limited possession.

Brendan, having come back to Celtic under a bit of a cloud, not playing the high octane ‘rock and roll football’ of Ange Postecoglou, meant that there was a little bit of skepticism from supporters.

After that Bayern performance he can say ‘look, we can continue to win leagues and cups, and you can trust in me now when it comes to Europe as well.’

They were wonderful, even though they lost, but I don’t think we need to even have the debate about them moving south of the border again.

That’s because there’s a very persuasive argument for the re-emergence of this Atlantic League; Celtic Rangers, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts, Ajax, PSV, Club Brugge…

Look, I’m a huge fan of domestic leagues and I’m not trying to besmirch Scottish football, but I think there are ways whereby the teams in Belgium, Holland, some of the old powerhouses (Ferencvaros, Red Star etc) can play each other in a weekly league format.

People say it’s already being done because of the extended Champions League, but in an Atlantic League format I think then we get more quality. I think that we get healthier leagues that they leave behind, and players could work in the same way that English cricketers do – have a central contract, but then can go back and play for their clubs.

I think it goes to show that there are plenty of clubs in Europe with historic European pedigree that could add much needed flavour and colour.

How it would play out with calendars and schedules would be difficult, but what it would provide is the battle tested competition format that would hopefully help to see Ajax go on and win the Champions League again, or one of the Bucharest clubs winning it.

Scandinavian football has tried desperately to get to a status that they had in the late 70s and early 80s where teams like Malmo were getting into European Cup finals, and I think that the only way they can do that is by not just playing in their domestic league, but having competition that’s a little bit meatier and where they get to play quality opposition.

Man City won’t be too disappointed after Real loss

I thought that Real Madrid would get two or three but I didn’t expect their win to be as comprehensive. I always think that Manchester City, just by virtue of the players that they’ve got, could always, should always, be able to create chances.

You think of the games they’ve played against Real Madrid in recent seasons and that they can go there and more than match Los Blancos, but on Wednesday night they didn’t – and that’s the current narrative for Manchester City.

A City team that would beat or compete from Arsenal downwards in the Premier League, and would beat or compete against the five or six teams that have finished the top of their Champions League groups. They will beat 99% of teams, except for the very best.

From a Liverpool perspective, they’ll hope that means that if the Reds turn up at the weekend and bring their A game, that City won’t be able to match that.

They’re in the middle of poor form generally, but that’s not necessarily a negative. City are still more then capable of putting a run of wins together and it’ll take an incredible run-in from here for Nottingham Forest – for example – to keep City out of the top four this season.

Chelsea or Newcastle might have something to say, and I’m not throwing away Bournemouth’s right to be up there either because Iraola has done an exceptional job, but when you’re looking at the run-in, and with my players hat on, you’re looking for as many seasoned performers at that top level as you possibly can. Your match winners, your greats that come to the fore. Do Chelsea, Newcastle and Bournemouth have more than Man City? I don’t think so.

Guardiola and the players will be disappointed after losing to Real, but I don’t think they’ll be as gutted as many believe. They’ve won a treble and won the last four Premier League titles.