Friday 19 February 2016 16:44, UK
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger and West Ham manager Slaven Bilic disagree over reported plans to scrap FA Cup replays.
It has been suggested that the rules of the famous competition should be tinkered with in order to ease fixture congestion, and ideas mooted include moving matches to midweek and/or ditching replays.
But Wenger, whose Arsenal team host Hull City in the fifth round on Saturday, does not think such adjustments are necessary.
"I am now vaccinated by the FA rules after such a long time, so I have become very conservatively English!" said Wenger. "And I am quite a bit nervous about changing the rules, because I like them now.
"I believe as well it looks like we get always more money and we want to play less games. That is a little bit of a contradiction.
"Next season, you have even more money coming in. That means in every single club you will have 25 top-level players and I am convinced that all the clubs can compete, with the number of games we have to play, and that there is no real need, for me, to change the rules.
"This is the most traditional competition in England. Let's respect it and keep it as it is."
Bilic, however, feels scrapping replays would add to the competition's allure as it would give smaller clubs a greater chance of causing an upset.
"Are replays giving the FA Cup more respect? I think no," he said. "I would get rid of them. The big thing about the FA Cup is it's one game.
"So it gives smaller clubs a better chance to beat the bigger ones in extra time or on penalties than to play another 90 minutes."
Arsenal have won the Cup for the past two seasons and will be playing Hull in the competition for the third year in a row this weekend, having beaten the Tigers in the 2014 final.
Arsenal memorably ended a nine-year trophy drought when they came from two goals down to beat Hull 3-2 in that 2014 final and Wenger admits he might not still be at the club if the result had gone the other way.
"I don't know, honestly, I don't know," said Wenger, when asked if he would have lost his job if Arsenal had been defeated.
"It was up in the air and we had to give everything to win that final. If we had lost it, I don't know.
"It would have been a problem if we had not won. It would have been a massive disappointment for everyone, but we won."
