What if? If only!

With the season coming to a close, we are starting to hear a lot of excuses coming out of underachieving clubs and players. The biggest cop-out on the go starts with the phrase “If only” or “What if” . In the last week I have heard pundits, fans and footballers say:

• What if Gerrard and Torres had played more games together…
• If only Guus Hiddink had managed Chelsea from the start of the season…
• If only Man Utd hadn’t scored so early against Arsenal…

Every team loses players to injury, suffers loss of form, bad luck, dodgy refereeing decisions etc. What makes one team the Champions is that they dealt with the problems they faced better than every other team. Using squads to reduce impact of injury, bouncing back from bad results, good team spirit, not stopping until the final whistle etc.

This isn’t confined to football though. We are all guilty of wallowing in self-pity from time to time (myself included). Instead of looking for excuses, maybe we should spend the time looking at the underlying causes and trying to figure out a way of preventing them from happening in the future. Otherwise, we will be trotting out the same old What Ifs this time next year too.