By Ediale Kingsley
On Tuesday evening, Paul Merson appeared on Sky Sports’ football show The Debate to discuss the possibility of Diego Simeone becoming Everton manager. You may not be surprised to learn that Merson thinks Simeone will be bang up for coming to England:
“This is where it has taken Simeone now. People are saying he might be a bit big for the club but he’s been around a long time, Atletico Madrid are not the team they were and they are falling behind a bit.”
Atletico have been poor in the Champions League this season, and are under a transfer ban, but they are level on points with Real Madrid in La Liga. It’s hardly a disaster and, even if Atletico are struggling, that is only in comparison with their exceptional recent achievement.
“He’ll look at the Premier League and think ‘right, I’m not going to be manager of Liverpool, Man City or Arsenal, maybe Chelsea’ and all of a sudden, Everton are the next best thing. Even with where they are, they are the next biggest club with money and big wages, then he’s in the Premier League.”
Fair enough. We don’t quite agree that the Premier League is that much of a draw that elite managers will take jobs at non-elite clubs just to be a part of English football, but it’s an opinion.
“Everybody wants to be in the Premier League now. Spanish teams are kicking off at 11.30am now to try and get the market, but we don’t have to in England. The Premier League is where everybody wants to be.”
Ah. See what you’ve done there, Paul, is overlooking the concept of time differences. Just because La Liga games kick off at 11am on your television in England, it doesn’t mean that it’s also morning in Spain.
The earliest time games kick off in Spain is 12pm – exactly the same as the Premier League.
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