Sanchez misses the point

I'm not sure what Lawrie Sanchez has been doing since he was sacked as manager of Fulham last December but it would not surprise me to learn he has been spending time in the company of Sepp Blatter.

My first sighting in months of the former Northern Ireland boss and Wimbledon cup star was on Sky Sports news at the weekend putting forward a hair-brained scheme worthy of the blundering FIFA President himself.

Sanchez's bold new vision is to revolutionise the way points are awarded in the Premiership to give greater reward for teams picking up results away from home.

His view was that awarding four points for an away win and two points for an away draw, with still three points and one point on offer at home for wins and draws respectively, would encourage teams to play more attacking football on their travels.

First things first, like most Blatter proposals, it is a complete non-starter that is far too radical possibly to the extent that debating could be seen as a pointless exercise.

Allowing ourselves to entertain the thought of this actually becoming a reality, how many teams would look at the two points on offer when they travel to the likes of Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge and simply, to use a Jose Mourinho-ism, park the coach in front of the goal?

Such is the lack of ambition that has developed amongst clubs outside the top that four that few sides would ever look at the added bounty of points on offer for a win as enough incentive to try and attack the big boys.

I always thought that, despite his modest managerial record, Sanchez was quite a sensible and grounded bloke with a good grasp of the game – I wonder if that was how Mr Blatter started out?