These days it’s a common thing to take shots at Arsene Wenger. To be honest, he gives ample opportunity and I certainly cannot say that I’ve held myself back at every one of them. But as everyone else starts ripping on him (for an admittedly appalling run of form), I’m gonna go on the record and say now that I’ve got your back, Arsene. Me and you, bro.

Not that I’m justifying getting knocked out of the Champions League and FA Cup in the same week or anything, in fact this has nothing to do with results. But it could have done…

“The weight of the away goal is too heavy, too big and is not justifiable anymore … I think it's a problem in the modern game. Why did they put the away goal in? Because there was nothing on television. When you went out of the European Cup [in the past], you got kicked everywhere, but nobody said a word so to encourage the teams to play they said, 'Okay, we give you an incentive for the away game'. However, in the modern game everything is on television and analysed, so there is no big difference anymore. Sometimes I think there is a counter-effect as teams play at home not to concede goals -- now at home, the first thing managers say is, 'Let's not concede goals'."

That was Arsene Wenger speaking in 2013, a sentiment that he’s echoed since – especially when faced with elimination by away goals. But he’s right. Away goals are stupid and dated, at least in the way that they’re being implemented.

Look at Manchester United vs Liverpool. A comprehensive 2-0 win for the Reds at Anfield had them in complete control. A debatable penalty and a defensive error the reason for the goals, though on balance it could have been far more were it not for a little profligacy from the Liverpool lads and also the inimitable brilliance of David De Gea between the sticks. But that’s what it takes to score a goal, you can organise a defence as well as possible but you’re always susceptible to that moment of anomaly. The unstoppable strike, the lucky bounce or deflection, the defender that slips or the referee that misses one. Those are the margins that decide games.

With that result United were at the mercy of the away goals rule. A 1-0 lead through an Anthony Martial penalty had them a single further goal away from tying the contest – and they had chances in there to get that second goal in before half time. But then Coutinho caught right back Varela playing too high and he simply blitzed him for pace down the line. Smalling and Blind moved to cover the cross back into the middle only for Coutinho to go straight for the near post. His sumptuous chip beat De Gea, a crucial away goal right on the half time whistle. What it meant was that United went from needing one more goal to take it to extra time to needing three more in 45 minutes or face elimination. As it happened they wouldn’t score any, it ended 1-1 and Liverpool deservedly advanced with a 3-1 aggregate victory.

All competitiveness was killed by that goal. Fair enough because Liverpool had earned that two-goal advantage, but suppose that United had pulled back two more. Suppose they’d won 3-1 and then went out on away goals. Each team would have had a two-goal win, so which one do you reward: The three-goal team or the clean sheet team? Given how unaccountable a single goal can be, that shouldn’t be much of a question.

It’s close to what happened to Arsenal two years ago in the Champions League, except the other way around. Arsenal lost 3-1 at home before the Gunners went and beat them 2-0 away. Out on away goals with a 3-3 aggregate. Obviously Wenger reiterated his usual away goals complaints as it suited him there but in this case it was his own team’s fault. They were beaten at home, that’s the cardinal sin in European footy.

However take a look at Valencia’s last Europa game, on before the MUFC-LIV one. Down 1-0 to Athletic Bilbao after the first leg, they hit back hard in the opening half of their home game to go up 2-0. It looked like they may hold on until a glorious little flick from Raúl García played in Aritz Aduriz to make it 2-1. There was a missed handball and some unaware marking in there but a great goal all the same and enough to eliminate Gary Neville’s boys. Despite a far more comprehensive win than the one that they lost. The difference was that Athletic split their goals across both games and Valencia did their damage (more potently) all at once. That was all it was.

One thing that silly people out there don’t seem to realise is that away goals are irrelevant until the second leg ends and the scores are still tied. It is a tiebreaker. They do, however, affect the way a game is played and that’s the best thing about them. Away goals put the game in a situation where, so long as the same score as the first leg doesn’t repeat in inverse, the tie cannot be tied. One team or the other is winning at every second and in taking the draw out of the equation it opens games up in a fascinating way. There’s your positive – the problem is that it’s such an arbitrary thing.

Arsene explained the logic. In the old days of European footy – the rule was introduced in 1965 – travel was rubbish, conditions were always unfamiliar, scouting was nothing like it is now, television coverage of foreign teams didn’t always exist… it was brutal trying to win games away from home. So it’d often come down to who thrashed who by the most at home. Away goals are there to break parity after two legs but the reason this particular idea was chosen was largely to encourage away teams to be more aggressive, rather than settling for a draw or a tight loss.

The thing is, travel is so much better now, conditions are far more universal, every major team in the world is thoroughly scouted and you only have to go as far as youtube to find video footage of them. Not to mention better qualified referees that are less swayed by boisterous home crowds. Home field advantage isn’t what it once was and there is research that shows this. And if the home team isn’t getting the same boost then the away team doesn’t really need the same incentives.

Plus there’s an unfair swing towards the team that plays away first. The home team know that they cannot concede or they’re in a big hole and instead they pretty much cede their advantage in order to defend their lines. A scoring draw is of more value to them in the second leg so that’s when they’d prefer the game open up, meaning you get this situation where the away team is the more positive. A team’s best chance of scoring is attacking with the full support of a full crowd but doing that would open them up at the back… and big competition football these days always sways towards the conservative option – exactly what the away goals rule was supposed to iron out.

Right, so away goals are stupid. Now what? Here are the options:

The Football League Playoff method

No away goals, go straight to extra time and then penalties. The downside there is that teams will settle for the extra 30 minutes and it’d also mean a big increase in shoot outs, which is fantastic drama but maybe not the best for the competition. Personally I reckon penalties are a wonderful way to split a game, it’s the very object of football boiled down to its base level: striker vs goalkeeper with a ball between them and a vacuum of pure pressure. I love it. It’s the getting to penalties that’s the boring bit.

The League Cup method

Which is that you count away goals but not until after extra time. This is my preference, it gives the away team (by luck of the draw) an extra 30 minutes to score a tiebreaking goal but I think that’s offset by the fact that the home team gets an extra 30 minutes in front of their own crowd (btw, there’s no evidence that there’s any home field advantage in penalty shoot outs, which is a little surprising). Most important here is that a 4-4 draw gets the parity it deserves. If it can’t be settled after another 30 minutes then so be it but the moment that extra time kicks off, goals become the premium they ought to be. Not just away goals but goals in general. Whereas in the World Cup there’s almost always one team ready to settle for spot kicks. (Obviously there’s no alternative at the WC, one-legged neutral-field knockouts and all that).

The CONCACAF/AFC method

What they do in the North American and Asian Champions Leagues is they count away goals after 90 minutes but not after extra time. That’s dumb, you’re keeping them for their worst interpretation and dumping them for the point at which they become useful.  

Home Goals

Nah, stupid idea.

It’s only recently that I’ve come around to this thinking. It’s not like any team that’s been eliminated by away goals can complain about that now because they knew the lay of the land before they began. But the more I think about the way these things are decided, the more it feels like there must be a better way. I don’t like seeing home teams encouraged to defend, I wanna see them flooding forward and taking risks. I wanna see goals. Home, away… I don’t care. Just goals. If that makes it tougher again on away teams then so bloody what, it’s supposed to be hard to win games on the road.